Getting started with Companyweb 2010


About 2 years ago I produced a document called ‘Getting started with companyweb’ that covered a basic tutorial on SharePoint on SBS 2008. I made that available for download as well as viewing on Slideshare. Since then the document has been viewed or downloaded at least 20 times a day, which is amazing to me.

Now that SBS 2011 Standard is available with SharePoint Foundation 2010 I figured that it is about time to update the document. So now you’ll find ‘Getting started with companyweb 2010’ available for download and again via Slideshare.

Subscribers of my SharePoint Guide will find a copy both companyweb documents that they can edit, re-brand and extend. This will allow them to get something to their customers, on their own letterhead, that’ll get them up and running with SharePoint on SBS quickly.

Look out for the soon to be released video companions for both of these documents as we know that people don’t like reading any more!

Enabling inline editing in SharePoint 2010

Here’s is a nice video I created that will show you to enable inline editing in SharePoint 2010. It is a pretty cool feature, easy to enable and makes working with SharePoint 2010 a whole lot easier.

CIAOPS SharePoint bootcamp

Announcing the CIAOPS SharePoint Bootcamp

The aim of this hands on course is to provide you with the technical and business skills to confidently sell and support a variety of SharePoint installations

 

All attendees receive:

1. A subscription to the CIAOPS Operations Guide (www.wssops.com) that includes documentation, videos and more. Existing subscribers will have their subscription extended by the equivalent amount. (valued up to $300)

2. A hard disk containing virtual machine images to be used for hands on training on the day which can be used for further training after the event (valued up to $ 100 ex).

3. Course notes, white papers, documentation etc.

4. Meals (morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea as appropriate to the attended sessions)

 

Each day will be composed of 2 sessions:

Part 1 – Technical (9am – 12.30pm)

This session will show you how to install, manage, maintain and migrate SharePoint. You’ll also learn how to enable additional features with SharePoint to greatly improve its functionality. You also gain deep insight into SQL Database management as well as how to troubleshoot common SharePoint issues.

Part 2 – Business integration (1.30pm – 5pm)

This session will focus on the business applications of SharePoint and how it can improve business processes. You’ll learn about integration with Office products such as Word, OneNote and InfoPath. You learn how to build automated business solutions and template them for use in other SharePoint sites.

Costs

Single session – $ 299 ex GST (including a 6 month subscription to CIAOPS SharePoint Guide).

Both sessions = $ 399 ex GST(including a 12 month subscription to CIAOPS SharePoint Guide)

Registration

 

For more information and to book please visit – www.ciaops.com/bootcamp

 

I expect these sessions to fill quickly given the total limit of 20 attendees. There are currently 2 dates confirmed for Sydney with some tentative dates in Brisbane and Melbourne (depending on numbers and venue arrangements). Please visit www.ciaops.com/bootcamp for more information about these dates.

Early Bird

As an early bird bonus if you sign and pay before May you’ll receive immediate access to the CIAOPS SharePoint Guide (www.wssops.com) but your subscription will commence in May 2011.

Any questions please let me know (director@ciaops.com).

Need to Know Podcast – Episode 16

The latest episode features Matt Makowicz from the Ambition Mission speaking about breaking through revenue barriers in business and building a sales team.

 

You can access the podcast directly from:

 

http://ciaops.podbean.com/2011/02/22/episode-16-matt-makowicz/

 

as well as view all previous episodes at:

 

http://ciaops.podbean.com

 

where you can not only subscribe via mediums such as iTunes but also leave comments and ratings on each episode.

 

If you are interested in, or know a business that is, sponsoring the show please contact me directly (director@ciaops.com). Also if you would like to appear as a guest or would like to hear from someone specifically again contact me (director@ciaops.com). Finally, if you think the show has provided you with value I’d appreciate any donation you’d care to make. All donations go to helping me improve what is offered (http://www.ciaops.com/donation).

YouTube milestone

image_2_565E8726

 

Just over 4 years ago I started to upload videos to YouTube. About 2 years later I open a new YouTube account and continued to upload videos there. Since that time I have not uploaded any new videos to the original account. Now over 2 years later that original account has reached over 500,000 views and 582 subscribers! Amazing.

 

I still continue to get plenty of feedback, comments and subscribers to something that I haven’t basically changed in over 2 years.

 

image_4_416D04B3

 

The video with the highest views (shown above) has over 63,000 in total.

 

I would have never imagined that any video I created would ever garner this many views. To me it demonstrates the growing influence of video and the power of sites like YouTube. I continue to develop and release videos and upload them to YouTube (here’s the latest):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4aKSQVPerA

 

Each video incorporates subtle changes that help me understand what works best for video production on the web. Sometimes I’m looking to understand audio, others its about resolution but each video is a another test in an effort to find the best methods of production.

 

All of this testing allows me to typically improve what I provide to subscribers of my SharePoint Guide as I have found that people are far more receptive to short video tutorials as an adjunct to the printed material in the Guide. My aim is provide at least one video tutorial to subscribers to allow them to quickly get up to speed on SharePoint.

 

Many question the value of YouTube but I see it as one of the main marketing methods available to me to reach a potential world wide audience. Creating videos these days is so easy that there should be no excuse why you aren’t doing so if you are in business. In most cases it is not creating the video that is problem but what to create videos on. Smart businesses will learn to understand how they can use video to reach more customers and generate business. Others dismiss it as a waste of time. My response to that is fine, but for me the results speak for themselves.

No Office Web Apps on SBS 2011 Standard

One of the really great features of SharePoint 2010 is the fact that it can used as a platform for Office Web Apps. Office Web Apps allows the ability to work with Office documents using only a web browser. You can see this for yourself if you have a Skydrive account.

SBS 2011 Standard has SharePoint Foundation 2010 included and many were looking forward to the opportunity of running Office Web Apps on their SBS 2011 Standard installation. In a small business environment, Office Web Apps makes a lot of sense since it provides greater flexibility for the business, especially in conjunction with remote access. The problem is that Microsoft has now said it won’t support Office Web Apps on SBS 2011 Standard.

The following was recently posted by Michael Leworthy in the Microsoft Connect forum:

Unfortunately after exhausting all avenues, I have to confirm that Office Web Apps will not be supported on the SBS 2011 Standard Server install. Office Web Apps is not supported on domain controllers, and we could not develop a supported workaround that we felt was in-line
with our commitment to security and reliability for the Windows Server platform.

Office Web Apps is fully supported on SharePoint Foundation Server 2010 running on the SBS 2011 Premium Add-on, or a non DC member server, and you can integrate this back into your SBS 2011 environment using these steps http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg616007.aspx. However,you will still require VL licensing for Office 2010 to utilize Office Web Apps.

I appreciate your patience while we working our way through this – unfortunately I could not succeed in your asks around this product,
or the licensing.

thanks
Michael

Some have raised the point as to how running Office Web Apps on a domain controller is any different from running Exchange, SharePoint and ISA on a domain controller which are also not ‘supposed’ to be run there. Different versions of SBS have done this for years, that is just the way SBS is. The current version of SBS also allows remote access via web folders, so how are any of these really any different to Office Web Apps in the security context mentioned?

At the moment, when you install Office Web Apps on SBS 2011 Standard, it will break things. There is no doubt that ‘work arounds’ will become available, however as it currently stands there is no supported method of installing Office Web Apps on SBS 2011 Standard (except on a second server) and that my friends is a damm shame, a damm shame.

SharePoint Foundation BLOB storage


If you download and install SharePoint Foundation 2010 from the Microsoft web site and use it with the default options you’ll end up storing the content on SQL Server 2008 Express which is limited to 4GB database sizes. if you work with SharePoint Foundation 2010 on SBS 2011 you’ll end up storing the content on SQL Server 2008 Express R2 which allows databases up to 10GB in size. One of the options beyond that is Binary Large Object Storage or BLOB storage.

So what’s BLOB storage? Many SharePoint sites are full of things like pictures, documents and the like which can vary in size from a few kilobytes up to many megabytes. The larger these ‘binary objects’ become the more size they chew up in the SQL database in which they are stored. SQL databases are typically not the best places for storing large binary data. In order to reduce the size of the SQL databases and improve their performance you can enable BLOB storage which basically allows this large data to be stored on the file system rather than in the database, yet still take advantage of many of the features that databases provide.

Sounds good eh? Well yes and no (and I think more so no for SharePoint). The good thing is that it reduces the total size of your SharePoint database and allows it to break the 10GB limit. However, I see plenty of downsides:

– BLOB storage adds complexity to SharePoint. How do you backup and restore BLOBs? How do you configure and enable it? What happens when you need to migrate data?

– If you work with a lot of files and BLOB storage you are going to end up with lots of orphaned BLOB stores which will require tidy up.

– You cannot assume that your current implementation using the present version of the software will be compatible with future versions of Microsoft Office or SharePoint Foundation (this straight from the Microsoft technical document).

– No utility is available for moving BLOB data from an existing content database into the external BLOB store. After you enable BLOB storage on SQL server on new BLOB data will end up in the BLOB storage location.

– Some backup and restore functions in SharePoint Foundation operate on the content databases but not on the external BLOB store. You must handle the backup and restore of external BLOB data differently to standard SharePoint.

– Microsoft recommends that if the content databases become larger than 16GB you upgrade to the full version of SQL Server that provides for unlimited database sizes.

– Remote BLOB storage is most useful for large file storage, typically in environments that require archiving.

– Once you enable remote BLOB storage all BLOB data ends up there. This means that if you have lots of small BLOB files accesses regularly you may experience latency.

– SQL BLOB Storage using FILESTREAM with SharePoint Foundation can only be to the local drives and does not support snapshot backups.

On balance then I think that if you are approaching the 10GB limit with the free version of SQL Server 2008 Express R2 it’s time to think about upgrading to a full version of SQL rather than implementing BLOB storage. Too me, from what I see, there is just too much downside.

You have been warned.