When I was between regular jobs and fully focused on AppDetails, it was suggested that I might create content for an eLearning site which was seeking technical training content. I agreed, but very quickly found myself in a full time position again. But I had signed a contract to create the content so was forced to “make the time”. A few nights and a few weekends got me to a point where I had created what you’ll find here. Upon delivery, I was frustrated to hear that the site which had contracted the material were shutting down the eLearning services and had cancelled all contracts with authors.

How to make the most of the effort? Could I leverage it to kick start some community activity at AppDetails? That is my hope. You see, AppDetails is getting great traffic and I get positive feedback regularly. However, starting a new community is a real challenge in this day and age. Long ago, people would routinely seek out specialty forums for targeted discussions. Today, a few very large platforms like Reddit, Twitter and LinkedIn have enough adoption to be suitable for discussions on most topics. Further, convincing people to take part in a community in its early stages is also an uphill battle. Nobody wants to take part in a conversation or make contributions where conversations and contributions are not already taking place. Even AppDeploy took years to get rolling, but competing services make communities like AppDetails that much harder to hit critical mass.

As such, I’ve decided to make this training available on AppDetails for 100 activity points. Almost every activity performed on AppDetails scores you points and helps members to stand out as leaders. Further, it encourages some competition and even makes it a little fun to participate. Taking this concept further than I had with my ITNinja project, these points can be transferred to other members (to say thank you or show special appreciation) and points can be used to collect rewards. An online store contains some AppDeploy memorabilia, books and software which one can obtain by purchasing them with activity points. My Kixtart Scripting Book is long out of print and goes for a crazy price on Amazon for the few that seek it, but I have a couple copies to give away for that that reach 750 points.

I wanted to keep the point level reasonable, so decided upon 100 points. Because the site has a point to dollar value, this actually means that one can purchase the training for the very low price of $10 (it was to sell for over $500 on its originally intended eLearning marketplace). I added this option just a few days ago and have already had a handful of purchases. Of course I am appreciative for what will be a valued donation to the site, but remain hopeful that it can encourage more to submit deployment tips and engage in discussions.