Mike Walsh's WSS and more

Odd burst of interest in my book listings

Mike Walsh — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 03:35:00 GMT

As you probably know in my lists of SharePoint books

(http://spf2013faq.mindsharp.com/Lists/SharePoint%202013%20Books%20and%20Extracts/V%20Books.aspx is the SP 2013 list)

I always try to include links to more than just the Amazon US site. So these days I also have links for most books to Amazon UK, Amazon Germany, Amazon France, Amazon Spain, Amazon Italy and Amazon Canada.

For most of these sites it's a labour of love rather than a paying proposition as apart from the Amazon US site there are few clicks in the month and even less purchases through those clicks (read zero for most months for all except Amazon US where a very good month is seven and a normal month one).

Yet when I did my regular check yesterday I found clicks in the fifties for UK, Germany and France and in the twenties for Spain and Italy. Further checks showed that almost all clicks came in three successive days and with remarkably similar numbers of different people clicking.

All very encouraging apart from the fact that there still were zero buys and I must confess that as each individual person seems to have made only one click in total I'm wondering just what is going on here. Bots?

On an allied subject I also try to check out on a weekly basis what new books are being listed and which books are been released. For months there was virtually no change so I did what most people do I suppose - I missed a week ("there's be no change anyway"), then another week until I finally got out of the habit.

Until now that is.

I discovered that not only had half a dozen SP 2013 books become available (= Amazon US in Stock) but a much larger number of SP 2013 books had been delayed.

All have now been corrected but apologies are in order for people who have been relying on the list to tell them what is already in print. Sorry!

To everyone's (?) surprise I go for a Windows 8 Phone.

Mike Walsh — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 02:05:00 GMT

If it was to your surprise then you haven't been reading all my posts. If you have you may remember that I chose a Nexus 7 to get a smaller form factor tablet rather than waiting for an iPad Mini.

The iPad Mini would have meant that all my iPad apps worked but would have been boringly similar.

The same thinking in part inspired the choice of smart phone because despite all my statements about going to move to Apple OSX if the only Windows choice after Windows 7 for desktops and portables is Windows 8, that's not to say that Windows 8 Phone is necessarily a wrong choice for a phone.

The other reason is that in my priorities the phone part was first followed closely by (downloadable) maps. I've had Nokia phones since the year dot and have never had any problems with them so why go for a smart device with a (poor) phone added on (which is what I see the iPhone and all those Samsung Galaxies as).

There remained the problem of which phone and there I came across the annoyance of Nokia not supplying their phones first to their home market. So in Finland we've known what's been coming for a long time; have even seen it available elsewhere and have therefore put off buying decisions until the particular model is available here by which time a better cheaper model has been announced.

Aside: A month ago sales of Samsung phones were higher than sales of Nokia phones in Finland. I wonder why...

Anyway having waited a long time for the Nokia Lumia 520 I finally decided that if I was going to pay an insane amount to have fast, unlimited (in Finland, that is) Internet connection on the phone I might as well fork out a bit more for my phone and so I got a Nokia Lumia 720 mainly because it seemed to have the best battery life in the whole range and also because it has "Internet Sharing" so I could use my iPad via it if necessary.

Just like I suppose anyone with their first smart phone, I'm impressed by what I can do with it, however battery time doesn't seem that great after all - more akin with my Nexus7 than with my normal mobile phone - and Internet Sharing works only after a fashion (which means that I can get e-mail on the iPad via the Lumia 720 but not web pages - i.e. it's pointless).

More, maybe, later. (When that is I've stopped walking and tracking my speed; distance on the 720)

iPad and Windows 8 Tablet comparisons (from Microsoft!) amusing

Mike Walsh — Sun, 02 Jun 2013 03:44:00 GMT

There seem to be quite a few videos on YouTube that EPCGroup (a name used by Microsoft for lots of YouTube presentations) have produced.

I could only stop laughing long enough to watch the basic one here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrZ0GPNNwMs

which showed us that a particular (Asus) Win 8 tablet was marginally thinner; slightly lighter; "had Microsoft Office" and (separate mention!) had OneNote; and also allowed you to do two things at once (rather than one) and allowed you to access additional storage without an extra cable.

The laughter started when I realised they were talking about a Windows *RT* tablet (and of course when I realised that they weren't telling us how much better the screen is [as it probably isn't] and they weren't boasting about the number of apps available). Just in fact the two things that actually mean anything in a tablet.

Come on Microsoft. Leave the comparisons to third-parties. Please.

Some Companies don't get the point of publishing (SharePoint) webcasts

Mike Walsh — Sat, 01 Jun 2013 02:20:00 GMT

Now that I've been back from my 2 week UK trip without a PC I have been able to process the past *month's* YouTube SharePoint 2013 webcasts. I have had of course quite a few to go through.

Seeing a large number in one short time period has reminded me that some companies just don't get the point of publishing their web casts to YouTube.

It IS to get their name in the public view as a helpful organisation in the SharePoint area.

It IS NOT to spent an interminable amount of time telling us what the company is - when it was formed; how many employees it has; what merits does it have in the SP area etc. etc. That is stuff you can bore us silly with if you are providing us with free food and drink (and, incidentally, when we are a captive audience). Even then, spend too long over that phase and we'll usually not be having positive thoughts about the company (because our minds will be filled with "Get on with it!" and other even less favourable comments).

So while it is possible to have a first screen saying the company's name and if really necessary a woman (it's almost always a woman) to introduce the speaker (although I could well do without her too), she should introduce him (yes, mostly it's a him) in a sentence or two ("XXX has been a SP MVP for n years and often speaks on SP at Microsoft conferences" is good) and then step back and let him start his presentation.

Perhaps the worst example I came across this time around was this one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgzZWc10DmQ

where not only did the woman spend three long minutes telling us about the company ("let me first say a few words about the company") but then the male speaker decided that he wouldn't start his talk right away either.

Hopeless and the opposite of being positive PR for a company called Planet Technologies. (It also had the effect of me not listing it in my list of web casts here

http://SPF2013FAQ.mindsharp.com/Lists/SP%202013%20Preview%20Links%20to%20Webcasts/Grouped%20By%20Language.aspx

because why should anyone else be subjected to that).

P.S. I used to go quite a lot to IBM presentations - they were within easy walking distance and I needed no specific permission to go to them - and quite often experienced the same kind of thing there.

They had typically invited in a male expert from abroad who naturally didn't understand Finnish. A smartly dressed Finnish woman (something that in Finland shouts out "Marketing woman") would then spend ten minutes upwards introducing the expert using information she had previously gathered from him or his slides after which he would be called onto the stage. At this point things often became farcical because as he hadn't understood what the woman had said he gave his own standard introduction which repeated a lot of what the woman had said only this time in English [to of course a Finnish audience].

Later: While still working through the past month's webcasts I came across this one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrRImmJRT5o

The guy talks for exactly TEN MINUTES about his company before starting the webcast.

The "worst" example I used earlier in this piece seems positively short by comparison.

Later still:

If you want to start your web cast viewing by having a woman shout at you, then this (Microsoft via EPCGroup2010) one is a perfect start to your day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSg_Jt1QFqU

Clearly people at Microsoft are deaf. (Through early exposure to grunge?)

None of the above make the cut to the web page listing. I wonder why. (and I'm still wondering whether the ones with a presenter with a strong Finnish accent are worth suffering through despite the good content)

The differences between Start Button and Start Menu - Microsoft's blind spot?

Mike Walsh — Fri, 31 May 2013 01:30:00 GMT

Of course Microsoft people understand that when Windows 8 came out and users were complaining about the lack of a Start Button they actually were complaining about the lack of the Start Menu that clicking the Start Button led to.

Microsoft people, yes, Microsoft as a company clearly not, because otherwise why should it make such a great fuss about "we have responded to customer wishes by bringing back the Start Button" even though all they have brought back is the button not the functionality.

Yet a company - especially a software company - consists of people so how come the company is taking a different line to the people who work for it?

No prizes for guessing the answer as the informed technical press is telling us the answer in every piece they write on this. Yes, it's the old "Microsoft never makes a mistake" line that you'd think that "Bob" and various other misses throughout the years would have made a non-runner by now.

Of course even Microsoft realises that if everyone in the world is complaining about something and when hardly anyone by choice is buying the software then something must be done, but are they really so stupid that they think we'll see "we've brought the Start Button back" without having a look at what clicking on that newly-brought-back button leads to?

But to go back to those Microsoft people. It's hard not to feel sorry for the people who are being forced to push this nonsense as part of their jobs even though - hopefully - they too know what a load of rubbish it is.

To solve a problem with SP 2013, Open SP 2010 Central Administration!

Mike Walsh — Wed, 29 May 2013 11:53:00 GMT

The title here is not a misprint.

The KB article (already at version 4.0) here

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2758444/en-us

says both in the Title and the Applies To section that it is only for SharePoint 2013.

Yet if you look at both (alternative) solutions they say that you should "Start SharePoint 2010 Central Administration".

Four versions and that still slips by ...

[If by the time you read this it has changed to something that makes more sense, it's because I made a comment on that web page pointing out this inconsistency. I'm nice that way ...]

Five Days Later: It's still there and now I also notice that three of the four explanatory articles after "For more information, please the following articles" are SP 2010 articles ....

(and, yes, that quote is accurate. It does say "please the following articles" !!!!!)

Really weird and very confusing Microsoft web page

Mike Walsh — Sat, 25 May 2013 05:20:00 GMT

While going through my RSS fields I came across something interesting that was listed there as "Deciding between apps for SharePoint and SharePoint solutions".

So as usual I clicked on the link in Google Reader (Yes, still using Google Reader until it drops) which led to this page

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=39047

which had the title "Reimagine SharePoint Development Guidance" which I can't say that I found particularly useful as I wanted to get the Deciding between apps ... white paper.

That page said "These downloads provide guidance on how to migrate legacy full-trust code solutions to apps and the cloud app model." [Note **downloadS**] and listed a number of "Popular Downloads" which all seemed to be about Windows or SQL Server.

So I presumed the link was incorrect and gave up.

Luckily I unmarked the RSS feed and later went to have another look at the page only to discover that if I clicked on the details button below the "These downloads ..." text I was shown the details of a PDF file "DecidingBetweenAppsForSharePointAndSharePointSolutions.pdf".

Naturally I couldn't click on that text so I had to look around on the page again only to see a rather large Red "Download" button. I'd ignored this first time around as it was just above the "These Downloads" text and thus clearly if I clicked on it I'd be doing a bulk download of all those Windows and SQL Server files that were listed lower down on the page.

Only of course when I did finally get out of Walsh logic mode and move into stoned Microsoft logic mode I realised that clicking on that link was what I needed to do to get hold of the file that was specified under Details *once I'd clicked Details*.

So there you have it. You have a web page for a white paper where the title of the web page has nothing to do with the subject of the white paper; where you need to open something to see the pdf file name from which you (luckily) can guess what the PDF file contains; and then finally you can click on a Download button which is above a completely misleading description.

Truly Wonderful.

Later: This other page

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=38839

has the same confusing format [i.e. the need to click Details to see what file you are downloading + list of non-relevant other files] but at least the page's title says what the file to be downloaded is.

A couple of weeks with no upgrades to the "FAQ" sites

Mike Walsh — Sat, 04 May 2013 03:45:00 GMT

I'm shortly going to be in the UK for a couple of weeks and I'm only taking my iPad with me.

Fine for e-mail and otherwise keeping up-to-date with IT developments but semi-useless for the copying and pasting needed in order to update web sites.

So I won't even be trying to do it and instead will try to deal with the backlog as quickly as possible when I get back.

--------------------

On another matter from an earlier post here, I've just added links to some more SP 2013 webcasts to the SPF 2013 site. Some of them unfortunately continued to be given in a strong Finnish accent. (and continue to annoy me)

This time I put a note about this when adding them but why they can't ask their other native English speakers that they have doing other webcasts from "EPCGroup 2010" (i.e. Microsoft) is beyond me.

UK Government site requires 13 year old browser and operating system to use

Mike Walsh — Wed, 01 May 2013 05:36:00 GMT

Nothing to do with SharePoint but I noticed a recent PCPro (=UK computer magazine) Blog here

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/blogs/2013/04/30/the-government-website-that-doesnt-work-with-ie-chrome-firefox-safari-macs-or-smartphones/

included some interesting information about the browsers the site says are required to use the site - or rather which ones you can't use.

Here's a quote from that article - itself partly quoting the web site

"you’ll find a fairly exhaustive list of the operating systems, browsers and ... screen readers with which the site doesn’t work properly. These include:

Internet Explorer 7, 8, 9 and 10

Chrome

Firefox

Safari

Macs

Windows Vista

Smartphones

Unix-based operating systems

The Jaws or SuperNova screenreaders

The article continues "Luckily, the service does work with Windows ME running Netscape 7.2"

Microsoft's different ways of treating comments

Mike Walsh — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 01:26:00 GMT

In the early days Microsoft articles didn't have a possibility for adding comments, but times change and after a while even large companies go with them and so Microsoft started giving users the chance to add comments. Sometimes.

In some cases this is a black box. You write a comment; they say thanks for the comment on the web site and that's it. They may or may not read the comment so you may or may not have been wasting your time. The original example of this was perhaps feedback on Windows but these days I mostly come across it (and use it - but am I wasting my time?) in commenting on KB Articles.

Another case is that of certain (not all) MS articles (such as MSDN and TechNet - and I suspect one (MSDN?) has comments and one doesn't) allow comments. In this case the intention is to improve the quality of the articles so the comments should correct information or add new links with additional information. Here, there seems to be the expectation that people writing in are genuine and so the comments seem to go through straightaway. (Even so there are very few comments of any kind.)

Finally the third major category I've identified is that of Microsoft Blogs both official and semi-official. Here we often have the usual Blog functionality that a comment needs to be checked before being added to the blog. This is fair enough given the amount of spam in comments to blog items.

However here the problem is "what is a reasonable comment?" and here MS people seem to have very thin skins. I recently posted a comment to an official MS blog item which said that their SharePoint 2013 training videos had been re-vamped. My comment was that I hoped they had taken advantage of the re-vamp to give all the training videos to native English speakers as the earlier set had several given by someone with a pronounced foreign accent. I made it clear that I was not against people with foreign accents giving Live Talks but that these training videos were scripted and therefore could be handed over to other people to provide the (native English) sound.

Given that the person writing the blog was the person who had done several of the previous set of videos in a pronounced foreign accent, I knew of course that I was being a bit cheeky, however I still expected the comment to be approved as it was a genuine comment suggesting improvements. My assumption was that he - responsible for the SP training videos - was not aware of how annoying his accent was to some listeners and thus had allocated himself to various of the topics without thinking it through.

My comment never appeared. The question of course is whether this is censorship or not. It's certainly not using moderation to reject spam comments ....