Archivi categoria: Technology

Live Online SharePoint Saturday EMEA

image As far as I know, this will be the first SharePoint Saturday held in EMEA Region.
This formula of events held on Saturday, is pretty famous in the US, but not as much in Europe. We’ll see how it goes.
This version is an online one. It wouldn’t have been possible to organize an in presence event like it is for the SPSatrurday in the US.

Though, It would be nice to have one in italy too. Claudio Brotto, one of the italian mvp, is already a speker of the current emea chapter.

Follow the buzz on twitter: #SPSEMEA

I’ll be joining online sometime on Jannuary 23rd, 2010 (there’s a conflict with the italian UGIAL.NET 5th conference, which for the second time is on my own company’s offices).

We’ll see how it goes.

Graffiti CMS – Remove Google Analytics tracking for selected users

As I posted on this “warm-up” post I am running my personal blog using Telligent Graffiti CMS, main reason: I like telligent’s products and approach, and I wanted to test this product of them on my shoulder.

I am very happy about it, set it ip and customezed it very quickly; the bad thing is that its future is not clear yet (is it sometime it is not updated). Anyhow, for the time been, I keep using it and sometime I need to implement some changes.

 

This time I wanted to stop Google analytics, which I implemented on the site, to track my own site access (or generally speaking, any access from an administrator)

To accomplish this, I found this article by google “How do I exclude my internal traffic from reports?” , which reports how to set-up a custom filter to exclude traffic coming with special conditions.

Among this, there is the option to set a variable, using a JavaScript call

pageTracker._setVar(‘siteadmin_access’);

This variable is set within the Analytics cookie, which last for some time (but since cookie can be reset, I wanted to be set for all admin sessions)

Having understood that, I then needed to define how, within Graffiti CMS, to execute this javascript call: it needs to be executed only from the users which I wanted to exclude.
I then went through the “Graffiti CMS” official documentation (read: I went through someone else code to find out stuff similar to mine 🙂

The result is the following: to modify the layout page of the theme you are using (in my case SleepyBlue) which can be found here: Home > files >themes > SleepyBlue > layout.view

On the bottom of the page, befor the </html> closure, I added the following code:

#if ($macros.IsNotNull($user))
#if($macros.CanViewControlPanel($user))
<script type="text/javascript">pageTracker._setVar(‘siteadmin_access’);</script>
#end  
#end

Note: Since this call needs the pageTracker object to be instantiated, it require the Analytics call to he executed before.
Within Graffitics CMS, there is a specific call to include a generic analytics plug in, which is:

$!data.Site.WebStatistics

This call, in my customized-theme case, is called within the <head> section of the page.
(if you’re wondering where the Goolge js need to be defined in graffiti: go to the “Control Panel > Site Options > Settings > Web Statistics”)

 

 

Now all I needed to to, is from the Analytics Settings to create a filter:

From the Analytics Profile, add a new Filter.

 

image

 

Using IE8 Developer Toolbar, I verified that the cookie was corretly setup

image

 

As you can see, the cookie expires is in two year 🙂

HTH,
Alberto

Speaking at MS SharePoint & Office Conference – Milan March 2010

This year ended with a good news: I will be speaking at the #SPOC2010 Microsoft SharePoint & Office Conference, scheduled for 9-11 March 2010.
It is a real pleasure to be there among the twenty speakers of the conference.

I will be presenting a session dedicated to the new social features, which are pervasive within many of the new functionality of the next version of SharePoint; my session’s mate will be Marco Rizzi with whom I am sure we will bring a lot of knowledge on this.
Nowadays you don’t develop “social applications” in the enterprise just because it is fancy or it is fun (even though it is more fun than developing standard applications 🙂 ). Most of the application that are currently been developed, or that are already in use, can leverage social functionality to connect people to people, colleague to colleague or employee to partners, so that the interaction between people is more effective and productive, and produce more relevant shared information.

More details to come 🙂

This is the official site: http://www.sharepointconference.it/

See you there!

My POV on MS SharePoint Conference 09

I am trying to reorganize my mind after this full-immersion of brand new contents that have been presented during MS SharePoint Conference 2009 in Las Vegas.

It’s not so easy during these tough economic days to be able to participate to conferences like this. Fortunately I was able to make it.

The overall comment about SharePoint 2010 is that it really rocks!! I think MS included most of the highly demanded missing feature to bring the SharePoint platform to the next level. I currently like most of the architecture and new feature implemented. Though I would need some time (quite a lot to be honest), to evaluate them fully since the platform is even more huge.

I also noticed some things that I already do not like, but let stay positive in this post (they might even decide to complete them on next builds 🙂
 

I tried to put down some of the things I appreciated most, but it started to be a very log list and a long post. This then won’t be a fully comprehensive post of all of the new enhancements, but only some of the stuff I liked most.

For a full list of feature, I forward to some official sources [1]
Below you can see the map of all the main features:

MS SharePoint 2010 Features

 

SharePoint Foundation

The overall architecture of the product has been enhanced. The most evident feature which to me bring benefits are:

  • Revised and more Fluent UI
    all the UI has been reviewed, making the platform far more intuitive than the previous one. Now the interface make use of Ribbons (like for Office), overlay windows and inline editing which provide a very consistent user experience
     
  • Wiki edit mode EveryWhere
    Wiki is implemented in every web page, making it possible to edit on the fly a page, like it to others using the [[ ]] sintax, which now implement an autolookup mechanism in order to reference pages and objects.
    This also allow selection and reference of all the content present on a site, allowing for instance to include on a webspace a chart image coming from another report page
     
  • MetaData EveryWhere
    Now it’s possible to define several type of MetaData, which can be use to implement taxonomies or folksonomies, navigations, and further enhance social feature around interests and experts.
    MetaData can be defined at Enterprise level using the EMM (Enterprise Managed Metadata), in order to provide a common way to structure information architecture; this can be defined to provide specific tag-set on specific sitecollection, webapplication or also to be shared among different Farms.
    The use of personal tags is available.
    Automatic Tagging is also possible through the definition of specific rules on libraries
     
  • Cross Browser support, Multilingual interface and WCAG 2.0 support
    this should further facilitate development of SharePoint application, which in some circumstances weren’t just worth it due to the complexity of implementation  of those function. Now they are build in on the platform.
     
  • Office WebApp
    Be able to open a word document online, without the need of downloading it first; or also edit it online simultaneously with other colleagues, it’s just tremendous.
    Excel Services also looks promising, and better implemented this time 🙂 Most importantly, their information can be easily be used as source for web content or to be integrated within other processes
     
  • Document Management
    Also this part of the product has been enhanced; most important feature include the new type of item, the Document Set: this allow to create a group of document as a single consolidated atomic work product. This allow to mange the Document Set with all of the other feature (tag, comments, move, approve, etc). Enhanced Record Management and Document routing feature are also provided

 

Social Feature

  • Tagging, Commenting, SocialBookmark and Rating
    This was one of the most awaited feature (and one of the most implemented custom on Moss 2007) It fully leverage on the Metadata Infrastructure and provide tagging and commenting of both SharePoint content and also external web site comments.
    It can be used to track content both for personal future retrieval and for sharing the content with colleagues which can both track a single colleague (and see what he is tracking) and follow directly a tag (hence seeing everything  is tagged using that specific term).
    This widen so much the possible implementation of solution leveraging these features.
     
  • Colleague Activity Feed
    It is now possible to track activities which our colleagues do within the platform; this includes tagging and commenting of content. More importantly, this can be customized to implement custom activity tracking (i.e.: within a workflow, when a user approve a procedure this can be published to his colleagues or a specific audience). 
     
  • People and Expertise Social Search
    The overall Search implementation looks very good. New filter by focus, expertise and other user property are automatically provided and can be customized in order to enhance experts look-up.
    Social feedback is now included in the result relevance computation, meaning the a document with tags or rating gets better visibility on search results
    Phonetic search has been included, so that the platform try to search terms misspelled (this is most important on English speaking implementations)
     
  • User Profile and Organization Profile
    The overall user profile has been enhanced; but most importantly a Organization Profile is now been implemented, making it possible to define profile information for Corporate Company or Company Departments (depending on the type of implementation).
    The overall navigation of the organization hierarchy has been enhanced as you can see on the screenshot below

     

Development

On the development side, in my opinion the two most important point are:

  • Customization/Development model
    The overall customization model can be re-organized in my opinion. Now the use of SharePoint Designer as customization tool can be fully embraced, since this now implement a way by which export any customization to a wsp package, which can be further enhance later-on using VisualStudio 2010.
    This can now allow quick implementation of customizations and changes on the platform, which can then be managed using an enterprise approach, deploying them properly, storing them on a Software Lifecycle platform (as TFS)
     
  • Platform Extensibility
    Now the SharePoint platform seems to be a real application development platform which has been designed to be extended in the future and from customization (in the past, some classes or component were not open to customization, and that made it more difficult or simply time expensive also for some easy changes).
    Now the platform implement a comprehensive set of API, which are exposed through webservices and rest api
     

Also this topic has been enhanced

  • Form/Process Services
    I quickly sow some examples of how new SharePoint Designer, along with Visio and Infopath can now be used together to implement human based workflows.
    I will need to better deep down on this point, but as far as I sow, this push ahead the need of adopting a platform like K2 or Nintext (which of course implement fully the BPM approach).

 

There’s a lot to be better analyzed and understood (including some component which I didn’t had the opportunity to follow like: Composite application, Business Connectivity Services and Mobility support).

I hope to be able to share my findings in the future.

HTH
Alberto

 

[1] Source of further information:

SharePoint Designer Activation

The fact is that most of the SharePoint Developers hates it.

It’s at least 3 month from when I rebuild my machine that my sharepoint designer keeps asking to activate it.

Now that I am going to do so:

 

image

I’m not going to do that until 3 more month 🙂

Everybody crazy for socialmedia

I am currently here sitting while I download locally a Youtube video about Creating an Innovation Mindset; it needs to published on the customer intranet to be shared with all people on the company.

Why’s that? I am currently working on a project for the launch of a company internal socialnetwork, but the culture and the procedure of many company still do not allow the use of some socialmedia platform available, maybe “scared” of the usage of those: so the case is that youtube is closed for employees.

They like to leverage the technology, but still are closed on the (maybe old) ideas. Thing are changing… executives are trying to kick down some walls, but sometime we are still far from it.

There is a lot of chats about these concepts: Enterprise 2.0, Company SocialNetworks, Expert Networks, Idea Generation and so one. Seems like this area has still a lot of executive attention, based on a McKenseyQuaterly global survey recently published about  how company are benefiting from Web 2.0.

Web 2.0 or Enterprise 2.0 start from a radical mindset change of the company about the “employee”. It is not matter of getting the right technology or platform. As soon as this is taken into account, the sooner socialmedia/socialnetwork projects are likely to be successful.
People are not only Employee, they are Human, which work at the office, and live outside. Many (not most of course) innovate or share knowledge in between, so an integration between public platforms and company internal ones should be deeply analyzed.

 

From the technology prospective, the next future will be pretty hot. As far as I am concerned the next release of Sharepoint 2010 will foster the extension and availability of those tools, and that’s good for many company like mine which are leveraging this platform.

Personally i am also interested in seeing what other platform are doing, mostly because Sharepoint is way more than a socialmedia platform, so it probably won’t be the best of breed for this specific topic. It will for sure provide a lot more than company will be able to really leverage internally, but many other platform could enhance this.
I am currently evaluating Newsgator SocialSites 3.0 and Tellingent Enterprise, but also interested in other Competitors will play their game like Oracle or IBM.

We will see how it goes 🙂

 

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Latitude D830 100% processor

It’s the second time my notebook get to this situation where the cpu fan keep going, and the processor is 100% while the operating system is basically doing nothing.

The main symptom is the one described above, but the real indicator is an event viewer message saying:

“The speed of processor 0 in group 0 is being limited by system firmware. The processor has been in this reduced performance state for 16 seconds since the last report.” ( Source: Kernel-Processor-Power, EventID 37)

Last time I solved it by calling DELL support, which sent a technician to replace the fan. The issue is not related to the fan, but to the dust that get stuck within it. I then decided to solve it by myself this time, since I just don’t want to stay one hour at the phone explaining this thing to DELL another time (just for everybody reference: 5 out of 6 people in my office called dell for this thing… I think someone in their engineering forgot that, beside people working on the construction field, also offices has some minor dust around.. and mine I must say it’s pretty clean.

 

There what i have done (I suggest you to evaluate if to call dell assistance, and remember that opening your pc you could brake your warranty agreement)

i started from the dell service manual, which can be found here: http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/latd830/EN/SM_EN/index.htm

I started with the Processor Thermal-Cooling Assembly procedure. Once it was completed, I removed the dust within the cooling assembly.

HTH

Alberto

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Hosting defined: seekdotnet.com

Well seems like I got a final hosting decision for my Windows Based personal Hosting.

http://seekdotnet.com/

My Main driver were:

  • Windows Based hosting
  • .net framework 3.5 support
  • mid-low cost
  • Intuitive and advanced control panel.
  • Advanced platform (it allows win2k8+sql2k8)
  • SharePoint addon (optional)
  • Provide quite a nice range of common platforms that can be enabled on the hosting.

(also it was recommended by a friend, so it should be good to go).

It’s nice also to see that I am already posting to this site (using windows live writer) even before the hosting is activated. This is because GraffitiCMS comes with a file in his hives called Graffiti_demo.exe which actually allow you to run your site on your local file system. Behind the scenes, it’s using a standard component for a VisualStudio Developers

image

Very good idea.