Microsoft has recently released the updated version of the WSS/SharePoint Hands on Labs and PPTs and Demos for Introductory SharePoint Developer Modules.

You can also download a WSS 3.0 SP1 VPC if you don't already have the development environment.

Following are some of the free SQL Server 2008 resources available from Microsoft. Check them out before they are gone!

eBook – Introducing Microsoft SQL Server 2008

Clinic – What's New in Microsoft SQL Server 2008 for Enterprise Data Platform

Clinic – What's New in Microsoft SQL Server 2008 for Business Intelligence

Clinic – What's New in Microsoft SQL Server 2008 for Database Development

Clinic – New Features of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services

Or better yet book mark the SQL Server 2008 Learning Portal.

Following are some of the upcoming In Person MSDN/TechNet events in Virginia. Check them out. I am planning to attend the Richmond events.

Richmond

TechNet Events: Windows Vista, Windows Power Shell and Group Policy

MSDN Event - Visual Studio 2008, WPF and Vista Security

Reston

TechNet Events: Windows Vista, Windows Power Shell and Group Policy

MSDN Event - Visual Studio 2008, WPF and Vista Security

Roanoke

MSDN Mid-Atlantic Roadshow

Subscribe to the RSS Feed for the upcoming In Person events in Virginia.

I just received this email from a co-worker about the upcoming live event in Richmond VA. Check out the events web site @ http://www.msdnevents.com/ or register here for the event.

In a nut-shell, some of the new technologies such as WPF, ADO.NET Entity Framework and ADO.NET Data Services will be covered. The event is on Thursday September 18. The developer sessions are from 1:00 P.M. – 5:00 P.M.

There is couple of new Visual Studio 2008 Virtual Labs available @ Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Virtual Labs

MSDN Virtual Lab: Visual Studio 2008 - Developing an Outlook Add-In

MSDN Virtual Lab: Visual Studio 2008 - Integrating Windows Communication Foundation and Windows Workflow Foundation

MSDN Virtual Lab: Visual Studio 2008 - Developing a WPF Application

MSDN Virtual Lab: Visual Studio 2008 - Developing a .Net Compact Framework 3.5 Application

MSDN Virtual Lab: Visual Studio 2008 - Lighting up MFC Application

MSDN Virtual Lab: Using LINQ to SQL with the .Net Framework 3.5 and Visual Studio 2008

MSDN Virtual Lab: Visual Basic 9 and LINQ

MSDN Virtual Lab: Building AJAX/JSON Services using WCF

MSDN Virtual Lab: Syndication using Windows Communications Foundation

MSDN Virtual Lab: Silverlight Monster Factory- Using a XAML Template

While exploring options for integrating BizTalk and SharePoint, I stumbled upon the following BizTalk Server 2006 related posters! For sure, a picture is worth a thousand words.

BizTalk Server 2006 R2 Database Infrastructure Poster

Microsoft BizTalk Server Operations Guide

BizTalk Server 2006 R2 Capabilities Poster

BizTalk Server 2006 R2 Runtime Architecture Poster

I also came across the BizTalk Server 2006 Tutorials and the BizTalk Server 2006 Installation and Upgrade Guides

Use the following resources for training your organization's business users and/or Information workers on SharePoint and SharePoint Designer. Note that these are not the hard-core developer training resources but these can be a good start for a developer to start learning about the general concepts of SharePoint and how to perform certain tasks in SharePoint.

The very first resource is the training that comes in two flavors; the Standalone Edition, which can be installed directly on the end user's machine and the Portal Edition which can be installed on a common MOSS site which is accessible by all of the end users.

Office SharePoint Server 2007 Training (Standalone Edition)

Office SharePoint Server 2007 Training (Portal Edition)

Office SharePoint Designer 2007 Training (Standalone Edition)

Office SharePoint Designer 2007 Training (Portal Edition)

Apart from the above training, check out the training for more advanced business users @ SharePoint Designer 2007 Business Administrator Training and the Six-Part Series for getting the most out of the SharePoint Designer.

Road maps

Since WSS/SharePoint is huge and has so many areas for one to learn, hence it would be good to have some kind of guided learning approach (or focused training) where one particular area of SharePoint is targeted, learned and explored in detail and then move on to the next area.

Microsoft has done a good job coming up with the road maps for such training. Following are some of the road maps that I found; there could be more, but I am not sure.

Roadmap to using SharePoint Server 2007

Roadmap for creating and managing sites

Roadmap for creating and configuring libraries

Roadmap for creating and customizing Web Part Pages

Roadmap for giving users access to sites and site content

Roadmap for managing navigation

The following articles provide some of the important concepts and training that a power user should have or better yet have your end users go through the training material located @ Help for SharePoint Server 2007

Understand groups and permissions on a site

Enable anonymous access

Give users access to a site

Manage permission levels

Introduction to sites, workspaces, and pages

Manage sites and site collections

Work with site content and structure