So is the only purpose of the tool to help people understand scale?  If so, the goal has been achieved!  While that’s cool I guess, don’t you lose the context of the original event/place?  As interesting as it is to see the overlay of the Gulf Oil slick over Edinburgh, I don’t see the point overlaying the route of the first moon walk on Edinburgh!  Surely it’s more interesting to see the route in it’s original context rather than see Neil Armstrong walking over the Bank of Scotland headquarters!  Maybe I’m just underwhelmed!

The big themes that came out of the keynote for me were:

• Social Networking in SharePoint
• Search improvements
• Taxonomy and Governance
• Business Intelligence
• Ease of use and user interface overhaul, the office ribbon comes to SharePoint

Here’s my session plan for today, I’ll hopefully post more later…

• Microsoft Business Intelligence Vision & Strategy
• ECM for the Masses – How SharePoint 2010 delivers on the promise
• Web Content Management in SharePoint 2010

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Here’s the video from Google announcement here which goes into more detail:

Great I hear you all say, no more having to cope with IE6/7/8 rendering issues, we can just develop for Chrome (webkit engine) and the Firefox engine which are far less problematic than IE!  Yeah, in a utopian world that might be the case but as we know, that’s not how the world works, here’s the issues:

• - Large corporates with locked down desktops are very unlikely to install Google Chrome Frame, after all most haven’t even upgraded from IE6 yet
• - Home users or less experienced users are very unlikely to understand why they’d want to do this, again they are still using IE6 for a reason, it works for them!  This user group has had the free choice to upgrade to two newer versions of IE and a multitude of other browsers and still haven’t, so why would they install Google Chrome Frame?

From a technological standpoint, Google Chrome Frame is brilliant!  I just don’t see how it’s going to change the status quo, we’ve still got the same problems to overcome and like it or not IE6 is still going to be around for a time to come. In my opinion the best solution to the ongoing IE6 issue is to continue getting the message out to people that IE6 is passed its use by date and far better and more functional options available for free!  Through Windows Update we should hopefully move the home user market onto IE7/8…eventually!  As for the larger corporates, with the advent of Windows 7 we should hopefully see a substantial number of corporates upgrading from Windows XP and with it a further reduction of IE6.

While I admire Google for their ingenuity in coming up with this solution I just don’t think it really is a solution, anyone installing the plugin would be better off just installing Chrome or Firefox instead!  It seems to me this is part of a larger attempt by Google to continue their assault on reducing IE market share.

With my accessibility hat on I worry about the widespread adoption of Silverlight as a replacement for ASP.net WebForms or standard HTML/CSS/Javascript.  With all the positive progress the web standards community has made in driving forward the “accessible web”, adopting Silverlight as a direct replacement could be heading down the Flash inaccessibility path again.  Don’t get my wrong, Silverlight is a great technology and the ability to utilise the .net framework in the browser is just fantastic but as a replacement for WebForms, I think it’s misguided.

To debunk the myth that SharePoint can’t be accessible even further I’ve recently completed a white paper on Accessibility & Compliance for SharePoint 2007 where I go into great detail on the current issues with SharePoint and how these can be addressed to use SharePoint as an accessible web content management system.

If you’re looking for a SharePoint partner then why not get in contact with Company Net?

Here’s a map of our route and some cold hard facts for you:

Route: Coire Cas, Ben Macdui (1,309m/4,296ft), Loch Etchachan, Shelter Stone, Loch Avon, Cairngorm (1,245m/4,084ft), Ptarmigan Distance: 15-16 miles Highest Point: 1,309m/4,296ft Total Ascent: 4,000ft approx. Time: 8.5 hours

We got pretty lucky with the weather to be honest, was a bit windy (bordering on gale force) up on the Ben Macdui plateau but once down to Loch Etchachan the wind died down and the sun came out, you would almost think it was summer!

Engraved stone dial at summit of Ben Macdui

Woo hoo, i've reached the top!

View from Ben Macdui Plateau

View down Coire Sputan Dearg

View of Loch Avon from Shelter Stone

Shore of Loch Avon

Rescue Helicopter near Shelter Stone

View back to Shelter Stone

View back across Loch Avon

The Saddle between Cairngorm and A' Choinneach, looking down to Glenmore