It's a GO

We have set a date for the Launch, MOSSIG will happen. The 27th of June will be the first meeting of our new User Group for Microsoft Office System users and Developers. Yes Users and Developers. We will present topics of interest for users, and tell developers how they can build, deploy and develop their business (make more money ;-)) using Office System. Obviously right now the focus will be largely on the release of 2007 Microsoft Office System (what a bad name....) as this has been released as a public beta last week. Tim Wragg has got all the links of interest in his last post.

Last week was an interesting one, I was at the Mobile DevCon here in Melbourne and was very impressed with what MS is doing in both the Mobile space (we all got a copy of CE 6.0) and for XP embedded. Did you know there is actually a POS for .Net? A set of .net classes to work with all kinds of point of sale devices like cash drawers, card readers, line displays etc. A very nice way to make use of these devices without having to know all about serial connections and escapes codes. You can download the SDK, it works on XP so everybody can use it.

That same day I also did my first talk in public here in Melbourne talking to the Sharepoint User Group people about what Software Objectives used Sharepoint and VSTO for in our custom solutions. A small crowd, no wonder because of all the conferences going on that day and the soccer match between the national teams of Australia and Greece, but enthousiastic response to the talk.

My next gig is at the Developers Conference in Ballarat on June the 17th, actually I will do two talks there. I will present on 2007 Microsoft Office System for developers and from a business perspective.
The business talk will be about how businesses can save money using the 2007 version, the developers talk will be about how developers can make money providing the solutions for their users and customers.
Last I heard was that registrations are coming in in large numbers so be sure to register now for this excellent free conference. You'll find the details at the link above.
Now I'm off to install the new beta on our servers here, I'll let you know what my experiences with that exercise were like in the next week or so.

Stay tuned,
Ed

Wintertime in Melbourne

Microsoft's timing couldn't be any better, now that winter is coming to this part of the world.
After all it is only around 18 degrees these days here in Melbourne, I've got all the time I want ;-) to spend on researching new technologies. Beta2 for 2007 Office is just a couple of days away so it seems so if you haven't signed up to receive the public beta go and do so now! On this site you will also find a lot of news, videos and interesting case studies.
I will be talking about how we at Software Objectives use SharePoint for document management and workflow in our projects at the next user group meeting may 25th in Como Plaza in Melbourne. We will also discuss how this will migrate into 2007 and what things can be done more effectively in the new version, in particular regarding task tracking and workflow processes.

And stay tuned for news about our own Office System User Group...

bLogging from Mount Dandenong

Hi All,

I finally got around to creating a bLog. I never thought I had anything special to bLog about, but I've found a reason now!
2007 Office System! I've found a couple of great guys, Ben Walters, Tim Wragg and William Cornwill, to hang out with and share our experiences with Office.
We decided to start a user group in Melbourne dedicated to Office usage and development. Obviously Development will be one of my main interests ;-). So we are currently in the process of getting organised. If you feel like you'd like to contribute, let us know!

Read more about Office 2007 and the group on the bLog's of the others: Ben , Will, Tim .

For now, wait for more news and the release of beta 2 ;-)