General Stuff

Wherefore Art Thou Heather?

Heather Solomon — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 03:15:21 GMT

A few things....

I survived March! Thanks to everyone who took a minute to introduce themselves at the New York SharePoint User Group, the MVP Summit, the Houston SharePoint User Group and SharePoint Connections. It was a whirlwind month, but I met a lot of great people and learned a lot of new things. March Madness doesn't even begin to describe the month I had, but it was all good.
I survived the first 30 days of being an independent consultant! Just over a month ago I made the decision to have a go at my own business. I would like to again thank all my friends and family that have supported me during the last month. And a special thanks to my husband Drew who has braved QuickBooks, proof read way too many documents, and researched long into the night on my behalf. I could have not done this without him.
If you have emailed me, I have not responded, and for that I apologize. A lot of great comments and questions have come my way and I really wish I had the time to address each one promptly. I will handle what I can as soon as I can and I appreciate all the great feedback.
I have been a neglectful blogger, and that will change, I promise. I have lots of design stuff I want to get out here and with the first month of my biz under my belt and an actual plan to be in my hometown for more than a week at a time, I am going to start posting stuff again. :-)

Cheers all -

I got new digs!

Heather Solomon — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 15:49:07 GMT

Thanks to everyone who took a minute to let me know my site was having issues over the past few weeks. I do appreciate the heads up!

Thankfully I am now upgraded to a much more recent version of SubText (thanks AC) and I have changed hosting providers. After nearly two years dealing with sub-par service at WebHost4Life, I have moved to OrcsWeb, and I have to say their service has been outstanding. I have literally been floored by the fast and friendly responses and the quick way they handle support requests.

So now my contact page is back working, and my page load times are back to normal. Yay!

I am going out on my own...

Heather Solomon — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 13:30:00 GMT

I have made the decision to take the leap and become an independent consultant. This is an exciting time in my career path and I feel this is a great time for me to venture out and do this on my own. I have certainly put a lot of thought into this and it is something I have wanted to do for quite some time. I certainly appreciate the time and people I worked with at Fidelity and ShareSquared, those experiences have helped to focus my career and my knowledge.

As for my services, my specialty and focus is SharePoint branding, but I also provide web and graphic design services, as well as other SharePoint services such as education, administration, taxonomy and web content management. If you have other SharePoint needs, I can certainly help refer you to some excellent resources for development, training, infrastructure, executive planning and SharePoint champion advice and expertise.

January and February have been very interesting months, and I have to thank some people who have really been there for me and helped me with the next step of my life. Chris Regan, Andrew Connell, Bob Fox and of course my wonderful husband Drew... thanks guys. :-)

Happy New Year and 5 Things About Me...

Heather Solomon — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 13:36:00 GMT

Gak! I have been tagged…..

Nothing like trying to think of 5 things people don’t know about you first thing in the morning, but here it goes:

I am not a developer! Haha, no really, I’m not. Please stop asking me developer questions :-P. I graduated top of my class from the Art Institute of Houston, with an Associate degree in Visual Communications (no, I don’t have a Bachelors) and started work when I was 20. So when all my friends were passed out in their dorms, I was pulling a steady paycheck and getting grief from co-workers that I wasn’t legal yet. I actually have a degree and background in print, and didn’t learn web stuff until my first job, when my co-worker (now my husband) taught me HTML.
My belly button is pierced. My ears are pierced 3 ½ times… no worries, that is it. :-)
I am a step-mom, and have been for nearly 8 years. My step daughter lives with us full time. It has been quite the experience and has seen the good, the bad, and the ugly. And I would do it all over again.
I own a freaking zoo. Nearly literally…. 2 horses, 2 dogs, 2 cats, 2 rats, and a bunch of fish. Many kisses to all my babies… Quincy, Dixie, Katie, Austin, Tiger, Tipsi, Snow White, Jasmine and all those unnamed fishes. I am a huge animal lover and I just melt every time I see a rescue/adoptee animal.
I never lived in the state I was born in… the town I was born in sat on the South Carolina-Georgia border and my Mom worked at the hospital on the Georgia side, but lived on the SC side. I moved to Houston when I was one, and have never returned to my birthplace. I grew up in Houston and have lived here all of my life, except a 4 year stint in Little Rock (yes, Arkansas). My daughter was born in Little Rock, and has a high chance of never returning to her birthplace since we have no family there. But I hope that won’t be the case. Don’t knock Little Rock, it is actually very pretty.

Ok, my turn to tag:

Happy New Year!

Microsoft Ready for a New Day Launch Event - Houston

Heather Solomon — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 19:35:00 GMT

Microsoft's Ready for a New Day Launch Tour is hitting Houston on February 13th, 2007. It is a free event hosted at George R. Brown Convention Center and has several IT Pro tracks and a Developer track. If you are in the area, you should come! I will be there :-)

Ready for a New Day Information

Houston Event Information and Sign up

ShareSquared is looking for SharePoint Developers, C# Developers, Business Analysts, and Project Managers

Heather Solomon — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 11:31:00 GMT

ShareSquared, Inc. is looking to hire full time employees to help support our expanding customer base.

We are looking for individuals with core competencies that include any of the following:

SharePoint Architecture, Design and Implementation

SharePoint Development

C# Developers (we will train you on SharePoint)

Business Analysts

Project Management

If you are looking to work with an energetic and dynamic team please send an e-mail to info@ShareSquared.com.

Bob Mixon's Blog has Moved

Heather Solomon — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 15:24:00 GMT

Please update your feeds, your favorites, et al.

Blog - http://blog.bobmixon.com

RSS 2.0 - http://blogrss20.bobmixon.com

For those of you who don't know Bob, he is a SPS MVP and his blog focuses on all things SharePoint (what else is there to life?).

Thanks!!

Good management book: The Art of Project Management

Heather Solomon — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 16:59:00 GMT

While at TechEd I picked up a project management book by Scott Berkun, who worked at Microsoft for several years and led many teams on projects such as IE, MSFT Windows and MSN.

I am only partway through the book, but it is really good so far. It is not just for technical people over product teams or project managers. It has great info for anyone in a leadership position or in a team player position. The writing styles talks to you straight and hits close to home with the advice and references.

It is a great read.

The Art of Project Management

I am becoming a team member of ShareSquared

Heather Solomon — Sat, 10 Jun 2006 14:00:00 GMT

Starting Monday I am joining the ShareSquared, Inc. team as Manager of Knowledge Solutions. This is an exciting opportunity and I am looking forward to working with such knowledgeable and respected people. David Kruglov and Bob Mixon are partners who run ShareSquared, offering consulting and training services. There are some very exciting things happening and I look forward to sharing them here soon!

The company I am leaving I have been with for 8 years, and they have played a tremendous role in my skills and technical knowledge growth. I have made several dear friends along the way and shared many great experiences. I have the utmost respect for my team members and I bid them a very fond farewell.

Maiden Post from my new Puter!

Heather Solomon — Tue, 09 May 2006 00:26:00 GMT

Ok, so I admit I have had it a few days now, but this is my first post from my spanking shiny new Dell Inspiron E1505. I love it. The monitor is gorgeous and it is quite a zippy box.

With moving into any new digital fortress, you come across updates and stuff you didn't know about (ok at least not me). My latest find is the Google Toolbar Beta. It has some cool features that the Google Toolbar doesn't have, my favorite being Bookmarks. You can store your bookmarks with Google and then access them from any computer that has Google Toolbar installed. Very sweet for multi computer users. You can also search your bookmarks, which I LOVE. Definately worth the upgrade.