Microsoft Visio 2013 Part J

This is the 10th and last installment in my blog post series on Microsoft Visio 2013 based on what I learn on the video training course by VTC on this software. First we are starting off with publishing from Visio to a web page. You have the work open on your desktop and choose file/ export and choose change file type. You choose the web page option which converts it to HTML. You name the file and click publish. It can then be imported into web design software. You can also save a file as a PDF or a XPS files and there are various software viewers free on the internet for these. You go into file/ export/ pdf or xps and then choose whether you want pdf or xps and there are various options. If you go into review/ new comment you can make comments on a drawing, useful if there are co workers working on the same project. You can also add information to a drawing by using review/ ink which lets you add stuff freehand. This information comes up like a tool tip. You can also click the shape choose pen/ then type of pen ie ballpoint pen. This lets you add information freehand either with the mouse or a dedicated tablet and pen. It can be converted to text or a shape. Using a mouse to enter text is a bit unreliable. If you convert it to a shape which is also under the pens tab it is treated with in the program as a shape and you can apply quick styles or comments to it. To co author with in Visio you need either Skydrive or Sharepoint Server. Several of you can work on the same drawing at the same time but you give co workers permissions to only change what is necessary and protect the rest. There changes come up as updates on their co workers screens. The permissions are normally set by the administrators and the file they work on will often also be a template to protect certain aspects of it in addition. To search for a particular shape you click on the search tab and enter a word in the search box. Various stencils meeting that criteria appear and also their stencil family tab for each stencil displayed will appear. You can click on a particular stencil family or group to be taken there. You can drag a stencil shape to favorites which is empty by default or right or left click the shape bringing up the various menu commands. You can use the save as command to take a stencil shape and customize it and save it in a different folder. It's worth noting Microsoft have various templates which have a vsd extension and stencils which have a vss extension on their website that are often free and quite specialized that you can add to Visio and if you have an earlier version they are frequently compatible with that too.

Microsoft Visio 2013 Part I

This is the 9th installment in my blog post series on Microsoft Visio 2013 which is based on what I learn on the video training course by VTC on this software. The types of stencils or shapes you put on your workspace often have options specific to them. When you right click the shape these are among the commands that come up. Find and Replace is under home/ editing and you will usually enter the text to find and whether or not to replace each instance before moving on the next instance. If you left click a diagram you can go into process/ diagram validation. There are various options to check a diagram and you either repair it and then re check it to make a warning go away or click ignore this issue. You can turn several shapes in a diagram showing several processes which might be in something like manufacture. You select the shapes and click process/ subprocess/ create from selection. The other processes shown will normally be relegated to subprocesses or a single process. You can use subprocess shapes but that is optional. In the file tab is the print dialog box. A dotted line diagram compares the workspace to the print paper. This is shown in page set up with the other various options. There is an edit header and footer option that can put it on either every page or alternate pages. You go into that dialog box and just delete the text to remove a header or footer or both. File/ info has the options for deleting personal information or metadata from a drawing. This might be information like the author's name and address of work. The various information is displayed on the right and you can click on a field and edit it or select the remove personal information where you just select the options. If you use a template it prevents the initial drawing being modified which can happen if the person clicks save rather than save as. If you go into file/ save as in save as type choose visio template  and then to get it displayed in the templates folder you have to go into new/ options in file and select the various options to say what is locked in the template and name it. The next installment in this series will be the end and I'll try and do that later tonight.

Windows Azure

The book I read to research this post was Introducing Windows Azure For IT Professionals Technical Overview by Mitch Tulloch which is a very good book which I downloaded for free from kindle. There is a version in book form of this and Microsoft Press have released it free on kindle so people who are likely to implement Azure have a way of getting up to speed without having to shell out loads of money. There have apparently been 750 thousand downloads and of course there are lots of more specialist books about Azure by Microsoft Press that people can but. It is an online database that is a cloud computing offering and strictly speaking the software is run on the online server and you are not given a disc to run on a local machine so it isn't classed as a hybrid cloud. It works with Windows 2012 R2 & other software such as Sharepoint. Microsoft are constantly bringing out add ons for this online service such as Biz Talk and also it does all work with some versions of Linux. A lot of people use the Visual Studio Online Cloud Service with Azure as it lets them write their own addons and customize it. A lot of people use Hadoop with the database and I think that also works with the Amazon Web databases. There are 8 regional data centers around the world and in Europe they are based at Dublin & Amsterdam. This book is a decent length and goes into using Azure in quite a lot of detail. When using the cloud service your first 5 GB is free but you are also charged on things like the number of instances running. For a company it is quite competitive when you consider the cost of having an onsite server and things like software to. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book although in places it was a little tricky to understand but I definitely recommend downloading it on kindle and Microsoft are releasing free e-books about a lot of their products which I will be reviewing and would recommend.

Microsoft Visio 2013 Part H

This is the 8th installment in my blog post series on Microsoft Visio 2013 based on what I learn on the video training course by VTC about that software. In this post I am going to continue my look at containers. These are similar to groups in that both turn objects into a single item at a particular level. If you click on a container with objects inside it the format tab appears which is context sensitive. If you click format/ select container it selects the container and everything in it. You can drag objects out of a container which then become separate unlike groups. You can click format/ disband container which gets rid of the container but leaves the contents intact. There are also on the format ribbon various options for changing the heading. You can drag shapes into a container which then automatically become part of it unlike groups. You can select the container or its contents and apply quick styles to them. When you lock a container which is on the format ribbon you can't disband it or drag shapes out of it but can delete it with the delete key.

You can apply a callout to a picture with the command insert/ callout. That is the best way as you can apply the callout to the picture it is attached to. There are other methods but they don't apply it to the picture it's attached to and you have to be carefull if you move it around. A callout is like a thought cloud or speech box which are both types of callout. There are other types too. Basically it's a kind of text box. A hyperlink links text to information which can be a URL or other type of information. You can link a diagram or text including a local file with a hyperlink. The hyperlink command is insert/ hyperlink. You usually click browse in the dialog box to add the location automatically. You can enter a description which appears as a tool tip when someone's mouse hovers over it. To delete a hyperlink go into the dialog box and select the hyperlink address and click delete and then ok. If you connect the subaddress to the hyperlink with the browse button specifically for that it lets you attach a part of the page or document to it. You can attach it to a drawing but must name it and put the exact name in the subaddress box. There is also a zoom feature and you will choose the width feature that only zooms to the width of that page. By using control+click you can bring up multiple hyperlinks where they are set up for a single bit of text. You then choose one from the pop up menu. To set up multiple hyperlinks merely use the add key and enter the hyperlinks into the box in the dialog box.

Microsoft Visio 2013 Part G

This is the 7th installment in my blog post series on Microsoft Visio 2013 which is based on what I learn on the video training course by VTC on this software. I am going to look at themes mostly in this post. If you press shift and left click on the corner of some shapes it works differently but only on certain shapes. With triangles for example it changes its constraining proportions and with a square it will let you change it to a rectangle. If you click on design/ themes there is a variants option next to it that changes according to what theme is selected. There is flyouts in both themes and variants with various selections. On themes is a setting called apply to new shapes which is selected by default but when unticked the theme has to be manually added to each shape you draw and doesn't inherit anything you previously drew. There is effects, connectors and embellishments options in themes. Embellishments is normally best set to automatic. Effects does things like drop shadows and connectors changes the appearance of selected connectors between shapes. The theme you set up is automatically set up in themes flyouts for re use. There is a setting to apply it to all pages in a document. File/ paste just pastes a shape minus the formatting information. File/ paste special has various options for pasting the formatting settings for text and shapes. This includes themes. Home/ shape styles concentrates on settings for the shape. You can set things like fill color and a gradient if needed. You can cut, copy and paste with in this program using the shortcuts control+ x for cut, control + c for copy and control + v for paste like in most other programs. When you do some text somewhere and do some in another shape only the font color is stored and passed on by default. The command to copy formatting information is home/ paste/ format painter. You normally select what you want copied and have to select what you want copied and where you want it to go to. If you double click on the format painter it copies all the formatting information.  When you select shapes going onto something else you can put them in containers or groups. Home/ group does grouping and insert/ container is the container command. Groups using a default visual boundary around the group but containers let you choose a boundary from the options. In groups you can double click a shape and move it outside the boundary but if you move the group the shape will follow. In containers the shape can be selected by a single click and moved outside but then becomes separate and follow the boundary if moved. Also you can add text to containers in predefined titles specially for that purpose. In groups text is normally just put into the centre space in between the group.

Microsoft Visio 2013 Part F

This is the 6th installment in my blog post series on Microsoft Visio 2013 which is based on what I learn doing the video training course by VTC on this software. If you click on review/ shape reports it lets you configure reports to get them just right. There is an autocomplete feature to help you find preselected fields. Selecting and clicking add lets you add a field. Similarly using the remove button lets you delete it. Clicking finish takes you into the wizard where you can configure it. If you select view/ then tick dynamic grid and connection points it lets you see potential connection points on a shape that you can add. Home/ align,  aligns shapes. There are various options on the fly out like align left. If you have several shapes one will be designated an anchor shape with a slightly darker outline and the other shapes will align to it. Autoalign aligns shapes to a set amount and lets you choose another anchor shape. The position button also under home has various options and aligns and spaces out shapes. There is an option where you can specify figures for alignment and spacing and a position/ autoalign and space which uses default values. If you hover over the button with the mouse it gives you a preview. Home/ connection which is an x button lets you add a connection point. These are dynamic and adapt to you moving shapes around with the connection point remaining the same. If you right click on the connection point of a shape you can select whether you want it to be inward, outward or inward and outward. Using control and the scroll wheel zooms in and out. Using just the scroll wheel on the mouse lets you scroll up and down on the page. Pressing control, shift and w lets you zoom to the extents of the image or images. View/ task panes brings up a floating panel which you can drag around the screen. You can choose a region on the screen to go to by simply clicking and dragging towards it. The x icon closes the pane. Finally some shapes like a triangle have various handles where you can do things like drag the point to somewhere different. Not all shapes have this.

Microsoft Visio 2013 Part E

This is the 5th installment in my blog post series on Microsoft Visio 2013 which is based on what I learn on the video training course by VTC on this software. I am going to write about linking shapes to data. If you right click a shape in visio and select from the menu data/ define shape data it lets you specify data for that shape. If you drag a shape partly off a page it expands to accommodate that shape by default. File/ auto size sets whether this is default or not. File/size changes the page size either to a predefined size or a custom one. File/ orientation selects whether the page is in landscape or portrait mode. Properties are copied from what you have set up and what the last page you had, had for its properties to any new page you create although you can still change these properties. If you choose insert/ new page it creates a new page. You can have a watermark on a page which is useful for security or copyright reasons. You generally have to create the watermark although there are some predefined ones you can select. When you create a watermark it is automatically imported into the page set up dialog box. Design/ backgrounds brings up a background page normally on its own layer. You select a blank background in with the foreground page selected to get rid of a watermark. Data/ refresh all refreshes the shape properties and links connected to a shape. You will often specify a frequency for how often you wish it to be refreshed. Review/ shape reports lets you do a report on the properties of a shape. You normally select what fields you want displayed and the format ie excel workbook or visio shape for it to be displayed in. You can also link data to a excel workbook in either a single page which is done by default or by selecting various pages.

Microsoft Visio 2013 Part D

This is the 4th installment in my blog post series on Microsoft Visio 2013 based on what I learn on the video training course by VTC on this software. I am mostly going to look at org charts. In org chart mode mostly there are either actually in the workspace or about to be displayed some org charts, there is an org chart tab which appears. You can apply any shape to the elements of the org chart and it is infinitely configurable. If you select one of the shapes and click  position you can select a predefined job title which is then applied. If you click the photo icon you can select a photo which is then applied to that person's shape. You can apply photos en masse but it is essential they are labelled so they can automatically be applied. This won't work with a digital camera where most photos are numbered rather than labelled. You also to do this use a multiple selection of the shapes. If you click on home/ layer/ assign to layer you can assign several selected shapes to the same layer. If you still click on layer but also click on layer properties on the same button, you can configure the properties for that layer. You can lock a layer in properties to preventing accidently selecting it. You can click on home/ select/ select by type and can select the constituent parts of a layer. When you delete a shape the properties for that shape remain and you can apply them to new shapes. Simply select active then draw shapes. You can select a layer with in select by type or select something with similar properties ie shapes. You can set properties for a shape although not all shapes have this type of data. One that does is flowcharts. This data isn't generally displayed but is attributes. The command for this is data/ shape data and you can tab between the fields or left click them. The attributes can be things like currency, a serial number or boolean. The last is typically true or false values.

Microsoft Visio 2013 Part C

This is the 3rd installment in my blog post series on Microsoft Visio 2013 based on what I learn doing the video training course by VTC on this software. I am going to be looking at dynamic connectors and flowcharts. Control + 3 is the shortcut for connector which does the dynamic connections. Alternatively you can use home/ connector. If you drag a connection to the outer part of a shape it will always be connected to that point even if you move it around. If you drag to the centre of the shape it will take the shortest route and the attachment point will move if the shape is moved. If you look in view/ autoconnect and tick the check box you will get the autoconnect feature and if the mouse cursor comes close to a shape arrows will appear to signify it can connect to that shape. You simply click on the arrow. The shape menu lets you click on a shape and if click home/ change shape it will change the shape but retain the properties like colour etc. Quick styles lets you change the properties to something pre defined and is also under home. If you click file/ new it takes you into the templates and predefined drawings including flow charts. Obviously there are more options for this in the professional version. You choose a predefined flow chart and then drag and drop the shapes on to the workspace. There is a design/ orientation command which can position the shape either landscape or portrait style. You usually click on a shape and then type to add text. Many of the flowcharts have their own tab when selected. The cross functional flowchart or swim lane flowchart on account of its similarity to swim lanes is a chart that shows who is responsible for what in addition to showing processes and each swim lane is labelled with the person's name and the person's tasks are placed in the relevant swim lane or column. In file/ new you can do a search for a particular flowchart in the search box. If you click on chart/ import the command is a wizard where you can either import data from something like a database or enter it manually. You locate the file and it tries to make sense of it automatically so if for example you do this with job titles it is important the titles aren't changed as it will look for matches.

Microsoft Visio 2013 Part B

This is the 2nd installment in my blog post series on Visio 2013 based on what I learn from the video training course by VTC on this software. In this post we are going to look at shapes and text. You can align a shape with a certain position on the screen with the dynamic grid. You can also align a shape with another shape by dragging one of the points on the ruler to line up with the shape you are aligning to. By default when you align 2 shape a set distance from each other, the 3rd shape can be aligned the same distance from one of the shapes by a marker that appears when it is at the right distance. Right clicking a shape brings up a menu of common commands like cut and copy. Control + d duplicates a shape and does so without the need for the paste command. You simply drag and drop it. The pointer tool places connection points on the lines of a shape that can have a line connected to. If you glue the line to the point the line becomes dynamic moving with the shape. If you don't the line becomes static staying in one place even if the shape is moved. You can add text to a shape by simply single clicking the shape and typing text. If you double click it, it does the same but enlarges the shape so you can see what you are righting. The insert/ text box command inserts a holder for the text in the shape you select. The escape key gets you out of text edit mode. Insert/ line changes the line colour of the selected line and insert/ fill changes the fill colour of the selected shape. The home/ connector command adds a connector to a point. You hit escape to return to normal mode. Otherwise it keeps adding connectors. The command home/ pointer can be used to reposition text. Under home are also paragraph and text editing options. They are similar to in programs like word. You can drag and adjust the size of a text block with the mouse. The command home/ group objects groups several selected objects so they become as one. If you click insert/ online pictures there is various clip art and photos etc. Photos once inserted can be formatted like shapes. Under format are the formatting options like brightness and line weight that can be applied to a shape. You can use insert/ screen tip to customize a screen tip which appears when you hover over something with the mouse. There are some screen tips that appear by default and if you go into the screen tip command and delete the text in the screen tip text box it will delete the screen tip. If you go into the settings under file you can also turn screen tips on and off.

Microsoft Visio 2013 Part A

This is the first installment in a blog post series on Microsoft Visio 2013 based on what I learn on the video training course by VTC on this software. Visio comes in 2 versions, standard which does any kind of ordinary drawing but has less templates and professional which lets you link outside pages to your drawing and is a much more heavy duty version complete with a whopping 76 templates. For most people the standard version is fine but the version we are doing in these lessons is professional. Visio is a chart creating tool with drawing and some CAD abilities. Most of your designs will be done at least in part using the shapes and stencils templates. This program has a ribbon much like Microsoft Office 2007 but like 2010 has a back end where if you click File there is a menu but also a whole page of options including settings for setting up the program the way you want. Show/ Grid displays a grid which was shown by default in earlier versions and there is still rulers by default to help place work. If you right click the status bar you can select and deselect toolbars and whether they are shown. Pressing escape brings you back to the standard view although you may have to press it more than once. If you double click on what is being drawn it will fill the page. The stencils and shapes templates are on right of the screen and you can drag and drop these and there is an alignment point surrounding the template to help position it. There are diagonal points to help resize it. Some commands are context sensitive meaning they change according to what work you are doing. Live Preview if you hover over a button temporarily shows the results of pressing it. There is a zoom button complete with pop ups at the bottom of the screen. The one you will use most is zoom extents which shows the full drawing on the workspace.  Pressing the control+ shift + w keys is a short cut to zoom extents. The scroll button on the mouse moves you up and down the screen. If you select a shape with the mouse you can add text to it in a default way. Pressing the control button and using the scroll wheel zooms in and out. Pressing View/ Dynamic Grid turns the alignment line on a selected shape on and off. Finally pressing control + clicking shapes lets you select at one time. I will try and do a 2nd installment later on tonight.

Enterprise Storage

The book I read to research this post was Rethinking Enterprise Storage by Marc Farley which is a very good book which I bought from kindle. Note I think this book was free. It is also around 150 pages so is a reasonable length and Marc works for Microsoft so the book tends to be about Windows Azure Storage. Legally a company has to store things like e-mails in case of litigation and until recently many companies thought they were better off not using the cloud for this purpose and used either off-site servers or tape drives. A fairly recent development has been CiS or cloud integrated storage which is where storage software is provided as well as a cloud storage service and with broadband going forward with leaps and bounds with access speed it makes it a viable option. Cloud Computing is where instead of using a server and maybe software etc it is all provided over the internet so you have a virtual machine maintained and regularly upgraded by the cloud provider and merely have to access it on a machine at your company or home. Hybrid Company is even newer and is where maybe software is provided and you can run that your machine in your workplace and that works in conjunction with the cloud service so the might provide storage etc. It's worth noting often versions of these cloud services are provided in a basic version free of charge with a premium version you can upgrade to and pay for. So you can save a lot of money. This book tells you all about the Microsoft products although I think it's a shame it doesn't give you some idea how it compares to Amazon Web Services and what they offer. Also some like healthcare providers might find this kind of service unsuitable as they have to follow more stringent guidelines about things like information disclosure and could be sued if they use a cloud service that might not have to follow the same strict rules. The rules aren't as strict for companies. I did really enjoy this book and think it is well written. Finally the book does delve a little into all the data collected on social media sites like Facebook and how that is potentially providing companies with huge amounts of data about there products which is still in its infancy but the marketing opportunities for companies are huge.

Microsoft Lync Server 2013 Part B

This is the concluding installment to my short blog post series on Microsoft Lync Server 2013 which is based on what I learn on the video training course by CompuWorks on this software. You can have multiple devices ie webcam, microphone etc configured with in Lync Server and choose with in the settings what you use. You can also adjust things like the volume of the ringer and the volume of the caller's voice etc with in this. You can switch from one means of communication to another quite easily merely select the other medium during the call and this is useful if you have to send a file etc. In Lync you can go to a website and click on a phone number like where they have contact information even one that has letters in the number and it will automatically ask if you wish to call that number. In a video call it uses picture with in a picture technology, mostly a picture of you with in the picture of the person you are speaking to. You can include more than 2 people in a video call and it goes from one person's picture to another as each person speaks. Lync classifies missed calls the same as missed IM messages and they are displayed together. It displays the number of messages next to the icon and the number disappears once you listen to it. Voicemail is amazingly configurable and you can apply specific personalized recorded greetings to things like someone phoning from a certain number. There is also an automated greeting you can use. The simplest way to start a meeting is simply click the menu button, then meet now to start the online meeting then select the people who are joining it. There are also settings for more important meetings, things like who is the presenter, and who has permission to review the powerpoint slides prior to the meeting. These have to be configured quite often prior to meetings. Also next to each phone record or email message it tells you that person's status, useful if you need to get in touch with that person. I may try and review a book on Lync as this series is only an introduction and I would like to learn more about it.

Microsoft Lync Server 2013 Part A

This is the first installment in a brief series of blog posts on Microsoft Lync Server 2013 which is based on what I learn on the introductory video training course by CompuWorks on this software. This software which integrates with many of the Microsoft products in particular Exchange Server & Office is all about communication. It works with IM or instant messenging, telephony, email, video chat among others that comprise unified communication in general. You have a status for you to give updates. There is the option of preset status's you can select ie in a meeting or busy. To a certain extent these status updates can be automated ie if away from the computer it will automatically send out busy or will automatically check the calendar to see what you are doing and update accordingly. There is a virtual phone dialler in this program and if you type part of a person's name or number, auto complete will do the rest. Contacts are kept in groups to make it easier to find them. There is typically several of these groups and if you right click groups, click create new group and name it you can create a new one. You can have call forwarding with telephone calls and even have it ring 2 numbers simultaneously to make sure you are able to answer it. If you hover over the contacts icon or photo a menu comes including various options to contact them, ie email or IM etc. You can right click the icon and choose always on top which keeps the communication window visible regardless what work you are doing. When finished you can deselect it to turn this feature off. You are able to share files and format text. It also has emoticons to enhance your message. It can integrate with Powerpoint to show a presentation and you can teleconference so several of you have a similar screen. With teleconferencing more than 2 can be in contact at the same time. You also have a virtual whiteboard within the program for drawing and sharing illustrations. I did stop doing the video training course on Administering Sharepoint as it was too difficult but am enjoying this course and sadly there is only 2 installments to this course.

Sharepoint 2013 Administration Part B

This is the 2nd installment in my blog post series on administering Microsoft Sharepoint 2013 which is based on some of what I learn from the video training course by Infinite Skills on the subject. A lot of the things in administering Sharepoint can be done in the GUI program itself but often can be done quicker and with more configuration options in powershell. You normally have to make sure you are doing it within the administrators account. A tip is if you are listing for example 10 items in powershell use the 1..10 command to avoid having to list them item by item. Managed paths if used with the implicit option let you specify 1 site that has that URL and is often used with things like Mysites. The other option is wildcards which let you specify 1 main site and several subsites all using that URL. HTTP throttling which is enabled by default and is set to kick in when there are 5,000 users although you can configure both items, lets the program favor certain types of item over others in the event of the server being busy. An example is favoring a form someone has spent a lot of time filling in over someone generally browsing. Whether you need the number of users increased or decreased depends largely on how many the internet or intranet connection can handle. There is an auditors and administrators setting which by default is set at 20,000 and you might want to reduce this but this is normally set higher than the other option because they are deemed to be doing more important work. Another option which has a big impact is how many items or rows of a database are shown in one go. The default for items is 30 items and this can be configured by clicking the list tab /new view / add items and you configure what is displayed. You can have up to 5 public zones of URL's within Sharepoint and of course each can have subsites. To set a new URL select web application /extend and then a dialogue box is shown that you fill in. I'll try and do at least 1 extra post in this series today.

The Xbox Family

The book I read to research this post was My Xbox, Xbox 360, Kinect & Xbox Live which is a very good book which I read at http://safaribooksonline.com. This book doesn't give much coverage to the original Xbox & discourages you from buying one of the earlier versions of the Xbox 360 as it isn't compatible with the Kinect which more or less revolutionized the 360. The Kinect is a bit like the Wii in that there is a sensor that detects bodily movement that is incorporated into the game. If you have one of the earlier versions of the 360 the operating system has been updated in later models and if you want to take advantage of this you need to download the operating system from Xbox Live, burn it on a DVDR and then install it on your 360. Later models also had a wireless controller and to connect these to the console turn it on and press the Xbox button on the controller. With most 360 games there are lots of things like additional levels and characters you can download. Often you need a pass which you can buy for that specific game or group of games and that is valid for a set period. The Xbox Live Gold membership gives you cloud storage among other things which is useful because the hard drives on the 360's are of limited capacity. Another feature in Xbox Live is beacons where you can tell your friends in one go what game you are currently playing. You can also download music and video from Zune Marketplace. I did find this book really interesting and it contains lots of step by step guides to doing things. 

Sharepoint 2013 Administration Part A

This is the first installment in a blog post series about administering Microsoft Sharepoint 2013 based on what I learn from the video training course by Infinite Skills on this subject. The collection of servers that runs Sharepoint in conjunction with other software can vary enormously. For example you can run upto 5 instances of IIS or internet information server and don't forget many of these will be virtual servers run on different partitions but on the same hard drive and/or the same computer server. Sharepoint specifically runs sharepoint sites but these may only be part of a company website and in turn may contain sub sites and we call the whole of this a site collection. If you look in services on server it tells you what services are running and you can uncheck or check them to turn them on or off although you must choose the custom option first. A proxy server is a service that acts as a middleman between 2 services or programs that don't communicate directly with each other. Sharepoint as with generally the software it works with is 64 bit only and it works with Windows Server 2008 R2 & 2012, it also works with SQL Server 2008 R2 & 2012. Updated software will work with 2012 R2 of both these softwares. It doesn't support single label domain names and will normally have some kind of extension to the name. When you first connect to SQL Server or structured query language server the first thing you do is check your user name and password are correct and click connect. It will also have at least 4 system databases configured automatically by default but unlike earlier versions must be configured to work the idea being you have to harden it against things like viruses and make it secure. To do a simple install of Sharepoint you select install software prerequisites. This contains the additional software needed to work with Sharepoint. You have to install a program called splash separately. Then you install Sharepoint and if you do a complete installation it installs the full product but if you do a standalone installation it is the lesser express version. You need a password and a passphrase which has been a security feature since the 2010 version. The rest of the set up is pretty much automated although the computer will reboot several times. If you use the configuration wizard it will make the process easier but is apt to give the databases automatic but strange names with lots of numbers and this can cause confusion. Many users opt for the manual install where they can specify the names.

Sharepoint 2013 Part F

This is the last installment in my blog post series on Microsoft Sharepoint Server 2013 which is based on what I learn from the video training course by Infinite Skills on this software. Skydrive Pro synchronizes with Office and Sharepoint. It is separate to Skydrive which is a free online storage service that stores your personal files. Skydrive Pro basically takes your work offline so it hasn't got to be stored on your company server. In Sharepoint something you come across is permissions that limit what you can view and what you can change. There are 3 types of permissions, no access, read only and full access. You are normally given a profile or a group like admins or sales managers at work that limits what you can do. This profile defines this. You are the admin on your mysite and have full control of that. Sharepoint has 33 levels of groups or permissions. Permissions are applied in such a way that every file isn't individually checked. When something is added your permissions don't have to be reapplied. The person responsible for applying permissions is called a site collection administrator. By default if you can't access a file you need you can email the administrator for permission. People born between 1980 and 2000 and have grown up with social media are called millenials. There are many social media features in sharepoint sites including the ability to rate articles, like articles, average the ratings, show number of ratings given and can tag articles so others can search for them. You can recommend articles to colleagues. Tags are normally divided with in sharepoint with a semi colon and you use the comma key it is automatically changed to a semi colon. I will start a blog post series on Sharepoint Administration and will try and do the first post tonight.

Sharepoint 2013 Part E

This is the 5th installment in my blog post series on Microsoft Sharepoint Server 2013 which is based on what I learn on the video training course on this software by Infinite skills. In the document library you can either click upload file on the ribbon, select the file and click add or open the 2 programs side by side and drag and drop with the mouse to add files to sharepoint. There is next to each file a .... button called the ellipsis or open menu button that has various options including previewing the document without opening it. In image libraries there are thumbnails and slide options. Thumbnails are photos generally and appear smaller than the images in slides and allow you to preview images. They also tell you the filesize with any images which is often quite useful. Libraries can store and standardize slides so they can be updated and re used. You have to go into Powerpoint and export to Sharepoint and refresh Sharepoint when you are back in it. You can click share / publish slides / publish slides / share. This copies slides into a destination like Sharepoint. You can tick what slides you're using, click copy slides to presentation and that copies them to one place where you can do a presentation. There are lite versions of Office with in Sharepoint which is a new feature in this version but most people use the full versions. You can export work from Office into a Sharepoint folder they both share. Simply click the library tab/ connect to office with in Sharepoint on the ribbon. It takes a while to create the folder but it is then quite easy to transfer work. In a very similar location is connect to outlook which synchronizes the calendar app between the 2 programs. The next installment in this blog series will be the last but I'll try and do that later tonight.

Sharepoint 2013 Part D

This is the 4th installment in my blog post series on Microsoft Sharepoint 2013 which is based on what I learn doing the video training course by Infinite Skills on this software. There is a recycle bin with in Sharepoint that I did mention previously. It prevents content being deleted completely deleted accidently and works in a similar fashion to the one in Windows. The recycle bin can be found in site contents at the top of the page on the right where it says recycle bin. You click the item then restore selection. It restores it exactly to the exact point it was in originally. Wikis use double square brackets to denote links which helps avoid you having to edit HTML. You can create a new page with in a wiki simply create a link don't link it to anything and when you double click it a new page should open. By default you have a blog on your mysite with in the sharepoint site. Blogs are more one way than wikis. If using a blog be careful about expressing your opinion on something and make sure it is appropriate as many people have been sued or fired for saying the wrong thing. Many employees find they are quite happy using the wiki and don't need to do a job. Another feature with in Sharepoint is surveys but use them sparingly. You must have members permissions to participate in a survey. To participate you select your name from the list or type it exactly and click the select participant button which underlines it to show it has detected it. If you start doing a blog there is a default blog post and the menu for doing things like creating blog posts and managing posts is on the top right. Of course you either go into blog or whatever you have titled your blog to find this. Many people do articles in Microsoft Office and then copy and paste them into the Sharepoint site because they have the benefit of a spelling and grammar checker. You may also find from time to time you have to click refresh to update the page.