So better late than never, Spiceworks have got 4.6 early access out for everyone to try it out and give feedback.

The early access window was meant to run from March 3rd-11th, but due to some last minute issues was released a day late.

Please read the following posts on information on how the early access program will work. Please be sure to test your favourite 4.5 features as well as the new 4.6 features!

• 4.6 Testing Guidelines
• 4.6 Testing Plan

Progress Bar as Spiceworks Starts Up The first thing you will notice when you start up Spiceworks 4.6 is the new splash screen. It will give new users the chance to watch some videos on how Spiceworks can help them.
The registration box has also been cleaned up and a “existing user” link put on to help stop confusion.

Click read more for the rest of the review

Read More…

Mark Southall and his company has made a GREAT gadget for vista sidebar or windows 7.

My company’s helpdesk wanted a quick way to check the tickets that were open on the system, without needing to open up web pages. Having found nothing during our search for a gadget to do that, I wrote one to connect to our database.

Originally it was just intended for use within the company, as it was originally hard coded. However I have now made modifications to the gadget and it is available to the community to use.

Download: http://community.spiceworks.com/how_to/show/985

You can now monitor the uptime of your servers, workstation, switches and well everything in Spiceworks.

The Device Uptime plugin will display a graph of how many devices are in the Inventory group, and how many of those devices are online.  Online devices are displayed in blue, and offline devices are displayed in Red

This is great to see as it means Spiceworks is starting to store, even if it is only per start up of Spiceworks, historical information meaning soon we will be able to produce reports for management about server uptime, or just how much the SQL server has been used recently.

Get the plugin now

Let start this off right

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Happy Birthday Arno (ObieOne)

Now on with the story. For his birthday ObieOne has released version 2.3 of the much loved and used Spiceworks MobileHelpdesk.

The mobile helpdesk allows you to view, edit and update tickets on nearly every mobile device from iPhone, Windows Mobile or BlackBerry. There have also been reports of it working on some nokia’s.

MobileHelpdesk uses Tickets Anywhere to allow you to remotely update your tickets as if you were at your desk, allowing you to quickly resolve problems on the go. Its simple to install and setup using .NET, IIS and a SQLite connector. Its easy to setup, and once ready you just surf to the website you setup, login and away you go.

So far ObieOne is very pleased with all the feedback he’s getting and he sure hope people will enjoy it.

Read on for the new features and bug fixes or download it now

Screenshots

New and fixed in version 2.3:

• Fixed several issue’s with the data adapters after the Spiceworks 4.5 upgrade. (un-assigned tickets page works again).

• Open tickets page now also view un-assigned tickets.

• Changed some typo’s in the web.config notes sections.

• Changed some typo’s and instructions, so the installation procedure is more clear.

• Issue fixed with User Details and Change Password screen crashing.

• Home page now shows actual un-assigned open tickets.

• Add comment now sends to the right #ticketID again.

• Edit ticket statics now sends to the correct #TicketID again.

All these fixes are implemented and tested with special thanks to Ben, Barb E, Mark J Gosling, Mike384 and Miiiki.

If you haven’t tried it, then go ahead and do.

Download the MobileHelpdesk from the community.

Jay has recently talked to mspmentor.net about Spiceworks, in the video he talks about:

0:00: Introduction
0:10: How Spiceworks serves MSPs and IT managers in SMB markets
0:35: How Spiceworks delivers free software
1:00: Spiceworks’ design, features and functions
1:40: Does Spiceworks have a sustainable business model?
2:00: Marching toward profitability
2:15:  What is Spiceworks’ goal for $16 million in new funding?
3:00: More Info
3:23: Conclusion

Read whole story http://www.mspmentor.net/2010/01/14/spiceworks-were-nearly-profitable/

So as almost anyone may have seen by now TechCrunch have announced Spiceworks Is Becoming The Facebook For IT Managers; Raises $16 Million Series C. Jay (Spiceworks) has post up there official word on the community news section.

I was reading though the comments and love how Jay managed to get my post about how good free support is in there.

Spiceworks official word on why they needed the money is

There was just one problem – we weren’t building new features and capabilities into Spiceworks fast enough. We were making too many trade-offs, pushing out too many features you asked for. And worst of all – too many of the innovative ideas the team had weren’t seeing the light of day. With our user base approaching 1 million IT Pros world wide, I just wasn’t comfortable with the speed at which we were enhancing the platform.

So what do I think this means for Spiceworks?

I think it means that Spiceworks will grow and grow fast. 4.6 is planned for sometime this month/early next and I have heard some very small talk off 5.0… That’s where the big stuff will come in.

If you read this blog regularly you will have seen my comment on the bottom off ”Spiceworks and Intel® Maintenance Manager Plugin”

So does this mean now if you have the knowledge you can start to execute commands on remote machines? Could we start too see plug-ins for remotely installing software?

We maybe able to start getting hands on with machines via Spiceworks, some of the top feature requests at the moment are

• Knowledge Base

• Auto-archive devices after a time-limit

• Get Information from Active Directory

• Multiple Client View

Spiceworks have been aiming at the MSP market for a while and I think that’s where they will aim. Sorting out the helpdesk to work on for a range of clients, setting up client views, being able to do more things remotely. Why? Because they have spent the time working on the remote collector and getting it secure.

Something else they might start looking into is real time monitoring. With the SQL plugin they have proved it is possible, we just now have to wait and see how real, real time monitoring from Spiceworks can be.

Well see what happens over the next few months, Unofficial Spiceworks will be here to keep you up to date though.

Thanks Tabrez and the team, Beta 3 of 4.5 is out

What’s new in this beta? and what are some of the known issues?

• Scan Schedule functionality: You can now give each subnet its own scan schedule. This has been a requested feature.
• User Portal Authentication Issues: With some earlier betas people logging into the portal also got admin access into Spiceworks dashboard. This has been fixed in this beta.
• Migration and Upgrade fixes: In the past there were issues with upgrading from older versions, this has now been fixed. Please do check this out by upgrading from a 4.1 database (not your production install of course!)
• Timeline performance improvements: Timeline views should load faster.
• User Interface for the Helpdesk Views Queuing: This was inproved to help you build queries quicker. Some users requested current logged in user support and this was also added.

New stuff from Beta II:

• The new network map functionality is available in this beta. You can edit maps to add new nodes or edit links between nodes. With this functionality you can customize maps to match how you think about your network. You can also use it to plan network changes and run what-if scenarios.
• Queuing in the Help Desk is broken up into two sections: Rules and Views. You can set up rules that assign tickets to users. Views allows you to only view the tickets you want to view. Please create rules and view and give us your feedback.
• The Software view in the Inventory section has a new table that should improve performance. Let us know what you think.
• Overall performance in IE has been improved. Try it out!
• Internationalization Editor has been updated. We need your help in building language packs to be available as part of the final release. If you can help translate please help us!

Screenshots

 

Be warned and download

We strongly caution you against using the beta in production. If you hit a serious bug you may have to start from scratch!

Please do not upgrade from Beta II to Beta III. If you have problems you will be ask to perform a clean install or a clean install with your 4.1 data. Using your 4.1 data is beneficial to the beta program because it represents a normal upgrade from 4.1 and will help us detect any migration problems that might not occur when upgrading betas.

Click Here To Download 4.5 Beta III

Its coming, its going to be big. Its Spiceworld London, it all kicks off in:

Spiceworks-News will be there!

Will you?

Lets make Spiceworks want to come back to London by making it a great event for everyone. Lets big it up on twitter lets get it up on google and spread it though the globe with facebook.

We can do this!

We can make Spiceworld London famous world wide.

Get your ticket and read more here

I know a bit tacky but hay… Got a better countdown we could use? Use the contact form to get in contact with us. I don’t have a great deal of Spare time so using something like above was quick and easy

AUSTIN, Texas–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Today at the SpiceWorld 2009 conference, Spiceworks™, Inc. unveiled dozens of new free IT management applications and plug-ins that are now available to the more than 775,000 users of the Spiceworks IT Desktop software. Several of the new additions include Spiceworks Application Plug-in Contest winners, which were chosen by the Spiceworks user community of IT professionals.

Read more on Business Wire at http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20091023005019/en

Secrets To Getting Your Users To Do What You Want is about to start at Spiceworld 2009

Austin Watch it here or on http://www.spiceworld2009.com/stream/