DegerTech

Market Development—the Neglected Companion of Product Development

noreply@blogger.com (Gus) — Sat, 06 Jun 2015 20:52:00 +0000

“Too many products are developed to satisfy the desires, urges, and hunches of people within the company, rather than to meet the specific needs of the market external to the company. Products grow out of the desire to tinker, or because an engineer sees a purely technical challenge.”

Source: Albert D. Ehrenfried, “Market Development—the Neglected Companion of Product Development,” IEEE Western Electronic Show and Convention (WESCON) (San Francisco: August 24-26, 1955).

The quote is 60 years old and people keeps falling into the same trap.

SharePoint 2013 and SharePlus: How SharePlus will help you mobilize SharePoint 2013

noreply@blogger.com (Gus) — Wed, 10 Sep 2014 21:25:00 +0000

I recently found a recording of a webinar I prepared almost a year ago about SharePoint 2013 and mobility.

Mobilizing SharePoint 2013 with SharePlus

noreply@blogger.com (Gus) — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 21:29:00 +0000

Today I’d like to share a webinar where I talk about some key innovations in SharePoint 2013, see how mobility is addressed and how SharePlus can help you increase productivity while on the go.

On the #SharePoint Road Again

noreply@blogger.com (Gus) — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 20:46:00 +0000

It's been a while since my last technical post. Now that the SharePoint 2013 buzz has started growing, thought it was a good time to resume posting.

After reading the annoucement post from the SharePoint team, the topic that puzzles me most is:

"Use SharePoint as an out-of-box application whenever possible - We designed the new SharePoint UI to be clean, simple and fast and work great out-of-box. We encourage you not to modify it which could add complexity, performance and upgradeability and to focus your energy on working with users and groups to understand how to use SharePoint to improve productivity and collaboration and identifying and promoting best practices in your organization."

What does it mean?? Is SharePlus no longer, as Microsoft used to say, an out-of-the-box product AND a dev platform? What about being SharePoint the new "Service Platform" for the enterprise?

What about all the custom Corporate Social Networks, BPM and CRM-like solutions, built on top of SharePoint?

What about VARs that made the product successful by patching the limitations the product had with custom code?

-Gus

The End of Solution Sales

noreply@blogger.com (Gus) — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 18:30:00 +0000

“If the customer isn’t skeptical and doesn’t push me, then either I’ve done something wrong or she just isn’t serious.”

The End of Solution Sales, by Brent Adamson, Matthew Dixon and Nicholas Toman.

Harvard Business Review July–August 2012

Working with PDF files in Sharepoint 2010

noreply@blogger.com (Gus) — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 10:01:00 +0000

Sharepoint 2010 doesn't offer the best PDF experience out of the box, but it can be quicky improved applying the recomendations from this two articles:

Removing Sharepoint’s 2010 Left Nav Bar

noreply@blogger.com (Gus) — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 16:12:00 +0000

Most of Sharepoint Page Templates and Masterpages include a left navigation bar. To remove it, we have two options:

Implement a custom master page, or simplier,
Create a (layout) page that removes the master’s nav bar by:

Declaring an empty Content Placeholder for PlaceHolderLeftNavBar

<asp:Content ContentPlaceHolderId="PlaceHolderLeftNavBar" runat="server"/>

Modifying the div’s styles

<style type="text/css">
body #s4-leftpanel {display:none;}
.s4-ca {margin-left:0px;}
</style>

Taken from the Kraft and Kennedy blog.

Office 2010 64-bit and the Datasheet View

noreply@blogger.com (Gus) — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 11:47:00 +0000

I’ve just updated my notebook to Office 2010 64-bit, and suddenly, the Datasheet view in my Sharepoint 2010 sites started to give the following error:

The list cannot be displayed in DataSheet view for one or more of the following reasons:
- A datasheet component compatible with Microsoft Sharepoint Foundation is not installed.
- Your web browser does not suport ActiveX controls
- A component is not propelry configured for 32- or 64-bit support.
After wondering what was wrong, I came across this thread.
Apparently, Sharepoint 2010, even being 64-bit, requires the 32-bit ActiveX Datasheet.
Luckily, we can install the 32-bit ActiveX as part of the
“2007 Office System Driver: Data Connectivity Components” that can be downloaded here.

Money as Motivator

noreply@blogger.com (Gus) — Wed, 19 May 2010 13:51:00 +0000

"When tasks get more complicated, when it requires some coceptual, creative thinking, the best use of money as a motivator, is simply to pay people enough to take the money issue out of the table"

Define "Inmense": Windows Azure Project

noreply@blogger.com (Gus) — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 20:50:00 +0000

We as last mile developers usually forget the huge amount of work and complexity laying behind the APIs of services and products we consume.

This presentation about the Windows Azure project, gives a very good picture of the titanic efforts behind this kind of services.

A figure: 10 football fields surface of datacenter.

Windows Azure Platform

Sharepoint 2010 Accessibility Compliance Tests

noreply@blogger.com (Gus) — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 20:29:00 +0000

Yesterday, Tim McConnell posted a very interesting article stating what to expect from SharePoint 2010 in terms of Accessibility. Since Accessibility is a topic which is very related to compliance, I’ve decided to run a few tests against a Validation Tool to get a more objective picture.

Considering that we are still evaluating a “Release Candidate” version, the results are promising.

Fact Sheet

Sharepoint Test Bench

Sharepoint 2010 RC installation
Using default “Publishing Site Template” Homepage,
Added a calendar and a list web part
V4.master applied instead of nightandday.master applied by default.
Enabled Anonymous access

Validation Tool

Using TotalValidator v6.3.0
Parameters:

HTML Validation: none

Accessibility: (see table)
Check for broken links: no

Results

US Section 508	Passed!
WCAG v1 A	Passed!
WCAG v1 AA	4 errors E821 - 1 instance E833 - 3 instances
WCAG v1 AAA	(idem)
WCAG v2 A	6 errors E871 – 3 instances E872 – 1 instance E886 – 1 instance E892 – 1 instance
WCAG V2 AA	(idem)
WCAG V2 AAA	(idem)

Full Report

Total errors found:
6 (WCAG v2 A: 6)

Page Layout

The line numbers refer to lines in the original source.
Any with a line number of '0' are implicit tags added by Total Validator:

39 E872 [WCAG v2 3.2.2 (A)] The submit button is missing:
     <form name="aspnetForm" method="post" action="default.aspx" id="aspnetForm">

134 E871 [WCAG v2 1.1.1 (A)] Link text is missing:
     <a id="HiddenAnchor" href="javascript:;" style="display:none;">

158 E871 [WCAG v2 1.1.1 (A)] Link text is missing:
     <a href="#" tabindex="-1" style="display:none">

158 E871 [WCAG v2 1.1.1 (A)] Link text is missing:
     <a href="#" tabindex="-1" style="display:none">

259 E886 [WCAG v2 1.1.1 (A)] Do not use the 'alt' attribute here:
     <input name="ctl00$PlaceHolderSearchArea$ctl01$S3031AEBB_InputKeywords" type="text" value="Search this
     site..." maxlength="200" id="ctl00_PlaceHolderSearchArea_ctl01_S3031AEBB_InputKeywords" accesskey="S"
     title="Search..." class="ms-sbplain" alt="Search..." onkeypress="javascript: return
     S3031AEBB_OSBEK(event);" onfocus="if (document.getElementById('ctl00_PlaceHolderSearchArea_ctl01_ctl04').value
     =='0') {this.value=''; if (this.className == 's4-searchbox-QueryPrompt') this.className = ''; else
     this.className = this.className.replace(' s4-searchbox-QueryPrompt','');
     document.getElementById('ctl00_PlaceHolderSearchArea_ctl01_ctl04').value=1;}" onblur="if (this.value =='')
     {this.value='Search this site...'; if (this.className.indexOf('s4-searchbox-QueryPrompt') == -1)
     this.className += this.className?' s4-searchbox-QueryPrompt':'s4-searchbox-QueryPrompt';
     document.getElementById('ctl00_PlaceHolderSearchArea_ctl01_ctl04').value = '0'} else
     {document.getElementById('ctl00_PlaceHolderSearchArea_ctl01_ctl04').value='1';}" style="width:170px;" />

402 E892 [WCAG v2 1.3.1 (A)] Use CSS for presentation effects, use <em> or <strong> for emphasis:
     <menu class="ms-SrvMenuUI">

More Information

WCAG v2 A Errors

E871 - 3 instance(s): Describe the purpose of a link by providing descriptive text as the content of the <a> element. The description lets a user distinguish this link from other links in the Web page and helps the user determine whether to follow the link. The URI of the destination is generally not sufficiently descriptive. See http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20-TECHS/H30.html (displayed in new window)
E872 - 1 instance(s): You must provide a mechanism that allows users to explicitly request changes of context. The intended use of a submit button is to generate an HTTP request that submits data entered in a form, so it is an appropriate control to use for causing a change of context. See http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20-TECHS/H32.html (displayed in new window)
E886 - 1 instance(s): Although HTML may allow the 'alt' attribute here, it should only be used on image submit buttons. User agent support for this attribute on other types of form controls is not well defined. Other mechanisms are available to label these controls. See http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20-TECHS/H36.html (displayed in new window)
E892 - 1 instance(s): Tags that are being used purely to create a visual presentation effect should not be used. You should use CSS to control layout and presentation so that users and their aids may control it. See http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20-TECHS/G140.html (displayed in new window)

Installing SharePoint 2010 RC: First Notes

noreply@blogger.com (Gus) — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 18:41:00 +0000

I’ve just finished installing Sharepoint 2010 RC, and even when I found the setup process to be very straightforward (at least if you installed MOSS 2007 sometime) there are still a few tricky steps that I thought I could share.

Platform Setup

Install Windows 2008 64-bit
- Remember to activate “Application Server Role” and “Web Server Role”
SQL Server
- I recommend doing a full install, instead of using the bundled SQL Server Express
- Install SQL Server 2008 64-bit
- Install SQL Server 2008 SP1, 64-bit.
- Install SQL Server 2008 Cumulative Update 2, 64-bit.
- The final build number should be 10.00.2714.
- Test the installation accessing the server with the SQL Management Studio and browsing the sample database.

Installing SharePoint 2010 Prerequisites

Download the installation package from here. Then launch it. (14.0.4730.1010_OfficeServer_none_ship_x64_en-us.exe)

Click on “Install software prerequisites”. The installer tool will download and install all prerequisites for you. If you don’t have Internet access from the server, you should manually download and install all pre-requisites listed here.

Then, simply follow the wizard steps.

Installing SharePoint Server

After finishing installing the prerequisites, click on “Install Sharepoint Server”, enter the Licence Key (Beta key: PKXTJ-DCM9D-6MM3V-G86P8-MJ8CY), accept the licence terms and follow the wizard steps.

When the installation wizard finishes, clear the “Run the Sharepoint Product Configuration Wizard now” checkbox. Directly executing the Configuration Wizard would require us to provide a domain account (not local) as administrator. To workarround this, we’ll create an initial Configuration Database using the PowerShell command new-SPConfigurationDatabase.

Configuring Sharepoint 2010

After runing the installation wizard, follow this steps to create an initial Configuration Database using PowerShell. (More info on provisioning Sharepoint 2010 using PowerShell here).

Next, launch the Sharepoint Products Configuration Wizard. It will recognize the previously created Configuration Database and will offer us to stay connected or disconnect from the existing farm. Choose to stay connected and click “Next”.

Then, specify the port in which the administration site will be installed. Use a number easy to remember (My pick is 1024). Then pick the security setting that best fits your environment (default = NTLM) and click “Next”.

Finally, the wizard provisions the Administration Web Site on IIS.

And that’s it. :-)

On the next post, I’ll review the first steps to configure the newly created Sharepoint 2010 farm, using the “Farm Configuration Wizard”.

What makes No.1 products

noreply@blogger.com (Gus) — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 01:21:00 +0000

Joel Spolsky speaks about what makes No.1 products different from No.2's.

In brief:

* "Typical" quality aspects can bring us up to No.2, not No.1.
* To be No.1 you´ll need to:
* make people happy
* obsess over aestetics
* observe the "culture code"

Evaluate motivation in 10 questions

noreply@blogger.com (Gus) — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 15:22:00 +0000

I've found an interesting questionaire about employee motivation, and decided to rephrase the questions for self-asessment. Very handy to evaluate oneselve's situation from time to time.

What is the "primary aim" of your company? Is it alligned with yours?
What obstacles stop you performing to best effect? Is your company concerned about them? Better, is someone actually dealing with them?
What really motivates you? Would your boss answer the same?
Do you feel empowered by the company?
Are there any recent changes in the company that might have affected motivation? Maybe is the lack of them?
Who is most motivated in your company? Why? Is there a path for you to get there?
Are your goals and company goals aligned?
How do you feel about the company? Safe, loyal, valued and taken care of? Or taken advantage of, dispensable and invisible?
How involved are you in company development? Do you feel heard? Are you consulted? Are there regular opportunities for you to give feedback?
Up to your experience, is the company's internal image consistent with its external one?

Sharepoint in Plain English

noreply@blogger.com (Gus) — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 01:57:00 +0000

Microsoft has just released this great video describing typical team collaboration pains and the support provided by Sharepoint. Clear, simple, and based on real life.

Well, I guess I'll have to review my presentations. I'm still using the "Knowledge Management" speech, that is clearly becoming obsolete. In the Web 2.0 era, users don't want their companies to "capture, store and publish" knowledge in centralized systems for them, they want to do it themselves! Productivity, personal and collective productivity. That's what users want.

SharePoint in Plain English

Pitty, I kinda liked the introduction I used about mercantilism, capitalism and Drucker's Post-Capitalism and knowledge as an asset.

Sharepoint 2010: Not supporting IE 6

noreply@blogger.com (Gus) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 20:42:00 +0000

Tom Rizzo, director of Microsoft SharePoint Server, announced at TechEd that SharePoint Server 2010 will not support Internet Explorer 6. Having to deal with 64-bit only servers was one thing, but this will be much much harder to explain to customers.

The web goes one direction, others go the opposite.

Extract DLLs from GAC easily

noreply@blogger.com (Gus) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 19:23:00 +0000

If you need to extract files from GAC, you can map the c:\windows\assembly folder to a new drive using the subst cmd and then accessing the newly created drive with the windows explorer.

c:\> subst j: c:\windows\assembly

To Undo, simply use

c:\> subst /d j:

Thanks Guille Kaveckis for the tip. Saved me hours.

What happens in Vegas...

noreply@blogger.com (Gus) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 16:05:00 +0000

Fill this Sharepoint Survey and win a chance for Sharepoint Conference 2009 pass.

BizAgi: Cool BPM with Cool Marketing

noreply@blogger.com (Gus) — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 19:14:00 +0000

Storyline:

A businessman sits at home watching TV, gets a great idea, goes to IT. IT tells him they need years to implement the feature, the guy leaves frustrated. Phone rings...

Watch the full story here or the product in action here.

Bing: Not quite getting it...

noreply@blogger.com (Gus) — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 23:09:00 +0000

Sad but true.

Last Wednesday, Microsoft released a brand new search tool, Bing.com. But, hey, why don't I get the brand new tools when I enter the site? Because only the USA-English version has been released. The rest of us, 2nd class citizens, will have to wait a little longer.

Please, someone point this people to the word GLOBALIZATION in the dictionary.

Google Wave, Paradigm Shift and the meaning of life

noreply@blogger.com (Gus) — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 22:34:00 +0000

We all tend to believe the world "is" the way we "understand" it. Through learning, our brain creates mental maps which help us to interpret our perceptions and act accordingly. Such maps, become what we experience as "natural", and they can be so powerfull, that they can even hide the "real truth" liying in front of your eyes.

I've read once that certain philosophers believe for instance that native americans simply couldn't see a person on top of an animal when they first saw the spanish riding horses. Their "mental map" told them to expect a feathered god-snake coming from the sea, and that's exactly what they saw when Francisco Pizarro showed up.

This natural incapacity to see the actual truth is called "Paradigm Paralysis". We are so emotionally biased that we simply don't allow ourselves to see the real (uncomfortable) truth.

Anyway, finally some enlightened person rethinks a few things and then eureka! Now we can measure the volume of irregular objects and jewlers can no longer cheat the rich. Eureka! That's exactly how paradigm shifts feel like.

Well, today when I saw the "Google Wave" demonstration, I felt I was whitnessing a paradigm shift happening right in front of my eyes. A singularity in IT history comparable to Gutemberg's print or the invention of Internet itself. Check for yourself...

Microsoft Run09 Uruguay and a UX Post Scriptum

noreply@blogger.com (Gus) — Mon, 25 May 2009 22:04:00 +0000

According to Wikipedia, the word "Run" means

"Moving swiftly on foot for necessity, exercise, sport or fun, both in humans and animals."

The word has three more computer specific definitions and six sports related definitions. Eleven movies and eighteen songs are also related in some way to the word "Run".

Anyway, if you are part of the Microsoft Developers Community in Uruguay, from now on "Run" means one only thing for you: The biggest Microsoft event of the year. Don't miss it.

Run09 - http://www.run09.com.uy/
jueves, 04 de junio de 2009. 8:30 a 18:30
KDC, Latu.

P.S: Don't tell anyone, but I kinda hate the desktop-like Web UX of the site. I simply don't find the logic behind it. Why not using the good old "Document", or "Application"? I already have my Windows desktop, why giving me a second one? I only need content inside it, which is Docs and Apps. When the technology is shifting towards a zero crome browser (sorry, I had to say the c-word) to reinforce the "document"/"application" paradigm in Web, why should I be amazed by a translucent webtop? Cool tools in lousy hands.

Hey dude, where's my Sharepoint licence?

noreply@blogger.com (Gus) — Fri, 22 May 2009 21:47:00 +0000

Due to a bug, the MOSS 2007 SP2 installer resets the product expiration date to 180 days, as if it was a trial installation.

Microsoft is already working on a hotfix. In the meantime, you can still install SP2 and then manually re-enter the Product ID number (PID) on the "Convert License Type" page in Central Administration. Product ID numbers (PIDs) can be retrieved by logging into the Volume Licensing Service Center.

All this was announced yesterday by the Sharepoint Team. You can read the full article here.

Next Office Groove will be SharePoint Workspace 2010!

noreply@blogger.com (Gus) — Thu, 14 May 2009 22:14:00 +0000

Even when we all tend to work and live in a 24x7 connected world, there are still cases in which off-line content is still needed. In Sharepoint 2007, off-line functionality is supposed to be provided by...Outlook 2007! Akward, to say the least. You can sincronize lists and read documents locally, but it is not enough to provide an off-line experience at least similar to the on-line one.

Since clearly the strategy of using Outlook as the off-line client for Sharepoint content does not scale up, Microsoft is reshaping Office Groove to become the off-line tool for Sharepoint users. Yesterday the team announced that the next Groove version will be called SharePoint Workspace 2010!

With good off-line support, a broad range of opportunities will open for the on-the-road information worker. Imagine mobile information workers sincronizing their netbooks at home before leaving, working all day long with the data without caring about conectivity and then sincronizing at the end of the day.

Having a tool that always keeps an updated local copy of content, will certainly help people to rely more on the server copies and avoid making manual local copies that lead to versioning issues.

Sharepoint 2010: 64-bit only

noreply@blogger.com (Gus) — Tue, 12 May 2009 23:42:00 +0000

It's been made official. The Sharepoint Team announced that Sharepoint 2010 will be 64bit only. And this means:
1) The product itself will be 64bit only
2) Will only run on 64-bit Windows Server 2008
3) Will only run with 64-bit SQL Server 2008 or 64-bit SQL Server 2005

Why? Due to performance and scalability reasons, Microsoft says. Well, I don't know. I simply can't buy the reasons...