Elaine van Bergen's Microsoft Skewed View of the World

Design and Development performance considerations from NZSPC and AUSPC

2011-03-20T21:04:00.001+11:00

Here's my slide deck from the presentations I did at the New Zealand Sharepoint Conference. Also I persented the same topic at the Australian SharePoint Conference with Brendan Law (http://twitter.com/#!/FlamerNZ)
Both conference's where absolutely fantastic , and definately on my list of events to try and attend again next year !

Design and Development performance considerations

View more presentations from Elaine van Bergen.

I'm Speaking at the Aus and NZ SharePoint Conferences

2011-02-17T08:06:00.002+11:00

The Australian and NZ SharePoint conferences are fast approaching and the speaker line is really great.

I'll be heading along to be involved as well, will post some more details on that shortly as soon as I get a chance !

For more detail on AUS check here http://www.sharepointconference.com.au/AU2011/SolutionPages/AllSpeakers.aspx
Also for NZ http://www.sharepointconference.co.nz/NZ2011/SolutionPages/AllSpeakers.aspx

Definately worth attending if you can.

Adding referenced dll to deploy to GAC using SharePoint template in VS 2010

2011-01-07T06:56:00.007+11:00

For a bunch of people this is an old tip by now , but have been asked about it a couple of times this weeks so figured it was worth posting :)

When creating a SharePoint solution using the visual studio SharePoint 2010 project type it is not immediately obvious how to add a referenced dll so that it gets deployed as part of the wsp to the gac, here are the steps to do it.

Double click your mouse on the packaging node.

Click on advanced:

Click add, you can choose to pick an existing assembly or in the case shown below output from a project.

As you can see from the add window you have the ability to select deployment location , safe controls entries etc if needed.

Also a quick tip, if you a referencing an assembly it's also likely that you don't need another assembly being produced which is created by default by the template. Make sure you click on the project node and select the include assembly in package option to false.

Wow , I'm a Microsoft MVP

2010-07-11T20:04:00.004+10:00

Today my official certificate and MVP award arrived. I'm absolutely thrilled to be recognised by Microsoft for my contribution to the user community and am looking forward to doing even more this year !
Also it was extra great that a couple of other fellow Aussie SharePoint Community members Jeremy Thake and Chris O'Connor also got awarded at the same time.

SharePoint Events Coming Soon !

2010-06-26T23:03:00.010+10:00

The next round of SharePoint Saturday Australia events are happening soon. I'm assisting with organising Melbourne which is set for October 30th and I will be presenting in Sydney on August 7th, plus there is also Canberra in between. They are shaping up to be huge so definitely jump on the site here and register to attend and/or present.

Also in August I'll be presenting at Tech.Ed Australia which is in the Gold Coast, August 24-27th in the SharePoint track. There are heaps of great presentations lined up across all different types of technology, plus a lot of networking opportunities absolutely worth getting along to attend if you can.

Also a little further away from home is the South East Asia SharePoint Conference. It's in Singapore on October 26-27th. I'm probably not going to get along to it, but the Australian Conference organised by some of the same people was awesome so I'm sure this one will also be great ! Details here

Australian SharePoint Conference Presentation

2010-06-26T22:35:00.003+10:00

I really enjoyed attending the SharePoint Saturday Conference in Sydney recently, looking forward to next year which is already being planned.
I presented at two sessions and have uploaded the slides for these here:

Building Workflows for SharePoint 2010 with SharePoint Designer and Visio - http://www.slideshare.net/laneyvb/building-workflows-for-sharepoint-2010-with-sharepoint-designer-and-visio
Maximise the benefits of a SharePoint platform using metric based governance - http://www.slideshare.net/laneyvb/maximise-the-benefits-of-a-sharepoint-platform-using-metric-based-governance

Plus I also lucky enough to sit in on the ask the experts panel with Arpan Shah , Todd Bleeker , Paul Swider and Mark Rhodes

Jeremy Thake recorded the session and has uploaded it here http://www.sharepointdevwiki.com/display/SPPodCasts/2010/06/22/SPWebCast+020+-+Ask+the+Experts+at+Australian+SharePoint+Conference

Also checkout the other great recorded sessions he has hosted up on sharepointdevwiki

Australian SharePoint Conference - Register Now

2010-03-26T22:08:00.002+11:00

The site collection could not be restored.

2009-09-29T06:58:00.002+10:00

I ran into an issue the other night doing some reorganising of site collections in a production wss 3.0 instance. I was moving sites from one web application to another using backup and restore (mergecontentdb's only works in the one webapp).

On one particular site when running stsadm -o restore I received
"The site collection could not be restored. If this problem persists, please make sure the content databases are available and have sufficient free space"
Based on the error message I did the usual checks and discovered there was no issue with free space.

Then I looked at the site collections listing page which gave me a clue.The site I was trying to restore was already listed there but when I tried to load it the site didn't work. I've seen similar behaviour when a previous restore has stopped part way through.
To resolve I did the following:

Detach and Reattach each of the content db's , this removed the site collection listing from CA but the error still occurred
I then ran stsadm -o databaserepair against the database's and it removed a bunch of orphaned records.

After that I was then able to restore the site without issue. So it looks like that error message can mean a previous partial restore of the site exists in the content databases already and needs to be cleared.

Configure, Customise, Code SharePoint deck

2009-07-14T20:06:00.002+10:00

Late last week I had the great opportunity of presenting at the ANZ SharePoint Seminar with Joel Oleson.
My slide deck from the session I presented on configuring, customising and coding on SharePoint without breaking the system is available here
It covers some of the major governance items that you need to be aware of when making changes in your environment to meet business requirements.

SharePoint Seminar's with Joel Oleson

2009-06-17T20:29:00.003+10:00

Quick plug for the up and coming event:

ANZ Sharepoint Seminar with Joel Oleson
SharePoint Morning with the Experts: Sydney and Melbourne
Join international and local SharePoint experts in Sydney and Melbourne and learn how to master your SharePoint environment. Hosted by Quest Software.Plus, you can learn tips and best practices to help you overcome your most difficult SharePoint challenges during a panel discussion with SharePoint experts and bloggers such as Joel Oleson, Kathy Hughes, Adam Cogan & Elaine van Bergen.

Details here:
http://australia.quest.com/events/listdetails.aspx?ContentID=9780

Access Denied when adding web front end

2009-06-15T21:29:00.003+10:00

Recently I was building a virtual SharePoint environment to do some testing.
It consisted of one WFE and an application server running search server express. The build went fine until trying to add the WFE to the farm.
The error returned was access denied. I checked everything that I could think of that was permissions related with no luck. Then I realised that SSE installs WSS SP1 automatically and the WFE that I was trying to add was just plain WSS. Silly mistake to make, but easy to make when your building a few machines in a rush.
Turns out permission denied can just mean that the server being added is not at the same patch level as the rest of the farm. Once it's at the right patch level it joined the farm fine.

Next MOSSIG 25th Feb - Using Office and SharePoint

2009-02-19T21:42:00.002+11:00

The next MOSSIG is on the 25th of Feb with Adam Cogan presenting on Using Office 2007 and SharePoint 2007.

Here's the summary of the session:

SharePoint 2007 and Office (and Outlook, Excel and even Access 2007 etc) have had an enormous amount of work done in this version and they work together beautifully. SharePoint 2007 to many is a web version of Access. Come see Adam Cogan show you how you have a lot of options including:

using SharePoint data in your Access solution
using Access to report on your SharePoint data
upsizing your access data to SharePoint and then continue with Access as the frontend
upsizing your entire Access solution to SharePoint and then finish using Access as your platform

In addition we will look at using SharePoint data in other Office applications.
More details on MOSSIG here

Welcome Julian van Bergen

2009-02-19T20:55:00.004+11:00

Finally had enough spare time between changing nappies to get back to the blog to announce the arrival of Julian Yanos van Bergen.
He was born naturally at 9:12 on the 14th of Jan weighing 3690g.
His arrival was a bit rocky as he had the cord wrapped round his neck but that was all sorted out pretty quickly but the great hospital staff and after a bit of oxygen he was fine. While the experience wasn't as smooth as last time it was still wonderful to meet the new little guy.

But a day later he had to get carted off to the special care nursery due to rash and a suspected infection which was making it hard for him to stay warm. He had to stay in there for the rest of our hospital stay while the did lots of blood tests and other checks which was horrible to watch and worried the hell out of both Greg and I.

Fortuanely he came through all the tests just fine and has been doing well at home with the rest of the family now. Over the last month he has been slowly getting used to his loving brother Victor being a bit to enthusistic with the hugs and kisses at times and generally settling in well with family life.

Also for the curious Yanos is a family name from the hungarian side of Greg's family.

SharePoint FullTextSQLQuery Malformed Query with 10+ conditions workaround

2008-11-20T21:06:00.003+11:00

Recently a colleague of mine hit some trouble with using the SharePoint 2007 Search API and I was tasked with doing a bit of investigation into a work around.
What we were trying to do was create a custom search page that has a meta-data property on it that can be multi-selected. It has almost 200 options in it and the user can select a combination of these to filter the search by.
This worked fine with a few selected but somewhere around 10 selections the query started returned the error 'Malformed Query' as soon as it was executed.

The search was performed against a custom scope and custom managed properties. After a bunch of investigation it appears the issue is solved if you tick the "Allow this property to be used in scopes" option. After selecting that for the field/s that you need to have as conditions with 10+ options the query processes fine each time.

This sounds like a bug to me as we are not actually using the property for defining a scope, but the server we are running on is update to date with current patches and hotfixes so looks like one that is yet to be fixed, luckily the work around is easy :)

The below sample shows the query and code being used with a few field name changes.
Query was like the below but with lots more OR'ed values for Field 1:

SELECT Field1, Field2, ModifiedBy, Created FROM portal..scope() WHERE \"SCOPE\" = 'Custom Scope' AND (ContentType = 'ContentType1' OR ContentType = 'ContentType2') AND (Field1 = 'test' OR Field1 = 'test2' )

Code:
FullTextSqlQuery sqlQuery = new FullTextSqlQuery(site);
sqlQuery.ResultTypes = ResultType.RelevantResults;
sqlQuery.QueryText = sql;
sqlQuery.TrimDuplicates = false;
sqlQuery.StartRow = startRow;
sqlQuery.RowLimit = rowLimit;
ResultTableCollection results = sqlQuery.Execute();

Exam 74-674 - Delivering BVPS

2008-11-05T21:29:00.005+11:00

Firstly in case you don't know what BVPS is you can read more on it here.
To be able to deliver a BVPS engagement you need to complete Exam 74-674 first, which I passed on Monday.

Several people have since asked me what to study for the exam, so here is a post on my views.

Firstly I had a bit of head start on it as I was lucky enough to deliver a beta engagement here in Melbourne with assistance from Microsoft and Value Prism Consulting so I got to learn how to deliver an engagement first hand. This of course is the best preparation possible but presuming you don't get a chance to do this then the below info I hope will help a bit.

The first thing you should do is look through everything on the resources page for BVPS here

Then think carefully if you have the right skill set. If you consider yourself a techie do not sit this exam. The skills you need for this are much closer to the BA skill set. However if you consider yourself a "traditional" BA this is probably also not for you either. The ideal skill set is someone that can do process analysis but then also map this to solutions in the office system. You need to be able to do this quickly both in the exam and during a BVPS engagement so it helps if you can do both of these things yourself with minimal assistance. Have a look at the sample agenda's and consider if you can map a existing process, future state process, come up with a high level solutions for doing this with the office system including value propositions etc in those kind of timeframes. This is not easy !!

What I would then suggest if possible is try running a mock enagement ideally get some buy in from your company and try it internally for real. Some things to focus on that I think are important:

Work out how to determine what the right process is to analyse. Look for the key important factors such as business impact, availability and buy in from stakeholders among other things. Also pick something you can analyse during the timeframe, this may just be a piece of a larger process.
Map the current process without jumping into solution at all. The idea is not to solve the problem yet but to work out what the current situation is.
Work out what can be changed at a process level to improve it. Listen to the users in order to do this, they generally have plenty of suggestions for what will likely work in this space, although not all will be possible/realistic. Also don't bite off too much , small incremental changes often work better than one sweeping change.
Map this to solutions using parts of the Office System i.e. know when to use Performance Point vs. Portfolio Server or SharePoint etc. Also make sure you are not reinventing the wheel, often the solution is just using something the customer already has in a better way.
Determine the high level value propositions for the business. Make sure they map to the goals of the business and align with what the stakeholders have told you. Know how to work out figures to back up your business case.

That's a lot of what you need to be able to do to deliver a BVPS enagement and hence what you need for the exam, but the training material has fine detail.

The exam itself is a bunch of case studies each with a set of questions. Normal exam advice applies here i.e. make sure you read the case study and questions very carefully, small details can change the answer a lot.

Hope that helps. Good luck :)

UPDATE

The zip file of training material on the BVPS site has been updated and now includes sample exam questions among other new resources so make sure you download it again.

First Day Back at OBS

2008-11-05T20:15:00.004+11:00

For those of you out of the loop my last day at SDM/DWS was last Friday and today was my first day back at OBS. There will be plenty more posts on what it is like at some stage later as I get working on projects with the team but first here's a blog post to answer a couple of the questions that I keep getting asked.

Why did I leave SDM.
There are many reasons but a large one was that I want to work at a company that is less large corporate and is filled with people who are passionate about leading edge technology, especially SharePoint.
I think it's the nature of a large hugely profitable business like DWS (which SDM is now part of) that while there are people employed there that do fall into that category, there are many more that are just there to work their 40 hours. DWS works out really great for a lot of people and I've talked to plenty of happy DWS customers too, but it just doesn't suit me. I think just looking at the careers pages on the two websites makes it easy to pick a lot of the differences between DWS and OBS

Am I sad about leaving.
Absolutely ! I've worked with some really great people and on a lot of very interesting projects.
I'm looking forward to trying to keep in touch with a lot of the people online and offline.

Why go back to OBS
OBS when I worked there was a great company, but in many ways was also quite different to what it is now. The good things about the company have stayed and many of the problems which made me leave have been resolved as you'd expect given I have been away for almost 4 years !
Basically OBS has everything I was looking for which is best summed up by the guiding principles, these are not just empty statements up on a website but actually reflect how the business is run right from the top down. Simply put no where else I've seen yet has such a great bunch of really skilled people in the areas I'm interested in all together in the one place.
There are still some challenges to work through but that is the same for any business the most important thing is they have the right people, the management backing and structure in place to continue to improve in the areas that are needed.
All up I'm very excited to be back :)

It's almost Movember

2008-10-28T11:05:00.003+11:00

An ex-collegue of mine Stuart Holding just pinged me an email as he's once again participating in Movember. It's a great cause and really good fun watching the progress as the "Mo's" develop across the month click the below button to find out more about it.

Great post on Finding and Growing Great SharePoint Talent

2008-10-20T20:16:00.002+11:00

Arpan Shah has just put up a good post on finding and growing great sharepoint talent here:
http://blogs.msdn.com/arpans/archive/2008/10/16/finding-and-growing-great-sharepoint-talent.aspx
I've been struggling to explain this exact stuff in a way that can be understood to people less familar with SharePoint lately so great to see a blog post from the product team doing exactly that :)

Off to Mossig on Wed

2008-10-20T20:11:00.002+11:00

I'm heading off to Mossig on Wed.

Will be good to see another session from a new presenter:

MOSS and Search server, getting all the results in one place by Joshua Haebets, nSynergy

Plus

Increasing business productivity by making good use of OpenXML, SharePoint Events and Word Content Controls. (Take 2)Ed Richard, SharePoint Solutions Principle – Stargate Global Consulting – MVP SharePoint

More details here http://www.sharepointusers.org.au/MOSSIG/Lists/Events%20Calendar/DispForm.aspx?ID=22&Source=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Esharepointusers%2Eorg%2Eau%2FMOSSIG%2Fdefault%2Easpx

I'm alive :)

2008-10-15T21:58:00.005+11:00

Yup, ok it's been a long time between blog posts.

Been a litle busy multi-tasking, work has been pretty hectic and been a bit pre-occupied working on putting together this little guy too.
He's set to arrive Jan 9, so will be off work Jan and Feb.
Also started to use twitter to try and keep track of things when I don't have time to do a full blog post.
More work based news soon !

Don't implement mysite. What ???

2008-05-23T21:49:00.002+10:00

Was recently on a client site and was asked to comment on some advice given at a SharePoint training course by the expert running it. The users had been told not to implement mySite for at least 6 months after the main portal as users will waste a lot of time playing with it.
I found this really interesting as this goes directly against my opinion and what I have seen work well in other implementations.

I completely agree that you have to be careful when implementing mysite, for example using quota's is particularly important and recognise a certain amount of training is crucial.
Also have worked with places that have delayed the addition of mysite for up to a month after the main show to make sure they have their support and training story in hand.
But have never considered time users spend customising their site as wasted or seen any where wait 6 months before adding it in !

The way I see it is that a mysite is a key place for users to learn about how sharepoint functions, plus providing them with their own area gives them a sense of ownership and helps keep them coming back. Why this is not a good thing to implement just baffles me.

Was also interesting to hear in the remix keynote all about how crucial it is becoming to allow your employees to connect more informally via social network for knowledge sharing etc and this comment reminded me how it's not only the corporate management types that need a lot of education to make this happen.

Anyone out there share the no mysite opinion or agree with me, very interested in hearing your arguments for and against.

Workflow special @ Mossig

2008-05-23T21:43:00.003+10:00

This months Mossig is all about workflow, should be a really interesting discussion on the pro's and con's of different workflow products on the market vs. the out of the box stuff.
There is a good range of people on the panel to discuss it but I'm a bit biased seen as I'll be involved :)
Details are here http://www.sharepointusers.org.au/MOSSIG/Lists/Events%20Calendar/DispForm.aspx?ID=16.1.4&Source=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Esharepointusers%2Eorg%2Eau%2FMOSSIG%2FLists%2FEvents%2520Calendar%2Fcalendar%2Easpx

SDM are hiring for SharePoint/.Net roles

2008-05-23T21:38:00.002+10:00

Been flat out lately haven't had much time to blog. One thing that will help me being less busy is some resume's coming in from some of you fine SharePoint folk out there.
SDM are looking for fill roles in the SharePoint and or .Net space in both Melbourne and Sydney.
If your interested or know someone who is leave a comment (won't get published as it's moderated)

Office System Forum 2008 - Melbourne

2008-04-21T20:29:00.004+10:00

The folks at MOSSIG have organised Office System Forum 2008 at Latrobe University on the 2nd of May.

There are some great speakers organised with the keynote being Mike Fitzmaurice (Microsoft) and presentations later in the day from some of our local Microsoft people including William Cornwill.
A lot of great content will be covered and best of all it's free.

Places will go quickly and are limited so go to the Office System Forum website to learn more and register.

Congrats on MVP Ed

2008-04-02T21:45:00.001+11:00

Ed Richard who is instrumental in running MOSSIG also got an MVP award this morning.
Congrat's Ed, his post is here

Ed on Office: Look what I found in my inbox this morning

Congrats Aaron ia a Groove MVP

2008-04-02T20:36:00.002+11:00

My colleague Aaron Saikovski has just been awarded a groove MVP after lots of hard work out in the community.
Congrats Aaron , his post is here

MOSS Sp1 install disaster

2008-02-04T20:15:00.000+11:00

I've installed service pack 1 for MOSS numerous times now and has been pretty painless, until one install on a client site last week.
As usual I ran the wss 3.0 sp install, cancelled the config wizard, ran the MOSS sp install and then let the config wizard run.
The trouble started when it got to step 8 of 9 and failed.
The error was reported as "An exception of type Microsoft.SharePoint.PostSetupConfiguration.PostSetupConfigurationTaskException was thrown. Additional exception information: Failed to upgrade SharePoint Products and Technologies."
I did a quick search and found this article http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver/WSS/en/library/91649a7e-6b5a-4e5a-9ee5-51951f4b857f1033.mspx?mfr=true , tried the fix suggested to no avail.

This is when I started to get a little worried, this was a live production server and the service pack had brought it completely down, plus there is no way to uninstall it so it was pretty much fix or rebuild. I rang MS support who ever told me that it would be 48 hours before a SharePoint expert could ring back as they had a big queue of SharePoint problems which was not good news.

After a bit more searching I found you can actually run the upgrade at the command line.
It's a stsadm switch "stsadm -o upgrade -inplace -url http://intranet " this is heaps better than running the wizard as it actually gave quite details error messages in the log file. This is definitely a good thing to try if you are having trouble with the service pack.Turns out the problem was the sys admin had setup a dr server and was replicating the database out to it. This locked the schema from being modified. After deleting the replication and log shipping settings the upgrade worked :)

I'm still trying to find out if there is a better way to run a sp/hotfix on SharePoint with replication setup but so far MS support haven't given me an answer.

Navigation link to portal from mysite

2008-01-27T22:59:00.000+11:00

One of the most common requests I get from customers as soon as mysites are enabled is how to navigate back to the portal. This is only a problem if you create mysites in their own web application as per Microsoft best practise recommendations which gives you better flexibility in terms of backup etc.
It's actually really simple to solve, you can just jump into the SSP and add a personalisation link without an audience so that everyone gets it.
This however has one problem it loads it still within the mysite menu structure so you still get the mysite tabs of myprofile etc but the central pane shows your main portal which gets confusing for users.
There is actually a really easy way to fix it just chuck a /# on the end of the url after and it then bounces it out of the mysite navigation frame.

My Job Role at SDM

2008-01-27T22:43:00.000+11:00

As part of the DWS acquisition we have done a bit of a reshuffle.
Andy Neumann has moved up to be the state manager for the Victorian office leaving his current roles as national manager for EPM and IW.
Our resident project server guru, MVP and crazy german Marc Soester is now national manager for EPM and I'm national manager for the information worker team.
After the congrats the first question people keep asking me is how I feel moving away from implementing and coding on on top of MOSS.
The answer is simple as I'm not, I'll still be architecting and implementing solutions as per normal just for slightly less time per week.

Welcome to SDM Aaron Saikovski

2007-12-28T20:18:00.000+11:00

Aaron Saikovski has finally announced on his blog he's joining the team here at SDM.
While I'm always excited about new people coming on board I've got to say I'm more excited than usual about Aaron starting with us.
It's the first time I've been involved in hiring someone who's blog I've actively read and is so well known in the SharePoint community !
Looking forward to the new work year kicking off on the 7th of Jan.

Happy Holidays

2007-12-28T20:00:00.000+11:00

Been offline for a while spending some awesome time away with the family in Tassie.
Nice to have a quiet family break. We spent a bunch of time looking around Hobart and Launceston and visiting all the usual sites.

My favourite bit was a visit to Seahorse world , for some reason I'm fascinated with these creatures so I loved it as I even got to hold one. Victor also loved them and all the fish as well.

Victor was really well behaved the whole time even on the planes and in the hire car except for a massive tantrum when we tried to do a tour of the cadbury factory. The reason for the tantrum was because he had to wear a hair net and he really hates wearing hats, must remember to check if hats are required for activities in the future. Luckily we still got to go to the shop to buy cheap chocolate :)

Also had a good Christmas with Victor getting far to many gifts as usual. He still didn't quite understand what all the fuss was about though.

Just what I needed a bit of time to chill out before what will be a pretty huge start to the working year.

I hope you are all having a great holiday too :)

DWS announces intention to acquire SDM

2007-12-11T21:05:00.000+11:00

Here's the official press release to the ASX with details.
DWS looks likely to acquire my employer SDM which is very exciting news as it should help SDM grow more rapidly than we are currently able to.
It's very early days in the process so not sure entirely how it will work but so far it's all pretty positive :)
Update: Jan 3rd
It's officially completed, SDM is a DWS company

Mossig end of year event on Wed

2007-12-10T21:12:00.000+11:00

I'm presenting as part of the end of year event for Mossig on Wed.

There are quite a few pieces of the night but the bit I'm presenting in will be where 5 solutions developers present on projects they have completed on the office system.

Will be a good night, details are here if you want to come along.

How development has changed

2007-12-03T20:34:00.000+11:00

When I started in development out of uni I was doing vb 6.0 and asp development. I could write code ok but my ui looked bad. I was just not any good at making things look nice and didn't have any interest in it.

Now for most of my projects and presales demo's I actually spend time in SharePoint designer making things look right even when I don't have to and you know what it's easy. I can actually do it without much pain at all !

Now I'm playing with expression blend as well, not quite as easy as SPD but definitely keen to get a bit more knowledge on what I can do in there too.

When even someone as design phobic as myself starts spending a bunch of time working on making things look and flow right, perhaps all the articles on the user experience age are right on track. Plus I've got visual studio 2008 on my machine too, looks like I'll be doing some good playing over the xmas break :)

Catch-up Post

2007-12-03T20:16:00.000+11:00

Yup still here, what I've been up to is no where near as exciting as the MOSS SP1 features posted here but enough to keep me busy.

Work wise have been flat out working on some good MOSS and .Net projects. The only one in the public domain right now is the water calculator here which uses the excel services web services to do all the behind the scenes calculations. It's took me a little while to work my way through how to do it, particularly to store values between pages for the final calculations but in the end worked out well.

One of the other main things I've been doing lately is heading off to the physio. A few weeks ago now I tripped on one step and did a bucket load of damage to my ankle which put me on crutches for a while. You'd think given I had to spend a bunch of extra time sitting around it would of given me more time on the computer, unfortunately it was not so. It took me so long to get around everywhere I spend most of my spare time just catching up.
Fortunately it's coming good now and I'm off the crutches just in time to start XMAS shopping.

Looking forward I'm excited about about a couple of new people we have joining the SDM team in the new year (more on that then now doubt), plus the Mossig end of year meeting.

Then I'll be off for a well deserved holiday to tassie :)

Debugging Authentication Issues

2007-10-08T19:40:00.000+10:00

I recently ran into a problem with some code I had written getting a 401 error on a particular server. There were a lot of pieces involved as it was custom .net code calling the excel services web service on a SharePoint 2007 machine.

After playing around with the code on various boxes I simply couldn't find any reason for why the code would not work. I even tried hard coding some credentials into the web service call for testing but still no luck.

I suspected that it wasn't the code, but the trouble was how to confirm that which is when I grabbed Fiddler Web Debugger http://www.fiddler2.com/fiddler2/version.asp .
It's a really great free tool that is very easy to use. I downloaded it to my local machine and tried a bunch of calls to the server. Initially I received a 407 message back.
This told me I was having a problem getting through the proxy, which as the other box was outside the proxy was unlikely to be the cause.

After turning off the proxy settings in my browser I then continued to see 401 messages. This eliminated the problem being code related as a straight http request to the file in question would not work.After the sys admin had a look at the results from fiddler we then looked into the settings in SharePoint and found out that kerberos wasn't working at all.

Problem solved :), I'd definitely using Fiddler if you've got a tricky authentication problem to solve.

Changing the status field in the Helpdesk or call center template

2007-09-27T20:22:00.000+10:00

I'm a big fan of the Microsoft Application Templates for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0.
I think they are a great example of what can be done on top of SharePoint without writing code.

A little time ago I was asked what I thought was an easy question. A customer using the call center template wanted to change the values in the status drop down.
Being SharePoint I figured it would be dead easy so went to the column settings for the content type clicked on the status field and found there was just a field name and nothing at all that could be changed.
So then I started to wonder where these field values were coming from !
Here's how I finally worked it out.

I started my investigation in the site template definition file at C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\SiteTemplates\callcenter\xml\onet.xml
In there it lists a number of features towards thet bottom which pointed me in the direction of where the list was defined (btw the commenting in this file is great, very good idea if your doing your own ).

I then navigated to the template for the list which was at C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\FEATURES\CallCenterServiceRequestsList\ListTemplates\ServiceRequest.xml
The XML in there said that the list was called service request

So then I navigated to the XML file for the service request list at
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\FEATURES\CallCenterServiceRequestsList\servicerequest\schema.xml

The status field was down in the page and each of the options looked like this

$Resources:hlpdsk,SRStatus_Choice1;

What that meant is that they use a resources file.
Resource files are stored here C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\Resources
So I opened the English on for the help desk template htlpdsk.resx and finally in there I found the status fields.

I changed the field name, restarted IIS and the changes appeared on the site :)
Only problem is as they are in the resx file that means that this change would take effect for any site based on the call center or help desk template.

I'm still here !

2007-09-26T22:00:00.000+10:00

Ok. Ok I know I haven't posted for far too long.
Same old poor excuse I got way too busy, with various stuff a lot of it work related.
But now I'm back :)

On that note I'd like to wish William Cornwill aka Code Jedi best of luck in his new role at Microsoft, we were very sad to see him leave the SDM team but I'm excited to see all the great stuff he does in his new role !

One of the other things that has been keeping me so busy is all the new people we have had joining our team, we are still growing quite fast which has meant it's been a big challenge to find the right good quality people.

Plus been plenty busy doing lots of good SharePoint work too !

AAF is over

2007-07-01T20:53:00.001+10:00

I had a great time and enjoyed mixing with other architects even the IBM and Java guys ;)
I've posted a summary of what i thought over on Tech Talk Blogs .
If you went to either of my sessions (Enterprise Search or a Portal in to the Business) and want a copy of the slides or you have some more questions leave a comment or send me an email.
I'm looking forward to being involved next year. Thanks to all the organisers who got the event up and running which was an amazing feat given the busy time of year !

I'm a Tech Talk Blogs guest editor

2007-07-01T20:48:00.000+10:00

Thanks to Frank, I'm one of the three new guest editors over on Tech Talk Blogs.
My intro post is here . I'm really excited about being involved on the site leading up to Tech.Ed.
I'll be posting a fair bit over on that site so things might be even quieter than usual here (is that possible !) but I'll post a summary every now and then.

Register now for the Australian Architecture Forum

2007-06-18T21:31:00.000+10:00

The Australian Architecture Forum is now only a couple of week away.

It's going to be a great event with interactive round table discussions lead by industry experts.

It will be held in Sydney on Wednesday the 27th June and Melbourne on Friday the 29th June.

Check out the website built by some of my colleagues at SDM for more detail http://www.architectureforum.net.au/Pages/aaf.aspx

Long time no Blog - catch-up post.

2007-06-17T20:08:00.000+10:00

Wow just realised how long it has been since I posted...so what have i been up to ?

A big part of my time has been spent moving house. We've been in our new house for a month or so now so things are finally pretty much setup. Only thing left is a few odd jobs and waiting for the furniture for my office to arrive.

The new house is awesome, but the best bit is the new LCD tv that i bought. It's a 40" LCD Sony Bravia that is full HD quality and the quality is absolutely amazing. I highly recommend the model. I've heard a lot of people complain about LCD's with delays and/or not being able to keep up with fast moving action but this tv doesn't seem to have any problems with anything I throw at it including the xbox 360.

Work wise right after we moved I headed off to Sydney to present at the APAC SharePoint conference. The conference was great, hopefully it becomes a yearly event as there was some really useful information shared. Since then I've been absolutely flat out. Doing some great stuff with SharePoint 2007, particularly excel services and even project server 2007 as well as some other projects.

We also celebrated Victor's first birthday. I can't believe the little guy is over 1 now..he's getting pretty close to walking and starting to chat a lot more and he latest work is "Ta". Unfortunately Victor got really sick just before his birthday with Tonsillitis and is still recovering. It was a pretty rough ride for the poor little guy but he was pretty well behaved considering.
Poor guy was so sick he wouldn't even eat ice cream cake....now that is sick !!! He got some absolutely awesome presents from all the extended family and friends which he's now enjoying playing with.

Greg also held a concert for his students at Monstar Music. Once again he roped in Andrew Neumann to be involved as guitarist. This time there was no backing music just Andy on guitar and the singers. I was absolutely blown away both by the amazing guitar playing as well as the vocal performances. I thoroughly enjoyed the night and am very much looking forward to the end of year concert.

SharePoint APAC Session - Templates & role based MySites

2007-04-10T21:10:00.000+10:00

The session I will be presenting at APAC is titled Templates & role based MySites. It is aimed at an architect audience.

Here's a quick summary of what it will cover:
The templates facilitate user adoption and foster target deployments in context of their processes. They allow you to start conversations on usage and deployment with end users, while still giving room for your own solutions to be extended on top of templates. The templates for My Sites will be pre-configured to display, in a common environment, role-relevant data from sources such as LOB systems, desktop tools and portals. They will use MOSS capabilities such as audience targeting, KPIs, workflows, Excel services, Business Data Catalog, and others.

If you have any specific items you would like to see covered within the above scope let me know and I'll see what I can do. Also don't forget to register to attend here : http://www.microsoftsharepoint.com/

UDDATE: I'm Passed both MCTS Exams !!

2007-04-07T10:32:00.000+10:00

My results on the Pearson site just got updated with a pass for the Sharepoint 2007 : Application Dev exam as well and both exams has even made it through to my official MCP transcript.

Now I can officially use the logos :)

I'm really pleased I passed them both especially as I sat them both on the same day which totalled about 6.5 hours of exam time (could of been up to 7.5 hours !) and resulted in me seriously straining my brain.
Now I just have to get studying for the rest of those .Net 2.0 exams :)

I'm passed MCTS: WSS App Dev I think ?

2007-04-05T20:08:00.000+10:00

Way back in Feb I sat some beta exams and I have been eagerly awaiting the results hoping I at least passed the WSS one. Well looks like I did :).
A few days ago the status on the exam site was updated to passed, only glitch is I've yet to get an official email from Microsoft to confirm. Now just have to wait and see how I went on the other one !

I learnt a lot studying for these exams, also realised a few topics I needed to know more about while sitting the exams. One of them was programming against excel services. Luckily I'm now doing just that , spent today hooking up InfoPath forms to call referential data and calculations stored in a spreadsheet accessed through the excel services web service.

It's a quite nice solution where business users can edit data in excel spreadsheets and have it appear on the forms. This makes it a nice easy step to help get departments using online tools, without having to go to the expense and effort of custom developing pages or databases.
Particularly good for a first phase of a project, the data and calculations can then be moved to a full blown database later when/if needed.
Had to bend a few things to get it going, but once you know a few tricks it's not to hard to achieve.

APAC SharePoint Conference 2007 Site is Live

2007-03-24T16:45:00.000+11:00

The website for the APAC SharePoint Conference 2007 is now up at
http://www.microsoftsharepoint.com
The agenda looks really good so get in there are get registered.
Looks likely that I'll be up there, hopefully presenting so I'll see you there :)

Mossig Presentation

2007-03-16T21:14:00.000+11:00

I'm presenting at MOSSIG on the 28th. I will be talking about the MOSS and WSS 3.0 certifications, at least as much as I can without violating the NDA you sign when you do the exams.
There will also be two other presentations on the night which also sound pretty good.
More details here http://www.mossig.net/default.aspx

APAC SharePoint Conference

2007-03-07T19:47:00.000+11:00

Have a look at Angus Logan's blog for all the details on the up and coming APAC SharePoint conference.
http://blogs.msdn.com/angus_logan/archive/2007/03/07/announcing-the-asia-pacific-sharepoint-conference-in-sydney-15-16-may-2006-australia.aspx
Looks like it will be great so get your registration in quick smart !

New Feed

2007-02-10T09:45:00.000+11:00

A collegue of mine the Code Jedi (aka William Cornwill) has been bugging me about my site feed.
It appears that in outlook 2007 the standard blogger feed shows up all posts with a date of 1/1/2007 meaning the new posts don't show up at the top.

Finally I've done something about it, I have created a new feedburner feed it is located here
Haven't quite got around to getting a domain etc setup to work out an auto redirection so I'm afraid for now you'll have to change your feed link yourself.

Want to buy a house ?

2007-02-09T07:32:00.000+11:00

We are selling our house, it just went up on the web here . We are selling via auction in 5 weeks so we are in for a busy (and no doubt stressful) time.
Late last night we also put in an offer on a new home that was accepted which is great :)
I just hope selling our current home all works out well !!

So why are we moving, well basically it is all Victors fault ;), our current house is great for entertaining but doesn't have much space in which he can play in .
The new place still has a decent entertaining area (but no pool) , but has a bit more room that is child friendly. Also it still has a room which will suit Monstar Music.

SharePoint 2007 and WSS 3.0 Beta Exams

2007-02-05T19:43:00.000+11:00

Sat both the SharePoint 2007 and WSS 3.0 Application Development beta exams today.
I found the SharePoint exam really hard, doubtful I passed that one. I'm pretty confident on the workflow and infopath questions as I've spent a fair bit of time in those areas. Also my knowledge of customizing search came in handy, but didn't really know enough about programming against the BDC and Excel Services. It highlighted a few areas that I need to look further into in the SDK.

I found the WSS 3.0 exam a bit easier. I've done a lot of development on WSS 2.0 so that knowledge came in handy. Also I have been reading the following book on developing in WSS 3.0 by Todd Bleeker which is excellent. Definitely worth the purchase price.
Still not sure I passed though as there were quite a few tricky questions in there.

If I didn't pass I will definitely be resitting these after a bit of study. It's really great that this time around Microsoft has included exams that require really deep development knowledge, as well as the IT pro exams. Basically the whole exam is focused on the object model and web services, which really reinforces firstly how much skill is required to properly program against these products, but also the potential i.e. WSS 3.0 and SharePoint are platforms for development not just out of the box products (although what you get out of the box is pretty damn good )

If your thinking of also sitting the exams this site has a pretty good list of most of the items on the exams, although not doubt official books will be released later in the year.

MMMM Vista

2007-01-31T19:24:00.000+11:00

Installed Vista Home Premium on my media center last night. Having a little bit of a struggle with the video card and the television loosing settings every now and then, but all up it looks great.
I really love the visual effects, just the way you navigate through photo's and album covers is awesome. Also the tv guide layered on top of the television looks really great. Looking forward to using a few more of the cool features over the coming weeks.
I've already got a version of vista ultimate on order for our other pc :)

Catch-up post

2007-01-31T19:04:00.000+11:00

Been pretty busy this month one of the big events was SDM (my employers) yearly conference. Once a year we get the whole company together for a couple of days to talk about the year that has passed and the year that is coming. This year we also held a managers day the day before. All up it's a great time to catch up with people, work out what went well and what didn't and sort out some strategy for the year to come. The general consensus is this year is going to be huge for SDM which will be exciting but also result in some challenges.
For me I think the biggest challenge is going to be how I'm going to juggle all the work we have coming in between the extended SDM team members, that's the sort of challenge I like (much better than not having enough work !)

Victor and Greg came along to Adelaide with me which was great as well. Unfortunately the weather wasn't great so they didn't get up to much, but we did manage a trip to the zoo. Unfortunately a lot of the animals were hiding from the humid weather so didn't get to show Victor any lions or tigers, but still was pretty good.

On the plane ride back I also noticed Victor is getting his first tooth. The poor little guy is finding it a bit tough although he's being pretty good compared to most stories of teething I've heard.

After that we also held an Australia Day BBQ. I really enjoyed the day a lot, had some great food particularly the desserts that people brought along and caught up with some people I haven't seen in far too long. Was also good to have the families of some people that I see all the time there as well. Victor had a great time watching all the other older kids.

I think the Australia Day BBQ might just become a van Bergen tradition.

Happy Birthday Greg

2007-01-07T20:48:00.000+11:00

Today (Jan 9th) is my husband Greg's 29th Birthday so I wanted to take a moment to tell eveyone how wonderful he is :)
Quite a few people have told me how amazing it was I managed to get back to work full time only 6 weeks after Victor was born as I tell them it's Greg not me that is doing the amazing job.

He does an absolutely awesome job looking after our son Victor and still keeping his business Monstar Music running as well. I love hearing Victor and him laughing away while they are playing together.
Somehow he also finds time to keep our house in order doing a large amount of the household chores as well while I'm working. He also reherses and performs in amenteur musical productions (at the moment he is rehersing for Sweeny Todd ) and even writes his own music generally with the help of his fellow musical genius Andy

He is absolutely amazing and provides a tremendous amount of support for me which enables me to meet my goals as well.
I would be absolutely lost without him, so Happy Birthday Greg Victor and I love you very much.

Goals for 2007

2007-01-07T20:22:00.000+11:00

I've read quite a few posts of with goal's for 2007 on other blogs including these two from Chris and Andy.
I really like the idea of setting some public goals as I guess that helps make sure they get done so below is my list of mine in no particular order.

This year I'm trying to make sure they are things i can actually achieve so there are no crazy things on the list like trying to blog more ;)

Complete my MCTS qualifications in C# and SharePoint/WSS. If I get time also do the MCPD qualifications
Take Victor to his first essendon footy game ( he has been a member since he was born !!)
Take Victor to the zoo
Go on a family holiday where we are not travelling for work or to visit relatives.
Make sure Greg and I get to spend some time out alone together. Aim to get out at least once a month.
Get back into exercising, starting with twice a week.
Present at at least 2 community or Microsoft events
Try to catch up with friends more often
Get the home pc's upgraded to vista and office 2007
Help build SDM into an even larger and greater company including doing even more work with SharePoint 2007
Work on my skills to become a better manager

That's it for now. So far I'm tracking ok on the list as Greg and I have already been out alone to celebrate his birthday and we are holding a bbq to catch up with friends. Lets see how it goes for the rest of the year.

Should be a good year as the family are also celebarting a few milestones this year with Victor turning 1 and I'm turning 30 !!!

Sharepoint 2007 Case Study

2006-12-23T19:29:00.000+11:00

One of the projects I completed recently using the beta release of SharePoint 2007 was highlighted and used as a case study at the recent Office 2007 launch by Microsoft. They have just put the documents produced up on their web site at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=1ee99c09-8ae9-4ab3-81a1-46e9403139fe&displaylang=en and http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=23956c96-fa7f-428b-bc85-c9b5b3483868&displaylang=en
Lots of the projects I work on I'm not allowed to talk about due to the Non Disclosure Agreements we have to sign, so it's nice to have something up on the web that explains what I do.

Want to do a beta exam for SharePoint 2007 or WSS 3.0 Development

2006-12-18T21:00:00.000+11:00

Check out this post from LLiu on the SharePoint Team Blog for details of the exams and how to register.

Australian Architect Forum

2006-11-20T22:07:00.000+11:00

The planning for next years Australian Architect Forum is underway, it will be an event similar to last years patterns and practises conference which I attended last year. I found last years event really valuable (see my post on it here)
Sounds like this years event is shaping up to be even better.
For more information on what is being planned this year have a look at the following posts on Chuck's blog and make sure you send in your recommendations/suggestions
2007 Australian Architect Forum Content
Australian Architect Forum May 2007 -Looking for Feedback!

3D movies

2006-11-05T21:23:00.000+11:00

Went along today to see my favourite cartoon movie The Nightmare Before Christmas that has just been released in 3D. The last time I saw a 3D movie was back when you got red and blue glasses, now they are updated somewhat to green plastic ones but more importantly the 3D movie techniques have also moved on a whole heap. It was absolutely fantastic.
I wonder when/if the 3D movie technique will get used on a non "kids" movie, perhaps still a bit to complex to do yet but I'd love to see a 3D action movie.

My Xbox is cranky

2006-11-05T21:21:00.000+11:00

Finally got around to getting a blog for my xbox 360 (http://www.360voice.com/blog.asp?tag=evillaney), turns out my xbox is a bit needy and seems to get quite upset when i don't play it.

Post Stealing

2006-10-04T20:34:00.000+10:00

I'm a bit behind in my blog reading so only just read Nick's post about his blog post getting completely copied without even a link back.
I'm absolutely shocked that someone would do this, especially someone who is supposed to be a role model for the developer community !
I know how much work most mvp's and other community members like Nick put in to help other people in the developer community get ahead by doing heaps of research, answering questions and sharing information via blogs.
Someone like Patrick that just copies other peoples posts without credit gives the hard working community members a bad name. He's definitely off my RSS list.

SPSecurity.RunWithElevatedPrivileges

2006-10-04T19:46:00.000+10:00

Most sharepoint code runs in the security context of the user that has accessed the site. This is great if you want to ensure that the code can't do anything that the logged in user shouldn't have access to, but I've often found that I wanted the code to be able to do things such as create a site even though the user doesn't have that permission.
In sharepoint 2003 this meant adding impersonation code. Once you add impersonation code you then have to work out where and how you are going to secure the user name and password. There are plenty of good options and information on the web about doing this, but it's a lot of code just to do something simple.
The great news in in MOSS 2007 they have added new functionality to the OM to help avoid this on the SPSecurity object. Have a look at this MSDN article for an example http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms368312.aspx

MOSS and Excel and new SDK

2006-09-22T21:39:00.000+10:00

I have posted on integrating MOSS and excel at MOSS champions here
Also posted a quick reminder to download the new SDK's , they have been updated with heaps more information with the Tech Refresh.
The SharePoint one is here for download and the WSS 3 one is here

I'm a MOSS Champion

2006-09-22T20:53:00.000+10:00

I've just started posting across to the MOSS Champion's site. It's an online community for people who want to post content about Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, should end up being a good summary of MOSS content as there are quite a few people posting to the site.
So that I don't have to post things twice I will post links on this blog to any posting I put up there :)
Also while talking about MOSS the next meeting of the MOSSIG is coming up on September 27th check out what will be presented here

MOSS and Workflow a summary

2006-09-13T21:48:00.000+10:00

SharePoint 2003 introduced a basic approval concept for document libraries but it really didn't meet what most customers wanted in terms of human based workflow, at least not without a third party workflow product.

With SharePoint 2007 (and Windows SharePoint Services 2007) now the workflow options are a lot more flexible. Firstly you are not so limited on what you can workflow, workflow can apply to a content type so it is no longer locked down to only certain library type.

The first decision that needs to be made is which sort of workflow matches what you want to do.
The easiest is to use is the "out of the box" workflows. The following workflows are all available:

Approval
Collect Feedback
Collect Signatures
Disposition Approval
Group Approval
Translation Management
Issue Tracking

These all allow basic configuration by an non-IT user such as entering the users for approval. More information can be found here.

If they don't meet what you want a relatively technical business user can use SharePoint Designer to create a workflow using the predefined workflow actions provided. This tool is not a nice drag and drop workflow tool but it provides enough of a designer to get a basic custom workflow going.

The third sort of workflow is custom workflow created using visual studio. All workflow in SharePoint uses windows workflow foundation as a basis to run with some predefined actions to work specifically with SharePoint items. If you go down this path it is extremely extensible and even with the current beta we have been able to successfully develop great solutions using it.
There is a white paper on SharePoint workflow here and some great samples in the ECM starter kit here . While it certainly is not something that is easy to do, it is very powerful.

As well as customizing the actual workflow you can customize the forms that users see both during configuration as well as during the workflow. These can either be aspx forms or Infopath online forms both of which can have custom code behind them.

So with all this in built workflow capability is there still a place for for third party tools ? After working with custom workflows I think there definitely is. Firstly the workflow is complex, using a third party tool that is well designed might be much quicker. Secondly business users often want to drag and drop design a workflow which none of the tools provide.

In short I think workflow is one of the key features of SharePoint that takes it from a product to a platform on which you can create solutions.

Victor's Trip to Sydney

2006-08-27T21:41:00.000+10:00

Victor and Greg came along to Sydney with me for Tech•Ed, at three months old the trip included a lot of firsts for Victor.

He had his first plane ride which he he slept most of the way through, then on to his first train ride which he wasn't so pleased about, although I think this was more a reflection on how tired he was.
If it wasn't for some much needed assistance from my fellow SDM travellers Ben and Will, Greg and I would of struggled to make it to the hotel in one piece. Even though we only had a pram, 1 bag and a backpack getting around on public transport was certainly a lot more difficult than I expected. On the way back we took the easier option and got a Taxi which was another first for Victor.

While in Sydney we also went on a cruise around the bay. I took Victor outside on the boat but he wasn't very pleased by the wind, i guess when your already struggling to hold your head up that much wind really isn't very helpful ! He really wasn't that impressed by the bridge or the opera house, but he seemed to prefer the water wooshing around the side of the boat !

On saturday we had a nice picnic in darling harbour. Victor certainly liked spending time outside and was amazed by simple things like the tree he was lying next to, we will definately have to head out to the local park more often.

The bit of the trip that he absolutely loved was the aquairum, especially the bits where there was water above and around the walkways.
He really enjoyed watching all the creatures swimming around through the glass.

It was really awesome watching him enjoy all these things for the first time, I'm already looking forward to when we can organize our next family adventure !

Tech•Ed Highlights

2006-08-27T21:00:00.000+10:00

There were some great technical sessions up at Tech•Ed this year in fact there were so many that a lot of them clashed with each other. I'm hoping I can catch up on some I missed from the USDVD'ss.

The highlights for me were the MOSS 2007 and workflow sessions. I've recently spent a fair bit of time developing with MOSS so a fair bit of the technical content for me was not new, but I'm sure I picked up plenty of new pieces of knowledge. Also the speakers were so entertaining it made the sessions extra interesting. It seemed to work really well having some of the local Microsoft guys paired with the overseas speakers. These sessions were really popular and itdefinitelyy highlighted how important and popular the release of the Office 2007 server products is going to be.

I also took the opportunity this year to miss out on a few sessions to meet up with speakers in person. I talked to both Arpan Shah and Mike Fitzmaurice about key areas in MOSS and WSS 3. Also I talked to both Paul Andrew and local MVP Mick Badran about workflow. Along with catching up with a lot of the local Microsoft people these sessions really made Tech•Ed for me.

Also it was great to see a couple of SDM people presenting with great sessions by Ben Walters our InfoPath MVP and one of our SQL Server experts Nick Barclay , maybe next year I can get myself a spot presenting !

Finally I also got myself a few nice freebee's with the best being the bags and also the personalized t-shirts given out by Microsoft.

Tech•Ed 06 Keynote

2006-08-27T19:51:00.000+10:00

This years Tech•Ed in Sydney was the best one that I have been to so far.
It started off very well with the keynote. I had a reserved seat down the front for being involved in the marketing campaign and my name even got mentioned during the speech by Frank Arrigo which was nice.

The main speaker was Anne Kirah who is ananthropologistt at Microsoft and I found her speech fascinating. She told some great stories about her time at Microsoft and the shift in importance from involving 40 "normal" families in providing feedback during the windows XP beta (including a couple who were 75 !) to having families from all around the world involved with the newer products such as Vista. This really helped highlighted Microsoft's shift towards people ready solutions rather than those aimed at IT pro's.

This focus on designing solutions for people not "users" was something that was repeated in several of the architecture sessions I saw as well. As technical people it is all too easy to give users what we think they should have, rather than what they actually want. This further validated the approach we try to take at SDM which involves planning meetings with all the people involved in using the solution (when the client allows it) as well as an iterative approach to allow feedback to be included in the solution as it is built.

I also found her explanationn of digital immigrants and digital natives really interesting (Digital natives are those that have grown up with technology). One of the most interesting things was her description of how digital natives can and expect to do multiple things at once. This quite accurately describes Greg and I. I've been pretty lucky to have had computers around for almost as long as I can remember. Greg on the other hand didn't use a computer very often until he started living with me. I often drive him mad as I'm frequently doing two things at once (if not three) like watching TV and typing my blog, while he prefers to do one thing at once.

She also highlighted how things change over the generations. For example many parents and workplaces are trying to limit the use of technologies such as IM as for the digital immigrants who are the decision makers they are distracting, but for the digital natives they are such a part of daily life that not having them can even lead to them changing workplaces.
She also talked about the digital natives helping to bring others up to speed, this is something that is familiar to most people who work in IT who have helped their parents or other relatives get a computer and are now on-call tech support. I'd like to think I will be able to keep up to speed with new technology, but I'm sure I'll hit a point where Victor will be on the phone trying to explain very slowly how to use something new to me. I wonder what it will feel like to be on the other side of the phone conversation !

My Birthday

2006-07-31T20:01:00.000+10:00

My birthday was on the weekend (29th July) and I had a great day. I got a really cool present from Greg of a Kaledescope , which is something I have wanted for a long time. It is really nice and I especially like that I can change the glass wheels for different effects. Also got a great card with photos of Victor helping celebrate my birthday.

We then took Victor to his first baby session at Gymbaroo. He had an absolute ball there, so much so that he got over excited and had to have a nap before the session was even over and I learnt that I don't even know all the right words to the Hokey Pokey....so much to learn.

After that my parents looked after Victor and Greg and I went out for our first evening alone together since he arrived. It was nice to have a bit of adult time, but I did still spend most of it wondering what Victor was up to. I think it will take a while longer for me to get used to other people baby sitting him.

Also my footy team Essendon even finally won a game !
It will be hard to top this years birthday next year but seen as I will be turning 30 I think a big birthday party may be in order :)

Book Review - Software Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art

2006-07-31T19:26:00.000+10:00

Just finished reading Software Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art by Steve McConnell.
I've found it to be a really interesting read and I have learnt quit a bit from it. In the past I have read a few books on project management and estimation and in general I have found them pretty hard to get through. Often they get bogged down in what the book calls the science of software estimation. That is mathematical methods of estimating and complex estimation models where you vary a bunch of factors. I'm sure they are useful for people who's main job is to estimate or people estimating huge projects, but for the size of the projects I generally work on they are just not appropriate and/or worth the effort.
Instead this book talks about the art of software estimation which is focused on providing easy to use, hands on techniques that are appropriate to different styles of projects. This book is a much better resource for someone such as myself that often has to provide estimates in short time frames.
The book provides advice that ca be used in the real world where you still have to work out an estimate even though you might not have historical data for the sort of project your working on i.e. it provides real world advice not just best practise.
It is also really well organized into small chapters with practical tips highlighted along the way which means if you don't have a lot of time it's easy to read in short sessions, or to just read the portion that applies to what your currently doing.
I'd definitely recommend reading it if you are (or aspire to be) a lead developer or technical project manager. In fact I think I will definately give it a re-read in six months or so again to see what else I can learn from it as well as to see how my estimation skills have improved.

MOSS 2007

2006-07-23T20:52:00.000+10:00

I'm been out and about a bit talking to clients about MOSS 2007 . I've previously done a lot of work on SharePoint 2003 and a few CMS implementations, so I was very interested to see how MOSS which essentially combines the two stacks up.
So far the feedback on the product has been great from the clients I have showed it to, compared to the old versions there is just so much more "in the box", not to mention the great new look and feel.
I've built some great solutions on SharePoint 2003 but I've also hit quite a few roadblocks where the toolset just didn't quite match the customer solution. This version certainly seems to be a lot more flexible, in fact almost too flexible.With the enterprise features (infopath server, excel services and business data catalog) as well as the standard ones like workflow it really makes it fit a wide range of solutions which for a client could make it pretty difficult to work out which bits should be implemented as well as how to actually do it.
There are just so many options of what to include, not to mention a lot to learn to be able to do it all well (check out the elearning for a great overview or attend this months MOSSIG meeting for more info). I've been looking at the beta versions for months now and I'm still finding new features in there, or realizing features work slightly different than I had previously realized.
I definitely think implementing in an iterative approach (and of course getting a bit of advice from an expert like us at SDM) is going to be a good way to go with this product !
I'm really looking forward to getting into some deeper development with the product over the next few months, looks like I will be doing a heap of work on it, including the implementation I'm currently working on.
I really enjoy the challenge of wrangling with the difficulties of a beta product to get a great solution up and running...This product should definitely make the next 12 months interesting !

Tech•Ed 06 - "I'll be there"

2006-07-23T19:44:00.000+10:00

During the week the final details of my flights and accommodation for Tech•Ed was organised so I'm now officially attending :)
I'm really looking forward to this years event, there are so many good sessions that working out the ones I will attend will be a real challenge.

Victor and Greg are flying up there as well with me which is great. Victor will be 3 months old by then so the trip should prove interesting !

No rest for the Wicked !

2006-07-10T18:17:00.000+10:00

This is week 2 of me starting back at work full time and I'm very busy. It's certainly been a bit of a juggling act working full time during the day and looking after Victor in the evening and night. Lucky for me years working in IT has well prepared me for the perils of lack of sleep.

The first few days were pretty tough leaving to come to work, but now it is not so hard as
my husband Greg is doing an awesome job looking after the little guy during the day so I don't have to worry (plus he is still managing to run his singing teaching business at night so we are both buzy!). Sure I miss him during the day, but I also know it is important for me to be at work, plus because I start early and finish early I still get to spend quite a lot of quality time with Victor.

I have no idea how people manage to look after a baby by themselves full time. Looking after Victor is taking up most of both of our time, but it is hugely rewarding. He is now 8 weeks old and it's amazing the amount he has changed in that time. I'm really looking forward to seeing him grow further over time !

Completed exam 70-536

2006-06-28T17:19:00.000+10:00

Last week I passed my first .Net 2.0 exam, 70-536 Application development foundation.
I actually don't need to do the exam as I can jump straight ahead to the MCSD or MCAD upgrade exams but thought I would do it any way.
My thinking was that the upgrade exams are somewhat condensed hence they might not cover all the topics in the individual exams and I wanted to make sure I had a good understanding of all the fundamentals of the framework.
Doing the exam was definitely worthwhile as I learnt a lot even though I thought I already knew a fair bit about .Net 2.0. I picked up quite a few good things particularily in the trickier areas such as the available encrytion routines.
Now I think I'll go for the upgrade exams and see if I can get some MCPD qualifications added to my name in the next few months !

Interested in Office 2007 - check out MOSSIG

2006-06-21T16:49:00.000+10:00

MOSSIG - the Microsoft Office System Special Interest Group is holding it's first meeting next week.
The presenters look like they will be pretty good as they include one my esteemed colleagues at SDM , William Cornwill.

Here's the details courtesy of Victoria.Net

LAUNCH OF MICROSOFT OFFICE SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP
27 JUNE, 6PM

The 2007 Office release is the most significant release of Office for a decade, adding further servers, applications and services to expand and enhance the Office System.
The challenge for us, our businesses and our clients is to collectively know and apply the features that the Office System brings.

Introducing the Microsoft Office Server Special Interest Group (MOSSIG) which has been formed specifically with the Victoria.NET members as a community to learn and share their experiences whether they be application, server or solution based.

We will be kicking off our inaugural meeting next Tuesday the 27th June at 6pm with a jam packed session for Office Users and Developers alike, so please consider passing this invitation on to your non-developer colleagues as well.

PRESENTATIONS:

A Lap Around The Office 2007 System
Join Tim Wragg (Professional Advantage) as he gives us an overview of the new & updated servers, applications and services for the Office 2007 System

The new Microsoft Office 2007 Interface - Business Focus Topic
Join William Cornwill (SDM) as he discusses why Microsoft has changed the interface and the new features

Developer view of Microsoft Office 2007 - Business Data - Technology Focus Topic
Join Ed Richard (Software Objectives) as he talks about data storage of Sharepoint 2007 and using Line Of Business data in applications like Word and Excel.

Open Forum
A chance to Network with each other and open up the floor to discuss their thoughts and experiences with the Office System

TO REGISTER: E-mail Ed Richard at Ed@SoftwareObjectives.com.au, by COB on Monday 26 June.

Tech-Elaine

2006-05-22T18:09:00.000+10:00

This year one of the goals of Tech-Ed is to be more personal and fun than ever.
As part of that Microsoft are using some real Tech-Ed attendees pictures on the site to promote it and I'm one of them, hence the photo shoot I mentioned a few weeks back :)
I'm on the exhibition page here
If your a developer or IT pro that uses Microsoft technology you should definitely think about making it to this years Tech-Ed. There will be plenty of great content relating to current Microsoft technology as well as the up and coming office and vista release but there is also a lot more to the Tech-Ed experience that makes it great like the social and educational aspects.
There are is an early-bird pricing offer that you can take advantage of if you register before the 9th of June so I'd definitely recommend checking out the details at of this years event here

Announcing the Arrival of Victor van Bergen

2006-05-22T10:05:00.000+10:00

Just before he was due to be induced my son finally decided it was time to visit the outside world.
He was born naturally on Monday May the 15th at 11:24 and weighed 3.74 kg.
The whole birth was the most difficult/painful thing I have ever been through but it was the most amazing experience to see him for the first time.
We are now both home from hospital and are doing well.
Thanks for all the well wishes, visits, flowers and little clothes :)
I'm still in new parent mode where I spend a large amount of my day that is not already taken up with nappies and feeding just staring at the new little guy.
I'm also very lucky that my husband Greg works from home as he has been wonderfully helpful and supportive. I'll have to get used to being outnumbered by the two wonderful guys in the house.
If you want to see some photo's of him he now has his own website at
http://victor.gregvanbergen.com/

Another week of waiting !

2006-05-03T16:07:00.000+10:00

Just got back from the usual weekly doctors visit and it looks like little van Bergen is in no hurry to arrive at all.
Apparently he's still not showing signs that he will arrive in the next week despite being supposed to arrive on Sunday.....I guess this is what happens when you let a IT developer run a project :)
In fact if he doesn't hurry up and at least look close to making his way out next Wednesday then the doctor will be talking to us about induction to try and get things started.
So looks like it's back to the couch for some more xbox 360....at this rate I think I'm going to have to buy some more games !

What is Crossbow ?

2006-04-13T11:13:00.000+10:00

Crossbow allows interoperability between windows forms and WPF.
This means you can use the great visual elements from WPF along side the windows forms bits that your used to, hence creating hybrid applications that use the strengths of both technologies.
So you could have a windows form app that loads in some WPF items using xaml etc or a wpf app that loads in a winforms datagridview etc.
It's still in beta but worth checking out to work out how you would be able to integrate into your applications in the future.
Check out this blog for more information http://blogs.msdn.com/mhendersblog/default.aspx

Week 1 @ Home

2006-04-10T11:12:00.000+10:00

Been at home for the whole of last week, bub is not due to arrive until the 30th but I'm basically too tired and uncomfortable to be at work all day...not to mention distracted and forgetful :)

So what have I done with my first week off. Pretty much just played a lot of Oblivion on Xbox 360. In fact I played so much that yesterday I had to buy a play and charge kit as my controller was already running out of batteries !

Apart from that I did head on in to the office for a photo shoot, which was very interesting. Spent about three hours posing for photo's in various locations around the office. The people doing the photo's were really nice which meant it wasn't too daunting.

This week I'm going to try and spend a little more time off the Xbox and catch up on a bunch of webcasts and podcasts that I haven't had a chance to listen to yet. As well as catching up on some reading of MSDN magazine and the architecture journal.

VDNUG presentation wrap-up

2006-03-29T14:56:00.000+11:00

I was prepared for a demo or two to go wrong...but I definitely wasn't prepared for my laptop to not work at all with the projector at all !
The result was one extremely rattled and nervous presenter without any of the pre-prepared demo's.
Anyway hopefully I still got enough info on the major points across.
Here's some links to additional content on items I discussed:

MSF 4.0 - Lots of info including the downloads for both the Agile and CMMI process guidance.
Enterprise Library 2.0 articles, downloads and web casts
Smart Client Architecture Toolkit only at CTP i.e. not a full release yet, but a great example of integrated guidance from Microsoft
Code Snippets download C# and other additional Microsoft Snipetts.
Code Snippet editor created by Bill McCarthy
Guidelines for code analysis
Security Guidance Checklist for .Net 2.0

Also the shortcut for code snipetts is CTL-K then X for those that asked.

If you have any questions on the areas I talked about post a comment and I will answer as soon as I can.

Want to know more about InfoPath and Managed Code

2006-03-29T14:53:00.000+11:00

One of my team members at SDM, Ben Walters is presenting a session at CITC in Melbourne on the 5th of April on InfoPath 2003 and Managed code.
Ben is an InfoPath MVP and therefore really knows his stuff in regards to the product.
If your interested the link to register is below.
http://msevents-as.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=120468198&Culture=en-AU

VSTS released, hear about it at the Melbourne user group on the 23rd

2006-03-19T21:01:00.000+11:00

Team foundation server has been finally released. See this blog post for more info
I think it's a great product that will save development teams a lot of time and help them create higher quality software quicker and easier than ever before.

If your interested in finding out more information I'd definitely recommend coming along to this months Melbourne Team Foundation Server user group. The main presenter is Jeff Beeler who is the Program Manager for TFS. The details of the event can be found here.

It's confirmed I'm a Modern Cool Nerd :)

2006-03-15T20:10:00.000+11:00

Modern, Cool Nerd
56 % Nerd, 56% Geek, 21% Dork

For The Record:

A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia.
A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one.
A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions.
You scored better than half in Nerd and Geek, earning you the title of: Modern, Cool Nerd.

Nerds didn't use to be cool, but in the 90's that all changed. It used to be that, if you were a computer expert, you had to wear plaid or a pocket protector or suspenders or something that announced to the world that you couldn't quite fit in. Not anymore. Now, the intelligent and geeky have eked out for themselves a modicum of respect at the very least, and "geek is chic." The Modern, Cool Nerd is intelligent, knowledgable and always the person to call in a crisis (needing computer advice/an arcane bit of trivia knowledge). They are the one you want as your lifeline in Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (or the one up there, winning the million bucks)!

Congratulations!

Also, you might want to check out some of my other tests if you're interested in any of the following:

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Professional Wrestling

Love & Sexuality

America/Politics

Thanks Again! -- THE NERD? GEEK? OR DORK? TEST

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 49% on nerdiness

You scored higher than 81% on geekosity

You scored higher than 26% on dork points

Link: The Nerd? Geek? or Dork? Test written by donathos on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

MCSD upgrade to MCPD Enterprise developer

2006-03-15T19:59:00.000+11:00

Late last week I sat the beta's of the upgrade exams from MCSD to the new MCPD Enterprise developer certification. Naturally the exams are covered by the usual NDA's so I can't say too much about the actual questions, also you don't get the results until 8 weeks after the beta ends so I also don't know if I passed yet.
There are two exams that you have to sit for the upgrade. They are 70-553 and 70-554.
The first one has questions about web, windows and mobile apps while the second one is all about WSE 3.0 , remoting and general solutions design questions.
I was quite impressed by the range of questions on various topics. I found most of the old MCSD exams to be relatively easy, in that you didn't necessarily need indepth knowledge on some of the topics but I found these exams quite challenging. Part of which is due to the fact that some of the topics covered are quite new, but also I think the questions were pitched at a bit of a higher level than the old exams.
They really covered a wide range of topics, in fact I think I might need to do a bit more study on some of the areas !
If your a .Net developer I'd definitely recommend having a look at some of the new certifications at http://www.microsoft.com/learning/mcp/newgen/ some of the exams are still in beta but a few are already available and most will be out in the next couple of months.

XBOX 360 Preview

2006-03-11T10:38:00.000+11:00

On Wednesday night I went along to the XBOX 360 VIP preview night in Melbourne at the Athenaeum theatre.
The place was decked out with about 25 XBOX 360 consoles with different games loaded up that you could jump on and play. There were many more people there than there were consoles but everyone played nice and had short goes on all the games before letting someone else have a shot which meant I got to play most of the games there.
The graphics on the majority of the games was absolutely amazing, very much looking forward to getting my own console in 11 days. However some of the games were a bit disappointing.
Most of them looked great but in some cases it seemed like they had spent way too much on the graphics and not enough on thinking about the actual game play.
Also a couple of the games involved a heap of story sequences inbetween all the bits of game play. I don't mind this at the end of a level etc but when they throw one in every 5 minutes of game play it gets pretty annoying.
The most popular game on the night was Perfect Dark Zero which I think was clearly the best game out of the lot. My second favorite is still Project Gotham Racing 3 which I think I will have to put in an order for asap. As for biggest disappointment I think that would be King Kong. There was a lot of hype about this game and the process they went through with the movies director to make it, problem is in a lot of sequences the graphics are just to dark to see where your going.

Patterns & Practices Summit Summary

2006-02-23T21:50:00.000+11:00

Just got back from the patterns and practices summit in Sydney.
The conference was great although it was quite mentally exhausting to cover that much in 3 days.

There were some awesome presenters including local presenters Mitch Denny, Martin Granell and Dr Neil Roodyn but additionally some great presenters were brought out from overseas.
I think my favorite presenter was Billy Hollis who had some very interesting things to say about smart clients, workflow and also avoiding gratuitous use of patterns.
Also there were some great sessions on agile development and use of various patterns and practices including new tools provided by Microsoft presented by Jim Newkirk (writer of NUnit), Tom Hollander (product manager patterns and practice team) and Peter Provost (software development lead patterns and practice team)
One of the other fascinating things was that quite a few of the presenters disagreed with each other which highlighted the many different opinions in the architecture community.

I also saw some great technology including those which I have seen before like Enterprise Library 2.0 but also there was plenty of new items including the Guidance automation toolkit.
One of the most important things I took away from the conference was that with the next version of Visual Studio ( and with the GAT in the meantime) it will become a lot easier for architects to provide the development team with guidance that is relevant to the activities they are working on right inside visual studio.

Free T-shirt = Happy Geek

2006-02-13T20:05:00.000+11:00

I just got my limited edition perfect dark zero shirt in the mail that I won from http://www.xbox360vip.com/
Sure I'm disappointed that the 360 has been delayed until the 23rd of March, but winning free stuff sure helps ease the pain.
Not quite ready to forgive and forget yet but Xbox marketing if your listening, a bit more free stuff might just help me to completely forget the disappointment :)

Rent the musical

2006-02-13T19:24:00.000+11:00

I went along to a couple of performances of Rent, a musical theatre show held at the National Theatre by Stella entertainment company last week.

Firstly let me point out my opinion is biased as my husband is in the cast with a role in the ensemble :)

As he and quite a few of our friends are involved in various musical theatre companies I tend to see quite a few different shows a year, most of which are of a pretty high standard. This is no exception, though it is probably a level above most of the other ones I have seen before.

Where it does clearly stand out is in style and content. Firstly it is a rock musical, this means all the songs are really very modern which means most people find themselves tapping along to the songs at some stage.

The second thing is the content.
Right from the start you get an idea things will be a bit different from usual when in the first 5 minutes someone swears, then one of the characters videos himself which is shown on a screen behind the stage.
By the time you meet one of the others characters who is a drag queen and realize quite a few of the others are gay and aids is one of the central story lines you get the idea that this is a very different musical.

This musical is really something special. There are some very funny moments and some really very sad ones as well. But the bottom line is it is a musical that the general public can really enjoy without needing a love of musical theater. Even a computer geek like me has found it very entertaining twice and I'm looking forward to seeing it again for the third time.
There is so much happening in the background behind the main characters it can easily keep me entertained over and over again !

The show is on for another couple of weeks. If your after a good night out I'd definitely recommend checking it out (see http://www.stellaentertainment.com.au/)

Tram people are nicer than Train people

2006-02-12T18:47:00.000+11:00

I travel on public transport a lot to and from the city in peak hour. I often get on trains at parliament station in which case depending on the time the trains are packed.

This has previously been no problem as I just sandwich in and stand, however one of the side effects of being 29 weeks pregnant is that standing on a train for 30mins or so is not something you can really want to do any more. I can make it the whole trip standing up, but it's generally less than comfortable for me to do so, especially on a hot day.

Most days I pick a train at a time that I can almost guarantee a seat which sometimes means waiting longer to get the next train when it is busy. The main reason I do this is that not once has someone offered me a seat on a train, no matter how tired I look or how much extra I push out my preggie belly and I wouldn't really feel comfortable asking someone to move

I figured that maybe it was because people just don't offer people seats in peak hour in Melbourne, but then last week I caught a couple of trams in peak hour.

On both occasions people offered me a seat which was great !
In fact people in general seemed to be a lot nicer as despite the tram being packed they seemed to try and avoid bumping into be etc as much as they could.

So my conclusion is that tram people are definitely a lot nicer than train people. I wonder why this is...perhaps the shorter journey ?
If only I could get a tram home at the end of a day !

Patterns & Practices Summit

2006-01-17T21:02:00.000+11:00

Looks like I'm off to the Sydney patterns and practices summit next month.
There are some great speakers and sessions organized.
If you haven't heard about it yet here's the link for more detail
http://www.pnpsummit.com/apac2006.aspx

Shrink Virtual PC Images

2006-01-07T19:12:00.000+11:00

A long time ago when I first started using virtual PC there was a shrink procedure I used but it was pretty painful and involved third party tools to zero out the drive.

The other day while moving things on my usb drive to try and find space I did a bit of a search to find out if the shrink had got any easier and was pleasantly surprised.

After following the procedure I managed to knock 1gig off an 8gig image with very little effort, it's quite likely if I could of cleared a lot more space if I had spent some more time clearing things out (see this site for a more comprehensive list of things you can clear)

Here's how you do it:

Backup the VPC image
Defragment all the drives on the virtual server
Mount the Virtual Disk Precompactor.iso which can be found in \Program Files\Microsoft Virtual PC\Virtual Machine Additions and run it
Shut down the image (don't save the state shut it down properly)
Use the Compress hard drive option

Pretty simple stuff :)

Ben's an InfoPath MVP

2006-01-07T17:45:00.000+11:00

We have our first MVP at SDM Melbourne !

Congrats to Ben Walters my fellow Melbourne SDM employee for receiving an MVP award from Microsoft for his work with InfoPath.

Ben's been able to help us provide some great highly customized InfoPath forms to clients.
In order to get the client the best solution he has had to deal with quite a lot of frustrating limitations and quirks in the product with very little guidance available online or elsewhere.

It's great to see he's been rewarded for all the hard work he's put in working with the product and helping other developers avoid the same frustrations.

The end of 2005 and the start of 2006

2006-01-02T10:31:00.000+11:00

Happy new year everyone :)

I've had a pretty exciting 2005.

Early in the year I moved jobs from OBS to SDM, the whole process was pretty stressful but 8 months on I'm very happy at my new job. OBS was a good place to work but all things considered I'm much happier at SDM. At both companies the work has been really good and the people I work with have been great.
I think the main differences have been SDM's commitment to having proper project management, the amount of experience the other developers have and the more family oriented attitude of everyone at the company. Hopefully I'll be working there for a long time to come !
Late in the year I became state manager for custom development which means there will be plenty of new challenges in the 2006.

Just after mid way through the year I finished my Master degree in Systems Development (MCSD .Net stream) at Charles Sturt. With the exemptions I got for my MCSD I only had to do 7 out of 12 subjects so I managed to complete it in a year. In order to do that I basically had to work on uni stuff every weekend for that year. It was a whole heap of work but I also learnt a lot and was definitely worth doing. The best thing was that all the subjects I did was on technology and topics that were directly relevant to my work.
When I finished my bachelors degree all I remember is being glad it was done and the certificate is still in the post pack they sent it to me in. When I finished my masters I was really proud and the certificate was put straight up on the wall as I feel really proud of the achievement.

In august Greg and I also found out the most exciting news of the year that I was pregnant.
I hated the first 12 weeks as not only did I feel sick and tired all the time but we had also agreed that we wouldn't tell any one until our first ultrasound which was really hard. It's incredibly difficult working with good friends each day and not telling them and it only got worse at teched.
After the first 12 weeks it has been amazing. It was quite interesting finally telling people the news, especially as most people didn't believe us at first also trying to explain to people that as Greg works from home I won't need to take a year off work.

Can't describe how wonderful it was seeing our little baby at our two ultrasounds. Now I'm 23 weeks pregnant and our little boy is kicking me around pretty regularly which feels very odd but is also exciting. None of my old clothes fit any more and I'm starting to have to physically slow down as well. It's an strange thing when you realize that you just can't walk around as fast any more among and things and it's' only going to get worse.

Very much looking forward to meeting our little boy when he arrives at the end of April or the start of May. There will also be some hard decisions coming along like deciding at what point I need to stop working and even worse the day when I have to go back to work and leave our little bub at home with Greg. One part of me knows that I'm going to miss greatly spending all day with our bub but at the same time I know that if I took the traditional 6-12 months off work I would go insane.

Finished the year finding out that our good friends Andy and Steph's new daughter Aurora has been born. We had the privilege of meeting her a couple of days ago which was really exciting.
Naturally she is a beautiful baby and both Andy and Steph are glowing with the excitement of her arrival. They are going to make a great family.

From a technokogy point of view I'm looking forward to getting VSTS setup at SDM as well as working more with vs 2005, sql 2005 and office 12 when it arrives. I'm sure all the new technology will help us to build some new exciting solutions as well as solve some old problems a lot more easily.
Also looking forward to getting my xbox 360 in 58 days :)

So for me 2005 has been great and now I'm looking forward to 2006 which will probably be not only the most challenging but also the most rewarding year of my life so far !

Victoria .Net Architects User Group

2005-12-05T20:16:00.000+11:00

Last Wed I attended the first Victoria .Net architects group, been a bit busy (aren't we all at this time of year) so I've been a bit slow blogging about it, but it looks like it will be really good.
There are plenty of user groups around where you can see a technical presentation, these days you can also find a lot of great technical solutions on the internet.

There is also heaps of information on architecture on the internet, but the hard part of designing good architecture is in a lot of cases there aren't any absolute rules, just guidelines, best practices etc and the rest is all done based on experience. So the questions is how do you become a good or better architect. I think best answer is trying to learn and discuss solutions with other architects, hopefully this is what the group will be all about.

The first meeting was really good. There was a great presentation on SOA from Martin Granell from Readify. Also great to see Nigel Watson from Microsoft not only supporting the event but actively participating in the discussion. There were plenty of questions from the audience and the presentation became more of a discussion than a formal talk by the end which meant it covered a wide range of useful information.

Also we decided that a large part of future meetings will be running a solution from a fake company through various parts of scoping and designing an SOA architecture. This should help the discussions to be less theoretical also it means we can break down the process and tackle it in pieces with people attending when we are covering a piece they are interested in.

One thing I was concerned about before attending was that the discussions would be two theoretical for someone like me who not only designs but implements solutions, but it looks like there will be a good balance between the theoretical and the practical. Also there was even talk about trying to hook in with the .Net user group to further cover the technical side of implementing particular topics which would be good.

If your interested in the group register at the site http://www.vdnaug.net/

VDNUG Additional Resource

2005-11-22T20:51:00.000+11:00

Thanks to everyone that attended VDNUG tonight where I presented on the Distributed Solution Designer and Object Data Sources in vs 2005 in the second part of the session.

Here's some additional resources on the topics I talked about.

Distibuted solutions designer/ modeling in VS 2005

Object data sources

If you have any questions on the topics I talked about feel free to drop me an email or post a comment here on the blog.

Is that Microsoft Time?

2005-11-11T17:46:00.000+11:00

I wanted to check out some info on the Microsoft partner site but when I went to have a look I received the following message.

"In order to better serve our valued partners, the Microsoft Partner Program enrollment and account maintaining areas are temporarily off-line to upgrade to the 2006 program updates and your new Partner Membership Center. During this enhancement period, you will have full access to the Microsoft Partner Program web site. Membership applications and updates to your account profile can be submitted after November 14th. We apologize for any inconvenience and appreciate your partnership. Please check back with us again at (GMT) Sunday, November 13, 2005 11:00:00 PM "

Firstly I think it's awesome that Microsoft are properly dog fooding their own software by switching to the new versions for their sites asap.

But what struck me was the preciseness they are giving with when the site will be back up. I've done these kind of big upgrades to sites before and at least half the time even though it's been tested a number of times there is some huge drama when it gets deployed. Obviously to put such a precise time on it they must be very confident that they will hit the deadline as I bet there are a bunch of people out there who will be waiting to sit if they hit the mark.

I'm glad that most of the projects I do have a deadline that is a day rather than an exact hour in GMT or at least the deadline hasn't been announced to the world so there is still some negotiation possible if a unforeseen drama occurs !!

I'm back posting and I have big news

2005-11-07T19:29:00.000+11:00

Firstly the excuses. I've had some news which I wanted to keep a secret for a couple of months even though part of me wanted to tell everyone as I was/am sooo excited. It's pretty hard to post about other things when there is really only one thing that is taking up a lot of your spare thinking time ! Then when I finally started announcing the news I got a really bad cold. Basically for the last couple of weeks I haven't done much but work, sleep, cough and sniff but I finally seem to be getting better.

So back to the news (hopefully I've told most of you in person already), I'm now 15 weeks pregnant and both my husband Greg and I are really thrilled !!

For those of you that wondered about my strange behavior at TechEd (I found out only a couple of days before that I was pregnant) hopefully that helps explain why
1) I made some kind of lame excuse as to why I couldn't go when you invited me out drinking
2) I was drinking juice when I could of been drinking free beer.
3) I didn't go on any of the cool rides at the party except for one go on the Wild West water one before I remembered I wasn't supposed to !
4) I kept disappearing at before 9:30 at night (that was about my bedtime at that stage !)

The important details so far:

We had our first ultrasound two weeks ago and as you can see by the picture the baby has all the important bit's developing ok, at least as far as they can tell when it is so small. I can't even begin to describe how amazing the ultrasound was, but those of you that have been through the experience I'm sure know what I mean.
We don't know yet if it is a boy or a girl and although we will be happy with either we are both keen to find out at our next ultrasound in early December.
My due date is April 30, which while it means I won't be going to code camp oz but somehow I don't think I'll mind

Right now I just wish we could fast forward a month to our next ultrasound so we can get another look at the little guy/girl and know that everything is going ok :)

I'm presenting at VDNUG this month

2005-11-07T19:12:00.000+11:00

I'm one of the people doing a presentation at this months Victoria .Net User Group on the 22nd.
The details of the meeting can be found here, there will also be a presentation on K2.Net.

I'll be talking about how you can use visual studio 2005 to build real applications and still use a lot of the cool drag drop features which save a bunch of time. Something which you couldn't really do with the old versions.
For those of you that have already built enterprise applications on vs2005 it might be a bit of a rehash but at lot of people I have talked to so far seemed to have missed the bit's which I'm going to talk about so I hope there will be at least a few people interested.
In particular I'm going to quickly show how you can design an application which has a number of components using the distributed solution designer as well as talking about why this is important/good.
Then I'm going to hook up some of the new controls in three different ways firstly direct to the database, then to the dB through an object and then do the same with a web service. I'll also talk through what you need to put in your objects and web services if you want to do this.

At least that is the plan so far, if you've got any feedback on what I'm thinking of presenting or would like to see something else included as well let me know.

VSTS Beta 3 installed

2005-10-11T08:40:00.000+10:00

Spent a bit of time on the weekend and managed to get the Beta 3 of Team System up and running thanks to the dvd's I got from Joe Sango a the first Melbourne VSTS user group meeting.
I started from absolute scratch even installing a fresh copy of win 2003 as I "misplaced" my base image. I haven't installed VSTS since the before the beta 2 and was expecting a few problems along the way, but I was pleasantly surprised. The whole thing went absolutely smoothly and I now have it up and running in a single machine install.
Only had a quick look but already it looks really good, I particularity like how nicely integrated the process guidance is now.
My next goal is to have a look at how it integrates with Project server using the new connector that recently went up on got dot net.