Help me welcome Paul Stork to the ShareSquared team!

Please help me welcome Paul Stork to the ShareSquared Team!!!

During my tenure with Barracuda, I had the pleasure of meeting and working with Paul a few times, and it’s exciting to be working with him again .

You can read his announcement at http://sharepoint.mindsharpblogs.com/PaulS/default.aspx

Welcome Aboard Paul!

– Keith

2010 – The Year I make Contact

It’s another new year again

I told myself I was going to watch 2010: The Year We Make Contact on New Years Eve weekend, but I didn’t.  If you haven’t seen it, it’s movie based on Arthur C. Clare’s second part of his 4 part Odyssey series beginning with 2001: A Space Odyssey. (I’ve read all four parts of the series, and they’re definitely worth the read btw).  The reason I bring this up, is that I always love  watching movies that predict where we’ll be at a given point in time.  They always seem to predict we’ll be further along than where we actually wind up.  The same goes for me over the past few years and where I predicted I would be at this point in my life.

What I’m about to say, is not to attract people to a perceived pity party, because that’s definitely not what this post is all about.  I’m just giving some background on what’s happened and what I plan to do about it ; to set things in motion for myself; to reflect on where I’ve been;where I plan to go, and to predict where I’ll be in the future.

Pre 2007

Working for Microsoft was an absolute pleasure, and my decision to move to SharePoint vs. Exchange/Outlook was probably the most important decision I ever made in my professional career.   I absolutely loved working with this product.  It gave me the opportunity to to slowly move back into a development “Like” position which was something I truly missed.  So many great things were going on such as:

• My oldest daughter had recently graduated High School, and was attending College. 
• My Wife at the time, and I had recently adopted a second child. 
• I began to realize the impact that some of the technical contributions I made to the community was quite larger than I had anticipated
• I finally got back to writing/composing music and publishing a few CD’s
• Ideas for blog posts; helping the community; and inspiration was plentiful.

There were great things happening, and I think 2005/2006 were probably the best years of my life up to that time.

Mind you, there were certainly things I was NOT happy for such as

• Working literally an average of 70 hours a week most times
• Life’s own dramatic interruptions
• Trying to launch a new Church

2007

My desire to get back into full time development was really making me consider what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, and eventually I made the decision to leave Microsoft, and then a flood of life impacting things occurred.

• My oldest daughter decided to Join the Army.  Something I’m VERY PROUD OF, but was truly a scary time;
• My marriage technically ended, and I began the process of going through a divorce
• My oldest daughter was deployed to IRAQ
• What I thought was going to be an amazing career move for me, turned out not to be quite so; I could see myself drifting further and further away from SharePoint.
• People I thought were “True” friends, basically showed their true colors.  When you confide in someone and they immediately turn around and disclose things to others, is the absolute worst thing you can do, and when you do it to me, well….. Don’t bother speaking to me again buddy .
• People I “Knew” were “True” friends, also confirmed their true colors.  They proved themselves to be true friends; and my list of friends grew smaller, but also closer and more tight.
• My desires and aspirations and love of life were at an all time low.
• Most people didn’t have encouraging things to say; and I was constantly brought down rather than being encouraged.

Where 2005/2006 were the best years of my life, 2007 was probably the worst.

This was NOT where I predicted myself to be.

2008

2008 wasn’t entirely horrible; but it was certainly a close runner up to 2007.

• My mothers health began to deteriorate
• I was doing literally NO SharePoint work.
• I was living in a home I did not want to be at nor even wanted, but due to the economy, couldn’t do a thing about.
• Other pathetic things I don’t even care to mention
• My divorce was finalized
• I did however begin to make some new close friendships, but learned to keep my guard up even higher.

So again I’m not saying these things to attract people to a perceived pity party.  I’m just simply putting them out there to lead up to something later.

2009

Finally, things started turning around.  I had plenty of time to do plenty of thinking in the previous years and did the following things

• Took time to inspect and choose a job I felt I could really excel at.
• Moved out of my house for a brief period.  Initially to sell it; but primarily to just start anew.
• Moved “back” to my house .
• Started investing back into “Me, something I had not had the opportunity to do for a very, very long time.
• Refurnished a majority of my home, to make it more “me”.
• Buried a closet full of hatchets.
• Made lots of new friends who believe in “Joy” and “Humor” like myself and that sometimes you just can’t take some things in life so darn seriously!.

Things were getting better, and I began to make predictions about the future again.

2010

Well now 2010 is upon us.  Although I’m not completely where I wanted to be at this stage in my life, I have a new found hope and belief in the future.

Moving forward I plan to get back to what I once was

• A Joyful; Helpful; Community Oriented and driven SharePoint expert.
• Get back into my music once again
• Continue to be the best father to two great children I can possibly be.

Things were not great in the past, but it’s time to put those things aside and move on!  I want this year to be “The year that I make Contact” once again, and let you know  I’m still here and quite alive!

- Keith

SharePoint BI and PowerPivot

The 2009 SharePoint Conference was a total blast.  For those who were not able to attend, Microsoft also announced PowerPivot.  With PowerPivot, IT Managers can empower business users to create and share Excel 2010 workbook applications through SharePoint 2010.

Rob Collie, one of the founding engineers behind PowerPivot has started a blog here and has announced the "Great Football Project” as a non-demoware PowerPivot solution, from start to finish where he’ll be taking a hardcore BI project from his past and re-implement it using PowerPivot.

I myself will be diving deep into PowerPivot over the next few weeks, and will detail all I can as the weeks progress.

Until then, be sure to visit the following links to get an overview of PowerPivot and Rob Collie

• PowerPivot
• Microsoft SQL Server PowerPivot for Excel 2010
• PowerPivotPro featuring Rob Collie

Cheers!

– Keith

Whoa! I’m listed in the Zune Marketplace!

Wow, just checked and saw this, I’m now listed in the Zune Marketplace.

http://social.zune.net/artist/Keith-Richie/79d40c00-0600-11db-89ca-0019b92a3933/albums

One thing that isn’t listed is my La famille du solénoïde release, But of course it’s available on iTunes here, as with the rest of my releases.

<sigh> I plan to get back to my music too, I’ve just had a very busy past couple of years, and no time or inspiration for it.

Anyways, just wanted to note the whole listing in the Zune Marketplace real quick, cause it was way too exciting!

- Keith

Public update for the Service Pack 2 expiration date issue

Head up!   The update to the SharePoint Service Pack 2 expiration date issue is now available.

Direct download links:

• x86: http://download.microsoft.com/download/2/F/5/2F51AB71-1325-49D2-9CB9-18DEC4780E99/office2007-kb971620-fullfile-x86-glb.exe
• x64: http://download.microsoft.com/download/5/B/B/5BBD34A9-C528-42B0-8A5F-9A8997B25C32/office2007-kb971620-fullfile-x64-glb.exe

For more information on the original issue, see the following posting on the SharePoint Team Blog:

Attention: Important Information on Service Pack 2

Cheers!

– Keith

What to blog about

Since I started my new job, I’ve been struggling to find topics to discuss that have not already been discussed before. 

I’m not the kind of guy to just re-hash what someone else has said unless I can add additional value to it.  When I do that, I always start out with “First read what so and so has said about x”.  There are too many of the content thieves out there, and they really provide no real value back to the community.   They’re just going for self gratification in subscribers, etc.  I also don’t like just blasting links as I discover them just to make a blog post, unless they are significant.  Besides, if I come across a cool article these days, I just dump it on twitter.  What I’m saying, is that when I post something, I want to really provide extreme value.

What I’ve realized, is that the things I do want to blog about require too much time to sit down in one setting to post, and thus I never get them done, or take the time to finish them and thus, this blog just gets extremely stale.   Also, I’ve noticed a lot of blog postings recently on very very short samples, about things I figured a lot of people would know.   But I’ve had to take a step back and realize that not all my followers know all the gritty details.

So…From now on, I’m going to blog about just what’s on my mind, what I learned, what I might be able to share.   There may be some overlap in things that were already posted, but I’ve got to stop worrying about “It’s been said before” because I have to realize that my view/insight into the problem/solution may in fact add value not otherwise stated.

- Keith

Microsoft Certified Master for SharePoint Server 2007 at ShareSquared

Maurice and I have been friends for quite awhile. While at Microsoft, he and I collaborated while working through critical SharePoint customer issues, debated on bugs, discussed SharePoint tools, etc.  After both of our departures from Microsoft, we continued to keep in contact sharing ideas and thoughts about the product.   I was excited when I came on board with ShareSquared to not only be working with my friend again, but also to expand my horizons and work with a great bunch of talented folks.

Maurice has just completed the Microsoft Certified Masters training for SharePoint Server 2007 and was awarded the certification along with a small group of elite personnel. Now ShareSquared has a Microsoft Certified Master for SharePoint Server 2007 in our group, and I’m extremely happy for my company and friend.

Maurice did a great write-up on his perspective of the program here, and I encourage you to give it a read if you are considering this for your future.  As well, you can check out Spence Harbar’s write-up here.

Congratulations to the newest Certified Masters for SharePoint Server 2007!

– Keith

I’m such a Square, and proud of it!

Today I’m happy to announce that I have joined the great team at ShareSquared The SharePoint Solution Experts, where I’ll be working with long time friend and cohort Maurice Prather as a Senior SharePoint Architect.

The team at ShareSquared is composed of expert SharePoint architects and developers who are seasoned computer science professionals with a thorough understanding of proper software construction, design patterns and best practices.  I’m so proud to be joining this team.

I want to thank ALL my friends for their support over the past couple of months while I sought ought just who I wanted to be when I grew up .  My new position will allow me to utilize my previous skills as well as further extend myself into areas I had only dreamed about before.

Here’s to new adventures in 2009!

- Keith

SPSiteBuilder 3.0 re-released with Source

I had placed my 3.0 version of SPSiteBuilder (For WSS 3.0/MOSS 2007) on codeplex previously as it was referenced in a book by good friend and SharePoint MVP Ben Curry.  Unfortunately, I forgot to get the code up there   And the reminder for me to do it got lost in the plethora of tasks I needed to accomplish, and therefore the project was removed.  I’m happy to say, I finally took care of that today and you can now get SPSiteBuilder (with source) from http://www.codeplex.com/spsitebuilder

The purpose of the SharePoint Site Builder (SPSiteBuilder) is to assist customers with performing SharePoint Site Collection build outs for testing purposes. Primarily for load testing, etc. This sample source can be compiled to produce a tool that will allow you to easily create multiple hierarchies of site collections.

My apologies to those who followed the link before and found nothing

-Keith

My Resume and new adventures in 2009!

As I prepare for 2009, I thought it would not be a bad idea to go ahead and post my resume here as I seek out new employment opportunities.

Serious inquiries please email me through this blog.

Thanks all and a happy new year!

 

Resume for Keith Richie

 

Objective

Seeking a challenging development position where I can continue to expand upon my knowledge of SharePoint and .NET related technologies.

Experience

Senior Software Engineer

January 2007 – December 2008

Barracuda /A Division of Mindsharp/English,Bleeker & Assoc.

• Ported the company’s existing product “DeliverPoint” from a SharePoint V2 codebase to utilize WSS 3.0/MOSS 2007. DeliverPoint is an enterprise class application primarily focused with User Management related operations such as Cloning/Deleting/Transferring account principles within a SharePoint farm.
• Updated .NET/C# code for use of SharePoint V3 Object Model.
• Implemented SharePoint Farm Crawler to alleviate problems with memory pressure issues rising from improper disposal of SharePoint objects. Also allows other developers to hook into the engine, to receive information as it is discovered in SharePoint.
• Implemented Active Directory crawler to provide robust group expansion for the DeliverPoint product.
• Design tables/Create necessary T-SQL stored procedures for DeliverPoint backend database.
• Responsible for design/implementation of new system features.
• Mentor the Barracuda Support Staff on engagements with customers and assist with customer support issues.

Senior Support Consultant

February 2006 – January 2007

Microsoft – Alliance/PFE-DDS

• Supporting enterprise customers with SharePoint.
• Developed/Enhanced the SharePoint Utility Suite for WSS 2.0/SPS2003 which became the number 1 download on the Microsoft Web Component Directory, used by the Product Group to assist customers during Beta for preparation of systems for MOSS deployments (Used to analyze and detect problems on WSS 2.0/SPS2003)
• Provided technical and development assistance to members of the Escalation Services and Product Support Services members for case assistance
• Worked with the SharePoint Product Groups to diagnose issues, report bugs, and called upon frequently to investigate issues for some of the largest Microsoft customers.

Escalation Engineer

March 2000 – February 2006

Microsoft – Escalation Engineer for SharePoint Portal Server and Windows SharePoint Services.

As an Escalation Engineer (EE) we represent the last line of support for the most demanding of issues related to SharePoint Portal Server and Windows SharePoint Services

As an EE I was tasked with:

• Resolving the most the most technically and politically challenging customer issues
• Engaging and being a resource to the larger SharePoint PSS group.
• Researching, diagnosing, and writing code to further diagnose and resolve customer’s issues.
• Employing advanced tools and diagnostics to analyze source code.
• Making recommendations to the development team on improvements to product
• Isolating defects to the faulting line(s) of code.
• Writing tools to further analyze problem or improve the overall SharePoint experience.

All of these things within very compressed timeframes. What this really means is on a typical day the vast majority of my time is spent mentoring, debugging and researching issues I am currently involved in, and overall contributing to the success of those around me. By using knowledge of software design and programming in conjunction with general product knowledge, it allows people in our group to bridge the gap between the typical end to end support troubleshooting methodologies and the very focused, specific code level knowledge of a developer.

Software Developer

March 1996 – March 2000

Custom Credit Systems

• Developed tools and enhancements to company’s in house scripting language for custom software development of commercial financial systems.
• Maintain systems after development and work with customers to ensure system uptime.
• Travel to customer sites and work with them on implementation and design of custom solutions

Software Developer

March 1994 – March 1996

Creative Programming

• Maintain and develop custom user interface library for DOS written in C/C++
• Developed event driven designer for generating code to utilize user interface library
• Converted code base to run on UNIX systems utilizing termcap.
• Maintained and wrote fixes, and service packs for UI library

Interests

I led a virtual team of Microsoft Software Support engineers in producing and releasing a collection of SharePoint diagnostics and administrative tools called “The SharePoint Utility Suite”
This suite of tools (which included SPUserUtil and SPSiteManager) advances and allows our customers to achieve deployment and ROI goals by filling in the gap of necessary administrative tools between releases of the product

Certifications and Awards

Certification: MSCD Visual C 6.0
Date Completed: 7/1/2000

Microsoft MVP – Windows Server: Windows SharePoint Services July 2007-2008

References

References are available on request.