Steve Caravajal's Ramblings

Getting Ready to Buy a Netbook?

If so, you might want to check out:

Top 6 Things to Consider Before Buying a Small Notebook PC

I like both of these: ASUS Eee 1000HE and the HP 2140 mini.

Let me know your favorites.

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New Silverlight-Based STSADM Reference

Looking for a specific STSADM command? If so, you can find it here for WSS and here for MOSS.

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SharePoint 2007 Reader’s Choice Award Winner

More than 8000 readers of the magazine ASP.NETPro voted MOSS the best Content Management System.

Rock on!

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SharePoint Customization, Development and Governance

SharePoint Designer

No it’s not an April fools joke and yes as of April 2, 2009, SharePoint Designer 2007 is available as a free download. General SharePoint Designer info can be found here. This eliminates any cost issue associated with providing users the necessary tools for site customization and is a great opportunity for those companies that need to customize SharePoint sites as part of their enterprise plans. But it also emphasizes the need for defining site customization governance.

So, as part of maintaining control, how do I “lock down” SPD use? This is a very common question.  There are two resources that should be required reading for all SharePoint admins and any business users that are site owners:

How to prevent SharePoint Designer 2007 users from changing a Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 site or a SharePoint Server 2007 site

Locking Down SharePoint Designer

Many new awesome features are on tap for the next version of SharePoint Designer so stay tuned.

Visual Studio 2010

Soma’s blog gave a good introduction to what’s coming in VS2010 with regard to SharePoint development:

In Visual Studio 2010, we’re going to expand SharePoint support in two key areas. First, Visual Studio 2010 will deliver a broad set of project templates, designers, and deployment infrastructure that will make any .NET developer instantly more productive on the SharePoint platform. Second, we are exposing an extensibility API that will continue to foster the ecosystem of third party developers who create development tools and technologies.

Visual Studio 2010 will come with a broad set of project and items templates. You’ll be able to use these to quickly create or update SharePoint elements such as list definitions, list instances, site definitions, workflows, event receivers, Business Data Catalog models, and content types.

There were also several presentations at MIX09 discussing the SharePoint development experience. If you missed MIX, then you can check out the recorded presentations here, at least for awhile, not sure how long they will be available. Make sure to check out the keynotes, they will give you a good overview of what’s coming.

Expression Blend v3

Also at MIX, it was announced that the next version of Expression (v3) will have SharePoint integration so designers familiar with the Expression tool can apply these skills to SP design. I’ve gotten a number of questions from folks asking why is there another design tool for SharePoint? Is SharePoint Designer going away? No, SPD is not going away. You should read this is part of the heavy commitment for making the SharePoint design, customization and development experience the best it can be with the tools you are the most familiar. As EXv3 gets closer, there will be more information on the specifics.

So, the SharePoint design, customization and development experience is only getting better and the gaps in the tool sets that exist today are being filled. It’s an awesome time to be working with a great product, especially since we are on the verge of a new release.

Governance

As part of my governance discussions, I include 2 topics of relevance here:

1. Custom Artifacts (eg custom Web parts, custom workflows, etc.)

2. Customization vs Development (aka SharePoint Designer vs Visual Studio)

These are critical discussion points for any organization that is going to use SharePoint Designer and Visual Studio as part of their tools for meeting their design requirements.

Now I know that governance is definitely not a favorite topic and it can be overwhelming, but defining the customization and development requirements and how they will be delivered BEFORE you deploy is extremely important. Only bite off the necessary governance chunks that are absolutely necessary and then add more over time; this makes the whole process more successful.

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A New Book on the BDC

The authors behind the the awesome BDC MetaMan tool have written a book:

SharePoint 2007 Developer's Guide to Business Data Catalog

A got my hands on an early copy via the MEAP and I’m about 3/4 through. If you're new to the BDC, it will be a great reference and it will get you up to speed ASAP. If you have been working with the BDC for awhile now, then it will be a complete resource you can refer to as necessary. Either way, it’s definitely worth a look, it’s the only book on the market dedicated to the BDC.

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SharePoint Developers and Visual Studio 10

Some really great news for SharePoint developers along the tools front. Check out Soma’s blog for a good summary of what’s coming.

Sharepoint tools support in Visual Studio

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SharePoint Deployment and Install Guide

My good buddy Shane and friends at SharePoint911.com have written a great paper:

Administrator’s Guide of Topics to Consider before Deployment

If you just learning SharePoint because your company has decided to deploy….yes you know who you are…..then this paper is for you. It is a great introduction to all things you need to know to get up speed quickly.

So, don’t you dare run setup.exe before reading this!

Also, I was fortunate enough to spend all last week with Shane co-teaching the Professional SharePoint Server 2007 Administration course to 28 folks in the Columbus, OH area. It was great fun. We put this together as an “invite-only” offering with the help from Jeff Warnat (Microsoft SharePoint Strategist) and Microsoft, and it was hosted at the Microsoft office.

If you have a chance to take the course you gotta do it.

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PRISM: Composite Application Guidance for WPF and Silverlight

You say, “what are composite applications?” Good question. Generally, a composite application is an application built by combining multiple existing functions into a new application. Functionality can be a part of other applications, or an entire application can be utilized.

The Composite Client Application Guidance is designed to help you build composite applications that utilize Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) and Silverlight.

Included in this release:

· Composite Application Library

· Reference Implementation (Stock Traders application in WPF and Silverlight)

· Quick starts (9)

· How-Tos (26) and

· Lots of documentation for everything you want to know about UI patterns  and client architectures

PRISM

Prism: patterns & practices Composite Application Guidance for WPF and Silverlight site.

Books

Introducing Microsoft Silverlight 2.0, 2nd Edition

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SharePoint is getting even more powerful!! Welcome PerformancePoint Services!

Some very exciting news was announced yesterday. SharePoint’s mission has always been to provide collaboration to the masses. Collaboration in the broadest sense has meant business intelligence capability with Excel integration, Excel Services, KPIs, Report Center, etc.

Well, as of yesterday, collaboration to the masses now also includes BI for the masses with the inclusion of PerformancePoint Services. Yep, that’s right! The next version of SharePoint (aka SharePoint14) will include PerformancePoint Services. You say you can’t wait till SharePoint14, well you might not have to, read on…

This is an update to our Business Intelligence roadmap. This will greatly facilitate delivering BI to everyone in the organization.

Specifically, this includes consolidating the scorecard, dashboard, and analytic functionality from PerformancePoint Server into SharePoint Server Enterprise as PerformancePoint Services.

PerformancePoint Services will be a license entitlement for SharePoint Server 2007 ECAL customers with Software Assurance. This means that customers who want to deploy PerformancePoint can do so today at no additional cost. Yep, you read that right.

PerformancePoint Server 2007 will no longer be available as a standalone item after April 1, 2009.

For more info,

Microsoft Business Intelligence strategy update and SharePoint

Microsoft Business Intelligence

The BI Blog

Business Intelligence with Microsoft® Office PerformancePoint Server 2007

For me, this is a very exciting announcement, specifically for two reasons:

1. For a lot of my customers, BI is something that they want to do, but many find it cost prohibitive and some have it siloed within the organization so that only a few have access. There are likely many other reasons but the end result is a less than successful implementation and utilization. They now don’t have to worry about buying a separate BI point solution that doesn’t integrate very well. They already have their enterprise portal and collaboration environment in MOSS, and now they’ll have excellent BI as well.

2. A lot of customers are very interested in a few of the ECAL features, but not enough to push them to pay the additional licensing costs. With the ECAL now including PPS, this will definitely rock their world, IMHO, and enable even greater collaboration capability.

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SharePoint Intranets are among the Best

Jakob Nielsen has just released his report describing the top 10 best intranet sites worldwide for 2009. He is internationally recognized as one of the best Web Usability experts. His report has quite a bit of great information so make sure you check it out.

A blurb from the report:

“In total, the 10 winners were built on 26 different products — substantially fewer than the 41 used in 2008 or the 49 used in 2007. Most impressively, fully half of the winning intranets used SharePoint, especially the recent MOSS platform (Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007). As the following chart shows, SharePoint use has grown dramatically in recent years. This is particularly impressive given that, from 2003–2006, the winning intranets didn't use earlier versions of SharePoint at all.”

The winners of the award for 10 best-designed intranets for 2009 are:

• Altran, a large engineering and innovation consultancy (France)
• Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), a developer of computer and graphics processors (USA)
• BASF SE, the world's leading chemical manufacturing company (Germany)
• COWI Group A/S, a consulting group focusing on engineering, environmental science, and economics (Denmark)
• Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu (DTT), a global professional services network providing audit, tax, consulting, and financial advisory services (a Global member organization)
• Environmental Resource Management (ERM), one of the world's leading providers of environmental consulting services (Global)
• HSBC Bank Brazil (Brazil)
• Kaupthing Bank (Iceland)
• L.L.Bean, a vendor of apparel and outdoor equipment (USA)
• McKesson Corporation, a large provider of pharmaceuticals, medical supplies, and health care information technologies (USA)

SharePoint keeps rocking the world….

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Windows Live going Social....

Social Networking will continue to create a lot of watercooler talk and executive discussions in 2009, with more and more companies applying Web 2.0 tool in the Enterprise. I've seen tremendous interest in the last 6-9 months in this topic with the customers that I speak with. A lot is happening in the blogsphere and it's becoming more difficult to keep up with all the chatter. Here is a new announcement you many not of heard:

Is Microsoft Biting Its Own Hand with Windows Live?

Microsoft will add Facebook-like features to Windows Live over the next few months. How will Microsoft business partner feel about this?

"...Microsoft announced yesterday that it would empower its Windows Live portal with social networking features starting sometime next year. With Windows Live getting more social, 283 million Hotmail users are prone to become part of the world's largest social network..."

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SharePoint and Commerce Server Integration

There is a set of excellent blog posts that will tell you most of what you need to know if you are considering Commerce Server 2007.

Wrap-Up: Commerce Server 2007 Architecture Series

Well, as you might expect, Commerce Server 2009 is just on the horizon and a CTP has been released in December.

Announcement: Commerce Server 2009 & December CTP Availability

One of the CS2009 features that I'm planning to check out is SharePoint Commerce Services. Here are a few blurbs from the announcement:

"Commerce Server 2009 delivers the ability to increase your business reach by making it possible to sell via multiple channels using an out-of-the-box shopping site, SharePoint Commerce Services.

...The new out-of-the-box shopping site leverages SharePoint Commerce Services, which provides a gallery of ASP.NET 3.5 Web Parts, a comprehensive e-commerce shopping feature-set, and technology integration between Commerce Server and SharePoint technologies.

...Complete out-of-the-box e-commerce shopping site in SharePoint with new search functionality, new shopping features, and what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) content management and design experiences. This helps to facilitate rapid assembly and maintenance of e-commerce Web sites by business users and creative professionals."

This sounds pretty cool and fills an e-commerce gap SharePoint has today that several of my customers want.

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Kindle is Awesome! Time to re-evaluate the ebook reader market.

Kindle is the the new ebook reader sold by Amazon.com. Reading is a great way to keep up to date about new ideas and finding enough time to read continues to be a challenge because there is so much stuff I want to read.

I've always been interested in ebook readers but I've never been satisfied with their quality and capabilities. Well, that POV has changed. If you love to read, you might want to investigate the future...

The Kindle is wireless. No PC and no syncing needed. The Kindle uses the same 3G network as cell phones, so that content is delivered directly to the device. Connectivity has been excellent everywhere I wander, no costs, no contracts, no hot spot necessity, etc.

Read when and where you want. The Kindle is compact and light enough to carry in your backpack wherever you go without having to worry about lugging around the paper-bound versions of the books you are reading.

Read multiple books at time. This is a huge deal and positive for an ebook reader. If you're like me, I am usually reading 5-10 different books at a time. Some may think this is crazy, and maybe it is, but I have actually found that I have better retention, and since my mind gets bored easily it's often difficult to stay focused on a single book's content. Well, since it is practically not feasible to carry around 5-10 books, this is a major driver for the ebook reader from my POV.

Try before you buy. You can wirelessly download content from books you may be interested in purchasing to check it out before you buy it. Try-before-you-buy is a requirement for me. My typical browse process is to sit down at the local book store with the hard copy along side my favorite white-chocolate mocha (which by the way is becoming a raspberry, white chocolate mocha, but that's another story). So remember, you don't have to judge a book by its cover, you can read some of it and make up your own mind.

Purchasing new books on demand. This is the very best part!! If I get bored with a current title, I can quickly download and start reading a new one. I don't have to leave my comfortable lounge chair, or my favorite coffee spot, or wherever I might be. The books come to me.

Obviously, some of the above points are not unique to the Kindle. I cannot emphasize the wireless capability enough. It was the deal-maker for me, and deal-breaker vs other devices. There are a lot of ebook readers out there so if your interest is sparked, you might want to check out some reviews and other devices. The Kindle device has its critics so make sure you do your due diligence.

Amazon Kindle

You can't always judge an eBook by its cover: a review of the Amazon Kindle

Down with paper: A review of the Sony Reader

Here Comes Kindle 2.0

Unpacking the rumors of a second-generation Kindle

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Collaboration Can be Expensive

Extending my cell phone contract recently brought a surprise. My unlimited text messaging feature had been removed, and now I had a set limit per month except for those with the same carrier. I thought, well, no big deal, I’ll just text less.

For those that use this feature, it’s very handy and unobtrusive. Net, an excellent way to collaborate. Often I need to talk with a colleague and I know that they are busy so that they will likely not answer their cell, so I text them to call me when they are free. I use the same approach when people try to reach me. So needless to say, having a limited set of texts really sucks. Well, just when I was getting over feeling sorry for myself, I saw this article:

What Carriers Aren’t Eager to Tell You About Texting

Wow, what a ripoff!! Give this article a read, it will open your eyes. Now I know that I better fight to keep unlimited texts.

Live and learn.

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Windows Live Writer 2009 RC Released

Those that currently use LW or anyone looking for a very good and free tool for creating and publishing blog posts should look to LW. A release candidate for the new version was just posted, go check it out here.

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