Arpan Shah provides a neat little exposition of what differentiates the Sharepoint 2010 platform. Not detailed features, but in broad areas – the top level of the conversation, as it were.

Over on the Product Team blog, we have a list of the new features to come in PerformancePoint 2010

Nice to see the feature list – now gimme the product!

Waiting impatiently for the Sharepoint 2010 beta……….

Sharepoint Server 2010 and associated development tools will run on Windows 7 – yay.

But it’s less easy to install than MOSS2007. So when you need to create a single server complete install using local acounts – here’s a how to from Neil ‘The Doc’ Hodgkinson in the From the Field series

The Sharepoint 2010 fire hose has been turned on with the Sharepoint Conference this week in Las Vegas. Huge elephants of information are ready to be eaten – showing up on Microsoft web, MSDN, TEchnet and blogs…

Technet content here

Start with the Sharepoint team blog and spread out from there.

Read Spence’s blog…pick up on people and blogs he links to.

Follow @harbars, @sharepointdev, @MirjamvanOlst and other that they follow

Experience it live here

Register for the public beta coming in November

The biggest app just got bigger – be ready for it.

Outlook 2010 neat little feature. Meeting invite shows your calendar in the body – nice.

Although I had put the RC on an old machine at home, I’ve been waiting to get the RTM internally here at Company Net.

It finally happened and I’m now all Win7’d-Up. The upgrade from Vista to Win 7 Enterprise x64 was a painless if slightly slow process. A couple of apps flagged as “might not work properly after the upgrade”. No sweat. Had to a couple of reboots to finalise the process but no problems.

Note for Vista Windows Mobile Device Centre users – it doesn’t work so uninstall it, connect your mobile device and hey presto, the new version downloads, installs and you’re off and running.

Next Steps – BitLocker(maybe) but definitely Office 2010 tech preview (32-bit not 64 as this bit me last time I tried it). Then, get setup to boot from a VHD as an option to my hard disk – details from James O’Neill’s Blog.

With access to the Office 2010 Technical Preview (O2010TP, or maybe O2kXTP/OMMXTP), running 64 bit Vista and this statement from Microsoft

“Office 2010 is available in a 64-bit edition for 64-bit Windows operating systems.  With Office 2010 64-bit edition, advanced users will be able to leverage the increased memory capabilities of 64-bit computing and harness this capability for analysis and manipulation of very large data sets and documents. “

Wow, at last, 64 bit Office – the chance to try a great Office productivity suite in all its 64 bit glory. Tremendous!

Download…….wait……for a wee while…….done. Disclaimers – OK, backup…..patience…..done.

Install……wait…..”Sorry, you need uninstall your 32 bit Office”. WT?

Seemingly gone are the days of versions of Office sitting side-by-side, letting you compare, giving you the comfort of compatibility with your main office app – seeing how things looked and worked in different versions.

Oh No, Frank, not this time. OMMX is an upgrade. Clearly it shares components with O2007 so needs to upgrade a bit-like version and wouldn’t like, at all, to have to share an outlook.ost file with a 32-bit app.

For my sins, I bit, jumped in the deep end, committed myself, took the giant leap for dumb-kind. I was seduced and entranced by the prospect of having a bright, shiny new thing which could offer me untold excitement, head-spinning new features – and which could blow my mind with its higher, faster, stronger functionality. Was this a prudent move, the action of a cautious, intelligent, experienced, seasoned, nay – (would some say) even cynical – IT pro? CLEARLY NOT.

Did it make some sense? Well of course it did. I had a backup, I wanted to look at what new stuff was on offer. So the 64 bit was the first route to try. We are a Microsoft Gold Partner with the Information Worker competency so we have to give this a spin.

It didn’t last 24 hours – small problems which gave me big issues meant I had no option but to reverse out OMMX and re-install O2007 having sent OMMX support several ‘frowns’ in the few frustrating working hours we had together. So a more prudent route beckons – go with the 32-bit version, try that, trust that it won’t have the niggles of its bit-wise bigger sibling and then spread some GOOD WORD on the delights which, I am sure, lie within.

Office2010 TP 32-bit…..Download…..wait….

I’ve just read (on paper) an article on e-learning and the motor industry by Mark Rewhorn. This featured in Prime, a print version of Microsoft’s manufacturing magazine.

Summary – lightweight piece, not giving any decent insight into e-Learning, certainly not realising/appreciating/understanding the breadth and depth of e-Learning which has been successfully going on for years in other sectors and showing the auto sector firmly following rather than leading in e-Learning.

Given that the basic automotive product hasn’t changed much in a hundred years and that GM and Chrysler are the two largest US bankruptcies to date in 2009, it is probably unfair to expect that (other than in making cars) the industry will be at the forefront of the majority of technologies.

However, it does a great dis-service to other economic sectors for Mark to not acknowledge that automotive is very much playing catch-up in e-Learning. From my own experience in Company Net, we have for around 6 years been providing the platform, content management and support of one of the largest e-Learning programmes in the country, if not in Europe, in the form of the NHS in Scotland’s Cleanliness Champions programme. This program is oriented at combating Healthcare Associated Infections(HAI) and the online version of the program has seen thousands of clinical staff in the NHS consume an extensive volume of course content in addition to undertaking work-place based activities. The system now supports over a dozen individual courses and programmes targeted at HAI prevention.

Blended learning is not the future, as Mark Rewhorn reports, it is here, in progress, happening now and delivering real learning and development.

Several factors such as:

• the rapid growth of corporate intranets (the natural home for online-learning),
• the need for ever-greater levels of evidenced compliance training
• the need for more effective (and efficient) staff training
• the crucial need for the enterprise to have a more flexible, agile workforce

are driving more and more e-learning across all sectors and sizes of enterprise. Car makers – welcome to the world of e-Learning.

Is that a ringing sound, a re-branded search engine or a reference to two heaps of waste from underground coal mining in Scotland?

I’m off to the Glasshouse restaurant in Musselburgh later today. Well established, vague idea where it is but best check for detailed location. Solution, Google maps, naturally.

Top of the search results, tick. Marker on the map, tick. Aerial view for parking and orientation, tick. Job done per usual – thank you Google.

But wait. I’m a Microsoftie mostly so, let’s give them a chance and use their Bing answer engine. Search for Glasshouse, Musselburgh – it’s not even in the search results – FAIL. Marker on the map – in the middle of Edinburgh – FAIL. Aerial view – I cheated and looked at the correct location and got some duff old poor-res photo, tick but rubbish quality.

However, the ace up Bing’s sleeve is the birds eye view – PERFECT. Exactly what I want to see for parking and local layout, ideal, tick, tick.

What an enormous disappointment. For a real bing (or five) see below – snow-covered bings in West Lothian courtesy of SNH.org.uk

photo probably copyright of SNH