A blog that I recently wrote for SharePoint Pro Magazine was just published today. It’s a blog about Information Architecture and Information management.
The premise of the blog is that I spend a lot of time talking to customers about these concepts and it is clear that there is a lack of understanding around the concepts. This blog (a two part series) is an explaination and introduction to the core concepts that customers will need to address in their own implementations. Have a look here!
Here’s a list of Windows 8 Keyboard Shortcuts that I got from a MSFT Help Desk Engineer. Just thought I would share. Enjoy!
| Windows 8 Keyboard Shortcuts – | ||
| Shortcut | Action | |
| Ctrl+Shift+Esc | Starts Task Manager. | |
| Windows (tap) | Toggles between the Start screen and the foremost running app (Metro-style) or the Windows Desktop. | |
| Windows+, | Peeks at the Windows desktop. | |
| Windows+. | Snaps application to the left. | |
| Windows+/ | Initiate input method editor (IME) reconversion. | |
| Windows+1, Windows+2, etc. | Switch to the (classic) Windows desktop and launch the nth shortcut in the Windows taskbar. So WINKEY + 1 would launch whichever application is first in the list, from left to right. | |
| Windows+Arrow Keys | Aero Snap. | |
| Windows+B | Switch to the (classic) Windows desktop and select the tray notification area. | |
| Windows+C | Display Charms and time/date/notification overlay. | |
| Windows+Ctrl+Tab | Cycle through apps, snapping them as you go. | |
| Windows+D | Toggle Show Desktop (hides/shows any applications and other windows). | |
| Windows+E | Launch Windows Explorer with Computer view displayed. | |
| Windows+Enter | Launch Narrator. | |
| Windows+F | Search Files using the new Windows Search pane. | |
| Windows+H | Open the Share charm. | |
| Windows+I | Display Settings charm. | |
| Windows+J | Swap foreground between the snapped and filled apps. | |
| Windows+K | Display Connect charm. | |
| Windows+L | Lock PC and return to Lock screen. | |
| Windows+M | Minimize the selected Explorer window. | |
| Windows+O | Toggle orientation switching on slate and tablet PCs. | |
| Windows+P | Display the new Project (for “projection”) pane for choosing between available displays. | |
| Windows+PgDown | Move the Start Screen or a Metro-style application to the monitor on the right. | |
| Windows+PgUp | Move the Start Screen or a Metro-style application to the monitor on the left. | |
| Windows+Q | Open the Search pane. | |
| Windows+R | Display Run box. | |
| Windows+Shift-. | Move the gutter to the left (snap an application). | |
| Windows+Shift+. | Snaps application to the right. | |
| Windows+Shift+Tab | Cycle through apps in reverse order. | |
| Windows+Shift+V | Cycles through Notification toasts in reverse order. | |
| Windows+Spacebar | Switch input language and keyboard layout. | |
| Windows+Tab | Cycle through apps. | |
| Windows+U | Launch Ease of Access Center. | |
| Windows+V | Cycles through Notification toasts. | |
| Windows+W | Display Settings Search pane | |
| Windows+X | Access the advanced context menu on the Start preview tip. | |
| Windows+Z | Open the App Bar. |
In addition to SPSLA, which I just posted about, I’m going to be presenting sessions at SharePoint Saturday Silicon Valley as well! The event is on Saturday June 22nd, 2013 in Palo Alto, CA.
I’ll be presenting a search topic or two (duh!) and am really looking forward to meeting speakers and attendees in my new region!
For more info go to http://spsevents.org/city/siliconvalley/SPSSV2013/Pages/Home.aspx
Not a ton of content there yet, but keep checking back for listings on the speaker lineup and session details.
Hope to see you there!
Happy to report that I’ll be presenting a session at SharePoint Saturday Los Angeles! More details to come but it is going to be about SharePoint 2013 search!
The event is taking place Saturday May 18th, 2013 at the Santa Monica College in beautiful Santa Monica.
Specific sessions haven’t yet been announced, but so far the speaker lineup is looking great. A lot of familiar names and faces like Eric Overfield, Ivan Sanders, Naomi Moneypenny, Randy Williams and a whole bunch of others that I’m looking forward to meeting.
I’ll post more info about my sessions soon, but in the meantime find more info here: http://spsevents.org/city/la/SPSLA2013/Pages/Home.aspx
In my last post about my new demo rig and demo/dev environments I mentioned that I would be putting together various “content packs” that I could use to automatically add content and users to my demo environments. In that spirit I’ve started by creating some scripts and assets to add 50 sample users along with their photos to Active Directory (AD) and the SharePoint 2013 User Profile store.
Because I’m pompous, I chose to use 50 of history’s famous authors as the sample users 
True, it doesn’t make for a “realistic” experience, but it tickles me to see Shakespeare and Steven King collaborate on documents together.
The package I created can be found here on CodePlex.
In the package you’ll find:
- A CSV file with all the test users
- A PowerShell script that iterates over the users in the CSV and adds them to AD
- A folder containing all the photos of the users
- A PowerShell script mapping the user photos to the new sample users
To add the users:
- Change variables in the AddUsersToAD.ps1 script appropriate to your environment and run on the domain controller to add users to the domain
- Configure and run your UPS Sync as you normally would
- Drag the photos in the UserPhotos folder into the User Photos folder (typically http://[host name]/User%20Photos/)
- Change variables in the Map_User_Photos.ps1 script appropriate to your environment and run on a SharePoint Server
- You should now have 50 new users in SharePoint with photos
Obviously I could have automated this more and even added more options but this was enough for me. I can add users to any environment within 15 minutes or so.
Hope it proves helpful for some of you!
See screenshot below…
OK – this is a little nerdy, but when working with Server platforms it can be a little awkward to set up dev and demo environments. People have all different strategies from hosted environments, running VMs on external hard drives, using cloud solutions such as CloudShare and everything in between. I’m always on the lookout for different and better options so I appreciate when folks share what they are doing. So in this post I’ll do the same.
I’ve decided to set up a local Hyper-V environment hosted on my laptop running Windows 8. Let’s start with the specs.
Hardware
I have a Lenovo W530 series laptop with one standard issue spindle hard-drive and a second solid state hard drive (SSD) each 500GB. I’ve reserved the SSD completely for running my virtual machines to isolate the host from the VMs from a disk perspective.
I’ve got 32 GB of RAM and a quad core Intel i7 2.60 GHz processors with 8 logical cores.
Software
I’m running Windows 8 Enterprise 64-bit with the Hyper-V role enabled.
My Setup
I wanted to set up an environment that could cover as many different needs and scenarios as possible. Here are some of the requirements I set out to cover:
- Run both SharePoint 2010 and 2013 farms
- Set up multiple domains so that I could test and experiment with cross-domain challenges and issues
- Run both single-server farms as well as multi-server topologies
Here’s how I went about it:
For my single server 2013 farm, I used the “SharePoint 2013 Setup Guide for Developers for SharePoint 2013 RTM” created by Critical Path Training. I definitely recommend it as it walks you through from setting up your virtual NICs and configuring your OS to configuring your environment for APP development and host header site collections. If you follow this guide you will create a domain called wingtip.com and that’s one of my two domains.
As I mentioned, I wanted multiple domains and so my next step was to set up a second domain which I called it olenick.com. My plan is to basically use the olenick.com domain for everything except the single-server 2013 farm which is covered by my wingtip environment. In the olenick.com domain I have a domain controller (DC), a dedicated SQL Server and then any number of SharePoint farms that are attached to my domain and shared SQL server.
To make life easier for myself, as I was setting up the first environment using Critical Path’s document, I saved my virtual hard drive (VHD) to use as a base image. That way as I’m spinning up new servers, I have a base Windows Server hard drive with all the updates installed which saves a TON of time - installing updates takes FOREVER! I also create base images for other purposes. For example I have one with all SharePoint prereqs and bits installed, but the configuration wizard is not run yet. I also have base images with visual studio and Microsoft Office installed.
So ultimately here is what my environment looks like. This allows me to play with SharePoint 2010 and 2013. Explore working with multiple domains for search crawling and other scenarios. And I also have an Office 365 environment which I will use with my local dev environment to experiment with hybrid scenarios.
I don’t necessarily run this all at once, but I can cover a lot of bases with this!
Lastly, in the past I’ve used Microsoft’s IW Demo environment out of convenience because it comes with all the software installed, plus content and users! But, I’ve been burned enough times now with this quirky environment that I’m going to build my own from now on. And that means I need to create my own content. I plan to create some “content packs” which are deployable packages that add content to an existing farm. Stay tuned as I’ll post what I come up with and learn during that process!
Microsoft has made some huge investments in SharePoint’s eDiscovery capabilities in the latest release. Follow the link below to ready my blog on MSDN about this updated feature set!
