SharePoint Daily for February 20, 2009

Top News Stories
Ballmer Stumps for Openness in Bid to Beat Apple (CNET)
Ralph Waldo Emerson once declared, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO and turgid (and very consistent) promoter of the software company's longstanding agenda against open source, apparently wants to step out of his proprietary box every so often, as he did Wednesday at the Mobile World Congress.

The 30 Best Features of Windows 7 (PC Authority)
After the disappointment - perceived or otherwise - of Windows Vista, many are pinning their hopes on a revival with Windows 7. And from our first impressions of the pre-beta code, that's exactly what they can expect.

The Windows Empire Strikes Back (Microsoft Watch)
News Analysis. If the Macintosh was Star Wars' rebellion and Windows PCs the empire, stormtroopers just destroyed the rebel base. But with heavy losses. Since Vista's launch, Mac enthusiasts and Microsoft critics have successfully mounted a rebel campaign against the Windows PC. Apple's brand was resurgent, and Macs were the cooler computers. Mac sales growth blew away Windows PCs, while Apple computers rapidly gained market share.

Microsoft Reveals New Windows Phones (TMCNet)
Microsoft Corp, a global provider of software, services and solutions, has launched its new Windows phones based on Windows Mobile 6.5 and featuring a new user interface and a richer browsing experience. The announcement was made by Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer of Microsoft (News - Alert) Corp. along with key mobile partners, HTC, LG and Orange at the Mobile World Congress 2009.

Windows 7: Cutting Corners in the Rush to Market? (InfoWorld)
Is Microsoft moving too fast with Windows 7? That's the complaint coming from some members of the technical beta program. According to these folks, Microsoft isn't taking their feedback seriously, even when filed through their private beta tester feedback channels. Development team responses like "won't fix" or "by design" seem to be the norm for even serious issues, leading many testers to conclude that the product was feature complete (i.e. no longer subject to significant modification based on tester input) long before they received their first code drop.

Microsoft Retail Stores a Risky Proposition (ITWorld)
Microsoft's decision to open retail stores is a calculated risk that will likely prove a more challenging endeavor than Apple's move into retail eight years ago. Microsoft said quietly last week it would open a chain of retail stores, framing the news in an announcement that it hired former Dreamworks executive David Porter to take on a new role as corporate vice president of a new Retail Stores division at the company.

Windows 7 Release Candidate by the End of February? (TechSpot)
The next iteration of Windows is evolving at fast pace. With less than two months since the first and only beta was made public, it appears that a release candidate build has already been branched off of the main code tree and is being prepared for release as early as the end of this month to select testers.

Internet Explorer 8: New Features to Slice, Store, and Accelerate Your Web Applications (MSDN Magazine)
Internet Explorer 8 represents a major step in the evolution of the product. It provides new end user features like Web Slices, Accelerators, and search suggestions—and also brings with it more advanced developer features such as AJAX navigation and DOM storage. In this article, I will look into the details of these features to see how Internet Explorer 8 can make life easier for both developers and users alike. You'll see how these new features allow you to define portions of a page and control its update frequency and expiration, improve the user's search and navigation experience, and lots more.

Around the Blogosphere
Creating an All Documents Search Scope Using Contentclass (Mastering SharePoint)
When working with customers to optimize the SharePoint Search experience, one of the first things we do is to create a scope called All Documents.  The purpose of this scope is to include only document items in the search results; which is one of the most commonly performed searches.  I'm sure you have run into it; you search for a document and many other types of information are returned.  Using the All Sites scope includes sites, lists and anything else that matches your search criteria.  Adding the All Documents search scope to your Intranet will make a lot of users quite happy.

Taking SharePoint Files Offline – What are the Options? (UK SharePoint Team)
This blog post aims to compare how Outlook 2007, Groove 2007 and OneNote 2007 enable users to take files offline from SharePoint. This is based on the Offline Working Strategy Guide which will soon be available on Microsoft.com for free (link will be provided when available). This post is targeted at people who work offline and want to view, edit and update documents and/or list items stored in SharePoint without using a VPN.

SharePoint – InfoPath Workflow And Silverlight Development For SharePoint (Michael Gannotti)
I am in the process of uploading a new Michael on the Go video as well as 2 new audio podcasts but a couple of SharePoint posts out there caught my eye courtesy of some of my social computing compadres so I wanted to pass them along quickly.

SharePoint Backup and Restore Strategies WebCast Deck, with Q and A (SharePoint Joel)
Thanks for attending the Webcast.  We had a great crowd with lots of great questions. Here’s the Deck: SharePoint Backup and Restore Strategies. The slides are there and we’ll have the recording posted there as soon as it’s available (later today.)  Those who have already registered for your webcast should be able to just click “Register Now” to download the file.  (I know it sounds confusing.)

BDC, Multiple Choices for Filters and Wildcards (Boris Gomiunik)
I’ve been looking a lot around to find an option to have multiple filters available on BDC that would not exclude each other out. The scenario is: we have a BDC connection to a SQL table with entity that contains company ID and Company name. Company ID is a primary key. Both ID and name are strings.

Why Your Vendor Screwed Up Your SharePoint Project (elumenotion)
There have been some excellent posts in various blogs over the last couple of months about reasons why SharePoint projects fail. Jeremy Thake has a thought provoking post titled The SharePoint Implementation Market needs to grow up!, Kristian Kalsing has one titled Do we need SharePoint functional consultants?, and Paul Culmsee has numerous posts on the subject over at Clever Workarounds. I even have an old one in my blog, How to Sabotage Your Projects.

My Daily Dose: Some People Use StarBucks, I Use an RSS Reader (EndUserSharePoint)
I had to clear out my RSS feedreader because there was just too much stuff coming in each day. I cut back to the bare bones so I’d have less than a couple hundred items to sift through each day. As I was doing that, I started thinking about how proud I am when people send me an email saying EndUserSharePoint.com is on their “daily read” list. So here’s my daily dose, complete with links and RSS feeds.

Around Bamboo Nation
Applying a Drop Down Actions Menu to Files in a SharePoint Picture Library (SharePoint Blank)
My attention was captured by a new addition to the SharePoint Blank mailbag this morning and, though I still owe responses to some previously posed questions (I'll get to them all, I promise), I found myself drawn to this one straightaway.  The reason for my attraction was probably because the question relates to a Picture Library and, having recently spent the better part of two weeks learning and blogging about SharePoint picture libraries, it bugged me a little bit that I didn't already know the answer to this particular question:

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 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, Online, SharePoint Project Management Webinar
February 25, Online, SharePoint Administration Webinar
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
February 27, Online, 7 Ways to Leverage SharePoint for Project Management Success

March 3, Chicago, Illinois, The Chicago Microsoft SharePoint Business Strategies Group
March 4 Online, SharePoint Project Management Webinar
March 4, Online, SharePoint Administration Webinar
March 11, Online, SharePoint Project Management Webinar
March 11 Online, SharePoint Administration Webinar
March 12, Online, 'What's New from Bamboo?' Webinar Series
March 14, Boston, Massachusetts, SharePoint Saturday
March 18, Online, SharePoint Project Management Webinar
March 18, Online, SharePoint Administration Webinar
March 23, Baltimore, Maryland, SharePoint .Org Conference
March 25, Online, SharePoint Project Management Webinar
March 25, Online, SharePoint Administration Webinar
March 26, Online, 'What's New from Bamboo?' Webinar Series

April 1, Online, SharePoint Project Management Webinar
April 1, Online, SharePoint Administration Webinar
April 6-8, London, England, SharePoint Best Practices Conference
April 6-8, Montreal, Quebec, SharePoint Summit 2009
April 9, Online, 'What's New from Bamboo?' Webinar Series
April 23, Online, 'What's New from Bamboo?' Webinar Series

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

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