Geico has a gecko.
Pets.com has a sock puppet.
Aflac has a duck.
…and Spiceworks has SpiceRex – a friendly-yet-fierce orange T-Rex! Who we’re hoping you will help become as recognized and well loved as the famous mascots listed above! See below for how….

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The challenge is to build a advert in which features SpiceRex promoting Spiceworks

WHAT WILL I WIN?
Top 5 Finalists (in each category):

• A cool, limited edition SpiceRex t-shirt (commemorating 1 million users)

Grand Prize Winners (in each category):

• 1-foot custom created cut-out of SpiceRex (he’ll stand on your desk!)
• SpiceWorks Ultimate Swag Bag (which will include a SpiceRex t-shirt!)
• Bragging rights as creator of Spiceworks first ever crowd-sourced ad– to be run on a variety of IT websites

Checkout the full details of the contest, enter and checkout mine on the community “Contest: Create An Ad. Win a SpiceRex Tshirt!”

Checkout the other pictures of SpiceRex in Alamo City on the Spiceworks Community here

But we also have some more exciting news, Billdozer came up with a great idea

I am thinking that we who are on the list to host Rex besides transporting everyone’s favourite mascot should include a present for the next host. Nothing major but a little something extra from your desk as a token of friendship in our great IT world.

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Which has been another hit and Slava will start it off and hopefully everyone will continue on sending little gifts onto the next person.

• Classification of Software Reviews – The first new feature is designed to allow SpiceHeads to categorize the software reviews by software type. This is aimed to help people find the right solution for them as well as related software packages they maybe interested in checking out.
• Mobile View – This has been a long awaited feature for some people, with more and more smart phone devices being used to checkout the community Spiceworks have added a mobile view. The community will automatically detect if you are using a mobile device and display a simplified view to allow you to read and reply to topics. This feature will be released as beta while they fine tune it to ensure it works on as many mobile devices as possible so if you have a problem let them know.
• New User Permissions – As the community is growing some people have spotted a increase in junk posts, scripts and how-to’s. After the release tonight Pimientos will be restricted to asking only 2 questions, and restricted from sharing how-tos, scripts, and reviews.
• Advanced Search Options – You will now be able to search the community based on date using the new advanced search options link.
• Unanswered Questions on What’s New in the Community sidebar – As well as the recent, popular and news tabs in the “What’s New in the Community” box in the sidebar of the community we will also have a unanswered questions one to help you quickly help your fellow IT pro’s.
• Improvements to Group Admin Weekly Update email – Some more information as been added to the group admin’s weekly update emails to help you manage your group better.
• Upload SpiceCorps meeting notes as attachments – You will now be able to upload your meeting notes as a document rather than coping and pasting.
• Speed up subscription & verification emails – The priority for subscription and verification emails has been raised so they go out before the digests. Finally this looks like it might get fixed, some people have been having this problem for a good few months now.
• And as always plenty of bug fixes.

The full official notes will be released onto the community news section soon.

The update will happen at 00:00 tonight for people in the UK (GMT) or 7:00pm CDT. Convert it into your time zone.

Update: The notes are out see them here

SpiceRex has finally made it to Cole1436 (Cole Lakes) in Montana. His stay in Montana will be followed by another visit to Spiceworks HQ when Cole takes up his new job as Software Support Engineer. After a flying visit to the Spiceworks HQ he will be off again in his little brown box to San Antonio with Slava.

Does make you wonder what customs think when they see a box labelled “Paper Dinosaur”

Checkout all the photos and comments on the community here. For all the latest SpiceRex news checkout the SpiceRex community group.

IRC or Internet Relay Chat to give it its full name is a form off real time messaging like Live Messenger (MSN) or facebook chat but normally it is between a group of people with a common interest rather than two people.

There was a lot of interest in setting up some sort of chat system for the community members to chat about Spiceworks and have fun which after a good 4 months of nagging Spiceworks finally took the first steps into becoming an official chat system with the integration of a web based IRC client into the water cooler.

One thing I have to say though is “This chatroom is not monitored or moderated by Spiceworks.”

Why should I join in?

The chat room is great fun, we talk about a wide range of things from Spiceworks to moobs, yes, moobs. It is a place of some adult humour be warned if you enter.

We also have two regular Spiceworks staff on hand to join in the fun and help with those really quick problems, we try to keep larger problems in the community for future reference.

What’s going to happen to the IRC in the long run?

So for the moment the IRC is going to be staying as and where it is but if we can gain enough traffic to warrant bringing it into the community more there are plans to try and integrate it into the community more maybe like the facebook chat it would popup from the bottom via the toolbar. This all depends on how many people come to use it and if the Spiceworks staff feel like it is worth it.

Joining the IRC fun

You can use the web based IRC client in the water cooler here or use a IRC client like mIRC or ChatZilla and connect to the freenode servers on:

• Server: irc://chat.freenode.net/
• Channel: #spiceworks

5 people got “beamed in” (Jen’s name for it) using Skype which was a new experience for me and for Spiceworks, it worked really well though and was a great way of getting some SpiceHeads and even a couple of SpiceCorps involved from around the world.

We also managed to see what appears to be the first public sighting off the 6 foot SpiceRex model. Which for me and I believe a lot of people was a shock, you you also look closely at Lawrie’s webcam (above) you can see SpiceRex sitting on a tree covered in peppers behind him (it is also his current picture on the community). From a photo contest to having a 6ft model made up SpiceRex really has become a big hit with the community and Spiceworks employees, wonder what will be next? There was a sighting off a SpiceRex t-shirt which looks good.

There were of course some other interviews with people who were at the party like Chief Spice, Jay, Benhar, Nic and SAM. The in person interviews were a great chance to see what the people behind the avatar really look and sound like as well as getting an insight into when they started using Spiceworks, what they enjoy about it and more.

Of course as always there were some funny moments, like when the people on the IRC chat room were trying to get me to laugh while on Skype or when someone made bunny ears behind Jen while she was talking. A bit later on we also made a friend in a balloon and had some Spiceworks employees jumping up and down in front of the camera.

There were some people taking photo’s including one of some SpiceHeads and Employees holding the SpiceRex, we expect these will be published up on the Spiceworks Flickr account.

If you were on the IRC chat room I did say I was recording it to allow you to watch it later but my recording application decided it didn’t like having a 3.5gb AVI, I’m trying to repair the AVI but Spiceworks have said they were going to try and record it as well so hopefully you will be able to watch it back soon.

Again congratulations Spiceworks for reaching 1 million and can’t wait for the 2 million party! But we need a open microphone and more more integration with the online viewers next time

Yasaf Burshan the current owner of SpiceworksLounge happily took up the chance and is now getting ready to host the cool SQL and ASP script.

Thanks ObieOne for creating the MobileHelpdesk and also thanks Yasaf for continuing to host / maintain it. The MobileHelpdesk seems to have been hit with the community and I hope it will continue to grow at its new home.

Read more on SpiceworksLounge.com

SpiceRex started off with me (akp982) in Marlow to then be sent onto Spiceworks HQ with Nic (Spiceworks) and the team. He’s currently relaxing in Australia with Lawrie5252, and starting to cast his eye around for where to go next.

SpiceHeads will get to host him for around a week before sending him on taking pictures of cool places near them and when you host SpiceRex you will end up with a cool badge for your community profile.

If you want to host him checkout this thread on the community. Make sure you don’t miss the change to spend time with the Spiciest T-Rex around!

akp982 (Andy) was bought up by SpiceRex many years ago, it was then he learned the true meaning of spice and began his journey. SpiceRex sent him to earth as a guardian to serve and protect the newly created Spiceworks Community. Along this journey Andy and his chief advisor SAM (Scott) made selected people SpiceHeads to help him in his quest, this is their story…

Ok so it didn’t really start of like that.

It all started back in 2008 with the first Annual User Conference or SpiceWorld (as most of us know it) during the happy hour some of the users/attendees got chatting to a couple of the Spiceworks guys Frances and Greg about Spiceworks and the community and came with the idea of that community members should have name. The next day the guys started chatting about “Memories of SpiceWorld 2008” and up came the subject of having a name for members again.

MyShell (who has now unfortunately left Spiceworks) quickly created a SpiceList entitled “Best Name For Spiceworks Users”, some great ideas like “Spicers” and “Spiceheads” started to come up but there was one strong standing name from the start “Spice Heads”. It quickly took the top spot and well now has over double the votes compared to any of the others.

As with most things Spiceworks like SpiceWorld or SpiceCorps the space was dropped and SpiceHeads was born.

And that’s how it started…

This is yet another thing started by the community, “Of the Users. For the Users. By the Users!”

A number of the things you see around Spiceworks and the community are ideas thought up by SpiceHeads then grasped with both hands by Spiceworks and developed. From the idea of product comparison tables to SpiceLists and of course the latest invention SpiceRex. You can always get involved with the new features in Spiceworks by joining the beta groups or checking out the feature request section.

So I guess the real question is if we are SpiceHeads, what are the Spiceworks Employees? SpiceStaff, SpiceGirls or something else?

Post your ideas and vote on the community SpiceList “Best Name For Spiceworks Employees”

SpiceRex - Host Has hosted SpiceRex for a visit, PM Nic if you’d like to be a host

Million User – One of the first million Spiceworks users

See all the current community badges here