OneNote on SharePoint

One of the most overlooked applications available from Microsoft is OneNote. It is a simple electronic notebook that allows you to store just about any digital information you can think of.

You can even use it to clip information directly from web pages. It is just such a handy application that if you haven’t had a look I suggest you download a trial.

I will leave the virtues of OneNote to another post, what I want to demonstrate here is how much more powerful OneNote becomes when it is utilized in conjunction with SharePoint. Basically, if you save your OneNote notebooks into a SharePoint document library then you can share the notebook between people. If the SharePoint site is hosted on the Internet then people connected to the Internet can collaborate easily.

If you need a free hosted SharePoint solution have a look at Microsoft Office Live Workspace. Combine that with OneNote and you have instant team collaboration anywhere you have an Internet connection.

So, how do you create a OneNote notebook that lives on SharePoint? During the process of creating a new notebook you’ll see a windows like this:

Selecting the bottom option then “On a Server” will then ask for the location of the server. In this case you simply enter the full location of a SharePoint document library like the one shown below.

If you now enter a new folder name OneNote will store the new notebook there with all the sections in files below this.

Once the new notebook has been created you can add any information you require. The information is not only saved locally but also automatically synced with the information in SharePoint. This allows anyone to work on the notebook.

Next time you open OneNote you will see the local copy of the notebook appear. You can continue to work on this copy but if you are connected to the Internet you will see a prompt at the top of the page asking you to login to the SharePoint site as shown:

Once you are logged back in the notebook will synchronize again so you will see any changes that other people have made and that information will be copied to your local machine.

If you take a look around your desk at all the information on bits of paper you should ask yourself why these aren’t in digital form. Once they are entered into a digital form they are easily backed up, searchable and shareable. I can guarantee that it will improve your productivity and reduce clutter. If it can do that for one person imagine what it can for a team of people?

If you are looking at tools to improve your productivity look no further than OneNote and SharePoint. You won’t be sorry you did.

Enough time

That’s something that no one ever seems to have these days, yet many seem to go out of their way to waste what they have. The problem is that time is not like money, you can never get more and you can’t accumulate it. Once it’s gone, it gone – forever. Have you ever stopped and looked at how much time you are wasting every day? Have you ever stopped and thought that perhaps you can do things better? With all this technology we have we should be, should we? If so why are so many people struggling to get enough time?

With that in mind I’ve created a new document called “Enough Time – 7 suggestions for reclaiming yours” which you can view and/or download from my Slideshare. It should help you firstly better understand where your time is being spend, secondly how to ensure you are giving things the right priority and finally how to eliminate distractions and get things done (as David Allen would say).

If you have any suggestions about how you have improved your productivity and eliminated time ‘leakage’ I’d love to hear. Simply send me an email (director@ciaops.com) with you comments, thoughts, recommendations or suggestions.

Wireless Networking Course

My Wireless Networking course is once again running at Macquarie Community College at Carlingford starting this Thursday night. It runs over two consecutive weeks from 7 to 9pm.

The course covers the basics of wireless from keyboards and mice through to WiFi. It also provides you with a basic understanding of TCP/IP networking including configuration and importantly security. The course also covers a complete configuration of a wireless access point including how to implement strong security.

To enrol or obtain more information visit the following link.

http://www.macquarie.nsw.edu.au/index.php?action=course&course_action=detail&code=209M299

BPOS Review

Here’s a worthwhile review of Microsoft’s Business Online Productivity Suite (BPOS). Called “Microsoft’s BPOS: Cloud Computing’s Silver Lining?”, it concludes:

“We couldn’t think of a single reason why an average person under real-world circumstances wouldn’t be better off with software as a service provided the look, feel, and functionality of the cloud app was identical to its packaged counterpart…except one.”

That one reason is simply if you have an old line of business application (like an accounting program).

One of the interesting points the article does raise is that the standard desktop software we currently use is only licensed. We don’t own it, even though we pay big dollars for it. So, licensing a package across the Internet is essentially very similar to way it has always been done, with some major benefits. You only pay per month, per user and you get access to the latest updates of the package rather than having to apply updates or install new versions.

Everyone agrees there are challenges for online software however as the article again says:

“If Microsoft doesn’t carry this service model to fruition, someone else, Google being first in line, will.”

As the article also highlights, we seem to believe that small businesses won’t make use of things like SharePoint and Live Meeting, where in fact quite the opposite will be true. They are going to embrace these tools since they allow them to run their business more efficiently. I feel these are businesses that are going to shed their existing infrastructure first (bye, bye SBS) and move en masse to online applications.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – the world is changing. Are you?

Stsadm tech ref

Much of the administration of SharePoint can be done with the command line tool stsadm. Like any command line tool you need to know all the syntax to get the most from it but remembering or looking up all the parameters can be quite painful at times.

Here’s a nice graphic reference you can use when you work with stsadm commands.

It’s interactive so you can click on the command to get more information. I especially like how it is graphically coded so you know which commands are not available in the UI and which commands are new in Service Pack 2. This should make working with stsadm much easier.

You’ll find them site at:

WSS = http://technet.microsoft.com/en-au/windowsserver/sharepoint/dd418924.aspx

MOSS = http://technet.microsoft.com/en-au/office/sharepointserver/cc948709.aspx

Look familiar?

Now where have I seen that face before? I’m proud to say that I’ve been profiled in a recent CRN (Computer Reseller News) article called “CIA man is an agent of change”. The article covers some of the history about my starting off on my own as well as my current thinking on the state of business as a technology reseller. For those who read this blog then there should be no major surprises (always nice to be consistent eh?).

One of the things the article didn’t cover is how I’m generally bullish about moving technology into the cloud via hosted services (especially email). Although detractors can point to many valid problems and challenges these are no different from those facing any previous instance of technology and because of this I am extremely confident that they will be overcome. As such, my advice to resellers is that at the very least you need to be aware of what hosted technology can provide rather than locking yourself into only on-site infrastructure. But then that’s a whole ‘nother article isn’t it?

Have a read of the article and let me know what you think (director@ciaops.com).

Brain overload

Here’s an interesting article “Warning: Brain overload” which suggest that our obsession with digital content may in fact be affecting our poor little brain. It says:

“the sense of mind-lag and unease that result from info-overload may be causing significant levels of anxiety and depression.”

which means that more and more people feel they are falling further and further behind, in some way missing out. The article continues that:

“One fear is that habitual rapid media-browsing can, ironically, block our ability to develop wisdom”

because we are having to deal which volumes of information we simply do not have time to process what we receive deeply enough so we merely ignore it. We all apparently are born with the ability to empathize with others yet because we are now processing so much information we are actually caring less. In many ways this is making us less human. As the article says:

“Constant bombardment by outside high-intensity stimuli is not likely be healthy”

because our brains are now reaching capacity in the their ability to digest and make sense of all the information. The problem is probably not too much information simply that we have not taught ourselves how to effectively filter that information. It’s the old Pareto 80/20 rule. You have to work out how to get through the 80% of the junk to find the 20% that has real value. That is the trick, and it is something that most people do not appear to be improving. As the article says:

“The irony of high-speed modern mass communication is that no one is actually communicating.”

It seems like that more and more each day. The more everyone carries on about how much better we are with Twitter, Facebook, Web 2.0, You Tube and the like it would appear that we are losing our humanity. We are fast becoming like unfeeling machines. As the article concludes:

“Either you control your technology or it will control you”

Which is just like a recent article I’ve been working on call “How we’ve surrendered to technology” that I’m looking for feedback on, so if you have some time I’d appreciate any opinions.