Communicating Privately

The forums are a great place to interact publicly, but if you ever want to take a discussion off-line out of the public gaze, you might want to try private chat or email.

As with everything fun on the site, if you want to do this you have to be logged in. Duh...

Private Chat

If you see someone is online and you get the urge to chat with them privately, just click their name, and then click "Send a private message." A little chat page opens and you can send the message to them. If they feel like chatting back, that's up to them.

Email

To email another member of the Novell Community, click on their hyperlinked username to get to their profile page. From the profile page, click the "contact" tab.

If the user is accepting messages from other users, the contact page will include a form that will forward your communication to the member.

Note that no e-mail addresses were exposed (or animals harmed) in this exchange.

You can also use the "Write to Author" link at the bottom of each article.

To allow other people to email you, you'll need to modify your profile settings. Navigate to "View/Edit My Profile" -> "edit" and check the "personal contact form" checkbox.

Checking this box will add a form under the contact tab on your profile page. Users (and spammers) will never see your email address.

Cool New Thing: Random Images

Here's a nifty new thing you should try. We've just added a Random Image display, so we can see you guys in action. We'd love to see your office, candid shots of you at work, helping your customers, brainstorming with your colleagues, bailing the water out of your flooded server room, etc.

We'd really like to see you with the prizes you've earned via Novell Rewards points, so if you've won a shirt, let's see you in it. If you've won an iPod, show it off. You get the idea...

NUI Groups, here's a great opportunity to show how fun it is to be a NUI member. Show us what your events look like. Show us your beautiful city. Give us a glimpse into the world you occupy.

Novell Partners -- let us get to know you better. Show us how you provide training, support, and other services. Show us a few of your happy customers.

To share an image, just click Create Content > Image, and follow the instructions. Editors will review for appropriateness (duh), so don't expect instantaneous publication.

Let's have a little (visible) fun!

Cool New Thing: Using your Buddy List

As you interact with other members in our Novell Communities, you're bound to make friends with a few like-minded folks. This is where the Buddy List comes in handy.

The Buddy List enables you to add your Cool Solutions and NUI friends to your user account. You can maintain a list of your buddies and keep track of what they are posting to the site. You can also track your buddy's buddies and thereby explore a new social network formed entirely of people who share your passion for Novell technologies.

To add someone to your Buddy List, click their hyperlinked name to be taken to their profile page. Scroll down to the Buddy Actions section, and click "Add to my Buddy List."

You can remove people from your Buddy List just as easily. Click "View/Edit my Profile," click the name of your soon-to-be-ex buddy, and click "Remove from my Buddy List." (Who says that breaking up has to be hard to do?)

Managing your Buddy List

You can cluster your buddies into groups for your convenience in dealing with them. Click My Buddy List (directly under View/Edit My Profile), and organize them to suit your needs.

Finding People

Looking for a Cool Solutions member that you'd like to email or send a Private Message to? Well, unless they're one of the people with the most points (so you can click their username under Point Leaders), you might think you're out of luck.

Not so fast. You can use Search to find people as well as content.

Simply type their username in the Search box (has to be the name they use at Cool Solutions) and click Search. Your Search Results page will have a tab marked Users. Click that, and voila, there's the person you were looking for.

How to Hyperlink your Name to your Website

If you've got a website that you'd like other members to visit, you can add it to your profile. This not only helps community members know more about you, but it is a nice little SEO bonus for your website. Here's how you do it:

1. Click My Account in the My Links block in the right column.
2. Click the Edit tab.
3. Click Profile.
4. In the bio area, add the URL to your website.
5. Click Submit.

How to submit content

To submit content for publication in the Novell Communities you need to be a member of the community. Membership is free and easy. Just create a Novell Login account in the upper right section of any page.

Once you're a community member, follow these steps to submit your content.

Creating Great Content for Cool Solutions

Here are a few guidelines to help you craft a winner:

• Technical accuracy.
• Relevance to Novell audience
• Completeness and educational value. (Did you provide clear steps, helpful screen shots and illustrations, supporting links and files where appropriate? Does it explain the solution to a problem in such a way that a reader could replicate it? Does it include all essential details readers will need?)
• Originality. Submissions must be original work of submitter.

Here are our Submission Guidelines <

Partner Content

As of April 2008, we have instituted a new policy regarding partner content. We now only publish two kinds of information about Partner products as part of our regular stream of content:

1. Webinar and Event announcements
2. Technical tips that promote a Novell product in conjunction with a partner product.

Previously, we had allowed a wider range of tips and articles from our partners, including new product announcements and updates that were focused entirely on the partner's offerings and only obliquely about a Novell product. We have discontinued that practice due to complaints from readers who find such "advertorial" content distracting.

Partners are always welcome to purchase ads to promote their offerings, announce new products, highlight successes, solicit beta testers, etc. But we will no longer be running those kinds of pieces as regular Cool Solutions content.

To purchase ads, contact Brian Smith (bsmith1188@fiber.net<)

Submitting Cool Solutions Content

1. Prepare your article, tip or tool in your favorite word processor (no HTML formatting is required).
2. Login at Cool Solutions.
3. Click the "create content" link in the "My Links" navigation block.
4. Choose the content type that best suits the nature of your submission. (Usually you'll be submitting an article, tip or tool. When in doubt, choose "article" -- the editors will sort it all out for you when they review your submission before it goes live.
5. Enter (or paste) your title in the Title field.
6. Select the Categories that describe your content so your submission will be indexed properly (don't stress about this -- the editors will make sure it's all right before it goes live).
   
   • Products
   • Topics: Select the topic(s) that fit your submission. You can select multiple categories by pressing Ctrl, and clicking the topics that you think apply best.
   • Audience: Choose Cool Solutions, and any specific Cool Solutions sites that would be interested in your article. (For example, an article about using ZENworks to patch GroupWise should be tagged for Cool Solutions, ZENworks Cool Solutions, and GroupWise Cool Solutions audiences.)
7. Cut and paste your entire article from your original document into the Body area. The line breaks and paragraph breaks in your document will appear in your web document without any further help from you. If you would like to add some basic formatting (like italics and bold), click "Input Formats" and look at the codes listed under Filtered HTML. Most commonly used codes include:
   
   • <a> -- to include links to other websites
   • <em> -- to italicize
   • <strong> -- to bold
   • <ul> -- to create a bullet list
   • <ol> -- to create a numbered list
   • <li> -- to create a list item

   See the Novell Style Guide< for more html formatting tips.

   If you don't want to mess with the formatting, just submit it as is, and the editors will do all the formatting. Note: just paste in the full URL next to any words you'd like to hyperlink to a website, and the editors will format them for you.

8. File Attachments: If you have images, PDFs, or any other kind of file that you are submitting along with your article, click File Attachments and use the Browse button to find them on your hard drive and submit them to Cool Solutions.
9. Click Preview to see how your article will appear. Once you've got it the way you want it, click Submit. This will place your submission in the Moderation Queue. The editors will review your submission, and if the content is suitable, they will add any necessary HTML formatting, perform a copyedit, and post it live.
10. Once your submission is published live, your account will be credited with the Novell Rewards Points you have earned. You can check your point balance by clicking View/Edit My Profile.

The information you submit will be queued up for our editors to review. If we have any questions, we'll contact you.

Creating Content for your NUI Group

1. Prepare your article or tip in your favorite word processor (no HTML formatting is required).
2. Login.
3. Click the "Create Content" link in the navigation block.
4. Choose the content type that best suits the nature of your submission. (Usually you'll be submitting an event, article, blog, tip, or Q&A.)
5. Enter (or paste) your title in the Title field.
6. Select the Categories that describe your content).
   
   • Product
   • Topics: Select the topic(s) that fit your submission. You can select multiple categories by pressing Ctrl, and clicking the topics that you think apply best.
7. Under Groups/Audience, select your chapter/group name. (Like Brazos Valley Novell Users Group of Texas.)
   If you want NUI Groups outside your group to see the information, select Novell Users International in addition to your own group.
   If you do not want your post to show to anonymous readers, UNCHECK the Public box.
8. Click Preview to see how your post will look. When you are satisfied with it, click Submit.

Joining a Group

Cool Solutions Groups are special sections of the site that are reserved for content that is only interesting or applicable to group members. For example, the members of a Security Managers group may want to get together for local training, discuss firewall technologies, or chat about a new patch. Want to join one? Read on.

Joining a Group

To join a group you must have a Novell Login. Here's what you do:

1. Log in using your Novell Login credentials.
2. Click the Groups button in the My Links block on the right side of the page.
3. Click the name of the group you wish to join.
4. Click Request Subscription.

If you are eligible for membership, your request will be accepted and you will be added to the group.

Once you are a member, simply login to the site using your Novell Login username and password, and all of the groups you belong to will appear under My Groups. Feel free to post discussion topics and events for your fellow group members to see.

Note: You can join multiple groups, as long as you are eligible for them.

Novell Style Guide

Here' are the styles that have been established by Novell's corporate branding department. Please follow these guidelines while formatting your articles for publication.

Heading Level 1 (<h1>)

Heading Level 2 (<h2>)

Heading Level 3 (<h3>)

List with no class: (<ul>)

• bullet item
• bullet item
• bullet item

List with class="spread": (<ul class="spread">)

• bullet item
• bullet item
• bullet item

Text wrapped in <blockquote> tags
Cras sollicitudin metus. In hac habitasse platea dictumst. Mauris nec lacus. Sed ultrices lacus eget augue. Donec vel orci eget ipsum mattis ullamcorper. Pellentesque cursus facilisis dolor.

Images:
Here's the code to use when embedding images (create a snippet now!) An example is below.

<div class="clear-block">
<div class="thumbnail">
<a href="/communities/files/u391/18520-2.png"><img src="/communities/files/u391/18520-2_0.png" alt="" /></a>
</div>
<p><a href="/communities/files/u391/18520-2.png">Click to view</a>.</p>
<p>Figure 2 - Selecting the container with the driver</p>
</div>

Code Snippets:

<pre>
Use <pre class="code"> tags to surround code. If lines of code are too long, they will scroll gracefully.
  <xml>Single indents are two (2) spaces, not tabs.
    <item>Double indents are four (4) spaces, not tabs.
    <item>Double
    <item>Double
      <item>Triple indents are six (6) spaces, not tabs.
  </xml>
Internet Explorer will cut off the last line of your code if you don't add a carriage return before the closing pre tag.

</pre>

This code:

<table>
  <tr><th>Optional Table Heading</th><th>Optional Table Heading</th></tr>
  <tr class="even"><td>Table Data</td><td>Table Data</td></tr>
  <tr class="odd"><td>Table Data</td><td>Table Data</td></tr>
  <tr class="even"><td>Table Data</td><td>Table Data</td></tr>
  <tr class="odd"><td>Table Data</td><td>Table Data</td></tr>
</table>

Builds this table:

Optional Table Heading	Optional Table Heading
Table Data	Table Data
Table Data	Table Data
Table Data	Table Data
Table Data	Table Data

Signing up for Email Notifications

Would you like to get an e-mail whenever a comment is posted to an article you're interested in?

Simply click the "subscribe post" link at the bottom of each article, and you'll receive automatic notifications of any updates to that article.

If you eventually lose interest in that article (it could happen), or if you decide you want to prune your subscription list to control the volume of email in your box, go to your "my account" page and manage your subscriptions from the "my subscriptions" tab.

Using RSS Feeds

If you just can't stand to be the last one to know when new stuff is posted, RSS is perfect for you. RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a cool technology that lets you tap into a list of what's new on our site -- without even visiting. If you see a headline you want to know more about, a simple click takes you to our site where you can read to your heart's content. Spammers hate RSS because they can't use it to fill your mail box. Nothing chafes a spammer more than info delivery via RSS.

How to Hook Up

Finding the RSS feeds that are right for you

Click the Site Map button in the footer. Each of the main topics on our site has a corresponding RSS feed. For example, if you're keen on ZENworks or System Management topics, you might want the RSS feed for ZENworks. (You can see the number of stories we've posted about any given topic, to give you an idea of how frequently you can expect to see new content in that area.) It will deliver any story we post about ZENworks directly into your handy RSS reader (see list below).

Using the RSS feeds

You can click the RSS icon to see the raw XML (the stuff RSS is made of) or you can get yourself a reader -- a simple tool that makes sense of the language we send the headlines in. The good news is, readers are everywhere:

• The Firefox Web browser has a built-in reader. You can learn about it here.
• My Yahoo! lets you set up a personal portal that makes it easy to pull in your favorite RSS news.
• Google lets you set up a Home Page of your own where you can specify RSS news to peruse.
• There are also a number of tools and utilities you can leverage to read news. Here's a list we found with a little help from Google Directory.

Using the Forums

You must be logged in as a member of Cool Solutions in order to post in the forums. (Anyone can read them, but you have to log in to post.)

To make a post in a forum:

1. Click the forum that best applies to your question.
2. Click Post New Forum Topic.
3. Type a subject for your topic in the Subject field.
4. Type your question in the Body field. (No HTML formatting required.)
5. Click Preview, to see how your post will look.
6. Click Submit when you are satisfied with it.

To respond to an existing post:

1. Click the forum topic you want to answer or comment on.
2. Click Add New Comment at the bottom of the existing forum thread.
3. Click Preview Comment, to see how your comment will look.
4. Click Post Comment when you are satisfied with it.

Using the Site Map

Click the Site Map link to find a comprehensive list of all the topics we've written about, and the topics we intend to write about. This is a great way to get a good idea of the kinds of things we are focusing on in Cool Solutions.

It is also a quick way to see how many posts (articles, tips, forum posts, guides, etc.) have been associated with the different topics.

When you click a Topic on the Site Map list, you'll be taken to a "collector page" -- a giant list of all the posts associated with that topic.