When developing workflows with WSS and you need input, config or whatever. You are directed to making ASP.NET pages. In MOSS you will also have the InfoPath possibility. In WSS however it can take forever just to do a simple form. As a new alternative a cool codeplex project have been developed. Read more at Codeplex. [via: Andrew Connell]

The Sharepoint team yesterday announced the WSRP toolkit., a toolkit with resourses on how to  integrate WebSphere and other (WSRP-compliant) systems with Sharepoint. The toolkit consists of some demo code projects in visual studio, screencasts and a whitepaper on the techniques used.  Read more here, or download directly from MSDN.

I’m not dead or gone, just had a lot of work to do. Have started to record a lot of screen casts about sharepoint and powershell – which of the first will be available here soon.

Important patch have been released by Microsoft for Sharepoint Server 2007 and Search Server 2008. This patch have been distributed before in the October cumulative update. Read more.

Also; register today for the European SharePoint Best Practices Conference in London between 6-8 April. There isn’t that much decided in the area about session but the line-up of speakers seems really impressive and promising. Read more.

Recently discovered a post about LinQ to SQL will be depreciated(?) in .NET4.0. Some people think this is good, and some think it’s really bad. I haven’t decided yet; I just have started to use LinQ to connect data to my applications… Read more and a clarification here.

Microsoft is also developing a concept called OSLO which has a lot of exciting stuff. Something I especially like as a “Curly Braces”-programmer is the M modeling language. However I don’t use it as intended but rather to quickly generate really good sql… =) A video can be found here

Then to a topic which isn’t really IT but rather general topic. Today I went to my local store and got news from a cashier there that three of the five cashiers just got sacked. This because the pay points have been automated and the customers now scan their goods them-selfs. Three of the five lines were closed. This is optimization of flow; they will handle a increased number of customers, they will be able have less staff. More economically liable in other words. I can see some similarity to my own optimizations in document handling and it-structures and automating tasks which today employ people – tomorrow by machines. Of-cause the greater good is served – but when Christmas is coming and you see people loosing their jobs over “optimizations” you get a bit sad. Just a short philosophical note from a techie =).