Author: directorcia

Overtime slaves

If you, like most people, feel you are working too long then I’d suggest you read “Slaves to the overtime habit fail to loosen shackles”. It talks about how Australians are chaining themselves to their desks and doing over 2 billion (yes billion) hours in unpaid overtime.

So what’s the major reason for this? Most said they had too much to do (i.e. too busy) but also confessed that something else had come up (i.e. allowed themselves to get interrupted). So what does this mean? Well, according to the article these people are:

– unable to eat properly
– unable to pay bills on time
– unable to see their partner
– unable to exercise
– unable to relax
– and so on

I especially like this example:

“…he calculated he was working probably twice the hours he was paid for.’ I have no time for exercise and no time to see my friends, let alone spend time with my girlfriend. On my one day off I’m so tired I lie down all day at home….life sucks when there is no time to live it. I am a slave’”.

Sound familiar? So many people’s of identities these days is totally tied to their work. What’s the first question people will ask when they meet you at an event? ‘So what do you do?’ is the typical ice breaker, not ‘have you read any good books?’, ‘seen any good movies?’, ‘been anywhere interesting lately?’. No, they want to know what work you perform so they can better understand who you are because these days your job is the best description of who you are.

Sad isn’t it? Here is someone basically saying they feel like a slave with no freedom and no ability to enjoy life. How is that living? Basically it’s not. We were all led to believe that technology would free us from this situation whereas, as I have said many, many times here, it has simply enslaved us. Why? Because we accept the defaults. We don’t customize the systems to suit ourselves, we modify our behaviour to suit the systems. Like D’oh!

The interesting thing is that it is easily within everyone’s power to achieve the lifestyle they desire, however like an alcoholic, first you need to admit you have a problem and secondly you have to want to do something about it. Why wouldn’t you want more time to do what excited you? Why wouldn’t you want more time with your partner, kids, hobbies, etc? Seems from this article that more and more people don’t want to lead an enjoyable life? More and more people want a life chained to a desk, forced to continue on the never ending treadmill. They are no longer in control and those who are not in control are destined to be controlled by others.

If you can admit you have a problem and do want to have a ‘life’ then I suggest you have a look at some of my work on SlideShare, especially Enough Time and Power of an Hour, or the Smarter Productivity training I run. If you want to go beyond this and save at least one hour a day (which adds up to more than a working month a year) I’d suggest you get in contact with me (director@ciaops.com) so we can develop something to help free you from your current enslavement. Remember life is about doing what excites you.

SharePoint webinar

Here are the details for the next CIAOPS webinar:

 

091210 – The basics of SharePoint Administration

 

Topics covered:

 

– How to administer a SharePoint site

– How to manage SharePoint database files

– How to backup and restore SharePoint

– How to manage SharePoint securities

 

Presenter:          Robert Crane

Date:                 Thursday 10th of December 2009

Time :                10.00am (Sydney, Australia time)

Duration:            60 minutes

Cost:                 $ 9.90 ex GST for non WSSOPS subscribers.

Level:                 2 (Intermediate)

Prerequisites:      None

 

Details

 

This webinar will provide you with a good overview of how to administer a SharePoint site. It will show where all the basic administration options are as well as what function they perform. You’ll also learn about the low level SharePoint file and databases required to allow SharePoint to function correctly. The webinar will also cover the different ways that you can backup and restore SharePoint as well as manage securities.

 

Registration: To register send an email to director@ciaops.com.

 

Note: that this webinar runs for a longer period of time (60 minutes), cover a much higher level of technical understanding of SharePoint and has an entry fee (for non WSSOPS subscribers).

 

Sign up now!

SharePoint Foundation 2010 beta data location

I’ve been poking around to find out where SharePoint Foundation 2010 beta actually puts the content databases when you do a default installation. It certainly wasn’t where I expected it to be.

As you can see from the above screen shot it ends up in c:\program files\common files\microsoft shared\web server extensions\14\data\mssql10.sharepoint\mssql\data.

Now there is nothing really wrong with the location per se but it sure is a mouthful. Personally, I don’t like long data paths as it generally adds complications. Now I know that the content database location can be moved and I certainly hope that SharePoint Foundation 2010 beta includes a wizard to do this because I’d actually like to move ALL the SharePoint data (content databases, search index, configuration files, etc) into a single directory somewhere just off the root of my drive.

The reality is that I’m not really expecting to find a wizard to move all this data so I suppose I’ve just gotta get used to it. I’m I the only one that thinks doing this has made things more complicated?

Only in stand alone mode

I’ve now progressed to trying custom installations of SharePoint Foundation 2010 beta. This means that I basically want to set it up in a server farm configuration.

 

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If you install SharePoint this way you firstly need to have the database server in place. No problems because before I commenced the SharePoint installation I installed Windows SQL 2008 Express Edition intending this to be the location where SharePoint stores its content databases.

 

The installation process continues until I need to nominate where my database server is located. So I enter in the information as follows:

 

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And press the Next key, as I have done many many times with Windows SharePoint v3. Low and behold, something different happens.

 

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Because I’m running this installation on a standalone server not connected to a domain I’m prompted that

 

The specified user server2008\administrator is a local account. Local accounts should only be used in stand alone mode.

 

and I can go no further with the installation.

 

I’m not sure whether this is an issue because of SharePoint Foundation 2010 beta or Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Express Edition. Whatever the case, it appears that I can create a SharePoint server farm on a stand alone server, it has to be connected to a domain. This was certainly not the case previously with Windows SharePoint Services v3 and Microsoft SQL 2005 Server.

 

So here’s the first major configuration difference I have discovered. You have been warned!

Basics of SharePoint webinar available

I have just completed the next in the CIAOPS webinar series on SharePoint. The webinar is now available in 4 parts on YouTube at:

Part 1 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38p_fgjHMlE

Part 2 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5YlDULrsEA

I won’t bore you further

I’m not going to continue to prattle on constantly about my failures and hopefully some successes with SharePoint 2010, but I do want to take an opportunity to illustrate the fact that the testing, like you have seen over the past few posts, all ends up in my Windows SharePoint Operations Guide.

This means, that if you are a subscriber, you are going to save plenty of time by not having to determine how to get everything working. That is my job. I do all the hard yards testing and retesting all the options. Everything that I learn about SharePoint ends up in the Guide not just SharePoint 2010 but also Windows SharePoint Services v3 (WSS), Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) and Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS). It’s all there, with more being added every month.

I’m happy to announce that from December the complete Guide DVD will be available for download every month. Be warned, that means > 4.3GB of information through your Internet connection. It is also starting to look like I’ll have to expand the Guide onto a second DVD starting in the New Year. I’d challenge you to find a more comprehensive SharePoint resource (perhaps apart from Microsoft themselves) for the price. So if you are a subscriber watch out for the December update which will start to include information on SharePoint 2010.

Also, don’t forget our regular webinars. The next will be:

091126 – The basics of using SharePoint
Topics covered:

– How to upload and management documents.
– How to create and manage wikis
– How to work with lists.
– How to create sub sites

Presenter:              Robert Crane
Date:                      Thursday 26th of November 2009
Time :                    10.00am (Sydney, Australia time)
Duration:               30 minutes
Cost:                      Free
Level:                     1 (Basic)
Prerequisites:         None

Details
This webinar will show you the basics of using a SharePoint. It will help you understand the benefits of using SharePoint to store documents and other information. You’ll also learn the basics of extending a SharePoint to include features such as wikis and sub sites.


Registration:      To register send an email to director@ciaops.com.

Normal programming will resume shortly.

Don’t forget Search Server Express

With all the hoopla surrounding SharePoint 2010 beta you should also not forget that there is also a new beta for Search Server Express.

 

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Like the previous version, Search Server 2010 Express is a free download from Microsoft. As you can see from the above screenshot  I have just completed installing it and am now beginning to learn about what makes it tick.

 

I am still at a loss as to why more people don’t see the benefit of Search Server Express. It allows you to index just about all your documents on your file servers including all the information inside them without having to make any changes and search them from a web interface. This means no matter how messed up your existing file storage is, with Search Server Express you’ll be able to find what you’re after.

 

Just about everyone uses Google to find stuff they want outside their business yet they have NOTHING to achieve the same inside their business. Am I the only one that sees the opportunity here to provide a solution? Am I the only one that sees the opportunity to do this with a product that costs nothing to obtain? Clearly I must be, because no one else I have ever met has even heard of Search Server Express.

 

As I have said in this blog before, it is no longer about the information it is about finding the information you want quickly. Google has built a multi-billion business doing just that so why hasn’t it be done inside businesses? Beats me, but don’t say I didn’t tell you how it could be done.

Another failed attempt

After the last failure I created a new clean Windows SharePoint v3 site. I then added all the Microsoft templates that are present on my Internet facing site. I then restored the Internet facing site from a backup and commenced the upgrade to SharePoint Foundation 2010 beta again.

 

After installing the files the configuration wizard started and this time failed pretty quickly with this nasty error:

 

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An exception of type Microsoft. SharePoint.Upgrade.SPUpgradeException was thrown. Additional exception information: One or more types failed to load. Please refer to the upgrade log for more details.

 

Now this is interesting, because in my last attempt (with no additional templates) I got past this stage (even though it failed later).

 

Whatever the result I’m going to have to dig deep into the log and start trying to work out what the problem is. If you have never done this let me tell you it ain’t much fun.