Jeff's Post

Hey team: Here's a picture of my truck:

2005 Dodge Ram 1500 Lone Star edition

And yes, it has a Hemi!

Thanks Emily for setting this blog up...

Have you all heard about Microsoft's SharePoint software? It is a really cool application that is marketed towards corporations as a communication and collaboration tool.

Microsoft just released Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, wich is a major upgrade from their last version; 2.0. The new version is packed with features. According to Microsoft, this application can used to:

1. Broadcast Information with Blogs: New features include posting via the Web, e-mail, or directly from Microsoft Office Word 2007; archive views; and Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds.


2. Capture Community Knowledge with Wikis: Wikis are great tools to capture knowledge. Based on a “group editing” model, wikis encourage everyone to contribute. Wikis can be used as forums to brainstorm ideas, manage knowledge bases, create designs or instruction guides, or simply gather information in an easy-to-edit format. WYSIWYG and rich-text formatting enhance the editing experience.


3. Manage Document Metadata with Content Types: Content types enable documents with different metadata attributes to be stored in the same library. These attributes can be accessed and managed from Windows SharePoint Services as well as 2007 Microsoft Office system programs, such as Word, Microsoft Office Excel®, and Microsoft Office PowerPoint®.


4. Gantt Chart View: Task, issue, and project issue list data can now be viewed graphically, giving team members an at-a-glance indicator of a project’s current status.


5. Predefined Workspaces: Teams can share documents, manage schedules, and stay connected.


6. Create Surveys, Discussions, and Links: Take advantage of these collaboration features to connect with team members, partners, and customers. Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 adds new survey features including conditional branching and page breaks.


7. Calendars: New calendar views and recurring events added in Windows


8. Additional Workspace Types: Meeting workspaces, Issue tracking, Project tracking, Blogs/wikis


9. People and Groups: The People and Groups list provides a unified place to find, communicate with, and manage people and their permissions. People Picker control provides a consistent user experience throughout the site for selecting people or groups.


10. Tree View and Breadcrumbs: New user interface (UI) elements help users identify where they are within a SharePoint site.


11. Presence Awareness: Helps identify when team members are online.

We use SharePoint 2.0 at my work, but are just now starting a pilot to test 3.0. I am very excited about the new features and have volunteered my team to participate in the pilot so I can play with the new version before we roll it out to the Enterprise.