Online Tutorials

To the Firewall Team,

First of all ,hats off to you guys for the effort which you are putting in over the cisco lab.I know you guys are really busy with that but still i thought i might put in a small suggestion..

How about putting in a section of online tutorials where a step by step procedure is given of how to perform a certain task. I mean lets say ,someone wants to learn to install a DNS server on Linux.The person would probably go buy a book, search the net ,put up a post or maybe just ask some one at his place but what if he could come directly to firewall.cx ,browse to the tutorial section,go to the linux sub section and view the document.


In case he is searching for something which is not present ,he could request for it and then the members of the community could write one and submit it to you guys for review and then you could put it up.

The idea came to me coz at times it takes me hours to find relevant information on the net for some of the practicals which i do.

My only intention to put forward this idea was to make learning and sharing of knowledge ,a much easier thing to do. In case someone feels that the idea violates the concept of learning,then kindly do not flame me for that.

In case he is searching for something which is not present ,he could request for it and then the members of the community could write one and submit it to you guys for review and then you could put it up.

I'm with Maximus

Still, it would be nice to try to keep a good level in the quality of the tutorials. There are already too many incomplete, scatered or outdated texts for every subject, around the net, just as there is information on networking subjects. As a surfing user I was attracted to firewall.cx because it's texts covered just about everything I was looking for, from basic to advanced networking concepts, nicely organized and accessible. But the important thing was that all the texts were very professionally written and well explained, in fact the best I could find.

So, of course it would be useful to have a place with a frequently updated collection of tutorials -in the spirit with which the linux section has began-, and each of us can certainly write something helpful in various subjects that has searched. But the fact is that the quality and completeness of our work would not be something guaranteed, as is the current material at fw.cx -without that meaning that it would not be useful or anything-.

That's why I think it is better that the submited texts go somewhere in a new section, that will be specifically for contributions.

MaXiMuS, Nske,

Your suggestions are very much accepted and appreciated.

One of the reasons this site has grown and become what it is today, is because we have been listening to our community, trying to offer as much as possible, without sacrificing on the quality or content of our material.

Nske's point of a separate dedicated section for these tutorials is a great idea, and if my memory isn't playing tricks on me, I remember talking about creating a 'member submissions' section where all this would fall under.

It is vital that our content is constantly updated, but at the same time introduce new services e.g Cisco lab, which unfortunately end up taking up all our time.

Because we want to expand & grow, therefore making this site a much better resource, we've already made plans for a new 'member dedicated' section for your contributions.

In fact, we already have one submission from a member and awaiting his second one to kick-start the section.

We should however point out that the key point to this new section is not the firewall.cx team, but the firewall.cx members.

Your submissions are going to eventually drive the new section and dedicating time to produce such material does take some effort.
Of course we'll be here to help and ensure the tutorials follow our site's guidelines, so components such as diagrams, will most probably be re-done by us, helping to further enhance the tutorial.

Our technical editors will be able to proof read your material and that way, we are sure the end result will be close to what you would expect based on our existing material.

To further motivate our members and community, there will be list all members that have contributed to our site, similar to our existing 'Meet the team' page. There are also discussions on creating a separate forum group for our contributors.

Closing, let me say that I personally am very pleased to see our members wanting to be part of Firewall.cx in this way. The rewards for the site will be as enormous as they will be for each contributor, because we'll ensure they get much more back than what they put in

Cheers,

Chris ,
Your idea of a "members submissions " section sounds really great , I am really looking forward to it.

Excellent.... so we will be expecting your submissions

Its ultimately all about community... when a group of 10 people get together and each of them shares 10%, everyone ends up learning 90%

Strong community spirit is what makes really successful information centers.. just look at the old BBS's....

In fact more than anything, the f.cx team is working on building up the community spirit.. and it all pays off, we recognise our 'regulars' and they will be rewarded because thats the way the site works...

Besides, it looks really good to see your published work on the net accessed by around 40,000 people daily....

Looks good on the resume too


Cheers all,