Learn, Build, Grow...Intelligent Collaboration: February 2008

Thursday, February 28, 2008

SQL Server 2008 FEB CTP

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 CTP, February 2008
Instructions
This Community Technology Preview is available in two downloadable formats: an image file that you can use to burn your own DVD and a self-extracting executable file that will allow you to download and install without a DVD burner (the Express version of the package is only available in the self-extracting format).

Step 1: Click one of the following links to download the file you want. View the Readme file by selecting the link from the Additional Information section of this page.

DVD image files:
X86 DVD Image
X64 DVD Image
IA64 DVD Image

Self-extracting executables:
X86 Executable
X64 Executable
IA64 Executable
Express 2008 Executable

Step 2: Follow the instructions for the type of file you've downloaded.

For DVD image files:
Using your DVD-burning software, select the options to burn a DVD from an .ISO image. When you are prompted for a file to use, select the image file that you downloaded. After burning the DVD, locate and double-click Setup.exe on the DVD to begin the installation.

For self-extracting executable files:
Run the downloaded file. You will be prompted to choose a location to extract the files to, which you can change if you want. To start the extraction, click Next. After the extraction finishes, go to the directory that you extracted the files to. Locate and double-click Setup.exe to begin the installation.

Edcon gives Harvey Jones, Solver the nod for PerformancePoint roll-out

ITWeb :Edcon gives Harvey Jones, Solver the nod for PerformancePoint roll-out: "Harvey Jones, one of South Africa's leading business intelligence companies, and global Microsoft business intelligence specialist Solver, have been jointly chosen by retail giant Edcon to provide a leading role in the roll-out of the recently released Microsoft PerformancePoint."

Advanced Dashboard Creation with PerformancePoint Server 2007

Advanced Dashboard Creation with PerformancePoint Server 2007 (Level 300)

When: March 28 @ 8am (PST)

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Pentaho open source BI attracts more VC dollars

Pentaho, a US-based provider of open source business intelligence (BI) software, has secured a $12m round of Series C venture capital funding led by Benchmark Capital. Pentaho will use the money to accelerate its product development and expand internationally.

Comment: This is an impressive third-round of investment by Pentaho, bringing its total funding to date to $26m. It also shows that despite more cautious and conservative VC spending, open source software still continues to garner attention. The lead involvement of Benchmark is no surprise as it has a contrarian history of backing open source firms - BI being the latest segment it is targeting. It has also placed bets on open source firms like Red Hat, Zimbra and MySQL (which was acquired by Sun Microsystems last month).

Open source is one of three disruptive technologies - software-as-a-service and pre-loaded appliances - that are changing the long held status quo of the BI market, characterised by on-premise software vendors like Business Objects, Cognos and Hyperion Solutions (now part of SAP, IBM and Oracle respectively) selling proprietary and premium-priced tools and applications.

The formation of Pentaho is part of a trend of former executives of proprietary software firms to bootstrap new companies using open source in various application domains.

Pentaho isn't the only open source BI vendor in the market today. But it is certainly the most ambitious play right now, offering a broad suite of functionality covering front-end enterprise query and reporting, OLAP analysis, data mining and dashboards and back-end data integration. The suite has grown in part by incorporating open source projects like Kettle, Mondrian and Weka. Others like JasperSoft and Actuate are also selling open source BI products, but have largely targeted developers with embeddable Java reporting engines.

Pentaho's suite has far greater ambitions - enterprise BI. But that also means convincing customers that have invested large sums of money on traditional on-premise software that they can do just as good a job. So far uptake has been brisk. In the four years it has been doing business, Pentaho boasts three million downloads and has over 20,000 registered community members. Customers include Cox Communications, Monsanto and the US Naval Air command. IT vendors like Savvion and Sun are also listed as users.

With source code maturing and a development community both taking shape nicely, it is up to Pentaho to monetise that interest and uptake, in the form of commercial open source licences. Commercial open source might sound like an oxymoron. But it's the only way right now to make open source work for the enterprise, giving customers a level of fall-back, guarantee and accountability (i.e. neck to choke if something goes seriously pear-shaped).

Another monetisation route is to exploit the openness of the source data in the form of mash-ups and integrated product offerings. Pentaho has already worked with Google to deliver a location intelligence dashboard that mashes up its BI software with Google Maps. Pentaho has also worked to integrate its BI software with columnar database provider Vertica and has struck a deal to certify its BI software to work with Greenplum's Bizgres-based data warehousing appliance platform and also engage in joint sales and marketing.

The latter catches the spirit of LAMP-stack (Linux, Apache Web Server, MySQL and PHP, Perl and Python) thinking for an integrated vision of source software working in concert. With more companies looking closely at integrated BI suites, the challenge for open source BI vendors is to work more tightly with each other, both with and outside of different technology domains. Interoperability standards and partnerships between open source BI systems are therefore key to pushing open source BI into mainstream computing environments.

The low hanging fruit for open source BI today might be restricted to developers and small- to medium-sized enterprises. But capturing a significant share of the enterprise BI market, which is Pentaho's ultimate goal, is still some way off. It's unlikely that Cognos, Business Objects and Hyperion customers are going to pull the plug on their investments tomorrow in favour of open source. Nevertheless the challenge of open source and other disruptive forces will press proprietary BI vendors to reconsider their own product licensing and pricing schemes. The net result can only be good for customers - more, flexible, cheaper and easier to use BI software.

Jason Morales' Microsoft BI Update v.17 - February

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Official Release- SharePoint Asset Inventory Tool Executive Overview

SharePoint Asset Inventory Tool Executive Overview: "The wide availability of Windows® SharePoint® Services (WSS) 3.0 and the explosive popularity of Microsoft® Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 in enterprise environments, combined with the widespread use of online collaboration tools, have resulted in a proliferation of SharePoint technologies that sometimes escape the notice of IT.
SharePoint servers that are not managed by IT often host business-critical Web sites, applications, documents, and processes. It is vital to the health of the organization that these servers are brought under corporate IT management and oversight.
The SharePoint Asset Inventory Tool allows IT professionals to inventory all of the computers in the network and identify servers that have SharePoint installed on them. The information gathered by the tool is used to generate reports that give IT the information it needs to bring the servers under its control. This allows the resources of the ever-changing SharePoint environment to be optimized and adjusted as needed."

Slashdot | Microsoft Pulls Vista SP1 Update

Slashdot Microsoft Pulls Vista SP1 Update: "'news.com reports that Microsoft is withdrawing SP1 for Vista. Nick White, Microsoft product manager blogged 'We've heard a few reports about problems customers may be experiencing as a result of KB937287,' wrote White. 'Immediately after receiving reports of this error, we made the decision to temporarily suspend automatic distribution of the update to avoid further customer impact while we investigate possible causes.''"

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Delivering Pervasive Business Intelligence: Whitepaper

Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007
Delivering Pervasive Business Intelligence
Business Intelligence solutions have historically required complex analytical tools. Although common reports are accessible to many users, only power users have access to the analytical tools to drill into the details and gain deep insight. This situation results in poor adoption within the business, keeping key knowledge isolated in silos around the business - accessible by relatively few people.
Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 aims to bring Business Intelligence to everyone, utilising a set of technologies with which business users are already familiar – Microsoft Excel and SharePoint Server.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

5 Tips for Becoming a Better Data Modeler

5 Tips for Becoming a Better Data Modeler: "The Summary
To start with, here are the 5 tips summarized:
1) Educate yourself on data fundamentals
2) Learn the various success criteria against which a design can be judged
3) Expose yourself to other software modeling disciplines
4) Devise techniques to ease design changes for your environment
5) Practice, practice, practice"

Monday, February 18, 2008

Preparation Guide for Exam 70-556: TS: Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007, Applications

Preparation Guide for Exam 70-556: TS: Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007, Applications: "Preparation Guide for Exam 70-556
TS: Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007, Applications"

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Microsoft Business Intelligence Newsletter - February 2008 - Issue 2‏

Welcome to the 2nd edition of the Microsoft Business Intelligence Newsletter! This issue is focused on the upcoming release of SQL Server 2008, which is launching on February 27th in Los Angeles. We hope that you will consider joining us for a launch event near you! We hope that you find the newsletter to be a valuable resource and we encourage you to share it with others who are interested in business intelligence. Enjoy the newsletter!
Microsoft is Positioned in the Leaders Quadrant of the Gartner Magic Quadrant for BI Platforms!

Microsoft Positioned in Leaders Quadrant of Latest Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence Platforms
Microsoft is positioned in the Leaders Quadrant of the latest Gartner Magic Quadrant for BI Platforms, 2008.* The Magic Quadrant positions vendors according to their ability to execute and their completeness of vision.

According to the Gartner Inc. report, "Leaders are vendors that are reasonably strong in the breadth and depth of their BI platform capabilities, and can deliver on enterprisewide implementations that support a broad BI strategy. Leaders articulate a business proposition that resonates with buyers, supported by the viability and operational capability to deliver on a global basis." Read the full report.
Introducing the new Microsoft Business Intelligence Blog!
Welcome to what we hope will become the definitive blog on business intelligence, THE BI Blog. Microsoft is doing some great things in business intelligence, and whether it's from the customer, partner, developer, implementer, or marketing side of things, we'll be on top of it to ensure you're up to speed on this fast-growing business. Check out THE BI Blog today!

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Product News
Only Three Weeks Left Until the 2008 Launch Wave In Los Angeles - Register Now!
Don't miss out! Registration is now open for the premier launch event in Los Angeles on Feb. 27th and further events around the world.
• Come test drive Windows Server® 2008 operating system, Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008, and Microsoft Visual Studio® 2008
• Enjoy hands-on labs, face-to-face Q&A sessions with software experts, and other opportunities to interact with development team members
• Take home a promotional kit with versions of all three products

Take a closer look at www.heroeshappenhere.com and we'll see you at launch!
Test Drive SQL Server 2008
The SQL Server marketing team has provided a new release of the SQL Server 2008 Demo VPC. Release 2 with November CTP provides several new demo scenarios for key features like Resource Governor, Transparent Data Encryption, Spatial functionality and new Report Designer. Test drive now!

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Customer Success
Better Business Intelligence Helps ITV Stay on Top
Disparate legacy systems forced ITV to spend hours looking for important business information, and even more time to format it in a way that made the information easier to understand. Equally frustrating was that the resulting information was often inaccurate and hard to trust. The company implemented a Microsoft BI solution, and employees are keen to exploit the productivity gains from having business intelligence readily available.

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Partners
Business Intelligence BPIO University Technical Training
Coming to a US city near you. Register today to become knowledgeable on the Monitoring, Analytics, and Planning capabilities of Microsoft Office Performance Point Server 2007, the Performance Management offering in the Microsoft Business Intelligence (BI) family.
Can't make any of the BPIO U Technical sessions?
Learn the basics of PerformancePoint Server 2007 through self-directed learning courses, which have been designed to give you a quick start on building your performance management solution.
BPIO University Sales Training
Coming to a US city near you. Exclusive partner sales readiness workshop. Increase your 2007 Microsoft Office System revenue; learn how to sell 2007 Microsoft Office Systems to your customers. Attend Business Productivity Infrastructure Optimization University (BPIO U) 2008.
Can't make any of the BPIO U Sales sessions?
Visit www.msbpio.com to access the materials - look under Workshop Materials and BPIO U Online.
Microsoft Business Intelligence Bootcamp Web Series for Partners - On-Demand Webcast Series
Partners will learn what the partner opportunities are related to selling and implementing Microsoft BI and how they can position Microsoft BI effectively. They will hear about Microsoft's Business Intelligence Vision and how they can demonstrate Microsoft's current BI offerings. Partners will understand what is available in Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 and what's in store regarding BI in the Microsoft Partner Program.
Microsoft Business Intelligence R5 Demo VPC Now Available!
This demo image (R5), specifically for partners, showcases Microsoft Office, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, Microsoft SQL Server 2005, and Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007. R5 illustrates three BI workloads: data warehousing, reporting and analysis, and performance management.
Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 Exam 70-556 Now Available!
The certification exam necessary to achieve the Performance Management Specialization under the Information Worker Solutions Competency is now available. Prep for the exam with self-directed learning courses, which have been designed to give you a quick start on building your performance management solution. Click here to view the training modules. Click here for more information about the Exam.

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Events
Only Three Weeks Left Until the 2008 Launch Wave In Los Angeles - Register Now!
Don't miss out! Registration is now open for the premier launch event in Los Angeles on Feb. 27th and further events around the world.
• Come test drive Windows Server® 2008 operating system, Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008, and Microsoft Visual Studio® 2008
• Enjoy hands-on labs, face-to-face Q&A sessions with software experts, and other opportunities to interact with development team members
• Take home a promotional kit with versions of all three products

Take a closer look at www.heroeshappenhere.com and we'll see you at launch!
Stop by the Microsoft booth at these upcoming BI industry events!
Join us at the Data Warehousing Institute World Conference in Las Vegas during the week of February 18th, or at the Gartner BI Summit in Chicago taking place April 1 - 3rd to learn more about our solutions, see the products in action and interact with our on-site product experts.
Microsoft Tech Days - France
Attend the major IT event of Microsoft France, with 220 total product sessions. Seventeen of the sessions are dedicated to Microsoft Business Intelligence!

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Upcoming Webcasts
Register for upcoming Microsoft BI webcasts, and learn more about our BI solutions by viewing the most recent webcast recordings.
Get In On The New SQL Server Webcasts
Partners and Specialists will want to get in on this month's upcoming SQL Server 2008-focused TechNet Webcasts. Sessions last one hour. Topics this month include:
• SQL Server 2008 (Part 1 of 3): High-Performance Data Warehousing - 9:30 AM PST, Thursday, February 7, 2008
• SQL Server 2008 (Part 2 of 3): Manage Large-Scale Data Warehousing - 9:30 AM PST, Monday, February 18, 2008
• SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services Architecture Drill-Down - 11:30 AM PST, Thursday, March 6, 2008

Check out all upcoming SQL Server 2008 Webcasts!
Unlocking the Business Intelligence Capabilities of SQL Server
Join us February 11, 2008 at 11:00 a.m. PST for this live Webcast. Did you know that Microsoft SQL Server enables you to centrally control security, access to, and organization of your data - giving users the ability to access production reports or perform interactive analysis directly in Microsoft Office Excel? As you are constantly challenged to do more with less? Are you trying to squeeze as much value as possible from existing investments in technology infrastructure? In this webcast, we show you how to leverage your existing SQL Server investment to unlock the often overlooked, built-in Business Intelligence (BI) capabilities and help improve the operational and financial performance of your organization.
Advanced Dashboard creation with Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007
Join us on March 28, 2008 at 8:00 am PST for a live Webcast on how Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 can help organizations improve their business performance by integrating monitoring, analysis, and planning capabilities into one application. This session explores advanced topics in dashboard creation such as integrating SSRS, ProClarity and Excel Services reports in dashboards, using advanced filtering capabilities, advanced scoring topics and dashboard creation tips and tricks.

View other recent Microsoft BI Webcast recordings here:
http://www.microsoft.com/bi/resources/webcasts.aspx

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Resources
Business Intelligence and SQL Developer Community resources now available on Channel 9!
Find over 22 Microsoft BI screencasts, interviews, SQL Server 2008 screencasts, and other great resources related to BI and SQL Server on Channel 9.
Real-time BI Demonstrations
This site demonstrates many BI technologies including PerformancePoint Dashboards, OLAP cubes, Excel Services, Data Mining and Reporting Services. Many databases are used including real-time feeds from Performance Monitor, Web logs, New Zealand Census and Foodmart. All the delivery is via thin client browser including support for Mobile devices.
Visit the Microsoft Resource Center
Make your decision a whole lot easier. Get tools that can help you gain insight into creating an integrated, cost-effective Microsoft Business Intelligence (BI) solution.

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Did You Receive The Business Intelligence Newsletter from a Friend?
The Microsoft Business Intelligence Newsletter is full of the latest news, resources, product information and events related to Microsoft BI that we encourage subscribers to forward to friends and co-workers. If you've received this issue from someone via e-mail and would like to receive the free Microsoft Business Intelligence Newsletter bimonthly, all you have to do is subscribe.

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February 2008

Volume 2
In This Issue:
Product News
Customer Success
Partners
Events
Upcoming Webcasts
Resources

Resources
Visit the Microsoft Resource Center

Make your decision a whole lot easier. Get tools that can help you gain insight into creating an integrated, cost-effective Microsoft Business Intelligence (BI) solution.

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Looking for More Information on SQL Server 2008?

Learn more about SQL Server 2008 with learning resources that include Academy Live Webcasts, Data Sheets, Product Overviews, Technologies, White Papers, Webcasts and more. Partners click here for more information. Customers click here for the latest information.

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Learn More about Microsoft Business Intelligence

Visit the Microsoft Business Intelligence website to learn more about our solutions, products, learning opportunities and other great resources.

*The Magic Quadrant is copyrighted 2007 by Gartner, Inc. and is reused with permission. The Magic Quadrant is a graphical representation of a marketplace at and for a specific time period. It depicts Gartner's analysis of how certain vendors measure against criteria for that marketplace, as defined by Gartner. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in the Magic Quadrant, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors placed in the ""Leaders"" quadrant. The Magic Quadrant is intended solely as a research tool, and is not meant to be a specific guide to action. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. "

To cancel your subscription to this newsletter, reply to this message with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the Subject line. You can also unsubscribe at the Microsoft.com web site. You can manage all your Microsoft.com communication preferences at this site.

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Tuesday, February 12, 2008

THE BI Blog : MSFT BI Takes the Stage at TechReady 6

THE BI Blog : MSFT BI Takes the Stage at TechReady 6: "With over 40 sessions this event focused on business intelligence, and overflow crowds at many of the break-out sessions (not to mention a call-out of PerformancePoint Server, SharePoint, and SQL Server 2008 by Steve Ballmer in his keynote address), the business intelligence component of this conference is front and center!"

Five Steps to Continuous Integration

Agile Development: Five Steps to Continuous Integration

By John Graham-Cumming
Co-Founder and Chief Scientist, Electric Cloud, Inc.

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Slashdot | Tor Is Giving Away E-Books

Slashdot | Tor Is Giving Away E-Books: "'Tor Books is launching a new site and running a campaign in which they are giving away e-books (free as in beer) until the site goes live. To get in on the deal, fill out the form at their site, and each week you will receive a newsletter containing links to download a new book. The first two books are Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson followed by Old Man's War by John Scalzi. Scalzi's site says: 'My understanding is that they don't have DRM on them. Or at least, mine isn't supposed to have, and I don't think they're planning mine to be special in that regard.''"

Saturday, February 09, 2008

Microsoft SQL Server Product Samples: Analysis Services - Home

Microsoft SQL Server Product Samples: Analysis Services - Home: "SQL Server Analysis Services provides, a unified and integrated view of all your business data as the foundation for all of your traditional reporting, online analytical processing (OLAP) analysis, Key Performance Indicator (KPI) scorecards, and data mining.

This project contains Analysis Services samples released with Microsoft SQL Server product. These samples are in the following three categories: Administrator, Data Mining, and Programmability. If you are interested in contributing Analysis Services samples, please let us know by posting in the developers' forum."

Thursday, February 07, 2008

Agile Architecture Makes Business Innovation Possible | Advice and Opinion

Agile Architecture Makes Business Innovation Possible Advice and Opinion: "Let’s admit it; we often don't have a clear idea of what's going to happen next; the world keeps changing; companies have to keep trying new ideas if they're going to be innovative. But we don’t know which ideas are going to succeed and which ones are going to flop. Innovation is by definition unpredictable.
So what do we do in the face of all this uncertainty? What we're going to do is learn to use IT architecture in an agile manner. This means learning to use all the new stuff that has come of age in the last 36 months: SaaS; Open Source; SOA; Agile Programming; and Consumer Electronics. Think about ways to mix this with your existing installed base of legacy and packaged applications; that’s how you create agile architecture."

Wednesday, February 06, 2008

The definitive dual-booting guide: Linux, Vista and XP step-by-step | APC Magazine

The definitive dual-booting guide: Linux, Vista and XP step-by-step APC Magazine: "If you've ever asked for advice on how to set up dual-booting, you've doubtlessly come across online tutorials that only tell part of the story.
You probably ended up spending all weekend researching the intricacies of adjusting partition sizes, boot loaders, installing operating systems in the right order, and other fun topics.
Well, we have good news: we have put together the definitive dual-booting guide.
We've thoroughly tested these methods and taken screenshots of every step.
So... enjoy!"

Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Microsoft Positioned in Leaders Quadrants in Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence Platforms

Microsoft Positioned in Leaders Quadrants : "Microsoft Positioned in Leaders Quadrants in Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence Platforms
Microsoft delivers full range of personal, team and organizational BI tools, tightly integrated, with a focus on making the right decisions to drive a business forward.

REDMOND, Wash. — Feb. 5, 2008 — Microsoft Corp. has been positioned in the Leaders Quadrant of the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence Platforms, 2008.1 The Magic Quadrant positions vendors according to their ability to execute and their completeness of vision."

SharePoint Capacity Planning Tool

SharePoint Capacity Planning Tool: "Planning a Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (WSS) installation or a Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS) installation for a large enterprise can be a very complex undertaking. Determining the most cost-effective topology, hardware, and bandwidth requirements is not a trivial task and involves selecting from a variety of configuration options. In choosing the option that best fits your organization’s needs, you need to answer the following questions:
What is the minimum hardware you need to deploy?
Where and how should you deploy the hardware?
How can you optimize your deployment to meet your organization’s requirements for availability and performance?
How will growing capacity needs affect the topology?"

SharePoint Learning Kit

SharePoint Learning Kit - Home: "SharePoint Learning Kit is a SCORM 2004 certified e-learning delivery and tracking application built as a Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 solution. It works with either Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 or Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, and has the following core features:

Supports SCORM 1.2, SCORM 2004, and Class Server content, allowing users to store and manage this content in SharePoint document libraries.
Supports learner-centric and instructor-led (assigned) workflows.
Allows assignment, tracking and grading of both e-learning and non-e-learning content."

SSAS - Best Practices Analyzer

Analysis Services Best Practices Analyzer: "Analysis Services Best Practise Analyser (SqlAsBpa for short) is a tool which checks your live Microsoft Sql Server Analysis Services 2005 against some important best practises, and reports items which violate these best practises."

The list of checked Best practises is long (28 best practises for version 1.1). There are best practises on cube and dimension design, partitioning and aggregations. Some best practises strongly influence processing or querying performance, others improve the usability of the resulting databases.

SharePoint Manager 2007- See EVERYTHING in MOSS

SharePoint Manager 2007
The SharePoint Manager 2007 is a SharePoint object model explorer. It enables you to browse every site on the local farm and view every property. It also enables you to change the properties (at your own risk). This is a very powerfull tool for developers that like to know what the SharePoint holds of secrets."

WSPBuilder - Packager for your SharePoint Solution

Excellent work on the part of those who developed this free tool!

WSPBuilder - Home: "A SharePoint Solution Package (WSP) creation tool for WSS 3.0 & MOSS 2007

No more manually creating the manifest.xml file.
No more manually specifying the DDF file.
No more using the makecab.exe application.

The WSPbuilder is a console application that creates SharePoint Solutions files
based on a folder structure. WSPBuilder will automatically traverse a '12' folder structure
and creates a SharePoint solution manifest.xml and the wsp file based on the files it finds.
Therefore you do not need the knowledge of how to create a solution manifest.xml
and wsp file any more."

SharePoint Cross-site Configurator - Home

SharePoint Cross-site Configurator - Home: "The SharePoint Cross-site Configurator
The tool automates the process of deploying the MOSS site settings in all or selected sites in a server farm as shown in the following list:
Note The Tool also enables IT administrators to customize the site settings to be deployed.

Applying Master Pages across a SharePoint server farm.
Setting up Web Titles for all or selected site collections across the farm.
Applying audit control settings to all or selected sites.
Adding advanced settings such as “Allow content type management” to all types of lists.
Adding a new Expiration Policy at the site collection level.
Adding a new Expiration Policy to content types, lists, and documents."

STSDEV: Simple Tools for SharePoint 2007 Development - Home

STSDEV: Simple Tools for SharePoint 2007 Development - Home: "STSDEV is a proof-of-concept utility application which demonstrates how to generate Visual Studio project files and solution files to facilitate the development and deployment of templates and components for the SharePoint 2007 platform including Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (WSS) and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS). Note that the current version of the stsdev utility only supports creating projects with the C# programming language."

SSAS Cube documenter - SqlASDoc

Patrick and the folks at U2U developed this free tool to document SSAS cubes. The application is simple and cuts the time required to script and document Analysis Services.

SqlASDoc: "Analysis Services Documenter (SqlASDoc for short) is a tool which creates documentation for your Analysis Services 2005 OLAP cubes. It connects to your live server, and queries the metadata for the name and description which the developers attached to every object (database, cube, dimension, hierarchy, attribute, translation, data source, data source view,...). It then produces an HTML file which contains the name and description of all these objects. But there is more: also other properties, such as last processing time, creation time, sizes of fact tables etc. are written to the HTML file."

Monday, February 04, 2008

Microsoft's BI Blog - RELOADED

The following is a recent post-

Great news - We've decided to create THE BI BLOG. I've been asked to contribute (which is a great honour) and we'll look to make sure there's something in here for everyone from the customer, partner, developer, and implementer.

For the BI BLOG I'll be teaming up with Nic Smith and Guy Weismantel from the Performance Guys. Maybe we'll even encourage Dennis to contribute as a guest blogger.
From a partner perspective I'm keen to make sure we're able to showcase some of the great solutions our partners are building on top of the PerformancePoint platform so I'd really encourage you to reach out to me if you've got an interesting and innovative story to tell.

DMX Queries - the DataSource hole

There are very few people that truely know Microsoft Data mining and the power of DMX like Jamie Mac. This is the latest post from his blog. Thanks Jamie!

Jamie's Junk : DMX Queries - the DataSource hole: "DMX Queries - the DataSource hole
So many people have told me how much they like DMX - the fact that they can use a query language to create, train, and query mining models is simply unprecedented in the data mining world. And they love it.
Until.....
Until, that is, they decide to go whole hog on DMX and implement their entire solution using ONLY DMX. Wow! What a great idea! I'll create a new database just for mining, and then I'll use DMX to create a mining structure, then use ALTER MINING STRUCTURE to add all my models, and then train using INSERT INTO.
Oh, frizznet! I can't INSERT INTO - I don't have a datasource.
How do you create a datasource with DMX?"

Saturday, February 02, 2008

Welcome - Microsoft Business Intelligence Conference 2008

Welcome - Microsoft Business Intelligence Conference 2008: "Announcing the Microsoft BI Conference 2008!
We are pleased to announce that we will be hosting the 2nd Annual Microsoft BI Conference 2008 from October 6 – 8, 2008 at the Washington State Convention & Trade Center in downtown Seattle, WA. We hope that you will plan to join us for the 2nd annual worldwide event for customers and partners."

Slashdot | Intel, Micron Boost Flash Memory Speed by Five Times

Slashdot Intel, Micron Boost Flash Memory Speed by Five Times: "The new 8Gbit single-level cell, high-speed NAND chip will offer 200MB/sec read speeds and write speeds of up to 100MB/sec, which means faster data transfer between devices like solid-state drives and video cards. IM Flash Technologies plans to begin shipping the new chip later this year.'"