Monday, May 25, 2009

Microsoft Run09 Uruguay and a UX Post Scriptum

According to Wikipedia, the word "Run" means

"Moving swiftly on foot for necessity, exercise, sport or fun, both in humans and animals."

The word has three more computer specific definitions and six sports related definitions. Eleven movies and eighteen songs are also related in some way to the word "Run".

Anyway, if you are part of the Microsoft Developers Community in Uruguay, from now on "Run" means one only thing for you: The biggest Microsoft event of the year. Don't miss it.

Run09 - http://www.run09.com.uy/
jueves, 04 de junio de 2009. 8:30 a 18:30
KDC, Latu.

P.S: Don't tell anyone, but I kinda hate the desktop-like Web UX of the site. I simply don't find the logic behind it. Why not using the good old "Document", or "Application"? I already have my Windows desktop, why giving me a second one? I only need content inside it, which is Docs and Apps. When the technology is shifting towards a zero crome browser (sorry, I had to say the c-word) to reinforce the "document"/"application" paradigm in Web, why should I be amazed by a translucent webtop? Cool tools in lousy hands.

Friday, May 22, 2009

Hey dude, where's my Sharepoint licence?

Due to a bug, the MOSS 2007 SP2 installer resets the product expiration date to 180 days, as if it was a trial installation.

Microsoft is already working on a hotfix. In the meantime, you can still install SP2 and then manually re-enter the Product ID number (PID) on the "Convert License Type" page in Central Administration. Product ID numbers (PIDs) can be retrieved by logging into the Volume Licensing Service Center.

All this was announced yesterday by the Sharepoint Team. You can read the full article here.

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Next Office Groove will be SharePoint Workspace 2010!

Even when we all tend to work and live in a 24x7 connected world, there are still cases in which off-line content is still needed. In Sharepoint 2007, off-line functionality is supposed to be provided by...Outlook 2007! Akward, to say the least. You can sincronize lists and read documents locally, but it is not enough to provide an off-line experience at least similar to the on-line one.

Since clearly the strategy of using Outlook as the off-line client for Sharepoint content does not scale up, Microsoft is reshaping Office Groove to become the off-line tool for Sharepoint users. Yesterday the team announced that the next Groove version will be called SharePoint Workspace 2010!

With good off-line support, a broad range of opportunities will open for the on-the-road information worker. Imagine mobile information workers sincronizing their netbooks at home before leaving, working all day long with the data without caring about conectivity and then sincronizing at the end of the day.

Having a tool that always keeps an updated local copy of content, will certainly help people to rely more on the server copies and avoid making manual local copies that lead to versioning issues.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Sharepoint 2010: 64-bit only

It's been made official. The Sharepoint Team announced that Sharepoint 2010 will be 64bit only. And this means:
1) The product itself will be 64bit only
2) Will only run on 64-bit Windows Server 2008
3) Will only run with 64-bit SQL Server 2008 or 64-bit SQL Server 2005

Why? Due to performance and scalability reasons, Microsoft says. Well, I don't know. I simply can't buy the reasons...