Official Description

This session will explore the principles and best practices for making any intranet a great intranet. Join us to learn what matters most to end users and decision makers (you will be surprised) and walk away with practical, simple ways you can increase user participation and drive satisfaction across any organization. Topics discussed will include requirement gathering, design and custom configuration, release, versioning, and ongoing maintenance and improvement.

Amanda’s Translation

Come join us for a jam packed session that will walk through the key things you need to know in order to build your Corporate Intranet on SharePoint effectively and in a way that will result in it being accepted by your users and your business.  This session covers a lot of what to do and what not to do so there won’t be much time for checking your watch or catching up on email. 

DEMO ALERT: Oh and we will even show you a cool demo of an Intranet on a certain upcoming release of a technology that I am not allowed to talk about yet.

Also on Thursday, October 22 at 9am, I will be joining some other UG peeps in Lagoon J for a panel discussion on running a successful SharePoint User Group.  Should be a great session and I am sure I will learn some great tips from my fellow panelists.

Otherwise you can expect to see me hanging about the conference and the various events for the remainder of the week.  Like many of you I am pretty stoked about some of the amazing content that is going to be presented and thrilled that we are finally going to be able to talk more about 2010. 

Instantly I would notice a significant freeze and then subsequently extremely low speeds when uploading.  Since this was my first time experiencing this, I immediately tried a different server to see if the problem had to do with network settings on the server.  I experienced the same thing on multiple servers. 

We then tried to replicate on other desktops and it turned out everything was fine on Vista running IE7 or IE8 connecting to the same document libraries.  Finally in the end, a little searching lead me to the forums where a user had pointed out that this issue can be resolved by going into your IE Settings and turning off Automatically Detect Settings.

So if you run into extremely slow speeds uploading to a SharePoint Document Library via Windows Explorer (Webdav), do the following from IE.

Select Tools -> Internet Options -> Connections -> LAN Settings and unselect the option for Automatically Detect Settings.

I was totally surprised that this was the fix so I had to provide some extra search engine love for the forum post that saved me…

 http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7itpronetworking/thread/600a9825-0ba1-4c15-93f6-fc99c64b4930

Today the SharePoint team also released some additional information on some of the sessions you will be able to check out while there.

This event will be extra special for me as not only will I be able to catch up with some old friends and meet some new connections but we are planning to host a virtual user group meeting there in person.  Consider it our way of bringing a little Vegas to all of you that are home and can’t make it out to the big show.  We are still finalizing exact timing as we do not want to interfere with (or miss!) any of the big events or sessions.  More details to come on this.

Also on a personal note, this trip to Vegas will be extra special as I will be checking out the U2 concert on Friday night after the conference! This is a big thrill for me as I have always been a huge fan of U2.  I had no idea they were playing there that week until Shane started scoping out the shows for me.

As with all previous meetings, come join us no matter where you are in the world as this meeting will be delivered virtually via Live Meeting. In order to hear audio for the event, you will need to download the Live Meeting client.

Update:

You can view the recording for this meeting (and others) via www.sharepointnation.org.  Stay tuned for upcoming meetings featuring Shane and I presenting on how to Customize the Look and Feel of a SharePoint site and a very special SharePoint Administrator Panel discussion, live from the SharePoint Conference in Vegas!

Speaker Biography:

Laura Rogers is currently a SharePoint Administrator at HealthSouth Corporation in Birmingham, Alabama. She started out as a NT 4.0 and Exchange 5.5 Administrator, and has ten years of experience with Microsoft’s messaging and collaboration systems. This includes four years in SharePoint implementation, training, and customization. Laura has been a MCSE since 1999, with her most recent certifications being MCSE 2003 + Messaging, MCTS in MOSS and MCTS in WSS 3.0 Configuration. She was also a contributing author in the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Administrator’s Companion.

Live Meeting Recording

https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/mvp/view?id=SPN04 ]]> http://blog.funknstyle.com/?feed=rss2&p=603 http://blog.funknstyle.com/?p=602 http://blog.funknstyle.com/?p=602#comments Wed, 15 Jul 2009 19:32:00 +0000 Amanda Murphy Uncategorized http://blog.funknstyle.com/?p=602 By now most people have heard about the Technical Preview for SharePoint 2010 and hopefully have seen the very cool sneek peek videos that the SharePoint Team has created outlining some of the great things that are coming down the pipe for us in vNext.  If you haven’t, then I suggest you check out the SharePoint Team Blog Post released earlier this week.

So some people might be thinking…sheesh I wish I could participate in a Technical Preview and try out cool new software.  Well guess what, according to the InfoPath team…you can! And you just may win an Xbox for doing so. 

Check out the details here and also you can get a preview of the new InfoPath designer interface!

Shane Young (www.sharepoint911.com) will join us for a very special presentation as we resume regularly scheduled monthly meetings.

Session Overview:
In this session Shane will walk you through common mistakes made during the installation process of SharePoint and give you some tips on keeping your server running in tip-top shape. No death by PowerPoint but more of a hands on review of the server and Central Admin. He may also sneak in some nuggets to help you plan for the future….

PLEASE NOTE: This is a virtual event that is available live online so anyone can attend. It’s just like any other user group meeting but you can connect from anywhere and well…there is no free pizza at the end.

Updated June 8th, 2009

A big HUGE thank you to Shane Young for the presentation he delivered last week.  As always he did a superb job despite some annoying audio problems that we encountered in the beginning. We will have those ironed out in time for our next presentation.

In the meantime, for those looking to view the recording of his presentation, the information is below.

SharePoint Nation! - Virtual UG Meeting #3 - SharePoint Installations
Recording URL: https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/mvp/view
Recording ID: WGTQ6D
Attendee Key: spn3 

The next version of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 will be Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010.  No more Office in the name though as Tom Rizzo points out on the SharePoint blog, that has no reflection or impact on the platform’s ability to work with Office applications.  In my opinion, I think it shows how widely SharePoint is integrated with all aspects of a business and not just a productivity suite.

Check out more details here…

My presentation will center around SharePoint tips and tricks for usage on an Intranet.  As with most of my presentations, the goal isn’t just to show you WHAT SharePoint can do but how you should use certain features to gain better benefits for business.  I will be covering topics such as branding, electronic forms, workflow and reporting along with my usual advice around establishing governance and solid document management procedures.

Plus in addition to seeing my presentation, you can also check out another presentation by Mike Maadarani on Web Content Management and how SharePoint can be used to run your Internet site.

So if you are in Ottawa on April 30th, I invite you to come check us out.  You can read more details and sign up here!

I had a fantastic time while there as it was great to meet up with old friends and make some new connections.  Plus the weather was an absolute treat since San Diego has a much nicer climate than Newfoundland this time of year (or any time of year for that matter). 

I was very grateful to the conference organizers for flying me out there and having me participate in such a great event.  The quality of the conference was top notch and I got the impression from speaking to attendees that they were very happy with the entire event.

As promised, linked below are my slidedecks from both sessions.  I hope those that attended will find these useful. For those that did not, you may not get the whole story from the slidedecks as there was a great deal of explanation and discussion around each slide and the demos but feel free to drop me a question on anything via the comments feature of this blog.

Session IA354 - Managing Documents the Right Way

Session IW233 - Using the Right Method to Collect Information

Once again, thanks to everyone that attended and hope to see you all again at a future event.

What is it?
This conference goes beyond the how-to’s of SharePoint and delves into real world issues facing successful SharePoint implementations. Learn how to:

• Make consistent, confident decisions at every level, across your enterprise.
• Break the cycle of avoidance, disagreement and ignorance that leads to subpar results.
• Eliminate design, deployment, organizational and administrative confusion.
• Apply effective SharePoint decision-making in any situation and in turn enhance enterprise communication, collaboration and efficiency - while significantly lowering cost.
• Replace disorder with clarity, direction and confidence.

Who should attend?
The conference sessions are divided into 6 tracks in order to accommodate topics for SharePoint professionals at every level:

• IT Pro
• Developers and Designers
• Information Worker
• Information Architect/Taxonomist
• Project Manager
• Chief Information Officer

My first session on Tuesday morning focuses on identifying the optimal method for collecting information from users based on your specific requirements.  I find this can often be any area where those starting out at designing solutions might take a wrong turn and select the wrong product / method to suit their situation.  Then I will be presenting again on Wednesday on a session geared around best practices for document management. 

If you are attending, please drop me a line or a comment.  It would be great to see you there!  I also plan on having a few extra copies of our book to hand out while we are there since a lot of what I will cover has already been covered in there.

My fiance, Shane had mentioned he had purchased a nice present for me this year.  I was intrigued but also felt I didn’t really need anything specific.  While we are not well off or rich by any means, we are extremely happy and have most things that we could ever want.  So when I woke up and went downstairs to get my coffee, I saw a birthday card and rose on the kitchen table.  Thinking that was a sweet gesture, I assumed that was everything and was happy to continue with my day.

Then Shane handed me a letter confirming the purchase of a holiday hamper of…2 goats, 8 chicks, 1 donkey and 1 pack of rice.  These objects are available for purchase (via donation) at www.chf-partners.ca and will be given to people in need all around the world in poverty stricken areas such as Ethiopia and Bangladesh.  For example, donkeys are provided to female headed households to assist with carrying of water, firewood and other challenging chores.  The goats provide a source of sustainable food and income to families in need.  In short, a simple birthday gift to me has the potential to help multiple people in a way unlike anything I have ever done before. 

Needless to say I was moved and feel strongly that this is by far the best present I could have ever received.  I feel so grateful that I have a fiance that is so thoughful and loving and also that we are lucky enough to be given an opportunity to help others with money that could have easily been spent on a video game, fancy meal or other insignificant item.

So my reason for posting this is to let others know about this program and hopefully enlighten someone else to offer a similar gift to a person they love.  I can assure you that it doesn’t take much to really make someone’s day and with the holidays approaching, it might be just the answer you are looking for.

More information available at:

http://www.chf-partners.ca/giftsthatmatter/main.html 

Live Meeting Address: https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/mvp/join?id=MNS7Q6&role=attend&pw=Tg%28f%7Eg5cM 

Add to Calendar

Session Information:
Document retention is an important part of content management.  SharePoint provides out-of-the-box support for managing document retention using the built-in expiration policy feature of the information management policy framework.  The built-in expiration policy feature includes the ability to define expiration formulas based on document metadata, but there are many scenarios in which the expiration date depends on conditions external to a given document.  In this session, we’ll explore the information management policy architecture in detail and learn how to extend the expiration policy feature by writing custom document expiration formulas that calculate the expiration date based on data pulled from elsewhere in the SharePoint farm.

A little background on SharePoint Nation!
User groups are a great way for getting out to meet peers, share information on past experiences related to a particular topic and to learn from subject matter experts on new concepts or best practices.  Many of us already are members of local user groups related to SharePoint, .NET and other topics.  However in some cases, it may be difficult to get out to meetings due to work commitments or even worse, impossible to coordinate a group due to regional limitations.  Enter SharePoint Nation…a virtual user group.
SharePoint Nation will operate as any other user group…except without the free Pizza.
We will meet, share information and network with one another.  Meetings will feature presentations from a variety of subject matter experts on a vast array of topics.  To accommodate people from all over the globe, a variety of time slots will be followed for meetings and all content will be made available online for on demand participation.  The website will be used for sharing information with one another between meetings.

How can you get involved…
Aside from presenting at meetings, we are looking for people to help host the meetings.  As a host you will take on responsibility for notifying attendees of meeting locations, introducing the speaker for the evening and collecting evaluations at the conclusion of the meeting.   Training will be provided on using Live Meeting and the various other tools associated with hosting and presenting at meetings. 
 

In this meeting, Robert Bogue (MOSS MVP) will speak to us on Governance. Robert is a definite expert in this area and will make this an event you will not want to miss!

Live Meeting Address: https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/mvp/join?id=snug01&role=attend&pw=HzMS%284gPx

Session Information:

Are you having trouble getting folks interested in SharePoint? Is SharePoint out of control in your organization? Have you experienced SharePoint sprawl? In this session you’ll get a framework for governance on SharePoint. You’ll learn how to balance evangelism with economics. You’ll discover how guidance may be more effective at governance for creating a healthy ecosystem.

A little background on SharePoint Nation!

User groups are a great way for getting out to meet peers, sharing information on past experiences related to a particular topic and for learning from subject matter experts on new concepts or best practices.  Many of us already are members of local user groups related to SharePoint, .NET and other topics.  However in some cases, it may be difficult to get out to meetings due to work commitments or even worse, impossible to coordinate a group due to regional limitations.  Enter SharePoint Nation…a virtual user group.

SharePoint Nation will operate as any other user group…except without the free Pizza.

We will meet, share information and network with one another.  Meetings will feature presentations from a variety of subject matter experts on a vast array of topics.  To accommodate people from all over the globe, a variety of time slots will be followed for meetings and all content will be made available online for on demand participation.  The website will be used for sharing information with one another between meetings.

How can you get involved…

Aside from presenting at meetings, we are looking for people to help host the meetings.  As a host you will take on responsibility for notifying attendees of meeting locations, introducing the speaker for the evening and collecting evaluations at the conclusion of the meeting.   Training will be provided on using Live Meeting and the various other tools associated with hosting and presenting at meetings. 

Joel Oleson’s SharePoint Groups, Permissions, Site Security, and Depreciated Site Groups

These updates include bug fixes, performance enhancements as well as new functionality and features around Search.  According to the blog post, it is recommended that all customers install these updates to take advantage of the improvements immediately.

Check out the details here.

I will be doing some updates over the next few days on my own machines as well I am sure we will be patching our many development environments at work.  I will post any personal findings and experiences as they become available.

I spent the first 2 days of the conference hanging out in the Office / SharePoint TLC area and I met some really great people.  It absolutely blew my mind how many people I was talking to that were just getting into SharePoint in their orgs and are loving the tool.  It was a great opportunity to chat, share stories and answer some good questions with peers.  Most of all it was just great to meet some new people and of course see some familiar faces.  

I must admit I was also very happily surprised at the number of people that mentioned they have our book and are really enjoying it.  While I know that sort of thing isn’t supposed to matter to a “real” author, it always makes me feel good that people are finding it helpful and that those 8 months of writing our hearts out day and night were worth it. 

Unfortunately however I couldn’t spend as much time with my fellow SharePoint community friends as I had planned or would have liked.  I spent the first part of the week trying to catch up on work in the evenings and early mornings before the conference and then my week was cut short due to an unfortunate family tragedy that had me hanging low in my hotel room for a while and then out on the first possible flight home.  Sometimes there really is no better place than home and so while my trip was shorter than I had planned, it was definitely for the best.

So if I didn’t see you, hopefully we will catch up at the next big event.  In the meantime, I see that my fellow SharePoint Nation comrades did a great job at tearing up the town.  A major hat off (cowboy hat that is) to Eric Shupps for winning Speaker Idol during the Dev week.  Way to do us proud Eric.  I had planned on participating in Week 2 but ended up giving up my spot.  Maybe next year or else i will just wait till the Canadian version comes around. 

We had planned since he announced the concert to only attend tonight’s show which is the first show that was announced. Today is both Shane’s birthday as well as Dylan’s. So we figured what could be more fitting than seeing him play on the day they share as a milestone. Then last night came, we finished work and thought….what the heck are we doing going home when Bob Dylan is playing here in town on the same night. So we sped downtown, found some tickets (great seats too) and had just an amazing night of mind blowing music and a fantastic show.

When we first arrived, we were just both numb with excitement. Our seats were just 12 back from the stage and we could see him perfectly. The band sounded amazing. The second song was an all time favorite of mine, Girl From the North Country (also known as Girl of the North Country). I loved that song from the early album but also the version that he performed with Johnny Cash. I listen to it all the time and often watch the video of his appearance with Cash on YouTube. Then I watched last night’s performance and it completely blew my mind. Typically I am about as emotional as a frozen turnip, but my eyes actually filled up as the song played on and I was sure at that moment, there was nowhere else I wanted to be but there. The night continued with an amazing mix of oldies and songs from the Modern Times album including Beyond the Horizon which is a personal favorite of mine from that album.

We are getting ready now to continue on with our Dylan weekend. We have a room booked in the hotel that connects to Mile One and some friends joining us for a some birthday festivities. I feel pretty confident that tonight will be even more amazing and I truly cannot wait!

We have experienced considerable growth over the past 12 months and are looking for more talented people to come join our team. Right now all of the positions are based in St. John’s, NL so that would require you to be from this area or interested in relocating here. That’s right, while many complain that they must leave the Province and go West to get employment, we have been actually bringing people back East to Newfoundland.

Positions currently open include:

• Senior Project Manager (7-10+ years experience managing IT Projects)
• Business Analysts
• Sales Lead
• SharePoint Specialists
• Application Developers (ASP.NET, SharePoint)

If you are interested in coming to work for us and would like to submit a resume, you can do so by either going to our website at www.infotechsolutions.com or by sending an email with your resume attached to careers@infotechsolutions.com.

I started by rebuilding our domain controller as the last one had been in service for a few years and the DNS configuration I had going on was a bit messed up and thus causing some pain and confusion on the internal network.  I also used this as an excuse to introduce Windows Server 2008 as the dc since it made sense to go with the latest and greatest. 

Overall I have to say it was a super simplistic setup and things are a million times better.  I completely ditched my ISP’s DNS and have an OpenDNS forwarding rule setup on the server which is much better for the external links.  Plus I removed the double DNS references on the internal network so everything is much faster now. 

Probably the thing that pleases me most is how well the Macs are responding to the new setup.  I was amazed at how easy it was to join them to the domain.  Things have significantly improved from a networking / integration perspective over the past 3-4 years since I had last been using a Mac on a regular basis.  The one thing that I did wrong that I forgot to do when first binding my laptop to the domain was select the option to create a mobile account.  Once I figured that out, it made my profile available even when the domain was not.  This is a necessity of course when one spends a large amount of time on the road or away from the house.

Since setting up the new DC, I have also repaved each of the client systems and upgraded to Vista SP1 which has resulted in a much better experience overall.  I even went as far as rebuilding our SharePoint server and a created a bunch of new base VMs.  The only system outstanding is my Media Center which I have been procrastinating on.  Hopefully I will get that one done tomorrow.

Productivity feels good!!

So one of our biggest goals this year (besides the wedding which is still in the planning stages), was to go see Bob play no matter where that was. If there was a show, we were buying plane tickets or hitching the trailer onto the truck for a road trip. But then out of the blue something strange and awesome happened. Though Bob Dylan had not yet added any other North American dates to his tour page, it was announced he was coming to Atlantic Canada!!! What is even more exciting is…Bob Dylan is going to be playing here on May 24th…Shane and Bob’s birthday.

Needless to say we got tickets and it is gonna be the BEST birthday party ever! I have even gone as far as creating a Facebook group for the night. If you are in Newfoundland and Labrador and are going to the Bob Dylan Concert (aka Shane and Bob’s birthday party), sign up.

INETA is a volunteer run community organization that requires a large amount of time from those that run it.  In many ways the role as President had turned into a second full time job for me and that was having an impact on my ability to spend time with family, pursue new opportunities and focus on other projects and activities.  So while the decision was not an easy one, I feel confident it was the right one for me at this point in my life.  I still completely respect and support what INETA is all about and look forward to working with them again in the future after I have had some time to refocus and regroup.

Over the past month, I have been working at transitioning my duties to other board members and today we elected Daniel Egan as my replacement.  Daniel is a fantastic leader and all around great guy.  He is extremely passionate about the community will do a wonderful job in his new role.  I couldn’t be happier for both him and the organization.

Does this mean I am giving up on the community?  Not at all!  In fact it just means that I will be more focused over the next while and have more time available for doing other things that I have not been able to do for quite a while such as blogging and writing.  In addition, I will have more time focus on SharePoint specific projects over the next while that Shane and I have had sitting on a shelf.  The fun is really only yet beginning. 

While the functionality is broken into a set of features, I should note that these features are very interdependant so it’s not like you can turn on 1 and not the others to selectively choose what functionality you want to take advantage of.  However recognizing the desire that many would have for such an option, the Records Management team did note on their blog that they would be releasing code samples in the coming weeks that should allow developers to identify how they can accomplish certain individual portions of functionality.  You can view the announcement article here.

I personally have been diving deep in the area of Records Management over the past 3-4 months as it seems to be an area many of our customers that have previously deployed MOSS as an Intranet or Collaborative environment are now interested in.  It makes a lot of sense that organizations would eventually question investments into separate systems for producing, managing and sharing their content.  Providing a single environment and interface for the management and sharing of content throughout its entire lifecycle is a definite win / win for everyone in the organization.  I hope to post some helpful articles and posts over the next month or so in this area as it may be the easiest way for me to finally get back on the blogging train with something useful.

If you have any specific suggestions of posts you would like to see, then leave me a comment here and I will do my best to get to it.

Overall it was a great year but it had its challenges.  Particularly in the work / life balance side of things.  Shane (my fiance, co-worker, housemate and pretty much complete partner of any thing important) had a similarly challenging and productive year.  As a result, we both decided to put off things such as home renovations, healthy living as well as planning our wedding and as a result still haven’t really made much progress.  A phenomenum most people around us cannot understand.  Looking back on things I am beginning to question our priorities.  It seems I always manage to have a fierce dedication to getting things done on the work side of things and then continuously put things off on the personal front. 

So as I head into 2008, I am acknowledging that at my current age, I am old enough to know better and young enough to make the changes that are necessary.  This is going to likely lead to some drastic changes but hopefully the type of changes that will allow me to continue steady progress in my professional life but equally or greater progress in my personal development and goals as well. 

Wish me luck!!

A good start was given to Shane and I by a special friend, that I am hoping might represent the next best step for getting things on track.  Thanks Dana!