Registration open for Boston Area SharePoint Users Group on 11/10/10

October 28, 2010 Leave a comment

BASPUG_195square_initials

Registration is now open for the November 10th, 2010 meeting of the Boston Area SharePoint Users Group, back again on our home turf at the Microsoft NERD center in Cambridge, MA.

PRESENTERS

Our presenters for our next meeting are Richard Harbridge, a Senior SharePoint Evangelist at Allin Consulting, and Mark Bramhall, CTO at Allin Consulting. They will be presenting "SharePoint 2010 Integration and Interoperability: What you need to know".

Session Abstract

There are countless challenges when dealing with business data. A few of note are:

  • Higher Overhead for IT to Service User Requests
  • Multiple Places to Search Results in Reduced Applicable Contexts
  • Multiple Places to Administer, Manage, and Maintain
  • High Data Integration Costs (100% Custom and Often One Offs)
  • Silos or Islands of Business Data Lead to Redundant Data or Processes
  • Multiple Interfaces Creates User Dissatisfaction and Increased Training Costs

Microsoft SharePoint is a platform than can help significantly reduce the challenges mentioned above by using an interoperable platform of connected services. In our session we will explore SharePoint’s new Interoperability underpinnings as well as the BCS to determine how they can be leveraged effectively in real world scenarios.

What we will be talking about:

  • SharePoint’s Important Interoperability
  • What is the BCS?
    • External Content Types
    • External Columns
    • External Lists
    • Extensibility and Tooling
  • Other Ways SharePoint Leverages the BCS
  • Demonstration of BCS
  • The Limitations of BCS

About Richard

Over the past 7 years I have had the pleasure of working extensively with SharePoint as an end user, developer, administrator, architect, business analyst, and consultant. In this time I defined, architected, developed, and implemented well over a hundred SharePoint solutions from small implementations of WSS on a single server, to 80,000+ user implementations in international organizations.
About Mark

Mark has over 40 years’ experience in Information Technology. As Chief Technology Officer, Mark is responsible for the evaluation and implementation of new technologies as well as being a core member of development teams that build client systems.  He has helped client’s assemble and deploy large, distributed application systems in the fields of healthcare, finance, distance learning, and entertainment.


MEETING SPONSOR
TBA

SUSTENANCE
Food and beverages will be provided at the event.

 

RAFFLE PRIZES
We will be handing out raffle tickets at the BASPUG meetings.

Black Blade Associates will be raffling off a license, valued at $2000 for their SharePoint Zip product, at each and every meeting of the BASPUG!

Lightning Tools will also be raffling off a license for their BCS MetaMan product. Lighning Tools has also stepped up to provide this as a raffle item at each of our meetings!

We also have books, XBOX Games, T-Shirts, and more!

 

LOCATION
We will be meeting at the Microsoft New England Research and Development Center, located in Cambridge, MA. For more information on the facility, as well as directions, please visit here: http://www.microsoftcambridge.com

 

LINKED IN
Join our group on LinkedIn today to connect with the rest of the BASPUG members, and spread the word!

 

FACEBOOK

We are also on facebook! http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Boston-Area-SharePoint-User-Group/113652405354617

 

TWITTER
Follow news about the Boston Area SharePoint Users Group on twitter by following us @BASPUG, and by using the hashtag #BASPUG

 

WEB

Visit the Boston Area SharePoint Users Group website at http://www.bostonsharepointug.org

 

ORGANIZERS

Event meetings are organized by Geoff Varosky of Grace-Hunt, Eugene Rosenfeld of Black Blade Associates, Ryan Tacy of HP, and Talbott Crowell of Third Millenium.

Filed under BASPUG, SharePoint Tagged with , ,

SPTechCon & October 21st BASPUG re-cap and materials

October 28, 2010 Leave a comment

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I know, I know… I still need to publish my post on this past SharePoint Saturday Boston… however, since SPTechCon is slightly more fresh in my mind, and, because I promised materials to one of the lucky folks who attended my sessions by the end of the day, SPTechCon has taken the driver’s seat.

All I can say is what a great conference! Unfortunately, I was meeting people and companies, and talking to session-goers, catching up with friends, and meeting new ones, for the entire event, that the only sessions I was able to make it to, were my own!

I would first like to extend my thanks, yet again, to David Rubinstein, Stacy Burris, Kathy Bruin, and the rest of the BZ Media team, for not only taking me on as a speaker, but, for also graciously hosting the October meeting of the Boston Area SharePoint Users Group! With the conference in town, and by David’s suggestion months earlier, we managed to put together a fantastic panel of speakers from some of the SharePoint rock stars that were on hand at SPTechCon. We wanted to put together a focused panel on the new hotness, SharePoint 2010. While the conversations drifted a bit, we had a very energetic crowd, and very energetic panel. The free drinks at the attendee exhibit hall exception MAY have had something to do with that…

The panel consisted of none other than Bill English of Mindsharp, Andrew Connell of Critical Path Training, Joel Oleson of Quest, Heather Solomon of SharePoint Experts, Dux Raymond Sy of Innovative-e, and Mark Miller of EndUserSharePoint.com. (I’ll get the video posted soon enough!).

My next set of thanks is going to the BASPUG attendees and speakers – thank you all so much for making yet another highly successful meeting of the BASPUG! We had over 70 in attendance, and there was barely a seat available! To each and every one of our speakers, you are always welcome back in Boston to the users group!

Some of the comments from the BASPUG I’d like to share.. a few images below – LOTS of talk about the #BASPUG. Thank you all!

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To close out the BASPUG @ SPTechCon, here is the slide deck from that night. Video, as mentioned above, still to come!

Next, I’d like to thank all of those who attended my two sessions at SPTechCon. The first session, bright and early before Steve Fox’s keynote, was “Just Freakin’ Work! Overcoming Hurdles and Avoiding Pain” with Mark Rackley. We had almost a full room, even with the change in time, as well as for being quite early at 8:15am.

Below is our slide deck from that presentation.

My next session closed off the conference at 4:00 on Friday, and I delivered to a great crowd, “Creating Custom Actions in SharePoint 2010”. Thank you again for all who attended, and let me know if you have any questions here in the comments, so I can share them with the rest of the world, or rather, the small portion of people that view my blog 🙂 Below is my deck from that session.

Thank you again everyone at the conference. I have to say, in all honesty, that this was one of the best conferences I have ever had the privilege to attend!

Looking to see these sessions again? Join me in February next year at SPTechCon San Francisco!

Filed under BASPUG, Events, SharePoint, SharePoint 2010, SharePoint User Groups, SPTechCon, SPTechCon Tagged with , ,

Thank you @GoToMeeting, and thank you Twitter

October 28, 2010 Leave a comment

I’ve posted before about the wonders of Twitter. Usually in comments, or, because of a Twitter conversation, and entire article. Today again saved me loads of time, thanks to the wonderful world of “micro-blogging”.

With the SharePoint Saturday Boston #3 Webinar series we are currently running, GoToWebinar allows you to record the sessions, and saves them off in a WMV format. These play nicely in Windows Media Player, however, I cannot seem to convert them to any other format, nor, upload them to any online video site, such as Vimeo.

I struggled with this for the past couple of days, and then finally posted today to The Brain Trust (a.k.a. Twitter), looking for solutions.

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@tigertoy responded (Thank you! Glad someone reads what I write! Brian – the check is in the mail – I promise!)

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to which I responded with the following

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I think, luckily, I used GoToMeeting rather than GoToWebinar in my tweet, which then sourced this from the fine folks at Citrix

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Thus solving my problem, within the span of a few minutes. Again – the wonderful world of “micro-blogging” saves me again. Thanks again @GoToMeeting!

Filed under General, SharePoint Saturday, Webinars Tagged with , , ,

Trying to find a new theme…

October 27, 2010 Leave a comment

I got used to the 3 possible theme options from Live spaces, in fact, I kinda grew to love them. It was basically the only real customization that could be done on Live spaces. Now, on WordPress, I have all of these fancy widgets, awesome stats, and more.

The one thing I am struggling with is a new theme for the site. One looks great, but, my code snippets get mashed up, or, the columns are too thin, or, like my current theme ‘enterprise’, I am stuck with that annoying category display on the top.

In any event – please bear with me, as I work through selecting a new theme for this thing 🙂

Filed under General

Clippy Jr.

October 27, 2010 Leave a comment

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Just a short post on the offspring of Clippy – Clippy Jr. You know him well, even if you do not think so. He exists within SharePoint. Don’t believe me? He’s been hiding in plain sight the whole time! Just look at the images taken by a private detective below. I promise, these are not doctored (except for the arrows… those definitely were not in the original images.)

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See? There he is! Right in the title bar below the toolbar within this list view!

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There he is again, on your new list item form!

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And again, hanging out next to your list items! Always trying to let you know something. However, Clippy Jr. has definitely learned a few things from this mistakes of his father, Clippy Sr.

Ok, now to get onto the meat and potatoes of this post. No, this is not to let you know that there is an attachments for icons, but, a simple little piece of XSL that can be used in your dataview web parts to denote if there are attachments on a list item or not, and then, show Clippy Jr., happily telling you that there is an attachment on the item.

   1: <xsl:if test="@Attachments!='0'">

   2:     <center><img src="/_layouts/images/attach.gif" /></center>

   3: </xsl:if>

And that is all there is to it! @Attachments returns a boolean value that will either be a value of 0, if there are NOT attachments on the list item, or, 1 if there are.

Simple, straight-forward, and extremely handy. Thank you Clippy Jr.!

Filed under SharePoint, SharePoint Designer Tagged with , , ,

Calculating Site Collection Usage via SQL

October 25, 2010 Leave a comment

I have been slow on the informational posts lately, sorry about that! Have had lots happening in the work world over the past few months, and have not been able to get much done in that arena, between SharePoint Saturday Boston, The SharePoint Technology Conference, Best Practices Conference, business development, the SharePoint Saturday Boston Webinar Series, the Boston Area SharePoint Users Group, writing chapters for a book, as well as client work (last, but certainly not least), my blog entries have become few and far between.

I also need to get my feedburner redirected from live spaces, and oh so much more…

However, I thought I would write a quick post! I use this quick SQL statement from time to time, and used it again today, and wanted to share it quickly with the few souls that actually read this blog 🙂

   1: SELECT FullUrl AS URL,(DiskUsed/1024) AS SiteCollectionUsedKB from Sites

 

Simple, but, it gets the job done. From your content database, running this query will return the URL of the site collection, as well as its storage allocation. Handy, and useful!

Filed under SharePoint, SQL Tagged with , , , ,

Announcing the SharePoint Saturday Boston #3 Webinar Series!

October 13, 2010 Leave a comment

Missed a session at the last SharePoint Saturday Boston event on September 25th, 2010?  Well, now is your chance to see it again! Grace-Hunt and ThirdM will be hosting webcasts by most of the speakers from the event, so you will have a chance to view the sessions over again, as well as ask the presenters questions.

We will be hosting weekly lunchtime sessions on Mondays and Fridays, so you can kick back with your lunch and take in some great speakers and topics on SharePoint.

Agenda is as follows:

11:45 AM EST – 11:55 AM EST Welcome and Sign-In
11:55 AM EST – 12:00 PM EST Speaker Introduction
12:00 PM EST – 1:00 PM EST Presentation

Below are the list of sessions, dates and times they will be available. Follow the corresponding links below to register for each webinar.

Schedule updates will be posted here: http://www.sharepointsaturday.org/boston/Pages/SPSBos3WebinarSeries.aspx and registration is OPEN TO ALL, not just those who signed up for SharePoint Saturday Boston!

 

Session Presenter(s) Date/Time Register
SharePoint Development &
Customization: Overcoming Hurdles and Avoiding Pain		 Geoff
Varosky & Mark Rackley		 10/25/10
11:45 AM		 Register
Things that should be easy in SharePoint
Development		 Eugene
Rosenfeld		 10/29/10
11:45 AM		 Register
SharePoint in the
Cloud		 Matt
Lathrop		 11/1/10
11:45 AM		 Register
The Seven Most Important (Non-Technical)
SharePoint Success Factors		 Richard
Harbridge		 11/5/10
11:45 AM		 Register
See Beyond The Numbers: Data
Visualization in SharePoint 2010		 Sadalit
Van Buren & Chris McNulty		 11/8/10
11:45 AM		 Register
Driving end user adoption for SharePoint
2010		 Chris
Bortlik		 11/15/10
11:45 AM		 Register
Sandboxed Solutions: Developing
High-Powered Solutions with Low-Trust code		 Bob
German		 11/19/10
11:45 AM		 Register
Dashboards for
SharePoint		 Susan
Lennon		 11/22/10
11:45 AM		 Register
SharePoint 2010: Service
Applications		 Jason
Gallicchio		 11/29/10
11:45 AM		 Register
Governance Best Practices in SharePoint
2010		 Scott
Jamison		 12/3/10
11:45 AM		 Register
11 Strategic Considerations for
SharePoint Migration		 Christian
Buckley		 12/6/10
11:45 AM		 Register
Implementing SharePoint for Enterprise
Search: Methodology and Mechanics		 Nicholas
Bisciotti		 12/10/10
11:45 AM		 Register
Project, Project Server, and SharePoint
2010: Which to Use When		 Brittany
Kwait		 12/13/10
11:45 AM		 Register
Advanced Development on the 2010
Ribbon		 Shai
Petel		 12/17/10
11:45 AM		 Register
Assuring Accessibility and Privacy
Compliance in SharePoint Sites and Social Computing		 Larry
Concannon		 1/3/2011
11:45 AM		 Register
Get more Social with
SharePoint		 Jeff
Willinger		 1/10/11
11:45 AM		 Register
SharePoint Security: Through the Looking Glass
V2		 David
J Pileggi, Jr.		 1/14/11
11:45 AM		 Register
Automating SharePoint with
PowerShell		 Talbott
Crowell		 1/21/11
11:45 AM		 Register
The Best of Both Worlds – Connecting SharePoint to the
rest of the Enterprise using BizTalk		 Andrew
Babiec		 1/24/11
11:45 AM		 Register
Traversing The Term
Store		 Russ
Edelman		 1/28/11
11:45 AM		 Register
SURVEY RESULTS: How is your company
using SharePoint?		 Mark
Miller & Derek Weeks		 1/31/11
11:45 AM		 Register

Filed under Events, SharePoint, SharePoint Saturday

Move to WordPress

October 8, 2010 Leave a comment

Live Spaces is apparently giving up the ghost, and urging its bloggers to move over to WordPress, which is how you got here most likely! With that come a few changes in the blog, some redirections that need to take place, etc.

I am late enough as it is with a follow-up blog post to the most recent SharePoint Saturday Boston (it was on 9/25!), so the updates to the blog will need to wait a while longer, until I can at least get that out 🙂

So – please bear with me until I can tidy this up! The good part about his is, as I have been planning a migration to SharePoint for the blog (this is a SharePoint focused blog…), without wanting to manually move 190 posts – there are tools pout there to do this – so, thanks Windows Live for making the move to a more migrate-able platform! More changes, and posts, to be coming soon.

 

 

Filed under General

Registration open for Boston Area SharePoint Users Group on 10/21/10 – Hosted by the SharePoint Technology Conference

September 22, 2010 Leave a comment

For our October 21st meeting, we are joining forces with the SharePoint Technology Conference at the Hyatt Regency in Cambridge (see www.sptechcon.com for more information on the venue). BASPUG members who sign up for this special meeting of the group, will be admitted free attendance to the SPTechCon Exhibit Hall Attendee Reception. Browse vendors, enjoy some food and drink starting at 5:45PM, and then, we will be getting together at about 7PM in one of the available rooms to hold a special panel on SharePoint 2010.

PRESENTERS

SESSION ABSTRACT

This will be an open "Ask the Experts" panel on SharePoint 2010. Bring your questions, concerns about development, branding, administration, migration, usage, and more!

SUSTENANCE
Food and beverages will be available at the event at the exhibit hall reception. After the meeting, depending on interest, we will adjourn to a local watering hole to keep the discussions going.

MEETING SPONSOR
Our sponsor for this meeting is the SharePoint Technology Conference.

The SharePoint Technology Conference, October 20-22 in Cambridge, MA, is the world’s premier independent event for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server technology and services. The format includes 80+ technical classes, workshops and breakout classes with content geared to IT professionals, business managers and developers.  It features a dozen Microsoft MVPs, 35 expert MS speakers and solutions from 50+ exhibitors.  Boston Area SPUG members can receive a $100 discount off the Full Event Passport and/or gain free admission to the exhibits (first time registrants only – cannot be combined with other offers) by inserting the code MEDIASPONSOR when prompted on the eRegistration page linked from www.sptechcon.com.

RAFFLE PRIZES
We will be handing out raffle tickets at the BASPUG meeting for the following items.

  • 1 License for SharePoint Zip from Black Blade Associates ($2000 value)
  • 1 2009 SharePoint Conference Content Pass (access to all slide decks and recorded presentations – $500 Value)
  • 1 Licenses for BCS MetaMan from Lightning Tools ($1200 value)
  • Books, X-Box Games, and T-Shirts.

AGENDA

  • 5:45p – 6:45p
    • Enjoy the free exhibit hall reception at the SharePoint Technology Conference!
  • 6:45p – 7p
    • Sign-in, networking, raffle ticket hand-outs, introductions, other events, news, member announcements.
  • 7:00p – 8:00p
    • Speaker Panel
  • 8:00p – 8:30p
    • Q&A, raffle, member announcements, networking, open discussion

LOCATION
We will be meeting at the Hyatt Regency Cambridge, located in Cambridge, MA. For more information on the facility, as well as directions, please visit here: http://cambridge.hyatt.com/hyatt/hotels/index.jsp

For more information, and to register, please visit http://www.bostonsharepointug.org/

Please help spread the word on twitter, blogs, and by any other medium! Follow us on twitter at @BASPUG, and by twitter hashtag #BASPUG. Join our LinkedIn group here: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=2878468. We are also now on Facebook! http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Boston-Area-SharePoint-User-Group/113652405354617 (Yeah, we’re now mavens of the social networking world… we might just work with Coleman and start showing up at campgrounds now too!)

We hope to see you there!

Filed under BASPUG

Best Practices Conference Slide Deck and Recap

September 1, 2010 Leave a comment

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Wow. What a week! It’s been a while since I have been able to make it out to the Best Practices Conference. The last time I was there was back in San Diego last year. After coming back from that conference last year, I knew that I wanted to get more involved with the SharePoint community, as well as get a chance to speak at the BPC down the road. Those goals were based on both the content, and the conversations that took place at the conference.

I sat in on Christian Buckley’s session (ok, so I may be in the slide deck… but even being sick – which he was – and is a fantastic presenter, and he delivers great content) He was talking about data within an organization, specifically the conversations around content – a project, for example – which are as important, if not more important, than the content itself. I feel the same way regarding conferences. Yes – the content there was top-notch, and a lot of great information was given, however, the conversations that happen within sessions, and, outside of the session rooms, is where the real magic happens.

I am lucky to be part of a community that is so enthusiastic, not just about a product, but, what they do. I’ve made some great friends in the SharePoint community, who I know and trust, even after a few meetings, and it is this passion that everyone in the community has, that made me want to be a part of it, and I am happy I took the steps to do so, starting out with speaking at SharePoint Saturday Boston in March of 2009.

With that being said – it was a great conference, again. Great job by Bill, Meryl, and the rest of the team that ran the show, and thanks again for letting me be a part of it.

Below is the slide deck from the session that I did with Mark Rackley.

SharePoint Customization: Overcoming Hurdles and Avoiding Pain

Presenters: Mark Rackley and Geoff Varosky
Duration: 60 – 75 minutes
Audience: Developer

Abstract: "Why am I getting a security error?" "Why does my code work sometimes, but not others?" "I wonder if McDonalds is hiring." Writing custom code in SharePoint opens up unlimited possibilities but also throws many hurdles in your way that will slow you down if you don’t take them into account. So, before giving up and searching for careers in the fast food industry, equip yourself with the knowledge you need to succeed in writing custom code for SharePoint.

In this session you will learn:

  • Best practices for avoiding performance issues
  • Best practices for avoiding memory leaks
  • Best practices for elevating privileges
  • Avoid not disposing of SP Objects
 
 

Filed under SharePoint Best Practices Conference

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