Eric Shupps

Friday, November 23, 2012

Living with Windows 8 - A Report from the Front Lines

Unlike most new OS releases I was a bit slow to adopt Windows 8 as part of my daily work routine. First, I wanted to have a touch-enabled machine so I could really get a feel for both the tablet and desktop experiences. Second, I wanted to convert a large number of existing virtual machines to Hyper-V and I knew that process would be time consuming. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, I was happy with Windows 7. I knew how it worked, understood the limitations, and was generally comfortable with all the ins and outs.

I finally took the plunge when the RTM bits became available. Surprisingly, the install on a Lenovo W520 notebook went quite well. At the time there were very few native drivers from the manufacturer but the Beta ones worked well enough to get me going.

Once I was up and running, I dove right in and started using Windows 8 for daily work tasks. I should probably mention that I wasn't really flying without a net - prior to installing the OS on a new SSD drive I did a Physical-to-Virtual conversion of my existing Windows 7 desktop AND preserved the original disk. Just in case things didn't work out so well. On the other hand, I wasn't just playing around in a throw-away virtual machine - I needed to be productive from hour one with all my core applications - Office, Hyper-V (for SharePoint VM's), Lync, Visual Studio, and so on.

In addition to running Windows 8 on the ThinkPad, which is a hulking brute meant to serve as a desktop replacement, I also picked up a Lenovo Ideapad Yoga convertible tablet to get a flavor for the consumer features of the new OS. I decided early on that Windows RT is just not for me - I don't need another device that can't run full versions of Office and other desktop software. So I wasn't really interested in the Surface but I've been a tablet user since the 90's (no, Apple fans, Steve Jobs did not invent the tablet, no matter how much you'd like to think so; in fact, Microsoft has done more for touch computing than just about all other software companies combined) and a touch-enabled device, even if it is a bit larger than the modern consumer tablet, held a lot of appeal for me.

So how has it all worked out so far? Read on for the pros and cons from my perspective. Bear in mind, I'm coming at this from the viewpoint of a business user, developer, and Microsoft adherent. Your mileage my vary.

PROS

Overall, Windows 8 seems fast and responsive. This really doesn't come as much of a surprise as I run my core machine on top-of-the-line hardware with tons of RAM but even on the Ideapad Yoga, which is a Core i5 model, things just zip right along. Applications pop right up and dialogs snap in and out like they should. I've noticed a few minor areas that seem to have improved greatly, like the acquisition of wireless networks, printers and bluetooth devices, but that may be a subjective analysis.

Surprisingly, all of my Windows 7 software seems to work without a hitch. As one would expect, all the latest Microsoft applications run well, but so to, it appears, do all the legacy applications I have scattered about my hard drive. I was expecting things like the control panel application for my NAS device, Logitech mouse and keyboard utilities, WinImage, Zune and so on to behave erratically but they are all humming along nicely.

A welcome addition that adds a bit of efficiency to my day is the file explorer ribbon. I've never been a big fan of the ribbon concept overall but in this context it works quite well. Having the most common commands available at all times is helpful. On the Yoga, when I'm in tablet mode, the ribbon is a huge boon - it saves a ton of time that would otherwise be spend pressing and holding to get a right-click menu. And the ability to (finally!) mount ISO's natively is something we've needed since the dark days of Windows 95.

Personally, I'm counting the disappearance of Aero as a positive thing. I was never a big fan of glassy buttons and all that shining chrome. I'm not advocating the flat dullness of X-Windows or Mac OS but a return to a more-or-less 2D paradigm is just fine by me. I need to find the Close button quickly not gaze in admiration as it glints in the afternoon sunlight.

Perhaps the best feature in Windows 8 if you live within the Microsoft ecosystem is the direct integration of the OS with all of the Microsoft services - Live, Messenger, SkyDrive, etc. Being able to use a single login across multiple machines with a cohesive experience is good, maybe even great in its own right, but having direct integration with the Cloud is simply fantastic. Although some sites and services require additional logins for the most part my Live ID follows me wherever I go. This can be a bit too much of a good thing when I'm logging in and out of various Office 365 sites using different ID's to test various code deployments but overall it's a welcome addition.

The touch experience in tablet mode is quite good; better, in fact, than I was expecting. This may be due in part to the excellent hardware and drivers Lenovo provides but the core UI elements also work very well in a touch-only scenario. Swipes and gestures are smooth, tiles are responsive, menus fly in and can be easily dismissed. Alas, this only goes as deep as the rather superficial Metro skin; once in Desktop mode the picture isn't quite as rosy. Although the ribbon can be a big help there are still a ton of menus and selection items that display small text better suited to a pointy mouse arrow than a stubby index finger. Take, for example, one of the most critical Windows components: Control Panel. By default, all the options are shown in Category view, and the links are almost impossible to hit accurately using a finger or rounded stylus. Switching to Large Icons view helps but then all the organization disappears. It's quite apparent that Microsoft focused their efforts on touch-optimizing the Metro UI and left the desktop to pretty much fend for itself.

On a related note, the on-screen keyboard in Windows 8 is on par with the best Android keyboards and, in my opinion, far superior to the IOS offering. The keys are big and well-positioned, especially in split-mode, and the number/symbol pad seems much more logical than the SHIFT+KEY combination on other keyboards. For those like myself who still believe in pen-enabled input, the one-touch access to script and remarkable character recognition capabilities of the inking utility set Windows far above the competition. This is one area where the long legacy of tablet support from Microsoft shines through and it makes a big difference for professionals who rely upon accurate script-to-text conversion in the field.

The biggest win for me with Windows 8 is native Hyper-V support. For years those of us who need to run virtual machines on portable computers have been forced to either buy a competing product or install a server OS on hardware that it was never meant for. It was always a bit embarrassing to be on stage at a Microsoft event running demonstrations of Microsoft products on a competitor's virtualization platform. Finally, they got the message and gave us a proper client virtualization environment. I realize this doesn't mean much to the vast majority of Windows users but it's a huge win for a small but very visible portion of the technical community. It's not perfect, mind you - we still don't have folder sharing or direct USB support - but definitely a big step in the right direction.

CONS

Microsoft had a hard task in front of them - create a new OS to serve the exploding consumer tablet market without sacrificing features or functionality for their core enterprise customers. It's too soon to draw any definite conclusions on the consumer front but based on my own experience using the Ideapad Yoga in tablet mode they seem to have finally figured this one out, successfully transferring the lessons learned from Windows Phone to a larger device format. Unfortunately, they may have done so at the expense of their core user base who rely upon Windows to accomplish their day to day tasks.

Nowhere is this more evident than when you first switch from the Start page to the desktop. Getting rid of the Start menu was, in my opinion, the wrong move. Same for the inability to natively boot right to the desktop. I get what they are trying to do here and from a consumer perspective it makes sense. Consumers have all the time in the world to play around with cutesy "charms" and full-screen apps but in the workplace time is money; the lack of a Start button, and all the associated functions we've come to expect over the last 15 years, makes it feel like there are a few extra steps involved for every task.

Pressing the Windows key and typing to find the application I'm looking for is just not an effective replacement for Start > All Programs. It sounds more efficient, and in some cases it actually is, but that's not how millions of users work. We like our program folders, our shortcuts to most used programs, and quick access to our libraries. Not to mention the power and search options all being together in one place. Turns out, the Start menu was actually a good thing - and the quickest way to stifle adoption is to get rid of what was working just fine and replace it with something that requires users to learn a new way of doing things.

Speaking of impediments to user adoption, the lack of proper menus now forces all of us to memorize a whole raft of new keyboard shortcuts. Not one or two, mind you, but at least a dozen or more. I already have enough to do - I can't be asked to make extra room in my mental hard drive for Win + D, Win + I or, at the extreme end of ridiculous, Win + . (period). And no, Win + X absolutely does NOT serve as an effective replacement for Start menu shortcuts. I don't want to leave my desktop to search in some full-screen app. The old way of just typing into the search box and getting in-place results was more efficient, especially as I didn't have to Alt + F4 or Win + D to get back to where I was.

As mentioned above I really like the native integration between local and cloud accounts but there are some rough edges. For instance, when I changed the password of my Live account it refused to sync with the login account on either of my computers, forcing me to use the old password to login and the new password for SkyDrive, Messenger, etc. In the end I had to switch back to a local account, logout, login with the new account, then switch to my Microsoft account, then repeat the process again on my second machine. It really shouldn't be that difficult.

There are lots of other small areas that also need some improvement. The side-scrolling when using a mouse seems to be quite random. On the Start page it works just fine - move the mouse all the over to the right and the page scrolls accordingly. But try the same thing in the People or Music apps and nothing happens. That's downright frustrating. Mouse scrolling seems to work in this case but the using the scroll gesture on a trackpad takes more effort than just moving the pointer to the edge of the screen.

On the browser front, IE 10 is fast and looks good - no question about that. But, like so many versions before it, things just don't seem to work quite right. As soon as I fired it up I noticed that the CSS on my home page wasn't displayed correctly. It looked fine in all other browsers and in previous versions of IE all the way down to 7 but page elements were all out of whack in 10. I'm not alone here - after using it for a while I've noticed many web pages that don't render the way they should. And then I discovered, as many others have, that dialog buttons in all my SharePoint 2010 pages failed to fire. I had to switch out to Firefox or hit F12 and switch to IE 9 mode just to save or cancel an operation. Yet another annoyance that I really don't need in my day.

Having a dual-monitor setup also reveals some quirky behavior. Extending the desktop across monitors is easy enough and a lower left corner click will bring up the Start page on one monitor while leaving the desktop showing on the other. That's nice - until you click on the desktop. Then the Start page disappears. So my plan to run run Start and full-screen apps on one screen while working happily away in Visual Studio on the other had to be scrapped. This is strange behavior and speaks to the version 1.0 flavor of the whole experiment.

And that leads me to my final and most important observation. This is the umpteenth release of the core operating system that runs most of the world's computers used for business. This is not a toy - it's a critical piece of technology that companies rely upon to be stable and reliable. Which it was (for the most part) in the last release. But now it's a weird crossover experiment that tries to cram two competing visions together without really succeeding at either. It does not give corporate IT managers confidence in a new platform nor does it provide any assurances that their needs are an important part of the feature-planning process; in fact, it would appear that quite the opposite is true.   What IT wants is security, compatibility and reliability not a bunch of eye-candy designed to (hopefully) lure twentysomethings away from their iWhatevers. My suspicion is that many corporate IT departments will take a pass on this release. While Windows XP is starting to slowly die off in the enterprise it's still holding on because Vista failed to deliver the goods. In the near future I suspect that XP will likely be replaced by Windows 7 instead of Windows 8 - and that's not good news for Microsoft no matter how you spin it.

CONCLUSION

My experience thus far is that Windows 8 is a mixed bag. On the one hand, it shows a lot of promise for consumers in the portable device segment. On the other hand, it has very litte to offer Microsoft's primary customer base inside the enterprise. I believe they could have avoided all this by taking the Media Center approach (another good product sadly put out to pasture) - deliver incremental improvements to business users while providing consumers with the ability to enable the portable features (or, alternatively, make the portable UI the default but allow corporate IT to disable it via policy). Then both camps would be happy - business users get their familiar desktop and consumers get live tiles (assuming, of course, that you consider live tiles a feature worth having). Instead, we have a clunky amalgamation of competing feature sets in which no user truly gets what they want.

I applaud the effort to break new ground but a one-size-fits-all strategy probably isn't going to cut it. While Windows Phone and XBox were two areas of great success (you can argue about Windows Phone adoption and its relative immaturity but the UI makes every other platform look like a bunch of old Palm Pilots) it doesn't mean that same design philosophy can carry over into other areas. Trying to force business users to buy into consumer features is just not smart - they won't pay for functionality they don't want, especially if it ends up making their jobs harder instead of easier.

The bottom line for me is that I'll happily keep Windows 8 on my convertible tablet where I can actually take advantage of the new UI elements. But if it wasn't for the native Hyper-V support I would switch my primary desktop back to Windows 7 in a heartbeat. I've got enough to do without the OS getting in my way and, quite frankly, I was happy with Windows 7. It did what I wanted it to do and I didn't have to think about how to use it. For better or worse it felt natural whereas Windows 8 is uncomfortable in all the wrong ways. I can only hope that Microsoft gets the message and does something in a service pack or R2 release to fulfill the needs of business users. But that may be a long time coming, if ever, so until then I'll just Win + Curse my way though it and hope for the best.


Articles

Ten Steps to Optimize SharePoint Performance

Webcasts

Secrets of SharePoint Part 5: Configuring Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Optimal Performance
Creating End User SharePoint Solutions for Performance and Scalability
SharePoint 2010 Performance Enhancements for Administrators
Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 for the ASP.NET Developer
Following Best Practices and Avoiding Common Errors with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Development
SharePoint Performance and Capacity Planning Essentials
Troubleshooting Common Performance Problems in SharePoint 2010

Videos

Channel 9 Interview with Eric Shupps
SharePoint TechTalk - Different Views on Social Computing
SharePoint Post-Deployment Planning and Management

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SharePoint Pod Show - Design for Performance
SharePoint Pod Show - Test Driven Development
Run As Radio - Eric Shupps Improves SharePoint Performance

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Monday, October 29, 2012

First Impressions of the Lenovo Ideapad Yoga 13

Taking advantage of the fanfare surrounding the general availability of Windows 8, Lenovo have released a new hybrid ultrabook aimed at those who need a thin and light notebook with the touch capabilities of a tablet. In the past, convertible tablet PC's, which have a small but strong following in the enterprise, have been hindered by bulky form factors and awkward screen conversion mechanisms. Lenovo has a strong pedigree in the tablet segment, having produced some of the most popular tablet PC's on the market for many years, so it would be natural to assume that their latest offering would just extend the venerable X-series line without breaking any new ground. Thankfully, that is not the case - instead of simply borrowing from the past the Lenovo engineers have come up with an entirely new offering that breaks the tablet PC mold.

To begin with, the Ideapad Yoga is simply a great looking laptop. Borrowing from the design aesthetic of the U-series ultralights, it has a uniform thickness of just over half an inch with an exterior covering of burnished aluminum and an black interior, giving it the appearance of a high-tech textbook when closed. The palmrest is covered in a matte coating that isn't quite leathery but is far more comfortable during long type sessions than all metal or glossy plastic. The large multitouch trackpad is centered in the middle of the palmrest and has dedicated right and left click zones. It is delightfully responsive and handles all the pinch, zoom, scroll and twist gestures with ease. As would be expected from a Lenovo product, the island-style keyboard is excellent, with a good layout and plenty of room between the keys but, strangely, is not backlit. This is a severe limitation in low-light situations and is a major design flaw in an otherwise excellent machine.

As with most thin and light notebooks, the Yoga has limited port selection. There is an HDMI connector, one USB 3.0 port, one USB 2.0 port, a combination headphone/microphone jack, an SD card slot and a flat USB-style power connector. It also includes a dedicated rocker switch for volume control and a screen orientation lock button. Inside, it can be configured up to a Core i7 processor, a maximum of 8GB RAM, and a 256GB SSD. The retail model in the US ships with 4GB RAM, a Core i5 CPU and a 128GB SSD. The memory can easily be upgraded with an aftermarket DIMM but the hard drive isn't quite so simple to replace - it uses an mSATA/mini-PCIe card instead of a traditional 2.5" or 1.8" form factor, which is harder to find and there are very few options above 256GB.

The display runs at a native resolution of 1600x900 on a dedicated Intel 4000 chip. The color saturation is excellent with almost unlimited viewing angles. The screen surface is glossy but surprisingly resistant to fingerprints - it's on par with the iPad and other small form factor tablets. The multitouch surface works just as well in notebook mode as it does when converted to a tablet, making it almost irresistible to swipe through the Windows 8 screens and menus using the screen instead of the trackpad.

Unlike tablet PC's of the past, the conversion mechanism on the Yoga doesn't twist around and lay flat. Instead, the hinge simply opens like a book - to use the device in slate mode, just flip the screen all the way backwards. Once it passes 180 degrees, the keyboard is deactivated and the screen can be angled for comfortable viewing on a flat surface without the need for a kickstand or jointed cover. Alternatively, just stand the machine up in an inverted "V" (what Lenovo calls "Tent Mode"). The screen automatically adjusts orientation when rotated and can be locked into position using a hardware button on the side of the device. A dedicated Windows button is located between the hinges to exit out of apps while in tablet mode.

For better or worse, Windows 8 is really designed for touch input and the Ideapad Yoga excels in this area. The screen is smooth and responsive - even in notebook mode, the screen has very little wobble despite being exceptionally thin. Although rather large for a true tablet, the 13" screen does provide a lot of real estate for displaying tiles and lends itself to docking one app while using another. The ability to adjust the screen tilt by bending the unit backwards with the keyboard portion touching a flat surface is very useful but it does take some getting used to.

The machine runs quietly without much fan noise. Heat dissipation is excellent and even when running at full speed it only becomes slightly warm on the bottom. Although battery life is rated at 8 hours, real-world usage is more like 6 - 7 hours. Not an impressive showing but not too bad for a device of this size with a full Core i-Series CPU (as opposed to the Tegra processor in the 11" model or the various ARM WinRT models).

The Yoga boots up from a cold start to the Windows 8 start screen in under 15 seconds, making it a nearly "instant on" device. Lenovo includes a handful of specialty apps, including a support center, a transition manager to control screen orientation in the various modes, a motion control program and trackpad manager. There's also a "Companion" app, which is mostly advertisements, and a recovery utility.

Overall, the Ideapad Yoga is an excellent device. It brings together a quality high-end notebook with a true tablet experience. The fold-over hinge design is well-thought out and very practical. Although a bit large to be a true ultrabook or stand-alone tablet, as a hybrid device it excels in delivering the best of both worlds - portability, acceptable battery life, and touch capabilities. The one major flaw in the Yoga's design is the lack of a backlit keyboard, which Lenovo will have to rectify if they want this device to be taken seriously. While it may not satisfy tablet purists or those looking for the most features in the smallest notebook, the Ideapad Yoga strikes a good balance and is surprisingly fun to use.

Articles

Ten Steps to Optimize SharePoint Performance

Webcasts

Secrets of SharePoint Part 5: Configuring Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Optimal Performance
Creating End User SharePoint Solutions for Performance and Scalability
SharePoint 2010 Performance Enhancements for Administrators
Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 for the ASP.NET Developer
Following Best Practices and Avoiding Common Errors with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Development
SharePoint Performance and Capacity Planning Essentials
Troubleshooting Common Performance Problems in SharePoint 2010

Videos

Channel 9 Interview with Eric Shupps
SharePoint TechTalk - Different Views on Social Computing
SharePoint Post-Deployment Planning and Management

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SharePoint Pod Show - Design for Performance
SharePoint Pod Show - Test Driven Development
Run As Radio - Eric Shupps Improves SharePoint Performance

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Sunday, October 28, 2012

Using Multiple Displays and Projectors with Windows 8 and Lenovo W520

When Lenovo started shipping hybrid graphics in their W500-series workstations, it was a great improvement for road warriors who need both full-power graphics when connected to a power source and long battery life on the go. This is achieved by the presence of two video cards – an integrated Intel chip side-by-side with an nVidia Quadro GPU. The nVidia drivers ship with software that automatically switch between graphics modes based on the current power profile.

This configuration works great until the machine is connected to an external monitor or projector via the VGA port. For some reason, the nVidia software is unable to automatically balance the output between both video cards when the display is duplicated. Many users have resorted to disabling one or the other video cards in the BIOS, which works fine but requires that the change be made manually each time to computer is rebooted (assuming that the user wants the low power mode at some point – if the machine is always plugged in then it's really not an issue).

There is, however, a way to get display duplication working with the auto-switching Optimus mode. All the configuration options are there in the nVidia control panel but the configuration isn't very intuitive. Here's how to make it work (this holds true for both Windows 7 and Windows 8, although the sub-menu text in the control panel is a bit different between driver versions)...

Read more from Eric Shupps

Articles

Ten Steps to Optimize SharePoint Performance

Webcasts

Secrets of SharePoint Part 5: Configuring Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Optimal Performance
Creating End User SharePoint Solutions for Performance and Scalability
SharePoint 2010 Performance Enhancements for Administrators
Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 for the ASP.NET Developer
Following Best Practices and Avoiding Common Errors with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Development
SharePoint Performance and Capacity Planning Essentials
Troubleshooting Common Performance Problems in SharePoint 2010

Videos

Channel 9 Interview with Eric Shupps
SharePoint TechTalk - Different Views on Social Computing
SharePoint Post-Deployment Planning and Management

Podcasts

SharePoint Pod Show - Design for Performance
SharePoint Pod Show - Test Driven Development
Run As Radio - Eric Shupps Improves SharePoint Performance

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Monday, October 15, 2012

Developing SharePoint 2013 Apps with the Chrome Control

In the new SharePoint 2013 App model, there are essentially two ways to host apps – within SharePoint itself or from an external web site (also known as "provider hosted" or "autohosted"). One of the disadvantages of external apps is that they don't look or feel like SharePoint. All the familiar navigation menus and shortcuts are missing, resulting in a stark contrast between the default SharePoint visual experience and whichever app is currently being used unless the app developer went the extra mile (or ten) to style their app.

While this isn't really a bad thing – the app is fully functional and can communicate with SharePoint – it doesn't quite lend itself to a cohesive user experience. To bridge this gap, Microsoft allows developers to import a very basic version of the SharePoint 2013 chrome into their apps without having to manually create matching HTML controls. The functionality for this can be found in the SP.UI.Controls.js file located in the new /_layouts/15 directory. To use the chrome control, first add a reference to SP.UI.Controls.js (make sure you've already loaded the requisite JQuery files and other dependencies), then add an empty <div> to your page markup at or near the top of the page..

Read more from Eric Shupps

ArticlesTen Steps to Optimize SharePoint Performance

Webcasts

Secrets of SharePoint Part 5: Configuring Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Optimal Performance
Creating End User SharePoint Solutions for Performance and Scalability
SharePoint 2010 Performance Enhancements for Administrators
Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 for the ASP.NET Developer
Following Best Practices and Avoiding Common Errors with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Development
SharePoint Performance and Capacity Planning Essentials
Troubleshooting Common Performance Problems in SharePoint 2010

Videos

Channel 9 Interview with Eric Shupps
SharePoint TechTalk - Different Views on Social Computing
SharePoint Post-Deployment Planning and Management

Podcasts

SharePoint Pod Show - Design for Performance
SharePoint Pod Show - Test Driven Development
Run As Radio - Eric Shupps Improves SharePoint Performance
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Thursday, October 11, 2012

Using PowerShell to Set List View Parameters in SharePoint Web Parts

While working on some modifications to the SharePoint 2010 blog site template I ran across an interesting problem. I was trying to duplicate the functionality of a particular web part; in this case, the Posts web part which outputs a formatted display of list items on the Category.aspx page of a blog site. The default web part was listed in the contents page (reachable using the "?contents=1" query string parameter) as a basic XsltListViewWebPart, which meant that I should be able to drop the Posts web part from Lists and Libraries in the web part gallery, set the view, and get the desired results. If only it were that simple.

No matter which view I picked, all the web part showed was a standard list view with rows and columns, not the nicely formatted view with the calendar page image, title link and summary information that I was after. Since it was a stock list view web part I knew it was using a view to fetch the data and then transforming it in XSL but there didn't seem to be any way to force it into using the correct view. Assuming that the view itself might be hidden from the drop-down selector, I turned to PowerShell to see if I could find out what was going on. I began by iterating through the web parts on the page to find the one I wanted and writing out the view ID...

Read more from Eric Shupps

Articles

Ten Steps to Optimize SharePoint Performance

Webcasts

Secrets of SharePoint Part 5: Configuring Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Optimal Performance
Creating End User SharePoint Solutions for Performance and Scalability
SharePoint 2010 Performance Enhancements for Administrators
Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 for the ASP.NET Developer
Following Best Practices and Avoiding Common Errors with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Development
SharePoint Performance and Capacity Planning Essentials
Troubleshooting Common Performance Problems in SharePoint 2010

Videos

Channel 9 Interview with Eric Shupps
SharePoint TechTalk - Different Views on Social Computing
SharePoint Post-Deployment Planning and Management

Podcasts

SharePoint Pod Show - Design for Performance
SharePoint Pod Show - Test Driven Development
Run As Radio - Eric Shupps Improves SharePoint Performance

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Planet SharePoint
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Thursday, October 4, 2012

Creating SharePoint 2013 High Trust Apps

Monday, October 1, 2012

SharePoint MVP for Another Year

Well, it's that time of year again, and Microsoft has seen fit to keep me in the MVP program for another go around. This will be my sixth year as an MVP. When I first came into the program there were only a few dozen SharePoint MVP's - now there are hundreds all over the world. The yearly MVP summit used to be an opportunity to catch up with old friends you didn't see very often but with the growth of the group (which is still quite small compared with groups like SQL or ASP.NET) it's now become a way to meet new people you might not have even heard of before.

For those of us who have been around a while, the quarterly renewal cycles can often be bittersweet - sometimes we have to say goodbye to friends who have moved on or focused their community efforts in other directions. Despite what some people on the outside who have no knowledge of the inner workings of the program may think, it still takes a lot of work to attain and retain MVP status. You don't have to be the brightest technical guru or constantly on the speaking circuit to become an MVP (although both of those certainly help) but you do have to put in the hours contributing to the community in whatever fashion suits you. Not everyone has the capability or flexibility to continue contributing at a high level - life and circumstances change and sometimes there's just not enough hours in the day. It's sad to see good people leave the program but always exciting to meet the new kids on the block.

So congratulations to all the new and returning SharePoint MVP's. With a new product release on the horizon it's going to be a busy year ahead. Be sure to join us all in Las Vegas on November 12th - 15th for SharePoint Conference 2012 for lots of learning and plenty of partying!