148 posts from: Eli Robillard's World of Blog
Toronto SharePoint User Group: Tonight Cancelled, Next Meeting: June 16
(Indexed 2010-05-19):
Apologies all, notification was to go out sooner but apparently we're having technical difficulties so please help spread the word: The May meeting (tonight) is cancelled, leaving you free to enjoy the summery Toronto evening. Enjoy! Next month on Wednesday...(read more)[Image]
The relative effort of SharePoint 2010 vs. 2007
(Indexed 2010-04-29):
SharePoint 2007 was the best demo-ware ever. Its like going to the pet store and seeing a great dog that does backflips all kinds of tricks and it really is a smart dog and it does all those tricks but when you get it home you realize that what you...(read more)[Image]
Register Today for the Toronto SharePoint Camp: Saturday, March 20
(Indexed 2010-03-05):
The third annual Toronto SharePoint Camp will deliver over 20 sessions by the best Canadian and international SharePoint experts on a wealth of topics. Whether you're a developer, server administrator, architect, power user, or business sponsor; whether...(read more)[Image]
Toronto SharePoint Camp 2010 - Call for Speakers
(Indexed 2010-01-18):
The third annual Toronto SharePoint Camp is scheduled for March 20, 2010 . To be considered, please read the Call for Speakers ( attached to this post , below) and submit your abstract(s) using the form provided by midnight on Friday, February 12. This...(read more)[Image]
How to Build a SharePoint 2010 Development Machine (Part I)
(Indexed 2009-10-29):
I was going to hold off on posting this until the public beta drops, but anyone preparing for the drop will want to get the right hardware, OS and optionally virtualization in place now. Then when the beta drops I'll write more about specific steps to...(read more)[Image]
Tonight: First looks at SharePoint 2010
(Indexed 2009-10-28):
First Looks at Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 Presented by Savash Alic , Principal Specialist SharePoint TSP, Microsoft Canada Join us for a special live meeting on Wednesday, October 28th, 2009 where Microsoft Canadas Savash Alic will present...(read more)[Image]
SharePoint Testing Strategies
(Indexed 2009-10-24):
Someone recently asked about test plans and how to test components during development so you can be comfortable they'll perform well when hosted on large farms. The short answer is that you want to create the best simulation you can, and that means creating...(read more)[Image]
Extending SharePoint 2010 tooling in Visual Studio 2010
(Indexed 2009-10-21):
Extensibility points Already had: Macros, add-ins and packages New extensions based on MEF VSIX model simplifies distribution and deployment VSIX Package A zip package Contains am .XML manifest Install by double-clicking Managed Extensibility Framework...(read more)[Image]
Announcing the Mississauga SharePoint User Group
(Indexed 2009-10-21):
Look out TSPUG, there's a new user group in town! Led by Ray Outair, all the pieces are finally in place and the first meeting is: This Monday from 6 to 8:30 at Microsoft Canada's Mississauga office ! An Overview of SharePoint 2010 Presented by Rob Windsor...(read more)[Image]
Controlling SharePoint 2010 Deployment in VS 2010
(Indexed 2009-10-21):
The default experience when you press F5 in Visual Studio 2010 is to Create, Build, Package and Deploy your solution, all at once, automagically, pretty cool. As long as you don't want to control that process. But wait, you can do that too. You can customize...(read more)[Image]
SharePoint 2010 Enterprise Content Management
(Indexed 2009-10-20):
There are three scenarios or scopes that the team designed for - the library, the document repository and then large scale repositories. The third isn't covered specifically here, but it's basically an architectural strategy that uses many components...(read more)[Image]
Sandboxed Solutions and Security in WSS 4.0
(Indexed 2009-10-19):
Partial trust or "Sandboxed" solutions Runs in a separate process Everything in the WSP is deployed to a special repository managed by Central Administration. There is a new compilation model to support this repository (that you thankfully don't need...(read more)[Image]
At the SharePoint Conference! (includes keynote announcements)
(Indexed 2009-10-19):
I'm in Las Vegas this week for the SharePoint Conference , where today marks a new era for everything SharePoint. And with the fantastic rate of growth in the use of SharePoint, that means that today thousands of people will start thinking of new ways...(read more)[Image]
Eli's SharePoint 2010 Resources
(Indexed 2009-10-19):
SharePoint 2010 Resources: The Beta Version Bookmark this page! Today we're still in "pre-release" mode, some come back and watch us grow. Between the SharePoint Conference 2009 and the public beta in November, this site will provide links to all the...(read more)[Image]
Upcoming SharePoint events and conferences
(Indexed 2009-09-30):
Thanks to everyone in the terrific crowd at my TechDays session in Toronto, and to everyone who stopped by to chat throughout the day. While attendees will be able to get the deck, the source code and a recording of the presentation in a few weeks (steps...(read more)[Image]
SharePoint Web Part Error: "Could not load the required type"
(Indexed 2009-08-26):
Solution: Declare the class public. I mean seriously, you missed that? More surprising than not getting any hits for this message on Bing or Google is not catching the problem myself for the past [insert embarrassing amount of time here]. Serves me right...(read more)[Image]
Building and Packaging SharePoint Solutions
(Indexed 2009-07-31):
In my last post I described a strategy for: Planning SharePoint Solution Packages . In this post we'll construct a sample solution template, use that template to construct a real solution, package this as a WSP, and finally (once you have many WSPs) wrap...(read more)[Image]
Toronto SharePoint User Group Wednesday, July 15: Feature Sets and Alerts
(Indexed 2009-07-14):
Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso...(read more)[Image]
Toronto SharePoint Saturday coming up July 11, 2009
(Indexed 2009-07-08):
If you havent registered yet for Toronto SharePoint Saturday then you ONLY have a couple days left until the event. The schedule has been posted on the site and can be downloaded directly: SPS TO Schedule . Join SharePoint architects, developers, and...(read more)[Image]
Eli's SharePoint 2007 Resources
(Indexed 2009-07-07):
What's Here Welcome to my list of SharePoint 2007 Resources! This is a hub for SharePoint 2007 and WSS 3.0 Resources with two advantages: All resources are hand-picked and vetted for quality, and each topic contains a with hand-tuned search designed to...(read more)[Image]
Planning SharePoint Solution Packages (WSPs)
(Indexed 2009-06-19):
SharePoint architects and developers often wonder how best to design solution packages for long-term ease of use, especially through upgrade cycles. In a survey of SharePoint developers I found a range of strategies from one monolithic WSP to hold everything...(read more)[Image]
Toronto SharePoint User Group: May 27 and June 17
(Indexed 2009-05-20):
This is a heads-up about two exciting TSPUG sessions coming soon: next week on May 27 and next month on June 17. Next Wednesday Bill Brockbank ( Navantis ) is leading a set of "Quick Hits"- these are 15 minute presentations by members on a variety of...(read more)[Image]
Preview: The practical limits of people and SharePoint
(Indexed 2009-04-07):
I'm in Montreal for SharePoint Summit 2009, thinking about the session I'm delivering on Tuesday afternoon. The goal is to distill all the useful knowledge that you won't learn anywhere else, or at the very least, not all in one place. And none of it is in existing SharePoint books or articles. At least none that I know of, but I'd love to be surprised. The abstract (Ctrl-End to the bottom of this page) follows the conventional Problem, Opportunity, Solution, Benefits, Agenda model, but it's pro...(truncated)...
TSPUG Tonight: Workflow, K2 and Twitter
(Indexed 2009-03-25):
Attendees of the Wednesday March 25 edition of the Toronto SharePoint User Group will navigate the wonders of Document Life Cycle in SharePoint using K2 BlackPearl. Our own Bill Brockbank will verily demonstrate how K2 can be used to manage the governance, authoring and editing of a document library with nothing up his sleeves except K2's BlackPearl. From there Bill will reveal the magic of multi-level approval before deeming a work as final and published. Magical stuff indeed.Bill Brockbank is...(truncated)...
First Looks: Visual Studio 2010 tooling for SharePoint
(Indexed 2009-02-23):
Via Soma: Sharepoint tools support in Visual Studiohttp://blogs.msdn.com/somasegar/archive/2009/02/19/sha...(truncated)... the screenshots, note the .package and .feature files, as well as the Packaging Explorer tab on the right. In the example a feature is displayed where there are several elements available in the solution (left), with just the workflow features being selected into Workflows.feature (right). [Image]
Reminder TSPUG Tonight: SharePoint Solutions and Automating the Build
(Indexed 2009-02-18):
Thetopic for tonight was suggested during the most recent Toronto SharePoint camp- How to structure SharePoint solutions in Visual Studio, and automate thebuild and WSP generation. Building SharePoint Solutions (WSP) is the mostpainful part of the development process. In this session attendees will learnhow to take the pain away for SharePoint 2007 by structuring Visual StudioSolutions for easy management, and by automating the build and WSP creation.Presented by me, Eli Robillard with correctio...(truncated)...
The Toronto SharePoint Camp Kicked Ass
(Indexed 2009-01-26):
A giant shout-out to the organizing committee, volunteers, sponsors and attendees of this years Toronto SharePoint Camp, what a great day! Chairman Bill Brockbank was pretty raspy (and full of Buckleys), so I was the voice for the opening, and facilitator of the speaker round-table and raffle, but these things dont happen without great people and planning. Everyone did a great job to be proud of. We had well over 200 attendees for 20 sessions delivered by 19 speakers including 5 MVPs representin...(truncated)...
Best Free SharePoint Downloads - updated
(Indexed 2009-01-23):
http://weblogs.asp.net/erobillard/archive/2008/12/13/the-bes...(truncated)... added full descriptions to this living post to explain why these are the greatest downloads since O12 itself, it's starting to look like a real resource. Philosophical question - do you love or hate these posts about such changes (posts about posts)? Are they as annoying as blog spam? Do you visit these pages on a regular basis anyway? See you all at Toronto SharePoint Camp tomorrow! [Image]
Tonight: Toronto SharePoint User Group - We need you!
(Indexed 2009-01-21):
Come out and warm up with the Toronto SharePoint User Group tonight at Yonge and Bloor from 6 to 8pm, as we hold a Volunteer Night to prepare for the Toronto SharePoint Camp coming up this Saturday. Whether you're a member eager to give a couple hours back to your community, a new member looking for a bunch of great people to bounce ideas off of, a first-time speaker looking for some tips, a seasoned speaker with stories learned the hard way from conferences past, or just in it for the free piz...(truncated)...
The Best Free SharePoint Downloads
(Indexed 2008-12-13):
This post will continue to be maintained to contain the best free utilities and downloads available for WSS and SharePoint 2007. It's starting fairly raw; the plan is that over time descriptions will be written and categories will evolve. Scoping ToolsSharePoint ManagerSharePoint Analyzer Improvements and extensions to the out-of-box featuresStarter KitsFaceted SearchScot Hillier's SharePoint FeaturesGary LaPointe's STSADM extensions Developer ToolsVisual Studio project templates: WSP BuilderCA...(truncated)...
SharePoint for Lunch with Joel Oleson: Thanks Everyone!
(Indexed 2008-12-12):
I just got back from the Toronto SharePoint User Group's year-end holiday party and it was a pretty excellent experience. First to thank our meeting sponsors: Quest Software and Nonlinear Creations for picking up the lunch tab; that was an unexpected but much appreciated holiday surprise. And thanks again to Quest for bringing Joel to town! After a few logistical hurdles at the restaurant, Joel presented a thought-provoking and insightful talk on SharePoint governance, and eventually we let him ...(truncated)...
TSPUG "SharePoint for Lunch" with Joel Oleson, this Friday!
(Indexed 2008-12-11):
Joel Oleson joins the Toronto SharePoint User Group this Friday at 12:00 noon! Where: Spring Rolls, 693 Yonge Street (near Yonge & Bloor) When: Friday, December 12, 2008 from 11:50 to 1:30 What: A holiday lunch, a great presentation, discussion, some catching up, and prizes! Seating is limited to 40, and to keep it simple but raise the quality bar for the holidays, we're aiming for a flat $15 cover charge for lunch and a drink. Depending on sponsorship the actual contribution may be less, but it...(truncated)...
The Best Books for SharePoint Developers
(Indexed 2008-12-08):
Customers often ask "what are the best books for SharePoint programmers?" and while there are a few good lists (like AC's) none contain all my favourites so I'm starting fresh. Essential Books for SharePoint DevelopmentThese are the standard books that make any shelf complete. [Image] Inside Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, by Ted Pattison and Dan Larson.This is the best book for any developer starting out with SharePoint, and one of the best references to have around even after you k...(truncated)...
Secret Strategies for Successful SharePoint at the Toronto .NET User Group, Dec. 9, 2008
(Indexed 2008-11-27):
'Tis the season for hardcore SharePoint. I'll be doing a presentation for the Toronto .NET User Group with the understated title: Secret Strategies of Successful SharePoint Projects. This is a two-part session on designing knowledge management solutions and then implementing them in SharePoint. We'll discuss taxonomy design, infrastructure design, the mapping of knowledge domains, common mistakes, the practical limits of SharePoint, the practical limits of people, and field questions from the au...(truncated)...
TSPUG December 12: "SharePoint for Lunch" with Joel Oleson
(Indexed 2008-11-26):
Joel posted a teaser this morning, here's a little more to look forward to - the December meeting of the Toronto SharePoint User Group will be SharePoint for Lunch on Friday, December 12 from 11:50am to 1:30pm at a (still undisclosed) downtown restaurant. Our featured guest is none other than Joel Oleson, SharePoint mentor to many, ex-employee of the Redmond mothership, and "SharePoint Expert" at Quest Software. Seating is limited to 40, and to keep it simple but raise the quality bar for the ho...(truncated)...
TSPUG November 19: SharePoint and Silverlight
(Indexed 2008-11-12):
Our next Toronto SharePoint Usergroup Meeting will take place next Wednesday, November 19, 2008. This months speaker, Sean Hopen (New Toronto Group), will give a tour of the development process with Silverlight and an overview of developing web parts for use in SharePoint. There will be a discussion of the benefits of using Silverlight in a SharePoint implementation. To demonstrate Silverlight in action, Sean will show you how to create a web part that can be used by non-programmers to display ...(truncated)...
Mark your calendars, January 24th is the Toronto SharePoint Camp
(Indexed 2008-11-07):
Today we confirmed that Saturday, January 24th is the date of the 2nd Annual Toronto SharePoint Camp! For a second year, I'd like to thank Manulife Financial Corporation for generously providing the facilities that not only make this event possible, but also keep it free to all attendees. TorontoSharePoint.com will be updated soon with information about the event. In the meantime, mark January 24 on your calendar and watch this space for news about registration, opportunities for sponsorship and...(truncated)...
New Online SharePoint 2007 Development Training!
(Indexed 2008-11-06):
Today Microsoft's Ramp Up program launched a new track: SharePoint for Developers, Part I. This is a free, online, community-based program that only requires a Live ID to sign up and dig in.I worked through all the learning materials for the first module (creating Web Parts) and it looks good. The module includes a Word document that describes web parts, a narrated PowerPoint ("slide-cast", ~20 min), a web-cast style Visual Studio capture ("code-cast", also ~20 min), and a Virtual Lab (up to 90 ...(truncated)...
New Article: Capabilities Required for Successful SharePoint
(Indexed 2008-10-20):
Paragraph 1: "Successful deployment of SharePoint is no different than any othercorporate strategy or project, only the moving pieces change. The goalsremain consistency, scalability, and success by whatever measures youchoose."Paragraph 2: contains the collective wisdom of every"Best Practices for Product X" article, presentation and book published to date. Paragraph 3: "Now to bring this back to reality. The followingsections attempt to provide all of the capabilities required to givegood Sha...(truncated)...
TSPUG October 22 Meeting: Distributed SharePoint Deployments
(Indexed 2008-10-15):
Our next Toronto SharePoint User Group meeting will take place on Wednesday, October 22, 2008. This months speaker Jeffrey Wolff, Technical Director, Infonic, will discuss the benefits of deploying a distributed SharePoint environment, factors to consider when planning your environment, and possible problems distributed organizations faces as they architect an enterprise-wide SharePoint infrastructure. He will also review third-party solutions that can address these problems as well as the pros...(truncated)...
TechDays early registration ends today
(Indexed 2008-10-15):
In addition to a giant discount, Toronto SharePoint User Group members will get a free XBox game for registering early. Here's how to take advantage of it (from Andrew Howell): Heres yourreminder of the EXCLUSIVE OFFER that Microsoft Canada is extendingto the early bird registrants from the Toronto SharePoint Users Group for TechDays 2008! The first500 user group members to send their confirmation e-mail for early birdregistration to Andrew Howell (v-anhow@microsoft.com)will personally receive...(truncated)...
TSPUG Fall Session Starts Tonight (2008-09-28)
(Indexed 2008-09-24):
Members received an update last week, I just wanted to mention here that summer's over and meetings start back up tonight, Wednesday, September 28! Topic: Jignesh Shaw, Applications Development Manager at Cyberplex Inc. will be doing a presentation on InfoPath 2007 forms development for Forms Server in MOSS 2007 - including tips, tricks and best practices for developing InfoPath forms. Examples will include building an InfoPath form for data collection via a public facing site where anonymous us...(truncated)...
SharePoint Security: Hard limits and recommended practices
(Indexed 2008-09-12):
This summarizes the hard limits and recommended guidance for Groups, Access Control Lists (ACLs) and securable objects in SharePoint 2007. Unique list-item permissions per list: 600 to 1000. When you assign unique permissions to list items in a given list, when the critical point is exceeded the error is displayed: "Operation is not valid due to the current state of the object" and the following event is logged in Event Viewer: "UnknownSQL Exception 156 occured. Additional error information from...(truncated)...
Why care about Google Chrome?
(Indexed 2008-09-04):
In the last 24 hours there's been a lot of conversation about Chrome. When Safari was released for Windows, why was so little written about Safari's SharePoint compatibility? I used Opera for years, but why never a post about Opera and SharePoint (summary: it stinks, even drop-down menus fail to render)? What's the big deal about Chrome? Web developers certainly don't need another browser to support, unless this is the one that finally gets it right, and the odds of that are way high against. S...(truncated)...
Google Chrome works for SharePoint users, less so for administrators
(Indexed 2008-09-02):
Today I downloaded and installed the just-released Google Chrome browser, ran it through some preliminary tests with SharePoint 2007 and so far, acceptable but missing a few key things. Chrome supports NTLM authentication, uploads (though not multiple uploads), renders all the usual menus correctly, and generally does a good job of rendering SharePoint pages. And it's screaming fast. On the downside, when you click a file you're asked for a Save location rather than opening it with the associate...(truncated)...
SharePoint WFE memory allocation on 32-bit Windows Server
(Indexed 2008-08-11):
How much memory can my SharePoint web front-end (WFE) servers use? It's a common question, and this post is an attempt to answer it for common scenarios. Briefly: 4 GB is the maximum recommended for most scenarios, though you may be able to use more if you're hosting other applications on the same server, including other web applications. On 32-bit Windows Server 2003 each application pool can only address 2 GB of RAM because that's the limit of user-mode address space in a 32-bit application. Y...(truncated)...
SharePoint Trace Logs and the Unified Logging Service (ULS)
(Indexed 2008-08-01):
This is to explain what the ULS logs are, why they exist, and how to read and write 'em. In a nutshell, the Unified Logging Service (ULS) writes WSS 3.0 and MOSS events to SharePoints Trace Logs, and these are stored in the file system in ...12LOGS. Collectively this location and its files are commonly referred to as the ULS Logs though MSDN calls them the Trace Logs. According to the MSDN Trace Log docs:
International SharePoint Professionals Association: It's alive!
(Indexed 2008-07-18):
[Image]On Wednesday Bob Fox announced the launch of the ISPA and its website at http://www.sharepointpros.org/. Bob's been putting this together for well over a year so first off, congratulations to Bob on launching and thank-you for all the hard work you do to help user groups world-wide. What does the ISPA do? Initially its goal is to support existing SharePoint user groups and help people kick-start new ones. There's a small board and a number of evangelists world-wide. Reza and I are the fir...(truncated)...
Review of the SharePoint Scalability White Paper
(Indexed 2008-06-18):
A SharePoint Server 2007 Scalability and Performance whitepaper was recently released "to provide strategic information about designing a high-volume, high-availability enterprise solution that can easily grow." it was announced yesterday in the SharePoint Product Team blog. There is plenty of good content here, lots of good ideas, and many attractive diagrams. As for the tests, these are idyllic goals to shoot for if you want great performance minimize (or eliminate) inserts and deletes, keep...(truncated)...
TSPUG June 25: Future-Ready SharePoint From Taxonomy to Deployment
(Indexed 2008-06-17):
Toronto SharePoint User Group2 Bloor West, TorontoWednesday, June 256:00pm Registration and Social6:30pm Meeting 7:00pm Feature Presentation (description below)8:30pm ClosingThis is our last meeting of the 2007-2008 season. After June 25, TSPUG is on summer break until September 17. Future-Ready SharePoint Architecture: From Taxonomy to Deployment by Eli Robillard (Infusion Development), Ruven Gotz (Ideaca), and Craig Lussier (Torys LLP). In last month's episode (by Mindsharp, with several cours...(truncated)...
WCAG and CLF 2.0 Compliance for SharePoint
(Indexed 2008-06-05):
Here's a nugget. At the May Toronto SharePoint User Group meeting I met Mike Maadarani who got me excited about his company's CLF 2.0 SharePoint Toolkit. Orangutech is based in our nation's capital and they've been working with a government department and Microsoft to help SharePoint meet CLF 2.0 and WCAG requirements. From the documentation: The CLF 2.0 Team Site Feature will allow departments and agencies to create SharePoint team web sites [and publishing sites] that conform to the new Common...(truncated)...
Toronto SharePoint User Group Tonight (and next month)
(Indexed 2008-04-23):
Topic: SharePoint and Silverlight Bringing the best of both worlds together!In this session we'll explore different scenarios for integrating SharePoint 2007 and Silverlight. Well explore different ways on how you can leverage the SharePoint 2007 amazing framework to expose content and data in a much richer way. Speaker:Andy Nogueira (MCTS, MCPD, MCAD) has over 10 years of professional experience in the IT industry. He is the Team Lead for the Microsoft Practice Group at nonlinear creations In...(truncated)...
What to know about SmartPart, and LoadControl()
(Indexed 2008-03-04):
At Infusion ASP.NET developers regularly ask how to easily build a web part or how to host a user control (.ascx) in SharePoint. Someone invariably replies "SmartPart!" at which point my job is to make sure they understand what they're getting into. SmartPart is a cleverly coded web part by fellow MOSS MVP Jan Tielens. Once installed, you can drag an instance of SmartPart into a SharePoint web part zone and configure the new web part to host an .ascx file stored in the file system. And like mag...(truncated)...
"How to build a SharePoint dev box" updated
(Indexed 2008-02-27):
I've updated the article on how to build a development machine for SharePoint 2007. The best tool I've discovered is the SharePoint Manager 2007 which takes over from the SharePoint Inspector as the object model browser of choice. Notable tools not yet on the how-to page are the U2U CAML Creator tool and Ms. White's Event Receiver Manager. Several of the recommended tools were moved into a new optional section, the most notable of which is the VSeWSS component which I really can't recommend. T...(truncated)...
Will you be at Toronto CodeCamp this Saturday, March 1?
(Indexed 2008-02-25):
http://www.torontocodecamp.net/ "The Third Annual Toronto Code Camp, a free .NET community sponsored event, will be held on March 1st,2007! Last years event was a huge success with over 350 attendees, 25sessions, 24 speakers and 20+ volunteers. This year we will continue tobuild on the success of the prior Code Camps and increase the number ofattendees and make the event an even greater critical and logisticalsuccess."Nadeem Mitha from Infusion will be there to talk SharePoint (a last-minute add...(truncated)...
Recent News
(Indexed 2008-02-25):
I've been head-down, full speed ahead, damn the torpedoes, coding like it's 1999, interrupted only by the 5-day odyssey that was the Worst Move Ever. Every other day it seems I've had a search that returned 5 or fewer hits, so obscure problems were encountered, and solutions and more will be blogged in the weeks ahead. What's been going on in the outside world? Plenty. There's a Windows Server 2008 / SQL 2008 / VS 2008 launch event in Toronto this Wednesday. At MSFT, Scott Guthrie was promoted f...(truncated)...
Translated solution to SPListItem CopyTo bug
(Indexed 2008-01-14):
Problem: The SPListItem.CopyTo() method doesn't seem to work on a custom list or custom properties. When called, CopyTo() returns the error "Source item cannot be found. Verify that the item exists and that you have permission to read it." Solution: Dorrit Riemenschneider posted this solution in German, which is roughly translated below thanks to Babelfish and a little of my own interpretation. Dorrit provides source code you can cut and paste, look for the section in italics near the end of hi...(truncated)...
TO SharePoint User Group January Speaker: Reza Alirezai
(Indexed 2008-01-11):
The first meeting of TSPUG in 2008 will feature the return of Reza. Lately he's been working on custom authentication providers for SharePoint, and next Wednesday you'll learn just how easy these are to build and deploy (when you know the tricks; there are always tricks). See you there! When: Wednesday, January 16, 6:00pm to 8:30Where: 2 Bloor West (NW corner of Yonge and Bloor), 8th Floor Topic: Custom authenticationproviders in SharePoint 2007Abstract: In ASP.NET 2.0 , there is an importantcon...(truncated)...
Toronto SharePoint Users Group: Silverlight Wednesday
(Indexed 2007-11-20):
For those of you who were looking forwad to see this one at TSP Camp, Josef will be presenting at the Toronto SharePoint Users Group on Wednesday! The Awesome Media Gallery -- Extending SharePoint with SilverlightJosef Rogovsky, Lifeline Total IT Solutions, Inc.Basedon the SharePoint Silverlight Photoviewer WebPart project onCodeplex, this session will provide a brief introduction to Silverlightprogramming with Blend and Visual Studio and then demonstrate howintegrateit with SharePoint via a web...(truncated)...
Great articles on SharePoint Design
(Indexed 2007-11-07):
From Mark Jones, these should be required reading for all SharePoint development team leads, project managers and architects: Architecture and Design Lessons LearnedSharePoint Development and Engineering Practices [Image]
VS2008, SharePoint Search Server 2008 Express Announced
(Indexed 2007-11-06):
I'm not at [SharePoint|Dev|Win|Exchange]Connections 2007 or TechEd EMEA 2007 Barcelona this week, but always interested in what's announced at the keynotes. This year in Barcelona Soma announced that Visual Studio 2008 and .NET 3.5 will RTW before the end of November. And Popfly Explorer will be integrated with VS, allowing anyone to build and share pages on the supercool Popfly site. Soma also recently announced the inclusion of F# in VS2008, and the ability to publish from SQL Express out to a...(truncated)...
Talking Chicken Reviews Toronto SharePoint Camp
(Indexed 2007-11-01):
Whenever you do something it's always great to get feedback, but here's one I definitely didn't expect - Talking Chicken Reviews Toronto SharePoint Camp (YouTube video). Thanks again to all our volunteers and speakers for making this happen, and to all the people who spent a beautiful Fall day with us at the Manulife building. Early signs would indicate that yes, Toronto's fantastic community of SharePointers will make this happen again next year! We want your feedback! How can we make TSP Camp ...(truncated)...
DST issue Pt. 2: SharePoint jobs don't immediately propagate
(Indexed 2007-10-31):
As of Sunday (Oct 28) it seems that server farms with uneven Windows Server patches are once again seeing issues with jobs deploying. The symptom is that deployment of x takes up to an hour to execute or propagate to all servers in the farm. For example, a web content deployment will be delayed, Forms uploaded to Forms Server aren't marked Ready for an hour, etc. As a workaround, this issue can be solved from the command line with the usual: stsadm -o execadmsvcjobs As a fix, ensure that Window...(truncated)...
Error: "Additions to this Web site have been blocked."
(Indexed 2007-10-31):
The error is "Additions to this Web site have been blocked." It used to happen occasionally in WSS 2, and now it's confirmed to happen in WSS 3. What am I talking about? MOSS installations where no one monitors the size of database growth. Bring up SQL Server Management Studio and check out where the errors are being thrown. It's usually the transaction logs. If you're using log shipping or have a regular database backup strategy (you mean you don't?) the logs will maintain a reasonable size sin...(truncated)...
Toronto SharePoint Camp: This Saturday!
(Indexed 2007-10-17):
[Image]Volunteer night is Wednesday at Nexient (2 Bloor West, at Yonge). If you'd like to be one of the intelligent, wonderful, sexy people we call our volunteers then click through the picture and get in there! Registration is filling up fast, so if you're planning to come out, please get your name and e-mail address in today. Confirmations will go out prior to the event, note that the site does not display a confirmation message. Freebies from our sponsors are available for the first 200 peple...(truncated)...
Toronto SharePoint Camp: Free Registration Now Open!
(Indexed 2007-10-01):
Toronto SharePoint Camp, Manulife Centre200 Bloor Street East, Toronto, Ontario, CanadaSaturday, October 20Register Now! Early-bird registration is being announced this week through TSPUG, blogs, and user groups. We expect to reach capacity in the coming weeks, so get your name in today to avoid disappointment. Note: after registering you will not see a confirmation screen, but rest assured that your registration is in there. Confirmations will be sent prior to the event. For more information, ...(truncated)...
Toronto SharePoint User Group: Workflow Wednesday, September 19!
(Indexed 2007-09-17):
K2's Black Pearl is supercool and I'm really looking forward to this one. And as mentioned last week, the Call For Speakers for the October SharePoint Camp is now on! TSPUG Monthly Meeting Please join us Wednesday, Sept 19th as we host our first monthly TSPUG meeting following the summer break! Location: 2 Bloor St West, Toronto, ON M4W 3E2 Time: 6 PM Pizza dinner, presentations to start at 7 PM Topic: Rapidly Automate Complex Workflows using K2 and SharePoint Server ...(truncated)...
MOSS and Forms-Based Authentication: the Tricks
(Indexed 2007-09-07):
There are three great guides to configuing FBA: Andrew Connell had the best article first. Dan Attis built on this by getting My Sites and Profile imports working (Part 1, Part 2). Then Stacey Draper wrote it for people who prefer paper in his chapter of Real World SharePoint. They all configure the web application using host headers, and this is why:If you distinguish your web application by port alone, you will receive a 403 Forbidden Error when you try to reach many (but not all) application ...(truncated)...
Toronto SharePoint Camp: Saturday, October 20, 2007
(Indexed 2007-09-07):
Mark your calendar! The first ever SharePoint Camp will be in Toronto, and registration will be absolutely free. Toronto SharePoint Camp, Manulife Centre200 Bloor Street EastSaturday, October 20 The event will be hosted by the Toronto SharePoint User Group with a supporting cast of many fantastic volunteers and guest speakers. We're planning three tracks: Developer, Administrator, and Champion/Architect. There will be 15-18 presentations total in 3 to 5 theatres. The space should comfortably acc...(truncated)...
When to use a database, SharePoint, or wiki.
(Indexed 2007-09-07):
"My client asked me to come up with a presentation of whether to use to Sharepoint or Wiki or both and how. Our team is an international team with members in New York, Singapore and London. Currently we have a wiki and Sharepoint set up but there is no clear guide/structure of how or when to use each." This describes how databases, SharePoint, and Wikis should operate. Real life varies. Always remember that we're building processes, not temples. A database stores structured data. The structure ...(truncated)...
Win at Sleepless in New York - The Ultimate SharePoint Weekend!
(Indexed 2007-08-14):
SLEEPLESS IN NY The Ultimate SharePoint Weekend September 7th 9th: New York CityDeadline to Apply Tuesday August 14th by 5:00 (EST)Applicants can apply @ www.infusion.com/sleeplessinNY ULTIMATE TRAINING CAN BE YOURS - One sleepless New York City Weekend TOTALLY FREE- Intense SharePoint and Silverlight Training- Mystery Game Show - Mind Blowing Prizes Time is running out to apply for the Sleepless in NY - Ultimate SharePoint event. New York never sleep...(truncated)...
How to change service accounts and their passwords in MOSS and WSS 3.0
(Indexed 2007-07-06):
How to change the Application Pool Identity of a WSS or MOSS web applicationOpen SharePoint Central Administration, click Operations.Under Security Configuration, click Service accounts.Click the radio button beside Web application pool. Select Windows SharePoint Services Web Application. Select the application pool where you want to change the identity, for example: Sharepoint - 80. Make a note of the existing settings in case you need to unwind your changes. Select the Configurable radio butto...(truncated)...
What do you carry with you?
(Indexed 2007-06-21):
Robert Bogue just asked the question and I wish I'd seen a list like this long ago, so here it is. Shoulder Bag - a 2006 MOSS conference bagCell phone: HTC P4350. WiFi, Bluetooth, a pop-out keyboard, a 2 Mp camera, mic, WM5 with Skype and PocketStreets. Zune music player and synch cord. Brown, of course. Camera - Canon SD600 Elph with a spare 2 GB memory card and spare batteries (
Toronto SharePoint User Group Tonight: Reza Alirezai
(Indexed 2007-06-20):
TSPUG Monthly MeetingPlease join us Wednesday, June 20th as we host our last monthly TSPUG meeting before the summer break! Location: 2 Bloor St West (8th Floor), Toronto, ON M4W 3E2 Time: 6 PM Pizza dinner, presentations to start at 7 PM Topic: Top Tips to write better code for SharePoint Description: If you have not dived into SharePoint programming yet and/or would liketo learn more techniques, don't forget to mark your calendar for June20th where Reza Alirezaei will introduc...(truncated)...
Professional SharePoint 2007 Development: The Book
(Indexed 2007-06-18):
[Image] It's here! Late last week a box of books arrived at my door with the first pressing of "the book." Yes, we have a baseball team worth of developers on the cover (I'm the fourth one over), and they're the right ones for the team. I'd really like to thank Tom Rizzo for getting the ball rolling and John Holliday for picking up the lead author role, as well as Jim Minatel and Ami Sullivan at Wrox for pulling the team together and guiding the process. When you're a member of a team like this,...(truncated)...
Toronto SharePoint User Group Tonight (Wed, Apr 18) - Nadeem Mitha!
(Indexed 2007-04-18):
Tonight should be a great presentation, Nadeem Mitha is one of the few people I know who can regularly teach me new things about SharePoint. Tonight his topic is "Beyond Web Parts: Rapid Web Application Development using Windows SharePoint Services 3.0" and it should be an awesome one for aspiring and advanced developers alike. Nadeem was a presenter at Toronto CodeCamp this year and everyone I've met who attended really enjoyed what he had to say. As usual we'll start the meeting off wi...(truncated)...
Office Client B2TR Expires This Saturday, Office Servers on May 15
(Indexed 2007-03-27):
With planning it should be possible to keep your users running when the Office System Beta 2 Technical Refresh expires this weekend. Fortunately, you have until May 15 to upgrade your SharePoint servers. What are your options? Get the appropriate licences and upgrade Office, or delay the decision another 60 days by upgrading to one of the Office System trial versions. To learn how to upgrade your servers read the section called "Beta 2 TR Upgrade Resources" in Joel O's post on upgrading to R...(truncated)...
Holy cats, people like Essential Windows Mobile 5 Resources
(Indexed 2007-03-10):
I went to update my list of Essential WM5 Applications and the hit counter is through the roof! It's even gaining on my old SharePoint Resources article. Happily, it's up to date again with what I'm still using after nearly three years of WM5. There are a few new applications, some that turned out not-so-essential, and ratings for everything. Enjoy![Image]
Upgrading SharePoint Site Templates and List Templates
(Indexed 2007-03-09):
Site Template Galleries and List Template Galleries are not upgraded during a migration. This is true of WSS 2.0 to 3.0, and therefore SPS 2003 to MOSS 2007. The reason is that they're not sites or lists, they're simply files stored in special Document Libraries named Site Template Gallery and List Template Gallery, one per Site collection. So how do you upgrade these templates to WSS 3.0 or MOSS 2007? 1. Create a blank site called SiteTemplates in the old environment and create ...(truncated)...
Patch WSS 2.0 (and SPS 2003) for Daylight Savings Time changes
(Indexed 2007-03-08):
This was just brought to my attention this week and if that's the case, I'll bet this arbitrary change in DST rules causes more ripples than Y2K ever did. If you're running WSS 2.0 or SharePoint Portal Server 2003 (which in dependent upon WSS 2.0), then you should install the patch. If you're running the new stuff - WSS 3.0 or MOSS 2007 - then you're free to return to your daily reading. Desktops receiving automatic updates may already have the Windows and Outlook patches. Ad...(truncated)...
Why can't I access SharePoint by UNC path?
(Indexed 2007-03-05):
The short answer is that URLs don't support spaces, and UNC paths do. You're probably copying the URL into Windows Explorer, so just replace each %20 in your path with a space and you should be off to the races. This:http://moss.mysite.com/Shared%20Documents/Becomes:moss....(truncated)... DocumentsIf your SharePoint site is on a port other than 80, drop the port number from the UNC path. This:http://moss.mysite.com:2112/Shared%20Documents/Becomes:...(truncated)... DocumentsIf that fails,...(truncated)...
300-level MOSS Search Webcasts
(Indexed 2007-03-02):
Received via e-mail and also distributed on TechNet. You need a Live ID to register. Note that the first two plus the webcast on March 8 are for Vista rather than MOSS. Enjoy! The US Webcast Series: Plan, Deploy and Manage Microsoft Search Solutions for the EnterpriseOne webcast per week for 8 consecutive weeks will provide 300-Level learning on Microsoft’s Enterprise Search solutions. The 8 webcasts are organized into three high-level categories.Plan and deploy search across the Enterpr...(truncated)...
Error: Can't connect to the database during WSS / MOSS Configuration
(Indexed 2007-02-27):
This is a head-slapper that happened to someone on my team, the answer wasn't on-line so here it is...Issue DescriptionAfter installing the bits, he runs Configuration enters credentials to connect to SQL and create the configuration database. Next fails with a message that the database server is non-existent or we don’t have the rights to connect to it. SQL Server’s Event Log contains the following MSSQLSERVER entries:“SSPI handshake failed.” “Login failed for ...(truncated)...
How to Build a SharePoint Development Machine
(Indexed 2007-02-23):
The basic strategy is to build your SharePoint server in a virtual machine (VM or VPC), and keep all your developer tools local. Then you can treat your virtual machine just like a physical server, and surf or demo it just as you would a production environement. This way you avoid all the inconsistencies that come with running browser session on locked-down web servers, don’t fill your server’s GAC with quite as much junk, and really get the client experience. This post links to (mos...(truncated)...
Updating data through the BDC
(Indexed 2007-02-22):
The Business Data Catalog (BDC) is one of the best features of MOSS 2007 (no, it's not in WSS 3.0). What excites me is the prospect of not only reading from, but writing back to data sources defined in the BDC. It's recently come up a few times and I've found that many people believe that updating source data is simply not possible, so I second-guessed myself and went back for a closer look to clarify the reality. The goal is to create, update, and delete data in addition to retrievi...(truncated)...
"What's your style?" or "Show me your kung fu."
(Indexed 2007-02-21):
Once again the timeless developer question: what's your methodology? The question came up tonight, here's my current answer: The shortest path between the current situation and the goal. And SharePoint projects are completely different from software development projects, except for the software development parts. What I do is a mix of: Motion - always study the existing situation and plan the solution in terms of capabilities, not features. If you follow this route, avoid Motion "Lite".W...(truncated)...
SharePoint Workflow presentation on Wednesday, February 20
(Indexed 2007-02-21):
This month Bill Brockbank is our guest speaker at the Toronto SharePoint User Group (TSPUG) meeting on Wednesday, February 20 at 6:00pm. Meetings are held on the third Wednesday of each month at Nexient Learning, 2 Bloor West, 8th Floor. For meeting details and to RSVP please visit our website at http://www.tspug.com/.Featured Speaker: Bill Brockbank, SharePoint Specialist, Navantis Topic: Introduction to Windows Workflow in Windows SharePoint Overview of Workflows in SharePoint Workflows activ...(truncated)...
SharePoint Workflow presentation on Wednesday, February 21
(Indexed 2007-02-21):
This month Bill Brockbank is our guest speaker at the Toronto SharePoint User Group (TSPUG) meeting on Wednesday, February 21 at 6:00pm. Meetings are held on the third Wednesday of each month at Nexient Learning, 2 Bloor West, 8th Floor. For meeting details and to RSVP please visit our website at http://www.tspug.com/.Featured Speaker: Bill Brockbank, SharePoint Specialist, Navantis Topic: Introduction to Windows Workflow in Windows SharePoint Overview of Workflows in SharePoint Workflows activ...(truncated)...
20 Free SharePoint Site Templates
(Indexed 2007-02-02):
Half of the "Fab 40" have arrived! After clicking through, on the left-hand navigation you will find links to demo sites for each of the templates. Now AvailableBoard of DirectorsBusiness Performance ReportingCase Management for Government AgenciesClassroom ManagementClinical Trial Initiation and ManagementCompetitive Analysis SiteDiscussion DatabaseDisputed Invoice ManagementEmployee Activities SiteEmployee Self-Service BenefitsEmployee Training Scheduling and MaterialsEquity ResearchIntegrated...(truncated)...
SharePoint 2007 Books: What's in that's new that's good.
(Indexed 2007-02-02):
This week I ordered Todd Bleeker's new SharePoint book: Developer's Guide to the Windows SharePoint Services v3 Platform. Feedback for it is so far great, and I can't wait to give it a read. Todd receives an Attaboy for being the first to get a SharePoint dev book on the shelves, just 22 days after MOSS 2007 went RTM. Scot Hillier won that one for 2003 by publishing about a year and a half after RTM. Let's just say that life is sublime for developers in 2007. [Image] And I'm ...(truncated)...
Metro Toronto .Net User Group Content from Jan. 11
(Indexed 2007-01-15):
Thanks to Graham for inviting me to present and to everyone who came out last Thursday, I had a great time and your questions and comments were terrific!The topic was What ASP.Net Developers Will Love about SharePoint and was delivered in two parts. The main bit was to explain exactly what SharePoint is, to clarify the differences between WSS and MOSS, and to dive into how SharePoint and ASP.Net 2.0 relate. Then we got into the demos and a section that originated with David Gristwood at TechEd E...(truncated)...
Business Data Catalog - Using the BDC Object Model
(Indexed 2007-01-15):
There are a few good MSDN entries with samples on using the Business Data Catalog, aka the ApplicationRegistry namespace. BDChttp://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms563661.aspx BDC - Using the runtime object modelhttp://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms568510.aspx BDC - Get a LobSystem and an Entityhttp://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms501019.aspx BDC - Executing a Finder to retrieve a collectionhttp://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms560143.aspx BDC - Executing a SpecificFinder to...(truncated)...
Two Toronto User Group Meetings: Jan 10 and 11, and CodeCamp 2007
(Indexed 2007-01-08):
It's a busy week indeed with two great user group meetings covering SharePoint in Toronto. The first will be the Toronto SharePoint User Group meeting on Wednesday, January 10. Reza Alirezaei will be the featured speaker this week with a session on Site Columns and Content Types in Office SharePoint Server 2007. Reza is a great speaker with some great demos planned, I'm really looking forward to this one.Next on Thursday I'll be speaking at the Metro Toronto .Net User Group meeting. ...(truncated)...
Reauthentication and opening SharePoint documents on an extranet
(Indexed 2007-01-02):
People find it annoying that when accessing a SharePoint extranet, when you open a file stored in a Document Library, MS-Word will challenge you to enter your username and password again. It happens because the machine is outside the SharePoint domain, and your two desktop applications (Word and Explorer) are running as separate Applications, each of which needs to get its own Authentication token. Note that this doesn't happen over a VPN, which connects your machine as though it were sittin...(truncated)...
Web Design Futures Today: WPF/E
(Indexed 2006-12-04):
This is really cool. The latest bits to be released of the Windows Presentation Framework are for WPF/E. If you do ASP.Net, this is definitely something you want to catch up on before it's released. What is it? From Scott Guthrie's blog:"WPF/E" delivers a small client runtime that enables AJAX developers and designers to deliver richer, cross-platform, interactive web experiences. It will allow applications to go beyond what can be done with pure HTML today, and will enable sites to sig...(truncated)...
SharePoint Bits and the Launch. Oh, and Zune!
(Indexed 2006-11-14):
The MS-Word on the street is that the Office 2007 Professional (but not Pro+ or higher) bits are now available to MSDN subscribers. Thursday is still the day that the floodgates open for the other "smart client" SKUs and the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 products. For packaged software (but who buys off-the-shelf anymore?), the release-to-manufacturing date remains November 30. So you'd like to learn about these live and up close? Come to the biggest launch ever! It's a ...(truncated)...
Great series on building a public website with MOSS 2007
(Indexed 2006-10-30):
Liam Cleary has a fantastic in-depth series running on rebuilding a corporate website with the new WCM features of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. We're talking deep practical dives into CSS, master pages, navigation, and content types. Highly recommended!Part I - Introduction and getting startedPart II - Designing the layoutPart III - Creating the content types Share this post: Email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit![Image]
Resolving the MOSS 2007 error: An item with the same key has already been added.
(Indexed 2006-10-20):
ProblemStarting a Parallel Approval workflow returns an error and produces an item in the Event Log: Exception occurred during request processing. (User: [HOST][username], Form Name: , IP: 192.168.0.1, Request:http://myServer/_layouts/IniWrkflIP.aspx?List={GUID}...(truncated)... Form ID: , Type: ArgumentException, Exception Message: An item with the same key has already been added.)SolutionClear the browser's cache. Share this post: Email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit![Image]
What to do when an Administrator can't approve MOSS 2007 postings
(Indexed 2006-10-20):
Problem Can't Publish or Approve a MOSS 2007 Publishing Site. SymptomsLogging in as either Administrator or another member of the Site Owners group. All items on Tools menu are greyed out except for Start a Workflow (Publish and Approve/Reject greyed out).There is no Publish button, only see Check in to Share Draft and Submit for Approval.The Solution Explicitly add the Administrator to the Approvers group. Optional WorkaroundHow to approving a Workflow without adding the Administrator to th...(truncated)...
Repairing a trashed Office 2007 B2TR installation, and dealing with Error 2711
(Indexed 2006-10-11):
The IssueLast night's automatic Windows Updates trashed my Office 2007 clients, including Outlook, Word, Excel and OneNote. Only Groove survived, and it went through a reconfiguration when the machine restarted. Re-applying B2TR returned the message that "this update has already been applied." Word and Excel 2007 bombed on startup with the message "EXCEL.EXE - Ordinal Not Found: The ordinal 6140 could not be located in the dynamic link library oart.dll."The Solution1. In Add/Remove Programs,...(truncated)...
"Develop Without Borders," and Parkdale Legal Clinic
(Indexed 2006-09-21):
At last night's TSPUG meeting, one of our new members was Kevin Smith of the Parkdale Legal Clinic here in Toronto. Kevin told us a pretty cool contest going on, I'd love to see someone take him up on it. I'll let Kevin describe what it's all about...Microsoft Office 2007 Develop Without BordersThis contest is sponsored by Microsoft Corporation. More than USD$160,000 prizes will beawarded. A developer can win over $12,000.00 in hardwared and software, including OfficeUltimate 20...(truncated)...
Free MOSS 2007 Developer and Infrastructure Training
(Indexed 2006-09-20):
Courtesy MikeFitz: Online clinics covering SharePoint technology are free for a limited time!!! Check 'em out:-- WSS Development: http://www.microsoft.com/learning/elearning/course/5045.asp-- WSS Infrastructure: http://www.microsoft.com/learning/elearning/course/3369.asp-- MOSS Development: http://www.microsoft.com/learning/elearning/course/5046.asp-- MOSS Infrastructure: http://www.microsoft.com/learning/elearning/course/3370.aspWant to develop with Windows SharePoint Services? Start here...(truncated)...
Hiring
(Indexed 2006-09-14):
If you're an experienced SharePoint developer living in south Ontario, I want you to come work with me. We have a great team and great clients, it's my favourite place to work yet. Are you good at what you do? Forward your resume to John today. Share this post: Email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit![Image]
Toronto SharePoint User Group - Season 2
(Indexed 2006-09-14):
We'll be stoking up the campfire next Wednesday the 20th at the usual time and place. See TSPUG.COM for details and to RSVP your attendance. With B2TR out today and RTM around the corner, it's going to be a busy, crazy, fun year. If you're in or near Toronto, come out to a meeting and stay top of this massive wave. If there's a SharePoint user group near you, support it! And if not, I'd say that any city of 100,000 people or more could support one and find 10 to 20 regular me...(truncated)...
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server and Office System Beta 2 Technical Refresh Now Available
(Indexed 2006-09-14):
It's here! There are separate downloads for WSS B2TR, MOSS B2TR, Forms Server, SharePoint Designer, the Office System Clients, and everything else. Optionally, you can run the Office Client upgrades first. Some of the documentation contained in the other patches may even require it. Note that all of the updates are being released in patch form, not as full installs. To do a full install and have B2Tr automagically applied, you can now use the slipstream method [updated: watch Dustin's sl...(truncated)...
Free Office 2007 Training
(Indexed 2006-07-20):
When SharePoint 2003 was released, the biggest gripe of its champions was the the near-total lack of documentation. With MOSS 2007 we're just on Beta 2 and Microsoft already has a wealth of developer documentation, online training, and Virtual Labs. I completely recommend the Virtual Labs; these are actual virtual machines hosted by Microsoft, not scripted Flash stuff. Which means that in addition to working through the step-by-step lab manuals, you can veer off the track at any point, click...(truncated)...
Virtual PC goes free
(Indexed 2006-07-20):
Cool news for SharePoint developers who depend on virtualization to build solutions, or anyone who wants to get into the game. This just in from MSDN:Cool news for SharePoint developers who depend on virtualization to build solutions, or anyone who wants to get into the game. This just in from MSDN:"Virtual PC 2004 is now completely free and now opens up a new realm of possibilities. Even better news for corporate customers who have Software Assurance on their client OS will be that on top of ge...(truncated)...
Ken's blogging about SharePoint, and great HR
(Indexed 2006-07-05):
Whether you're a coffee shop or a systems integrator, it's all about the HR. The best thing about working at ei is the people. Seven of us (and I'm sure to be forgetting someone -- Ken, Dmitri, Luis, Thom, Rod, Ali, and myself) presented to a user group at one time or another this past year on topics across the MS spectrum (Toronto .Net User Group, Metro Toronto .Net User Group, BizTalk User Group, Toronto SharePoint User Group, Toronto CodeCamp, and elsewhere). Three of us (Rod, Luis and myself...(truncated)...
Free SharePoint 2007 Book
(Indexed 2006-06-19):
TechEd 2006 was a SharePoint frenzy this year, drat my luck in not being able to fit it into the schedule. The good news is that many of the resources will be available even if you couldn't make it, and there are sites like Virtual TechEd and Bil Simser's June blog archive to help you live the experience without a plane ticket. There was also the release of a new SharePoint book with the not-so-succint (or descriptive) title: 7 Development Projects for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and...(truncated)...
Upcoming User Group appearances
(Indexed 2006-06-14):
I'll be at the Toronto .Net User Group on Thursday to talk about Web Deployment Projects and MSBuild. It should be a fun one, but perhaps in protest against Microsoft Canada's oppressive requirement to use in-house catering, you'll want to grab a sandwich at Tim's on your way in. There's actually a great set of fast food places next to the MS Canada building (south of Derry Road). But back to the topic, I'll be showing you how to automate your builds to generate different web.configs from develo...(truncated)...
The future of development on Microsoft servers
(Indexed 2006-06-12):
There's a question about the future floating around a private ASPInsiders list, I thought I'd post my response publicly and invite everyone to share their own thoughts. It's not often I can write about SharePoint, ASP.Net, and Lazy Programming all at once. Question:I was wondering what the next big paradigm shift is going to be as far as programming. It seems about every 6-9yrs or so MS redefines the programming paradigm. We saw this from 3.11 to Win95/COM/ASP. From 95-00/01 we saw the CLR/.NET....(truncated)...
SharePoint 2007 Gotchas: Errors and Guidance
(Indexed 2006-05-25):
Subtitled: "You mean you really want to install it?"Before you kick up the bits, go read the aptly titled "Please read this before installing Beta 2" post from the product team, which includes links to known issues and guidance for the installation and configuration of your shiny new toy. A grat starting point for resolving problems is the SharePoint Community Page, which was recently refreshed to provide way more information than before. 'Attaboys will be duly distributed to all involved. If yo...(truncated)...
WSS 2007 Beta 2
(Indexed 2006-05-25):
For those of you anxiously waiting to try out MOSS 2007, the version at the download site will get you SPS and WSS combined. A number of people have asked whether it's possible to install just WSS, and now it is! Thanks to the product team for compiling the elements. [Components required to install WSS 2007 without SPS 2007] [Image]
Office 2007 Public Beta Released Tuesday 9:00 PST
(Indexed 2006-05-24):
or, "Everything you know about Word is wrong."With all the talk about the SharePoint 2007 beta, it would be easy to miss the fact that SharePoint and Office are now really two sides of the same product. Both were released for public trial yesterday with Beta 2. So what's different?Everything! All the Office apps got a facelift in the form of a new navigation system called the Ribbon. See Jensen's post to see what Willis is talkin' 'bout. Well, except for Outlook, which evolved in its own way wit...(truncated)...
SharePoint 2007 Beta 2 Released Today!
(Indexed 2006-05-24):
Today BillG publicly announced MOSS B2 at WinHEC, along with Vista Beta 2 (wow, nice page!) and a slew of virtualization goodies. And with that, the servers in Redmond sprang to life and bits flew across the land. My favourite bits so far? OneNote 2007 -- "it's not just for tablet anymore." Thanks to the SharePoint UA team for this great set of links, I added one that should prove popular -- SharePoint Server 2007 for MCMS 2002 Developers. The can's open, eat up! Install the SharePoint Server ...(truncated)...
Cross Browser Support in SharePoint 2007
(Indexed 2006-05-15):
In this morning's session, one of the questions that BillG could have answered better was about cross-browser support. Simply put, it's not that strong in SPS / WSS 2003, and every admin with Mac or public clients to support wants to know what will be different. The answer is that cross-browser support will be great. The presentation layer is no longer a SharePoint thing, it's an ASP.Net thing and with v2 (aka Whidbey), ASP.Net does a fantastic job of supporting browsers other than MSIE. Pop op...(truncated)...
SharePoint Conference 2006
(Indexed 2006-05-15):
I'm writing today from the Meydenbauer Conference Center in sunny Bellevue, Washington. Bill Gates just gave the keynote, and as always he was fascinating, a few cool demos were shown, there was a touch of revisionist history, and it gave everyone an aspect to think about. Top Five Things Bill Gates Loves About SharePoint 2007 5. Community Features - Wiki, Blogs, RSS 4. Excel Services 3. Client Integration 2. Search and the Business Data Catalog 1. Integrated Applications Bill's #1 needs a lit...(truncated)...
Business Scorecards: Tonight in Toronto
(Indexed 2006-05-10):
Tonight's Toronto SharePoint Users Group meeting will feature the Business Scorecard Manager: Business Scorecards provide graphical snapshots of your business data, revealing underlying trends and critical inflection points. Come learn out how this latest Business Intelligence tool works with SQL Server Analysis Services (for SQL 2000 or 2005) to make real-time business dashboards that management will love. [See a demo] You can register at the link above. See you there![Image]
Great article on Site Definitions
(Indexed 2006-04-20):
Ameet Phandis wrote a terrific article on writing custom site definitions that somehow slipped under the radar when it was published on ASPAlliance in January. In the article, Ameet copies an SPS definition (SPSTOC) as his starting point, most articles use STS to begin. Nice work![Image]
Toronto SharePoint Users Group Tonight!
(Indexed 2006-04-12):
Register at: http://www.tspug.com/ Tonight, CorasWorks will be showing off some great components for SharePoint. If you've used out-of-box SharePoint at all, you probably found some gaps in what it's capable of. CorasWorks fills in those gaps to help you construct some great, useful, navigable apps. I'll also be describing some RSS tricks I've recently developed, and we'll have the usual fireside chat to begin, including a review of the recent SharePoint 2003 Advanced Concepts book by Nadrowsi ...(truncated)...
How I Work: Bill Gates (MS) vs. Marissa Meyer (Google)
(Indexed 2006-04-07):
In this fascinating series, a dozen people talk about how they organize their work. For Bill Gates, it's Three monitors to organize the desktop, Outlook and SharePoint, a Tablet PC with OneNote, and a whiteboard. More in the series (click on a name to bring up the gallery, then use the navigation to see other responses). Be sure to check out Marissa Meyer, Google VP, Search Products and User Experience. Marissa spends one day a week (Saturday or Sunday) doing "e-mail for ten to 14 hours stra...(truncated)...
How I Work: Bill Gates vs. Marissa Meyer
(Indexed 2006-04-07):
In this fascinating series, a dozen people talk about how they organize their work. For Bill Gates, it's Three monitors to organize the desktop, Outlook and SharePoint, a Tablet PC with OneNote, anda whiteboard. More in the series (click on a name to bring up the gallery, then use the navigation to see other responses). Be sure to check out Marissa Meyer, Google VP, Search Products and User Experience. Marissa spends one day a week (Saturday or Sunday) doing "e-mail for ten to 14 hours straight....(truncated)...
MVP v2: There goes the neighbourhood
(Indexed 2006-04-06):
I'm pretty happy to write that I'm on the roster of SharePoint Portal Server MVPs. This is my second time in the program, the last was as an ASP.Net MVP. Since then I've shifted my primary focus from web development to knowledge systems, though I still enjoy web dev and get my fix on that end with continued involvement in the ASPInsiders. Thanks to everyone who made it possible! From Elizabeth, Damir, April, Fitz and the other great people on the Office Server teams in Redmond and Mississauga, ...(truncated)...
Community Backup and Restore
(Indexed 2006-04-05):
Here's a great feature idea for weblog articles - versioning. I went looking for a book link today on my resources page and SONNOVA, the article's been truncated at the Site Template list. Hmmm, I was just updating those the other day. . . ARGH! (These reactions have been heavily sanitized for family viewing.)So maybe there's a way to recover rather than rebuild. In fact, maybe you can help. I wouldn't expect anyone to save a page of links but hey, maybe you have it cached (and have so far resis...(truncated)...
Looked at Eli's SharePoint Resources lately?
(Indexed 2006-04-05):
Here's a great feature idea for weblog articles - versioning. I went looking for a book link today on my resources page and SONNOVA, the article's been truncated at the Site Template list. Hmmm, I was just updating those the other day. . . ARGH! (These reactions have been heavily sanitized for family viewing.)So maybe there's a way to recover rather than rebuild. In fact, maybe you can help. I wouldn't expect anyone to save a page of links but hey, maybe you have it cached (and have so far resis...(truncated)...
Site Definitions: Adding an XML Web Part to a configuration
(Indexed 2006-03-30):
Shane Young had a great post a few days ago on adding a preconfigured XML Web Part into a Site Definition. The pain is that all the examples in ONET.XML use the Image Viewer WP, so how do you figure out how to write the CAML for your own? And while Todd has posted about exporting his tricked out Content Editor Web Parts (CEWP) into reusable DWPs, I haven't seen exactly this trick from him (though I could have missed it). Along the way I wanted to set the FrameType of a Members WP to Title Bar O...(truncated)...
Next Wednesday: Scott Howlett presents AJAX in SharePoint!
(Indexed 2006-03-08):
The Toronto SharePoint User Group meeting is moving from tonight to next Wednesday, March 15. It will be a great one, Scott Howlett of iMason will be coming in to show off some really nifty tricks integrating AJAX with SharePoint. What's AJAX? It's how sites like Live.com, Google Maps and Netvibes work their drag 'n' drop and layered UI magic. Whether you're a developer or just want to see some really great SharePoint customization, come check it out. Register today at TSPUG.com![Image]
Best practices for restorable data
(Indexed 2006-03-08):
The drive on my Toshiba Portege died last Friday. The good news is that I recently picked up a 400Gb external and most everything was backed up. As a replacement I bought the 7200RPM 80Gb Hitachi; the 60Gb version reviewed well and so far it's definitely a fast quiet unit. While most everything on the old drive was backed up, there are a few things I'll do different in the future. First, it's not enough to back up Outlook PST files. It's worth exporting Outlook Settings, Mail Filtering Rules an...(truncated)...
Unit Testing and SharePoint
(Indexed 2006-02-15):
Chris Chapman of iMason develops an NUnit base class for testing SharePoint applications. [Image]
Eli's Resources for SharePoint Search
(Indexed 2006-02-09):
Start HereA wonderful summary of SharePoint Search and Index, how it works, how it is configured, and how WSS and SPS search differ. ReferenceManaging External Content. Excerpted from the SharePoint Resoure Kit, this is an excellent reference on all aspects of search, not just the crawling of external content. Updates to Content Indexes and Content Sources: Differences between Full, Incremental, Incremental (Inclusive), and Adaptive Updates.Scoping and Configuring the Content Index for the Site ...(truncated)...
Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services Inside Out: Excerpts
(Indexed 2006-02-07):
MS Press has another SharePoint book, and like the Resource Kit they've posted a few chapters online for your convenience. Chapter 18: Advanced Design TechniquesChapter 19: Beginning Web Part DevelopmentChapter 21: Creating Custom Administration Tools About the author: Jim Buyens has written more than 10 books on Web-based development, including Microsoft Office FrontPage 2003 Inside Out from Microsoft Press. Jim has 20 years of experience with computer networking technologies and is a Microsof...(truncated)...
Toronto SharePoint User Group: Wednesday, Feb 8
(Indexed 2006-02-06):
Optimise SharePoint Search with Mondosoft Analysis Tools SharePoint search is pretty good, but it's a science all its own and one of the roughest pieces to configure well. When search is left untended, users won't find what they need and when that happens, they tune out and start complaining about your taxonony. Give that a year or so and you've created a brand new file dump. What to do? For starters, take advantage of Mondosoft's knowledge, they've been experts on search since 1998 and they're ...(truncated)...
Out-of-box vs. Modular
(Indexed 2006-02-01):
A number of companies with products for SharePoint were recently cited in a release from Kurt Delbene, the VP of Microsoft's Office Server group, including K2.net workflow (a product of SourceCode) and CorasWorks. Kurt's release highlights the great work done by third parties to make SharePoint a great solution in a variety of settings. I've heard criticism that SharePoint should meet these needs out of the box (why do I need a separate products for document management, records management and w...(truncated)...
Free CorasWorks training on February 28
(Indexed 2006-02-01):
CorasWorks holds free workshops in many cities (see the complete schedule), and Toronto is again on the list for February 28th. In Toronto, workshops are hosted at CTC from 8:30am to 5:00pm on February 28th. To register, please e-mail jprets@corasworks.net. CorasWorks builds a terrific suite of SharePoint extensions and web parts, and this is an excellent opportunity to learn how they don't just build on but actually transform SharePoint's capabilities and ease-of-use. [Image]
TSPUG December and January Recap
(Indexed 2006-01-17):
I'd like to thank a couple of people for helping out the Toronto SharePoint User Group these past two months. In December we were prize-less until John from CorasWorks (creators of some terrific SharePoint add-ins) dropped in and donated a $100 Amazon Gift Certificate to our monthly prize raffle. Thank-you John! And in January, Calvin McLennan came to speak on Small Business Server (and SharePoint's place in it) on relatively short notice. Calvin is an SBS MVP and did a great job explaining why...(truncated)...
SharePoint Team Blogs
(Indexed 2006-01-16):
The SharePoint team has launched a new blog to discuss topics across the SharePoint Products and Technologies family. It started off with a summary of SharePoint's role in Microsoft's collaboration story, a pretty important story to understand if you're in the business. Today they added a good post with links of the role of Business Intelligence in SharePoint with links to a few great related resources like the Excel team's blog and a BI strategy announcements page. PJ Hough has a blog dedicate...(truncated)...
The TSPUG Mission (Note: meeting Wednesday evening)
(Indexed 2005-12-14):
Despite my objections to mission statements (which all inevitably reduce to "all babies must eat"), I've written one for the Toronto SharePoint User Group to eliminate confusion and placed it on our website. After some rumination I removed the opening line which read "TSPUG is a place where SharePoint geeks learn from each other," to leave what you find below (mainly because I couldn't distill the former to "all babies must eat," but also because a group of geeks is correctly a "gaggle" and it's...(truncated)...
Social Network and Relationship Finder (SNARF)
(Indexed 2005-12-12):
I've been following MS sociologist Marc Smith's work for a few years now. In a nutshell, Marc's task is to mine data for socially-relevant information, and he's written some interesting papers on virtual communities. Some time ago I was glad to hear that his focus was turning from the analysis of Usenet messages to e-mail in general. In particular, there are characteristics of communities and message threads that indicate quality (signal-to-noise), the sender's role in the community (leaders, l...(truncated)...
Excel Server and SharePoint
(Indexed 2005-12-05):
On Wednesday in the MSDN Excel blog there was a nice piece on the integration of the new Excel Server and SharePoint. This was actually part 11 (of x) in a lengthy series on the Excel Server being released with Office 12. The basic benefits are that you can now publish a spreadsheet to SharePoint and have more than the limited features currently available in the MS Office Web Parts collection. This particular post also describes how we'll be able to publish scorecard and KPI dashboards with the...(truncated)...
Announcing the Toronto User Group Community Blog
(Indexed 2005-11-29):
You can now stay up-to-date on the various User Group meetings around town by surfing to: http://www.geekswithblogs.net/torontoug/ Individual channels are available for specific groups, so for example to pick up the feed for the Toronto SharePoint User Group you can save one of these links: [TSPUG HTML] [TSPUG RSS Feed]. A big thanks to Rob Windsor for setting this up! [Image]
Son of SmartPart released!
(Indexed 2005-11-22):
First Jan Tielens created SmartPart as a way of quickly deploying any ASP.NET control as a Web Part. Then WSS SP2 made it possible to upgrade your WSS boxes to run on ASP.NET v2, though without being able to take advantage of v2 features. On Sunday, Jan released Son of SmartPart which will allow you to host ASP.NET v2 controls including ASP.NET Web Parts inside WSS Web Parts! Check out Jan's post and the GotDotnet workspace, this is pretty cool. http://weblogs.asp.net/jan/archive/2005/11/20/431...(truncated)...
Multilingual SharePoint
(Indexed 2005-11-21):
In Canada, extranet sites are often provided in both of our distinct national languages -- en-ca (English-Canadian) and en-nf (English-Newfoundland). Occasionally, government sites are also presented in the less entertaining fr-ca (Qubcois). SharePoint Products and Technologies simply aren't multi-lingual, and the language packs force you to choose between available languages for a given site, rather than provide two views of the same content. There's a whitepaper on the topic, and it provides ...(truncated)...
Red Green, Whidbey Launch, and the SharePoint Users Group
(Indexed 2005-11-07):
It's another jam-packed week, if you're at any of these upcoming events, be sure to say hi. Last week: The Red Green Show. At the last public taping of the show I had the honour of presenting Steve Smith (aka Red Green) with a set of fly-fishing flies arranged by flyangler.ca. [Pictures] [Google Results for the last show] Monday: MSDN Community Party. This should be some fun! Tuesday: Toronto Visual Studio 2005, SQL Server, BizTalk Launch. Something like 8,000 people are registered for the Toro...(truncated)...
Speculation on SPS vNext
(Indexed 2005-11-03):
I'm trying to shake a cold, so what follows may be entirely the result of too much cough medicine. Someone asked what to expect from SPS in the Office 12 timeframe, and the fact is that not much was announced at PDC. There was OFF313: Web Content Management Application Development and Engine Extensibility, and. . . that was about it. I wasn't in on the TAP and I'm not under any NDAs with the SharePoint team, so there's no time like now to walk the plank and speculate. What do we know? Workflow ...(truncated)...
PDC 2005 Slide Decks
(Indexed 2005-10-20):
All sessions presented at PDC 2005:http://commnet.microsoftpdc.com/content/downloads.aspx SharePoint 2006 presented at PDC 2005: (the links retrieve the Powerpoint .ppt files from the above site) COML01 Case Study: Revolutionizing Microsoft AxaptaHarnessing Web Services, Workflow and SharePoint COML01_Ehrenberg.ppt OFF307 "Access 12": Developing Collaboration Solutions with "Access 12" and Windows SharePoint Services "v3" OFF307_Covington.ppt OFF308 Windows SharePoint Services 'v3'...(truncated)...
Slide deck: Web Parts in WSS v2, ASP.NET v2, and WSS v3.
(Indexed 2005-10-20):
Thanks again to Graham for asking us to present, the audience for showing up, and to Ali for co-presenting with me at the Metro Toronto .Net User Group last night. It was a lot of fun to put together, as it's probably the first time that the instances of Web Part technology have been studied together as a real evolution. Now that the background is public knowledge (via the upcoming Whidbey RTM and SharePoint 2006 components announced at PDC), I was able to draw on presentations from both the AS...(truncated)...
Metro Toronto .NET User Group: Web Part Wednesday
(Indexed 2005-10-18):
I'm back at the Metro Toronto .NET User Group tomorrow night where I'll be co-presenting with Ali Kheradvar. Writing web parts in SharePoint v2, ASP.NET v2 (aka Whidbey), and SharePoint v3. When: 6:30-8:30pm, October 19, 2005 Where: 200 Bloor Street East Toronto (Manulife Financial) - International AMore information and registration: http://www.metrotorontoug.com/User+Group+Events/208.aspx What are web parts? There's a great explanation by Mike Fitzmaurice, SharePoint Product Manager and all-ar...(truncated)...
TSPUG tonight, and downloads galore
(Indexed 2005-10-12):
Tonight's TSPUG meeting brings us the long-awaited SharePoint Backup, Restore, and Disaster Recovery presentation by Radu Vaduva. As usual we'll spend some time before the presentation talking about what's new and answering questions. And what's new? Lots. The Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) Service Pack 2 for starters. This is a roll-up of WSS SP1 and subsequent fixes (i.e. it's the only update you need to add to a fresh installation). The improvements are significant - WSS now runs under AS...(truncated)...