SharePoint Mania

For a beginner, grasping SharePoint through Google searches is very tiresome and exasperating because of the vast amount of information on the subject. I found several articles and blogs that could help a beginner to understand SharePoint. Here are a some links:

1. Start Here:
Here you will get a easy to understand and comprehensive introduction to SharePoint and to the common abbreviations used. Use this to get you started.
http://www.sharepointblogs.com/fortheuser/archive/2007/10/12/understanding-that-quot-sharepoint-quot-is-a-really-broad-label.aspx

2. Next Stop:
If SharePoint is not already installed and you are going to install SharePoint, browse the following link. It has breakdown of all the licences, and the features in each edition. Here you can compare the features of each and find out which edition is most suitable for you.
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointserver/HA101978031033.aspx

3. Next Stop:
So you have SharePoint and you want to know how to get something done with it. Before you start googling, you would want to find out the edition and version of SharePoint you are running. The following link has a guide on how to find out what edition and version of SharePoint you are running. And what each version number means.
http://mindsharpblogs.com/penny/articles/481.aspx

4: And finally:
Now that you have a basic idea of SharePoint and know what version of SharePoint you you have installed, you can start googling to find the information you need.

Some of the information I have needed are below:

For customising SharePoint - Introduction to Application Templates and how to install them:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc288412.aspx

If you need to persuade your boss to purschase MOSS - Adventages of MOSS
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointserver/HA101655201033.aspx
http://www.andrewconnell.com/blog/archive/2006/10/18/4910.aspx

You might be running WSS 3 only and may need some functionality. The following are not possible with WSS 3 (These are the most commonly sought features I've come across)

Authenticated RSS feeds
Form Services
Excel Services
Workflows
Displaying Information on Charts (Not out of the box)

And guys if you find any thing else interesting and relavant please don't hesitate to comment.


Thilina Randombage

Blogging

Hey Everyone what you are reading now is my first blog. Some time back I was wondering why people blog. I could think of the following reasons:

To share knowledge and experiences with everyone
To make a name for themselves among the Internet community
To pass time
To demonstrate writing skills

Or a combination of the above.
Those were the things that came to my mind.

The main reason that I started to blog was to keep a track of solutions I find to problems at work.

I currently work as an IT Help desk Administrator and there are many issues that I have to do research on, on a daily basis. So I figured that a blog is the best way because it is accessible to me from anywhere and it can be indexed by search engines and will be useful to others facing the same problem.

I hope to keep this blog to updated with all the problems and solutions that I used to overcome them they happen. Hope you find it useful and comments and feedback are always welcome.