Unofficial Spiceworks

Yesterday was the first SpiceCorps Nottingham meeting which was a great success there were around 9 SpiceHeads who turned up to talk about various bits of Spiceworks from the new 5.1 beta to getting more out of Spiceworks and even how we ended up in IT.

SpiceCorps are a great way to get to meet people in your local area and we found out how much fun they can be with a pepper costume when we popped down to a Goth pub after.

You can checkout all the photos here.

Thanks stefuk for a great event. It was a good afternoon and was great to meet some new faces and say hi to people I had met before, and yes I did get lost trying to find my car after the event…

Hopefully we will continue to have meetings in Nottingham and around the UK to keep track of when and where the next one is pop into the SpiceCorps Of United Kingdom Group on the community.

The first Spiceworks 5.1 beta was released around a week ago and the second beta has just been released so its time I got a review of what’s new and coming up for the people who are unable to install it but want to see what its all about.

5.1 has around 14 new major features and countless minor ones we also finally say good bye to the old user portal and template per event email notifications.

Bit of a side-track but a cool story around the email notifications… The HTML email templates wasn’t ever a major feature request it was something one of the SpiceHeads came up with at a user event, one of the developers then went back to Spiceworks HQ and built it into the version of Spiceworks at the time. It was something that had not been previously thought off but has now provided so many user’s with the flexibility on the information included and design that would have been a bottle neck of the helpdesk for so many users. The way that a user can mention something that no one has thought about but would make the application that little bit better, for then a developer to go off on his own and built it is what makes it so successful. Unofficial Spiceworks even made some alternative templates for people to use. Anyywaaaayyy back onto the review I think…

For a minor version release (a major version for Spiceworks is .0 or .5) its packed full of new features and some of them aren’t that small. One of the big ones I’m excited about is the “Multithreading Support” so lets dive straight in with that:

Multithreading support

A major bottleneck for previous versions has been the single threading for the database and webserver, each users request would stack up behind another user’s and the webserver could end up becoming unresponsive or very slow. The updates to the webserver and database mean that more user’s can work on tickets, the inventory or the people view at one time.

If you have more than one user or are a power user you should see major speed improvements, if like me its just you that normally uses it then you probably wont see any difference but will allow you to grow or multitask better.

Ink and Toner Center Widget Updated

Built into 5.0 the widget now has a new trending feature, which once there is enough data you can click a new “analyse link” to view a graph of the changes. This could and will prove useful when trying to track when toners are used the most so that you can build up a in house stock or simple working out when all the toner disappeared to track who may have used it.

Google Aps Integration

I don’t have Google apps for business so can’t comment on how well it works but its based on the same lines as the recent RackSpace integration you are able to check and even report on your users and mailboxes setup within your Google apps account.

Read More…

Spiceworks launched their “new” vendor pages back in January with the community update on the 25th at this time it was released as more of a beta feature (the community is riddled with beta features a quick count shows there are still 4 but that’s another post). Between then and a few days ago with the March community update the team of developers and designers have been working hard to improve the layout and look of these pages to increase uptake on this new feature. All of the hard work paid off and the official press release was published today.

With vendors like Intel, Rackspace and Windows7 (although I don’t technically agree Windows7 is a vendor…) Spiceworks is slowly becoming what a lot of people are calling “the future of media”. With over 1,300,000 SMB SpiceHeads using the community or application it is a great way for vendors to reach out to sometimes what are the forgotten market. Although no official stats have been released by the amount of time and effort some companies like RackSpace put into the community they must be seeing good enough returns for there investments that its made worth while.

“Just like Facebook Pages did for consumer brands, we’re giving every technology company from big to small a way to have a presence within the world’s largest social business network for IT professionals,” said Scott Abel, co-founder and CEO of Spiceworks. “We’re also making it easier for our users to do their jobs by connecting them with the tech brands they depend on – all while using Spiceworks.”

“As Spiceworks continues to transform IT in a social way, it’s expanding our reach in terms of how we build and maintain relationships with our customers,” said Lauren McCadney of CDW. “With Spiceworks Vendor Pages, we have a highly relevant social channel to serve both new and existing clients, while showcasing our value to over a million small business IT professionals who are current and potential buyers of our products and services.”

If your a IT pro make sure you checkout and follow your favourite vendors on the community and IT vendors don’t forget you can setup your own page for free here.

Yesterday Spiceworks released two new videos on there YouTube Channel the first one about the new iPhone app and the other about the driven employees of Spiceworks.

For all the other cool videos checkout http://www.youtube.com/spiceworks

The Spiceworks 5.1 beta is out!

Get it now from 5.1 Beta I Build Now Available (5.1.63718), make sure you read the 5.1 Testing Guidelines and 5.1 Test Plan.

I will be writing a full review soon, for now checkout some of the features set to be included in our last post here.

Checkout the community 5.1 group for the latest information.

The new Spiceworks 5.1 beta is even closer to being released with Nic posting up some of the new features “Sneak Peek at 5.1 Features” these features are very exciting and include:

• Multi-Threading – The team of awesome developers have made lots of changes and upgrades to the webserver and database included in Spiceworks to allow more concurrent browser requests. This is designed to speed up and improve your experience when navigating around and carrying out tasks.
• Google Apps Integration – Like you can with RackSpace at the moment you will be able to monitor different aspects of Google Apps for Business showing the Spiceworks really is moving towards helping you manage lots of different cloud services.
• Network Graphs, Alerts and Reports – You can already check some network usage in the device view and in the network map but now you will be able to produce better graphs, alerts for high usage and reports. All aimed at helping you make sure your network is always working efficiently.
• UPS Support – You will now be able to scan and check the battery status of lots of different UPS devices thanks to a partnership with Eaton, the developers have already almost upset Kris the IT guy by leaving the UPS unplugged when testing.

All of this is very exciting and we can’t wait to get our hands on the beta version to start play with and finding all the other new and updated features.

Make sure you join the beta group today.

The new and exciting Spiceworks iPhone application has been released, packed full of loads of the feature you get in the Spiceworks application SpiceHeads can now now manage there inventory, helpdesk and much more on the go.

There has been a month and a half long beta testing process to get this far with around 58 topics being posted in the beta group by the testers. If you didn’t meet the testing team pop over to the community here.

Download it now from iTunes here

The developers over at Spiceworks HQ have said they will look at other mobile devices like android and Windows7 depending on how successful the iPhone version is. For now these user’s like me can use the mobile helpdesk by ObieOne now supported by SpiceworksLounge.com or TIcketsAnywhere which is my preferred method..

Please note that the app is only officially available from iTunes as “This is the standard process for an app to be provided for users of these products – either by downloading the app into iTunes and syncing it onto your iDevice, or downloading the app directly on the device using the App Store app.” quote from Ben.B (Spiceworks)

There are unofficial methods but Unofficial Spiceworks and Spiceworks ask you to use the official methods, it helps with the stats and gives the team a good feeling for the more downloads they get.

Have fun and make sure you leave your feedback on the community.

As some of you already know Spiceworks are going to be holding a SpiceRex Party next month the trouble is Nic may have dropped SpiceRex down a drain although he wont admit it various Spiceworks staff saw him do it after SpiceRex bit his bum for a joke.

Raychelle is now running a world wide poster contest with the help of his biggest fans us SpiceHeads to ensure he gets back safe, even if he’s a little wet.

Its a great prize this time around! The top 3 posters will get a mention at the party, a cool SpiceRex Plushie and a T-Shirt.

The grand prize winner will end up with:

• Up to $1000 USD towards a trip to Austin for the SpiceRex Party
• 1 full workday at Spiceworks HQ for 1:1 training, troubleshooting and Q&A with our top Spiceworks experts – Monday March 14 – before the party.
• and a chauffered ride to the SpiceRex party with Nic, our now hated Community Manager

The Image Specifications for the contest are:

• Final poster will need to be 2100×2100
• Format: JPG or PNG.
• When posting your submission here in the community, make sure it’s 500KB or smaller, larger better quality files can be emailed to Nic if you win.
• Submissions must include the following (see bottom of post for images):
  • Spiceworks Logo & Microsoft Business Logo
  • SpiceRex Image (Image 1 or Image 2)
  • These words/phrases: The SpiceRex Party, March 14, 2011

Post your submission on the community here!

Need an idea to get you started? Check out this submission by Steve from a previous contest.