The Sanity Point

Happy December! I hope all of you had as great of a November as possible, and everyone in the US had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday weekend!

As I've noted before, the process of writing and publishing a book is a lot more complicated, and takes much longer, than I ever imagined. Although "my part" in the preparation has largely been done for a while now, the machinery of publication continues on behind the scenes. Every now and then, something noteworthy emerges.

Check out the latest announcements regarding my book on my new site!

"Is it Soup Yet?"

My last two blog posts on SharePoint and Search Server Federated Locations (Part 1 and Part 2) have been very popular, but some of you have just wanted to download the location definitions without having to read through all of the gory details of their preparation.

So, for those who crave instant gratification, you can now find direct download links on my new site!

Welcome back! This post will be the conclusion of my Search Federation article. In Part 1, I talked about Federation in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) and Microsoft Search Server (MSS/X), and showed you how to create a basic Federated Location to query an external resource – in this case, Twitter.

While that Location definition is functional, it doesn't really bring the "feeling" of Twitter into your SharePoint search. Sometimes, that may be exactly what you need. However, today, I'm going show you how to take it to the next level by using SharePoint Designer.

Read the conclusion of this article on my new site…

Over the last few weeks, I have veered a bit "off topic". But now that TechEd is over, it is about time to bring things back on track. So today, I'm getting back down to the business of helping you to understand SharePoint with another "Back to Basics" article on the subject of Lists and Libraries.

Read all about it on my new site!

In my summary post on TechEd EMEA 2008, IT Pro Week, I mentioned that I felt one of the most significant announcements is the addition of a SharePoint discipline to the Microsoft Certified Master and Certified Architect programs. That is now being borne out as the SharePoint blogoshpere and Twitterverse erupt with a debate on the nature of SharePoint "Masterhood".

Read my take on this debate on my new site…

Here's something worth celebrating: Microsoft Search Server 2008 (MSS) and Microsoft Search Server Express 2008 (MSSX) were announced almost exactly 1 year ago – November 7th, 2007 – and the release candidate of MSSX made available for download…

Read the whole article on my new site!

After my walk on Monday, I got cleaned up and headed to the Centre Convencions Internacional (CCIB). Other than registration (which I had already done on Sunday), there were two main events for the day.

Read about the Keynote and more on my new site…

TechEd 2008 is being held in Barcelona, Spain. Barcelona is on the beautiful Mediterranean coast, and is a city of many changing faces.

To see my take on some of these faces, check out this post on my new site!