Microsoft has released a new set of video learning courses for the end user. These courses are broken down into several modules. You can take these training courses at your desk and at your own pace simply by viewing them in a web browser. No special installation or configuration is required.

In an effort to end the year on a good note, I’ve taken on a huge challenge. About a year ago I sat down to video capture an entire installation of a Virtual PC image of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. Although the video took me several days to complete, once I finished the installation I never went back to the video. Now, a year later I’ve been telling my colleagues and clients “Oh, I have a video that shows you how to install MOSS” but alas, there was no video. So I finally put the finishing touches and actually published it. The challenge was to complete the video, segment the video, and document the installation. Whew! A much bigger project than I originally thought, and a good reason for my lack of blogs in the month of December. Hopefully this will make up for it.

The video is broken down into six different steps. You can view the entire video (1:15 total time) or each section as needed.
Introduction
Step 1 – Installing and Configuring the Base Image
Step 2 – Configuring Email
Step 3 – Installing the .NET Framework
Step 4 – Installing & Configuring SQL Server – coming soon!Step 4 – Installing & Configure SQL Server
Step 5 – Installing & Configuring MOSS
Step 6a – Configuring the SSP
Step 6b – Tweaking your image for performance

In addition to the video, I have step by step instructions on the installation I performed (62 pages, 3.5MB). I will give several disclosures however. First, this is not intended as a production installation. It is intended as a playground or development machine in which to explore SharePoint. Second, it is in a Virtual PC environment. Now that Windows Server 2008 is released it might be a better option to install in Hyper-V. Third, there are a few things I’ve learned since I originally produced the video, or simply a few things I neglected to emphasize during the installation, which I will share with you now.

1. Database names should not be set to the default values during installation. You should specify all database names.
2. Service Accounts should be created prior to the installation and configuration of SharePoint. See my blog on configuring Service Accounts for SharePoint (as well as my blog on what not to do with Service Accounts).
3. Even if you are not going to utilize MySites, you should still create a separate Web Application to host the MySites.
4. Do not use the Administrator account to install and configure SharePoint. Use specific Service Accounts (see #2).
5. Use MOSS templates as your top level site collection templates. Even when using Team Sites you might consider using the Site Directory as the top level site and add the Team Sites as sub sites. This provides full MOSS capabilities within the entire site collection.
6. You really need to have an understanding of the different servers in the farm. You will have your IIS Server, SQL Server, Application Servers (SSPs), and Web Front Ends (WFEs). This (topology) is an important foundation to working with SharePoint.
7. You really need to have an understanding of Web Applications, Site Collections, and Sites. This (taxonomy) is an important foundation to working with SharePoint.
8. There are many, many, many more tweaks that you can do to your VPC image. I would be happy to have additional contributors add to what I started.
9. You might also want to check out this Web cast.
I hope you find this helpful and good luck!

As an instructor I love finding videos I can show students so they can reference them later. As a student I love having videos to watch and learn from. As a consultant I think creating videos of things I’ve discovered are a useful tool to refer back to and refer clients when they need guidance. I’m always stumbling across links to sites that I think to bookmark or RSS feed, but then I don’t have time to keep up. So today I was doing a little Web searching and stumbled on this great “how-to” site. It is the SharePoint 2007 Visual How Tos.

After focusing on the end user population for the past few weeks, I thought it was time to geek out a little bit. My last blog post had a few videos on the basics of workflows in SharePoint. Today I came across this list of videos demonstrating creating custom workflows in Visual Studio. How exciting! I am feeling a little separated from my geekdom as I’ve been hanging out too much in the taxonomy of SharePoint. I hope you find as much value in this as I did.

Enabling incoming/outgoing email for MOSS 2007	Extracting Document Details with SharePoint Workflow’s
Click here to view	Click here to view
Extracting email addresses & Sending emails with SharePoint Workflow	Programmatically creating user tasks with SharePoint Workflow
Click here to view	Click here to view
Programmatically escalating Overdue Tasks	Building Basic Approval Workflow
Click here to view	Click here to view
Building a Multilevel Approval Workflow	Using Active Directory Searching/Lookup in a SharePoint/MOSS 2007 Workflow
  Click here to view	Click here to viewÂ

Get SharePoint Designer training on your desktop: A set of 20 videos covering various topics on Sharepoint designer can be found at office online here. Topics covered in videos include following

• Adding a page to a SharePoint site
• Contributor Settings Creating a custom list data form
• Managing data sources Enabling editing in Data Views
• Data View properties
• Web part connections
• Creating a workflow Collecting data in a workflow
• Modify a master page
• Modify the default SharePoint content placeholders
• Creating pages from a master page
• Changing content page layouts
• Managing master pages
• Create a cascading style sheet
• Modifying Style Sheets
• Using the CSS task panes
• Creating Publishing Page Layouts
• Customizing a Publishing Page Layout
• Code snippets

A six-part series on getting the most out of SharePoint Designer 2007 : A set of 6 videos found here which covers the following topics.

• Powerful user interface and design tools
• Customize SharePoint sites
• Create and modify layout pages
• Create and modify rules-based workflow applications
• Build composite no-code SharePoint applications
• Visual Studio integration

SharePoint Designer 2007 Business Administrator Training: This video series for advanced users shows you how to quickly and easily build complex business solutions on the SharePoint platform. Topics covered include the following

• Integrating Visual Studio
• Using the Data View Dashboard
• Creating the best workflow
• Applying layout changes

Mike Benkovich and Lynn Langit put together some great webcasts on SharePoint technologies. If you are just getting into the technology stack I would suggest you start with a few of these.

·         Part 1 – SharePoint for Developers 4/13/2007  
·         Part 2 – SharePoint Designer 2007 4/16/2006
·         Part 3 – Migrating to SharePoint 4/23/2006
·         Part 4 – SharePoint and Access 2007 4/30/2007
·         Part 5 – SharePoint and Workflow 5/11/2007
·         Part 6 – SharePoint and Content Types 5/18/2007
·         Part 7 – SharePoint and Forms Services 5/25/2007
·         Part 8 – SharePoint and the Business Data Catalog 6/1/2007
·         Part 9 – Web Parts and Work Flows 6/8/2007
·         Part 10 – Sites and Templates 6/15/2007
·         Part 11 – SharePoint and Business Intelligence 6/22/2007
·         Part 12 – Developing SharePoint Workflows 7/6/2007
·         Part 13 – Customizing SharePoint 3/2/2008
·         Part 14 – SharePoint and Authentication 3/13/2008
·         Part 15 – SharePoint and AJAX 3/20/2008
·         Part 16 – SharePoint and SilverLight: 3/27/2008

I have been talking to friends for months about starting my video series and just simply haven’t had the time. But I finally sat down and just went through the entire MOSS 2007 installation about 20 times. Trying various options, having database issues, etc. Once everything was patched and updated the installation was actually pretty seamless. So, for your viewing pleasure I have uploaded the video here. This will be the first of a series and will eventually be used to populate a new Web sites just for video learning. Enjoy!