September 26, 2007
Well, my French is a bit rusty but according to this post there is a new release of an ECM-Portal : S2 coming out in later 2007. This is further confirmed from Mary Jo Foley who seems to be well in the loop with all things Microsoft. Mary wrote a good post on what's coming in Office 14 here. The main feature here seems to be around MDM (Master data management) which she explains in her post, the
more...
September 25, 2007
Was asked another curly question about Licensing on Friday, and was reading this during my daily reading about Internet facing (MOSSIF) sites and requiring CALs for internal connections. Basically, you weren't allowed to deploy an Intranet and Extranet in the same SharePoint farm because of licensing. CodeJedi.net has posted a new article stating that the licensing has been reworked to allow a d
more...
September 25, 2007
I've been getting some curly questions around InfoPath of late due to our organisation already using various other products in this space. It's great to compare these feature for feature to get a better understanding of what they do and what things can be done in them. I found a good post with a video of InfoPath features. It basically describes hooking up a form to a SQL Database Table for query
more...
September 25, 2007
I was reading an article over at Provoke about SharePoint and WCM. The main discussion was around what knowledge you need to implement this and the post does a great job of breaking these things up. We have a designer at our work that understands CSS better than anyone I've met and he's currently working on a RedDot CMS implementation. I think he'll be able to switch products with no problems and
more...
September 25, 2007
I was reading an article on WWF vs. LiveLink Workflow and reminiscing with my time working with WWF in beta on a big .NET project here in Perth. We came across some stumbling blocks with the persistence layer, which has been rewritten for SharePoint so that it stores it within it's database natively. One of the key criticisms of LiveLink Workflow was that it is written in it's own language and no
more...
September 25, 2007
I got thrown a real curve ball today at work from one of our Technical Solutions Architects. He was querying if they moved 200Gb worth of files from a file store into SharePoint how big would the SQL 2005 database be? I found a TechNet post that links off to various articles around capacity planning. This one seems to be most relevant to content storage. Database Management Bill Bauer has a great
more...
September 25, 2007
Well the discussions go further from the two big guns (Andrew Connell and Joel Olsen). The key takeaway was "not to reinvent the wheel". The SharePoint platform does a lot of things out of the box that traditionally you'd spend days writing, for example, CRUD data access layers and database schemas that can now be implemented using SharePoint Lists and the SharePoint API. The other key
more...
September 25, 2007
HP have released a new sizing and configuration tool for SharePoint. I've run through my initial thoughts on this. Their microsoft product page is here with further details. Business Profile Interestingly the quoted SMB as up to 1,000 users, Mid-market to 1,000 - 20,000 users (peak usage of 3:1) and Enterprise as anything bigger than that. User Requests Per Day The problem I see with the estim
more...
September 24, 2007
Thanks to Tom Molenhouse for sending me an email after reading my article the other day (I love the SharePoint community). The below instructions were found via a cached Google page here: This script provides incoming email functionality when using WSS 3.0 on a Small Business Server, or on an Exchange Server. We offer no guarantees that this script will work for you, and we are unable to offer f
more...
September 24, 2007
Microsoft have posted up a virtual lab to showcase the Records Management capabilities. The lab basically took you through: creating a new records center creating some Document Libraries for Financial Reports, Contracts, and Product Development Files. All with some custom metadata, retention policies and audit policies. creating record routing for each Content Type. configuring Central Admini
more...
September 24, 2007
Well apart from the slight hiccup about not being able to see the .chm file due to IE7.0 security which is fixed by following this post. One thing it did highlight is that using .wsp packages makes installing new features to the SharePoint platform childs play! The control in Central Administration of which web applications you deploy the package too is very nice. I even retracted the solution to
more...
September 24, 2007
A Collaborative Platform I was reading posts on SharePoint Meets ECM sessions and was interested with the comments around "that MOSS is a very strong collaborative platform but isn’t yet a full-fledged alternative to existing ECM tools" which is true I guess. I mean, the Document Management and Web Content Management is very capable but if put up against OpenText DM or RedDot CMS they j
more...
September 19, 2007
One thing I did drive home at the presentation last night was how extensible that SharePoint is. SharePoint is built on the .Net 2.0 Framework and heavily utilises the power of ASP.NET Framework also. Unlike other vendors, all of the core 6 areas (CMS wire ref - believe it or not I couldn't find one on the Microsoft SharePoint site) of SharePoint are built on this and use the same format API's an
more...
September 19, 2007
I was configuring the people search and found this article which explains it in great detail. Basically you need to go to SSP: User Profile and Properties : Configure Profile Import. Once you’ve set this up here you then click on Start full Import to pull them in. You can set a schedule here too to crawl it in at required rate, I'm not sure of the performance issues as yet if you do this frequen
more...
September 19, 2007
Email enabling SharePoint Lists is a great feature to introduce into the Enterprise. If I had a dollar for everytime I emphasised the importance to centralise information I'd be a rich man. This would obviously help to replace storing it in personal silos such as personal inboxes, my documents and file shares. In doing so this means that the Enterprise has more control over back ups and archiving
more...
September 19, 2007
zdnet have posted an article around the new Google Apps Premier Edition (GAPE) which is going to the market with the help of Salesforce. It will be interesting to see how they play this out and how much it will cost. There is a big battle going on, even in this article with regards to how Microsoft and Google release these products and with what features. It interests me that Microsoft claim that
more...
September 18, 2007
I presented at the Perth SharePoint User Group tonight on Enterprise 2.0 and how Web 2.0 has influenced it and how the SharePoint Platform allows the Enterprise to actually implement it. There were a few good points raised which I'll cover very briefly and follow up more with at a later date: User Profiles - Organisational Hierarchy Web Part - "can it only be done on My Manager property in
more...
September 17, 2007
Was just reading a post on Ben McCormack's blog which mentioned the announcement that Microsoft have released a new Facebook toolkit. This did come as somewhat of a shock, I mean it's unlike any of the big vendors to play nicely with a competitor. I don't think they ever released a partnership with MySpace and that is based on a Microsoft Platform. They clearly don't see MSNSpaces as a competitor
more...
September 17, 2007
Was configuring the people search and found this article which explains it in great detail.
In my demo VM I was trying to demonstrate the People Search and it wasn't returning results. This is because it hadn't crawled in my AD. With the VM being on only when I'm using it it'd never hit the overnight crawl schedule so I manually fire it off.
Basically you need to go to SSP: User Profile and
more...
September 17, 2007
I’ve been working in my demo VM again today and had an issue where the creation of a MySite was timing out. Interestingly it’s taken ages for it to create one (about 2 minutes)! I’ve allocated 3Gb RAM to the VM and it’s still taking too long to demo how ‘slick’ this feature is in a presentation.
The MySite doesn't come up when I try and visit it so i've tried to delete it and go again. I used st
more...
September 14, 2007
As I've mentioned in previous posts...SharePoint is a large product with lots of functionality across six main areas (Portal, ECM, Search, BI, Collaboration and Business Process and forms). As with all the big Vendors in the ECM space, most are strong in some areas and weak in others. SharePoint is by far the strongest in the Collaboration space, but is definately the weakest in Records Managemen
more...
September 14, 2007
Managing Remote Desktop on Windows Server 2003
I have been working more on my demo VM and wanted to use Remote Desktop to demonstrate various users in various roles. By default Windows 2003 is pretty well locked down and I found this great article from Mitch Tulloch which explains what you have to do.
Terminal Services Licensing
I noticed that there is a limit of 2 connections by de
more...
September 14, 2007
I have been creating a demo VM to run some scenarios against and wanted to demonstrate the Outlook Web Access (OWA) Web Part capabilities. I installed MOSS 2007 and had it all running with POP3 and then installed Exchange 2003.
I noticed that the OWA wasn’t working in the Exchange System Manager ‘Servers|<server name>|Protocols|HTTP|Exchange Virtual Server’ and instructed me to go to II
more...
September 3, 2007
I've been using GoogleReader since it first came out in beta and use it daily to keep up to date with various topics such as Sharepoint, .Net development, Enterprise 2.0 and the Latest Technology in general.
As I discover new feeds I add them and tag them to a category. I usually find these by reading referenced posts on blogs I read and then adding the new feed.
Share your OPML web site allo
more...