Heya all,

In less than 3 weeks, our little baby, openSUSE 12.1, will be released into the wild. Now as you know, babies need lots of attention! This is where we need YOU.

openSUSE 12.1 needs to be promoted everywhere! That is, on your blog; on twitter, facebook, Google plus; and much more! Read on for details and tips on how you can help us spread the word!

backgrounds for your computer, (micro)blog and more

We’ve got a few nice backgrounds for you to be used on your (micro)blog or your desktop!

Richard “Ilmehtar” Brown has created a very cool openSUSE 12.1 Twitter background. You can add it to your blog in two ways.

The generic Twitter background First, you can add one of the generic Twitter backgrounds. Pick one from here. Then, go through the following steps:

Login in your account of Twitter Select Settings in the top panel In Design tab, select Change background image Select the image Click on Save changes

A cool, customized Twitter background! To get your own, custom background like Richard has, download the svg file here and customize it with Inkscape. Find a how-to on the wiki.

A bonus tip from Ilmehtar himself:

For an extra tweak of polish, after you set that image as your background in twitter, you can also change your background colour to 436400 (twitter lets you type that number in)..which'll mean that on very high resolutions the background will gently blend into the right colour ;-)

Find many other cool openSUSE twitter backgrounds here!

Widgets, counters and banners for your blog or website

Release Counter

You can add the openSUSE 12.1 release counter to your website in various sizes by including the following html code in your blog: <a href="//en.opensuse.org/Portal:12.1"><img src="//counter.opensuse.org/**medium**.png" border="0"/></a><br/> “medium” is the size of the counter; it can also be “small” or “large” and we also have “wide” for a banner.

See the Countdown page on the openSUSE Wiki for more countdown information, code and tips!

Twitter widget

You can get the following twitter widget: Get the Tweet Blender widget and many other great free widgets at Widgetbox! Not seeing a widget? (More info)

By inserting the following code in your website: <script type="text/javascript" src="//cdn.widgetserver.com/syndication/subscriber/InsertWidget.js"></script><script type="text/javascript">if (WIDGETBOX) WIDGETBOX.renderWidget('353d2de1-6434-4fff-91da-83271662191d');</script><noscript>Get the <a href="//www.widgetbox.com/widget/tweet-blender">Tweet Blender</a> widget and many other <a href="//www.widgetbox.com/">great free widgets</a> at <a href="//www.widgetbox.com">Widgetbox</a>! Not seeing a widget? (<a href="//docs.widgetbox.com/using-widgets/installing-widgets/why-cant-i-see-my-widget/">More info</a>)</noscript>

For more tips and customization check out the Twitter Widget section on the wiki.

Social media

I’m sure you know what to do with these buttons! Like openSUSE, +1 us, join us!

Also join the openSUSE Group on facebook which you can visit here.

Follow @openSUSE

And join the identi.ca group!

Party!!!

Of course, you can and should attend or organize an openSUSE 12.1 Launch Party! We’re working on an article about this, stay tuned… We’ve got some nice goodies planned for those who organize a party!

Other ways of helping

If you want to know the latest stuff about openSUSE promotion sign up to the ambassador mailinglist.

Helping out is also greatly appreciated. For openSUSE 12.1 we have the Launch Checklist which has a list of tasks… If there is stuff you want to/can help with, let us know on the openSUSE marketing mailing list! There’s lots of writing to be done, like articles about the great new GNOME 3.2, the polish done on XFCE and LXDE, and what’s better about KDE’s latest desktop and netbook offerings.

But we can also use some more technical writing help. We’ll review and edit the articles for English language, what we need is the content… Many of your marketing friends are not so technical!

But most importantly…

… you should have a lot of fun!