Will Kelly

Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 showing some love to the Mac?

When I was writing my post about building the better corporate instant messaging deployment I was using my MacBook Pro. A Google search on Windows Live Messenger turned up this very Mac centric page about Microsoft Messenger: mac and Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007:

Zoho Office for SharePoint Launches

Zoho recently made a very strategic move by launching Zoho Office for SharePoint because of SharePoint's growing dominance in the enterprise. It seems everybody I am speaking to about potential projects these days is using Microsoft Office SharePoint Services 2007 for secure document collaboration inside their firewall.

Gaining Perspective While Cleaning Out My Home Office

I've been spending some of my downtime cleaning out my home office. My work as a technical writer, computer book technical editor/reviewer, and freelance writer have made me a pack rat.

The other fact is that my office is at the highest point in my town house so I have to carry things up two flights of stairs meaning some things stay up there.

Box.net on LinkedIn

I've written before on this blog about the convergence of social networking, online collaboration tools, and the Web Office.

LinkedIn, a business-focused social networking site is jumping into that fray by offering up integration to a free Box.net account. This is a great vehicle for posting writing samples (that are in the public domain) and even Word or PDF versions of resumes to make them accessible on LinkedIn.

My SharePoint Site Pet Peeves

Through some previous contracts I've gained experience interacting with an administering SharePoint sites including managing document libraries, user access, creating lists and other site elements. In fact, I believe that today's technical writer needs to be fluent in SharePoint site administration.

During this time, I've inherited some SharePoint sites that made my job harder versus making me more productive.

Google Apps Sync Disables Outlook Desktop Search

Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook disables Microsoft Desktop Search according to recent news reports. While early reports on the tool touted it as a simple way to migrate from Microsoft Exchange to Google Apps the fact that the application breaks Microsoft Desktop Search is a major blow to this application in my opinion.

Are You Seeking a Senior Technical Writer in the Washington, DC Area?

I am currently available for new full-time or contract employment as a senior technical writer in the Washington, DC area or via telecommuting.

Details of my experience are after the jump.

Building The Better Corporate Instant Messaging Deployment

While AOL Instant Messenger, Windows Live Messenger, Google Talk, and Yahoo Messenger have found a home on corporate desktops, often times an organization needs to have an enterprise class instant messaging solution like Office Communicator 2007 in place to ensure security and auditing of instant message that bounce around behind their firewall and extend out to customers and partners.

Some Random And Recent Projects

I try to keep myself busy during my downtime. Here are some random and recent personal projects I've been pursuing:

Building the Better Microsoft Office SharePoint Services 2007 Deployment

During recent job interviews and meetings with prospective clients, the topic of my SharePoint experience came up more than once.  While I am a big proponent of Microsoft Office SharePoint Services 2007 in the enterprise, I am the first to admit that you shouldn't downplay the initial deployment because it can be a game changer and have a definite impact on business processes.

Added Social Media as a New Blog Category

Considering where the current market, my thinking, and my writing is headed, I've added a Social Media category to my blog.

SlideShare Presentations and LinkedIn

Online presentation services and a professionally facing social media platform like LinkedIn are an ideal match as job seekers seek to differentiate themselves.

LinkedIn offers SlideShare Presentations as application add-in to augment your LinkedIn profile. SlideShare Presentations supports all the major presentation software formats including *.ppt, *.pps, *odp, keynote, *doc, and *.odt.

My Initial Impressions about the Palm Pre

I was a long time Palm customer dating back to the time that predates smartphones. In fact, I first started carrying a Palm PDA back when you could sit around a conference table and the meeting participants who were carrying a PDA where the exception rather than the rule.

Palm and I had a break up during the Treo 650 generation because they became irrelevant as they lagged behind in technology. When developments in the Treo product line grew stale, I became a Blackberry user.

Will Today's Economy Further Thin Out IT Contracting Firms?

The thought passed my mind today after hearing about more than one low ball technical writing contract off and on over the past few months is if today's economy, corporate indecision, and skewed corporate perceptions that the perfect senior person can be found for cheap is going to further thin out the IT contracting firm herd.

I say this because the bulk of most recruiters salary is paid on a commission basis meaning they have to place people and the fact that some IT contract openings have been open for months as employers get lost in indecision, hand wringing, and a myriad of other issues I can only pretend to understand.

Building The Better Office 2007 Migration

The Microsoft Office 2007 system seems to be catching on in my marketplace. During recent interviews and meetings with prospective clients, the topic of Microsoft Office 2007 and its many new features has been raised more than once. A lot of the Microsoft Office 2007 questions I've heard also deal with Microsoft interaction with Microsoft Office SharePoint Services 2007.

Organizations planning a migration from Microsoft Office 2003 to Microsoft Office 2007 shouldn't take the migration lightly. While it is easy to dismiss Microsoft Office as just Microsoft Office, it needs to be known that Microsoft Office can be the center of an end user's primary work and business processes.

Google Tasks and Google Calendar Integration

Google Calendar  is my calendar of choice for tracking my personal and professional lives because I switch back and forth between multiple Windows and Macintosh PCs during the course of my work day. This means that Google Calendar is always open in one or another of my browser tabs during most hours of my online/work time.

One of the many bright spots to come out of Google Labs is Google Tasks. While its initial integration with Gmail was uninspiring but Google made the right move and took the next and proper step to integrate Google Tasks with Google Calendar.

Life After MobileMe

Considering my initial experience with MobileMe, I couldn't justify renewing my account for another year. Apple really let me down with the launch of MobileMe but I plan to follow MobileMe developments and I am optimistic given time that Apple will get MobileMe back on track to reach its full potential.

As a customer, I can say Apple made the right moves with me. They gave me a great deal when the service was called .Mac and offered me free months of extra service after the botched launch and rebranding of the service. However, during this time it seemed that Apple paid zero attention to making MobileMe (a fee based service) competitive with what was going on in the Web Office, online collaboration, and

Zoho Writer 2.0 Review

I've spent the better part of my professional career with Microsoft Word open on the desktop of one computer or another. I know Microsoft Word for its strengths and been stung and even burned by its weaknesses especially at deadline time.

 While writing for Processor Magazine, I opened up my mind to  the concept of Web Office productivity applications like those from Zoho, ThinkFree, and Google. This chain of events has made me

While Google has brand, I am the first to say that Zoho is perhaps the most innovative players in the Web Office productivity space. The recent release of Zoho Writer 2.0 builds upon their innovation and offers a Web-based word processor that rivals traditional desktop word processors in terms of usability and functionality.

I won at the Facebook Land Grab

I stayed up last night after coming home and snagged the vanity URL I wanted for my Facebook account. As somebody who tries to keep a strong Web presence, I am all about getting my name as part of a URL.

I am such a geek because I probably will never use my Facebook account on a business card or in a professional .sig file.

My Home Office Backup Regimen: Mozy.com and Windows Home Server

I began to pay a lot more attention to my home office backup regimen after a particularly nasty hard drive crash right before an article deadline and a Thanksgiving holiday two years ago. The debacle ruined the day off I scheduled, my holiday, and was just a plain old stressful event.

This near disaster made me institute a redundant backup process for the primary writing machines in my home office consisting of Mozy.com for offsite backup and Windows Home Server for onsite backup.