You can get notification of new posts Corbin, you just press Notify at the foot of the page in the topic.
About the board messages, I get a notification of a new message. (At home, not at work where I am now
). But I can't see if there was a button to press to get it. I don't think there was, I thought one got them automatically. :shrug:
ETA This board seems to be run by the same people as another board I use, on the grounds that the layout is identical, so it was just like coming home posting here.