Very interesting to see the very different responses here to Cliff's effort... I'm sure glad *I* wasn't hammered like this when I created EdNet all those years ago! Appears that tool/library is now SO old it doesn’t even show up on a myITForum search anymore, but at the time, it was pretty well received, even as crude as it was! :-)
Ed Aldrich Mobile: (401) 924-2293 [email protected] Ent Cli Mgmt (2003-2015) Sent from my Microsoft Surface -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Cliff Hobbs Sent: Thursday, December 10, 2015 4:43 PM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: [mssms] An open letter to the ConfigMgr Community OK last brief word on this from me - if anyone wants to discuss this further please feel free to email me offlist and I'd be more than happy to answer any concerns, questions, have a debate, etc. Maybe I should have said Rod gave me permission – my bad apologies for any confusion. As for the content, I’m not just hoovering up stuff from this list and then putting it behind a paywall. I’d be peeved if someone did that to my stuff. My philosophy has always been when I do something I write it down, test it. Done. Next time I need to do the same thing (maybe months/ years later), I don’t need to reinvent the wheel researching, writing, testing – I can just find it from last time and know it will work. I've tried Ads, banners whatever you want to call it over the past 12 years and it doesn't work for me. As a one man band I don't have the time to seek sponsors, try to keep them happy, write content and pay my bills. As for paying for content this is no different to buying a book, going on a course, attending a conference - you're ultimately paying for the content it's just in a different format. Bottom line - I want to write and share content - that will never change. The problem is I can't do that as effectively as I want to and this is my attempt to try to make this work. My choice how I do it, your choice whether you like it or go elsewhere ;-) That's me done. Apologies to all (especially to Rod), for upsetting anyone. -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Krueger, Jeff Sent: 10 Dec 2015 21:16 To: [email protected] Subject: RE: [mssms] An open letter to the ConfigMgr Community +1 -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Marcum, John Sent: Thursday, December 10, 2015 4:09 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [mssms] An open letter to the ConfigMgr Community Personally I've never paid for access to any website. Ad based revenue is a better model IMO Typos courtesy of Apple. Sent from my iOS device. On Dec 10, 2015, at 3:06 PM, Johan van Dijk <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: +1 From: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of ccollins9 Sent: Thursday, December 10, 2015 9:41 PM To: mssms <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Subject: Re: [mssms] An open letter to the ConfigMgr Community Well that's good you got permission, had you mentioned that I wouldn't have said anything. However, I still think it's a total advert on a free list. What bugs me is that you've essentially taken all that knowledge that people have graciously and freely shared over the years, which you admit has saved your bacon, and put it behind a paywall. That just doesn't sit well with me. Just my opinion, maybe I'm in the minority here, I don't personally know you or most folks on this list as I've only been using it for a few years. I'll bow out. On Thu, Dec 10, 2015 at 2:53 PM, Cliff Hobbs <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Thanks for the reply, comments inline in green ☺. From: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> [mailto:[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>] On Behalf Of ccollins9 Sent: 10 Dec 2015 16:39 To: mssms <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Subject: Re: [mssms] An open letter to the ConfigMgr Community Thanks for the SPAM! I don't get nearly enough of it ;-) BTW, you're in violation of the rules of this emil list. https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.myitforum.com_absolutenm_EmailLists.aspx&d=CwIGaQ&c=aLnS6P8Ng0zSNhCF04OWImQ_He2L69sNWG3PbxeyieE&r=pQGVi_ygWZb0EWR_EeMFzgKJCQ8AFTQI7Ck6iiIPItI&m=Sxoj_MQKHCj-h7AtlEHm-sNufthqYfNB4AH3CdTuWfU&s=HW_mG2lMhjzjL3Zdh9G43WEnY_U3R1X_rmqDgmBvd4g&e= Email list rules: There are not many rules for the email lists. The lists are yours to use to find answers to technical issues. However, the lists are NOT marketing vehicles. Posts that the community deems unacceptable in relation to 3rd party product marketing or 3rd party product announcements will be taken under advisement, reviewed, and a warning given to the vendor. Any 3rd party vendor who breaks this rule more than once after receiving the warning, will be booted from the lists for 3 months. This rule applies only to 3rd party vendors, not community members who create free tools for use, support, and collaboration. Just to clarify, I approached Rod BEFORE posting this and asked for his permission to post it sending him a copy which he signed off on. • Lack of screenshots/ “real world” troubleshooting experience. Getting help from folks with real world experience is why free listservs like this exist. I’m not disagreeing and as someone who has been on this list from 1998 I know all about that ;-) There have been countless occasions where folks on this list have saved my bacon but I’d like to think I’ve given back where I can. • In the case of physical books the content either being out of date by the time you get the book, or there being a delay whilst the book is written and even then the content soon becomes out of date. This is why free TechNet exists Even TechNet has it issues such as lack of screenshots, “real world” troubleshooting experience. Sure it is the official word from Microsoft but even it has some holes which I’m aiming to fill. • Everyone writing/ blogging about the same content with whole parts of the product not being covered. Many resources > one resource (or site in this case) Not disagreeing just don’t see much coverage of some parts of the product which is a gap and frustrating if you’re using them, have an issue and the search engines return tumble weed. • How can you trust the content you find in the search engines is going to work/ isn’t going to break something else/ put you in an unsupported position unless you know the author? So, are you guaranteeing that your paysite WILL keep you in a state of "support", will not break anything, and will always work? How can you make such a guarantee? Are you a Microsoft employee formally trained in Configuration Manager? We’ve all seen content on the Internet that is questionable and this problem isn’t just limited to ConfigMgr. Of course as I’m not the guy writing the ConfigMgr code I can’t give a cast iron guarantee. What I can guarantee is that my content doesn’t make assumptions and will get you from A > B without you wondering how you managed to do so or getting lost along the way. • Having to wade through the list of results from search engines to determine whether what you found matches your issue. Again, many resources > one resource I’m just trying to pull everything together in one place to save you searching through page after page of search results trying to locate an answer to your question/ resolution to your problem. Sure there are plenty of folks happy to do so, I’m just trying to give folks a choice, Sorry for my snark, but if I were running a pay knowledgebase, the LAST place I'd advertise is a free Listserv filled with wonderful folks that help each other out of the kindness of our hearts and in a spirit of professional comradery within our shared industry. We make each other better admins everyday. No problem everyone is entitled to their opinion. I’ve been a member of this list since 1998 and giving away content since then. It’s just frustrating for me that I have so much content to contribute and am passionate about writing, I’m just trying to find a way of doing it that allows me to pay my bills. Just speaking personally, the only people I pay support to are the makers of the product or a certified partner/vendor. When you take money to provide a resource of support people can rely on, you need to be able to back that support up with follow-up support. Agreed and if something doesn’t work I’m telling you, is wrong, incomplete then of course I’d welcome the feedback, it’s the only way we can improve. Sorry, I'm sure your site is nice and I commend the entrepreneurial spirit, but this isn't a place to advertise. Let me clarify. This isn’t an advert. It’s a way of me trying to explain to the folks on this list many of whom are good friends that I wouldn’t have met otherwise, and have used my content/ site in the past why I’m doing what I’m doing rather than just throwing walls up around my content and folks wondering Huh? What happened? I hope this has answered your points. Feel free to reply to this thread or if your prefer to me offlist ☺. On Thu, Dec 10, 2015 at 10:34 AM, Cliff Hobbs <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Dear all, since starting to work with SMS 2.0 back in 1998 I’ve been keen to capture and share my experience with the product. Since then I’ve tried through FAQShop to write regular, high quality ConfigMgr-related content to make all of our lives easier. Unfortunately this has proved difficult due to limits in technology (trying to do things the way I want to do it), and financial backing to pay for my time to write content. A year ago I had a eureka moment and since then I’ve be working on project “OneFAQ” which I've officially released today that currently contains over 2,000 new, never published before FAQs. The initial focus has been on Troubleshooting and some of the design stuff but my ultimate goal is to cover everything. In a nutshell, the existing page structure on FAQShop will remain i.e. organising content by product version and then into categories (“What’s New”, “Design and Planning”, “Installation and Configuration”, “Administration”, and “Troubleshooting”). Each page then contains the relevant related FAQs. However, rather than publishing the content on FAQShop, effective from today each page will contain a list of links that link out to corresponding OneNote Notebooks hosted on my OneDrive. This provides a multitude of benefits not least it allows me to better structure, organise and manage the content rather than trying to do it on the FAQShop website which was a right pain (I could end up spending longer organising content than actually writing it). The other benefit to me is that I can control access to my content. Several people have commented FAQShop is like a book and I must be crazy to be literally giving it away for free and I’ve come to realise that if I want to fulfil my passion of fulltime writing, the only way I’m going to be able to do this is to charge for my work. Sure there are plenty of ConfigMgr resources “out there” like books, the Microsoft website and a host of other resources where you can find a lot of ConfigMgr-related information, but these each have their limitations such as: • Lack of screenshots/ “real world” troubleshooting experience. • In the case of physical books the content either being out of date by the time you get the book, or there being a delay whilst the book is written and even then the content soon becomes out of date. • Everyone writing/ blogging about the same content with whole parts of the product not being covered. • How can you trust the content you find in the search engines is going to work/ isn’t going to break something else/ put you in an unsupported position unless you know the author? • Having to wade through the list of results from search engines to determine whether what you found matches your issue. The list goes on. With Microsoft releasing the new version of ConfigMgr earlier this week and their plans to update it quarterly, the need to be able to keep up with this rapid pace of change has just become a lot more challenging, but I believe my strategy allows me to just that. With OneFAQ you can browse FAQShop for free to see if your FAQ is covered and then pay for an Access Pass (24 hour or Annual), to get access to the content you require. I’ve based the pricing on £0.01 per FAQ which I think is fair given the content that’s in there currently and by signing up to an Annual Pass you not only get access to the 2,000+ FAQs in there today you also get access to all updates coming over the next year which includes me continuing to expand the ConfigMgr 2012 content, and starting new Notebooks for ConfigMgr 1511 (and later as the product evolves). This is just the start. With the content being hosted centrally in OneNote (which is free), I can centrally update the content ensuring you always have access to the latest content. Basing the solution on OneNote also provides you with flexibility in deciding: • Which Notebooks you open • The order you wish to have the Notebooks displayed in • Flexible searching allowing you to search the current page, section, Notebook or all Notebooks. I’m also not just covering ConfigMgr but everything associated with it. So far example rather than just saying “Load ADSI Edit” I’ve created a bunch of Windows FAQs that tell you how to do it as not everyone knows how to do such operations – my goal is that an Alien could land from outer space and by following OneFAQ they’d be able to Design, Install, Configure, Administer, and Troubleshoot on ConfigMgr. I’ve created a new FAQs page explaining the reason for my decision and more details on my approach: https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.faqshop.com_wp_faqs&d=CwIGaQ&c=aLnS6P8Ng0zSNhCF04OWImQ_He2L69sNWG3PbxeyieE&r=pQGVi_ygWZb0EWR_EeMFzgKJCQ8AFTQI7Ck6iiIPItI&m=Sxoj_MQKHCj-h7AtlEHm-sNufthqYfNB4AH3CdTuWfU&s=FwLTLCvJSV4JT85WkOYVXlrzINw4jIdkVKTjS71iitA&e= Many thanks to everyone that has helped me over the years and I hope that by adopting this strategy it will allow me to spend more time doing what I do best and that’s writing high quality, regular content for everyone’s benefit. I am under no illusion that trying to create a ConfigMgr/ Intune hybrid Knowledgebase covering everything is no easy feat but I’m up to the challenge if you are willing to support me financially. The bottom line is I need everyone’s support to make this happen. I’m willing to put in the hours to write the content, but putting it bluntly I need your money to make it a reality without having to do other jobs that detract from me writing to allow me to provide for my family. I have great faith in you all and wish all of you and your families a Very Merry Christmas and Happy, Healthy, Prosperous 2016. If you have any questions please let me know either on here or email me directly cliff AT https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__faqshop.com&d=CwIGaQ&c=aLnS6P8Ng0zSNhCF04OWImQ_He2L69sNWG3PbxeyieE&r=pQGVi_ygWZb0EWR_EeMFzgKJCQ8AFTQI7Ck6iiIPItI&m=Sxoj_MQKHCj-h7AtlEHm-sNufthqYfNB4AH3CdTuWfU&s=F4srIGJ0Frpooa5bhwHq8EBcmGxzTj7wTt1k7Pezwgw&e= <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__faqshop.com&d=CwIGaQ&c=aLnS6P8Ng0zSNhCF04OWImQ_He2L69sNWG3PbxeyieE&r=pQGVi_ygWZb0EWR_EeMFzgKJCQ8AFTQI7Ck6iiIPItI&m=Sxoj_MQKHCj-h7AtlEHm-sNufthqYfNB4AH3CdTuWfU&s=F4srIGJ0Frpooa5bhwHq8EBcmGxzTj7wTt1k7Pezwgw&e= > Kind regards, Cliff ________________________________ Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail is from a law firm and may be protected by the attorney-client or work product privileges. 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