If you have not seen our YouTube channel, here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/user/asifrehmani

We try to post up at least one video per month over there. All free of course and your feedback on the videos is most welcomed. Subscribe to it if you would like to get alerted on the new videos we post up there. Here is the latest video posted there:

Exporting a reusable workflow to a different site collection.

A written article can only convey so much information. As they say, an image is worth a thousand words. Building on that saying, my belief is that a video is worth a thousand images. At http://www.SharePoint-Videos.com, we have 174 videos so far (and more being added every week) which total up into dozens of hours of video tutorial based training.

Since our videos are task based (about 8 – 12 minutes for each video), we needed a way to tie the videos together to have it flow like an article. In addition, we also needed a Wikipedia style way of linking the articles together. So we have decided to combine the story telling power of articles with our videos. Each article has links embedded within it to relevant videos. Also, when appropriate, articles refer to other available articles much like Wikipedia does. We call these Video Articles (or v-Articles). To see an example of how a video article works, check out the ones already available on the Video Categories page. More will be coming soon.

Want to see for yourself how the install process works for SharePoint 2007 and now the new SharePoint 2010? Now you can! Both of these videos are available to be watched for free for a limited time:

SharePoint 2007 Install – http://www.sharepoint-videos.com/installing-sharepoint/

SharePoint 2010 Install – http://www.sharepoint-videos.com/sp10installing-sharepoint-server-2010/

Enjoy!

Back in 2008, Woody Windischman, Bryan Phillips and I (Asif Rehmani) teamed up to write a book on SharePoint Designer 2007. The main reasons we wrote that book are because we really believe in SharePoint Designer and felt that there was just not enough ‘good’ information out there in the market about how to use it effectively. In fact, even till this day if you go to Amazon.com and read the reviews for the product, you will see that the prevailing viewpoint of reviewers is the complaint of not having a good user manual for it. In my humble opinion, I think we did a pretty good job at documenting a lot of abilities of this product in our book. My only regret is that the book came out so late in the market (it was published in Jan 2009). I truly believe that if this book was available earlier, it could have saved lots of unnecessary pain to many people who went about using SPD in a not so effective manner.

With the upcoming release of SharePoint Designer 2010, we have teamed up once again to write another book. The title of the book is Beginning SharePoint Designer 2010 by Wrox publications and the target release date is middle of 2010 – right after the product gets released. Even though we are writing under the Beginning series, rest assured that there will be a LOT of detailed information on SPD in the book. SPD 2010’s interface and functionality is so different from SPD 2007 that this book is going to be almost a complete rewrite for us. The SPD 2007 book will continue to be needed by anyone who is still using SharePoint 2007 (Reason: SharePoint Designer 2010 is not compatible with SharePoint 2007). Each of us is a SharePoint MVP, but we have different areas that we focus on within SharePoint. We have divided the book chapters between us keeping our complementary skills in mind to provide the reader with the best viewpoint we can offer about each area of functionality. In addition to the explanations we will provide on each functional area within SPD, there will be plenty of examples in each chapter to walk you through step-by-step scenarios on how to create the actual solutions. We think that these examples will be truly indispensable for readers who prefer hands on experience with the product.

We have high hopes for this book and our goal is that this book will be indispensable to any SharePoint professional whether they play a role of a server administrator, site collection administrator, site administrator, designer, developer or IT professional. Our belief is that to truly take advantage of SharePoint 2010, you need to be proficient in SharePoint Designer 2010 and our book will serve as your guide in your SharePoint adventures to make you into a SharePoint rock star!

This week I have the privilege of teaching the first ever SharePoint Designer 2010 course. As far as I know, this is the first SharePoint Designer 2010 course ever being taught by anyone in the world (please correct me if I’m wrong here). A lot of blood, sweat and tears have gone into creating this 5 day course and if I say so myself, it turned out pretty good . Check out the Critical Path Training site for the next offerings of this course. The immediate next one is the webcast I’ll be teaching during the week of March 29th. Hope to ‘virtually’ see you there!

For the first time ever, we are offering a Huge discount on our Annual Site Membership. With an annual membership, you can watch all of our current videos on the site in addition to all of the ones we will be creating throughout the course of the year (New video updates are posted to the site every week). 

From now until Friday, Feb 26th, you can use the coupon code ANSPFEB (please remember to click on Apply button after putting in the code to activate it) to take $40 off the yearly subscription price - originally $199.50. You will get 12 months of access for only $159.50. Here is the link to the subscription page: http://www.sharepoint-videos.com/subscribe/. Click on the button for Yearly Option to get started.

Would you like to own a copy of our SharePoint 2007 or SharePoint Designer 2007 videos to watch offline? Well, this is the best week to make that happen. We are offering a 20% discount on the single user licenses of both of our DVDs. When going through checkout, simply apply the coupon code SPDVD to take 20% off the price. This coupon code is only valid till end of day on Feb 12th. Here are direct links to both of the DVDs:

SharePoint 2007 Site Admin and End User Training

SharePoint Designer 2007 Training

We have decided to auction off one copy each of our SharePoint DVDs to help raise funds for relief and development in Haiti. There is no set price (reserve) for the listings. The total amount of the raised funds will go directly to the American Red Cross’ efforts for Haiti. You will find the listings on eBay here:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270522078930&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270522084967&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT

Please help spread the word. Thanks.

In my line of work, I’m constantly demonstrating SharePoint functionality to people. Having a good working virtual machine is critical to make that happen (and I have several ). However, if you don’t want to create one from scratch, you can go ahead and download the virtual machine (vhd) that Microsoft put on their site right here:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=751fa0d1-356c-4002-9c60-d539896c66ce&displaylang=en

This machine is kind of hard to search for on the net. The page that it resides on is labeled “2010 Information Worker Demonstration and Evaluation Virtual Machine (RTM)”. You can search for that or click on the link above. Your choice.

Don’t forget the fact that you need a 64-bit platform to run this machine. Also, this machine Has to be run in a Hyper-v environment. I had blogged about the requirements earlier so check that post out first (http://blog.sharepointelearning.com/want-to-get-your-hands-on-sharepoint-2010/) before getting started. Good Luck!

It is now official. I have joined Critical Path Training as an instructor. Critical Path Training (formerly known as Ted Pattison Group) is a widely renowned leader in the SharePoint training space. I’m honored to be part of the team and looking forward to working together and bringing world class SharePoint 2010 training to the market.

I’m currently working on the course Creating No-Code SharePoint Designer Solutions for SharePoint 2010 which will cover SharePoint Designer, InfoPath and SharePoint Workspace. We’ll start offering this class in early 2010 in both the instructor led and hands on format and online.