Question

I’ve been given a project at my job involving SharePoint. I’m eventually supposed to replace our current Intranet site and and website using SharePoint.

I’ve never used SharePoint before and was wondering where a good place to start would be. I also have little knowledge of website design in the first place. Can anyone reccomend a book or a detailed site that will explain things to me like I’m an idiot?

Answer 1

It’s always hard suggesting beginner’s books because you never know where to start.

Sharepoint, as with all software, is best learned by playing with it. You said you are supposed to replace your current intranet site with Sharepoint. The best thing you can do right now is set up a little test environment with Sharepoint. I say “a little” because in the end it is not that hard, but looking at the documentation from Microsoft: Setting Up the Development Environment for SharePoint 2010 on Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008, it is hard 😉

Microsoft also offers the 2010 Information Worker Demonstration and Evaluation Virtual Machine (RTM) – a whopping 3GB download (you only need 2010-7a). Mind you: this Virtual machine only runs under Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V activated, so not on your standard issue Windows XP.
Talking of which: Sharepoint 2010 needs a 64 Bit System (go with Windows Server 2008 to make yourself happy) and at least 8GB of RAM.

That being said of some test system you can play with (create some document libraries, look at workflows, get yourself accustomed to master pages etc.) there are of course some theoretical books. You asked about explain things to me like I’m an idiot?, lucky you: Amazon’s choice of Sharepoint 2010 for Dummies books. If you know the “for Dummies” series – the books are not very in depth, but they are o.k. at giving a general picture.
If you want more professional books, there is SharePoint 2010 User’s Guide: Learning Microsoft’s Business Collaboration Platform or Beginning SharePoint 2010 Development (Wrox Beginning Guides).

Btw: The best tool to start your customization efforts, once you have your test environment is Microsoft’s Sharepoint Designer 2010. It’s a breeze creating custom master pages or changing some CSS quickly.

The first tasks I would set for myself after understanding a bit of Sharepoint: Customize a standard Sharepoint Site (Team Site, Publishing, …) to match my companies appearance. Some hints: Look at Themes, Master Pages, Layouts.