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

Source: textBox1

In my search for monitoring my XBOX 360 I stumbled on the blogsite of Lance Robinson and he had an article about “Output any newsgroup as an RSS feed in a half dozen lines of codes”. To get this running you need RSSbus and of course the code from Lance Robinson. RSSBus can turn Anything Into a Feed. Easily create RSS feeds from Databases, Spreadsheets, Emails, Directories, etc.  Use RSS feeds as Simple Web Services to communicate with your partners, vendors, and customers - not just text, but data and services. That sounded cool but RSSBus runs on Windows platforms and requires the Microsoft .NET 2.0 Framework, so that would be a problem for my website running on Linux.

But then I tried if I could use the website of textBox1 for getting other newsgroups than the one given by Lance. And yes it also works for other newsgroups like the Microsoft.public.mom newsgroup. I don’t know if this is a service Lance wants to offer but it works great!

Regards,
Stefan Stranger
http://weblog.stranger.nl

Recently K2.Net presented the next release of their Workflow application K2.Net 2003. The new product is codenamed “K2.Net BlackPearl”. The people present in the meeting were quite impressed on the new developments and I want to share some of the highlights of this product that will be come available on the market end of Q1-2007. Please note that these impressions are based on a so called alpha-4 release of the product so things might change a bit.

Putting workflow with the business
Currently it takes some time before a process is translated in to a workflow in K2.Net. The business needs to provide the process and input on what actions should be taken in a step, specifying data that should be captured and/or processed. Then IT people need to design the workflow in K2.Net Studio and a Developer need to code the user interfaces (typically ASP.Net web pages or InfoPath forms).

With K2.Net BlackPearl the business users are given some powerful tools to create a process themselves, with addins in MS Visio it’s possible to convert an existing process flow into a K2.Net workflow. Alternatively a web interface (based on AJAX) can be used to create workflows. Also the web pages necessary for a task can be easily created via drag and drop via this interface. .Net developers are only necessary to provide more complex building blocks. A .Net developer can continue to use his familiar tool Visual Studio, also to design workflows. The nice thing is that it doesn’t matter which tool is used, any other tool can be used to make updates as well. This allows everyone to use the tool they are familiar with.

Creating Reports
Currently there are limited reports made available out of the box. Creating additional reports requires specialists’ skills. With BlackPearl it has been made easier. It is like the Pivot Table Wizard in MS Excel, select what data you want and how to present it. Options are available to export it to CSV, Excel or PDF format. It can also be easily transformed in graphs as well.

Document the workflow
BlackPearl will have a feature to create a set of documentation on how the workflow is constructed, no need to manually create a separate document with all the activities, events, line rules, destination queues, etc.

Simulate the workflow
Workflow routing can be tested for various scenarios quickly.

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 integration
It will be possible to store and retrieving documents, editing lists, etc. within a workflow. Also documents can be linked to workflows and these K2.Net workflows will be integrated just like the build in workflows provided by Microsoft. Big advantage is that K2.Net will make it possible to build (more) advanced workflows while Microsoft only provides very basic ones.

MS Live Communications Server
BlackPearl will also work with MS Live Communications Server, it will be possible to do round-robin routing that takes note of the status of a person in LCS. That could mean, no tasks when someone is out of the office for a day or when out to lunch.

Migration
Also a very important topic is the migration route to the new version. It is promised to be seamless which means that any existing workflow created by K2.Net studio 2003 can be load with the new tools in BlackPearl.

Beta releases will be expected early 2007 so probably more news then.

Yesterday I thought about creating a Sidebar Gadget but I didn’t know how easy it was. Just take a look at the Microsoft Sidebar for Windows Vista Beta 2 Gadget Development Overview. But what Gadget to create if I wanted to start easily? I looked at the Google Bar and used it for searching my personal weblog site.

Now you can search directly on my weblog, opening the search results into a new window.

You can download here. (save as WeblogSearch.gadget)

Regards,
Stefan Stranger
http://weblog.stranger.nl

At last I found some time to install the beta’s. Here is how it went. Of course I did not read any manual in advance ;-). Therefor I am hopefull making obvious mistakes.

In advance I promised to use legal software only and not to use the internet browser on the server itself for safety reasons.

The first major steps are (in the correct order):

1. install Virtual PC 2004
2. install W2k3 SP1 and the latest sp’s
3. install / configure AD / DNS 
4. install Application services (including ASP.NET)
5. install .NET Framework 3.0

As expected I ran up through some issues:

• my initial virtual disk was too small (5GB is not enough, 16GB should do it) - you will get into storage problems - okay, I did at least
• WinFX is recently named .NET Framework 3.0. At first I installed the workflow prerequisites as separate installs, which was not sufficient. Just installing the framework package did the job. http://www.netfx3.com/
• the redistributalble package of .NET 3.0 is a bit hidden, but you can find it here,  scroll down to the installation section and click the link. It is the june 2006 CTP download, final release will be open for redistribution in a more easy way, I expect.
• to get the latest sp’s I did connect to the internet, because setting up a seperate WSUS server is just too much for this test, and my host machine too. Not very safe, but the host based firewall was good enough to protect me for the moment.

So far so good. My patience is under pressure, because all the rebooting is taking very long. I must say I wish my host machine had more memory. Running virtual machines is a good reason for a small investment. By now I am sitting and waiting for over 3 hours…but i am ready to start with the MOSS stuff.

end of part 1

Last week we made a log about blogging with Word 2007 beta2, now this beta is publicly available at Microsoft.

 http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/beta/overview.mspx

The requirements to run Office 2007 beta2 are :

Operating system 
Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack (SP) 2 or later or Microsoft Windows Server 2003 (or higher) required
Computer and processor 
500 megahertz (MHz) processor or higher; 256 megabyte (MB) RAM or higher; DVD drive; 1 gigahertz (GHz) and 512 MB of RAM or higher is required to run Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager
Hard disk 
2 gigabyte (GB) necessary for install; a portion of this disk space will be freed after installation if the original download package is removed from the hard drive
Monitor resolution
Minimum 800×600; 1024×768 or higher recommended
Internet connection 
Broadband connection, 128 kilobits per second (Kbps) or greater, for download and activation of products
Additional components
Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 with service packs, Microsoft Exchange Server 2000 or later required for Outlook 2007 users. To install Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager, you will need to first install Outlook 2007
 

Read all requirements (also for Office server) on http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/beta/sysreq.mspx