Asif's Blog

Haiti Relief Effort – Selling SharePoint DVDs on eBay to Fund American Red Cross

Jan 27

Asif RehmaniGeneral SharePoint 2010 1 Comment

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.

SharePoint 2010 Virtual Machine

Jan 27

Asif RehmaniGeneral SharePoint 2010 4 Comments

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/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=27417

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!

Joining Critical Path Training as an Instructor

Oct 29

Asif RehmaniGeneral Training No Comments

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.

Free SharePoint 2010, SharePoint Designer 2010 and InfoPath 2010 Videos

Oct 20

Asif RehmaniGeneral InfoPath 2010, SharePoint 2010, SharePoint Designer 2010 No Comments

With so much new information on the SharePoint 2010 Products and Technologies, it’s hard to talk about all of it using just words or screenshots. To that end, I have produced several videos showing demonstrations of the new functionality, which I covered at my sessions at SPC, on the following page:

http://www.sharepoint-videos.com/free-sharepoint-sharepoint-designer-and-infopath-2010-videos/

More videos soon! Enjoy!

Announcing SharePoint-Videos.com

Aug 01

Asif RehmaniGeneral No Comments

Check out our newly designed SharePoint Videos site (http://www.sharepoint-videos.com). Why a new site to serve up our SharePoint Video Tutorials…? Well, here are a few reasons:

• Videos load Much faster on the new site
• Full Screen Video
• Better Categorization of Videos
• Instant access to ALL of our Videos (current count is 81 videos) upon subscribing

We have also started to produce 2010 content now. You will find a new InfoPath 2010 video on the site. Check it out.

I would love to get your feedback/suggestions on the site. So if you have any, send it our way: info@sharepointelearning.com. Thanks!

Chapter from our SharePoint Designer book available on MSDN now

Jun 17

Asif RehmaniGeneral Books, SharePoint Designer No Comments

Chapter 15 from our book (Professional SharePoint Designer 2007) is now available for free on MSDN. Bryan Phillips wrote that chapter. Congrats Bryan!

Here is the location of that chapter:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd819165.aspx

Professional SharePoint Designer book on sale now

Dec 31

Asif RehmaniGeneral Books No Comments

The Professional SharePoint Designer 2007 book that I co-authored with Woody and Bryan has finally hit the shelves. I hope this book can help fill the knowledge gaps on this Awesome (but often misunderstood) product.

Professional SharePoint Designer book – Table of Contents

Oct 02

Asif RehmaniGeneral Books No Comments

Following will be the Table of Contents for the SharePoint Designer book (currently due to come out by Dec 31, 2008).

Disclaimer: As with any pre-release book, changes to the TOC are possible.

Part I, “The Basics”

Provides an overview of SharePoint Designer, SharePoint technology, and their relationship to one another.

Chapter 1: Exploring SharePoint Designer

Chapter 2: SharePoint from the User’s Perspective

Chapter 3: SharePoint from the Administrator’s Perspective

Chapter 4: SharePoint from a SharePoint Designer’s Perspective

Part II, “Customizing the SharePoint Look and Feel”

Shows how to use SharePoint Designer to customize various aspects of your sites.

Chapter 5: The Anatomy of a SharePoint Page

Chapter 6: Using SharePoint’s CSS Editing Tools

Chapter 7: The Anatomy of a Theme

Chapter 8: Publishing Master Pages and Layouts

Part III, “Applications without Programming”

Shows how SharePoint Designer can create many powerful applications that in the past would have required considerable programming effort.

Chapter 9: Building Your Own Workflows

Chapter 10: Working with SharePoint Data

Chapter 11: Advanced Data Access: External Data and More

Chapter 12: Working with Forms

Part IV, “Programming on the Client Side”

Demonstrates some tools provided by SharePoint and SharePoint Designer to enable even more custom interactivity.

Chapter 13: The Content Editor Web Part

Chapter 14: The SharePoint Client-side Object Model

Part V, “Beyond SharePoint Designer”

Takes you far past the built-in capabilities of SharePoint Designer with extensions, add-ins, migration, and conversion tools.

Chapter 15: Creating Workflow Elements in Visual Studio

Chapter 16: Custom Web Parts

Chapter 17: SharePoint Designer Add-ins

Chapter 18: A Little Administration

Appendix A: A Brief History of SharePoint and SharePoint Designer

Professional SharePoint Designer Book

Sep 21

Asif RehmaniGeneral Books, SharePoint Designer No Comments

Let me first start by saying that SharePoint Designer (SPD) is not for everyone. I believe it does have its place with the Power Users, and Site Administrators within the organization, but if not used properly, it can severely damage your sites and potentially your whole Portal.

My reasons for liking it are the following features in SPD:

1. Creating Sites and Lists and Libraries within those sites
2. Being able to backup your sites or site collections. Also, you can restore your site at any location
3. Designing powerful Workflows for a list or library within a site
4. Using the Data View web part to create mashups of data from a variety of sources
5. Reporting on site usage
6. Working with the Web Content Management features of SharePoint (creation of Master Pages and Page Layouts based on Content Types)
7. “Prettying” your sites using Cascading Styles – using SPD makes it pretty easy to manage this process

And that’s not all… there’s even more stuff you can do with SPD.

Over the years, I have presented many conference sessions (at Microsoft’s SharePoint Conference, SharePoint Connections and SharePoint Advisor) on a variety of topics within SPD. So it just seemed natural to foray into writing more formally about the product and educate people on the intricacies of using SPD. With that said, I would like to officially announce at this time that I, in conjunction with a couple of co-authors, am writing the Professional SharePoint Designer book by Wrox publications. The release date is set to the end of this calendar year. Here is a snapshot from the book’s web page on Amazon:

SharePoint Forums is where the Action is!

Jul 18

Asif RehmaniGeneral Forums No Comments

It just occurred to me that I have never talked about the SharePoint Forums in my blog. So here it is…

SharePoint Forums is one of the best ways to ask your SharePoint related questions, voice your concerns and escalate any issues. These forums are moderated by either SharePoint MVPs or Microsoft Employees. Then there are tons of people who are ready and willing to help out with their own experiences and knowledge. I would highly encourage checking them out. Here is the address to all of the SharePoint related forums:

http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/default.aspx?ForumGroupID=328&SiteID=1

Here is a snapshot of what you see currently out there: