CrazyEngineers Common Sense Guide - Review & Feedback

[The_Big_K]

CrazyEngineers Common Sense Guide
- Draft

Note: Whenever we say ‘we’, we refer to ‘our gang’! It means that ‘you’ are included.

Sections

• CE Philosophy & Culture
• Posting on Forums
• Etiquettes
• FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)

CE Philosophy & Culture
Q. What is CrazyEngineers all about?

Answer: CrazyEngineers, aka CE, is on the mission of uniting engineers across the world so that they have a common platform for sharing ideas, knowledge & helping each other. Today, engineers from various disciplines & countries contribute to CE. CE boasts of ever-increasing number of engineers who are entrepreneurs, CEOs, students, professors, techies & geeks. We are a crazy-yet-professional community of engineers. We call ourselves - CEans!

Q. What is CE Culture & Philosophy?
Answer: We are a community of engineers. CE is read by engineers who are as old as 17 & as young as 64. CE culture & philosophy can be summarized in following points –

• Respect every member of the community
• Do not get involved into any kind of illegal activities like -

-Asking for serial numbers/ cracks for commercial software
-Encourage unethical hacking or cracking
-Illegally share music/videos/books without proper permissions from authors

• Do not tolerate pornography, harassment of any kind

Q. Why is the theme ‘red’?

Answer: When CE started, we looked very ugly. Then we evolved. We adopted the ‘red’ theme for one simple reason – red indicates ‘action’, ‘activity’, ‘zeal’, ‘enthusiasm’! We are ‘crazy’ engineers, the creators, dreamers, thinkers. We feel ‘red’ symbolizes who we are. Red may not be very pleasing to eyes, but we seriously do not want you to spend too much time on CE. Daily 30 minutes of CE is more than enough to give you new ideas, thoughts & power to change the world.

Understanding CE Forums
CE forums allow engineers from all around the world to interact with each other, exchange ideas, share knowledge & form a worldwide gang of engineers, err, “crazy” engineers! Please note that in order to be able to post on CE forum; you will have to be a registered member of CE. You can be a registered member of CE in next one minute by filling out a simple form available here –
http://www.crazyengineers.com/forum/register.php


Why should you be a part of CE? Well, here are a few reasons –

• Registration is F-R-E-E!
• You will be able to take part in discussions, post your ideas & help others
• You will be a part of the gang that is making world a better place to live in
• Your parents will be proud of you
• It will not contribute to the Global Warming

All said & done, following screenshots talk about the overall structure of CE Forums. It’s very easy & fun to use. Check out for yourself-

Following screenshots will explain the overall structure of CE Forums –



Inside Electrical Engineering Section



Inside a thread



Posting on CE Forum

It is very easy! We also have created a ‘Newbie Training Section’ to try out various features of CE. Should you need any help about Forums/Posting etc., feel free to post a question there. Following points summarize the process of posting on CE Forums-

• Starting a new discussion/thread –

1. First of all, search for the existing discussions using the ‘search’ feature. It is possible that your question, idea might have already been discussed on forums.
2. Once you decide to start a new topic/thread, choose (click on) an appropriate section to post your topic.
3. Enter the section by clicking on the section name.
4. Click on ‘New Thread’ button. This will open a text editor.
5. Type your post and provide an appropriate title for your thread. It is *very* important that you give an appropriate title/subject to your thread. It allows others to get a clear idea about the discussion. An appropriate title will be helpful in getting more replies to the discussion. For example, thread title ‘I have a problem’ gives no idea about the content of the post. But a title ‘Problem with device driver on Windows XP’ gives a clear idea about the problem that is being discussed in the thread.
6. Click on the ‘Submit thread’ button.
7. Done!

• Posting on existing discussion/thread-

1. In order to post your reply on an existing discussion, you must click on the thread
2. Scroll down to the bottom of the page. You will see a rectangular space where you can enter text.
3. Compose your reply and click ‘Submit Reply’ button.
4. Your reply will now appear at the bottom of the thread.

Etiquettes

Respect Each Other:
You never know the real identity of the person you are interacting with, on CE Forums. That’s why it is very essential that we respect other members of CE community. With the younger at 17 and the youngest at 64, CE community boasts of entrepreneurs, CEOs, CTOs, students, professors etc.

While posting:

Remember following points-
oBe Polite
oUse ‘English’
oFormat your post properly. Do not use big fonts, coloured text unless necessary.
oImportant: Say no to ‘SMS’ equivalents of words. Take your time to type complete words. We would love you more if you type ‘great’ instead of ‘gr8’
oAvoid long trail of dots in between words. Do not let your thought progress appear in posts. Think and then write.

Asking for help:
oProvide an appropriate title to your post. The title should give a clear idea about the question that is being asked. It will help in attracting more replies.
oGive as much information as possible. It will help others understand your problem clearly.

FAQ

Q. What is CrazyEngineers?
Q. Who are the members of CE community?
Q. How do I join?
Q. I have joined CE, what next?
Q. How do I post?
Q. <add more>



-The Big K-

[The_Big_K]

CEans,

I've created first draft of CrazyEngineers Common Sense Guide. The guide is open to review. Please review and add your comments. If you want to volunteer to reformat & create a better version, you are most welcome.

All of you are requested to provide feedback in this thread. If you make a good suggestion, your name will be included in the list of creators of Common Sense Guide

Let's get started!

-The Big K-

[Elisa]

• The text inside screenshots is not readable.
• Update the FAQ.
• Divide the guide into four parts, each as a link where users can point to.

[The_Big_K]

Yay!

Why are we lacking response here? 'Our' opinion matters, so shout!

-The Big K-

[Rocker]

The guide looks OK to me. Have bigger screenshots and the guide will be ready for public release

[crook]

Good job, Mr. K! I will be back with my updates to the guide

[ash]

Is it possible to do a screencast too? Anywayz, good job!

[Rocker]

Originally Posted by ash

Is it possible to do a screencast too? Anywayz, good job!

for the screencast idea. At least, how to post on forums can be explained using screencast. Are there any freeware out there?

[The_Big_K]

Good idea, Ash!

Anyone willing to do that?

-The Big K-

[ash]

There's one called CamStudio;

CamStudio is able to record all screen and audio activity on your computer and create industry-standard AVI video files and using its built-in SWF Producer can turn those AVIs into lean, mean, bandwidth-friendly Streaming Flash videos (SWFs)

http://www.camstudio.org/

Its freeware Anyway, you'd need a CE member who has a clear voice with good english if you want to add audio to it. My own voice is too deep, so count me out