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C. A. Callahan

Technical Writer/Technical Trainer/Speaker/Consultant- Specializing in technical material, training, and designing hands on labs for corporate clients, conferences, and online training. Author of "Mastering Windows SharePoint Services 3.0" and "Mastering Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010."

Professional Experience:

SharePoint and Exchange Forum (SEF), Stockholm, Sweden 

Speaker

November 14th & 15th, 2011

Presented two sessions to a new European audience; "Architecture Fundamentals" and "Monitoring your SharePoint Foundation server at no extra cost." They seemed to be well received. Particularly the Architecture session, despite it's largely conceptual content. Interesting and fun bunch, those Swedes. Really hoping I get invited back next year.

SharePoint Saturday, Cincinnati, OH 

Speaker

October 29th, 2011 

Presented a session on Users and Permissions for a packed room of attendees. SharePoint Saturdays are intended- free of charge- to offer the community a wide variety of SharePoint related topics, presented by SharePoint professionals and MVPs. Because of attendee interest in additional information concerning permissions, I held a second, more advanced session online for those attendees that were interested.

SharePoint Conference, 2011

Winner, Unsung Hero/Staff Hands-on Labs

October 2nd-7th, 2011 

Was nominated for, and awarded as, one of 13 "Unsung Heroes" at the SharePoint Conference 2011. These heroes were selected because of the SharePoint work they do for the community. Nominations were made by members of the community who appreciated the value of their work. Those nominations were required for the hero to be considered. The reward for the winners was to get a free pass to the SharePoint Conference event in exchange for working as a volunteer in the Hands-On labs. The experience was even more fun than TechEd. The labs are fast becoming my favorite part of these events.

TechDay, Pacific IT Pros, San Francisco

Featured Speaker

September, 23rd, 2011

Pac IT Pros offers TechDays, half or whole day sessions for their members, presented by expert speakers. Presented a day long "kitchen sink" session for the Pac-IT Pro community, covering topics specifically tailored for the attendees during the session. With a full room in attendence, topics ranged from "what is a web application" to Active Directory Account Creation mode, to automating SharePoint backups and most points in between. Attendees were invited to attend additional sessions extending from the kitchen sink topics online.

SharePoint Saturday, Columbus, OH 

Speaker

August 20th, 2011 

Presented a session on Multi-Tenancy in SharePoint 2010 (SharePoint Foundation). SharePoint Saturdays are intended- free of charge- to offer the community a wide variety of SharePoint related topics, presented by SharePoint professionals and MVPs.

Columbus SharePoint User Group Meeting

Speaker

August 18th, 2011 

Presented a session on "Permissions, lessons learned the hard way". Intended for IT admins who have ever administered permissions and had unexpected (or disappointing) things happen.

Cleveland SharePoint User Group Meeting

Speaker

July 27th, 2011

Presented a session on how to create your own, out of the box dashboards without spending a penny (part of the Frugal Admin series). Attendees got to see (or were reminded)- simply using connected web parts and some custom views- how easy it is to have more dynamic and useful pages to better use and enter data on a SharePoint site. Lesson included information about how to create your own aspx web part pages without coding (via a web part page library), securing the dashboards, and more.

TechEd NA 2011 (Atlanta, GA)

Staff, Hands-On Labs, SharePoint Section

 May 15-19, 2011 

Manned the Hands-on Labs as a volunteer to support the TechEd attendees. Duties included assisting the attendees in understanding and completing the labs, troubleshooting VMs, and modifying manuals. Got the opportunity to spend considerable time behind the scenes, unexpectedly using most of the skills garnered in the previous year of writing the SPF book. It was a fun time, and really rewarding. I plan to do more Hands-On labs at Microsoft events in the future.

Mastering Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 (Wiley Publishing)

Author (as "Callahan")

December 2010-February 2011 

Primary author, revision of the Mastering WSS 3.0 book, filled with 1300 pages of SharePoint Foundation goodness. Covering content ranging from what SharePoint is and how to prepare for it, to installation, configuration, an overview of web parts, pages, lists, libraries, users and permissions, sites, site collections, web applications, and central administration. Plus step by step instructions and concepts concerning new features, such as co-authoring, configuring SSL, Kerberos, Load Balancing, Business Data Connectivity (yes, it is available in SharePoint Foundation), Office Web Apps, and more. The book is intended to take an experienced IT Windows Server admin and give them the skills and concepts necessary to take ownership of their SharePoint Foundation implementation. In addition, due to the fact that SharePoint Foundation is the fundamental infrastructure of the paid-for version, SharePoint Server, this book is a great, solid introduction to administering SharePoint Server as well. It also gives the readers a clear idea as to exactly what SharePoint Foundation offers versus SharePoint Server, so they know what they are paying for, and why, when purchasing the more expensive SharePoint version.

Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP)- SharePoint Services 

Awardee

January 1-December 31, 2010 

In recognition of exceptional technical community leadership and as an expert in SharePoint Services during 2009, my MVP award status was renewed.  This award is bestowed on a year by year basis, indicating a proven expertise in Windows SharePoint Services, and extensive support of the community online, in print, and in person. 

Windows Server 2008 R2 Firestarter Launch Event 

Speaker

December, 16th 2009, Microsoft Office, Downtown Pittsburgh 

Generated a Windows Server 2008 R2 launch event from start to finish.  Using the VMs and a modified WS08R2 Overview slide deck from the Firestarter event launch team, I scheduled the venue, managed registration, marketing, catering, giveaways, etc., for the event, in addition to presenting four hours of deep dive, demonstration driven material.

SharePoint Saturday, Richmond, VA 

Speaker

December 20th, 2009 

Presented an entire, four session track to introduce new users/administrators to SharePoint. SharePoint Saturdays are intended- free of charge- to offer the community a wide variety of SharePoint related topics, presented by SharePoint professionals and MVPs.

SharePoint Saturday, Cleveland, OH 

Speaker

November, 14th 2009 

Presented two, one hour sessions, the first was the ever popular "Create your own Dashboards" from the Frugal Admin series, and a new session, "Migrating to 2010; the good, the bad, and the ugly.  The SharePoint Saturday, located in Cleveland, was intended- free of charge- to offer the community a wide variety of SharePoint related topics, presented by SharePoint professionals and MVPs.

SharePoint Saturday, Baltimore, MD 

Speaker

July 25th, 2009 

Presented one, one hour session from the Frugal Admin series; "Create your own dashboards (without code or SharePoint Designer)". The SharePoint Saturday, located in Baltimore, was intended- free of charge- to offer the community a wide variety of SharePoint related topics, presented by SharePoint professionals and MVPs.

Tech°Ed 2009, Los Angeles 

Staff

May 11-15, 2009 

Volunteered as an MVP to man the Windows Server 2008 R2 Solutions booth.  Was responsible for answering questions concerning Server 2008 R2 (currently still in beta), doing demonstrations, and directing attendees to other booths (should their questions concern topics covered by other booths in the area). The 'Solutions booth specifically specialized in Active Directory Recycle Bin, and new Power Management features. 

SharePoint Saturday, Washington, DC 

Speaker

May 2nd, 2009 

Presented one of the Frugal Admin series sessions for the DC community. SharePoint Saturdays are free, one-day events made available to the community in order to foster a deeper understanding and appreciation of SharePoint.  This particular event also offered a canned food drive competition, in which those attendees who handed in the most cans won an hour of a presenter's time, their choice.  Despite the fact that there were a number of rather famous MVPs there, Bamboo Solutions chose me as their speaker.  As this particular winner is not a single attendee, as expected, it was decided that I would do an email interview to be posted on their website.  Stay tuned for me about when and where that interview will be available.

Spring 2009, SharePoint Virtual Conference 

Speaker

April 22-24, 2009 

Presented 3 recorded sessions for an online conference, sponsored by SSWUG (SQL Server Worldwide User Group).  They were  the first three sessions for the "Frugal Admin series"; Get the most out of the built-in Web Parts, Create your own dashboards (without code or SharePoint Designer), and Create your own custom templates (to preserve all the stuff you did with the site in the first two sessions).  Won "Best of Show" and Runner-up for two of the sessions in the SharePoint track. 

Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP)- SharePoint Services 

Awardee

January 1-December 31, 2009 

In recognition of exceptional technical community leadership and as an expert in SharePoint Services during 2008.  This award is bestowed on a year by year basis, indicating a proven expertise in Windows SharePoint Services, and extensive support of the community online, in print, and in person. 

SharePoint Virtual Conference 

Speaker

November 5-7, 2008 

Presented three, pre-recorded sessions for an online virtual conference, sponsored by SSWUG (SQL Server World-Wide Users Group) and Idera.  The short and sweet sessions covered disaster recovery, pumping up list views, and exploring those free and useful templates (and more) from Microsoft-- before you build your own, you should see if you can take advantage of the under-advertised tools and templates available for free from Microsoft.

Tech°Ed 2008

Ambassador/Moderator, Birds of a Feather

June 3-6 and 10-13, 2008

Responsible for being a representative of the Microsoft MCT Community Lounge, as well the Certification Lounge.  Including assisting attendees in a number of roles; from in depth preparation for certification, to explanations as to what certified trainers are and how to become one. 

In addition, I moderated (led) the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 discussion session for small to medium businesses (or any other size of business, for that matter) that were either considering WSS 3.0, or already had it deployed. The session revolved around the does and don'ts concerning the product, with suggestions, tips, and tricks.

IT360 Conference and Expo (Toronto, Canada)

Presenter

April 7-9, 2008

Presenting four sessions covering a range of products from System Center Data Protection Manager 2007, to Virtualization with Virtual PC and Virtual Server, to Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (Introduction and Monitoring).

StudioB (Revision:  5060B- Implementing Windows SharePoint Services 3.0)

Subject Matter Expert (SME)

December 2007

This project is currently indefinitely on hold for scope changes. Subject Matter Expert revising and updating the 5060A- Implementing Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 MOC courseware.  Responsibilities include revising the course outline, Course Design Specifications (CDS), student workbook, labs, and instructor guide; as well as rewriting portions of the course necessary to improve quality and technical accuracy, and updating the content to support Windows Server 2008. Responsible also for working closely with the VM team, offering guidance and advice concerning the virtual environment for the course.

Mastering Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (Wiley publishing)

Author

Release:  December 2007

Primary Author.  1104 pages of SharePoint goodness. Covering everything from installation, lists, libraries, web parts, sites, site collections, web applications, to administration, maintenance and monitoring, to advanced configuration and installation.  This book was intended to give IT administrators mastery over WSS 3.0, without having to master web development as well.

Windows Connections, spring 2007 (Orlando, Florida)

Speaker

April 2007

Presented a pre-conference workshop on Demystifying Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, focusing on the IT administrator's point of view.  In addition I presented a short session on Backing up and Restoring Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, as well as a three part series called "Leveraging SharePoint's Forgotten Gems," covering the less well known features of lists, views, and list view web parts, that increase the usefulness of these overlooked features.  SharePoint isn't just about document management.

Windows Connections 2006- (Las Vegas, Mandalay Bay)

Speaker

November 2006

Presented a pre-conference session on Vista deployment, focusing on ImageX, System Image Manager, and more, with an overview of Windows Deployment Services. In addition, I covered shorter sessions on topics ranging from Windows SharePoint Services, to Network Access Quarantine Control and Network Access Protection.

Pogue Press/O'Reilly

Contributing Author- Windows Vista: The Missing Manual (w/David Pogue)

July/August 2006

Having beta tested Vista and done numerous presentations on the subject, was tapped to write the Control Panel chapter (with some additional content) of David's Missing Manual. I consider this my first foray into user readership.

TechEd 2006- (Boston)

Ambassador/ Instructor

Instructor Led Labs

June 2006

Presented two hands-on, instructor led labs introducing the administrative changes in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0.  Proctored numerous other Instructor Led Labs as a MCT Ambassador.

Wiley

Contributing Author- Mastering Server 2003 R2 (w/ Mark Minasi)

April/May 2006

Contributed a two hundred page Windows Sharepoint Services 2.0 chapter for the revision edition of the Mastering Windows Server 2003 (R2) book.

NetworkWorld/LinuxWorld Expo-(Toronto, Canada)

Speaker

April 2006

Back by popular demand.  Presented three, three-hour sessions.  The first of which covered five different free services available in Server 2003.  The next introduced Windows deployment both as it stands in Windows 2003, with a preview of Longhorn server's Windows Deployment Services and Ximage. And finally a deep dish presentation of Network Access Quarantine Control and a preview of Network Access Protection available in Longhorn and Vista.

NetworkWorld/LinuxWorld Expo- (Toronto, Canada)

Speaker

April 2005

Carried the Windows Security track.  Presented five three-hour sessions, three of which were hands-on labs.  Created all new material.  Designed and implemented the three labs using Virtual PC 2004. Each lab contained a small domain for each student, which consisted of a 2003 domain controller and client.  The sessions were:

• Securing Windows XP with Service Pack 2 in the Enterprise (and an Introduction to AntiSpyware) 

• Securing Windows 2003 in the Enterprise (with a focus on Network Access Quarantine Control)

• Hands-on Lab-- Securing Windows XP with Service Pack2 and AntiSpyware in the Enterprise

• Hands-on Lab-- Using Virtual PC 2004

• Hands-on Lab-- Software Management using Windows Server 2003 (Deployment and Software Restrictions)

These sessions are currently available for presentation at your event or location.  In addition, they can be modified or extended.  Contact CallahanTech for more details.

Mastermind Project (ComputerTraining Inc.)

Technical Author

September-January 2004

Wrote explanation material for Mastermind MCSE 2003 practice tests 70-293, 70-294, and 70-297. Worked as part of a team to create the practice exam material.  Responsible for accuracy, clarity and relevance.  Other tasks included editing and error checking other authors' additions to the project.

Microsoft

Presenter, TechNet Security Briefings (consultant)

February-June 2004

Presented Level 300 security content (Implementing Network Security/Implementing Application Security), traveling extensively throughout the US as part of Microsoft's Initiative to educate 500,000 customers in 2004.   Satisfaction rating average of over 8.0 (scale 1 to 9).

Sybex

Co-author, Mastering Windows Server 2003 (w/Mark Minasi)

Specializing in integration and software deployment, wrote three chapters covering the technical overview of Server 2003's interoperability with Apple Macintosh clients and servers, Novell Netware, and Active Directory's deployment capabilities through Group Policy.

CallahanTech

(Owner) Technical Trainer/Technical Writer

December 1999 – Present

Technical and applications training at various on-site locations.  Customized courses (ILT, online, and CBT), courseware, and extensive needs assessment and follow-up offered.  Specializing in eleventh hour certification prep, difficult to teach groups, and cradle to grave corporate office training.  Also offering generalized instructional training courses, as well as instructor training specific to the computer technology field. 

Pittsburgh Technical Institute

Technical Trainer 

April 2000 – November 2000

Presenting Technical classes in a semester long environment, requiring extensive curriculum modification.  Credit courses involving formal quizzes, homework, and scoring, as well as lecture and lab.  Due to extended class length, intensive hands on experience and topic mastery required.

New Horizons Training Center

Technology Trainer (A+ and Microsoft Certification)

August 1999 – December 1999

Technical Trainer, specializing in A+ certification courses.  Continued high student satisfaction (an evaluation average of 9.5 out of 10) and high exam pass rates for qualified students.  Created and implemented a necessary prerequisite course for the A+ certification track, writing the new courseware in the process.  Capable of teaching the majority of software courses offered, focusing on hard to teach and advanced courses.

CompUSA Training Center

Technology Trainer (A+ Certification)

April 1997 – August 1999

A+ Certified Technician Trainer for the Pittsburgh region.  Pioneered the CompUSA A+ Training Program for the Pittsburgh site.  96% pass rate for qualified A+ students.  Only qualified Instructor to train trainers for the National On-Site Social Security Administration (SSA) Project for the Pittsburgh training centers.  9.5 out of 10 average student evaluation scores. Able to teach more than 90% of all standard courses offered by CompUSA, as well as specializing in accounting, business packages, and internet related topics.

RK Promotions

Office Manager

June 1996 – April 1997

Responsible for all business administration:  accounts receivable & payable, payroll, inventory, office hardware, phone and computer systems.  Purchased, installed, networked, configured, and maintained business computers.  Trained staff in proper use of computer systems and software.

USA Specialty Co.

Operations Manager

March 1995- June 1996

Handled all business issues of a small office: customer service, order processing, invoicing, accounts receivable & payable, and payroll.   Installed small office network, upgraded software, purchased additional computers, maintained company web pages and email accounts.

CCAC (Community College of Allegheny Co.)

Instructor

February 1995 – March 1995

Taught one semester course that covered basic to intermediate skills in general computer use, DOS file management, and WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS.  Generated syllabus and weekly lessons to supplement required courseware. 

 

Technical Certifications:

Technical Conferences / Seminars:

Professional Communities/Organizations:

List of individual courses taught and references available by request

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