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SharePoint Newsletter 47

Well here we are once again, spring has sprung and the winter chills are receding! In this packed edition find out about a new SEO book, how Cloudshare can help with test environments, who recently completed the SharePoint 2010 MCM programme and which of the SharePoint Add-Ons you recommended are featured.

We also have the usual features, Best of Blogs, 'in the Spotlight', links to the next three SharePoint worldwide events and also find out if you are named as a Top 10 LinkedIn Member! We hope you enjoy the read!

New Books

SEO for SharePoint Internet Sites - Ian McNeice

SEO Book by Salem A real world, step-by step guide to search engine optimisation for SharePoint internet sites, with critical information that can be applied to any type of website. 18 easy to follow steps that build to ensure that your organisation or brand website is prepared and made ready to be indexed by the internet search engines.

Fourteen years of industry knowledge of SEO strategy has been distilled into an easily digestible, informative guide made available for the very first time. Check out the book on Amazon.

Featured Discussion

Is Anyone using SP2010 ? What are the advantages over SP2007?

Featured Discussion ImageNuru Kamsan asks: Is anyone using SharePoint 2010? Are there any disadvantages as compared to SharePoint 2007?

"SharePoint 2010 offers many advantages over SP 2007. The new structure of the service applications is a big plus, as well as some advantages in workflow running more behind the scenes if you are using the public facing INet licensing and working with anonymous lists. I have worked with SharePoint for going on four years and SP 2010 for over a year and I believe it is a much more stable product!"

Comment on Nurus post here.

When installing SharePoint Foundation at home - do I still need a server?

Featured Discussion ImageJames Turner asks: "When looking at the qualifications for downloading Sharepoint Foundations(for my home) I still need to build a server correct?"

"James, SharePoint 2010 can be installed on windows 7 x64 as a developer environment. If you can do Server 2008R2 PLEASE DO IT. Your last resort would be Win 7. I've done this and I must tell you it is for the person who can tinker and follow explicit instructions.If you miss one step in these instructions then it will not work."

Comment on James post here.

Featured Sites and News from around the web

Bill Ayres : My experience on the SP 2010 MCM programme

Featured SharePoint Site The Microsoft Certified Master programme consists of expert-level training and certification for experienced technology professionals. Before you even get on the program you need to have all four SharePoint MCP exams in the bag, get through a fairly intense application process, and have digested the content that fans out beneath a couple of hundred TechNet and MSDN links in the supplied "Pre-reading" list.

Sharegate: No-Brainer Migration Tools for SharePoint

Featured SharePoint SiteSharegate provides simple and affordable content migration tools brilliantly designed for power users. Its intuitive interface, powerful metadata editing capabilities and full version history support allow you to easily reorganize your content while uploading files to SharePoint and copying SharePoint documents/items from one location to another. Sharegate gives the flexibility needed to be more productive… plus, it’s only $375!

SharePointEduTech

Featured SharePoint SiteSharePointEduTech Ltd. is a Microsoft SharePoint consultancy based on the South Coast of the UK with an office in the midlands. They work with businesses, schools, colleges, universities and local authorities within the UK but also in Europe and America.

They have worked with all versions of SharePoint; 2001 (Tahoe) , 2003, 2007 and 2010 and specialise in the education sector. They also have experience with SharePoint as a hosted solution in the cloud and Office 365 and are looking forward to working with SharePoint vNext (Wave 15).

They have experience in many other Microsoft Technologies including ISA/TMG, Exchange, Live@Edu, SQL/Reporting Services, Active Directory, Hyper-V and Windows Server.

Check out SharePointEduTech at http://spedutech.com

SharePoint Awards 2012

Featured SharePoint SiteAndy Dale is again offering eight prized 'SharePoint Gold Seals of Approval' in his annual awards. Now in its 4th year there are eight categories and 46 finalists. Vote for your favourite here.

Best of Blogs

Mastering SharePoint with Bob Mixon

Bob Mixon is a pretty famous SharePoint blogger nowadays. He is a 5 time SharePoint MVP and has been solving business needs and involved in the technology industry since the 1980’s.

Bob has loads of interesting blog posts on his 'Mastering Sharepoint with Box Mixon'. Well worth a read!

SharePoint Add-Ons

You have recommended so many SharePoint Add-Ons following the LinkedIn discussion Have you used, or know about any SharePoint Add-ons, web parts, applications, templates, services?  we've decided to create an entirely new section for them!

Business Data List Connector (BDLC) from Layer 2

BDLC is available for SharePoint 2007 and 2010 and connects any NATIVE SharePoint list (no Web Part or BCS) directly to almost any external LOB data using common list settings codeless in just minutes:
  • Enter provider / connection string
  • Enter select statement and primary keys.
  • Create structure, mapping and connect automatically.
BDLC is licenced per server (WFEs + Application Servers).

FREE shareware available for download after registration. Contact Frank Daske at fdaske@layer2.de for time-limited full-featured trial or visit the Layer2 website for more details.

StratexPoint from StratexSystems

StratexPoint is an enterprise-wide Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) solution. It enables organisations to clarify their strategic objectives, align their risk appetite and manage their key risks to enable the execution of their strategy.

StratexPoint is unique in bringing together methodologies developed in the fields of performance and risk management such as Balanced Scorecard, COSO Framework, ISO 31000 & 31010. StratexPoint is licensed on a per user basis with Enterprise licenses also available for larger deployments.

Free 30-day trials are available from the StratexSystems website.

Editors Choice

CloudShare - dev and test SharePoint in the cloud

CloudShare gives you the ability to create development and test environments completely off premise. You can choose what you want in your environment from a pre-defined set such as SharePoint 2010 Farm. If you hit a brick wall or break your environment then you can start over with a fresh sandbox in mins. Fabulous!

My favourite feature is the ability to share a "permalink" with other users. When they click this link they are given an entire 48-hour FREE clone of your environment at the last snapshot. We are using exactly this to trial DocRead. You will also find that CloudShare doesn't break the bank. Find out more at the CloudShare site.

Cool Tool

vContact

vCONTACT lets you digitize your business cards which are critical contact details quickly and centrally. You can easily save individual points of contact and relate them to companies. This allows you to get an instant overview of all contacts and companies with which you maintain business contacts.

Thanks to the integrated search feature in vCONTACT you can easily and conveniently find contacts at companies. Activities and contact histories can be simply saved with individual contacts. Take a look here.

Other Vialutions add ons include:
  • vCONVERT allows you to convert files directly inside SharePoint.
  • with vZIP you can perform ZIP compression & decompression inside SharePoint.
  • vSEND allows you to send, documents directly from SharePoint 2010 document library as a mail attachment.
  • Thanks to vTAB WebPart your SharePoint pages will gain overview.
  • Using the vSCAN WebPart you can scan documents and save directly in SharePoint.

LinkedIn the Spotlight

Nikolas Craik

Nikolas Craik ImageNik has worked in IT as a web developer and technical analyst for 12 years, working with private companies such as 3M and IBM, educational institutions such as The University of British Columbia, and various aboriginal government organizations. After years of making public facing websites using open source software, he became a SharePoint administrator in 2008 and has been hooked ever since. Since then, he has worked on various SharePoint business solutions, governance, migration, and training projects. The best part of his job is seeing people's eyes light up when they realize what is truly possible with SharePoint, and how much easier their lives can be when leveraging that power.

Currently he is a SharePoint Administrator for Health Information Technology Services Nova Scotia (HITS-NS) [link: http://hits-ns.nshealth.ca/]. HITS-NS is mandated by the Nova Scotia Department of Health and Wellness to provide support to entrusted provincial information systems that facilitate the sustainable and efficient delivery of health care in Nova Scotia, Canada. View Nik's profile on LinkedIn.

Top 10

Top 10 LinkedIn members

The Top 10 list this week is dedicated to the LinkedIn members who responded to my recent post SharePoint Add on - DocRead, I got some great feedback and wanted to 'share the love' back! Unfortunately, as this is a Top 10 list, i only have space for 10, but many thanks to everyone who contributed!  

  1. Stevon Dennis -  SharePoint Administrator at Technisource
  2. Julian Colls - Business Development Manager at PointBeyond
  3. Sai Chundur - Solution Architect at Yoursp2010
  4. Marta Sidun - Product manager at EnovaPoint, UAB
  5. Neville Attkins - Senior Sharepoint Consultant at Colt
  6. Teresa Neely - SQL Server DBA/SharePoint Consultant; DetriTech Services, LLC
  7. Bonnie Surma - SharePoint Consultant for TCSC
  8. Debbie Watson - Director, Equdos Services Limited
  9. Jay Simcox - Senior Consultant at Summit 7 Systems
  10. Robert Manole - SharePoint Expert at Haufe-Lexware

DocRead is a compliance solution that allows publishers to request that employees read and confirm their most important documents.

The Early Adopter programme offering 50% discount on licence costs will close on 16th March, to download a fully functioning evaluation version for SharePoint 2010 click here.

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Help us

Help usWe strive for this newsletter to be the latest and greatest about SharePoint from those involved with our 'SharePoint 2007 & 2010' LinkedIn group. If you want to suggest content for any of our sections, please email us at info@collaboris.co.uk and we will do our very best to include it.

To join in with the discussions, why not visit the group on LinkedIn now?

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