I’m very happy to introduce our Beta 2 version of ITNinja. The team has been hard at work improving and enhancing the site and it really shows. That said, we are still in beta (planning launch in March) and some of the bigger challenges with the site are still being addressed.

One huge task we have undertaken is to merge the AppDeploy Package KB, Software KB, Downloads and Tools all into one feature. Each software title will have its own home page with all known versions to serve as a jumping point for any information related to such software.  We still have lots of work to do pulling this data together in a clean way (believe it or not we’ve come a long way already).  The reason this is such a challenge is that we are basing the creation of these entries on inventory items and the Add Remove Programs data, which is frustratingly inconsistent and lacking between vendors, products and even between versions of the same products. We will continue to improve it, so watch for improvements there!

To make this information easier to discuss, we have made all companies, software titles and even software titles with specific versions their own individual tags on ITNinja. This means there are hundreds of thousands of tags. To deal with the huge volume of tags, we are showing only the top 2,000 in the tag box—to see all the tags we have available you’ll need to click the “load more tags” link below the tag entry box. This was a fallback approach to getting all the tags to be immediately available, but it is not a solution we will be continuing with. Right now we are working on a new interface to tagging that should do away with need for popping up a big window to navigate tags. So, for Beta 2, please bear with us, we plan to offer a much-improved solution shortly.

In addition to working on our tagging interface, we are also working on a way to allow you to add software and tags to the site yourself. Other items now in development include a means to report spam or inappropriate content, the ability to view the activity feed of another user (via their profile page) and an invite a friend feature which will reward you with Ninja points for referrals to ITNinja. Look for some of these improvements (and more) later this February!

Some known issues include…

• What is being listed as “popular” on the site needs some work, and may currently show old, unrated listings in some cases
• The Software pages have a place for tagged questions, blogs and link content but these lists are not getting populated at this time
• Profile privacy settings don’t fully reflect what is displayed
• Right now all matching blogs are displayed when browsing those matching a tag or user and this list may be very long—we will limit the length and offer a “load more” option

 If you see something not working correct, please let me know here:

http://beta.itninja.com/contact

If you see something that is missing or needs improvement, please let me know using the “Beta Feedback” button floating on the right side of the ITNinja site!

Enjoy!

Bob Kelly

ITNinja Community Manager