My techy life 4 u all

Effective communication and the IT PRO

noreply@blogger.com (Jose Antonio) — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 20:04:00 +0000

Have you went trough the problem of being too techie for the rest of the organization? So far that your ideas are underestimated?

Many IT pros share that frustration. Many of us feel like we could provide much more value to the companies where we work but our superiors just can't get it! It is easy to feel like any additional effort is worthless.

I found out that the problem is a communication one. Even we understand how the company works and we know how to fix processes our superiors speak about profit, revenue and cutting costs when we speak about information security, information flows, bandwidth and others.

We are not speaking the same language! But we need them to care about our opinions and ideas.

If we want to be capable of growing our influence within the organization we need to achieve others to care about the value we can provide. We need to learn to communicate our ideas in such a way that they "stick". I advise you to give a check on "Made to STick" or to join the Facebook group for the same title.

I have learned that one of the problems is that when we speak we start from the point our experience and knowledge is. That means that we forget when we didn't know what we know now and that becomes a principal barrier. In the other side the one listening also understands according to what they know now, not what they knew. So how to make them care? How to achieve effective communication?

Well it is not only about saying stories. It is more to call their curiosity with topics they understand. Comparisons, proverbs and of course a clear sense of value. The book is really cool!

/fyi Newsletter SharePoint Simple CMS

noreply@blogger.com (Jose Antonio) — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 12:23:00 +0000

SharePoint and Firefox

Good news! We have achieved to integrate TinyMCE and SharePoint Simple CMS. Soon our partners will be capable to develop good looking SharePoint sites that can be editable in Firefox and Safari.

SharePoint Simple CMS Partnership

Our partnership program provides you with access to all the source code used to develop SharePoint Simple CMS. Then you can use it and resell it as many times as you wish. The partnership subscription is for one year and the investment is 500 EUR.

SharePoint hosting

Are you thinking to host your customers Web sites? We will pay 80 EUR per each new customer that you bring to our hosting service. If you are interested to participate please drop me a line.

SharePoint Conference

The Slovenian SharePoint conference is set to the end of November. If you are interested in participating as an attendee, speaker or sponsor please visit: www.sharepointconference.si

Please feel free to contact me:

Twitter: http://twitter.com/joseamorales

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/b4contact

FaceBook group for SharePoint Simple CMS: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10403763463

Wishing you a good weekend,

Jose Antonio Morales

www.sharepointcms.com
+386 31 680 441

Exchange, MobileMe, iPhone

noreply@blogger.com (Jose Antonio) — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 12:11:00 +0000

I'm working with a desktop computer, a notebook and a phone. All of them Apple branded.

I'm experimenting with MobileMe in order to get synchronized all of them.

I also use 2 POP3 email accounts, one of them is Gmail and my most important email is an Exchange Server based mailbox.

One of the most painful experiences lately was the sloppy relationship with Outlook. Now I'm working with iCal.

Wouldn't it be great if I could get all the contacts from Exchange, email accounts, calendars and to do's always up to date no matter where I am or no matter which device I use?

So far MobielMe solved all the problems. I will be writing a more complete report so stay in sync with this Blog!

A message to Steve Jobs

noreply@blogger.com (Jose Antonio) — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 08:17:00 +0000

Dear Steve,

There is an interesting opportunity I wanted you to know about. Knowing that you are one of the few readers my Blog keeps I decided to post a message for you.

There is a growing number of Notebooks and desktop computers that are operative and in good condition but using very slow Windows XP operating system.

During the past few weeks I made some experiments and the machines with old processors are working fine with Ubuntu and the pre-release of Windows 7.

Anyway, looks like the way of using those machines have to be as "purpose oriented" computers. Then I will tell you what is needed to make them really useful:

NAS software. Use the machines as a networked hard disk.
Time Machine. Use old computer as backup drive for 1 or multiple PCs.
Web conferencing.
And all the obvious: Web browser, Email, calendar...
Grid computing

Don't you think that having sub versions of an OS for specific purpose is a good idea?

I think that populating the World of old computers with Mac based OS designed for specific functions would be a great thing to do.

The rest I let it to your imagination... just think on Starting the Mac Time Machine OS.

I've heard that you are not as nice as we think and I've heard that when you don't like something (like the Kindle) you just don't use more time to think on that. SO, if you don't like my idea just stop reading and let others like Adobe, Palm or Google to think about.

Wishing you good health and a fast recovery,

Sincerely,

Jose Antonio

Windows 7 with an old notebook

noreply@blogger.com (Jose Antonio) — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 08:34:00 +0000

This is an IBM Thinkpad with more than 5 years of life. It was ok for making PowerPoint presentation but for other things and after many many Windows XP upgrades the computer was really a headache!
That kind of Notebook includes many drivers and strange things that were difficult to find in the case of a "cleanup format". Without the original drivers the keyboard would work bad and the wireless would never work fine. Even installing the original drivers would make conflicts with the Windows drivers for netwroking.
I have used the 32 bit version of Windows 7. Here what I found:

Setup was very fast
Options for formatting, deleting, etc the previous system were clear and explanatory.
When the computer finished and restarted for first time the resolution wasn't the correct one (even looked so good that I wasn't sure).
Sound and wireless not working... it was not surprising. Then I connected the network cable to look for the drivers online.. and:
An automatic update got all the drivers!! after a suggested restart the computer was working fully! The special keys on the keyboar all working fine, the volume controls are really good, wireless network offerd no pain.

So add one more line to your list of options for "what to do with my old computers?"

Some notes:

Avast Antivirus (free edition) works well with Windows 7
Lotus Symphony works well with Windows 7

Windows 7 on VmWare Fusion

noreply@blogger.com (Jose Antonio) — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 09:29:00 +0000

How simple is it to install? very simple!

Download Windows 7 (it is a big download so better make it at night, when you will wake up it will be there waiting for you).
Add a new virtual machine from your VmWare fusion.
Select Windows Server 2008 (Windows 7 is still not a supported OS for VmWare Fusion).
Go to Step five at the end of this post :)

First I wanted to show you Windows 7 running on my Mac!

5. Step five: I advise you to see the video instructions:

SharePoint templates until 500MB

noreply@blogger.com (Jose Antonio) — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 14:00:00 +0000

You need to use the command:

stsadm.exe -o setproperty -pn max-template-document-size -pv 520000000

With that your SharePoint templates can store until 500MB. By default the templates only resist 10MB.

Information Source

SharePoint Simple CMS and TinyMCE

noreply@blogger.com (Jose Antonio) — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 13:17:00 +0000

The SharePoint Simple CMS was born using the same editing controls and capabilities from SharePoint. That is good but not ideal; the problem is that users of FireFox or Safari could not get access to rich text editing... they were pushed to work with Internet Explorer.
We have managed to integrate the SharePoint Simple CMS with TinyMCE.
That is great news because it means that soon we will be able to release templates that can work perfectly with many browsers. We still have some work to do with some weird behavior... but we are getting very close to a final solution!

This is a screenshot from FireFox for Mac. The Web site is a development project with our customer Doculabs:

Now it is even possible to edit existing links, image properties... etc :)

SBSC PAL for CEE Region

noreply@blogger.com (Jose Antonio) — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 13:08:00 +0000

I'm very happy to announce that for third consecutive year Microsoft renewed my status of Partner Area Lead for the central and eastern region of Europe. Now we are 2 PALs in Slovenia.
If you don't know what the SBSC PAL is you can visit this Web site. There you can find who is the PAL for your region.
If you are a Microsoft Small Business Specialist and you would like to know more about what the program can offer you please contact me. If you have doubts or suggestions about the SBSC program and you would like me to take it directly to Microsoft I would love to help.

The World in 2009 and SharePoint Simple CMS

noreply@blogger.com (Jose Antonio) — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 09:44:00 +0000

As you can see in the image there is a special note about an event that will take place in Slovenia. It is the international World Ploughing competition: www.worldploughing.si
The reason why I'm shwowing this Web site is because is an important site hosted by us and developed by us.
When a visitor to the site wants to register to the event then they can use the registration system. It will notify each person responsible for any different part of that process, from information verification to billing and logistics.
How to make the site? the same know how from SharePoint Simple CMS. Really cool!

The strategy on the back of SharePoint Simple CMS (Part 2)

noreply@blogger.com (Jose Antonio) — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 17:49:00 +0000

What we are learning is that the technological part matters mostly to us, I mean to B4Contact. Many of our customers doesn't really care on it.

Said that, we had to question ourselves who else cares about the technology. Of course the answer is obvious: the IT professional. Are they our target? well, yes. But no our principal target. Staying in touch with IT pros is very healthy for us and helps us to understand the industry trends. Some of them become our partners and participate on the development of Web sites based on SharePoint Simple CMS. That is good!

Now it is even more relevant because we are adding importance on the concept of developing with partners. We see much more innovation that way. B4Contact will generate ideas and concepts. Our partners will filter the ideas and transform some of them into usable functionality. That means that they aren't a main "sales target" but they are part of our long term strategy.

B4Contact is the organizer of the Slovenian SharePoint Conference and that helps us to get in touch with SharePoint MVPs and the Slovenian community of SharePoint administrators and developers. The past year was a success! and we plan to get more success this year. The event will take place sometime in November.

For concluding I can say that partnership is essential for SharePoint Simple CMS in the future. Currently we have 5 partners from US and EU. We will work hard during this year to get more!

The strategy on the back of SharePoint Simple CMS (Part 1)

noreply@blogger.com (Jose Antonio) — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 11:40:00 +0000

When I'm talking about the SharePoint Simple CMS something that captures the attention is how we defined our product.

In this article I will also publish information about what we are finding out and what are we planning to do with our product.

Trying to modify the out of the Box Sharepoint is senseless. At least from the perspective of adopting new future versions of SharePoint. Any deep modification on the current SharePoint would be expensive when a migration to a new version would take place.
SharePoint by itself presents many limitations when thinking on Web design. Isn't it better to start with a blank canvas? Masterpages are synonym of freedom!
Many users doesn't care if they use SharePoint or whatever else... the important thing is that can be "used" and serves its purpose. That means that the interface is important.

Then we thought: "We need to make an easy to use CMS that limits advanced functionality to editors, that can look great and be compliant with standards, that doesn't touch any our of the box SharePoint page and of course that uses independent custom master pages". Therefore we made the SharePoint Simple CMS.

It is great because it lets users to have good looking public facing Web sites and edit them with ease. The SharePoint Simple CMS is delivered as a STP file and it is compatible with WSS and MOSS. Having a STP file out f a Web site is great! because you can create as many sites as you wish using that template.

After a year we havediscovered some things that need to be improved:

The code should be simplified and optimized.
We should include more code on the "server side" instead of the "Client side".
We need to include more capabilities to customize the layout of the pages.

So.. how are we thinking to cover the challenges? we are building a community of partners that can use SharePoint Simple CMS and build solutions on top of it.

Earth Day. Earth Day, Earth DAY!!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Jose Antonio) — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 08:25:00 +0000

Dear Martians, today all the planet earth is celebrating something we call "the earth hour". It is a way we use to communicate from one side of the planet until the other without using electric energy. It is a way to unify our humanity and agree that we love the planet Earth. It is a way we use in our planetarian referendum to vote for a healthy planet Earth.

You, Martians, and all kind of intelligent life around us, take the chance to learn! We, in the planet Earth, care about our future. We care on the place where we live. We choose life and progress. We celebrate evolution.

You can visit http://www.earthhour.org/ to find out how we celebrate!

Martians... don't feel bad! some day your planet and martianity will arrive to the same point of evolution. It is just matter of time!

The kind of creativity I love!

noreply@blogger.com (Jose Antonio) — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 22:22:00 +0000

I love when simple ideas are transformed in something that can change the way we think.

I'm in the World of ITC and I tend to think that all is around the Internet... that innovation should come out of the Internet..etc.

But the following video will show you a clear way of innovation: It is useful, doesn't spend energy to let it working, it amazes people, it is simple...

Internet Explorer 8 is available for download

noreply@blogger.com (Jose Antonio) — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 17:47:00 +0000

To download IE 8 click here.

Why to upgrade to Internet Explorer 8?

There was a time when Microsoft Internet Explorer was almost the only browser. At that time, it was very Microsoft oriented and developed to work better with other Microsoft applications, like Office, and also not so respectful to Web standards.

Now the situation is different and the Web is coming to an adolescence where Microsoft is not the lonely important player in the "browser wars". That means that Internet Explorer 8 is the most standards oriented browser released by Microsoft at this time. That is the main reason to change your IE 6 or 7 to the new one.

IE8 Web site offers many details and videos about new features.
if interested on knowing what people says about IE8 in Twitter follow the link: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=IE8

Free AOL antivirus.. not anymore

noreply@blogger.com (Jose Antonio) — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 20:15:00 +0000

I have been using the free Anti virus that AOL offered to all users of their services. Some weeks ago I have discovered that the anti virus was not working anymore. The reason? McAfee and AOL are no longer supporting the service.
So I switched to a very good free anti virus software AVG.
The great thing is that now I know why my notebook was sooo slow! McAfee was the reason. And some time I was advising to use McAfee instead of Norton because Norton was a machine killer! Let's hope AVG will continue being light and fast. Give a try!

SharePoint Hosting

noreply@blogger.com (Jose Antonio) — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 20:03:00 +0000

I have been evaluating many different SharePoint hosting services and I got nothing new out of their service.
I think hosting can be a great thing for independent professionals trying to find an additional way to get some extra cash. Because of that B4Contact, where I work, will be creating very soon an affiliate network that will pay from 50 to 80 EUR per sold hosting agreement.
Our hosting service will be offering very special "value" that I will not talk about today... but I'm sure will make a difference.
If you have some ideas, questions or even you are interested to participate in the affiliate program feel free to let me know.

Another great Web service... it is called AddThis

noreply@blogger.com (Jose Antonio) — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 19:07:00 +0000

That's right... if you want to "Add this" button (shown above) then you just need to visit their Web Site. But why is this service more interesting than other I know? because it offers you the chance to have statistics; it is free and very easy to setup on your Blog or Web site.

I'm trying to get in touch with them in order to coordinate some kind of Web part for SharePoint! I'm sure that would be a great thing!

DNS hosting?

noreply@blogger.com (Jose Antonio) — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 17:26:00 +0000

B4Contact is basically a hosting company and because of that DNS is very important for us and specially for our customers.
In order to improve our DNS infrastructure and make some order and methodology I went online to find for alternatives. I found Nettica.
Now I'm one of their customers and I hope they will last for ever!
The online service is really good. We have started a transition of moving and optimizing our DNS records to their service and that will help our customers outside of Slovenia to get a faster answer when looking for Web sites hosted within our infrastructure.
Things I like from their service:

The service helps you to avoid mistakes.
The online store lets you pay for the service and in a few seconds you are ready to use it.
The service includes an API, so that would help if thinking to complement with further development... for example if you wish to add the domain registration to the hosting plan.
No problem if you have many many domains.

So far so good. Nettica is now part of out long term strategy.
If you would like to know more about our hosting services please feel free to contact me.

Good causes and Social Networking

noreply@blogger.com (Jose Antonio) — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 17:10:00 +0000

I have created a couple of days ago a Facebook group that intends to place Slovenia, the country where I live, in the map of countries supporting the Earth Hour project.
Until now I have 19 members registered and I plan to make really something with it! I truly hope the social networking technology will allow me and the members of the group to capture some real attention. Increase awareness about the needs of our beloved planet.
I will keep you up to date with the results.

Are you asking yourself about how to share your contents?

noreply@blogger.com (Jose Antonio) — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 20:24:00 +0000

Well I'm sure you saw on many Web sites that button that helps you add or share information from the Web to you FaceBook or Twitter account. Sure.. also on Digg, and all that social media.

If you are asking yourself how to make it... I found an answer: http://www.addthis.com/

What to do with your old PCs?

noreply@blogger.com (Jose Antonio) — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 22:46:00 +0000

(Originally posted on my FaceBook profile)

Well I went from many useful places to not very useful ones, so I would like to make a short resume of a good techno Sunday. The question was: what to do with my old PCs?

My old Presario 700 came to life with Kubuntu http://www.kubuntu.org/. Runs fast after learning some basics. It will be loaded with educational games from http://gcompris.net/ and after a few small work will be owned by Marko and Andre.
I have some old desktop PCs that are working perfect. They might need a bit of RAM, cleanup and I will transform them in a NAS http://www.freenas.org/ or network attached storage. Useful for... backups. That free server includes an OS, and includes advanced capabilities as software raid. The backups will be for home and office.
Grid computing tool BOINC works for joining the processing power of many computers connected to a network. You can create or participate on a volunteer computing project like SETI@Home or http://boinc.berkeley.edu/projects.php You can help a lot by facilitating computing power for research.
For more powerful but unused computers... I think installing a Linux based Web server makes a lot of sense. I just neet to learn more about that.

I have in mind the idea for receiving old computers but in good shape, configure them and donate them to schools or kindergartens. I just need more people interested in helping me to realize it... we will see.

Aviary, free vector based image editor

noreply@blogger.com (Jose Antonio) — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 12:42:00 +0000

This is a Browser based tool that helps to create vectors directly from the browser. Very interesting. Click here to visit them.

I advise you to check first the popular creations section so you will understand the power of the tool.

Live Hotmail: annoying ads

noreply@blogger.com (Jose Antonio) — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 15:58:00 +0000

How annoying!
I think the Windows Live team is not really taking care on the quality of the advertisement they allow people to publish.
For the past few days I cant resist checking my Hotmail because of the hyper flashy annoying banners they are using.
If that continues... I will not using that service anymore!

Embed videos in SharePoint

noreply@blogger.com (Jose Antonio) — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 19:16:00 +0000

Do you need to embed videos within your SharePoint Site?
Well, I'm proud to day that Boris, B4Contact's SharePoint Guru, made it possible. (I mentioned that before)
But this time he achieved something special: A very involved SharePoint guy.. noticed it and he prepared a full video dedicated to him:

Video: Extended Rich Text Editor for SharePoint

Visit Boris Blog.