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| Owen Allen Blog for Work and Family. Work, mostly, as that is where I spend most of my time, but I'm not very much without my family. Time spent with my family is so incredible that it eclipses the vagaries of work. Definitely unbalanced. I hope you enjoy these musings on the blog, as random as they may seem. Please contact me (owenall@hotmail.com) with any suggestions. |
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9/1/2008
Hi folks,
I've decided to switch blog providers (again), and return back to my original home, http://blogs.msdn.com/oallen. I've ported over all of my posts from this blog, so you'll be able to find them there. (FWIW).
I'm also changing roles within Microsoft, and I'm leaving the field, where I've worked for the past 6 years, directly with customers, for a turn at Microsoft corporate. I'll work as a Product Manager for SharePoint. I'm looking forward to the new role and the new areas and partner companies to help with. 4/21/2008
Hi Occasional Reader...,
I am moving my blog (again) and finally changing my feed to a feedburner feed (so if/when I move it again, the RSS settings won't change).
I hope that you will join me.
(This site will probably be decomissioned as soon as I can figure out how to move my posts over to the new site... so change your feed reader now!) I was reading Dan Holmes' SharePoint Newsletter today and he talked about his observations in regards to SharePoint Search v1, v2, and v3. Did you realize there were 3 versions of SharePoint Search being discussed now? 2 are released, and the third will be in Office 14. How did the second version get released if we still only have MOSS 2007 and, someday, Office 14? I thought he said it pretty well, so I'm including a portion below. You can read more of Dan's articles on http://www.officesharepointpro.com.
Search: a Case Study of Innovation and Delivery
Last week I reviewed the success of SharePoint search, but I'm going to return to it for a moment. Talk about rapid innovation! We're going to devour what they've got cookin' in vNext. There's no doubt that the investments that Microsoft is making in search to take on Google are paying off in a big way for enterprise search.
I had not stopped to consider that Search Server 2008 is really "version 2.0" of MOSS Search. That means that Search got a "new version" just 18 months after the release of the "first version" (MOSS). It introduced new capabilities and did a lot of back-end optimization. Microsoft will be releasing an update for MOSS to bring its functionality up to the same level later this year, and the upgrade will be seamless. SharePoint 14 will therefore be "version 3.0" of MOSS Search, will introduce important new capabilities, and the upgrade promises to be equally smooth (e.g., hopefully no rebuilding of indices). It's this kind of rapid-release of incremental improvements to functionality that our community really needs.
The "wait 3 to 4 years then do a big painful migration" model that Microsoft puts us through on most of its products has got to change. What we're getting from Search is exactly what the entire industry is searching for from a deployment and manageability perspective. And what I see as an analyst is a product making deliberate steps forward, rather than lurching and jumping forward like, say, the Windows client (Vista), which illustrates the risk of waiting too long then jumping. I hope the rest of Microsoft is paying attention to what the SharePoint Search team has achieved.
4/14/2008I understand that this is short notice, but there's an event this Thursday evening in Seattle that will be worth the time of any SharePoint fans in the area. The NW Chapter of AIIM is hosting an event titled, "The Evolution of Content Management – Microsoft and the SharePoint Solution". While most members of the Puget Sound SharePoint Users Group will already grok SharePoint well beyond this level, I know that there are other folks within your organizations that do not. This presentation promises to be an easy way to help your friends understand why you live and breath SharePoint and why you feel that it is a critical I.T. service offering within your organization.
Two speakers are on the docket. Dave Healey, a Sr. Product Manager for SharePoint from Microsoft, and Robert Langer, from Global 360.
The cost for this event is $20 for AIIM Members and $25 for Non-Members. This cost includes the program, an appetizer, and a dinner.
The event will be held at the Best Western Executive Inn, 200 Taylor Ave N, Seattle, WA., on April 17th, from 4PM to 7:30PM.
Registration should be made by April 14th. (Sorry for the short notice). Register by email to aramsay123@aol.com, or online at http://www.aiim.org/northwest, or by phone, +1 425.681.4689.
I'll see you there! 4/13/2008While I love using PowerPoint slides as much as the next person, sometimes I find that unrolling a printed diagram and placing it on the table and getting everyone to review a sample SharePoint Logical Architecture Model is a wonderful way to introduce SharePoint concepts that are hard to grasp in other ways.
There is a white paper that describes this architecture model on TechNet, titled Logical Architecture Model: Corporate Deployment. This architecture description includes a link to a visio model, Design Sample: Corporate Deployment Logical Architecture. I took this file and had FedEx*Kinko's print me up a couple of dozen of this printouts, and when appropriate, I hand them to SharePoint administrators when I have this discussion with them.
The basic idea is that a SharePoint Farm for the Fabrikam company is described within this model. There are two SharePoint farms, one that includes the Intranet and the Partner-facing Extranet application, and one farm for the Public Internet site. Within this model, the following SharePoint concepts are illustrated:
- Web Zones (Intranet, Extranet, Internet, etc.) and Zone Policies
- Different Authentication Models
- Multiple SSPs
- My Sites
- Web Applications
- Collaborative Team Sites
- Secure Content Authoring and Publishing
- Content Databases
- Application Pools
- Site Collections
It's all good stuff. This is a model that keeps on giving back insights into SharePoint architecture beyond the first review. Post it somewhere on your cube wall and when the day gets to tough, take a few minutes to gaze upon this model and simply allow the SharePoint sweetness to soak in. 3/31/2008
Mindsharp will be holding a SharePoint Summit in SeaTac, Washington (very close to SeaTac Airport), on May 19-23. Mindsharp will be offering 5 (FIVE!) classes this week. 2 are 3-day classes, and there are 3 5-day classes. This will be a great opportunity for your entire office to come out and get trained together. Tracks offered this week include classes for Developers, Administrators, Designers, Enterprise Content Management, and Search. See the Mindsharp Web site for more details. <UPDATE> If you are one of my customers, mention that I referred you for a 15% discount. The Ted Pattison group is coming to Redmond the week of April 21. Two classes are being delivered, SharePoint Workflow and SharePoint Publishing. Two very sharp gentlemen, Chris Predeek and Andrew Connell, will be delivering the classes. To register, please see http://www.tedpattison.net for details. If you are one of my customers, mention that I referred you for a 15% discount. 3/20/2008
Back in January (a few life times ago in OOXML time), I posted an entry where I fat-fingered the name of the new Ecma document file format that has been in the news a lot recently. I wrote the name as "Ecma Open Office XML" when it should have been "Ecma Office Open XML". At that time, some friends in Canada used that example to illustrate the vast confusion in the world that existed about the name of the proposed standard. When word got back to me, I posted a comment to that post and mentioned my mistake. Today, I heard that some friends in Ireland are pointing to the same post, and complaining that this naming confusion continues to be rampant in the world, and that all of the efforts of National Bodies in all of the ISO-participating countries, who have worked so hard to bring order and to craft improvements to the standard, have been for naught, because I switched the order of a couple of words while typing. *sigh*. I am proud of the hard work that Ecma and Microsoft, and so many other technology companies and concerned individuals have put forth in the effort establish a document file format that is backwards-compatible and will provide a path for future-proofing information and history. I've been fortunate enough to have played a very small part in supporting this effort, and it's been a wonderful engagement. If either of my 15 readers are interested in more information about the Ecma Office Open XML file format and proposed standard, please visit http://www.openxmlcommunity.org.
- The Open XML Explained book (English PDF) is here: http://openxmldeveloper.org/articles/1970.aspx
- An Open XML Developer Workshop is here: http://openxmldeveloper.org/articles/DeveloperWorkshopContent.aspx
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US to vote "Yes" on Open XML Standards bid, Computerworld Article (20 Mar 2008)
2/7/2008Campaign 2008 has been a learning process for Mitt as well as it has been an introductory process for the country. Mitt has made incredible progress in the last year. Today he gave a stirring speech where he lays out the issues facing the country today and in the near future.
Mitt quoted from David Landis, and spoke about how important our culture really is - in the direction that our civilizaton is moving - it is culture that makes all the difference.
Mitt described the American culture, portions of which are dependent on opportunity and hard work and achievement. This is where the strength of our culture is derived from. He then commented about how entitlements and welfare and other governments programs that foster dependency are a threat to our national culture.
I quote from Mitt, "Dependency is death to initiative, risk-taking and opportunity. Dependency is a culture-killing drug. We have got to fight it like the poison it is. "
After describing his optimism for the future, and his challenge to all of us to confront the challenges that lie ahead, he suspended his presidential campaign so that the national campaign will not be stalled.
If you have not listened to today's speech, I encourage you to do so. You will find the link here:
Romney has set a great bar for others to follow. I hope, and have faith, that Mitt will continue to lead in subsequent years. The conservative voice needs a leader, and Mitt has the tools to provide that voice and that direction. I hope that John McCain will recognize Mitt's capabilities and not be fearful to include such strength within his many positions of counsel.
2/4/2008I tell you. I am beside myself. One day away from what may be called one of the most important days of our cultural history, and some faceless media person, perhaps in cahoots with the public, and probably claiming that this is based on a "POLL" of some sort, (I'm shaking as I write this - can you feel the shock and trembling in my writing?), has foisted upon us a most significant and upsetting media story. Distorting the truth to a degree that someone less cynical than I would jump to the conclusion that there was "AN AGENDA" behind the FRAUD. Yes, of course, I'm talking about the incorrect rankings. When the media places one entrant above or below another entrant, they are sending a message. Well, I've had enough of the fraud that is the "most popular Super Bowl commercials, as listed on aol.com." I'm going to provide my own rankings. 1. I'll go with the crowd that the Budweiser - Rocky commercial was number 1. It had some great thematic elements in it (you could almost see the horse's breath - as if they were doing this in actual cold weather!) 2. However, number 2 was where the fraud began. (Is that a word?) No question about it, the E*Trade commercials with the Baby were #2. I can only say that some "Conspiracy Theories" abound that the media, because it hates all things that have to do with capitalism and free trade, docked this commercial a few points. (Let this be a reminder to the media, that E*Trade isn't really offering Free Trades, just lower priced trades and higher savings interest.) 3. Diet Pepsi: What is Love - This was hilarious. I watched this one while in the St. Louis airport between flights, and the other 16 travelers who were crowded around an airport HD flat screen display all cheered for it. I might watch the Super Bowl in an airport next year - the seats weren't bad, the restaurants were close, and the hallways were light (not a lot of travelers). 4. Will Ferrell... need I say more? 5. The Bridgestone squirrel was actually pretty good. The grasshopper was a nice touch. 6. and 7. Go Daddy: Danica Patrick and Go Daddy: White Light tied here. (Yes, of course I'm talking about the web versions - everyone saw those, so those votes should be counted!) OK. At this point, they could have just repeated the above 7 commercials over and over again, IMAO. 8. and 9. The Bud Light Breathe Fire was cute, and the "I Can Fly" needed to build on the new franchise, but it took it down a notch... 10. The Balloons - more fraud. This was ranked #3, but I can't figure out what the conspiracy theory is for this one... Something about the irony of Charlie Brown flying through the air while a little Lucy held the football pulled back be her ear and yet CB *still* got the coke? Some tribute to Mr. Schulz? The ranking of the remaining commercials, I'll leave as an exercise for the reader. Don't let the media get away with this fraud! :-) See all of the commercials, and the fraudulent rankings (unless they've been sufficiently chastised by this posting) here: http://sports.aol.com/nfl/superbowlads. Update: I forgot the FedEx commercial and the Shaquille as a jockey commercial... both are better than the Bud Light commercials. Those commercials (fire breath, walk through walls, flying) start interesting, but the tagline "this <insert special ability> no longer in Bud Lite" doesn't quite close the deal. |
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