Unofficial Spiceworks

Spiceworks entered more into the social market with SpiceButtons  allowing SpiceHeads to SpiceUp webpages where ever they go. The team behind this new feature  have already got some big names to add the buttons including Eaton and untangle and well now Unofficial Spiceworks although I do need to tidy the buttons up a little but that’s another nights job.

At the moment there is one style of button but it sounds like there may be more styles if successful, would like to see the amount of spices displayed, well see what happens. I’m also not 100% sure how often the shared links section of the community are viewed but this will probably grow as the new feature grows.

Follow Button

Wanna make sure IT pros to engage with you, where they work, when they’re working?

This is a simple button which works as a link and sends visitors off to a vendor page on the community, when on the page SpiceHeads can then follow the vendor to get updates. Hopefully this will drive some new smaller vendors into the community in which actively participate in the forums and engage IT Pro’s like me where and how we want to be engaged not with cold calls. It will be exciting to see how well this works and if it brings on more vendors.

SpiceButton

Content is King! Especially when it’s easy for IT pros to Spice Up IT content in the Spiceworks community.

This is more interesting upon clicking the Spice button SpiceHeads get a pop up which they can enter comments about the site and publish it onto the community for other users to see and comments on. If this works and becomes a success (and I hope it does) it will be a really useful tool for IT pro’s to keep tracks of websites / links that other IT Pro’s feel are important and worth sharing. Overtime I do expect to see a re-haul of the shared links section but I can’t confirm this, would seem sensible.

We’ll keep tabs on how well this works. For now make sure you goto the new developers site and give it ago. Also make sure you Spice Up this site

Spice IT

ALSO 14 days till SpiceWorld 2011!!!! See you there!

Glenn P. an IT Director in Healthcare has managed to get to SpiceWorld every year so far and this will be his fourth. In a post on the community he explains why he keeps going back and why he thinks you should go this year if your not already. Even if its just a chance to meet me.

Wow! It’s hard to believe that another year has passed and it’s already time for another SpiceWorld. As a repeat offender (I’ve been to SpiceWorld every year since it started – so 4 years running), I want to share some thoughts on what keeps me coming back to the best SMB event that I have ever attended; And why if you haven’t been yet, you should figure out a way to get there.

Read More >>

Make sure you also checkout the SpiceWorld 2011 Group.

Aaron has recently joined the Spiceworks team as a support engineer (you may know him as doublea) he’s following in Cole’s footsteps who made the jump from SpiceHead to SpiceLord last July.

Having used Spiceworks since 1.5 he’s the perfect guy to try and fix your problems… Although he may just end up passing them to Cole…

Aaron moved to Austin for the gig, coming from Sacramento where he worked for the Sacramento News & Review. In his spare time Aaron enjoys mountain biking, soccer and cooking.

Good luck working at SW HQ Aaron!!!

SpiceWorld 2011 is only a month away and this year is a big year for Unofficial Spiceworks / me (akp982) as its the first year I will actually be there. None of this trying to watch it over the dodgy streaming that has come with years past this year I will be there in person, to meet and chat to you all.

While in the past I have done my best to cover off the past SpiceWorlds remotely it hasn’t gone that well. This year will be different!!!!

This year there will be lots of coverage on Unofficial Spiceworks, Twitter, Facebook and Google+ as well as a full write up of my complete trip from the UK to the USA posted on the community and this blog shortly after my return / recovery. I have got countdowns going everywhere and I’m really excited to finally get to meet everyone I talk to online as well as Learn and “play” with my fellow IT Pros.

This is the forth annual user conference and this year having to have a new venue due to the size SpiceWorld has grown to it will be bigger and better than previous events. Mainly because I will be there.

With some great sessions already planned like Demystifying Microsoft Licensing, Taking User Management from Unruly…to User-friendly! and Build a Network on a Budget. The mix of sessions run my the sponsors and SpiceHeads I think has been key to how successful the event has been and will be.

Hands down one of the best IT conferences of the year.

Justin Dorfman, Sys Admin Mahalo.com Inc. See who else is raving »

There have been so many good things said about it, no wonder why people go back every year.

Read more and book your tickets now on the official SpiceWorld 2011 site.

Last Thursday the third Spiceworks 5.2 beta was released with 5 major feature updates and over 210 publicly announced bug fixes (as with all companies there will be more than that hidden away that they don’t want to shout about) this was a major update and shows the dedication the team have.

The bug fix count doesn’t just show the dedication of the team… But also the dedication of the community to find and report the bugs. Once the users reports the bugs on the forum (which has approx. 677 posts) the SpiceLords (Spiceworks employees) jump on it and work as hard as they can to get it fixed. The team behind the developments and the QA are dedicated to making sure you get the product you want and that it works really well. One of the really cool things they do is that they will try and fix those little niggles that annoy you as well as making the new features.

The updated features in this release include:

• Software Overview – The overview of the software on your network had more UI enchantments to provide you the information you need quick and make it look prettier (Cole likes pretty).
• License Tracking – There have been some small improvements in the way that you add and edit license keys, all decided to make it less painful to keep a track of your software.
• License Manager Plugin – Just a simple plugin update to make sure it works with the new version.
• Ink & Toner Purchasing – You can now purchase ink and toner from HP store’s. When you hover over ink cartridges for supported HP printers you’ll see a link to purchase the cartridge from HP’s store.
• Bandwidth Monitor Plugin – They have updated the Bandwidth Monitor plugin to make it compatible with 5.2. Its now quicker and easier to get a bandwidth overview of your network.

I can’t wait for 5.2 to come out of beta so I can start to use the new features on my real install.

If your going to try Spiceworks 5.2 make sure you read the 5.2 Test Plan and 5.2 Testing Guidelines.

Last week Spiceworks announced the second Beta build of Spiceworks 5.2, 5.2.73400 to be exact this build doesn’t bring any new features but brings a lot of enhancements to ones that were introduced in Beta 1 as well as a fair few bug fixes.

I have also had to update my last review as I was wrong about the “real-time” monitoring coming apparently its not… Maybe in the future.

Cloud Services/Vendors

One of the main problems people where having was that port 43 needed to be open in the firewall for the domain scanner to work. This section has now been changed so that it will use the standard port 80, this should allow more domains to be supported / tested. This change has also been put in place for the ISP scanner.

There have also been some bug fixes to this section which can be found on the community.

Software

The only real change the software section is the ability to edit the existing keys, this makes it a lot easier to manage / control your keys and update them if for any reason they need to change.

Read More…

So the first official beta of Spiceworks 5.2 was released on the 23rd August 2011 (Beta 1) and there are lots of new features and many updated features within this version as always with a Spiceworks update. The team always puts in a lot of effort to ensure the features we want as SpiceHeads are built in as quick and as well as possible. This  version is no different with what looks to be the start of some more real-time monitoring a load of great new features.

The “Spiceworks Studios” have also put together a cool video about 5.2, its new features and how you can influence the final version.

The main new features in 5.2 are:

• Cloud Services and Vendors
• Software Licensing
• Tighter LogMeIn Rescue Integration
• New Purchase List Features
• Micron Memory RFQ Support
• Liebert UPS Support

So I’m going to try and go though as many of these as I can but without a Liebert UPS some of it may not be possible.

Cloud Services and Vendor integration

So with the new cloud services section you can monitor / get information about any ISP or Domain provider. When you first start-up 5.2 it will automatically work out who your ISP is and start monitoring it. You can then track the uptime of the line and if you have a domain with the provider you can also see how long until the domain is set to expire. This new feature monitors ISP latency and domain status. I was wrong before its not the uptime

Spiceworks now lets you keep track of your Cloud Services in one easy location. Users who are installing Spiceworks for the first time will have all their compatible Cloud Services automatically scanned in by the new Auto-detect feature the first time they visit the Cloud Services section. Users who are upgrading from a previous installation will have any compatible IT Services converted automatically into Cloud Services, all non-compatible services will still be available in the new Vendors section. From the 5.2 test plan

The services are then monitored around every 15 seconds minutes and over time will populate the graphs to show the uptime latency.

Read More…

Some SpiceHeads have been reporting issues accessing the Spiceworks Community this morning getting either timeouts or very slow access.

We do have some knowledge that the Spiceworks team are aware of the issue and working on it and of course as soon as we have updates we will try to let you know.

I would assume when the cause is found there will be an official comment made on the Spiceworks twitter account.

For now please bear with the guys

I’m also working on my review of 5.2 so keep your eye out.

P.S. Cheers Marco for posting the SpiceRex 404 image on Google+

Update: The community is backup and running