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Owen Allen Profile |
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Are you Wondering? Or Are you Wandering?
Owen Allen
I had an interesting conversation the other day with a colleague, – a colleague who is from a Central European country. I’m not sure which one, exactly, but we were speaking about some new business ideas for SharePoint Directions, and she asked me if I was still wondering what to do. The thing is, though, that due to her accent, I wasn’t sure if she used the word “Wondering”, or the word “Wandering”. Even to hear her say the two words separately a few minutes later, my untr [read].
Posted: Thu, Jul 21st '11 |
SharePoint in the Cloud roundtable
Owen Allen
Link to the Roundtable event page
I’m participating in a SharePoint in the Cloud roundtable event (#FocusRT21) later this week (Thursday, July 21, 11AM PT), that should be very informative. There are some great experts on the roundtable, which will be available for the public to call into. I do hope that you can join us.
SharePoint is having an impact in every direction where it stretches its legs. Moving into the cloud is no different. SharePoint has supported external applicati [read].
Posted: Mon, Jul 18th '11 |
Video – Martin Fifield – Nomadic Software
Owen Allen
I was exploring a little bit with my video camera while at MSFT Wordwide Partner Conference 2011 (#WPC11), and I ran into Martin Fifield of Nomadic Software. Kind of ironic that he was in a booth with his companies name on it, as if he had planned on being there, but perhaps his family isn’t constantly nomadic, but only periodically.
Nomadic Software provides middleware to being information and data to mobile devices. The also create mobile applications, but they’re real magic is [read].
Posted: Sat, Jul 16th '11 |
Lars Kolberg – Team Portal at NetConnect ASA
Owen Allen
While at WPC 2011, I had some time to sit down with Lars Kolberg (VP Sales), and Pal Storehaug (CEO), of NetConnect ASA (Norway).
NetConnect sells a product called Team Portal, which is a hosted version of SharePoint that is dedicated per customer. One element that I really liked about Team Portal is that NetConnect has integrated an application marketplace within the SharePoint instances that they provide to customers. From this application marketplace, customers can rapidly install project m [read].
Posted: Sat, Jul 16th '11 |
Erica Toelle – New Evangelist at Fpweb.net
Owen Allen
While at Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2011 (WPC 2011) this past week, I ran into Erica Toelle (@ericatoelle) and she shared that she had just that day changed roles at Fpweb.net, and has become a SharePoint evangelist for Fpweb.net’s great hosting services and offerings. We recorded a brief video about her role and about what she was expecting from WPC 2011, and here it is. Congratulations, Erica, on your new role, and Good Luck! [read].
Posted: Fri, Jul 15th '11 |
SharePint at WPC 2011
Owen Allen
It’s the best time of the year again. (If it seems to you that each year has about 5 or 6 ‘best’ times of the year, then, congratulations! – you must be a regular to the blog.)
This time, is the MSFT Wordwide Partner Conference 2011 (WPC). (www.digitalwpc.com | #WPC11)
It’s the time of the year when Microsoft partners of every stripe get together to celebrate the end of twelve months since the previous WPC, and to start anew. They meet together to make all sort [read].
Posted: Mon, Jul 4th '11 |
CloudShare for Demo Environments
Owen Allen
I’d like to tell you a story. One of the software development companies that I’m working with, Ooyala, is building an integration with SharePoint. In April (2011), we were planning to have the public unveiling of the product at the NABSHOW in Las Vegas. It is a huge convention, and we had secured a demo kiosk and were planning to get enough of the product developed so that we could illustrate how the final product would work.
One of our development teams was in Argentina, another dev [read].
Posted: Tue, Jun 14th '11 |
Flash video within SharePoint 2007
Owen Allen
Today I got a question from a client about how to add support for Flash videos within SharePoint 2007. I found a number of very old posts, and some that were more recent, but I had to cobble together a lot of different pieces to finally figure out how to create these steps to illustrate the process.
I hope that these steps are of interest, and save some time for someone who is looking to do the same thing again one day. I’d love to hear how these steps could be presented more efficient [read].
Posted: Tue, Jun 14th '11 |
SharePoint Firestarter Event – Tomorrow
Owen Allen
I know that I’ve been terrible about updating the blog, so it is probably only my family that is still listening, but I still want to tell the world about the SharePoint Firestarter event that is online Tomorrow. This is really short notice, but …
…Every software company that is thinking of SharePoint as a target platform should have developers and architects attend this online event (or in person if you are based in the Seattle area).
This is a great way to get a new develop [read].
Posted: Wed, Jan 26th '11 |
How can you *Not* do it?
Owen Allen
I’ve been struck by a blog entry that Seth Godin posted yesterday. He has summed up how I feel about starting SharePoint Directions. I still feel that I might be the crazy one in the room, as my arguments for starting a business are weak, and perhaps not rationally defensible, given where my family situation is at this time.
Seth describes it as the drive that fuels an artist.
To see the entire post in context of Seth’s Blog, please visit the original posting, here: http://se [read].
Posted: Wed, Nov 3rd '10 |
SharePoint and Azure at PDC10
Owen Allen
Tomorrow is the start of the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference, PDC10. Every SharePoint ISV should have one or two developers or architects in attendance, virtually, if not physically.
This edition of PDC is important because much of the focus will be on the Windows Azure platform, and Cloud Computing concepts. I don’t think there is a bigger question that SharePoint ISVs have, than “What are the Cloud and Azure implications for SharePoint, and for my business?”
No [read].
Posted: Wed, Oct 27th '10 |
Online Account Security
Owen Allen
As we all use many, many online accounts, I’d like to present a public service message. Read Omar Shahine’s post titled “Protect your Live ID now” and apply these principles to secure your online identity wherever you might have them, whether it is a Windows Live account, or a Google account, or another type of account.
I particularly like the idea to put your own random entry into the “Secret Questions” portion and then record your answer in your archive of [read].
Posted: Tue, Oct 26th '10 |
Six Weeks In
Owen Allen
It’s funny to see what has happened with SharePoint Directions after six weeks. I feel like I’m still running as fast as I did at Microsoft, except that I’m doing projects and having conversations on my own terms – and feeling complete freedom and responsibility about them. It’s turning out very well. I’m grateful for all of you who are on my “Virtual Board of Advisors”, and those ISVs that provide great feedback and support.
The whole speak [read].
Posted: Fri, Oct 22nd '10 |
A Month of (SharePoint) Saturdays
Owen Allen
The SharePoint Saturday phenomenon continues to amaze me. Tomorrow morning (today, actually, a SharePoint Saturday will be held in the Oakland/East Bay region, all because two community members decided that they wanted to bring a SharePoint Saturday to this location. They found the space to hold the sessions, they secured speakers and invited companies to sponsor the event, and they are offering the event free to the local community. Anyone can attend. It’s like a mini-SharePoint Con [read].
Posted: Sat, Sep 11th '10 |
Switching the Feedbag
Owen Allen
I just updated my FeedBurner account to utilize the new blog posts feed.
Feed Address: http://feeds.feedburner.com/OwenAllen
New blog address: http://owen-allen.com
Old blog address: http://blogs.msdn.com/oallen
My blog is going to be a great place to hang out. Especially of all of you on SharePoint Saturdays! [read].
Posted: Sat, Sep 11th '10 |
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Owen Allen
pThis is a temporary post that was not deleted. Please delete this manually. (3081a6ee-96d7-4db3-ba86-844c9854419c - 3bfe001a-32de-4114-a6b4-4005b770f6d7)/pdiv style="clear:both;"/divimg src="http://blogs.msdn.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=10058148" width="1" height="1"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/OwenAllen/~4/kUDv7ifKP3k" height="1" width="1"/ [read].
Posted: Sat, Sep 4th '10 |
SharePint at WPC10
Owen Allen
pimg style="margin: 5px 0px; display: inline" align="right" src="http://www.21apps.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/sparepintlargeblack.png" width="287" height="97" /After a great day of speaking with partners, and learning about how Microsoft is going to lead with partners into the next twelve months or few years, and attending conference keynotes and sessions, and, of course, perusing the grand exhibition hall(!), please join us at SharePint at WPC10!/p pWhat is a SharePint?#160; (Did the guy ju [read].
Posted: Fri, Jul 2nd '10 |
SharePoint and WPC2010
Owen Allen
pIf it’s July, then you know two things.#160; First, Your friends at Microsoft are getting ready for another mind-blowing partner conference.#160; Second, there is going to be a world-wide presence at the SharePint event.#160; /p pEven though the first rule of partner conference is that you’re allowed to talk about what happens at partner conference, it’s still worth talking about what’s going to happen with SharePoint at this year’s event./p pFirst:#160; The web site for WPC is a href [read].
Posted: Fri, Jul 2nd '10 |
SharePoint 2010 Demo Virtual Machine
Owen Allen
pThe SharePoint 2010 virtual machine image is now bavailable for customers and partners/b to download here:/p pa href="http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9728417"http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9728417/a/p pThis virtual machine image also include some demo content!/p pThere are also handy bundled Akamai links for speedy global delivery and pausable/resumable downloads./pimg src="http://blogs.msdn.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=10011261" width="1" height="1"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/OwenAllen/ [read].
Posted: Tue, May 11th '10 |
SharePoint MVP Question and Answer Session–Part Deux
Owen Allen
pThe last time that we got a bunch of SharePoint MVPs on the same phone call was a lot of fun.#160; That happened last month, in March.#160; This month (April), there are Two (2) sessions scheduled./p pa href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/chats/default.aspx" target="_blank"Click here to register and to get the details./a/p table border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" width="400"tbody tr td valign="top" width="200" pstrongfont size="3"April 27th, /font/strong/p pstrongfont size="3"4:00PM P [read].
Posted: Mon, Apr 26th '10 |
SharePint at AIIM Expo 2010
Owen Allen
h2a href="http://sharepoint.microsoft.com"SharePoint/a by Day, SharePint by Night!/h2 pa href="http://nationalmechanics.com/philadelphia-hours-directions"img style="border-right-width: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: 0px" title="rcol_frame_2" border="0" alt="rcol_frame_2" align="right" src="http://blogs.msdn.com/blogfiles/oallen/WindowsLiveWriter/SharePintatAIIM_FE26/rcol_frame_2_3.jpg" width="244" hei [read].
Posted: Sun, Apr 18th '10 |
SharePoint 2010 Speakers at the AIIM Expo
Owen Allen
pA couple of months ago, I a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/oallen/archive/2010/02/23/sharepoint-2010-and-aiim-expo-2010.aspx" target="_blank"mentioned/a that SharePoint 2010 would be representing with strength at the a href="http://www.aiimexpo.com/" target="_blank"AIIM Expo/a, April 20-22, in Philadelphia./p pa href="http://blogs.msdn.com/ecm/archive/2010/04/16/get-ready-for-the-sharepoint-2010-summit-aiim-expo.aspx" target="_blank"The ECM team blog has now listed the speakers that will be making [read].
Posted: Fri, Apr 16th '10 |
Puget Sound SPUG Meeting April 15th
Owen Allen
pThe next meeting of the Puget Sound SPUG is this Thursday, April 15th.#160; Two solid partners are presenting.#160; /p pPizza and networking begins at 6:00PM./p pThe meeting will be held at the a href="http://click.icptrack.com/icp/relay.php?r=16851568amp;msgid=294551amp;act=VZGLamp;c=253728amp;destination=http%3A%2F%2Fmaps.live.com%2F%3Fmkt%3Den-us%23JnE9eXAuMjA1Ky0rMTA4dGgrQXZlK05FJTJjK1N1aXRlKzQwMCUyYytCZWxsZXZ1ZSUyYytXQSsrOTgwMDQlN2Vzc3QuMCU3ZXBnLjEmYmI9NjEuNjg5ODcyMjAwNDYlN2UtNzMuNDc2NTYyN [read].
Posted: Tue, Apr 13th '10 |
SharePoint 2010 Solution Gallery
Owen Allen
pMany SharePoint Partners have been working with SharePoint 2010 for over a year and many of those have started to announce which solutions they will have ready at the time of launch or soon after the launch of SharePoint 2010.#160;#160; /p pbAnnouncing – the SharePoint 2010 Solution Gallery/b/p pa href="http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/SolutionGallery"http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/SolutionGallery/a/p pSharePoint is the Business Collaboration Platform for Enterprise and the Internet./p pThe S [read].
Posted: Mon, Apr 12th '10 |
Are you a Solution Designer? – New SharePoint 2010 Training
Owen Allen
pIf you are active in the SharePoint community, then you know that training content for SharePoint is often targeted to Developers or to IT Professionals.#160; /p pThere is a third role in most SharePoint implementations – that of a Solution Designer.#160; So, Microsoft has developed a new type of training for this role, and is offering the first sessions of this training for free to potential students.#160;#160; /p pThe objective of the SharePoint Solution Designer course is to train Business [read].
Posted: Wed, Apr 7th '10 |
WPC 2010 Awards
Owen Allen
pThe deadline for submitting your partner solution has been extended to April 9th, 2010.#160; /p pPlease visit a href="http://www.digitalwpc.com/Awards"http://www.digitalwpc.com/Awards/a for more details about how to submit your partner solution./p pThere’s a new Country Partner of the Year award that has been added this year.#160; Does that mean that a partner from each country will receive an award, or is it the partner who sings the best Country music song?#160; You’ll need to go to a tit [read].
Posted: Sat, Mar 27th '10 |
SharePoint 2010 Training for Developers and IT Pros – Ignite Online
Owen Allen
pbGet Ready for SharePoint 2010 with Ignite Online: now available on the Partner Learning Center!/b/p pUpgrade your skills to SharePoint 2010 through a series of self-paced modules of SharePoint 2010 technical training –including demos, presentations and hosted hands-on-labs now available through the Partner Learning Center! With two different tracks, both IT professionals and developers can take advantage of SharePoint 2010 Ignite to get ready to deploy and support implementations of, or buil [read].
Posted: Mon, Mar 22nd '10 |
FREE and Public Question and Answer Session with SharePoint MVPs
Owen Allen
pIf you are a SharePoint Developer, a SharePoint Administrator, or a SharePoint Fan of any type or sort, you should join the Worldwide Chat with SharePoint MVPs that is scheduled for strongMONDAY, MARCH 15th, at 9:00AM PDT (5:00PM GMT)./strong/p pThis is a chance for you to ask the hard SharePoint questions that you may have.#160; This is a chance to see and hear (via your chat window) the questions that other SharePoint users haven’t been able to figure out yet.#160; The experts that will be [read].
Posted: Thu, Mar 11th '10 |
SharePoint 2010 and AIIM Expo 2010
Owen Allen
pHi Everyone.#160; SharePoint 2010 will be making a big splash at the AIIM Expo in Philadelphia on April 20-22.#160; Take advantage of the discount below to purchase a Conference pass for your employees.#160; 3 days of keynotes and breakout sessions will provide a training opportunity that is cheaper than attending dedicated training, and will be very comprehensive.#160; /p p----------------------------------/p pa href="http://blogs.msdn.com/blogfiles/oallen/WindowsLiveWriter/SharePoint2010andAI [read].
Posted: Tue, Feb 23rd '10 |
Does SharePoint ever take a Holiday? or, Christmas with SharePoint
Owen Allen
pHere is some SharePoint and Christmas-Season-oriented humor for you to enjoy during the holiday./p pCorasworks issued the following press release./p blockquote pa href="http://www.corasworks.net/press_releases/12222009.html"Santa Claus Uses CorasWorks Software on SharePoint to Improve Operations at North Pole/a/p pa href="http://www.corasworks.net/press_releases/12222009.html"Santa, Elves Building Applications for Christmas List Aggregation, Naughty/Nice Notifications, Real-time Weather Updates [read].
Posted: Wed, Dec 23rd '09 |
SharePoint Deployment Planning Services – 2010 Upgrade Planning Now Available
Owen Allen
pThe SharePoint Deployment Planning Services (SDPS) program has been a big hit over the past couple of years.#160; /p pThere are now over 1,000 certified partners who can deliver the planning services workshops with customers.#160; /p pThese are provided free to qualified customers who have purchased Software Assurance (SA) for their SharePoint software licenses./p pThis week, a new planning service was rolled out, one that focuses on helping customers prepare for the upgrade to SharePoint 2010. [read].
Posted: Thu, Dec 17th '09 |
SharePoint Saturday in Redmond
Owen Allen
a href="http://www.sharepointsaturday.org/redmond" target="_blank"img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; margin-left: 0px; border-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="image" border="0" alt="image" align="right" src="http://blogs.msdn.com/blogfiles/oallen/WindowsLiveWriter/SharePointSaturdayinRedmond_FC38/image_3.png" width="244" height="88" //a pI’ve been watching the SharePoint Saturday phenomenon for a while now, and I think it’s amazing.#160; S [read].
Posted: Mon, Nov 2nd '09 |
SharePoint Conference Thank You
Owen Allen
pWhat an amazing SharePoint Conference we had last week.#160; I wanted to take a minute to say, “THANK YOU,” to all of you.#160; The SharePoint Partner ecosystem is ROCKING, and notice was served last week in a big way.#160; /p pThe energy that was in and around the partner exhibit hall on Sunday night was incredible.#160; The flow of folks never seemed to die down, throughout the entire 3 hours!#160; And the partners were ready to work!#160; I received so many comments from partners that th [read].
Posted: Mon, Nov 2nd '09 |
Puget Sound SharePoint Users Group – Sept 2009 SPRINT Event
Owen Allen
The Puget Sound SharePoint Users Group is holding their second SharePoint Sprint event this weekend, September 26, 2009. The first event was a great success, as the working groups determined their scenarios and goals for the day and worked together to construct the infrastructure and functionality that they wanted in their solution. This event will be very similar, with new scenarios designed to showcase user, administrator, and developer solutions. The SharePoint Sprint will be held at the SQL [read].
Posted: Fri, Sep 25th '09 |
KMWorld Trend-Setting Products of 2009
Owen Allen
KMWorld publishes a list of Trend-Setting Products each year, and I’d like to mention the award winners that are integrated to some degree with SharePoint. The full list is here: I started listed the companies that had integrations with SharePoint, but the list became too long. (Oh, Snap!) So, I’ll just point you again to the great list of Trend-Setting products for 2009 from KMWorld. [read].
Posted: Sun, Sep 13th '09 |
PDC and the Business Intelligence Workshop
Owen Allen
If you’ve tried to contact me over the past month or so, then you know that I am living and breathing preparations for the SharePoint Conference 2009. That’s the big October event this year. So, you might ask – what’s the big November event? PDC 2009. SharePoint is going to have a bit more of a presence at PDC 2009, which makes sense, seeing as how SharePoint is attracting more and more developers, and is now considered a platform choice for application develop [read].
Posted: Sun, Sep 13th '09 |
Use SharePoint Conference 2009 to Drive Your Business
Owen Allen
We are approaching the last month and weeks before SharePoint Conference 2009. This is going to be one of those “once-in-a-lifetime” events, and I’m looking forward to seeing all of the great partner solutions that have been in development on the private SharePoint beta for the past few months. From the solutions that I have seen, there is going to be some amazing announcements and demonstrations in Las Vegas next month! There are *still* a few remaining opportunities for Share [read].
Posted: Wed, Sep 9th '09 |
SharePoint Conference is going to sell out
Owen Allen
Check out the update about SharePoint Conference 2009 today on the SharePoint team blog. There is a list of some new sessions, and the scuttlebutt is that the conference will be selling out in the next few weeks. It’s going to be a packed house. Please tell everyone who is interested to register now… There is going to be great information, great sessions, great fun - (Have we announced who the Rock and Roll band is going to be for the Concert night yet?) – great S [read].
Posted: Wed, Sep 9th '09 |
KnowledgeLake is giving away a VIP trip to SPC09
Owen Allen
You may already be going to Las Vegas this october for the SharePoint Conference 2009, but are you traveling IN STYLE? KnowledgeLake, a Gold Certified Microsoft partner, and one of the Platinum Sponsors of the SharePoint Conference 2009 is giving away a VIP Trip to the conference! Visit the KnowledgeLake promotional site, complete a survey, and you’ll be registered for the promotion. Here’s your chance to do the SPC as a VIP! [read].
Posted: Tue, Sep 8th '09 |
Enterprise Governance Solutions
Owen Allen
For those of you who are not aware of Gabor Fari, I’d like to introduce him. Gabor is a Microsoft Solution Specialist for Enterprise Content Management in the Life Sciences industry. Gabor has a rich background in content management and focuses on helping his customers find their way in today’s jungle that is enterprise content management. Gabor recently published a blog entry titled “Enterprise Content Governance”. In this blog entry, he describes Vamosa’s integratio [read].
Posted: Mon, Sep 7th '09 |
Contract Management on SharePoint
Owen Allen
I ran into (and around) Dolphin Software this morning. Dolphin software provides a seemingly very complete Contract Management solution on top of the SharePoint Server 2007 application platform. Capabilities include leveraging SharePoint’s workflow support, the ability to create workgroups and contract-specific collaboration sites quickly, some reporting and KPI capabilities, etc., in order to accelerate the ‘quote-to-cash’ business process. Here are some interesting articles [read].
Posted: Fri, Aug 28th '09 |
Deep in the forest of the Internet…
Owen Allen
I can’t believe that I’m writing two blog entries in the same day for the same company… Usually, I’d wait at least another day to do that… :-) But Steve at Bamboo Solutions has managed to get the worst jingle ever built, and I can’t stop listening to it! First, click watch the Song of the Day #225. Second, click on Steve’s blog entry to read the background. Steve's Blog Entry for the Background... Third, if you’re still here, I loved his embedded l [read].
Posted: Mon, Aug 17th '09 |
NewsGator and Batelle – Online Communities with SharePoint
Owen Allen
Online communities are a great idea, but after the launch party has concluded, how do we drive our employees to actually use the new communities? NewsGator is hosting a SharePoint Customer webinar on August 27, 2009, to answer this question. The webinar will feature Battelle - a $5.2B research and development company that uses SharePoint and NewsGator Social Sites as their social computing platform. Battelle will share their story, experience, and best practices around online commu [read].
Posted: Mon, Aug 17th '09 |
Telligent and Community-Based Analytics
Owen Allen
When you have a community that is functioning, and you’d like to improve it, or keep the fires stoked, you need to know what parts to encourage and what portions aren’t functioning well. it’d also be useful to know which are your most effective community participants, and which community members are the most influential. Telligent Analytics monitors, records, and reports on that information to help you drive more effective communities on top of the SharePoint platform. Telligent is p [read].
Posted: Mon, Aug 17th '09 |
Bamboo Web Parts – Best Sellers for 2009
Owen Allen
Bamboo Solutions has posted an interesting article describing their observations about their Top Ten purchased web parts. http://community.bamboosolutions.com/blogs/bambooteamblog/archive/2009/08/13/top-selling-products-at-bamboo-what-are-other-people-buying.aspx Very cool to see the variety of ways that Bamboo is augmenting SharePoint. It seems that every time I speak with Steve and the folks at Bamboo that I am learning about new web parts that they are publishing. What does your list of [read].
Posted: Mon, Aug 17th '09 |
The Demo Showcase Suite
Owen Allen
Are you aware of the Demo Showcase Suite? This is a Microsoft Partner Network website where partners can host click-through demos of their products and solutions. This website launched at the Worldwide Partner Conference last month, and now it’s time to get our SharePoint partners to fill it! You can login using a Windows Live ID, download the tool to create your simulation/demo, and then upload it. Over 15% of all the searches on this site are for SharePoint applications. Check it out, upload [read].
Posted: Tue, Aug 11th '09 |
SharePoint Conference Site Design Winner!
Owen Allen
The SharePoint Conference 2009 has announced it’s first award winner! Robert Chrestensen, of Salient6, has submitted the winning design for the SharePoint Conference design competition. I like Robert’s idea (at least the one that my feeble mind is able to identify) that SharePoint is going through a re-design from the original blue teamsite template to a graphical interface. This can apply in a lot of ways! Congratulations, Robert! http://www.mssharepointconference.com/Pages/WebsiteReD [read].
Posted: Tue, Jul 28th '09 |
CorasWorks Webcast – Cool Topics Series
Owen Allen
Corasworks is a SharePoint partner that builds solutions for SharePoint. They supply an application layer on top of SharePoint that can be very useful for enterprises that are looking for this type of application architecture to design, build, and manage solutions on SharePoint. Corasworks is holding a webcast next week where they will be introducing some integration techniques with Corasworks and SharePoint data lists, with Bing Maps, and display mechanisms for Business Intel [read].
Posted: Tue, Jul 28th '09 |
Brightwork and Partner Opportunities
Owen Allen
I received this invitation in the email this morning. I would like to attend, but I’ll be in an airplane at this time. Perhaps it will be recorded? I’m registered, but I’ll be one of those no-shows, unfortunately. The thing that intrigues me about this is that I’m seeing more activity around SharePoint ISV partners who are developing their own partner programs to aid in deployment and configuration, etc. I think it’s great, and I wish Brightwork, and all the other Sha [read].
Posted: Tue, Jul 21st '09 |
The MatterSpace® ELM Road Show
Owen Allen
MatterSpace has an e-Discovery product that they’ve built on top of SharePoint Server. I’d recommend registering for this roadshow – even if it’s just to learn about e-Discovery approaches to SharePoint. Perhaps this product will fill a need within your organization. ---------------------- Original URL: http://www.workproducts.com/microsoft_matterspace_elm_road_show/ "Information Management Finally Befriends eDiscovery" WorkProducts, Microsoft, with special guest from Vedder [read].
Posted: Tue, Jul 21st '09 |
Worldwide Partner Conference 2009
Owen Allen
The Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2009 is coming up quickly – July 13th – July 16th, in New Orleans! This is going to be a great event. We are expecting more than 5,000 Partner Attendees! What a great opportunity to hand out business cards and to talk about SharePoint! Let me know if you are attending and would like to find a time to meet! REGISTER NOW Partner Registration Instructions: Go to WPC event website / cli [read].
Posted: Tue, Jun 30th '09 |
Andy Dale’s SharePoint Awards 2009
Owen Allen
I’m a fan of the web site SharePointReviews.com. It’s a great site to point anyone who is looking for SharePoint add-ons and third-party applications to add to their SharePoint farm. While catching up with the site the other day, I saw Andy Dale’s guest blog entry on Mike Ferrera’s OnPoint blog, where he handed out some SharePoint awards for 2009. Thanks for the great list, Andy! While I’m listing the awards here, please click through to his entry to see his co [read].
Posted: Thu, Jun 25th '09 |
BlueThread StoragePoint
Owen Allen
BlueThread has recently announced version 2 of StoragePoint. This product supports external storage in SharePoint, and BlueThread is talking about how StoragePoint can significantly reduce the SQL Server storage required for your SharePoint storage. As StoragePoint mvoes the SharePoint items into the external storage area, the items can also be compressed and/or encrypted. Michael Gannotti has a series of video webcasts about SharePoint topics. His latest covers BlueThread Sto [read].
Posted: Tue, Jun 16th '09 |
SharePoint and the BlackBerry
Owen Allen
I’ve been receiving a number of inquiries lately about SharePoint and BlackBerry integration. I must admit that I don’t know a lot about these solutions yet. It looks like here is an area that I should investigate some more. If you have suggestions as to how I focus this search, please let me know. I’ll report back here as I learn more. [read].
Posted: Fri, Jun 12th '09 |
SharePoint dot Microsoft dot COM
Owen Allen
http://sharepoint.microsoft.com Wow! What an exciting day! The SharePoint marketing team has launched their new web site and it is leveraging SharePoint! While some people might complain about it being about 2 1/2 years late, this is actually a good and significant accomplishment! Good stuff! http://sharepoint.microsoft.com http://sharepoint.microsoft.com Congratulations! http://sharepoint.microsoft.com [read].
Posted: Wed, May 20th '09 |
geekSpeak webcast – Dan Attis and SharePoint as a DataStore
Owen Allen
J. Dan Attis is delivering a “geekSpeak” presentation tomorrow (May-20, 3PM EDT/Noon PDT) about using SharePoint as a datastore. Dan says that he’s going to talk about how SharePoint wraps your need for a datastore with CRUD forms, security, workflow, etc. At first, thinking of SharePoint as a datastore had me wondering about why this couldn’t be done with just Azure. There’s got to be (soon, if not already, I expect) a whole library of .Net tools that will provide g [read].
Posted: Tue, May 19th '09 |
Social Product Development – PTC and SharePoint
Owen Allen
PTC (www.ptc.com) is a leader in the (physical) product development industry. PTC provides CAD tools and a number of other manufacturing-related tools to help the entire lifecycle of product design and development. In January of 2009, PTC shipped their first product with an integration on top of SharePoint, Windchill ProductPoint. Windchill ProductPoint provides a collaboration and team communication layer on top of PTC's Windchill product line. The benefits of social computin [read].
Posted: Thu, May 14th '09 |
SharePoint Training – Blaming a Lack on The Economy
Owen Allen
I loved to see the blog entry today on EndUserSharePoint.com, calling out an observation that companies are not investing in training due to the “Bad Economy”. While each SharePoint owner has their own reason for investing in training or not, I’ve got to agree (biased? perhaps? :-) ) that investing in your SharePoint developers, your SharePoint IT Professionals / business analysts, and SharePoint users, can be a productive investment. If SharePoint is a productivity tool that [read].
Posted: Mon, May 11th '09 |
Virtual PC 7 for Win 7
Owen Allen
Virtual PC 7 is available now for download and inclusion with your copy of Win 7 RC. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/default.aspx It’s working like a champ. I’ve got it running on my Lenovo T61p laptop, and a virtual Win 7 machine running. In the virtual Win 7 machine, I can run my “legacy” copies of Microsoft Office so that I can be ready to test new copies whenever and wherever they come from. ;-) Virtual PC 7 now supports USB connections, so periph [read].
Posted: Tue, May 5th '09 |
Visual Fusion 4.0
Owen Allen
There are a number of great mapping solutions available these days, but I wanted to take a minute to highlight the SharePoint integration capabilities of VisualFusion 4.0 from IDV Solutions. IDV Solutions has been building solutions on top of Virtual Earth and SharePoint for a few years now. IDV Solutions’s SpatialWiki product, from last year, was one of the first mapping solutions to be available in Silverlight, and was also one that could use a SharePoint list as the data source for an [read].
Posted: Tue, May 5th '09 |
Erica Toelle webcast
Owen Allen
Erica Toelle, a SharePoint consultant, specializes in the people and the interactive services side of SharePoint. Erica was interviewed by the good folks at CSTechcast.com, in their 72nd episode: “How to Find SharePoint Implementation Success”. She has some good advice about how to ensure that implementations are taking the people into account. The Erica goodness starts at about 12:10…and it goes for about 14 minutes! [read].
Posted: Mon, Apr 27th '09 |
Shade Foundation Poster Contest
Owen Allen
A friend of my daughter is the Washington State winner for the Shade Foundation poster contest. Now, she needs online votes. So, here’s my shameless plug to ask you for your vote. Angie is the artist behind poster #34, “Don’t Be Caught Dead in the Sun,” with a beach shack, a crab, and the chalk outline of someone who didn’t remember the sunscreen! Go to http://shadefoundation.org and click on this image - “VOTE NOW!” Choose to vote and then select #34, if that [read].
Posted: Mon, Apr 27th '09 |
Puget Sound SharePoint User Group – new Website
Owen Allen
It’s always interesting when a website goes through a re-branding exercise, or a new launch. You get to know a website by it’s look and feel, right? I mean – the personality of a web site starts to come out with the look and feel, and then as you see a site change it’s content and you start to use it, you also get to know it. Well, the Puget Sound SharePoint Users Group web site has gone through a metamorphosis and has come out looking different. Thanks to t [read].
Posted: Wed, Apr 15th '09 |
FERRARI.COM
Owen Allen
WOW! Check out the new Ferrari.com web site – powered by SharePoint Server 2007! Lots of great information – plenty of images and videos and a great way to follow your favorite driver and team. I’ve heard that there was a great team that contributed to this site, and I can’t wait to learn more of the stories about how the development, design, and implementation of this site occurred. Ferrari is an amazing company, and I’m sure that this project was handled in a top-flight [read].
Posted: Sun, Mar 29th '09 |
Blogging Frequency vs. Work…
Owen Allen
I was in one of those states the other day where I was coming down after a relatively long day of meeting with SharePoint partners, and I was enjoying the time before dinner with one of them, a friend from PTC (by the way, watch these guys – they are doing some cool stuff with SharePoint), when he commented that my blog was starting to dry up, and so he had figured that I had been pretty busy. He nailed me with the frequency of blog entry vs. time spent focusing on work, and it made me [read].
Posted: Fri, Mar 27th '09 |
SharePint at AIIM
Owen Allen
SharePoint by Day, SharePint by Night! In the grand tradition of SharePint events around the world, the AIIM Expo ‘09 edition will be held at the following time and place. McGillin’s Olde Ale House 1310 Drury Street Philadelphia, PA 19107 (215) 753-5562 I’m changing the start time to 7:30PM. AIIM is holding their awards ceremony on this night, and there are, amazingly, some SharePoint people who were invited to an awards dinner by AIIM. (I know – weird, huh?) [read].
Posted: Fri, Mar 27th '09 |
My Irish Heritage
Owen Allen
In memory of today, I thought I’d look up my Irish heritage… Here it is. Thomas Eagar was the bloke who left home and traveled to the U.S., in the early 1800s. Thomas Eagar (Son of Frances Eagar and Elizabeth Rice) – emigrated to the Unites States B: 1 Jan 1792, Tralee, Kerry, Ireland D: 8 Jun 1840, Westchester, NY, US Frances Eagar B: about 1750, Ireland D: about 1799, Ballyncourt Co, Kerry, Ireland Married to Elizabeth Rice B: about 1735, Dingle, Kerry, Ireland D: [read].
Posted: Tue, Mar 17th '09 |
5 Minutes from 10 Years From Now
Owen Allen
Can I Re-Tweet an entire blog post? John Mullinax has posted a blog entry that I’d like to Re-Tweet here. Except that I’d like to use more than 140 characters. :-P I was privileged to be in attendance at the ECMSharePoint ‘08 conference in November of last year, where Derek Burney, GM SharePoint Platform and Tools, shared this video as part of his presentation. I’m sure that wasn’t the first time that it had been shown, but it was the first time that I saw it. Actuall [read].
Posted: Wed, Mar 11th '09 |
BlueThread on the Gannotti-Tube
Owen Allen
I wanted to post a quick message telling folks that a SharePoint partner, BlueThread, is going to be featured on Mike Gannotti’s weekly webcast – tomorrow, March 5th, from 9AM-10AM, Pacific time. You can find more details about the webcast and instructions as to how to view and listen in Mike’s blog post, http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/blogs/mikeg/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=1563 BlueThread serves as one of the thought leaders in complex and large SharePoint solutions. BlueThrea [read].
Posted: Thu, Mar 5th '09 |
SharePoint Online – doing some traveling…
Owen Allen
SharePoint Online is part of Microsoft Online Services. It is a hosted environment for companies that would rather outsource their SharePoint data center than manage it themselves. SharePoint Online can be purchased as an individual service or as part of a suite of online services, which includes Exchange Online, Live Communications Server, and Live Meeting. If you are a virtual company, you can virtualize almost your entire data center in this way. Two big announcements have [read].
Posted: Tue, Mar 3rd '09 |
It’s All About the Content
Owen Allen
File this under the category of another great web success story. See the NY Times article, “’South Park,’ a Vision and a Payoff",” for the story about how Matt Stone and Trey Parker are doing the right thing. It’s all about the Content. Build It And They Will Come. Now, I understand that I’m working for a tools company – but that’s because I’ve got no creative bones in my writing hand, so I have a hard time building content. (I mean, look at the rockin [read].
Posted: Mon, Mar 2nd '09 |
Windows Live and Mobile Video – A Practical Application
Owen Allen
OK, while this can be called a practical application, it’s more of a funny video posting. I can only hope that one day I understand my mobile phone well enough to be this responsive. :-) [read].
Posted: Sat, Feb 14th '09 |
Brightwork – Manage Projects on SharePoint
Owen Allen
Eamonn McGuiness, of Brightwork, has started his blog again about project management. He’s launched it on a SharePoint – based blog site! His objective is to talk about managing projects on the SharePoint platform, as well as to discuss just how much project management is needed for projects. A link to the Manage Projects on SharePoint blog. [read].
Posted: Fri, Feb 13th '09 |
FASTForward’09 – Virtual Conference Attendance
Owen Allen
I’m heading to Las Vegas next week for the FASTForward’09 Conference. A lot is going to be happening there. This is the annual conference for customers and partners for FAST technology. Microsoft is going to be announcing the upcoming product roadmap for the FAST technologies for the next few years. I’m looking forward to getting to know FAST technology partners that I haven’t yet met and to talk about how to integrate the great work that they’ve been doing in [read].
Posted: Sat, Feb 7th '09 |
Twitter Apps for the Phone
Owen Allen
I made a new friend today… just what I was looking for. Top 5: Best Twitter applications for Windows Mobile. So, I’m going to give some of these a try. Any ideas from you who have already traveled this path? [read].
Posted: Sat, Jan 17th '09 |
New Phone – Samsung Epix (i907)
Owen Allen
Another watershed day in history, occurring this mid-January. I broke down and decided to part with my trusty phone. I’ve been using the HTC S730 for a couple of years now, and have enjoyed it. I have enjoyed my detour into the Smartphone arena, and the phone worked well. For the past couple of months, cracks have been showing up, and I was afraid that I was one more drop away from losing my virtual assistant. I was trying to decided between the Palm Treo Pro, the HTC Fuze, and th [read].
Posted: Sat, Jan 17th '09 |
Puget Sound SharePoint Users Group Meeting – Jan 2009
Owen Allen
Tonight we’ve got a great meeting going on at the Puget Sound SharePoint Users Group. There are over 60 people in attendance tonight, and we ran out of pizza. Bo had to order a second batch. Trying to figure out why, it could be because we’ve got a new guy who is creating the email invitations, (Greg Frick), or it’s because we have a beautiful actress, who is also a SharePoint maven, giving the first presentation today, or it is because everyone set a New Year’s Resol [read].
Posted: Fri, Jan 16th '09 |
Way To Go, Live Mesh!
Owen Allen
Wow! Live Mesh was awarded a Crunchie Award as the recognized Best Technology Innovation / Achievement of 2008! Wow! Congratulations to all those associated with bringing out Live Mesh – it’s an awesome technology. The Crunchies are an annual competition co-hosted by GigaOm, VentureBeat, Silicon Alley Insider, and TechCrunch which culminates in an award for the most compelling startup, internet and technology innovations. As Angus Logan says on his blog entry about the a [read].
Posted: Sat, Jan 10th '09 |
Gimmal Group Seminar – ECM and RM in a SharePoint World
Owen Allen
I met with some great folks from the Gimmal Group last month and was pleased to learn that they are targeting some of their experience at helping enterprises understand how to leverage the SharePoint platform for their Enterprise Content Management and Records Management applications. The Gimmal Group has years of experience in the ECM and RM space, which, of course, includes years of experience working with OpenText and EMC Documentum, and has an impressive list of customers. I loo [read].
Posted: Sun, Jan 4th '09 |
Change Your Pricing
Owen Allen
Chris Brogran tweeted about a Seth Godin post about what happens to companies when they change their pricing.
I thought it was great, so I figured that it would relate to SharePoint in some way or another. :-)
"When a restaurant goes from a la carte to either a buffet or a fixed price meal, it is able to find a new class of customers."
So, how does changing your price relate to SharePoint? Well, If you think like an ISV, then you are thinking 2-3 years ahead, with a product lifespan of 5-10, [read].
Posted: Sat, Jan 3rd '09 |
ECMSharePoint - Portal and Local Workshop Schedule
Owen Allen
The ECMSharePoint (www.ecmsharepoint.com) portal is a new location on the web where information specific to the ECM industry on SharePoint can be found. It's still young, and a bit light on content, but this site is managed by the same people that have been running www.techinfocenter.com and ECM-oriented http://news.techinfocenter.com for years. There is a Products section on ECMSharePoint.com where they are starting to break down some of the add-ons and complementary ISV products [read].
Posted: Thu, Dec 18th '08 |
NFL Replay needs a new name
Owen Allen
Patrick McManamon, of the Beacon Journal, suggests that the NFL replay system has grown too big for its britches and needs to be retired. I completely agree. This season, portions of games under review have become actually painful to sit through. Here's a quick definition of the rule from McManamon's article. "Take a quick look, see if the call was right or wrong and fix it — provided it was obvious. As NFL coach Mike Holmgren once said, correctly and accurately, it's the kin [read].
Posted: Wed, Dec 17th '08 |
AIIM – Spreading the SharePoint Love – what?
Owen Allen
My relationship with AIIM over the years has been fairly typical, I would guess – maybe a bit more affiliated than some, but not as tightly aligned as others. I’ve taken some AIIM training classes, I think that I attended my first AIIM conference in about 1998, and I’m tentatively planning on attending the conference in 2009. AIIM is an association of a lot of different vendors. Does it really lead us many places any more? It does make it convenient for software and hardw [read].
Posted: Mon, Dec 15th '08 |
Docs feel less vulnerable with IT Systems over Paper-based system.
Owen Allen
Doctors who were trained using capable IT systems and who later practiced within a hospital, clinic, or other organization that utilized a paper-based records system, felt more vulnerable – that they weren’t able to provide the level of care and service that they wanted to. Thanks, Ducknetweb, for the original post. NASHVILLE, TN - A new study has found that physicians who receive training in a technology-rich environment but go on to work in a less modern facility feel they can't provide [read].
Posted: Sun, Dec 7th '08 |
SharePoint ISVs - Do You Care Enough to Work the Room?
Owen Allen
So, I was reading my own blog, and decided that I should review the last few months of Gary Vaynerchuk if I was going to include a link and an embedded video for his show... (see my previous post). I found this other one of his... from just last week! Not sure where I was, but I hadn't seen it. "Giving a Presentation vs. Working the Room" The title is just one principle that he espouses in this quick video. Worth watching. Then, ask yourself, "Do you ca [read].
Posted: Tue, Nov 11th '08 |
Today is Veteran's Day
Owen Allen
“We’re gathered today, just as we have gathered before, to remember those who served, those who fought, those still missing, and those who gave their last full measure of devotion for our country… One of those who fell wrote, shortly before his death, these words: ‘Take what they have left and what they have taught you with their dying and keep it with your own. And take one moment to embrace those gentle heroes you left behind.’ Well, today, Veterans Day, as [read].
Posted: Tue, Nov 11th '08 |
There's No Laughing in the Bookstore!
Owen Allen
So, I was spending a few minutes at the Registration table for Dev Connections / SharePoint Connections this afternoon. (What are we supposed to call it? Is it SharePoint Connections or Dev Connections?) After getting my fancy new backpack (which I've already worn for the last time), I meandered over to the tables full of books, which serves as a quasi-bookstore on the main floor. (The Main Floor is Floor 3... yeah - me, too.) So, I'm looking at the books, thinking [read].
Posted: Tue, Nov 11th '08 |
You Want Advertisers? Go Get 'Em.
Owen Allen
I've been a fan of Gary Vaynerchuk for a while now, and I think this guy is definitely worth keeping an eye on. Every couple of weeks, it seems, I see a marketing lesson from him that is clear and to the point. Hat tip to @KrisColvin - the first mention of Gary's newest message that I saw today, "Want to get advertisers on your blog/vlog? Go and GET IT." Gary's site is a must-read for those starting in the online world. And, he showed how fun it can be to make a cold call. [read].
Posted: Tue, Nov 11th '08 |
Cloud Computing Smackdown
Owen Allen
I enjoyed reading Thomas Claburn’s story yesterday from the Web 2.0 Summit. It caused me to think a little bit about this topic. (yes, scary.) Some quotes: “I think it’s fantastic that they’re coming in and saying that they’re going to have something someday.” – Marc Benioff, CEO, Salesforce, speaking about Microsoft’s announcements relating to Azure Services. “It’s a great endorsement by Microsoft that this is the future.” - Dave Girouard, General Mana [read].
Posted: Sun, Nov 9th '08 |
How the Podcasting Kit for SharePoint Helps Tackle Corporate Communications and Training
Owen Allen
Two challenges that are consistently recognized among organizations in most industries are those of Corporate Communications and Employee Training. SharePoint, as a collaboration tool, has the platform pieces required to address these challenges, such as user profiles, state management, managed storage, search and findability, publishing, etc. The Podcasting Kit for SharePoint is a solution that leverages the capabilities of SharePoint and wraps site design, administration, and process co [read].
Posted: Sat, Nov 8th '08 |
NewsGator – Collaboration and Social Computing
Owen Allen
NewsGator is holding two In-Person events for Collaboration and Social Computing in November. Time is short for these, but if you are in Chicago or Minneapolis, try to fit these into your calendar! CHICAGO, IL - Collaboration and Social Computing with Microsoft SharePoint Server 2007 11/17/2008, 8:30 AM - 12:00 PM Microsoft Corporation 77 W. Wacker Dr., Suite 2300 Chicago, IL 60601 Co-hosted with Microsoft Partners (Directions Training & RightPoint Consulting) https://www.clickto [read].
Posted: Mon, Nov 3rd '08 |
SharePoint Email Management webcast with Colligo
Owen Allen
Colligo has signed up our friend Joel Oleson to join them on a webcast discussing Email Management with SharePoint. You are invited to attend the November 20th webinar: "The Myths & Truths of Email Management with SharePoint." Join guest speaker Joel Oleson, a killer SharePoint Architect, as he dispels the myths and reveals the truths about email management in SharePoint! 5 Questions You Should Ask About Email & SharePoint: Why Use SharePoint to Manage Email? Are Public Folders Dead? [read].
Posted: Mon, Nov 3rd '08 |
A Day in the Life at PDC2008
Owen Allen
Heh. I got a kick out of this lay-man's perspective of a typical day in the life at PDC. Having experienced this, it made me chuckle.
There were many other activites duringthe week that may have been a little too over the top for this non-technical reporter to catch... Ask the Experts is actually the only dinner that they serve at the event (except for the free vending areas on Universal Studios night), and it draws a particular type of crowd that can't get enough of walking around the prod [read].
Posted: Sat, Nov 1st '08 |
PDC2008 - Report #1
Owen Allen
I'v ebeen attending PDC2008 this week and have been having a good time. It's so much fun to talk with SharePoint MVPs, other Product Group folks from throughout Microsoft, and SharePoint consultants and SharePoint ISV Partners about the announcements this week and the new opportunities that these technologies will provide.
I've been experimenting with Twitter this week, and for those of you who sat through my Twit-storm on Monday and Tuesday during the keynote sessions, you'd recognize that I'm [read].
Posted: Thu, Oct 30th '08 |
Puget Sound SharePoint Users Group SPRINT Event
Owen Allen
We’ve got such a great group of folks that are part of the Puget Sound SharePoint Users Group (PSSPUG). Greg Frick, a SharePoint Trainer at SQLSoft+ in Bellevue, is a member, and has, with the help of about 5-6 other key members, organized an amazing day of SharePoint training and experience, scheduled for this Saturday. There are about 40 people already registered, and we will have multiple SPRINT targets – some involving code and some “No-Code”. In SPRINT form, we’ll be u [read].
Posted: Fri, Oct 24th '08 |
Comments on Yesterday’s Security Update
Owen Allen
Intriguing article by Jon Oltsik on Cnet.com yesterday about Microsoft’s identification of and response to the security flaw that yesterday’s update was dedicated to patching. We’ve come a long way, baby! [read].
Posted: Fri, Oct 24th '08 |
New Keynote Speaker for ECMSharePoint ‘08 Conference
Owen Allen
Derek Burney, GM for SharePoint Platform and Tools, will be a keynote speaker at the ECMSharePoint ‘08 conference next month, Nov 17-19, in Orlando. This conference is a focused opportunity to speak to and learn from the leading System Integrators and Software Companies that provide Enterprise Content Management solutions on the SharePoint platform. If you, your company, or your clients are looking for answers about how to use the SharePoint platform for document and records management, please [read].
Posted: Fri, Oct 24th '08 |
SharePint at PDC2008
Owen Allen
If you are attending PDC2008, and you are a SharePoint developer or ISV-related friend, please join me and some of my closest friends at Andrew Connell’s SharePoint by Day – SharePoint by Night event. It’s a casual, informal couple of hours to prepare everyone for the week ahead. We’ll be at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel bar starting around 7PM. Have a safe trip and we’ll see you there! Feel free to RSVP in the comments here if you are going to meet us there, and we [read].
Posted: Wed, Oct 22nd '08 |
ECMSharePoint ‘08 Conference
Owen Allen
I’ve been to a lot of ECM conferences and a lot of SharePoint conferences over the past years. At the ECM conferences, SharePoint is covered by 15-25% of the sessions, and at the SharePoint conferences, ECM is covered by about 20% of the sessions. Wouldn’t it be great if one could attend a conference that was all about SharePoint and ECM, combined? What kind of networking and learning could happen? For this reason, I was pleased to learn about the ECMSharePoint ‘08 confe [read].
Posted: Wed, Oct 22nd '08 |
ROI – What are You looking at?
Owen Allen
Gary Vaynerchuk has a wake up call for those who are serious about marketing. I’m trying to learn more about marketing, and even I can understand some of his points here. It’s not about who helped you before, or historically, which were the best channels for your message. Gary calls out newspapers and magazines as old school without the cool as a channel for today’s marketing messages. Great marketing wakeup call and message. It’s all about the long [read].
Posted: Sun, Oct 12th '08 |
SharePoint at Microsoft PDC 2008
Owen Allen
PDC is coming up. Surely you’ve heard about it. It’s going to be a lot of fun, and where we’ll hear about what technologies we will be blogging about for the next 3.5 years. This is the mind meld where Microsoft gives the world it’s going forward directions and commands – yes – in fact, this is the place that the conspiracy theorists have been warning us against. Too many developers, and a very large venue, in Los Angeles. It will be easy for attendees to lo [read].
Posted: Fri, Oct 10th '08 |
The Webcast
Owen Allen
I delivered my first webcast with partners yesterday. Just about 5 minutes worth. I introduced a couple of ideas about my perspective on ISVs. Nothing ground-shaking, just more solution-oriented, as an introduction to two partners, Syntergy and Colligo. I'm on from the 2 minute mark for about 5 minutes. It’s actually very short, but the real value in this webcast is getting to know the Syntergy and Colligo products and the solutions that they provide. View Webcast: Grow Your SharePoint B [read].
Posted: Sat, Oct 4th '08 |
Gartner Magic Quadrant Season
Owen Allen
Yeah, I know that the Gartner group publishes magic quadrant reports all around the year, but ‘tis the season for the Enterprise Content Management magic quadrant, and I wanted a season to celebrate in. First of all, get your own hot and handy copy of the Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Content Management here and click through to the report. I think it’s worth mentioning that Microsoft is ever so slightly the leader on the Completeness of Vision axis, and is #4 in the race, behind IBM, EMC, O [read].
Posted: Tue, Sep 30th '08 |
SharePoint at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2008
Owen Allen
The SharePoint team will have a presence at the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2008. Are any of you awesome and incredible SharePoint ISVs going to attend? If you are, let me know, and let’s see if we can get you hooked up with the SharePoint leadership that will be there. Register Here for the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2008. [read].
Posted: Tue, Sep 30th '08 |
AvePoint Roadshow for DocAve
Owen Allen
Many of you are probably familiar with DocAve, from AvePoint. They’ve been around for a while, but I’m just starting to get to know them a little bit better. Their suite of products looks like fun – SharePoint Backup & Recovery, SharePoint Administration & Replication, SharePoint Compliance, and Migration to SharePoint The folks from AvePoint are making a tour around North America over the next month. 12 cities! If you are close to one of these [read].
Posted: Fri, Sep 26th '08 |
The First Partner Webcast
Owen Allen
Well, this will be interesting… It seems that the invitation has been out for a while, and the Webcast is going to happen on Oct 2. I’m going to be joining Syntergy and Colligo, two good SharePoint partners, in a joint partner webcast. I don’t know about that first speaker – he looks kind of sketchy, but David Seaman (Syntergy) and Ed Kaczor (Colligo) will be worth listening to! [read].
Posted: Wed, Sep 24th '08 |
SharePoint VPC for Download
Owen Allen
A quick heads up that the SharePoint evaluation VPC that is currently available for download from http://www.microsoft.com/vhd has an expiration date at the end of September 2008. An renewed version of the VPC with an extended expiration date (March 2010) will be available in a few days. Did you know that the SharePoint VPC is the 2nd most downloadable image from the collection of VPCs on this site? (10s of thousands of downloads)… It provides a grace period of 30 days from [read].
Posted: Tue, Sep 23rd '08 |
Portland Great Urban Race
Owen Allen
My wife and I had an amazing experience last Saturday. We ran as a team in the Great Urban Race, in Portland, Oregon. This is a variant of The Amazing Race that is run within city downtown areas around the country, and where no private transportation is allowed. Your own legs and public transportation are allowed. It was so much fun. Kris and I ran as one team, and we ran with Kris’ brother and his wife. Teams are encouraged to wear matching outfits – or c [read].
Posted: Mon, Sep 22nd '08 |
the <head> conference
Owen Allen
I was pointed to what appears to be a great web conference coming up the days prior to PDC. The conference. “the global web conference” All online – no traveling. Sounds interesting, and it sounds to me like this is the best next way to deliver conferences. I mean, it’s great to be able to spend time with folks – nothing replaces the one to one communication and personal experience that comes with sharing time with a person in real time – but if the g [read].
Posted: Sun, Sep 21st '08 |
Sometimes private communication is a better approach than a public one
Owen Allen
I’m flying back home this morning from a MSFT-internal training conference that was very good. Orlando is an interesting place, but the weather wasn’t so muggy this time, and the venue (Gaylord Palms Resort) was great. Nice job, event organizers! This week has been an interesting one for me because it’s the first time that I’ve had a public presentation and meetings with other MSFT folks in my new role as a corporate person. It has caused me to be thinking a little bit [read].
Posted: Sat, Sep 20th '08 |
Enterprise Mashups on the SharePoint Platform
Owen Allen
I had a customer ask me today about what SharePoint had in the way of Mashup support. He had seen the new and cool IBM Mashup Center, and (had forgotten?) couldn’t remember how SharePoint would fit into this concept of mashup applications. I put together a quick list of resources (Thanks, Live Search!) about Enterprise Mashups and technologies available on the SharePoint platform. Popfly Mashup Creator http://www.popfly.com/mashupcreator SharePoint Team Blog about Popfly [read].
Posted: Fri, Sep 19th '08 |
MSFT and RIM, Searching Nicely Together
Owen Allen
MSFT and RIM announced a strategic partnership today to use Live Search on RIM blackberry devices. Interesting that AT&T signed with Yahoo last week for mobile search. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a99FIfUGfQ6U Search technologies seem to be heading in the area where they may change the way that UIs are considered. I know that one of my favorite features on my Windows Mobile Smartphone is the smart contact search/find as I start typing the contact’s na [read].
Posted: Thu, Sep 11th '08 |
Content Management Interoperability Services (CMIS)
Owen Allen
No, I know that the coincidence of this announcement, on Day 4 after I’ve started in the new role of working with SharePoint Partners, has many of you wondering what I could possibly have up my sleeve for the following week. Well, I’m not in the habit of pre-announcing announcements prior to the day when the announcement should be announced, so I can’t tell you that. Just be scared. Very scared. Actually, this is a great announcement, and one that I’m thrilled about.&# [read].
Posted: Thu, Sep 11th '08 |
Inbox Zero
Owen Allen
Well, all the excitement about starting a new job and letting ideas start to sift through areas of my brain that I haven’t used for ten years has caused me to think about what bad habits to throw out and where I can start anew with some good habits. Although I am a big David Allen and Getting Things Done fan, if you were to get all “CSI” on my computer, you’d realize that I’m also a big fan of the “Keep Everything In Your Inbox and Weep While You Scroll Through It” theory. So [read].
Posted: Mon, Sep 8th '08 |
Tending a New Garden
Owen Allen
For two years, I experimented with other sites to host my blog. I am now back to this hosting address.
I experimented with www.canaltown.net, and wanted to mix some personal and some professional together in my blog. That didn’t seem to work so well. I had an interesting time feeling very passionate about the messaging when I was mixing the two types of posts.
I then switched over to an interim site on sharepoint.microsoft.com/blogs. A fun little community, and one that I enjoyed, but one [read].
Posted: Mon, Sep 1st '08 |
Release to Web of Documentum and FileNet Indexing Connectors
Owen Allen
Body:
We released two Microsoft Enterprise Search Indexing Connectors (also known as Protocol Handlers) for EMC Documentum 5.3 (Service Pack 4) and IBM FileNet P8 3.5.1 or 3.5.2.
The connectors are compatible with the 32-bit English-language versions of SharePoint Server 2007 (Service Pack 1), Search Server 2008 and Search Server 2008 Express. Both indexing connectors are fully supported by Microsoft Product Support Services.
Enterprise Search Indexing Connector 2008 for IBM FileNet Technica [read].
Posted: Wed, Aug 27th '08 |
SharePoint Web Parts for FAST ESP
Owen Allen
URL: http://www.codeplex.com/espwebparts
Body:
These new SharePoint web parts provide interoperability between FAST ESP and Microsoft SharePoint Server.
Using these Web Parts and Site Templates, SharePoint administrators will be able to quickly and easily build FAST ESP-based search sites inside SharePoint 2007 by simply dropping in and configuring the appropriate components.
Visit here (CodePlex) for more details and to download the web parts.
Category: Search
Published: 8/26/2008 11:2 [read].
Posted: Wed, Aug 27th '08 |
Partner Redistribution of Search Server Express
Owen Allen
URL: http://www.microsoft.com/enterprisesearch/serverproducts/searchserverexpress/redistreg.aspx
Body:
We’ve heard from many partners who are interested in redistributing Search Server Express with their hardware and software solutions.
Microsoft Partners can now do so by registering for the new end-user license agreement (available here). This EULA is available in all Search Server Express product languages.
Category: Search
Published: 8/26/2008 11:24 PM
# Comments: 0 [read].
Posted: Wed, Aug 27th '08 |
Release to Web of Documentum and FileNet Indexing Connectors
Owen Allen
We released two Microsoft Enterprise Search Indexing Connectors (also known as Protocol Handlers) for EMC Documentum 5.3 (Service Pack 4) and IBM FileNet P8 3.5.1 or 3.5.2. The connectors are compatible with the 32-bit English-language versions of SharePoint Server 2007 (Service Pack 1), Search Server 2008 and Search Server 2008 Express. Both indexing connectors are fully supported by Microsoft Product Support Services. Enterprise Search Indexing Connector 2008 for IBM FileNet Technical Resour [read].
Posted: Wed, Aug 27th '08 |
SharePoint Web Parts for FAST ESP
Owen Allen
These new SharePoint web parts provide interoperability between FAST ESP and Microsoft SharePoint Server. Using these Web Parts and Site Templates, SharePoint administrators will be able to quickly and easily build FAST ESP-based search sites inside SharePoint 2007 by simply dropping in and configuring the appropriate components. Visit here (CodePlex) for more details and to download the web parts. [read].
Posted: Wed, Aug 27th '08 |
Partner Redistribution of Search Server Express
Owen Allen
We’ve heard from many partners who are interested in redistributing Search Server Express with their hardware and software solutions. Microsoft Partners can now do so by registering for the new end-user license agreement (available here). This EULA is available in all Search Server Express product languages. [read].
Posted: Wed, Aug 27th '08 |
Robert Satterwhite - In Memorial
Owen Allen
Body: I loved working with Robert. He was a great partner and competitor and colleague. Robert, I look forward to seeing you again one day. If any of you worked with Robert, I would love to share stories with you. http://www.legacy.com/NWclassifieds/DeathNotices.asp?Page=LifeStory&PersonId=115935640 Robert John Satterwhite Robert John SATTERWHITE Age 44, passed away unexpectedly Friday (Aug 15, 2008) at his home in Woodinville, Washington. He was [read].
Posted: Wed, Aug 20th '08 |
Robert Satterwhite – In Memorial
Owen Allen
I loved working with Robert. He was a great partner and competitor and colleague. Robert, I look forward to seeing you again one day. If any of you worked with Robert, I would love to share stories with you. Robert John Satterwhite http://www.legacy.com/NWclassifieds/DeathNotices.asp?Page=LifeStory&PersonId=115935640 Robert John SATTERWHITE Age 44, passed away unexpectedly Friday (Aug 15, 2008) at his home in Woodinville, Washington. He was an avid skier, soccer enthusiast and [read].
Posted: Wed, Aug 20th '08 |
WhitePaper: Optimizing MOSS WCM for Search
Owen Allen
Body:
A new white paper has been published to MSDN that describes some approaches to creating Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 web content management (WCM) sites that are optimized for search engines, and what to avoid to help improve search ratings.
How to Optimize SharePoint Server 2007 Web Content Management Sites for Search Engines http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc721591.aspx
It’s not a very long paper, but it does describe a few good tips and tricks that any WCM page d [read].
Posted: Mon, Aug 18th '08 |
Posting Again?
Owen Allen
Body: You'd think that I'd learn that posting on this blog is a dangerous thing, and that I'd learn to stay away from it, but I can't seem to learn that lesson. I'm back posting online again. This summer has been a hectic and interesting one, and there has been enough that has been up in the air, that adding to the blogospher via my little channel found itself lower on my priority list. I think that now that I am getting back on top of things, that the priority for the blog, and the genera [read].
Posted: Mon, Aug 18th '08 |
SharePoint v3 and 2007 – Support for SQL Server 2008
Owen Allen
Body:
The good folks at the SharePoint Product Group have announced that Windows SharePoint Services v3 and SharePoint Server 2007 are now supported on SQL Server 2008. SP1 of the SharePoint product is required for this support.
New documentation describing the support for SQL Server 2008 has been released:
Windows SharePoint Service 3.0 http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc288751.aspx
Office SharePoint Server 2007 http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262485.aspx
Have fun w [read].
Posted: Mon, Aug 18th '08 |
WhitePaper: Optimizing MOSS WCM for Search
Owen Allen
A new white paper has been published to MSDN that describes some approaches to creating Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 web content management (WCM) sites that are optimized for search engines, and what to avoid to help improve search ratings. How to Optimize SharePoint Server 2007 Web Content Management Sites for Search Engines http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc721591.aspx It’s not a very long paper, but it does describe a few good tips and tricks that any WCM page designer [read].
Posted: Mon, Aug 18th '08 |
Posting Again?
Owen Allen
You'd think that I'd learn that posting on this blog is a dangerous thing, and that I'd learn to stay away from it, but I can't seem to learn that lesson. I'm back posting online again. This summer has been a hectic and interesting one, and there has been enough that has been up in the air, that adding to the blogospher via my little channel found itself lower on my priority list. I think that now that I am getting back on top of things, that the priority for the blog, and the [read].
Posted: Mon, Aug 18th '08 |
SharePoint v3 and 2007 – Support for SQL Server 2008
Owen Allen
The good folks at the SharePoint Product Group have announced that Windows SharePoint Services v3 and SharePoint Server 2007 are now supported on SQL Server 2008. SP1 of the SharePoint product is required for this support. New documentation describing the support for SQL Server 2008 has been released: Windows SharePoint Service 3.0 http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc288751.aspx Office SharePoint Server 2007 http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262485.aspx Have fun wit [read].
Posted: Mon, Aug 18th '08 |
Should FrontPage Sites be Moved to MOSS?
Owen Allen
Body: I ran into an interesting situation this morning with a customer. One of their internal departments has a group of technical writers that manages a lot of procedural documents and forms and they use a web site based on FrontPage to manage this. They were originally asking for some help learning Expression Web, which they had identified as the upgraded product to FrontPage. They manage a site that is almost completely read-only to their users, with a team of 6-8 who edit pages on th [read].
Posted: Tue, May 6th '08 |
The Mesh
Owen Allen
Body: Well, there have been a lot of blog posts in the area around Mesh, a technology recently released by Microsoft to leverage The Cloud. I’m a big believer in The Cloud, and while Mesh may not be the ultimate platform that wins the cloud, it certainly could be, and it looks to me like it’s got some great potential. I’m a huge fan. For a basic introduction to Mesh, see the First Look whitepaper that has been published. To track the news about Mesh, use the Mesh-blog. Mesh is a platf [read].
Posted: Mon, May 5th '08 |
Lenovo X300
Owen Allen
Body:
Wow. Mother’s Day is coming up… Do you think that if I bought this for Kris, that she’d let me use it once in a while?
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/05/02/review_lenovo_thinkpad_x300/
And – watch this YouTube video…is the X300 the New MacBook Air?
Published: 5/5/2008 12:34 PM
# Comments: 0 [read].
Posted: Mon, May 5th '08 |
May 2008 PSSPUG Meeting
Owen Allen
Body:
Puget Sound SharePoint Users Group
The next Puget Sound SharePoint Users Group meeting is scheduled for May 15th, 6:30PM – 8:30PM, in Bellevue, WA. Join us at 6PM for pizza and networking.
Topics include:
echoTechnology -- Managing the SharePoint Environment and Dev/Test/Production Scenarios
Arpan Shah, Director of Technical Product Marketing for SharePoint, as he presents the "Top Ten Things You May Not Know About SharePoint"
Bring your ideas and join us for a fun evening of Shar [read].
Posted: Wed, Apr 23rd '08 |
MindSharp SharePoint Summit
Owen Allen
Body:
MindSharp is holding a SharePoint Summit and will be delivering 5 different training classes in SeaTac during the week of May 19-23, 2008.
See the Mindsharp SharePoint Summit page for details. Mention that you were referred by Owen Allen when you register for a 15% discount.
Courses include:
Implement, Customize, and Manage Search Server 2008
Office SharePoint Server 2007 Power End User
Core Technologies in Office SharePoint Server 2007
Customize SharePoint Sites without writing C [read].
Posted: Wed, Apr 23rd '08 |
The SharePoint Shepherd's Guide for End Users
Owen Allen
Body: I may have mentioned this before, but Robert Bogue has published a book dedicated to SharePoint End User training. This book includes steps for over 100 tasks and actions within SharePoint. He also is licensing the soft copy version of this book so your internal training groups can incorporate portions of his book directly into your corporate training guides. This would be well worth the price of the licenses for the word documents.
See Robert’s blog entry for details: http:/ [read].
Posted: Wed, Apr 23rd '08 |
SharePoint Joel
Owen Allen
Body:
You may remember Joel Oleson, who until recently was a Technical Product Manager with the SharePoint Product Team at Microsoft.
Joel has moved on to other ventures, but he is continuing his great blogging efforts about SharePoint. Visit his new blog at http://www.sharepointjoel.com.
One of the topics that Joel Oleson has visited our NorthWest District for is SharePoint Governance. Joel has published a new slide deck covering Governance. If you’ve been in one of his (or m [read].
Posted: Wed, Apr 23rd '08 |
Enterprise Grade Blogging
Owen Allen
Body:
In March, the SharePoint team announced a forthcoming integration between SharePoint 2007 and Telligent Community Server 2008. The Community Server SharePoint integration should be available sometime later this month!
See www.telligent.com for more info on Telligent Community Server and review this blog entry at http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2008/03/29/announcing-the-integration-between-telligent-community-server-2008-and-microsoft-office-sharepoint-server-2007.aspx
Ca [read].
Posted: Wed, Apr 23rd '08 |
MSFT Interactive Media Manager - for Digital Asset Management
Owen Allen
Body:
The original version of Interactive Media Manager was released last April, and the next version, now updated to include SIlverlight, was announced at the National Associate of Broadcasters Conference on April 11-17.
Review the blog entry about this at http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2008/03/31/microsoft-interactive-media-manager-a-digital-asset-management-solution-built-on-top-of-moss-2007.aspx
See the Microsoft page about the newly released Media and Entertainment solut [read].
Posted: Wed, Apr 23rd '08 |
Updated Exchange Public Folder (vs. SharePoint) Guidance
Owen Allen
Body:
Public Folders will continue to be supported in the next major release of Exchange Server, after Exchange 2007. The phrase that Public Folders are being “de-emphasized” from previous guidance blog posts, is discussed. Also, there is a list of scenarios and suggested deployment guidance for each storage scenario.
Review the blog entry about this at http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2008/04/01/updated-exchange-public-folder-vs-sharepoint-guidance.aspx
Category: WSS an [read].
Posted: Wed, Apr 23rd '08 |
MikeyG And 1,000 Posts!
Owen Allen
Body: I want to take a minute and congratulate Mike Gannotti on reaching his 1,000th blog post! What a great job he has done for the SharePoint community and for SharePoint awareness.
If you are not already aware of Mike Gannotti's blog, you should add a bookmark to http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/blogs/mikeg.
Mike does a good job of blogging about a range of topics, but focuses mostly on SharePoint. He has included video in his blogging, and has recently started a new video only [read].
Posted: Tue, Apr 22nd '08 |
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