Here’s the deal: I get a ton of email asking all sorts of questions, which is great. Keep your questions flowing, much of what you have asked is already in the book.

A lot of questions, however, are either a bit out of scope or is not covered exactly as you ask them, so I am including a chapter in the book called “Questions from the audience”. The idea is simple: I take some of the questions I receive and answer them with the voice of the very unreal Dr. Schwein Puddle, along with his beautiful but equally unreal assistant Miss Winterweather. Those who ask questions will get their name, location and optional company name preserved for history, and, of course, your question answered, hopefully to your satisfaction.

So, what you need to do is to ask me your question, preferably regarding SharePoint and even better if they revolve around the SharePoint user experience, and let me know how you prefer to be credited.

Send your questions to furuknap<[at]>gmail.com and I will forward them to Dr. Puddle and his lovely assistant. Questions must be received no later than December 21st, as I need time to answer them before the book deadline of December 31st.

Oh, and I will answer your questions by email as well, so you won’t have to wait until launch in April.

Posted under Updates

As part of the caring and nurturing of loyal mailing list subscribers I will at fairly regular intervals post exclusive content to the list. The last installment of exclusive content is a set of excerpts from the first three chapters. The excerpts, posted on a separate page here, is password protected and only list members will get that password. At least from me.

Now, if you still want to see this content you have two choices:

1. Wait until the content is posted on a public page. Can take a long time.

2. Join the mailing list! Instant access promised.

Here’s what you will get:

1. Working with web parts in a site definition (from chapter 4)

This 3-page excerpt explains how you would add web parts to your site definition using the AllUsersWebPart element. In addition you will be shown how you get the actual web part code from an existing web part so that you can pre-configure settings to be included in the site definition web part.

(PDF, 4 pages)

2. DelegateControls (from chapter 5)

Modifying appearance and behavior of existing pages can be accomplished using DelegateControls. These controls allow you to put new controls and content into a pre-defined area of a page, such as the search box, various links, or, if you have created your own pages, anywhere you put a DelegateControl control. Learn how in this short excerpt.

(PDF, 3 pages)

3. A deep dive into Email-enabled lists (from chapter 7)

If you ever wanted to have an email enabled custom list you should understand how email works with lists. Then you would need to write a single line of code. This excerpt will explain and show you how email enabling works under the hood.

(PDF, 5 pages)

To join the mailing list you can use the form on the right or go to the signup to the newsletter mailing list page. Either option will require you to confirm your subscription by clicking a link in an email you receive right after filling in the form. If you do not click you will not get the welcome message in which the password is revealed.

Or, you can just fiddle your thumbs until someone decides to post the excerpts in a public place

.b

Posted under Updates

Sahil Malik, SharePoint MVP, fellow author, speaker, and a ton of other things, will be the technical reviewer for “Building the SharePoint User Experience”. I asked him about a week ago and he jumped right on, agreeing within two hours of receiving the first sample chapter.

Sahil has vast experience with both writing and reviewing IT books, being author of no less than 4 books:

• Smart BI Solutions with MS SQL Server 2008 
• Programming Microsoft SQL Server 2005 
• Pro ADO.NET 2.0 
• Pro ADO.NET with VB .NET 1.1 

In addition, Sahil has authored countless technical articles and is considered a Guru, with a capital G, in more than the SharePoint community. Check out his website, at http://blah.winsmarts.com/.

I am exceptionally happy that Sahil has agreed to be the technical reviewer for this book. He will make sure that what I write is not completely off the hook.

.b

Posted under Updates

The Book is now available for pre-order from Amazon. At the time of this writing there isn’t that much information on the Amazon site, and I actually just found out they had put it up for pre-order at all.

Anyway, I am a bit disappointed at the price. Here I am, pouring my soul out for the world to see, and the show is only $40 a ticket.

Oh, but they do have that cool book banner ad thingy. Here’s how it looks:

Nice, except they got my name wrong.

So, what are you still hanging around for? Get over there and buy the damn thing! I’m not getting rich by you sitting here!

.b

Posted under Updates

In the “Other SharePoint books you might want…” I have put several books that I think should be in very developer’s book shelf. I own most of the books, and will be posting reviews of them in my blog as I find time. Some books are highly recommended to me by people I trust, but sadly I do not own them myself.

In any case, if you want to check out my recommendations and perhaps augment your book collection while you are waiting for my book, hop on over to “Other SharePoint books you might want…”

If you have other suggestions for books you thing should be in the shelf, let me know, I might have missed some.

Posted under Updates