Office Productivity

DreamSpark...it's about time!

Rob Foster — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 22:52:55 GMT

This morning, Microsoft Corp. announced that it will be giving away Visual Studio 2005 and 2008, SQL Server 2005, Windows Server Standard Edition, XNA Game Studio 2.0, and its Expression suite of products to college students worldwide -- and eventually to high school students.

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates announced the program, called DreamSpark, today on the company's Channel 8 site.

Strong Authentication for your email

Rob Foster — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 19:10:59 GMT

It's called PhoneFactor and it's free! Not to mention, it is just flat out cool.

Get it here.

Are you an MVP in Nashville? Why don't I know you???

Rob Foster — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 14:56:15 GMT

Ok, so I just stumbled onto yet another MVP (Joe Webb) that's based here in Nashville.

My question is, WHY DIDN'T I KNOW THIS BEFORE??? I actually found Joe on a YouTube video from the MVP summit. So far, here is my list of MVP's that I know of that live here:

Rob Foster (that's me)
Greg Beamer
Kevin Kline
John Kellar
Joe Webb

Are there others? Probably....if you are an MVP in Nash-Vegas, let's meet for lunch or something to connect.

I'm an MVP and I feel GRRREAT!

Rob Foster — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 14:47:00 GMT

This is TOO funny!

DevLink is coming to Nashville!

Rob Foster — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 02:14:53 GMT

Do you want to win an XBox 360??? YOU CAN by blogging about devLink.

It's (past) time to start generating a buzz around the annual devLink conference in Nashville.

If you are remotely close to the show, it is something that you shouldn't miss. Register here.

See you at the show!

Congrats to the new and renewed MVPs!

Rob Foster — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 02:08:57 GMT

Congrats to the new and renewed MVPs. I am happy to hear the news that John Kellar just got awarded an MVP in C#. John is a consultant in Nashville and the chairman of the DevLink conference which is happening on October 12 and 13 in Nashville.

Congrats John and other new MVPs, you have earned it!

Additionally, that puts us up to 4 MVPs in Nashville: myself (Rob Foster), Greg Beamer, Kevin Kline, and now John Kellar.

Excel add-in for Syncronizing table data with a SharePoint List

Rob Foster — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 15:49:11 GMT

Get it here!

Party with Palermo at TechEd 2007!

Rob Foster — Wed, 23 May 2007 04:54:29 GMT

Check it out!

http://partywith.palermo.cc

64-Bit IFilter Released for PDF

Rob Foster — Mon, 21 May 2007 15:56:03 GMT

It's funny how things work. There is now a 64-bit IFilter on the market from FoxIt Software. What does this mean for us? NO MORE 32-BIT INDEXING SERVERS IN MOSS!!! I can't believe that Adobe dropped the ball on this one.

Anyway...Just wanted to post something about this because this is BIG news for us MOSS guys!

MySiteCreate for SharePoint 2007 released

Rob Foster — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 02:47:56 GMT

If you are going to modify the My Site functionality in MOSS 2007, this kit will provide you with some guidance as well as a base Visual Studio .NET solution to work with. Below is the description from the site:

"Visual Studio 2005 solution file for features to be used in customizing MOSS 2007 My Sites within the enterprise. For more information, go to http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2007/03/22/customizing-moss-2007-my-sites-within-the-enterprise.aspx. This production release of the MySiteCreate solution file includes the following updates from the beta release: • Use any named master page – the original sample was hard-coded to look for a new master page called “steve.master”. The code has been updated to use properties in the feature itself to determine what the name of the new master page is. • Use an Xml manifest for web part changes – the original sample was hard-coded to making some very specific changes to the My Site. We have now changed that to support a custom Xml manifest file for these changes. It allows you to simply modify a sample manifest file included with the code to map out which web parts you want to add, move or delete. This means that in most cases you will not need to modify the code at all. Just change the Xml manifest file and deploy the feature. • Change web part properties – the addition of the Xml manifest file also brings some new functionality to the sample – the ability to set arbitrary web part properties through the manifest. A good example of this is included in the sample manifest file, where we set properties on the OWA Calendar Web Part to automatically configure it so it comes ready to use right out of the box. "