General

I'm a New SharePoint MVP

Paul Papanek Stork — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 12:23:00 GMT

I just got the email a few minutes ago and had to share the news. I’ve been named a SharePoint Server MVP for as of today, July 1, 2008.

I owe a big thank you to Todd Bleeker who nominated me and to anyone else who added a good word or endorsement to the process along the way. I am incredibly EXCITED and hope to continue to live up to the honor that has been bestowed on me.

SharePoint Best Practices Conference - September 15-18, 2008

Paul Papanek Stork — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 15:34:00 GMT

Ever wondered whether the way you've designed, implemented and continue to support your SharePoint installation is the best way possible? Or could there be easier, better, more efficient ways to get things done?

Almost every SharePoint practitioner I've met has wondered the same thing at one time or another. Well here is your chance to find out. Join some of the brightest SharePoint experts in the business to discuss just what are SharePoint's Best Practices.

The first, and to the best of my knowledge only, conference dedicated to discussing SharePoint Best Practices will be held in Washington, DC from September 15-17. As the conference Web site says, “The 2008 Best Practices Conference replaces confusion with Clarity, Direction and Confidence by establishing key principles to guide effective SharePoint decision-making in any situation.” Hope to see you there.

Win a free e-Book about ASP.NET

Paul Papanek Stork — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 15:06:00 GMT

Manning Publishing is giving away ebooks on .NET....

Starting on June 19, 2008 Manning Publishing is launching the ".NET Daily Drawing.” This promotion will run until July 17,2008. Each day’s lucky winner can choose one free .NET ebook of their choice. On the last day of the drawing, Manning will award one lucky winner... the entire Manning .NET library! (That’s nearly a $3000 value...)

Click the banner below to enter your name for the daily drawing.

SharePoint Connections Spring 2008

Paul Papanek Stork — Thu, 01 May 2008 12:35:00 GMT

Ben Curry and I will be presenting a Post Con session on April 24, 2008 at the SharePoint Connections Conference. The session will be entitled. HPS301: Web Content Management (Bring Your Own Laptop). You can read the abstract describing the session below.

In this hands-on workshop, you'll learn how to leverage Office SharePoint Server 2007 to build “Content Driven” Web sites that are updated by the content owners while still maintaining a strong corporate branding. We’ll follow a recurring pattern of a short slide presentation followed by a longer “hands on” demo/lab. Attendees will be provided with handouts that contain click-by-click instructions that describe how to accomplish the lab. If you prefer not to have a computer in front of you, you’ll get just as much out of watching us demonstrate. All code snippets and materials needed to complete each lab will also be provided to the students. Attendees will complete the hands-on labs on their own laptops (or at home after class). The agenda for the day will include the following lessons.

• Introduction to “Content Driven” Web Sites
• Maintaining Corporate Branding with a Customized Master Page
• Controlling Content Input with a Custom Field Control
• Managing Content Placement with a Custom Layout Page
• Customizing SharePoint Navigation
• Optimizing Performance with Output Caching Profiles and the Object Cache
• Automating Content Deployment

I Hope to see you there!

I Love Cleveland Winters....

Paul Papanek Stork — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 09:20:00 GMT

Living in Cleveland is always fun, but sometimes winters here can get interesting. This weekend is no exception. On Friday morning when I went out to run some errands at 10:00AM we had NO SNOW. The following picture was taken at 8:00 AM this morning.

That's right. The official details are about 17” of snow in about 15 hours. The last time we had snow like this was LAST Easter. But that was only 16” of snow. Oh yeah and this week, its supposed to reach 50 degrees by Thursday.

You gotta love Cleveland Winters....

Speaking at the Dallas/Fort Worth SharePoint User's Group in February

Paul Papanek Stork — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 10:24:00 GMT

I will be speaking at the Dallas Fort Worth SharePoint User's Group on Tuesday, February 19th. The meeting will be from 6:30-8:00pm. My topic will be "Upgrading WSS and Office Server 2007 to Service Pack 1”. Here's a brief description of the talk:

In mid-December of 2007, Microsoft released the first service pack for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (WSS) and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS). These service packs are filled with hot fixes and important upgrades to WSS and MOSS. These service packs add support for the upcoming release of Windows Server 2008, Web Parts that use ASP.NET AJAX, new STSADM operations, and much more. But installing them requires more planning than just running SETUP.exe. In this talk we'll examine the points below and follow them up with a live demonstration:

What common problems are fixed by the SP1
What should I consider BEFORE installing SP1
How do I slipstream the installations for use in Server 2008
What are some of the common problems encountered when trying to install SP1
What other service packs will I need to install

The User Group meets at the local Microsoft Offices in Irving, TX. You can find the office at 7000 State Highway 16, Irving, TX 75039. The meeting will be in the LC1 Building (Right Tower) on the 1st Floor in Room 1200 (Left of the main security desk). The DFW SharePoint Community is the only dedicated North Texas SharePoint
forum to promote:

Sharing of SharePoint "Best Practices" and Successes.
Exchange for Issues and Work Arounds.
Exposure to Certified 3rd party add on products.
Connection Point for market and Microsoft SharePoint resources

Meetings are free and open to the public, but registration is required. You can register for the February meeting here.

Speaking at the GCPCUG Windows Server SIG

Paul Papanek Stork — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 08:51:00 GMT

I will be speaking at the Greater Cleveland PC Users Group Windows Server SIG on Thursday, June 28th from noon til 1:30. My topic will be an “Introduction to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007”. Collaboration is one of the big buzzwords in the IT industry. Teams working on documents and projects together. There's also a lot of buzz about Microsoft Sharepoint - a tool for working collaboratively. But, that buzz includes a lot of confusion about the product. This meeting will answer some of the basic questions about Sharepoint.

The GCPCUG Windows Server SIG is focused on Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Windows 2000 Server and even Windows NT. Whether you are a network administrator, working toward certification or just interested in learning more, you can get together with other interested people at the Windows Server Special Interest Group (SIG) meetings. We are affiliated with the Greater Cleveland PC Users Group which has many special interest groups you will want to check into.

The SIG meets at the local Microsoft Offices in Independence on Oak Tree, which is about 1/2 mile West of 77 on Rockside (First Energy is also there). They are the first building complex on the right and are on the 3rd Floor.

Meetings are free and open to the public.

VTI Shooting brings back bad memories

Paul Papanek Stork — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 20:25:00 GMT

I wasn't really planning for this to be the second post on my new Blog, but the events at Virginia Technical Institute bring back too many bad memories. My prayers go out to the family and friends of the students and faculty at VTI. I know a little of what they are going through.

In May, 2003 I went through a similar attack while a professor in the Business school at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, OH. Compared to VTI we were relatively lucky, only one student was killed and two people injured, but we certainly didn't feel lucky at the time. Three PhD students and I were trapped in my office on the 5th floor of the building from the time the shooting started at 4:00 PM until SWAT rescued us at 12:30 AM the next morning. At one point while trying to FAX a phone list for the building to the local police I came face to face with the gunman. It was a terrifying experience.

MSNBC has a good report of the attack at Case Here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15767366/

including some of my testimony at the gunman's trial http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15787964/

Welcome to my BLOG

Paul Papanek Stork — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 17:49:00 GMT

Well its been a long time coming, but I've finally decided to start a BLOG. I've never been much for keeping Journals, but now its time. I've spent the last couple years starting my own Consulting/Training business. In that timeI have continually stumbled across technical "Nuggets" by listening to students or while researching student questions. But I've never had anywhere to publish those "Nuggets". A Blog seems to be the perfect place to store this kind of asynchronously acquired information in a categorized format.

Now that I've decided to give up the “freelancing thing“ and go to work for Mindsharp fulltime I don't even have the excuse that I'm too busy trying to build the business. Since Mindsharp has their own Blog hosting site its finally time.

So watch this space and I'll try to share the things I learn about SharePoint, CRM, and .NET development. Hang on to your hats its liable to be a bumpy ride.

Paul Stork
MBA, MCT, MCSE, MCSA, MCSD, MCDBA, MCITP