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Heads Up: As of June 2012, we will no longer be publishing content about any of the products that are now sold by NetIQ. Those products (IDM, Access Manager, Sentinel, PlateSpin, Operations Center, etc.) will be covered within the NetIQ Qmunity. Please do not submit any more content about those products to Cool Solutions. Read this article for more details.

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.

Points are awarded for content submissions as described below. To maintain a point redemption balance you must have activity through a period of 12 months. If no activity is maintained by contribution or redemption, your point balance will expire after being inactive for a 12 month period.

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 August 2009, we have revised our policy regarding partner content. For over a year we have limited partner content to Webinar and Event announcements, and technical tips that promote a Novell product in conjunction with a partner product.

We did this in response to complaints that our sites were too full of "advertorial" content that crowded out the technical information our sites are famous for. However, that strict policy excluded us from publishing news and special offers that might be interesting to our readers.

Therefore, we have decided to allow a wider range of information from our partners:

1. Webinars and Event announcements
2. Technical tips showing Novell products in conjunction with partner products.
3. Product release information
4. Special offers and promotions
5. Success stories

We will continue to reject articles that place other partners in an unfavorable light. The focus should always be on the positive benefits of using Novell products together with partner products.

To get longer and broader exposure, Partners are always welcome to purchase ads to promote their offerings, announce new products, highlight successes, solicit beta testers, etc.

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 AppNote, 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), see More information about formatting options. 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 Save. 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 Save.

Disclaimer: As with everything else at Cool Solutions, this content is definitely not supported by Novell (so don't even think of calling Support if you try something and it blows up).

It was contributed by a community member and is published "as is." It seems to have worked for at least one person, and might work for you. But please be sure to test, test, test before you do anything drastic with it.