Windows Live Writer Beta

Just read on Frank Arrigo’s blog about the Windows Live Writer Beta.  So I just had to download it and take it for a test run.  So this is my first post using the it, and it seems to work really well.

The one thing that didn’t work is Tags in WordPress, got Technorati tags, so I still need to look into that.

Update: Figured the tagging out, just didn’t look close enough to the bottom of the screen where you can select categories.  Whoa, this tool is pretty good.

How did Microsoft name Windows Server 2008?

I was just sent a link (by GrumpyWookie) to quite a corny video on how the Microsoft product team decided on the name “Windows Server 2008″. There are some other interesting videos on the Virtual TechEd 2007 web site.

Writing Complex Outlook Add-ins in .NET: Tell me your pain!

Paul Robinson a consultant with Microsoft Services in the UK has posted a request for information regarding your pain points, gotches, fixes and notes of interest around writing Outlook addins.

If you have anything you would like to mention then leave him a comment and I am sure that the information will makes it way to the product team in Redmond.

What is up with Vista?

Firstly I have to admit that I have been a little naughty and have been running Windows Vista RC1 for the past nine months or so. It had some minor issues but was otherwise stable, so I didn’t bother updating it when RC2 come out. This morning when I turned on the computer, it nicely reminded me that the evaluation licence for RC1 was going to expire in five days. Well I decided that it was about time I inconvenienced my wife and installed the full licenced version of Vista Business. Well it has been more than three hours and all I have seen so far is the dreaded blue screen of death with “MACHINE_CHECK_ERROR” on it. This is a little surprising considering the upgrade adviser said all would be fine and that I have been running RC1 for nine months. I even tried a clean install of XP SP2 then upgrade over that – still no luck. I am now reverting back to Windows XP SP2 and might have to see if I can convince the household purchasing committee (my wife) for a hardware purchase.

MOSSIG site updated

Today I finally got around to updating the content on the MOSSIG website. It is now a lot more functional and I think it looks a little better. The MOSSIG team are currently working on a more snazzy MOSS site and I will keep you all posted when that goes live. But in the meantime, enjoy the new site content.

I have to give a special thank you to Daniel Colarossi for giving some tutorial on embedding Virtual Earth in a Content Editor Web Part – pretty funky!

MOSSIG door prize winners

Congratulations to Andy Barker and Bruce Dyason

Who were the lucky winners of the MOSSIG door prize last night. They have each won a full version of Windows Vista® Business and a 60-day trial version of Microsoft® Office Professional 2007. Well done for registering to attend the meeting.

The next MOSSIG meeting will be Wednesday the 27th of June 2007.

Microsoft launches Live Earth website

[via Microsoft Newsletter]

This month Microsoft’s MSN teams launched http://liveearth.msn.com, the exclusive online destination for Live Earth: The Concert for a Climate in Crisis. Live Earth will culminate on 7/07/07 with a global concert on seven continents with venues that include the US, UK, Japan, Brazil, South Africa, China, Australia, and Turkey.
Live Earth is much more than a concert – it’s designed to be a catalyst event to coalesce a worldwide community of people who share a single environmental vision and mission: to convert concern to action.

Visit the new Live Earth site now

SharePoint Upgrade Pre-scan Tool

This is a must have tool for those that intend on performing SharePoint upgrades. The Upgrade Pre-scan Tool can be obtained from the Microsoft Download Centre.

Before you can upgrade to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 or Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, you must run the Prescan.exe utility against your existing Web sites. This pre-upgrade scan tool scans your sites and reports issues, allowing you to fix any errors before you perform an upgrade.

Another useful upgrade resource is a post by Alan Coulter.

Olympus SP-550UZ

Over the past few months our Cannon S50 has been slowly dying. I have always been happy with this camera, it always took a great shot and we picked it up for a great price. Nicole and I have been looking for a new camera for about a month and yesterday we made our decision and purchased an Olympus SP-550UZ. I have found this to be an extremely easy camera to operate and with the 7.1 Mega Pixel 18x Optical and 100x Digital zoom has some great features.

Out with my baby…

Saturday night was an extremely entertaining night. Firstly my Mum come down from Clunes to baby sit Ethan and Jayde. This allowed Nicole and I to step out on the town and party. We started the evening off with a walk through the Crown Casino complex, then made our way down to La Camera restuarant on Southbank. We ate our Main course while over looking the Melbourne skyline and the Yarra river. Then we progressed to Federation Square were we ate Cake and drank Hot Chocolate. We then took a romantic stroll down the yarra to the Melbourne Eye (Ferris Wheel).

After dinner we headed to Hamer Hall at the Arts Centre to attend the Guy Sebastian concert. Guy was performing with the Australia Philharmonic Orchestra and we were in for a great night. We made our way to our allocated seats (Front row, right in front on the conductor and centre stage) – Excellent seats. Guy performed a set of his songs then took a short interval. He then performed some tribute songs to the Beatles (these were excellent), Elvis Presley and Nat King Cole. After another small break he come back to perform some Gospel song including Amzing Grace – these were fantastic (very passionate and from the heart). After the concert (2.5 hours), Nicole and I stood at the back stage door and waited for the Conductor and Guy to come out. Around an hour and a half later he come out and did some signings for the many people who were also waiting (mostly women and children).

We eventually got back home in the early hours of Sunday morning and were tired all day Sunday. Thanks Mum for looking after the kids and allowing us to have a great romantic evening out.

SDM Karoke Winners!

Ben Walters has alerted me to another SPC APAC photo on flickr, this one has the SDM Karoke team with their spoils (Microsoft Office 2007 Ultimate). – YeeHaw!

MOSSIG May 2007 Meeting

The May meeting of MOSSIG will be held this coming Wednesday, 23rd May 2007 at 5:30pm. The venue will again be the Microsoft Innovation Centre, Level 5, 4 Freshwater Place, Southbank, Melbourne.

Show and Tell Session – Automated Workflow System (Bruce Dyason)

Automated Workflow System; Highlights include Outlook add-in, Office add-in for document management and automated tasking system built on a custom workflow engine all using VS2005, .Net 2.0, ClickOnce deployment and some nifty stuff using Outlook as the Host UI.

Business Session – Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Office Integration (Karl Iuel)

How together Microsoft CRM 3.0 and Office 2007 create a truly user friendly, practical Customer Relationship Management solution for the masses.

Technical Session – Custom Task Panes in VSTO (Ed Richard)

Custom Task Panes in VSTO. How to display LOB-Data, react to where users are in a document and displaying the context-sensitive data in the task pane as well as binding data in Word Documents.

In order to organise catering I ask that you please register for this meeting by sending an email to register@mossig.net.

We will once again have two copies of Windows Vista Business (Full) and Office 2007 (Trial) as doorway prizes.

SPS to MOSS Upgrade Tips

Alan Coulter has posted an excellent article on SPS to MOSS 2007 upgrade tips.

SharePoint Britney Spears

Following on from the SDM Karoke performance at the recent APAC SharePoint Conference, my colleagues put together this tribute picture.

SDMers at the SharePoint City Saloon

Angus Logan has uploaded a photo on flickr with the SDM guys at the BlackJack table at the SharePoint City Saloon from last nights APAC SharePoint Conference Party. Pictured from left to right are Matthew “Doc” Vink, Deon “Bourbon” Taylor, Ben “Hot Chillie” Walters and myself William “CodeJedi” Cornwill (although Nathan the dealer is blocking me from view).

Texas Casino Party @ SPC APAC

Last night was the APAC SharePoint Conference party – it was a Casino Party with Can Can girls, BlackJack and Poker Tables, and Karoke (unfortunately/fortunately – I’ll explain). Ben Walters, Deon Taylor, Matthew Vink and myself from SDM were convinced by the Can Can girls that we should sing “Britney Spears – Hit me baby one more time” so we did – very imbarassing (unfortunate bit!). In doing so we each were given a copy of Office 2007 Ultimate (sweet! fortunate bit!). The Can Can girls also convinced (although he didn’t need much convincing) Ben to eat a Red Hot Chillie (“…where’s the water…”, Ben Walters InfoPath MVP, 2007).

PS. Alex – Office is in the offical boxed packaging – hehehe.

More on APAC SharePoint Conference sessions

This morning I attended an excellent session on customising and extending SharePoint, including Caching. The session was run by Andrew Connell and Sezai Komur. I also attended an interest ing session on Silverlight in MOSS by Scott Barnes. If you want to know anything about Silverlight then definitely check out Scott’s Blog.

APAC SharePoint Conference

I am attending the APAC SharePoint Conference in Sydney. The sessions have all been interesting. Met Andrew Connell during his session on WCM Branding – very cool – he knew who I was also, which was even cooler. I have been manning the SDM stand which has been fun. Lots of interest in Web Content Management which is great for me.

South East Water MOSS WCM is live!

Working on the South East Water MOSS WCM has been fun. There have been quite a few challanges, but it is all cool now. I am pleased to announce that the new South East Water website has gone live. http://www.southeastwater.com.au/

Content deployment converts   into non english Â

I have been experiencing a problem with MOSS WCM content deployment whereby   characters turn into non-english character Â. This is stopping our customers site from going live. Microsoft are aware of this issue and are working on a hotfix. I will update when I have an ETA on the hotfix.