Want to be automatically notified by email when there are new posts in a particular forum or topic? You can easily subscribe to entire forums and/or individual topics. Here's how:
Go to the forum of your choice, and you should see the list of topics within that forum. Near the very bottom left of the page, you'll see a little bar which says "subscribe forum." Click on this. Now you will automatically receive a private message when there are any future posts to that forum. You can unsubscribe at any time by going back and clicking "unsubscribe forum" in the same location. Alternatively, if you don't want to subscribe to an entire forum you can just subscribe to individual topics. Click on a topic to view it, and look for the bar at the bottom left which says "subscribe topic." Again, you can unsubscribe at any time.
You should also make sure the forum is set to notify you by email (at the address you registered with) when you receive new PMs. Go to "user control panel" by clicking on the link near the top left of the page. Then click on "board preferences" in the bar along the top. Confirm "Notify me on new private message" is set to Yes (this is the default setting). If you're a regular visitor to the forum, you may also wish to select the "Pop up window on new private message" option.