SharePoint Daily for November 20, 2008

Top News Stories
Microsoft Online Services: SaaS-y, Sort Of (Redmond Channel Partner)
Microsoft wants to be a player in Software-as-a-Service, or cloud computing, or Web 2.0, or whatever the pundits are calling the off-premises, datacenter-hosted enterprise computing model this week. So why does it feel as though Redmond is dragging itself into this new model?

Will Microsoft Build Native Mac and Linux Tools? (Builder)
When Steve Ballmer recently visited Sydney and lead off with his "developers, developers, developers" cry, the crowd chuckled. Love or hate the guy, you can't deny his passion to woo developers and get them to develop with Microsoft tools and platforms. It's been the foundation of Microsoft's success thus far.

Plone replaces SharePoint, Red Dot and Vignette (Zea Partners)
Open Source CMS (Content Management Systems) providers from the Plone community kicked off the annual Plone Conference in which one of the largest gatherings of Plone developers, users, and business leaders met to educate users on the state of Plone and to discuss the future of the system.

Microsoft-hosted Online Security-service for Business Users Due in 2010 (ZDNet)
Microsoft’s just-announced free anti-virus/anti-malware service, codenamed Morro, isn’t the only new Microsoft security service in the works. Company officials made a passing reference at their SharePoint Online/Exchange Online launch earlier this week to a new Microsoft-hosted service that will be part of the Online family. A Microsoft blog posting on November 18 shed a bit more light on the new service.

The Hidden Cost of Google Apps (CNNMoney)
What happens when a business throws out its scheduling and collaboration tools and replaces them with Google's low-cost, online business software? To find out, we at Blumsday migrated our entire shop of roughly a dozen employees and contractors to test out Google Apps.

Coming Soon to a Cineplex Near You: SharePoint (ComputerWorld)
Keeping track of unstructured data can be a real pain, but many businesses -- including Cineplex Odeon Corp. -- are using Microsoft Corp.'s SharePoint as an ad hoc enterprise search solution to find what they need within the e-clutter.

PointBridge Joins Bamboo Solutions Partner Advantage Program (Earth Times)
PointBridge, a Gold Certified Microsoft solutions provider, today announced its partnership with Bamboo Solutions, a leading supplier of Web Parts and Solution Accelerators for Microsoft SharePoint, as a member of Bamboo Solutions Partner Advantage Program. The partnership provides PointBridge SharePoint customers with increased access to Bamboo products, extending and enhancing their overall SharePoint enterprise solution.

Microsoft Q&A: Why is Office Online Taking So Long? (The Industry Standard)
The announcement earlier this week that Microsoft would offer fully Web-based versions of SharePoint and Exchange brought the software giant further into the fold of hosted application providers, allowing it to compete with competitors new (Salesforce.com, Google) and old (IBM). But for Microsoft, even after the launch, some questions remained.

IT's Next Headache: Cloud Chaos (InformationWeek)
It's easy to get started with cloud services, which is one of those mixed blessings that can get businesses into trouble. A few internal developers may sign up for cloud services, rogue business units do the same, usage grows, and before you know it, your company has plugged into multiple clouds without a coordinated plan. IT departments need to guard against the impending chaos.

IE 8 Pushes Back Firefox and Chrome Even Further (InfoWorld)
For the longest time, it seemed as though Microsoft was just going to sit back and let Firefox crush it. Perhaps overconfident in Firefox's inability to be controlled through Group Policy on the enterprise level, Microsoft didn't think the Mozilla browser to be much competition. Boy, was it wrong. Google's Chrome (still in beta) is also getting some good buzz on the individual user front. But the Redmond giant has taken some serious steps to ensure it doesn't surrender more of market share in the Browser Wars.

Microsoft to Offer Free Security (BBC News)
In a surprise move, Microsoft has announced it will offer a free anti-virus and security solution from the second half of next year.

Around the Blogosphere
MOSS 2007 Document Management Services - Document Centralization (Bob Mixon)
I received a question (or, I should say many questions) from a reader today: "Is there any problems with Content Editors and Users requesting documents for editing/viewing from ONLY ONE Central Document Library that contains metadata columns that classify the documents by business group, industry, material substance, division, etc.

Working on updating my Silverlight 2.0 Stuff to RTM (Ed Hild)
And of course there would have to be an error that I had to work around... I had built several samples with the pre-release stuff of Silverlight 2.0 and just started the processing of updating my environment. So I uninstalled everything in my dev environment related to silverlight and started over. This included Visual Studio 2008 SP1, Expression Blend 2 SP1, as well as the new Silverlight Tools for Visual Studio. After getting everything in the environment, I created a simple Silverlight app along with the default web test application...and my Hello World demo gave me a wonderful parser error saying it couldn't find the Silverlight assembly.

jQuery and SharePoint - Free “Search on this Page” Web Parts (EndUser SharePoint)
As a follow up to Waldek’s article on Monday, “Search on this Page using jQuery”, I have created drag-and-drop web part components to create a searchable highlighting functionality within a SharePoint page. The solution is done with Content Editor Web Parts so you won’t have to have server access to use it.

Largest Global SharePoint Webinar/Webcast Ever! (SharePoint Joel)
Debunking Myths on Email and SharePoint Management. T-15 hours: I'm getting excited about this upcoming webinar.  I blogged about it a few weeks ago, but the momentum has been building.  A few people have been asking me who should attend.  The audience for this one is really IT, IT management, across SharePoint, Exchange, Public Folders, SMTP, Notes, Websphere or anywhere where responsibility falls in ownership, configuration, or planning around the following:

What Are the Most Valuable Subjects for Beginning Users of SharePoint? (EndUser SharePoint)
I am putting together the schedule for live online workshops that will run from January - March, 2009. I’m looking for your input on what you see as the most valuable subjects, the ones that will help you the most in your day-to-day work with SharePoint.

Around Bamboo Nation
Troubleshooting an Error Message when Creating a New SharePoint Group (SharePoint Blank)
Let's consider today's entry to be an addendum to my two-part look at how to create a new SharePoint group which concluded yesterday, shall we?  As regular rears will no doubt recall, that episode ended in shame for me ... not with the creation of a new group as intended, but with an unsightly error message instead.  Needless to say, I knew that I had to get to the bottom of that error message today before I could move on to another topic, and I'm happy to report that I have done just that.

Microsoft Updates
Watch This: Using Search in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS))
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 offers search features that can help users find relevant content and other people across their enterprise. The search features can help locate data stored in a variety of locations on a SharePoint site including lists, document libraries, and user-profile pages.

Work Offline With Tables that are Linked to SharePoint Lists (Microsoft Office Access)
You can use Microsoft Office Access 2007 to work offline with data that is linked to a list on a Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 site. This can be helpful, for example, if you need to be away from the office or need to continue working when a server isn't available.

Move the Tables in an Access Database to a SharePoint Site and Link to Them (Microsoft Office Access)
If you have data in a Microsoft Office Access 2007 database, you can share it as lists on a Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 site, where team members can interact with it. They can share and manage the content by using the features of a SharePoint site while they continue to use forms, reports, and queries from Access.

Introduction to Integrating Data Between Access and a SharePoint Site (Microsoft Office Access)
You can share and manage data in many ways by using Microsoft Office Access 2007 with Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. You can benefit from the collaboration features of a SharePoint site while continuing to use the data entry and analysis features of Access. For example, you can track versions of data, subscribe to alerts so that you know when changes are made, and manage permissions for the data.

SharePoint Events
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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