Unofficial Spiceworks

Unofficial Spiceworks has just released a new website to help people find and use the search function on the Spiceworks community, called Let Me Spiceworks Search That For You it is a simple Let Me Google That For You clone which moves the mouse to the search box and enters the search term for the user.

It has the built in function to also hide the URL or shorten it which ever sounds better. It is currently still under development some and things may change. I know I need to work on the stats page.

Check it out now at http://lmswstfy.com/ and let me know what you think or what should be changed / improved.

Relationship to Spiceworks

In simple there is NONE. This website was designed and made without any Spiceworks involvement or knowledge.

You can see my personal involvement with Spiceworks on Unofficial Spiceworks.

So what was this website built for?

This website was setup to help people find and use the search function on the Spiceworks Community.

When should I use this site?

When you find a noobie posting a question which has been asked lots of times before or is something simple and in the users face, OR for anything a Spiceworks Staff guy says… there always wrong.

When should I NOT use this site?

When the user is really struggling and has said they have looked or tried some links and NEVER give it to akp982 hell kill you.

I want to stop getting these links sent to me.

Yours the fricking search then!!!

Check it out now at http://lmswstfy.com/

Update: LMSWSTFY mentioned on Hebrew Site SpiceworksLounge.com http://www.spiceworkslounge.com/index.php/2010/04/523 – Translated http://oots.be/10h

So its now the 2nd or third morning I have woken up to find my twitter flooded with tweets about the funding Spiceworks recently got. Ones like

Spiceworks CEO on the Future of IT Jobs and His Company

Got me thinking Unoffiicial Spiceworks hasn’t done anything on our thoughts about the funding?

The funding has been talked about a lot recently from when it started on TechCrunch which lead it to be mentioned on twitter over 500 times as well as all the other smaller blogs then twitting about it.

Spiceworks have said they will be adding new staff to the current team which is at the moment 45 strong. The new team will be split over marketing and development.

The new marketing team are from what I have seen mentioned going to be looking for new fun and exciting ways to market Spiceworks.

The marketing team have always had a funky way of advertising like the IT Comedy videos the new team will have to find new and cool ways. They will also be working on getting more vendors and people to attend SpiceWorld’s but its the development team I’m most interested in.

I think the enlarged development team will start looking at two main things:

• Real time monitoring – We have already started to see this with the SQL monitor plugin, and just released the Device Uptime Plugin this will bring a new set of users into Spiceworks and start to compete on a better level with tools like nagios. In doing that there will have to be some major stability changes, everyone knows about how stable nagios is when started but Spiceworks does have a small reputation for being unstable at times.
• Making it more mobile – This is reinforced by gigaom.com and some Spiceworks staff in conversations about how the community will become more mobile with a simple version for mobile access and maybe the possibility to update topics via email… We have also seen a lot of rumours in the past about apps for blackberry and the iPhone so hopefully we will see these come true.

Once or probably during those are being made the Feature Request section is going to be hammered and new features pulled out, probably starting with ones like Merge tickets to break them into how the codebase and database works before diving in and building things like the much wanted Knowledge Base.

These are only my thoughts from conversations I have had with some team members, its Spiceworks, nothings confirmed. What they think is good at the time they will roll with… For all we know we could see version 5.0 be rebuilt from scratch.

Hmm… Im not the best at article writing really am I…

Don’t know what Spiceworks is?

Download it now and find out:

This version just fixes some bugs in the code:

• Network Map: disconnecting a node, then clicking undo causes it to turn orange – fixed
• Network Map: Unable to save a view after adding devices – fixed
• Network Map: possible to make the delete popup relative to the mouse – fixed
• Remote Collector: Network scans will not run if the Remote Collector link is clicked and the setup is not completed – fixed
• User Portal: "ticket is too old to be reopened" typo – fixed
• User Portal: Allows view ticket block to be removed, which renders the page useless – fixed
• Looking at a device in browse view, then switching to software view and selecting a package does not update the display – fixed
• Using Date strings in relative format (e.g. 7 days from now) then clicking calendar button causes date errors – fixed

This does still mean we are awaiting 4.6 which has some new features ear wigged but we don’t know what yet.

Download 4.5.46618 now

Something apparently not a lot of people know about is that in Spiceworks you can “Enable experimental fluid layout” this gives you a lot more room to work with in tickets the helpdesk and the inventory.

Read more below the images.

I use it all the time and there are some problems with some widgets where things are not able to stretch or just look funny. Most things how ever work perfectly, the network map, user portal editor, IT services, monitors and alerts and of course the inventory.

So how do you enable this?

• Settings
• Advanced & International Options
• Show pro settings (at the bottom)
• And the last one “Enable experimental fluid layout” set it to true

That’s it for now, have fun

Spiceworks not long ago started there Virtualization Buyers Club and it is growing stronger by the day, the virtualization buyers club is a lot like the backup buyers club it provides a great range off resources to help you decide what Virtualization solution is best for you.

The Spiceworks Community team have put together a huge amount of resources and sponsors together to help make your life easier and get that bit closer to being “Everything IT”. There are currently near 20 PDFs, 2 calculators, a zip and many web links to help provide YOU with all the information you need to help make a informed decision.

• Step 1 – Learn – If your just looking at getting more information on virtualization from companies like VMware, Microsoft, Sun, Citrix and even Oracle this is the place to start. There are great resources here from all the vendors as well as ones Spiceworks have made for you. Its a great place to start to look into virtualizing even if your a bit unsure about it. The buyers club will also slowly start to fill up with information about other peoples experiences with the different technologies. So jump on into the community and learn about the different types virtualization solutions available to you.

• Step 2 – Decide – So your ready to decide and using the resources in step 1 you have managed to work out virtualization is the way forward for your company? Good on you. Now comes the make or break bit, picking the solution that’s best for you. With 5 vendors and each of them having 3/4 solutions it can be a messy place to be, you could be looking at up to 20 different solutions. Checkout the Awesome Product Comparison Guide this is the first community powered or “crowd-sourced” comparison guide on the community with more planned. Martin9700 did a fantastic job kicking it off, but it doesn’t stop there more people will be adding to it over time and even you could contribute. Once you have check out the Comparison Guide Spiceworks have provided you with the contact details for all there virtualization sponsors. Pickup the phone, drop them a email, use the web forms. Fire your questions at them or just post your questions into the community.

• Step 3 – Buy – Don’t want to be flooded with LOADS of sales calls? Spiceworks broker the quote so you remain anonymous! Going to quotes can be the pain of the job, loads of calls to make then loads of people phoning you back never sure you gave them all the same information. Spiceworks are here to help, you can use their simple form to get quotes from VMware, Microsoft, Sun, Citrix and Oracle for their virtualization solutions. The form wont take more than 5 minutes to fill in.  Get your quotes now

What if I’m not looking to buy just yet?

What? Your not going to buy virtualization right now? Well that’s ok! The Spiceworks resources will stay up and around for as long as the community is there. You can pop over to the Virtualization Buyers Club any time you like to get the latest information. All the information from the Backup Buyers Club is still there waiting for people to read and use. Don’t feel pressured into buying now if you can’t. Just remember when the time comes it will be there ready waiting for you.

So what are you waiting for?

Jump on over to the Virtualization Buyers Club now!

Please note you have to be part of the Spiceworks Community to access some of the resources to sign up you will need Spiceworks, Download it here.

Last night Spiceworks did a community update with brought loads of bug fixes as well as new features ready and waiting for Spiceworks 4.0

And something tells me the new My Local Groups section on the community home lies a little…

Well ok its probably that i subscribe to random groups when i post in them…

Good to see new stuff coming out of the community all the time

Save time by using scripts IT Pros have shared. Share the ones in your toolbox and help others.

So… The Script Centers been up for a while and when it was first launched my honest opinion off it was it was going to be filled with useless scripts no one will look at or use. So I didn’t bother doing a write up nor look at it much after the first day.

The other day, I decided to give it a second chance, I jumped onto the Spiceworks community popped into the Script Center and was VERY surprised.

The first script I saw was called, Windows Update Agent force script, email results version 2.6 this was exactly what I was looking for 2 months ago and gave up. I had a look at the top rated to find Set up Outlook signatures with Active Directory information which I was going to use in the upcoming months with a new project.

I was taken back by the amount of great scripts already included in the Script Center.

At there moment there are only a couple of lanaguges:

• Batch
• Other
• Registry
• VBScript

But the list will grow over time as more people want to upload different types of scripts.

Why not check it out for yourself over on the Spiceworks community you maybe as surprised as me about the great quality of scripts.

Are you listed as a IT Service Provider on Spiceworks?

Or are you looking for a IT Service Provider?

Spiceworks new IT Service Providers area off the community is growing. With companys for IT Support like Agile Computers Limited or Alchemy Plus Business Solutions Ltd for exchange administration. You can find a company for all your IT needs.

Checkout there employees and see if there people you want to work with as well as finding out how knowledgeable they are by looking at there best answers and posts.

Check out who’s in your area now