MicroLink, LLC Blogs

SharePoint 2007 Incoming Email Not Triggering Workflows

Tue, 04 Jan 2011 10:59:00 +0000

I came across this issue at a recent customer site. We have a number of email enabled document libraries and SharePoint Designer workflows associated with them. Email would come through just fine and the document would get added to the library, but for some unapparent reason, the workflows would n ... (More)

New InfoPath Form Link in SharePoint

Tue, 04 Jan 2011 10:39:00 +0000

We had a requirement at one of our recent customers to link directly to a new InfoPath form via a link on the homepage as opposed to going to the library and selecting add new document. In doing some investigation into the source code, I noticed that the function we were looking for was called cre ... (More)

Inspired by Ray Ozzie’s Blog Dawn of a New Day

Wed, 27 Oct 2010 15:19:53 +0000

The buzz around MicroLink's office last week was on Ray Ozzie. I admit that I had no clue who he was and his importance to Microsoft and therefore, MicroLink. Anyway, it turns that Mr. Ozzie, is leaving his position as the Chief Software Architect at Microsoft. He took over the role from Bill Gates. ... (More)

Innovation Starts Here – Top 10 List of Cool Stuff Heard around MicroLink

Thu, 21 Oct 2010 15:38:59 +0000

As the marketing director of MicroLink I am privileged to get included in meetings with executive management, sales, delivery, human resources, and my favorite, our techies (this group has all kinds of personalities). Yes, my role changes depending on who's in the room but no matter whether I am the ... (More)

Microsoft PerformancePoint Monitoring Server 2007 (PPS) Troubleshooting Steps

Fri, 03 Sep 2010 12:50:00 +0000

There are some typical PerformancePoint Monitoring Server challenges that occur in complex SharePoint environments. Sometimes, even though the Installation Wizard and the Monitoring Server Configuration Wizard complete with a success message, you find that PerformancePoint is not working in your ... (More)

Business Days - Why can*t we simply use the TSQL DATEDIFF function?

Fri, 03 Sep 2010 12:49:00 +0000

Often within our solutions we have to calculate business day differences between dates in order to determine if a Service Level Agreement (SLA) has been met or set Key Performance Indicator (KPI) results as good or bad. Optimally, we would like to be able to perform this calculation at the database ... (More)

We Learned Early That We Need to Share, Same Thing Goes for Information

Wed, 09 Jun 2010 17:20:17 +0000

The headline of Government Computer News stated, Knowledge Management Gets Hip. My MicroLinkTweet's tweet said, "We always thought it was." It appears that, like all great ideas, concepts, businesses, etc. knowledge management is back. That's precisely what MicroLink tells our customers ... (More)

SharePoint 2010 Launch Event Starts Now!

Wed, 12 May 2010 11:09:24 +0000

Join the virtual launch event from New York at http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/2010launch

Other launch day resources:

Joel Oleson posted a collection of Launch Information
Dux Raymond Sy is posting video and audio interviews live from back stage at the event

My favorite: Mary Jo Foley tells the story of how SharePoint 2010 adoption will be faster than Office 2010 adoption! 30% plan to upgrade in 2010 according to Forrester.

Faces of Future Innovation

Mon, 26 Apr 2010 12:41:57 +0000

This weekend I had the distinct honor of participating in the finals of Microsoft's US Imagine Cup competition. For those of you not familiar with the competition, it is an annual event held by Microsoft world-wide to encourage innovation among college students. The team that wins the US Finals wi ... (More)

SharePoint 2010 RTM Install Notes

Sat, 24 Apr 2010 22:51:00 +0000

Now that SharePoint 2010 has been released, who isn’t excited to get their hands dirty trying it out? Follow Joel Oleson’s download links to try it out like I did. After grabbing the bits from MSDN a little over 2 days ago, I have a fully functional 2010 RTM Farm to explore today!

Central Admin Configuration Wizards?

For me, the fun started with the Initial Farm Configuration Wizard. Sharepointdevwiki.com has screenshots of every step from the beta and not much has changed. When you run the setup wizard and the configuration wizard from the Start menu it feels familiar from 2007 installs. But as you can see below, when you hit this new web page for the first time, it screams CHANGE IS IN THE AIR!

New SharePoint Databases

After you install SharePoint 2010 you will see a lot of new databases on your SQL Server! Check out the 29 databases on my server which also hosts a SharePoint 2007 install:

Compare that to the 9 I had before the install and that’s 20 new databases without a real site collection yet!

Want to learn more?

Bill Baer knows a thing or two about SharePoint from his work at Microsoft IT and shares a comprehensive explanation of each database.
Microsoft provides official documentation on the databases in the form of a wall size Visio diagram describing each and breaking them into categories like SharePoint Foundation vs Server.

Install Snags to Avoid

If you avoid the snags I hit, you may get to the new Portal Template, below, even quicker than I did.

Read Joel’s 10 Tips Troubleshooting Installations for SharePoint 2010 and SharePoint Foundation

Over the last 2 days, I spent a lot of time getting SQL 2008 SP1 and CU2 on my lab vm. If you want to avoid the pain and it’s a demo lab you might start from the R2 CTP.

Next: Upgrade my laptop?

This first install was on a vm farm on a desktop lab machine with 8GB of RAM. My laptop only has 4GB. Considering I need the full 4GB for a SharePoint 2010 Install, I’m thinking of running an in-place upgrade on that machine. If I do it, I’ll let you know here or on twitter.

Weather WebService in Powershell

Tue, 20 Apr 2010 14:14:36 +0000

Did you know how easy it is to test a web service in Powershell? I think I can get used to this new tool.

Proof of concept

Here’s my script for checking the weather in powershell:

$uri = "http://www.webservicex.net/WeatherForecast.asmx?WSDL" 
$WeatherForecast = New-WebServiceProxy -uri $uri -UseDefaultCredential -namespace "WeatherForecast" 
$WeatherForecast.GetWeatherByZipCode(78247)
$WeatherForecast.GetWeatherByZipCode(78247).details

This publicly available web service returns the lat, lon of a zip! Sweet. I can find other uses for that.

The details object returns the forecast for today and the next 5 days.

Get the Methods

To reuse, substitute your web service’s WSDL URI and use something like the following to check for existing methods available:

$WeatherForecast | get-member -type method

Reference

I got inspiration and code pieces from StackOverflow.com, Technet’s New-WebServiceProxy reference and a blog post by Keith Hill.

URL Rewrite + SharePoint = No Support

Fri, 16 Apr 2010 10:28:42 +0000

Example

Using ISA, IAG, TMG, custom code or the URL Rewrite Module to modify the path of your SharePoint 2007 URL’s? Word on the street, read twitter and from other new friends, is that you are running an unsupported SharePoint Deployment. You may be asked to remove the rewrite before Microsoft Product Support will help you. This is for 2007, the answer on 2010 may not be definite yet, but I would recommend thinking twice before implementing there, as well.

Counter Example

What about CKS:EBE? Obviously, I’m a fan. I wouldn’t publish to a public SharePoint blog without it. The SEO benefits are enough for me to risk the supportability. Plus, I’m not the admin on this box. :;
Seriously though, this blog, running Enhanced Blog Edition had the number one hit for SharePoint 2010 for 6 months after that was announced as the official product name. Currently, #3 on bing for sharepoint bing maps That’s some serious Google and Bing karma!
Grain of salt: This is custom code that may not be seen as easily removed. Even though you can configure CKS:EBE to not use the rewriting the code still exists in the assembly deployed to the farm.

Official Microsoft Statement

The official word on modifying the path of a SharePoint URL was pointed out to me by a friend, thanks Maurice. Read TechNet Article CC288609 and pay close attention to the following:

Note:

Some reverse proxy devices can modify the path of a request (the portion of the URL that comes after the hostname and port number) in such a way that a request sent by the user to http://www.contoso.com/sharepoint/default.aspx, for example, is forwarded to the Web server as http://sharepoint.perimeter.example.com/default.aspx.

This is referred to as an asymmetrical path. Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 does not support asymmetrical paths. The path of the URL must be symmetrical between the public URL and the internal URL. In the preceding example, this means that the "/sharepoint/default.aspx" portion of the URL must not be modified by the reverse proxy device.

If you find that Note confusing, you are not alone. I didn’t get the “you are not supported” vibe from that the first 10 times I read it. My skull is thick, but Spence has a big hammer! :)

Redirect all you want, rewrite with care!

The twitter conversation, from the reply side follows. Note MCM Brian Porter’s comment about redirection. This has been echoed by other experts in the field.

Doesn’t a mugs game sounds fun? Love that British English! :)

MicroLink’s New BPA Practice Applies Automation in SharePoint

Tue, 13 Apr 2010 09:51:12 +0000

The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency. Bill Gates MicroLink's core differentiator is leveraging our dep ... (More)

Positive Power in SharePoint

Sat, 10 Apr 2010 09:45:37 +0000

Can positive thinking influence your next SharePoint project? Do you think in I CAN or I CAN’T when you approach projects with SharePoint? This subtle change in your thought process can help produce successful collaboration projects. I’ve experienced this directly.

When a representative of a client told me recently that the collaboration site he was working on depended on a custom code workaround, I asked why he felt that way. The answer: “Because SharePoint CAN’T DO THAT.” Ultimately, approaching a project that way can only result in a failure. In this case, it was setting up for failure to use SharePoint to facilitate the collaboration goals. However, a quick turnaround to a positive frame of mind saved the project.

Before thinking about what SharePoint can do, the technical lead had the collaboration project designers going in circles for months. He was looking for WORKAROUNDS to what he saw as LIMITS of SharePoint. What he found was a bunch of dead ends. When the idea generators were asked to explain their collaboration vision, the experienced, positive SharePoint architect sees only the potential in their collaboration platform of choice. Mapping the vision to the capabilities of the platform out of the box lead to quick, easy wins.

In the end, this project was a success. Compiling many wins lead to a successful collaboration area that benefits a large group of multinational collaborators from many organizations.

Transparency in Government – what does it take?

Wed, 07 Apr 2010 17:08:25 +0000

As the current presidential administration continues to emphasize the need for being transparent numerous questions come to mind, both as a tax payer and as an IT solutions provider. Does this mean there will be transparency between government agencies, cross agencies, or with constituents? What dat ... (More)

DC Area SharePoint Events

Wed, 24 Mar 2010 11:08:00 +0000

SharePoint Saturday DC is coming up May 15th. Submit to present or register to come see me present if they pick me.

The SharePoint User Group of Washington DC is having a meeting in Reston on 4/8 on Building Responsive SharePoint 2010 Applications with ASP.Net AJAX 4.0 Client Side Templating

Check out EndUserSharePoint.com’s full list of upcoming SharePoint Events

http://sugdc.org has a great list of all the other area SharePoint groups.

My BDC Tool Recommendation: BDC Meta Man

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 12:42:00 +0000

For serious SharePoint 2007 Business Data Catalog application work, there is really only one competitive tool available, BDC Meta Man from Lightning Tools. If you’ve attended one of my user group or SharePoint Saturday presentations on the BDC, you’ve heard the same. However, I was reminded I hadn’t published this on my blog until I received the following question from a co-worker. See more details on my recommendation in the Answer and a link to a great BDC walkthrough with the tool in the Reference section.

Question

I'm evaluating tools for building BDC connections for SharePoint 2007. I have looked at BDC Meta Man from LightningTools, and I'm looking to evaluate MOSS BDC Design Studio from Simego and Microsoft's Business Data Catalog Definition Editor (Part of the SharePoint 2007 SDK package).

Does anyone have any information about these three tools as to which would be the "best of the breed"?

Answer

I don't recommend evaluating the others. BDC Meta Man is the best tool hands down. If you are just playing around with the BDC, the SDK tool is workable. However, if you are doing any serious work with the BDC, Meta Man is very valuable to speed application development.

For 2010, you will be able to use SharePoint Designer to create these kinds of data connections even easier than Meta Man allows for 2007. However, the 2010 version of Meta Man allows more advanced Visual Studio connections to be created more easily than with the tools Microsoft will provide.

Also, you may want to look at getting a copy of the only book in the BDC which was released in September, SharePoint 2007 Developer's Guide to Business Data Catalog. The authors are the two SharePoint MVPs who produce the BDC Meta Man. More details at: http://www.manning.com/lonsdale/

Reference

SharePoint BDC: Quick & Dirty Jumpstart, Mark Rackley, September 21, 2009, http://geekswithblogs.net/SoYouKnow/archive/2009/09/21/sharepoint-bdc-quick-amp-dirty-jumpstart.aspx

MicroLink Debuts Commander Decision Dashboard @ West 2010

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 14:07:55 +0000

The last line of the Commanders Decision Dashboard datasheet states that this solution can be used for any organization that wants to capture, analyze and display data. I guess that's the essence of any Business Intelligence dashboard. However, we launched our Commanders Decision Dashboard to attend ... (More)

SharePoint Services Reference

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 11:15:00 +0000

Troubleshooting SharePoint requires understanding the 8 Windows Services the platform depends on. Use this table to help identify services while researching issues. Also, pay attention to the account the service uses to run.

Security

All of the services run with the permissions of the Local System with the following exceptions:

SPTimerV3 runs as the account you designate in the SharePoint Configuration Wizard as the Farm Account
OSearch runs as the service you configure for it in Central Admin

SPTimerV3, using the OWSTIMER.EXE, leverages SPAdmin, using WSSADMIN.EXE, when the Local System permissions are needed in a Timer Job. This allows a much wider set of modifications to be made to the system than even the Farm Account allows.

Names

Services are identified differently during different troubleshooting steps.

For example, stopping the timer service can be accomplished two different ways:

From the command line, you would enter net stop SPTimerV3
In the Services Control Panel, you stop Windows SharePoint Services Timer

Further, if you were debugging a custom timer job, it would be important to know the name of the executable is OWSTIMER.EXE. Notice how each method of identification starts with a different letter in this case. This is an easy gotcha! if you are not aware of the differences.

Stumper

How are services identified in the Event Log and the ULS Log? One answer: inconsistently!

Service Name	Display Name	Description	Executable Path	Runs as
SPTimerV3	Windows SharePoint Services Timer	Sends notifications and performs scheduled tasks for Windows SharePoint Services	[12 hive]\BIN\OWSTIMER.EXE	Farm Account
SPAdmin	Windows SharePoint Services Administration	Performs administrative tasks for Windows SharePoint Services	[12 hive]\BIN\WSSADMIN.EXE	Local System
SPSearch	Windows SharePoint Services Search	Provides full-text indexing and search to SharePoint user and help content.	[12 hive]\BIN\mssearch.exe	Local System
SPTrace	Windows SharePoint Services Tracing	Manages trace output	[12 hive]\BIN\wsstracing.exe	Local System
SPWriter	Windows SharePoint Services VSS Writer	Windows SharePoint Services VSS Writer	[12 hive]\BIN\SPWRITER.EXE	Local System
OSearch	Office SharePoint Server Search	Provides enhanced indexing and search for Office SharePoint Servers content. Replaces the Windows SharePoint Services Search service for search over SharePoint user content.	[MOSS Install]\bin\mssearch.exe	Service Account
DCLauncher	Office Document Conversions Launcher Service	Launcher for Microsoft Office Server Document Conversions Services	[MOSS Install]\bin\Microsoft.Office.Server.Conversions.Launcher.exe	Local System
DCLoadBalancer	Office Document Conversions Load Balancer Service	Load Balancer for Microsoft Office Server Document Conversions Services	[MOSS Install]\Bin\Microsoft.Office.Server.Conversions.LoadBalancer.exe	Local System

Legend	[MOSS Install]	C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office Servers\12.0
	[12 Hive]	C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12

Reference

"So, how do you avoid the elevation of permissions if your solution must perform a security-sensitive operation? A good technique is to split the solution into multiple components and use a secure interprocess communication mechanism between them. You can then run the component that requires administrative permissions in the context of the local System account, while the other component runs in the context of the SharePoint security account. Microsoft uses this technique in the SPTimerV3 service. SPTimerV3 runs without administrative permissions in the context of the SharePoint farm account and relies on the Windows SharePoint Services Administration (SPAdmin) service to perform administrative tasks on the local server. The SPAdmin service runs in the context of the local System account. SPTimerV3 and SPAdmin use .NET Remoting for interprocess communication, yet you can also use a lighter weight mechanism, such as named pipes, as long as you protect the communication facility by means of access control lists (ACLs). In the sample solution, I use the named-pipe approach."
From: Use SharePoint to Manage Your Windows Services, Pav Cherny, MSDN Magazine, April 2009

New SharePoint Google Map Resources

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 11:10:24 +0000

At EndUserSharePoint.com, Lee Reed has shared a 4 minute video demonstrating how to add a map set at a fixed location very quickly using only your browser. Quick, easy, simple and open to even the newest SharePoint Site user.

Separately, Sandy Jacalow’s done the same example, but written out with screenshots.

I love easy examples to build off of. If you find these two above interesting, you may want to read Parts 1 and 2 in my SharePoint Maps Series. With a little more work and the help of SharePoint Designer, you can map multiple addresses from a SharePoint Contact List dynamically.

BDC Presentation in Austin Feb 10th

Sat, 30 Jan 2010 15:04:00 +0000

If you are in the Austin area, don't miss my upcoming presentation to the Austin SharePoint User Group:

-----------------------------------------------------------

Join us for the February 10th Meeting of the Central Texas SharePoint User Group!

"Integrating External Data with the Business Data Catalog"

February 10th

Meeting Description: This session will take an in-depth look into the Business Data Catalog (BDC) with Microsoft SQL Server. It will include an overview of the Business Data Catalog, an introduction to configuring the BDC, and a demonstration of integrating the BDC with list forms.

During this meeting we will also share firsthand information and experience around the value of the Microsoft Certified Master program. These programs offer the top tier technical training and certifications available from Microsoft and will highlight the program in three areas including training, certification and networking.

Session presented by Tom Resing.

Tom is a current Microsoft Certified Master in SharePoint Candidate. He is passionate about online collaboration technologies and loves being active in the SharePoint Community. Tom has been blogging about SharePoint for the last 2 ½ years after certifying on the 2007 platform.

Tom’s Blog: http://blogs.microlinkllc.com/tresing

About Central Texas SharePoint User Group: A core group of Austin companies have established this User Group as a forum for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server pros to share ideas and learning about this hot technology. Similar groups in Dallas and Houston have seen rapid growth and tremendous popularity, and we want to make this important resource available locally.

The Central Texas SharePoint User Group’s objectives are to:

• Build community around SharePoint and related technologies

• Cross-pollinate information and ideas on SharePoint

• Provide a forum for companies to share innovative programs and solutions based on and related to SharePoint

Meeting Details:

Date: Wednesday, February 10, 2009

Time: 6:00-8:00pm

Location: Microsoft: 9606 N. Mopac Expressway, Suite 200

RSVP: Click Here to RSVP for the February Meeting.

SharePoint 2010 Virtual Machine Downloads from Microsoft

Sat, 30 Jan 2010 10:13:00 +0000

If you haven't already grabbed the new SharePoint 2010 Virtual Machine images from Microsoft's downloads, read Barb Mosher's Get SharePoint 2010 Up and Running with VM from Microsoft

Barb writes an excellent summary of each VM's purpose and how you can leverage these pre-configured systems to jump start your SharePoint 2010 learning.

The two beta vm's are available in 700MB chunks in RAR format from public MSDN and are free for evaluation and demonstration.

Windows Server 2008 R2 64bit with Hyper-V is required for this download to work. A dedicated Solid State Disk for the VMs is recommended for best performance, but I'm sure you will do fine with any 7200RPM external drive.

Reporting Services SharePoint Integrated Mode Overview

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 08:37:39 +0000

Reporting Services SharePoint Integrated Mode Overview What is integrated mode? In SharePoint integrated mode, a report server must run within a SharePoint server farm. A SharePoint site provides the front-end access to report server content and operations. The report server provides all rep ... (More)

Whither Goest the SharePoint Gatherer?

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 18:43:00 +0000

Is the Gatherer a part of SharePoint 2007 or a relic of the the past?

The SharePoint Log known as the ULS shows some errors regarding the Gatherer process. The documentation on SharePoint 2007 reveals no such beast to me. So that begs the question, what in the world is the Gatherer? And how is it related to search?

The answer appears to lie in some legacy code that goes at least as far back as SharePoint Portal Server 2001.

In my research, I compared the following two MSDN Articles:
1. Content Crawling and Search Overview, in the SharePoint Portal Server 2001 SDK
2. Enterprise Search Architecture, in the SharePoint Server 2007 SDK
The second appears to be a rewrite of the first, but notice the numerous references to the Gatherer in the 2001 docs have been removed in the 2007 docs.

Is it a matter of a component that has, not entirely, gone away? Or is it a matter of a change in how the technical writers decided to describe the crawl process?

It’s not gone completely and at least one SharePoint author didn’t get the memo on the change in describing search. This article, Searching in MOSS 2007, is excerpted from Chapter 8, "Advanced Configurations," of the book Beginning SharePoint 2007 Administration: Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.

Further check out the following two excerpts from MSDN and guess which refers to 2001:

If you see the following error in your Event Viewer, I can only guess it happens during the crawl during a process similar to the one described in the 2001 docs. What do you think?

Event Source: Windows SharePoint Services 3 Search
Event Category: Gatherer
Event ID: 2436
Computer: SERVERNAME
Description:
The start address <sts3://*******/contentdbid={GUID}> cannot be crawled.
Context: Application 'Search index file on the search server', Catalog 'Search'
Details:
Access is denied. Check that the Default Content Access Account has access to this content, or add a crawl rule to crawl this content. (0x80041205)

Processing an Analysis Services Cube from a VBScript File or SSRS Report

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 12:09:57 +0000

Processing an Analysis Services Cube from a VBScript File or SSRS Report Giving users the ability to process an Analysis Services cube outside of SQL Server Management Studio and Visual Studio can free up time and developer resources. Both VBScript and SQL Server Reporting Services can be utilized t ... (More)

STSADM Backup Feedback from MCM

Mon, 04 Jan 2010 18:13:00 +0000

I loved the recent Microsoft Certified Master Training I attended in Redmond last month. I learned so much and met and became friends with experts in the field. Some of the things we learned and discused don't seem so readily findable on the wide internet. I want to surface one that is published but not easy to find.

SharePoint Backup is a often discussed topic and it would appear that it's not well understood. Before MCM, I'd read Joel Oleson's Backup Benchmarks various Technet articles like Tips for improving backup and recovery performance and come to certain conclusions on my own about some of the options. Of all the options, I had come to rely on SQL Server backups and VM Snapshots because they were familiar and easy to schedule. However, I hadn't really been exposed to how much a problem the stsadm backup commands could be.

I won't speak for my classmates or go into what was covered in class, but what I will say is it was a bit of an eye opener. In order to expose some issues, I did some digging today and found one Technet source that sums up some of the issues. I'll quote from the Choose backup and recovery tools chapter of the Planning and Architecture Guide downloadable book:

The Stsadm command-line tool has the following limitations:

As part of a farm backup, backs up, but cannot be used to restore the configuration database or Central Administration content database. For more information, see Recovering the configuration database and Central Administration content database.

Site collection backups affect performance, and they can cause access errors. They should only be used when the site collection is locked. Site collection backups can be slow when working with collections larger than 15 GB. We recommend that you use database backups if you are working with site collections larger than 15 GB.

Note:
If you want to individually back up a site collection that is larger than 15 GB, we recommend that you move it to its own database, and then use a database backup.

Note three important pieces about site collection backups:

Can cause errors
Lock the site collection
15GB site collection soft limit

For the above reasons, I would caution against using the stsadm site collection backup in a production environment unless you can allow for the right amount of downtime. Similarly, the full farm option may be unusable because of the time it would take to back up an entire farm that has much content and lack of scheduling.

One thing I did not find any supporting evidence for on Technet is the idea that a full farm backup is an offline operation. Maybe I drew that conclusion incorrectly from misunderstood context, but I thought that to be the case. At any rate, I recommend testing and researching this option in thoroughly before executing it while users are in the system.

MCM Program Director Brett Geoffroy recommends Technet Article, Back up and restore site collections by using built-in tools, for more information.

Guess I’m not the only one concerned about the safety of my social network

Thu, 31 Dec 2009 09:41:11 +0000

About a week ago I lamented that I didn't think I could trust my online social network. My own fault perhaps, but now I can better appreciate the risks of malicious "friends." Take a look at http://newsroom.mcafee.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=3607 for McAfee's predictions for 2010, ... (More)

What is the role of Social Media in the Enterprise?

Wed, 30 Dec 2009 10:51:00 +0000

The more I read about applications of social media in the enterprise, the more I ask myself do social media tools address a new challenge or a long-standing one. Not that I claim to be an expert, but it just seems that social media provides us with nothing more than a new channel for interacting w ... (More)

What can you do to increase your trust in Web 2.0 Sources?

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 14:06:00 +0000

With the rapid adoption and growth of social media, how can we trust what we are reading and who we are connecting with? This is a question that I struggle with daily. While mainstream media – Newspapers, Television, and Radio – sometimes have an editorial bias, we know that there are checks and b ... (More)

My brother and the deepest undersea eruption ever filmed

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 18:30:05 +0000

Joe, my big brother, who put me up for 3 weeks in Seattle last month, is part of a story that is all over the news today. While I was in Redmond at Microsoft Certified Master in SharePoint training, he was working very hard to get ready for a conference that started today. At the conference, they released video footage from the NOAA expedition he lead in May.

Highlights:

1. UW News video interview with Joe

2. NPR Radio Interview with Joe, “Everyone. Went. Nuts.”

3. Seattle Times coverage with a link to YouTube video

4. Currently, an underwater clip from the JASON submersible on the trip is the 5^th most popular video on BBC News

5. I heard it ran on the cover of the Washington Post and Seattle Times and was in the Boston Globe

Go, Joe!

Social Media and the Enterprise

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 15:08:00 +0000

Jim's Blog 12/11/09 Enabling Enterprise Social Networking – Social Networking Is Coming to The Enterprise – Are you ready? December 11th, 2009 Organizations are struggling everyday with how or whether to deploy Web 2.0 technologies into their workforce. Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and LinkedI ... (More)

BusinessWeek Covering Context Aware Applications

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 12:32:38 +0000

Our DiscoverPoint platform uses an advanced profiling and recommendations engine to deliver content based content creation and usage patterns. A recent podcast by Rachel King from BusinessWeek explores context aware applications like DiscoverPoint and their uses. Click the following link to view ... (More)

Real Time Results on Google

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 17:20:00 +0000

Twitter results are now showing on Google in Real Time.

I tested it with the following tweet:

Less than 60 seconds later, my Google results updated automatically with this:

Welcome to the Real Time Web! Are you taking advantage of the new speed of information distribution?

Real Time Results on Google

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 16:34:00 +0000

Read more about Twitter on Google with screenshots of my test...

New Bing Maps Beta

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 09:19:43 +0000

If you haven't had a chance to see some of the new Geo-Visualization techniques leveraging Microsoft and Silverlight check out the new Bing Maps beta: http://www.bing.com/maps/explore/.

Know your SharePoint Recovery Point Objective?

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 11:33:49 +0000

If you’ve read the Technet article, Plan for data protection and recovery, you’re familiar with the term, Recovery Point Objective. The Plan for data protection and recovery article also covers RPO and the related Recovery Time Objective. But what does this mean in your SharePoint environment?

If you use SharePoint today, you might want to consider what support for recovery you receive. If you are managing a SharePoint deployment you’ve no doubt fielded a request to recover content that’s been deleted. A less common scenario is for an end user to complain: “You haven’t backed up my content to a safe location 100 miles from the server in case of a fire!” This question often doesn’t come up until there is a fire in the datacenter, but do you want to wait until then?

Are you having these discussions at your organizations? Who’s taking the lead? I’m curious to hear how far others are along this path.

Picture Attribution:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/trekkyandy/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

MicroLink's DiscoverPoint, Proving the Value of Social Networking and Search

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 07:34:00 +0000

As I prepared for MicroLink's latest DiscoverPoint webinar I realized that part of my presentation needed to evangelize the value of social networking. My belief is that most people understand, thanks to Google, the value of search. People understand the internet in its vastness is a pool of infor ... (More)

A SharePoint 2010 Install Experience

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 13:58:00 +0000

My friend and Co-worker, Rich Olivieri shares his experience with the new beta of SharePoint 2010 below.

-Tom

-----------------------------------------------------------

My Approach to SharePoint 2010 beta Development

Rich Olivieri, rolivieri@microlinkllc.com

This weekend, I finally got a chance to go to the mattresses and build out my SharePoint 2010 development environment.

I have come away victorious, but it was a bloody fight.

My approach was to create a throw away environment which would last until the initial release of SharePoint 2010 or until the CTP. I used trial 180 day licenses of Windows 2008 R2 and SQL 2008 R2. Once the release version of SharePoint 2010 is available, I will build out VMs using my Action Pack licenses for Windows 2008 R2 and SQL 2008. I downloaded the VHD for Windows 2008 R2 and duplicated it for my two VMs. Note: You can only use the trial versions of Windows Server 2008 R2 and SQL Server 2008 R2 for evaluation and testing purposes only.

I ended up having to run this Sysprep command on the second image, because I had problems (got a System.Security.Principal.IdentityNotMappedException error see ref #5) joining the VM to the domain: c:\windows\system32\sysprep\sysprep.exe /quiet /generalize /oobe /shutdown

Configuration:

Hyper-V Host Server: 8GB Quad 6600 running Windows 2008 R2 standard (the license I own via the Action Pack).

Virtual machines:

2GB VM1 - Windows 2008 R2 EE running SQL2008 R2 and Active Directory (I am using the trial edition of both the OS and SQL Server which are both good for 180 days. I will either reinstall this after 180 days or move to my final version using my Action Pack licenses)
2GB VM2 - Windows 2008 R2 EE running SharePoint 2010 beta (The technical requirements state 4-8GBs for SP 2010, but I found two "official" references that indicate you can get by with 2GB for development. Mine seems to work fine and running well).

Based on my battle experience this past weekend, I recommend the following steps. If I had followed these steps, my weekend would have been a cake walk.

1. Active Directory: Create your Active Directory environment. If you have one then great, use it. Run the wizard (dpromo.exe) and let it install DNS for you. I used a fake domain - dev.sp2010.com and put an entry in my host file on both VMs pointing the IP to the AD/SQL 2008 VM. I also added an entry for DEV pointing to the same IP.

2. SQL Server: Create your SQL 2008 environment and join your SQL 2008 server to the domain. (If you use my approach then it is already on the domain controller and part of the domain. Just make sure that went well.) Install SQL Server on your SQL Server VM or like me on the Active Directory domain controller VM - Yeah, I know that is not recommended for production, but it was in the MSDN article as a suggestion for a dev environment.

3. Default SQL Instance: Create a default instance of SQL Server 2008. Make sure it is set to allow remote connections and TCP network protocol has been enabled. The default instance will use port 1433 as a fixed port. Any other named instance will use dynamic ports - so be easy on yourself and just use the default instance.

4. SQL Service Account: Use a domain managed service account for your SQL Services. Set the trust delegation and add it as a SPN for MSSQLSVC on the default port.

5. SQL and Firewall: Make sure SQL Server and SQL Server Bowser have been added to the inbound rules of your firewall.

6. Do not proceed to installing your SharePoint server until you know your Active Directory and SQL Server environments are working.

7. SharePoint Server VM: Create your SharePoint Server VM and join it to the domain. I had problems here, but solved it by making sure I first join to my home private network and turned on network discovery. Your domain controller must be able to ping and connect to your SharePoint VM. (You might have to run sysprep if you follow my approach of using a duplicate of the same VHD image. This is because the SID will be the same and you will have problems joining them to the same domain. Do this before you spend any time on the SharePoint Server VM).

8. SQL Client Tools: Once your SharePoint Server VM is joined to the domain then logon as a domain admin and install the SQL client and management tools.

9. Verify SQL Connectivity: Verify that you can connect to the default SQL instance on your SQL Server from the SharePoint VM. If you cannot then troubleshoot that before you attempt to install SharePoint 2010.

10. WCF Hotfix - There is a WCF Hotfix needed, but this will not install unless you have put the SharePoint Server VM in application server role.

11. SharePoint Service account: Create a domain managed service account and set it to trust delegation. (Jie Li, SharePoint Technical Product Manager, suggests adding the Replicating Directory Changes delegate control task to the SharePoint service account see ref #1)

12. ADO Data Services 1.5 is needed if you want to use the new REST API (/_vti_bin/listdata.svc) See install link below.

13. Once you have your SharePoint VM connecting to the default SQL instance then while logged on as a domain admin prepare to install SharePoint 2010.

14. Run the PrerequisiteInstallerFiles application or that option from the SharePoint install splash screen.

15. If the PrerequisiteInstaller succeeds then proceed with the installation of SharePoint 2010.

16. Create a new complete farm and run the config wizard afterwards.

17. After the wizard completes, Central Admin comes up and prompts to run a wizard to configure services. Do it! I reused my farm admin account. If you use a new one make sure it is created like the farm account as a managed service account with trust delegation and the replicating delegate changes added as outlined in ref #1

18. The Central Admin wizard will complete the services configuration and will then prompt you to create a top level site.

So now you should have SharePoint 2010 beta development environment created within a working Active Directory domain.

References: These are the various references I collected this weekend to help me in my battle.

1. Installation Notice for SharePoint 2010 Public Beta

2. Setting Up the Development Environment for SharePoint Server

3. Configuring the Windows Firewall to Allow SQL Server Access

4. ADO Data Services 1.5 CTP2

5. Fix the System.Security.Principal.IdentityNotMappedException error

6. Windows Server 2008 R2 Evaluation Virtual Hard Drive Images for Hyper-V (180 Days)

SQL 2008 R2 CTP

Gannotti talks to MicroLink CTO Malcolm Hyson

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:27:00 +0000

Check out The SharePoint Samurai talking up DiscoverPoint, a product I contributed to in a small part.

The samurai otherwise known as Michael Gannotti talks with MicroLink CTO Malcolm Hyson at Microsoft’s SharePoint Conference. Gannotti is excited about the new MicroLink product DiscoverPoint and it’s integration of SharePoint with dynamic content from FAST ESP.

Malcolm is a Microsoft SharePoint MVP award winner and contributor to Manning Press’ online book SharePoint Server 2007 Survival Guide. He leads MicroLink’s product team and shows his enthusiasm for helping organizations discover expertise through integration between Enterprise Search and SharePoint.

Social Networking in SharePoint with FAST

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:01:00 +0000

I am proud to have been the lead on the social networking project of the DiscoverPoint product. Recently, our CTO Malcolm Hyson was interviewed by Michael Gannotti. Check out the video! Driving Dynamic SharePoint Content with FAST Using MicroLink from Michael Gannotti on Vimeo.

Microsoft SharePoint Conference 2009 Bookmarks

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 17:59:00 +0000

Some of the New Features of SharePoint 2010 – from SPC09 » Springhouse Blog - Delivering Education to You

Wow! "no more SSP" and "Metadata Terms store"

The Forrester Blog For Information & Knowledge Management Professionals

What was missing from the video interview.

Controlling SharePoint 2010 Deployment in VS 2010 - Eli Robillard's World of Blog.
Q&A: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer On Sharepoint 2010 -- Microsoft SharePoint 2010 -- InformationWeek

Long interview with detail

Microsoft Business Connectivity Services Team Blog : Overview of Business Connectivity Services

First post from the new BCS team blog

Developer Changes in SharePoint 2010 - SharePoint Development Blog by Jeremy Thake in Perth, Australia

Use VSeWSS…”to get used to VS2010 integration”

#SPC09 Fundamentals of Upgrading to SharePoint 2010
Paul Andrew : SharePoint 2010 Developer Content Published
Microsoft SharePoint Team Blog : SharePoint 2010 Resources

view SharePoint 2010 in action
SharePoint 2010 forum- for SharePoint 2010 questions
SharePoint 2010 PressPass- for the SPC 2009 keynote video, a Q&A with Jeff Teper, and more
SharePoint 2010 Developer Center for developer info
http://www.mssharepointitpro.com - for IT Pro info
http://www.microsoft.com/sharepoint - for more SharePoint information

New Event Handlers in SharePoint 2010
Part 1 - Improvements to the Core SharePoint Platform & How the Benefit SharePoint 2010 Web Content Management
SharePoint Help — Blog — Building a SharePoint Service Application to Provide Auto-completion Services for AJAX-enabled Rich User Controls – Part 1
Microsoft Showcase: Building Solutions on SharePoint

1 hour long SharePoint 2010 video.

Download details: SharePoint Products and Technologies: 2010 (Technical Preview) Developer Documentation
SharePoint 2010, A Business Collaboration Platform

First mention I've seen of SharePoint Designer integration with Business Connectivity Services, nee BDC.

What's coming in SharePoint Server 2010

Why Can’t We Use Our Existing Systems Databases for Business Intelligence

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 15:28:00 +0000

In an effort to start framing the many considerations for data souring of a Business Intelligence Solution, first we must look at some of the reasons it is not desirable to simply use existing solution databases. As a simple starting point, the assumption is that the business intellige ... (More)

The Microsoft Stack: Connecting Dots in the Cloud

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 08:50:00 +0000

Doug Harts, VP Enterprise Solutions is interviewed by Microsoft regarding Microsoft's cloud technology named Azure. Questions answered include: Can you describe the components in the MS stack that are available in the cloud today? Do you see customers going to the cloud in part or in ... (More)

Create a SharePoint Custom Action Feature with VSeWSS

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 13:20:00 +0000

If you are a SharePoint Developer and are not using Visual Studio 2008 Extensions for Windows SharePoint Services yet, please read Paul Andrew detail how VSeWSS 1.3 March 2009 CTP addresses all common SharePoint Developer requests.

When you are using the extensions, the first thing you might try to do after watching Kirk’s video is use the MOSS SDK Empty SharePoint template to create a very basic feature whose Element Manifest might look like this:

Download ElementManifest1.xml

Warning: Don’t User Add New Item to Create your Manifest!

When adding a new Element Manifest in VSeWSS, the method you use is very important.

Don’t use Add | New Item to create a new xml file and type in the above code manually.

You will be able to add the new xml file to the project, but WSP View will not pick it up when you add it this way. If you edit the feature.xml to refer to it, your change will be reverted automatically.

Method 1: WSP View Create New Feature

Step 1 is the same for both Methods. Create a new Visual Studio Project using the SharePoint SDK Empty template. This will give you an empty project with the correct SharePoint References and just a manifest.xml in WSP View.
Step 2: From WSP View, hit Refresh to show the Solution name in the window and expand the solution to see the Manifest.xml. Click the Create new feature button to open the create new feature dialog.
Step 3: For the simplest custom action feature, select Web scope and check “Add default element.xml file.”
Result: A new feature and a new element in your WSP View with the corresponding .xml files created. And, you will see a new Element1.xml file in your Solution Browser. Double click Element1.xml to open in the text editor to add your action. You can paste the code inside my ElementManifest1.xml CustomAction Element for a quick example of a new Site Action. Make sure that you don’t remove the Elements ID attribute that was generated by VSeWSS .

Method 2: Add | Exisiting Item

Repeat Step 1 from Method 1, then download ElementManifest1.xml to your local hard drive.
Right click the project in Solution Explorer and select Add | Existing Item.
After you select ElementManifest1.xml, you will see it appear as in the results above for Method 1.
1. The ID Attribute will be generated by VSeWSS and inserted into Elements element of the file
2. A reference to the manifest will be added to feature.xml.

Result

Notes

Double click on the feature or element name in WSP View to rename the feature or solution.
Right click Deploy from the Solution explorer and your new solution will be added, deployed and your feature activated on localhost:80 by default.
VSeWSS 1.3 always deploys an assembly in the manifest.xml even in cases like this where it is not necessary

I Wish I Was in Las Vegas at the 2009 SharePoint Conference…..And My Favorite SP 2009 Tweets!

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 21:40:22 +0000

Now, that MicroLink is at the SharePoint Conference in Las Vegas, booth 626! And DiscoverPoint seems to be hitting all the marks! I am having moments of "Wish I Was There." Yes, I knew that with SharePoint 2010 coming soon that this was going to be a huge conference for Microsoft and for ... (More)

SharePoint 2010 and SharePoint Conference Day 1 Highlights

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 16:34:00 +0000

My colleague Rich Olivieri offers this summary of SharePoint 2010 Points live from the Microsoft SharePoint Conference in Las Vegas:

Support for developing on a client OS so long as it is 64bit Windows 7 or 64 bit Vista SP1.
API available through REST. You can call listdata.svc and get a strongly typed response vs a weakly typed response from lists.asmx. It is WCF REST combined with ADO Data Services.
You can link lists through a look up column and pull in multiple columns from the other list for display.
Sandboxed solutions - more a thing for IT...it limits the sandboxed solution access to the object model that is directly related to a specific site collection.
SharePoint Online 2010 now allows deployment of custom code.
SharePoint Designer 2010 has increased support for developing deployable workflows (deployed as wsp) and BDC entities.
Remote Blob Storage - now you can store those really large binary files some place other than SQL.
Performance enhancements - throttling and large list control. SP 2010 now supports 50 million items within a SP list, but you can configure per web application settings to limit max sizes of query results (default 5,000) and send warnings out when list reach a certain size (default is 3,000). Overrides are available for object model access and PowerShell commands.
New PowerShell CMDLETS (command-let) represent functions that can be used separately or combined with other cmdlets to script complex SP administration tasks.

Public beta is in November.
Upgrades: Existing 2007 should upgrade as is to the new infrastructure. Then by use of a visual upgrade tools IT/Dev/Users can decide to upgrade to the new UI.
REST Services: RSS feeds probably now second to REST Feedservices using AtomPub...this is down to item resources.
In page edting of things like Site Titles and Site Images....can use Wiki style editing tags for links like [[this document:document link]]
Offline editing and use of SP items via SharePoint Workspaces..the replacement for Grove.
CoEditing of documents...close to Google Docs.
Semantic Search...going to that session.

Other SharePoint related highlights from around the web, today:

Testers to get Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 this week; final by March 2010, Mary-Jo Foley, ZDNet
Improvements to the Core SharePoint Platform & How the Benefit SharePoint 2010 Web Content Management, Andrew Connell, SharePoint MVP
Describing SharePoint 2010 in 1 Sentence, 8 Categories and 40 Feature Areas, Jeff Teper, Microsoft SharePoint Team Blog

IT Project Failure

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 10:06:00 +0000

According to Richard Anderson (CIO at Commvault Systems) the 2008 Gartner Report indicates that one (1) in three (3) IT project failed because they were substantially late. Read more @ http://www.linkedin.com/groupAnswers?viewQuestionAndAnswers=&gid=37988&discussionID=8394755 The t ... (More)

.Net SMTPClient Send Through Gmail

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 17:05:52 +0000

To test a Mail application I’m working on, I decided to use GMail, but it wasn’t as easy as I’d hoped. Luckily, I found this code snippet on TechNet Forums that worked for me:

MailMessage msgMail = new MailMessage("?????@gmail.com", ??????@gmail.com, "subject", "message body");
SmtpClient smtp = new SmtpClient("smtp.gmail.com", 587);
smtp.EnableSsl = true;
smtp.DeliveryMethod = SmtpDeliveryMethod.Network;
smtp.Credentials = new System.Net.NetworkCredential("?????@gmail.com", "?????");
try
{
smtp.Send(msgMail);
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
}

Just replace the question marks with your GMail credentials, and it should work for you too.

SharePoint Conference Keynote to be Live Streamed

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 09:57:00 +0000

The keynote address Monday by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and VP of SharePoint Jeff Teper will be streamed live from the conference website www.mssharepointconference.com.

Follow the Conference RSS Feed for updates like these straight from the organizers.

Also note, if you are attending the conference in person, note that WiFi will be off during the keynote Monday. If you want to live blog or tweet, you’ll need a cellular modem.

Are you excited about the announcements at the Conference? I can’t wait to hear what Microsoft has in store for us.

And if you haven’t already heard, MicroLink is launching our DiscoverPoint for SharePoint product that integrates FAST and Autonomy Search into SharePoint and automatically discovers colleagues who are experts and documents related to you and your SharePoint content!

Come visit us at SPC09 Booth #626 and view a demo of DiscoverPoint, MicroLink’s new social computing product built for SharePoint.

SharePoint 2010 Browser and Server Changes

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 16:01:00 +0000

SharePoint 2010 Requirements You Might Miss

SQL Server 2005 64bit is a supported platform for SharePoint 2010 deployments
Internet Explorer 6 receives support from Microsoft for Windows XP Service Pack 3 until April, 2014
Your current SharePoint 2007 migration to 64 bit can happen one machine at a time
1. Mixed 32bit and 64bit Farms are supported

Also True about SharePoint 2010

Windows Server 2003 is not supported
SQL Server 2000 is not supported
Your hardware, Operating System, SharePoint and SQL Server must all be 64-bit
Internet Explorer 6 is not a Tier 1 Browser in SharePoint 2010

Preparation Tips – Start Today!

Apply SharePoint 2007 Service Pack 2 for the bug fixes and the new upgrade check tool
Run stsadm –help preupgradecheck
Consider migrating from Windows Server 2003 and SQL Server 2000 if you are using them
Consider migrating to 64 bit OS and Database to get better performance and prepare for 2010
Create and use 64bit Virtual Machine SharePoint 2007 installs today
1. The scope of change is hard to grasp until experienced.

For more information

Announcing SharePoint Server 2010 Preliminary System Requirements, Microsoft SharePoint Product Team Blog
SharePoint Server 2010 Official Hardware and Software Requirements, SharePoint Joel's SharePoint Land
Can MOSS 32 bit and 64 bit exist in the same farm?, StackOverflow.com Thread
Prepare for the future: Windows 2008 and 64bit, Shane Young SharePoint Administration MVP
About performance and capacity planning (Office SharePoint Server), SharePoint 2007 Planning and Architecture, Microsoft TechNet, Updated: 2009-04-23

Update October 14th, 2009: Chad Schroeder pointed out one place where I wrote "SQL Server 2003", which isn't a real product. I corrected it above to "SQL Server 2000."

Software Configuration: Part 2

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 12:25:00 +0000

XML Configuration Adoption An MSDN Magazine Article by Brian Porter (Chief Software Architect for Software Plus) does an adequate job of encouraging the use of XML configuration files over Windows® Registry settings. This article was published in June of 2006, but the adoption of XML con ... (More)

SharePoint 2007 ActiveX Controls List

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 18:06:00 +0000

My colleague, Chris Alechko, has put together a great list of ActiveX controls and their use in SharePoint.

ActiveX Controls that must be allowed in the browser

MSCAL.OCX (Calendar control – included with Microsoft Office Professional or installed with Microsoft Access)
MSCOMCTL.OCX (Common Controls)
MSCOMCT2.OCX (Common Controls2)
OWSSUPP.DLL (ExportDatabase – To export a list to a Microsoft Office Access database, OpenDocuments – Launch Office applications to open documents)
STSLIST.DLL (ListNet – Edit list in Datasheet view)
NAME.DLL (Display presence information for people, integrate with Outlook and OCS)
OISCTRL.DLL (OISClientLauncher – Integrate with Office Picture Manager)
INLAUNCH.DLL (OpenXMLDocuments – Launch InfoPath to open forms)
MSHTMLED.DLL (RTEDialogHelper – Allows use of rich text editor)
OWSCLT.DLL (SpreadSheet Launcher – Integration with lists and Excel)
STSUPLD.DLL (Multiple File Upload – Gives the option for multiple files to be uploaded)

Some organizations, like financial institutions and the US Goverment, explicitly control which ActiveX controls are enabled Internet Explorer Add-ons. If you do not allow these ActiveX controls for use on your SharePoint Collaboration sites, you will lose at a minimum the functionality in parentheses following the name of the control in the list above.

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Collaboration Requirements

Chris also suggests the following Minimum Requirements for full functionality in MOSS Collaboration Sites:

Memory: 1 GB Ram
Operating System: Windows 2000, 2003, XP, Vista
Web Browsers: IE 6.x/7.x/8.x
Valid E-Mail Address
JavaScript enabled
ActiveX enabled

Reference

Office SharePoint Server Web Browser Support [PDF], Microsoft Office Online
Plan browser support (Office SharePoint Server), Planning and architecture for Office SharePoint Server 2007, Microsoft Technet
Client-Side API Reference, Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SDK, MSDN
Microsoft Solutions for Security: Recent Guides, Solution Accelerators Security Blog, Microsoft Technet Blogs

Update 10/08/2009: As Chad pointed out in the browser, Microsoft’s Level 1 browser support is for Internet Explorer 6 and above on Windows platforms. I’ve modified the minimum requirements for full functionality above. A functional but sub-optimal experience is provided in other browsers in the following list:

Operating System: Windows 2000, 2003, XP, Vista, 7, Linux/Unix, Mac OSX Web Browsers: IE 6.x/7.x/8.x, Firefox 3.x, Safari 3.x

The Power of Social Networking: Combining Business and Pleasure

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 22:20:14 +0000

My colleagues know that I am a big fan of Facebook. Huge fan, actually. I am also a fan of LinkedIn. Both represent to me, a supremely busy professional mother, the best way to stay connected with friends and allows me to network without leaving my office or the house. I always knew that if you li ... (More)

Back to basics…

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 13:13:20 +0000

The enterprise search field has been very interested for the last few years on a few key issues that I'm pretty sure if you're reading this you're familiar with. But to be clear, here are the key points I'm referring to: Scalability to billions of pieces of unstructured information Very good results ... (More)

Surface Development on Win7

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 09:24:00 +0000

I found an interesting post on installing the Surface SDK on top of Windows 7 (http://www.grumpydev.com/2009/05/17/surface-sdk-sp1-on-vista-and-win7-x64/). It requires a little MSI editing which you can do with the Orca MSI editor contained in the platform SDK. I'll post any additional gotchas I f ... (More)

Welcome to your Blog!

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 04:54:19 +0000

To begin using your site, click Create a Post under Admin Links to the right. What is a Blog? A Blog is a site designed to help you share information. Blogs can be used as news sites, journals, diaries, team sites, and more. It is your place on the World Wide Web. Blogs are typically di ... (More)

Word 2010 Technical Preview and SharePoint

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 13:51:00 +0000

A warning for users of the Word 2010 Technical Preview and SharePoint. Following guidance from the Microsoft SharePoint Product Team Blog, do not use a "fake proxy" for any kind of workaround.

Specifically, if you encounter the issue where documents, including Word and Excel types, do not open when selected from a web browser, save the file locally before opening in Word 2010 or Excel 2010.

The fake proxy method, as also described in TechNet Forums, will allow you to open documents from a SharePoint site. However, the side effect is a very large security hole. As Lawrence said, "it will reduce the security for default Internet sites by interpreting them as intranet sites instead."

Update October 13^th, 2009: I have been testing a modified version of the "fake proxy" method that I am relatively comfortable with. It doesn't work when I connect to my work VPN, but I feel it is safe enough for me at other times. Microsoft Technet Forums User Rhett has this tip:

a better approach: by default IE is set to automatically detect what qualifies as the local intranet zone (LIZ) which seems to be the source of the proxy-workaround "problem". If you uncheck this option by: selecting Local intranet, clicking on Sites and clearing the checkbox "Automatically detect intranet network" public sites no longer show up in the LIZ. Then, to preserve any desired LIZ functionality, you can specify what networks, sites, etc should qualify as the LIZ either by checking the sub-checkboxes or by clicking the Advanced button.

Map Intelligence with SQL Server 2008 R2, a first map-report with Report Builder 3.0.

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 15:00:00 +0000

Map Intelligence with SQL Server 2008 R2, a first map-report with Report Builder 3.0. The initial design screen of the ReportBuilder is shown in the following screenshot. To determine the analytical data to be displayed on the map (in this case it is Population density) along w ... (More)

Find Foreign Keys and their Parent and Referenced Objects Using TSQL

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 14:55:00 +0000

Find Foreign Keys and their Parent and Referenced Objects Using TSQL It is invaluable to understand relations within a database. Often in business intelligence designs these relations may never be physically created in the database. However, when relations are created we must understand th ... (More)

Map Intelligence with SQL Server 2008 R2, 3 Steps to Installing Report Builder 3.0.

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 14:51:00 +0000

Map Intelligence with SQL Server 2008 R2, 3 Steps to Installing Report Builder 3.0. We can view BI data against a map background by adding a map report item to a report using Report Builder 3.0 which is part of SQL Server 2008 R2 CTP. The following 3 steps show briefly how to install Repo ... (More)

Software Configuration: Part 1

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 16:15:00 +0000

A history of configurability INI Files INI files were one of the first forms of software configuration to be widely used. Most developers, administrators and some users have a familiarity with INI files, but for posterity I'll discuss them briefly. "INI" files get their name fro ... (More)

A SharePoint Saturday Acknowledgement of B&R Solutions

Sun, 13 Sep 2009 22:45:00 +0000

SharePoint Saturday events are a phenomenon touching many parts of the US and the world this year. The community and sharing I witnessed attending and presenting at my first event, Boston, impressed me. Boston’s organizer, Michael Lotter, implored me to host a local event. SharePoint Saturday DC convinced me we had to bring the format to San Antonio. Dallas and NY reinforced my commitment. I’m so happy that we can bring the power of this movement to our city November 14^th to finish the year.

Looking forward to November, I feel a debt of gratitude towards a group not acknowledged enough for their work in this movement. As I looked around Saturday’s venue, I realized I couldn’t find a single B&R Solutions logo. B&R is a New Jersey company focused on SharePoint Solutions. They are also the event co-organizer’s employer. I think Michael’s dedication has been noticed, but I see a pattern with this group that goes beyond the efforts of one person.

B&R SharePoint Team Lead and SharePoint MVP Bob Fox, led a talent-packed Ask the Experts panel Saturday. I can only imagine he provides a base of support and encouragement for Michael’s efforts. A co-worker, Becky Isserman, has contributed in person to so many SharePoint Saturdays that she must see the blue and red wave logo in her sleep. I hear consistently that Michael and Becky are not just emailing, tweeting and talking to me about organization of SharePoint Saturday, but to all of the other organizers, speakers, attendees and sponsors. Without the efforts of these three individuals who work for the same, small business, SharePoint Saturdays would not have come this far.

Will you join me in acknowledging B&R Solutions for their leadership in event organization? For a business that is not taking advantage of the opportunity to promote itself, I think we owe them community thanks.

To acknowledge B&R is not to diminish the efforts of the other individuals who have volunteered their time and companies which contributed their marketing dollars. I’m amazed at the friendly, engaging and selfless attitude of the many dozens of people I’ve gotten to know at these events. I know I engaged in this experience out of a desire to grow myself, but I never expected to get back so much in return for my few hours of preparation and travel.

Though I grew my confidence in public speaking through experience and learned from those I met this past weekend, some things were left for another day. I’m disappointed I didn’t have more time to spend with Mark Miller, who has shown me that being yourself is the best thing you can be. Or, Dan Usher, who taught me that another company, doing similar work in the same industry, is a partner, not a competitor. I wish I had had the time to meet Bob, who I’ve heard so much about.

I’m one voice, but I encourage you to join me

Do you think Bob, Michael and Becky get enough credit without this? Are there others who deserve even more credit and thanks? Please share your experiences in this blog’s comments, on twitter or by email.

401.1 Error when you browse a web site that is hosted on the same server

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 16:44:00 +0000

This is one that has taken a few years off of my life multiple times so I have finally decided to blog about it to save a few more years in the future. When logged onto a server that is hosting a site you are trying to access, you are prompted for credentials multiple times before it finally throw ... (More)

Facebook + Outlook = OutSync (for your Windows Mobile Phone)

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 16:14:00 +0000

I was browsing a while ago and came across this cool little windows application. Mel Sampat of Microsoft developed an application that synchronizes your Microsoft Outlook contacts photos with their current Facebook photo. This is perfect for you Windows Mobile users out there who would like to hav ... (More)

Linq vs. Loop

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 18:16:00 +0000

A developer recently commented that Linq select expressions perform slower than looping. I was not familiar with this idea, so I contacted my colleague Martin Mallea and we began the process of testing the validity of the assertion. All tests were run against a XElement object containing Xml repre ... (More)

SharePoint 2010 Adoption Survey

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 12:14:00 +0000

Please take my short SharePoint 2010 Adoption Survey.

I am publicly sharing the summary of responses and plan to do some analysis.

Here’s a sneak peek. Of the first 13 responders, 6 are Very Likely to deploy after Service Pack 1:

Update 11:49 Central: I updated the graphic and wording so they were clearer. I used the most current results.

Recent Twitter News Related to Government Emergency Management

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 09:42:00 +0000

My Recent Tweets and this news:

Twitter Sued Over Emergency Tweets
- “Alerting the public about a fire, hurricane or traffic accident on Twitter is an unlawful tweet.”
Using Twitter in a Crisis: Effective Government Communication Tools Webinar
- Seminar cost $199
Twitter Outage Raises Concerns for Government
- “most agree concerns about Twitter's reliability and security have become more impactful, especially as some police and fire departments have begun to "tweet" updates about potential hazards like the locations of car accidents and house fires”

The new www.MicroLinkLL.com website in SharePoint? I can’t believe it!

Fri, 07 Aug 2009 09:54:37 +0000

In a week's time or so, I will launch the new MicroLink website. I want to be honest and say when I was told that it had to be built and developed in SharePoint, I cringed. Like anything that you're not used to or understand it can be scary taking the plunge to learn something new. Plus, after limit ... (More)

What goes in the the type element of a .webpart file?

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 18:55:00 +0000

Creating a .webpart file

Creating a Web Part for SharePoint is basically the same as creating a generic ASP.Net web part. One of the keys in ASP.Net webpart development is creating a webpart definition file with the extension .webpart. In SharePoint, an easy way to create the base of your .webpart file is to add your webpart to the Web Part Gallery of any Site Collection and then export the .webpart XSL that SharePoint Generates for you.

Understanding the <Type name=”[your type name]”>

The type element of a .webpart file has a name attribute. The definitions of all elements of the .webpart file are found in MSDN’s ASP.Net Reference section because the .webpart file is not specific to SharePoint. As the MSDN article explains, the name attribute of the type tells .Net where to find your web part class and assembly. The attribute value starts with the name of the type, including the namespace. The name of the type is the same as the Class Name of the class you built that inherits from the .Net Framework WebPart Class. An optional part of the name attribute is the assembly name. It is optional, but it is the only way to fully describe your type, as described in the Common Type System Overview article on MSDN. Next, the version, culture and Public Key Token must be specified.

Example from a .Net Framwork WebControl

In this example, you can see that the BulletedList WebPart type is defined in the System.Web.UI.WebControls Namespace and the System.Web assembly includes it’s compiled code. The version, culture and PublicKeyToken values are all specified, as required.

Comparison to SafeControl Entry

Don’t fall into the trap of thinking the name attribute of the type element of a .webpart is the same as the Assembly Attribute of a Safe Control entry. The above example is from Brett Maytom’s description of a Safe Control entry of a web.config file. Notice that the Assembly Attribute of the SafeControl Element of the web.config contains the assembly name, version, culture and Public Key Token, but not the type, or class, name. Referencing an assembly this way is often referred to as using a four-part name for the assembly. Making sure this assembly name from web.config matches the same part of the name attribute in your .webpart file is top troubleshooting tip when you are unable to add selected web part(s). Just make sure that you specify your class name, including namespace before what is basically the assembly four part name.

Reference

Common Type System Overview article, MSDN, Visual Studio Programmer's Guide for the .NET Framework
Programming for the New Platform, Jeffrey Richter, MSDN Magazine
Walkthrough: Creating a Basic Web Part, MSDN, Developing Web Parts in Windows SharePoint Services
SharePoint - Register an assembly as a safe control in the Web.config file, Brett Maytom, Grounding.co.za
Naming and Building Assemblies in Visual Basic .NET, Ted Pattison, MSDN Magazine
Unable to add selected web part(s), Mikhail Dikov, In a flat world every byte of knowledge counts…

Inside Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

Pictured to the right is one of my go to SharePoint Development reference books lately, Inside Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 by Ted Pattison and Daniel Larson. If you are developing for SharePoint 2007 and don’t have a copy of this book, I highly recommend it.

Search Engine War Continue: You Can Bing with Yahoo

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 10:06:46 +0000

So what do you think about the Yahoo and Microsoft announcement? I find the search engine wars fascinating. In fact, I find all business competition fascinating so this announcement just feeds my curiosity. What is Google with its 65% of the search market going to do to make sure that its biggest ... (More)

SharePoint and CAML Resource References

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:18:29 +0000

Ever poked around in a directory like “C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\FEATURES\”? Maybe you were looking examining one of the core features, like BaseSite, that came with WSS for a clue in your feature development. If you look open the feature.xml file in BaseSite, or other feature.xml files in the FEATURES directory structure, you see $Resources references like this:

Reading “Inside Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0” today, I finally made sense of those strings. They refer to entries in resource files, with .resx extensions in the Resources folder of the WSS Root Directory. So $Resources:osrvcore,BaseFeatureDescription refers to the BaseFeatureDescription text in the osrvcore.resx file in the Resource directory.

Want to read more?

Bjørn Furuknap, of recent SharePoint 2010 controversy, also has a detailed explanation of what’s going on behind the scenes in SharePoint Resource Files for CAML.

Questions

Do you find this as hard to understand as I do? I have never seen this documented anywhere else. Am I just crazy?

BDC Slides from SharePoint Saturday Dallas

Sat, 25 Jul 2009 15:06:42 +0000

I really enjoyed presenting on the SharePoint Business Data Catalog at SharePoint Saturday on Dallas. If you attended and wanted to see the slides CorasWorks is hosting the pdf version.

Integrate External Data With The Business Data Catalog

View more documents from Microlink .

MicroLink on BizTalk 2009

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 05:02:21 +0000

With BizTalk 2009 now ready for release it's a good time to comment on some of MicroLink's work with the current platform. We (MicroLink) have utilized BizTalk in development efforts in a variety of fashions. We were submitted ourselves for the BTS 2009 TAP in hopes of using the latest code base i ... (More)

Office 2010 free web editions compete with Google Apps

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 10:51:00 +0000

As reported in The Seattle Times, Microsoft announced today at the Worldwide Partner conference that free web versions of the most popular Office products will be available next year in the 2010 version.

In other news from WPC09:

ITPRO UK reviews the Office 2010 Technical Preview
bMighty talks about the new Office 2010 Features: multi-user authoring, Outlook Ignore and PowerPoint Broadcast.

Sharon Chan’s report on the web versions compares the new web tools to Outlook Web Access and points out the stated mobile compatibility.

I, for one, am very curious to see increased support for iPhone. Do you agree? Leave a comment or contact me at microlinkblog@resing.net

SharePoint 2010 Sneak Peek now available

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 10:37:00 +0000

Microsoft has made a Sneak Peek of SharePoint 2010 available at http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/2010/Sneak_Peek.

No download bits available yet, but there is plenty of content including videos and Silverlight animations.

CKS:EBE RSS Autodiscovery

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 16:29:00 +0000

Does the RSS Link light up on your SharePoint Blog? If it doesn’t, a few quick changes in SharePoint Designer could make it happen.

RSS Autodiscovery

RSS Autodiscovery depends on a tag like this in your <head></head> section of your HTML:

<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="Posts" href="{$rssLink}" />

I have the link tag in my Head.xsl for my current theme. You can find the Head.xsl in the Themes folder in the folder with the same name as your currently selected theme.

Before

After

Modify your Web Page

If you look at the Post.aspx and Home.aspx pages in the root of your CKS:EBE site in SharePoint Designer, you may see the following three lines in one or the other, if not, add the lines to both files in Code View.

<asp:content runat="server" contentplaceholderid="PlaceHolderAdditionalPageHead">    
  <EBE:PostList runat="server" transform-xslname="Head.xsl" /> 
</asp:content>

SharePoint Designer Head.xsl, Post.aspx and Home.aspx locations

Click to Zoom

58 New SharePoint Blog Readers in 2 Days

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 14:34:00 +0000

Thanks to all my new readers. I was surprised to see my Feedburner Chicklet showing 135 readers today and I wondered what caused the huge jump.

You’ll have to tell me if I’m correct, but my sleuthing showed an interesting coincidence. Did you subscribe because I removed all those Links from my feed? It was a feature called Feed Splicing from Feedburner.

Feed Splicing

On June 16th, I turned off Feed Splicing of my Delicious Bookmarks. If you liked the bookmarks follow me on Delicious http://delicious.com/resing. I had 73 subscribers to my RSS Feed on June 16th, and I had been sitting around there for the last few months as you can see in this graphic:

Two days later, I had 58 new subscribers! Coincidence? I’m not so sure.

Google Reader View

If you were holding back from subscribing to my feed in Google Reader because of the link posts, you can subscribe now without worry.

See all the posts marked “Links for [YYYY-MM-DD]”? They are a thing of the past!

Did you Subscribe because of the change? Let me know by adding a comment, using the contact form or at http://twitter.com/resing

Update 8/1/2009: I saw on twitter some talk about FriendFeed numbers being added to Feedburner. Today, I confirmed this as the reason my numbers went up. So, thanks to all my FriendFeed followers!

Real World SharePoint Mapping Results

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 11:50:00 +0000

I asked Jamey Baxter, guest poster for Save the Manatees how the SharePoint Mapping combination was received. Jamey sent the following user quotes and notes: “Remember, this is the first project and first division of the agency we rolled this out for. The google maps feature will eventually assist many different departments.”

To put the quotes in context, please review my Summary of the Mapping Series.

Permit Applications Quote

The sharepoint pinboard you developed for us is useful for several reasons. As the state wildlife agency, we provide recommendations to state regulatory agencies in order to assure that permitted activities do not injure or kill the endangered Florida manatee. We review permit applications that propose projects that may adversely affect manatees, such as marinas that want to increase their number of slips, in-water construction projects, dredging projects, and blasting projects.

Geographic Location Importance Quote

This tool aids us specifically with review of marina applications. The most common use of this tool will be the ability to easily identify past projects in the vicinity of new ones we are reviewing. Since it is geographically based and linked with the records of the other reviews, we can now easily consider past recommendations that we made about similar projects in a similar location. This will help us provide consistent recommendations between projects. Another reason this tool is useful is because projects, over time, tend to change names and permit numbers, even though it is the same location. The only way we would be able to identify a project as one we have commented on before is to see where it is geographically located.

I find that this feedback from business users really puts our work in perspective.

What do you think? If even a few people recognize the value of geographic placement, is it worth it to implement? Let me konw in the comments section below, through the contact form or on Twitter: http://twitter.com/resing

Google Maps and Virtual Earth, now Bing, Maps Series Summary

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 23:35:00 +0000

Recently, I've gotten some feedback from the Florida Wildlife SharePoint folks. I'll show you their response in an upcoming post, but first, I thought it might be helpful to recap the Mapping with SharePoint series from Tom Resing's SharePoint Blog:

In Mapping Part 1, we added a Google Map to a SharePoint Page without leaving the browser. We set up the contacts list for Part 2 was setup.
In Mapping Part 2, we used SharePoint Designer and a Data View WebPart to repurpose our Contacts List. It was used to display the contacts on the Google Map. I included a screencast of creating a Data View Web Part.
In the Followup Post, I made two changes requested in the comments sections of the first two. 1) Use Latitude and Longitude to plot instead of City, State 2) Show the Contact Name in the Map Marker Popup Window
Virtual Earth API 6.2 with SharePoint was an update to the original SharePoint Designer Team Blog Post that got me started. Changes the Virtual Earth team made had broken the code from the original, but the code I provide brings it back to life.
In Save the Manatees with SharePoint, guest blogger Jamey Baxter showed a real world example of the Google Maps SharePoint integration starring, you guessed it, the Florida Manatee!

Xbox Live leveraging social services

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 09:16:27 +0000

Microsoft's Xbox live service will have integration with Facebook and Twitter this fall check out the following like for details: http://bit.ly/mVmSV.

Looking forward to a cloudy government

Tue, 09 Jun 2009 11:41:57 +0000

Have you ever wanted to find a one stop shop for published government data that you can then leverage in your own platform. A great source of information for the DC area (hopefully more in the future) can be found on the Open Government Data Initiative site. Browse to the following URL for detail ... (More)

p&p SharePoint Development Guidance v2 Drop 10

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 16:32:36 +0000

The Patterns an Practices Group at Microsoft has been producing a series of videos about their SharePoint Development Guidance. What’s in Drop 10 caught my attention when they mentioned that Drop 10, a recent release, provides additional ability to VSeWSS for GAC based assemblies.

After an overview, they dive right into a new configuration store they’ve delivered. I’ve included some minute markers below if you want to skip ahead in this 30 minute video.

Minute Markers

9:19 Service Locator
10:42 Global Navigation Sitemap
18:34 List Based repositories

iPod User Perspective on This Week in SharePoint Joel

Fri, 29 May 2009 16:56:45 +0000

Joel and Mark Miller may live on to be THE name in SharePoint Podcasts! I love the combination. These two characters complement each other very well. I felt like I was sitting right next to the two of them. In some ways it reminded me of the dinner after SharePoint Saturday Boston.

I listened to the first week’s broadcast on my iPod, but I did have to jump through a couple hoops. I downloaded the .mp4, added it to iTunes, and looked around for awhile before I realized it was in the Movie category not in music. Then I had to convert it to iPhone format before I could drag it over. After that, the sound on the iPhone was great.

I love the content and format. Keeping it to 15 minutes is perfect for bite size consumption. I left a similar comment on the End User SharePoint post with the first weeks recording.

My final message to Mark and Joel: get the mp3 on a Podcast feed and I won’t miss a week!

SharePoint Virtualization Resources from the Experts

Wed, 20 May 2009 12:18:40 +0000

I had a Twitter conversation with John Ferringer that unearthed some great SharePoint Virtualization Resources from some top SharePoint Experts.
Here's the thread that kicked it all off:

	resing says: @ferringer So, what are the I/O concerns for Database VM's
	ferringer says: @resing Its resource contention. You've got both the OS & the DB trying to hit SAN for I/O, w/ VMs you take a 50% I/O hit right off the bat
	ferringer says: @resing I like this write up by @mikewat for SharePoint-specific info on virtualization: http://bit.ly/jTGzk
	ferringer says: @resing and the SharePoint UK Team Blog did a good series on the topic as well: http://bit.ly/7HAvz
	sharepointac says: GREAT article! RT @ferringer: @resing I like this write up by @mikewat for SharePoint-specific info on virtualization: http://bit.ly/jTGzk

My Virtualization Summary

Virtualization is a tricky subject and requires some good research and knowing your own IT Solutions
There are obvious benefits to VMs and many organizations are taking advantage
Leave SQL Virtualization until last

SharePoint Virtualization Resources

The proper order of Server Virtualization in SharePoint
Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Virtualize SQL Server
1. After Brent's article, I needed to read: Host adapter from Wikipedia
Virtualizing SharePoint Series - High availability and disaster recovery, deployment best practices, common mistakes and summary

Update: June 25th, fixed broken image link

SharePoint 2010 at Tech Ed

Fri, 15 May 2009 22:14:00 +0000

Tech Ed 2009 was kind of disappointing from the SharePoint 2010 front. Ahead of time Tom Rizzo told us his SharePoint Overview and Roadmap would only include sparse 2010 details. The biggest surprise came when Lars Fastrup mentioned a session where he saw SharePoint 2010 in a few parts of their demo.

If you haven’t yet, read How to get a copy of Office 2010 technical preview. I signed up on the wait list which doesn’t include SharePoint pieces. Email expected in July or August for an invitation to the client downloads. The SharePoint Technical Preview is invite only and limited.

Beyond that, there are some videos of Office and SharePoint at Microsoft® Tech·Ed Online. We already knew about the 64 bit stuff from the Microsoft SharePoint Team Blog Announcing SharePoint Server 2010 Preliminary System Requirements.

My Brother Chief Scientist on a Jason Expedition

Mon, 04 May 2009 19:24:47 +0000

Not SharePoint related, my brother Joe has a new blog about a research trip he’s taking. Joe is the Chief Scientist for the NE Lau Basin exploration with the Jason robots!

We will explore the sites of these two eruptions from May 5th to May 13th, aboard the University of Washington’s Research Vessel T.G. Thompson. We will be using the Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) Jason 2 and the Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) D. Allan B. The Jason 2 will collect samples of rocks, hot spring waters, microbes, and macro biological specimens. The D. Allan B. will deliver high-resolution maps of the eruption sites.

Profiles:

Joseph Resing
I explore new hydrothermal systems using the chemistry of hydrothermal plumes. I am interested in new eruptions and the effect that these eruptions have on the ocean. The chemistry can tell you a lot about what is happing on the seafloor. I look at the composition of particles, the amount of acid, the amount of Carbon dioxide, and the concentrations of iron and manganese.

SharePoint Release Management Ruwan Fernando

Sat, 02 May 2009 16:29:21 +0000

Ruwan is talking on the #1 Most Requested Topic for SharePoint Saturday, Release Management. As a developer, he loves to code all day and code all night, but considers the topic closer to the typical Administrator Role.

Focus on keeping the Live environment stable and consistent with all “experimentation” on another server farm.

Also, here’s a picture of Chad Schroeder presenting on Building an ECB-initiated Collaboration Feature. Chad’s talk was based on a real world solution for a SharePoint client who wanted functionality similar to some features of Google Docs.

John Stover – JQuery Maps In SharePoint Designer

Sat, 02 May 2009 12:56:29 +0000

John’s got a huge audience in this 10AM session. I count about 60. Full House!

The audience interaction is great too. Demonstrating the Data View Web Part, John covered a lot of introductory basics in SharePoint Designer. For example, he explained how you can set the default new form of a List through right clicking the list in the SharePoint Designer left sidebar.

He showed a map of TheSUG.org users using the jquery jMaps wrapper of Google Maps.

After John’s, Session Becky Isserman started up, here’s a 10 second interview while she was setting up. Go Becky!

I’m up next in Room 2008 at SharePoint Saturday DC!

How to move a site in SharePoint, Let me count the ways

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 20:00:20 +0000

Someone just asked me about moving a site with subsites to a new location, but didn’t have details.

Without knowing the situation, here are some of the countless options with considerations:

1) Site Collection level backup and restore

only applies if the subsite is a site collection and you can overwrite the exisiting top level site

use stsadm -o backup and stsadm -o restore

2) stsadm -o export and stsadm -o import

may require manual touch up

but works on site level, not limited to entire site collections

3) save site template with content

one site at a time

limited by size of the content

The default limit is 10mb for one template, but the limit can be changed

Get Facebook the way you want it

Tue, 28 Apr 2009 07:41:45 +0000

One of the first things I look for when using different applications is the support for external development / customization. Yesterday Facebook announced a new Open Stream API (http://developers.facebook.com/ ) which now allows developers to create new custom applications. It'll be interesting t ... (More)

Where’d my UpdatePanel go?

Sun, 26 Apr 2009 19:25:00 +0000

A few members of our product team ran into an interesting problem when using UpdatePanels in a MOSS environment. In our solution we dynamically create an instance of ScriptManager if it is not defined on the form. We found this worked quite well until we were faced with a site based on the BlueBan ... (More)

GPISync your MotionX Track

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 12:03:00 +0000

I’ve been using MotionX Lite on my iPhone while I drive around neighborhoods looking at houses. Today, I found out that you can share tracks by email. Combine that with the GPISync code from Google Code downloads and you could add the latitude and longitude EXIF data to photos from a non GPS enabled camera.

I’m going to try it out and let you see the results.

For the time being check out Motion X in the App Store and GPISYnc from Google Code.

Wildflower Geotagged Example

My friend Rich Olivieri has geotagged 4 photos from a trip last weekend on pbase.com.

Click on each photo to zoom and and get a link to a map of where each was taken.

The Positive Side of SharePoint Wiki

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 11:18:00 +0000

Read Wiki-in-the-Box - Is SharePoint Wiki Really that Bad? for an in depth look at the positive side of the Out of the Box wiki functionality in SharePoint 2007.

Set aside at least 15 minutes for this well written coverage of SharePoint Wikis. Woody Windischman, author of Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007, and a prolific SharePoint blogger, explains wiki history and how to take advantage of what you’ve licensed.

In Woody’s words:

Some people look at various dedicated wiki systems, then at SharePoint, and come to the conclusion that SharePoint's wiki just doesn't measure up to the "best of breed". There is a big difference, however, between "not the best" and "totally inadequate".

After you read the breakdown of what the SharePoint wiki features do and how to use them, you may decide to put off that purchase of a third party alternative. There are even detailed screenshots like the one that follows:

What do you think? Are SharePoint Wiki’s bad because they aren’t the best? Or are they good, because they help you do what you need to do in a SharePoint integrated fashion? Let me know and be sure to watch out for the improvements coming in SharePoint 2010, too.

Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 Technical Preview in 2009

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 11:02:00 +0000

It’s been almost six months since my post predicting every name including SharePoint 2010. Could we be seeing the picture below in 6 more?

According to the Exchange 2010 Announcement on MSDN PressPass, we should expect a Technical Preview Release of SharePoint 2010 in the Third Quarter of 2009 along with the other Office 2010 products. Release to Manufacturing is officially first half of 2010.

Google News shows lots of press coverage of SharePoint 2010, so don’t take my word for it!

What do you think of the news? Excited, disappointed? Let me know in the comments below or through my contact form.

Update 4/15 10AM Central: Attribution to the original image of Office 2010 Technical Preview goes to Zack Whittaker. I modified his image in Paint.Net to superimpose SharePoint over Office.

Proud to be on this list of speakers at SharePoint Saturday DC May 2

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 14:51:07 +0000

Please join me as I present Integrate External Data with the Business Data Catalog Saturday, May 2nd, 2009 at the Microsoft Technology Center on Sunset Hills Road Reston, VA.

More Details

sharepointsaturday.org/dc is the official event site
Registration opens Thursday, April 16th on the website.
The presentation will be part of a free, all day event featuring some of the best speakers on SharePoint.
MicroLink is sponsoring the Event Program and supplies and my co-worker Chad Schroeder will be presenting in the Development Track.

Notable Speakers

	Joel Oleson Company: Quest Blog: http://www.sharepointjoel.com
	Michael Noel Company: Convergent Computing Blog: http://www.cco.com/Experts/tabid/60/Default.aspx
	Paul Galvin Company: EMC Blog: http://paulgalvin.spaces.live.com

SharePoint Saturday on Twitter

On Twitter? Here is the list of presenters I’ve found who Tweet:

@joeloleson @eusp @mosslover @usher @meetdux @pagalvin @paulschaflein @danlewisnet @michaellotter @ericharlan @stovereffect @resing

Mark Miller of EndUserSharePoint.com will be “live tweeting” with the short tag #spsdc
#spsaturday is another popular event tag for twitter, but will not filter out events in other cities

Save the Manatees with SharePoint and Google Maps!

Thu, 09 Apr 2009 10:14:00 +0000

Today's guest post is courtesy of Jamey Baxter who is a Computer Programs Analyst II/SharePoint Developer with the Office of Information Technology at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Jamey read my post on mapping a list with latitude and longitude and adding the name to the popup. He took the method and implemented it on a unique project I thought you would like to hear about it.

Along the way, Jamey updated the solution to work for the needs of the Commision. For example, if you are not using a Contacts list, remove the If statement that checks for the WorkAddress field. Also, you can re-enable paging, which I had turned off in my example.

-Tom

------------------------- Jamey's Post Follows -------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is an example of Google Map integration that we are starting to implement on our intranet at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. The first site we are using this with is our Imperiled Species Management – Manatee Group which is a part of our Habitat and Species Conservation division. The overall implementation will eventually be deployed to any division that requests it that has lat/long coordinates associated with their projects. It quickly lets them view the locations of projects in relation to each other. It has also already allowed them to catch some incorrect lat/longs.

The page starts out with no selection, which makes the page load extremely fast since there are no markers or data to load into the dataview. This is accomplished by adding the dropdown as a dataview control filter which uses the counties as the filter. I input these into the dropdown manually due to their being a finite amount of counties and the original list also uses a static dropdown.

Once you select a county from the dropdown it places the markers on the map, recenters the map, sets the bounds, and builds the popup bubbles. Both the items in the dataview and the bubbles provide links to the original list item. Specific map site links are created by a separate workflow that builds a GoogleMaps hyperlink using the lat/long data and places it in the GMAP column. Also to prevent errors I placed an IF statement to filter out the items that did not have lat/longs from attempting to be placed on the map.

Zoom into Manatees Select

Getting this working will give us a very valuable and powerful tool that we can deploy for various SharePoint lists and will benefit our users greatly.

More SVP from MicroLink

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 09:27:37 +0000

Microsoft has just posted a video (http://sl.microsoftpsdemos.com/SVPVerticals/default.html) on their Single View Platform (SVP) that showcases some of the integration with Communication and Collaboration created by MicroLink. For the technically inclined this showcases our integration with Exce ... (More)

Virtual Earth API 6.2 with SharePoint

Thu, 02 Apr 2009 17:51:00 +0000

Virtual Earth API Update

As I promised at my SharePoint Saturday Presentation in Boston, I've updated my previous example integrating SharePoint with the Virtual Earth SDK. The original example was based on the SharePoint Designer Team Blog post, How to Integrate Virtual Earth Maps with a SharePoint List, from almost 2 years ago.

Greg Chan's original post is still great, and I recommend you give a read to see how he did the magic. However, there is at least one update needed to make his post work with the latest version of the Virtual Earth API. The FindLocation method in the API appears to have been replaced with a method named just Find. And the callback function appears to take a lot more arguments than he used.

Stylesheet Download

Use this code to replace the stylesheet from the SharePoint Designer Team Blog post. Right click save, MyLiveMaps.xsl

Reference

How to Integrate Virtual Earth Maps with a SharePoint List, Greg Chan, SharePoint Designer Team Blog, June 15, 2007
VEMap.Find Method, Virtual Earth Map Control SDK 6.2, MSDN, Undated
Virtual Earth Interactive SDK, dev.live.com

Demo

Figure 1 View Live Custom Contacts List Display Form

Highlights of Tom Rizzo’s SharePoint Designer Announcement

Thu, 02 Apr 2009 14:03:00 +0000

According to Google Blog Search, SharePoint Buzz had the scoop 11 hours ago on the official SharePoint Designer announcement.

Figure 1 Sometime close to midnight this Microsoft Download site was updated with the text SharePoint Designer is NOW FREE!

Along with the download, we were provided a number of great resources to take advantage of the great pricing. Video: SharePoint Designer 2007 (April 2009 Announcement) is a new interview with Tom Rizzo the Senior Director for SharePoint.

Besides the big announcement, Tom provides some insight into why Microsoft made this decision and what it means for the future.

Tom called SharePoint a "Blockbuster Product" for Microsoft
- "We've sold over 100 million licenses of SharePoint and broken $1 billion in business."
Del Monte is using SharePoint Designer to develop rich internet applications
He called SharePoint a "Super Platform"
- A business could consolidate disparate systems onto one platform
- Enterprise Content Management, Collaboration and Application Platforms can be combined to one toolset
- Savings in Training: training occurs once for all IT Staff and Developers across one platform
On Wave 14, as they referred to the next version of Office and SharePoint, Tom had this to say
- "SharePoint as a platform is one of our top tier investments"
- Microsoft is "investing a lot inside of SharePoint Designer in the next release to make sure it's a comprehensive design tool for SharePoint customers."
- It was also noted in the video that the Expression Suite will be updated to have stronger ties to SharePoint in the next version

Figure 2 Tom Rizzo calls SharePoint a "Blockbuster Product" for Microsoft

What do you think this means for your business? If you are excited to start building rich internet applications with SharePoint Designer, drop me a line in the comments section or by the Contact link above.

First American CTO a Web 2.0 Guy

Thu, 05 Mar 2009 23:33:00 +0000

The Wall Street Journal has coverage of Obama's pick of the current CTO of the District of Columbia as the first CIO of the United States.

Vivek Kundra is the man who created an internal Wiki for the DC Government that took off on their intranet. He's a big proponent of online collaboration. He won't be mandating SharePoint for all government agencies, but how about ObamaBlog and ConstitutionWiki? Twitter feeds for pork?

This announcement and the upcoming CTO placement are a great start for a technology literate administration in the White House.

Do you expect big improvements in government technology in the coming years? Let me know your thoughts with a comment or email.