Knowledge Points

Redeem your Knowledge Points for an Amazon.com gift card!

We would like to thank all of our IT Knowledge Exchange members for their hard work on the site this year by offering the opportunity to “cash out” on their total Knowledge Points earned. Every 1,000 Knowledge Points earned through December 15th, 2009 is eligible for a $10 Amazon gift card.

Remember: You don’t just have to answer questions to earn Knowledge Points! Submitting good questions and thoughtful discussion points can also bump up your Knowledge Points total just as well. Remember your Knowledge Points earned are:

• 5 points for asking a question
• 10 points for discussing
• 15 points for answering

Not sure where to start? Visit this blog post with links to all unanswered questions.

Cashout details:

• All members with a cumulative 1,000 Knowledge Points or more on the date of their cashout are eligible.

• Participating members must e-mail us at  contactus at itknowledgeexchange.com by the end of business on December 15th in order to qualify for the cashout. In order for us to correctly process the e-mail, you must include your handle.

• Cashout period runs from today, October 14th, through the end of business on December 15th. We will award gift cards to eligible members based on their total accumulated Knowledge Point values at the time of their e-mail. This means you can e-mail us today to redeem your points, or wait and earn additional Knowledge Points through December 15th.

Restrictions:

• Only members in Amazon-eligible locations can participate.

• We cannot “round up” — if you e-mail us and your Knowledge Points currently stand at 4,995, we can only award you for the 4,000. Keep this in mind as you plan your time to redeem!

• All participants will be reviewed for post relevancy. “Gaming the system” by posting irrelevant comments will be seen by our admins, and you will be disqualified from redeeming.

• Each participating member may only e-mail us once — we cannot award additional gift cards for participation after the member has chosen to redeem his points.

Your moderators at IT Knowledge Exchange are very excited to launch this giveaway — we look forward to hearing from you!

Thanks,

Community Manager

Winners: Flip UltraHD Knowledge Point Contest

After a great showing in our Flip UltraHD Knowledge Point contest, we’re happy to announce the four winners:

–> Carlosdl: 4975
–> BlankReg: 4925
–> Philpl1jb: 3980
–> Labnuke99: 3070

Congratulations to our winners, and to all who participated. It was a tight race! If you didn’t make it into the top four, don’t worry — we have a new contest coming up very shortly. Stay tuned!

Thanks,

Community Manager

Flip UltraHD contest update: August 24th

Here are the most current numbers in our Flip UltraHD Knowledge Point contest. The top 10 point holders as of Monday, August 24th are:

• Carlosdl: 4640
• BlankReg: 4085
• Philpl1jb: 3465
• Labnuke99: 2665
• Technochic: 1955
• Mrdenny: 1610
• Mshen: 1375
• Nnf97: 1030
• CharlieBrowne: 955
• Whatis23: 835
• Voodoovw: 735

The Flip contest ends on August 30th; there’s still time to pull ahead and nudge into one of the top four spots! Visit the blog post for all the details, and good luck to all who are participating.

Flip UltraHD Contest Update: August 17th

Here are the most current standings for our Flip UltraHD Knowledge Point contest:

• Carlosdl: 4115
• BlankReg: 3570
• Philpl1jb: 2940
• Labnuke99: 2195
• Technochic: 1480
• Mshen: 1375
• Mrdenny: 1345
• Yorkshireman: 730
• Whatis23: 655
• Gabe9527: 635

There is still time to step up your game and earn Knowledge Points toward one of four Flip UltraHD pocket camcorders — the contest period ends on August 30th. Visit the blog post for more details and start contributing!

Good luck,

Community Manager

Flip UltraHD Contest Update: Current standings

The heat is on as our Flip UltraHD Knowledge Point contest gets into full gear for the month of August. The top four (4) users with the most Knowledge Points from July 13th to August 30th will win a Flip UltraHD pocket camcorder, perfect for capturing the moments of summer! Here are the point standings so far:

• Carlosdl: 2,425
• BlankReg: 1,670
• Labnuke99: 1,495
• Mshen: 1,375
• Philpl1jb: 1,365
• Technochic: 1,130
• Yorkshireman: 730
• Mrdenny: 615
• Fubar: 510

There’s still time to get into the community and start asking and answering questions. Good luck!

Capture the moments of summer with a Flip UltraHD pocket video camera, courtesy of IT Knowledge Exchange

If a picture says a thousand words, how much does a video say? A Flip UltraHD pocket camcorder can hold up to 8 GB of video, meaning every belly flop into the pool, every trip to the beach and every summer sunset can be captured for your video scrapbook or uploaded quickly and easily to a video sharing site like YouTube.

This summer, we’re giving away four (4) Flip UltraHD pocket video recorders to the top four Knowledge Point earners from July 13th to August 30th. You can earn Knowledge Points by asking, answering and discussing questions here in the community. Remember: some questions are open discussions, so everyone can contribute.

• The contest is open to members in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom and Western Europe.

• Previous winners of IT Knowledge Exchange contests are eligible for this contest.

• All questions, answers and discussions will be reviewed for validity.

You can start earning Knowledge Points by asking your enterprise IT questions (or telling your friends to ask a question) on our Ask a Question page, or start answering questions that haven’t received attention yet:

Good luck!

Community Manager

Knowledge Points now follow you on ITKE

Psst! Don’t look now but you’re being followed. That’s right – your Knowledge Points are now following you on IT Knowledge Exchange. Our members earn Knowledge Points by asking, answering and discussing IT questions. Your Knowledge Points represent your activity in this IT community and we thank everyone for their participation.

Got a *high* Knowledge Point count? Be proud of that! Your fellow members and the ITKE staff appreciate your continued community participation in helping build a great collection of IT answers.

Got a *low* Knowledge Point count? Then dive in and participate to earn and increase your points. All members have experience in some area of IT – so take a moment to share your skills and experience.

Login/Account Box
When you log into IT Knowledge Exchange, the box in the upper right that contains your member account information will now list your Knowledge Points beside your username (or “handle”). So you can now see your current Knowledge Point count with a quick glance. (See below)

Questions on the Homepage
If you look at the question excerpts on the homepage, you’ll notice the member image has been moved from the upper left side of the question to the lower right – and – the member’s Knowledge Points and Username are now shown. To view a member Public Profile, you could always click the member photo, but displaying the linked Username now makes this more obvious. (See below)

Individual Questions
Likewise, when you visit an individual question, you’ll now see that the member’s Knowledge Points shown beside the username, as well. (See below)

So thanks again for making IT Knowledge Exchange a great place to find IT answers. We are a community – so why not take a moment right now to add a photo, image or logo to your Public Profile? Don’t hide – show yourself! Jenny explains how to add your photo in this post. And speaking of great members, we now have three new member moderators helping out. Thanks.

Community Manager

New Contest: A trio of Xboxes for our top three users

Now through the end of April, you can not only show off your IT skills by asking and answering questions on ITKnowledgeExchange.com, but you can earn the chance to spend some quality time honing your bad-guy-vaporizing skills on your very own Xbox 360.

From today (March 18th) through April 30th, you have a chance to win one of three Xbox 360 consoles. The winners will be the top 3 community members who have the most Knowledge Points earned and have asked 5 IT-related questions (you still earn Knowledge points for asking questions) during the contest period. So tell your friends and co-workers to post their IT questions on ITKnowledgeExchange.com so you can answer and rack up your Knowledge Points.

The top three Knowledge Point earners (who have qualified by also submitting 5 IT related questions) will earn:

	1st Place: Xbox 360 Elite
	2nd Place: Xbox 360
	3rd Place: Xbox 360 Arcade

Some important details:

• This contest is only open to members in the following countries or regions: United States, Canada, United Kingdom and Western Europe.

• Previous Xbox contest winners are not eligble for this contest.

• All answers, discussion and questions will be reviewed for validity.

You can start asking your toughest questions by visiting our Ask a Question page here. To start showing off your IT guru skills, you can visit the unanswered question sections here:

Good luck, and happy posting!

Community Manager

Is there an Amazon gift card in your future? Only your Knowledge Points will tell.

It’s that time again — a chance to win an Amazon.com gift certificate based on your activity in the IT Knowledge Exchange community! Remember: the more you ask, answer and discuss questions, the more Knowledge Points you will earn.

The top 10 most active members from today (February 11th), until end of business on Friday, March 13th that reach the following Knowledge Point levels will be eligible for:

• 3000+ Knowledge Points: $200.00 Amazon gift card
• 2000+ Knowledge Points: $150.00 Amazon gift card
• 1000+ Knowledge Points: $75.00 Amazon gift card
• 500+ Knowledge Points: $50.00 Amazon gift card

Please remember: Knowledge Points will only be rewarded for actual questions, answers and discussions that are relevant to the site. We will be reviewing all contributions prior to announcing the winners.

Be sure to check out our Contest Rules, and then ask, answer and discuss questions to earn as many Knowledge Points as you can!

Not sure where to begin? Refer to this blog post for links to all categories of unanswered questions. And remember — we need your smart questions just as much as we need smart answers!

Good luck, and happy posting!

Community Manager

September Member contest: Win a Microsoft Xbox 360 or Chumby

After a long, stressful day in IT, video games can be a great way to unwind and relax. That’s right, you know where this is leading. It’s time for a cool new contest on IT Knowledge Exchange. The month of September ( Sept 1-Sept 30) is your chance to get your hot little hands on your very own Xbox 360 game system.

Let me recap how our Most Active Member contest works. Each time our members ask, answer or discuss a question, they automatically earn Knowledge Points for their participation. Keep in mind we will be reviewing all entries and adjusting Knowledge Points.

Looking for unanswered questions? You can find them by topic here.

This contest runs for the entire month of September. So shortly after September ends, we’ll award one of the great prizes below to the top three Knowledge Point earners. You could be our next winner!

Here are the sweet prizes we’re offering…

1st Place → Microsoft Xbox 360 game system

Xbox 360 puts you at the center of the most exciting games and entertainment experiences on earth. Xbox 360 not only has the best, highest-rated games, and the most robust title library, but it also offers access to the industry-leading Xbox LIVE service and tailored digital entertainment experiences that revolve around you.

2nd Place → Chumby – Interactive media player

Chumby takes your favorite parts of the Internet and delivers them to you in a friendly, always-on, always-fresh format. It’s a window into your Internet life that lives outside your desktop, so content like weather, news, celebrity gossip, podcasts, music, and more has a place to play away from your world of documents and spreadsheets.

3rd Place → $100 Amazon gift certificate

Redeem your gift certificate for whatever you wish. You’ll find lots of geek gear and toys on Amazon.com and we’re paying.

Our contests are our way of thanking the top members who put a lot of effort into sharing their hard-won knowledge and expertise. This is a brand spanking new contest so everyone has an equal chance of being the next Most Active Member. As usual, read the Contest Rules and start participating today to be eligible to win one of these cool prizes. Thanks!

Community Manager