SharePoint Daily for November 17, 2008

Top News Stories
The SharePoint Upgrade Trap (Redmond Channel Partner)
SharePoint 2007 migrations are simple enough, but beware of hidden dangers. Here's a look at some of the more common upgrade and migration problems.

Microsoft to Launch Online SharePoint, Exchange on Monday (PCWorld)
Microsoft on Monday will release the first of several of its hosted business-productivity services. The company will launch Exchange Online and SharePoint Online at an event in San Francisco, according to an e-mail from its public relations firm. A spokeswoman from the agency confirmed that the services will be available Monday.

Microsoft Touts New Online Store as a Netbook Complement (ZDNet)
Microsoft launched in the U.S. this week its online software store and is touting it as one way for netbook PC users who don’t have optical drives to more easily obtain software.

How Much Does Exchange Really Cost? (ZDNet)
A heated discussion is raging in the comments to a Clint Boulton eWeek article about Serena Software’s decision to switch from Microsoft Exchange to Google Apps.

Microsoft's Cloud Vision (Redmond Developer News)
After more than a year of speculation, Microsoft has laid out its roadmap for how it will deliver its next generation of software and services. The company unveiled its emerging services-based operating system -- called Windows Azure -- and the Azure Services Platform for developers at its Professional Developers Conference (PDC) 2008 in Los Angeles last month.

Gartner: Private Cloud Networks the Future of Corporate IT (CIO)
The future of corporate IT is in private clouds, flexible computing networks modeled after public providers such as Google, Amazon yet built and managed internally for each business's users, Gartner says.

IE8 Delayed? Microsoft Extends Support Cutoff for IE8 Betas (Ars Technica)
In August IE8 Beta 2 was released in English, German, Japanese, and Simplified Chinese, and in September Microsoft released support for 21 more languages. Microsoft officially set the deadline for the final version for later this year, and left it at that. We noted in September that, according to the IE8 Beta 2 support page, prerelease versions of IE8 would no longer be supported come November 1, 2008, suggesting that the final version would arrive this month.

Shock and Awe (Redmond Developer News)
The PDC 2008 offered a stunning display of overwhelming force as Microsoft rolled out a veritable host of development-oriented platforms, products, tools and technologies.

Around the Blogosphere
SharePoint and PowerShell - Practical Tips (Shared Points for SharePoint...)
Creating scripts to set of a load of stsadm commands have been a common task in SharePoint for a long time. In development and testing environments the need to install, create farm, web applications, site collection and subsites, in a repeatable manner is must have, not a nice have. The scripts are used for setting up fresh syspreped vpc's, reinstalling (after someone (yourself?) have messed up, creating test and prototype sites. Finally a production version of the script is likely to run.

SPD Licensing 101 (Microsoft SharePoint Designer Team Blog)
We often get questions from you about pricing, licensing, purchasing, etc., so we decided to compile a list of issues we hear most frequently from you in these areas and provide you all with a high level guide for these questions. Most of this information is available across other Microsoft and Office sites such as the SharePoint site, Microsoft Support, and TechNet, but this summary can serve as a good reference. The content below is organized in the following areas: Trials, Pricing, Purchasing, Activation, Licensing and Support.

Microsoft Cuts Prices for Visual Studio 2008 Tools (Shared Points for SharePoint...)
Microsoft cuts prices on the VS packages. For more details see: http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Application-Development/Microsoft-Continues-to-Delight-Developers/.

How We Did It – Automating Service Requests using InfoPath Forms Services (Microsoft SharePoint Team Blog)
Overview - Today's guest blog post is from ThreeWill, a Microsoft Managed Gold Partner located in Alpharetta, Georgia that focuses on SharePoint development and integration. ThreeWill recently worked with Microsoft to build a generic Service Request Office Business Application (OBA) using InfoPath Forms Services. The application addresses the need for enterprises to have a no-code way to quickly turn around service request based SharePoint sites (i.e. sites that are using electronic forms to initiate a request and tie that request to a workflow).

Everything You Need to Know about BDC: Part 1 of 8 (SharePoint Magazine)
Welcome to the first of an eight part series on the Business Data Catalog (BDC).  While BDC is an enormously powerful tool, it’s also fairly complex and not well understood.  This series is considered technical in nature and intended for SharePoint installers, administrators or developers.  We’ll walk you through the BDC step-by-step, so no prior knowledge of BDC is expected, but you should already have a basic understanding of SharePoint.  For those that have some knowledge of BDC, this series will certainly will fill in the gaps to ensure you know everything you need to know.

How I Use Social Networking Tools (SharePoint Joel's SharePoint Land)
Had a quick conversation with Owen Allen yesterday after the SharePoint Connection festivities.  We got off on how do I use twitter vs. facebook, friendfeed, etc...  We decided there is no one right way...  There are many right ways (and a few wrong ones).

Limiting the Page Payload with IIS HTTP Compression (Andrew Connell)
This past week I presented a session at TechEd EMEA that covered various things you want to do before launching your anonymous, Internet-facing MOSS 2007 (WCM) Publishing site (session OFC309). One of the topics I addressed was striving for the smallest page payload for requested pages. The page payload is the combined total size of all files required for a page request which includes all HTML markup, images, JavaScript, CSS and other assets on referenced in the markup. The best way to address the page payload is doing what you can to make all the files as small as you possibly can including doing things such as implementing a CSS-based (pixel perfect) design instead of one that is table-based.

SharePoint and the Seven Words (Matthew McDermott)
I am often asked by Human Resource folks about “obscene content” in a SharePoint environment. However the content gets in, they don’t want it to be found. There are utilities like Forefront that will perform content filtering for SharePoint, but most fall short of filtering “everything”. For example, Forefront only filters documents, not list items, publishing pages, content editor web parts, or profile properties.

2008-11-14 Friday ScreenCast for SharePoint End Users (EndUser SharePoint)
SharePoint History and Interact with live data in SharePoint

Around Bamboo Nation
The SharePoint ‘People and Groups' Page (SharePoint Blank)
Continuing my efforts to perform the due diligence necessary to answer my SharePoint Blank mailbag (hmm, maybe I should start incorporating that into the title for these posts?), today's question came in from kayroxx in response to an entry on SharePoint group creation:

Bamboo Theatre Presents : Calendar Plus Web Part (The Bamboo Team Blog)
Long time, no movies, eh? Worry not; it's time for the latest installment of Bamboo Theatre. And yes, I'm aware that "theatre" should probably be "theater", but this spelling is more classy, and according to Dictionary.com, means "a building, room, or outdoor structure for the presentation of plays, films, or other dramatic performances."

Would YOU Leave your Job for SharePoint? (SharePoint Blank)
I don’t know about you, but I have a thing for software and gadgets.  Yes, I work in a geek field, but I’m in marketing.  Regardless of my relative geekiness, I share a passion for technology with my co-workers.  Be it the latest software, the coolest phone or laptop.  The thing is, if the company you work for doesn’t also value the importance of technology, what does that mean to you?  Do you have the latest iPhone, but your laptop weighs 40 lbs and you are still running Microsoft Office 95?  What does that say to your clients about you, or better yet, about your company?

Microsoft Updates
Error message when you execute common searches in an Office SharePoint Server 2007 site: Turn on more accessible mode Skip to main content Turn off more accessible mode - Microsoft Knowledge Base Article (KBAlertz)
When you execute common searches in an Office SharePoint Server 2007 site, you receive the following error message: Turn on more accessible mode Skip to main content Turn off more accessible mode.

MS08-069: Description of the security update for the 2007 Office servers: November 11, 2008 - Microsoft Knowledge Base Article (KBAlertz)
Microsoft has released security bulletin MS08-069. To view the complete security bulletin, visit one of the following Microsoft Web sites:

SharePoint Events
November 18, Adelaide, Australia, Adelaide SharePoint Usergroup
November 18, Irving, Texas, DFW SharePoint Server Community
November 18, Sydney, Australia, Sydney SharePoint User Group
November 19, Cleveland, Ohio, Cleveland SharePoint User Group
November 19, Iselin, New Jersey, NJ SharePoint User Group
November 19, Online, SharePoint Project Management Webinar
November 19, Online, SharePoint Administration Webinar
November 19, Roanoke, Virginia, Roanoke Valley SharePoint Users Group
November 20, Bay of Plenty, New Zealand, Bay of Plenty User Group
November 20, Columbus, Ohio, Central Ohio SharePoint User Group
November 20, Evansville, Indiana, Evansville Indiana's SharePoint Group
November 20, Jacksonville, Florida, Jacksonville Office Geeks
November 20, Louisville, Kentucky, Kentucky SharePoint Users Group
November 20, Phoenix, Arizona, Arizona SharePoint Professionals Group
November 20, Raleigh, North Carolina, Raleigh SharePoint Users Group
November 20, Virginia Beach, Virginia, Hampton Roads SQL Server and SharePoint User Group
November 22, Baltimore, Maryland, Baltimore SharePoint User Group Code Camp
November 25, Christchurch, New Zealand, Christchurch SharePoint User Group
November 25, London, England, SharePoint User Group UK
November 25, Online, The Basics of Content Types in SharePoint 2007
November 26, Melbourne, Australia, Microsoft Office System Special Interest Group

December 2, Chicago, Illinois, The Chicago Microsoft SharePoint Business Strategies Group
December 2, Grand Rapids, Michigan, West Michigan SharePoint User Group
December 2, Nashville, Tennessee, Nashville SharePoint Users Group
December 2, San Diego, California, San Diego .NET Developers Group Meeting
December 3, Online, SharePoint Project Management Webinar
December 3, Online, SharePoint Administration Webinar
December 4, Kansas City, Kansas, Kansas City Office Geeks
December 4, Online, Bamboo Recent Product Releases
December 9, Tampa, Florida, TOGA User Group Meeting
December 10, Bloomington, Minnesota, Minnesota SharePoint User Group
December 10, Colorado Springs, Colorado, Colorado Springs SharePoint User Group
December 10, Online, SharePoint Project Management Webinar
December 10, Online, SharePoint Administration Webinar
December 11, Puget Sound, Washington, Puget Sound SharePoint Users Group
December 11, San Francisco, California, San Francisco SharePoint Users Group
December 11, Reston, Virginia, SharePoint User Group of the District of Columbia
December 18, Online, Bamboo Recent Product Releases

January 27-29, San Francisco, California, SPTechCon

February 2-4, San Diego, California, SharePoint Best Practices Conference

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

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