sharepoinTony

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SoCalSharepoint User Group Thursday

Posted by sharepoinTony on February 16, 2010

The next meeting is this week, Thursday Feb. 18th. Topics are BI for SharePoint 2010 and Silverlight 3. For more details check out http://www.socalsharepoint.com/default.aspx

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SPSaturday Phoenix SharePint Options

Posted by sharepoinTony on November 19, 2009

Taking it upon myself to research online a bit, I found the following locations to be potential location options for SharePINT during the upcoming SharePoint Saturday Phoenix.  Not being a local I can’t recommend any that are not larger chains.   Also, since I have not seen nor heard of anyone else coordinating this, I will volunteer myself and get things rolling.  If anyone out there has started down this path, speak up!  I am flexible and have no desire to add stress or complexity to what should be a fantastic weekend.

This list is in rough order based on proximity to the SPSaturday hosting site.  PLEASE post comments if you are attending SPSaturday PHX.

SharePint Location Options

Lobby Bar – Arizona Grand Resort

7777 S Pointe Pkwy W, Phoenix, AZ

(602) 438-9000‎

Phantom Horse Grill – Also Arizona Grand Resort I think

8000 S Arizona Grand Pkwy, Phoenix, AZ

(602) 431-6476‎

Monkey Pants Bar & Grill‎

3223 South Mill Ave

Tempe, AZ 85282

(480) 377-8100

monkeypantsbar.com‎

Gordon Biersch Brewery Restaurant‎

420 S Mill Ave # 201

Tempe, AZ 85281-2870

(480) 736-0033

gordonbiersch.com‎

Four Peaks Brewing Co

1340 E 8th St # 104, Tempe, AZ

(480) 303-9967‎

fourpeaks.com

Copper Canyon Brewing & Ale House

5945 W Ray Rd, Chandler, AZ

(480) 785-1928‎

ccbrewing.com

Rock Bottom Restaurant & Brewery

14205 S 50th St, Phoenix, AZ

(480) 598-1300‎

rockbottom.com

Arizona Roadhouse & Brewery

1120 E Apache Blvd, Tempe, AZ

(480) 929-9940‎

Posted in Commentary, SharePoint 2007 | Tagged: , | Comments Off

Green Week and Technology

Posted by sharepoinTony on November 18, 2009

This week is Green Week, so I thought I would post on that theme. There are growing numbers of discussions and activities in technology that are green related.

I have always felt that using technology to improve efficiency, increase the ease in finding information (ie knowledge management), managing content, and simplifying or tracking business processes made sense – and are green.

Why?

Because we can better see the impact on our society and planet when we point out and acknowledge that we are trying to act in a responsible manner.

Because when we can see the projects that do impact the planet around us it is easier to remind ourselves that we need to protect the environment that sustains us.

Because when we are sometimes so focused on ROI we miss the Social Impact; we miss the Social Responsibility;  we miss the Goodwill that is often achieved by projects that DO pay attention to these things.

The other night I caught a small portion of a documentary on TV.  It was about Coke in South Africa. One subtle  point they made was that when apartheid violence was at its height most foreign companies moved out.  Coke chose a different path.  They found a multi-racial group that was willing to buy the distributorships and remain in the country.  South African’s found that during this upheaval the only refreshment to be found was Coke products.

After things settled down, Coke donated to local re-building causes.  The locally owned Coke distributors started expanding by “shipping” product via wheel barrel and hand carts.  South African’s took note of this and have truly embraced this company and brand.  Coke is visible everywhere now in South Africa.  This is all due to a vision beyond standard ROI.  It displayed Social Responsibility that has paid off in Goodwill in a big way…and I might venture to say it has paid off in dollars that were hard to account for in ROI.

That story has nothing to do with SharePoint directly.  However, if the thought process can shift so that some SharePoint projects can move forward, allowing the technology to help solve real problems or streamline real activities …then we can see SharePoint grow as a green tool.

For more coherent information on Green technology, check out these news links:

CNNMoney.com: Green Technology Report

CNET News: Green Tech: Intel sees Opportunities in wind, electric cars

SharePoint Magazine: Go Green with SharePoint

Business Week: Green Technology Innovators

InfoWorld: Intel invests $10 million in green technology companies

Breakell Inc – Green SharePoint (General contractors building green and using SharePoint for a community website to promote green actions)

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Handy Twitter Tools

Posted by sharepoinTony on November 13, 2009

Oddball post, but hey it is my blog so I can do what I want! ha!
Here are some handy twitter tools -

First the good ol hashtag (#) – for SharePoint people search #sharepoint, #moss, SPSaturday and watch for postings on conferences etc. such as #spc09
Look at Trends to find other hashtags or words you may want to follow.

Other Tools
http://www.twitblock.org
http://www.tweetdeck.com/
http://www.hootsuite.com/
http://dossy.org/twitter/karma/
http://twitpic.com/
and
99 twitter tools from Smashing Magazine

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MOSS 2007 and VSS 2005

Posted by sharepoinTony on October 27, 2009

<rant >

History: we have a boat-load of documents being stored in Visual SourceSafe 2005 by project managers, product documentation staff, and engineering staff.  They started storing various documents there simply because it was available (due to our developers using the tool) and because they didn’t have anywhere else available.  Most wanted both version and access control.

Fast forward a few years to today.  We are in the process of implementing a SharePoint based intranet.  Some of the files stored on PC’s, Laptops, file shares, and VSS will move to our Document Center or some other Document Library within SharePoint.  There are some files currently in VSS that the groups want to leave right where they are.  Management is in agreement with this situation.

One of the goals of our new intranet is to make it easy to find files.  Search is a big deliverable.  The obvious question is can we perform a search in SharePoint and find files in VSS? A follow-up question is, better yet, can we integrate to some level where users (with appropriate permissions) can see the documents stored in VSS from within a SharePoint site?

The answers are yes, I think, but that isn’t really the point of this post.  I spent hours searching MSDN and TechNet for information to answer those questions.   That is the point of this post.  My biggest complaint with Microsoft is that they seem to make it very very difficult to find any information you are looking for.

Why can’t I search on “Search Visual SourceSafe with SharePoint” and find anything related to what I am looking for?  I tried various searches, with various combinations of words, no luck really.  One old article talking about integrating VSS 5.0 with SharePoint 2003 (the info in that article doesn’t apply to the current versions, things changed).

I tried focusing on Visual SourceSafe 2005 – no mention of integration or interaction with SharePoint found.  Then I tried focusing on MOSS 2007, nothing.  It was painful, and I only found tidbits of information that were actually related to the topic I am interested in.

TechNet FAIL, MSDN FAIL.  Why can’t Microsoft improve the search capability within these sites, it has been terrible for years and years? It is still nearly impossible to find anything in TechNet and on MSDN when you search for something, especially if you don’t know the “proper” keywords.

</rant>

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What it was like NOT going to SPC09

Posted by sharepoinTony on October 23, 2009

Although there was a huge turn-out for the Microsoft SharePoint Conference 2009 in Las Vegas this week, there were lots of us who didn’t attend.  Many reasons for that I am sure, mine was simply work schedule conflicts.

Before the conference I was depressed knowing I couldn’t go to Vegas.  All of the twitter, email, and blog buzz made it The Place To Be this week of October.  SharePoint MVP’s, notable authors and bloggers, as well as all of the “cool” SharePoint vendors were going to be there.  How could I not be bummed?

With the Live Blogging and Twitter hash tag for the conference (#SPC09), I felt better knowing I could keep up and learn a bit about what was going on at the conference.  The conference site also presented video feeds – at least for the Keynote, which lasted several hours.  Other highlight videos were made available as well.

As it turned out many attendees posted photos and videos as well as blogged and twittered about the conference.  As I started following things it quickly became apparent that the massive amount of information coming out of this conference was overwhelming.  I had Twitter notifications from TweetDeck popping up constantly.  Not one notification but 6-9 at a time.  And by constantly, I mean less than a second in between.

The information was great, and there were so many folks that deserve commendations for posting such great material that I couldn’t even keep track of them all.  I hit more blogs and information sites this week than I have ever before (at least it felt like it).

The funny part was that while I had been bummed I couldn’t attend, I ended up having to shut down TweetDeck and stay away from the updates.  It was to much to keep up with and still get any work done.  I wanted to follow along and read up on everything, but it would take all day every day.  If I had that time I would have been in Vegas!

I will have to digest all the links I saved over time.  It appeared that people were going 20 hours a day there at SPC09, guess that is what happens in Las Vegas!

I  hope I can attend the next great conference.  Until then THANKS to all that posted so much, and know that while you got tired walking around to sessions – “we” got tired just trying to keep up with you online!

Posted in Commentary | Tagged: , | 2 Comments »

Installing MOSS

Posted by sharepoinTony on September 25, 2009

I read Paul Swider’s blog post “Best Practice for User Accounts When Installing MOSS” today.  He is right on target, “there should be no surprises on install day”.  It is ironic that I read this blog today because I created a similar table to the one he has in his blog post earlier this week, to prepare for my SharePoint install this morning  (I installed MOSS, did basic configuration setting up a couple of web applications and SSP’s easily well before lunch).  Paul’s table was nicer, and I like his idea of phases which I thought of  in a similar way but couldn’t vocalize it as nicely as he did.

The point of this post is that he made me think a bit more about best practices, especially when installing MOSS.  Here are some off-the-cuff random thoughts I had on that topic:

  • Did you download any service packs or patches that you might need installed PRIOR to your SharePoint install?
  • If so, are they all in one easy to find folder, ready to go?
  • Where are your CD’s/DVD’s – do you need them?
  • Are you documenting your install in any way?  How?  Where?
  • Do you have a scheme for naming your web applications, ssp’s, content db’s?
  • What services are you going to configure?
  • What is your indicator that you have successfully installed MOSS?  When do you stop this task, and move on to the next?

I like to have these things mapped out, in my mind and documented.  The process of install and initial configure should be straight forward and easy.  Just make your own check-list, include the critical details, and follow the steps.  Write down what you do as you do it and you won’t have to hunt for a port number or database later.  Being a bit anal pays off sometimes…my install day today was kind of relaxing.  By the way, I had Thai for lunch.

Posted in Best Practice, Commentary, Install & Configure | Tagged: , | Comments Off

“Greening” of IT

Posted by sharepoinTony on August 25, 2009

I recently read a white paper on the topic of the “Greening of IT”. Very interesting paper (search for Analyst Perspectives Consensus Report along with my title of this post to find the white paper, it is on a subscription service).

From this report I culled a few interesting quotes to share:

Environmental responsibility is emerging as an important topic for IT organizations and their technology suppliers (Source: “The Greening Of IT”, April 19, 2007, Forrester Research).

Enterprises are on the verge of adopting green strategies as they realize that doing so can lead to operational cost savings and waste reductions. In many cases what is good for the environment can also be good for the bottom line (Source: “Green IT adoption in North America lags good intentions, says Info-Tech Research Group”, July 16, 2007, Info-Tech Research).

The report showed that roughly 3/4 of all companies implementing “Green IT” initiatives were doing so primarily for the REDUCTION OF ENERGY COSTS.  The tide is turning slowly, however as more businesses recognize that the true benefits of becoming efficient and “green” includes cost savings over the long run we may see Lean IT as a standard way of doing business.  Everyone can benefit from this trend if the attitude toward “green” doesn’t fall prey to the negative connotations that ruined “ecology” and “environmentalism” in the 1970′s.

Corporations and the US Government both need to increase funding for these type of projects.  Not because they cost more (even though it might cost more up front) and not because it is the right thing to do (even if it is)…but because it is the prudent thing to do for your business.  Long-term thinking and planning need to make a come-back in the business world.  If you can cut your long-term costs significantly, you will help to ensure you lower the RISK your business is faced with in the future.  You also increase the chance of profitability in the near term…so why not adjust your thinking and consider going green?

Thanks to Books24x7 and SkillSoft for presenting the article.

AnalystPerspectives™ is a subscription-based offering from Books24x7, a SkillSoft Company. For more information on subscribing, visit www.books24x7.com

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Woo Hoo “Expert” Review

Posted by sharepoinTony on August 14, 2009

My review of ACAR’s Room Manager was accepted and published on SharePoint Reviews.  Read it here: SharePoint Reviews Room Manager for SharePoint by ACAR

Thanks to SharePoint Reviews for providing this service to the SharePoint public.  I find the reviews helpful, that is why I submitted my review as a way to “give back”.

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SharePoint for Documentation

Posted by sharepoinTony on August 11, 2009

Recently read a Nice idea and article about using SharePoint for documentation. http://www.desklight.com/2009/08/innovative-green-approach-to-product.html
This is a focused PRODUCT article, but the concept is intriguing. Someone else out there may find it useful also.
I am not 100% sold on the idea that people want to read product documentation on their mobile device. Most won’t read it at all, and trying to sort through it all on such a small screen seems masochistic to me. I am old school and prefer reading most things on paper, especially product documentation. I may want to browse and skip over areas, possibly returning later, to see what is there. I like to find interesting details and skip the legally required jibberish.
That said, other documentation may be handy online. Even on mobile. For example what if you are moving about and could use some specifics that you already know are in a certain document. It would be nice to be able to pull up that documentation and jump to the known section for the details you want.
Generally speaking I like putting documentation online, and I like the concept promoted by this product. I think it will take some time for this to catch on, but I hope it does.

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