SharePoint Saturday, Baltimore continued

As promised, I've got my presentation slides (in PDF) for the Frugal Admin Series: Session two- How to create a Dashboard (without code or SharePoint Designer) available temporarily for download. The session was intended to be about an hour in length.

SharePoint Saturday, Baltimore

I finished my adventures in Baltimore over the weekend and wanted to give a shout out to the wonderful organizers, attendees, and fellow speakers. I had a great time and, once again, the SharePoint Saturday audience was the best audience ever. I wish I had had more time to teach more stuff. I'm really greatful for all the appreciation they showed for the work I was doing. It makes all those hours prepping content worth it.

Speaking of content, please stop back in a day or two as I will have (until it's posted on the SharePoint Saturday Baltimore site) the slides for the Dashboards session available for download. It'll be in PDF form, ready to be read like a tips and tricks, recipe book for my faithful attendees.

Thanks again for attending. In the future, barring unforeseen circumstances, I expect to be presenting at the DC, New York, Cleveland/Columbus, and Pittsburgh SharePoint Saturdays. I wanted to give you all a heads up, as the Baltimore event filled up 12 hours after registration opened.

Also, for those of you who end up wait-listed. There ended up being less people that expected by mid-day in Baltimore. Now the mechanism for keeping track varies by site, but for those of you waiting to see if you can get in on the day of the event-- if you're turned away in the morning, check back later, there may be an opening for you then. I felt really bad that there were people from my area that wanted to go, but stayed away because they weren't sure the drive would be worth being locked out anyway.

And for those of you who have never attended a SharePoint Saturday-- these events (as I listed under the Happenin' Things heading in the right column of this blog) are FREE for attendees. They are put together and offered by volunteers in locations all over the US, as well as abroad. Check out http://www.sharepointsaturday.org/ for more about all the events going on.

IF you find an event that you plan on attending-- register as soon as possible, because they are filling up as more people know they're happening. The sessions vary by location (depending on what presenters can attend). Methods concerning wait-listing, registering, location types, etc., also vary per site- so check that site's website for real details about the event.

The vast majority (if not all) of the presenters are MVPs, so the quality of these sessions is top notch. These things are not some cheesy, marketing oriented, low quality shlock. This is serious, grassroots, community oriented, free information sharing from those of us in the community who know SharePoint and believe that you should know it too. There's developer stuff, admin stuff, power user stuff, etc., depending on who's speaking there. Always check the particular SharePoint Saturday site's sessions to see what's happening that you'd like to learn.

And please remember, we the speakers are offering our services for free, at our own expense, at these events. We're are doing this for you between our day jobs and other commitments. So if you like what we're doing, please let us know. It's what makes it worth it, and encourages us to do it again at the next location. : )

BTW-- I started Twittering (is that the right word?) especially for the Baltimore event, but plan to keep twittering for all events I work from now on. If you'd like to follow me, my Twitter username is: cacallahan.

Some sneak peek info about the next version of SharePoint, SharePoint 2010

This morning Microsoft posted some preview info about SharePoint 2010 on their SharePoint site: http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/2010/Sneak_Peek/Pages/default.aspx. This site has several videos, one for a general overview, one for IT Pros, and one for Developers. In addition, there's data on what kind of specs the new SharePoint will need.

What isn't covered, and this isn't surprising, is what exactly will be in the new Server edition, and what will be available in good old SharePoint Services 2010.

As far as details, well, they're being held of until October, for the SharePoint Conference in Las Vegas. Apparently, it's at that event that SharePoint 2010 is really going to be unveiled.

Now, I can send in abstracts for the event and possibly speak there. However, I am not sure what people would like to see. So if you've got ideas for sessions, questions about the new version of SharePoint Services that might be a good session topic, or otherwise think it's a good idea for me to present at that event, please let me know. : ) I've been spending the summer doing Frugal Admin stuff, and could use some brainstorming.

A few SharePoint-y things going on

I've got two things going on this month involving my sessions that I thought you might want to know about:

1-- The SSWUG folks are rebroadcasting every, single session I've ever done for them (including the ones that are not my favorites, lol). If you're interested (and you are/or want to become a member of that online SQL user group), the sessions will be streamed essentially back to back on the 22nd and 23rd of this month (July 2009). I'll be there for the live chats if you'd like to come visit. To see what those sessions are, check out their blurbs in the "Happenin' things" section of this blog on the right of the page.

(Some inside knowledge for my readers, the frugal admin series of sessions were done this year. The camera set up in the "new" studio was a bit awkward for me, but otherwise I was pretty well rested, familiar with the situation, and healthier. However, for the sessions that are being repeated from 2008, I wasn't so lucky. I was completely new to talking to a camera in an otherwise empty room, had a bit of food poisoning that day, and was suffering from a touch of undiagnosed clinical hypothyroidism (it's since been taken care of, but at the time I was struggling to do the hours and hours of presentation in the new environment). The first presentation of that set (and still my favorite content to do, ever) was about exploring (and exploiting) the free templates available online at Codeplex and Microsoft (namely the fantastic 40 templates). Since then I have expanded that session for the frugal admin series to include a bunch of nifty free tools... but I digress. That freebie session, as it were, is the best of the 2008 sessions, because it was the first one. After that I was so completely exhausted I was grey. So if you'd like to see me working under duress, feel free to stop by and check out those additional 2008 sessions... ; )

2-- On July 25th, I'll be in Baltimore (actually at the UMBC training center, 1442 South Rolling Road in Halthrope Maryland) at the free SharePoint Saturday event, presenting the Dashboards session of the Frugal Admin series. I am not sure exactly when my session will be that day, but I am hoping it'll be in the afternoon, for those of you wanting to drive up and check it out. I'll be giving away a free copy of my book (I only have three copies for giveaway there)-- and, of course, I'll be glad to sign it for you. This is a live and in person event, at no cost to you (except for travel), so if you can make it, I'd love to see you there.

In August I hope to have more time to finish creating the fall and winter Frugal Admin sessions. This will also be the time I put the spring sessions to pasture and offer them for free on my site (making those videos will take some time, so they'll be up no earlier than the end of the month). So stay tuned, this busy summer should soon be winding down, which will give me more time to post things here (and I do have all kinds of ideas).

Post TechEd stuff

Howdy all!

My apologies for not posting sooner, but once again, my life has gotten busier than a fox in a crowded hen house. Since January, I've been travelling to conferences and summits every month (sometimes, several times a month). Recently I did SharePoint Saturday in DC, May 2nd. Then, two weeks later, went to LA for TechEd, then a week and a half after that, I went to London for two weeks. So I have been busy, away from my computer, and distracted. My apologies, gentle reader, if you felt neglected. I've been thinking of you, when I had the rare moment available for contemplation.

To start-- TechEd.

Well, I got some training on Sunday, the day before the event actually started (although there were some pre-conference sessions going on). I had to register to get a conference pass to be allowed into all the rooms I needed to access.

Normally, during registration, the attendees (and volunteer staff) get their goodies for the event; t-shirt, bag, pen, etc. This year, for some reason, the staff were given the bag, with the event catalog, some junk mail type stuff, advertisements for exhibitors, exhibitor contest stuff, etc., but no event T-shirt. Yeah, expensive bag, but no collectible Tee. Supposedly they did that to save money, but I'm not seeing it.

I also got to go to the pre-event MVP stuff. I didn't know that MVPs got a little extra training, like MCTs, during the event. That was really nice. Thanks guys.

Now, for those of you that had been following my story, getting to go to TechEd was a bit of a rollercoaster ride for me. I had originally applied to work the event as an MCT, as I have been doing for years. Last year I had been assigned to work in the Certification area of the conference (both weeks, whew). I'd had misgivings because I had dedicated so much time to Windows SharePoint Services (both 2.0 and 3.0) in the past years that I'd fallen behind on the Certification front. I did some work prior to the event to learn how certifications had changed in the interim, what they meant, etc. It turned out that I *loved* the certification area. The attendees were really cool, and I really felt like I was truly being helpful. It made the time I was working fly by. So this year, on the application, I flatly requested to be assigned to Certification. I'd also worked the MCT booth, but I just didn't feel as helpful there and were prefer to do Certification again.

Well, guess what? They cut the entire certification part of the conference for "budgetary reasons." Thus, my application was rejected. Maybe I shouldn't have been so adamant about really only wanting to work in that area, lol.

For the first time in years, I wasn't going to qualify to go to TechEd (and no, I really couldn't afford to simply go out of pocket).

Then I got an opportunity to apply as an MVP. I'd never done that before (obviously, since I was awarded for the first time this year), and had assumed that, since I was applying as an MVP, I'd be assigned work that applied to my area of expertise. I was really looking forward to it, if I was accepted, because I'd be able to talk to people all day for five days about SharePoint.

And, surprise, surprise, I was accepted! Yay!

Then I read the fine print. It appeared that I was chosen (rather late in the game as well, maybe I was a third round pick?) based on some secondary stuff I could do with the server (I had coauthored some Server stuff for Mark Minasi, Vista with David Pogue, travelled around the US doing presentations on server security and deployment for years, and beta tested all the server OS's since 2003).

So I wasn't going to be talking about SharePoint Services with anyone at TechEd, officially. Apparently, they didn't need me for that. Instead, I was going to be working a booth the Windows Server area.

I, of course, needed some additional information, as I've never done that particular job at TechEd before, concerning what exactly I'd need to do; responsibilities, expectations of the attendees concerning the booth's content, etc.,. It turned out that, out of all the booths there, I had to pick which one I was qualified for-- of course, that means I needed to know what all the booths were about. Unfortunately (and those of you who attended know what I'm talking about), the titles of the booths didn't really tell me what they specifically were going to cover, and I couldn't seem to find anyone who could give me any help in that regard.

Even more unfortunately, during the time in which I was trying to get this information, was also the time of the big layoff of Microsoft employees before TechEd (very bad timing in my opinion). The long and short of that story being, I ended up at a booth that required me to know everything new about Windows Server 2008 R2, but I really didn't know that until I showed up.

**Did I mention that all I've been doing since the summer of 2006 was SharePoint Services? I mean, yeah, I had beta'd 2008 (I was on the 2008 R2 beta, but couldn't spend a lot of time on it), and could install WSS on it, but really I was doing SharePoint all the time.**

So there I was, Monday morning, bright and early, standing at my booth, desperately learning everything I could about 2008 R2 (Huge shout out to Joey Snow, who wasted his valuable time loading demos on my booth computer and giving me content to learn), and, because it'd been a pet peeve of mine before the event even started, what each booth on the conference floor did.

It turned out that most of the Server booths at the conference covered most of what you needed to know about 2008 R2 (except security, because, strangely, the security people kept sending attendees to my booth), but there seemed to be no coherent idea as to where all that knowledge was actually located. There was no map of what topic was covered where for the sake of the attendees or staff, until I made one (hand scrawled on some sheets of notebook paper). So my booth ended up covering the following information:

-- Windows SharePoint Services administration (yes, attendees, despite my incognito location, still found me to ask questions, bless their hearts. Big thank you to them for making my week)
-- Active Directory Recycle Bin (my fave!)
-- Power Management (cool, Mark Minasi mentioned some things that you can do at the command line that are nifty)
-- Directions to the correct booth when attendees where led to my booth with questions no one else seemed able answer (the answer is out there, it's just a matter of finding the expert in the sea of people).

I did a lot of directing. I also had particular moments of fun, like when an attendee, who wandered by the first day, ended up helping me read the several pages of directions when I went through the Active Directory Recycle bin demo for the first time. We learned together, and that was fun. Every time after that that I did the demo, I thought of him. Thanks, whoever you were, for your patience and support.

Needless to say, I spent a lot of time that week doing nothing but server 2008 R2. It was fun. It gave me something to think about besides SharePoint. It also gave me ideas about SharePoint on 2008 R2 (okay, I really couldn't completely stop thinking about SharePoint). It also gave me a real, in the trenches, look at R2's Hyper-V.

Also, during the conference, thanks to meeting Joey Snow, I got exposed to something called "Firestarter events." Firestarter events are community focused (meaning free, and underfunded, think user group), driven by the speaker, who wants to present, essentially first look content, to the people in their area. The speaker, such as myself, would have to find a venue, get the word out to the community, maybe some sponsors, etc., as well as have the equipment to run the demonstrations.

I really want to do a Firestarter event in my area on 2008 R2 using the demos I had at my booth. I think it'd be fun, interesting, and really educational for my neighbors. My hometown isn't what you'd call tier one in Microsoft's eyes, and because of that we tend not to get the big launch events here. It'd be nice to do something for my peers that feels like an important pre-release event just for them.

Mind you, it's not SharePoint, but while I am waiting to get my hands on the beta for the next SharePoint release (yes, sadly, I still have bupkiss in terms of a beta look, and I'm a SharePoint Services MVP), I could be doing something else for the community. You know, still keep my fingers in the pie, technology and community-wise, in the interim.

One of the big things that would make or break my being able to do a Firestarter event, is if I have equipment that can run the pre-made, Microsoft official, Virtual Machines set up specifically for the Firestarter demos. If I can't run them on anything I own (and I am not ready to buy anything else this year), then I can't do the event.

That's why I've spent the last week installing Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 on my Macbook Pro. I needed to see if I could do it, how it ran, and if I could run Hyper-V well enough to do the Firestarter demos.

And of course, being me, I documented everything I did in my other blog, Adventures of a Servergrrl-- the Server Edition, over at msn spaces (or is called Live Spaces now, I can't keep track). So if you want to see what I've been so busy with that I wasn't writing here, or if you'd really like to see what it's like to install Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 straight up on a Macbook Pro, check it out there.

** I decided to put all that elsewhere, since it's not really a SharePoint thing. I used to have one blog with everything in it, but it got kind of unwieldy, containing virtualization, server, SharePoint, and miscellaneous stuff. So I broke it out, for the sake of the audience, into topics. Thus there's a WSS blog, a Server blog, and a miscellaneous, personal stuff blog.**

Bottom line, Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 do support EFI, meaning it will load and boot on an intel based Mac. There is a trick to getting the Windows 7 64bit or Server 2008 R2 disc to boot on the mac (it's a bug in the way the iso was made, not a flaw in the OS itself), but it all works... well except for some 64 bit drivers, but that's to be expected. Hyper-V is also easily supported as well.

I'll let you know if I do get to do any firestarter stuff (and let me know if you're local Microsoft office or user group might want me to travel to your area to do demos).

Now, on to SharePoint stuff.

I will be in Baltimore on July 25th (well, I'll actually be getting there the 24th, and leaving the 26th, but anywho) to do a SharePoint Saturday event. I'll be doing an hour long, basically standalone version of the "How to create your own dashboards," which is the second session in of the Frugal Admin series. I did the third session "How to create your own custom site template" in DC in May, so if you caught that and wanted to see the drill down as to some of how the site got to be customized before you made the site template, stop on by.

Check the "Happenin' Things" widget on the right side of this blog for details about the event as I get them (like exact times, address of venue, etc.).

After that I am hoping to have some downtime to catch up on doing blog things (I have so much stuff to podcast, vcast, and blog about that's WSS related it's not funny). I am also working on the next three sessions in the Frugal Admin series.

So please stay tuned, as I continue my servergrrl adventures.

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.

Happy Earth Day!

Howdy everyone!

It's Earth Day today, http://www.earthday.gov/, and in a bit of interesting timing, it's also the first day of the SharePoint VConference (virtual conference) over at the SSWUG site: https://www.vconferenceonline.com/shows/spring09/sharepoint/.

Participating in virtual events are a great way to be green, as you save money on travel, hotel, wear and tear on your luggage, clothing, you, etc.

This time, for this vconference, I did sessions concerning getting the most out of WSS, seeing as many of us (all of us?) need to be able to stretch our time and dollars as far as we can. The sessions start with exploring the built-in web parts available with WSS. The point of the session, for me, was to give you an idea as to what's available in order to have you consider how useful they can be for you. Exploring, very, very quickly, the settings, views, zones, and configuration of the web parts. In addition, I have to admit that I was also focusing on getting the audience to understand web parts so they can use them for dashboards.

Why? Because the second session took those web parts, well at least the list view and content editor web parts, and make them into dashboards. I created two dashboards, one for users and one for management, during the session, securing them as well, then added them to the quick launch. Part of what I was doing with the dashboards was preparing you for the idea of having the resources of a site self-contained in that site.

Why? Because the final session was how, after setting up nice web parts and good dashboards, you can create a template out of the site itself. So it helps to show you how and why, first hand, centralized resources are useful in a site.

The final session, of course, covers how to create a site template out of the site used in the previous two sessions. It starts with what to consider, self-references, how to maximize the size limit for templates, how to create the site template, how to apply a site template, and then how to check to see if it really works and how to tweak it to be appropriate in the new place. I focus in particular as to what you might want to do with a site template, and what to worry about.

(and, because I had one minute and thirty seconds left, I tossed in a "contact us" page and showed an example of using google maps in the content editor web part by using the source editor-- just for those who stuck it out for all three sessions)

Now, for you, my dear readers, I will give you some insights into the sessions from my view, behind the scenes. Last time I recorded vconference sessions, I was really, really nervous and was suffering from a bit of food poisoning (had to eat at an airport on the way there...). This time, I had some real problems on the flight there (lost luggage, delayed flights, then cancelled flights, then a really, really late arrival-- 3 am my time), didn't get to sleep until 5am my time.

Needless to say, I was pretty groggy while at the studio. Sigh.

For the session slides, I was torn. I could have a few graphic filled slides and all demos, or I could have text that could be used as notes so attendees could use them later and a lot of demos. I went for word filled slides, and simply stated that I wouldn't be reading them all during the session, just hitting the highlights. I did try to go over as many as I could to a certain extent, but I also did simply do much of the content, then just gave some slides a mention.

Also, I was really afraid, because I was going to be going so fast to build web parts, dashboards, then site templates, that I was going to lose the more inexperienced viewers. So I might've gone too slow during the explanation portion of the session (tell them what you're going to do, tell them/show them how to do it, tell them what you did). If so, please forgive me, dear readers, I meant well. ; P

Finally, my big issue is, I am used to presenting exactly 1, 1.5, 3, or 6 hour sessions. For this vconference, I had fifty minutes. That's it. I lost ten minutes out of my carefully crafted Frugal Admin content.

And it did kick my butt a little. But, I tried to avoid compromising the content as much as I could.

So now you know, this is where I was while doing my sessions for this conference. I was exhausted, distracted by the truncated time, worried about not giving enough backstory so the attendees could follow along, worried about pacing (because of the loss of the ten minutes and my exhausted habit of rambling-- made worse when I am alone in a room instead of having a live audience), and determined to give you as much hands on proof of what works and what it looks like as I could.

If you want to see what I am talking about, my session are going to be broadcast tomorrow, Weds., April 23rd, 2009. If you are interested, feel free to register (not free, but pretty cheap) for the vconference at http://www.vconferenceonline.com/shows/spring09/sharepoint/. Feel free to use my tell-a-friend code VCTAF502105-0, or the discount code SPVCCASP09. Keep in mind that you can also sign up for the on-demand feature, meaning you can download the videos to see review later.

Another thing to keep in mind concerning sessions you've downloaded, is you can pause and rewind the video so if, during the live session, there was a bit that went too fast, with the on-demand version, download it, and rerun the session, pause where you need it.

Just a thought. : )

Happy Earth Day everybody!!