Folks still use WSPBuilder even with 2010

I learned today that many Visual Studio 2010/SharePoint 2010 solution developers are still using Carsten Keutmann's WSPBuilder tool, despite all the new WSP package, deploy, and debug facilities built into Visual Studio 2010.

I had used WSPBuilder extensively in all my MOSS (SharePoint) 2007 projects but not with any of my 2010 projects. Now come to find out, people like David Stampfli at Microsoft still use WSPBuilder despite all the built-in stuff in 2010!

One word to the wise: there is a separate version of WSP Builder for SharePoint 2010/Visual Studio 2010. It's called WSP Builder Extensions 2010 Beta 1.4 and you get it from here: http://wspbuilder.codeplex.com/releases/30858/download/94507. At first, I made the mistake of downloading the "Recommended Download" (WSP Builder Extension 1.06...) and after installing, I could not find any WSP Builder project templates available in my Visual Studio 2010. Browsing Carsten Keutmann's blog, I noticed that it mentions "Please look on codeplex under Download. It's the last file of the 4 available." After I got the WSP Builder Extensions 2010 Beta 1.4 the templates became available as expected.

My Goals launching this new blog

Today is my three year anniversary of working at Neudesic LLC. It seems like an auspicious occasion to launch this new blog.

My goal is to share with you some of the tips, tricks, and lessons I've learned building enterprise solutions to business problems using SharePoint, C#, Visual Studio, Workflow, and the Office Business Platform.

What a terrific company Neudesic is! I get a steady stream of challenging engagements to work on. Derek Drennan is a terrific boss. Just today I got confirmation that Noam Topaz has joined Neudesic as a Director of SharePoint Solutions for out region (Pacific Northwest). And to think, just three years ago he was trying to hire me!

Here at at Neudesic we have quite a number of interesting initiatives going on. The Portals and Collaboration practice is working on a major upgrade of our system for capturing and re-using Intellectual Capital. We are capturing accelerators, code and procedures that we turn around and use to build better solutions to common problems our clients run into. This IC-capture system faces all the classic challenges faced by knowledge management systems, including ease of use, searchability, and user adoption.

Just a few weeks back Simeon Cathey -- the General Manager of our Portals and Collaboration Practice -- led our huge presence at the SharePoint Conference 2011 in Anaheim.

Our Mobility practice is going great guns, with very interesting developments in the intersection of Cloud, Mobility, and SharePoint.

The Custom Application Development practice is leading the whole Microsoft Business Partner community into the Cloud/Azure world with user groups, sample programs, and training opportunities.

Just last week I joined a company-wide campaign to with other consultants in the Custom App Dev practice to learn HTML 5. We're a bit dismayed at having to learn yet another language (I was just getting the hang of jQuery) but now that I'm seeing what I can do in the markup without any code, I'm convinced this is an endeavor worthy of my investment.

I'll need a couple of weeks to post my SharePoint best practices here but I am really looking forwards to it. I have quite a long backlog of useful and helpful tips and code snippets I want to share. I just have to factor out the most useful, bloggable pieces and test to make sure they will work for you. Stay tuned.