I was honored to be invited to speak on behalf of the SharePoint Product Group and Windows Phone Group at TechEd this year.

I have two sessions are listed on Channel 9 schedule for both New Orleans and Madrid.

Creating Windows Phone 8 Apps for Microsoft SharePoint

This session covers the tools, techniques, and best practices for building great Windows Phone apps that interact with Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013.

Tips You Need to Know for Creating Apps for Microsoft Office and SharePoint 2013

In this session, we cover some tools and techniques for building out apps for Microsoft Office and SharePoint, including architecting for cross-domain scenarios, types of apps and much, much more. This is a must attend session for all app for Office and SharePoint developers.

I’d love to meet you if you follow me online so please come say hi in the session and see me at the AvePoint Inc booth during the conference.

I’m really pleased to announce that the AvePoint Labs department have pushed out one new App called Meetings and version 2 of Task & Calendar Sync (formely MyView). I’ve worked as the Product Manager and Architect on these with a team of great Project Managers, Developers and Test team.

It’s been a great experience working on Apps for a change over our larger products like DocAve 6 and Governance Automation (lead Architect and shared Product Management role).

Both of these Apps are in the Store for FREE and there is a Premium version of Meetings coming in June/July timeframe with some cool features to be unlocked over the Free version.

Please check out these demonstration videos and interviews our Marketing team have produced of me talking about these awesome apps!

Please check out the app in the store in your Office 365 SharePoint Online tenants and give your feedback in AvePoint’s discussion boards!

I presented a preview of this in my vendor session at London Evolutions last week. This is a full session that talks about how AvePoint’s Labs team has built Apps for the store and some of the architectural decisions we’ve made along the way.

This is not a “vendor pitch” but more something useful to anyone interested in developing SharePoint 2013 apps and submitting them to the store.

The App-Building Playbook for the SharePoint 2013 Marketplace

Date:
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Presenter:
Jeremy Thake Chief Architect, AvePoint Microsoft SharePoint MVP
Time:
1pm ET

Join us for a first-hand look into AvePoint’s journey to build an app for the SharePoint 2013 Marketplace. In this webinar, we will discuss the details of the technical decisions made throughout the entire process – from idea inception through to delivery into the marketplace. If you’re thinking of building an app for the SharePoint 2013 Marketplace, this is the one session you don’t want to miss. Demonstrations on how to get started and what resources to use on your journey will be discussed. Attendees will leave this session with a better understanding of:

• Utilizing the new SharePoint App model to bring your products to the Marketplace
• How Windows Azure can be leveraged in SharePoint apps, showcasing the oAuth and auto provisioning features
• When to use the SharePoint 2013 app model compared to the legacy approaches

Visit AvePoint’s Webinar page for more information.

I have been an avid fan of “Zero Inbox” way of e-mail life for a while now. Often people ask what are the tips to making this work.

Well first of all, I have Outlook 2013 on my main work PC running Windows 8 and I have my Android device.

Here is what I do:

Two Screens

I have two screens on my computer. One is showing my Outlook Inbox window and one is showing my Outlook Task List. I don’t like the Dock Peek feature as I prefer more space for reading pane.

Settings – Unread emails

Change the setting in Outlook 2013 settings | Mail | Reading Pane (button) | “Mark item as read when selection changes”.

This means that I can view my emails in the preview window and when I move to next one it stays unread. I like to manually click read button so I can visually see what I’ve really “read”.

Settings – Save in same folder

Change the setting in Outlook 2013 settings | Mail | Save Messages (section) | When replying to messages that is not the inbox,svae the reply in the same folder.

This stops my “Sent Items” becoming absolutely painful. Threaded messaging in Outlook 2013 is great, and “Find all related” is great, but this is quicker.

Folder Structure

I’m a folders guy, I have main structure and then subfolders under them:

• Projects – one for each internal project I have going on.
• Customers – one for each customer I talk to (I don’t put things in Dynamics CRM because it’s just too slow to do it with the add-on)
• Products – one for each product I disscuss internally
• Conferences – one for each conference organizer I talking to.
• Distribution Lists – one for each DL I get emails from…and an Auto-rule to put them there. I don’t want this noise in my main inbox but check these frequently and have short cuts to them.
• Partners – one for the all the partners I deal with
• Everything else -  I have an “Archive” folder where I put stuff where

Check frequently

I do check my e-mails frequently…pretty often as the toasts fly in on the screen. Here is the process I use to action each:

• Is it relevant to me?
• No
• Delete it

• Yes
• Is it just informational?
• Yes
• File it away
• No
• Can I respond straight away in less than 2 minutes?
• Yes
• respond to e-mail
• File it away
• No
• Can I respond today?
• Yes
• Leave in inbox
• Mark as Read
• Respond by end of day
• File it away

Essentially my inbox should be zero every night when I leave work and it typically is.

Task Management

I do grow tasks and the biggest thing is making sure you allocate time to actually do these tasks in your calendar. The biggest problem with Outlook is that the Task list is completely decoupled from the Calendar where you plan your time! The crappy part is if I select a task the “Meeting” jump button disables itself, would be great if I could spin up a time based on that.

Tracking

I heavily use “Next 7 days” view and “Overdue” view. At the beginning of every morning I look at what is overdue and change the due date to either today (by clicking the Today button) or realize I’ve been over zealous and schedule for later in the week or next week. I hate using “Next week” button as it dumps everything on a Friday and you end up with a big surprise every Friday

Planning

I then look at what tasks I have today and tomorrow and look at my calendar to see how realistic getting these done are and set due dates. I use the Low and High priority buttons to give me a general idea of what’s going on. I treat the Task list like a Agile Back log and start and the top and chew through it during the day. It’s always good to see a lot of strike through completed tasks at the end of the day to feel like you’ve accomplished things. I don’t really use Status at all or % Complete.

Meeting Actions

As well as e-mails, I also get tasks during meetings and discussions. I use the AvePoint Meetings app to create Actions for me and then these bubble up from SharePoint to Outlook Tasks and I have unified view of everything then.

Wrap up

Hopefully you have found this useful. I’d love to hear how you have made yourself more efficient with e-mail! There is a great youtube video explaining this approach my “Merlin” in 2007.

Got your attention did it…yes I am a Microsoft SharePoint Server MVP and work with Microsoft technology day in day out, but that doesn’t mean I have to stick to Microsoft for everything. I have used Windows OS machines since switching from Mac OS, due to helping run my fathers graphic design studio, when I left college to do a degree in Computer Science at University in London that required it. I pushed myself to use Windows Mobile in its “glory days” and had devices such as the ATOM, HTC Tytn II and various other devices. The apps never were any good, music integration was awful and the hardware always was enormous and clunky. I switched to an iPhone 3GS after pre-ordering a iPod Touch when they first came out and loving the OS. I then switched back to Windows Phone when I arrived in New York 2 years ago…hoping for the OS to be there….here is why I am yet again switching off Windows Mobile OS to try Google’s Android Mobile OS for the first time. Why not back to iOS? Nothing has changed on that OS since I stopped using it 2 yars ago and Google Glass is coming…

What I didn’t like

APPS

Windows Phone 8 has plenty of apps now but I must admit after spending only 2 hours with my Android device, I’m finding the quality, features and speed of the apps is so much better on the Android.

The Good

• SharePoint Newsfeed – this is probably one of the nicest built social apps I’ve used on WP8 so good work to the team on that!
• Twitter – since the update recently this app is FLYING and feels much like iOS version of the app rather than WP8 feel
• MyTrips – the only way to consume TripIt information thanks to a ex-Microsofty and good mate Chris Johhson…AWESOME APP!
• Weather Channel
• WhatsApp
• ESPN – sports alerts are a start for my NHL needs

The Bad

• Spotify – it’s there finally on WP8…but try fast forwarding a song or skipping to a certain part of the song…you can’t do it. Again shows the lack of features in WP8 version as an example.
• Facebook – one of the slowest apps on the device…whoever fixed the twitter app needs to get to this one ASAP
• Foursquare – this app was originally dead slow…had some tweaks but still no where near as good as 4th & Mayor, which still isn’t as good as other OS’s
• OneNote – was good for text entry but wish I could have drawn on my screen like I can with Note 2 in S-Notes etc.
• LinkedIn – a lot of features missing from other OS’s

The Ugly

• Skype – I never did get background skype working well
• Xbox Music – I’m hearing a lot of people giving up on Xbox Music not just in WP8 but also in Windows 8 due to things like Playlists not syncing across and the metro interface simply not being usable.
• WordPress – good start but again more of a “me too” than a functional app
• Yammer – this app is so slow it’s not even funny compared to other OS’s
• Yelp – a major amount of features missing in this

Missing APPS

In general there are quite a few apps missing, I got sick of seeing TV ads and NYC subway ads about “Available now on Apple and Android devices” with no mention of Windows Phone…in some cases already companies are hedging bets on Blackberry over Windows Phone which seems a little bold. Just a small sample of those that I was looking for:

• Feedly – especially now Google Reader is going away!
• FlipBoard – AWESOME app!
• FitBit – for syncing my FitBit One
• GTalk
• GrubHub – for ordering take out
• Instagram – pictures…still don’t understand why that isn’t there!!!
• NHL Live Center – all my hockey needs
• Optimum – my cable company allows me to watch TV on the go and schedule my DVR…no sign of Windows Phone 8 app…
• Pinterest – major trending and have interesting on how its being used
• Pulse – love this newsreader
• SnapChat – yep it’s the new trend
• SmugMug – an official one as the one in the store is very poor
• GAMES GAMES GAMES – I have a PlayStation Vita so not my bag…but I hear this a lot.

Windows Phone 8 sync story

Well with Windows 8 the sync story has got a little better around backing up devices etc. but it’s not as good as what iOS used to provide me. If you get a new device that is different hardware you are essentially screwed and can’t restore. I’ve been through a Lumia 900 and a 920 and had to start over…Exchange Sync only gets you so far.

Notification system

After using the Android notifications page for a week now, I’m not sure I could go back to WP8 where notifications just don’t work in the same manner and hard to keep track of. I love being able to see in one screen email notifications, twitter updates, facebook updates, sms messages, etc. and click to jump into context or swipe to remove.

Peak Mode

A feature from my Windows Mobile days of collecting email in certain time frames….just found out this is in Android out of box.

Toggle Off

I love the ability to turn off wifi, switch on airplane model or battery saving without having to jump into settings then all the options…things are just at a better reach in Android.

Group SMS

That feature never seemed to work well for me, often got confusing unthreaded sms’s from people.

Office Hub

I do like the concept of the Office Hub, but to be honest I never used it as if I want to read a Word doc or PowerPoint I’m going to do it on a device I can actually see it in

What I did like

Tiles

I love the tile notifications but the reality is most of the apps I’d like it to work for such as Facebook, Twitter STILL don’t work properly and both iOS and Android have notifications on number of unread emails already anyway and you can get “Widgets” for Calendaring for Android and other apps that support them.

Me

I’m heavy into social so I did like the me tile that integrates into Facebook, Twitter etc. But I must admit that I do prefer the apps that are there for Android in terms of speed etc.

Microsoft ID

I love the way that when I log into the phone with my Microsoft ID it shows me similar things to what I get when I log into Windows 8. Now I know Microsoft Blue project is taking this even further which is definitely a step in the right direction. Although I’ve noticed already that Google does tie into a lot of their apps and roams across devices much the same with things like Google Drive etc.

Hardware

Hats off to Nokia for their Lumia builds, but I’m loving the Samsung Note 2 and accessories that are available compared ot WP8 phones

Wrap Up

I must admit, after a week with Android and the Note 2 device itself…I’m extremely happy and not sure I could go back unless they deliver on my concerns above. The Windows 8 + Xbox + WP8 story is compelling but it’s not enough to keep me there. This isn’t the first attempt Microsoft have had at phones…I guess I was expecting too much from them.

I also noticed that a few other high profile SharePoint community members have also switched back to iOS in the community such as Joel Oleson early this week….would love to hear what they have to say.

So the cat is out of the bag thanks to Jared Spataro, Senior Director of the Microsoft Office Division. If you’ve followed my thoughts on Yammer vs SharePoint in the past, you would know that I was very critical of the “current state” of SharePoint 2013 and Yammer and also my comparison post. We made a decision at AvePoint to stick with SharePoint 2013 for “social” rather than look at the integration with Yammer which I explain here. After reading the direction that Jared had spelt out, I’m still happy with our decision as we are on-premises with SharePoint much like a lot of Enterprise customers rather than Office 365 SharePoint Online. I will say that we are seeing a lot more questions around O365 since January with the release of 2013 wave on February 27th. It was great that they included some information around on-premises too at the same time rather than delaying answering.

It’s awesome that Microsoft have come up with updated roadmaps that have plans for “Summer” and “Fall” (for non US people that’s June/July and September/October timeframe I think ). The first is what they were previously calling “Tomorrow” and the second was the “Future” from the slide shown at SPC12 that I mention in my previous blog posts.

Concerns around the releases are as follows:

Summer release

The off switch essentially is just a change in the hyperlink to Yammer Network homepage, but it won’t turn off other things that drive the SharePoint Newsfeed that won’t be there anymore…

• the “Follow” site concept that would have appeared in the SharePoint Newsfeed when activity occurred is gone
• the only benefit of “follow” button would be the “Sites” listing where it shows the site as I’m assuming activity won’t show in Yammer
• following someone in the SharePoint About Me page or search results for a user is now irrelevant
• following a document also now irrelevant
• mentioning users in Community discussions will send emails still but won’t see it in newsfeed again will cause confusion (something heavily used at AvePoint to draw attention to discussions)
• following a hash tag is now nearly irrelevant as you can’t see the newsfeed, although you can get to the hash tag profile I’m guessing, so discourages in Community discussions
• SharePoint mobile apps will continue to work although only visible in mobile apps
• liking in blog posts and community discussions are now irrelevant unless you are on the post as no notifications

I would hope that the “off switch” does more than swap out the hyperlink and hides the things above and disables it.

Other issues I see are (some of which will be fixed in the fall):

• no single sign on so authenticating twice
• hash tags created in SharePoint won’t sync with Yammer ones
• you need to manage two profiles
• two different user interfaces
• SharePoint communities vs. Yammer Groups

Fall release

For the Fall release I would hope that all these functions mentioned above are replaced by Yammer alternatives but they are not clear on this from the mockup or description. Maybe they assume this will be done but I’d rather they spell that out. The screen shot does definitely encourage me in terms of the two user interfaces feeling the same and also highlights “trending files” that I’m going to assume the follow is already taken into consideration. Also looks like federated search there with that search text box rather than just throwing the “we’ve got a social graph you can leverage”.

One pondering question is, what will win out of Yammer Groups and SharePoint Communities? will SharePoint communities get any improvements or will Microsoft “kill” them by showing them no attention.

2014 releases

I love the direction that Microsoft are going in knitting together their entire stack of e-mail, IM, voice, video and LOB’s…it will be a enterprise social platform to SERIOUSLY dominate. The transition process right now is just a bump that needs to be rode over.

Wrap up

I respect that the acquisition happened in July 2012 and they’ve had a lot to do to get to this point with the coordination to two very different platforms with two very different development approaches. Working for a software company I appreciate things are not as easy as they seem on the surface. Congrats to all involved in getting this far and to those that I’ve talked to more closely (you know who you are) based on my posts that have caused some controversy in the market.

I look forward to seeing the Fall changes and metrics on who actually does “turn it off” in SharePoint 2013. Although Jared’s answer is “Go Yammer!”…I would hazard a guess that people will chose to wait for Fall release to see whether these things have been “fixed” rather than jumping on the Summer quick fix.

I have been a heavy user of “tablet” PC’s for a while now with my first being a Fujitsu T4020, then to a Samsung Series 7 slate, Lenovo X220t, then to a Surface RT then to this new ATIV Smart PC Pro 700T…yes what a crap name is the first thing that came to my mind. So I guess what I’m saying is I’ve been round the block for the l last 7 years.

The 700T is based on an Intel Core i5-3317U processor. Priced at USD$1,199.99, the Pro comes with a 128GB SSD and 4GB of RAM which is about the same price as the Surface Pro once you buy the Type keyboard.

Build

There is a 500T which runs RT, the pro is slightly heavier at 1.89 lbs. but lighter than the Surface Pro. I went to look at the Pro the day it was on sale and found it felt too heavy for me even though it’s only like 0.2lbs different. The Surface Pro does look sexier than this a little and more identifiable, the 700T could be mistaken for an Android device for sure.

The build quality is 1000 times better than the Samsung Series 7 Slate that felt like it flexed too much in your hands. The former device used to get damn hot sometimes too, which they seemed to have fixed in this one. I’m still not that happy with the USB port covers, I’m tempted to just cut those off.

Stylus

I am a huge user of stylus…I spend a lot of time discussing software architecture design approaches over Lync and OneNote. I LOVE the fact that the S-Pen slides into the slate itself…rather than the stylus on the Surface Pro. Some may find the stylus too small, and it is missing the standard top tip that acts as an eraser…but you can use another larger stylus for that.

Battery

I have been testing this all week whilst I was at the MVP Summit, I was getting around 6.5 hours of full time use on Wi-Fi which I’m thoroughly impressed by. I did find that the power pin that plugs in is extremely thin and looks like it’ll bend easy. It’s the same one that was in the Samsung Series 7 slate which did in fact have the same socket. Definitely not as innovative as the Surface port.

Screen

The 700T has 10 finger touch unlike the 500T that has 5, so you can have more grubby fingers on your screen at once. I found the touch extremely responsive and have found the shiny gorilla glass much better than the matt finish of my old Lenovo X220T. It’s a nice bright screen also and very clear, I haven’t really tested it too much in sunlight just yet to give feedback on that. The resolution is 1920×1080 by default and I did find it a little small at first, but I’ve grown to love the resolution on this screen.

Monitor output

Obviously a VGA port isn’t on this device as its too thin, instead there is a mini-HDMI port, you can purchase a cable to convert to VGA and it outputs well on all the projectors I’ve tried.

Keyboard

There are some complaints from a few reviews that the keyboard feels too flimsy. It is extremely light and plastic, but the hinge that the slate hardware drops into balances well even though the slate part is heavier. The keys are great compared to the Type cover and as I am right now, can have the keyboard on my lap wobbling and all the key presses turn up. I found the Type cover needed to be on a flat solid surface. The key layout is great with a full set of function keys, it took me a little bit to get used to the Fn key being between CTRL and ALT as I’ve been using a Lenovo where it’s the other way around.

The keyboard does not light up, to be honest I’ve never had one that does, but I know that’ll be a drawback here over other Ultrabooks.

Touchpad

I have found that the touch pad is well positioned and doesn’t get in my way when I’m typing. There is no hard left and right buttons, so you have to push in the touchpad, but it works well. I have found the clicking noise you hear when you push it down is really loud.

Dock

The benefit of this form factor over the Surface Pro is that I can treat this like an ultra book and have the screen at more angles, as the Surface Pro is fixed. There have been some gripes about the docking. You do need to push it in hard to make sure it is all the way in, but after a few times you get used to it. I mean it doesn’t “click” snap when you put it together…which means Samsung won’t be doing a advert with a bunch of school girls doing backflips swapping keyboards…because that’s such a real world scenario!!!

It would be great if they built a dock for the office you could drop this onto and give you a full blown experience on 2 full size monitors.

[UPDATE 26 Feb] I finally set up the Lenovo USB 3.0 Dock, it’s pretty impressive, I can have my laptop screen plus two other displays at 1600×900. It has a network cable port for wired connection, 5 USB3 ports, 2 DVI outputs and all I do is plug it into the 700T via a USB Cable.

Ports

The keyboard has 2x USB3.0 ports and there is one on the slate itself. It also has a MicroSD card slot, head phone socket, mini-HDMI, and built in microphone.

Speakers

I do carry around with me a Jambox device, but to be honest, the speakers on this are loud enough to watch a movie whilst in a hotel room on the end of the bed, which I heard the Surface Pro isn’t.

Webcam

It has built in webcams front and back, I do a lot of Skype Video calls back home and have found in florescent light its worked well.

Noise

Although it has very thick grill near the top edge, I’ve yet to hear the fan really going crazy which is good.

SIM

I didn’t get the model with SIM card support, but apparently it supports 3G/4G but not sure what this costs extra.

Wrap up

All in all, I’m extremely happy with the device and would highly recommend this to anyone looking for a Windows 8 Pro convertible device. I know a lot are waiting for the Lenovo Helix device to surface too (excuse the pun).