The Dean's Office

So, as you all noticed, the site went down this weekend.  It wasn't as, shall we say, planned as we'd like.  But something positive came from it.  We've merged SharePoint University and SharePoint Blogs!  While the forum posts (unfortunately) got new URLs, the blogs stayed the same.  Besides, search will help with the forums.

We did have to flush out the "tags" that were used to tag posts — they were causing some unusual performance problems.  You should be fine with creating tags for new posts.

Coming in a few days, we'll "turn on" blogs for all existing account holders.  No more waiting for a blog — you'll just get one.  New signups will also get one, automatically.  I'll make a blog post here when that's ready to rock (later this week).  There are a few known issues, mostly related to post counts, that will work themselves out in the next few days.

Thanks for your patience, and if you experience any issues, please post them to the Feature Requests / Problem Reports forum!

Enjoy the new SharePoint Blogs / SharePoint University!

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Wow!  My session was on the last day, I had a fever, and my voice was breaking and cracking like I was twelve years old.  But I knew, deep down, that I had to continue spreading the news… SharePoint Designer: I didn't know it could do that!  Indeed, based on the feedback I got from this session, a lot of people didn't know just how powerful the Data View Web Part can be!

The attendees completed evaluations of the session, provided some awesome feedback that I will be using to make future sessions even better, and ranked the session overall, the content, and the presentation.  A week went by (during which a few more evaluations trickled in), and it was a fierce battle for first place between my session and a Joel Oleson / Shane Young tour-de-force.  Shane and I traded a few e-mails, each of us gently reminding the other that paying for votes only works in Chicago council elections.  It was a tense seven days!  But finally, the last tally came in.  You guys voted my session #1 for the entire conference (Joel and Shane's session was a VERY close second).

I'd like to say a heartfelt "thank you!" for not just taking the time to attend my session on SharePoint Designer and the Data View Web Part, but to sign on to the evaluation site and complete the online evaluation form.  It means a lot to me, it really does!

So what's in the future for this session?  Well, the last demo (the Amazon.com web services demo) was exclusive to the Microsoft SharePoint Conference, so that demo will be retired.  Every time I do this session at a conference, you can expect a few changes to the early demos, and a totally new final demonstration.  Could be web services, could be AJAX, it's hard to say.   Next up?  Well, that depends…  If my session is selected for the SharePoint Connections conference in Vegas, that'll be my next public appearance with a SharePoint Designer session (I think, anyway), so you can plan on seeing a demonstration of a Windows Live service being integrated with your SharePoint data.

Maybe you have some suggestions?  I'd love to hear them!  If I use your suggestion, I'll give you credit during my presentation.

Thanks again for all those who attended and voted on my session at the Microsoft SharePoint Conference.  I had a blast there, in spite of my fever-induced hallucinations of Bob Fox and Eric Shupps singing karaoke, and I'm looking forward to seeing many of you at future conferences!

One last thing.  The picture on this post is one of my favorites from the conference.  Master Chief came by our SharePoint Bootcamp booth in the exhibit hall (after having lobbed a few frag grenades into some other booths, just for grins), and held up a fistful of dog tags like a war trophy collected from a deposed despot.  Just marvel at how inspired he looks — he's ready to enlist, for sure!

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I've been looking forward to this conference for a long time, and I'm very excited that it's just around the corner!  I'll be presenting an all-new SharePoint Designer session at the conference; it's called "SharePoint Designer: I Didn't Know You Could Do That!"

The abstract: "In this Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer session, learn how easy it
is to create custom views of your data using the Data View / Form Web
Part, even if it is in an external database or accessible only by Web
services, without writing any code. See a rapid-fire demo designed to
show how this powerful component can display data from Microsoft SQL
Server and render relational data in “sub views”. Then, settle in to
your chairs for one demo after another: First, learn some creative
applications for conditional formatting. Then, watch as this so-called
“Swiss Army Knife” of Web parts slices across multiple sites to roll up
list data. Finally, this session includes two amazing demonstrations of
no-code connections to Web services, including an exclusive demo,
created just for the this conference. You won't want to miss it! This
session is designed for anyone who wants to get a taste of the hidden
power of SharePoint Designer!"

If you enjoyed my previous session, "SharePoint Designer: It's For Developers, Too!", you'll LOVE this one!

SharePoint Experts is proud to sponsor the Ask The Experts lunch and the Game Night evening event, both to be held on Wednesday.  You can also visit our booth, #710, and pick up your own set of SharePoint Bootcamp dog tags!  If you get 'em, be sure to wear 'em — If we see you wearing your dog tags in the halls or in the city, we might just give you a prize! .  I'll be joined at our booth by Todd Baginski, Matt Passannante and Heather Solomon, but that's not the only place they'll be!  All four of us have sessions at this conference.  If you want to know what it's like to attend one of our SharePoint training events, be sure to check out our sessions at the conference!

I can't wait — see you there! 

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When?  May 12-16, 2008.

Where?  Hyatt Regency Orange County, in Anaheim, CA (technically, Garden Grove) – Just a short free shuttle ride from Disneyland!

What?  "The Original" SharePoint Bootcamp (taught by yours truly), the SharePoint Development Bootcamp (taught by SharePoint development rock star Todd Baginski) and the SharePoint Branding Bootcamp (taught by the SharePoint branding diva, Heather Solomon).

As of the first day of the new class, it's been over a year since I've delivered the SharePoint Bootcamp as a public event.  It's been a crazy year full of travel for on-site deliveries, conferences, and the birth of my new daughter.

But now, it's 2008, and I've made lots of changes to this course.  Consider it the SharePoint Bootcamp: Reloaded!  I've added new modules on the Data View Web Part, new modules for Visio, InfoPath and Access, and more.  It's going to be a very exciting week in Anaheim, CA!  I'm sure this class will sell out quickly (in fact, I expect all the classes to sell out — they always do!), so if you're interested in signing up, you should get your approvals taken care of right away!

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What a Thanksgiving it was this year!  My new daughter, Daphne, was born!  Pictures and details will be posted later, but for now, I'm letting everyone know because I'm going to be mostly away from the computer for a week or two.

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Nick recently blogged about a new web part available for users of his BDC Meta Man tool that allows users to use BDC data to generate a map via Virtual Earth. Cool stuff, but it's $300 if you want to buy it.

Did you know that it's really quite simple to include dynamic Virtual Earth maps to information stored in any kind of source in your site's Data Source Catalog (by the way, that includes BDC sources!) by using a Data View Web Part in SharePoint Designer? Greg Chan, one of the Program Managers on the MS SharePoint Designer team, blogged about this back in June, and included a step-by-step walkthrough. It's a great example of just how powerful SharePoint Designer is!

Check out the post here, it's definitely a keeper!

(Note: The SPD blog post doesn't show how to add a pop-up with arbitrary info in it.  The Virtual Earth SDK, however, has some great info on how to do this.  Maybe I'll blog about adding that feature, what do you think?

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You can.  Right now.  As in NOW.  My session is now online.  The recording starts after my pre-roll deck, which had the entire room up and out of their seats, doing the wave.  No kidding!  That's just how fun it was to be at Tech Ed this year.  In this session, you'll see my Colbert-like "The Word" sketch.  I even got special permission from a few kind MS folks on the SharePoint Designer team to poke a little fun at the old FrontPage.

Set aside 75 minutes or so and watch the presentation, then come back here and let me know what you think!

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If you're aggregating my blog in a "smart" enough newsreader, the change should be relatively transparent, as a redirect is in place from the old RSS feed to the new one.  If you choose to subscribe by hand, my feed URL is now http://feeds.feedburner.com/spdustin

Of course, my posts still show up on SharePoint Blogs and its main feed!
 

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If you have a blog related to SharePoint Products and Technologies, but don't want to move your blog to our servers, have I got news for you!

You don't have to move your blog to benefit from this site.  We are now offering a "blog mirror" service, no strings attached.  Your blog will be indexed by our server and will appear on the SharePoint Blogs home page and RSS feeds.  By default, we'll mirror an excerpt of your posts (just the first 250 characters), but if you want, we'll mirror the whole thing.  You remain the owner of your posts, and all links to the post's details will go directly to your blog.

To get your external blog mirrored, just visit this page and follow the instructions! (they're listed under the heading "Do you already have a blog, and you want it to show up here?")  Enjoy!

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My Tech-Ed session on SharePoint Designer was a huge hit.  Hundreds filled out their evaluations, and voted that session the best in the Office track!  All while fighting a horrible server crash, too!  I was thrilled to hear the result, and I wanted to thank everyone who attended for their review.  If you attended and want to see a playback of what I did, sit tight — the Tech-Ed DVDs will have a VIDEO of my session!  You can walk through the whole thing!

I guess the guys on the SharePoint Designer team really enjoyed the session, too — I've been asked to present this session at TechReady 5, an internal Microsoft-only conference held in Seattle in July.  It's a bit like Tech-Ed for blue badges (MS employees), and from what I understand, they're expecting thousands to attend!  I'm honored to be chosen to speak at this event, and I promise to do Joel Oleson proud.   That's right, Joel: There will be another wave.  Oh, yes.  There will be another wave!

If you're a softie and you're planning to go to TechReady 5, check out my SharePoint Designer session, OCF306.  It'll be on the 24th at 2PM, and it'll be the room with the raucous laughter and the awesome SharePoint Designer demos on the big screen.

Thanks again to all who attended my SPD session at Tech-Ed.  I had a blast, and I hope you did, too!

(and if you attended my birds-of-a-feather session on ADD, thanks for coming to that, too!)

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