Disclaimer: The following information is just humble opinions derived from available information publicly and in chatting with fellow SharePoint-ers. Treat them as opinions of a fellow SharePoint guy and nothing more please. It is true that I am a SharePoint MVP, however, I never have been and am not a Microsoft employee. I still remember the first time I started teaching courses involving instruction on InfoPath 2003 (back in early 2005). It was a product way ahead of it’s time – completely built to be based on and handle XML like no other Office application. A great way to create …

This week I shared one of our videos (Displaying Location Maps within SharePoint Lists using Geolocation column in SharePoint 2013) on the MVP Award blog. Glad to have shared it and I hope folks are able to benefit from it. Note: The geolocation column is available out-of-the-box in SharePoint 2013. However, it is Not turned on by default. I have used the following PowerShell commands to turn it on in my environment. Please check with your SharePoint server admin before turning it on. $weburl = “http://<webAppAddress>/” $fieldXml = “<Field Type =’Geolocation’ DisplayName=’Location’ />” $web = get-spweb $weburl $field = $web.Fields.AddFieldAsXml($fieldXml) …

Are You the “SharePoint guy/gal”? If you think you are or want to understand what I mean and how this might relate to you, read on please… The person responsible for the SharePoint initiatives to be successful in the organization is the one called the SharePoint guy/gal. This is the person who empowers herself and the other power users and SharePoint evangelists in the organization to take better advantage of the SharePoint platform. This SharePoint guru does not necessarily possess the development or IT architecture knowledge. However, this person has been tapped as the person responsible for this thing called …

SharePoint Fest rocks! I found that out when I first presented at the Chicago conference last year. Things that impressed me the most: Focus on the locality (lots of Chicagoland based folks attended) Great content and speakers Nicely organized This conference was professionally arranged and executed. There were no networking or scheduling issues that I noticed and I heard great comments from attendees afterwards. This conference was successful in providing great content to the folks who were just not satisfied enough with the content at SharePoint Saturdays and local user groups (no offense to either since they both do the …

The point of this post is to offer you thoughts on how you can gain SharePoint experience and eventually land a SharePoint related job hopefully. This post does not dive into gaining SharePoint knowledge. Check out the other post on SharePoint resources on the web for ideas on learning SharePoint online. Find out if a local non-profit organization in your area is starting with SharePoint. Help them out at a low salary or volunteer for free Become part of SharePoint User Groups in your area. Offer to help out and become more active in learning and even presenting your knowledge. …

Over time, I have been gathering links to various SharePoint resources on the web. I usually share it my students. I’m listing them below. Hope it helps some people out there. SharePoint explained very nicely and simply in this video SharePoint in plain English   Microsoft’s main SharePoint related beginner sites Check out the main SharePoint 2010 Website from Microsoft. Then check out some success stories shared by Microsoft at iUseSharePoint.   Ramp up on SharePoint To get started on SharePoint, you might want to take some formal SharePoint training. There is really no substitute for hands on training if …

Title: Build SharePoint 2013 Composite Solutions – all you need is a Browser! Abstract: The possibilities are limitless when building SharePoint solutions using just the internet browser. The simple and intuitive interface makes it very easy to create robust applications. In this session, you will learn how to use the SharePoint 2013 framework of lists, libraries, pages, web parts and even apps to build powerful SharePoint solutions. Time Slot: Thursday, November 15, 2012 -  12:00 PM – 1:15 PM Room: Jasmine ABEF Session Code: SPC027   As always, my hope is going to be to show you as much as …

My book titled SharePoint 2013 – First Look for Power Users was released this Monday (10/15/2012). Great to see it finally in production. Currently, it’s available at the publisher’s site: https://store.vook.com/storefronts/book/sharepoint-2013-first-look-for-power-users.html#.UH7Sa8XA83S Hopefully, soon it will start showing up on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Apple bookstores as well. This book is designed to be a practical guide to jump start the reader’s learning about the specifics of SharePoint 2013. The focus is on Team Sites and MySite – not Publishing Sites – and specifically the visual elements of the sites. The book is filled with images and embedded videos to …

I recently got a chance to touch base with Caroline Marwitz of SharePoint Pro magazine. Caroline provided a few very though provoking questions in an interview format that was then posted to SharePoint Pro Mag here: http://www.sharepointpromag.com/blog/sharepoint-pro-by-admins-devs-industry-observers-23/sharepoint-2013/sharepoint-designer—144254 It covers some of my thoughts on the current and future versions of SharePoint Designer. Check it out and provide some comments and your own thoughts if you have a few minutes.

In SharePoint 2010, we are able to use any of the pre-built Themes or customize any of them using just the browser. If that was not enough , we are able to use either Microsoft Word, PowerPoint or Theme Builder to create new .thmx files that could then be uploaded to the Theme gallery by the site collection administrator and made available for site owners and designers to use on their sites. The whole theming engine has changed and been reworked in SharePoint 2013. Everything is based on HTML instead of any proprietary format. The image below shows the actual …