Another thing that Every SharePoint Consultant Should Know (WESPCSK) is some of the specific settings and the scopes that they are applied to. Now this will help in requirements gathering, architecting and general discussions. So below is my list of settings and the general scope that they are applied to which can be of interest.

Web Application Specific Settings and Offerings

• Recycle Bin: How long items are deleted from user bins and Second Stage recycle bin size.
• Maximum Upload Size: The maximum file size for all content within sites that reside in the Web Application.
• Authentication Provider: Specify the authentication that will be used
• Define Managed Paths: Managed paths can be defined per web application only.
• Enable Self Service Site Creation: Enable SSSC is only available at the web application level.
• Blocked File Types: This is once again done per Web Application

Site Collection Specific Settings and Offerings

• Recycle Bin: Dedicated Recycle Bin for the site collection
• Dedicated usage reports: Usage reports work on the site collection level.
• Dedicated Administration: Site Collection Administrators
• Search Configuration: Configurable search scopes, keywords and best bets
• Galleries: Galleries for libraries, images and styles
• Site Quota templates: Unforunately all sites within a site collection contribute to the quota.
• Dedicated Database: Very important! Each SC can be housed in its own database which makes it very useful in a disaster recovery scenario

Site Specific Settings and Offerings

• Site Features: Features that are scoped to a particular site
• Permissions: Site specific permissions
• Themes: A theme is site specific

There are many more in this list that I will continue to add as I dig further in this…

Here are some articles that caught my eye in January, there was a whole lot more but I always seem to forget about them after I read them!

• CodePlex Project for Word Automation: Really cool SharePoint designer workflow action that allows you to convert documents into a number of different file formats.
• SharePoint 2010 Records Management: How to set up some basic records management functionality.
• SharePointDevWiki.com Screencasts: Great set of screencasts on various aspects of SharePoint 2010.