SharePoint Daily for August 13, 2008

Top News Stories
Information’s Just a Keystroke Away (Schriever Air Force Base)
Are you working on an important deadline and struggling to make it in time to commander's call? Or maybe you're going TDY and want to know what the weather will be like when you travel? Perhaps you just want to know what's going on in the various branches of the military.

Will Microsoft's Obsession With Beijing 2008 Pay Off? (Ars Technica)
The Summer Olympics are the biggest sporting event in the world. As with any sporting event, businesses always want to participate for the sake of getting their name out there. Microsoft is no different, but with Beijing 2008, it seems like the company has really outdone itself. Here's a quick (unofficial) rundown on Microsoft's role in this year's summer games:

Microsoft Patches Critical Access, Excel Flaws (SearchSecurity)
Microsoft issued 11 security bulletins, including six critical fixes that plug flaws in Microsoft Access, Office, Excel, and Internet Explorer. Several remote code execution vulnerabilities in Microsoft Excel were also addressed by Microsoft in MS08-043 bulletin. Microsoft Office Excel 2000 Service Pack 3 is rated as Critical. All other supported versions are rated as Important, Microsoft said. The vulnerability affects Microsoft SharePoint services.

Goodwin Procter Makes Strong Case for Knowledge Management (CIO)
If anyone knows that time is money, it's an attorney. The 850 attorneys and their staffs at Goodwin Procter were spending too much time assembling documents and looking up information, which meant cases took more time than they should to proceed.

Are You Ready to Become a Microsoft Master? (Network World)
As you may have heard, Microsoft has designed a new "Master"-level certification for IT pros who really need to specialize in a particular product, like Exchange, SQL Server or Windows Server. Microsoft's Per Farny, director of advanced training and certification, gave a rundown of the new certifications in a recent Webcast, a recording of which is available at this Microsoft blog.

Around the Blogosphere
Collapsible Web Parts (Itay Shakury's blog)
Here is something cool I have recently made. It's an add on to SharePoint, that allows a user to temporarily collapse (or minimize) Web Parts, and restore them, by clicking on their titles. Just click on the Web Part's title to collapse, and click again to restore.

I am Planning a SharePoint Project - Is It Any Different From Typical Software Development Projects? (Chandima.Net Blog for SharePoint solutions)
A friend of mine asked me this the other day.. and I was glad that I was asked this question. (Let's just say my friend was relatively new to SharePoint but have had years of managing typical software development projects).

Which SharePoint edition is right for you? - Part 2 (SharePoint Blogs)
In Part 1 of this post I tried to explain SharePoint editions in more detail. Last week I found very intersting shema that describes version differences on a single image. You can download the full presentation here. The complete breakdown of the features of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 is available here.

Book Review - Essential SharePoint 2007 (Clever Workarounds)
One SharePoint book on my bookshelf is "Essential SharePoint 2007 - Delivering High Impact Collaboration", by Scott Jamison, Mauro Cardarelli and Susan Hanley.  Time moves fast in the SharePoint world. Having been involved with MOSS2007 since around August 2006, it is amazing just how far things have come. Here we are in August 2008 and I simply cannot keep up!

Video: Enterprise Social Computing and Microsoft SharePoint (Michael Gannotti on SharePoint +)
In today's fast paced enterprise environment there are three avenues of focus where I have really seen Social Computing gaining momentum and traction. In this video I focus on the three; Social Media, Interactive Information and Collaboration, and Connecting People and Information.

EXACTLY Where SharePoint Documents Are Stored (SharePoint Solutions Blog)
Ever wonder EXACTLY where SharePoint stores documents? This isn't going to be news to developers or others that have followed SharePoint for a good while, but if you are relatively new to SharePoint it might be somewhat eye-opening. Every time you hit "Save" on a Microsoft Office document and the path for the save is a SharePoint document library on a SharePoint site, the entire contents of the document is saved in binary format in a single image-type field in the SharePoint database.

Press Releases
SharePoint-based Help Desk Solution Improves Town of Oakville's Issue Resolution (PRWeb)
SharePointHQ, a leading provider of training, professional services, hosting, web parts and solutions for Microsoft® SharePoint®, announced today the successful deployment of its SharePoint-based HelpDesk solution for the Town of Oakville. The SharePoint HelpDesk solution provides the Town of Oakville with standard, third party help desk functionality and seamless integration within its SharePoint 2007 portal.

Alentus Provides over 50 Ways to Use Your SharePoint Site (Business Wire)
Alentus Corporation, a leading provider of SharePoint services, web hosting and managed services, has announced the arrival of SharePoint tutorial videos as the latest resources added to Alentus SharePoint hosting offerings.

SharePoint Events
August 13, Jordan, Jordan SharePoint User Group
August 13, Brisbane, Australia, Brisbane SharePoint Users Group
August 13, Bloomington, Minnesota, Minnesota SharePoint User Group
August 14, Bellevue, WA, Puget Sound SharePoint Users Group
August 14, London, England, SharePoint User Group UK
August 19, Nashville, Tennessee, Nashville SharePoint Users Group
August 19, Dallas - Fort Worth, Texas, DFW SharePoint community
August 19, Tallahassee, Florida, Tallahassee SPEED
August 20, Houston, Texas, Houston’s SharePoint User Group
August 20, Iselin, New Jersey, NJ SharePoint User Group
August 20, Indianapolis, Indiana, SharePoint Users of Indiana
August 21, Columbus, Ohio, COSPUG Meeting
August 21, Bay of Plenty, New Zealand, Bay of Plenty User Group
August 21, Baltimore, MD, Baltimore SharePoint Users Group
August 21, Louisville, Kentucky, Kentucky Sharepoint Users Group
August 25-29, Sydney, Australia, SharePoint August Training Summit
August 26, Tampa, Florida, Tampa Office Geeks Association
August 26, Christchurch, New Zealand, Christchurch SharePoint User Group
August 26, Sydney Australia, Sydney SharePoint User Group
August 27, Cleveland, Ohio, Cleveland SharePoint User Group
August 27, Melbourne, Australia, MOSSIG
August 28, Phoenix, Arizona, Arizona SharePoint Pros
August 28, Auckland, New Zealand, Auckland SharePoint User Group

September 1-3, Auckland City, New Zealand, TechEd New Zealand
September 2, Chicago, Illinois, Chicago Microsoft SharePoint Business Strategies Group
September 3-5, San Francisco, California, Office2.0 Conference
September 4, Washington, DC, Federal & Military SharePoint Users Group of Washington D.C.
September 15-17, Washington, DC (McLean, Virginia), Best Practices SharePoint Conference
September 20/21, Waltham, Massachusetts, New England Code Camp 10

October 27-30, Los Angeles, California, Microsoft Professional Developers Conference

November 3-7 and 10-14, Barcelona, Spain, Microsoft TechEd
November 10-13, Las Vegas, Nevada, SharePoint Connections Conference

* Please contact Chris Dooley (chris.dooley@bamboosolutions.com) to include your event in our listing.

Microsoft Updates
Roadmap to Using SharePoint Server 2007 (Microsoft Office SharePoint Server)
Are you new to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007? Or do you use a SharePoint site to store documents, but now you're curious about workspaces, blogs, and wikis? Or do you want to dig deeper and share business data more efficiently by using reports, dashboards, and key performance indicators (KPIs) (key performance indicator (KPI):

Demo: Prepare to Back Up Files on Office SharePoint Server (Microsoft Office SharePoint Server)
Before you create your first backup of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, it's important to create a location to save the backup files. This demo guides you through the process — from creating a backup location, to setting permissions, to adding accounts to the file share.

Demo: Enable Excel Services and Data Connections for a SharePoint Team Site (Microsoft Office SharePoint Server)
You can use Excel Calculation Services to handle processor-intensive calculations from your Office SharePoint Server 2007 team site and to control access to external data. This demo shows you the basic steps for enabling Excel Services for a document library, such as adding the document and data connection libraries to the list of trusted file locations, and creating a data connection to a data provider in Excel Services. Watch and learn how you can control access to important internal information and external data connections.

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