SharePoint – thoughts on sharepoint.microsoft.com

http://sharepoint.microsoft.com had a face lift.  I decided to go have a quick look and make some comments.

Nice bits

• The site looks cleaner
• It is running on SharePoint
• Sign-in is tied with Windows Live (passport)

Horrible bits

• View Source was horrifying – I had hoped it may be running on SharePoint 2010 – but it looks like it’s still MOSS 2007
  • Big viewstate
  • Big initialize data for SilverLight
  • These are all things I’d hope to see disappear when we finally see SharePoint 2010…  I guess I’ll have to keep waiting.

Awesome

• Great HTML comment in the footer of the page:

<!---

Developed by Celina Moser Baginski

For questions and/or comments, please email me at

[email protected]

--->

• Given that this is on every page – I assume it’s on the master
• I can’t fine Celina Moser Baginski when I went to browse around http://www.consejoinc.com/ though.  Makes me wonder – if you don’t talk about your employees on your company’s own site, why would you let them put their email addresses directly into the master page of your client’s site?

SharePoint – Microsoft Certified Masters, and why I should care

A couple of weeks ago, the first batch of MCM: SharePoint were announced.

Curiously, I went to see what it takes to be a SharePoint master.

Initially, I had assumed that it was just going to be a higher level of certification after you’ve completed the 4x MSTS: SharePoint certificates.

First reaction was: woah US$18,000?  Hmm… sounds a bit crazy.

Realizing that it is a 3 weeks training course made the money side more acceptable.

Seriously, if a company will send their top SharePoint architect on a 3 week full time training, US$18,000 – this must be some serious crack.

But then starting to read about what they say after completing the training

http://www.harbar.net/archive/2009/05/07/reality-check-microsoft-certified-master-for-sharepoint-2007.aspx

It begins to dawn on me that this is not your average level yet-another-certification.

It is a massive amount of work, time, effort.  In fact I would argue that the money aspect quickly went out the window with the shear amount of work that’s required to actually make it, and pass it at the end.  If you can take that much time off from client work to get through the course, by all means go for it!

Here are more materials.

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/mcp/master/Sharepoint/default.mspx

So finally, what does this all mean for me?

For now, as a personal goal - I’ve decided to chew through the pre-reading list.

http://www.dynamicevents.com/MCM/MCMSharePointPre-Reads.pdf

They even provided a nice checkbox column for me to tick them off as I go…  nice!

I think if I can get through these 81 documents before SharePoint 2010 comes out it’d be awesome!

Migrating from Windows Live Spaces to SquareSpace - outline

This is going to be a series of blogs, and hopefully release source code for getting your blog out of Windows Live Spaces.  I want to split this into two major sections, and then have a few trailing articles discussing the differences and things as I encounter them.

First Half: Export your blog data out of Windows Live Spaces

• No export option
• MetaBlogAPI – documented on MSDN
• Export to some sort of format: XML?  MoveableType?
• Cleaning the data
• Exporting comments?

Second Half: Import your blog data into SquareSpace

• Using a format that SquareSpace understands
• Unhappiness with documentation – regarding DYI imports
• Imported Blogs go under a new journal
• Migrating content between journals

Extended Time:

• Release code
• Gotchas
• Data cleaning
• Pictures

SharePoint: Groove assimilated by the Borg (aka SharePoint)

Prepare to be assimilated by the Borg.

http://blogs.msdn.com/groove_development_team/archive/2009/05/13/makeover-for-groove-sharepoint-workspace-2010.aspx

...Groove is getting a new name as of the coming release of Office 2010. Please welcome SharePoint Workspace 2010!

The name makeover is in concert with the direction the product is going. SharePoint Workspace will provide easy access to SharePoint content (or content from any server that implements the publicly documented protocols) in an effort to provide a seamless online/offline experience.

Groove SharePoint Workspace and OneNote will appear in Office 2010 Professional Plus (yes that’s the name... it’s a bit ridiculous).

Regardless, Groove has always been a pretty niche product – people that have used it liked it. Other people didn’t understand what it did. Now that it gets this re-branding I think there will be a lot more interest in this product and the offline capabilities. Good move on MS.

My colleague Marlon always complains to me that he can’t get his docs from SharePoint when we put our SharePoint on maintenance...  I’m sure he’ll be happier now.

jliu

What am I looking for in SquareSpace

Going to spend this next week seriously giving SquareSpace a twirl.  I'm looking for:

• Easy maintenance
• Import from spaces.live.com without doing something really stupid
• Better traffic tracking - compared to Windows Live probably anything is better
• Comments with OpenID

 UPDATE:

Maintenance - I seem to be able to make the changes I wanted - looking for info in the FAQ / forum is awful though.

From Windows Live Spaces to SquareSpace - ended up writing my own MetaBlogAPI export for Live Spaces to MoveableType txt format, then get squarespace to import it.  Again the help dialog is bad and it wasn't clear why things weren't working - have to go back to import page to see the error.

Traffice tracking - I know it was better already

No comments with OpenID - I think in this generation if you have to force someone to create an account in your particular blogging system just to comment - there's something wrong about it.