One thing I really like about the Windows Surface RT is that it is set to automatically apply Windows Updates so the device is always be up to date.  You can also check for updates anytime by swiping in from the right, selecting Settings and the Change PC Settings.  Then from the Settings screen you can go to Windows Update.

The Windows Surface RT devices come installed with Office 2013 RT Preview and would be updated via the Windows Update process.  A colleague just let me know that the update for Office 2013 RT is actually listed as an optional update and thus not applied automatically.   If you want to apply the optional updates then you need to go to the Start page and search Settings for “Install optional updates”.  This will run the desktop version of Windows Update and allow you to select and install the Office 2013 RT RTM version.

This morning I received an email advising that the Technical Preview version of SharePoint 2013 has been updated to the Release To Manufacturing version and is now available for download from TechNet and MSDN.

So no excuses now, download the RTM version and start building your business solutions today.

Some of the new capabilities of SharePoint 2013 that I am most excited about are;

• Updated MySite infrastructure with integrated Social Collaboration capabilities
• Following documents, people, site and tags
• Creating and replying to conversations
• New Communities site template
• Create Communities of Practice discussion arenas
• Add Gamification concepts to engage and change user culture
• Capture and share knowledge and ideas (ideation)
• Drag and drop directly to the browser into a document library
• Take documents offline from SharePoint to your PC using SkyDrive Pro sync and the Office Upload Center
• Accessing my SharePoint environment from anywhere on any device (including my Windows 8 PC, my Windows 8 Surface, my son’s iPad and my Xbox 360)
• Ability to create tasks and timeline views and many places (i.e. each project or virtual team I work in) and then have all the allocated task centralise to my MySite task list.
• Major overhaul of Web Content Management capabilities including
• Machine Language Translations Service using Bing Translations
• Device Channel targeting based on User Agent strings and specifying master pages and CSS styles
• Image Renditions for automatic image optimisation
• Catalog template and topic pages
• Search driven content scenarios
• Integration with Dynamics AX 6.2 for a complete commerce and shopping cart experience with a payment gateway
• Merging of the best of SharePoint Search with the best of FAST Search to produce a new single Search Core

*Visio Sessions only available in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra

For Project users, we have two sessions: Project reporting in Project 2010, and second, how to utilize project server’s workflow capabilities to manage your project life cycle.

We’ll finish up by giving attendees a first look at the upcoming release of the new Project.

For Visio users in Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne, we will look at how to get the most out of the Visio 2010 and SharePoint via Visio Services. We’ll have you automating processes and setting up new dashboards to save you time (in no time!).

Register with the following links!

Adelaide – 27 November
Microsoft Adelaide 

Level 12, Coonawarra Theatre

147 Pirie Street

REGISTER

Canberra – 30 November
Microsoft Canberra 

Theatre 1 & 2

Walter Turnbull Building

Level 2, 44 Sydney Avenue Barton

REGISTER

Melbourne – 3 December
Microsoft Melbourne

Exhibition Room

Level 5, 4 Freshwater Place

REGISTER

Brisbane – 4 December
Microsoft Brisbane 

North & South Stradbroke

Level 28, 400 George St

REGISTER

Sydney – 6 December
Microsoft Sydney 

North & South Stradbroke Room

1 Epping Road

North Ryde  2113

REGISTER

Here is a sample of the videos.

Internet Digital Marketing with SharePoint 2010

Digital Marketers today need to launch an increasing amount of websites quickly and easily.  SharePoint 2010 shows marketers how to be competitive and build their business through digital marketing.

Check out more videos on https://sharepoint.microsoft.com/en-us/Pages/Videos.aspx.

“The SharePoint Network Topology Diagram Add-in leverages Visio Services to deliver a near real time intuitive rendering of the status of SharePoint farm’s infrastructure and associated services. Visio Graphics services – A key part of SharePoint 2010, enables customers to share their dynamic data driven Visio diagrams and dashboards within SharePoint. This helps extend the reach of valuable information and insights across relevant teams within the enterprise for capacity planning and general IT maintenance.

The timer job fetches all the key technical metrics about the SharePoint farm infrastructure using SharePoint object model and WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation). It’s frequency can be adjusted based on specific administrative needs. The timer job creates a SharePoint list that is linked to a Visio diagram. A client add-in helps you generate, customize and link the output of the timer job to a Visio diagram by using a wizard driven interface.”, visio.microsoft.com.

On the 22nd October I attended and presented at the SharePoint Saturday Melbourne event.   It was great to catch-up with all the guys from the SharePoint community and attend some great sessions.

I presented with Shyam Narayan on Optimizing SharePoint Internet sites.   During the session we discussed caching, image delivery optimisation, developer tips and tricks.   We also discussed externalising authentication away from SharePoint’s control and moving it off to Facebook/Twitter/Google/Live ID using Azure App Fabric Access Control Service 2.0.

Shyam has created a blog post on www.dotnetbounce.com with source code and slides from our sessions…

Juicy Mango’s are sweeter than Apples and much more substantial than Blackberries….  

Read the official team blog post;
https://windowsteamblog.com/windows_phone/b/windowsphone/archive/2011/07/26/windows-phone-mango-released-to-manufacturing.aspx

Service Pack 1 for SharePoint 2010 Products is Now Available for Download

Service Pack 1 includes stability, performance, and security enhancements that are a direct result of your feedback.

IMPORTANT NOTE

It is strongly recommended to install the June 2011 Cumulative Update immediately after the installation of Service Pack 1. The June Cumulative Update includes several important security and bug fixes that are not included Service Pack 1.

More information on the Product Team Blog https://sharepoint.microsoft.com/blog/Pages/BlogPost.aspx?pID=984

For a list of fixes and feature enhancements with SP1 refer to https://sharepoint.microsoft.com/blog/Pages/BlogPost.aspx?pID=973

Microsoft has just launched a new End User focused website iusesharepoint.com.

This new website is dedicated to driving SharePoint adoption by delivering a rich set of experiences and content to engage and educate business users. 

The three main goals of this site are to:

1. Inspire and educate business users to do more with SharePoint through helpful and engaging content.
2. Help organisations drive adoption through customisable adoption kits that IT Pros, SharePoint admins and trainers can use with business users.
3. Take business users from what can I do to show me how while measuring video views, click through, and adoption kit downloads.

Adoption Kit Options

Option A-Lunch & Learn SharePoint Adoption Kit: This kit contains all the materials you need to promote SharePoint within your organisation. The kit includes instructions, templates, videos, quick reference cards and more to help you deploy an internal SharePoint resource site - a place to access SharePoint information and tools, and connect around the best part of the day: lunch. Download this kit to show your team how SharePoint makes life, and lunch, a little better.

Option B-Build an Adoption Kit that's right for you: If your organisation already has an established learning center, you can download individual pieces to post to and promote the destination that works best for you. These standalone pieces can be used to add interesting and helpful training content to your organisation's site and to drive SharePoint learning and adoption. Choose to download one or more of these resources, like webisodes, Show Me How videos, quick reference cards, poster templates, table tents and more.

The SharePoint team blog https://sharepoint.microsoft.com/blog/Pages/BlogPost.aspx?pID=973

The Office team blog https://blogs.technet.com/b/office_sustained_engineering/archive/2011/05/16/announcing-service-pack-1-for-office-2010-and-sharepoint-2010.aspx

I am personally excited about the availability of printing support in the Word Web Application in “Edit Mode” and SharePoint and Office Web Applications getting native support for IE9 and no longer needing to run in  IE8 Mode.