Office System - David Overton's Blog

OK, so DevCon has been and gone, but hopefully some of you got to see the event. There is a quick little video with people talking about the highlights on a small video . This all links from Darren's blog . One thing that it highlights is that people really enjoy playing with the product after seeing things. Jo is on the video and are many others, but again, some blogs to follow are: Office Rocker! Office 12 Watch (Office 12 is Office 2007) UK Office Pioneer Jo Carpenter's Blog Adventure Girl ttfn David

Chris is a great guy at making difficult things sound simple. Besides getting his 5 year award at Microsoft, he talks about how he got into BI and then how he likes to help others through the use of BI. His blog is also very worth having a read at http://blogs.msdn.com/bidirectional/ . One of the things he gets very excited about is business scorecard manager too :-) ttfn David

I just had tto post this. Microsoft sometimes gets a bit of a kicking about support, but things like the Official SBS podcast , changes to search on our http://support.microsoft.com site, people like me and even the huge SBS community have changed most peoples experience with our support. When I say this, you just have to laugh in amazement as to what was going through this guys mind? http://video.msn.com/v/us/v.htm?g=5ff445af-bf5c-4c3c-9424-ff467ea97a87&f=rssimbot_us_default ttfn David

Hello again, I have now been running Beta 2 of Office 2007 for a while and still love the product. It is still toooooo memory hungry - don't try running it on a 256MB machine, but it is still a product I constantly find myself missing when I have to go back to older versions. Search and the new UI are both godsends, as is the ability to make something more visually impactful. OK, so the blogs - there is this guy Jensen Harris - his blog is amazing. I would just like to point out two of his posts. The 1st includes a bunch of links for information - go get them if you want to know more about Office: http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2006/05/24/605678.aspx - snippet of most interest: Office User Interface Video Tour : This is a live action movie in which Julie Larson-Green and I give you a quick tour of the UI and some of the thinking that went into it. The build we were using for the video is a lot older than Beta 2, so you might notice some rough spots. Nonetheless, a number of people have said that they found...

Again I am taking content from the Small Business Ignite Tour which covers WSS is some detail – http://www.microsoft.com/uk/partner/ignite . This continues in the series and now we are looking at how to keep everyone up to date. Many business owners talk about issues such as: “My sales people have access to an electronic price book, but they do not keep it up to date, so they sell at the wrong price” or “When I make an important policy document change, everyone must know about it and acknowledge the fact that they agree” While some of this is about teaching people some new skills, most of it is about using the functionality provided between Office 2003 and SBS 2003 using Windows SharePoint Services. If you have been reading the other WSS blog entries, then you should now be familiar with Document Workspaces. Open a document workspace and note the “Alert Me” option down the bottom. You can give certain users the capability to use e-mail addresses such as all employees or sales team. Create Windows users that can...

Hi, I love the new interface on Office 2007, but I occasionally can't find something that I knew exactly where it was in Office 2003. I then saw this excellent blog posting on how to find things from Word, Excel and PowerPoint- using a web based tool you click on a pseduo Office 2003 interface and find out where it has gone in 2007. http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2006/05/30/610907.aspx ttfn David

For Vista, I have registered the following sites: http://ukvistaguy.com and http://ukvistsguy.co.uk - these auto-redirect if you have nothing else on the address bar to http://uksbsguy.com/blogs/doverton/archive/category/1003.aspx For Office, I have not registered any sites, but clicking the following link will take you to Office specific informaiton: http://uksbsguy.com/blogs/doverton/archive/category/1004.aspx If there are particular areas of Office 2007 or Vista you want to see more info on, just let me know. ttfn David

While I was writting up my demos from the SB Ignite show I found ths site that has two great hands on labs: Learn How to Customize Windows SharePoint Services These training courses are Hands-On Labs Online (HOLO) and use live software. Each course provides a student manual that you can download and print: Windows Small Business Server 2003 - Customizing Windows SharePoint Services—Part 1 This course covers the following: Using the Small Business Server Company Web site Working with Lists and Document Libraries Windows Small Business Server 2003 - Customizing Windows SharePoint Services—Part 2 This course covers the following: Adding Functionality by Using Web Parts Using Dynamic Web Templates to Create a New SharePoint Site ttfn David

This is such a simple concept and such a great way to offer feedback. Simply press the faces if you are happy or sad with Office and a screenshot and your comments. How easy is that? You can download the tool or read more at http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2006/05/26/607768.aspx . If you want a deeper discussion, you can find out more at http://www.microsoft.com/office/community/en-us/default.mspx Ttfn David

Hi there, this is just a very quick post to say that Office 2007 beta 2 is available. For more info on how to play with Office, go to http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview - to understand how to get ready for the online test drive, go to http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/beta/testdrive.mspx?showIntro=n and if you want to download or order CD’s/DVDs now, go to http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/beta/getthebeta.mspx?showIntro=n . Small Business Information can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/smallbusiness/highlights.mspx and this is actually a very good quality set of information. Thinking specifically about the desktop and areas where small business owners can immediately see value, I see this coming in the following areas: Manage information better How many people are going to have less information next year Reduce the duplication Be more productive Loose the fear factor Stop using Office the 1996 way Look professional Make your documents look several notches above everyone elses...

So, learn more about Office 2007 - a great set of tools for small businesses - I will blog why once the beta is launched - soon!! ttfn David Microsoft Office System Developers Conference http://www.microsoft.com/uk/business/devcon/ Microsoft Office System Developers Conference is the best opportunity for you to learn more about all the new solution technologies and capabilities in the Microsoft Office System 2007 wave of programmes and servers. At this two-day conference, members of the Microsoft product development and management teams will drill into the latest Office System 2007 innovations to show how developer extensibility will allow you to build powerful custom solutions. You will learn the latest techniques for creating applications around business intelligence, enterprise content management, collaboration, and more! You will also have the opportunity to meet and network with developers and architects on the Microsoft product teams and other customers and partners from the UK and Ireland. Key benefits...

People are always asking me about how to learn more about Windows SharePoint Services and now finally we have two selfpaced items of training that can help. Have a look at these - they do cost a bit of cash – less than $23, but worth a look from the agenda. Course 4115: Getting Started with Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services Plus Access to Online Book The self-paced e-learning course will help you become familiar with the basics of working with Microsoft Windows SharePoint sites via interactive simulations that provide hands-on practice to master specific tasks. It also includes skills assessment to help pinpoint the areas where training can have the most impact. In addition, this course can be downloaded for offline use for the length of your subscription so you can learn even when you’re not connected to the Internet. https://www.microsoftelearning.com/eLearning/offerDetail.aspx?offerPriceId=73964 Course 4114: Doing More with Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services Plus Access to Online Book The self-paced...