Social Learning Systems

A Community Cloud Strategy for the Education Enterprise -- Campus Technology

As the director of enterprise services at the Virginia Community College System, Matt Lawson has seen his institution's legacy enterprise systems and services transformed through the implementation of the system's cloud strategies. VCCS serves a large and diverse population and comprises 23 colleges, 40 campuses, and many satellite locations. The scale and distribution of enterprise services at VCCS offers a unique opportunity for the institution to leverage a community cloud strategy, both for cost efficiencies and for improved services.

Campus Technology asked Lawson to comment on the community cloud strategy at VCCS.

Read the full article here.

via campustechnology.com

Silicon Valley Pioneer Sandra Kurtzig Back In Start-Up Game With Kenandy - Venture Capital Dispatch - WSJ

Not many people could walk into one of Silicon Valley’s most prominent venture capital firms, ask to see a partner, and have him talk you into letting him fund your company.

But former ASK Group founder Sandra Kurtzig, one of Silicon Valley’s first female entrepreneurs and the first woman to take a Silicon Valley technology company public, did just that, walking into the offices of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and getting an immediate meeting with Managing Partner Ray Lane. 

Read the full article here.

 

---- So excited that Sandy Kurtzig has started this new company.  ASK was one of the best places to work in Silicon Valley and it's wonderful to see this brilliant woman partnering with Salesforce! I spent 5+ years at ASK and know that KENANDY is going to be a great success!  -----  More on KENANDY... 

http://kenandy.com/

 

via blogs.wsj.com

SharePoint Farm Configuring and Deployment. Part 1 – Architectural and Logical Planning

Here is a good educational series on SharePoint.

Michael Nemtsev is a Microsoft MVP and an expert in SharePoint and .NET technologies. With the strong software engineering and development background, Michael has been leading development projects for industry giants like Microsoft, IBM and Dell since year 2000.

Michael runs "SharePoint Tips & Tricks" site http://sharepoint-sandbox.com, SharePoint blog and tweets actively (via @laflour). He presents an excellent look at architecture and planning.

This article is the first in the series:

• Part 1 – Architecture and Logical Planning
• Part 2 – Installation
• Part 3 – Development Environment
• Part 4 – Backup and Recovery Strategy
• Part 5 – Virtualization
• Part 6 – Post Deployment (final)
  
  
• This diagram will give a holistic view of the existing topology and ensure quick access to information across different domains.
  
  
  Here is a link to all of the posts in the series - great information!

Why SharePoint Scares Peter Campbell

Peter writes an excellent article on the pros and cons of using SharePoint vs. other products.

His conclusion?

"When the product matures, if I have organizational buy-in and interest; a large hardware budget; a high-performance Wide Area Network, and a budget for consulting, Sharepoint will be a great way to go. Under the conditions that I have today -- some organizational buy-in; modest budget for servers and no budget for consulting; a decent network, but other priorities for the bandwidth, such as VOIP and video -- I'd be much better served with the alternatives."

His blog post on the topic.

Opera Unite and the Internet’s Unfulfilled Promise

The platform is designed to better facilitate multiuser online applications and to give users greater control of their data even while making it available (if they so choose) to others online.

Opera Unite

This, from Lawrence Eng, a product analyst for Opera Software:

"Opera Unite is a unique technology that turns any computer or device running Opera into a Web server. In other words, your computer (running Opera Unite) is truly part of the fabric of the Web, rather than just interacting with it, and it’s something anyone can use. With Opera Unite, everyday non-technical users can serve and share content and services directly from their own computers in the form of intuitive applications. That sounds kind of cool from a technology point of view, but what can you do with it, and why is it important?"

Eng goes on the say, "I imagine that many of us would lose most of our personal contacts if our favorite Web mail services shut down without warning. Also, many of us maintain extensive friend networks on sites like MySpace and Facebook, and are, therefore, subject to their corporate decisions via “Terms of Service” and click-through agreements. Furthermore, what does it mean anyway to be connected to hundreds of our “closest” friends? What about our real social networks, the people we want to interact with on a regular basis (like once a week, or even every day)"

Opera Unite applications can be just about anything. It’s up to developers, companies, entrepreneurs, end users, and anyone with a vision of what the interpersonal Web really means, to take that vision and build the next generation of applications to bring people together online in brand new ways.

• Check out Introduction to Opera Unite for a guide to getting it up and running
• Read  Unite developer’s primer for more information on creating Opera Unite services

Interested parties will need an Opera username and password (the same one you use on My Opera, Opera Link or Dev Opera), and they'll need to start thinking of a name for their computer.

http://www.opera.com/