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A nice new feature in SharePoint 2010 is reusable content fragments, in essence it allows you to have a list of small content fragments that you can drop into your content time after time. To add items just find the list called reusable content and add your new items.
Adding an Item
Using a Reusable Content Fragment
The SharePoint List Description
Items in this list contain HTML or text content which can be inserted into web pages. If an item has automatic update selected, the content will be inserted into web pages as a read-only reference, and the content will update if the item is changed. If the item does not have automatic update selected, the content will be inserted as a copy in the web page, and the content will not update if the item is changed.
Better together is a saying that I have heard from Microsoft in the past and SharePoint 2010 and Office 2010 is not different. Here is an example of using PowerPoint to build a simple theme that can be deployed into SharePoint 2010.
The process is easy all you need to do is great you theme in PowerPoint 2010 and save it as an office Theme.
Go to the Theme Gallery in site settings
Upload your new Theme by clicking add
After upload is complete check to insure your new theme is in the list
Now navigate back to site settings and select site theme under look and feel
Now you can select and modify your new theme as you wish
Since first seeing SharePoint 2010 and hearing that Silverlight is "baked in" I have been keen to see what issues you may run into when you have not installed Silverlight and thus what the impact of not having SL installed. Don't get me wrong Silverlight is one of the first things that I install on any PC I have, but this is not the case for many corporate desktops today.
The word from people at Microsoft is that by not having Silverlight on the client PC computer (as we all know that SharePoint now likes Firefox and safari) will only effect the richness of your experience and of course limit which web parts are effective ie don't use things like the Silverlight media webpart etc.
Places I have seen Silverlight
What's the solution's you ask? Add Silverlight to the corporate image, that's the solutions! I'm sure there are more places in SP 2010 that Silverlight is used but this gives you an idea some of the places.
Workflow is such an important concept that is often not leverage when people deploy SharePoint. Nintex workflow is the product that we use for pushing workflow out to out power users. Enabling people to build, deploy and manage their own workflows is a great way to drive SharePoint adoption.
Below is an example of how Nintex does approval notification via email, in addition to using a webpage to approve or reject workflow with Nintex you can reply to the email with a yes or no. This is a magic feature for the mobile worker!!!
Some screen shots of a Nintex workflow
Creating a new workflow
A workflow
Author: Martin Cayford
Here i am, sitting at my desk looking out the window in some sort of self-induced trance. Lunch was excellent and not cooked by me. All the better for that. In Wellington today there are a few clouds, to be fair it's a common occurrence. I'm looking at the clouds and wonder how we can secure that cloud, cloud computing that is.
Cloud computing is still emerging in my view, and there is still a lot of work to do especially around the securing of cloud technologies.
I've been talking to customers & colleagues about cloud security and two key questions are continuing to pop up.
I'll take the devil's advocate approach and run with for the purposes of this blog. The cloud is not secure and we can't trust it. Easy answer, don't do it and keep away from the cloud. Find another way.
Except, the CTO is standing over me rattling off a continuous stream of reasons why cloud computing is so outstanding, all I have is "We don't know if it's secure". The CTO comes back with, lucky you're the security guy now get to it. As he walks off, there is a slight pause followed by "faster".
Back to Devil's advocate; assume the cloud isn't secure or trustworthy, we need some way to reduce this risk. About this for an idea, let's encrypt all the content we put in the cloud that will secure our content?
So now we need a solution that enables us to protect content so that only the people who are approved to consume our content can. Our current infrastructure consists of a mix of on-site & cloud solution, the protection solution can be either an on-site or cloud based solution. If we select an encryption solution that is in the cloud we could consider using a provided that is different to the provider of our data storage, this will segregate the two key functions of encryption and storage. With the cloud encryption option we need to then watch and hope that one provider doesn't buy the other provider.
Alternatively how about an encryption solution that integrates with Office, SharePoint, exchange and standalone files? Without having to install any client software, Active Directory Rights Management Service is the answer. With AD RMS you can protect content so only authorized users can consume content also with RMS (Rights Management Service) you can further restrict what authorized users can do with the content.
RMS helps to solve cloud security concerns. The cloud provider that holds the data has as far as they can see an encrypted blob and therefore your data is secure. You hold the keys to the castle, the RMS castle keys that is! The RMS keys are part of your internal network or another cloud provider, safely tucked away. Not sure if you can trust your cloud provider? Then maybe you should look at implementing RMS to secure your content whether your content sits in a free cloud base email, collaboration, storage or peer to peer solutions. Securing your content in the cloud with AD RMS is a great example of software + services, and the implementation of Process, People and Technology to resolve a business concern.
Links
AD RMS Client Requirements
http://bit.ly/Y5RUr
Microsoft Identity and Access Solutions
http://bit.ly/3rSnFo
AD RMS Deployment with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Step-by-Step Guide
http://bit.ly/3lkIF3
Software plus services
http://bit.ly/bnd5o
"The AD RMS Castle"
More progressive improvement in office (outlook) 2010, the ignore function has to be one of the small winners in outlook. With the click of a button the no longer to I have to see a conversation thread. This will save me heaps of time not having to tidy up after other peoples "noise" email habits! And i like the small changes to the Junk mail interface
I have just really started to get into Office 2010 and like so many other people Outlook is the office product I use the most, one of the things i have grown over the years to appreciate with Microsoft products is the way they deliver heaps of small improvements to my working life, the improvements may only save a minute here and a minute there but as we all know the minutes add up. Anyway here is an example in outlook 2010 of a small improvement
I am using Outlook and reading an email, I then decide rather than a long winded email back I will call the chap that emailed me, so from outlook i just click on more actions in the top nav bar and right there in the drop down menu is the call option. This demonstrates the integration between Outlook and Office Communication server. Quick, simple and easy just the way I like it!
During my flight up to the US last week I was watching a presentation from MIX 09 that I had downloaded and the presenter was talking about IE 8 and how well it was doing at reducing malware issues. Check out the bar graph below.
From the report "It used to be true that the majority of viruses and other malware were delivered via email and/or physical disk. That is no longer the case. Current trends show over 50% of malware infections occur via Internet download."
http://nsslabs.com/test-reports/NSS%20Labs%20Browser%20Security%20Test%20-%20Socially%20Engineered%20Malware.pdf
So IE 8 it is then!! If you are running IE 7, then I suggest you upgrade real soon!
During one of the keynotes at the Microsoft WPC 09 the problems Steps recorder was demo'ed which is in Win 7
Man this is a neat wee tool below is a screen shot of what you see can get out of it. This a great tool for testers and clients to submit feedback.