Don't worry if you missed PDC there is an event in Atlanta just for you. On Dec 16th, there will be an event in town that covers many of the topics from PDC and the cost is just $99.
http://www.msdndevcon.com/Pages/Atlanta.aspx
Here is a intro from the page
"We’re bringing the PDC to you! For just $99 you’ll get the best of the PDC in your own backyard and hear all of the exciting announcements around the Azure Services Platform and Windows 7. Other sessions include the latest developments in .NET, Silverlight, Surface, Parallel Programming, Live Mesh, and more."
Some of the speakers are below, I am sure you have heard of them before.
- David Scruggs
- Jeff Barnes
- Wallace B. McClure
- Bruce Thomas
- Mark Dunn
- Todd Fine
- Todd Miranda
- Alan Stevens
- Shawn Wildermuth
- Jim Wooley
- Mickey Gousset
I make not secret of the fact that I'm a Microsoft fanboy. I use a Microsoft Zune. I have several Xboxes (I kept 1 and gave 2 away). I use a Windows Mobile phone. This morning, my Microsoft Life got updated.
I fired up my Xbox 360 and downloaded the new Xbox Experience - an entirely new dashboard which introduces the "twist" style navigation familiar from the Zune and Windows Media Player. Now I have dozens of screens to look at and a generally improved way of navigating through the content. I spent all of about six minutes playing with it b/c I was excited to set up my most anticipated feature - integration to my NetFlix Instant Queue. Unfortunately I didn't get to demo that functionality as the NetFlix device activation web site was down. I'll hit that when I get home tonight. I also created an avatar, which I'd show you but apparently the Xbox Live site is still being worked on - I can't log in or look at my stats and friends.
I checked Twitter and saw Mike Gannotti talk about why he loves the Zune, including that he just got an update to the 3.1 firmware. This update includes new games like Soduku and some new listening features which I have yet to explore fully but anticipate loving the hell out of!
I'm thrilled with the new updates and can't wait to waste unbelievable hours of what would be marginally productive time listening to music, watching movies, and playing games. All I can say is that if the NetFlix integration is as awesome as I hope it is, I'm going to cancel HBO and ShowTime (and save a bucket of money). Next up - Windows Mobile 6.5. Rumors indicate we may finally see Zune software integration on handsets which will give me yet another way to kill my battery superfast. Yay!
Figure 1 - SkyDrive home page
Windows Live SkyDrive is an online file storage and sharing system which can be used to replace a traditional FTP server.
http://skydrive.live.com
Sign in with a Windows Live ID (you can create one if you don’t already have one). Your Windows Live ID can be used for a multitude of services, including Hotmail, Expedia, Windows Live Messenger, MSN Spaces, and more.
Figure 2 - SkyDrive folders
SkyDrive can be used to store up to 5 Gb online with 3 different levels of security: Personal, Shared, and Public. Personal folders are extremely secured. Only you, with your Windows Live ID, can access Personal folders. Shared folders are password protected and can be accessed only by e-mail accounts you specify. Public folders are exposed to the Internet with no security – anyone can look at the contents of a Public folder if they have the proper link.
Figure 3 - SkyDrive Shared Folder options
When creating a Shared folder, you have the option to name the folder and specify who can access the folder. When picking people who have access, you can select from anyone in your Hotmail or Windows Live Messenger contacts list or you can explicitly specify e-mail addresses. You also have the ability to specify the level of access a user of your folder has – whether or not they can change or add items to the shared folder. An e-mail will automatically be sent to the people you have granted access to.
Figure 4 - SkyDrive e-mail notification
The HTML e-mail received by your invited guests gives them a link to the shared folder.
The numbers have been hidden to protect the innocent but the total drop from the high point to the low point represents 17 lbs to date. The chart was generated on www.LiveStrong.com, which allows you to track food intake, exercise, and more on The Daily Plate.
Have you been wondering what Jim Wooley has been doing lately? He has been working hard at code camps, Atlanta user groups and now is on the front of Microsoft Tech Online!
Jim is the Bloggers Spotlight
You can see Jim and more at http://www.microsoft.com/techedonline
Also if you want to keep up with LINQ and Jim's blog look at http://www.thinqlinq.com/
This past Wednesday (Oct 15) I was the featured presenter at the Houston SharePoint User Group. I gave a well received presentation on Social Computing in SharePoint and how the Web 2.0 ideas can be used in combination with SharePoint to bring real business value to the enterprise. Due to time limitations, I broke the slide deck into two parts (in case I couldn't get to the second part). I've posted the slide decks online along with the demos I talked about. During the presentation, I only managed to get through the Wiki walkthrough.
About fifty people showed up, based on my rough eyeballing of the room. I was able to convince some members of the audience that I was serious about having an interactive presentation and managed to get some great feedback during the presentation.
It was great to meet everyone there and I'm sure that I'll be back.
* cross-post with SharePointGuys blog
I've been pretty quiet here on the blog recently. Lots of work has been going on, work at my job, work at home, and work on SharePoint-related items which has taken up my full attention. However, light is showing at the end of the tunnel and I'm committing to getting back into the blogging spirit. Look for more posts and general activity from me, coming soon...
I'll be presenting at the Houston SharePoint User Group tonight, for anyone who knows me in that area.
Ryan Housley, one of the Atlanta community members that helped start and run MOSSmosis, a SharePoint user groups, is now going to help another great cause. He is helping HeroBox.org to send custom care packages to American soliders. Help support him in his cause.
You can find out more at their site:
www.herobox.org
http://heroboxblog.blogspot.com/
Register today and getVIRTUALnow.
Atlanta event November 17, 2008
https://www.getvirtualnow.com/usevents/CitySelect.aspx
Find out how Windows Server 2008® with Hyper-V™, Microsoft System Center--including Virtual Machine Manager 2008—and Microsoft Desktop and Application Virtualization can help you virtualize from the data center to the desktop.
Choose from the seminars, the labs, and the expo booths.
Get access to everything, from three seminar sessions to the all-day Solutions Pavilion featuring Microsoft experts, virtualization technology partners, and Hands-on Labs.
Take virtualization home.
Take home a free readiness kit** that includes product, training materials, product evaluations, and learning opportunities.
Pearson Education User Group Program
www.informit.com/usergroupwelcome
www.ciscopress.com/usergroup
It’ll only take a minute and helps us better serve your needs! Entrants could win five free books of their choice from InformIT.com!
Take it now!
http://www.informit.com/promotions/promotion.aspx?promo=136703
Sometimes we don't have a formal process for getting people involved in the user groups, but if you are interested we want you to participate.
There are a couple of areas you can always help with such as:
- Speaking at a user group
- Updating the Web Sites
- Getting a sponsor for a user group
- Planning the food
- Planning a place to go after the user group
- Organizing the meeting location
Even though we don't have a formal process for any of these if you are interested or even curious, just email me and let me know which user group you want to help out.
We even want Aaron to participate, maybe as a speaker.
Here is the information I received from AC.
I’m pleased to help announce that there will be a local (Atlanta) training class for SharePoint Server 2007 Web Content Management. The instructor for this class is Andrew Connell, who is one of the world’s leading trainers for MOSS 2007 Web Content Management & recently released the first and only book on the subject: Professional SharePoint 2007 Web Content Management Development. Andrew was also a renowned specialist in the previous Microsoft Content Management Server 2001 and 2002 technologies.
This isn't like other classes that hire contractors to write their courses, this course was written and developed 100% by the instructor, Andrew Connell. The class covers virtually all development topics related to WCM / Publishing sites such as building master pages, page layouts, field types & controls, Web Parts and custom workflows. In addition, it also covers creating multilingual sites using variations, performance enhancing techniques required for Internet-facing SharePoint sites, extending the authoring experience and security.
While the course does demonstrate and teach you how to use tools such as Office SharePoint Designer 2007 in creating master pages, page layouts and custom workflows, but students are taken a step further in understanding SharePoint customization vs. development. Along this concept, students will learn how to create all these different things (master pages, page layouts, custom workflows) as well as site columns, content types, list templates & instances among other things using Features and solutions. This latter approach makes life much easier for developers and WCM site implementers to move their custom code and layout files to other members of their development team as well as from development to user acceptance to staging and ultimately onto production.
Here's a list of the modules in the course:
- WSS Development Primer
- Web Content Management Architecture
- Authentication & Authorization
- Master Pages & Navigation
- Creating Custom Page Layouts
- Extending the Out-Of-The-Box Authoring Experience
- Leveraging WCM & Custom Web Parts
- Custom Field Types & Field Controls
- Performance Tuning Publishing Sites
- Understanding WF (Workflow Foundation) & Creating Interactive Workflows
- Content Deployment
- Implementing Multilingual Sites Using Variations
This is a 4-Day class, and will be held on the Microsoft Technology Center in Alpharetta, GA. The price is $2,395. To register, please use the URL below.
More Class Information: http://www.andrewconnell.com/blog/articles/MossWcmDeveloperClasses.aspx
To Register: http://www.tedpattison.net/register.aspx?OfferingID=117
If you want to have lists of items to track that you can make public and private check out
Remember The Milk
http://www.rememberthemilk.com/
It is funny they have a very similar logo to ours. The great part is that it is available from many different sources and all you have to is send it an email.
Anyone else have any good sites for keeping up with lists?
As one of the community leads for the International SharePoint Professionals Association (ISPA) I wanted to let you know that the group is now live! If you have any questions about the group and need help in the SouthEast send me an email and I will get you set up.
Here is the new web site http://www.sharepointpros.org
Check out the board members sites Bob Fox, Christopher Regan, Natalya Voskresenskaya, Darrin Bishop
Below is our official press release…
The International SharePoint Professionals Association, also known as ‘ISPA’, is an independent, not-for-profit, community-driven organization dedicated to support SharePoint professionals and groups all around the world. The primary mission of ISPA is to promote the global adoption of SharePoint Technologies by providing support and guidance to the SharePoint community as a whole – by establishing connections between SharePoint professionals, groups, resources, education and information. ISPA is led and supported by volunteers across the world, and will focus on bringing the entire SharePoint community closer together.
ISPA’s first offering to the community is support to user groups around the world through free WSS v3 web sites for any group that becomes ISPA-affiliated. In addition, one of the goals of ISPA is to facilitate an exchange of ideas between user group leaders that helps increase the likelihood of their group’s success. Therefore, ISPA is providing leaders of user groups with access to collaborative spaces where they can interact with other user group leaders, sharing ideas, resources, best practices, guidance, and most importantly – support for one another.
ISPA has also established Regional Evangelists – existing community leaders who have previously exhibited a strong commitment to the promotion of the SharePoint community, and who have pledged to carry the ISPA message throughout their particular region. These evangelists are key local contacts who are available to work with local SharePoint professionals and user groups throughout their region to help promote the community and SharePoint. If you are interested in starting a user group, have an existing one, or need guidance – the ISPA Regional Evangelists are great resources who are available immediately to assist you.
Finally, as everyone knows, no community is complete without a web site, and ISPA is proud to announce the launch of its official site, http://www.sharepointpros.org. While the web site is still in the early stages of development, plans for multilingual support and exciting functionality that will assist anyone involved with SharePoint are on the horizon.
If you have ideas for ISPA, would like to start a user group, or are looking for assistance, visit the new ISPA web site or contact ISPA at contactus@sharepointpros.org. Together, the community can achieve what was impossible as individuals – becomes a part of ISPA today!
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