SharePoint Administration | Notes Administration

Vegas!

We're headed to Las Vegas next week to attend the SharePointPro Summit, March 16-19. Bringing together some of the biggest names in SharePoint, the conference features Tom Rizzo, Director of SharePoint for Microsoft, as keynote speaker. Excitement will be high with the upcoming release of SharePoint 2010. 

SharePointPro Summit features a broad range of classes and workshops. And it gives you a great opportunity to network with industry professionals.

If you haven't signed up yet, it's not too late to register. And if you are attending, be sure to visit us in booth #420 to enter to win a new Tablet Netbook PC!

Big and Fast

"Fast" is not a word normally associated with our federal government. But that's the only word to describe how quickly the recovery.gov site was launched using SharePoint.

Converting from a platform that was not robust enough, recovery.gov took a mere ten weeks to relaunch. That's fast considering the site provides information about $787 billion in stimulus money. In addition, the site can support up to 10 million users an hour.

 

In technical terms, Recovery.gov uses "SharePoint for Internet Sites" as a platform, Bing for their job search, SQL to create a unified data warehouse, and FAST search for the rest of the site.

Check it out at recovery.gov.

Source: Technet article

Free Webinar on ControlPoint

Axceler invites you to an upcoming webcast that will show you how to use ControlPoint to administer your SharePoint environment like a pro. The webcast will take place this Thursday, March 11th at 2:00 pm EST.

In this session, we will show you how to:

• Manage SharePoint Permissions
• Analyze SharePoint Usage and Activity
• Move / Copy Sites
• Clean Up, Manage and Configure SharePoint accounts and sites
• Analyze SharePoint content and storage
• Monitor SharePoint trends
• Set up alerts and Enforce policies
• Audit your SharePoint environment
• Identify governance violations
• And more

Register today!

SharePoint 2010 - Olympic Worthy

Is SharePoint 2010 beta ready for prime time? Based on its performance at this year's Olympic winter games, the answer is "yes."

Used to power the U.S. Olympic website serving journalists with statistics, photos, news and other information, the site was a big hit. 92 percent of reporters surveyed found it helpful.

Raising Money for the Fight Against Cancer

One of Axceler's own, Yancy Lent, will be riding in this year's Pan Mass Challenge raising money for cancer research. This will be Yancy's third Pan Mass after his five year old son was diagnosed with leukemia in 2007.

The good news is after three rounds of chemotherapy, five months in a children's hospital and a bone marrow transplant, his son is now doing well. And Yancy is still riding.

Founded in 1980, the Pan Mass Challenge has raised over $270 million for cancer research and treatment. And for the third consecutive year, 100% of all rider-raised funds went to the cause. Over 250,000 individual contributions were made last year.

The Pan Mass Challenge will take place August 7th and 8th and registration to participate is still open. You can make contributions to Yancy's ride here.

Reasons to Upgrade?

Mark Miller's "Is SharePoint 2010 Relevant?" article got me looking for reasons to upgrade. With that in mind, I found "8 Ways Web Content Management has Improved in SharePoint 2010."

Briefly stated, the main points are:

1. AJAX-enabled interface - fewer page loads and a more intuitive interface
2. The Ribbon - making third-party prodct integration easier
3. WSIWYG Editor - reduces confusion
4. Browser Support - supports browsers other than Internet Explorer
5. Managed Metadata Service - big improvements in this area
6. Tagging & Rating - helps users find similar content and rate its usefulness
7. Content Organizer - helpful for managing a large amount of documents
8. Encouraging Adoption - things are looking good for early adoption

What are your plans on SharePoint 2010- are you an early adopter or are you holding back? Send us mail and let us know.

Is SharePoint 2010 Relevant?

Is the increased hype and fixation on SharePoint 2010 hurting the movement? Mark Miller brings up this provocative point in a recent article.

Miller points out that many conferences have agendas that are "heavily slanted towards [SharePoint 2010]". This leaves many SharePoint enthusiasts in a bind. How can they justify the expense of attending conferences if their organization has no plans to immediately upgrade?

Miller predicts wider adoption of SharePoint 2010 is at least two to three years away. As such, he advises "most people should keep their head down and concentrate on the 2007 environment."

What do you think? Send us mail and let us know.

Hone Your SharePoint Skills

Looking to improve your SharePoint skills? Maybe a SharePoint Bootcamp can help.

The company recently relaunched their website with a complete course listing. Their courses are available as classroom, online or private training to fit your busy schedule.

And it doesn't matter if you are a business owner, SharePoint administrator or a SharePoint architect, chances are SharePoint Bootcamp has got a course that's right for you.

The Big Easy

Axceler will be in New Orleans this weekend for SharePoint Saturday. One of the top ten cities for tourists in the nation, this was not a tough sell.

And the good news is registration is still open and, like all SharePoint Saturdays, completely free.

Sessions include "An IT Managers Guide to New Features in SharePoint 2010" and "Building Infopath Applications in SharePoint 2010" among many others. You can read the entire schedule here. Hope we see you there!

SharePoint Saturday Boston

Room is still available for this weekend's SharePoint Saturday right here in Boston. If you are in the New England area and want to learn about SharePoint, please register for this free event scheduled for February 27.

And if you are attending, please fill out this survey to indicate which sessions you would like to attend. Organizers can then make sure to allot enough space.

For those who don't know, SharePoint Saturday is an informal gathering filled with educational sessions presented by SharePoint professionals. The sessions cover a wide variety of SharePoint-orientated topics.

SharePoint Saturdays are a great way to get introduced to the community. Check the SharePoint Saturday website to see when one will be held in your area.