The Missing Skills of Young SharePoint Developers
March 9, 2012
In a lighthearted blog entry, Jussi on SharePoint addresses the often forgotten fact that for all of our complaining, IT is well optimized and performs quite well in our current day. So what’s the problem with high performance you might ask? In, “The missing skillsets of future SharePoint rock stars,” Jussi argues that this has created a younger generation of developers, specifically SharePoint developers who neglect the basic IT skills of former days.
Jussi writes:
The problem is that mostly everything you use just works. You don’t need to worry whether or not the operating system is about to crash. You’ll have enough RAM most of the time, so forget about spending any time optimizing how your applications use memory. Your laptop? It boots in <30 seconds, or resumes from sleep in less than 2 seconds. Gone are they days when we had to write memos on a piece paper as a backup, ‘because the computer might crash sooner rather than later’.
This relative ease of use leads the author to propose that SharePoint developers need to make an effort to cultivate certain forgotten skills:
Any proper SharePoint specialist worth their salt should be fairly serene doing basic stuff like configuring Active Directory, debugging network and authentication issues, reading through code and Powershell scripts and troubleshooting weird errors.
While these are not glamorous jobs, they are necessary. There may also be another option for SharePoint developers wanting to maximize their time and energy. Many third-party enterprise solutions can improve performance and user experience without a great investment in time and training. A smart solution like Fabasoft Mindbreeze can brings a suite of solutions together to make everyone happy, users and developers alike. Check into Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise and see if their offerings can increase your organization’s efficiency and performance.
Emily Rae Aldridge, March 9, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Protected: Share Info and Party Tips at ShareFEST
March 8, 2012
MessageSolution for Managing SharePoint Data
March 8, 2012
We have here another attempt to tame SharePoint’s content wild ponies: “MessageSolution Showcasing SharePoint Governance and eDiscovery Platform at Microsoft SharePoint Technology Conference 2012”, reports SeattlePi. The write up declares:
By integrating award-winning enterprise archiving policy with SharePoint’s record center functions, MessageSolution has created a framework to automate eDiscovery and manage risk in SharePoint distributed farms. Now SharePoint administrators can regulate compliance, remotely offload Blobs to optimize SharePoint storage space and server performance, as well as search and restore objects instantly without the need for additional IT assistance.
For those who may not know, a Blob (also written BLOB) is a Binary Large Object. By offloading these objects from a SharePoint server using Microsoft approved EBS and RBS protocols, MessageSolution can speed up tasks in the SharePoint environment. This comes in handy when searching and restoring data for legal discovery proceedings. Furthermore, the article asserts, the tool reduces storage requirements with a high compression rate and single-instance storage.
Designed for both mid- and large-scale organizations, the product also sports a unified index; retention management; legal holds with hold notifications; a unified user interface and index; and federated search. The product’s focus on back-end design, according to the write up, means fewer hassles during installation and maintenance as well as a reduced backup time. See the article for more details.
MessageSolution’s SharePoint Management Solutions and its Enterprise eDiscovery Platform will be showcased at the 2012 SharePoint Technology Conference February 28-29 at the Union Square Hilton in San Francisco (booth #808).
Founded in 2002, MessageSolution has assembled a team of veterans from a number of other Silicon Valley enterprises. The company prides itself on providing solutions that simplify the complex processes of archiving and eDiscovery, including managing language differences, for organizations around the world.
Search Technologies stands ready to assist clients with search and content processing services for Microsoft SharePoint environments.
Iain Fletcher, Search Technologies, March 8, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Customizing SharePoint to Build a Powerful Intranet Portal for your Users
March 8, 2012
An organization’s intranet is the company home for news and collaboration. A successful intranet also needs to be powerful, yet user-friendly. Can SharePoint accomplish all of this out of the box? The topic is addressed in HR Communication’s publication, “Just How Much Customization Does SharePoint Need?”
The answer is not black and white. Amy Schade, Director of User Experience for the Nielsen Norman Group, says one big factor is getting the software to work for your company’s culture. The experts weigh-in:
Does that mean you have to load SharePoint down with third-party applications? It depends. IBF CEO and founder Paul Miller observed that Duke Energy was a winner last year, basically using SharePoint “out of the box.” Bert Sandie, director of technical excellence at Electronic Arts’ EA University, said a great intranet “should look like one thing,” even with third-party apps. It ought to look like tools people use at home, such as Facebook and Flickr. IBF Live co-host Paul Levy observed, ‘SharePoint out of the box doesn’t lend itself to that experience’.
An out of the box design that keeps users in mind may not be SharePoint’s strongest characteristic. But it doesn’t take much to customize your farm to work for the masses. Instead of bogging down your SharePoint system with third party applications, save time and money on implementations with one lean solution. We like the feedback from Fabasoft Mindbreeze customers. The Chamber of Commerce, Upper Austria had this to say:
Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise provides our staff quickly and efficiently with all the information they need. The service center staff is able to respond to requests without delay, as all relevant information is found with only one query. This even further improves the quality of our customer services whilst simultaneously minimizing effort of our staff.
Look for quick results from an out of the box solution at Fabasoft Mindbreeze.
Philip West, March 8, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Protected: Activate SharePoint Features Before You Start a Project
March 7, 2012
SharePoint 2013: Speculation and Musings
March 7, 2012
With SharePoint 2013’s hotly anticipated release, Bjorn Furuknap weighs in, speculating on the various features that will be made available. His blog entry, “SharePoint Server 2013 Features,” provides details on some rumored 2013 additions.
SharePoint Server 2013 keeps many of the existing SharePoint 2010 features, such as: Excel Services, Access Services, InfoPath Forms Services, User Profile Service, Search Services, Business Connectivity Services, and PerformancePoint Services. In addition, however, there are new, or at least radically expanded services, such as: Content Management Service, Translation Services, Workflow Services, SharePoint Quiz Client-Side Object Model Protocol, Education Services, and Work Management Service.
While every edition of SharePoint gets better, increasing ease-of-use and efficiency, it sometimes seems that SharePoint is simply keeping up with third-party solutions that are much more agile and current in terms of new releases. One particular solution that does a great job of staying current with its suite of solutions is Fabasoft Mindbreeze.
With Fabasoft Mindbreeze, updates are not a belabored three-year overhaul, but an efficient revamp every quarter. Felt needs are met quickly and efficiently. Read more about actionable information, one of the latest additions to Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise Winter Release 2012:
With most search engines you can search and find. With Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise you don’t just find, you can instantly use the information without any intermediate step. The search query delivers an e-mail address, for example – click on this address directly within the preview to write an e-mail to the selected addressee.
So while SharePoint 2013 is greatly anticipated, consider if it is worth the wait or if the addition of a third-party solution can meet your organization’s information needs.
Emily Rae Aldridge, March 7, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Protected: Recycle the SharePoint Way
March 6, 2012
Librarian Solutions to SharePoint Problems
March 6, 2012
When time and money is spent on a SharePoint implementation, it makes sense that companies would require that their employees jump on board and start using the application. However, this has led to an epidemic of frightened and frustrated employees, and an overflowing of training and tips on the internet. Lorette S. J. Weldon addresses this issue and uses her library science training to craft a solution in, “Help with SharePoint is on the way in The Adventures of SharePoint Reading Bee© Animated Series.”
Weldon states her motivation for developing a unique training tool:
To maintain Weiser’s belief of being sufficiently trained in order to be free to use the technology, for example, SharePoint, for the job, I have created The Adventures of SharePoint Reading Bee Animated Series. Librarians and information professionals are free to suggest ideas for future episodes ‘anonymously’. This animated series is a free service trying to meet the business needs of setting up SharePoint to perform needed tasks from within the office environment . . . librarians have been increasingly asking me to find out how Microsoft SharePoint can help them. The Adventures of SharePoint Reading Bee will try to help break it down for the non-programmer in answers that do not require coding. The SharePoint versions to be covered will be 2007 and 2010.
We commend the innovative approach to SharePoint training. The key is the user focus, without the need for programming and coding. But the major drawback of SharePoint is a fundamental one, something that cannot be overcome with training, the obtrusiveness of the program. Weldon herself laments that SharePoint does not run seamlessly in the background. However, some third-party enterprise solutions do just that.
We like Fabasoft Mindbreeze and their suite of enterprise solutions.
Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise understands you, or to be more precise, understands what the most important information is for you at any precise moment in time. It is the center of excellence for your knowledge and simultaneously your personal assistant for all questions. The information pairing technology brings enterprise and Cloud data together.
If SharePoint is a struggle for your employees, explore training options such as those offered by Weldon or consider adding an intuitive third-party solution like Fabasoft Mindbreeze.
Emily Rae Aldridge, March 6, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Protected: Look Before You Leap With SharePoint
March 5, 2012
Protected: Collecting SharePoint Metadata about Users
March 5, 2012
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
