There have been three major browser updates in the last few weeks, all of which come with their own quirks. As of this latest round of updates I need at least three browsers installed to do my job. My newsletter admin tools don’t  like IE9. A polling site I use doesn’t like Firefox. Chrome displays things in odd colors (sometimes). I have been working in the tech industry long enough that I should know better than to download updates the day they are released. Maybe you can help explain… why do I feel the need to download the latest version of everything even when I know that there will be issues?   –Chris

Top News Stories
SharePoint Tries to Keep Up (MIT Technology Review)
The collaboration tools discussed this month in Business Impact all have one thing in common. One way or another, they will run up against the market leader: Microsoft’s SharePoint software, which is used by more than 100 million people around the world. SharePoint’s success can be attributed to several factors. One, it does a lot: among other things, it lets employees share documents, search internal files, coordinate tasks, and send each other instant messages through a central portal. Second, customers like the fact that it works well with other widely used Microsoft products, such as Exchange e-mail and the Office software package. Third, Microsoft offers a basic version of SharePoint free to companies that run servers with Windows software.

How to Encourage Staff Interaction Through Social Media (NetworkWorld)
Scenario: Getting staff to actively participate. Jean-Claude Blaimont, VP of Information Systems for Europe and Africa, McCain Foods. McCain’s 350 IT staff perform similar or complementary functions on five continents. To take advantage of the experience we have available, we are using Microsoft’s SharePoint collaboration solutions for announcements, document sharing, wikis, blogs and discussion forums. Our goal is to get all these people from different cultures and locations working as one team and benefitting from each other’s localized knowledge.

Google Apps vs. Microsoft BPOS, Office 365 – Part 1 (CIO)
IT behemoths, Microsoft and Google, have for years been embroiled in battles over who would control the move by different industries to the Cloud. Since at least 2007, Australian universities and education authorities eager to outsource their email have turned to either provider in lieu of limited competition from the market. For the next battle, however, the stakes are higher. Both Google and Microsoft are betting all of their chips on a sector that is likely to prove much more lucrative than any before it: Enterprise.

Chrome 10 vs. Internet Explorer 9 vs. Firefox 4: FIGHT! (ComputerWorld)
It’s Monday; time for one of Richi’s ridiculous review roundups. In the browser wars part deux, our tripartite protagonists are Google Chrome, Microsoft Internet Explorer 9, and Mozilla Firefox 4. In IT Blogwatch, bloggers tabulate and cogitate.

There’s More Than One Way to Get Microsoft Server App Virtualization (ZDNet)
There’s going to be more than one way for customers to take advantage of Microsoft’s server application virtualization (Server App-V) technology when it becomes commercially available later this year. I didn’t understand this until I saw a new blog post on March 25 on the Microsoft Virtualization Team Blog.

An Analysis of the AMD Move for Windows 8 (Windows 7 News & Tips)
Windows 8 will be a departure for Microsoft for many reasons, but none will be bigger than the move to support ARM low-power processors for tablet and other embedded devices. This will be hugely welcomed by all sections of the technology community as it’s long past time that Microsoft offered an embedded version of Windows that supports the full interface and software features.

The Windows Phone PR Debacle: Will Microsoft Ever Learn? (LiveSide)
There have been a number of incremental news stories regarding the Windows Phone NoDo update since we last posted on the subject – unfortunately none of them are either good or even have much to do with the update itself.  To be honest we’re tired of the whole mess, so excuse this little rant but it’s time Microsoft faced up to some basic problems with the way it treats the consumer audience.

Time To Let Workers Bring Their Own Mobile Phones (Forbes)
Young workers and their strong affinity for go-anywhere technology are changing the shape of the enterprise as they force businesses to adapt to the speed at which they work. The youngest members of the workforce as well as college-age users make up a “Millennial” generation that communicates at a relentless pace, moving effortlessly from one computing device to another. For them, the “best” computing device is the one that’s most convenient, and the most ‘useful’ stream of data is the one that’s accessible immediately.

 

Around the Blogosphere
SharePoint Documentation as E-books: Tell Us What You Think (To the SharePoint)
We’ve been hearing from some of you at conferences and in email that you want to be able to take TechNet content offline on your e-readers (Amazon Kindle, Barnes and Noble Nook, and so on). We’re starting to figure out how to do that, and we’d love more input. Please leave a comment about which e-reader you use and what content you’d most like to read on an e-reader. If you’re looking for something to read offline immediately, here are some resources.

Fix SharePoint 2010 for Opera Part I (SharePoint Blues)
I can’t use IE9 because UAG doesn’t support it yet on VPN connections. I can’t use IE8 or older because they don’t play well with the rest of the Web. I can use Google Chrome, Apple Safari, Mozilla Firefox and of course Opera. SharePoint 2010 plays fine with all these new generation browsers, except for the one: Opera. Opera isn’t supported, and I’m glad to disagree.

Fixing SharePoint 2010 Foundation Search After a Domain Migration (BrainLitter)
Ah, the life I lead. It’s 11:49pm on a Sunday night and I’m tired. This will be an ugly and sporadic post, as I want to go to bed… But I figured I’d better share before this drops out of my head (ala Brainlitter). Here’s what happened today.

Episode 39 – Todd Carter on What is a PFE (The MOSS Show SharePoint Podcast)
In this interview we speak with Todd Carter, a Principal Premier Field Engineer about the role of a PFE at Microsoft, looking at the clients, the situations, the type of work and the tools PFEs use to service customers.

Register Now to Save $400 on SPTechCon Boston (The Bamboo Team Blog)
SPTechCon will return to the East Coast this summer, moving across the Charles River from Cambridge to Boston proper for the 2011 conference, taking place this June 1-3.  Don’t miss this opportunity to attend technical classes and workshops presented by SharePoint luminaries including (but by no means limited to) Todd Bleeker, Robert Bogue, Andrew Connell, Ben Curry, Todd Klindt, Mark Miller, Michael Noel, Joel Oleson, Laura Rogers, Heather Solomon, Dux Raymond Sy, and Shane Young.

Guest Blog by NewsGator’s Melissa Risteff: March Madness! NewsGator’s ‘Elite Eight’ E2.0 Benefits (The Bamboo Team Blog)
With all the flurry surrounding the NCAA tournament, we thought we’d take a fun approach at reflecting on the hard business benefits of technology investments. So, acting like our own E2.0 selection committee, we took the top 68 benefits and narrowed them down to NewsGator’s Elite Eight – featuring some good statistics on the real benefits of Enterprise 2.0 technology. Like all good selection committees, we wanted to make sure that only the best eight benefits were included, so we used stats, like a poll of attendees from our recent 2011 NewsGator Collective User Group Meeting, and a recently released McKinsey Quarterly report on a survey of 3,249 executives weighing in on Web 2.0 in business.

Guest Blog by NewsGator’s Brian Kellner: Part Two: How Business Social Computing Could Help the National Football League (NFL) (The Bamboo Team Blog)
Earlier this week I blogged on how fans might help break the NFL’s labor stalemate. So, let’s assume that things will get worked out and we’ll have not only a draft but also a 2011 regular season. How can business social computing help with the draft? I think two ideas are really interesting here: fan ranking of draft candidates and ranking of team needs by current players.

 

SharePoint Job Listings*
Enterprise Support Engineer – Denver, CO
Provide 1st and 2nd level technical support for NewsGator product lines, including desktop products, Enterprise products, SharePoint solutions, web-based products, and NewsGator web services. This position is customer facing and requires frequent contact with NewsGator enterprise customers typically System Administrators and IT function level management. Candidate must be well versed in all aspects of customer support.

SharePoint Engineer – New York, NY
We seek a senior SharePoint engineer with a strong understanding of SharePoint as well as the underlying components and OS. Extensive experience in designing and implementing SharePoint/IIS/ASP.NET web infrastructure. Candidate must be very hands-on with deep understanding of the Windows infrastructure and framework (e.g. knowledge of IIS metabase, experience http handlers, understanding of custom providers etc.) and networking concepts. Must demonstrate skills to design, engineer and code for performance and scale in near zero fault tolerant environment. Must be able to troubleshoot and debug problems at the application level to the underlying OS.

 

Microsoft Updates
Deploy a Client Tool for Taking SharePoint Content Offline (Video) (Microsoft TechNet)
This video shows how to deploy Microsoft SharePoint Workspace 2010 to SharePoint client machines so that end users can efficiently synchronize offline work with SharePoint sites. In order to benefit from this video, you should have expertise in the following areas: Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 administration; SharePoint site administration; Microsoft Office 2010 policy deployment.

 

SharePoint Events*

• March 29, Online - Bamboo Solutions Cloud Applications Webinar
• March 30, Online - Bamboo SharePoint Project Management Central Webinar
• March 30, Online - Bamboo SharePoint Essentials Webinar
• April 2, Los Angeles, California - SharePoint Saturday
• April 2, San Antonio, Texas – SharePoint Saturday
• April 6, Online - Bamboo SharePoint Project Management Central Webinar
• April 6, Online - Bamboo SharePoint Workflow Conductor Webinar
• April 6, Orlando, Florida – How to Effectively Plan, Execute and Control SharePoint Projects
• April 7, Online - Bamboo SharePoint Project Management Central Webinar
• April 7-9, Oslo, Norway - Arctic SharePoint Challenge
• April 9, Boston, Massachusetts – SharePoint Saturday
• April 9, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota - SharePoint Saturday
• April 9, Perth, Australia – SharePoint Saturday
• April 11-13, London, England - Best Practices Conference
• April 12, Online - Bamboo SharePoint Essentials Webinar
• April 12, Online – Bamboo SharePoint Calendar & Scheduling Workshop
• April 13, Online - Bamboo SharePoint Project Management Central Webinar
• April 14, Online – Bamboo SharePoint Data Visualization & Dashboarding Workshop
• April 14, Online – Bamboo SharePoint Lists Workshop
• April 17, Las Vegas, Nevada - The Experts Conference 2011
• April 20, Online - Bamboo SharePoint Project Management Central Webinar
• April 20, Online - Bamboo SharePoint Workflow Conductor Webinar
• April 20, Online – SharePoint Administration Webinar
• April 20, Online - Leveraging External Content Types in SharePoint 2010 Webinar
• April 21, Online - Bamboo SharePoint Project Management Central Webinar
• April 26, Online - Bamboo SharePoint Essentials Webinar
• April 26, Online – Bamboo SharePoint Data Visualization & Dashboarding Workshop
• April 26, Online – Bamboo SharePoint Lists Workshop
• April 27, Online - Bamboo SharePoint Essentials Webinar
• April 28, Online – Bamboo SharePoint Calendar & Scheduling Workshop
• April 28, Online – Going Social without Going Crazy, or Broke Webinar
• April 30, Copenhagen, Denmark - SharePoint Saturday
• April 30, St. Louis, Missouri – SharePoint Saturday
• May 7, Houston, Texas - SharePoint Saturday
• May 14, Troy, Michigan – SharePoint Saturday
• May 17, Las Vegas, Nevada - Leverage Microsoft Project 2010 with SharePoint 2010 for Project Management Success @ NACSTech
• May 18, Online - Success is Spelled with U: You should get Users Involved Webinar
• May 19-20, Denver, Colorado – SharePoint Fest
• June 1-3, Boston, Massachusetts – SPTechCon
• June 8-9, Vienna, Austria – SharePoint Konferenz 2011
• June 11, Sri Lanka – SharePoint Saturday
• June 15, Online - Secure and Accessible: Records Management Done Right Webinar
• June 18, Sacramento, California - SharePoint Saturday
• June 20-21, Ullesthorpe, Leicestershire, UK - Delivering SharePoint Success Exclusive Mentoring Workshop
• July 27, Chicago, Illinois – SharePoint Fest
• July 30, New York, New York - SharePoint Saturday
• August 11, Chicago, Illinois – SharePoint Fest
• September 24, Manchester, New Hampshire – SharePoint Saturday
• October 3-6, Anaheim, California - Microsoft SharePoint Conference 2011

 

SharePoint Training*

• March 29-April 1, Washington, DC – Office SharePoint 2007 Power End User – Mindsharp
• March 29-April 1, Online – Office SharePoint 2007 Power End User – Mindsharp
• April 4-6, Winchester, Virginia – SharePoint 2010 for Power Users – SusQtech
• April 5, Dallas, Texas – Applying SharePoint 2007 – MOSS Core Features – SharePoint Solutions
• April 7-8, Rosslyn, Virginia – SharePoint 2007 Power User Level I – SusQtech
• April 11-15, Washington, DC – SharePoint 2010 Core Technologies – Mindsharp
• April 12, Nashville, Tennessee – Mission: Automation – SharePoint Workflow and InfoPath – SharePoint Solutions
• April 18-20, Chicago, Illinois – SharePoint 2010 for Power Users – SusQtech
• April 18-21, Washington, DC – SharePoint 2010 Power End User – Mindsharp
• April 19, Chicago, Illinois - Introduction to SharePoint 2010 – Using SharePoint Foundation 2010 – SharePoint Solutions
• April 19, Dallas, Texas – Applying SharePoint 2007 – MOSS Advanced Features – SharePoint Solutions
• April 20-21, Online - InfoPath 2010 Power End User – Mindsharp
• April 25-29, San Francisco, California – SharePoint 2010 Core Technologies – Mindsharp
• April 25-29, Minneapolis, Minnesota – SharePoint Designer 2010 (Beta) – Mindsharp
• April 25-29, Minneapolis, Minnesota – Create Branded Solutions with SharePoint 2010 Web Content Management Beta – Mindsharp
• April 26, Dallas, Texas – Exploring SharePoint 2010 – New Features – SharePoint Solutions
• April 26, Dallas, Texas – SharePoint 2010 Upgrade and Planning – SharePoint Solutions
• May 2-13, Winchester, Virginia – SharePoint 2010 Immersion – SusQtech
• May 17, Dallas, Texas – Introduction to SharePoint 2010 – Using SharePoint Foundation 2010 – SharePoint Solutions
• May 17, Dallas, Texas – Introduction to SharePoint 2010 – Using SharePoint Server 2010 – SharePoint Solutions
• May 23-25, Winchester, Virginia – SharePoint Designer 2010 – SusQtech
• May 24, Nashville, Tennessee – Exploring SharePoint 2010 – New Features – SharePoint Solutions
• May 24, Nashville, Tennessee – SharePoint 2010 Upgrade and Planning – SharePoint Solutions
• May 26-27, Winchester, Virginia – Styling & Branding in SharePoint 2010 – SusQtech

* Please contact Chris Dooley (chris.dooley@bamboosolutions.com) to be included in SharePoint Daily™.

 

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