SharePoint Daily for February 9, 2009

Top News Stories
Reader Feedback: Words of Warning on Windows 7 (Redmond Channel Partner)
With the channel getting a serious look at Windows 7, we expect the positive buzz from the partner community about the forthcoming operating system to intensify. In fact, with this week's news that Microsoft will offer an upgrade from XP to Windows 7, we're thinking that Windows fans anxious to forget about Vista will hardly be able to contain themselves.

Windows 7 Starter Edition (PC World)
Microsoft's plans for Windows 7 could be setting up the company for a consumer backlash similar to what it has faced with Vista , a research analyst said Wednesday. The issue, said Michael Silver of Gartner Inc. , revolves around the Starter Edition of Windows 7. "A lot of people could be disappointed with Starter if they weren't aware of its limitations," said Silver. "There's a danger, I think, of people buying it, and then getting shocked when the fourth app won't run."

Microsoft Reverses Course On Windows 7 Security (Silicon Alley Insider)
Talk about a 180: Microsoft (MSFT) now acknowledges changes may be necessary in the way Windows 7 handles security, and the company is promising to implement two changes to the upcoming "release candidate" version of the OS to address concerns raised by hackers.

Browsers: More Important Than Ever. Also More Boring. (Technologizer)
This piece was inspired by spending the past few days using the RC1 version of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 8. But it’s really a sequel-of-sorts to a blog post I wrote for PC World back in March of last year, when the first beta of IE 8 appeared. That one was called Internet Explorer 8 and the Boring Era of Web Browsers, and the gist was that even though browsers mattered more than ever in this era where we spend so much of our lives on the Web, Microsoft and other browser companies seemed to be focusing on under-the-hood improvements (like better support for Web standards) and were short on strikingly new features that let folks use their browsers in new ways. (IE 8’s Accelerators and Web Slices, for instance, are its most significant new tools–and they’re just not that big a whoop.)

IE8 Suggested Sites IDs Are Not Used to Identify Specific Users (Softpedia) 
Internet Explorer 8 comes to the table with a feature designed to analyze user navigation behavior and preferences and to suggest alternative Internet destinations based on patterns of surfing the web and personal interests. However, despite the fact that IE8 Suggested Sites keeps track of all the websites visited, Microsoft indicated that it does not raise any privacy concerns by putting sensitive information collected from end users at risk.

Open Source Means Business (Forbes)
Everything around us is choking up: Credit, equity investments, mergers and acquisitions, initial public offerings. The slowdown is strangling innovation, and it is suffocating entrepreneurship. But some entrepreneurs have found ways to build their companies on a shoestring using open source software, and they have figured out how to make money off something generally considered free.

Time to Invest (The Motley Fool)
Early in 2008, I came across a stock with some unbelievable numbers. Revenue was up more than 25% year-over-year, return on equity was a robust 49%, and it was considered one of the world’s most dominant companies. Its name? Microsoft. Maybe you’ve heard of it.

Around the Blogosphere
Five Important Tests Before You Go Live (SharePoint Magazine)
Before going into detail concerning each of the tests, I would like to point out two things about this list: These are not in any particular order. These are “Five Important Tests” not “The Five Most Important Tests”.

What Does Information First Mean for SharePoint? (Mastering SharePoint)
At Mixon Consulting we often use the phrase "Information First" to help convey what it takes to "get it right the first time".   When we work with companies that are on their second or third try, what we most often find is that during the planning of the goals and information architecture there was a real lack of involvement of the information workers that will use the solution.  A solid understanding of the information created and used in key business processes is paramount.  It is the foundation of the seemingly simple task of defining what sites will be needed to the more complex tasks of designing an effective but not overwhelming taxonomy of content types and site columns.

zevenseas LCM.. It’s Finally Here! (zevenseas)
After blogging about a year ago Site Life Cycle Management V2 .. Why V2- I’ve finally come around and make it ‘BETA’ –able enough to put it on CodePlex for you to try out (and hopefully use ;) So what does it do?

A Quicker Way to Create Custom SharePoint List Templates (Andrew Connell)
Ever tried to create a custom list template for a SharePoint 3.0-based site? Something you thought was likely to be not such a big task quickly turned in to a nightmare of XML and GUIDs, right? Creating custom list templates is not a trivial task... nor is it a terribly good story. It's pretty darn complicated and can be quite an undertaking. In fact, last year when Rob Bogue, Paul Andrew and I were coming up with the content ideas and reviewing the labs/webcasts for the Introduction to SharePoint for ASP.NET Developers campaign, one thing Rob and I were adamant about was zero coverage of list definitions/templates and site definitions/templates. Why? The goal was to bring ASP2 developers to the platform... not send them running away! These things are nasty and scary… avoid them at all costs… unless if you simplify things…

Best Practices: Agile SharePoint Development with Scrum Slide Deck (Andrew Woodward)
As promised the slide deck from my Agile SharePoint Development with Scrum. Abstract: Provide an introduction to Agile development using Scrum and discuss how the iterative approach to development helps the customer to get the solution they want. Look at how this approach works when applied to SharePoint projects, how it helps leverage more of the core platform and focuses effort on the biggest value areas. We will look at the challenges this brings to your development team by doing early integration, dealing with upgrades and changes and understand how addressing the hard things early is the right approach. We will also discuss how Scrum gives visibility of the project and brings both good and bad news. How getting customer engagement is the primary challenge and how the flexible approach is often at odds with the way work is contracted.

Taming the Elusive “Calculated Column” - Logic - Part 1 (EndUserSharePoint)
In this article I want to discuss one of the more common causes of frustration when users develop formulas – “Logical Functions”, and hopefully shed some light on the “How’s and “Why’s” of their inner-workings. This set of formulas is made up of the following functions:

Beginners Guide to SharePoint 2007 Workflow Development - Preparing your Visual Studio 2008 Workflow Project (SharePoint Buzz)
Preparing your Visual Studio 2008 Workflow Project: This is the 3rd part of our Beginners Guide to SharePoint 2007 Workflow Development.   You understand the workflow development scenario and how to create an InfoPath web-based form.  Now in this part of the series, we will be Preparing your Visual Studio 2008 Workflow Project for workflow development.  Although, Visual Studio 2008 is part of the workflow development series, Visual Studio 2005 can also be used to develop workflows.  If there is a request, I can update the series to include instructions for Visual Studio 2005.

Around Bamboo Nation
On Discovering a 'New' SharePoint Error Message (SharePoint Blank)
It's the triumphant return of SharePoint Blank, once again reporting for duty after returning from the excellent Best Practices SharePoint Conference (BPSPC) in beautiful La Jolla, CA.  Miss me?  Well, I missed you all so much that I dove straight into the SharePoint Blank mailbag upon my return, and in the course of researching an answer for one reader, I encountered a SharePoint error message that triggered a flashback which, in turn, caused me to realize that there could be a blog entry in there.  And here we are.

Has your WSS v3 Site Gone Out of Control? (The Bamboo Team Blog)
In a Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) v3 deployment, you can easily loose control of the creation of sites.  Everyone wants the ability, and you don't want to create the sites for them, so you grant them site creation access, but then you quickly realize that there is no real thought process into creation of sites!  Some are listed in the Quick Launch while others are not, same holds true for the top navigation bar.  Some sites users have access to while other sites they do not because Unique Permissions was selected.  And on and on and on.  **Breathing heavily**

BPSPC: Wes Bryan Presents the Bamboo SharePoint Analyzer (The Bamboo Team Blog)
Wes Bryan, Product Team lead at Bamboo Solutions, led an informal "Cabana" session yesterday at the Best Practices SharePoint Conference (BPSPC), providing a demo of the free SharePoint Analyzer tool.   Of the session's attendees, just one had already downloaded the tool, but hadn't yet had a chance to spend much time with it, so all of the attendees were anxious to see what features the tool offered.  Since none of the attendees had used Microsoft's Best Practices Analyzer, there was particular interest in seeing how Bamboo had embedded that tool into the SharePoint Analyzer.

Microsoft Updates
Performance is poor when you try to generate a custom audit report for a SharePoint Server 2007 site (KBAlertz - Microsoft Knowledge Base Article)
Performance is poor when you try to generate a custom audit report for a Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 site.

Error message when you add a new variation label and try to create the hierarchy: "The variation system failed to pair up pages http://kbalertz.com/958302/Error-message-variation-label-create-variation-system-failed-pages-because-their-Content-Types.aspx and /ja-JP/web/Pages/default.aspx because their Content Types do not match" (KBAlertz - Microsoft Knowledge Base Article)
After you change the content type of the Default.aspx page used as a variation hierarchy on an Office SharePoint Server 2007 site, you add a new variation label and try to create the hierarchy. However, you cannot create the hierarchy. Also, the following error message is logged in the Variation logs:

Error Message When You Complete the Upgrade From an Earlier Version of GroupBoard Workspace to GroupBoard Workspace 2007: "Upgrade completed with errors" (KBAlertz - Microsoft Knowledge Base Article)
You perform an in-place or gradual upgrade from an earlier version of GroupBoard Workspace to GroupBoard Workspace 2007. However, when the upgrade is complete, you receive the following error message: Upgrade completed with errors. Review the upgrade.log file located in C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\Logs\Upgrade.log. The number of errors and warnings is listed at the end of the upgrade log file.

SharePoint Events
February 11, Online, SharePoint Project Management Webinar
February 11, Online, SharePoint Administration Webinar
February 11, Bloomington, Minnesota, Minnesota SharePoint User Group
February 11, Cleveland, Ohio, Cleveland SharePoint User Group
February 12, Online, What's New from Bamboo
February 13, Online, Become Your Company's SharePoint SuperStar!
February 17, Adelaide, Australia, Adelaide SharePoint User Group Meeting
February 17, Irving, Texas, DFW SharePoint Server Community
February 17, Milan, Italy, SharePoint Administrators Summit
February 18, Brisbane Australia, Brisbane SharePoint Users Group
February 19, Columbus, Ohio, Central Ohio SharePoint User Group
February 19, Falls Church, Virginia, PMI Washington DC - Skyline Luncheon
February 19, Jacksonville, Florida, Jacksonville Office Geeks
February 19, Louisville, Kentucky, Kentucky SharePoint Users Group
February 20, Online, The Fundamentals of SharePoint Dashboards in WSS
February 21, New York, New York, SharePoint Saturday
February 24, Christchurch, New Zealand, Christchurch SharePoint User Group
February 25, Cleveland, Ohio, Cleveland SharePoint User Group
February 25, Melbourne, Australia, Microsoft Office System Special Interest Group 
February 26, Phoenix, Arizona, Arizona SharePoint Professionals Group
February 26, Online, What's New from Bamboo
February 27, Online, Create a Master Calendar in SharePoint

March 3, Chicago, Illinois, The Chicago Microsoft SharePoint Business Strategies Group
March 14, Boston, Massachusetts, SharePoint Saturday
March 23, Baltimore, Maryland, SharePoint .Org Conference

April 6-8, London, England, SharePoint Best Practices Conference
April 6-8, Montreal, Quebec, SharePoint Summit 2009

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

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