Innovative Technology Weblog

As you might have noticed, my colleague Jeroen is totally wild on Groove… he kinda started the same enthousiasm in me….

So….as I was playing around a bit with the Sharepoint files tool (which unfortunately doesnt work with earlier versions of WindowsSharepointServices) I tried to add an Office Liveworkspace (discussed earlier) as a repository for storing files used in groove…

whilst trying to add a sps2003 document library causes a nasty error; trying to add a Live workspace to the sharepoint files tool just returns the message ‘not implemented…’

interesting….

Although it might be too early to jump to any conclusions, it must be noted that the possibilities to use Groove in conjunction with Live workspaces have clearly been left open… or at least not closed for good….

i’ll keep watching !

Martijn

Recently I wrote about the new ‘Live workspaces’ which are available for everyone with a Microsoft Live account….The ‘Live’ family is growing fast, and now includes various products such as Live Mail, Messenger, Workspaces, Gallery etc etc.

A new great feature I decided to explore was ‘Live Writer’ which claims to ‘Easily publish pictures, video, and other rich content to your blog’

On BUIT.org we use Wordpress as blogging software. Of course I was very interested to find out how well the Live Writer interacts with wordpress…. Very well I must say ! Live Writer took less than  a minute to be configured to talk to this wordpress blog….now you are reading the results !!

a great overview on how to configure Live Writer can be found @ http://mohasin.wordpress.com/2006/08/14/windows-live-writer-review-posting-into-wordpresscom/ 

regards,

Martijn

Microsoft has launched a lite version of whats in fact an easy Sharepoint ‘teamsite’ like tool…. all you need is a Microsoft Live account to get you started….

Your starting point could be compared to the ‘MySites’ function in SPS containing  a ‘Documents’ folder and the option to add a new workspace. Workspaces can of course be shared with other users; and contain a few basic tools…

an overview of the documents window:

Documents can easily be uploaded. If you choose to upload multiple documents, an active-x control is installed adding the workspace location to your save as list…….. another add-on enables you to save documents or spreadsheets directly from these applications to a Live workspace… ! full office-integration with an easy link to online storage…..

What can we do in the documents window or a workspace ? well, add stuff of course !! Only office formats and a few other items unfortunately…Versioning is enabled by default; and the workspace also includes a recycle bin.

Different types of workspaces can be created, but they all use the same basic tools.

The contact list can be managed from the workspace, and used in Outlook. Its not possible to add any items in the Outlook view.

I was able to add a task list and tasks, but didn’t get them in my Outlook… seems this isnt working yet but could be client-side.. (probably is…)

Every item can be commented, and other users of the workspace can click and read these posts. Each item has its own comments sidebar. No discussion functionality…. (comments are not threaded and earlier ones can be deleted without any problem)

Proof that its all a lean and mean sharepoint site in very slick skin in the end….

Very nice stuff ! still in Beta, but this is very promising for the future !

Martijn