Microsoft has officially released SharePoint Guidance on Patterns and Practices that aim to help and guide SharePoint Architects in their SharePoint implementation. As described by Microsoft:

Summary

This guidance helps architects and developers design, build, test, deploy and upgrade SharePoint intranet applications. A reference implementation that is named the Contoso Training Management application demonstrates solutions to common architectural, development, and application lifecycle management challenges.

This guidance discusses the following:

• Architectural decisions about patterns, feature factoring, and packaging.
• Design tradeoffs for common decisions many developers encounter, such as when to use SharePoint lists or a database to store information.
• Implementation examples that are demonstrated in the Training Management application and in the QuickStarts.
• How to design for testability, create unit tests, and run continuous integration.
• How to set up different environments including the development, build, test, staging, and production environments.
• How to manage the application life cycle through development, test, deployment, and upgrading.
• Team-based intranet application development.

The following areas are not discussed in the current version of this guidance:

• Content-oriented sites that use Web content management
• Internet and enterprise-scale SharePoint applications
• Multilingual SharePoint applications
• Scale or security testing of SharePoint applications

This is an important asset from Microsoft and I would make every effort to read through it (download here). I would update you on my reviews on it.

Ed Bott from ZDNet has posted his list of Windows Vista gadgets to download. These gadgets range from developer/adminstrator use (Remote desktop) to common users (App launcher). I am not a fan of the Windows Vista Sidebar Gadgets; but I always wanted to build my own, I just can’t find time for it.

Anyways, the download Windows Vista sidebar gadgets list is found below:

Remote Desktop Gadget 2.1

App Launcher v3

Windows Search Indexer Status Gadget

Hyper-V Monitor Gadget for Windows Sidebar

ShareMaster for Home Server Gadget

Weather Underground Gadget

Chirpr

Facebook Sidebar

CPU Meter

Read his descriptions here.

You can customize your Windows Vista cursor using CursorFX. As described:

CursorFX is a program for Windows XP and Windows Vista that enables users to vastly improve the visual appearance and functionality of the Windows mouse cursor. Once installed, users can choose between hundreds of different mouse cursors with fluid animations, smooth edges, unique sizes, and more system event behaviors. In addition, CursorFX supports features such as smooth motion which the default Windows mouse cursor does not.

Version 2.01 adds additional cursors and more options.

Download the Windows Vista application here.

ShellRunAs is a very good utility authored by Mark Russinovich and Jon Schwartz that allows you to run applications under different user accounts. They describe their work as:

The command-line Runas utility is handy for launching programs under different accounts, but it’s not convenient if you’re a heavy Explorer user. ShellRunas provides functionality similar to that of Runas to launch programs as a different user via a convenient shell context-menu entry.

ShellRunas works on Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, and Windows Server 2008.

You can download this utility here.

Skelta Document Management System is an end-to-end document management solution that enables your organization to:

1. Create a searchable, enterprise repository of critical documents

2. Easily manage security and access rights to documents

3. Retrieve documents through powerful search functionality

4. Define workflows for automated routing and processing of documents

5. Significantly reduce time and costs of document-based processes

6. Lower ancillary cost of document management such as faxing and mailing

Skelta SharePoint Accelerator 2007 considers itself as a complete BPM solution that seamlessly integrates with Microsoft SharePoint Server 2007 and WSS 3.0. It extends the functionality of SharePoint to create powerful  integrated platform for collaboration, business intelligence, enterprise content management, and strategic business solutions.