• Friday with International Community Update - Number of BizTalk community contributors increases

    Posted over 2 years ago
    by Steef-Jan Wiggers}

    Welcome to another Friday post with our International Update.

    The number of TechNet Wiki BizTalk articles have been growing the last couple of months. Before I started contributing there were around a few dozen articles. However that number has changed thanks to increasing number of community members contributing. I myself got inspired by wiki articles written by Trace Young.

    So I started writing BizTalk related wiki articles. Also from my view on sharing knowledge and collaborating, which was formed by reading books like Wisdom of the Crowd, The Spider and the StarFish and others. My write ups inspired other BizTalk community members like Tord G. Nordahl and Sandro Pereira, who shortly after me started writing. More people followed after that, which resulted in more than a 100 articles today!

    The number of community contributors for BizTalk has grown to quite a number. They come from different parts of the world and all of us are collaborating together, sharing our passion for BizTalk Server. Below you will find the list of community contributors from The United-States, The Netherlands, Norway, United Kingdom, India, and Australia:

    This is quite a list of people that have been contributed and editing more than a 100 articles on BizTalk Server (BizTalk Server Resources on the TechNet Wiki). This number will surely increase as the release of BizTalk Server 2010 R2 is due within the next couple of months. I myself am proud to be amongst such a dedicated international community writing and editing BizTalk wiki articles.

    - Ninja Steef-Jan (Blog, Wiki, Twitter, Profile)

  • Community Win: How to Ban or Report a TechNet or MSDN User Account

    Posted over 2 years ago
    by Horizon_Net}

    Hello and welcome everybody to our Thursday - Community Win.

    Today I don't want to talk about an article with a lot of peoples working on it and many contributions.

    But it is Thursday! It is time for a community win!

    I know and in my opinion the following wiki article already has a lot of unseen contributors and is one of the biggest community wins ever. But let me explain that.

    Do you love soccer? Or do you like spam?
    What has one thing to do with the other?

    If you are an active user of the MSDN/TechNet forums or a contributor to the TechNet wiki you could probably guess what I mean. In the last couple of weeks we have seen a lot of spam posts in the forums. Especially in the last days, where in many countries the new soccer season has begun. And what did you see? A lot of advertising for sites, where you can watch the games live. Also in the TechNet wiki we see spam/advertising articles about other topics/products every day.

    What can we do against these posts and articles?

    What I normally do is to report every post/article as abuse or mark it as spam. But that's a lot of work. How can you help to identify the appropriate users and ban them from our loved wiki and forums (at least for some time)?

    Ed Price wrote an article in the MSDN/TechNet Forums article series: How to Ban or Report a TechNet or MSDN User Account. In a perfect world there is no need for an article like that, but hey ... that is real life. If you want to help to make our (online) life a little bit better help to keep our wiki and forums clean.

    - German Ninja Jan (Twitter, Profile)

  • Premier Web Citizen

    Posted over 2 years ago
    by Margriet Bruggeman}

    Nowadays, when you have a job interview you know for certain that the HRM manager considering hiring you will try to search you on the Internet. He or she will type in your name, and see what happens. Now, I’ve been on both ends of this deal, and I must say I’m surprised how many times searching for someone’s name didn’t result in useful information. When you’re being searched, ideally, somebody grabs Bing or Google, types in your name, and boom… The first result is you, showing relevant information. I use a special term to describe this ideal situation; I call it “Premier Web Citizenship”. In other words, if you type in your name in a search engine and the first result that appears really is you, then  you’re a Premier Web Citizen.

    The problem is… I’m not a Premier Web Citizen. I tried it at the time of writing, and it seems I’m in a perpetual battle for Premier Web Citizenship with a female Belgian comedian/actress and currently she’s winning:

     

    I guess that’s okay, because I like comedy and culture, but I also noticed another strange thing. The first link that is being displayed is in Dutch, and translated it says the following: “Lcbridge.nl – short domain name for sale”

    This is quite curious. I know this domain name well, because it was the URL I’ve used before I owned http://www.loisandclark.eu (for a full explanation of the web site URL change, refer to http://blogs.technet.com/b/wikininjas/archive/2012/06/04/interview-with-margriet-bruggeman-sharepoint-author-sharepoint-technet-forum-admin-former-sharepoint-mvp-maxer-creator-and-sharepoint-2012-guru.aspx  ). When you click on the URL, things become even more curious… It says (again, a translation and a paraphrase):

    “Mr. Domain – your domain butler. Lcbridge.nl  is a domain name that is quite vague, but because of this, it’s a very suitable name (sic!). The previous owner had a popular web site offering various ICT services. Etc. etc.”

    So, someone is trying to resell the previous URL of my web site (which I only took because loisandclark.nl was taken, it contains lc and my last name translates to ‘Bridge Man’) and promotes it by saying that the vagueness of the name is an advantage. I really didn’t know that companies can make a living out of that.

    Anyways, back to the other Margriet Bruggeman, the actress. Since I’m not a Premier Web Citizen, I was also wondering what would happen if I’d search for the names of other TechNet Wiki Ninja’s. I can’t actually write about it too much, because the results got too weird. I’ll share two things though:

    1. Did you know that Ed Price wasn’t the best football coach at the University of Texas? I quote: “After capping off three losing seasons in a row with a 1–9 season, the worst record in school history, Price tendered his resignation”.  I’ll have to assume that this is not our own Ninja Ed J! Ed, can you either confirm or deny this?
    2. I won’t share the name of the Wiki Ninja, but in one occasion, a murder suspect came up in the first couple of search results. That can’t be good news when you’re trying to go on a blind date, right?

    This is a long introduction that leads me to the actual topic of this blog post. Instead of looking for Premier Web Citizens, I thought it would be a nice idea to get a little overview of some of the Premier TechNet Citizens. One quick disclaimer, this list is certainly not complete and I’ve excluded Ed Price on purpose. He’s actually my favorite Wiki Ninja, but he’s getting enough attention as it is, so I thought it would be nicer to put some extra spotlights on other people:

    I’ll leave you and conclude the blog post with a question: are you a Premier Web Citizen? I’ve noticed that this is harder if you have an American name. It’s probably even harder to accomplish if your name is Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Bruce Springsteen, or Elvis Presley. But please remember, there is always room for you as a Premier TechNet Citizen!

  • Monday interview with content contributors from Southeast Asia (2/3) - Nguyen Thuan and Fiqri Ismail

    Posted over 2 years ago
    by Peter Geelen - MSFT}

    Today is the second of a 3-part interview (Part 2 & 3 on 20/aug, 27/aug) and the we are honoring an energetic group of content contributors from Southeast Asia.
    They are the MVPs from Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and Sri Lanka.

    In part 2 of this trilogy, Tiffena interviews Vietnam MVP Nguyen Thuan and Sri Lanka MVP Fiqri Ismail.

     

    Vietnam MVP Nguyen Thuan

    Who are you, where are you, and what do you do? What are your specialty technologies?
    Thuan: I'm Thuan, 22 years old, a SharePoint MVP (2011, 2012), and proud of being a Vietnamese guy. Currently I'm working for a SharePoint global consulting firm located in USA, which delivers SharePoint consulting and training services. Currently I'm responsible for driving the expert level of SharePoint knowledge throughout the company, managing SharePoint development center, performing infrastructure architecture design and training my SharePoint team.
     
    I have interest in SharePoint Infrastructure, Administration, Implementation Process, Microsoft Security and Identity technologies such as Active Directory Federation Services, Active Director Right Management Services.

    What are your big projects right now?
    Thuan: I'm planning a project of Active Directory synchronization to Office 365. Another intesting project is performing a health-check SharePoint system. Moreover, as a part of my job, I'm writing a SharePoint course for Functional testing team. This is actually a challenge; however, my passion on SharePoint keeps me running over times.
     
    As you know Microsoft recently has released SharePoint 2013 Preview, I'm considering to write my first book covering SharePoint 2013 Document Management System, or something I have not reasonably found out yet :-D. Writing a book helps you improve not only writing skills, brainstorming skills, but also your specialization skills which require you having to dive into much more time for your book.
     
    In terms of community development, I'm planning for the 5th SharePoint Saturday Vietnam which will only cover SharePoint 2013. I think people here will be really excited when seeing new features on SharePoint 2013 phenomenally. Additionally, I'm considering inviting SharePoint experts in South East Asia region to come to Vietnam to share their great experiences.

    Besides your work on TechNet Wiki, where do you contribute?
    It's hard to tell you that I have concentrated on only one place when it comes to community. I write SharePoint articles in my blog (http://thuansoldier.net), also keep contributing in my child (http://SharePointVN.NET) which is the biggest SharePoint knowledge for Vietnamese, covering over 400 SharePoint 2010 articles spreading various aspects of SharePoint. I also have participated in the biggest SharePoint Vietnam forum (http://sharepointvietnam.net) as Super Moderator, responsible for helping members solve their issues on SharePoint, answering any questions related what I have specialized in.
     
    I also help people by sharing my ideas in Microsoft Social TechNet. Check my profile out if you would want to know my ideas. (http://social.technet.microsoft.com/profile/thuan%20soldier/). Some communities I have contributed SharePoint articles:
    - NothingButSharePoint.com (ITPro Channel): The largest SharePoint Community on the Internet covering End-Users, Developer and ITPros.
    - SharePointEduTech.com: A big SharePoint community in UK
    - ICT24H.NET: A big Information Technology & Communication forum in Vietnam, covering Microsoft technologies
     
    I use Twitter (http://twitter.com/nnthuan) to tweet all great SharePoint-related articles. And I sometimes answer in LinkedIn

    What are your favorite Wiki articles you’ve contributed?

    Thuan: My favorite article in Wiki here: (http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/10527.sharepoint-working-with-documents-stored-in-a-sharepoint-site-using-document-connection-en-us.aspx). There are very few articles about Document Connection in SharePoint context. What I would like to tell you that even if you use MacOS, you will be able to work on SharePoint. Take a look at how Document Connection helps you via my article.

    What are your top 5 favorite Wiki articles?

    Thuan: Any Wiki article is great and all are my favorite articles. The following articles which attract me:
    - SharePoint 2010 Best Practices (en-US): http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/8666.sharepoint-2010-best-practices-en-us.aspx
    - AD FS 2.0 Content Map: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/2735.ad-fs-2-0-content-map.aspx
    - Cloud Computing Security Architecture (IT Pro Perspective): http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/3794.cloud-computing-security-architecture-it-pro-perspective.aspx
    - Blueprint for Private Cloud Infrastructure as a Service: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/blueprint-for-private-cloud-infrastructure-as-a-service.aspx
    - Private Cloud Planning Guide for Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/4622.private-cloud-planning-guide-for-infrastructure-as-a-service-iaas.aspx
     
    I wish I could list more than 5 favorite articles :-D.

    Who has impressed you in the Wiki community, and why?
    Thuan: Ed is the first guy I would like to tell you and Margriet Bruggeman. She has shared many great articles on TechNet Wiki, and many many people who have shared in the TechNet Wiki.
     
    What does success look like for TechNet Wiki?
    "Grow, grow and grow". That's what I do want to say.

     

    Sri Lanka MVP Fiqri Ismail

    What are your big projects right now?
    Fiqri: I'am translating ASP.net MVC based articles to local Sinhalese language for www.asp.net site. It’s
    in progress and I’m hoping to get the first batch out before the first week of
    August (my office work dragging me behind on this sigh!!!)

    Besides your work on TechNet Wiki, where do you contribute?
    Fiqri: I'am one of the organizers for the monthly User group meeting events for Sri Lanka .Net Forum

    What is TechNet Wiki for? Who is it for?
    Fiqri: The general understanding of TechNet Wiki is that it is a technical site and one needs to be an experienced developer or a technie to understand the content.
    Most     beginners I have met usually shared the same thought.  
    What I normally say to them is that ‘TechNet Wiki is not for developers, it is for people like you to get started and to be a good developer."

    What do you do with TechNet Wiki, and how does that fit into the rest of your job?
    Fiqri: I look for help, mostly for a quick reference or to copy and paste a code snippet. 

    What does success look like for TechNet Wiki?
    Fiqri: Having more localized content for the community! 

     

    Interview by: Tiffena Kou
    Edited & published by: Peter Geelen

  • Wiki-Ninjas on Technology: SharePoint Server

    Posted over 2 years ago
    by Steef-Jan Wiggers}

    Microsoft SharePoint is a web application platform developed by Microsoft according to Wikipedia. I would say it is portal technology developed by Microsoft. SharePoint Server first launched in 2001, and has historically been associated with intranet content management and document management, but subsequent versions like 2010 and upcoming 2013 have significantly broader capabilities.

    SharePoint offers business collaboration platform for the enterprise and the Web. Which means that it can empower people and enabling them to connect through an integrated set of rich features. These features are intranet portals, document & file management, collaboration, social networks, extranets, websites, enterprise search, and business intelligence. SharePoint also has capabilities around system integration, process integration, and workflow automation. More general information can be found in TechNet Wiki article SharePoint 2010: Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ).

    I myself am active on the TechNet Wiki on integration side with focus on BizTalk Server. There is a great amount of articles on BizTalk Server, yet this also accounts for SharePoint Server. An excellent starting point to get access to SharePoint related articles are: 

    For most soon to be released version SharePoint 2013 there is a more general access point SharePoint 2013 Portal created by

    Now Craig is not the only active contributor for SharePoint Server. Other community members, Microsoft and MVP's like Margriet Bruggeman, , Andrea Bichel, dplotnikov, Arun Kumar Arora, and many others have made significant contributions too. These contributions show the dedication of Microsoft and the community for the product SharePoint Server. This dedication not just shows for this product as you also will find a tremendous amount of contributions on the TechNet Wiki for other Microsoft technologies like on my expertise BizTalk Server.