SharePoint Daily for November 26, 2008

Top News Stories
Mainsoft Links IBM Jazz, Microsoft SharePoint (InfoWorld)
With Mainsoft Document Collaboration for Rational Jazz, Microsoft SharePoint Edition, developers and others can collaborate on Application Lifecycle Management.

How to Protect SharePoint Data (Enterprise Storage)
Increasingly, many organizations are turning to Microsoft SharePoint as their primary collaboration and content and records management platform. Nilesh Mehta, president of NGenious Solutions and his firm's senior SharePoint architect, claims that's because SharePoint "is by far the most user-friendly collaboration portal/platform out there right now."

Why Microsoft Will Gouge Google in SaaS (or Not) (eWeek)
The emergence of Microsoft Windows Azure and its Online Services pose a real challenge to Google in enterprise applications, according to one analyst. Another expert argues that Google's native Web position makes it the stronger candidate to pursue business with SAAS and Web services. What cloud computing camp are you in?

Five Tips for Managing Microsoft SharePoint Server (ITWorld)
Users are going hog-wild with the popular Microsoft portal, and it's causing problems for IT managers. How you can bring your Microsoft SharePoint Server deployment under control.

Windows Vista, Multimedia Codec Vulnerabilities Found (Information Week)
Certain administrative rights are required for the vulnerability to be exploited, making it a risk primarily for malicious insider scenarios.

Disaster-Proofing The Cloud (Forbes)
As the cost and convenience benefits of cloud computing become more compelling, more and more IT departments are taking a close look at moving large parts of their infrastructure out of their data centers.

Apple Safari, Google Chrome Gain Browser Market Share (Macworld)
Apple's Safari is among the Web browsers that have gained market share in 2008, according to a new report from research firm OneSat. Since February 2008, Safari increased its browser market share by 0.24 per cent worldwide. That gives Safari a 2.42 per cent worldwide market, putting it in third place overall in the browser wars.

Microsoft’s Personal Reboot: Web-Centric, But Beyond “The Cloud” (Paid Content)
Steve Ballmer may be Microsoft’s CEO, but chief software architect Ray Ozzie is the more important “man behind the curtain.” Tasked with filling Bill Gates’ massive computing shoes since 2006, Ozzie’s main focus has been helping to revamp MSFT’s products and services so that they’re relevant to the Web 2.0 generation—with the entrenched development team kicking and screaming the whole time. In a lengthy Wired profile, Ozzie lays out some of the steps MSFT has taken and continues to take in its quest to maintain supremacy both on- and offline:

Windows 7 Taskbar: Most Interesting Part of New OS? (InfoWorld)
Among Microsoft Windows 7's features, a taskbar overhaul is arguably the feature in Microsoft's upcoming OS that has aroused the most interest. But it's also the most cloaked in mystery, as it was not part of the pre-beta Windows 7 software handed out to attendees at Microsoft's PDC (Professional Developers Conference) last month.

Around the Blogosphere
Taming the Elusive “Calculated Column” – Text and Data (Part VI) (EndUser SharePoint)
In this article, we’re going to be covering the last 4 functions in the "Text and Data" set of formulas for SharePoint. The four functions we’ll be discussing are:

Telerik RadEditor Control and MOSS 2007 (Liam Cleary)
So like me I am sure that you have installed and deployed the free replacement editor control from Telerik. This is great and works really well when working with Cross-Browsers. However maybe you knew or maybe you didn't there is another version of this editor for those of us that are licensed to use the full Telerik Suite of Controls. If you do then you can download the following file:

Free MSDN Webcasts & HOLs for MOSS 2007 WCM Development (Andrew Connell)
Earlier this year I participated in a campaign for ASP.NET 2.0 developers to learn the basics of SharePoint development. This campaign, www.mssharepointdeveloper.com, contained free webcasts, hands-on labs and a preconfigured virtual machine. Building off the success of that campaign, Microsoft is pushing out a new series of webcasts and hands-on labs around the area of building MOSS 2007 WCM Publishing sites. The series, SharePoint Products & Technologies for Internet Site Development, starts on December 2, 2008 and runs through January 6, 2009. Everything is completely free! The webcasts use the Adventure Works Travel site I mentioned in my SharePoint Pod Show podcast interview as well as in my TechEd EMEA sessions a few weeks back. In time, all the materials, as well as the sample site, will be available for download.

Locking Down SharePoint Designer (Microsoft SharePoint Designer Team Blog)
Hello all, Stephen here again – I’m a writer for SharePoint Designer. As you know, SharePoint Designer 2007 is a powerful tool for editing SharePoint sites — so powerful, in fact, that you likely have scenarios in your organization where you want to control where and how people can use SharePoint Designer 2007. With this post, I’ll try to answer a very common question: “How can I lock down SharePoint Designer in my organization?” And I’ll try to answer the flip side of this question, which arises in an environment where SharePoint Designer has been locked down and the user asks: “Why do I see this message when I attempt to edit a site in SharePoint Designer?”

Case Study: Skanska USA Building Enhances Project Management with Scalable Web Portals (Michael Gannotti)
“Skanska, a Fortune Global 500 company, is one of the world’s leading construction companies. One of its United States business units, Skanska USA Building Inc., is the third largest builder in the U.S. To facilitate efficient collaboration, Skanska needed to give external and internal project teams access to timely, reliable information, while maintaining the scalability and flexibility to handle more than 1,500 active projects with budgets ranging from U.S.$15 million to $1 billion. In 2004, Skanska used Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Portal Server 2003 to develop internal and external collaboration portals. In 2007, the company deployed Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 to scale its collaboration portals for larger, more complex projects, improve change management processes, save time, reduce costs, and improve coordination with clients, subcontractors, and other project partners.”

Big Farm Deployment? No Problem (To the SharePoint)
If you’re faced with doing a large SharePoint deployment, you’re probably feeling dizzy and lightheaded at the prospect of prepping, installing, and configuring SharePoint on 40 … 50 … or even more individual servers. It’s a big, complex, and repetitive job that requires a high degree of precision. Fortunately, with the right set of instructions, this is just the sort of job computers can do for themselves.

Where to Draw the Line Between SharePoint Customisation and SharePoint Development (Jeremy Thake)
I was recently on a client site where they have spent the best part of a year going through the process of making the decision and getting approval to purchase Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Enterprise Edition. Part of that presales process actually included attending one of my discussions on Enterprise 2.0 along the lines of "Facebook for the Enterprise" with a 15 minute segment at the end that demonstrated what MOSS 2007 had out of the box that could be used.

Around Bamboo Nation
Modifying SharePoint User Alerts (SharePoint Blank)
In the process of responding to Nate's question about how to view SharePoint user alerts yesterday, I was appalled to discover another alerts-related question that had been posted over a month ago which had somehow gone unnoticed and, consequently, unanswered.  I immediately offered my apologies, then went on to hazard a guess as to the answer, promising to investigate today and either confirm or deny whether my guess was correct.  Well, let's just say that it would behoove me in the future to verify my hunches before I open my virtual mouth, but what can I say?  I was rattled to discover that unanswered question, and wanted to respond immediately.

Microsoft Updates
Install updates for Microsoft Office 2007 Help (Help and How-to)
If your computer is connected to the Internet while you are using the programs in the 2007 Microsoft Office system, you already see the latest Help articles. If your computer is not connected to the Internet, you see the Help articles that were included on the 2007 Microsoft Office system CDs. If you can't connect to the Internet while you are using an Office program, you can now see the latest Help articles by downloading and installing updated Help files.

SharePoint Events
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.

Now you can have SharePoint Daily delivered to your email inbox every morning.