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What is SharePoint?

Microsoft's Windows SharePoint Server (WSS) is a browser-based collaboration portal. Microsoft Office SharePoint Services (MOSS) or it's predecessor SharePoint Portal Server (SPS) build on top of WSS to add extended functionality.

How can lawyers use it? SharePoint can be an excellent portal for sharing documents within a firm and even creating extranets that can he shared with clients. Many firms use SharePoint as a central repository for documents and also for "lists" which are similar to Exchange public folders. Lists can be Calendars (a centralized firm calendar?), contacts (shared Contacts folder for your entire firm), tasks or just about anything else you like.

Resources

Here are some useful resources for lawyers to use for more information on Microsoft SharePoint

Sites

Microsoft's Windows SharePoint Services Tech Center site: An official Microsoft site with technical content on WSS.
SharePoint Team Blog: Excellent read and frequently updated by the SharePoint team in Redmond.
Use SyncToy to Synchronize folders with SharePoint - an article that describes how to use SyncToy to synchronize regular folders with a SharePoint site.
Free SharePoint Guide from IT Business Edge

Newsgroups

Microsoft has free support newsgroups available for nearly every product they make. In these newsgroups you can read questions and answers that other people have posted for the product or you can post your own questions and get answers from the other posters.

What's an MVP?

An MVP or "Most Valuable Professional" is a volunteer who has been recognized by Microsoft as an expert on a particular technology. You'll commonly find them in the Microsoft Support Newsgroups, but they can sometimes be found in other forums or lists. They can be very helpful but keep in mind that they are only volunteers providing assistance in their spare time.

NNTP

NNTP (Network News Transfer Protocol) is the traditional way of accessing newsgroups. The traditional Microsoft program for NNTP is Outlook Express though in Vista this has been upgraded and renamed to "Windows Mail".

Click the links below to open the Microsoft PowerPoint newsgroups in your NNTP reader:

General

Web Forums

Since NNTP is a tad esoteric Microsoft has introduced a web interface for their support newsgroups. These are the same newsgroups you get via NNTP, just in a web browser.

Click the links below to open the Microsoft PowerPoint newsgroups in your web browser:

General