{"id":604,"date":"2009-05-28T09:20:10","date_gmt":"2009-05-28T16:20:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/sumo\/?p=604"},"modified":"2009-05-28T10:33:06","modified_gmt":"2009-05-28T17:33:06","slug":"aboutsumo-may-2009","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/sumo\/2009\/05\/28\/aboutsumo-may-2009\/","title":{"rendered":"about:sumo &#8211; May 2009"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>NOTE: This is the blog version of our about:SUMO newsletter. To subscribe to the email version, sign up using the <a href=\"http:\/\/eepurl.com\/-F8\">online subscription form<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong><span class=\"title\">about:SUMO<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Welcome to about:SUMO &#8212; a digest of news from Mozilla&#8217;s support world! With this being the first issue, don&#8217;t hesitate to send us your feedback on about:SUMO and how we can improve it. Lately, we&#8217;ve had a few really important additions, such as the localization dashboard and a new search engine; and next month will be just as good.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"#l10ndashboard\"><span class=\"subTitle\">Localization Dashboard<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#search\"><span class=\"subTitle\">We&#8217;ve switched search engines<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#screencasts\"><span class=\"subTitle\">Get ready for screencasts<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#watches\"><span class=\"subTitle\">Get notified whenever a page in your language is created or edited<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#KB35\"><span class=\"subTitle\">Status update on the knowledge base update for Firefox 3.5<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#concise\"><span class=\"subTitle\">Looking at writing more concise documents<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#surveys\"><span class=\"subTitle\">Surveys for Live Chat and Forum contributors<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#10minutes\"><span class=\"subTitle\">Spend 10 minutes a day doing support<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#topissues\"><span class=\"subTitle\">New and ongoing support issues<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong><span class=\"subTitle\"><a name=\"l10ndashboard\"><\/a>Localization Dashboard<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/blog\/2009\/04\/02\/mozilla-support-announces-version-10\/\">SUMO 1.0<\/a>, we implemented a dashboard for localizers, so they can get an overview of which pages are most important to translate. It also tracks how much of the knowledge base has been translated. You can <a href=\"https:\/\/support.mozilla.com\/kb\/Localization+Dashboard\">view the localization dashboard now<\/a>!<\/p>\n<p><strong><span class=\"subTitle\"><a name=\"search\"><\/a>We&#8217;ve switched search engines<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>One of the new features that was launched in the last SUMO update is a  new search engine. By using our own search engine, we can tailor results  based on how useful pages are as well as return KB results and forum  results together. This not only saves users time, but helps them get the  best support in fewer steps. Furthermore, the data from these searches  can help us more quickly pinpoint common issues and improve our support  resources.\u00a0You can read more in <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/sumo\/2009\/05\/18\/rolling-out-with-a-new-search-engine-sumo-102\/\">this blog post<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong><span class=\"subTitle\"><a name=\"screencasts\"><\/a>Get ready for screencasts<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;ve put a lot of effort into adding multimedia to support. The ability to show a person what to do in addition to telling them, makes instructions a lot easier to understand; and some of our most positive knowledge base feedback has been about the existence of screenshots. Soon, we&#8217;ll be implementing the ability to add videos (a.k.a. screencasts) to knowledge base articles. We will support both Flash and the open video format called Ogg\/Theora, which the upcoming Firefox 3.5 will support natively (without the need of a plugin). For more information, read our <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/sumo\/2009\/05\/11\/screencasts-are-coming\/\">recent blog post<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong><span class=\"subTitle\"><a name=\"watches\"><\/a>Get notified whenever a page in your language is created or edited<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Keeping track of changes to the knowledge base is essential for keeping it up to date; and being notified of changes makes it convenient. In addition to monitoring individual articles, we&#8217;ve implemented some tools to make it possible to monitor all knowledge base articles for a specific language, which is something localizers have been requesting. In addition, you can monitor all articles in the &#8220;How to contribute&#8221; category, or even articles marked for Firefox 3.5. <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/sumo\/2009\/04\/01\/email-notifications-for-edits-waiting-for-review\/\">Give it a try<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong><span class=\"subTitle\"><a name=\"KB35\"><\/a>Status update on the knowledge base update for Firefox 3.5<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>There is no better time to contribute than now! Firefox 3.5 is going to be released soon, and the entire knowledge base needs to be updated. It&#8217;s a giant opportunity to help and get to know Firefox 3.5, so you&#8217;ll be able to answer user questions when Firefox 3.5 is released. To get involved, read our <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/sumo\/2009\/05\/22\/firefox-35-support-knowledge-base-status-update\/\">Firefox 3.5 support status update<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong><span class=\"subTitle\"><a name=\"concise\"><\/a>Looking at writing more concise documents<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>After website usability expert <a href=\"http:\/\/www.beatnikpad.com\/\">Neil Lee<\/a> from the webdev team made a usability audit of the Firefox Support website, there has been a growing movement to <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/sumo\/2009\/04\/09\/writing-concise-documents\/\">make the documentation more concise<\/a>. By making knowledge base articles easier to read, you can make it helpful to users who might otherwise be less patient reading long-winded instructions.<\/p>\n<p><strong><span class=\"subTitle\"><a name=\"surveys\"><\/a>Surveys for Live Chat and Forum contributors<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;re constantly working to improve SUMO for our contributors as well as  our users. As such we&#8217;ve sent out surveys to current and recent  contributors to get your feedback on how we can make it even more fun  and easy to help our users. We really want to hear from you and your  comments will help make SUMO even better for everyone. If you didn&#8217;t get  a copy of the survey, let us know at <span class=\"moz-txt-link-rfc2396E\">feedback[at]support.mozilla.com<\/span> and  we&#8217;ll e-mail you the link. Stay tuned next month as we go over the results.<\/p>\n<p><strong><span class=\"subTitle\"><a name=\"10minutes\"><\/a>Spend 10 minutes a day doing support<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>One of the quickest and easiest ways to help out Firefox users on SUMO is to answer <a href=\"http:\/\/support.mozilla.com\/forums\">forum questions<\/a>.  You can do it for as long as you like and whenever you like and it takes just minutes to help out a user.  Try helping out for just <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/sumo\/2009\/02\/26\/make-someones-day-in-just-10-minutes\/\">ten minutes a day<\/a> and see how easy and fun it is.<\/p>\n<p><strong><span class=\"subTitle\"><a name=\"topissues\"><\/a>New and ongoing support issues<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In this section (which will be in every about:sumo newsletter) we&#8217;ll be  covering one common issue on SUMO for the past month.\u00a0 This month, one  of the top issues was sqlite corruption\/locking in the profile folder.\u00a0  Firefox 3.0 introduced the sqlite database format for places (bookmarks  and history) and cookies using places.sqlite and cookies.sqlite  respectively.\u00a0 Unfortunately, these files can sometimes corrupt if  Firefox or the computer is shut down improperly.<\/p>\n<p>Another common cause  is security software (AVG in particular) detecting tracking cookies or  malicious sites in places and locking\/corrupting the file when they try  to clean them.\u00a0 When this happens, Firefox can crash on startup, lose or  not save bookmarks\/history\/cookies, have a malfunctioning location bar  or return random characters in cookies or bookmark searchs.<\/p>\n<p>Firefox  3.0.11 will have an updated SQLite engine and notifications that will be  more resistant to this and alert users.\u00a0 In the meantime, the steps  detailed <a href=\"http:\/\/support.mozilla.com\/en-US\/kb\/Bookmarks+and+toolbar+buttons+not+working+after+upgrading#Places_database_file\">here for places.sqlite<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/support.mozilla.com\/en-US\/kb\/Cannot+log+in+to+websites#Remove_corrupt_cookies_file\">here for cookies.sqlite<\/a> will help address this. Watch out for this issue in the forums and on  Live Chat and help these users with these steps.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NOTE: This is the blog version of our about:SUMO newsletter. To subscribe to the email version, sign up using the online subscription form. about:SUMO Welcome to about:SUMO &#8212; a digest &hellip; <a class=\"go\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/sumo\/2009\/05\/28\/aboutsumo-may-2009\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":179,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/sumo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/sumo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/sumo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/sumo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/179"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/sumo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/sumo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/sumo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/sumo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/sumo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}