Jan29

Getting started with Twitter guide

 

I get a lot of questions about getting started on Twitter so I have created a document that covers the basics. You’ll find it in my Slideshare collection or via:

 

http://su.pr/1nD2j7

 

The document is free to view or download and covers things like setting up a Twitter account, following others, updating and messaging other Twitter users.

 

When I did a search for a document like this on Google I couldn’t find one, although I’m sure they are out there. There are plenty of Powerpoints saying how great Twitter is and how you should be using it but none that actually take you step by step through the process. So rather than having to keep explaining things, it was much easier in the long run to create a document which covers all this.

 

I am also working on similar documents for Facebook and Blogger which I hope to have available soon. If you want a copy of these (or this one on Twitter) either visit my Slideshare page or simply contact me (director@ciaops.com) and I’ll happily send it to you. If you have some suggestions for document you would like to see and just can’t seem to find on the Internet let me know as I am always on the lookout for material to document.

 

Also, if you read the document please feel free to give any comments, correction or feedback, I can assure you they all help.

Published: Jan-29-10 | 0 Comments | Link to this post

Jan29

Just an observation

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A while back I tried to do an in place upgrade of my http://supportweb.ciaops.net.au SharePoint site to SharePoint Foundation server beta. It didn’t go very well as I noted in this blog.

 

An in place upgrade is not the only migration option you have in SharePoint, you can do a database migration, which I have found to be generally the best way to go from SharePoint v2 to SharePoint v3. I thought that I’d be able to the same thing from v3 to SharePoint Foundation, however as you can see from the above screen shot the upgrade failed again.

 

It is interesting to note that my http://supportweb.ciaops.net.au isn’t a very complicate SharePoint site. It has a few standard Microsoft templates but nothing else really. Given that I haven’t been able to easily upgrade it worries me a bit that upgrading existing SharePoint v3 sites to SharePoint foundation is going to be more difficult that has been made out.

 

Back to the drawing board.

Published: Jan-29-10 | 0 Comments | Link to this post

Jan27

Shared OneNote notebooks

For those who have not as yet experienced the joy of OneNote I’d suggest you give it a try. You can download a 60 day free trial from:

 

http://us20.trymicrosoftoffice.com/default.aspx?culture=en-US

 

Basically, OneNote is a digital notebook that allows you to save just about any form of digital information. You can use it to save text, images, web sites, files and more.

 

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You can even print to OneNote from any application and send information directly from Internet Explorer and Outlook. Best of all, any information in OneNote is not only backed up but it is also indexed, which means you can search through all your notes quickly and easily.

 

Now this isn’t a blog post on the benefits of OneNote it is about how you can connect OneNote to SharePoint to provide shared notebook access. This enables a single notebook to be shared between multiple people. If you have a SharePoint site that is hosted on the Internet you can share this information between people just about anywhere.

 

So how do you go about doing that? First you’ll need to have a SharePoint site with a document library people can get access to. I normally like to create a separate OneNote document library to keep all the OneNote files together but there is no need to do that. You’ll also need to have OneNote installed on every machine that you wish to access the notebooks with.

 

Once you have all that in place and have launch OneNote complete the following to create a new notebook.

 

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Select File | New | Notebook from the menu.

 

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Give the new notebook a name and select a OneNote template.

 

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To allow a shared notebook select the Multiple people will share the notebook option and then On a server.

 

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In the path field enter the URL of your SharePoint document library.

 

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If SharePoint is hosted on the Internet you will need to logon to the site.

 

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The new notebook should appear. Now all any other user needs to do to connect and share the notebook is launch OneNote on their local machine and open the notebook from the URL you used to create the notebook.

 

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Next time you open OneNote you will see some text at the top of the notebook indicating that you need to login to get the latest updates to the file. Simply click on this link and enter your login details. Any changes will then be automatically sync’ed.

 

If you don’t have a hosted SharePoint site you can still achieve the same result using Office Live. Information about how to configure that can be found in a free document I created a while back which can be found at - http://www.slideshare.net/directorcia/onenote-and-office-live.

 

The good thing about sync’ing OneNote is that not only do you retain a local copy but there is always an offsite backup. So you can keep using OneNote on the road and when you connect back to the Internet all changes in all notebooks are synchronized. It makes it a very easy process for any team collaboration.

 

So there you are. If you haven’t looked at OneNote I’d recommend you do and if you can link it to SharePoint to provided shared notebook access I’m confident that it’ll prove a winner with most teams.

Published: Jan-27-10 | 0 Comments | Link to this post

Jan27

CIAOPS email lists

The facts are that most people still prefer email to other forms of information delivery, be they Twitter, Facebook, blogs and so on. In recognition of that fact I’ve create two mailing lists that people can use to keep up to date with what’s on offer from the CIAOPS.

 

1. CIAOPS Webinars

 

Subscribing to this list will keep you up to date on when we run our regular webinars. Emails will be sent prior to each webinar so you have plenty of time to indicate your interest. You can also visit the archive of these webinar announcements at any stage also. If you haven’t seen any of our webinars head over to the CIAOPS You Tube channel (http://www.youtube.com/user/directorciaops) for some examples.

 

2. CIAOPS Newsletter

 

We announced this a while back but it seems appropriate to once again provide people with the details of how to obtain our regular newsletter. The newsletter is aiming to come out each month with technology information and productivity tips aimed at helping you get things done. You can also view the archive of these emails as well at any time.

 

Information about the webinars and the newsletter will still be published here, so if you are a regular reader of the blog then there is probably no need to sign up for either. However, if you know of anyone else who may benefit from what we offer via these emails lists then I’d ask you to send the link and get them to sign up.

Published: Jan-27-10 | 0 Comments | Link to this post

Jan24

New version of Evernote available

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One of the best applications I have found is Evernote. Basically you can think of it as an electronic notebook. In many ways it is similar one of my other favourite applications (OneNote) but has a number of differences that still make it something I use regularly.

 

One of the main areas that I thought Evernote lagged OneNote was the in the way that it presented information. I like OneNote’s ability to easily create and organize information via sections and tabs. The new version of Evernote is certainly a step closer to being as easy to visualize as OneNote, although it still has a ways to go.

 

Probably the biggest plus Evernote has for me is the ability to access and add to your information via a browser. You can of course use an application that you load onto just about any platform, but it is this ability to access Evernote information via a web page that put it above OneNote in functionality I believe. I always found it handy if I was ever on a customer’s machine to take a screen shot of the error. With Evernote I could save that information directly via a browser and have it sync’ed with my desktop machine upon my return.

 

There is still a place for OneNote and Evernote in my took kit but the latest Evernote version 3.5 is certainly getting closer to including all the bits I like in OneNote. Even better, Evernote is free to use and you can’t beat that for value.

Published: Jan-24-10 | 0 Comments | Link to this post

Jan20

Work/life balance

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For those who are interested in an experiment on lifestyle design and the work/family balance then I would suggest you have a look at the TV show “The Nest” which is shown on SBS Australia currently on Friday nights from 8.30pm.

 

As with all TV shows these days there is also a web site you can visit:

 

http://www.sbs.com.au/shows/thenest/episodes/page/i/1/h/Episodes/

 

that allows you to watch past episodes (although you only seem to be able to watch the very last one).

 

If you are interested in productivity then it is not only worth watching but also reading some of the comments that are made about the episodes by web site visitors.

Published: Jan-20-10 | 0 Comments | Link to this post

Jan20

SharePoint Guide on special

If you are interested in purchasing my Windows SharePoint Operations Guide (www.wssops.com) I notice that SMB Books has a discount running:

 

Super Amazing Sale Through January 31st:
Party Like It's $19.99 Off !


A Bunch of Great Offers from SMB Books
- Our Newest Books
- Our Greatest Books
- All Rolled Into One Sale!

Just enter the code
PARTY1999 and you will receive $19.99 off EACH ITEM you order.

(All Deals Expire January 31st, 2010.  Place as many orders as you wish. Books make great Valentine's Day gifts!)

 

You’ll find my SharePoint Guide at:

 

http://www.smbbooks.com/products/procra01.htm

 

and if you enter the code PARTY1999 when you purchase you’ll get $19.99 off. So if you have been thinking about it you have until January 31 to take advantage of this offer.

Published: Jan-20-10 | 0 Comments | Link to this post

Jan19

CIAOPS SharePoint webinar

We are gearing up for the next webinar. Here are the details:

 

CIAOPS webinar 100204 - SharePoint and Office

 

This webinar will show you how to get the best of out of your Microsoft Office applications when used in conjunction with SharePoint. You learn how to utilize check in and checkout with Word, how to embed an updating Excel graph into SharePoint, how to link SharePoint calendars to Outlook, how to create a synchronized notebook using OneNote and much more.

Details

Date: Thursday 4th February 2010
Time: 10:00am
Duration: 60 minutes
Cost: $10 ex GST
Level: 2 (Intermediate)
Prerequisites: None

Registration: To register send an email to director@ciaops.com.

 

The webinar will also be available as a recording after the event of you are unable to attend on the day.

 

Don’t forget our previous webinars that are also available on request:

 

- 091112 Introduction to SharePoint

- 091126 Basics of using SharePoint

- 091210 Basic SharePoint administration

- 100107 SharePoint Questions and Answers 1

Published: Jan-19-10 | 0 Comments | Link to this post

Jan18

A change of browser

 

A while ago I swapped form using Microsoft’s Internet Explorer to Firefox. The main reason was the number of handy add ons that Firefox has available. One of these is NoScript which blocks  Javascript and Flash but can be easily configured to allow pre-determined safe sites. Most browser threats these days come via scripts, so the more protection the better.

 

For the past week I decided that I would use Google Chrome as my default browser and I must say that I’m impressed. It is fast, stable and supports many (not all) of the little add ons that I use. I use a site on a daily basis that is very heavily Java based and I gotta say that here it really flys, even compared to Firefox. So I’m now using Chrome everyday without hesitation.

 

Interestingly, I came across this news report “Calls to ditch Internet Explorer after China hacks” that details how the recent major cyber attacks against Google were perpetrated via Internet Explorer and Adobe Acrobat. Internet Explorer has had a really bad name in relation to security and even with the release of version 8 it doesn’t seem to be getting any better. Again, you do need to take these reports with a pinch of salt being they come from mainstream media (read techno-illiterate and sensationalism seeking) and are about a competitor to Google (i.e. Microsoft). However, the most interesting thing is that I haven’t seen much response from Microsoft about the attacks (Did they also get attacked? If they didn’t why didn’t they? Or did they and they are just not admitting it?).

 

After using both Firefox and Chrome I can honestly see no need to return to Internet Explorer, it just feels old. Perhaps there is a need to really strip Internet Explorer back and make a really simple and secure version which is really what most people need. The problem in this business is once you fall behind it normally takes a monumental improvement in a product to catch up as it has to be so much better than what is already out there to even warrant attention. Personally, I can’t see Microsoft doing this. They have reached middle age and a technical leap of that size just doesn’t seem possible to them any more.

 

If the browser is the default application through which which most people access the web how many of these are unpatched and insecure? Even if you are up to date all these unpatched systems still represent a threat because when you are connected to the web you are also connecting to them. The joys of an interconnected world!

 

So what is your browser of choice? Whatever it is make sure it is up to date (as well as your version of Adobe Acrobat).

Published: Jan-18-10 | 0 Comments | Link to this post

Jan17

Pictures in my blog

I have had a few people say that they can’t see the pictures in this blog. I know about the issue and it seems to comes down to the reader you are using. As you can see, the two readers I use:

 

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www.bloglines.com

 

and

 

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www.google.com/reader

 

both work fine. The major issue seems to be with Outlook. Interesting that Microsoft Outlook does read Microsoft SharePoint correctly eh?

 

I do have it on my list of things to look at if I get a chance but I am still pondering whether I should move this blog into my updated www.ciaops.com web site. Still mulling that one over.

Published: Jan-17-10 | 0 Comments | Link to this post

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