Has it finally happened? Has the kool-aid dissipated?

Am I now, truly “de-borgified”?

(Naw - it is going to run Windows 7, Server 2008 R2 - I just wanted something well-built, nice form factor, newest intel CPU/chipset and... most importanly the magsafe power connector (believe it or not, but over the years I've lost 3 laptops to power/motherboard connector problems...)

King of the Road (apologies to Roger Miller)

So – this song started “perculating” in my head back when I was a PFE…  I finally managed to get all the lyrics “just right”:

Webmail for sale or rent

Downloads…thirty percent.

No phone, no pool, no pets

I ain’t got no internet

Ah, but..two hours of d’buggin‘ code

Buys an "flea-bitten" hotel room

I’m a man of means by no means

King of the road.

 

Third rental car, midnight plane

Destination…Bangor, Maine.

Old worn out slacks and shoes,

(but) I don’t pay no union dues,

I smoke old bugs that I have found

Simple, but way too many around

I’m a man of means by no means

King of the road.

 

I know every engineer on every plane

All of their children, and all of their names

And every wireless net in every town

And every net that ain’t locked

When no one’s around.

 

I sing,

Webmail for sale or rent

Downloads…sixty percent.

No phone, no pool, no pets

I ain’t got no internet

Ah, but..two hours of d’buggin‘ code

Buys an "flea-bitten" hotel room

I’m a man of means by no means

King of the road.

 

                                (apologies to Roger Miller)

SharePoint Summit 2010 – Montreal – Wrap-up

Wow – what a great conference!  Everyone took away something new and I really want to thank the attendee’s, presenters, sponsors, vendors and organizers – I am already looking forward to the Summit next years.

 

As promised – here is a SkyDrive link to my slide-decks for all three sessions I presented – they should also be available on the official SharePoint Summit 2010 site soon:

• "Zero-Code SharePoint Solutions"
• "Scalable, Enterprise SharePoint Solutions"
• "SharePoint Governance – ‘Real-world’ impacts of Governance Planning"

Keep in touch!  Remember – I am always only an email away

SharePoint Summit 2010 – Montreal

So – for those who may have been on the fence, the SharePoint Summit 2010 in Montreal still has a few spots open – http://bit.ly/96lXGR

 

I’m quite excited – even with the extensive travel my former role offered, I’ve never been to Montreal.  

 

My sessions are:

• Zero-Code SharePoint Solutions
• Scalable Enterprise SharePoint Solutions

 

Sync my Ride…

Well – it has been three days since I got my new vehicle which came with Ford Sync (Microsoft Windows Auto)…. and it is amazing – no real problems using my iPhone either.  (Admittedly there are some known issues – but the bluetooth audio streaming and "hands-free" services more than make up for that).

 

Definitely got a winner here – I’m looking forward to getting some developer info/access

 

Guilty secret

… So, I have a guilty secret….

 

I am a Live Mesh addict….  I am currently storing nearly 30gb in Mesh – (Admittedly it is not "just me" – you get 5gb of online/cloud-based storage per Live ID):

 

 

 

You REALLY should check-out Live Mesh if you are the type of person who:

• does not run a home(small business) domain with roaming profiles
• uses multiple machines – some owned by you, some not
• essentially "lives" online and "on-the-road"

 

CalSPUG – March event

Thanks to the amazing turnout the other night – Calgary – you rock – you are making CalSPUG everything we hoped for!

 

Thanks to our presenter, Ruven Gotz – for a very useful and informative session, I went away enthusiastic (and ready to buy new tools – a rare thing for me ).

 

Calgary SharePoint User Group Meeting tonight!

How to Run Effective Requirements Gathering Workshops

 

In this session, you will learn how to set up and conduct workshops with various stakeholders that will allow you to understand their real needs. 

 

You will then learn how to document and organize this information so that it is useful to the stakeholders and that will allow you to guide them through prioritization and planning. 

 

You will learn how NOT to do demonstrations of SharePoint, and when and how to do demos that are powerful and effective.

 

Thanks for Ruven Gotz for coming out and presenting tonight!

 

More details available at the Calgary SharePoint User Group site.

 

I look forward to seeing everyone there!

CalSPUG – SharePoint Governance

Overall the presentation went well, unfortunately we were competing with an Olympic hockey game – so attendance was a little lower than normal.

 

Feedback:

 

• We definately need a podium configuration, a table just encourages the presenter to sit too often.
• Split some slides further (from myself) – a few were way too overpacked.
• Reduce the overall slide count and instead add some case studies
• This is a really great idea from my friend and former colleague – Richard Reukema
• The idea would be to introduce two fictional companies; "mid-size corp" and "mega corp" and follow through the governance activities (or inactivities) and the overall results.
• We did manage to change some hearts and minds though and convert people into realizing the importance of governance in the SharePoint realm.

 

 

Workaround: Server 2008 R2 with Project Server 2007

Ever get the following error on a freshly installed Project Server 2007 environment, hosted in Windows Server 2008 R2?:

 

"Project Center cannot access the project(s) you are trying to view. It is most likely that you either don’t have the permissions to view the project, another user has deleted this project(s) before you were able to view it or that another user is in the process of publishing the project"

So – one of the new features of IIS 7.5 is that Dyamic Compression is enabled by default.

 

Generally this is ok – but when combined with Project Server 2007 you will find that your "Project Center" and "Resource Center" webparts will not display anything!

 

This is a well-known issue – see KB47899 - however, simply disabling Dynamic Compression for the Project website will not fix the issue – you must disable it server-wide, for all-sites on the IIS server.

 

This is unfortunate if you were hoping to take advantage of Dynamic Compression for large ASPX/ASMX pages from custom applications hosted within SharePoint.

 

One potential solution would be to dedicate one web-front-end to serving Project Server 2007 requests and disable Dynamic Compression for that server.