Ben Skelton's Blog

Ten Reasons for Hosting Web Sites on SharePoint Server 2007 for Internet Sites

On Wednesday Jas and I are presenting a webcast for Microsoft TechNet entitled "Ten Reasons for Hosting Web Sites on SharePoint Server 2007 for Internet Sites".

Join us for an in-depth look at how your organization can benefit from SharePoint Server 2007 for Internet Sites. In this webcast, we review ten areas in which SharePoint Server 2007 for Internet Sites is delivering concrete value to organizations that have deployed the technology.

The deck is all finished and I think we are ready... If you are curious about using SharePoint for your website or extranet we hope you will join us!

SharePoint 2010

We have formerly kicked-off our SharePoint 2010 learning program at Habañero and have started to play with the bits. Ten of us will be heading down to Vegas from October 18th to the 23rd for the SharePoint Conference where Microsoft will be doing the big reveal.

The last SharePoint Conference I attended was for the launch of MOSS 2007 and it was awesome... As such, I've got high expectations for this one. A number of our clients and partners will also be sending attendees so it should be a good chance to catch up and learn what everyone else is doing on the platform.

Are you going to the conference? If so drop me a line...

Last night in Vegas — MIX 08

Tonight is my last night in Vegas before I fly to Orlando. Unfortunately I made a mistake and booked a flight that has a stop in Washington, DC. It is a Ted / United flight, which means it is 99% likely that I won’t have power at my seat. Looks like I will only be able to work for half the flight... I guess the non-removable battery in the MacBook Air is an issue after all :(

Anyway, back to why I was in Vegas — Microsoft’s MIX conference. MIX was really good this year and was a lot of fun as always.

A few thoughts about the past week:

• I came down a day early as Microsoft was hosting an event for influencers, which unfortunately turned out to be a little weak. It focused too much on the Expression tools and the presenters didn't answer a number of questions as they didn’t want to steal any of the thunder from the main keynote. Everyone received an 8GB Zune which was cool. I have already gifted mine to Steven at work as it won’t work on my Mac, too bad as I find the UI on it slick.
• The session on adaptive user interfaces was interesting. I am working on an intranet project right now and we might be able to make use of some of these techniques.
• There were too many panels! I hate panels! Down with panels!
• The Ballmer and Kawasaki keynote was the highlight of the conference for me. Before the conference I was somewhat lukewarm on Ballmer, but he really impressed me. I recommend checking the keynote out online!
• It was awesome to spend some time with both the Microsoft Canada team and Habañero’s Canadian peers. Microsoft Canada always puts on a good event and this year’s was no exception.
• There was very little mention of SharePoint at the conference. Unfortunately Microsoft scheduled the two events during the same week, which was a bit of a bummer. I would have liked to see more sessions around creating exceptional user interfaces in SharePoint.
• The Internet Explorer team had an awesome after party at the Kingpin Suite at the Palms. The suite had a bowling alley in it which allowed me to discover that I am not a very good bowler.
• I got to see the chicken – thanks Bryce! :)

Anyway, I think that's it. Looking forward to MIX 09!

MacBook Air Impressions

I’ve had my MacBook Air for a couple of weeks and thought I would jot down a few thoughts about the new machine…

• Pictures don’t do the machine justice. It is so incredibly light and thin that I sometimes forget that it is in my bag. As an added bonus the power adapter is a hell of a lot lighter then the gigantic MacBook Pro one, which significantly cuts down on the weight I have to lug around.
• The machine is really comfortable to use on your lap as it is light and it doesn’t get very warm. The MacBook Pro got ridiculously hot.
• The display is gorgeous. Although I probably would have chosen a matte screen the glossy display is growing on me.
• The keyboard is really comfortable. Although I like the new mapping of the function keys for play / pause, Expose and Dashboard I miss having a function key mapped to toggle display mirroring / extended desktop.
• I was surprised how well the USB Ethernet dongle works. All you need to do is plug it into the USB port on the laptop and the network is available. As someone who has used Windows in the past this is probably the most impressive part of OS X — no dialogs, no warnings, no alerts — just a working network!
• The lack of ports doesn’t bug me until the Ethernet dongle is connected to the computer. Apple should have made it a splitter with both Ethernet and USB. The USB port has enough power to drive an external SuperDrive, so perhaps it could drive both Ethernet and a USB port at once.
• Everything seems as fast and responsive as my first generation MacBook Pro. I spend most of my day in Entourage, Word, Safari, NetNewsWire and Keynote and this computer has no problem handling any of ‘em.
• I have 31GB left on the hard drive, but haven’t installed the Adobe Creative Suite yet. I think I will be a little more selective this time around and only install Fireworks. It is the only part of the suite I use somewhat regularly.

This laptop is by far the best laptop I have ever owned (high praise) and I have no qualms about it being my only computer. In fact I couldn’t imagine going back to lugging around the MacBook Pro.

iTunes Customer Service

The iTunes Music Store has the best online customer service I have seen in a long time. A couple of days ago I purchased a DJ compilation and it didn’t seem to want to play. I tried purchasing it again to see if the second download would work, no dice. I filled out the online form and within a day I had the following email in my inbox:

Dear Ben,

I hope this email finds you well. Your issue has been escalated to me and I will be happy to help you from now on until I am sure everything is resolved.

I'm sorry to hear that "Kitsuné BoomBox (Mixed By Jerry Bouthier) - Single" doesn't seem to sound correct. I have posted the missing item to your account. Please follow these steps to download the item:

From the pull-down Store menu at the top, select Check for Purchases (if you're unable to upgrade and are using iTunes 6 or earlier, you'll find this option in the Advanced menu). If you can't find this option, you can also click this link to Check for Purchases:
https://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZFinance.woa/wa/checkForPurchases

Enter your account name and password, then click the Check button.

The missing item should begin downloading and appear in your Purchased playlist. If you receive an error message while downloading, try again after turning off any firewall or web-accelerator software that you may have installed. If the download process is interrupted for any reason, it should resume once you reopen iTunes.

Please let me know if your third download has the same problems. I will be happy to refund you for your duplicate purchase as soon as the transaction clears. I would, however, like to know if the third download works for you before I refund you for the duplicate purchase. I may need to refund you for both purchases if the content is still not up to par.

I appreciate your patience Ben and truly wish you nothing but the very best. If you have further questions concerning this issue please reply to this email and I will be happy to assist you.

Fascinating... Not only was the email actually helpful, but it was also written in a way that didn’t make me feel like the customer service representative was selecting a canned response from a list. The third download worked great and I emailed the representative back to let her know that it worked. Within a day I had the following email in my inbox:

I'm pleased to hear that "Kitsuné BoomBox" downloaded properly.  I hope you enjoy your purchase.

I have also reversed the charge for the duplicate purchase. You will see a credit of $5.99, plus any applicable taxes, in three to five business days. If store credit was used for this purchase, you should see the credit after you sign out of the iTunes Store and sign back in.

In the unlikely event that you receive a download error in the future, please remember that it is not necessary to repurchase items when downloads are interrupted, because the items should still be in your account, waiting to be downloaded. To learn more, follow the steps in this article:

How to resume interrupted iTunes Store downloads
http://www.info.apple.com/kbnum/n93015

I hope you continue to enjoy using the iTunes Store.

This level of customer service is really impressive, especially when compared to organizations like CIBC and Air Canada. I have sent CIBC a number of emails within their online banking system and generally I receive crappy responses that do not have anything to do with the issue I contacted them about in the first place. Air Canada often tends to solve that problem by not responding to your email.

On a related note the album I downloaded from iTunes wasn’t very good… It would be great if iTunes allowed you to preview more of a song, especially for long club mixes or DJ compilations… Oh well, you can’t win ‘em all!

Upcoming conferences

Clients often ask what conferences we are going to and/or are excited about. Here are some of the conferences that are on my radar in the next little while:

Microsoft Office SharePoint Conference 2008
March 2-6: Seattle, WA
We have eight people attending the SharePoint Conference this year from Habañero! I attended the SharePoint Conference in 2006 and it was excellent — an insane amount of information was provided by the SharePoint development team. From the Microsoft site: "The SharePoint conference is primarily intended for those in IT who use, deploy, and configure SharePoint. If you are focused on SharePoint deployment, or want to expand your skills in this area, you should attend..."

Microsoft MIX 08
March 5-7: Las Vegas, NV
I went to MIX 07 and had a blast! MIX is awesome if you want to understand Microsoft's Web / UX strategy, talk to folks on the various product teams and drink some of the Microsoft KOOL-AID (along with other stronger drinks). Both myself and Mark (User Experience Developer) are going this year.

Microsoft Convergence 2008
March 11-14: Orlando, FL
Convergence is focused on Microsoft's Dynamics product offerings including Dynamics NAV and Dynamics AX. Habañero will have a booth at the Expo and there will be seven of us going (including myself). If you are interested in Microsoft's ERP strategy or product offerings it should be a good conference. If you attending make sure you drop by our booth and say hello :)

Adaptive Path: MX San Francisco
March 11-14: San Francisco, CA
I attended Adaptive Path's UX Week conference for a couple of years in a row, but as my job shifted the conference became less relevant to me (it is very practitioner focused). MX is much more multi-disciplinary and is awesome for creative and / or experience managers. I can't wait to attend this year with Caterina (Director, User Experience) and Mallory (Senior Information Architect).

If there are any other conferences you think people should know about please feel free to put 'em in the comments!

I (heart) Keynote!

I downloaded the 30 day trial of iWork yesterday which includes Keynote, Pages and a new spreadsheet application called Numbers. I haven't spent any time in Pages or Numbers yet, but fired up Keynote right away to see what was new. I am obsessed with Keynote — it is one of those pieces of software that make using a Mac so compelling and something I use for work all the time.

Apple has really cleaned up the UI in Keynote! All of the iWork applications now feature a Format Bar that appears right below the toolbar. The Format Bar provides contextual formatting controls, depending on what type of object you have selected. Sound familiar? It should as it looks like it was inspired by the ribbon in Microsoft Office. This is an awesome addition as I have always hated all of the different palettes for text, color, etc that littered your screen (and would get lost behind windows). Microsoft should probably get the credit for this one and not Apple though!

There are a few new transitions and effects that I am likely going to overuse in the next little while. Color Planes and Swap are pretty sweet and Sparkle is a nice way to call attention to text. When Keynote first came out the Cube transition looked pretty hot, but now seems really dated.

Something I didn't expect but am very happy with is that all of the iWork applications can open documents saved in their respective Microsoft Office 2007 file formats. Awesome!! This will make looking at documents sent in the new formats much easier until the MacBU actually manages to ship Office 2008. Only six months or so to go :(

The Trouble with Trip Advisor

I am sitting beside the pool at the Viceroy Hotel in Palm Springs. My experience at this hotel has been great (we are actually extending our stay by a day because we are enjoying it so much). The staff have been wonderful, the room is well appointed and the pool areas are awesome. They also have bikes that you can borrow (although me getting on a bike is probably not a great idea). To top it all off the room rate was $110 per night and they give you a $50 food and drink credit if you stay for two or more nights.

The funny thing is that we almost didn’t book the hotel because of the number of negative reviews (and rating) on TripAdvisor. If you read many of the reviews it sounds like the hotel is a little piece of hell on earth — which it is not. I used to find TripAdvisor reviews fairly accurate, but more and more I am finding the site completely irrelevant when trying to determine if I should stay at a hotel or not. I have stayed at hotels that have been highly rated that have been complete dumps and hotels that have had negative reviews and have been wonderful.

The problem with sites like TripAdvisor is that they have no way of letting me know which reviews are from people with similar tastes to mine and which reviews are from people that aren’t looking for the same things as me. In general I look for a hotel that has great style, a vibrant atmosphere with restaurants and bars, great staff and an absence of children.

It will be interesting to see how TripAdvisor will solve this problem (or if they will). If they don’t tackle it themselves there is likely a great opportunity for someone to figure out how to use some of the social networking concepts and platforms to deliver better, more relevant reviews. In the meantime if you are looking for a nice hotel in Palm Springs the Viceroy is a pretty good bet — if you like the same things as me :)

Redesigned North Shore Credit Union Site Live

The new North Shore Credit Union site launched this morning! Although not a dramatic change from the last version there are a few things the team did that are new:

• Condensed the personal and business areas of the site. This gives NSCU the ability to better upsell / cross-sell to both personal and business members
• Included task-oriented features and navigation based on feedback and priorities heard from focus groups
• Improved the layout of section pages to better balance usability, readability, relevance and search engine optimization
• A wider 1024x768 pixel page layout

This is also one of the first sites that use the home page “content switcher” to deliver multiple messages in a condensed space.

Random thoughts...

I have not posted in a while as I've been dealing with a brutal Facebook addiction. No other social networking site has sucked up my time like it has. I might have to check myself into Promises with Lindsay... Anyway, I thought I would post some random thoughts and updates in no apparent order:

• Things seem to be heating up at work and there are a lot of really exciting projects in the sales funnel. It looks like we will have a smoking-busy summer which is great — we seem happiest when everyone is busy working on cool stuff.
  
• The new iPhone ads are amazing! I would buy one of these puppies in a second if it worked seamlessly with Blackberry Enterprise Server. I'm not holding my breath... Apple isn't the most enterprise-friendly company.
  
• Here's hoping that Microsoft Office 2008 will make an appearance at WWDC and Microsoft will announce SharePoint integration and the fact that it is finally making Entourage a true Exchange client... Exchange support seems to be a popular request over on the Mac Mojo Blog. What would really blow my mind? If the MacBU started developing a new application like OneNote or Visio. If I had to trade a current application for either I would suggest stopping development of PowerPoint for the Mac... Keynote is so far ahead of PowerPoint it is borderline embarrassing. Speaking of which, I hope we get a new version of Keynote at WWDC as well!
  
• I seem to have less tolerance for larger / heavier laptops now and can't believe I used to cart my 17" PowerBook to and from work everyday (although the larger screen was useful for IA and UI design). If the MacBook Thin (or something similar) graces us with its presence at WWDC I will be the first in line to buy it. A thin, light laptop with great battery life is what I need most right now... I don't even care if it has a built in optical drive (an external Blu-ray drive would be fine). If I was into Dell computers I would consider this laptop.
  
• Google Gears looks kind of interesting. I have been meaning to try using Google Reader as my newsreader for a while, but I really like NetNewsWire. Even though version 3 is in alpha it works really well. The only feature I wish it had was the ability to download all of the various images in the posts so I could see them offline.
  
• The Scott Berkun VanUE event was really good. Frank Lee took some photos of the event which can be found here. Hopefully I will have some time in the next little while to make my way through Scott's latest book!