Today we start the build to revamp MID’s internal IT capabilities.  This build-out project will be for MID’s development and production environments but will not be implemented in a traditional approach.  We are reviewing multiple vendors and designs to take a completely different technique of a datacenter meeting functional requirements.  Our computational capacity is not planned to be ground breaking but we will  be attempting to create a small footprint facility that doesn’t leave a large carbon footprint as it meets modern and future computational requirements.  We will create a blog catalog to follow this build process as well as giving some interesting bits from the datacenter world.

So many platforms and so much to learn! I've transitioned somewhat away from Sharepoint at the moment and made my way back to something a little more familiar to me.  Well not entirely.  

I've been working on a WPF application that will be used at the reception desk at the front of the building that will allow people to check in and out. The icing on the cake is that the application will be driven by a touch screen to allow for quick interaction. The typical user interaction with an application can vary greatly in comparison to a web page.  It's been an interesting look not only at the user experience for standalone apps but at WPF itself. Sometimes it seemed like some tasks were so much more complicated than they needed to be that left me furiously searching Google and muttering to myself 'why on earth would you do it like that'. Coming from a generally more web-based background, it's been a bit of a challenge moving away from the web and working with a standalone app. There is a complimentary web application that will work closely with the desktop app and both pieces are moving further and further towards completion.

As of right now there is another upcoming project that will be using DotNetNuke so I'm starting to work my way through learning that.  It's a pretty robust platform and I'm interested to see what other things it's capable of in the upcoming days.

I've spent a week or two getting more familiar with Sharepoint 2007 and namely researching custom web parts to develop customized solutions for users. Never really spent any time with Sharepoint before but it seems robust in what it offers. I had some troubles at first with deployment of custom web parts due to permission settings on the .dll that is generated when building a web part. A bit of a rookie mistake it might seem but I'm learning. Walk before run.

As of now I'm still working through the book Professional Sharepoint 2007 Development from Wrox Publishing. Seems very comprehensive on Sharepoint development but a lot of it is still over my head.

Along the Sharepoint journey I've become familiar as well with how Sharepoint works and what sort of solutions it offers as well as run through Sharepoint Designer (which is offered for free now).

More to come in the week to follow.

The new site has launched and we're happy to showcase the new face of MID Technologies.  The site was built from the ground up as an ASP.net application and we're working to add features that will allow visitors to see what we're all about.