BBC News - Wikimedia pornography row deepens as Wales cedes rights:
"A row over sexually explicit content on the web encyclopaedia Wikipedia and related sites has escalated.
Co-founder Jimmy Wales has given up some of his site privileges following protests by contributors angered that he deleted images without consultation.
Mr Wales had previously urged the removal of 'pornographic' content from the user-generated site.
This followed a complaint about 'child pornography' to the FBI from another Wikipedia co-founder.
In early April, the estranged co-founder, Larry Sanger, reported Wikimedia Commons to the FBI, alleging that the organisation was 'knowingly distributing child pornography'.
He later clarified that his concern was not about photographs of children, but 'obscene visual representations of the abuse of children', which can include drawings and sculpture.
Sexually explicit content
Last week, administrators of Wikimedia Commons, a media file store widely used for Wikipedia articles, deleted hundreds of images.
Some images deemed by the Wikipedia community to have educational merit have since been reinstated."
Wednesday, 12 May 2010
Office Web Apps goes after Google
Microsoft is preparing to launch its latest weapon in its ongoing battle with Google.
The software giant will launch its flagship product Office 2010 to businesses on 12 May.
The latest version of the software has a free online component - called Office Web Apps.
Analysts believe the web offering is a response to Google, which has been encroaching on Microsoft's core business with its free online tools.
Crucially, Microsoft will also offer its online office suite to all users of one of the world's most popular social networking sites, Facebook.
"There's no question - Microsoft is responding to Google's threat," said Whit Andrews, analyst at research firm Gartner.
Monday, 10 May 2010
Google just does not do collaboration
It seems that Buzz added insult to the injury of Wave. Wave was a tool that no one could figure out how to create content in. Buzz on the other hand is the nose making machine of content. A Buzz account is like taking in someone elses 2 year brat. You are soon flooded in a mass of content you can never read or review. Beyond that you are flooded with requests to follow from people who are clearly spamming. And anyways, do we really need another Twitter.
Its hard to decide which failure was greater: Buzz or Wave. Have to think on that one. The main point is Google does semantic analysis and search, Google does not do social.
Really Google and Microsoft don't do social as core principles of their company. But right now Microsoft is the only one with a core collaboration product that has a future: SharePoint. I am thinking more and more that the future of Cloud based computing will be won or lost by SharePoint.
Wave Goodbye, The SharePoint "killer" that went no where
It was about half a year ago. I remember waiting for a Wave account. It was like the Studio 54 of collaboration.
And then we got it, finally after waiting.
Calling it the anti-SharePoint would probably not be as descriptive as calling it the anti-I-pad. The hype turned out to be all just hot air. Wave is a limited, confusing to use, tool that no one can figure out. Last winter, as you can see, me and a few friends actually made an intense effort to "Wave", but found chats in Facebook or Twitter were easier to follow and more open to other users.
So Wave was a wipe out. How Google is going to retire this I don't know. I feel kind of sorry for some of the people I read about in Linux magazines who wasted massive amounts of time to learn the technology around this stuff.
Thursday, 6 May 2010
Content Deployment in SharePoint
Let me start by saying I hate staging and live environments. When I worked in a more traditional WCM industry these were the necessary evils of systems that created massive static sites on fixed schedules. SharePoint allows Web Content Management Publishing in real time. Real time changes are better. If anything the effort to fix a single page in real time simply by changing and approving a single page in SharePoint compared to the need to order a new publishing of an entire site should make any business see that real time WCM with strong approval is the way to go with SharePoint.
BUT, I have found that some Enterprises have evolved to a point they need the old staging and publishing environment to meet a set of requirements. This is entirely pointless in SharePoint since SharePoint publishing works with server side updates rather than publishing flat files.
But you can create a staging and live environment with CodePlex's Content Deployment Wizard.
Microsoft MVP Chris O'Brien gives a very good overview of how the tool works.
Now I can't repeat enough that on a very deep level Content Deployment in SharePoint just to have a staging and live environment separate from the authoring is wrong. All Content Deployment does is makes a copy of the SharePoint site in a other Web Server. You can get the same level of publicising control simply by using WCM features in SharePoint without having to build separate environments.
So if you find yourself in a situation where you need to use Content Deployment you should be very firm why you need it and the business should be aware of the risks, costs, and benefits of not using it. I can't stress enough that SharePoint has changed the entire Internet game. Designers who used to have small sites they could work and play with now need to think in industrial terms. Things need to be supportable, sustainable, they must reduce carbon, storage and cost.
BUT, I have found that some Enterprises have evolved to a point they need the old staging and publishing environment to meet a set of requirements. This is entirely pointless in SharePoint since SharePoint publishing works with server side updates rather than publishing flat files.
But you can create a staging and live environment with CodePlex's Content Deployment Wizard.
Microsoft MVP Chris O'Brien gives a very good overview of how the tool works.
Now I can't repeat enough that on a very deep level Content Deployment in SharePoint just to have a staging and live environment separate from the authoring is wrong. All Content Deployment does is makes a copy of the SharePoint site in a other Web Server. You can get the same level of publicising control simply by using WCM features in SharePoint without having to build separate environments.
So if you find yourself in a situation where you need to use Content Deployment you should be very firm why you need it and the business should be aware of the risks, costs, and benefits of not using it. I can't stress enough that SharePoint has changed the entire Internet game. Designers who used to have small sites they could work and play with now need to think in industrial terms. Things need to be supportable, sustainable, they must reduce carbon, storage and cost.
Labels:
Staging,
Web Content Management
Wednesday, 5 May 2010
Introducing Web Content Management in SharePoint 2010
Introducing Web Content Management in SharePoint 2010
A modern WCM system has to meet many needs across a business but the number one goal has always be to empower the people who own and create content to easily publish content.
Labels:
SharePoint 2010,
WCM,
Web Content Management
What is SharePoint?
This blog post is intended for someone who knows very little about SharePoint and has to quickly learn what it is.
Said simply SharePoint is Microsoft tool for creating Internet and Intranet sites. It accelerates the process of creating web pages by giving you a set of pre-created tools to make web sites.
Standard web sites include Portals, blogs, wikis, social networks and team sites.
SharePoints primary use is for document management. With sharepoint you can create a web page for sharing and creating word, excel, and power point documents. This gives you a more controlled and user friendly environment to make and share documents than a shared drive. SharePoint is very useful for project teams which need to work together, often over a wide area.
SharePoint also provides MySites, which can be thought of as a kind of Facebook for businesses. Be warned that only the 2010 MySites is really any good.
As for releases. SharePoint was first released in 2001. The first version that was fairly widely used was released in 2003. The product really took off with a 2007 relases (release 3) and we now have a 2010 release that promises further improvement.
SharePoint comes in a limited feature free download from Microsoft called WSS. WSS 2.0 (2003) and WSS 3.0 are free downloads you can search on Microsoft's site. WSS will be called SharePoint Foundations in 2010.
Microsoft also sells a licensed more feature rich version. SharePoint is almost always licensed on a per server basis, so for very large installation it can get very expensive.
Okay the quick and dirty. SharePoint is a very popular tool for groups and teams to share information. Its kind of a shared drive replacement in a browser. You can also use it to create web pages but be warned: it does not make very clean HTML and if you need a accessible site you might want to shy away.
SharePoint can be greatly extended by buying third party products or writing code in ASP.NET. Popular companies for extensions are Quest, AvePoint, K2, and Bamboo. I am sure I missed some but this is just an introduction.
Said simply SharePoint is Microsoft tool for creating Internet and Intranet sites. It accelerates the process of creating web pages by giving you a set of pre-created tools to make web sites.
Standard web sites include Portals, blogs, wikis, social networks and team sites.
SharePoints primary use is for document management. With sharepoint you can create a web page for sharing and creating word, excel, and power point documents. This gives you a more controlled and user friendly environment to make and share documents than a shared drive. SharePoint is very useful for project teams which need to work together, often over a wide area.
SharePoint also provides MySites, which can be thought of as a kind of Facebook for businesses. Be warned that only the 2010 MySites is really any good.
As for releases. SharePoint was first released in 2001. The first version that was fairly widely used was released in 2003. The product really took off with a 2007 relases (release 3) and we now have a 2010 release that promises further improvement.
SharePoint comes in a limited feature free download from Microsoft called WSS. WSS 2.0 (2003) and WSS 3.0 are free downloads you can search on Microsoft's site. WSS will be called SharePoint Foundations in 2010.
Microsoft also sells a licensed more feature rich version. SharePoint is almost always licensed on a per server basis, so for very large installation it can get very expensive.
Okay the quick and dirty. SharePoint is a very popular tool for groups and teams to share information. Its kind of a shared drive replacement in a browser. You can also use it to create web pages but be warned: it does not make very clean HTML and if you need a accessible site you might want to shy away.
SharePoint can be greatly extended by buying third party products or writing code in ASP.NET. Popular companies for extensions are Quest, AvePoint, K2, and Bamboo. I am sure I missed some but this is just an introduction.
Labels:
SharePoint
Tuesday, 4 May 2010
Launch SharePoint 2010
Launch will be May 12 2010 for SharePoint 2010.
Save the Date Here
Though SharePoint 2010 is an evolutionary release, it promises to fix some of the real pains in the arse with 2007 and I am starting ot get very positive about it.
Key things I am looking forward to are:
Save the Date Here
Though SharePoint 2010 is an evolutionary release, it promises to fix some of the real pains in the arse with 2007 and I am starting ot get very positive about it.
Key things I am looking forward to are:
- Fast search over SharePoint weak search
- Reuse of Content Types throughout the Enterprise without coding (this is a real headache to proper ECM)
- End of the 100 GB database limit in SharePoint (which has cost me no end to grief, though in reality if you could back up a 1 TB SharePont 2003 or 2007 database its fine)
- Cluster of search servers
- XHTML
- THE END OF IE 6 FOREVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Labels:
SharePoint 2010
Monday, 3 May 2010
As did Wave so does Buzz
Though I found Buzz to be a bit more useful than Wave I now have to declare it dead. While Wave died because it made to sense to anyone how to use it, Buzz died because it made no sense to anyone why they would need it. Going against Facebook and Twitter this late in the game with something that added no benefits and just cluttered you page was pretty stupid.
This is what I think is going on with Microsoft and Google.
As big companies they can cut costs but can't come up with the cool next thing. Small studio start ups are needed to produce the thousands of mostly doomed new ideas so one or two can become YouTube of Facebook.
After the first crop of Web 2.0 products like MySpace, Flickr, GeoCities, and Delicious sold out only to be crushed it is clear that new smart start ups are holding on to their independence longer.
With none of the newer Web 2.0 or any of the Web 3.0 major players interested in selling out Microsoft and Google are kind of stuffed, pushed to the back space as companies that did not even exist 10 years ago take over the web.
This is what I think is going on with Microsoft and Google.
As big companies they can cut costs but can't come up with the cool next thing. Small studio start ups are needed to produce the thousands of mostly doomed new ideas so one or two can become YouTube of Facebook.
After the first crop of Web 2.0 products like MySpace, Flickr, GeoCities, and Delicious sold out only to be crushed it is clear that new smart start ups are holding on to their independence longer.
With none of the newer Web 2.0 or any of the Web 3.0 major players interested in selling out Microsoft and Google are kind of stuffed, pushed to the back space as companies that did not even exist 10 years ago take over the web.
Another 8 Things That Make SharePoint 2010 a True ECM System - Digital Landfill
Another 8 Things That Make SharePoint 2010 a True ECM System - Digital Landfill: "Another 8 Things That Make SharePoint 2010 a True ECM System"
Share the Point: The war for the Slate Space
Share the Point: The war for the Slate Space
Keeping on the the "war for the slate", which I have been blogging about for some time. Microsoft dropped another bombshell saying it would not pursue development of its project Courier:
According to reports from Microsoft employees, the mysterious and
innovative Microsoft "Courier" tablet, which would have been a rival to the
iPad, is not to behttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/29/microsoft-courier-cancele_n_557493.html
Its hard to underplay just how bad this is for Microsoft. In my opinion it is down right stupid and could only come from Microsoft inability to get the core technology working. With the triumph of the iPhone and iPad it is possible that Mac quality and coolness could be presented in gadgets most people still can afford. This is what happen with the iPod, the device was still cheap enough that one could afford Mac quality. The danger here for Microsoft is that it could just become a Office based solution. Certainly SharePoint and its new Cloud offering will insure that Microsoft position will last for some time, but without consumer usage there is a danger Microsoft core could drift and even fade out over time.
Courier will not be
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