If you are a regular 4sysops reader, you probably have noticed the new layout. But that’s not all. We have introduced new community features that allow you to interact with other IT pros and improve your IT knowledge and skills.
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Latest posts by Michael Pietroforte (see all)

The new features

These are the main new features:

IT pro network

  • Site-wide activity page (blog posts, wiki docs, forum topics, profile changes, etc.)
  • Microblog posts for all members
  • Ways to follow other members (view only their activities)
  • Private and public messaging between members

Wiki

  • Members can edit docs in the Web front end
  • Changes are logged in the document history
  • Previous versions of documents can be restored

Of course, we still have the forum for IT administrators. More than 800 admins have registered so far. I hope that the new features will result in a more active community.

The member page lists all IT pros in the 4sysops IT pro network

The member page lists all IT pros in the 4sysops IT pro network

Your 4sysops profile

If you registered before, you can use the same credentials to sign on to 4sysops. If you forgot your password, you can reset it in the log in dialog window.

I transferred your bio field and your avatar to the new system. You might want to check out your profile photo because the new software crops pictures differently.

If you don’t have a profile picture yet, you can use your webcam to take a new photo and upload it to 4sysops right from your profile page (if your Web browser supports webcams).

If you didn’t enter your biographical info before, you might want to do this now, so other IT pros can learn about your expertise. Just click on your avatar in the top menu after you sign in.

All your 4sysops activity appears in your profile

All your 4sysops activity appears in your profile

You’ll notice that you can do quite a few things in your profile. Your entire activity and that of your friends on 4sysops are documented here. You can publicly or privately communicate with other IT pros around the world and change your email notification settings and quite a few other things.

The IT pro network

In the future, I will post important news relevant to sys admins and DevOps in our new Activity stream. If you want, you can do this, too. You can also use this feature to link to your own IT-related articles that you posted elsewhere.

Or you could share one of your victories in your daily IT routine. Perhaps you wrote a cool PowerShell one-liner that you want to share with other IT pros. You can also post short scripts or link to admin tools that you find useful.

The 4sysops Activity stream logs everything happening on 4sysops

The 4sysops Activity stream logs everything happening on 4sysops

To link to a Web page, you only have to click on the link icon under the activity form field and then paste the URL. The page title and a short excerpt will be automatically loaded, because you may know them from other social networks. If you link to YouTube, the video will be automatically embedded. You can also upload images (click in the activity form field and then on the media button).

Post links and upload screenshots in the Activity stream

Post links and upload screenshots in the Activity stream

But please, don’t post pictures of your pets here. This feature is mainly for screenshots. The main difference between Facebook and the company is that on 4sysops, only IT pros can be members. So you can share the latest pics of your pub crawls on Facebook, but a cool PowerShell snippet would find a more knowledgeable audience on 4sysops.

If you want to stay up to date about everything happening in the 4sysops IT pro network, you can subscribe to the Side Wide Activity RSS feed. However, a better way is to regularly visit 4sysops, because then you have more options to filter content that you are really interested in. For instance, you can follow only the posts of your friends, display only the latest microblog posts (updates) or changes in Wiki docs.

The Wiki

At the moment, there is just one doc in the Wiki (free admin eBooks). We will publish certain types of articles, such as overviews and tutorials, as Wiki docs.

The docs can be edited by all 4sysops members. Thus, if you know of a good, free eBook for admins, you can just add it to the list. Or if you discover that a book is no longer available, you can remove it.

In the 4sysops wiki, IT pros can share their knowledge

In the 4sysops wiki, IT pros can share their knowledge

Because all document changes are logged, we can easily revert inappropriate modifications. Whenever someone edits a Wiki doc, a corresponding entry will appear in the Activity stream. Thus, changes will be noticed.

You can also create new Wiki docs. Please make sure that the content is relevant to IT pros. The wiki is an experiment, and I hope this feature won’t be abused. If you are not sure that a doc topic is good, please contact me after you sign in. And if you are interested in sharing more of your knowledge and skills in the wiki, you can also earn money this way. Send me a message as well if this is something for you.

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I didn’t cover all the new features in this post. I suggest you look around a little. Please share your opinion about the new layout and the new features in a comment below. Please also let me know if you discover a bug or if you have suggestions for changes.

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10 Comments
  1. Avatar
    Frankie M (Rank ) 8 years ago

    I like the new design.

  2. Avatar Author

    Frankie, thanks! I like it too. 😉

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    john taylor (Rank 1) 8 years ago

    I like it, but I have noticed quite a bit of slowdown navigating from page to page.

    Is anyone else noticing this?

    • Avatar Author

      John, that is possible. At peek times we sometimes have performance issues. This problem also existed with the old theme. Traffic has been growing significantly lately and the server has become too small. I am currently trying to figure out what the best specs for the new server are. 4sysops might be down for a few seconds when I switch to a new instance.

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    Galabuzi Kelvin Lukoda 7 years ago

    Thanks for the member Approval,Iam totally new to this.But will catch up to speed

  5. Avatar
    Deb 6 years ago

    Thanks for the approval of my membership, can anyone please help me to get the script for SSL certificate expiry notification to email?

     

  6. Avatar

    Thanks for the member Approval,  I am totally new to this.But will catch up to soon

  7. Avatar

    Thanks for approving my membership. I appreciate the good work you are doing here. It feels great to be part of such an awesome platform to learn share ideas.

  8. Avatar
    Jane Leza 4 years ago

    Iv bin trying join for a while this came up in my search Thanks im joined

  9. Avatar
    carp (Rank 2) 3 years ago

    The site looks great. I find it easy to navigate, and the drop-downs make finding what I'm looking for less difficult than analyzing a list of search engine results.

    I also thank you for the approval.

    Everyone a nice week ahead.

    Thank you.

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