Stuff that's happening- I'll be at TechEd 2013 North America, I'm coauthoring a book about SharePoint 2013 for a little while, thoughts on an online SPF guide, and more...

Hi everyone,

My apologies for letting this blog lag as of late. I have been super busy with work things and life things.

If you remember my post about SPC 2012, I promised that I would be more available for my readers, followers, etc.,. True to my word, I will attending TechEd 2013 North America this year as a full attendee. This means that none of my hours at the event will be dedicated to working a lab, booth, or session. All my time can be yours (well, I might want to see some sessions, and do some certification, but otherwise, I'll be available). Feel free to contact me if you'd like to get together.

I am writing some chapters for the MSPress SharePoint 2013 Administration Inside Out, to be out this autumn. O'Reilly (the actual publisher for MSPress books right now) is doing some interesting sneak peek, "Rough Cut" marketing of the Inside Out book. A "Rough Cut" is a sampler of chapters that are currently in copy edits from the full SharePoint 2013 Administration Inside Out book. Right now those are mostly Chris Givens' Search chapters, but they want me to spend some time signing copies anyway, saying hi to readers, and generally being social.

The time I am scheduled to be signing Rough Cuts is Wednesday, June 5, at 4:30pm at the Microsoft Press booth. If you're at TechEd, and free at that time, feel free to stop by and say hello.

In other news, I have been wondering what to do concerning continuing the content of my Mastering SharePoint Foundation books. My audience deserves to learn all the new features, lost features, tips, and tricks of the 2013 version of SharePoint Foundation. How to upgrade/migrate from 2010 to 2013. How Search has completely changed (unless you're used to Search Server Express- then it's exactly the same). How the graphic elements, and therefore navigation, has changed.

To make matters worse- Microsoft TechNet doesn't even have a separate section for SharePoint Foundation at all. That's right. For those of you using SharePoint Foundation 2013, there is no where to go for articles specifically about SharePoint Foundation 2013 on TechNet at all. Only SharePoint Server 2013. So if you want to see if something works, you have to read the Server article, which might mention Foundation.

So if I don't write anything for my audience about SharePoint Foundation 2013, they aren't going to get the information they need anywhere else. Not TechNet certainly.

But- I do not want to go through the hassle and heartbreak of trying to publish a big fat book dedicated to administering, configuring, managing SharePoint Foundation anymore. It's just too much of an uphill and thankless battle (ask my reviewers for details).

But- I don't want to leave my readers hanging.

But- I just can't do conventional publishing of that topic anymore. But, my readers... But my sanity... But my readers... But my finances... But...

...So what do you think of this-

I create a Callahan's Guide To SharePoint Foundation 2013 online. A site dedicated to documents concerning all things SharePoint Foundation 2013 configuration, administration, and management. It will be a lot like a book (like previous ones I've done), a lot like TechNet probably should be, and all about SharePoint Foundation.

I can use ads to to cover costs, so it can be totally free for you, the readers, and I can even offer on-demand printing of portions into mini-books or manuals in hard copy for a minimal fee.

Do you think y'all might be interested? It'd be a lot of work on my part with no certainty that anyone would read the pages, or click the ads. So I'd like to know if anyone out there might want to use the site. Let me know, and after I finish my chapters (end of July), if there's interest, I'll set up the site and get started.

Also- as a note-- I will be presenting at SPTechCon in Boston this August. This is the first time I've worked with this group. I will be doing a pre-conference 3 hour Tutorial about how to Migrate to SharePoint 2013 (covering both Server and Foundation, since I can), and the free tools, how to monitor SharePoint 2013 without spending a dime. If you're going to the event, please stop by my sessions and say hello.

TechEd 2009

So I made it to TechEd this year. It was touch and go up to the last moment, so my apologies for not telling you I was going sooner.

Nonetheless, I'm here. I'll be working in the Windows Server area if you'd like to stop by.

Los Angelos, so far, is pretty cloudy, kind of cool (temps in the 60's) and ironically not that much different, except for the smog, than when I visited Seattle last March. The event is supposed to be smaller this year, according to rumor, reflecting the current economy, but I can't wonder if it's also because of the location of the venue. Nothing against LA, but for those who were hoping for New Orleans, well, it's hard to compare.

If there are any SharePoint related adventures to be had, I'll keep you all posted.

Updates all around

Howdy everyone,

You might have noticed that my blog has lagged to a halt over the last month or two. My apologies.

I had a few distractions to contend with:

I was distracted by the preparations required to present at a conference in Toronto.

Then I was distracted by the pneumonia I came down with the day before, and suffered with during, the conference.

(I'd like to give a shout out to the wonderful, patient, and sympathetic folks who attended my sessions at the IT360 conference. Thank you for your kindness while I wheezed in a fever-induced daze through my four presentations. I promise that I will be building camtasia videocasts of my virtual server and data protection manager sessions just for you, so you can actually get that information sans delirium.)

Then I was distracted for about a month, recovering from the pneumonia that never wanted to leave.

Eventually though, I have gotten over those distractions enough to continue my work here, however haltingly. I'm, ironically, not entirely over the pneumonia, but I am getting better.

This catches me up to today, delay-wise. My worry is that, in two weeks time I will be in Orlando, Florida, working the MCT Community Lounge for the TechEd Developer's week and the IT Professionals week (yes, fourteen days of technical goodness, feel free to stop by if you're attending). So I really, really need to kick this lung infection thing before I get there. As it is, convalescence has really cut into my preparation time for the event-- not to mention all the things I wanted to do for this blog.

Meanwhile-- other news:

• I got the Birds of a Feather gig! :: insert sound of crowd going wild here:: Thank all of you who voted for my session, I am truly grateful. Now I get a chance to really speak one on one with people who are interested in WSS in my native territory-- a technical conference . Please come visit my BOF table on Wednesday night of the IT Professionals week, at about 7:25 to 8:30p. There'll be food and other refreshments there as well, so don't worry about having to go get food then come back after the breakout sessions that day.
• I am currently working on the second podcast in the Richard series, introducing WSS 3.0. The second session is going to touch on a little about WSS architecture, as in what web applications, site collections, top level sites, and subsites are; what you might want to consider when planning for them, and thoughts for backing them up in case of calamity.
• I needed a good place to offer videocasts to my attendees from the IT360 conference, so I have decided to offer the 'casts both at my callahantech site and here, just in case the attendees had a preference. Another reason, frankly, for the placement of otherwise non-WSS material on this blog is my web host provider has become very flaky in the last few weeks, crashing entirely over the weekend, causing me to go off topic here in order to have my stuff available in more than one place (basic disaster preparedness...). What this means to you, gentle readers, is that, although you might not necessarily be interested in anything not pertaining to WSS, you will get access to my other stuff if you are so inclined.
• And for those of you who have sent in comments, I haven't forgotten you. I will be responding soon (hopefully tomorrow, but at least by the week's end).

Because of my sudden need to find an alternative to my current host provider, I have been doing a lot of research into other hosts. In doing that I have been rather inundated with all the features they offer. Of those features, Joomla and Mambo seem to come up quite often.

Now, I'd heard of Joomla before (there was a Joomla booth at IT360), but I've been too busy to really check it out. I'd never even heard of Mambo, but both sounded interesting-- being open source content management products apparently similar to SharePoint. Because of this you might end up getting some insight into these products, and how they relate to WSS. I might even test a new host by implementing either joomla or mambo (or if I can, both) at an alternate domain. If I am allowed to let public users in, I'll post the address so you can check it out. Otherwise, I will at least screenshot it so you can see what they're all about.

Understand that I don't consider this being "unloyal" to SharePoint. I think, as a professional, I need to know what's out there. If something else is better, then it behooves me to learn it and offer it to my clients, peers, and friends as an alternative. Their success is my success. And if something else makes them more successful, well, I'd rather be the one that suggested it. Besides, knowing how it directly relates to WSS helps me better explain to people why they might want to stay with my focus product. See, I am not being blindly loyal or biased, just professionally interested. Yeah, that's it, interested...

Mind you, before messing with those other products, I need to first catch up on my 'casts here. Then I need to prep for TechEd, do TechEd, and then (inevitably) recover from TechEd. After that, expect more stuff about these SharePoint alternatives, as well as another thing I am interested in-- Search Server 2008 Express (especially as it relates to WSS, of course).

Thanks for being here so far, and stick around, more things are to come in the continued adventures of a servergrrl.