Hello everyone, and welcome to Weekend Surprise. Today is my pleasure to present the Wiki Ninja Andre Luiz, Brazilian MVP and top contributor to Technet Wiki.

Who are you, where are you, and what do you do? What are your specialty technologies?

English - I'm Andre Luiz Mandt fondly called Professor André Luiz by technical community ... I graduated in system analysis and MBA in project management, Certified Microsoft since 2001, MCT since 2003 , and MVP since 2007 I currently live in Rio de Janeiro where work as project manager it allocated in VALE.. I ´m vertified in MCT, MCITP, MCSA, MCSE, MVP (remote desktop services) by Microsft, PMP by PMI and ITIL (F) by EXIM. Im a professor at degree and master degree, and Trainer at Microsoft official course.

Português - Sou Andre Luiz Mattos Oliveira carinhosamente chamado de Professor André Luiz pela comunidade técnica.. Sou formado em Análise de Sistemas e MBA em Gerência de Projeto , Cerificado Microsoft desde 2001 , MCT desde 2003 e MVP desde 2007 .Atualmente moro no Rio de Janeiro aonde trabalho como Gerente de Projetos de TI alocado na VALE.atuando em projtos globais. Atualmente tenho as cetificações MCT, MCSE, MCSA , MCITP , MVP em remote desktop services , PMP pelo PMI e ITIL(F) pela EXIM. Sou professor universtitário de graduação e MBA.e Instrutor em cursos oficiais Microsoft.

 

How did you become an MVP? Do you have any suggestions for other community members who hope to eventually become MVPs?

English - I insist on saying that the MVP is an award for what you already do and will continue to do if it does not exist.In my case I worked with the community from 2004 to 2007 generating study material, working in groups and making events and speeches, in October of 2007 I received the email with the great news, But my work would continue even without it. The advice I give is to work by the community and do what you like because working and being recognized by the community, things happen.

Português - Eu insisto em dizer que o MVP é uma premiação para o que voce ja faz natuaralmente e continuará fazendo se não existisse.No meu caso eu trabalhei com a comunidade de 2004 a 2007 gerando material de estudo , atuando em grupos e fazendo eventos e palestras , Em outubro de 2007 recebi o email com a ótima notícia , Porém afirmo que meu trabalho continuaria mesmo sem ele. O conselho que eu dou é trabalhe pela comunidade e faça o que gosta pois trabalhando assim , sendo reconhecido pela comunidade as coisas acontecem.

 

How did you get introduced to TechNet WIki? And what was your first collaboration?

English - I was getting a Wiki on Microsoft technet event , but the real stimulus came from friends in Brazil; My first collaboration was porting a study about printing problems in terminal server environment (RDS) from my blog to the WIKI.

Português - Eu fiquei conhecendo o technet Wiki num envento na Microsoft mas o verdadeiro estímulo veio dos amigos no Brasil ; Minha primeira colaboração foi portar um estudo sobre problemas de impressão em ambiente de terminal server (RDS) do meu blog para o WIKI.

Besides your work on TechNet Wiki, where do you contribute?

English - Stimulating user groups, participating in beta programs, events, and content generation.

Português - Estimulando grupos de usuários , participando de programas beta , eventos e geração de conteúdo.

What are your big projects right now?

English - Increase the survival guide to the terminal server, study and disseminate the news in RDS environment to the new Windows Server 2012 and the client Windows 8. I am planning to certification in server 2012 as well as in other non Microsoft products. in my work I have a project in Indonézia but still under NDA

Português - Incrementar o guia de sobrevivêmcia para o terminal server , estudar e divulgar as novidades do ambiente RDS para o novo servidor Windows Server 2012 e o client Windows 8. Estou planejando a certificação em server 2012 bem como em outros produtos não Microsoft.No meu trabalho estou com um projeto na Indonézia mas ainda sob NDA

What do you do with TechNet Wiki, and how does that fit into the rest of your job? 

English - The technet wiki this today as an important source of knowledge and contribution I first put on the wiki and make a reference on my Blog after. As project manager I do not act more in technical tasks but advice the technical team to search the WIKI , we have a lot of value there

Português - O technet wiki esta hoje como uma importante fonte de conhecimento e de contribuição também. Eu primeiro posto no wiki e faço uma referência no meu Blog depois.,Como gerente de projetos eu não atuo mais em tarefas técnicas mas estimulo todos do time técnico a pesquisar no WIKI , temos muita coisa de valor lá.

What is it about TechNet Wiki that interests you?

English - As I said earlier today my focus of technical publications is all for the WIKI

Português - Como respondi anteriormente hoje meu foco de publicações técnicas está todo voltado para o WIKI

On what articles have you collaborated with other community members on #TNWiki? What was that experience like?

English - "portal de resoluções de problemas" by Luciano Lima, Its a fantastic idea to concentrate links to help users

Português - Um portal de resoluções de problemas do Luciano Lima , achei fantástica a idéia de concentrar links para ajudar os usuários.

What are your favorite articles you’ve contributed?

Português - Uma série de 9 artigos sobre problemas de impressão aonde eu abordo a estrutura de impressão do RDS.

English - A series of 9 articles on printing problems where I aboard the RDS print structure.

Who has impressed you in the Wiki community, and why?

Português - Seria injusto citar nomes mas é impossível deixar de citar o Luciano Lima , Fernando Veltem, ed price , daniel donda e muitos outros que ajudam essa imensa comunidade Brasil.

English - It would be unfair to reference only some people, but it is impossible to leave without mentioning Luciano Lima, Fernando Veltem , Ed Price, Daniel Donda, and many others that help this great Brazilian community.

You've done fairly well on the Wiki. Do you have any tips or recommendations about editing or authoring articles?

Português - Seguir os templates e verificar se tem algum artigo sobre o assunto e se tiver é interessante melhorar. e ter atençao com as Tags

English - Following templates, and check if you already have the same article, and, in that case, improve it and pay attention to the tags.

Thank you Andre for the interview.

Start the week contributing and don't forget to follow

@WikiNinjas

@WikiNinjas_BR

Fernando Lugão Veltem
blog: http://flugaoveltem.blogspot.com 
twitter: @flugaoveltem

Welcome to another Friday post with our International Update!

There are a few things I would like to discuss to day, I'll focus on the competition of course. First of all I would like to inform all of you readers that I got my second BizTalk child yesterday (a little boy, 4200g and 54cm everything's fine with the entire family), so even though I'm helping to populate the world I'm not being to active on getting more people to help out here on the TechNet Wiki! Currently the stats are like it has been for the last weeks, Sandro Pereira is still leading and I just wonder, where is the fighting spirit the community members gone?

So I'll help you all cheat so you can beat Sandro! Here are a few more tips

1. Locate some Microsoft blogs, or any other blogs related to your platform preferably from your country and make them move some of their articles to the TechNet WIki and make them translate them into their native language!

2. Ask your manager to be allowed to upload some of your knowledge-base documents online so other can learn (remember the TechNet Wiki can also contain recommended setups of different types of software, like how BizTalk should be installed, and the recommended setup for a high availability environment.

3. talk about the benefit of the TechNet Wiki to others and show them how awesome it is and tell them how easy it is to join.

but over the sad news for those ready to step up, the competition is over! I know you all are waiting for the Ninja Stick Figure, and you'll get it! during the interview on Monday.

Remember to still actively nominate people to join the community so that you can help populate our online knowledge-base database!

So I would like to congratulate Sandro Pereira and Rui Machado you won the First and Second price!

Jedi Knight / Norwegian Ninja Tord (Blog, Twitter, Wiki, Profile)

Hi everyone !

It’s Philippe talking today and I will spotlight something that I like to see for the community. It's some technicals content that are being migrated to the TechNet Wiki !

For an example I have that article about Active Directory Replication Over Firewalls in mind;

You now see that article in the TechNet Wiki !

The “Applies To: ” section is about Windows Server 2000 and XP in the library, but the Wiki article is being updated for newer operating system by community members !

This is a good example of how the community win by working together.

If you got any other links to other technical ressources that as been migrated to the TechNet Wiki let me know !

- French Ninja Phil (Wiki, Profile)

Hello and welcome everybody to our Wednesday - Wiki Life post.

Today I want to continue on a topic I started a few weeks ago: How to write your first article. The last time we have seen how to write your first article on your own. Now I want to show you how you can easily translate an article into your mother tongue or into another language.

Step 1: Find an article to translate

This is not that easy like it sounds. The best one would be an article, which you have already written. If you have not written an article on your own yet choose a topic, which you are familiar with.

Why you should be familiar with this topic? Especially in a technology context it is important that you know how to translate a word/sentence. An example: Germans normally do not like English words in their language, so they try to translate every single word into German. What is the problem with that? Another example: In Germany we say 'handy' to a 'mobile phone'. Of course a mobile phone is handy, but in this context it has nothing to do with the word itself.

Step 2: Translate it

If you have found an article which you want to translate you have several options how you could do that. In this article I would like to concentrate only on two of them.

Option #1: Translate it on your own

If you are familiar with your destination language (or it is your mother tongue) and the topic, you could start translating the article on your own. Two hints from my side: Use the layout from the article you are translating. That makes it easier for people who are navigating from one article to the other. My second hint: Do not try to translate the article word by word. That makes it easier for you to not change the message of the article.

Option #2: Use the Microsoft Translator Widget

Another option is the Microsoft Translator Widget. A very good wiki article about it was written by Bruno Lewin - Microsoft Translator Widget and Wiki. Just follow this article.

Step 3: Mark it as a translated article

Alright, the translation is done. What next?

You should not forgot to mark your article as a translation of another article. Every step you need was written by Ed during the last translation battle in this blog post.

Step 4: Follow-up

Your first translated article is of course not the end of the journey. Choose another article and continue translating articles (and participate in the next translation battle of TNWiki)!

- German Ninja Jan (Twitter, Profile)

I’m a big movie fan. Not the kind that makes me think deep though, I do that enough already. I like the kind that’s entertaining, the kind that makes your mind go blank. My favorite genre is romcom. One of my favorite romcoms is Music & Lyrics, starring Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore. The reason I’m bringing this up is that Hugh Grant plays an over the hill pop star (clearly inspired by Wham!) who does “Pros and Cons” with his manager for each (somewhat) important decision he has to make. I find those bits very amusing, and if you have no idea how “Pros and Cons” works, check out http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0758766/quotes?qt1306578.

I’m mentioning “Pros and Cons” here because it is also one of my favorite blends of Wiki articles.  Another thing you need to know about me is that I have a thing for the underdog. Combining these two pieces of information, you will understand why I wrote this particular article. In this article spotlight, I want to highlight one of my own “Pros and Cons” Wiki  articles. You’ve probably seen heated discussions about .NET vs Java, Hungarian notation, Windows vs Linux, Windows vs Mac, and the list goes on and on. As a developer/architect/consultant, I work with SharePoint every day, and if I’d have to identify one single topic that is susceptible to heated discussions, it’s the use of folders. Nowadays, the use of  olders in SharePoint seems to be considered “not done” by civilized people. I’ve searched around a bit and gathered some quotes to give you the idea…

“Everybody who works with SharePoint will tell you that you shouldn’t use folders to manage your documents”

“Folders in SharePoint document libraries - Why???  This is something which happens everytime again when you look at users who start working with SharePoint. They start creating folders within document libraries. NOOOOO .... metadata is the way to go in SharePoint”

“Don't use folders in SharePoint!”

“Folders don’t work well on the web.”

“When someone first shows me how they’re using SharePoint I look for a sure sign whether they understand and have implemented the SharePoint paradigm to document management—I look for a folder. Granted using an occasional folder here and there is not the end of the world and doesn’t prove someone doesn’t know how to use SharePoint effectively. But if folders are used in a similar fashion to one’s hard drive it is indicative in a lack of understanding”

“Folders are seen as very old school”

“I think folders are an antiquated way of storing and retrieving content, and I’m not alone in this.  Google agrees with me.  Yes, the multi-billion dollar organization has a singular hive mind – and this massive mind agrees with me.”

I could have found more quotes, I could have listed the authors, and I could have listed the sources. I didn’t, the list is long enough to illustrate the point, and the quotes are easy to retrace, but I didn’t write this blog post to start a new discussion about SharePoint folders, therefore, I deemed it wiser to refrain from becoming too personal. I do happen to  believe that folders have their place in SharePoint world, therefore I started the following Wiki page: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/8680.sharepoint-2010-best-practices-folders-not-necessarily-considered-evil.aspx (the title is in clear reference to Dijkstra’s famous “Go To Statement Considered Harmful”, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Considered_harmful).

I like this Wiki page a lot, and I like the idea of Wiki “Pros and Cons” pages a lot, because it accomplishes two things:

• The result is an organic page that allows you to exchange arguments and reach a deeper understanding of the discussion.
• It filters out all heated emotions.

To verify the second statement, compare my Wiki page to a lot of the posts out there about the same topic. These posts generally get at least a couple of furious comments that indicate that the author may have suffered a (temporary) lack of judgment. The discussion surrounding the Wiki page however, remained good natured throughout. Why is that? I guess Wikis aren’t so much about being right or wrong; they’re about sharing and improving information.