SharePoint Product News & Resources 

With over 20 million Microsoft Project users worldwide, now is the time to maximize the value of this project management tool. There’s no better way to do this in 2012 but to attend the upcoming Microsoft Project Conference 2012 in Phoenix Arizona from March 19-22. Here are 7 top reasons why you can’t afford to miss this phenomenal event:

1. Training

At the conference, you will find more than 90 educational sessions spanning three tracks, a range of experience levels, and in both instructor-led and computer-based training formats.

These sessions are presented by the best and brightest in the Microsoft Project community: members of the Microsoft team, MVPs and other industry thought leaders. You will walk away from the Microsoft Project Conference with greater knowledge of how to maximize your interaction with Microsoft Project for real, measurable results ...

The first-ever "SharePoint Saturday The Conference" (SPSTC) is coming to Washington, D.C. August 11-13, 2011, and you are not going to want to miss it! 

"SharePoint Saturday The Conference" grew out of SharePoint Saturday events (www.sharepointsaturday.org), which are free, one-day technology educational events filled with sessions from the most respected SharePoint experts in the industry, including numerous Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs).

With the overwhelming popularity of SharePoint Saturdays, we decided to host "SharePoint Saturday The Conference", a bigger and better extended three-day event with only a small registration fee of $39 ($59 after Aug. 7) used to support the event. Just like SharePoint Saturday events, "SharePoint Saturday The Conference" is an all volunteer-run event created by SharePoint professionals for SharePoint professionals. The event will be held just outside of Washington D.C. at the Northern Virginia Community College in Annandale, Virginia ...

All the votes have been counted and four SharePoint experts from around the globe have awarded their scores. Just to clarify the scoring system follows the Strictly Come Dancing format. The first half of the score comes from the votes cast on website (amazingly over 6000 unique votes were cast). The finalist who received the highest number of votes in each category was given 5 points, then second highest got 4 and so on.

The second half of the score came from four ‘SharePoint Experts’ all ranking each of the finalists in each category from 5 (the best) to 1 (their least favourite). The four scores from the Experts for each finalist were then added together and divided by 4 (number of Experts). Hope you are following this. Then the score from the voting was added to the average score from the Experts to get a score out of ten for each finalist. In the event of a draw I had the casting vote. Well, they are my awards! So here are the Winner and Runner-up in each SharePoint category:

1. Best SharePoint Information Site

Winner - EndUserSharePoint.com
Expert Comment – A great site written not for developers but for real SharePoint Administrators. It really feels as if they care.

Runner Up - SharePoint Magazine

Rather than bore you with a long-winded recap of the conference, I’m giving you a short and sweet highlight of what I thought was important. And since I’m a huge fan of top 10s, 8s or anything “top”, that’s pretty much what I’ve provided here. You’ve probably heard a lot of this stuff already, like I have, but there have been some newer things that were talked about since the public beta was released. And it never hurts to re-read things regarding SharePoint 2010, as it can be quite difficult to remember everything.

Day 1

The 1^st day of SPTechCon and many conferences nowadays are centered on the full and half day workshops.  This allows you to focus on 1 or 2 major topics for an entire day rather than several technical classes featured on subsequent days. Generally you’ve got 3 major areas of study, development, administration and end-user/information worker. I usually get a nice mix of everything, but I decided to stick with the familiarity and enjoyment of SharePoint administration. Naturally I went to see Shane Young and Todd Klindt share their admin expertise on what’s new for administration in SharePoint 2010....

As a SharePoint Consultant at Office Talk every day we seem to be contacted by a company promoting their latest SharePoint Add-on. Many of these don't quite add up, but others I like so much that I knock on our Marketing Manager's door and tell him that we must sign a reseller agreement with this company.

SharePoint Reviews has become a great site for reviewing these SharePoint applications, but I decided as the football season has finished that I would make my own SharePoint Awards for 2009.

Here they are:

1. Best SharePoint Information Site 2009
Winner – SharePoint Reviews

Not just mentioning them because this is their site, but I have to pay tribute on what a great start they have made and how quickly they have become the source for all SharePoint Products.

2. Best SharePoint Webpart Provider 2009
Winner – SharePoint Boost

Creating easy to install and use webparts as if they are going out of fashion

3. Best SharePoint Administration Tool 2009
Winner – ControlPoint from Axceler

Finally a way of really managing all those user permissions across all of your servers and sites. Oh, and very useful for moving complete sites.

4. Best Website built on SharePoint 2009
Winner – Cadbury

Chocolate and SharePoint have never tasted so good.

5. Best SharePoint Training Package 2009
Winner – CBT Clips

Still the best solution to show End Users how to use SharePoint.

6. Best SharePoint Offline Solution 2009
Winner – Colligo Contributor from Colligo

Allows SharePoint to be with you even when the network isn’t. Don’t forget to download the free reader on the right.

7. Most Useful SharePoint Webpart 2009
Winner – Batch Check-in from SharePoint Boost

Lets us finally get rid of the ‘Checked Out’ annoyance after we have move lots of documents.

8. Favorite Free SharePoint Webpart 2009
Winner – Google Search Webparts

Keep your users in SharePoint as they Google away.

9. Most Fun Free Webpart 2009
Winner – Picture Puzzle Widget from Spring Widgets

Spring Widget have lots of snazzy free webparts including cat clocks with moving tails.

10. Biggest SharePoint Mess-up 2009
Winner – Microsoft for 180 day expire error on SP 2.

So those are my awards please feel free to add comments either agreeing with my list or ripping them to pieces.

Andy Dale
SharePoint Blog http://aboutsharepoint.com

We hope you enjoyed checking out Andy's rewards for 2009, and we appreciate the fact that we were voted his best informational SharePoint site for 2009. The goal of this site will always be to provide the most relevant information for 3rd party SharePoint applications and solutions without any marketing spin. The support that we've received from the community has made this site what it is, and we want to thank each and every one of you for donating your talents and experiences.

- Mike