While there is not much of anything new to learn in the first two chapters, the book really hits its stride when it takes the reader through the WordPress Core and Loop. Both of these topics might be a bit black box to some WordPress users especially if they’ve never had the opportunity to install and tune the product in the wild.

Users can come to WordPress without much database much less MySQL knowledge at all and the book’s Data Management chapter can certainly help clear up how the backend database works on a WordPress site.

Even if you aren’t a programmer, you can learn from the Plug-in development chapter. As a non-programmer, I found the chapter educational since I’ve run into plug-in problems on my personal site in the past.

It’s easy to think of WordPress as just a blogging platform but it can do so much more and the book does a great job of attacking the traditional view of the WordPress platform by addressing how to use WordPress as a content management system and inside the corporate enterprise. Both chapters should change thinking and inspire some potential projects (they sure did for me!).

The downside of this book is that it is probably due an updated since the book uses WordPress 2.9 for examples and was published in 2010.

Despite the scenic route this book took to publication, I still recommend it if you are seeking to learn more about the WordPress back end, database, plug in development, and theme creation. It has great coverage of the underpinnings of WordPress under one cover, which can be valuable to readers involved in WordPress implementation and troubleshooting.

Product Page: http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780470560549.do

 

OneNote can serve as an effective backchannel for collaborative note taking, whiteboard session captures, and capturing the myriad of bits and bytes that comes with running a technology project.

Sharing a OneNote notebook via SharePoint

First up is sharing a OneNote notebook with other project team members. OneNote lets you share notebooks through the web or over your organization’s network including a SharePoint site. In the Share On: section, select Network.  A Network Location: field appears with a Browse button. Click Browse and go to the folder where you want the notebook to reside.

Sharing a OneNote notebook via the Web

The other option for sharing OneNote notebooks with other project team members is over the web. OneNote will walk you through the prompts to sign into Microsoft SkyDrive. Once you login to SkyDrive, you have the option to share your OneNote notebook in an existing folder under Shared folders or click New Shared Folder to setup a new shared folder for sharing your OneNote notebook. SkyDrive then gives you an option to email a link if you want to alert other project team members of your shared notebook’s location.

If you are working inside a secure enterprise, you may find this option turned off due to security restrictions. I really consider this a sharing option for small to medium businesses and individuals versus a project team inside a corporation.

Sharing the location of the notebook is as easy as copying the notebook’s web address that appears in the browser into an email message.

Sharing a OneNote notebook on a Network Drive

Some organizations still want to kick it old school – and that is perfectly fine – by still sharing filed and documents via network shared drives. OneNote is perfectly fine with sharing notebooks using a network drive. Like many things in the corporate network of life, you must have the appropriate level of permissions to access the folder for storing and editing files. Your mileage may vary on exactly what level of security and hoops you’ll to jump through to make this happen.

From OneNote 2010, click the Share tab to open the Share ribbon. Click Share This Notebook. The Share Page appears. Under the Share On section, click Network. Under the Network Location section, browse to the folder’s location on your network. Click Select. Optionally, you can enter in the full path to the file location. Click Share Notebook. You then have an option email a link to the shared notebook to other project team members just like you do when sharing a notebook over the web.

Viewing other People’s changes to Your Shared Notebook

You are able to see your colleagues’ changes by clicking Show Authors, either in Reading view, or on the View tab in Editing view.

Do you collaborate with OneNote 2010 at work?

 

Searching For Information Across Your OneNote Notebooks

Even the best-organized setup of OneNote notebooks can balloon in size especially if you start using OneNote on a frequent basis.  Click the Pages Tab to open the Pages Ribbon. Click Search to open the OneNote 2010 search dialog box. Optionally, you can narrow your search down from all notebooks to a particular OneNote page. Type your search terms in the search field then click search. Your search results return in the dialog. I keep my search default to all notebooks and recommend that OneNote users do the same.

Getting Information Out of OneNote 2010

OneNote 2010 is an information repository by design but you also have to be able to get information out of it whether it is for collaboration or just sharing some notes with your manager or other project team member. Here are some ways to get information out of OneNote:

Email. Go to the OneNote page you want to email to another person. From the Share Ribbon, clock Email Page to insert the selected OneNote page into an Outlook email. Send the email just like you would any other Outlook email.

Save As. OneNote notebooks are in their own proprietary format. You can also save a OneNote Page, Section, or even an entire Notebook into another format. Click File to open the Backstage View. Click Save As. In the Save Current list, select whether you want to save the Page, Section, or Notebook. In the Select Format under File Types, you have the option to select one of the following file types:

• OneNote 2010 Section
• OneNote 2007 Section
• Word Document
• Word 97-2003 Document
• PDF
• XPS
• Single File Web Page

Click Save As to save the OneNote document in its new format.

Create Outlook Task.  You also have the option to create Outlook tasks directly from OneNote. This is great if you work on complex projects where a line item in the task list just isn’t enough information. Create a OneNote page as you normally do and keep in mind that the page title is what is going to appear in your Outlook task list. Click the Home Tab to open the Home Ribbon. Next, click Outlook Tasks. A drop-down list appears. Select when you want the Outlook task due. It now appears in your Outlook task list. When you open the task, you’ll see a link back to the OneNote page.

OneNote On The Corporate PC

OneNote is a simple, easy to use, and manage application that can help workers at all levels get better organized and productive. There is also a low barrier of entry to it now since OneNote 2010 is available in all commercial versions of Office 2010.

How is your company or team using OneNote 2010?

 

Click File. The BackStage View appears. Click Save & Send to access Save & Send options. Here is a breakdown of options that are available:

Send Using Email

The Send Using Email option enable you to attach a copy of the document you are working on to an Outlook email. It also lets you create a link to the document if you have it in a shared location like a SharePoint site folder. This is the better of the options because it gets everyone working on the same copy of the document enabling people to see all of the document edits and changes in one location. Plus it also keeps email size small which should make your email administrator happy.

You can also click Send as PDF to create a PDF of the document you are working on and attaches it to an Outlook email. PDF is a trusted way for preserving document formatting and fidelity especially if you are working with people using different versions of Microsoft Office.

Considering that PDF is such a de facto standard, Microsoft’s XPS format always seemed like a solution in search of a problem and I’ve yet to see it as a requirement for any projects. Nonetheless, click Send as XPS to attach an XPS version of your current document to a blank email ready to send to that one person you might know who wants to receive the document in that format.

Microsoft Word 2010 also integrates with Internet fax services (service sold separately) but even Internet faxes seem old school by today’s standards, right?

Save to Web

When Office 2010 launched, Microsoft also launched updates to their Windows Live suite of online services. SkyDrive, their online file storage system, comes with 25 GB of online storage for free. Click Save to Web to save your document to SkyDrive where you can later share the document with other people online.

The Save to Web option might be locked down depending on your organization’s network security. However, it’s all good though, because it shows an acknowledgement by Microsoft to all the small to medium business and solo workers in the Microsoft Office user community.

Save to SharePoint

With each subsequent release of Microsoft Office and SharePoint, the Office and collaboration platform see a better level of integration. The integration between Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 is the easiest yet. Click Save to SharePoint and then browse for a location on the SharePoint site(s) you have at least Contributor access and then click Save As to save the file.

Publish as Blog Post

Click Publish as Blog Post to publish your current document as a blog post to a SharePoint blog on your SharePoint site. I like the thought of using an internal blog on a SharePoint site to communicate product updates and related report which this option makes it an easy task. This option also support publishing to WordPress, Blogger, Community Server, and TypePad.

What sharing options do you use for your Word documents

 

First, save your Word document. Next, click Review to open the Review Ribbon and click Linked Notes. OneNote appears to the right of Microsoft Word 2010 on your screen. It doesn’t matter if you are even using dual monitor, both application windows will consume only one monitor screen.

You can now enter your notes into OneNote just like you would normally. OneNote now autolinks the note page to the Word document you are currently working in.

Click on the Hyperlink icon on the top of left of your linked note and a drop down list appears. From this list, you can control the linking between Word 2010 and OneNote 2010. Select Linked File(s) to view a list of files linking to the note. Select Delete Link(s) on this page to delete link(s) between Word 2010 and OneNote 2010 for the document and note. Select Stop Taking Linked Notes to halt taking Linked Notes.

Select Linked Notes Options. The OneNote Options dialog box appears. Under Linked Notes, you have the option to deselect Allow creation of new Linked Notes and Save document snippets and page thumbnail for better linking to the right place in the document. Click Remove Links from Linked Notes. The Remove Links from Linked Notes dialog box appears prompting “Do you want to remove all of the link from the linked notes in this notebook?” Click Remove to remove all of the links.

 

Here are some lessons I’ve learned from two presentations and a lot of reading and research about the subject in between and try to stress during my talks:

Privacy and security options are a personal decision. I generally don’t like to advise people on how to set their LinkedIn privacy settings. It’s a give and take especially for those just getting online with LinkedIn and new to social media. Some people have a rightful fear about their personal information and the best way to get around that is for them to find what they want to put into the public domain.

The person with the most connections may not always win. I’ve gotten questions about how many contacts a person should have on LinkedIn. While I read once that people should have at least 50  – as a long time user I believe it is quality connections that count. My personal rules are to have contacts from each of my previous contacts and employers with a very open policy for connecting to recruiters that represent companies in the Washington, DC/Northern Virginia market.

Personalize your communications especially when contacting former coworkers and bosses.  With the current down economy, layoffs,  lots of people contracting, and the inevitable reorgs, it is easy to lose track of former managers and coworkers. In fact, you may not even realize it until after the dust settles. Often times the first step to extending a LinkedIn network is to find those former co-workers, bosses, and even clients you’ve lost touch with.

Remember career highlights when asking for recommendations. The Jobs Ministry draws a wide group of attendees including former military, soon to be retiring military, single moms wanting to return to the workforce, and of course folks working for the federal government and contractors. When a question was raised during my last presentation about getting in touch with an old commander, I recommended writing a personal note to start the connection and then follow up with a request for a recommendation citing some of the good things this person did while working for the person.

Tell your professional story and differentiators with your LinkedIn Profile. The personal resume is dying and Monster.com just laid off 400 people meaning that the job hunting game is going through some fundamental changes with LinkedIn being a central element in those changes. Recruiters are now searching LinkedIn first sometimes even before hitting a fee-based job bank.

Use LinkedIn for your passive job hunt. Throughout my two presentations, I also tell participants that LinkedIn is also a tool for the passive job hunt and not to stop cultivating their LinkedIn presence once they find a job. I’ve long been a believer in the passive job hunt during both the booms and the busts and believe you have to keep your name out there for professional contacts, recruiters, and others to find you.

I imagine I will give the talk again in the future and sure that the content and lessons will evolve.

What lessons have you learned about LinkedIn and pass onto others?

 

The book leads readers very methodically through building a Project Management Information System (PMIS) from SharePoint 2010 right out of the box without the need for third party add-ins much less a professional services agreement. The steps that Dux Raymond Sy lays out in the chapters of the book only require your IT/IS group to set you up with the appropriate roles and privileges and then following the steps in the book can take you to PMIS nirvana. He goes into enough detail where even first time and novice SharePoint users can get a PMIS up and running.

Dux Raymond Sy is both a PMP and SharePoint MVP who does the very work he writes about in this book.  I was continuously impressed with how he was able to combine project management principles with SharePoint accessible in a manner that didn’t require a PMP or SharePoint certification to grasp. This is the kind of book that can help break down the tough to use reputation that SharePoint has in some organizations.

SharePoint is already a powerful platform but sometimes needs “some help” from the bottom up for teams and their projects to reap its full potential.I’ve seen SharePoint languish inside some companies for reasons of staffing and budgets with cobwebs growing over never or little used team sites. SharePoint 2010 for Project Management is veritable cookbook about how project managers and their teams can put SharePoint to work to manage their documents, calendars, tasks, and other project data all the while without sucking the life out of the IT group.

A project manager and/or designee with this book in hand can help turn a SharePoint site into a powerful project management tool. Sy even takes a very low budget approach using SharePoint 2010 Foundation  (a free version of SharePoint) as the basis for the examples in the book which I really like because he doesn’t rope readers into a high cost solution. The book will work with the full version of SharePoint 2010 and Office 365.

I enthusiastically recommend this book especially if you are a project manager or team lead who has access to a SharePoint site (underutilized or otherwise) and want to put it to work better help manage projects and team communications.

Product Page: http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920020387.do

 

OneNote offers some flexible options for getting your information into its pages and note books. Here are some options for getting your information into OneNote 2010.

Getting Information into OneNote

OneNote 2010 isn’t just about keeping textual notes. You can also save documents and other bits of information you accumulate during the course of your work. Here are some easy ways to get other information into your OneNote notebook.

Send to OneNote 2010. Once you have OneNote 2010 setup and running on your PC, you have a new Send to OneNote 2010 print driver appearing in Device and Printers (in Windows 7). Select this printer option from within an application to print a document directly to OneNote 2010. It makes sending a document into OneNote as easy as it is printing one to your printer.

Move to OneNote. For some of us saving off project emails and other important email into OneNote is the right solution. From the Outlook 2010 Home ribbon, click Move to OneNote. The Select Location in OneNote dialog box appears. Select a location for the email you want to move to OneNote. Finally, click OK.

Use Linked Notes. Now that OneNote is in the first string of the Microsoft Office lineup, it now integrates across Word, PowerPoint, and Excel enabling you to link notes with particular documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. It’s a great way for technical writers to capture notes about ongoing documents – especially if it is one of those on again/off again projects. From the Review Ribbon, click Linked Notes in the OneNote section. A blank OneNote note appears to the right of the Office document and the Select Location in OneNote. Enter the notes about the document you want to capture into OneNote and then specify a location for it inside your OneNote notebooks. Click Ok to save the linked note.

Create Tables. I am an unrepentant fan of tables in technical documentation to format large section of complex information where appropriate so I like the fact that OneNote lets you create tables. From the Insert Ribbon, Click Table then specify the tables and rows you want in your table. The table you specify now appears on your OneNote page with the Table Tools Layout Ribbon available. From the Layout Ribbon, you have full access to table formatting options just as you would in Microsoft Word 2010.

Insert Picture. If you traffic in screen captures as I do in my job as a technical writer. You have the option to insert pictures into your OneNote pages. From the Insert Ribbon, click Picture. The Insert Picture dialog box appears (defaulted to Libraries\Pictures in Windows 7). Select the picture you want to insert into OneNote. Click OK. The selected picture appears on your OneNote page.

Screen Clipping. Not everybody needs a full-blown screen capture application like SnagIt so OneNote 2010 includes its own integrated Screen Clipping tool. From the Insert Ribbon, click Screen Clipping. OneNote closes and your monitor screen turns off white. Your mouse cursor turns into cross hairs. Select the section of your screen that you want to clip. Release your mouse button and the clipped screen appears in OneNote.

Attach file. From the Insert ribbon, click Attach File. The Choose a file or set of files to insert dialog box appears. Browse to the file(s) you want to attach to a OneNote notebook page. Select them. Click OK to attach the selected files to your OneNote notebook page.

File Printout. This option works very similar to Send to OneNote 2010. From the Insert Ribbon, click File Printout. The Choose Document to Insert dialog box appears. Select the document you want to insert into your OneNote page. The document appears as an attachment and printed document on the OneNote page.

Scanner Printout. From the Insert Ribbon, click Scanner Output. Follow the prompts to scan a document directly into OneNote.

Information Capture for every Workflow

OneNote has an information capture option to fit every workflow and tools you may have available. Feel free to adapt and experiment so capturing information into OneNote becomes a part of your everyday workflow.

In part 3, I will take a look at searching through OneNote notebooks and extracting OneNote data into other formats.

 

Signing Up For A Free Account

Since I already have an Adobe ID, it was just a matter of signing into the EchoSign website to get access. It ends up since I signed a Non-Disclosure Agreement a couple of months back to see some beta software and signed the NDA with an e-signature meaning I already had an EchoSign account on file. At this point, a free account with five signatures is going to be plenty for me. The free account also gets me the following:

• Secure document archive of my last 5 signed documents
• e-Signatures offering a cursive signature
• Fax back signature enabling recipients to fax back their signature to an EchoSign fax number
• Adobe Reader integration and I see this integration as where electronic signatures will get the most play
• Biometric handwritten signature written with a stylus or mouse
• Mobile sign enabling signatures using a mobile app like the EchoSign app for the iPad and iPhone
• Web Identity enabling signing with LinkedIn, Facebook, or Google account credentials. This method seems good in principle but not sure I could see some more security conscious organizations accepting of this option.
• Multiple signers per document

Managing EchoSign Signatures

EchoSign has a well laid out dashboard for managing your account. You can control all facets of the workflow and your account. Documents for signing can be uploaded to your EchoSign account where you can send them to signatories using a well-designed forms process that lets you set options like password protection required for opening, viewing,  and  signing the document. There is also an option for allowing the first signer to suggest changes to the document – very useful for the dickering that invariably happens with contracts and other legal documents.

It is easy to monitor your document status and statistics visually through the Home dashboard, which is especially helpful if you are running a free account.

One interesting option I came across is Create Widget, which enables you to create an embeddable document by inserting a snippet of HTML into a Web page. Site visitors can then sign that form using EchoSign. After EchoSign verifies the signature then PDF copies are emailed to specified parties and file the signed form into your EchoSign account’s document library.

Adobe has also release an EchoSign app for both the iPad and iPhone which bring visions of the future where people sign on a tablet instead of a paper document. Unfortunately, one nitpick is Adobe login vs. EchoSign login. While I was able to sign in with my Adobe user credentials, but was not able to use the same login to access EchoSign via its iPad application.

Ink Pen vs. EchoSign: Who Wins?

Moving to EchoSign can take steps and time out of the document signature process which can be a positive thing. However, my previous experience with contracts and electronic signatures taught me that an organization needs to be enlightened and tech savvy enough to move their corporate documents to EchoSign or a similar solution for signatures.

I see a lot to like in EchoSign especially since iPhone and iPad apps are available and PDFs are such an accepted business document standard. However, I would like to see more companies especially those who work with freelancers, and contractors adopt EchoSign or similar solutions until I feel good about the status and future of e-Signature technologies.

Are you using e-Signatures to sign your business documents?