this is sharepoint?!

O.k. I’ll admit it. In the past I have been known to bad mouth SharePoint sites for their sheer lack of style and web 2.0ishness. But seriously people..this product is coming around. Many devs/analysts out there still picture a SharePoint site as being your stock intranet MSFT blue portal:

 While its functional and great for intranet, the stock portal is not a good fit for a public facing website. And the cool thing about Sharepoint is that you not only have the integration and content management points of the API, but with a little talent and patience, a skilled designer can really deliver a top notch product:

 

So if your SharePoint site is ugly…its your own fault. :P
Thanks to Lawrence Liu (www.twitter.com/LLiu) for posting these awesome examples of what SharePoint can do when approached with an open mind!

I’d love to see more examples of outstanding SharePoint implementations, so email me or drop a comment!

-dan

Posted on May 19th, 2008 by daniel
Filed under: sharepoint | 6 Comments »

Microsoft Learning

I wanted to throw this out there to those of you who haven’t dropped into Microsoft’s Learning portal in a while:
There was a time when I really thought that the MSFT Learning site just plain sucked. The content was old and crusty and the interface/searching was clunky. But I have to say that lately its been pretty cool. The paid courses aren’t that bad for pricing (compared to AppDev) and to be honest..There is a lot of free stuff in there. For instance…Currently they’re running free access to the 3.5 Framework and Visual Studio 2008 courseware. This is 6 hours of video that they typically charge for but currently is free. Once you’ve activated it, the license will last for a year.
So head over and dig through the site. Learn something. New skills pay bills.

-daniel

Posted on May 13th, 2008 by daniel
Filed under: .net | 1 Comment »

Sharepoint Installation Video

Just finished the 1st of 4 videos on Sharepoint 2007 For Developers, available for free at www.dotnet-u.com.
This first hour was an overview of sp topology and security by Joshua Carlisle and it went pretty well. It was a pretty fast paced webcast that was seriously drinking from the firehose. I did come away from the video with more questions to investigate and some tasks that I’d like to accomplish on my own with Sharepoint. I have a Win2k8 vpc with MOSS2k7 ready and configured (basic config) that I’ll be using in the next few days to follow along with the various resources that I’ll be diving into. I really wish that I had a virtual environment to reproduce a small enterprise setting. A dedicated sql ’server’, a sharepoint web ui server, a dedicated sp services server and even some BizTalk for good measure. Its been my experience that 90% of the headaches are in configuration and I’d really like to start nailing down a variety of configured installations at home. Any ideas?
Tomorrow I’ll be moving on to the ‘Whats New’ Video as well as the ‘Core Concepts’ webcast. I’ll then return to my Microsoft Learning path to begin .doc and clinic expedition.

Posted on May 13th, 2008 by daniel
Filed under: sharepoint | No Comments »

70-541 Certification

I’m taking the plunge. Head first even.
I’m going to take the 70-541 exam on June 1st. I have a study plan and the appropriate materials, so ultimately its just a matter of working through the MSFT Learning checklist to make sure I’m ready. I’ll try to document my preparation as much as possible. Fortunately MSFT is running the double shot program which enables you to retake the exam for free if you bomb it (and I will) on the first attempt.

Any information that you have, regarding the exam and concentration points - pass ‘em on!

18 days!

Posted on May 13th, 2008 by daniel
Filed under: sharepoint | 1 Comment »

new site coming.

I’m updating, selecting themes and moving content. more to come later.

Posted on May 12th, 2008 by daniel
Filed under: general | No Comments »
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