Atlanta .NET Regular Guys

Great news Andrew Connell is coming to Atlanta to teach WCM

Here is the information I received from AC.

I’m pleased to help announce that there will be a local (Atlanta) training class for SharePoint Server 2007 Web Content Management. The instructor for this class is Andrew Connell, who is one of the world’s leading trainers for MOSS 2007 Web Content Management & recently released the first and only book on the subject: Professional SharePoint 2007 Web Content Management Development. Andrew was also a renowned specialist in the previous Microsoft Content Management Server 2001 and 2002 technologies.

This isn't like other classes that hire contractors to write their courses, this course was written and developed 100% by the instructor, Andrew Connell. The class covers virtually all development topics related to WCM / Publishing sites such as building master pages, page layouts, field types & controls, Web Parts and custom workflows. In addition, it also covers creating multilingual sites using variations, performance enhancing techniques required for Internet-facing SharePoint sites, extending the authoring experience and security.

While the course does demonstrate and teach you how to use tools such as Office SharePoint Designer 2007 in creating master pages, page layouts and custom workflows, but students are taken a step further in understanding SharePoint customization vs. development. Along this concept, students will learn how to create all these different things (master pages, page layouts, custom workflows) as well as site columns, content types, list templates & instances among other things using Features and solutions. This latter approach makes life much easier for developers and WCM site implementers to move their custom code and layout files to other members of their development team as well as from development to user acceptance to staging and ultimately onto production.

Here's a list of the modules in the course:

1. WSS Development Primer
2. Web Content Management Architecture
3. Authentication & Authorization
4. Master Pages & Navigation
5. Creating Custom Page Layouts
6. Extending the Out-Of-The-Box Authoring Experience
7. Leveraging WCM & Custom Web Parts
8. Custom Field Types & Field Controls
9. Performance Tuning Publishing Sites
10. Understanding WF (Workflow Foundation) & Creating Interactive Workflows
11. Content Deployment
12. Implementing Multilingual Sites Using Variations

This is a 4-Day class, and will be held on the Microsoft Technology Center in Alpharetta, GA. The price is $2,395. To register, please use the URL below.

More Class Information: http://www.andrewconnell.com/blog/articles/MossWcmDeveloperClasses.aspx

To Register: http://www.tedpattison.net/register.aspx?OfferingID=117

Need to remember what tasks to do

If you want to have lists of items to track that you can make public and private check out

Remember The Milk

http://www.rememberthemilk.com/

It is funny they have a very similar logo to ours.  The great part is that it is available from many different sources and all you have to is send it an email.

Anyone else have any good sites for keeping up with lists?

Launch of International SharePoint Professionals Association

As one of the community leads for the International SharePoint Professionals Association (ISPA) I wanted to let you know that the group is now live!  If you have any questions about the group and need help in the SouthEast send me an email and I will get you set up.

Here is the new web site http://www.sharepointpros.org

Check out the board members sites Bob Fox, Christopher Regan, Natalya Voskresenskaya, Darrin Bishop 

Below is our official press release…

The International SharePoint Professionals Association, also known as ‘ISPA’, is an independent, not-for-profit, community-driven organization dedicated to support SharePoint professionals and groups all around the world. The primary mission of ISPA is to promote the global adoption of SharePoint Technologies by providing support and guidance to the SharePoint community as a whole – by establishing connections between SharePoint professionals, groups, resources, education and information. ISPA is led and supported by volunteers across the world, and will focus on bringing the entire SharePoint community closer together.

ISPA’s first offering to the community is support to user groups around the world through free WSS v3 web sites for any group that becomes ISPA-affiliated. In addition, one of the goals of ISPA is to facilitate an exchange of ideas between user group leaders that helps increase the likelihood of their group’s success. Therefore, ISPA is providing leaders of user groups with access to collaborative spaces where they can interact with other user group leaders, sharing ideas, resources, best practices, guidance, and most importantly – support for one another.

ISPA has also established Regional Evangelists – existing community leaders who have previously exhibited a strong commitment to the promotion of the SharePoint community, and who have pledged to carry the ISPA message throughout their particular region. These evangelists are key local contacts who are available to work with local SharePoint professionals and user groups throughout their region to help promote the community and SharePoint. If you are interested in starting a user group, have an existing one, or need guidance – the ISPA Regional Evangelists are great resources who are available immediately to assist you.

Finally, as everyone knows, no community is complete without a web site, and ISPA is proud to announce the launch of its official site, http://www.sharepointpros.org. While the web site is still in the early stages of development, plans for multilingual support and exciting functionality that will assist anyone involved with SharePoint are on the horizon.

If you have ideas for ISPA, would like to start a user group, or are looking for assistance, visit the new ISPA web site or contact ISPA at contactus@sharepointpros.org. Together, the community can achieve what was impossible as individuals – becomes a part of ISPA today!

Need help with Windows Vista SP1

If you have Windows Vista SP1 and would like Free Support until 18 March 2009 check this out.

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Background

Free, unlimited installation and compatibility support is now available for all worldwide customers using Windows Vista SP1, until March 18, 2009. Telephone support is available worldwide. Chat and Email support in US and Canada only.

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Effective dates

From now until 18 March 2009.

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Location

Find out more and access the service at http://support.microsoft.com/common/international.aspx?rdpath=1&prid=11274&gprid=500921

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ASP.NET university on July 16 at the Alpharetta office

.NET University http://www.dotnet-u.com/  is the event series that gives you a practical overview of the latest .NET technologies that is not only great to learn from, but also freely available for you to share and present to your peers. The first course introduced the .NET Framework 3.0, and other courses covered BizTalk and SharePoint. 

The newest course is ASP.NET University, a 4 part set that dives into ASP.NET web development.  Learn about the ASP.NET framework, the page and controls structure, and even some advanced topics like caching and HttpModules.  We’ll also look at ASP.NET AJAX and getting the most out of your applications.   We’ll take a lap around the new MVC framework to show you some alternative ways to build applications around the model-view-controller design pattern.   We’ll talk about IIS7 and why it’s great for ASP.NET developers.  And finally, we’ll dive into some of our live services with some content around Virtual Earth, Gadgets, and other services in the cloud you can take advantage of.

Here’s a rundown of the day:

1. ASP.NET Overview:    We’ll talk about the project setup and options, and have a brief discussion about Webforms and the page lifecycle and where user controls, server controls, and master pages fit in.   We’ll also talk about some of the security options available, and we’ll stick our feet in a bit deeper and discuss some of the more advanced topics like custom HttpModules and effective caching strategies.

2. ASP.NET AJAX:  Learn how to leverage ASP.NET AJAX in your applications.  We’ll look at getting started with some straightforward examples, and we’ll look at troubleshooting and profiling AJAX code to get the best performance possible.  We’ll also look at consuming web services and WCF services straight from AAJX.

3. ASP.NET MVC:  Looking for more design abstraction?  MVC may be for you.  Based on the model-view-controller design pattern, ASP.NET MVC allows clear and clean abstractions of data, logic, and presentation tiers. 

4. Servers and services:  First we’ll take a look at what’s new in IIS7 for web developers.  After a brief tour, we’ll check out some cloud-hosted services from live.com – like how to integrate Virtual Earth, use the Live Search API, gadgets, and more.  A fun way to end the day!

DNS Client causes IE to ignore the hosts file

Did you know that if you start the DNS client service on a Windows Server 2003 box, that it will ignore entries in a hosts file and proceed out to the Internet to resolve the name?  THAT was fun during a demo.  http://publishing.sample.com takes you to Viagra sales!

Nice.