SharePoint

One of the things that I do at BB&D, is produce guidance posters. So far I have produced two of them and both are publically available on the BB&D developer guidance site DRP. The first is “Outlook + Exchange = Better Together” and the second is “ADO.NET Data Services Cheat Sheet”, not two things you think about together often.

Outlook + Exchange = Better Together

The title is a bit marketing-ly, but the poster is really a nice over view of the 8 key areas of Outlook namely

• Email
• Contacts
• Outlook Web Access
• SharePoint
• Calendars
• Tasks
• Outlook Features
• RSS

The poster looks a little busy, but when printed at A3 it’s not bad at all. It also includes three areas (OWA, Mailbox size, SharePoint) where you can write in your organization details so if you print them out and put them on the wall they have some organization context.

Download

ADO.NET Data Services Cheat Sheet

The next one I developed when learning with ADO.NET Data Services and it’s a bright and fun cheat sheet for it. It includes information on the query operators (with samples along the border), a list of functions, a list of comparison operators (like less than), query order, keys, and $value. I’ve found it very useful to print out and put up. It is designed for A3, but I have it printed at A4 (in grey scale) and it works just as well.

Download

On May the 23rd InformationWorker and Inobits are getting together and offering FREE SharePoint developer training. It is a full day event where Inobits will be providing a number of lab based training sessions focused on developing with SharePoint. Also being a full day event there will be some lunch provided for everyone (special thanks to 3Fifteen for sponsoring it). It should be a really great event for everyone, because you pick the lab/s you want to do which means if you are a beginner or expert you do the ones that will benefit you.

Because of all the effort to prep for this, you much register for it at http://www.informationworker.co.za/Pages/SLABSRegistration.aspx 

A sampling of labs available is:

• Web Parts
• Data Lists
• Event Handlers
• Workflow
• Silverlight
• Page Navigation
• Page Branding
• Web Services
• Content Types
• User Management

This week was a special week for the InformationWorker user group, because BB&D (the great company I work for) provided a huge box of t-shirts for the group. In the box were two types of shirts, the Wanna Collaborate? and the MOSS-A-SAURUS.

So how do you get one of them? Well they will be available as prizes for people helping the community, be that great blog posts, brining new members, helpful forum posts etc… Exact details will be on the Information Worker site soon, but if you start now you will still be able to qualify.

Don’t worry Cape Town IWer’s, because a batch will be shipped to Zlatan soon for dishing out at Cape Town events!

Lastly THANK YOU BB&D for this great gesture!

Yip, MOSS the acronym for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server is no more, because it is now officially announced that the next version is Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010. They’ve dropped the Office part of the name because “lots of folks associate the name Office with the Office client”. Not sure what we will use for the new acronym since MSS is Microsoft Search Server.

WSS appears to be staying the same though ;)

Mark Stacey sent me a tweet the other day about Google searches of SharePoint. I changed it slightly since the MOSS parameter was bringing back a lot of non-SharePoint content. What Mark point out that is interesting is not the amount of searches but that South Africa ranks 3rd for regions doing searching just behind India and Singapore. No surprise that Gauteng leads the Western Cape and KZN in searches (guess where the big SharePoint companies are?)

To see the actual results see: http://www.google.com/trends?q=sharepoint&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=1

What could look better than a great poster on SharePoint development up on your wall? How about if it was free? Well the S.A. Architect community has a number of posters in crazy high resolutions (they all seem to  be around 33mega pixels or 6872 x 4916 for the more technical ones out there). So what posters are available and where do you get them?

Well you can get them and hundreds more from: S.A. Architect Posters, and the posters are:

Creating SharePoint Web Applications

Direct Link: http://www.saarchitect.net/Publications/Value%20Add%20Information/Quick%20Reference%20Posters/BBD%20Technology%20Readiness/JPG%20(high-quality%20A4-A2%20scalability)/0500%20Creating%20Web%20Applications.jpg

Developing with SharePoint 2007 - Concepts

Direct Link: http://www.saarchitect.net/Publications/Value%20Add%20Information/Quick%20Reference%20Posters/BBD%20Technology%20Readiness/JPG%20(high-quality%20A4-A2%20scalability)/0500%20DevelopingWithSharepoint2007.jpg

SharePoint Concepts

Direct Link: http://www.saarchitect.net/Publications/Value%20Add%20Information/Quick%20Reference%20Posters/BBD%20Technology%20Readiness/JPG%20(high-quality%20A4-A2%20scalability)/0500%20Sharepoint%20Concepts.jpg

SharePoint Development Environment Scenarios

Great one for planning how your development team will work against SharePoint!

Direct Link: http://www.saarchitect.net/Publications/Value%20Add%20Information/Quick%20Reference%20Posters/BBD%20Technology%20Readiness/JPG%20(high-quality%20A4-A2%20scalability)/0500%20SharePoint%20Development%20Scenarios.jpg

SharePoint Architecture For Developers

Direct Link: http://www.saarchitect.net/Publications/Value%20Add%20Information/Quick%20Reference%20Posters/BBD%20Technology%20Readiness/JPG%20(high-quality%20A4-A2%20scalability)/0500%20SharepointArchitecture.jpg

SharePoint Workflow Development Lifecycle

Direct Link: http://www.saarchitect.net/Publications/Value%20Add%20Information/Quick%20Reference%20Posters/BBD%20Technology%20Readiness/JPG%20(high-quality%20A4-A2%20scalability)/0500%20SharepointWorkflow.jpg

SharePoint Site Structure

Direct Link: http://www.saarchitect.net/Publications/Value%20Add%20Information/Quick%20Reference%20Posters/BBD%20Technology%20Readiness/JPG%20(high-quality%20A4-A2%20scalability)/0500%20SiteStructure.jpg

SharePoint HTTP Request Pipeline

Direct Link: http://www.saarchitect.net/Publications/Value%20Add%20Information/Quick%20Reference%20Posters/BBD%20Technology%20Readiness/JPG%20(high-quality%20A4-A2%20scalability)/0500%20TheRequestPipeline.jpg

SharePoint HTTP Request Pipeline - Ghosting & unghosting

Direct Link: http://www.saarchitect.net/Publications/Value%20Add%20Information/Quick%20Reference%20Posters/BBD%20Technology%20Readiness/JPG%20(high-quality%20A4-A2%20scalability)/0500%20TheRequestPipelineGhostingAndUnghosting.jpg

SharePoint Workflow Basics

Direct Link: http://www.saarchitect.net/Publications/Value%20Add%20Information/Quick%20Reference%20Posters/BBD%20Technology%20Readiness/JPG%20(high-quality%20A4-A2%20scalability)/0500%20WFBasics.jpg

Andreas Grabner has posted a brilliant article on performance effects of doing things with the SharePoint object model. He covers which methods you should use over other methods (like using SPContect.Current.List.Items.Count is much slower than SPContext.Current.List.ItemCount), structuring the code etc… and backs it up with performance stats and details on how to do your own.

I would say its a must read for all SharePoint developers.

This just arrived in my mailbox:

Microsoft will offer SharePoint Designer 2007 free of charge, as a download, starting April 1, 2009. This change is being made in order to help customers get the most value out of their investments in SharePoint products and technologies.  Microsoft will remove SharePoint Designer 2007 from the April 2009 Volume Licensing price list.

Customers with active SA as of April 1, 2009 will be able to upgrade to Expression Web.  SharePoint Designer is not “end-of-life.” The next version of SharePoint Designer will ship together with the next release of SharePoint.

Details:
The ability to create SharePoint solutions and customizations is a key part of the SharePoint value proposition.  Microsoft’s strategy is to allow our customers to put these capabilities in the hands of more users, allowing them to make the most of their overall investments in SharePoint.

Starting April 1, 2009, SharePoint Designer 2007 will be available, free of charge, as a download at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=baa3ad86-bfc1-4bd4-9812-d9e710d44f42.  As a result, Microsoft will remove SharePoint Designer 2007 from the April 2009 Volume Licensing price list. Note that SharePoint Designer is not “end-of-life.” SharePoint Designer capabilities will continue to be part of the future roadmap of SharePoint product and technologies. The next version of SharePoint Designer will be available at the same time as the next release of SharePoint.

Customers with active Software Assurance coverage for SharePoint Designer 2007 as of April 1, 2009 will be able to upgrade to Expression Web. While Expression Web currently does not work against SharePoint sites, this additional value will enable our customers to leverage Expression Web for non-SharePoint sites while continuing to use SharePoint Designer 2007 for SharePoint sites. Expression Web will directly support SharePoint sites in a future release. Extending rights to Expression Web will help us address potential CPE issues from customers as a result of these changes, while also helping our customers create great experiences on SharePoint.

• For More Information:
  • Channel Partners: Partners should access the SharePoint Designer section at http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointdesigner/FX100487631033.aspx

The InformationWorker group is running two events in the near future and we are looking for speakers for the events and I am hoping I can peak your interest enough to participate or forward this on to someone you know who may be interested.

First is in April at the "normal" meeting where we are running a tool fest. This session is about showing off your favorite SharePoint tool. What is great is that this is about tools you know (or learn between now and then) and you only need to speak for 10 to 15min so for people who haven't presented before or are a junior this is a great opportunity to get some practise (and with TechEd coming up later this year - maybe get yourself in the spotlight to talk at that).

The second session is tentatively scheduled for May and it is a new idea where we do a Saturday morning. In this session we will have a mix of hands on labs and 30 to 45min presentations running in two or three tracks. We are hoping to do a IT Pro, Dev and Business mix so if you don't think your technical but want to talk about testing or governence or something like that we would love to get it into the mix. Also we are hoping to cover a wide skill level (100 through 400) so if you know some things about the UI of SharePoint and tweaking it with the content query web part or how to get Silverlight to dance in SharePoint but maybe not what Visual Studio is that is fine too.

If either event appeals to you please drop me a mail (robert@sadev.co.za) so we can discuss it!

Here is an opportunity for you to win great prizes by sharing your knowledge and breadth of experience with Developers in the SharePoint Developer Forum.

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/sharepointdevelopment/threads/

From March 1^st, 2009 to May 31^st, 2009 there will be three contests and 5 monthly prizes given. You can win an Xbox 360, a Zune 120GB , or a 7” digital frame!

That is from The SharePoint Team blog and it sounds great to be rewarded for helping out on the forums - I mean that is what groups like InformationWorker are trying to do. One downside to this (like every other Microsoft competition) is that you must be in Canada or the USA! I guess I will stick to getting rep points on StackOverflow as my reward.