So here we have a great example of a real difficulty faced by local government councils today. One of the roles of the council is to deliver information to citizens in a manner that is cost efficient and helps people to stay aware of issues effecting them. So for example imagine you wanted information on 'smoking' and you enter into the search box that simple word:
You may be looking for information on a few different topics for example Bonfires, cancer or indeed Air quality and Health. Using some of teh taxonomy tools for MOSS 07 you can ensure that your website delivers information back to the user which is more pertinent to their requirements. In this example the screenshot below shows how searching on 'smoking' can return different results but with the use of a taxonomy application sitting on top of MOSS 07 you can steer your citizen to the most pertinent information:
Cool technology, simple and easy application and a tremendous benefit to making organisations easier to navigate from the outside or the inside. One of the examples I uses is around how Search can make new joiners to a company have a more enjoyable experience as they can find their feet or become more useful to an organisation quicker because they can quite simply find information and or people quicker because of good Search technology.
The trick is to implement this technology in a manner which leverages the information asset already existing in that business and adheres to the requirements surrounding confidentiality and security that an organisation maintains. Areas where Microsoft succeeds, where others fail!
Merry Christmas to you all, enjoy the festive season!
So following on from the last post you can see here what the document library woudl start to look like with all the classified documents:
In the next post I will show the impact that organising documents will have on the user experience of a website or intranet site!
So occasionally it's a pleasure in Microsoft to work with some cool ISVs who add value to our platform by adding features that we havent implemented, one of these partners is Smartlogic. I wanted to share some of the screenshots of their cool demos showing how they can allow customers to add greater classification of documents stored in SharePoint -allowing searches to return more tailored results! This si the classification screen they have added to MOSS 07:
Will show more screenshots in the next few posts!
Some nice videos on CNET at the moment, check out this one from Ray Ozzie, the chap who is taking over from BillG as Chief Software Architect at Microsoft:
http://news.com.com/1606-2-6134071.html?tag=st.rb
Scenario based design...a nice resume!
Enjoy!
One of my good friends Jon Poynton has highlighted not only this great website but his aptitude at using Digital Image Suite by taking a picture of Steve Clayton aka 'The Geek in Disguise' and delivering the following superb entertainment:
http://www.elfyourself.com/?userid=ce8cfadac3268e564d18756G06122100
Had me in tears - nifty footwork - go and elf your mates now!
These round ups always serve as a good reminder of the year that has been :)
http://news.com.com/1606-2_3-6144305.html?tag=ne.video.6134071
I have received a few comments on the 'hows' behind the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 magic on crawling and indexing of content. Now contrary to popular belief the technology is not entirely based on voodoo but some rather clever technology - want to know what exactly then check out this rather handy little Christmas guide on how MOSS 07 carries out crawling, indexing and more:
http://technet2.microsoft.com/Office/en-us/library/87065c9d-d39d-479d-909b-02160ec6d7791033.mspx
Sometimes from time to time it is great to see customers really getting into the power of some of the technology we bring to market. Tom Baldwin based in LA writes a cool blog about the technology aspects affecting his life in the legal world and has recently deployed Enterprise search with MOSS 07:
http://kmpipeline.blogspot.com/2006/12/sharepoint-2007-enterprise-search.html
This post also caught my eye:
http://kmpipeline.blogspot.com/2006/11/sharepoint-2007-update-enterprise.html
Nice stuff Tom - glad you like our work!
Following hot on the news of the IBM story with Yahoo today (See earlier post) some more of you might like to read the product comparison with IBMs Omniview here:
Product Comparison by 'Technology and Business' on Google, Microsoft, IBM and ISYS....check out these results!
So some of you may have seen this news today about IBM and Yahoo teaming up around their desktop and enterprise search products..you can see some of the initial news here:
CNET here:
http://news.com.com/IBM+and+Yahoo+team+up+on+corporate+search/2100-1038_3-6143269.html?tag=nefd.top
CRN here:
http://www.channelweb.co.uk/crn/news/2170887/ibm-teams-yahoo-search
I look forward to waiting for the joined up training for partners to capitalise on the Search opportunity! I am sure we have not seen the last of the industry activity on this topic!
If you want to learn more and skill on the Microsoft Search opportunity then come along to the wonderful Microsoft training courses as follows:
2007 Microsoft Office System Enterprise Search Workshop
Dates & Locations:
18 December, London (just a couple of places left now - so hurry!)
23 January, London
26 January, Birmingham
Be one of the first to capitalise on the Enterprise Search opportunity. Attend the 2007 Microsoft Office System Enterprise Search Workshop and:
Further details & Registration: http://www.microsoft.co.uk/events/eventdetail.aspx?eventid=8586
My colleague James posted an interesting article on a set of comparisons that Techology and Business did between the:
Some interesting insights into the different choices customers have, some of the highlights for me were:
Full link here: http://www.technologyandbusiness.com.au/Its_not_what_you_look_for-1.htm
Hmmmmm seems like things are hotting up!
Saw a friend using First Direct this morning and this is their Christmas message to their customers - nice :-)
Seen any alternative banking humour?
Raised a smile :-)
So I have just received my invite to the new look Live Expo which has just gone Public Beta - great news 'cos now you can all have a look. First of all, what is it and what does it do:
With Expo you can:
http://uk.expo.live.com
Hmmm think I have another gift to ask Santa for, check out this cool 80Gb upgrade for your Zune:
http://www.ipodmods.com/shop/microsoft-zune-parts.html
Nice work guys!
Okay so there I was leaving work and check out what I saw....300 XBOX classics all sat lonely on a pallette. So I did a little research and found out that these were all from the testing division and used for testing games and console additions during and prior to launch of the original XBOX:
The nice people in the XBOX team are selling them off in support of the NSPCC - what nice people!
Quick post - we have just got news of the set of goodies in the Action Pack coming out on January 10th, this includes:
• Windows Vista Business
• Microsoft® Office Enterprise 2007
• Microsoft Office Project Professional 2007
• Microsoft Office Outlook® 2007 with Business Contact Manager
• Microsoft Office Visio® 2007
• Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server 2007
• Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007
• Microsoft Expression® Web
Great news for all you registered partners who want to start playing with the technology and seeing how it can benefit your customers!
Just seen this on the BBC Technology site:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6213012.stm
Nothing quite like good cheer is there!
Blimey...
So on the subject of Search and books - some of you may have seen the Windows Live Academic for searching Academic journals, hadnt seen this before personally but liked the impact, check it our for yourself here:
http://academic.live.com/
Now if you are a book publisher and or author you can get your book highlighted for free through Windows Live Book Search Publisher, check it out for yourself here: http://publisher.live.com/
So I saw this in development a few months ago and am delighted to see that from tomorrow (Thursday 6th December 2006) you will be able to search non-copyright books from the comfort of your sofa. In resume we have taken works from the following:
The BBC have picked up on this and written a tidy little article here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6213260.stm
Looks like books from the Oxford University will be appearing soon!
So with the release of MOSS 07 to technet and MSDN, there is some cool collateral for developers and IT Pros. One of the simple articles I like is the new features in MOSS 07, here:
http://technet2.microsoft.com/Office/en-us/library/527763c3-90a5-4d3b-9781-fc9580314a2d1033.mspx
From surfing around I found this site from the US subsidiary who have done a cool video about the differences and features in MOSS 07: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointserver/HA101672721033.aspx
And even better here they have some really specific task based demo stuff: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointserver/CH102066971033.aspx
No need to introduce the Machine Evaluation Workshop to many of you in the HPC space but for those that aren't you can read all about it here: http://www.cse.clrc.ac.uk/disco/mew17/mew17.html
Microsoft are up there pitting our wits against the best of the best - if you are in the area then check out Neil and Dr. Michael (the smiling Aussie) and see what Compute Cluster Server has to offer!
More information on the 17th MEW here:
http://www.cse.clrc.ac.uk/disco/
Okay so just a short post this one, wanted to highlight to you all the cool features in Virtual Earth that a colleague Vikas Arora highlighted to me. Imagine how these can add colour and stickiness to your website with the Virtual Earth SDK:
I want to:
Show a map
Show the default map
Show a specific map
Use a callback
Show a 3D map
Control the map
Zoom in
Zoom out
Zoom to level 15
Set center
Set center and zoom
Set the map view
Set the map style
Get the map style
Pan the map
Pan the map to a LatLong
Work with 3D maps
Switch modes (2D-3D)
Get the map view
Continuous pan (5 seconds)
Set alt., heading, and pitch
Get alt., heading, and pitch
Hide the 3D nav control
Show the 3D nav control
Show/hide controls
Hide the nav control
Show the nav control
Add a custom control
Remove a custom control
Show the find control
Hide the find control
Use pushpins
Add a default pushpin
Add a custom pushpin
Delete a specific pushpin
Delete all pushpins
Find information
Find a location
Find nearby
Find both what and where
Use default disambiguation
Use custom disambiguation
Get a route and directions
Get a route
Show the directions
Switch to quickest and km
Delete the route
Draw lines and polygons
Draw a polygon
Draw a thin blue line
Draw a thick red line
Delete last polyline/polygon
Delete all polylines/polygons
Use pushpin layers
Add a GeoRSS layer
Add a VECollection layer
Hide a layer
Show a layer
Delete a layer
Use custom tile layers
Add a tile layer (opacity=0.5)
Add a tile layer (opacity=1.0)
Add a tile layer (opacity=0.3)
Delete the tile layer
Use birds eye images
Show a specific image
Change the orientation
Get a neighboring image
Get scene info
Get map info
GetTop
GetLeft
Get center LatLong
Convert pixel to LatLong
Convert LatLong to pixel
GetVersion
What's new in the latest release?
All this available at the Virtual Earth SDK site at:
http://dev.live.com/virtualearth/sdk/
Surrounding this whole Search plan at Microsoft is a plan to link together a whole set of technologies to allow businesses to better communicate and engage with their customers. I have written before about the local Government initiatives that partners like Smartlogic have delivered (The Google Effect...and Doris...we all need one!! ), in this post I am going to highlight Microsoft Virtual Earth and the ways in which Small and Large businesses can use this to refine their engagements with customers.
If you want to have a quick scoot of Virtual Earth in action then have a look here: http://www.johnlscott.com/ there is also a nice video of Virtual Earth 3D in action here: Super Cool Video Highlighting VE3D
Now why do I think this can elaborate on the user experience of a business when engaging with their customers, here are just a few scenarios:
1. - Quite simply – Help customers find you..would this site look better with a little Virtual Earth for when their partners and or customers visit their demonstration centre etc: www.risual.com
2. Connect customers to your products – are you a real estate agent or an advertising company selling space at Pop Concerts or Sports Grounds? Would screenshots like the following add colour and stickiness to your online site:
So where do you go from here for more information and to get this cool technology on your website – here’s a great start: http://dev.live.com/virtualearth/sdk/
Any questions please ping me - Enjoy!
So a little while ago I told you all how you can add Live Search functionality to your internet websites, and then told you about how Register had done exactly that:
1. For Live Search Syndication: I blogged this about a month ago: Simple syndicated live.com Search option for public facing websites..!
2. The Register using Live Local: Syndicated Live Search being adopted by websites - check out the Register using LiveSearch!
But do you want some more help in implement Live Search, well the MSDN team have now come out with a great article with some handy tips!:
Adding search capabilities to a Web site can be daunting—Complex problems such as indexing, relevance logic, and hosting issues such as CPU and storage can all be difficult issues to solve. As a potential solution to these issues, Microsoft offers Web site developers the ability to implement the MSN Search Service on their sites. This article explains how site search capabilities were implemented for dev.live.com, and at the same time offers a starting point for you to add site search to your customer Web site.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=206F8CC4-2183-4B2C-8248-18FB1AF34F23&displaylang=en
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnlive/html/BuildSearch.asp