Anith Gopal

Some Free February Appy-ness with a new piece of free software for teachers from Microsoft every day in February. Many of these items are unknown heroes, but they all share two things in common: 1) They are useful for teachers or students and 2) they are free

With this Microsoft Fixit Fix Windows Search when it crashes or is not showing results that fixes problems such as Windows Search does not show results Windows Search is crashing Windows Search does not start General problems with Windows Search Learn more about Windows Search Windows Search Video Pinpoint virtually anything on your PC with Windows Search Advanced tips for searching in Windows Rob Technorati Tags: Windows Search , Fixit  

I’ve been working on a validation framework for Dynamics CRM 2011.  I’ve published the first cut of the code.  It’s a little rough still, but I’ve been promising the sample to a few customers so I wanted to get the first working version out there.  Right now, it only supports regular expression validation.  However, if you read the home page, you will see how you can get involved in shaping the future of the sample.

Sarah Arnold, over on the Australian Partner blog , has just announced that there’s extra help available for partners who are aiming to get the Business Intelligence competency for Microsoft Partners at Silver level. If you’re a partner that’s deeply engaged with education customers, you’ll know how much data education institutions collect, and how much useful insight it would deliver to them if they were able to analyse it easily and comprehensively – whether that’s for learning, assessment, finance or many other uses.

Here’s my recommended training plan to become a Dynamics CRM 2011 developer (it’s what I used).  The foundational technologies you will need to understand are: Visual Studio 2010 .NET Framework 4.0 SOAP based Web Services OData (aka WCF Data Services) Windows Workflow Foundation Silverlight (optional) HTML JavaScript XML (many customizations requiring tweaking XML or using tools that tweak XML) SQL Server Reporting Services There are other technologies that many CRM development efforts include as part of the overall system solution. Excel & PowerPivot for advanced Business Intelligence & Reporting Claims-based Authentication and ADFS 2.0 ASP.NET Windows Azure Platform BizTalk Server Team Foundation Server The first set are almost always used.  When to use the second set is highly dependent on the needs of the overall solution architecture.  I’ll be blogging about some of these over time.  Why is TFS in the second set?  I wish I could say TFS is almost always used, but just like other forms of development, it would surprise you how many people aren’t using good ALM tools.  You should strive to make TFS part of the first group .  There are all sorts of resources around the web to learn fundamentals of most of these technologies.  I am not going to make this post about those.  If you are looking for a one stop shop to ramp up on the above, then you might want to take a look at Pluralsight On-Demand .  I get nothing out of endorsing them.  I’m just one of many satisfied subscribers.  I consider them top notch.  I recently asked them about CRM training through their contact form .  The response was that it is on their TODO list.  The more people that ask, the higher priority it will get.  I already had the fundamental knowledge above when I began my CRM dev journey.  What’s next is what I did to ramp up and dig in to Dynamics CRM 2011 specifics.

In December we will be hosting the annual winter meetings for TC 171 SC2. It’s a week-long deep-dive into PDF standards for Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) from around the world. The committees for PDF Reference ISO 32000), PDF/A (ISO 19005), PDF/UA (ISO 14289), PDF/E (ISO 24517), PRC (ISO 4739) are all scheduled to meet.

SharePoint Server 2010 unleashes new features such as managed metadata and metadata navigation that make metadata even more important. But a big problem for many SharePoint projects is getting metadata onto documents.

The Pew Research Centre are a respected American organisation that shares research on issues, attitudes and trends shaping modern life.

Who likes free stuff? I know I do! Well, I’d like to take this opportunity to invite you to join our FREE deployment webcast where you can hear about some of the many ways in which you can get the most value from the service. There’ll also be lots of time for Q&A with our UK deployment specialist; me! So, if you have any questions I’d love to hear from you! Sit down with a coffee and register today to hear about: Various deployment scenarios How to avoid common deployment mistakes Ways you can integrate with your local infrastructure Register for this webcast to learn more about using Live@edu at your institution Thursday 4 August 12pm-1:30pm Register Monday 8 August 12pm-1:30pm Register With many deployment options and no minimum or maximum users, Live@edu is the ideal way to give students the software skills that employers demand

Guest post from Alan Richard’s from West Hatch High School : If you have ever read my own blog ( www.edutechnow.com ) or seen any of the posts on here then you will know that I have a passion for cost cutting. In the current climate cost cutting in Schools is very much still on the agenda but I believe it shouldn’t be cost cutting at any cost, there should be an end goal, a clear and obvious benefit for all stakeholders. So when I was privileged enough to receive my SharePoint MVP in July of this year I started to think how I could use some of the benefits you get as an MVP to spread my cost cutting agenda.

Business Intelligence (BI) in education is going to become an interesting topic over the next couple of years in Australia. Although there has always been a discussion about the use of data, and various projects that have looked at ways to analyse and use student learning data more effectively, I predict that learning analysis is going to move up the priority list for every education leadership team across Australia

Have you signed for any of the Tech Tuesday webinars for schools yet? They are hour long web-hosted meetings, from 12-1pm (Sydney time) on Tuesday lunchtimes, and mean that you can get up to date with some of our latest technology for education – without having to leave school. Every week, Ryan Bonnici introduces another expert from Microsoft or one of our partners, and then we take a deep look into specific topics