The PC-based software industry today is about 30 years old. But if you look carefully at all the products that have been released, you will soon find that most of them are different variations of a basic theme. For example, consider the most popular word processor today, MS Word. It still basically does the same thing WordStar did in 1978-that is, it allows you to write text documents. Or think about MS Excel, which is just a fancy version of VisiCalc, released in 1978. Not much is really new in the software industry.

The focus today is more on making all this sophisticated software interact with each other.

What SharePoint does is help you gather this information together, regardless of what type of file or information it is. SharePoint also helps you find information, even when you don't know where it is stored, and SharePoint helps you keep track of updated information. In other words, SharePoint does no invent any new information typ ...

I apologize for my lack of involvement in the site the last couple of months... Life altering events have a way of doing that (sucking up all of your free time :-) )

I am embarking on a project at my current employer that has me very excited. I am the Platform Architect for our systems and have a lot of work to do to get us ready to deploy our MOSS Server for internal and external collaboration.

First step (and those that know me can guess what this one is) is to get our Network Infrastructure in order. Ad / Exchange / DNS / ... etc... I am a HUGE proponent of getting that house in order before you begin to build systems on top !

We are kicking that project off today and should move fairly rapidly (we are a smallre organization that manages quite a few hosted applications that we have developed. This is a slightly different environment than I am used to working in. The previous AD design and deployment projects that I have done were ...

OakTree Software is hosting another Microsoft Sharepoint class the week of October 23 - 27. This training is a combination of two courses - Designing, Planning, and Managing a Windows SharePoint Services Infrastructure and a SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Infrastructure (course #2552 & 2553). Contact Bill Becker at (918) 584-7900 or bill.becker@oaktreesoftware.com for course outlines and further information.

One of the nice features in WSS v3 and MOSS is the ability to have SharePoint automatically e-mail people when you assign them a task. One of the first things you have to do for this to work is assign your SMTP server to handle outbound e-mails for SharePoint. If you did not do this while installing SharePoint, you can do it now by going to the SharePoint 3.0 Central Administration page. Select the Application Management tab and then select E-mail Settings. Enter your e-mail server in the Outbound SMTP Server field and select OK.

Okay, we're half way there.

Open your SharePoint site and go to your Task page.

1.  From the Tasks page, select the down arrow beside Settings

2.  Select List Settings

3.  On the Customize Tasks page, select Advanced Settings

For those that haven't seen it, Microsoft has released an add on for outlook that allows you to integrate with local.live.com. Download it here; http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=4876660 

This is interesting as Ihave said before that microsoft is looking to leverage the dominant position that they hold on the desktop / office front to bring web2.0 to users through the applications that they already use. i love this stuff !!

For those of you haven't checked them out yet, The videos that Randy suggested int eh forums by Ted Pattison are a pretty good introduction to developing SharePoint Web parts for V3/2.0

What struck me as I walked throug hthe first video, is that Microsoft has not really given you a way to graphically design web parts STILL. It seems that you would have to use the "Smart Part" methodology to develop user controls in ASP>NET that can be hosted as web parts. Or am I missing something ?

Ok.. most of you know that I am a pretty big fan of the beautiful game :-) The Cup was opened with an awesome match between the host team Germany against Costa Rica. This was a great match and the germans pulled out a 4-2 win. Six goals scored in the opener ! What more can you ask for :-)

England "squeaked" a win in their first match. Beckham bounced it off an oposing player into the goal for a score (the only one in the game)

I would have to say that the best match so far has been Sweden vs Trinidad & Tobago.

Trinidad is the smallest nation to ever make it to the world cup. It's their first time to make it to the tourney as well. At the last minute they changed Goalkeepers before the game started. Shaka Hislop started (his first world cup appearance ever) at 37 years old. He's played int he EPL for Westham for those that follow the game). He played a spectacular game. Trinidad played only 1 man forward and played a specta ...

Here in Tulsa, the Tulsa Developers Association is organizing Tech Fest 2006 as a Technology Expo and Technology Showcase. We are planning on having Lots of Technical Sessions like a conference and a vendor area for everyone to show off their wares :-)

We just got confirmation from Carl Franklin and Richard Campbell from .NET Rocks Fame that they would be willing to come and speak/participate in the event.

If you haven't checked out .NET Rocks, I highly recommend it. it is entertaining and they talk to some great folks about .. what else.. Technology. Carl and Richard make it highly entertaining to listen while you are coding away :-)

I am excited. Kudos to David Walker for organizing and co-ordinating !!