It started me thinking, though, about my journey with SharePoint Directions.  – or in a bigger sense, with our journey in life.

Wondering

To wonder is to envision, to question your direction, to question your efforts, your capabilities and your talents. To wonder is also to read, to study, to pray, to ask, to listen, to watch, to reason, to make plans. We must wonder before we can grow. Are we too busy to find time to wonder? Do we make the time to wonder regularly? Do you wonder how good you can be? Wonder regularly and wonder often. It’s good for you.

Wandering

Wandering is the activity component to Wondering. Where To Wonder is to work from your chair, To Wander is management by walking around. Wandering is experimentation. Wandering is experiential. To wander is to try out your ideas, to practice that speech, to give that interview, to spend that extra hour with the client. To wander is to move into different circles and to expand into unknown areas that might be new and strange – until one wanders into them.
To wander is to act on your ideas, and to put your plan into practice.

I started asking myself if the time that I was spending on different tasks was time spent wondering or time spent wandering. It became easier and easier to make that judgment about what I was spending my time on.  I did find, interestingly enough, that I was spending too much time wondering, and not enough time wandering.  I don’t really know why it surprised me, or why I was a little saddened to realize that I hadn’t been wandering as much as I could have been.

I was struck by the simplicity of the concept between wondering and wandering.  I was struck by how much time one could spend wondering, without reaching conclusions.  It is only when wondering is followed by wandering that great achievements are made. And it is only when wandering is preceeded by wondering that people achieve at close to their capacity.

So, I will be trying to wander a bit more often. I will still be wondering – there is too much to learn.  I wonder if this bit of inspiration is only for me, or if it also applies to others.  I think that it might apply to others, but in this case, it only applies to me.

All because of one little letter.  Are you Wondering? Or Are you Wandering?

I think that you are seeing right now why my blog is still being published under the http://owen-allen.com domain, and not under www.SharePointDirections.com.  One of these days I’ll get around to putting the SharePoint Directions blog on-line, and that will be a work-only blog.  But for now, you get work mixed in with personal reflections…

I’m participating in a SharePoint in the Cloud roundtable event (#FocusRT21) later this week (Thursday, July 21, 11AM PT), that should be very informative.  There are some great experts on the roundtable, which will be available for the public to call into.  I do hope that you can join us.

SharePoint is having an impact in every direction where it stretches its legs.  Moving into the cloud is no different.  SharePoint has supported external applications for a few years now, with extensive Web service support.  With SharePoint 2010, SharePoint exposed native object models for .Net, JavaScript, and Silverlight, all designed to encourage more sophisticated remote clients for SharePoint – so that information and process stored in SharePoint could be leveraged in a distributed architecture.

SharePoint 2010 also introduced a service application infrastructure that enabled service applications to be subscribed to by different SharePoint farms, enabling different farms to stay in synch by accessing centralized resources.  This can be useful in a cloud environment – think of SharePoint farms at different plant facilities that are all leveraging a centralized product catalog, or business services.  SharePoint can be a client, in this way, as well as a server.  All that we have to do is to think about designing SharePoint applications from a broader perspective.

Office 365 is another example of SharePoint in the Cloud.  In this regard, Microsoft is offering SharePoint as a Service.  This is a little bit different than we have traditionally thought of SharePoint farms.  Office 365 will bring the collaboration and information sharing attributes of SharePoint to the world, but it won’t bring the application platform characteristics to the environment.  This will force SharePoint application developers to move to alternative ways of delivering their functionality.  It will be interesting to see if Microsoft decides that they do want to offer platform capabilities on Office 365 or if they will be satisfied simply adding functionality to their “SharePoint as a Service” offering.

Richard Harbridge (@rharbridge) has collected a good group of experts for the roundtable. I hope that you can join us on Thursday!

Link to the Roundtable event page

Nomadic Software provides middleware to being information and data to mobile devices.  The also create mobile applications, but they’re real magic is in the connections to line of business systems.

We spoke for just a few minutes, and it seems to me that he is approaching the confusion and the dynamic nature of the mobile device market from a good position.

NetConnect sells a product called Team Portal, which is a hosted version of SharePoint that is dedicated per customer. One element that I really liked about Team Portal is that NetConnect has integrated an application marketplace within the SharePoint instances that they provide to customers.  From this application marketplace, customers can rapidly install project management apps, workflow apps, crm apps, etc.  Team Portal also has an iPhone client and a desktop client to make accessing and browsing SharePoint sites even more convenient in specific scenarios.

I am not a customer yet, but I will probably need to give this a try.  It’s exciting to see that they are including solutions on top of SharePoint in this way.

And, the partner list that they already have is impressive.  Brightwork, NewsGator, Nintex, 21apps, Equilibrium, Office Talk, and ELearningForce.  Good stuff.

I know that they are looking for additional solutions to add to their marketplace, and so if you are a software company (ISV) that is interested, please reach out to Lars.

It’s the best time of the year again. (If it seems to you that each year has about 5 or 6 ‘best’ times of the year, then, congratulations! – you must be a regular to the blog.)

This time, is the MSFT Wordwide Partner Conference 2011 (WPC). (www.digitalwpc.com | #WPC11)

It’s the time of the year when Microsoft partners of every stripe get together to celebrate the end of twelve months since the previous WPC, and to start anew.  They meet together to make all sorts of business deals, to recruit the best people from each other’s organization, and to get an eye and an ear on what their competition is doing to make the big bucks.

Microsoft sets the direction by sharing the marketing direction that they will take for the next twelve months, and this helps the partners understand where Microsoft will be laying down the marketing air cover for the partners.

I expcet that in the SharePoint world, we’ll hear a lot about Office 365, and then some strength around enterprise success stories in large on-premise SharePoint installations.

I hope that there is some new discussion about the strength of the solutions that are being built around SharePoint and that are carrying SharePoint into new green fields around and within and in-between enterprise customers. I’m a firm believer that SharePoint still has a lot of growth remaining in it.

Back to the topic of the blog post, though.  One of the best off-the-floor activities of the week is the partner SharePint!  A SharePint is a meetup that is arranged at a recreational establishment, and a date and time are published.  There usually isn’t a main title sponsor, but from time to time different partners will stand up and supply a prixe or a t-shirt and buy a round of drinks.

Together with the SharePoint product marketing team, I’ve helped arrange the last two WPC SharePint events, and we got our heads together to make it three.

I tweeted an early location last week, but we’ve had to change the location. The SharePint will NOT be held at the YardHouse, but instead will beheld at the Weiland Brewery Underground.

Here are the details:

Weiland Brewery Underground

At the corner of S Flower and 5th Street
underground of the City National Bank Building
Tuesday, July 12 — 5:00-8:00PM

Please stop by and join us.  Some partners will have prizes to raffle off, and this is the best place to meet your SharePoint peeps and friends and other contacts in a casual way.

I look forward to seeing you there!

One of our development teams was in Argentina, another development team was in Redmond, WA, and Ooyala has headquarters in Mountain View, CA.  We needed a development and testing environment that would enable all three groups to work together and to share an environment in preparation for the show.

For a couple of months, we had been using a development environment that was provided by CloudShare.com.  And everything had been working well.  We would bring up the CloudShare environment when we needed to, and share access to it from city to city.

One of the useful features that CloudShare provides is the ability to recreate a SharePoint environment from one a list of starting environments that they provide.  When one of our development teams release a new build, we can recreate a new environment on CloudShare and test the installation and configuration, etc.  It was working very well.

If you haven’t tried out CloudShare yet, you can find them at www.cloudshare.com.  Look for the “SharePoint in the Cloud” selection right on the front page.  That page will describe the SharePoint environments that they offer and how you can utilize them.

As we got closer to the NABSHOW, however, something wasn’t quite right.  I was worried about little things, like the URL used for the demo.  We also wanted to share the demonstration version with other potential partners and customers, so we wanted to create a demo URL (i.e. NABDEMO.OOYALA.COM) and have the dev/test environment support that.  I couldn’t find the right way to make that happen for the CloudShare environment that wasn’t located within our data center, but a quick call to CloudShare answered the question.  (They have since cleaned up how the features are displayed so that this particular feature is easier to find.)

The problem that I was running into is one of the features of CloudShare that allows their service to be affordable.  When a CloudShare environment times out due to a period of inactivity, the environment is automatically suspended, and the assigned IP addresses and physical hardware can be re-utilized for other users and to meet additional demand.  Sound very cloud-centric, right?  Well, yes, actually.  However, when the environment would be re-activated the next time someone needed it, the server machines in the environment might be assigned a different collection of IP addresses.  This meant that I might have to keep updating the DNS entries for the URL that I wanted to use for the demo.  Difficult and inconvenient.

But then I learned about a great little feature called “Always-On”.  This costs more per month, but enables your environment to stay up all the time, maintaining the same assigned IP addresses.  A quick call to CloudShare operations, and we had the solution, we had a constant IP
address for the DNS settings, and we were starting to demo using an easy to communicate and an easy to use URL.  I’ve learned, over the years, to never underestimate the importance of having an easy to communicate URL when working with salespeople…

So, long story short, we unveiled the product at the NABSHOW in April – the demo environment was flawless, and we are still using CloudShare as our development environment as we enter into a full Beta stage with the product here in June.

If you’d like to learn more about CloudShare, please learn more at http://www.cloudshare.com.

If you’d like to learn how to bring the video capabilities of Ooyala into your SharePoint environment, please send email to Andrea@ooyala.com.

If you’d like to take me to a Seattle Mariners game this summer (Yes, I’m back on the bandwagon!), please send me email – owen@sharepointdirections.com.

I hope that these steps are of interest, and save some time for someone who is looking to do the same thing again one day.  I’d love to hear how these steps could be presented more efficiently, or where some time could be saved.  One thing I learned, is that I’m glad that there are some companies that are trying to automate this to help enterprises with processing videos at high volume levels.  I’m helping one of those companies now — Ooyala — to come up with an easy way to manage video.  When that is ready to ship, I’ll let you know here.

Meanwhile – back to the steps…

1. Download a Flash Video Player web part for SharePoint 2007
1. There is a sample file available for free from Microsoft’s open source catalog, www.codeplex.com.
2. Go to http://svp.codeplex.com.  This is the web part that you’ll be installing as part of this example.
3. Go to Downloads section, and click on the recommended download.  http://svp.codeplex.com/releases/41778/download/110456
4. Click through the License Agreement.
5. Save the downloaded file to c:\downloads\SharePointVideoPlayer.wsp
2. Deploy the web part to your site collection
1. Open a cmd window as an Administrator

2. cd c:\program files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\BIN

3. Stsadm -o addsolution -filename c:\downloads\SharePointVideoPlayer.wsp

4. Stsadm -o execadmsvcjobs

5. For this next line, you will need the URL of your Site Collection.  In this command line, my site collection is: “http://shrpnt2007:28656“

6. Stsadm -o deploysolution -name SharePointVideoPlayer.wsp -allowgacdeployment -force -immediate -url "http://shrpnt2007:28656"

7. Stsadm -o execadmsvcjobs

8. Iisreset

3. Activate the Site Collection Feature
1. Go to Site Actions -> Site Setting -> Site Collection Features
2. Locate SharePoint Video Player feature and click “Activate”
4. The Above steps only have to be done ONCE.  Once the web part is activated as a Site Collection Feature, then you can add it to as many pages as you’d like using the below steps.
5. Add the web part to your page
1. Click Site Actions -> Edit Page
2. Click “Add a Web Part”
3. Add the “SharePoint Video Player” Web Part
6. Modify the web part properties for the web part to point to the hosted flash video file
1. Edit the web part properties
2. Scroll down to “Video Player Properties”
3. Modify entry for “FLV file”.  Use something that looks like this:

4. <object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" id="ooyalaPlayer_6m3j0_gow1g8v5" width="640" height="480" codebase="http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/current/swflash.cab">
    <param name="movie" value="http://player.ooyala.com/player.swf?embedCode=MwdXlpMjqnvUZs3V8Tujt5d1oU_ItJSr&version=2" />
    <param name="bgcolor" value="#000000" />
    <param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" />
    <param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" />
    <param name="flashvars" value="embedType=directObjectTag&embedCode=MwdXlpMjqnvUZs3V8Tujt5d1oU_ItJSr" />
    <embed src="http://player.ooyala.com/player.swf?embedCode=MwdXlpMjqnvUZs3V8Tujt5d1oU_ItJSr&version=2" bgcolor="#000000" width="640" height="480" name="ooyalaPlayer_6m3j0_gow1g8v5" align="middle" play="true" loop="false" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" flashvars="&embedCode=MwdXlpMjqnvUZs3V8Tujt5d1oU_ItJSr" pluginspage="http://www.adobe.com/go/getflashplayer"></embed>
    </object>

7. Click OK and Exit Edit Mode.
8. The above Flash embed string is for streaming a static video.  For streaming a live video, you follow the same approach, but the Flash embed string is slightly different, but only because the source file is a live streaming video and not a static streaming video.

<object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" id="ooyalaPlayer_6ubv0_gow38rxq" width="480" height="270" codebase="http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/current/swflash.cab">
 <param name="movie" value="http://player.ooyala.com/player.swf?embedCode=BrMWtjMjpJU-7gE0lQqvnK75Wulzo6kT&version=2" />
 <param name="bgcolor" value="#000000" />
 <param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" />
 <param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" />
 <param name="flashvars" value="embedType=directObjectTag&embedCode=BrMWtjMjpJU-7gE0lQqvnK75Wulzo6kT" />
 <embed src="http://player.ooyala.com/player.swf?embedCode=BrMWtjMjpJU-7gE0lQqvnK75Wulzo6kT&version=2" bgcolor="#000000" width="480" height="270" name="ooyalaPlayer_6ubv0_gow38rxq" align="middle" play="true" loop="false" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" flashvars="&embedCode=BrMWtjMjpJU-7gE0lQqvnK75Wulzo6kT" pluginspage="http://www.adobe.com/go/getflashplayer"></embed>
 </object>

I’m a selfish blogger, and I’ve got a sneaky feeling that I’ll need this list of steps again and again. I hope that it will be useful to you, also.

Yes, even for SharePoint 2007.  After all, some of your best friends are still using SharePoint 2007!

…Every software company that is thinking of SharePoint as a target platform should have developers and architects attend this online event (or in person if you are based in the Seattle area).

This is a great way to get a new developer or development team up to speed.

Even if you are only THINKING about targeting SharePoint, this collection of classes will give you an idea as to how to orient yourself in your thinking about SharePoint.

SharePoint FireStarter

https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032473308&Culture=en-US

See you online!

What is Your SharePoint Direction?

I’ve taken a project as a trainer, as part of the Windows Azure Platform University. (WAPU).  http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/wapu/default.aspx

I’m part of one training team, and we will visit ten cities.

Sydney, Singapore, London, Amsterdam, Munich, Warsaw, Toronto, Atlanta, and San Francisco.

This has been a great opportunity to get to know more about Windows Azure.

I keep thinking back to my college days at Arizona State where, after a few years of learning Pascal and C++, with a smattering of COBOL, one class started with the bold prediction that we all needed to learn C++ because the world was going to shift all of its programming to objects and methods.  After a few weeks of thinking it was going to be another programming fad, and after diving in, it became clear to me – in my partially educated state – that we were in for a significant change.  Upon leaving school, it was even more clear.  All of the programming shops that I wanted to work at were already well on their way with this approach to programming.  I was very glad at that time (this was 1991-2, I think), that I had persevered in the C++ class – it paid off for me.

Well, now I have been learning a lot about cloud-based systems and application design and delivery-deployment models.  I continue to be in a partially-educated state, but I’m just as excited because I see a new and better model for application architecture and deployment and system design.

The effect on stand-alone applications is one thing.  It will be a new model, that is certain.  New types of applications will be created and delivered. That is great, but the single application, as wonderful and as full of potential as it is, isn’t the most exciting part.

The impact on Enterprise Applications will prove to illustrate the largest paradigm change, I believe.

For years, I’ve worked with enterprises in all sorts of areas and sizes to think differently about their distributed systems.  I’ve taught about distributed content management systems, enterprise application integration, the power of modular and composite systems, the requirement for centralized identity management, and recent advancements in communication between cooperating identity management systems, etc.  IT Dev shops are starting to figure out how to gain efficiencies by incorporating these technologies into their data centers and their networks.  The cloud changes these for the better, by providing a vastly scalable support area for these technologies to sit upon and to be built upon.

Enterprises will be able to think outside of an even larger box and will be able to do amazing things over the next decade.  It will be fun to watch.

Back to the trip, it was a bit harder to say good bye at the airport when my wife dropped me off.  I only remember leaving for a trip this long twice before in my life, and both of those were for a year or more (college and a church mission). I’ve never left my family for this long.

I look forward to sharing my interactions with Microsoft partners on this trip.  I have not been to half of the cities on this training tour, and I’m looking forward to learning more about the people and how partners are thinking of using Windows Azure in each land.  I’ll be trying to post regularly here on the blog about the trip.

How does this relate to SharePoint?  there will be more posts on this, I promise!