SharePoint Dan

Cloud Computing and Azure are two hot topics on the horizon, albeit somewhat SharePoint independent at the moment. Microsoft will be doing a deep dive this week in Tyson’s Corner on the topics of Cloud Computing and the Windows Azure Platform. The audience for this event is more geared toward developers, however IT Pros and Architects will definitely be able to get a good level of detail about these topics.

The event will consist of three sessions to include an (1) Overview of Cloud Computing and Windows Azure, a (2) Survey of Windows Azure Storage Options and (3) Going Live with your Azure Solutions.

The time – Thursday, February 25, 2010 from 1 PM til 5 PM
The place – AMC Tysons Corner 16 (7850 Tysons Corner Center, McLean, VA 22102)

More information on the event: http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032438181&Culture=en-US

Event ID Number: 1032438181

Register Online

Come one, come all! SharePint!!!

So not to interfere with any SharePoint events this week, but I figured that with so many folks in town this week, why not have a few social events? Who’s in town you ask? Well, MindSharp is in town for a training event and with good ole MindSharp comes Todd Bleeker. Oh but wait, there’s more! Erica Toelle happens to be around as well. What’s more, I think I saw a tweet about Jason Medero being around this week as well. And for those familiar with SharePoint Saturday Virginia Beach’s Susan Lennon, yup she’s here this week too! And not to be out done, Paul Swider will be around for a few days as well.

So what’s that mean? Social hour with the SharePoint Crew… aka SharePint

Originally we thought, “Let’s have it all in Springfield, that’s where most folks will be right?” But after a little bit of thought, it looks like we’re going to switch things up a bit:

Tentative Schedule (note changes will be tweeted by @sharepintdc)

Monday, 2/22/2010 – 7 PM – Houlihan’s in Springfield, VA (in the Hilton)
Tuesday, 2/23/2010 – 7 PM – Houlihan’s in Herndon, VA (in the Crowne Plaza)
Wednesday, 2/24/2010 – 7 PM – Rock Bottom in Arlington, VA (in Ballston Commons)
Thursday, 2/25/2010 – 7  PM –  Mike’s American Grill in Springfield, VA

So right now it’s all tentative, but hopefully we’ll be able to gather the crowd and hang out

Interested in some of the new business intelligence capabilities within SharePoint Server 2010? Didn’t make it to the SharePoint Conference out in Vegas? Wondering what this thing called PowerPivot?

Check out the ShareSquared Webinar showcasing Business Intelligence using the SharePoint 2010 platform and PowerPivot.

Paul Stork and Chris Givens will be presenting the session.

When: March 2, 2010, 11 AM – 12 PM PST
Where: Webinar – Registration – https://www.clicktoattend.com/invitation.aspx?code=144788
What: Tech session – More info – http://www.sharesquared.com/resources/Pages/PowerPivotWebinar.aspx
Why: Why not is the question?
Who: Paul Stork and Chris Givens

Blazing fast.

There you have it folks, those are my first thoughts with regard to the Rackspace Cloud Windows Beta. Not only is the service fanatical in terms of the Rackers online ready to help out should you run into problems or happen to have a question pertaining to the different servers around the clock, the system is fast.

I thought I’d provision a few servers and within about three minutes they were up and operational. Further, for only having a minuscule amount of RAM dedicated, they still seem to be working pretty snappy.

Nonetheless, props to Rackspace for building out their cloud, this relationship just got interesting

The Federal SharePoint User Group will be meeting on 4 February from 2-5 PM at the Bethesda Microsoft Office. If you’re involved with Federal Clients in the Washington DC area, this is a great opportunity to introduce your clients to new technologies, approaches, products and other organizations that use SharePoint.

For more information about the Federal SharePoint User Group, their site is located at:

http://go.spdan.com/fedspug

Microsoft has released the SharePoint 2007 December 2009 Cumulative Update as of 29 January 2010. The cumulative update like all other updates includes all hotfixes since the most recent Service Pack, in this case SP2.

Information pertaining to this cumulative update is available at from the Update Resource Center at:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/office/sharepointserver/bb735839.aspx

The WSS v3 December 2009 CU infopage is available at:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/977027

The MOSS 2007 December 2009 CU infopage is available at:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/977026

When requesting the appropriate CUs, if you’re downloading from an x86 client machine and your environment is x64 or vice versa, please note the “Show hotfixes for all platforms and languages” text next to “Number 1″.

Some insight from Joerg Sinemus regarding the December 2009 CU:

http://blogs.msdn.com/joerg_sinemus/archive/2009/12/16/wss-and-moss-december-2009-cu.aspx

Last but not least… please remember to test all service packs, cumulative updates and hotfixes in a staging or development environment prior to implementing in your system’s production environment.

What’s that, you live in a distant country that has no SharePoint Users Group but you’re hungry for fellowship with other SharePoint professionals and enthusiasts? Or perhaps you’ve heard about SharePoint and you’ve wondered what exactly it is or what you can do with it?

Well then, check out the Global SharePoint Users Group, organized by professionals in the community looking to further broaden the reach of SharePoint.  The purpose of the group isn’t to replace your local users group, but rather to supplement it and provide additional knowledge.

This month, Paul Schaeflein (@paulschaeflein), SharePoint MVP, will be presenting on the topic of PowerShell for SharePoint 2010.  Paul has done much for the SharePoint community nationally as well as in the greater Chicago area. He’s got a ton of tips and and tricks to share along the lines of best practices and contextual context for solving development problems with creative and innovative solutions.

So what are you waiting for? Head on over to the GSPUG site for more info or register now at Eventbrite for the Ground Hog’s Day Edition of GSPUG!

Who: Paul Schaeflein and the SharePoint Community
What: Global SharePoint Users Group
Where: Online – EventBrite Registration
When: 2 February 2010, 7 PM EST

In the 2003 editions of Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies, the learning curve for SharePoint development was significant as developers had to have a keen understanding of web development technologies such as CSS, JavaScipt and HTML in addition to the .net 1.1 framework as well as the webpart framework of the time. Then along came the 2007 editions of Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies in the form of MOSS and WSS v3. While there were vast improvements of the underlying development framework as most of the technical code base (but not necessarily concepts) supporting SharePoint were paved over as the collaborative framework and application server were rewritten in .net 2.0 with snippets of .net 3.0 components. This reduced the headaches of most .net developers attempting to work within the SharePoint framework as they now just had to learn the the SharePoint SDK rather than attempting to learn to pre-render HTML for their results in the previous edition as webparts were written. Additionally the solutions and features frameworks were added which made the management of added capabilities significantly easier and cleaner.

With SharePoint Server 2010, the core platform of SharePoint has been kept in place, but a lot of additional capabilities have been added to make it the developers collaborative platform dream. However, with great power comes a lot of responsibility and a lot of room for error and friction.

So where do you turn when you run into such problems?  Well there are several places to turn to when you need SharePoint help to include the MSDN Forums, SharePoint Overflow, Twitter, and your local user group.

Thursday, 28 January from 5:30-7:30 PM at SnagAJob in Glen Allen, the Richmond SharePoint User Group will be meeting. And to assist in helping developers transition into the SharePoint Server 2010 mindset, none other than Josh Carlisle from B&R Solutions will be presenting on “Reducing the Friction of SharePoint Development with SharePoint 2010″.

If you’re free and able, it looks to be a great presentation and excellent information to apply and integrate into your SharePoint delivery teams.  More information about the Richmond SharePoint Users Group can be found at:

http://go.spdan.com/rspug

Who: Josh Carlisle and other SharePoint Users, Practitioners and Professionals
What: Richmond SharePoint Users Group
Where: SnagAJob, 4880 Cox Road, Glen Allen, VA
When: 28 January from 5:30-7:30 PM

A little more than a week ago on 12 January 2010, the worst earthquake in nearly 200 years struck less than ten miles from the Caribbean City of Port-Au-Prince, Haiti. The severity of the quake was nothing to laugh at as a magnitude 7.0 quake devastated the country. There are some estimations out that approximately 100,000 perished in this event, with approximately a third of the population being displaced from their homes or perished. Think about this – 1/3rd of the country suddenly with no where to go. I’m befuddled by this.

Over the past week we have all watched international aid pour into the country in hopes of rescuing survivors trapped under the wreckage of buildings as well as to assist those injured and to care for the population as “the basics” are no more. So I know I sit, ponder and ask myself, “What is it that I can do?” By now you’ve probably heard of the SMS code to send cash through your phone to the Red Cross in support of Haiti, but what else is there?

Dux Sy (@meetdux) has established “Operation ShareLove: Haiti” as a fund drive organized to support our global brothers and sisters in Haiti. Not only are you helping out in support of those in dire to continue on living, but apparently you can benefit as well.

For more details on how to participate in Operation ShareLove, I strongly urge you to check out the Op SL page at http://sp.meetdux.com/archive/2010/01/18/operation-sharelove-support-haiti-earthquake-victims-amp-win.aspx.

Live in the greater Baltimore Washington metropolitan region? Interested in applying and integrating SilverLight technologies to SharePoint Server capabilities? Then check out the Baltimore SharePoint Users Group on Thursday, 21 January from 6 til 8 PM at the UMBC Research and Technology Park South Campus. For more information about the event, check out the Baltimore SharePoint User Group site at:

http://go.spdan.com/bmorespug

Becky Isserman from B&R Solutions will be presenting “Dazzling SharePoint 2010 with SilverLight”. If you’re still diving deep into the SharePoint 2010 Server Beta 2 that was released back before Thanksgiving 2009, and UX is your thing, definitely consider attending this presentation – well worth your time.  On top of that though, the opportunity to network with others from the greater Baltimore Washington area in the SharePoint profession is a great opportunity.

Who: Becky Isserman and other SharePoint Professionals, and Enthusiasts
What: Baltimore SharePoint Users Group
Where: UMBC Research and Technology Park, South Campus, 1450 South Rolling Road, Baltimore, MD
When: 21 January 2010, 6-8 PM