March, 2009

I’ve been experimenting with Twitter for the last couple of months and I am quite addicted to it now. I love the fact that you can get real time news and chat with so many people from the community. SharePointDev, emilysc, ninar,and ricalo have been my Twitter mentors and got me deep into the addiction.

I’ve been twittering random news that matter to Office and SharePoint developers under my Twitter account, but wanted to create another feed where we specifically post:

• Just published content
• Portal updated pages
• Top portal pages / strategic pages
• Top articles / top content
• Announcements for Office developers
• RTs related to Office and MOSS developer news

We created yesterday a Twitter feed for Office and SharePoint News.

MSDN_Office / MSDN Office News – Get the latest news about Microsoft Office and SharePoint code samples, downloads, SDKs, references, articles, videos, and tools for developers on MSDN. Follow us!

Office and SharePoint Twitters

Back in the day, I kept collections of Office and SharePoint developer bloggers. Here's our collection of Office and SharePoint accounts that matter to developers:

http://twitter.com/MSDN_Office/friends

Twitter from Office Programs

There’s tons of third-party applications to use with your Twitter account. Here are some great tools that help you connect to Twitter from Office Apps:

• Twitter from Outlook with OutTwit
• Write Your Own Twitter Client using Microsoft Excel
• Excel to Twitter
• Microsoft Excel and Twitter via Smart Tags in a VS 2008 Solution
• Combining SharePoint and Twitter
• Binary Free SharePoint Twitter Search Web Part
• A SharePoint Twitter Web Part?

Happy Twittering!

A long time ago I blogged about Office developer resources in your own language. Ever since, we have seen the need for “Office Technical Content” in multiple languages. For example, in countries like Russia or France, developers and IT professionals create great SharePoint solutions and deployments, but there is low English affinity on those markets. In some other cases you may understand well technical content in English, but you may have a preference to read it in your own language.

In order to support the international community of Office and SharePoint developers and IT professionals, the Office International Publishing Group has done a lot of progress on localizing technical content from MSDN and TechNet. So far, this group has localized Office Technical Library content into ten languages.  Additionally, they have created Office TechNet and MSDN Developer Centers for 14 markets.

Markets for MSDN – portals/ library (home pages)

• Germany: http://msdn.microsoft.com/de-de/office/
• Japan: http://msdn.microsoft.com/ja-jp/office/
• France: http://msdn.microsoft.com/fr-fr/office/
• Canada (FR): http://msdn.microsoft.com/fr-ca/office/
• Spain: http://msdn.microsoft.com/es-es/office/
• Mexico: http://msdn.microsoft.com/es-mx/office/
• Italy: http://msdn.microsoft.com/it-it/office/
• Brazil: http://msdn.microsoft.com/pt-br/office/
• Korea: http://msdn.microsoft.com/ko-kr/office/
• UK: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-gb/office/
• Australia:  http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-au/office/
• Canada(EN): http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-ca/office/
• Chinese Simp.: http://msdn.microsoft.com/zh-cn/office/
• Chinese Trad.:  http://msdn.microsoft.com/zh-tw/office/
• Russian: http://msdn.microsoft.com/ru-ru/office/

MSDN Library is available for: Japanese, French, Spanish, Chinese Simp., Russian, and German.

Also, for MSDN Brazilian Portuguese Content we have enabled Machine Translation Wiki – Check it out here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/pt-br/library/aa701145.aspx

Markets for TechNet – portals/ library (home pages)

• Germany: http://technet.microsoft.com/de-de/office/
• Japan: http://technet.microsoft.com/ja-jp/office/
• France: http://technet.microsoft.com/fr-fr/office/
• Canada (FR): http://technet.microsoft.com/fr-ca/office/
• Spain: http://technet.microsoft.com/es-es/office/
• Mexico: http://technet.microsoft.com/es-mx/office/
• Italy: http://technet.microsoft.com/it-it/office/
• Brazil: http://technet.microsoft.com/pt-br/office/
• Korea: http://technet.microsoft.com/ko-kr/office/
• UK: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/office/
• Australia:` http://technet.microsoft.com/en-au/office/
• Canada(EN): http://technet.microsoft.com/en-ca/office/
• Chinese Simp.: http://technet.microsoft.com/zh-cn/office/
• Chinese Trad.: http://technet.microsoft.com/zh-tw/office/
• Russian: http://technet.microsoft.com/ru-ru/office/

TechNet Library is available for: Japanese, French, Spanish, Chinese Simp. & Trad., Russian, German, Italian, Brazil, Korean

Last February, the Office International Publishing Group localized two more markets – Japanese and Taiwanese.

The areas we are looking now into are – site customization for the local market, identifying the content areas where we should invest, and engagement with the community. Any feedback is very much appreciated!

David Pavlik, the Planner for Office Technical International content, can be reached via Twitter at  http://twitter.com/davidpav. Send him your ideas, feedback, and request needs about Office Technical Content.

Hope you enjoy Office and SharePoint technical content in your own language!