SharePoint

Being a content writer, I am fascinated by various content management techniques.  I came across SharePoint and its multiple uses which made me write about it.   

SharePoint and Content Management

SharePoint is a website or rather an enterprise portal solution for collaborating and connecting information and ideas. It provides a group of people such as employees, clients, business partners with a central space to access, share and interact with relevant information. SharePoint sites are dynamic and interactive and members can contribute their own ideas and make comments on content, without having to go through the complicated Web Publishing Process.     

The knowledge and information created by workers, teams and projects can be used as Business Intellegence and SharePoint can be used as a tool, to retrieve, re-use and share the data.

The Latest SharePoint version acts as a wonderful enterprise tool and supports internet, and extranet applications, intranet portals, blogs, wikis and team collaboration sites, including social community and collaborative content creation. Users can build custom web parts from their browser and can easily work on “Do it yourself” business solutions. SharePoint provides a Web Content Management platform for publishing web sites.

SharePoint Server

Share Point Server works with Microsoft IIS web server. The data resides in SQL Database. Using Webparts the server helps in presenting the information to the user in file sharing, web databases, social networking and web publishing. The SharePoint Server farms, in addition to content management provisions also provide a framework for web application development.

The Server farm helps in document management, record management, collaboration, workflow, Blogs and Wikis. The Microsoft search server an Enterprise Search engine provides indexing and searching capabilities that can be integrated into SharePoint Server web based interface.   

                                                           Figure 1: Diagram from Ecotech solutions around SharePoint

SharePoint Development for Cloud

To save cost on infrastructure and staff, enterprises can look for SharePoint Cloud solutions. SharePoint 2010 opens up its Online facility to a wider range of applications. Many companies with their knowledge and expertise in building SaaS based applications offer solutions on the Cloud, taking care of Enterprise Security needs, right Infrastructure and in turn huge cost savings on maintenance. For the large enterprises as well, there are hybrid models of – “putting commodity teams to SharePoint Online, keeping the Core Business apps and data associated with them on-premise”.

Web Parts, Frameworks in SharePoint

Frameworks can be build that are used as a standard for different applications within an organization. These form the base architecture, for migrations or work flow applications building in SharePoint. These frameworks comprise a lot of common code libraries, enterprise wide business rules applicable for all applications, standardized structures of work flow applications for the organization, and the likes.

Web parts are built as standalone applications, especially in Enterprise scenarios, which could be consumed by several applications across the enterprise. For example, a simple web part could be Excel charting. You could use this Web part at various places, to call data from excel files in a predefined order and show charts in pre-defined format (Pie, Stack, etc.)

Intranet

To keep up with company policy and procedural changes or changes to documents by other employees, with the management of projects and workload, problems managing, sharing, and collaborating on projects, or sharing information and data with the employees, SharePoint Intranet hosting comes handy.

·         Browser based content administration 

·         Mobility

·         Templates

·         Store Documents online

·         Blogs

·         Calendars

·         Task Management

·         Create Documents Online

·         Contact List

·         Announcements

·         Feeds

Extranet

·         Browser-based content management enables the IT team to manage the hosted extranet software using a browser.

·         SharePoint templates and tools in your SharePoint website provide ready solutions for custom scenarios and can be applied to common tasks such as tracking sales.  

·         Users can access the SharePoint extranet hosted site from a Windows mobile.

·         Storing documents and information online enables all authorized and authenticated users to access documents, information, and data, which is stored centrally on extranet software through a browser from anywhere in the world.  

·         Company employees can use wikis and blogs to share knowledge, information, and ideas on any and all topics.

·         With extranet hosting, authenticated users are able to share calendars, add tasks and completion dates, while maintaining control and access to specific dates and calendars.

·         Employees working on specific projects and documents are able to share tasks, lists of pending and completed tasks with project members, and assign Authorized users can create sheets, documents, and presentations online

·         Individual contact lists can be synchronized with Outlook and a mobile phone and shared with members of the site.

·         With SharePoint extranet software hosting, there’s no need to fly employees in from overseas or worry about your company’s proprietary information.  Whether you have two company locations or a hundred, extranet software hosting gives your company the secure, worldwide connectivity you need to grow your business.

Project Management

If you have a large team working on the same project without any project management software, you may be running around from group to group to stay updated.  As well, it can be difficult to bring a project together with multiple time zones, several documentation versions and stakeholders wanting weekly special reports. SharePoint project management can:

·         Keep updated on the project status through individual team updates.

·         Check how much of the project is complete.

·         Post and assign tasks to individual team members or whole teams.

·         Track potential issues and have up-to-date access for project reports.

·         Easily update the completed percentage for personal tasks, estimate finish dates and send feedback.

·         Accept or deny requests for time off.

·         Post announcements on important news and issues involving the project.

·         Post announcements for important documentation reviews and milestones.

·         Discuss the project, tasks and other related projects, all online.

·         Share project reviews and create project documentation for easy version tracking.

·         List important contacts for project team members to access easily, such as support staff, outside vendors, customer contacts and development staff.

·         Set up alerts for non co-located team members who aren’t heavily involved in the SharePoint project collaboration (alerts are auto-emailed).

·         Track project schedules, control changes, and mange project risk.

·         Setup automatic reporting for key stakeholders.

Portal Software Hosting

SharePoint portal software combines several Microsoft products into one.  Because of this, SharePoint portal hosting includes enhanced tools for content management, integration, personalization, and security as described below

·         Single Sign-On

·         Portal site templates

·         Integration with Microsoft Office

·         Customization

·         Personalization

·         Access Control

·         Enterprise

·         Collaboration

·         Business intelligence

Control Management System

There are only two fundamental concepts to learn and remember when publishing with SharePoint Content Management System: master pages and page layouts.  The overall look and feel of your website will depend on these two elements.  Here are a few more details about the key features of SharePoint CMS.

·         Master Pages

·         Page Layouts

·         Content Types

·         Style Sheets

·         Authoring Options

·         Approval Workflow

·         Scheduling Content

·         Deployment

Document Management System

The SharePoint Document Management Software System can help companies organize, share and access important documents, increasing collaboration and team productivity. It helps in  Storage, Versioning, Metadata,     Security,  Indexing and Search and  Workflow etc.

SharePoint is the business website hosting software for many leading companies.The SharePoint website hosting platform is an entire set of business programs geared toward helping a company grow:

Set up discussion forums, picture libraries, blogs and wikis.  These advanced SharePoint website hosting features can be used to build a portfolio, create an online customer service center, create informational how-to articles, and share in depth how-to documents, as well as other functions.

Create web contact forms, or any other type of form, easily.  Often, standard websites require quite a bit of time to set up web forms, especially if there are many forms needed.  This is a very easy with SharePoint website hosting.

Create additional web pages with the click of a button.  Once you have chosen your website design, SharePoint website hosting automatically assigns that design throughout the site.  If you need to add an extra page, all you need is the content.

Set various security levels for users, based on need.  If you don’t have enough time to keep your site updated, you can provide another user with a high security level to update the SharePoint website.  On the other hand, if you need someone to update just the content on your SharePoint website, that user can be set to a lower security setting.

SharePoint website hosting comes with:

·         Business website designer, using SharePoint customizable templates.

·         Mail service, when integrated with Microsoft Exchange messaging.

·         An international office, where employees throughout the world can meet for collaboration.

·         Security guard, allowing employees access to the website based on security level.

Understanding Robots

I have always been interested in Robots and the way they are programmed to carry out specialized jobs, which are otherwise, dangerous and impossible for human capabilities.  Let us find out what they are.

Robots

In English that which automates some behavior is a robot, it includes autonomy and resourcefulness. A Robot needs to be designed with a task in mind. There are Hardworking Robots, Insensible Steel Giants, Servants and Toys, Transporters etc.
 Robots can be broadly categorized on: 

•    Goals or tasks they are designed for
•    Industry in which they are used
•    Autonomy

A Robot needs to be designed with a task in mind

Mobile Robots: Used mostly where it is difficult for the humans to operate. They can be further divided into Rolling and Walking Robots depending on the surface on which they are used.

Stationary Robots: For repetitive, dull and onerous tasks, where humans can easily get tired these robots are used. After the task is over they can be reprogrammed to take up another task.

Autonomous Robots: These robots learn to walk and avoid obstacle, they also improve on the performance and behavior where repetitive tasks are performed. They are usually self supporting and self contained.

Remote Control Robots: For difficult, complicated and dangerous operations these type can be used. For example, to diffuse bombs, for firefighting or for military warfare etc. 

Virtual Robots: They are not physical but are software programs or building blocks inside a computer. For example, while searching the World Wide Web, these web crawlers collect the information from various sites and send them to search engines.

BEAM Robots: It stands for Biology, Electronics, Aesthetics, and Mechanical. These are cheaper and run on solar energy.

The robots used to lift heavy objects, spot welding, handling machine tools, for cutting, shaping and fabricating the machine parts and assemble machinery etc are Industrial robots. They are found in automobile and manufacturing industry. The Space technology at NASA has mainly two types of robots, the Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROV) and the Remote Manipulator System (RMS).  

`Robotics

Robotics is a study that takes into consideration electronics, engineering, software development, artificial intelligence, mechanical engineering and other subjects depending on the need. The design, sensor fabrication, manufacturing techniques and advanced algorithms bring about a wonderful end product. It is a pinnacle of technical development in creating amazing machines. Those who work on robotic engineering thus study much more than Robots. It is based on two main technologies, Telemanipulation and the Numeric Control, or the remotely controlled machine and with precision to work on a task.

Areas of Study

Study of a number of fields is required, to achieve the kind of results that are mind boggling results.

Fields	Description
Artificial Intelligence	The Knowledge in a Machine is ordered categorized and sorted, to find the shortest way to take care of new situations and obstacles etc. It is used to construct algorithms for extracting real world conclusions from databases.
Mechanics	It keeps the robot in balance and is required to understand the construct of the body, axel, wheels and gears. Solid mechanics is another subject required to study the distribution of forces inside the solid material. This helps in preventing too thick or too thin material.
Electronics	All the analog circuits, digital logics, electronic components and microcontroller are required to be understood in manufacturing the robots.
Programming	Algorithms, control structures, data types, hardware and microcontroller programming are the chief areas of study. Interpreting sensor data, decision making, motors and motion are also some of the key areas included in robot programming.
Mathematics	The advanced areas of robotics uses a lot of maths, especially machines where integrals etc. are used for complicated shape constructs. It also helps in right approximation.

      

Robot Hardware 

Parts	Function
Sensors	They perceive the environment to understand and inform as required. Sensors can be either active or passive; generally active sensors such as sonar, radar and laser provide more information than the passive sensor example the cameras. They are used to record distances, generate images or measure the properties of the robot itself
Effectors	These are used to manipulate the environment, move and change the shape of the bodies. They have a degree of freedom or DOF which defines the kinematic state of a robot. For example robot joints like a human arm can have 1, 2 and 3 DOF by which effectors can target a location easily
Power Sources	Robots need the power source to drive their efforts such as electric motor, pneumatic actuation and hydraulic actuation
Digital communicator	These are mostly wireless networks for a link between robots and their home stations
Metal bodies	Depending on the design type, task, and the frame, metals and other elements are used to develop different type of robots

 Scope

The promise of robotics is easy to describe but hard for mind to grasp. They help increase the productivity, avoid errors and perform tasks unthinkable for human capacity. As robotics and artificial intelligence develop further, there is a worry that jobs would be wiped out, but ultimately the negatives can always be off-set with human wisdom. 

Tiny Pico

Though it has limited projection capabilities, Optamo Pico is one the tiniest projector ever made commercially available. The technology used is Digital Light Processing or DLP and it is a standalone projector. It is not to be confused with a home movie theatre but it can be easily used for a small group of people.

The Pico is powered by a battery which runs for more than two hours, sufficient enough to watch a movie. It easily projects the pictures, where dim lighting can be arranged and allows you to make presentations, share photos and videos from mobiles, smart phone and iPods.

 Its tiny size makes it easy to carry with the mobile. The new DLP Pico Handheld projectors slip easily into your pocket. Just switch on the projector to watch a movie or play video games. It overcomes the limitations of 3 inch display on mobiles.

DLP Pico Projection Technology is the cutting edge of imaging innovations. It has taken projectors to a whole new level of usefulness. When it is connected to an ultra-mobile device, the four-ounce Optoma Pico Projector gives a far better visual experience with an image that is up to 100 times larger than the small screen of the source device.

The latest LED technology gives better contrast and color to the images. It is a step further in the modern device display industry. What can be more enjoyable than projecting your images on a roof top or on the back of a seat, it certainly creates impression on people the moment you bring it out for use.

The complete package includes 1/8-inch cables and a composite cable to connect it with digital camera, mobile, iPod, TV etc. It has two lithium ion battery packs, a case to carry and an AC adapter. The latest Pico projectors come with upto 32 GB memory and are the epitome of technical ability and functionality.  

Says one of its users

"The Pico is ready to go to work right out of the box. Plug it into the gadget you want to project from, configure the output device, switch on the Pico, and you're ready to start projecting".

Note: Following websites have been used for the reference and study

www.dlp.com

www.gizmag.com

www.projectorcentral.com

www.popularmechanics.com

http://www.optoma.co.uk

www.pcworld.com