Posts

Showing posts from February, 2007

Sharepoint releases Application Templates

Success of any platform depends on its adoption and adoption depends on how much value can be derived from it with minimal effort. Sharepoint has eased adoption and increased value by providing application templates. A set of 40 customised applications are now available at: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsserver/sharepoint/wssapps/templates/default.mspx Some very widely used applications are packaged as templates. these templates once deployed can then also be further customised. One piece missing from the readme.txt that may fox some people is the fact that stsadm.exe is located at: C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN you will browse to this directory and launch stsadm from here. Technorati tags: WSS , sharepoint , application templates

Good looking event countdown gadget

For MVPs and myself, one of the most important events to look forward to is the MVP Global Summit. I am so excited to be going to the event and getting to meet all the MVPs that i had created a MVP Global Summit Countdown and shared it with all the MVPs. In true spirit of the community, one of the MVPs has taken the gadget and enhanced it further to make it look better! it is now available for download at: http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=7440a78c-b3dc-4b2b-b4ee-7787142c678e&l=1 One of the interesting uses for the gadget it that you can use it for any countdown that you want to have for an event (think your wife's birthday, your anniversary, your child's school play, project submission deadline or whatever... right now you will have to open up the gadget manually and make the changes that may / may not be easy to do! One of the further enhancements that can be done is to simplify changing the event you are tracking! this would mean modifying the gadget to

SMTP Service not running

there was recently an update pushed out for Windows 2003 (running SP1). after installing this patch, my SMTP service has stopped running. I can't seem to find the SMTP Service even in the running services list. It is funny! My IIS reports that SMTP is not running and when i try to start the SMTP there, it says that SMTP service is not running. On looking for SMTP service, it isn't to be found! I have verified that this service is indeed installed as per the Windows Add / Remove..   Technorati tags: SMTP , microsoft

find what should be paid

this is a great example of mutual benefit. ITpaycheck.COM is a site that let's you check the industry standards for IT and ITES sectors. The site is maintained by ITPF, IIM and IISc http://itpaycheck.com now about the mutual benefit - it lets any user see the industry standard compensation. this is powered by Ma Foi database. In turn, the site owners encourage you to enter your compensation data so that they can adjust the nos accordingly. Great way to engage the community and get some real nos also. FREEDOM from opacity that HR brings to any organisation :)   Technorati tags: india

Awarding Best Indian Blogs

Here is a great effort to award the Top Indian Blogs: http://www.indibloggies.org This comes close on the heels of the reports that there are around 13.5 million blogs in India. The shortlist has 175 blogs in various categories from 750 nominations received. That's a awful lot lesser than the "supposed" no of blogs we have in India. Just hope that the participation grows in this blogging contest. There was a developer blog contest done by MS India some time ago as well at: http://www.microsoft.com/india/blogstars/ I am totally impressed with the way of nominating the blog for the award - through del.icio.us and that makes it ultra community oriented. Now, I am a techie at heart. So i quickly jumped in the Science/ Technology area. Some very interesting blogs have made it to the category. I was however disappointed to see certain blogs with no tech content featured in the category. I point to: http://www.mixedbag.in/ http://shallowthgts.blogspot.com/ http://balancinglife

Influencer Nos: Part II

In the earlier post, i talked about using 0.2% - 1% as range of influencers that community can have. I have another thought: Have Tier I and Tier II programs for influencers. Tier I are your community leaders and Tier II are your community contributors. The nos. to use can be: Tier I: 0.2% of the community Tier II: Next 1% of the community In using this you have further differentiated the level of influence and can work to optimize your RoI on the program (provide more benefits to Tier I participants compared to Tier II). Technorati tags: influencers , community

Counting your influencers - Tuning for India

Any community builder (and i have been for past 3 years in emerging market like India) comes to a point when he thinks, let's take stock. The no. of influencers he has been able to connect with is one of the main areas. This is the set of people who will stand with you and you will for them. The success of community IMHO depends on these friends! For a professional, it is important to measure everytime.. so when do you know you have achieved with the community what you set out to achieve i.e. get your influencers. is there a way to quantify the right amount of influencers whom you have connected with and recognised? Having more no. of influencers are always desirable, there are following pitfalls to consider as well: Having "too many" recognised influencers lowers the value of recognition. Then recognising someone has no value. Having a lot of influencers might mean that one has lowered the bar of quality for influencers. Having too less of them would mean that you are l

Demo your products using Virtual PC

ISVs building their software often have the need to send out eval software. They want to share out their products on a virtual machine pre-configured with all the software. Partners can actually ship preconfigured VHDs with MS software stack together with their own apps (for evaluation purposes). This is possible through the VHD Test Drive Program. http://www.microsoft.com/technet/try/vhd/partners.mspx

Learn the new world of designing with MS Tools

Microsoft is not a company that has been associated with designers. It is about to change! With release of Expression suite of products and a solid WPF framework, designers are the focus now  (you can expect Steve B to go - designers, designers, designers sometime soon :)) The material on learning these new set of technologies is still scarce or spread widely. Community support for the product continues to grow. Dax Pandhi has started a new webcast series on harnessing this set of technologies and it sure looks good. If you are a designer and have been content with PhotoShop/ Flash, there is a new set of tools you can now learn. The market for these technologies are only going to grow with the coming times. If you know them, you can ride the wave early and you know the saying - " early bird gets the worm"... learn on.. Technorati tags: designer , expression , WPF , webcast , tutorial

Another killer application on new Vista framework

A platform is only as good as the applications it hosts !! British library has released a rich internet application. This let's you "read" a book in the normal way that you would browse it. Try it for yourself at http://ttpdownload.bl.uk .  Some of the worlds most precious books in dynamic 3D with light specularity, flow text, audio and community functions all hosted in the browser as a click-once deployed xbap. http://www.bl.uk is the main landing page for users and http://www.turningthepages.com gives more background information.