Tuesday, February 07, 2012
#
I don’t like to own tons of things really. I don’t need stuff in my life. I’d rather collect solid awesome friends and people in my life. So I keep telling people I had a bad year obviously. 2011 was the worst year ever. I feel incredibly bad because a lot of people helped me out in amazing ways in my time of need last year. The holidays to me have just not been right for a long time. I never liked Valentine’s Day it has always felt like the most miserable time of the year. The reason being I just felt under appreciated for such a long time. Thinking about the under appreciation I feel better when someone tells me how awesome I am. People don’t say that enough in my opinion, so for those people who I feel are close enough to me and I want to offer a service. I want people to send me there address in email, on facebook, or on twitter. I want to write appreciation cards for all the people that matter. Some people outright I will just ask and some people you can just send me your address straight off the bat. I am going to purchase some blank cards and put out the effort to let people know within the next month or so that they matter in my life and why.
Also, as an addition for those of you considering getting me a birthday card or a present in my family or friends. Do me a favor do the same for me or at least add on something silly as a present. I don’t need a new book or a giftcard or a new piece of electronic equipment. I just want to know why I’m important to you. What I’m going to do is collect all these cards and keep them for the future. For days that I’m down for rough times I am going to pull out these and look at them. I know it’s difficult to write a paragraph to someone that’s emotionally charged, but it means 10x more to me than actually giving me a dvd. If this is hard for you maybe do something else make me something cool do it in your own way. I don’t need you to spend any money on me. All I need to know this year is that people care. That’s the kind of year I need to have this year. Thank you again for all your devotion and support. This is not a forced task. I would just appreciate it a lot 
Technorati Tags:
Personal
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
#
I just spent a good portion of today of part of yesterday on a really weird issue. Our sites had some custom branding for a client and the quick launch displayed perfectly for the root site. When you clicked on all the subsites the quick launch bar would not display. Myself and one of the branding guy’s at Planet, Jaimie Luetjen, were spinning our wheels (and I don’t think it helps that I have a cold). Finally Jaimie is able to login to the site and he threw up a live meeting, so we could figure it out. After several hours we decide to create another page and see what happens on one of the subsites. The quicklaunch existed on that page, but not on the default page. So we started playing around and Jaimie realized that the settings for the template for subsites was set to only include a page layout with body and no quicklaunch. He set this so that the webpart page would display instead and I went back and reset all the page layouts. So morale of the story if you see the same issue make sure the default for that template for all your subsites is set to a page layout that includes a quicklaunch. Sometimes I feel like I’ve been steamrolled by SharePoint and other days I feel awesome. Today I think I learned something, but I feel like I spent hours spinning my wheels around in circles. Hopefully one of you guys learned from this blog post.
Monday, January 16, 2012
#
So lately I have been back in the dev arena more so and working from home. I find that I have some spare time because sometimes I pile directly through lunch. Today I was playing around with a control that I felt I had tested thoroughly. I was completely wrong. So here is an explanation of how to build out the accordion control in a webpart without having the same issues.
First off go here and download the jquery-ui-1.8.16.custom.min.js and jquery-1.6.2.min.js. Then what I want you to do is create a blank solution file in Visual Studio 2010 and sandbox it. Now create a module and in this module you want to drop these files into the Style Library or another document library where you can reference the location. Then you want to drop a scriptlink in using a custom action or create a brand new webpart and drop in the script directives as you would with any javascript files. I am not going to go over these details if you have worked with jQuery or you read Mark Rackley’s blog you should know how to do basic stuff like so.
The next piece you want to do is create a Panel to drop in all your javascript code in the webpart like such:
Panel pnlAccordion;
Then in your create child controls instantiante that Panel and create a string right after the instantiation. Now for the accordion piece I would create a function that passes back a string into this string you just created, then you will do something like this:
pnlAccordion.Add(new LiteralControl(YourAccordionString));
In your function you need to create a string for the Accordion build out that will return back to the CreateChildControls. At the start of your string you want to put the following piece of code:
YourAccordionBuildOut = @”<script type=’text/javascript’>
$(document).ready(function(){
$(‘#accordion’).accordion({ //this is the name of your div below
navigation:true,
event:’click’, //the property above and below can be changed
animated: ‘easeslide’ //go to the jquery site look at the properties
});
});
</script>
<div id=’accordion’>”;
Now you have the opening div tag for your accordion control you need to build out the headers and such. At this point you will create a fantastic function pulling list data, profile data or something other data. The thing to keep in mind is make sure your header tags are enclosed in the following tags:
<h3>Your Text</h3>
Also, the mistake I made with the next part is dropping a div tag for each element inside each heading. You can drop a div tag and span tags around each element, however what you want to do is make sure there is a single div around the entire block of elements like such:
<div>
<div>Element1</div>
<div>Element2</div>
</div>
If you do not drop that extra div tag around your elements inside the string, then you will have the issue where it hides the first item in your list of elements and when you click the accordion header it exposes just that one item. You will spend hours wondering what’s going on trust me. It’s worth it to just make sure there is a single div around all your elements and be done.
The other thing to keep in mind is that at the end of all your elements build out you need to close the div tag for the accordion control too. When you are done building out your tags dynamically and you have deployed your webpart and you should see the code above for the script followed by something that looks like this:
<div id=’accordion’>
<h3>Header1</h3>
<div>Elemen1</div>
<div>Element2</div>
<div>Element3</div>
<h3>Header1</h3>
<div>Elemen1</div>
<div>Element2</div>
<div>Element3</div>
<h3>Header1</h3>
<div>Elemen1</div>
<div>Element2</div>
<div>Element3</div>
</div>
If for some reason a div or a header is wrong check the function and the string you created by stepping through and attaching to the user code services process. Sometimes a rogue tag happens. Good luck guys and hopefully you will not run into the issues I’ve had. I hope that you are enjoying the blog posts while they are still coming if I’m lucky I will continue to write one a week for you guys that is semi-technical.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
#
Paul Schaeflein wrote this yesterday: http://www.schaeflein.net/blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=11. First off Paul is awesome so do not think of this blog post as an attack it is just my opinion.
So first off I was there at the first SharePoint Saturday and I knew it was happening well before it happened. I have been an attendee, volunteer, speaker, and sponsor. I have thrown thousands of dollars and effort into these events. I am sold on the idea. Michael Lotter once told me that the whole point of SharePoint Saturday was to help out new speakers and to cultivate the local community. I agree with Michael, but I also agree the events are also for the attendees largely. Yes we are selling the events to the speakers and sponsors to show them worth, but inevitably you have to think about who gains the most in the end – the attendees. The speakers and sponsors may be gaining something in the end, but it’s never been fully about them in my opinion.
I agree with Paul the same speakers are speaking over and over again. To this point last year we tried something different. We decided to look at who was new as one of the points for picking speakers. We did pick a couple new speakers the problem is the new speakers are not submitting. We are not getting a substantial amount of new speaker submissions. I have tried to motivate and to cultivate new speakers, but it’s hard since not everyone wants to stand up in front of a crowd. If anyone has any thoughts or ideas on how to bring these people out let me know.
I disagree with Paul in that we should just pick local speakers. For the attendees sake an expert might not be available in a specific area and here is where I think picking non local speakers is a good idea. I have always thought the user group was a good area to focus on local speakers and the SharePoint Saturdays could be more of a free for all, because it is much easier sometimes to travel on a weekend rather than a week day. I might be wrong and you might disagree, but this is my opinion. We do not really put value on local vs. non-local at the New York City event. We pick speakers based on topics and how they fit for attendees. Last year in 2011 we tried to be more cohesive. I think that is what more SharePoint Saturdays in the larger markets should try to do. One of the things I never liked is that people were picked initially based on who they were and then on topic afterwards. I personally would rather see them picked based on topic then who they were if you have duplicates.
Some of the other problems occur when you have to balance sponsors into the equation. You have to treat your speakers and sponsors well or they will not want to come to your event. Yes the attendees are important, but speakers and sponsors are equally important. I commend those people who are throwing out tons of money just to come to these events to give people free training for a day. I also commend the sponsors for dropping huge dollar amounts. You have to find some form of balance between giving your attendees what they want, making your speakers feel appreciated, and giving your sponsors something that is worth it to keep coming to events. Every single time I help out with an event we have a discussion on how to make it better and we try to first give the attendees what they want, then the sponsors and speakers. We try to add something for each of them every year so that they feel like they want to come back. Sometimes I feel horrible, because I like to make people happy and I don’t always end up doing that for everyone.
There is a lot of controversy these days because SharePoint Saturday has spread out wide and far. One event turned into hundreds of events spanning the course of 3-4 years. Not everyone can travel and not everyone can help out in the capacity they want. Not everyone is happy with the setup of each event, however the attendees always seem happy. I will tell you why it’s worth it to attend, volunteer, sponsor, or speak at one of these events. The attendees will come up to you and thank you. They always enjoy free training and sessions from experts in the community. They sometimes come up and thank the sponsors, the organizers, the speakers, the volunteers, and such. That is what I think is the most worthwhile factor.
You wonder why am I still doing this 50 or 60 events in and I’ll tell you why. I grew up poor I didn’t have all the advantages that everyone had. I had help from family members and friends and such. So I bought into SharePoint Saturday early on as a pure community effort. I used to help out at food pantries and other charitable endeavors when I was much younger. I also had a hard time accepting that I was never going to be a doctor in Africa helping the Peace Corps. So SharePoint Saturday is my way of giving back to the community. I have gained lifelong friends and peace of mind that I helped someone learn something that they would not gain otherwise. You have to also realize the economy prevents a lot of people from attending the major conferences, so local SharePoint Saturdays are helping out people who would otherwise have no other easy means to learn about the technology. So to end my huge rant I think we are doing a good job overall. I think that we could improve upon what we have, but sometimes you have to realize it’s a free event and I think we are doing a fine job with what we have. We are not going to please everyone with every single event and the overall structure is great in my opinion for what started as nothing and turned into a major explosion. Hopefully this made sense to someone. I hope you all have a good day. Also, please think before you post a comment, because I moderate all comments.
Sunday, January 08, 2012
#
In January 0f 2009 something crazy and awesome happened for me, SharePoint Saturday was born. I was a 26 year old girl from Saint Louis Missouri who was living in Olathe, KS. About 5 month prior I went to the most pivotal event in my career and life in Washington DC, the Regional SharePoint Conference, where I met Michael Lotter, Paul Galvin, Tony Lanni, Bob Fox, and Rachel Appel. Several months later I was visiting Michael at a code camp in Raleigh North Carolina and he told me we’re going to have an event in New York City that’s like a code camp, but there will only be SharePoint related topics. Somehow Susan Lennon and Michael spoke and then Kevin Israel was involved and the first ever SharePoint Saturday was planned.
I remember I was going to take a flight from MCI in Kansas City and I would meet Michael in Raleigh. The 2009 B&R crew, Nas Ali, Josh Carlisle, myself, and Michael were going to take Josh Carlisle’s Cadillac from Raleigh, NC to Virginia Beach, VA stop at the hotel and then hit up the speaker dinner at some pizza place. I don’t remember much about the drive there and back. I know that we had some great conversations on the way there and back. We made the speaker dinner and I sat down in my backwards Cardinal’s cap, t-shirt, and jeans. I was very nervous. This was my second ever SharePoint only event and my second ever Silverlight talk. Joel Oleson sat down next to me during the dinner. I was completely freaked out and nervous even further. I was trying to avoid eye contact. Of all the people how could Joel sit next to me?
That night Joel and a bunch of us walked around and hung out by the beach. I still have pictures next to the Poseidon statue on my iPhone. I think this was around the time my first iPhone was cracked and the first time anyone took a picture of it in the SharePoint community. We woke up the next morning and headed to the venue. We made it there in record time. When I got there I was so nervous I drank a ton of coffee and ate nothing. I was so wired that I could only sit through John Holliday’s session on CAML .Net. It was like housing all my heroes in one place. It was like I was this tiny little mortal. When I met John for the first time he was so cool and he asked me if I had taken a look at his Codeplex project. I had not and I was so nervous. I remember there was some Star Trek comment that he made that he thought I didn’t understand it was more I was so nervous than anything.
I remember roaming around the area was Dan Usher and Joel Ward. Dan was the quietest person in the whole wide world when I first met him. I remember standing at the top of the stairs after John’s session meeting him. I don’t fully remember the exchange. I also remember during my session Paul Galvin and Dan were in my session. They gave me really great comments and feedback which would shape the Silverlight session that has now morphed into an HTML 5 vs. Silverlight talk. I remember that first photo we took and attempting to hide behind everyone and they made me get into the shot. That year was an epic year and the years after it.
Since that first SharePoint Saturday I have gone through a break up, a flood, three companies, two MVP Awards, an INETA Community Champions Award, several title changes, and the acceptance of much more responsibility. I have even stopped wearing the backwards cap and t-shirts much to everyone’s surprise. If anyone can remember it there was a time when I was so quiet around you all and now you can’t get me to stop talking. Just think if Michael and Susan had not conspired to create SharePoint Saturday I would not be the person I am today with all the awesome stuff in my life. I even would not have been so bold last month as to randomly tell someone out loud I was interested in them. Thank you guys for giving me the gift of an outlet where I feel safe and confident in my personal and professional life. Without SharePoint Saturdays I am not sure I would be the same person I am today. Without Michael in particular I would not be the same person I am today in general. Thank you for all the great advice and mentorship you have given me throughout the years. I know I don’t say it enough, but you are pretty awesome.
Sunday, January 01, 2012
#
I’m not sure I have ever thrown this down in writing. I probably have said this 800 or 900 times, but I think that HTML 5 in SharePoint 2010 sucks. The support is terrible in the two most prevalent web browsers at the enterprise level – Internet Explorer and Firefox. If you can’t even get the video tag to work in IE 9 or the latest version of Firefox then that’s a huge fail for the product with HTML 5.
What I think needs to be done in the product to improve HTML 5 support so that we can move towards standards are a few things. Here are a few ideas I have from working with SharePoint and HTML 5 and Silverlight:
- SharePoint vFuture needs to stop pushing back IE support to a specific numbered version in the masterpage. Microsoft I know it sucks and you would have to do massive amounts of legwork, but SharePoint 2010 does not meet web standards. The fact that you are forcing us to use IE 8 compliance mechanisms by embedding it in the masterpage further supports what I am saying. I am sick of having to test various tags and scripts that I wrote outside of SharePoint inside the product and finding subpar results. It makes me feel ashamed of working with the product. I have friends working with Orchard and other tools that fully support the latest web standards. Can you guys please promise to work on this for the next version of SharePoint?
- We need better tooling for HTML 5 why not take Expression Blend and make it work to help write better SharePoint controls that are web compliant. I love Silverlight, but as we know it’s not the best for mobile platforms, such as phones or tablets. The world is heading more into a highly technical age where less people will have a laptop and more people will have a phone or tablet. We need better tooling, because SharePoint Designer sucks monkey chunks. 2010 is no better than 2007 it just doesn’t tell us the error message and instead just closes. It might be 2% better than the last version, but it’s still a wolf in sheeps clothing. Expression Blend is one of the most fantastically written user control products I have ever seen. It is clean and simple and far superior to any Adobe product (well maybe I’m a tad biased). So Microsoft can you please make it so for SharePoint vFuture? Give us some Blend support to create SharePoint controls perhaps? We don’t need a one off solution you can keep designer for workflows or some other small junk where it excels and won’t crash on us.
- This one is for the W3C…Why is HTML 5 in draft mode until 2020? It’s 2012 guys get your act together. HTML 4 was standardized in the 90s that’s over a decade ago. No wonder Microsoft has no idea which side to flip on Silverlight and HTML 5 the web standard committee can’t even get there stuff together to standardize the new format. Why write a product on something that won’t be fully standardized for another 8 years potentially. Btw 8 years is optimistic when they could not even get there stuff together to push out the first version of HTML 5 and some guy from Google had to step in and throw something out there. How sad is that? So W3C please give us some standard in the next year so that Microsoft can write a proper version of SharePoint for the masses. Thanks guys.
So now that I have completely irritated the W3C, Google, and Microsoft I will throw out a conclusion for you guys. I think if we can get the three things above, such as a more web compliant version of SharePoint, better HTML 5 tooling, and an actual standardized version of HTML 5, then I think we will see Silverlight dying. Right now everything is still speculation, but I predict in the future these three things will happen. If they do not happen then you will see me switching from SharePoint Development to something like jQuery or Rails or PHP or some other junk, because my job will no longer exist a decade from now. I do not see Silverlight living through the next 10 years in the same form. It’s possible they will repurpose it for the wp7, but I cannot tell you the future or the expiration date or if this is the last version of Silverlight Microsoft will publish. All I can do is tell you what I think will happen and what needs to be done to get to a more web compliant future. If anyone out there wants to question my ability to write HTML go right ahead, but I have been working with HTML since v3 and I was writing notepad code while you were still writing god knows what C command line script to move files from one folder in Windows 3.1 to another folder. Have a nice night guys and I hope you were all entertained at reading this post as much as I had writing it.
2011 started with a bang and ended with a boom for me. Anyway that’s not what I want to talk about in this blog post. I am not looking back I am walking forward. I was reckless with my life for several years and thought it was the best idea to act in a certain manner. I was reckless because I was neglectful of my happiness. I am changing that in 2012. I am instituting a travel policy where I will be traveling only once a month for an event or user group and no more than once a month. That means I will be focusing on local user groups and local events mostly within the New Jersey/New York Metro area. I am not doing this for anyone else but myself.
The first week of 2012 is the first week in a year that I have consistently slept in my own bed. It is the first week I have spent an entire day in what I would consider my permanent residence. I did meet a lot of great people internationally and the U.S., but it took a toll on my life. I ignored very important parts of my life that I should have attended to early on.
So what does this mean early on? I’m focusing more on my personal life outside of SharePoint. I’m going to join meetups not SharePoint related, go to concerts, hang out with friends, and get another cat (one more cat does not constitute crazy cat lady status yet). I also have two new things I’m working on in my job, such as helping start a New York Metro Office for Planet Technologies and I am working on all the east coast community events as an advisor in a sense. I just feel like I need to take a step back and honestly I credit something a coworker told me several months ago that I need to slow down. He was completely right (Clay yeah it’s you dude)…I can run on burn out for a very long time, but it’s not worth it to myself and the people around me. I think if I can stick to the plan 2012 will be a much better year in 2011.
The other weird thing is that when I was a kid I had all these ambitions. I think I hit most of them, but one or two. So I need to come up with a new list of life goals. The number 1 life goal I hit in 2011 is setting up the ability to live in New York City for 2012. I was three years old and I just knew I wanted to live in New York City. Every goal list I have made since I was three stated that I wanted to live or go to school in New York City sometime in my life. It’s truly amazing when you get to do something you’ve always wanted to do.
So in retrospect 2011 was a year of learning and laying out plans. 2012 is a year of putting down roots in one spot and figuring out what to do next. I hope that you all have a great 2012 and I’ll see you all around potentially. This is blog post #1 for 2012. I’m hoping to post again this week something technical.
Sunday, December 18, 2011
#
First off for those of you who attended some presentations the past few weeks here is the link for the code samples: https://skydrive.live.com/#cid=8E2654C5F01E6069&id=8E2654C5F01E6069!138
Here is the link for the slide decks: https://skydrive.live.com/#cid=8E2654C5F01E6069&id=8E2654C5F01E6069!119
Now I wanted to explain why the blogging has been very few and far between. As you guys know I went through some craziness in the past few months. I am just coming out of the tunnel and I can see the light. Essentially this means I am trying to build furniture and get my stuff between DC and New York, so that I can prep for the cat to come back and start my life over again. I am about 65% settled into my new apartment and will fully be living in the New York Metro area 100% on December 30th around 9 pm. How awesome is that?
Anyway I am writing this blog post to the two hundred bots and three readers to say I hope that you all have a happy new year. Thanks again for the support and the encouragement the past few months. You helped me out in many ways. You are the reason why I continued to wake up in the morning. For those of you who want me to blog more and keep coming up to me at events to encourage me to do so. I would like to try and write one blog post per week if possible. Hopefully two of those will be SharePoint or some form of technology oriented. Thanks again and catch you all on the flipside.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
#
I haven’t written a blog post in a while. I understand there is blog neglect going on, but there is a lot going on in my life. I am trying really hard to embrace the change and roll with everything thrown my way. I had a really hard year it was not my best and it was not my worst. I cannot say it was entirely hard, because January 1st I received the MVP Award. If you know me you know the three things that happened starting in August, but if you really know me it was miserable for a substantial period of time prior to August. There was some personal life issues I neglected to deal with that came into a headway. Anyway I’d like to think that as of today I am doing much better. I finally went to Paris and London. I found out I love Paris and Nottingham. I think that London is something I need to visit a few more times. I would love to go back to the UK and France. I think I’d love to live overseas someday, but not anytime soon.
The past few weeks were like a whirlwind experience. I felt like I had been sitting around for months just waiting for this trip and the big move. Maybe it was something I was waiting to do for several years. I needed a big change. I needed to get unstuck. I feel like August, however horrible it was, helped me get to the point where I am somewhere happy. For at least two years I have been miserable outside of my work (community and otherwise). I was just downright unhappy. One of my coworkers said that my tweets were just horrible this past year. Depressing might I add. I agree they were incredibly depressing for the past several years. But things are on an upturn. I decided a month or so ago that I was going to do all the things I have wanted to do without looking back. So I dove into this trip and into this move to NYC head first. I was scared for a bit and I didn’t think it would come through. Everyone friend-wise and coworker-wise has helped me accomplish this great feat. I am now a New Yorker and as of January 1st 100% living in the city.
Thank you for those who have checked up on me. Thank you for those who listened to all my problems and continue to do so. Thank you to everyone who has helped me through this really terrible time. You guys mean the world to me. You are my friends. Some of you I have not met and some of you I barely know. I have been to a lot of events where people just walked up to me and asked me if I was doing ok. I will continue to keep moving forward one foot in front of the other. If I ever get so down again please remind me about this year. I hope to see you all in the upcoming year as I attend more events. Have a good night or a good morning or a good afternoon. I will catch you all later.
Saturday, October 29, 2011
#
I was born in 1982 in March. That year the St. Louis Cardinal’s won the world series for the first time in a long time. When I was growing up my dad, my brother, and I would go to games. We would cheer and we would scream and we really got into the games. When things were bad there were two I had in life – school and the Cards. I would enter the games and feel like I had a deep connection with my team. It was great. My aunt once said that I would be buried in my backwards Cardinal’s hat. I always wore the newest version of my hat to family outings and events when I was a kid or teenager or in college. I kind of lost touch with the Cards and my youth over the years. I entered the professional world and I had a bad year in 2005. So when the Cards won in 2006 I didn’t really pay attention. Over the years I got more out of touch with the team only seeing at most one game a year.
So we all know the past few months have not been the easiest, because I’ve had a lot of changes in a small period of time. Good changes for the best, but it’s really hard when a lot of change is thrown at you with very small amounts of consistency. So this year I didn’t think much about it. The Cards go through and beat Atlanta to steal the wildcard. Every single game they played I was on the website refreshing the page neurotically incredibly afraid to watch the games. Finally we get to the series we push through and I’m like this is it. I asked them for a 20th birthday present of a series, but maybe for my 30th birthday in 2012 they could win this year. Maybe they could restore my faith in humanity. So tonight I was sitting in a bar until the complete end of the game and the St. Louis Cardinal’s won there 11th World Series Championship. For once in a long time I felt like I was a kid again. I felt like some form of consistency was handed to me. It was great and it was awesome. It felt like I was at peace for once in a long time and all my demons were no longer going to haunt me any more.
As a pledge to try and hold onto this feeling for a little longer I will be in full St. Louis Cardinal’s apparel next weekend at SharePoint Saturday Richmond. Not to gloat at Texas fans, but as that kid from St. Louis who can accomplish anything she has the world at her grasp. It’s a great feeling and it’s been a long time coming. I hope I can hold onto it for a while longer. I asked for perspective today and someone is giving it to me in the form of a World Series Championship. Thank you for responding whoever you are I accept it. I am grateful and I will try hard not to forget who I am and where I am going.