If you don’t like the advertisements on Slideshare & Co. and don’t need the additional features of these services, then Microsoft has a free and simple alternative for you! 

Here is what to do:

1. Upload your presentation to your server
   (Example: http://www.christian-heindel.de/assets/pptx/office%20web%20viewer.pptx)
2. Go to http://officewebviewer.com
3. Paste the link to your PowerPoint file there and then click on “Create URL”
4. Open the preview page, click on “File” and then on “Share”
   (Example: Preview for the above link)
5. There you can grab the embed code for use in your blog or website
   (Example: Embedded version for the above link)

This also works with other office documents! Nice!

Read more: Office Web Apps blog: ”Office Web Viewer: View Office documents in a browser”

Screenshots:

You can download the trial versions here:

• TechNet Evaluation Center: Download Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013
• TechNet Evaluation Center: Download Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010

Beware! You cannot downgrade from Enterprise trial version to Standard licensed edition!

See: Upgrade from a trial version of SharePoint Server 2010 (TechNet)

This is a problem, because there is an important difference between the 2010 and 2013 trial version.

For SharePoint 2010 you could choose between 4 different trial versions:

• SharePoint Server 2010 Enterprise Client Access License features
• SharePoint Server 2010 for Internet Sites, Enterprise
• SharePoint Server 2010 Standard Client Access License features
• SharePoint Server 2010 for Internet Sites, Standard

For SharePoint 2013 you can’t. The only option is: Get started now

Nowhere on the download page does it say if you are downloading the Standard or the Enterprise trial version.

What you get is the Enterprise trial version of SharePoint 2013!

So if you set up a test environment by using the SharePoint 2013 180-day trial and the customer buys the Standard licensed edition, you are doomed!

You will not be able to downgrade.

You will have to set up a new farm with the Standard licensed edition.

You might be able to deactivate all enterprise features and then move your content database. (untested, not officially supported) The clean way would be to move your content manually.

There is no built in functionality that would allow you to automatically download files from SkyDrive to your phone.

The official support page on “Windows Phone > How-to > Office Mobile > Sync documents with SkyDrive” won’t tell you that.

Your options for offline access on Windows Phone are:

Office Hub

When you open a document from SkyDrive in the Office Hub, it becomes available in the “Recent” list. However, I do not have information for how many documents this will work or what timespan counts as “recent”.

From within Word, Excel or PowerPoint you can use “More… > Save to… > Phone” and store files permanently on your phone. Beware: These files will no longer be synchronized with SkyDrive, even when you are online.

Use OneNote mobile

You can have a OneNote file that you store on SkyDrive. This will sync in both directions. However, synchronization will not work in the background. While it will automatically save your content when you leave the app, it will not synchronize to your phone when you edit sth. via the web app on SkyDrive.

(You can test both options by turning on the airplane mode.)

Leave a feature request

You can leave feature requests and vote for them in the Windows Phone Feature Suggestion Box. Go and tell Microsoft that you are missing this feature. You can also leave a comment on the respective app store pages:

• SkyDrive for Windows Phone
• SkyDrive for iPhone and iPad
• SkyDive for Android

You could also try to talk to them via Twitter:

• @SkyDrive
• @WinPhoneSupport
• @joebelfiore

our experiments with

7+ LEGO Education WeDo (product website)

• 9580 LEGO® Education WeDo Construction Set
  150+ elements including a motor, motion and tilt sensors, and the LEGO USB Hub
• 9585 LEGO® Education WeDo Resource Set
  extra building blocks for more models like Ferris Wheel, Crane, Car or House, additional elements such as wheels, rotors and a door

The distance sensor can sense objects within a range of about 20 cm in steps from 0-100. The tilt sensor can have five different states and the motor can be turned on/off, run with different speeds from 0-100, change direction and be on for (x) seconds.

This is what LEGO says are the key learning values:

• Designing and making
• Brainstorm to find creative alternative solutions
• Learn to communicate, share ideas and work together

I can second that. It was so much fun to build the models together with my son (10) and to watch him learning, picking up some tips and improving his models.

From running Scratch on the computer, we already had a screen, speakers, mouse, keyboard and microphone. It is crazy what interesting and manifold combinations you can create when you add the motor, tilt and distance sensor.

For example just watch this girl explaining here Flying Bird or this boy explaining his space shuttle launch.

Here are some of the models we’ve built today:

Helicopter

Our helicopter accelerates when you lean it forward and it slows down when you tilt it back.
(You can discuss our model on Facebook.)

Kicker

The kicker waits until sth. rolls in front of it’s distance sensor and then starts the motor to kick it away.
(You can discuss our model on Facebook.)

Sail boat

It was moving back and forth while a sound of bubbling water was playing in the background.

More information

• LEGO WeDo and Scratch (wiki)
  • WeDo and Scratch – Getting Started
  • WeDo Starter Projects
  • WeDo and Scratch Reference
  • Inspiration and Themes
• WeDo project ideas from ScratchEd (the online community for Scratch educators)
  • A collection of handouts that explore each of the WeDo components – motor, distance sensor, tilt sensor – in a short project.
• (inofficial) LEGO WeDo blog
  • You can find a wide range of different models here. Including step-by-step pictured tutorials with videos.
• Plans for some more advanced models like a robot that can follow a line: http://notjustbricks.blogspot.de/search/label/WeDo
• Some more example videos from the article: We Do WeDo

Three key improvements:

• Improved App User Experiences
• More SharePoint 2013 Hosting Options and On-Prem Support
• Localize your App into Multiple Languages

Read more details here:

• Announcing a New Preview of the LightSwitch HTML Client
• Get Started Building SharePoint Apps in Minutes with LightSwitch
  

With todays announcement of the availability of the Office Developer Tools for Visual Studio 2012 things change for the worse.

You now need to be:

• MSDN subscriber
• (Plan E1 or E3) Office 365 subscriber
  or
• pay $99.00 per year for a Office 365 developer subscription

This will unnecessarily slow down the development of Office and SharePoint apps.

Bad move!

We might be able to meet at one of the following conferences…

• ShareCamp, Unterschleißheim, April 13-14, 2013
• ShareConf, Düsseldorf, June 11-13, 2013
• SharePoint konferenz, Vienna, June 17-18, 2013

My other SharePoint talks so far:

ShareCamp, Unterschleißheim, April 2012 (German review)

• “Push-Benachrichtigungen via SignalR” (slides)
• “Mobile Anwendungen für SharePoint mit HTML5″ (slides)

SharePoint Konferenz, München, Jan. / Feb. 2012

• “Unternehmensweite Suche mit SharePoint 2010″
• “Mobile Anwendungen für SharePoint mit HTML5″

.NET UserGroup Dresden, November 2011

• “SharePoint, HTML5 und mobile Geräte” (slides)

Collaboration Days, Luzern, November 2011

• “Mobile Anwendungen für SharePoint mit HTML5″ (slides)

European SharePoint Conference, Berlin, October 2011 (German review, English review)

• “Mobile Applications for SharePoint using HTML5″ (slides)

ShareConf, Düsseldorf, June 2011

• “Mobile Applications for SharePoint using HTML5″ (slides)

HS Zittau / Görlitz, May 2009 (German review)

• “Silverlight 2.0 im Unternehmenseinsatz” (slides)

SharePoint UserGroup Dresden, May 2009 (German review)

• “Silverlight 2.0 im Unternehmenseinsatz” (slides)

Here are some more details, so that you can easily integrate SharePoint into your apps.

Authenticator

Source: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj163079.aspx

The object model provides two classes called “Authenticator” and “ODataAuthenticator”.

Authenticator works with ClientContext and cannot be used across multiple URLs.

When you use ODataAuthenticator it works with DataServiceContext and you’ll get an additional property called “ResolvedUrl”:

Gets the URL that is used for communication to the server that is running SharePoint when an ODataAuthenticator is being used. This may be the URL published on the Unified Access Gateway (UAG) server or, if the AllowSmartRouting property is true, this may be the SharePoint intranet URL if it is reached first when theAuthenticate method is called

The following authentication methods are supported:

• Default: Windows Authentication
• FormsAuthentication: Represents forms-based authentication mode
• Anonymous: Represents anonymous access mode
• BrowserBasedAuthentication (old name) / MicrosoftOnline (new name): Represents Microsoft Office Forms Based Authentication (MSOFBA) mode

Also good to know:

• The user name and password cannot be hard-coded for SharePoint Online.The user will be prompted for logon credentials, while for on-premises installations you could hard-wire a password, so that the user would never have to authenticate.
• You can also use Federation Authentication and pass an ADFS authentication scheme like: “domain\user”, “password”

Code Samples

For Windows Phone developers, there are some code samples for SharePoint 2013 available in the Windows Phone Dev Center.

Unfortunately, however, the samples (even the ones from 3. Jan 13) are built against the Microsoft SharePoint SDK Preview for Windows Phone (published on 14. Aug 12), although the final version of the Microsoft SharePoint SDK for Windows Phone is available since 30. Oct 12. (Update: My colleague Heinrich Ulbricht has also tested it and can confirm the differences between the two SDK versions.)

So if the code samples won’t build and you receive the following error message…

The type or namespace name ‘Authenticator’ could not be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?)

…then here is what to do:

• Go to “References” > “Add reference…” and add the following DLL:

Assembly Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Phone.Auth.UI

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\SharePoint\v15.0\Phone\v7.1\Libraries\Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Phone.Auth.UI.dll

You’ll only have to register as a Microsoft Partner, take a 30-minute online course and subscribe to the Action Pack Development and Design which will cost you 429 USD or 350 EUR per year and includes everything you’ll need – from Windows Server to Visual Studio Professional.

This is actually cheaper than a stand-alone copy of Visual Studio Professional, which costs about 470 USD or 590 EUR.

See also: Free SharePoint 2010 development environment (three ways to get one)