SharePoint Daily for December 1, 2008

Top News Stories
SharePoint 2007 - Best Practices for Collaborative Portals (Sys-Con)
It was the usual story: a short deadline and a tight budget. The client's internal staff said "No way" to build the Web-based application in fewer than six months, with any fewer than three full-time resources. The project needed to be completed in two months. It included custom authentication, collaboration, business rules, and forums. Therefore we chose SharePoint 2007 as the development platform and configured the solution to handle 80% of the functionality. Where SharePoint could not meet the requirements through configuration, we developed custom code to complete the other 20%. Herein we'll detail some best practices and lessons learned from our implementation.

Peering Into Microsoft's Azure Sky (InfoWorld)
If you research Azure on the Internet, unless you specify "Microsoft" or "cloud computing," you will run smack into all sorts of colorful discussions -- literally. Azure is a bright blue color that, according to Wikipedia, resembles a sky on a bright clear day. Thus, it may seem slightly presumptuous that Microsoft has given its new cloud services operating system the name Azure. It's as if Microsoft Azure is the computing sky that supports your Internet cloud. But naming aside, what is Windows Azure?

Startups Use SaaS To Take On SharePoint (InformationWeek)
Microsoft's SharePoint is the T. rex of collaboration products: big, fiercely competitive, and standing atop the social computing food chain. But smaller, nimbler players are using SaaS to compete against the thundering giant. Expresso, a 14-month old startup, does something Microsoft hasn't yet figured out: It brings Office into the SaaS world. Expresso lets users share and edit Excel spreadsheets online. They can upload an Excel file to an Expresso server and then invite other users to collaborate. Multiple users can work on the same file in real time, right in the browser. The file's owner applies viewing and editing rights down to the cell level.

How to Protect SharePoint Data (Enterprise Storage Forum)
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."

Just Who is Sharing Your Sensitive Information? (Computing)
Businesses are increasingly reliant on electronic collaboration, requiring that teams can collaboratively create, manage and share documents on which they are working. Those teams may not only be geographically distributed within an organisation, but will frequently encompass individuals from third parties. As recent Quocirca research The distributed business shows, larger European organisations operate, on average, from 33 locations and a growing number are providing access to the internal applications to contractors, partners, suppliers and customers.

Why Microsoft won't Dominate the Cloud (InfoWorld)
It's no surprise that Microsoft has its eye on the cloud. Cloud computing, that is. What is surprising is the news -- first unearthed by BusinessWeek reporter Peter Burrows -- that the software giant is planning to build 20 datacenters at a cost of about $1 billion each in hopes of dominating the cloud.

SharePoint Development Improves in Visual Studio 2010 (Info Queue)
Jason Zander, General Manager for Visual Studio, recently announced Visual Studio 2010 Tools for Sharepoint. The focus of the tooling is to automate tedious tasks, enhance the debugging experience, and provide a GUI surface for visually exploring deployment and feature packaging.

IBM Invests in New Supercomputing and Green IT R&D Operation (SiliconRepublic)
IBM is to create 40 top-quality research positions at its operation in Ireland, as well as in Irish universities, to focus on the future of supercomputing and green data centres. The investment will be supported by the Irish Government through development agency IDA Ireland.

More Cloud Tales - What Happens on Rainy Days? (ZDNet)
Cloud computing has its elephants. One of the biggest is the threat of your cloud provider disappearing overnight, taking your data with it. Right now, that's an elephant with plenty of PR – with the basic mechanisms of corporate finances failing, there's little confidence that even the most assiduous can pick a company with a guaranteed future. And there are plenty of horror stories to fuel pessimism – as Phil Wainewright, blogger for our sister site ZDNet US, explains:

2009: The Year of Windows 7? (RedmondMag)
If you believe the leaked schedules, whispered timelines and mounting anecdotal and factual evidence, 2009 should be the year of Windows 7. Yes, I realize that Microsoft officials are still citing their "three years after Windows Vista went generally available" ship date as the target for Windows 7. But any Windows watcher worth his or her salt knows that "early 2010" is a more likely timeframe for Redmond to ship the product.

Around the Blogosphere
Announcing SharePoint Site Configurator Feature on CodePlex (Shared Points for SharePoint...)
It is an pleasure to announce the second of our two new SharePoint projects on Codeplex.com: Project Description: SharePoint Site Configurator Feature is a small framework for taking care of all configurations, settings and featurestapling you need for transforming a standard blank site definition into your own full blown site, without the hassle of creating a complex custom site definition.

Everything You Need to Know about BDC: Part 2 of 8 (SharePoint Magazine)
Welcome back.  This is part two of an eight part series on BDC.  In the first article, I gave you an overview of the BDC from a business standpoint and introduced its architecture.  In this article, the emphasis will be on the Application Definition File (or ADF).  We’ll make sure you have a good understanding of the role it plays, how it works, and a give you a good overview of the XML schema that is used.  We’ll then look at various ways you can create these ADFs, show you how to publish them into your farm, and also cover how security on the ADF is managed.  We have a lot to cover, so let’s get started.

SharePoint Search From Office Applications (WorkerThread Blog)
OK I know that there are already blog posts out there on this subject, but I wanted to put something down in one place for my own clients.  Also I find it’s often the case that when I talk to users about this, they aren’t even aware of the existence of the Office Research pane and how they can use it from inside Word, Excel, or PowerPoint (and indeed OneNote or Visio).

SharePoint Christmas Countdown Web Part (Andy Dale)
I hadn't even blownout my Bonfire Night Sparkler when I saw my first Christmas tree of the year lighting up the Worcestershire sky and now as we approach the end of November you could easily think that Santa was on his way tonight. Everywhere you go you hear the Christmas songs playing and people moaning about the price of turkeys this year.

WSS FAQ Additions and Corrections CXXX - 23rd - 29th November 2008 (Mike Walsh)
Note: All of the addresses of the KB / Articles - 2007 Products / MS / Non-MS Articles below were valid at the time I added them to the WSS FAQ site and to this file. I can't guarantee that they still are.

Triple Boot Goodness on MacBook Pro... Now Running Vista x64 Native AND Virtual! (Andrew Connell)
A while back I posted about how I followed Spence's slick triple boot instructions to setup a MacOS Leopard, Vista x64 & Windows Server 2008 install. I love this setup... finally did my first presentations from a native Windows Server 2008 install for my three sessions at TechEd EMEA in Barcelona earlier this month. The performance was second to none... thrilled with what I got.

Power User Toolbox: JavaScript for SharePoint - Pt5 (EndUser SharePoint)
When I first installed SharePoint, I was amazed with the many ways I could access data (your mileage may vary depending on licensing options): user interface, web services, SharePoint Services API, RSS, email alerts, workflows, Business Data Catalog, Excel Services, Stssync protocol (Outlook Integration), Stsadm command line, T-SQL (unsupported), and RPC/URL protocols (owssvr.dll). Well, add to that list (and your Power User Toolbox) the SharePoint and Office Live JavaScript API.

Around Bamboo Nation
Managing SharePoint Alerts with the Bamboo Alerts Administrator (SharePoint Blank)
Having now mentioned the Bamboo Alerts Administrator twice (in two days, no less) while answering SharePoint alerts-related questions that had been submitted by readers, I figured I should probably spend some quality time with the Web Part.  As a result, this will be the first entry in what may very well become a semi-regular feature of SharePoint Blank, providing me the opportunity to approach Bamboo products from the same angle that I approach SharePoint in general ... as an inquisitive end user who's looking to gauge both the ease of use and relative usefulness of included features.

Bamboo Welcomes Systems Garden to the Partner Advantage Program (The Bamboo Team Blog)
Welcome our newest partner Systems Garden.  Systems Garden is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner located in Finland specializing in business productivity and information management.   Systems Garden helps customers to improve their business performance by offering state-of-the-art Enterprise Search, Business Portal, Content Management and Custom software solutions.  More than 100 organizations have chosen Systems Garden to improve their productivity.   We are looking forward to working with them.

Bamboo Welcomes DataLan to the Partner Advantage Program (The Bamboo Team Blog)
Welcome to the Partner Advantage Program DataLan Corporation!  DataLan is based in New York and delivers solutions enabling organizations to innovate and compete in a global economy, the technology to support those solutions, and the capabilities to make innovation happen. They deploy Microsoft SharePoint™ and the Office System™ as an enterprise portal – a point of access for enterprise information and services, providing information workers with capabilities including Enterprise Content Management, Workflow Automation and BPM, Business Intelligence, Enterprise Search, Enterprise Project Management, and Compliance and Audit Management.

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
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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