A blog by Pilothouse Consulting
Andre
SharePoint trainer and consultant at Pilothouse Consulting, Inc. Creator and developer at Treatment Report http://www.treatmentreport.com.
Homepage: http://www.pilothouseconsulting.com
Posts by Andre
SharePoint VMWare Image Improvements
Dec 27th
Running SharePoint Server 2010 on VMWare on laptops with 4GB of memory but without a solid state drive can still be sluggish if all the service applications are running.
After many SharePoint 2010 classes this year, we’ve concluded that the following services were worth turning off as they freed up a lot of memory used in SharePoint and made lab experience much better for our students.
- Usage and Health
- Web Analytics
- Access Services
- Word Automation
- Performance Point
It’s simple to turn the services back on when necessary, but for most part they are not necessary to learn the core SharePoint functionality.
SharePoint 2010 Works Well In Different Browsers
Aug 3rd
I regularly access SharePoint 2010 through Chrome, Firefox, Safari and the results are pretty good. For reading purposes, there are no limitations. However, when working with document libraries, IE handles editing documents and the others don’t (unless Office Web Apps are installed). Also, the datasheet and explorer views only work on IE.
Office Web Apps vs. Google
Jul 1st
Recently Google updated its Google Docs service and Microsoft officially released Office Web Apps. Office Web Apps servers several purposes:
- Provides a free limited web-based version so that people can upgrade to the full client product
- Provides web-based editing of Office documents in SharePoint (If someone does not have a client on his computer or phone)
- Competes with Google Docs
Google “Document” is definitely more feature rich than Office Web Apps Word Document which is missing some obvious features such as:
- Inline commenting
- Version comparison
- HTML/CSS editor
What’s interesting is that SharePoint List concept is not present in Microsoft’s approach (well, it’s in a completely different online offering). Google, on other the hand, is trying to add SharePoint list functionality to its spreadsheet by adding Add/Edit forms mapped to rows in the Spreadsheet tables and a small amount of business logic. Of course, right now it’s nowhere close to SharePoint + InfoPath + Designer combination. Also, I am not sure that Google convergence will work out. It will be interesting to see what happens when people try to build more complex apps on top of Google spreadsheets or whether Google’s Wave paradigm will be more successful.
For using Office Web Apps with SharePoint, check out this video: http://edge.technet.com/Media/How-Microsoft-IT-Enables-Office-Web-Applications-in-SharePoint-2010/ The later part shows co-authoring feature of editing the same Excel with multiple people (just like Google Docs).
SharePoint Integration Looks Promising on Windows Phone 7
Jun 25th
Windows Phone 7 will have some interesting integration with SharePoint. The demo below focuses on Word. I would be curious to see exactly how InfoPath integration works because it is going be a killer app for business use. Instead of writing custom apps, business users will be able to create forms linked to SharePoint and collect data via mobile devices (probably offline too).
I am not sure that Windows Phone 7 will take off on the consumer side right away (too much competition), but for business, it’s going to make a case.
They just need to get rid of white and blue text on the black background. Google has proved that black text on white background works better.
SharePoint 2010 requirements are ahead of most laptops for training purposes
Jun 21st
In the last public SharePoint 2010 class we had to provide preconfigured laptops to about 70% of the students. Surprisingly many laptops with 4GB of RAM and Intel processors do not support virtualization on the chip and many come with 32 bit OS which wastes about 1 GB of RAM.
I am still surprised that Microsoft is pretty much killing Virtual PC by not allowing guest 64 bit operating systems when many of its new products are 64 bit only. We’ve used Virtual PC since 2003, but now it’s all VMWare as it’s the only viable solution for training. Sure MS recommends other options that we ruled out after spending enough time to realize that they would be a nightmare in a classroom environment.
- Booting from a VHD. If you do it right it works well. If you mess it up (and don’t back up the boot record), you are in real trouble
- Using Hyper-V. Well, how many people do you know that run Server 2008 on their laptops?
- Installation of all software on Windows 7 is possible, but not something that you should expect from a student before class.
Setting up VMWare image takes 10-20 minutes which is about how much time you have before someone gets frustrated with setup. Hopefully, people will keep upgrading their laptops to processors that support virtualization, solid state drives, and 64 bit operating systems. This way we don’t have to ship big boxes to/from DC.
Intuit – when cloud computing does not work
Jun 16th
As a company, we rely on a number of Intuit services as well as their accounting software. Generally, we like to host our own applications if we believe that we can do a better job than the external provider. In the case of Intuit, they have been decent with their online services but not that great. I believe a big part of it is that they outsource too much themselves.
It’s amazing that most of their sites have been down for 20 hours now. This situation gives a bad reputation to online/cloud services.
Top Five Improvements in SharePoint 2010
Jun 14th
- Using InfoPath to edit list forms – no longer there is a need for a developer to design form layout, logic, and conditional formatting.
- List navigation based on metadata – the best of both worlds: hierarchical navigation by folder, or metadata navigation based on column values.
- More consistent terminology and cleaner pages – for example, permissions management pages are no longer confusing.
- Clean and fast SharePoint Designer – it’s easier to make improvements when you start from scratch and that’s what SharePoint team did here. Better workflows and ability to create external lists and content types are a great plus.
- Cleaner Central Administration and PowerShell – No need to develop .net console applications, script anything using PowerShell
Overall the trend continues to configuring more out of box and only developing functions that add immediate value.
Thoughts about Microsoft’s future
Sep 24th
In 2000, when I picked up a book about ASP.NET Beta, I was impressed with Microsoft’s ability not only to copy Java, but make it simpler and better. In the next couple of years I switched from doing Java/Oracle projects to .NET/SharePoint projects. It turned out to be a great call. SharePoint is a product that Microsoft got right even with all of the problems it has. .Net has practically became a standard within the enterprise and now promotes all of Microsoft server products.
I am fairly loyal to Microsoft products even outside of the corporate world. I have an Xbox and a Zune (and this is after a couple of IPods).
So why I am writing this? Microsoft is clearly losing the battle on the consumer side and it’s only a matter of time until Google/Apple make a much stronger case in the corporate world with Google documents/Gmail/Iphone/Android etc.
Why is Microsoft losing the battle? Steve Ballmer’s ineffective leadership and poor execution.
Some of the major execution failures under his watch:
- Zune (F) – failed to copy Apple feature set; horrible desktop software.
- Live.com (C-) – took too long to roll out; did a couple of reactionary to Google/overpaid acquisitions.
- Vista (B-) – perceived performance is bad; lied about system requirements on the initial roll out (I like Vista with 4GB of RAM, but XP was still faster).
Shareholders should demand a better track record from a CEO of the largest software company in the world. Microsoft still has a lot software power and a few simple adjustments would really help the company and likely the stock price:
- Get a new CEO – somebody from a successful Microsoft business unit such as Xbox or SharePoint.
- Lay off hordes of contractors and limit frivolous hiring. In the last year, the number of employees Microsoft hired is equivalent to 55% of Google’s total workforce. And I though Google hired too many. Contractors make Microsoft more and more like IBM.
- Focus on performance. Stop assuming that the hardware will get better and better. Deliver products that require less RAM and CPU.