European SharePoint Conference
I’m honored to be Speaking at the European SharePoint Conference 2013.
I’m speaking at the European SharePoint Conference 2013 and I’m delighted to be a part of this fantastic gathering of the SharePoint Community, Feb 4-7 2013, in Copenhagen, Denmark.
I will be conducting two sessions – “SharePoint & ADFS – Federation Made Easy” and “What’s New with Powershell V3 for SharePoint 2013 Admins” both aimed at IT Professionals.
SharePoint & ADFS – Federation Made Easy
Supporting authentication and authorization for SharePoint can be challenging, especially if you have partner organizations involved. Claims-based authentication provides you with the ability to authenticate across multiple platforms. Come to this session and learn how the two products come together in order to support federation.
What’s New with PowerShell V3 for SharePoint 2013 Admins
PowerShell made a huge difference in the administration of SharePoint 2010 with the inclusion of the SharePoint Management shell, and now there are over 100 new cmdlets for SharePoint 2013! Come and see the new power that PowerShell offers with the new version of SharePoint.
I am speaking alongside renowned experts on SharePoint as well as sharing the stage with some of Microsoft’s product team from Redmond covering Search, Apps, Social, Cloud, Project, Migration & Upgrade, Governance and much more.
With over 110 SharePoint sessions, keynotes, hands on labs, SharePoint Shootouts, ask the experts, community lounge, tutorials, Europe’s largest SharePoint focused expo, SharePints, parties, meetings, networking events, competitions and more…. this is a MUST attend event for all SharePoint enthusiasts! Check out the full Conference Programme to see all sessions and topics that are being covered by myself and many others.
Prices start as low as €995! There is also special group discounts for bookings of 3 or more people.
Book Now and I’ll see you in Copenhagen this February.
Filed under Uncategorized
If the Mayans are wrong, here is what 2013 holds in store for me…
January 19 – SharePoint Saturday Utah. The SharePoint Saturday brand is one of those amazing things that has taken on a life of its own. I remember when it was a few of them in a year, and now there are SPS going on almost every week in a year.
February 4-7 – European SharePoint Conference, Copenhagen, Denmark. The European SharePoint Conference takes place in wonderful Copenhagen, Denmark and is the first major conference of the New Year. I am honored to have be chosen to speak at this event.
March 9 (tentative) – SharePoint Saturday Phoenix. I’m organizing this one and enlisting the help of the SPUG and Microsoft. More details to come!
April 10-12 – Fusion 2013, Nicosia, Cyprus. Part of the DiveDeeper Events Family, this conference is like a mini-TechEd, in that multiple Microsoft technologies are presented. I participated in an event some years ago in Reykjavik, Iceland and had a blast….except for the part when the country went bankrupt while being there and wondering if I would be able to return home. 
Filed under SharePoint, Travel
Getting back to the Blog
I will dedicate this blog to anything I find interesting. 
First off, I just got back from the SharePoint Conference in Las Vegas—big success. They had some wi-fi issues, and there were too many parties, so networking was tough…but in the end; it was a good conference.
I just purchased a new Windows Phone. I was upgraded free of charge to the Lumia 920 by AT&T since I spend *thousands* of dollars a year with them. I must say that this phone is incredible. HEAVY, but still a beautiful piece of equipment. I’ve been using Windows Mobile/Phone since the late 1990s. Microsoft truly has outdone themselves this time. The functionality is the most robust of phones currently on the market. I just thought I would talk about one feature that truly knocked my socks off.
The Camera
The Nokia 920 sports a 26 mp camera with a Carl Zeiss lens….don’t know what any of that means. I just know that it does something that completely amazes me (and freaks me a little).
You know how sometimes when you are taking a picture and someone or something goes in front of you while you are snapping it and you have to take another? Well no longer. This camera doesn’t care and will let you remove the offending object from the pic. In the pictures below you will see that I’m taking a pic of the steering wheel in my car and then as I snap the pic, I pass my index finger by the camera to simulate some jerk going in front of me.
So now the offending object needs to go away….fine, so I press the eraser icon and get the following option:
It ‘sees’ what it thinks shouldn’t be there and puts an outline around it. You’ll see that the camera also outlined some other things it thinks don’t belong. I will ignore those and choose the outline of my finger:
Yeah…it takes out the image of the finger and even shows me what is *behind* the image…that’s the part that is “freaky”, to me.
Can your camera do that?
Filed under Computers and Internet
WHOA….yeah, been a long time…
So, I’m just doing my thing and a message comes from a friend,
“Do you blog anymore?”
“Sure…mostly techy stuff now.”
“I’m bored, I need something to read.” I give her the URL to one of my technical posts and she virtually vomits. Too techy. I get it; I should have another blog where I simply ramble on and on about how crazy my life is and what I do to cope.
SO.
This year is quickly coming to an end and I’ve done a LOT this year PLUS I’ve traveled to a LOT of places and haven’t taken time out to report to you, the reader, what I’ve done. I apologize and its simply lack of desire to take the time and document it since—documentation is where I spend the bulk of my time lately. So who wants to write more after spending a day of writing?
Any way–
I got a new phone. A Samsung Focus, running Windows Phone 7 OS. Love it. L-O-V-E it. The Social Features are stellar. The email experience with multiple Exchange servers simply rocks. Love the fact that the calendar is always in front of me. Now for the bad stuff: I’m not as impressed with the radio, though. It uses the headset cord as an antenna (LAME) and doesn’t seem to allow me to add music to my collection. BOOOO! AND it isn’t HD. BOOO!
OK, change the subject.
My citrus trees are in season. I’ve made gallons of juice; a mixture of navel orange, Arizona sweet, and tangerines. My grapefruit isn’t ready yet and won’t be probably for another month or two. I planted my winter grass and the frickin birds ate a ton of my seed and so I have brown grass on my edges. Hate those birds. Also I hate my homeowners insurance carrier: American Strategic Insurance (ASI) THEY SUCK! and so do their subcontracting adjusters Crawford…something. Damage was suffered 30 of October, had a plumber fix the pipe and he suggested a restoration company (who was quick to come and start the process of the mold cleanup), but from there everything went downhill. I called to file a loss and they (GEICO – underwritten by ASI) took over a week to come and look and here we are over a month later and I have heard NOTHING from them. I have called them several times and they keep pointing the finger at the adjuster who returns the finger pointing at the insurance company. Preliminary estimate was “Under your deductible of $1000”. They are smoking dope! Mold damage, wall damage and floor replacement are DEFINITELY going to cost me more than $1000. BANDITS!!
Ok, change the subject.
I thought I wouldn’t have to travel for the rest of the year, but it seems I will be in Denver next week….sigh.
Filed under Uncategorized
Best Practices Conference
For the third consecutive year I was honored by being selected to speak at the SharePoint Best Practices Conference. Besides the Microsoft SharePoint Conference, there is no other conference that has such a distinguished speaker line up. There will be a keynote by Microsoft Certified Masters which will be a treat as well.
There will be many sponsors and exhibitors giving away cool stuff. Even my employer will be giving away a ZUNE HD to some lucky attendee who is able to be the mayor of several venues at the conference.
Mayor?
Yeah, unless you’ve been hiding under a rock—Foursquare is a location based social network that incorporates gaming elements. Foursquare allows people to announce their location and earn “badges” for checking in at certain venues repeatedly and those who are more faithful to a venue can earn the title of Mayor.
So why am I talking about this? Well, I’m the one who gets to award the Zune HD and so I get to set the rules for how the lucky person may obtain it. Continue reading below if you are interested in winning the Zune HD.
RULES:
1. All decisions are final and will be made by me (Rick Taylor)
2. There will be only ONE winner.
3. There may be a tie, in which the winner’s name will be drawn at random
4. The winner will be notified by email address that he/she has won and to provide a shipping address
5. All participants MUST attend the Best Practices Conference. See this link for more information.
6. All participants MUST have a twitter account and understand how to tweet.
7. All participants MUST have a foursquare account and understand how to check in.
8. All participants MUST add @SLKRCK as a friend on foursquare
9. The winner of the contest will have obtained the following badges at any time during or prior to the conference:
a. Crunked
b. School Night
c. Swarm or Superswarm
d. Adventurer
e. Bender
10. In addition to the above badges being earned, the winner of the contest will have obtained a mayorship of at least 3 of the 10 venues at the Conference. A Venue is defined as a room where a particular session is being presented.
11. Participants MUST shout the Title text on the 16th (4 squared) slide of each session they attend.
12. If Rick Taylor is the presenter, you must shout “Slick Rick is the Man!" at your check in
13. The winner will have checked in at the most Exhibitors at the Conference. Verification: shout the name of the person manning the booth.
14. The first check in at the Conference will be at 8:45am with the introduction of the keynote. All participants must check in at this time (+/- 5 min)
15. The last check in at the Conference will be at 4:30pm with the closing of the Post Conference. The game officially ends at this time.
16. Any mistakes, oversights, bloopers, typos in these instructions are all mine and will not affect the outcome. (See Rule #3)
Filed under Uncategorized
We were ROBBED!!
I am just now getting over being LIVID. First I was incredulous; then I was outraged; then I became angry. Did not quite foam at the mouth and didn’t swear as much as I probably felt I was entitled to (I didn’t swear at all—but boy, I *almost* did).
The World Cup is in full swing and full of surprises and upsets: France getting beat badly by Mexico, Switzerland blanking El Rojo (Spain) and Serbia shutting out Germany. This particular match between Team USA and the Slovenia National team will go down in World Cup history as the team that came back from a 2 goal deficit to even the game, then scoring the winning goal only to have it ruled out. Why? No one knows. The referee won’t explain. Before I get worked up again…I will let the reader read the account.
Filed under Uncategorized
2010 FIFA WORLD CUP SOUTH AFRICA
If anyone knows me, they know I am a fútbol FANATIC. If I have to go into the office for work, I bring a TV with me to watch all the games. I get up every morning at 4am to watch the match. It’s sick…but it only happens every four years.
I love this game!
Filed under Uncategorized
Zune Team better get ready to rumble
Being a former MSFT blue badge, I know how competitive it is in Redmond. Teams fight to establish and keep their identity and a "takeover" or "merge" with another group is hardly ever looked at as a "win-win" as they try to tell you in the Town Hall meeting. Someone always lost.
With the new WinMo7 series phone I can’t help but wonder what the folks in the Millenium complex are thinking and talking about. This is an obvious encroachment on their territory and especially since they haven’t been able to really be iPod/iTouch killers and WinMo has never been the iPhone killer…it almost makes sense for Redmond to merge the two. Zune is a better mp3 product than iPod. Hands down. WinMo7 lacks the feature set it needs to be the iPhone killer and integrating the Zune (umm..assimilating is a better word) could possibly give Microsoft what it wanted three years ago.
When the phone gets released, what will the Zune team do then? What new features will be available on the mp3 player the WinMo7 phone wont have? If the story isn’t compelling, the Zune may be doomed.
Filed under Computers and Internet
SharePoint Connections 2010 Conference – Amsterdam
I was honored to be asked to speak at the SharePoint Connections Conference in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
MSC33: Understanding the Service Application Architecture of SharePoint 2010
Richard Taylor
The architecture for SharePoint has changed considerably. Come to this session to see what the changes are and how to design your SharePoint environment to take advantage of the new services provided by SharePoint 2010.
MSC11: Enterprise Search Overview
Richard Taylor
With SharePoint Server 2010, Microsoft has made a major leap forward in new enterprise search options that cover the full spectrum of business needs. This session will provide an overview of the key search capabilities in SharePoint 2010 through demonstrations of new features and example applications.
MSC22: Designing a Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery Plan for your SharePoint 2010 Infrastructure
Richard Taylor
What infrastructure plan would be complete without understanding how to recover from a catastrophic occurrence? Come to this session to understand how to design your SharePoint infrastructure to become as redundant and resistant to failure as possible.
Filed under Uncategorized
Slick Rick's Space 