The Understanding SharePoint Journal is a periodical focusing on building understanding of various aspects of SharePoint, including development, customization, usage, business intelligence, workflow, business process automation, and other topics.

USPJA is an online university style academy dedicated to providing SharePoint training for developers, administrators, and business users on all levels, from beginners to professional SharePointers.

Here’s the official presentation:

http://www.understandingsharepoint.com/training/

I’ll reveal far more information over the coming weeks and if you want to keep up-to-date, there’s even a special mailing list to serve your information thirst.

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A lot.

Here’s the deal.

USPJ is sponsoring the event this year as a media sponsor. That means I’m entitled to bring one guest to the conference.

I want my guest to be one of the members of the USP Journal mailing list. And I don’t want this to be just any giveaway. I want you to feel that you are my guest, and I want to take care of you.

So, on January 23, 2010, I’m going to draw one winner out of the proverbial hat who will get a free three-day pass, valued at $1,595.00.

That means you get the full package, including access to workshops, classes, special events, meals, and everything as described on http://sptechcon.com/register_sf.html.

Oh, but don’t think that’s all.

As my guest, of course you will stay at the conference hotel, the Hyatt Regency San Francisco Airport hotel, for four nights, from February 9 through February 13.

That means you arrive the day prior to the conference and can stay until the day after the conference. This has a value of around $600.00.

I’ll be staying there myself, which brings up the third part of this prize.

Every day of the conference, for one full hour, you get personal training with me, on any topic you choose. If you can’t choose, I have multiple topics I can teach you, both on SP2007 and on SP2010.

You will get this training all three days of the conference plus the day you arrive. If you arrive late, we can do two hours on one of the other days instead.

I’ll even record the session and produce it for you so you get your personal training as a DVD for later use.

I normally charge $300 per hour for such training, so this is valued at $1,200.00.

And, to make sure you get all the current issues and many of the future issues of USPJ, I’m including a 13-issue subscription bundle, valued at $149.50.

The grand prize thus is worth more than $3,500.

Note: I can’t pay for your plane ticket, as I have no idea from where you will be arriving, and that would change the value of the prize depending on where you live.

But I’m not stopping there. Five other winners will also receive a 13-issue subscription bundle, valued at $149.50.

The total amount of prizes is thus valued at more than $4,200.

Here’s what you have to do.

I’m looking for testimonials to put up on the various issue sites. To enter, you need to send me a one-paragraph testimonial about what you think of one of the issues.

Does this means that you need to purchase an issue to participate? No! Why not read through the free Nintex issue, or any of the free preview issues, such as the first issue of the Introducing SharePoint 2010 series. You can even do this for one of the bonus issues available in the free section of the USP website.

Here’s an example (not an actual testimonial):

"Reading SharePoint Designer Workflows really made me understand how to create and work with workflows in SharePoint Designer. The issue was easy to read, and the accompanying videos were very valuable."

Some rules apply, though.

• No purchase is necessary. If you have purchased an issue, feel free to write about that, but if not, simply review any of the free content and tell me what you think. You can check out free previews for all the issues in the menu.
• You cannot get cash instead of the prize. The prize is as it is.
• You must be an actual reader of the issue for which you write your testimonial. This is required by the feds in the United States, and although I’m legally registered in Norway and not subject to U.S. regulations, I still want to play fair.
• You must be a member of the USPJ mailing list. If you are not a member of the mailing list at the time of the drawing (January 23, 2010), you’ll forfeit your contribution.
• You must allow me to post your testimonial along with your first name and either city or country of origin, whether you win or not. (In other words, if you are John Yarkes from the United Kingdom, I’m going to post your testimonial as coming from John, UK.) If required, I may edit the testimonial for clarity but not for meaning.
• You must send your testimonial to me in an email to journal@understandingsharepoint.com bearing a subject containing at least the text "Customer Testimonial: Issue X" (where X is the number of the issue). You may add more, but at least those parts are required.

The winner will be drawn by random from all testimonials posted, so there is absolutely not point in trying to write a nice testimonial to increase your chances. Every testimonial, regardless of quality or content, is eligible for winning.

The randomness will be based on me putting all the names of contributors in an Excel sheet and then using a random number generator (Random() in .NET) to pick one of the numbers in the list.

There are no requirements for quality or anything like that. Simply tell me what you think, and you could be spending a few days in January with some of the world’s greatest SharePoint experts. 

So, don’t just sit there, sign up for the Understanding SharePoint Journal mailing list and write me an email at journal@understandingsharepoint.com with the stated subject, and you could be the grand prize winner.

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SharePoint Designer 2010 is part of the Office 2010 Technical Preview that Microsoft encourages for public talk, and as such, Understanding SharePoint Journal is proud to take you one step further into the future by showing you early looks at how SPD 2010 will change your workflow authoring experience.

In addition, you will also get a glimpse into how the new Visio 2010 workflow integration works. Visio 2010 allows business users to author workflows inside a familiar environment without having to learn details on how SharePoint works.

Of course, you will also get the regular updates from the SharePoint 2010 scene, including new findings from the object model, new features and services, updates on expected release dates, and other topics.

Get your series subscription today, it’s only $14.95, just like every other issue. You’ll immediately get access to the previous issues and a notification when the next issue releases next week.

This is not a recurring payment. This is a one-time $14.95 payment to get all the issues up to the public beta of SharePoint 2010 releases.

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Video training has become a popular method both for augmenting traditional training and for separate training products. The rise in popularity of YouTube and other online video providers has massively increased the availability of video as a medium for information distribution. Users have come to expect video content as part of any online offering.

“The choice of providing video content came as a result of users’ request for information that could not easily be transmitted using only text and pictures” editor Bjørn Furuknap said. “We worked with several readers to find the most appropriate form, and found that video offered everything the readers requested.”

The video content for issue 3 will be available as a part of the normal issue, but will be an optional add-on for future issues. “We want to keep this as an option for users rather than force a price increase for everyone. The regular issues will still be priced at less than $15 per issue”

Understanding SharePoint Journal issue 3 will launch Monday, April 20, 2009. A sample teaser video has been posted to YouTube on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXrndeYGTn8.

We believe that events such as SharePoint Saturday are important to increase knowledge about SharePoint, which is the main focus of USP Journal. However, equally important is growing the community through interaction, discussions, and social events.

SharePoint Saturday focuses on both the learning and social aspects. If you are in the DC area on May 2nd, 2009, and want to learn more about SharePoint and meet fellow SharePointers, you should try to find time to attend SharePoint Saturday. It’s free, and there’s lunch involved

http://www.sharepointsaturday.org/dc/default.aspx

However, I realize that I do not know about all the people who are magnificent SharePointers, so I have decided to open this program to others as well.

Do you know someone you think deserves a little reward for something? If so, post a comment here, or send an email to journal<[at]>understandingsharepoint.com. You can even nominate yourself. Explain in a few lines why you think that person deserves a free issue. Every now and then I’ll pick a good reason and donate a free issue to your person of choice.

All suggestions are moderated, but I’ll ask that if I use your suggestion, that you allow me to post your reason, as well as the name of whoever you nominated.

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This time, the topic is content type development, and you will be guided through a series of scenarios, questions, and situations in SharePoint Content Type development.

You still have time to sign up for the mailing list to get the preview chapter free and also receive a discount code for purchasing the complete issue. Use the form on the right to signup by Friday March 27, 2009 to receive the bonus code.

Here is the Table of Contents for Issue 2 – Developing SharePoint Content Types:

Introduction

Content Types Introduction

What Are Content Types?

What Kind of Information Can Be Stored in a Content Type?

What You Will Need

Your First Content Type 

User Interface

Why Must I Use Site Columns in Content Types?

List Form and Content Type Forms

How Does a Content Type Form Relate to List Forms?

Rendering Templates

What Are FormUrls Compared to FormTemplates?

Custom Actions

What is Purpose of the ContentTypeId in schema.xml List Views?

Inheritance

What is the Best Way to Craft Content Type Id Values?

Which Properties are Inherited?

How do I Implement Content Type Inheritance in CAML?

How do you Override Column Settings in a Child Content Type?

Behavior

What are Event Receivers?

How do I Attach an Event Receiver to a Content Type?

Can I use Code to add Event Receivers to Content Types?

Wait! What about Workflows?

Advanced Content Type Scenarios

Folders are Content Types

How do I Iterate Through All Items and Folders in a List?

How do I Create Folder Content Types in CAML

Custom XML Documents

How can I Create My Own XmlDocuments?