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  • #2188799

    Welcome to Workspace!

    Locked

    by Jay Garmon ·

    The following message was sent via e-mail to our latest group of TR Insiders. If you didn’t receive the mail (lousy spam filters), you can review it here at your leisure. If you did receive the mail, you can skip directly to Workspace testing via the link at the bottom of this post.

    Greetings TR Insiders,

    If you’re receiving this mail, it means either you’re a veteran TR Insider who has been recalled to active duty (Oz, Apotheon, HAL, good to see you), or a new recruit to the ranks of TechRepublic’s most trusted and influential members. The TR Insiders have access to a private, for-your-eyes-only forum that will allow you to preview, critique, beta test, and directly shape TechRepublic’s feature development. There’s no obligation to participate, but if you do, there will be some tasty TR swag in your future (except for Maxwell Edison, who would rather work for free).

    Participation involves testing Beta versions of TechRepublic features and giving us honest, helpful feedback. It also means keeping these features secret until they’re ready for their world debut. In the meantime, you can talk smack about all things TechRepublic safely within the confines of the TR Insiders forum, located here.

    It’s been a while since TechRepublic has rolled out some new features and functionality for you to poke and prod, but we hope our latest effort will make it worth the wait. Our most recent creation, the TechRepublic Workspace, is currently in Beta.

    The Workspace is designed to answer some of the most common requests and complaints we have received regarding a few of our new community features. “What do I do with Links?” and “Why should I update my Profile?” being some enduring classics of the genre. Workspace is where we pull it all together via four key components: Suggestions, History, Enhanced Links, and Projects.

    Suggestions is a mix of TechRepublic content (including downloads, discussions, and blog posts) collected just for you based on the data expressed in your TechRepublic Profile. No longer will you need to search for TR content of interest to you. TechRepublic will find it for you.

    History is a checklist of selected actions you’ve performed on TechRepublic, allowing you to backtrack and find interesting content you’ve already consumed and want to revisit.

    Links is the lynchpin of the TR Workspace, allowing you to save and tag any of the Suggested or Historical content for future reference. You can now also mark selected Links as Private, preventing sensitive documents or content from being shared with the larger TechRepublic community.

    Projects is where we kick it up a notch, allowing you to build a more narrowly focused version of your TechRepublic Workspace. Projects allow you to specify tags that will filter content for you. Would you like suggested content that relates only to VPN and security, rather than your entire list of Profile interests? Set it up as a Project and view only those results. You can also save content within the Projects via our Links feature. So if you find a great download that you want to mark and save for later, you can save it within your “VPN Security” Project so you can easily find and refer to it again.

    We’d like to invite you to test Workspace and answer four questions for us via the TR Insiders forum:

    What do you like about Workspace?
    What do you hate about Workspace?
    Would you use Workspace, and if so, what for?
    What would you change about Workspace?

    Yes, these are very specific questions, but feedback like, “I hate it,” or “I love it,” really doesn’t help us refine and enhance the product.

    And speaking of enhancements, we have big plans for the future of Workspace, like including content from around the Web and providing collaboration features that allow you to use Workspace as a group.

    Please take some time over the next week to check out the Workspace. Create a project or two and post to the TRI discussion about your experience. We appreciate your time and effort in helping us make TechRepublic the best it can be.

    Sincerely,
    The TechRepublic Community Team
    (Stephen Howard-Sarin, Pete Spande, Shawn Morton, Beth Blakely, Jay Garmon, Paul Cook, and Bryan Peabody)

    You can find Workspace here:
    http://techrepublic.com.com/5265-6257-0.html

All Comments

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    • #3045822
      Avatar photo

      OK Jay

      by hal 9000 ·

      In reply to Welcome to Workspace!

      As I’m on the wrong side of the International Date Line I’m most likely one of the first to see this I’ll have a play and get back to you with my thoughts.

      After all who needs sleep? :^O

      Well it’s now 90 minutes latter and just pushing 1.30 AM local time and I like it very much. A nice interface, easy to navigate even if it did list a few of the questions that I asked in the TQ & A section a long time ago of course the ones that I’d prefer to forget so who rubbing my nose in it? 🙁

      It’s very easy to work around in without any problems should be an improvement particularly if the TQ & A Section is given a similar overhaul at the same time. :p

      The only question that I’ve got is “Why is it necessary to update your User Profile?” 😉

      Anyway I’ll have a play around and see if I can break it and let you know. If and what goes wrong.

      Cheers

      Col ]:)

      • #3043715

        Like I always say…

        by Jay Garmon ·

        In reply to OK Jay

        If HAL can’t break it, it can’t be broke.

        Honestly, we’re still tuning this thing and have a list of revisions as long as my arm, but we wanted to get 1.0 in front of some trustworthy eyes (and Oz, too) before we got too far down the road. I’m curious to see if you break it in the same spots we do.

    • #3045812

      Let the games begin

      by dklippert ·

      In reply to Welcome to Workspace!

      I’m glad to see a forum devoted to polishing TechRepublic.

      • #3043714

        Glad to have you in it

        by Jay Garmon ·

        In reply to Let the games begin

        It’s a relief to know there are users who care enough to help us whip the site into shape. We can’t let those mangy kids over at Slashdot have all the fun.

    • #3045788

      I Like it

      by dmambo ·

      In reply to Welcome to Workspace!

      I like the projects page. I created a couple just to try it out and it seems pretty convenient. Why do we need to add a tag to everything? That just adds an extra bit of typing after adding a title and description.

      It would be good if you could limit or toggle the display of the number of items such as Suggestions and History to 0, 5, 10 etc items on the page.

      A general comment on the discussions, it would be nice to see a “Return to Top” or “Next New Post” button for some of the larger threads. Either that or frame the discussions so the text can be read while still seeing the location in the overall thread.

      • #3043713

        Tagging drives suggestions

        by Jay Garmon ·

        In reply to I Like it

        The keywords you use to tag your Project dictates what items will be suggested in that project. The keywords you list in your Profile will dictate what you are offered in the main suggestions. Tagged Projects let you focus on narrower topics, ratehr than the whole gamut of your Interests and Technologies.

        The Suggestions display preferences is an interesting idea. I’ll pass that along to engineering to see how much of a bear that might be.

        As far as the Discussions view goes, that entire page is slated for a major redesign early next year, and a Next New Post option is definitely on the short list of likely new features. If you have any other strong opinions about the Discussion page redesign, feel free to start a new thread in the Insiders forum and we’ll get the discussion going now.

      • #3043613

        Yes, Next NEW would be huge!!!

        by surflover ·

        In reply to I Like it

        and a more persistent status of what you’d already read would be nice too…

        Some of the posts I started would lose the status of the posts I’d read when I’d get back to them (espescially if it had been a few days since it had been addedto, like the “major innovations” one…), and I’d have to guess what I’d read and not… (and some were fairly long and consumed a lot of time looking at posts I’d already seen)

    • #3043741

      First Impressions

      by charliespencer ·

      In reply to Welcome to Workspace!

      The layout is cleaner and easier to read. Unfortunately, I don’t see much else to get excited about.

      I’m not sure what the purpose of Projects is. It looks like a text file. I’ve already got Word, Notepad, Wordpad, Outlook Notes, and OneNote and a blog if I wanted them too. What’s the advantage of another place to capture text data?

      Most of the Workplace page is taken up with Suggestions and History, topics that have their own tabs. Why duplicate them here?

      Suggestions looks a whole heck of a lot like the New Discussions page.

      History looks like a cross between My Discussions and My Links with a face lift. I never used Links, since I don’t know what the advantage is over just adding the URL as a Favorite or Bookmark.

      Will the new features eventually replace the old ones they apparently duplicate, or will they be additions?

      What would I use Workspace for? Probably nothing, but maybe I’m missing something here. I’m sure my fellow members will explain it to me.

      I’d love to see a way to drop topics from the My Discussions page. I dislike having an ancient discussion reappear on the list when someone posts “Me too” six weeks after everyone else has abandoned the topic. I’d really love to see an option to spell check something before I post it.

      • #3043709

        Great questions…here are the answers

        by Jay Garmon ·

        In reply to First Impressions

        “I’m not sure what the purpose of Projects is. It looks like a text file… What’s the advantage of another place to capture text data?”

        Projects is intended to be a place to organize your Web-based research, so that it’s always accessible from any Web browser. You can assign any saved Link to a project, and also have the project suggest new links to you. It’s sort of like a Web-surfing secretary that helps you keep track of certain subjects. Later, we’re going to add collaboration tools so you can open up Projects to multiple members.

        “Most of the Workplace page is taken up with Suggestions and History, topics that have their own tabs. Why duplicate them here?”

        The layout needs work, we agree. The Workspace is intended to be a dashboard of the other new components, but the design probably doesn’t communicate that very well. The Suggestions and History on Workspace are abbreviated–showing only the latest/best stuff–while the Tabs show a complete view of both lists.

        “History looks like a cross between My Discussions and My Links with a face lift.”
        History doesn’t track all your site activity yet–we have some cookie issues to resolve–so your results are probably a little unsatisfying right now. In the future, History should allow you to backtrack to any item you read or downloaded at TR and, a little further down the road, any third-party content that TR suggested to you. Not to worry though, you will be able to shut off the tracking at any time by logging out.

        “I never used Links, since I don’t know what the advantage is over just adding the URL as a Favorite or Bookmark.”
        Two reasons. One, so the Favorites aren’t locked up in any one browser on any one machine. Links can be reached from anywhere with a Net connection. Two, we’re going to start using Linking behavior to evaluate Web content, so if large numbers of TR members save a Link, the implied value will be made visible and will factor into the Suggestions algorithm.

        “Will the new features eventually replace the old ones they apparently duplicate, or will they be additions?”
        A little of both. For the last eyar, we’ve rolled out several new Community features and let them soak. We learned a lot from that, and Workspace is where we take that knowledge and use it to *integrate* the new features into the site, rather just jam them onto the list of features, like we did with Blogs. I know that doesn’t precisely answer the question, but the honest answer is that we don’t know yet. Some features will be replaced, some won’t, but everything will center on Workspace. Which feature falls in which camp will largely be determined by you guys.

        “I’d love to see a way to drop topics from the My Discussions page. I dislike having an ancient discussion reappear on the list when someone posts ‘Me too’ six weeks after everyone else has abandoned the topic. I’d really love to see an option to spell check something before I post it.”

        This goes along with our Discussion Page redesign scheduled for early next year. We plan to make managing your subscribed discussions much easier, and you are far from the first person to ask for a spell check (Hi, Oz). We should definitely start a separate thread on that redesign so we can get all these ideas into the conversation.

        • #3043686

          I’ll have to take a second look

          by charliespencer ·

          In reply to Great questions…here are the answers

          Based on your replies and appy’s post, there’s more going on here than I’m comprehending. I’m still not sure how these pieces are fitting together. I’ve never worked with a collaboration tool, so I’m not getting that aspect of Projects.

          Would I seem too ignorant if I asked for some screenshots or examples of how this all ties in together? Am I the only one who can’t figure out how to come up with relevant, meaningful tags? How about a system of anti-tags, words that when specified cause a topic to be rejected / blacked out / not appear?

          Is there a way to switch a project from Private to Public, or is that choice locked in after creating the new project? How do I access someone else’s Public project?

          If linking activity is going to be a driver of future content, is there any way to speed up the process? I frequently bookmark articles but only tried Links back when I first joined. I found the process to be too slow. I usually only visit TR from work and don’t take advantage of the multiple machine aspect, but I’d hate to lose the opportunity to provide indirect feedback to the suggestions process.

        • #3043654

          All Projects are private right now

          by Jay Garmon ·

          In reply to I’ll have to take a second look

          We haven’t surfaced the public option yet. That will come once we bring in collaboration.

          I feel you pain on the performance lag with some of our features. We’re looking at speeding up everything, both through some database tweaks and (fingers crossed) a hardware upgrade. We’ll keep you informed of these uprgades as they happen.

          As far as meaningful tags, well, some popular examples include:

          Windows
          Security
          Linux
          Career
          Network
          Geek Trivia

          I’ll see about getting you some screenshots. In the mean time, bug sMoRTy71. That’s his department.

        • #3043615

          anti-tags

          by apotheon ·

          In reply to I’ll have to take a second look

          Ooooh, I like anti-tags a lot. Good idea.

          My biggest problem with tags is that it’s too open-ended, thus making it difficult to guess what tags will feed me the best content. That’s why, until now, I haven’t seen any particular point to make much use of tags for searching for content. I’ve tried it out a few times and been almost universally disappointed with what I got. The Projects functionality seems to add some potential use to tags, but the open-ended “soft specs” aspect of how tags work still strikes me as problematic.

        • #3046379

          That’s by design

          by Jay Garmon ·

          In reply to anti-tags

          As of right now, we’ll concede that the Windows tag is of only limited value since it is overly broad. That said, we have big plans to allow Boolean searches using multiple tags, so you’ll be able to get value from the broader topic tags. Windows might not be useful, but Windows + Security + VPN should have some real potential.

        • #3046361

          on the other hand

          by apotheon ·

          In reply to That’s by design

          My concern is more that someone very good at writing something useful might turn out to be very bad at coming up with appropriate tags, and thus my tags-based search for certain content might totally miss some of the best stuff available — and, likewise, that I might not come up with quite the right tags to properly categorize what I’ve written for others to find based on subject matter.

          See, the problem is that different people categorize stuff in different ways inside their heads. That translates to having different ways of tagging things, and of searching for tags. Thus, the tagging system seems almost too open-ended to be useful, at least sometimes.

        • #3046333

          We’re going to augment it

          by Jay Garmon ·

          In reply to on the other hand

          We have a secret project (read: don’t repeat this outside of the TRI forum) called “Tags R Us” that is being prepared right now. We’re going to run a natural language analyszer over all of our content and auto-tag everything, including stuff like Tech Q&A that users can’t tag themselves (yet). The criteria for Tags R Us will be very stringent and consistent, so we’ll get the best of both worlds: a reliable, pervasive set of in-house metadata that is augmented by user input. Whatever teh auto-tagger misses, the user base will be free to insert, and vice versa.

          Hope that allays some concerns.

        • #3046260

          awesome

          by apotheon ·

          In reply to on the other hand

          Youse guys rule, truly. Thanks.

        • #3046330

          !!!!

          by master3bs ·

          In reply to That’s by design

          Boolean searches would make an immediate positive impact. Would you be able to search for say Windows + Security – 98?

        • #3046315

          Precisely

          by Jay Garmon ·

          In reply to !!!!

          We’ve got a massive sub-project for revising the Tag Results pages (what you see when you click a tag). Instead of the siloized views you get now, you’ll get a Suggestions stream powered by that tag. More importantly, there will be tools on the page to add/subtract secondary tags to create a Boolean search, which will redraw the Suggestions list on the fly. Every tag thus becomes a gateway to customized Boolean search.

          The real kicker? When you get a result set you like, you’ll be able to instantly save the Boolean query as a Project.

          Obviously, we’re a ways away from this yet, but it’s in the pipeline. With any luck, the Boolean query component will be available in Projects before we rebuild the Tag Results page, if for no other reason than to test the code. We’re just as excited about it as you are, but we have a limited engineering bandwidth and have to prioritize.

          After we’ve got a firm handle on potential Beta 2 features, we’ll publish a list and let the TRIs voice which items we should prioritize (if possible). If you feel strongly about Boolean queries, I’d make that known when the time comes.

        • #3046259

          great stuff

          by apotheon ·

          In reply to !!!!

          This all sounds almost too good to be true. Any chance of some of this making it into an open source project?

        • #3046135
          Avatar photo

          BAD BAD Jay!!!!!!!!!!!

          by hal 9000 ·

          In reply to That’s by design

          I’ve been reliably informed that Boolean no longer exists by quite a few people at different MS partner meetings so how dare you use that nasty word here. :^O

          You are so Anti-Microsoft that it isn’t funny now I’m going to have spill the beans on you. :p

          Incidentally I’m waiting to the end of the month as I’m slightly over my upper limit this month on downloaded data so they have cut back my connection speed. I brought an unlimited account which to my ISP means 10 GIG and currently I’m pushing somewhere around 30 GIG for the month so they are more than a bit peeved off with me and cut down my connection speed several times now so I’ll leave it till next month to comment on the speed of the opening of pages as it wouldn’t be fair at the moment. 😀

          Col ]:)

        • #3045687

          30 GIG?

          by master3bs ·

          In reply to BAD BAD Jay!!!!!!!!!!!

          I guess you should have gone with their ultra-unlimited account, huh? 😛

        • #3045679
          Avatar photo

          Actually that was their biggest & Fastest Account

          by hal 9000 ·

          In reply to BAD BAD Jay!!!!!!!!!!!

          They tried to get me to sign up for a 200 MEG download to which I just replied that I get more e-mail that that a month. :^O

          Of course they didn’t mention anything about the 10 GIG ceiling when I setup the account here but even then I only got that because of the Election last year as I offered the Communications Minister to tell just how great the phone service was here. It was a major election issue at the time and I’m in the heart of the city and couldn’t get anything better than a split phone line with half speed Dial Up. 🙁

          It was so painfully slow I was going nuts and while the 512 KBS is a marked improvement I still go into some of the places that I do work for and use their Cable connection to download the bigger files it’s just so much faster. 😀

          Actually they no longer send me warnings e-mails that I’ve exceeded 8 GIG as I do that in the first week or so normally I’ve just had a look at my net usage and there hasn’t been a single month where I’ve downloaded less that 20 GIG and it’s normally up around the 30 GIG mark. 😉

          Just the 15 Cd’s for Debian pushes me well over the 10 GIG mark and that is without any e-mail or web browsing not to mention playing at TR. But on the upside I’ve never actually uploaded more than 500 MEG. 😀

          Col ]:)

        • #3045649

          aw gee 30 gigs is nothing

          by jaqui ·

          In reply to BAD BAD Jay!!!!!!!!!!!

          5 3d graphics community users will use that a day.
          thier hosted sites will have 30 gigs of data transfer per day, so 30 a month is nothing.

          and yup col, a lot of these people are down under. thier sites are us based though, where getting higher data transfer is easier.
          ( wholesale oc3 connections require a minimum of 200 gigs a month. )
          😀

        • #3045621

          ridiculous

          by apotheon ·

          In reply to BAD BAD Jay!!!!!!!!!!!

          10G/month is ridiculous. I feel for ya, man.

        • #3045512

          Unlimited accounts

          by oz_media ·

          In reply to BAD BAD Jay!!!!!!!!!!!

          Many ISP’s offer “Unlimited Access” now, Unlimited Access does not mean unlimited up & down traffic, just that there is no restriction (time of day for example) on your acessibility to the internet. In the days where ISDN was fast, unlimited access was a novelty, many businesses got access during business hours and on weekdays, after that there was a surcharge. When digital took into the residential market too, they advertised unlimited access to compete with other dial up restrictions, it dosn’t mean unlimited monthly traffic though.

          I use SHAW extreme speed at home now, 7MB down, they give me 50 gigs and start to bitch after that. TECHNICALLY, it is unlimited access because I can go online any time any day.

          As for business, my t-1 costs a mint and is quite limited as far as traffic is concerned, with hefty surcharges for additional bandwidth, as do most business class ISP’s in BC now.

    • #3043737

      I like to see the continuing efforts to improve

      by maxwell edison ·

      In reply to Welcome to Workspace!

      .
      At first glance, it looks nice. But I haven’t delved into it to give a lot of feedback. I’ll get back to you.

      But thanks for the efforts to make the site better.

      • #3043707

        No, thank you…

        by Jay Garmon ·

        In reply to I like to see the continuing efforts to improve

        We really appreciate you finding time to help us, especially with your busy schedule of avoiding detection by Unmarked Helicopters.

        • #3043705

          One can never be too carefull, you know

          by maxwell edison ·

          In reply to No, thank you…

          .

        • #3043701

          speaking of which

          by apotheon ·

          In reply to No, thank you…

          http://tinyurl.com/anf95
          Black Helicopters spotted on Google Earth

        • #3043546

          Hey that’s GURU!

          by oz_media ·

          In reply to speaking of which

          The pic of Portsmouth doesn’t have littleblack helicopters but I’m sure that’s Guru of DOS drinking a pint and fishing off the dock!

          Or , it’s Portsmouth Virginia! Oh well, I still think that’s Guru fishing.

          Hey, why don’t they have a global Google Earth competition. Just like where’s Waldo, they could do a “Where’s Bin Laden” contest. See if you can spot the camel jockey hiding somewhere in the Black Hills of North Dakota.

        • #3046254

          The Black Hills. . . .

          by maxwell edison ·

          In reply to Hey that’s GURU!

          .
          ….are in South Dakota (and extend into Wyoming), not North Dakota.

        • #3046249

          I note

          by jaqui ·

          In reply to The Black Hills. . . .

          that you aren’t disputing that it’s Guru though. 😉

        • #3046148

          Yep – It’s Guru

          by maxwell edison ·

          In reply to I note

          .
          I recognized him the moment I saw it.

        • #3046179

          Damn

          by oz_media ·

          In reply to The Black Hills. . . .

          I threw the Rocky Racoon bit in for you. Guess it’s time to brush up on my Beatles again.

        • #3046149

          Rocky Raccoon bit

          by maxwell edison ·

          In reply to Damn

          .
          I did miss the connection. But the song just mentions Dakota, neither North or South. I guess Rocky lived a long time ago, when Dakota was a territory, not a state.

          By the way, there was a movement a while back with some people wanting to combine North and South Dakota into one state called just Dakota. Personally, I liked the idea. It would have spelled the end for a couple of U.S. Senators!

        • #3046139

          I said I need to brush up a bit

          by oz_media ·

          In reply to Damn

          “Black Mountain hills of Dakota..”

          I was thinking “Black Hills of North Dakota…”
          In my defense, it is like a slurred British accent trying to be American and pretty quickly at that.

          But yes, time to dig out the White Album again…well maybe not quite yet, saw Judas Priest again the other night, with Anthrax (that’ll flag homeland security)and Sunday night is Alice Cooper, so it will be a while before I can slow down to Beatles headspace again.

    • #3043708

      Workspace at a glance

      by jdclyde ·

      In reply to Welcome to Workspace!

      Overall, it seems easy to use.

      I will start with my “Wish list” stuff first.

      Where activity is listed, you have a place for “type” on if it is discussion, tqa or blog. How about the Topic?

      There is also the date the discussion started, how about adding the date of the most recent activity?

      And a biggie, the ability to REMOVE discussions from these pages. This would make it easier to stay with what we are interested in, if a discussion that we popped into once doesn’t keep coming back to haunt us.

      I will play for awhile and get back after I had a chance to kick the tires.

      • #3043704

        Removing items…we hear you

        by Jay Garmon ·

        In reply to Workspace at a glance

        In our own testing, we’ve already asked for ways to remove items from the Suggestions lists. Obviously removing items from your History kind of defeats the point of History.

        Great points about adding additional data to the lists. I’ll see about getting more metadata surfaced in the Suggestions and History lists.

    • #3043703

      initial shock

      by apotheon ·

      In reply to Welcome to Workspace!

      Holy crap, it looks even more like Windows XP!

      Ahem. Okay. I’m over it, a bit. Still, that’s awfully disconcerting. Everything’s big and bulbous, y’know, and sorta done up in Fisher-Price primary color. Perhaps more corners for a more efficient appearance and more subdued (either “faded” or darker) shades would be more to my taste. Certainly something that looks less like it’s trying to scratch my eyes out with its soft, cottony edges would be better.

      Suggestions: I don’t know yet. This is something that’s going to take some time to come to some kind of grips with. I only hope it ends up being better aggregated than the stuff in “My Discussions” is. I find that the generalized Discussions section is highly useful, and the My Discussions section is largely ignorable. I think the “My Discussions” thing is just sorta difficult to parse and manage because of the way it’s (dis)organized. In any case, if any lessons can be learned from my opinions of those two site features for purposes of helping guide the way Suggestions is handled, you must be more perceptive than I. On some level, though, I feel like there’s some kind of underlying principle that might be applicable here.

      History: This one can definitely take some cues from the successes and failures of functionality elsewhere, but I won’t have much specific to say about it for a while, I think. It requires some attention over time.

      Projects: Brilliant. Finally, a useful application of the tags capability. I mostly thought of tags as being largely superfluous and gratuitous until now. This is a good way to help aggregate stuff: create interest groups defined by tags, and use that to view project-targeted suggestions for possible saving to the project. I’ve already started using this, a little bit, and become disappointed with the lack of relevant materials pertaining to VPN technologies and practices. I’m also considering creating a Project that is used basically just to aggregate stuff that I tend to wish I hadn’t forgotten how to find when involved in other discussions on TR. I think I’ll make that one “private”, and paraphrase relevant passages from earlier posts, or link to them, when appropriate. There’s much potential in this.

      I’ve mostly been attracted by the Projects, out of History, Projects, and Suggestions, so far. I guess the user-configurability of it makes it just that much more likely to be useful, since TR members can tailor it to their needs rather than just look at an unconfigurable feature and decide whether or not it’s useful as-is. Of course, with the way Suggestions changes to meet the expectations of Projects when in a Project view, it becomes an integral part of that.

      Here’s a thought: Perhaps there should be some way to select a Suggestion for permanent exclusion from a current Project view. That way, when you’ve decided you don’t want “save” it for that Project, you don’t have to look at it any longer and room is made for more Suggestions to appear. The same could be done with Suggestions in the main Workspace view, thus enhancing the usefulness of Suggestions for the individual member.

      • #3043557

        Suggestions will rule the world

        by stephen howard-sarin ·

        In reply to initial shock

        Apotheon said: [b]Suggestions: I don’t know yet. This is something that’s going to take some time to come to some kind of grips with. [/b]

        Suggestions is based on an analysis of the text in stuff (discussions, white papers, news articles, blogs, etc.). Right now, we’re not pouring all of this content into the Workspace Suggestions soup — but we will. And then your VPN content should get a lot richer.

        (As least as populated as this: http://technology.updates.com/search.aspx?kw=vpn. Maybe minus the PR stuff.)

        And like Jay said earlier: We hear you on “Remove Suggestions.”

        Stephen

    • #3043696

      I like the longer history

      by stress junkie ·

      In reply to Welcome to Workspace!

      One thing that I wanted was a longer history though I never mentioned it. Someone else must have thought the same thing. I like the longer history under “Your Private Work Tools”. I’m not sure that I participated in all of the linked items but maybe I did.

      Now, about getting the title of the post that you are reading to turn orange instead of battleship grey… 😀

      And while we’re at it I’ve thought of another helper in finding posts of interest in a discussion. How about having the title of each of your own posts show up in green? That way you can scan a list of posts in a discussion to easily find all of your own posts. I think it should be a medium green, not green like a pine tree. That’s too dark.

    • #3043684

      How do we view others?

      by jdclyde ·

      In reply to Welcome to Workspace!

      Or is this not available yet?

      If we could look at the other public projects, it would help to steal ideas from others.
      [b]
      (I am really hoping there wasn’t a huge button somewhere for this and I just missed it!)

      • #3043669

        I wondered about that too

        by tony hopkinson ·

        In reply to How do we view others?

        It would also be nice if you could invite other members to contribute. I’ve had some interesting peer chats with people kicked off by a discussion point or a response to a question. Some of them could easily end up as a discussion / tutorial on a useful topic and in someways a better way of going through the achievement process than some of these constant downloads.
        Being able to manage your my documents equivalent would be a definite boon as well. They are many posts on mine where the point of initial thread was lost and I’d like see that back of it and have easy access to ones of more note but less frenetic activity.

        Overall I like the look big simple and blue is a design mainstay of mine.

        P.S. thanks for the invite.

        • #3043651

          Group functionality is coming

          by Jay Garmon ·

          In reply to I wondered about that too

          This is Workspace Beta 1, which is basically a skeleton of where we want the public release to go. Workspace Beta 2, which is only weeks away, is built around collaboration (and a much better interface). You’ll be able to do exactly this sort of info-sharing and organization.

          It may seem a bit premature to include you guys this early in the process, but we wanted to get user feedback every step of the way.

        • #3043614

          agility

          by apotheon ·

          In reply to Group functionality is coming

          You’re verging on agile software development techniques, there, with that whole “feedback every step” thing. Heh.

          http://www.agilemanifesto.org/

        • #3046375

          Ssssssshhhhhhh!!!!!

          by Jay Garmon ·

          In reply to agility

          You’ll spook the engineers!

          Actually, our head software guy is a big Agile proponent. Glad you noticed.

        • #3046357

          Rails

          by apotheon ·

          In reply to Ssssssshhhhhhh!!!!!

          Point him at Ruby on Rails, then. If he’s such an Agile proponent, and knows good development frameworks when he sees ’em, he’ll love it. I recently got my hands on Dave Thomas’ and David Heinemeier Hansson’s [u]Agile Web Development with Rails[/u], and I’m in love. I’ll probably be redesigning all my websites using Rails, now.

          It’s that good (and includes built-in AJAX support, among other neat toys, that doesn’t actually require you to write any tedious XML crap the way Struts would).

        • #3046301

          RoR

          by debuggist ·

          In reply to Rails

          I’d love to hear about your experience with ROR. I’ve been reading about it for months now (just read a magazine article that described the installation and setup of some simple pages).

          It sounds great for form handling or other tools on a low activity site. Like the author of the article that I read though, I’m concerned about scalability. I wonder what choices are available for optimization.

        • #3046257

          no problem

          by apotheon ·

          In reply to Rails

          I’ll probably end up blogging about it at some point.

          I don’t know how extensible Rails is on the back end, yet, though if it is fairly extensible I’m sure it could be adapted to technologies that would make it potentially as scalable as anything else. I guess I’ll find out as I go. Considering web development isn’t my main career focus, I’ll probably never be writing web apps on the order of Wikimedia and Google stuff, so Rails is probably perfect for me even if it does suffer a little in the scalability department, but it would be nice to be sure of its capabilities in that regard.

          So, yeah. I’ll let ya know, I guess, when I know more.

        • #3046150

          Rails

          by jfpsf ·

          In reply to Rails

          Rails is great. Unfortunately, not great enough to make us rewrite everything, though.

        • #3046124

          heathens

          by apotheon ·

          In reply to Rails

          The wheel should be reinvented in Rails! Then, I will take over the WORLD! Muahahah!

          Ahem. Pardon my outburst. I just woke up from a nap, and am probably not fit for conversation.

      • #3043663

        I don’t want you taking my project!

        by itgirli ·

        In reply to How do we view others?

        I made mine private. It’s kind of nifty.

      • #3043658

        You can’t…yet.

        by Jay Garmon ·

        In reply to How do we view others?

        As of right now, you can’t view someone else’s projects. They are all Priavte right now. As we bring in the group functionality, the Public/Group/Private levels will appear, and you’ll be able to view Public Projects.

        Actaully, we’re hoping you’ll be able to copy Projects as a set, so if you find one you like, you can copy it to your Project list and modify it to your needs.

        We’re going to do the same thing to standalone links in the near future, so you can copy someone else’s individual links–tags and description included–into your list. (To get really wild, we have similar plans for search queries, but that’s a barely-on-the-drawing board issue right now).

        • #3043641

          Groups

          by itgirli ·

          In reply to You can’t…yet.

          I like the group idea. I may want some people to see it, but not everyone. Will we be able to set up our own groups via invitation or how would that work?

        • #3043634

          It would be invitation-only

          by Jay Garmon ·

          In reply to Groups

          The person who started the project would have the power to grant and block access at will. Some of this is still on the drawing board due to the complicated use cases involved (Is it all or nothing? Can you have access to some project features and not others? Can a project creator resign and hand-off the project to a new leader? If you copy a group project, how do we copy the permissions, if at all?).

          That said, group access will be on an invitation-only basis. Plus, we’ll allow you to invite non-TR members (they would have to become members to join the group, of course). We’re dreaming up Contact-list-based tools to simplify this process, but if you’ve got a wishlist, now’s the time to start sharing the dream.

        • #3043545

          You mean like

          by oz_media ·

          In reply to It would be invitation-only

          Little TR geek gangs! I’d think it would be interesting to trial, but it should be monitored for a while. Last thing you want is hacking, cracking groups showing up. [i](sacasm alert)[/i]Or perhaps the idea of more porno ads and shoot the monkey would make TR a little more common 😉

        • #3043449

          Like some form of wiki?

          by charliespencer ·

          In reply to It would be invitation-only

          I’ve had no experience with collaboration software, but this sounds like a light weight wiki.

        • #3046372

          Yes and no.

          by Jay Garmon ·

          In reply to Like some form of wiki?

          Thereare definitely some wiki influences, but we think some of the automated research aids take this a step further, while we don’t give you quite as much page control as a pure wiki (That’s not to say we couldn’t, given a sufficient groundswell of desire for such). Still, as an unabashed fan of the Wikipedia, the notion of WIkitizing TR does warm my heart.

        • #3046255

          frankly . . .

          by apotheon ·

          In reply to Yes and no.

          I think full-on wiki functionality is probably not desirable for anything you’re currently doing, but this pseudo-wiki kind of functionality for the Workspaces is great.

    • #3043621

      Projects

      by m_a_r_k ·

      In reply to Welcome to Workspace!

      I guess I’m slow, but what are projects used for? Are they just a way to use bookmarks?

      Has anyone played around with projects yet? I found these two things: 1) The “http://” part of the URL is automatically inserted when you create a new link . So if you enter “http://www.seamonsters.com”, you will end up with “http://http://www.seamonsters.com”. 2) I am unable to edit my project items. I had to delete my ill-fated seamonsters project item and create a new one without “http://” in the URL.

      • #3043447

        Played in the sand a little

        by charliespencer ·

        In reply to Projects

        I created three or four, but I couldn’t see any connection between my project tags and the suggestions generated. This is probably due to my poor choices for the words I use as tags.

        I’m going to use it initially as a search tool, letting the tags drive the suggested links. If I begin to see more correlation between the tags and the suggestions than what I’m seeing now, I’ll try some longer-term projects.

        • #3046406
          Avatar photo

          Actually it seems more to be a Beta issue

          by hal 9000 ·

          In reply to Played in the sand a little

          I’ve opened a couple of different projects and on each occasion I’ve been given the same suggested links. Topics like Dumping MS and going all Open Source and then Migrating from NT to 2003 and the exact same suggested links have appeared. None of which actually applied to the stated project.

          Hopefully things will improve at the next upgrade of the Beta release.

          Col

        • #3046369

          Could you guys provide some specifics?

          by Jay Garmon ·

          In reply to Actually it seems more to be a Beta issue

          Could you tell me what tags you used, and what “odd” items are being suggested. If the algorithm is buggy, we want to get working on that.

        • #3046278

          Sho ’nuff

          by charliespencer ·

          In reply to Could you guys provide some specifics?

          Please see my test projects at http://techrepublic.com.com/5267-6257-0.html?projectID=20459 and http://techrepublic.com.com/5267-6257-0.html?projectID=20444

          None of the suggestions for either project seem to be based on the tags used.

        • #3046133
          Avatar photo

          Try this Jay

          by hal 9000 ·

          In reply to Could you guys provide some specifics?

          http://techrepublic.com.com/5265-6257-0.html

          Every Item that comes up in th suggestions for the ones that I have there is exactly the same be it for dumping MS or migrating from NT to 2003. Could be that the Tags that I used weren’t right or something like that but I’ve deleted it now I opened a Workspace Item on Ducati Hot ups and got exactly the same suggestions. I put that down to being not related to IT stuff and dumped it.

          I’ve just been playing around for a bit so I haven’t done anything really serious just started off some thoughts to see what would be thrown up as possible suggestions.

          Col

        • #3045657

          Let me guess…

          by Jay Garmon ·

          In reply to Try this Jay

          You’re getting white papers on improving your presentation skills. Since you guys mentioned it, we’ve been seeing these show up everywhere for reasons unknown. Something about our algorithm is making them match…well…everything.

          On the off chance something else is showing up, let me know.

        • #3045645

          no

          by jaqui ·

          In reply to Let me guess…

          I’m not getting those.

          I’m getting suggestions where, while they might not fit perfectly, aren’t far off the interests. ~g~

        • #3044403
          Avatar photo

          Yes there are the ones Jay

          by hal 9000 ·

          In reply to Let me guess…

          I really need to improve my presentations skills as I just tend to walk into a place and tell what is wrong and how to fix it perhaps I need to learn to Sugar Coat it a bit. 🙂

          Col ]:)

    • #3043617

      ~yawning..scratching head..rubbing eyes~

      by jaqui ·

      In reply to Welcome to Workspace!

      maybe after I finish waking up I’ll be able to take a serious look at it.
      since it’s now me weekend. I may be able to have the time.

      • #3043423

        okay

        by jaqui ·

        In reply to ~yawning..scratching head..rubbing eyes~

        had some time to take a look.
        rushed to get it tested? 😉
        the link in the suggestions tab to view more is broken. it pulles up a new page, with only the head of the page displayed.

        one of the suggestion links has only http:// for the url.

        when viewing all of the suggestions, the same discussion is in the list, one on top of the other.

        ( small bug to fix there )

        the workspace itself needs to have more capability than just to store links to really be of use.

        the interface is a slight improvement over the grey for readability.
        ( I still much prefer my black background with cyan text, very easy for me to read [ resetting browser to use my default colours ] )

        the history was covered already by others, 🙂 the expansion of it is nice.

        the search for tags with the exclude option would also be great, searching for.say firewall / security and linux, use something like -windows, -macos to remove all results from the set for those 2 os.

        • #3046366

          Well, those ARE bugs

          by Jay Garmon ·

          In reply to okay

          Hmm, I’m betting we had a server hiccup for some of these. Could you tell me what time and time zone this happened? I’d like to have our gurus check teh logs and see if you got half-formed data.

          As far as the duplciated discussion, was one a Discussion and one a Link to that discussion, or were two of the same content types suggested?

          The Boolean includion/exclusions you asked for are already on teh drawing board. Glad you agree.

        • #3046362

          ahh,

          by jaqui ·

          In reply to Well, those ARE bugs

          I just checked.
          it was 2 separate discussions, posted by same person
          ( doubled posting.

          #
          Driven to distraction by technology
          Driven to distraction by technology
          Date: 10/24/05 | Source: TechRepublic.com | Type: Discussion
          Related tags: windows, linux, administrator, os, networks, apple, unix, technology
          Save this item to your Links list.

          http://techrepublic.com.com/5208-11193-0.html?forumID=4&threadID=183277&start=0

          and

          http://techrepublic.com.com/5208-11189-0.html?forumID=3&threadID=183282&start=0

          and the time was about 3am pacific time for the other bug..with the partial page loading.

          the bad link I put into the site feedback as it may show up elsewhere, not just in the workspace pages. 🙂

    • #3043590

      Some Thoughts

      by thechas ·

      In reply to Welcome to Workspace!

      I took some time and played around with the features a bit. Here are my comments.

      I like the look and feel of the interface.

      I don’t like that every item that I click to save ends up in My Links.
      At a minimum, Links need to be split into multiple categories.
      Some suggestions are:
      TR Articles, TR Threads, Other web sites.

      I assume it is caused by the server being used to host Workspace, but the pages are taking a long time to load.

      Otherwise, it looks like another good change for TR.

      Keep up the good work,

      Chas

      • #3046337

        We’re looking at content sorting options

        by Jay Garmon ·

        In reply to Some Thoughts

        Next-gen versions of History adn Suggestions will have filter options so you can sort against content type, source, date, and a few other factors.

        We’re aware of the load performance issues and are working on them.

        If you want to save something to a project but exlcude it from your Links list, just mark the link as Private during the save process. That way, only you will be able to see it.

    • #3043559

      Pretty cool

      by jmgarvin ·

      In reply to Welcome to Workspace!

      Could you have it more horizontal though? It is a little hard to scroll through the entire thing…

      Perhaps a menu on the left that opens that section?

    • #3043551

      Hi Jay!

      by oz_media ·

      In reply to Welcome to Workspace!

      It’s been a while, I was wondering what happened to TRI. Good to hear from you again!

      First off;
      1)I like the concept for once, this is a good organizational idea, compared to some previous ones that I have found redundant, this is a whole new interface and an interesting layout.

      2)I don’t care for the button styles (I always pick on the styles used here for some reason)it needs some new colour, you have black in your logo too, perhaps some outlining or button shading would get the cold blue feelin gout.

      3)Not too sure, explanation below.

      4)See above…then below. 🙂

      It is either a congested server (odd because it’s evening in North America), or simply because it’s not a full rollout yet, but I found it really sluggish.

      I didn’t get to play with Workspace beause time is of the essence. I haven’t been too active here lately and have dropped WAY down the list now because I’m so damn busy and don’t spend much free time online these days. I’m getting so lazy that I use the Print preview to read threads just to make it quicker, I’m just so damned wiped out now that I can’t get into the typing stuff (You’er lla welmoce) :).

      I will spend some more time with it, and you know I’ll add comments, but for now it just seems really cool..well done everyone!

      TICK, TOCK, okay …

      I played around with workspace a wee bit, um, pretty much the same as the blog isn’t it? Sure it’s a bit different but its the same overall objective (uh oh, here comes the redundant bit,…does that make this redundant too then? :^O ) I still think workspace is pretty cool, but no big deal really. Kinda like blogs, they’re okay…if you like that sort of thing, I suppose.

      One more thing I would like to see is A) spell checker or B)Preview post button (not a forced preview but a button option) it would save more time because you have to: [i]return to the discussion, scroll down to your post, click on it and then notice a typo or sentence that doesn’t read well. So you click edit>submit>return to discussion>scroll>open post>find typo>click edit> submit….[/i]

      But hey, great to see you have all been working hard and it is a pretty cool idea overall.

      • #3043440

        From one horrendous typist to another

        by jardinier ·

        In reply to Hi Jay!

        A number of discussion websites which I visit do in fact have a preview option.

        However I use a very simple alternative. Any posts longer than a couple of sentences I copy into a Word document and look for the squiggly red lines. After making the corrections I simply copy it back into the “post” box and submit.

        Another advantage of this method is that it is much easier to preview a post in the much wider format of a Word document.

        • #3046400

          Talk about wasted effort

          by jdclyde ·

          In reply to From one horrendous typist to another

          why not START in the word processor? Say what you have to say and then only copy it once?

          It is always the little things that add up.

          (don’t you feel silly? :^O )

          The other side is, MOST of OZ’s typos are “fat fingered” from being in a hurry, and adding another step might push him over the edge as he sits in the local pub with his laptop.

          I have used that method for college “blackboards” that require you to do your work directly into the board, but your session times out before your done and you could lose all your work. ( only get burned by that fire once, let me tell you )

        • #3046176

          I knew SOMEONE would say that

          by oz_media ·

          In reply to From one horrendous typist to another

          I type and go, that’s it.

          I was waiting for someone to mention IESPell, not that I would use IE anyway but still.

          A tool ONSITE would be beneficial, an option to PREVIEW or just POST when your done would be great.

          Hey Julian, how many screen names have you gone through now, mate?

      • #3046384

        Workspace is the same as blogs?

        by beth blakely ·

        In reply to Hi Jay!

        I’m sorry, Oz, but I don’t understand what you mean. Can you be more specific about how Workspace and blogs are the same?

        Thanks for helping us test!

        • #3046293

          Please excuse the interruption

          by charliespencer ·

          In reply to Workspace is the same as blogs?

          Not that I would dream of putting words in Ozzie’s mouth, but I had the same initial reaction. At first glance, Projects looks like a blog. You type text, you go back and edit it. When the public feature kicks in, others can view it and possibly comment.

          Obviously, a blog doesn’t provide links to suggested reference materials when you post it. But I’m still not too clear on the advantages of Projects. I guess I’ll have to see it in use.

        • #3046174

          Saved me typing, cheers

          by oz_media ·

          In reply to Please excuse the interruption

          Exactly, you type whatever you wanna yak about, you can provide links in blogs too, they just aren’t hyper.

          It’s “Here’s what I want to talk about” blog or workspace.

        • #3045686

          Interesting perspective

          by beth blakely ·

          In reply to Saved me typing, cheers

          That’s so interesting to hear. I never would have thought about it that way… (Mostly because I yak more than I link.)

          I have noticed that many TR members use their blog space as a sort of “link storage with notes”. If that’s what you’re after, then Workspace and Projects is going to be far more efficient for that purpose. It will save you research time (by showing you lots of offerings that meet your interests) and it’s designed to help you save the link with notes. Voila!

          Thanks for clearing that up for me.

    • #3043496

      Graphics in general discussions

      by jardinier ·

      In reply to Welcome to Workspace!

      Quite likely this is technically unfeasible but in 1927, Frederick R. Barnard made the observation: “One picture is worth ten thousand words.”

      There have been many instances in the discussion forums in which a picture would have conveyed a lot more than a big lump of text.

      In other instances a photo or other graphic could embellish the post.

      Has this question ever been raised before? Would it be technically feasible?

      • #3043458

        the only difficulty

        by jaqui ·

        In reply to Graphics in general discussions

        is in the file size for the graphics.
        I agree is can often make a responce easier, but i have also seen size issues.
        like a 1600 by 1200 image posted.

        or a 3 meg image
        the data transfer costs increase dramatically, and the layout gets screwed by it.

        then to combat this, limit to 400 by 400 max
        and under 200kb.
        and the image can lose a lot of what makes it usefull.

        by being invoolved in several graphics communities I have seen problems that are caused by the images. not even concidering the content of the image issue.
        ( child porn image..beastiality image ) both of which are illegal almost everywhere. it adds a reqiurement for moderation that TR has managed to not impose so far.

        ( just playing devils advocate on it, even though I agree on basic premise. )

      • #3043442

        “I agree on basic premise”

        by jardinier ·

        In reply to Graphics in general discussions

        Well thanks, Jaqui. This is totally unmapped territory for me — just a stab in the dark. But there have been occasions when I would have liked to add an illustration to a post.

        So what you are saying, I gather, is that it is technically feasible, but that there would have to be fairly strict guidelines for both content and size.

        I don’t actually anticipate that any TR member would even consider posting a child porn or bestiality image.

        (Although it didn’t take us long to find a way to trick the naughty words censorship)

        And I am sure that the website could find an easy way of keeping images within a reasonable size range.

        • #3046402

          yes,

          by jaqui ·

          In reply to “I agree on basic premise”

          adding image upload to a post is very simple to do.

          check the links I have in my profile, there are some graphics community sites in there, free memberships for all of them, which all allow uploading images into posts. and have had to deal with the issues I mentioned.
          the busiest has limited the number of images any one member can post a day, to save data transfer costs.
          ( they use over 4 terabytes a month )

          all these sites have free downloads available, usually hosted by members own service, which all members can post link in the downloads area to it. site not responsable for content of download.
          I’m sure that Tr would be able to get specific data from the administration of the sites about image posting if it’s something they are concidering.
          lets face it, a “Graphics Community” is going to have a lot of specific knowledge about allowing image uploads and the problems thereof that most communities ( like TR ) don’t have.

          as far as image content, that is a delete after posting when it’s in violation. there is yet to be a tool that can recognise image content for filtering out unwanted content. this is why allowing images usually requires moderators on the boards.

          I doubt that the two specific contents would be posted either. but graphic sexual content in some of the “Friday Yuk” threads…quite likely, they are often quite “off colour” discussions. ~g~

          a perfect example of how image uploading can be a benefit is a regular occurance in the Rhino forum on renderosity, screencap tutorials on using the application, posted by members. extremely usefull to the members using rhino.
          nothing objectionable in the content.
          and they show exactly the use you were thinking of, passing on usefull information to people.

          Rhino = Rhinoceros N.U.R.B.S. modeller.
          McNeil and Associates.
          Seattle Wa.
          ( yes a lawyer who became a programmer )

          N.U.R.B.S. = Non Unuform Rational B Spline
          a mathematical expression of geometry, where shape can be affected by weight at any point ( node ) on the line.

          gads I’m just full of trivia on the subject. 😉

          editing to add:
          this is the latest tutorial thread that shows great use, not sure if viewable without membership in renderosity.

          http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?ForumID=12371&LockMessage=2447819

      • #3046268

        This is touchy

        by Jay Garmon ·

        In reply to Graphics in general discussions

        Technically, adding graphics to discussions isn’t hard. We already allow this on blogs, so long as the image is already Web published (for liability reasons–like those mentioned by others–we don’t host images).

        The reason we’ve not extended this to discussions is that it’s caused some major headaches for resurfacing blog content. Including images in blogs has entailed integrated HTML content inside the text field, which we have to scrub out if we surface the blog somehwere (like, say, Suggestions). That’s a lot harder than it seems, and our Blogs door has been broken by strange image code more than once. Until we get better at escaping images, we probably won’t include them in Discussions.

        That said, you can always point to an image with a live URL. It may not be in the post, but it’s close.

      • #3046172

        Well

        by oz_media ·

        In reply to Graphics in general discussions

        It would make the Friday Yuk more interesting wouldn’t it? We coud be posting pics from ‘some peers’ many sites to emphazize our adult humour.

        🙂

        And just think how much more colourful the Marc Emery thread would have been? Or when I argue with Max, we could post some pretty heavy graphics to emphasize our point!

        • #3046138

          check

          by jaqui ·

          In reply to Well

          the last friday yuk in network administration.
          >:)

        • #3045510

          Friday Yuk in NetAdmin???

          by oz_media ·

          In reply to check

          Who misposted? Sorry, just popped in for a few minutes while waiting for lunch to turn up, don’t have time to run aroud the site right now.

    • #3046331

      Filtering & Multiple saves

      by master3bs ·

      In reply to Welcome to Workspace!

      A couple of nice features to add to Projects would be the ability to filter & group suggestions by content type (ie blogs, discussions, tips, etc)

      It would be much more user friendly to be able to save multiple suggestions at once rather than having to navigate back to the suggestion page.

      Overall I like the additions; especially the history. History would be a good place to be able to sort by date and/or type.

      • #3046324

        Agree–this is in the works

        by Jay Garmon ·

        In reply to Filtering & Multiple saves

        Filter options are arleady in the Beta 2 spec, as is the multi-save. History will ideally repalce My Tech Q&A and My Discussions, with some useful sort options to drill down into each content type (and, for Tech Q&A, filter by open/closed, answered/unanswered, points, etc.). Glad we aren’t planning stuff no one wants. 🙂

    • #3046326

      one more…

      by jaqui ·

      In reply to Welcome to Workspace!

      related to a bug in the posts from my contacts.
      showing content in suggestions now from TPG.

      while it’s right on for interest area. it’s not content that I have access to.

      as with right after the posts from my contacts was implemented, when I would see posts from contacts in restricted access forums where I didn’t have access.

      • #3046322

        yeah, we gotta fix that

        by Jay Garmon ·

        In reply to one more…

        When we build collaboration, we’re going to have to implement a fairly robust and pervasive permissions infrastructure. If everything goes according to plan this should allow us to prevent you from seeing private/hidden/restricted access stuff that you can’t view. As it is, each view component has its own code, so covering every instance is quite the task (and often it’s deemed a non-priority by engineering to fix). We’re attacking this from the infrastructure rather than the presentation side, so it may take longer, but the results should be worth it.

        • #3046298

          isn’t

          by jaqui ·

          In reply to yeah, we gotta fix that

          the infrastructure the right way to tackle this type of bug?
          🙂
          a query will need to be run against the db, with the permission bits enabled for only those sections the member has access to.
          ie:
          level 1 basic member
          level 2 tri
          level 3 TPG
          level 4 inclusive
          level 5 admin
          when it’s level 1 only what is accessable to the member is pulled in the query.
          level 2 will pull from both tr i and basic
          level 3 will pull from TPG and basic.
          4 from all lower levels
          and 5 is obvious yes?
          but that means re-encoding both the queries and the db for the permission levels.
          takes time.

    • #3046317

      I’m confused

      by master3bs ·

      In reply to Welcome to Workspace!

      I know you pull the suggestions from my profile; but are they based on my Interests or on my Current Techonology Implementation (or both?)

      That will make a difference on how I edit the profile.

      • #3046312

        Both

        by Jay Garmon ·

        In reply to I’m confused

        So make them both accurate, if you please.

        • #3046311

          that helps

          by master3bs ·

          In reply to Both

          I prefer it that way; and it also explains why when I added tags from my implementation to my interests the suggestions didn’t change!

        • #3046306

          another thought

          by master3bs ·

          In reply to Both

          Would it be possible to have the suggestions pull only from certain tags?

        • #3046177

          That’s what Projects are for

          by Jay Garmon ·

          In reply to another thought

          Your main Suggestions are based on your Profile data. If you want a narrower view, just create a project and include only those tags you want to see. The Project Suggestions will draw content based only on the specified Project tags.

          Hopefully, our second-gen interface will make this more intuitive.

        • #3045707

          “Intuitive”

          by charliespencer ·

          In reply to That’s what Projects are for

          I just love it when someone uses the word “intuitive” when discussing anything to do with computers. It’s like when people use the words “squid” or “alternator” when discussing sex.

        • #3045700

          “Suggestion” suggestions

          by charliespencer ·

          In reply to Both

          I’m not sure what in my profile is causing Suggestions to include multiple links to gaming and Linux articles. I haven’t mentioned these subjects by name anywhere in my profile. Are Suggestion entries driven by something other than profile Interests and Current Tech? Maybe they also include articles related to discussions I was foolish enough to participate in?

          Also, I’ve got a couple of Suggestions that appear to be duplicates.

    • #3045697

      iiinnnteresting…..

      by jaqui ·

      In reply to Welcome to Workspace!

      I just noticed something about links added to a project.
      when they are added as private, then, even though you can see them yourself in your links, they have zero members using that link, including yourself.

      maybe having the links, in the future, break into private and public sctions instead of killing the user count of a link.

      • #3045652

        Duly noted

        by Jay Garmon ·

        In reply to iiinnnteresting…..

        We’ll see about handling that better, and giving you sort options.

    • #3045692

      Blue, blue, blue, blue ……

      by jardinier ·

      In reply to Welcome to Workspace!

      Well now that I am apparently considered important enough to state my views, I can at last express my STRONG distaste for the overwhelming blue colour of the website.

      And as the website is upgraded in stages, I am confronted with — even MORE blue.

      Compared to just about every other website I have visited, I find this saturation of blue visually offensive to say the least.

      Is there some technical reason why blue predominates?

      Can we not break the monotony with some nice WARM colours? I am not asking for bright red, which would be even more offensive to the eye than the bright blue of TechRepublic. But there are any number of softer shades of warm colours that I, personally, feel much more comfortable viewing.

      • #3045683

        Anybody remember “Humpty Dumpty” magazine?

        by charliespencer ·

        In reply to Blue, blue, blue, blue ……

        This children’s magazine was published in black ink on pastel green paper. Each issue included a paragraph below the table of contents. It described how research had been done showing these colors were the most comfortable for long-term reading.

        I believe the same publisher had a couple other publications printed the same way.

        • #3045642

          naww…

          by jaqui ·

          In reply to Anybody remember “Humpty Dumpty” magazine?

        • #3045635

          How about we let you pick

          by Jay Garmon ·

          In reply to naww…

          If we really are able to pull of a full CSS revision of TR next year, we’ve toyed with the idea of multiple available stylesheets, so you can select different color schemes and adjust font sizes. I doubt we’d go so far as a user-designed stylesheet, but we’d certainly let trusted users submit and suggest stylesheets for us to consider. If you guys reallya re passionate about this kind of option, let us know, so we can factor that into our planning.

        • #3045633

          count me

          by jaqui ·

          In reply to How about we let you pick

          as being for it.

          I even preffer what poser pros has done for halloween this year, black gold and orange, to thier phpbb site over the blinding, eye searing white background.

        • #3044406

          Jaqui

          by oz_media ·

          In reply to count me

          While I have also designed several dozen black themed sites, this isn’t heavy metal or gothic dreams, in all fairness we need colour and some clarity, there’s just TOO MUCH damn colour on the new pages and it’s all the SAME colour.

        • #3045617

          Did anyone else hear the Rolling Stones

          by jamesrl ·

          In reply to naww…

          in their head after seeing that colour scheme? “Paint it Black” ran through my head.

          I find black backgrounds challenging to read.

          James

        • #3044405

          Depends on font size and colour

          by oz_media ·

          In reply to Did anyone else hear the Rolling Stones

          I agree that many black themed sites are horrendous to read, sometimes it’s easier to just highlight all the copy and read white text on a green highlighted background. The worst has got to be BLUE text on black, White and red work well, but the font size has to be big enough. I think with the font size of TR articles and posts it would be awful to have black backgrounds.

          I think the white panels work here because there are grey borders, but all that blue in the new title bars and buttons is just too much I think.

        • #3045613

          So close…

          by charliespencer ·

          In reply to naww…

          I almost clicked on that link, then my little voice screamed, “DON’T DO THAT!!!!”.

          I’m positive the results would have caused me to claw my eyes from my head with the nearest available ice cream scoop.

        • #3044407

          Yeah

          by oz_media ·

          In reply to Anybody remember “Humpty Dumpty” magazine?

          MacDonalds uses red and yellow because they are the most appealing to small children, could you imagine WORKING there though?

          Too much blue, ick!

      • #3044408

        Thank you sir

        by oz_media ·

        In reply to Blue, blue, blue, blue ……

        Finally someone else agrees that there is too much damn blue on TR. It’s like Intel’s Blue Men have taken over design duties or something.

        The current site as a mix of gradient shaded blue grey barsm which isn’t too badm but the BLUE everywhere is just nasty.

      • #3044372

        Probably not appropriate for TR

        by jardinier ·

        In reply to Blue, blue, blue, blue ……

        but on my own websites I largely use black text with red headings on a cream (or very pale yellow) background.

        I find this very appealing visually, and very easy to read.

        For a contrast I sometimes use white text and heading on a deep tan background. It is easy to read, but you wouldn’t want too much of it.

        Black text on a pale green background is also very appealing, as mentioned in another post in this discussion.

        I am not making any “official” suggestions here, but perhaps a background of a very pastel shade (of whatever colour) would strain the eyes less than the glaring white of TR.

      • #3131634

        Don’t be so blue about it.

        by maxwell edison ·

        In reply to Blue, blue, blue, blue ……

        .
        You blew in and complained about being blue over the blue. Tell it to these guys:

        http://www.blueman.com/

        And if you really are a blue man, perhaps you’ll really want to be a blue man!

        http://www.bluemancasting.com/blueman_whatitmeans.php

        Okay, time I blew outta’ here myself.

        • #3131935

          BMG Rocks!

          by charliespencer ·

          In reply to Don’t be so blue about it.

          I need to revisit the old “What music do you play in the computer room at night?” discussion and add Blue Man Group’s “Audio” and “The Complex”.

    • #3045534

      Call A “Search” A “Search”

      by wayne m. ·

      In reply to Welcome to Workspace!

      I may be showing my age, but I found the terminology confusing. Consider replacing the terms “Interests” in Profile, “Projects”, and “Tags” in Project with “Search Criteria.”

      I don’t know if this is how the current, public interface works, but I never drew the connection that the phrases I entered in Interests would affect what I see in the main displays. This may explain some of the frustration I feel with the existing interface when trying to find new articles.

      If the user interface is going to be driven by key terms or tags, I would recommend that a standard list of terms be presented. This provides a known baseline to organize articles and means for searching for a genre of articles.

      If my understanding of what the new interface provides is correct, then simply replacing some labels would add a great deal of clarity.

      • #3045511

        Second the motion

        by charliespencer ·

        In reply to Call A “Search” A “Search”

        Until I read the response to master3bs, I didn’t know the Interests and Current Tech entries did anything but provide information to someone checking out my profile. A “starter set” of tags would be helpful.

        I reread the FAQ on tags this week, but I still don’t have a grasp on tag entries that will effectively tailor information to my preferences. I don’t want a laundry list in my profile and wind up getting articles I’m not interested in. Some of the links in Suggestions show tags (why not all?), but they rarely match the entries in either my Projects or my Profile. It would be helpful for any entry in Suggestions to show exactly what caused it to appear: a Project tag, Profile Interest, discussion joined, blog tag, question answered, etc. That way we’d know why an uninteresting suggestion appeared, and we could make changes to prevent future irrelevant entries.

        • #3044279

          Tags matched

          by smorty71 ·

          In reply to Second the motion

          Perhaps a list of “Tags matched” under each item. Or maybe the matching tags are highlighted from within the list of all tags for that item.

        • #3044194

          Lovely.

          by charliespencer ·

          In reply to Tags matched

          That would be a good start to helping the member identify why that suggestion appeared.

      • #3044280

        Great point

        by smorty71 ·

        In reply to Call A “Search” A “Search”

        You make a great point. I definitely think we could do more to clarify how the functionality works. In addition to labels, it may be as easy as adding a line of explanatory text in a few places.

        For example:

        “Suggestions are powered by the interests in your profile and content you consume on the site”

        Maybe that would clear up how it works and how you can influence the results?

    • #3044337

      WOW !!!! or perhaps not

      by jardinier ·

      In reply to Welcome to Workspace!

      Now how did that happen?

      I just opened my Firefox browser and there at the top was direct access to my Workspace.

      However I later learnt that this is some feature of Firefox (tabs) but I have no idea how or why it set itself up in this fashion. So now I will have to study Firefox tabs.

      • #3044917

        Hey man

        by oz_media ·

        In reply to WOW !!!! or perhaps not

        You’re gonna like tabs. The curve for me was about two weeks, not so much a larning curve but a using curve.

        Then when IE brings out THIER tabbed browser you can go back to IE again, not!

        I am sure we’ll have a zillion MS junkies claiming FireFox stole IE’s tabbed browsing to keep up with them. Then again, by that time, MS would have branded the concept and sued Mozilla for incorporating it in thier browsers. 🙂

        • #3044902

          IE ….. what is that?

          by jardinier ·

          In reply to Hey man

          Isn’t that some superseded crappy browser?

          But I may be wrong. My memory is not accurate that far back.

    • #3115824

      TG

      by surflover ·

      In reply to Welcome to Workspace!

      This sounds like a good idea overall… (I’m going to give you several disjointed thoughts as I read through this and the “radical ideas” thread and just made some notes based on a lot of the other’s comments)…

      I like the idea of the “project” as best as I understand it to this point.

      The ratings are obtuse, who counts someone as a contact means a lot more than the ratings…

      I don’t mind the occasional e-mail, which is misdirected (but I’m not #1, I don’t have tht much free time :^O

      … and I assume that projects are not ready to beta test yet… but I’ll beglad to wing it with the beta level if y’all get to that point…

      Surf

      • #3114976
        Avatar photo

        Well I am number 1

        by hal 9000 ·

        In reply to TG

        And I don’t have that much free time either. I think that Jay and Smorty have got together and fixed the site ratings to punish me for some perceived snub that I’ve given them. 🙂

        I honestly do not know what’s happening here as the usual protagonists don’t seem to be currently active. They must be catching the last rays of the Autumn Sun before winter sets in. :^O

        And while I don’t mind the genuine questions that I’m asked I can not answer them straight away either so that’s even less time that I have to spend at TR! But the ones that do get me are the people who Peer Mail me without even looking at my profile and ask me to come to their house/Business to fix a problem out of the kindness of my heart. It’s a very long walk from this side of the pond. 😀

        Col ]:)

        • #3116709

          That bugged th ehell out of me

          by oz_media ·

          In reply to Well I am number 1

          At first I just started getting emails for help from people who didn’t want to post in Tech Q&A.

          After a while I was getting people asking me to comment no their threads or set people straight because being number 1 meant they’d listen to me…yeah…and i mean th emos absurd threads that I had NO idea about whatsoever.

          After getting a bunch of TR emails each day, I started getting tired of people thinking that being number 1 meant you were free to take care of their problems.

          I’ll tell you, it’s definitely lonely at the top and it sure as hell isn’t worth it.

          I’m glad I’m too busy to creep up the list again, it sucked being number one! It really did!

        • #3116510
          Avatar photo

          Well OZ since you have so much free time now

          by hal 9000 ·

          In reply to That bugged th ehell out of me

          Perhaps you could sort out Maxwell for me. :^O

          He upset me once a long time ago and I hold a Grudge! :p

          But someone must be being nice to me as I haven’t received anything at all from TR for over 24 hours now so no one must be using the site right? Of course the tampering with the site wouldn’t have anything at all to do with it would it? 😀

          Col ]:)

        • #3136565

          House calls

          by jardinier ·

          In reply to Well I am number 1

          That’s an easy one, Col. Say you would be eager to come, and that you will expect in the mail very shortly a return first-class airfare; five star accommodation for the duration of your visit, and compensation for time lost at your own business.

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