January 2007 Blog Posts
New drivers posted for various MS Hardware Devices at: http://www.microsoft.com/hardware/windowsvista/support.mspx Includes for the first time LifeCam, XBOX60 controller, Habu and Reclusa, along with thier presenter mouse.
Via Randall (http://blogs.msdn.com/randalli)
We have officially made the released versions available (we refer to it internally as “RTM,” or released to manufacturing) of the MOSS SDK for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and the WSS SDK for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0!
· Download the MOSS SDK: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=6D94E307-67D9-41AC-B2D6-0074D6286FA9&displaylang=en
· Download the WSS SDK: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=05e0dd12-8394-402b-8936-a07fe8afaffd&displaylang=en
The good: Hardware readiness.No doubt Microsoft has the inside skinny for drivers and such like, but the excellent new devices shipped to co-inside with the launch of Vista all work, and work very nicely. The new functions work as expected and is the new keyboard simply awesome for typing. This is the best keyboard since that on the Sony VAIO SZ1. Magnify on the mouse now works (it didn't in beta drivers) and I've previously mentioned the task switch button. Also working fine is the fingerprint reader, although on a domain joined machine, this is of little practical use. I am...
So every year I try and catch anything interesting from Macworld and the WWDC. Last night I caught up on the QTM of the whoopfest that was Job's keynote. Jobs is always good, but damn was this year a pitch or what. It started with the usual "we've sold a ton of this stuff this year" and "aren't we great for moving to Intel" fluff and then moved on to the "real" content.
Oh hey, before he came on stage a small tribute to the godfather was made. Enough said.
Towards the end Jobs (whom has a quote fetish) quoted somebody famous saying...
Check it. Telerik have annouced the beta release of thier cross browser web content authoring environment.
Following on from my blatant plug for Mind Manager a few days ago, SP2a is now available offering Vista/Office 2007 compat, bug fixes and Office integration goodness. Check it out here.
Oh dear, I just looked at this site in IE6 and realised none of my PNGs are being displayed correctly. Teaches me for not BrowserCaming it. Hmmm, looks like I need to be some nasty javascript to rescue the situation.
Nice Windows Vista Ultimate Extras over here, including the full motion desktop resurrected from previous pre-release versions!
No breaking news here (is there ever?!) but I thought I'd post on Mind Mapping software for those of you who may not have seen it. A few years ago a very clever lady put me on to "mind maps", an ideas visualisation and management tool. Very cool, especially in the rush rush rush nature of the consulting business. Anyway there are a number of software packages available and the best of the bunch is Mind Manager from MindJet. Why the best you say? Well it's becuase of the feature set and UI slickness, which in some of the competitors...
OMG! Acrobat Reader 8 is actually decent! Have I turned into a commercial software pimp? ("he's aways been one", I can hear you in the back). Well no, it's just such a surpise! Long, long ago (in web years) Acrobat (and the PDF format) was cool. Seriously cool. One of the reasons was the reader didn't suck too much. Once Adobe realised the opportunity however, featuritus took over and years of bloat and spyware ensued. Reader was basically evil, real evil - like frames, or marquee tags. It got so bad that some dude put together a speed up acrobat widget which improved...
Check out Arpan Shah (Group Product Manager) talking about SharePoint Technologies over on TechNet Radio: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/community/tnradio/archive/shah.mspx. He was also interviewed at TechNet NZ: http://www.techedlive.co.nz/upload/teched_angus_arpan.wma Source: What to look for in the next few months... Originally published on Sun, 07 Jan 2007 20:21:00 GMT by arpans
Oh dear, I've been tagged with this one, so here goes. Hopefully my things won't be completely inane, but no promises...
I have no formal CS training whatsoever.
In fact I don't even have a degree. There was no opportunity for me to undertake one (and I have no regrets/axe to grind about this). I studied Graphic Design and Photography earning things called HNDs and then got a job using Apple Macs. This worked out extremely well for me in terms of career - it's how I got started in the web page making business a couple years...
It is a common misconception both among customers and those in the (ahem) consulting business that SharePoint Technologies can be deployed as a wholesale replacement for traditional file server based shares within an organization.
Whilst moving to the new world of work can indeed dramatically reduce the amount of data stored (and used) in this manner (think personal drive or the common general dumping ground for all manner of tat) this perception is very dangerous and should be debunked at the earliest possible opportunity to save you from a world of hurt.
So are SharePoint Technologies a suitable replacement for your existing File Shares?...
The good (awesome in fact): ReadyBoost, which allows you to use a USB key or flash card as virtual memory. This is very clever. If you are laptop user, get yourself a SD card (or Memory Stick) and slap it in and forget about it. Watch out for compatibility however, the support for flashcards varies - check out the essential Q&A. Also check (and contribute to) Grant Gibson's ReadyBoost Compatibility Chart. The bad: Adding Fonts. Hmm looks like this one suffered from no love whatsoever. I guess it's not too important, I mean how many folk manually install fonts...
The Good: I've long been bemused as to why the Windows "full fat" client didn't have an implementation of multiple clocks. Let's face it for time zone stradlers (or cricket lovers for that matter) this is a must have. Pocket PC had it in like '98 or whatever, and so does your Windows based phone - well I guess that's all the same thing right? Installing some nasty shell addon just for this essential feature was just rubbish, given the general quality of widget software (especially in the UI). Anyways, Vista has finally fixed this with it's "Additional Clocks". Simple, but all...