Bill Baer /bɛːr/

Wow! It’s amazing to look back and realize it’s been exactly 19 years since I first registered this domain. Way back then, Opera and Netscape Navigator were the browsers of choice and many of us were still listening to the beautiful hum of our modems - animated GIFs were the equivalent of styrofoam cups…unavoidable, and Windows XP was just a few months old…perhaps most surprisingly Nickleback was leading the Billboard 100 with “How you remind me”.

Search this site with Bing… ;-)

I visited http://www.carbongrove.com on the commute home this evening and planted SharePoint. Watch SharePoint grow at http://www.carbongrove.com/Trees/243029#g=0 or plant your own! In partnership with a world leader in planting trees for environmental restoration, Windows Internet Explorer will sponsor the planting of up to 250,000 real trees in deforested regions around the globe. Users simply need to visit their tree once a week and watch it grow. After six weeks of your carbon reducing efforts, Windows Internet Explorer will sponsor the planting of a real tree.

I’m often asked either when I became involved with Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies or what single event resulted in my evangelism and subsequent work with Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies, so here we go: I was attending a meeting in June of 2000, at the time, just having joined Compaq Computer Corporation’s Enterprise Solutions and Services division when I listened to Michael Capellas, then CEO, envision Compaq as “guided by a single, focused vision: Everything to the Internet”, (I still have my laminated card, fitted for a badge holder, with those words emblazoned).

The next three (3) weeks will indeed be busy for me, first traveling to Amsterdam to meet with customers and returning to Redmond the following week to speak at TechReady6 on securing and protecting SharePoint Products and Technologies deployments; however, with that will come some compelling content I hope to publish toward the end of the month and early February. Next week I am focused on performance, particularly, discussions on Garbage Collection (GC) and GC management on 64-bit Web servers.

Generally over the years I’ve tried to keep strict focus on Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies within this blog; however, every once in awhile something comes along that definitely deserves mention…not only technology related, but entertaining as well. Enjoy .. .. http://www.stayathomeserver.com/ Read more…

I was just looking at the new Halo 3 skin recently applied to Tafiti and was very impressed. For those who’ve never heard of or much less used Tafiti. Tafiti is an experimental Microsoft search front-end designed primarily for research projects spanning multiple queries and sessions through a variety of visualization, storage, and collaboration/sharing presentation and management layers. Tafiti uses a combination of Live Search and Silverlight to both power and render results.

As some of you may have noticed many of the images no longer render within a limited set of posts within my blog; rest assured I am working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. Prior to about June 2007 I used an ISA published Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 server farm running in Active Directory account creation mode offering host header-based site collections - by enabling Anonymous Access on a Document Library within my personal site collection I was able to both host and manage images consumed by this blog.

It appears Joel invited me to participate in a chain-letter of sorts with the context being stuff I wouldn’t want to live without. After thinking about the question for a moment, I found it much easier to compile a list of things I could live without, but to keep with the intent of the invitation - I’ve derived the following list: My wife and son; without their support I likely would not be where I am in life today.

It’s nothing SharePoint related, but a rare treat to catch a glimpse of an unobscured Mt. Rainier - these were taken over on a semi-clear afternoon around 6:00 P.M. from the Puyallup-Graham area about 30 miles south of Seattle. You’re looking south/southeast in these photographs, in the distance beyond the Evergreens is the Puyallup Valley and the town of Orting along the banks of the Carbon River. (more info…) <IMG class=sopretty src=“https://msdnshared.

It’s early, but I’m already reorganizing furniture in preparation for Microsoft Surface (Winter 2007). If you’re unfamiliar, I encourage you to visit http://www.microsoft.com/surface/ and learn more. Microsoft Surface among its great potential and possibilities, offers what is known as direct interaction, basically the ability to “touch” something that has always been virtual and just out of our reach such as digital images, music, etc. sans mouse or keyboard. The Microsoft Surface form factor (30" tabletop horizontal) permits a multi-user computing experience through recognizing, simultaneously - many items at once.

One of the most common and discouraging issues related to maintaining a blog or any other system permitting user-driven comments and moderation is the persistent annoyance of spam and related content. Unfortunately measures such as Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart (CAPTCHA’s) have become increasingly susceptible to being bypassed or relegated to a best-available security measure in the prevention of spam partially due to the increasing capability of technology and problem solving investment by hackers more commonly through the addition of a human workforce, often compensated, for solving various CAPTCHA puzzles.

After having spent the last two weeks in the Colorado Rockies, I’ve unfortunately have had very little time to blog; albeit, most of the time was spent digging out from the numerous blizzards which seem determined to keep me indoors during my vacation :-) I’ll be spending the next few days organizing and consolidating posts and cleaning up some older posts, but have some great upcoming material beneficial to those both deploying and developing on Windows SharePoint Services 3.

Lawrence Liu recently posted his Live Search macro enabling a consolidated search against the SharePoint Community; to add to that capacity I’ve put together a small bookmarklet that will enable you to run this search from your browser without having to navigate away from your current page. **Download **https://wbaer.officeisp.net/Shared%20Documents/SharePoint_Community_Search_Bookmarklet.zip

Internet Explorer 7 has been released, download it today and experience a new interface that maximizes real estate putting more content in the browser and grouping functions to ease viewing. Other new features include tabbed browsing, enhanced print finishing, RSS feed management, the ability to designate search providers, and enhanced security and phising filters. Get it today.

Try IE7 - http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/ie7/default.mspx - dynamic security protection, tabbed browsing, streamlined user interface, printing advances, instant RSS feeds, toolbar search box and more…