Level of Satisfaction as a SharePoint Developer

As we are now a few weeks into 2009, I’ve been thinking carefully about what direction I should take my career.

The current economy doesn’t leave me many choices, so this is mostly an academic exercise – the reality is that I will just keep my current job for the foreseeable future.

But, were I to have my choice, I think I would choose not to pursue any more SharePoint skills or jobs. I’ve done enough of it now that I know its good side, and its bad side. And I’m just not enjoying it. My time is either spent doing a lot more configuration than coding, or I am fighting the platform with code to try to bend it to my will. I like using technology to solve problems, not fighting technology to create basic business process applications.

SharePoint does work. .NET does work. BizTalk works, InfoPath works, the whole Microsoft platform works. But it just isn’t a satisfying platform to work under. When I was 100% Dedicated to Lotus Notes, I could have some passion about the platform. But under Microsoft… my job is just a job.

This weekend, I just downloaded Django and did a few basic projects. It was quick, it was easy, and it was fun. If Notes jobs aren’t around, and SharePoint is boring… I may have to spend my time in the open source world. When the economy gives me the luxury of choice, that is…

Lotusphere Bloggers

I really wanted to be able to thank everyone who blogged at Lotusphere and helped keep us all in the loop. But I cannot…

I do thank those of you who posted actual content.

But I need to rebuke those of you who failed to recognize your audience. I am not going to poke fingers, but a number of folks “live blogged” various sessions, and the content from your blogs goes something like…

1. Someone got up and said hello.
2. Some else made an inside joke.
3. Someone asked a good question. Answers ensued.
4. Someone else asked another good question. More great conversation ensued. Too bad I’m not actually documenting it.
5. They made an announcement about “Product X”. I’m excited. So excited that I’m forgetting to actually type out what the announcement was.
6. More great question. More great conversations. No, I’m still not going to write any details.
7. See, aren’t we all having so much fun here?

Seriously, folks. For today’s readers, or when you come back in a couple years to read again, do you really think the valuable content came by listing whast questions were asked? Without telling us the answers???

Back to your regularly scheduled Notes & SharePoint blog next week.

Excel Password Removal Tip

So this has nothing to do with Domino nor SharePoint, but it is something nifty that I thought I’d share:

I had a need to modify an Excel form sent to me by a vendor. The form was password protected, so I did some quick searches to find tools to remove the password. To be honest, I didn’t trust the tools that I found.

So i tried the following procedure. It works great:

1) Open your Excel file in OpenOffice

2) Re-save it as an Excel file.

3) Re-open in Excel and now you can remove protection without being prompted for a password.

Thanks, OpenOffice!