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BMC Social

May 2012 Previous month Next month
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In order to protect your password and other sensitive information that go through the wire, SSL (aka https instead of http) is used on BMC Communities.

Some browsers display warnings from time to time.

Browser inconsistencies

Various browsers react differently with the SSL capability:

  • Microsoft IE 8 and 9 (yep, not 7) actually display an "unsecure warning" if we then embed some specific content using https (strange, they should complain for http),
  • Recently, a Google Chrome auto-update created some issues, since we now have this page has insecure content appearing (it actually now appears on many web sites, not only BMC Communities, so Google may tune this capability in their next refresh)
  • Firefox rarely complains when http and https are mixed (details actually depend on versions you use)

 

Based on browser usage, we're always trying to find the best tradeoff to reduce impact of such browser behavior inconsistencies.

Things are actually more complex than what we would like them to be, see this post.

 

Current troublemakers

There are several items that we know create issues depending on the specific browser version you use, for example:

  1. Some external (but BMC-owned anyway) javascript magic, called from the pages here
  2. Embedded YouTube videos (like this one)

 

So what's next?

We are constantly tuning these SSL capabilities to minimize impact (and we'll update as we make progress)

In the meantime, you can trust what's coming from BMC Communities.

 

This warning only tells you that some data is not going to be encrypted over the wire, nothing big to worry about.

 

Do you have any tip to share on this topic?

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remedy-force-small.png

 

Now it is even easier to get to this exciting BMC offering - It gets up one level to directly under Product Forums as a main product. So it is just one click away:

From your Communities global nav (mouse-over on) Product forums > BMC Remedyforce

- just 1 click.

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if--you-smell-what-the-rock.pngIn earlier posts we've already seen how easy it is to skim through latest activity threads right from the front page. Now it's time to give you an even more 'touch screen' experience of your favorite topics on BMC communities.

Are you listenin?

It is smellin a hot mixture of itsm, cloud_computing, bsm.... and much much more from all across!

 

Taste it yourself: From the blue strip, right beside your avatar image when you're logged in Browse > Tags

That's what's Hot and Cookin in BMC Communities right now.

 

Click on your topic of interest to see the search results below the tag matrix And also filter the type of content on that topic.

tag-combo.pngZoom in further

Enjoy macro views on individual topics by selecting multiple tags - the Tag cloud engine exposes finer details to you and you can start becoming really specific here.

 

 

 

problem-tag.pngWant to see other variations?

Type your keyword in the Search Tagsfield and get to see all possible varieties of the topic suggested by the system, multiple keywords conjoined with an underscore.

 

Now isn't that some awesome control for your research?

 

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We have experienced the global navigation of the new UX does a great job in defining the Community and recently we've introduced our YouTube channel  the Resources offered.

lost-horse.pngWhere am I?

Communities is one information giant and one of our main objectives on this blog has been to give you tips of taming it successfully.

Be it the Where to interact series by Matt or how to follow your favorite Community or even going to the detail of choosing your default tab. We are very excited to bring you the description of every community right on the banner, brought to life by our friend Mayuresh Wadekar.

 

In one glance you get to have an insight of what the Community is all about.

Better Search

Community descriptions are picked up in Search indexing so you can reach the right product by using your industry acronym you are used to!

So for e.g. your search term 'BPM' would now suggest you the Recovery Management community because it has BPM in its Community description. To me, this means I get a suggestion of useful keywords I could bookmark a resource with.

A better description?

In the 'About' Community we are always thrilled to see the social interactions. As the description says, this is a place for:

Resources and Training (help, feedback, tips, faq, news, and more!). Ask your questions here on how to best enjoy this site!

So if you happen to come across a community description you disagree with or have a suggestion for, feel free to let us know by opening a discussion right here on the About forum.

Matt Laurenceau

And YouTube too!

Posted by Matt Laurenceau May 10, 2012
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Some weeks ago, we introduced the Twitter account used for BMC Communities.

 

Today, let's unveil our YouTube channel.

YouTube is definitely a quick and easy way to deliver streaming videos to you.

Where to find this Channel?

Resources2.PNGAs usual, we want to make things easy to enjoy. So it's one click away.

 

On the header of BMC Communities, many of you have used Resources (on the far right of the Top Navigation).

It used to point to About BMC Communities. It still does (just click on the menu label).

 

And today we've expanded the Resources that are available for you: it now also displays a menu, with About BMC Communities, and a pointer to our YouTube Channel, that we've used for the past months (without even mentioning it).

 

This YouTube Channel is a great way to have access to many videos that appear within the BMC Communities site.

 

What does the Channel contain?

Videos that are posted on this channel are pretty unformal, posted by Community members.

 

As you can see on the playlists, most of the vids will address:

  • Product Demos: live fun with the products and solutions (sharing tips,educating on tricks - "showing how to achieve things")
  • About BMC Communities: focusing on the people who are part of the Community, and on the site itself
  • Corporate Social Responsibility: a community is about caring for each other, right?

 

How to participate?

Should you have a video that you'd like to highlight for the bigger community, let us know by posting here.

  1. If your video is already posted on YouTube (on your channel), give us the URL, and we'll Like it or Fav it
  2. If it's a video file (MP4, WMV, etc.) on your computer, attach it to the Doc you'll create (describe business context, and add teasers for tech details), and we'll upload the vid right on BMC Communities Channel, crediting you by adding your name in the description of the vid.

 

Looking forward to enjoying even more video resources!

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As Communities frequent-flyers, you might already have your way of following your favorite spaces and resources. Once on a Community the information is presented according to the content types which could be Documents, Discussions and Blogs as Tabs.

Default starting point

The Overview tab like it says is designed to give you a one glance highlight of the offerings of that particular community. By intelligently introducing different content widgets like Most popular content, sub-Communities, recent activity, top participant widgets the site owners can choose what could give the best, first impression of the Community. This is your default starting tab or landing page of each community. Kind of like your standard allocation if you haven't specified your preference during your check in process.

window-seat-view.png

Your seat selector

We have a very cool seat selector equivalent. Now if there are certain communities where you are primarily interested in discussions, you can have that set as your default tab. There is a small hyperlink to the right of the last tab on on the community banner that helps you set the current tab you are on, as the default. communities-tabs.png

 

 

 

 

 

 

For e.g. if I'm most interested in the DevOps blog, I can select that as my 'default tab', and whenever I reach for the DevOps community, I start right from the blog. The setting is saved against your username and whenever you log in, you start from your preferred position.

 

So, as a frequent flyer you can istruct the system to remember you and if you have chosen your destination well, hope this tip gives you a further targeted browsing experience on BMC Communities

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We've started to see a lot of enthusiasm around the new design and we've enjoyed featuring some of the shiny new features each week on this blog.

Have you seen how easy it is to check out what your friends are up to recently?

Your friends on the front page

The homepage is all dynamic content from the main site areas featuring activity feeds of all the users.

Check out Blogs, Documents and Discussions from across Communities in a single console view right where you start.

home-page-activity.png

Be on the front page

Great new opportunity to be featured from the Communities home participating in BMC Communities. If you have a query or a contribution just create it in the appropriate forum it will be picked up and others see it at the home page level.

 

Now, you might want to have a complete profile with an avatar as that forms your first impression on communities. Just a couple of simple steps, come on over to the front

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