Getting Started with Mule Cloud Connect – To help sort out the chaos of Internet services – #bookreview

Getting Started with Mule Cloud Connect
Ryan Carter
(O’Reilly – paperback, Kindle)

In a digital world increasingly cluttered with Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platforms, Open APIs, and social networks, complexity quickly can get out of hand.

“It all starts,” Ryan Carter writes in his new book, “with a simple API that publishes somebody’s status to Facebook, sends a Tweet, or updates a contact in Salesforce. As you start to integrate more and more of these external services with your applications, trying to identify the tasks that one might want to perform when you’re surrounded by SOAP, REST, JSON, XML, GETs, PUTs, POSTs, and DELETEs, can be a real challenge.”

Indeed. But never fear, Mule ESB can ride to your rescue and connect you quickly and easily to the cloud. At least, that’s the marketing claim.

Some truly big-name users, it should be noted, are adding credibility to Mule’s claimed capabilities and usefulness as an Open Source integration platform. They include Adobe, eBay, Hewlett-Packard, J.P. Morgan, T-Mobile, Ericsson, Southwest Airlines, and Nestle, to mention just a few.

Meanwhile, riding Mule to the cloud is the central focus of this compact (105 pages), well-written get-started guide. Its author, Ryan Carter, is both a specialist in integration and APIs and “an appointed Mule champion” who contributes regularly to the MuleSoft community.

“Mule,” Carter points out, “is an integration platform that allows developers to connect applications together quickly and easily, enabling them to exchange data regardless of the different technologies that the applications use. It is also at the core of CloudHub, an Integration Platform as a Service(IPaas). CloudHub allows you to integrate cross-cloud services, create new APIs on top of existing data sources, and integrate on-premise applications with cloud services.”

The book is structured so you start off by building a simple Mule application that will serve “as the base of our examples and introduce some core concepts for those unfamiliar with Mule.” Then Carter shows and illustrates how to “start taking advantage of Mule Cloud Connectors.” He includes numerous code examples, plus some screenshots and diagrams.

The book’s six chapters are:

1. Getting Started
2. Cloud Connectors
3. OAuth Connectivity
4. Configuration Management
5. Real-Time Connectivity
6. Custom Connectivity

Carter emphasizes: “Mule Cloud Connect offers a more maintainable way to work with APIs. Built on top of the Mule and CloudHub integration platforms, Cloud Connectors are service-specific clients that abstract away the complexities of transports and protocols. Many complex but common processes such as authorization and session management work without you having to write a single line of code. Although service-specific, Cloud Connectors all share a common and consistent interface to configure typical API tasks such as OAuth, WebHooks, and connection management. They remove the pain from working with multiple, individual client libraries.”

If Mule does not have a connector for a resource that you need, the book shows you how to create your own.

Getting Started with Mule Cloud Connect can get you started on a beneficial ride of  discovery, and it can take you onto the trail that leads to solutions.

– Si Dunn

Enterprise Games – How to build a better 21st-century business with game mechanics – #business #bookreview

Enterprise Games: Using Game Mechanics to Build a Better Business
Michael Hugos
(O’Reilly, paperback – Kindle)

Can 21^st-century games and gamers attack and destroy the top-down, assembly-line thinking that still keeps many businesses firmly rooted in the previous century?

 Michael Hugos’ compelling new book makes a solid case that they can. Game mechanics, he argues, can reshape how workers work, how organizations are managed, and how business goals get accomplished in today’s volatile global economy.

“Games and the associated technology we currently refer to as video games offer us more than just a diversion and escape from difficult times,” contends Hugos. “They offer us field-tested models to use for organizing companies and performing complex and creative tasks. They offer clear and compelling examples for how people can work together, build their careers, and earn a living in rapidly changing and unpredictable environments.”

Hugos, principal at the Center for Systems Innovation, offers his well-written views in a 199-page book “loosely divided into three parts.”

Part One focuses on “ideas and case studies to illustrate how games can provide operating models to follow for redesigning work.”

Part Two presents “a discussion of games and game mechanics that are relevant to the way work is done.” He includes “specific examples, pictures, and case studies to show how game techniques and technologies can be applied to the design of new business systems and workflows.”

Part Three “describes business and social impacts of combining technology from video games with in-house corporate systems, consumer technology, and cloud computing. The book concludes with a discussion about where this is all going and what it might mean for the future of work.”

During the coming months, Enterprise Games may spur many discussions and arguments at all levels of enterprise. And these may lead to some business-model reorganizations not only in Corporate America but elsewhere in the interconnected global economy.

For these changes to happen, however, many company leaders will have to stop thinking “top down” and learn to adapt ”the four traits of a game…goal, rules, feedback system, and voluntary participation” to how they to structure and operate a business.

“We all have a sense of what a game is,” Hugos notes. But most of us also have been taught that “play” is not “work.” Enterprise Games shows how the two concepts can be brought together in ways that can make companies more competitive and more profitable in these uncertain times.

– Si Dunn

Understanding IPv6, 3rd Edition – Welcome to the new, improved & BIGGER Internet – #bookreview #microsoft #windows

Understanding IPv6, 3^rd Edition
Joseph Davies
(Microsoft Press, paperback, list price $49.99; Kindle edition, list price $39.99)

The Internet can now expand into a much bigger realm than was possible before the worldwide launch of IPv6 (Internet Protocol version 6) on June 6, 2012.

The web most of us use has long relied on IPv4, the circa-1981 Internet Protocol built around 32-bit addresses. This scheme can accommodate approximately 4.3 billion unique addresses worldwide. On a planet where (1) the population now has surpassed 7 billion and (2) many of us now have multiple devices connected to the Web, Internet Protocol version 4 recently has been in dire danger of running out of unique addresses.

IPv6 will fix that problem and offer several important new enhancements, as long as we don’t find ways to expand the Internet to parallel universes or to the people on a few trillion distant planets. IPv6 uses a 128-bit addressing scheme that can accommodate more than 340 trillion trillion trillion unique addresses. So go ahead. Get online with that second iPad, third smart phone or fourth laptop.

IPv4 and IPv6 are now running in a dual stack that supports both addressing schemes. The transition from IPv4 to IPv6 is not seamless, however. A lot of work remains to be done by major Internet service providers (ISPs), web companies, hardware manufacturers, network equipment providers and many others to enable IPv6 on their products and services.

Joseph Davies, author of Understanding IPv6, has been writing about IPv6 since 1999. His new 674-page third edition provides both a detailed overview of IPv6 and a detailed focus on how to implement it, within a limited range of Windows products.

“There are,” he notes, “different versions of the Microsoft IPv6 protocol for Windows….I have chosen to confine the discussion to the IPv6 implementation in Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows 8, Windows 7, and Windows Vista.”

This well-written and well-organized book is not for beginners. Its intended audience includes:

• Windows networking consultants and planners
• Microsoft Windows network administrators
• Microsoft Certified Systems Engineers (MCSEs) and Microsoft Certified Trainers (MCTs)
• General technical staff
• Information technology students

Davies and Microsoft offer downloadable companion content for this book: Microsoft Network Monitor 3.4 (a network sniffer for capturing and viewing frames); and PowerPoint 2007 training slides that can be used along with the book to teach IPv6.

If you need a guide to best practices for using IPv6 in a Windows network, definitely consider getting Understanding IPv6, 3^rd Edition.

– Si Dunn

Introducing Windows Server 2012 – A guide to what’s coming in a much-anticipated release – #bookreview #microsoft

Introducing Windows Server® 2012
Mitch Tulloch with the Microsoft Server Team
(Microsoft Press, paperback, list price $14.99; Kindle edition, list price $0.00)

 The anticipated release date for the new version of Microsoft Server®  is sometime between the third quarter of 2012 and early 2013. And this book’s introduction hails it as “probably the most significant release of the Windows Server platform ever.”

Windows Server® 2012, it states, will offer “an innovative new user interface, powerful new management tools, enhanced Windows PowerShell support, and hundreds of new features in the areas of networking, storage and virtualization.”

There also will be major emphasis on cloud computing. The product has been “designed for the cloud from the ground up and provides a foundation for building both public and private cloud solutions,” the book declares.

Introducing Windows Server® 2012 is “based on beta,” according to the cover disclaimer. And, according to the author, the book  “represents a ‘first look’ based on the public beta release of Windows Server 2012 and is intended to help IT professionals familiarize themselves with the capabilities of the new platform.”

The 235-page book is divided into five chapters:

• Chapter 1 presents “The business need for Windows Server® 2012.” Not surprisingly, the main focus is on cloud computing and multi-server platforms.
• Chapter 2’s focus is “Foundation for building your private cloud” and how the new product can provide “a solid foundation for building dynamic, highly scalable, multi-tenant cloud environments.”
• Chapter 3 looks at the Windows Server® 2012 features and capabilities that can create a “[h]ighly available, easy-to-manage multi-server platform.”
• Chapter 4 discusses how you can use the product to “[d]eploy web applications on premises and in the cloud,” with its “scalable and elastic web platform” and “[s]upport for open standards.”
• Chapter 5 focuses on Windows Server® 2012 features and capabilities that are key to “[e]nabling the modern workstyle.” The author states: “Today’s business users want things simple. They want to be able to access their desktop applications, and data virtually anywhere, from any device, and have the full Windows experience. And from an IT perspective, this must be done securely and in ways that can ensure compliance at all times.”

Since this book is a “first look” written prior to the ready-to-manufacture (RTM) date, some of its screenshots, feature descriptions and stated capabilities may differ somewhat from the product that will be released.

But this overview can be a useful – and inexpensive — guide to have handy while considering whether to move to, or upgrade to, Windows Server® 2012.

– Si Dunn

Learning iOS Programming, 2nd Ed. – Updated to cover iOS 5, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch – #programming #bookreview

Learning iOS Programming, 2^nd Edition
By Alasdair Allan
(O’Reilly, paperback, list price $34.99; Kindle edition, list price $27.99)

Alasdair Allan’s popular iOS programming book recently has been updated to cover iOS 5. And it has a new name. (The first edition was titled Learning iPhone Programming.)

“The changes made in this second edition reflect the fact that a lot has happened since the first edition was published: the release of the iPad, a major release of Xcode, two revisions of the operating system itself, and the arrival of Apple’s iCloud,” the author notes. “This book has therefore been refreshed, renewed, and updated to reflect these fairly fundamental changes to the platform, and all of the example code was rewritten from the ground up for Xcode 4 and iOS 5 using ARC.”

Allan’s book – well-written and appropriately illustrated – is structured to provide “a rapid introduction to programming for the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad,” and it assumes that you have some familiarity with C or a C-derived language, as well as a basic understanding of object-oriented programming.

And the pace is fast. By chapter 3, you are building the requisite “Hello, World” application and running it in iPhone Simulator.

In that same chapter, Allan also introduces the basic syntax of Objective-C and highlights some of the “rather strange” ways that it deals with method calls. He discusses how the Cocoa Touch framework underlying iOS applications “is based on one of the oldest design patterns, the Model-View-Controller pattern, which dates from the 1970s.” And he warns that “[a]ttempting to write iOS applications while ignoring the underlying MVC patterns is a pointless exercise in make-work.”

Learning iOS Programming, 2^nd Edition does not emphasize web-based applications. It centers, instead, on creating native applications using Apple’s SDK. “The obvious reason to use the native SDK,” Allan states, “is to do things that you can’t do using web technologies. The first generation of augmented reality applications is a case in point; these needed close integration with the iPhone’s onboard sensors (e.g., GPS, accelerometer, digital compass, and camera) and wouldn’t have been possible without that access.”

He emphasizes a financial reason, as well. “Consumers won’t buy your application on their platform just because you support other platforms; instead they want an application that looks like the rest of the applications on their platform, that follows the same interface paradigms as the rest of the applications they’re used to, and is integrated into their platform.”

He adds: “If you integrate your application into the iOS ecosphere, make use of the possibilities that the hardware offers, and make sure your user interface is optimized for the device, the user experience is going to be much improved.”

Hard to argue with that.

Learning iOS Programming, 2^nd Edition provides the steps necessary to develop and market your first iOS application. Allan notes: “Until recently, the only way to obtain the iOS SDK was to become a registered iOS developer. However, you can now download the current release of Xcode and the iOS SDK directly from the Mac App Store.”

Of course, if you intend to distribute your applications “or even just deploy them onto your own device, you will also need to register with Apple as a developer and then enroll in one of the developer programs.”

You may need some system upgrades, as well. To develop apps for the iOS, you’ll need an Intel Mac running OS X 10.6 (“Snow Leopard”) or later. If you plan to create apps that use Apple’s iCloud, you’ll need OS X 10.7 (“Lion”) or later.

One other recommendation from Allan: If you’re truly serious about being an iOS developer, consider also registering with the Mac Developer Program.

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– Si Dunn is a novelist, screenwriter, freelance book reviewer, and former software technical writer and software/hardware QA test specialist. He also is a former newspaper and magazine photojournalist. His latest book is Dark Signals, a Vietnam War memoir. He is the author of an e-book detective novel, Erwin’s Law, now also available in paperback, plus a novella, Jump, and several other books and short stories.

Not your father’s database: Getting Started with CouchDB & with Fluidinfo – #bookreview #in #programming

These two books reflect some of the wide-ranging changes that the Internet and mobile devices are bringing to the ways databases are structured, accessed, updated, stored and maintained.

Getting Started with CouchDB
By MC Brown
(O’Reilly, paperback, list price $24.99; Kindle edition, list price $14.99)

“Databases are no longer isolated, single systems,” writes MC Brown. “Whether you want a database that can be shared among multiple devices (your desktop, laptop, and mobile phone), between multiple offices, or to be used as part of your database scaling operations, copying and sharing database information has become required functionality.”

He adds: “Different databases have traditionally approached this in a variety of different ways, including binary logs, data streams, row-based logging, and more complex hashing techniques. Within CouchDB, a simple but very effective method has been developed that uses the individual documents as the key to the method of sharing and distributing the document information between databases.”

Apache CouchDB™ is a free download for Linux, Mac OS X, or Windows. According to the website, “Apache CouchDB™ is a database that uses JSON for documents, JavaScript for MapReduce queries, and regular HTTP for an API.”

Brown also describes how to install CouchDB from source code, with careful emphasis on “(if you must).”

For the number of pages (84), the list prices for Brown’s book seem a bit high. But if you want to learn how to work with CouchDB, information to get you started is conveniently at hand, in the book or e-book. For example, Brown shows how to create databases and delete databases and how to create, update and delete documents in the databases.

“All of your interactions with CouchDB will be through HTTP,” he notes. His book provides some “key details” for several HTTP operations “such as HEAD and DELETE that are useful when talking to CouchDB.”

MC Brown has written or contributed to more than 26 books dealing with programming, systems management, web technologies and other subjects. He is vice president of documentation for Couchbase.

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 Getting Started with Fluidinfo
By Nicholas J. Radcliffe and Nicholas H. Tollervey
(O’Reilly, paperback, list price $24.99; Kindle edition, list price $11.99)

“Fluidinfo is an online storage system in which there is a place for information about everything—everything that exists, everything that could exist, and everything that can be imagined,” this book’s two authors state. “It allows anyone to store any information, about anything, in any digital form. And Fluidinfo is social: users can exercise fine control over who can read their data and can even enable other chosen users and applications to write data on their behalf.”

Another way to describe Fluidinfo is as an “openly writeable shared datastore.”

Like CouchDB, Fluidinfo exposes “all its functionality through HTTP, the core protocol that underpins the World Wide Web. Programmers can take advantage of its RESTful API, which makes it easy to integrate with other applications.”

To try out Fluidinfo and get an account, go to fluidinfo.com. The site offers the option to sign in via Twitter.

This well-written, 119-page book is offered as a “practical guide to several ways to access and use Fluidinfo” and is organized into nine chapters:

• Chapter 1: What Is Fluidinfo?
• Chapter 2: Fluidinfo from the Command Line
• Chapter 3: Social Data
• Chapter 4: Programming with Fluidinfo
• Chapter 5: Programming with FOM (the Fluid Object Mapper)
• Chapter 6: Programming Fluidinfo with JavaScript
• Chapter 7: Fluidinfo’s RESTful API
• Chapter 8: Advanced Use of the Fluidinfo Shell
• Chapter 9: Conventions for the About Tag

There is also an appendix titled “Fluidinfo Query Language Reference.”

One of the book’s authors, Nicholas Radcliffe, has connections to Fluidinfo that date back to the 1980s and “has been a friend and advisor to the Fluidinfo company since its inception.” Meanwhile, Nicholas Tollervey is a software developer at Fluidinfo and has nearly 30 years’ experience in programming.

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– Si Dunn is a novelist, screenwriter, freelance book reviewer, and former software technical writer and software/hardware QA test specialist. He also is a former newspaper and magazine photojournalist. His latest book is Dark Signals, a Vietnam War memoir available now in paperback. He is the author of a detective novel, Erwin’s Law, a novella, Jump, and several other books and short stories.

Understanding PaaS – Get your head in the cloud – #bookreview #cloud #programming

Understanding PaaS
By Michael P. McGrath
(O’Reilly, paperback, list price $11.99; Kindle edition, list price $8.99)

Ready to get your head in the cloud? Understanding PaaS is a well-written and straightforward guide to understanding one of  the three primary areas of cloud computing: Platform as a Service (PaaS).

The other two primary areas, described briefly in this 37-page book, are Software as a Service (SaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS).

PaaS fits in the middle of the cloud-computing stack, between SaaS on top and IaaS at the bottom.

“SaaS simply refers to software that is provided on-demand for use,” notes the author, Michael P. McGrath, a founding member of Red Hat’s OpenShift and currently its ”Principal Cloud Architect.” He also is operations manager for all of Red Hat’s PaaS offerings. “There’s no magic to it [SaaS],” he adds. For example:  ”Anyone who has used web mail of any kind has been using SaaS.”

Meanwhile: “Proper IaaS provides a mechanism for people to replace all of their data center hardware needs.” The infrastructure services that can be obtained from the cloud include: host provisioning, load balancing, public and private network connectivity, firewalls, and storage.

“Additionally, all of the dependencies for these services also are provided” by IaaS providers, the author points out.

“PaaS providers offer a platform for others to use,” he adds. “What is being provided is part operating system and part middleware. A proper PaaS provider  takes care of everything needed to run some specific language or technology stack.” And: “PaaS today focuses almost entirely on web solutions. The components an end user interacts with are all web-based and because of this, most PaaS providers excel when it comes to large numbers of short lived process requests.”

McGrath’s book is divided into six short chapters:

1. What is Cloud Computing? – Describes the three levels and shows how to set up a virtual machine via Amazon Web Services’ Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). 

2. Why PaaS? - “PaaS provides a carefree environment for developers to work….By utilizing PaaS, developers simply pick the languages and features they want, match those requirements with a provider that has them, and start coding.” Discusses common features, costs and maintenance.

3. What to Expect - “PaaS makes it so easy to run code remotely that options are now available to do all development in the cloud.” Discusses why “a pre-built application may not automatically work when uploaded to PaaS.” Looks at tools, providers, development workflow and automated testing.

4. Examples - Provide code for creating a sample application using Red Hat’s OpenShift platform.

5. Architecture – Focuses on the “three primary concerns when dealing with networking in the cloud”: connectivity, bandwidth and latency.

6. Summary - McGrath says PaaS offers many solutions and now is “an exciting time for cloud providers. Go out, try some, and see how they can make IT easier and once again, enjoyable.”

If you are curious about cloud computing or ready now to try some development in the cloud, add this well-focused little book to your reading list and reference library.

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– Si Dunn is a novelist, screenwriter, freelance book reviewer, and former software technical writer and software/hardware QA test specialist. His latest book is a detective novel, Erwin’s Law. His other published works include Jump, a novella, and a book of poetry, plus several short stories, including The 7th Mars Cavalry, all available on Kindle.

SharePoint 2010 for Project Management, 2nd Edition – #bookreview

SharePoint 2010 for Project Management, 2nd Edition
By Dux Raymond Sy
(O’Reilly, paperback, list price $44.99; Kindle edition, list price $34.99)

Project management now provides the top use of Microsoft SharePoint 2010, and this updated edition quickly jumps straight into using SharePoint to create and run a Project Management Information System (PMIS). 

The book is written and structured for those “not interested in the nitty-gritty technical details of SharePoint,” the author says. His work “is focused on helping you leverage SharePoint for project management regardless of what industry you are in.”

And he emphasizes: “If you are interested in using SharePoint to deploy a corporate portal, create an ecommerce website, or develop a proprietary SharePoint application, this is not the book for you.”

In organizations large and small and even for individual users, “[t]he main purpose of SharePoint is to empower users with document management and team collaboration tools,” the author notes.  He points out that “SharePoint does not refer to a specific product or technology. Using the phrase ‘Microsoft SharePoint’ is like using the phrase ‘Microsoft Office.” It refers to several aspects of collaborative solutions.”

 This new edition is aimed at project managers, project team members, program managers, IT/IS directors and SharePoint consultants.

The 209-page book has nine chapters:

• 1. Project Kickoff
• 2. Setting Up the PMIS
• 3. Adding PMIS Components
• 4. Adding Stakeholders to the PMIS
• 5. Supporting Team Collaboration
• 6. Project Tracking
• 7. Project Reporting
• 8. Integrating PM Tools
• 9. Project Closing

SharePoint 2010 for Project Management, 2nd Edition is well-written and tightly focused, with how-to instructions and illustrations on nearly every page.  It also provides a case study so readers can practice applying PMIS skills in SharePoint.

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– Si Dunn is a novelist, screenwriter, freelance book reviewer, and former software technical writer and software/hardware QA test specialist. His latest book is a detective novel, Erwin’s Law. His other published works include Jump, a novella, and a book of poetry, plus several short stories, including The 7th Mars Cavalry, all available on Kindle.

Using Microsoft InfoPath 2010 with Microsoft SharePoint 2010: Step by Step – #bookreview

Using Microsoft InfoPath 2010 with Microsoft SharePoint 2010: Step by Step
By Darvish Shadravan and Laura Rogers
(Microsoft Press, paperback, list price $34.99; Kindle edition, list price $31.99)

A 21st century Shakespeare might write: “All the world’s a form, and we are just filling it in.”

One of this book’s authors contends (not completely in jest) that “forms run the world. Imagine modern life without forms, both paper and digital–it’s not possible! Everything that is known and recorded about you, from your birth city to your magazine subscriptions, to  your preference of aisle or window seats–yes, all of this information was entered in a form at some point in time.”

Microsoft InfoPath 2010 is used to design and build electronic forms, as well as gather data, without writing code. Meanwhile, SharePoint Server 2010 “offers a robust architecture for managing access to data connections and external systems.” SharePoint is Microsoft’s suite of software tools aimed at making it “easier for people work together,” whether in the same office or scattered around the planet.

This well-written and nicely illustrated book shows how to bring the two products together in powerful ways that (1) enable InfoPath forms to be created and formatted and (2) integrate data from SharePoint and other company systems. InfoPath forms also can be hosted on SharePoint.

The book is aimed at “any information worker that needs to build and use electronic forms that will be stored in SharePoint.” Its goal is to “teach you the basics of building and using InfoPath 2010 forms in a SharePoint 2010 environment.”

The writers assume you are at least a “savvy Office and Windows user.” It is helpful, but not mandatory, to also have at least some basic familiarity with SharePoint Server 2010. “However, even if you’re not a SharePoint guru, most topics in this book should be within your grasp,” they point out.

If you do not have a SharePoint environment in your company, “InfoPath 2010 supports the creation of forms in Microsoft Office 365,” the two authors note. Office 365 is Microsoft’s cloud product that provides online access to a variety of programs for communicating and collaborating.

InfoPath has been around for a few years and recently was given a significant update. But many businesses and computer users do not have it.

That’s not show-stopper when InfoPath and SharePoint work together, the authors point out. ”If you create your forms as browser-enabled form templates, users who don’t have InfoPath installed on their computer can still work with the form in a browser. This lets you share business forms with a variety of users, including employees, customers, and vendors.”

The 446-page book has 14 chapters. The first four chapters show how to create and format forms using InfoPath. The remaining chapters focus on using InfoPath with SharePoint.

According to the two authors, “the mission of this book is to help you understand how to create business forms that provide a pleasant, reliable, and intuitive experience for your users and customers,” they write.

The process of creating, formatting and publishing forms is shown and described in clear, succinct how-to steps. Practice files can be downloaded from a Microsoft site, and the exercise topics range from the basics of form design to building an approval process and working with SharePoint views and dashboards, to (1) “control what fields are displayed at any given time” and (2) “generate reports from any information in SharePoint lists and libraries.”

The authors add: “SharePoint libraries, specifically form libraries, are well suited for storing and managing InfoPath forms.”

InfoPath’s native language is XML, “perhaps the single most powerful method of storing and sharing structured data to come along since the advent of digital computing.” Creating electronic forms has long been a code-intensive process.

InfoPath hides most of the XML behind an easy-to-use interface. And XSLT (Extensible Style Sheet Language) style sheets also “‘sit in front of’ the underlying XML and transform it into the rich and easy-to-use forms that InfoPath can create.”

The book’s illustrations, short paragraphs, step-by-step lists and example files can all help readers get up to speed quickly, whether Microsoft InfoPath 2010 is used with Microsoft SharePoint on a company network or via the cloud, by way of Office 365.

– Si Dunn‘s latest book is a novel, Erwin’s Law. His other published works include Jump, a novella, and a book of poetry and several short stories, all available on Kindle. He previously worked in the telecommunications industry as a software and hardware tester and technical writer.

Send in the Clouds: 2 New SharePoint 2010 Books from Microsoft Press – #bookreview

Microsoft Press recently has released two new books intended to help attract and train more users of  its SharePoint 2010 software and services. 

SharePoint is Microsoft’s suite of software tools designed to help “make it easier for people work together,” whether they are in the same office or scattered around the planet.

One of the new books focuses on SharePoint Foundation 2010, “the software that will get organizations started using SharePoint.” It is aimed at readers who “need to understand how to accomplish what they need to do.”

The other book is intended “primarily for IT professionals, IT architects, and IT decisions makers who want to understand the capabilities of SharePoint in the cloud….”

Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 Inside Out
By Errin O’Connor, Penelope Coventry, Tony Lanphier, Jonathan Lightfoot,
Thomas Resing and Michael Doyle
(Microsoft Press, paperback, list price $49.99; Kindle edition, list price $39.99)

Microsoft SharePoint is a suite of tools that enables an organization or business to “share, exchange, and distribute information to their employees, partners, shareholders, and customers.” The software “is designed around an easy-to-use web-based interface that is fully integrated with Microsoft Office,” the six authors say.

If you are completely new to SharePoint Foundation 2010, read two easier books first,  Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Plain & Simple and Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 Step-by-Step. Then tackle this “Inside Out” book.

This new “Inside Out” edition is intended “for readers who have some experience with SharePoint Foundation 2010 and are fairly comfortable finding their way around the product,” the authors emphasize.

SharePoint 2010 has been termed a significant improvement over earlier versions, and the “entry-level component,” SharePoint Foundation 2010, can be downloaded free from Microsoft.

The authors point out that ”[y]ou don’t need to be a programmer (although it is helpful) to use the building blocks in SharePoint 2010. Even without using code, you can create highly customized business solutions in a matter of minutes.”

SharePoint Foundation 2010 “provides a robust collection of services that can be used to build powerful web solutions.” And: “It forms the basis for a number of other SharePoint products such as SharePoint Server 2010 and Office 365,which incorporates Microsoft’s SharePoint 2010 cloud-based solution, called SharePoint Online.”

Microsoft hopes, of course, that you will move up from “free” to “paying customer” once you begin to understand SharePoint’s many possibilities beyond Foundation.

The 760-page book is well-written, adequately illustrated, and follows a progression where “the early chapters concentrate on what you can achieve by using the browser; later chapters detail features from the perspective of the power-end user, administrator, and developer.”

The 16 chapters are:

1. Introduction to Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010
2. Administration for Business Users
3. End-User Features and Experience
4. Creating Sites and Workspaces by Using the Browser
5. Designing Lists and Libraries
6. Creating and Formatting Webpages
7. Adding, Editing, Connecting, and Managing Web Parts on the Page
8. Managing Site Content
9. Working with External Content
10. Using and Creating Workflows
11. Integrating SharePoint with Microsoft Office 2010
12. Taking Lists and Libraries Offline
13. Managing Site Settings
14. Creating, Managing, and Designing Sites by Using SharePoint Designer 2010
15. Customizing the User Interface
16. Developing SharePoint Solutions by Using Visual Studio 2010

The “Web Parts” in the Chapter 7 title refer to “a key component of any SharePoint installation.” A Web Part either receives input or displays content or sometimes does both. One example given is a module that displays weather information. A user can change the weather display’s city or ZIP code without affecting any other users visiting the site.

If you buy the paperback, you are also given a link where you can download a “fully searchable companion ebook” in PDF format, and the ebook periodically is updated.

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Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Deploying Cloud-Based Solutions
By Phillip Wicklund
(Microsoft Press, paperback, list price $34.99)

“Of all the great benefits of SharePoint in the cloud…business agility may be the most compelling cloud driver yet,” writes Phillip Wicklund in his new book.

“Consider time-to-market. With SharePoint in the cloud, you can literally have a cloud-based collaboration site spun up and ready for use within an hour of reading this sentence.”

This book should be on your reading list if you are helping a company decide whether – and how – to migrate to the public cloud, or a private cloud, or a hybrid cloud, using SharePoint 2010.

In some business settings, Wicklund notes, “SharePoint can be tough to deploy and maintain, primarily because significant expertise and experience is required to do so successfully. Many companies can’t afford or (for other reasons) are unable to recruit the necessary talent. Because of this, taking SharePoint to the cloud is especially appealing to them. When in the cloud, they can essentially outsource that costly, time-consuming administrative overhead.”

Part of Wicklund’s book is devoted to introducing – and, no surprise, touting — Office 365.

A Microsoft website describes that company’s new Office 365 service as “familiar Microsoft Office collaboration and productivity tools delivered through the cloud. Everyone can work together easily with anywhere access to email, web conferencing, documents, and calendars. It includes business-class security and is backed by Microsoft.”

SharePoint Online, of course, is one of the services available through Office 365.

But, while costs go down when you migrate to the cloud, so do your levels of control and flexibility.

Yet, as this book notes, there are at least two types of cloud: public and private (where you can hold onto more control). And it is possible, using SharePoint 2010, to work in both clouds.

“By creating your own private cloud,” the author says, “you benefit from all the automation, scalability, reliability, and self-healing that any great cloud ought to provide.”

Wicklund’s book is divided into three major parts and 11 chapters.

Part 1 is “Introducing SharePoint in the Cloud.” The chapters are:

• Chapter 1: Introducing Microsoft SharePoint Online
• Chapter 2: Office 365 Feature Overview
• Chapter 3: Planning for SharePoint Online

Part 2 is “Deploying SharePoint in the Public Cloud.” Its chapters are:

• Chapter 4: Administering SharePoint Online
• Chapter 5: Identity Management and Authentication
• Chapter 6: Migrating to SharePoint Online
• Chapter 7: Introduction to Customizing and Developing in SharePoint Online

Part 3 is “Deploying SharePoint in the Private Cloud.” The chapters are:

• Chapter 8: Introduction to Creating a Private Cloud
• Chapter 9: Introducing Multitenancy in SharePoint 2010
• Chapter 10: Configuring Tenant-Aware Service Applications
• Chapter 11: Configuring Tenant-Aware Site Collections

The term “multitenancy” in Chapter 9 is definined first in terms of an apartment complex where individuals live in private spaces but share the complex’s resources. In SharePoint, the term relates to “data isolation, delegated aministration, and delegated configuration.” You can “‘host’ multiple department or customer sites, for example, within the same infrastructure and farm, whereby you can guarantee autonomy and isolation among those ‘tenants’ of your SharePoint farm,” Wicklund writes.

“Each department has its own set of site collections that they can centrally manage and administrate.”

The 448-page book has one appendix titled “Server, Online SharePoint, and Online Dedicated Compared.” It has a well-detailed index. And the code samples can be downloaded from a Microsoft site.

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SharePoint is not a product that fits conveniently into one big how-to manual. If you are thinking of adding SharePoint to your business, or expanding how you use it, be prepared to consider getting several books, these two included.

– Si Dunn