SharePoint Daily for January 7, 2009

Top News Stories
Expo: Microsoft to Enhance Entourage Exchange, SharePoint on the Mac (Macworld)
A quarter-century after it began making products for the Mac, Microsoft’s Macintosh Business Unit announced future updates to Microsoft Office that will enhance collaboration and sharing. Entourage will get a makeover, at least under the hood. Microsoft will stop using the WebDAV protocol in favor of the Exchange Web Services—a change the company said would bring better compatibility, performance, and reliability. When using WebDAV, Entourage sends out up to six instructions when communicating with a server, but with Exchange it uses one.

Q&A with Microsoft's Bob Muglia (Redmond Developer News)
Bob Muglia, previously the senior vice president of Microsoft's $13 billion Server and Tools Business, has now been named president of that group, Microsoft announced today. We talked with Muglia in early December about Windows Azure and why he thinks it is the next-generation developer platform. Here is the transcript of the Q&A:

Why 2008 was Another Great Year in Web Technology (TechRepublic)
It’s hard to believe that another year has come to an end. It was a year filled with plenty of software updates and brand new products. Web developers continue to embrace standards with plenty of tools available to provide a boost. Here’s my look back at 2008, with an eye toward 2009.

Cloud Computing: Apple vs. Microsoft (ZDNet)
Both Apple and Microsoft rolled out the beginnings of a cloud computing strategy on Tuesday. Apple introduced a beta of its iWork.com document sharing service and Microsoft’s Mac Business Unit unveiled Document Collaboration Companion for Mac Beta.

Learn How to Leverage Cloud Computing and Virtualization in NYC This March (Sys-Con)
Cloud Computing and Virtualization both take center stage this March in New York City, as SYS-CON Events brings two of its most popular industry-leading Enterprise IT events to the Big Apple: 2nd International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo and 5th International Virtualization Conference & Expo. Co-located at the historic Roosevelt Hotel in midtown Manhattan, these events have the highest-energy Expo Floor of any comparable event, with more exhibitors, more attendees, and more Special Events like our industry Power Panels, our delegate prize drawings, and our attendee-generated Show Awards.

How to be Less Stupid in 2009 (ZDNet)
The title of this post was going to be ‘How to be more smart in 2009′ but three things changed my mind. First up several of my Twitter followers ‘voted’ for the ‘less stupid’ title, second several posts I saw in catching up on New Year reading had me groaning and lastly, as my Irregular colleague Jason Wood frequently reminds me, enterprise software buyers often make irrational decisions. So…with tongue firmly planted in cheek (sort of) and with advance apologies to anyone who might be offended; here goes:

In 2008 More Computers Leaped from Desktops to Pockets (Business Mirror)
It was a good year for computers—if you don’t think of computers as simply a combination of monitor, keyboard, hard drive, CD/DVD burner and some version of Windows or Mac OS X. Many computing advances in 2008 occurred outside traditional desktop and laptop machines.

Around the Blogosphere
Business Data Catalog Survey – The Results (Lightning Tools Blog)
Many thanks to everybody who took the time to fill out the Big BDC Survey. We’ve had a great response, especially as the email and link were sent out on a Friday afternoon (or perhaps that was a good thing! :)). Around 500 people have completed the survey to date which is fantastic. Part of the reason for the survey was a bit of market research for ourselves, but also a chance to let everybody else know how the BDC is being utilized…….so here we go, the results. I’ve added my own personal interpretation also, but bear in mind these are my own conclusions. If you agree or disagree let us know in the comments!

Book Review:SharePoint for Project Management (Worker Thread Blog)
I first heard about this book via the SharePoint for Project Management section of Bamboo Nation.  The author Dux Raymond Sy, is Bamboo Software’s resident Project Management expert, and as well as a long history of working with SharePoint he is a Certified Project Management Professional.

Take the SharePoint Survey (SharePoint Nick)
After we put together the BDC survey and posted the results we’ve received a lot of emails thanking us for sharing the information and how interesting a couple of the results were. We probably assume quite a lot with regards how SharePoint is used in the real world, and surveys are one way of finding out the real answers.

Nintex Workflow - An Alternative to SharePoint Designer? (SharePoint BUZZ)
Both Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007 and Nintex Workflow 2007 are powerful tools that can be used to create, design, and publish custom workflows to your Microsoft Office SharePoint 2007 Farm.  They are both generally geared toward the SharePoint Power User.  Although a beginner should be able to pick it up fairly easy.  They both use a Graphical interface to design and publish workflows to your Microsoft Office SharePoint Farm. But that is where the similarity ends. In this post, I will provide my experience using both tools. This will be a multi-part post as there is a lot of information to cover on a broad topic.

Security Lock Down of a SharePoint Farm Before Publishing an Extranet or Website (SharePoint Blogs)
Before exposing a SharePoint farm to the internet it is important that precautions are taken to ensure that security cannot be compromised. Taking all reasonable steps to secure the environment should minimise the risk of a security breach. I have found the following 3 technet articles useful during this process, but they are not easily located when searching for them this morning.

Custom ‘Presence’ With SharePoint Person Fields (SharePoint Intervals)
Not that you will want to do this often, but I discovered today that the “Presence” control displayed with every Person on a SharePoint site can be actually completely customized. Usually it looks something like this:

Around Bamboo Nation
BUT WAIT!!! THERE'S MORE -- Using List Rollup with other Bamboo Web Parts (The Bamboo Team Blog)
If I had more free time here at Bamboo, and could do whatever I wanted, I'm pretty sure I'd spend all day making infomercials for our products. Every time I see some horrendously low budget local commercial, all I can think is how much better it would be if it involved Web Parts. Personally, I think I'd go with more yelling and screaming, like they used to do with local auto dealers with really cheap financing ("DO YOU HAVE A JOB??? DO YOU HAVE TEN DOLLARS??? DO YOU WANT A NEW CAR???") But I'm absolutely sure which Bamboo Web Part I'd make an ad for first -- the List Rollup Web Part, which to me, is our definitive "BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!!!" product.

World Clock & Weather Point Release and the Seamless Upgrading of SharePoint Web Parts  (SharePoint Blank)
It was just a few weeks ago that I was writing about the anniversary edition of our (free) World Clock & Weather Web Part, so I figured that yesterday's point release merited a mention in this space -- particularly given that there are new features in the point release. In addition to wanting to post about the new features, while considering writing about this updated version of the Web Part, I was reminded of something I'd wondered about before.  What I'd wondered was how do Web Parts behave if you've already got one on your site when a new version is deployed?  For example, if you've already got the previous release of the World Clock & Weather Web Part deployed and configured on your site, and your IT department replaces the Web Part file with the new patch release, does your copy of the Web Part get updated automatically and retain all of your existing configurations?

Highlighting Data-Viewer 2.0: Now with Conditional Formatting! (The Bamboo Team Blog)
If you've already read the Data-Viewer 2.0 announcement, you know about the inline editing feature. As great as that is, it isn't the as exciting as the Data-Viewer's other new feature... The most visible change in version 2.0 of our Data-Viewer Web Part is the ability to define and display conditional formatting when data is viewed. Anyone tat has played around with conditional formatting in Excel knows how valuable this functionality can be. For anyone that has not used conditional fomatting before, you've probably at least seen it at work. A common example can be found in accounting docs, where negative balances are shown using red text (aka "in the red") , and positive balances are shown in black text ("in the black").

Microsoft Updates
Users cannot create a new variation of a page that they created in a Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 site (KBAlertz - Microsoft Knowledge Base Article)
Users cannot create a new variation of a page that they created in a Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 site. Only users who have Full Control permissions can create a new variation of a page.

Description of the SharePoint Server 2007 hotfix package (Coreserver.msp): December 19, 2008 (KBAlertz - Microsoft Knowledge Base Article)
This article describes the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 issue that is fixed in the SharePoint Server 2007 hotfix package that is dated December 19, 2008.

You cannot enable the Publishing feature in SharePoint Server 2007 after you delete an out-of-box standard permission level (KBAlertz - Microsoft Knowledge Base Article)
On a computer that is running Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, you delete an out-of-box standard permission level, such as Contributor, Designer, or another permission level. After you do this, you cannot enable the Publishing feature in SharePoint Server 2007. Additionally, you cannot re-create the deleted out-of-box standard permission level.

SharePoint Events
January 7, Online, Bamboo SharePoint Project Management Webinar
January 7, Online, Bamboo SharePoint Administration Webinar
January 7, New York, New York, SharePoint User Group: New York City
January 8, Baltimore, Maryland, Baltimore SharePoint User Group
January 8, Reston, Virginia, SharePoint User Group of the District of Columbia
January 8, San Francisco, California, San Francisco SharePoint Users Group
January 10, Virginia Beach, Virginia, SharePoint Saturday
January 12, Tampa, Florida Tampa Office Geeks
January 12, Tulsa, Oklahoma, Tulsa SharePoint Interest Group
January 13, Online, Simple Site Planning: Get It Right the First Time!
January 13, Johannesburg, South Africa, Information Worker
January 13, Philadelphia Pennsylvania, Philly Office Geeks
January 13, Southfield, Michigan, Southeast Michigan SharePoint User Group Meeting
January 13, St. Louis, Missouri, St. Louis SharePoint User Group Meeting
January 14, Online, Bamboo SharePoint Project Management Webinar
January 14, Online, Bamboo SharePoint Administration Webinar
January 14, Bloomington, Minnesota, Minnesota SharePoint User Group
January 15, Online, What's New from Bamboo
January 15, Columbus, Ohio, Central Ohio SharePoint User Group
January 15, Louisville, Kentucky, Kentucky SharePoint Users Group
January 15, Bellevue, Washington, Puget Sound SharePoint Users Group
January 15, Virginia Beach, Virginia, Hampton Roads SQL Server and SharePoint User Group
January 20, Bay of Plenty, New Zealand, Bay of Plenty User Group
January 20, Irving, Texas, DFW SharePoint Server Community
January 20, Franklin, Tennessee, Nashville SharePoint Users Group
January 20, Sydney, Australia, Sydney SharePoint User Group
January 21, Iselin, New Jersey, NJ SharePoint User Group
January 21, New York, New York, 2009 IMAGINE Event -- SharePoint in the Real World
January 21, San Diego California, Southern California SharePoint User Group Meeting
January 27, Christchurch, New Zealand, Christchurch SharePoint User Group
January 27-29, San Francisco, California, SPTechCon
January 28, Cleveland, Ohio, Cleveland SharePoint User Group
January 28, Melbourne, Australia, Microsoft Office System Special Interest Group
January 29, Richmond, Virginia, Richmond SharePoint User Group Meeting

February 2-4, San Diego, California, SharePoint Best Practices Conference
February 4, New York, New York, Case Studies in SharePoint Dashboards
February 7, Kansas City, Kansas, SharePoint Saturday
February 21, New York, New York, SharePoint Saturday

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

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