One of the challenges of working in a Microsoft development environment is the ability to filter through the massive amount of information provided by Microsoft; be it MSDN, TechNet, E-Learning, etc… If you're like me, your bookmarks tend to become cluttered and you go through a cleaning process every few months.
What to do?
I came across the Microsoft Office Interactive Developer Map (v2) download on MSDN the other day and spent a bit of time playing around with it. I was pleasantly surprised to find a wealth of information in the Interactive Developer Map:
- A hierarchical presentation of the Office products.
- Direct links to the top Office website resources.
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As you drill down to sub sections:
- You are directed to the relevant online resources provided by Microsoft.
- The most recent news is presented (I'm assuming this is dynamically generated content)
- Relevant namespaces, web services and schemas are provided.
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All the new products are represented (there are many others provided, these are SharePoint related):
- Visual Studio 2008, as well as VS 2005
- Office 2007
- MOSS 2007 (BDC, Excel Services, Enterprise Search, etc…)
- WSS 3.0
- Windows Workflow Foundation
- Windows Server 2008, as well as Server 2003
Interactive Developer Map Screen Shots
Home Screen:
Drill down into Visual Studio 2008:
Drill down into SharePoint Server 2007 > Business Data Catalog:
Enjoy!