It may look small at first: just sticking "My" in front of developerWorks. But what those characters represent is huge: You can now interact with developerWorks' how-to content and with your peers on a personal level—by personalizing and customizing your view of developerWorks content so you see just the information that's pertinent to you. My developerWorks makes it easy. It also gives you a window into the ways your peers are using, tagging, and contributing to the knowledge base, so you can learn from each other while building your skills and your professional network at the same time.
What can I do with My developerWorks?
Since My developerWorks is all about you, let's look at the ways you use the site, and how My developerWorks fits in.
Table 1. Using My developerWorks
| If you want to: | Try these 6 components of My developerWorks: |
|---|---|
Acquire knowledge and skills by using developerWorks
as an essential technical resource:
|
|
And contribute your own
knowledge and skills by interacting with My developerWorks
content and users:
|
|
And also directly influence the My developerWorks
community with your
expertise and opinions:
|
|
After a simple sign-in, you can easily access these six complementary components from the My developerWorks toolbar shown in Figure 1:
Figure 1. My developerWorks toolbar
How do I sign in to My developerWorks?
To use the components of My developerWorks—including creating your professional profile and custom home page, finding colleagues, tagging and bookmarking content, setting up feeds, joining groups, and more—you need to be signed into My developerWorks.
Sign in to My developerWorks as follows:
- Do you have an
IBM ID and password?
- If so, skip to step 2.
- If not, please register
first. (You can also click the
Register link
at the top of any developerWorks page.)
Figure 2. Registering and signing in to My developerWorks
On the My IBM registration page, create an IBM ID and password, and fill in the other required fields. Then return to developerWorks.
- Once you have an
IBM ID and password, click Sign in and fill in your IBM ID and
password. If this is your first time signing in to My developerWorks, you
are also asked to choose a screen name on the
My developerWorks: Sign in page.
Hint: Choose a screen name that is your first and last name (for example, james_coughlin), so that you are easy to find and recognize.
The first time you sign in, an initial My developerWorks profile is created for you. Your initial profile includes your first name, last name, and the screen name you chose during registration—and these items accompany the content that you contribute to My developerWorks, such as your posts to forums, blogs, and groups. You may edit the information in your profile at any time.
Subsequent times you sign in, or log in, to My developerWorks, you only need to supply your IBM ID and password (your screen name is remembered).
How do I get started with My developerWorks?
Now that you're signed in to My developerWorks, your next step is up to you! Here are some suggestions:
- Personalize and flesh out the bare-bones profile that you have now, so that you and your peers can find each other and make meaningful connections, and so that you can receive specific recommendations on content and offerings that align with your interests.
- Customize your home page, which serves as your dashboard into the My developerWorks community. Your home page is always current with the people, content feeds, and activities you're interested in.
- Take My developerWorks for a spin and see how all the components weave together to give you a personal platform to speak your mind, get the answers you need, and find other IT professionals that you share common goals and interests with.
As a member of the My developerWorks community, you have an online persona, or profile, that describes you: your roles, skills, and interests, as well as your contact information. You can add as many details as you like to personalize your profile and update it whenever you like. You can also control the personal information that your peers can see about you.
Your public profile initially includes your first name, last name, and screen name (now called your display name), which you create when you register and use to sign in. You can use the rich-text fields to customize and expand your profile with photos and links to other Web content, as shown in Figure 3, as well as add tags to it, at any time.
Others in the My developerWorks community can view your profile to learn about you, just as you can view others' profiles. It's easy to find other members of the community who share your interests or are solving the same problems you're working on, because you can search profiles in many ways, such as by name and by the tags you assign to your profile.
Profiles help you mine the collective knowledge of all the other users of My developerWorks and build a trusted network of colleagues.
Figure 3. Example of a personalized profile
Why do you need a personalized profile?
- Profiles can increase your visibility by letting other My
developerWorks users know who you are and what you do, what expertise
you have, what projects you are working on, what tools and
technologies you are using, what problems you are currently trying to
solve, and what you are reading or writing.
- Profiles can help you improve your skills by helping you
discover other My developerWorks users who are working on projects
like yours and finding solutions to similar problems. You can see
which My developerWorks blogs, bookmarks, groups, tools,
technologies, and other resources your peers are using—and add
them to your repertoire as well.
- Profiles can help you build your network by helping you make
useful connections. As you use tags to locate other users with
common interests,
add
them as colleagues by clicking Add as
colleague on their profile. When
you add someone as a colleague, they receive an e-mail invitation
asking them to join your network, which they can accept or decline.
When a colleague accepts your invitation, you can track their updates
within My developerWorks and build a professional network of your own.
- Profiles help you collaborate by helping you to find, through profile search and tag search, the peers and experts whose interests and goals are similar to yours. Find out who the other My developerWorks users are, what their skills are, what they are publishing or reading—and get in touch with them.
Why should you tag your profile?
A tag is a descriptive keyword that you assign to your profile to identify your work activities, skills, or interests. The tags that you assign to your profile are publicly visible and displayed in the Tags area on your profile. Tags describe what you do and what you care about.
Tagging your profile helps you to:
- Publicize your skills: By assigning tags to your profile, you identify your skills, job role, interests, and education to others in the My developerWorks community. Others can easily contact you, share solutions or recommendations with you, or collaborate on projects with you.
- Find like-minded people: Click one of your own profile tags to quickly find other people who share that interest or are doing similar work. People with whom you share common tags are likely to be good resources for you. You can get their contact information from their profiles, see their recent activity, and begin learning from or collaborating with them
2. Customize your home page (My Home)
My Home is your personalized entry point into the My developerWorks community. It centralizes and gives you quick access to the latest updates in all of the My developerWorks components you're using and interested in: profiles, bookmarks, community events, announcements, and feeds—as well as the groups, activities, and blogs you're watching or participating in. Figure 3 shows an example of how one user has customized her home page.
My Home consists of widgets, which are modules of content that are updated automatically on a Web page without your needing to reload that page. The widgets on My Home display a real-time snapshot of updates from the My developerWorks community in a single, dynamic location.
Logging in to your My Home page automatically logs you in to all of your other My developerWorks components (profiles, groups, blogs, bookmarks, and activities). Access any of those components by clicking its widget title bar or its link at the top of your My Home page.
Figure 4. Example of a custom home page
Why do you need a custom home page?
Having a custom home page helps you to:
- Tailor your My developerWorks experience: Use your My Home page
to create a personal workspace that displays the latest information in
the way you want. Drag and drop widgets to arrange them to suit you,
and select from different views to sort the information in different
ways (Most popular, Most recent, for example).
- Access information at a glance: Use your My Home page to stay
informed and quickly scan through updates for the projects and
activities that you're working on. Find out who has added to a blog or
joined a group. Share bookmarks with others in the My developerWorks
community, and add feeds of interest.
- Manage your workload and interests centrally. Use your My Home page to save time by keeping critical status information in one place. You can organize your workload from a centralized workspace, receive reminders about activities that are due, and prioritize what's most important to you.
By consolidating the latest information from the My developerWorks community in a one-stop workspace, your My Home page helps you stay up-to-date with the people and activities you're interested in. It's your entry point to the shared knowledge of your peers.
Tip: Manipulating your My Home widgets
You can manipulate the widgets to suit your preferences. Your preferences persist; any changes you make are preserved the next time you sign in to My developerWorks.
To reposition a widget, click its title bar and drag it to
a new spot, or click the 4-arrowed icon in its title bar and select a
direction.
To edit the settings (your preferences) for a widget, such
as how many entries to show in the widget, click the wrench icon and
make and save your selections.
To get help for a widget, click the
question-mark icon.
To refresh a widget, click the refresh
icon.
To remove a widget, click the X icon. The widget now
appears in the sidebar of My Home. You can restore it later by
dragging it wherever you like.
To select a different view of the data in the widget (My
Profile, Recent Bookmarks, My Groups, and My Activities), select
the down arrow and make your selection.
You can arrange, and set preferences for, the widgets on My Home to your liking. Each widget has a unique function.
- Profiles widget:
Gives you quick access to your profile, other My developerWorks users' profiles, and a quick search by name or tag.
Figure 5. Profiles widget
- Bookmarks widget:
Displays public bookmarks, as well as your personal bookmarks (My Bookmarks). In addition to your personal bookmarks, you can also view popular bookmarks, bookmarks you're watching, and recent bookmarks.
Figure 6. Bookmarks widget
- My feeds widget:
Displays your chosen feeds of My developerWorks content. Press and hold the Shift key to make multiple selections. You cannot remove this widget.
Figure 7. My feeds widget
- Groups widget:
Displays the My developerWorks groups that are available (Public Groups) and that you're a member of (Private Groups).
Figure 8. Groups widget
- Blogs widget:
Displays the My developerWorks blogs that you're interested in.
Figure 9. Blogs widget
- Community events widget:
Shows upcoming events of interest to the My developerWorks community. You can also select one or more IBM products whose events you're interested in (press and hold the Shift key to make multiple selections). You cannot remove this widget.
Figure 10. Community events widget
- Announcements widget:
Keeps you current on news that is pertinent to the My developerWorks community. You cannot remove this widget.
Figure 11. Announcements widget
- Activities widget:
Displays the My developerWorks activities that are open to everyone (Public Activities) and that you're personally involved in (My Activities).
Figure 12. Activities widget
3. Use bookmarks to find content and users
The Bookmarks component is a set of social bookmarking tools that you can use to save, organize, and share bookmarks of Web pages.
The bookmarks that you collect with the Bookmarks component of My developerWorks are stored in a central repository. You can share some or all of your bookmarks with others, and you can see other people's collections of bookmarks as well. For example, you can explore bookmarks by tag and by creator, and thus easily discover mutual interests and beneficial resources.
Bookmarks in My developerWorks provide:
- A central spot for storing and organizing bookmarks.
- A way to publish some or all of your bookmarks so that others can see your collection.
- Tags to identify bookmarks with keywords that you choose. Tags make it easy to search for and share bookmarks.
- Contact information so that you can locate and connect with bookmark owners.
My developerWorks make it easy to find bookmarked treasure! You can sort the bookmarks by date and by popularity, and see which bookmarks are attracting the most visits. You can also search for bookmarks by tags and people that interest you, and discover entire collections of content that is right up your alley. Figure 13 shows the All Bookmarks view and the many ways to sort the resources that My developerWorks users choose to bookmark.
Figure 13. Example of the All Bookmarks view
Sharing a bookmark with other users
Find any bookmark, and click show details. Then click Notify other users and fill in the form with the recipient's name and a brief comment. Click Send Notice.
Adding a bookmark to a group, blog, or activity
Open a URL that you want to bookmark. Click the "Bookmark this!" link in the browser toolbar, and in the "Add a bookmark" form in the pop-up, select the tab for groups, activities, or blogs. (Only the groups, activities, or blogs that you have joined or created will be displayed.) Add a message or description to explain why you're adding the bookmark to that group, blog, or activity.
Figure 14. Adding a new bookmark to a group that you're a member of
4. Find, join, and start groups
Groups are communities of people with a common interest or focus. You can join or start a public group with open access. You can also start a public group with invitation-only access, allowing you to control membership and moderate access to the group's resources. And you can start a private group with membership restricted to a particular set of users.
Groups provide an excellent way to connect people with a shared interest, expertise, or goal, so that the group members can benefit from and build on each other's knowledge and contributions.
To find groups of interest, browse for groups by tags or by categories such as Recent (recently updated), Popular (groups with the most members), and Alphabetical. The All Groups page in Figure 15 shows these many ways to find groups to join.
Figure 15. Example of the All Groups view
You can learn more about a group on its overview page, as shown in Figure 16. You can join any public group that has public access by clicking the group name to display the group's overview page, and then by clicking Join this Group.
Figure 16. Overview page for a group
Private groups restrict membership to specific individuals, and you must be added by a group owner to become a member.
Once you've joined a group, you can share ideas and information with other members of your group by posting topics and responses to the message board, sending e-mail notifications, and adding bookmarks and feeds to the group.
The tools in the Groups component help you reach out, make connections, get organized, and start sharing information. Consider starting a group when:
- You can't find an existing group that addresses your topic area or specific interests.
- You have identified individuals in the My developerWorks community that you want to team with.
- You enjoy helping others in your field, answering questions, and building knowledge and consensus. (Try creating a general, or entry-level, public group, which anyone can join.)
- You are an expert in your field and you want deep, focused collaboration on a topic of special interest. (Try creating a public group with invitation-only access or a private group.)
To start a group, click the Start a group button, and fill in the fields shown in Figure 17. As the owner of that group, you can invite others to join and manage the content and membership for the group. Use the Members page to add or remove members from your group. All members of the group can view the list of people who belong to the group.
Figure 17. Starting a group
Blogs allow community members to share thoughts and expertise on topics that matter to them, as well as engage in conversations with each other. My developerWorks blogs feature a tagging system and a recommendation feature, so that bloggers and readers can categorize discussions, in addition to recommending blog posts generated by the community.
The Blogs page is your entry point to creating and participating in blogs. From the Blogs page, shown in Figure 18, you can browse for blogs, read recent entries, see what others are viewing or recommending, and even request your own blog. You can customize the way information is presented by sorting the display on the Blogs page. For example, you can sort the list of blogs or the list of blog entries by date, title, most recommended, most commented, or most visited.
Figure 18. My developerWorks Blogs page
Viewing and commenting on blogs
Click a blog title to view a blog, or click an entry title to view an entry, such as the entry in "Bob's soapbox" blog shown in Figure 19. Post your comments and invite others to provide feedback on what you post.
Figure 19. An entry in Bob's soapbox blog
- Once you've signed in to My developerWorks, click Blogs in the masthead,
and
then click the My Blog tab.
- Click create a blog, and fill out a short form. The form asks for your name (optional), your display name, your email address, and the reason you'd like to start a blog.
- We will reply to your email address with further instructions.
We look forward to your request to create a blog on My developerWorks!
6. Use activities to organize your work projects
Activities are a set of tools for keeping track of your and others' contributions, shared resources, to-dos, and deadlines in individual or collaborative projects.
The My Activities page, shown in Figure 20, lists the activities that you've started or that you're a member of. On this page, you can sort your activities by priority, and see recent updates to all your activities at a glance.
To start an activity, first identify a goal, such as resolving a bug or researching a topic. Create an activity to track that goal by clicking Start an Activity. Then add entries to the activity to capture required tasks, store associated documents, and assemble the people that you need to reach the goal.
Figure 20. Example of a My Activities page
Use the views described in Table 2 to navigate the page:
Table 2. Using activities
| View | Description |
|---|---|
| My Activities | Lists the activities that you created or were added to as a member. This view is the default view. |
| Completed | Lists the activities that have been marked complete. Each activity is created with a goal in mind. After that goal is reached, the activity is marked complete. Completed activities are removed from the My Activities view. |
| Tuned out activities | Lists the activities that you have tuned out of. If you belong to an activity that you are not interested in, you can tune out of the activity to remove it from your My Activities view. |
| Trash | Lists the activities or entries that have been deleted. You can restore deleted items, but only if you do so before the trash is emptied. |
| Prioritized activities | Provides links to activities that you have marked as having a high or medium priority. As your list of activities begins to grow, it is helpful to prioritize them by importance to you. Prioritization settings are unique to each user; no other members can see these collections. Marking your most valued activities as High Priority enables you to quickly access them from the High Priority view. |
| Public Activities | Lists activities to which you have access even though you are not listed as a member. Public activities can be viewed by anyone who has access to the Activities server. Active, completed, or deleted public activities are only available from the Public Activities section. |
| Tags | Lists all the tags assigned to your activities. You can choose how the tags in the tag collection are displayed: in a list or a cloud. A tag list displays the tags in a list starting with the most popular tags first. A tag cloud indicates the popularity of the tags in the collection by grouping the tags together and displaying the most frequently used tags in larger, darker text and less often used tags in smaller, lighter text. Within an activity, the Tags view displays all of the tags assigned to the activity entries. |
| People | Lists the people with whom you share an activity. Within an activity, there is a similar view called Members, which lists the members of the activity. |
How all the My developerWorks components weave together
Watch and listen to the demos listed on the My developerWorks: Connect page; they show how the components enhance each other. The whole is definitely greater than the sum of its parts.
developerWorks has delivered a decade's worth of how-to information on open standards technologies and IBM tools and products to software developers and IT professionals. Attracting a worldwide audience of over 3 million unique visitors monthly, the information takes the form of how-to articles, tutorials, forums, IBM trial downloads and tools, technical briefings, blogs, spaces, podcasts, sample code, wikis, and much more.
With the advent of My developerWorks, we're expanding on this core strength by letting you tailor your experience on the site to suit your needs and preferences. You can still use the developerWorks site as you always have; My developerWorks is fully integrated into the site, and gives you the additional benefit of a personalized profile and custom home page as your gateway into the educational content and into the skilled community of over 8 million developerWorks users, who are students, software developers, and IT professionals, like you.
Which brings us back to you, where we started. My developerWorks is all about you: giving you the tools and the community access to easily find the people and the knowledge you need to achieve your professional goals.
This introductory tour of My developerWorks has only scratched the surface. You will undoubtedly find your own additional uses for the flexible and complementary components of My developerWorks. We encourage you to let us know what you think of My developerWorks and what else you'd like to see in it. We have a few ideas of our own, and getting input from you will keep us on the right track.
Learn
- See for yourself!
Watch a demo of
each My developerWorks component.
Start at the
My
developerWorks: Connect page, and click the Demo links for the component of
interest to you: My Home, Profiles, Blogs, Bookmarks, Activities,
and Groups.
-
IBM Lotus® Connections is the
basis for the components in My developerWorks: each component
derives from its counterpart in Lotus Connections. Lotus
Connections is social software for business that helps you connect with the people
and information that you need.
- Stay current with
developerWorks technical events and webcasts.
Get products and technologies
- Get
IBM trial software,
available for download directly from developerWorks.
Discuss
-
Get involved with the
My developerWorks community, your entry point for expanding your skills and your
network.
As a Web editor, Gretchen Moore has had a hand in shaping developerWorks' editorial style, publication process, and best practices since she helped launch the site in 1999. She's the Web editor for the Linux zone, and also serves as the tech lead for the Web editors of the technology zones. She holds degrees in Technical writing from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY, and in Biology from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, NC. For more info, see Gretchen's profile on My developerWorks.
Ami Dewar is the developerWorks Advanced design team lead. Advanced design is a hybrid team of designers, developers, and architects working to keep developerWorks on the cutting edge. Ami, formerly the lead graphic designer, has been a designer with IBM for six years, creating over 1200 feature graphics and 8000 technical illustrations. Learn more in Ami's profile on My developerWorks.
Comments (Undergoing maintenance)
Table of contents
- What can I do with My developerWorks?
- How do I sign in to My developerWorks?
- How do I get started with My developerWorks?
- 1. Personalize your profile
- 2. Customize your home page (My Home)
- 3. Use bookmarks to find content and users
- 4. Find, join, and start groups
- 5. Find and create blogs
- 6. Use activities to organize your work projects
- How all the My developerWorks components weave together
- Conclusion
- Resources
- About the authors
- Comments
Local resources
My developerWorks community
Tags
Use the slider bar to see more or fewer tags.
Popular tags shows the top tags for this particular content zone (for example, Java technology, Linux, WebSphere).
My tags shows your tags for this particular content zone (for example, Java technology, Linux, WebSphere).
Popular article tags |
My article tagsSkip to tags list
Popular article tags |
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