Alex SharePoint

Simple ToDo List to Migrate MOSS to SP 2010

2011-02-23T22:02:00.000-08:00

For starts its no simple process to migrate from MOSS 2007 to SharePoint 2010. That's because SharePoint is a robust application platform full of site collections, web apps, etc. with plenty of custom features, complications and potential incompatibilities with 3rd party products and user-driven customizations that are abnormal which may not migrate robustly. Nevertheless in order to remember the migration process I'm outlining here some of the key todos.

1. Make sure the existing MOSS 2007 farm is upgraded to the latest service packs and all system issues are resolved. Doing a migration to SharePoint 2010 won't make any issue magically go away. In fact it could just complicate matters.

2. Make the content databases in MOSS 2007 read-only. To set a database to read-only in SQL Server 2008 you open SQL Server Management Studio and use Object Explorer to connect to an instance of the Database Engine, expand the server, and then expand Databases. Select the database that you want to configure to be read-only, right-click the database, and then click Properties. In the Database Properties dialog box, in the Select a page section, click Options. In the right pane, under Other options, in the State section, next to Database Read-Only, click the arrow, and then select True.

3. Copy the .MDF and .LDF files for this database over to the new SQL cluster for the SharePoint 2010 farm in order to implement the content database for SharePoint 2010. In Windows Explorer, browse to the location of the .mdf and .ldf files for the content databases. Select the .mdf and .ldf files for the database you want to move and either copy or move them to the destination directory. In SQL Server Management Studio, open the source instance of SQL Server. Right-click the Databases node, point to Tasks, and then click Attach. In the Attach Database dialog box, browse to the location to which you transferred the .mdf and .ldf files, select the .mdf file for the database you want to attach, and then click OK.

4. Once the database has been restored then run the following command to configure the SharePoint farm.

stsadm -o addcontentdb -url -databasename -preserveolduserexperience true

5. Be sure to do a IISRESET because otherwise it'll look like garbage until the web server resets.

Not thinking about SharePoint just before a Tech Interview

2011-02-11T15:33:00.000-08:00

Recently I had my last tech interview w/o directing the screener to my tech Blogs. In a nutshell the interview didn't go as well as it could've. The reason IMO was because I wasn't thinking about SharePoint just prior to the tech interview. In the future that's going to change. 1. I'll do some thinking/focusing on the specifics regarding the new opportunity. 2. I'll be sure to guide the screener to my Blogs.

I had been up since 5am and working all day in Visual Studio, solving IIS communication issues, looking at some class libraries that were having a problem integrating from SharePoint, helping some developers learn about the 4 key FeatureReceiver events & the reasons why you use try-catch in Activating/Deactivating and why you don't override the Installing/Uninstalling events, and solving some JQuery issues. So finally 5pm came and it was time for the phone interview.

The screener at the end said he was concerned that I didn't know much about Sharepoint. I asked why. He said because I didn't even know what the 6 pillars of SharePoint were. And he said that I didn't even know what the SharePoint web services are. He said it looked like I was just working on the types of projects that they don't do much of. I'm certainly not going to give out his name because I'm about the criticize him. IMO he obviously doesn't know how to do effective technical screens. The primary purpose of a technical screen is to validate the person's resume. Are they telling the truth? What types of skills do they have? And if you're hiring them for a position that's "perm" its especially important to find out what their aptitude is like and what things they want to do in the future.

BTW I did know what the 6 pillars of SharePoint were and what the SharePoint web services were. It was just a long day and I wasn't at my sharpest for the interview. And he never had specifically ask what the 6 pillars were.

In SP2007 the 6 pillars were: Collaboration, Portal, Enterprise Search, ECM, Business Process/Forms, Business Intelligence

In SP2010 the 6 pillars are: Communities, Sites, Search, Content Management, Composites, Insights

If I had spent the last 6 months being a SharePoint 2010 salesman then they'd probably be at the tip of my tongue. As luck would have it I've been focused on migrating some pretty complex/difficult applications from SP2007 to SP2010 so I haven't been thinking much about all the buzzwords. However I certainly have been deep in solving search/CM issues, helping site owners figure out wikis/blogs/tags/ratings/MySites/feeds, working with the Ribbon, javascript, integration, taxonomies, workflows, content types, records management, InfoPath, Excel Services, and Performance Point.

BTW see http://www.codebanking.com/articles/sharepoint/sharepoint-six-pillars.asp for a glance at the details.

The SharePoint web services are listed at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee705814.aspx online.

For example, you can use the GetListCollection method in the http:///_vti_bin/Lists.asmx service to get a list of Lists\List XML nodes in an XML document whose ID/Title properties can be used to help me drill into a specific List object.

However I tend to prefer the more secure, compiled/fast alternative of accessing the Lists property of a SPWeb object I opened up directly with SPContext.Current (or indirectly with its site collection's SPSite object). I've learned with SharePoint that its vital to know how to do effective up-front analysis. That's because many tasks can be self-service, easily done by a site owner, or souped up together by an designer/analyst in SharePoint Designer. The harder stuff needs to be thrown into some sort of application. By default I'm opinionated on this. I prefer building robust ASP.Net user controls to throw into the controltemplates folder underneath the 14 hive (or 12 hive in SP2007 or SP2003). Then I wrap these using what I call the User Control Container Web Part (UCCWP). It has 2 custom properties called Control Path and Control Parameters. The Control Parameters property is a XML string which if set to "help" displays a 3-column grid in the content area listing all the parameters' names, example values, and HTML descriptions. The code for this is specified in the ascx.cs partial class method that implements the base class's HelpHtml method. Of course I've learned that I have to roll with the punches and check my ego at the door on any given engagement I'm working.

I also suppose it didn't help when I told him too much about my experience in customizing Microsoft's Application Lifecycle Management tools/components to integrate with SharePoint and other presentation layers such as traditional ASP.Net, WinForms, WCF, WPF, etc. because too many SharePoint developers think of TFS as being just Version Control like many people view SharePoint as being just a shared file system directory on the network.

CMAP Presentations

2010-11-06T11:42:00.000-07:00

Please see http://alex-tfs.blogspot.com/2010/11/cmap-presentations.html for the presentations I made on Application LifeCycle Management (ALM) and de SharePoint Control Container Web Part (deCCWP) for ASP.Net User Controls.

Resources for 2010 Development

2010-09-25T07:17:00.001-07:00

Click on http://tinyurl.com/2010move to download an ebook titled "Moving to Microsoft Visual Studio 2010".

Click on http://tinyurl.com/sp2010pptx to download 17 advanced developer training presentations on SharePoint 2010.

See http://tinyurl.com/sp2010apps for "Developing Applications for SharePoint 2010" where you can download a guidance documentation, detailed examples, and a reusable class library to help developers and architects make the right decisions and follow proven practices when designing and developing applications for SharePoint 2010. The guide has four core areas: application foundations, execution models, data models, and client models. It also includes eight reference implementations illustrating the core concepts covered in the guide. The reusable class library provides code to help developers build more manageable, flexible, and testable applications. Source code is provided for all reference implementations and for the reusable library. The reference implementations have automated setup scripts to configure the applications.

See http://tinyurl.com/sdk2010 for the SharePoint 2010 SDK. It includes documentation and code samples for Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 and for Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010, which builds upon the SharePoint Foundation 2010 infrastructure. The documentation includes detailed descriptions of the technologies that SharePoint Server 2010 and SharePoint Foundation 2010 provide for developers, reference documentation for the server and client object models, and step-by-step procedures for using these technologies and object models and programming with them. This SDK also includes best practices and setup guidance to help you get started with your own custom applications that build and extend upon the SharePoint Foundation 2010 and SharePoint Server 2010 platforms.

InfoPath Form Services for SharePoint 2010 is Missing

2010-09-22T06:56:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was working with my new SharePoint 2010 development farm. I had an InfoPath form template (i.e. .xsn file) to deploy. I opened up SharePoint Central Administration and went to the General Application Settings page (i.e. generalapplicationsettings.aspx on the Central Admininstration site). I noticed that the "InfoPath Forms Services" section between "External Service Connections" and "Site Directory" is missing.

Obviously I didn't have the Enterprise version installed. So here's how I solved it:
1. Go to MSDN subscriptions - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/downloads/default.aspx
2. Login and open/expand the Servers link in the left navigation to find the "SharePoint Server 2010" product.
3. In the content panel you'll see the "SharePoint Server 2010 (x64) - DVD (English)" product information display. Click on the "View" link of the "Keys" column. Copy the "Enterprise CAL" product key for use in step #7 below.
4. I opened up SharePoint Central Administration and went to the (i.e. upgradeandmigration.aspx on the Central Admininstration site).
5. In the "Upgrade and Patch Management" section click on the "Convert farm license type" link to bring up the Conversion.aspx page.
6. Enter in the new product key and convert to the "SharePoint Server with Enterprise Client Access License" edition.
7. Now go back to the General Application Settings page in SharePoint Central Administration and you should now see the "InfoPath Forms Services" section with its links.

CopyAppBinContent and Workflow Error with InfoPath Form

2010-09-22T06:35:00.000-07:00

Kudos to David Stampfli of Microsoft on his valuable assistance solving this dilemma.

I deployed an InfoPath Form template (.xsn file) to a SharePoint 2010 farm and configured a form library to use this template for new documents. In the InfoPath form a call is made to a custom workflow. Everything appears to be configured correctly. But when I save the form I get the following primary error message:

"Unexpected WinWF Internal Error, terminating workflow Id# f7967a24-ee3b-4056-8513-61a10854058c"

An internal exception has the following message:
Unexpected System.Resources.MissingManifestResourceException: Could not find any resources appropriate for the specified culture or the neutral culture. Make sure "Resources.[............].resources" was correctly embedded or linked into assembly "App_GlobalResources.nkxekvue" at compile time, or that all the satellite assemblies required are loadable and fully signed.

What happened? The page resource files weren't properly deployed to the Web Application on the Farm during the WSP deployment. In order to mitigate this issue we have the CopyAppBinContent command for STSADM. See http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc261996(office.12).aspx for more. On the WFE I ran the following command to resolve this issue:

stsadm.exe –o copyappbincontent

Configuring Site Usage Reports

2010-09-20T10:46:00.000-07:00

I noticed that my site collection administrators weren't able to see their usage statistics. The issue was that the "Enable advanced usage analysis processing" checkbox was unchecked on the SSP's "Configure Advanced Usage Analysis Processing" screen. Here's what needs to be done to resolve this issue.

1. Open up SharePoint Central Administration
2. Click on the link to the SSP site home page.
3. Click on the link to "Usage Reporting" under the "Office SharePoint Usage Reporting" heading. This is _layouts/SpUsageConfig.aspx on the SSP site.
4. You will be on the "Configure Advanced Usage Analysis Processing" screen. Make sure that both checkboxes for "Enable advanced usage analysis processing" and "Enable Search Query Logging" are checked. Then press OK.
5. Now go to each Site Collection's Features (i.e. _layouts/ManageFeatures.aspx?Scope=Site from the site collection root).
6. If the Reports feature is activated then deactivate it.
7. Now click the Activate button for the Reporting feature.
8. As data is collected the site adminsitrators can use _layouts/SpUsageWeb.aspx on their site to see their site's statistics.
9. As data is collected the site collection administrators can use _layouts/SpUsageSite.aspx on their site collection root to see their entire site collection statistics.

Branding, Design, Skinning, etc. for SharePoint 2010

2010-08-16T07:48:00.000-07:00

Microsoft has sure done plenty to improve the look/feel and user experience in SharePoint 2010 over MOSS 2007, WSS, STS, etc. earlier editions of SharePoint. But alas there are always going to be people/groups who will want to spend money on more design customizations. To do so wisely I recommend the following procedures:

1. Think first. The proper term for site look/feel customizations in SharePoint is "branding". You also want your SharePoint 2010 "branding" to be usable long-term so stay tuned in to the key SharePoint 2010 branding strategies so you can have confidence that Microsoft will implement a migration path for future editions of SharePoint.
2. Make the focus of the design changes/implementations to be on the Master Pages. See http://startermasterpages.codeplex.com for a good starting point.
3. Read up on SharePoint 2010 branding. See http://www.sharepointpodshow.com/archive/2009/12/21/sharepoint-2010-branding-episode-40.aspx, http://www.sharepoint911.com/training/Pages/Branding2010.aspx, and http://community.bamboosolutions.com/blogs/sharepoint-2010/archive/2009/10/21/spc-customizing-amp-branding-my-sites-in-sharepoint-2010-with-heather-solomon.aspx to get started.
4. Understand the basics of what a WSP is. As you are building branding capabilities such as master pages, CSS, other stylings, etc. you will be doing so in SharePoint Designer, Visual Studio, Notepad, a CEWP or some other tools. Ultimately you'll want them all packaged up in WSP(s) for sustainability, maintainability, reusability, migrations, and collaboration. See http://www.bing.com/search?q=sharepoint+2010+WSP+%22Solution+Package%22 to get the latest info on WSP(s).

maxRequestLength and Large File Uploads for Web Server

2010-08-04T06:32:00.000-07:00

I had an end user working with InfoPath Form Services in MOSS get an error when he attempted to load large attachments to his InfoPath document. Sure enough there was no httpRuntime tag in the machine.config file on the Web Front Ends (WFE), and thus no maxRequestLength attribute setting. The default value is 4096 which means 4096 kilobytes or 4 Meg. I upped it to 16 meg and the problem went away.

See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/e1f13641(VS.71).aspx for technical specifications on the httpRuntime tag and its maxRequestLength attribute.

Here's a snippet of machine.config to demonstrate the concept.

<configuration>
<system.web>
<httpRuntime maxRequestLength=16384 />
</system.web>
</configuration>

You can locate the machine.config file in the MOSS WFE's .NET framework runtime's config directory within the Windows Microsoft.Net directory tree. In my case it was the C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v2.0.50727\Config directory.

Page_Load and OnLoad

2010-08-02T14:30:00.000-07:00

Today I relearned an important lesson on the Page_Load and OnLoad event handlers for ASP.Net user controls. We cannot assume that they are one and the same in the page lifecycle. By default Visual Studio will create an event handler for Page_Load when you doubleclick on the designer panel for a user control.

This default behavior of Visual Studio set up a disaster in conjunction with my SharePoint development framework.

In my framework I've created a Framework.Base.BaseUserControl class that inherits from the System.Web.UI.UserControl class. The purpose of this BaseUserControl class is to serve as an ancestor class for all my user controls that get deployed with SharePoint solutions. In addition, the web part wrapper class (i.e. Framework.Base.BaseWebPart) assumes that the wrapped user control descends from this class.

Here's the OnLoad event handler in BaseUserControl.

protected override void OnLoad(EventArgs e)
{
this.MyBaseControlLoadLogic();
base.OnLoad(e);
}

Here's the result in Visual Studio for my user control.

protected override void Page_Load(EventArgs e)
{
base.OnLoad(e);
this.MyControlLoadLogic();
}

Everything compiles. But then all I got was a blank screen. I did some debugging and then discovered my mistake. The base.OnLoad(e) call im my Page_Load was causing a stack overflow that crashed my development web server. All I had to do was rename Page_Load as OnLoad.

protected override void OnLoad(EventArgs e)
{
base.OnLoad(e);
this.MyControlLoadLogic();
}

It worked :)

Referencing the current user in SharePoint Code

2010-07-29T10:32:00.000-07:00

In this example I'm making the assumption that you have a web page or web part hosted in SharePoint that is calling a user control with a C# codebehind (i.e. a .ascx.cs file). The code here is called in the partial class.

There are 2 object references available to use in gathering current user information:

System.Web.HttpContext.Current.User.Identity has a type definition of the System.Security.Principal.IIdentity interface.

Microsoft.SharePoint.SPContext.Current.Web.CurrentUser has a type definition of the
Microsoft.SharePoint.SPUser class.

In my code if my Active Directory account is adegaston on the domain called MyDomain then the output of the following function would be:

"Login:MyDomain\adegaston; Display:Alex Degaston."

private string SampleCode()
{
string loginName = System.Web.HttpContext.Current.User.Identity.Name;
string displayName = Microsoft.SharePoint.SPContext.Current.Web.CurrentUser.Name;
string kFormat = "Login:{0}; Display:{1}.";
return String.Format(kFormat, loginName, displayName);
}

Colors are the Key to Asthetic Appeal

2010-07-29T10:30:00.000-07:00

I found a great color chart at http://cloford.com/resources/colours/500col.htm to help me with the look/feel of websites.

Upgrading an Existing SharePoint Solution Package

2010-07-19T10:18:00.001-07:00

If I already have a solution installed on SharePoint 2007 but I need to quickly upgrade it then I run the following script.

stsadm -o upgradesolution -filename mySolution.wsp -name mySolution.wsp -immediate -allowgacdeployment
stsadm -o execadmsvcjobs
stsadm.exe -o copyappbincontent
stsadm -o execadmsvcjobs

Note: replace "mySolution" with the solution's actual name.

Post-Build Event Script in Visual Studio

2010-07-08T12:42:00.000-07:00

When doing SharePoint development its good to choose on-the-fly whether I want to compile for the sake of making sure my code is compilable or to verify that my code deploys/activates successfully to a website. To accomplish this I've created a Post-Build Event script for my project as follows.

if $(ConfigurationName) == Debug GOTO DoDebugSkip
DEL "$(TargetDir)$(ProjectName).wsp"
"C:\Program Files\WSPTools\WSPBuilderExtensions\WspBuilder" -SolutionPath "$(ProjectDir)" -OutputPath "$(TargetDir)"

ECHO ON
call "c:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\VC\vcvarsall.bat"
gacutil /u $(ProjectName).dll
gacutil /i $(TargetDir)$(ProjectName).dll
@set PATH=C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN;%PATH%

stsadm -o deactivatefeature -filename $(ProjectName)\Feature.xml -url http://localhost/
stsadm -o execadmsvcjobs
stsadm -o retractsolution -name "$(ProjectName).wsp" -allcontenturls -immediate
stsadm -o execadmsvcjobs
stsadm -o deletesolution -name "$(ProjectName).wsp" -override
stsadm -o execadmsvcjobs

stsadm -o addsolution -filename "$(ProjectName).wsp"
stsadm -o execadmsvcjobs
stsadm -o deploysolution -name "$(ProjectName).wsp" -url http://localhost -immediate -allowGacDeployment -allowCasPolicies -force
stsadm -o execadmsvcjobs
stsadm -o activatefeature -filename $(ProjectName)\Feature.xml -url http://localhost/
stsadm -o execadmsvcjobs
stsadm –o copyappbincontent
stsadm -o execadmsvcjobs

iisreset
:DoDebugSkip

HRESULT: 0x80040E14

2010-06-28T07:41:00.000-07:00

When attempting to add content to a List we got the following error "Exception from HRESULT: 0x80040E14". This error may occur when the file system on the data tier has run out of space. I used mstsc.exe to login to the server running SQL Server for this SharePoint farm and discovered there was only 500K left on the 40 gig C: drive. In SQL Server Management Studio I found the chief culprits were two log files hogging up approx. 23 gig and confirmed the files' location/sizes on the C: drive. I truncated both of them, this C: drive now has over 23 gig of free space, and this resolved the issue. Here's the command I used for truncating one of these log files.

USE SharePoint_Config
GO
ALTER DATABASE SharePoint_Config Set Recovery Simple
GO
ALTER DATABASE SharePoint_Config Set Recovery Full
GO
DBCC SHRINKFILE('SharePoint_Config_log', 2)
GO

Workflow for Sharepoint 2010

2009-11-18T06:55:00.000-08:00

TFS 2010 and Sharepoint 2010 are quickly headed towards purchase and adoption by IT organizations of enterprises all over the globe. I'm determined to get up-to-speed on any changes to the Sharepoint Workflow functionality. I found a collection of videos at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/ee513154.aspx to help techies get up-to-speed. However it takes 22+ minutes to watch all 5 videos so I planned an approach that should work in grasping all this new info. Here are my steps.

(1) See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee537015(office.14).aspx for the latest in Workflow features for Sharepoint 2010.

(2) Go to http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/ee513154.aspx and click on the "Test your skills" button to really learn the main ideas to grasp.

(3) look at the code snippets at http://blogs.msdn.com/pandrew/pages/GettingStarted2010Snippets7.aspx,

(4) speed read through Paul Andrew's http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/ee335710.aspx article.

(5) Plan to return to http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/ee513154.aspx with your earphones during your lunch break to watch these videos.

And finally ....
(6) repeat steps 1-4 more carefully in order that you master the material.

A similar approach could be taken with the other 9 modules at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/ee513147.aspx for getting up-to-speed on the Sharepoint 2010 platform.

ExecAdmSusJob

2009-07-22T13:41:00.000-07:00

The ExecAdmSusJob command of the StsAdm utility is important to use in your Sharepoint deployment batch files.

MS-DOS script to remove a SharePoint solution

2009-04-21T10:20:00.000-07:00

If you have a SharePoint solution (i.e. .WSP) that you'd like to remove then you could build a 4-step script to run in a MS-DOS script as follows. Just substitute the name of your .wsp file in both places here where it says MySolution.wsp.

"C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN\stsadm.exe" -o retractsolution -name MySolution.wsp -immediate -allcontenturls

"C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN\stsadm.exe" -o execadmsvcjobs

"C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN\stsadm.exe" -o deletesolution -name MySolution.wsp -override

"C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN\stsadm.exe" -o execadmsvcjobs

Deploy a WSP without WSPBuilder using STSADM

2009-02-18T13:10:00.000-08:00

For SharePoint development I typically use Visual Studio and WSPBuilder to do all my packaging/deployment of my code through .WSP(s). However its important to remmember the procedures for doing it directly through STSADM. At a DOS prompt you want to do the following:

1. Go to the directory where the .WSP file is located.

2. Add the directory containing STSADM to the DOS path.
@set PATH=C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN;%PATH%

3. Add the solution:
stsadm -o addsolution -filename AlexSolution.wsp
stsadm -o execadmsvcjobs

4. Deploy the solution:
stsadm -o deploysolution -name AlexSolution.wsp -immediate -allcontenturls -allowGacDeployment -allowCasPolicies
stsadm -o execadmsvcjobs

5. Activate the feature in the solution:
stsadm -o activatefeature -name AlexFeature -url http://localhost

What version of SharePoint am I running?

2009-02-18T13:02:00.000-08:00

1. Find out your server name and the port number for SharePoint Central Administration. In my case its moss2007vm1 and 41819.

2. Go to the Settings.aspx page in the Layouts folder - i.e. http://moss2007vm1:41819/_layouts/settings.aspx

3. Look for Version under Site Information. In my case its 12.0.0.6219.

Which one?

MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 Cumulative update (KB956056 & KB956057) 12.0.0.6327
MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 Infrastructure Update (KB951695 & KB951297) 12.0.0.6318
MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 post-SP1 hotfix (KB948945) 12.0.0.6303
MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 post-SP1 hotfix (KB941274) 12.0.0.6301
MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 post-SP1 hotfix (KB941422) 12.0.0.6300
MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 SP1 12.0.0.6219
MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 October public update 12.0.0.6039
MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 August 24, 2007 hotfix package 12.0.0.6036
MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 RTM 12.0.0.4518
MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 Beta 2 TR: 12.0.0.4407
MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 Beta 2: 12.0.0.4017

Source: Penny Coventry's blog at http://www.mindsharpblogs.com/penny/articles/481.aspx

Creating Custom Lists in SharePoint Features

2009-02-16T08:31:00.000-08:00

One of the fastest ways to feel extremely ill as an IT worker is to read and analyze a schema.xml file associated with a SharePoint list of a SharePoint feature solution in Visual Studio. These files are thousands of lines long, cumbersome to read and make the Oracle SQL*Forms files I dealt with on my first internship in 1989 look like a piece of cake. There must be a better way to create/customize SharePoint Lists for a custom Feature. The good news is that there is and here are the steps:

1. On your dev SharePoint site create the custom list with all the attributes needed. For this example I'll suppose the site URL is http://moss2007vm1:81 and the new custom list is named MyCustomList.

2. Create an empty subdirectory in the c:\temp drive of the dev virtual machine called MyCustomListCode.

3. Go to a DOS prompt on the C: drive of this virtual machine and type in: CD "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN"

4. Type in: STSADM.EXE -o ocdexportlist -url http://moss2007vm1:81 -name "MyCustomList" -dir c:\temp\MyCustomListCode

5. Examine the contents of the c:\temp\MyCustomListCode directory and see that there is a schema.xml file and a few .ASPX files for the custom list. Move these files into the MyCustomList subdirectory of your Feature in Visual Studio.

6. Compile the Feature and build the WSP. Verify that the Feature is not activated on your site and that the custom list is not on your site. Then deploy the WSP to your dev site and activate the Feature and verify that the custom list was successfully created.

Suggestion: If you need to add lookups or dependencies on other features/lists this is possible with the schema.xml file and other XML config files in your solution and associated Features staplings. However I recommend adding such things AFTER the lists are created in custom code called from the Feature's FeatureActivated event handler.

Becoming an OOTB SharePoint Guru Quickly

2009-01-26T06:58:00.000-08:00

At http://www.endusersharepoint.com/?p=1241 is listed a few quick-learn skills that can turn a techie into a capable SharePoint administrator.

* Control the Quick Launch display… tweak, collapse and hide
* Let users manage the interface with the click of a button
* Hide major chunks of the interface that are just not needed on some pages
* Allow manual resizing of web parts on the page
* Expand and contract all groups in a list
* Manage your own resources for creating other basic, interface interactions

Warning: To get more out of SharePoint requires some very serious experience. But there is plenty of value with SharePoint out-of-the-box (OOTB). That's why its such a popular platform.

Thesaurus for SharePoint

2009-01-26T06:53:00.000-08:00

Download http://www.jornata.com/presentations/thesaurus.xls for a MS Excel spreadsheet that generates the file. Name this file tsneu.xml and place it in the "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office Servers\12.0\Data\Office Server\Applications\\Config" directory on the MOSS server.

Kudos to Mauro Cardarelli at http://blogs.officezealot.com/mauro/archive/2008/12/04/21280.aspx for this idea.

Top 15 SharePoint Blogs

2009-01-26T06:48:00.000-08:00

According to Technorati and Joel Oleson the top 15 SharePoint blogs right now are the following:

SharePoint Blog URL
http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint
http://andrewconnell.com/blog
http://weblogs.asp.net/bsimser
http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/blogs/mikeg
http://blogs.msdn.com/joelo
http://heathersolomon.com/blog
http://blah.winsmarts.com
http://blogs.msdn.com/pandrew
http://blogs.msdn.com/ecm
http://www.sharepointjoel.com
http://weblogs.asp.net/jan
http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepointdesigner
http://www.harbar.net
http://blog.thekid.me.uk

See http://www.sharepointjoel.com/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?List=0cd1a63d-183c-4fc2-8320-ba5369008acb&ID=93 for details.

Skills of a SharePoint Architect

2009-01-26T06:33:00.000-08:00

Read http://blogs.msdn.com/joelo/archive/2007/07/23/depth-and-breadth-in-a-sharepoint-architect-skills.aspx to see a good list of skills for a SharePoint Architect. Joel Oleson breaks the recommended skills into 4 areas: Core, Solutions, Extended, Interop/Integration. Here's his long list for Core.

IIS 6/7, Windows Server 2003/2008, DNS/WINS (Name Resolution), TCP/IP, SQL Server 2005 Admin (Backup, Monitoring, Logshipping or Database Mirroring), Basic Firewall rules/Proxy, IT Infrastructure Design, Hardware Acquisition (RAM, CPU, Disk I/O, etc.), Performance Monitoring, Capacity Planning, Growth Management, Windows Workflow Foundation, Client Troubleshooting & Support (IE, Firefox, Safari, Office XP, 2003, 2007, etc.), HTML & Client side scripting (Javascript, AJAX, DHTML, XSL, XSLT, XHTML), Exchange/SMTP integration (Inbound/Outbound email + contact objects), High Availability (Microsoft Cluster Services, Windows Network Load Balancing), Storage (Appliances, HBAs, SANs, Archive Storage), Backup Solutions (Various Tape, Hardware and software snapshots, software nearline and offline storage, DPM 2007, etc.), Hardware load balancing & ISA Secure Web Publishing, IAG (Internet Application Gateway), Whale Communications, Single Sign on integration, Connection Monitoring & Troubleshooting (ADO.NET, Web Services, CDO), Global Deployments & Multi farm deployments, Environments (i.e. Dev, Test, Staging, Production - Staged deployments), SDLC (i.e. MOF, ITIL, MSF Frameworks), Virtualization (Virtual Server 2005, Virtual PC, VMWare).

Read his blog for his list on Solutions, Extended and Interop/Integration. Being a SharePoint Architect is no easy skillset to master overnight :) Perhaps its best to track which skills are most associated with SharePoint. See http://www.itjobswatch.co.uk/jobs/uk/sharepoint.do for the following list: .NET, Microsoft, SQL Server, C#, ASP.Net, SharePoint Server 2007, Windows, SQL, MS Excel, XML.

SharePoint performance limitations

2009-01-26T06:17:00.000-08:00

Read http://www.thesanitypoint.com/archive/2009/01/23/sharepoint-and-the-laws-of-physics.aspx to get a reminder that SharePoint needs to be implemented wisely with performance issues in mind. A few notes to glean:

1. Many envision SharePoint as a replacement for their regular network file shares. Keep in mind the "2000 document limit".

2. Even taking appropriate topology and taxonomy steps, heavy file-based SharePoint usage is going to significantly reduce the "rated" capacity of a SharePoint environment.

3. Consider if the users are geographically spread out. Would you want to channel all of the current file-server usage in your remote offices through a single WAN link?

4. Remember that SharePoint itself resides on a Windows server, and stores everything in SQL Server databases, and consider what an all-out consolidation would mean.

5. Don't forget that SharePoint is only one piece of the total puzzle. Your network, your geographical distribution, and other factors, need to play as large a role in your planning for SharePoint as they do with any other system in your enterprise.

6. Read http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc261716.aspx for Microsoft's document on MOSS performance/capacity planning.

$200 Netbook reminder why

2009-01-26T05:28:00.000-08:00

Its not much a secret that cost-cutting is a norm during recessions. The $200 Netbook (see http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/01/26/technology/26spend.php) is a reminder of that trend. And now we see IT organizations cutting costs on development (i.e. Java, C#, Cobol, C, VB, etc.) and packages (i.e. PeopleSoft, SAP, etc.) for lower cost alternatives such as cloud computing (i.e. everything on the server). However with concerns over security and all its legal implications they need a robust platform for cloud computing that's secure, auditable, feature-rich, agile and from a reliable vendor. And that's precisely why SharePoint and TFS are so hot right now. SharePoint is a full-service portal that can be customized with agility to do anything. TFS is the same for an IT organization striving to do the same for the business-at-large.

14 Very Useful SharePoint Links

2009-01-14T10:48:00.000-08:00

SharePoint Customization Best Practices - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb861954.aspx
How We Did It - http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/tags/Customization/default.aspx
Planning for MOSS 2007 - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc261834.aspx
Effective Portal Creation with SharePoint 2007 - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc184928.aspx
WSS Developer Center - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/default.aspx
MOSS Developer Center - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/aa905503.aspx
MOSS 2007 on TechNet - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/office/sharepointserver/default.aspx
Downloadable MOSS 2007 Info - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262788.aspx
SharePoint Designer Developer Portal - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/bb421303.aspx
Moss 2007 SDK - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms550992.aspx
WSS 2007 SDK - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms441339.aspx
Interoperability with Moss 2007 - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/interopmigration/bb544954.aspx
Security in Moss 2007 - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263215.aspx
Microsoft Case Microsoft Case Studies - http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/search.aspx?Keywords=SharePoint&ProTaxID=1902&EmpSize=1000000002

Best Practices for Intranet Sites

2009-01-14T09:16:00.000-08:00

See http://www.useit.com/alertbox/intranet_design.html for the "10 Best Intranets of 2009". Its this year's results of a 9 year annual intranet design competition. Some tidbits I gleaned.

1. One of the strongest trends over the years is that intranet teams have been getting bigger. IMO Intranet teams are becoming the central administration and corporate communications departments for companies.

2. We're seeing a steady increase in user-centered design. Simple customization can often generate sizeable productivity wins. IMHO building web parts and user controls rather than just application pages is integral to this goal. Anything built for SharePoint ought to be plug-n-playable within user-customized pages that they'll be building for themselves.

3. To assess the ROI of intranet redesigns, teams primarily relied on usage metrics in terms of users, visits, or page views.

4. Collaboration features such as social networking, employee directories, CEO blogs and interactive forums are becoming vital. IMO the CEO doesn't write the blog. Its done by an Intranet team staff member who exchanges about 10 emails a day with the CEO's secretary who knows how to make emergency blog changes.

5. Many of the top intranets are built on a single intranet platform that integrates most of the supporting features they need.

6. Fully half of the winning intranets used SharePoint, especially the recent MOSS platform (Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007). As the following chart shows, SharePoint use has grown dramatically in recent years. This is particularly impressive given that, from 2003–2006, the winning intranets didn't use earlier versions of SharePoint at all. This may help explain why I get hundreds of emails from recruiters every week.

Get Started as a SharePoint Developer

2009-01-14T08:01:00.001-08:00

At http://tinyurl.com/wanna-sharepoint I found some good references on what to do to start becoming a master SharePoint developer that inspire this post:

(1) Do custom development for SharePoint on a Windows Server machine that has SharePoint and Visual Studio installed. You will regret trying it any other way this year. Download Virtual PC at http://tinyurl.com/virtual2007 and the VHD at http://tinyurl.com/share2007vhd.

(2) Free Online Training – There’s lots of online training out there. Some of it free, some of it quite costly. One of the newer offerings is a Ramp Up course from Microsoft: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/rampup/dd221355.aspx

(3) Read BLOGs and do Twitter searches on SharePoint. See http://alex-share.blogspot.com, http://www.andrewconnell.com/blog, http://www.sharepointcowboy.com, http://www.sharepointjoel.com/default.aspx, and http://search.twitter.com/search?q=SharePoint

(4) Find good sample code. See http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/Project/ProjectDirectory.aspx?ProjectSearchText=Sharepoint or http://www.codeplex.com/site/search?projectSearchText=SharePoint for plenty of SharePoint code samples.

(5) Stay current on SharePoint by going to http://alex-share.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default to subscribe to this BLOG. If you don't have a RSS Reader then I suggest using http://reader.google.com as your reader.

Future Improvements on C# Code Commenting

2009-01-02T09:09:00.000-08:00

Read http://alex-tfs.blogspot.com/2009/01/best-practice-on-c-code-commenting.html to see a tutorial I wrote on what I consider to be the current "best practice" for C# Code Commenting. I have a few suggestions on future improvements to this "Best Practice":

(1) There should be a way to automate adding a post-build event for source code projects to have the Sandcastle CHM generated as part of the build.
(2) Certainly other project documentation (such as project charters, requirements documents, design/architecture documents, TFS reports (i.e. builds, work items, changesets, etc.) and other artifacts can be integrated into the post-build event.
(3) Certainly the whole post-build process done locally on auto-building the CHM file and including other artifacts can be included as part of the TFS Build process.
(4) Certainly templates with the HP logo, SLM-labels, and other process needs can be integrated into the help-files generation process.
(5) Considering that code comments are compiled into a XML file using a defined schema we can always customize the documentation however we want with XSLT, third party tools, etc.
(6) As Sandcastle is "open source" and Visual Studio is quite extensible it should be possible to specify custom XML tags that can be processed to generate whatever output or perform whatever tasks we want done at build-time.

Do you have any suggestions to add?

Best Practice on C# Code Commenting

2009-01-02T08:54:00.000-08:00

For the next 30 minutes I recommend you do the following 7 steps. They'll teach you how to become proficient on a best practice for self-documenting your C# code in projects done using Microsoft Visual Studio. The same lessons apply for other .NET languages but I mention C# because its the most popular one. Once you've learned this process I'm confident you will use it for now on because it automates the documentation process for all development work to allow you to build HTML/Help files on-the-fly. Make sure you have Visual Studio 2005 or later installed on your workstation and that you've been able to successfully create and build a solution/project before proceeding with these steps.

(1) Read http://www.winnershtriangle.com/w/Articles.DocumentingCSharpSourceCode.asp which is an excellent intro to C# Code Commenting.

(2) Read http://www2.sys-con.com/ITSG/virtualcd/Dotnet/archives/0108/horan/index.htm for a nice explanation on code commenting.

(3) Run Visual Studio, open a solution/project and follow the following instructions. (a) Open the property page for the project, usually by right-clicking on the project in the Solution Explorer, and click Properties. (b) After the dialog has opened, click the Configuration Properties folder. (c) Click the Build option. (d) In the right pane, there will be a property field called XML Documentation File. Set this to the path and file name of the desired file. The path entered is relative to the project directory, not absolute. (e) Put some "Hello World" text in a summary tag on at least one class/member within the project. (f) Build the project and view the XML Documentation File to see your "Hello World" text. (source: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc302121.aspx)

(4) Download http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=E82EA71D-DA89-42EE-A715-696E3A4873B2&displaylang=en and install the product. If you skip this step then you will be very sorry.

(5) Go to http://www.codeplex.com/SHFB/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx, download the latest "Sandcastle Help File Builder Installer" MSI file and install. Then run it on your desktop start menu as follows: "All Programs -> Sandcastle Help File Builder". In the GUI click the ADD button to include the DLL file that corresponds with the assembly you generated in Step (3)(f) of this tutorial. Then select "Documentation -> Build Project" from the menu to build a Help file. Finally select "Documentation -> View Help File" from the menu to see the help file and search for your "Hello World" text.

(6) Read http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/5ast78ax(VS.71).aspx on recommended documentation tags and try them out in the project you used in Step 3. Build the project in Visual Studio. Then build the help file in Sandcastle to see the resulting help file.

(7) Read http://www.csharpfriends.com/statics/tools.aspx to see some other code commenting tools for .NET. However I recommend using Sandcastle because it has plenty of functionality, its source code is freely available at http://www.codeplex.com/Sandcastle/SourceControl/ListDownloadableCommits.aspx and a google search such as http://tinyurl.com/sand-code-doc shows that there is sufficient documentation, assistance and community support for Sandcastle's future.

Did you do all 7 steps and bookmark this link for future reference? If so then you should now be sufficiently proficient enough on the current best practice for self-documenting your C# or VB.Net code in projects done using Microsoft Visual Studio. Congratulations Guru!! See http://alex-tfs.blogspot.com/2009/01/read-httpalex-tfs.html for ideas on enhancing this best practice.

Reading and Blogging in 2009

2009-01-01T22:13:00.000-08:00

IMHO the year 2009 will be the year when the best-organized IT managers/professionals get themselves in the habit of well-managing their blog-reading and knowledge retention. The IT professionals in 2009 who are going to be leading the efforts in the industry to apply technology to real-world business needs are going to be doing plenty of reading in order to stay current, solve problems and come up with the best solutions for their organizations. Typically this will be done through an "in-the-cloud" RSS reader that's also installed on their mobile phone and allows them to analyze statistics and prioritize their RSS feeds to be more productive. They'll spend at least 10 hours/week reading blogs. It'll happen on the train, in restaurants or anywhere they're "waiting" on their mobile phones. It'll happen while they are using their computers at work or home. They will typically be following hundreds of blogs and add at least a dozen or more additional ones every month to their subscriptions. Next they'll track the statistics on their subscriptions and organize them according to which ones are most useful in their jobs/work and then focus on getting updates from the blogs that are the highest priority. In a typical week they'll glance at thousands of titles and then pick a few hundred of the titles to click on to see the opening sentence in the posting. Of these a couple dozen will actually be read and most of the rest just skimmed. With all the constant change in technology there is no more effective way to stay current on technology in 2009 than through fast-speed-blog-reading.

If you want to be heard then you need to earn trust and be rated high on their watch list. You can accomplish this by doing the following:

(1) Regularly update your blog with current useful content.
(2) Generally make each entry short and easy to read.
(3) Provide all possible links and references to avoid plagiarism.
(4) Its imperative that you sincerely try to be completely unbiased and objective.
(5) Warn your readers if you are going to write lengthy details for your own knowledge retention purposes.

Communication and Blogs

2009-01-01T22:09:00.000-08:00

One thing I really like about TFS and Sharepoint is how they really work to improve collaboration, communication and using blogs out-of-the-box to disseminate information appropriately. I found a blogger at raganwald.com who provides some good tips that should help every IT professional.

http://weblog.raganwald.com/2008/04/single-most-important-thing-you-must-do.html

The single most important thing you must do to improve your programming career is improve your ability to communicate.

To program, you must elicit ideas from other people and share your ideas with them. Sharing ideas comes in many forms: explaining how you did something. Suggesting a new practice for the team. Demonstrating how something works. Convincing everyone to switch programming languages. Persuading a brilliant engineer to join your team. Persuading your manager to get out of the way and let you do your thing.

Advancing your career is entirely about communicating. Getting a job. Turning down a job. Asking for a promotion. Turning down a promotion. Getting onto a good team. Politely extricating yourself from a good team. Persuading a brilliant engineer to co-found a company. Helping a brilliant engineer understand why co-founding a company isn’t the right thing to do. Asking for funding. Turning down funding. Getting clients. Turning down clients.

If you take just one thing from this post, let it be this: To improve your programming career, the single most important thing you must do is improve your ability to communicate your ideas face to face.

From
http://weblog.raganwald.comjavascript:void(0)/2007/10/three-blog-posts-id-love-to-read-and.html I learn:

Three types of great BLOG posts:
What I learned from Language X that makes me a better programmer when I use Language Y
Something surprising that you probably wouldn’t guess about Language X from reading blog posts
My personal transformation about Idea X

A type of timewasting BLOG post:
Here’s why such-and-such

Using Routines in Programming

2009-01-01T21:44:00.000-08:00

The longer I code the more I've learned that the key to good programming is in how you approach writing routines. Steve McConnell at http://stevemcconnell.com/ieeesoftware/bp16.htm lists the following 8 reasons and I provide commentary.

Reducing complexity - I like to keep my routines short enough so I can read the routine declaration line to the bottom "}" all within one Visual Studio window. That's usually about 40 lines.

Avoiding duplicate code - I agree its the most popular reason for routines.

Limiting effects of changes - Doing the repeatable job in one place is important and that's why good requirements analysis and good software design/architecture up-front is essential in creating good coding practices.

Hiding sequences - This is why good routine-writing is essential to good object-oriented programming as its through hiding sequences in routines that we accomplish good encapsulation.

Improving performance - without good, organized routines you will never figure out where the bad-performing code is located

Hiding data structures and global data - good for encapsulating, sometimes bad for documenting the data structures' usage so that future DBA's and architects can read the code and make future changes or integrated systems.

Promoting code reuse and planning for a family of programs - This is where object-oriented programming provides real value with routines. And with the [obsolete] tag in C# and other code management tags & comment sections for .NET routines it makes it much easier to plan, document and validate code reuse or lack-of-reuse.

Improving readability - well-naming and keeping the size of the routine down to 20-40 lines is vital. Making routines too short or not designing the high-level algorithm well will cause what I call "sub of sub of sub of sub of sub ... I'm lost and can't find the code" syndrome. Basically its not easy to have too many nested levels of subroutines to dig through in order to find the code you need to work with and this is a common problem I run across when the subroutines are too short and the algorithm was either not well thought-out or its undergone considerable change.

Improving portability and isolating use of nonstandard language functions - interfaces and gateways from C# into COM libraries, external web services, external "C" code, etc. are well-managed through good routine writing.

Isolating complex operations - this is one of the greatest use of routines - any complex task must be done through ONE routine with calls to multiple subroutines in cases where alot of code is needed

VS2010 Planned Features and "Later" Features

2009-01-01T21:35:00.000-08:00

See
http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=1595 for a list of planned features for Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 and some features planned for future features AFTER Visual Studio goes out.

For VS10:

* A new Windows Presentation Foundation-based (WPF) text editor
* More “modern,” with more of a WPF look and feel throughout the suite
* Smaller in size (in code and data) than Visual Studio 2008
* More reliable and modular

For some time “later”:

* Visual Studio Tools for Applications (VSTA) used for macros, plus other “end-user extensibility” improvements
* The ability to create more add-ins in managed code
* Full WPF shell
* Extensive support for the parallel framework for multicore hardware

Like just about every Microsoft product these days, VS 10 is going to get the Software+Services treatment ....

New Microsoft Programming Language Code-Named "D"

2009-01-01T21:33:00.000-08:00

According to http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=1159:

A handful of Microsoft’s top developers are working to create a new programming language, code-named “D,” which will be at the heart of the Microsoft’s push toward more intuitive software modeling.

D is a key component of Microsoft’s Oslo software-oriented architecture (SOA) technology and strategy. Microsoft outlined in vague terms its plans and goals for Oslo in late fall 2007, hinting that the company had a new modeling language in the works, but offering no details on what it was or when the final version would be delivered.

D will be a declarative language aimed at non-developers, and will be based on eXtensible Application Markup Language (XAML), sources, who asked not to be named, said.

Sources close to Microsoft confirmed the existence of D, which they described as a forthcoming “textual modeling language.” In addition to D, sources said, Microsoft also is readying a comlementary editing tool, code-namd “Intellipad,” that will allow developers to create content for the Oslo repository under development by Microsoft.

5 Key Areas of Microsoft Oslo

2009-01-01T21:29:00.000-08:00

See http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2007/oct07/10-30OsloPR.mspx for the following on the “Oslo” advancements that will be delivered through Microsoft server and tools products in five key areas:

• Server. Microsoft BizTalk Server “6” will continue to provide a core foundation for distributed and highly scalable SOA and BPM solutions, and deliver the capability to develop, manage and deploy composite applications.

• Services. BizTalk Services “1” will offer a commercially supported release of Web-based services enabling hosted composite applications that cross organizational boundaries. This release will include advanced messaging, identity and workflow capabilities.

• Framework. The Microsoft .NET Framework “4” release will further enable model-driven development with Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) and Windows Workflow Foundation (WF).

• Tools. New technology planned for Visual Studio “10” will make significant strides in end-to-end application life-cycle management through new tools for model-driven design of distributed applications.

• Repository. There will also be investments in aligning the metadata repositories across the Server and Tools product sets. Microsoft System Center “5,” Visual Studio “10” and BizTalk Server “6” will utilize a repository technology for managing, versioning and deploying models.

David Chappell on Microsoft Oslo

2009-01-01T21:26:00.000-08:00

See http://www.davidchappell.com/blog/2008/09/what-is-oslo.html for the following:

Some Oslo details first went public in June of this year at TechEd. As described then, the code name "Oslo" applied to three things: a new version of Windows Workflow Foundation (WF), a server for running WF applications and others, and a set of modeling technologies, including a repository and visual editor. All of these technologies can be used together, so putting then under an umbrella code name made some sense.

Microsot Oslo and Visual Studio 2010

2009-01-01T21:16:00.000-08:00

Planning a technology roadmap for the next few years requires that we know what's coming up from Microsoft with Oslo, Visual Studio 2010, etc. I'm not exactly sure how Oslo and VS 2010 will affect each other as Microsoft is wisely keeping all the details under wraps. I just know that their core functionality must be married as Oslo is the coding foundation for future Microsoft software code development and Visual Studio is the future tool for making it all happen. Stay tuned or be sorry!!

Suggested links:

Upcoming Microsoft Webcasts

2008-12-31T12:33:00.000-08:00

Keeping up on technology is important and I find http://www.asp.net/learn/webcasts to be a valuable resource on learning what Microsoft is providing.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009 2pm - http://www.asp.net/learn/webcasts/webcast-325.aspx - Building a Silverlight Application in One Hour - provide an overview of creating forms-based applications in Microsoft Silverlight 2, the new rich Internet applications platform

Thursday, January 15, 2009 2pm - http://www.asp.net/learn/webcasts/webcast-324.aspx - Enterprise Build Automation with Team System and Team Build - Explains the five key characteristics of every enterprise build automation solution. Even a discussion on integrating legacy code into your automated builds.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009 2pm - http://www.asp.net/learn/webcasts/webcast-317.aspx - Discover the Windows Azure Services Platform - Provides an overview of the components and services that make up the platform and the development environment for developing and deploying cloud-based applications. Windows Azure represents Microsoft's firm commitment to making cloud computing a compelling and cost- effective platform.

Thursday, January 29, 2009 2pm - http://www.asp.net/learn/webcasts/webcast-316.aspx - Windows Workflow Foundation Overview with Visual Studio 2008 - Covers the fundamentals of what Workflow Foundation is and where you might use it. Demonstrates using the development tools and several of the interesting activities included out of the box in Microsoft Visual Studio 2008.

Blog engines at CodePlex with source code

2008-12-29T06:29:00.000-08:00

Some of the most popular code projects at codeplex.com are blog engines. Here's a few to see:

http://www.codeplex.com/blogengine - Apparently this is the most popular one if you measure by downloads and its had a lot more use experience than the others.

http://www.codeplex.com/oxite - This one will probably surpass BlogEngine in functionality and code quality based on the support for it.

http://www.codeplex.com/dnnblog - DotNetNuke seems to have the biggest ambitions with plenty of subsites and functionality planned. However its yet to get as big of a mindshare as BlogEngine or Oxite.

Some Sharepoint solutions to evaluate

2008-12-18T14:34:00.000-08:00

If I had more time ..... I'd look at the following more carefully .....

http://www.codeplex.com/CKS - Community Kit for Sharepoint - A set of best practices, templates, Web Parts, tools, and source code that enables practically anyone to create a community website based on SharePoint technology for practically any group of people with a common interest.

http://www.codeplex.com/SLK - SharePoint Learning Kit - a SCORM 2004 certified e-learning delivery and tracking application built as a Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 solution. It works with either Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 or Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, and has the following core features: (1) Supports SCORM 1.2, SCORM 2004, and Class Server content, allowing users to store and manage this content in SharePoint document libraries. (2) Supports learner-centric and instructor-led (assigned) workflows. (3) Allows assignment, tracking and grading of both e-learning and non-e-learning content.

http://www.codeplex.com/stsdev - STSDEV: Simple Tools for SharePoint 2007 Development - A SharePoint developer's utility designed to quickly transform your ideas into real-world components that you can deploy into a staging or production Web farm with confidence.

http://www.codeplex.com/ChartPart - ChartPart for SharePoint is a web part for Microsoft SharePoint Services 3.0 or Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 which generates charts from SharePoint lists. The ChartPart is free to use for everyone, as long as you follow the License, who would like to "light" up their SharePoint installation with some nice graphs and charts.

http://www.codeplex.com/iLoveSharePoint - PowerEventReceivers, PowerWebPart (supports AJAX and JQuery, execute PowerShell Script in a WebPart, render HTML and write ASP.NET code with PowerShell syntax), PowerActivity (execute PowerShell Scripts in a SharePoint Designer Action), Lookup Field with Picker (Single- and multi-Selection Mode, searching, search operators, select the fields you would like to search for, supports default values...), PowerShell Scripts V1.3, List without Title Column (you often doesn't need the title field but unfortnuately the context menu is attached to the title field so you're forced to use it anyway. Tha's over! Just try the List without Title Column. The context menu is attached to the ID of the List Item), User WebService (useful to switch views depending on the current user's SharePoint groups in Infopath; actually the WebService has only one method: GetUserGroupsFromCurrentUser ... a build-in SharePoint WebService which does the same?! Yes, but the built-in service doesn't work with Infopath 2007), Codename SPAC - SharePoint Assembly Cache (realized with SharePoint and WCF), and much much more.

http://www.codeplex.com/sptdatapop - SharePoint 2007 Test Data Population Tool - The SharePoint 2007 Test Data Population Tool (WSSDW.exe) is a capacity planning and performance testing tool that populates data for testing SharePoint deployments. The SharePoint 2007 Test Data Population Tool is available as a command-line executable program that extracts information about how to populate the server from an XML configuration file, and calls Microsoft .NET assembly: WSSDWLib.dll. Use this tool to populate test data for SharePoint capacity planning. Also included are some sample test scripts that can be used for performance and load testing SharePoint and Excel Services with the test data.

http://www.codeplex.com/pks - Podcasting Kit for SharePoint - Listen and watch audio/video podcasts, anywhere on your PC or mobile device (Zune, SmartPhone, or any podcasting device); Share content by producing your own audio/video podcasts and publish them on PKS on your own; Connect and engage with podcasters via your integrated instant messaging program; Find the most relevant content using the five star rating system, tag cloud, search engine and provide your feedback via comments; Get automatic podcast updates by subscribing to RSS feeds fully compatible with Zune and other podcasting devices; Simple RSS feed based on a defined podcast series; Simple RSS feed based on a person; Dynamic RSS feed based on search results (will be implemented later in 2009); Play podcasts in real-time using Microsoft® Silverlight™ and progressive playback; Retrieve instant ROI and metrics with the ability to track the number of podcasts downloaded and/or viewed, instant feedback via rating system and comments, and subscribers via the RSS feed; Access the richness of SharePoint to extend the solution: workflows, community sub-sites, access rights, editorial and more; Customize your own PKS User Experience

Writing to the SharePoint Unified Logging Service

2008-12-18T12:31:00.000-08:00

See http://scothillier.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!8F5DEA8AEA9E6FBB!236.entry for some helpful code on using a class library for writing to Sharepoint ULS - i.e. the Unified Logging Service.

TraceProvider.RegisterTraceProvider();
TraceProvider.WriteTrace(TraceProvider.TagFromString("XXXX (must be 4 letter tag)"), TraceProvider.StringToSeverity("Exception or Information"), Guid.NewGuid(), "Method Name", "Assembly Name", "Project Name", "Message");
TraceProvider.UnregisterTraceProvider();

Some must-reads

2008-12-18T12:28:00.000-08:00

Some must-reads I've bookmarked:

http://delicious.com/ianfnelson - This blogger named Ian Nelson is good at keeping up on the latest/greatest for TFS, Sharepoint, .NET and all things Microsoft development related.

http://www.sheltonblog.com/archive/2008/09/24/free-training-developer-ramp-up-kit-for-microsoft-crm-dynamics.aspx

http://www.asp.net/learn/vsts-videos/video-129.aspx Watch this video on "Introduction to Manual Testing with Team System".

Videos for some training

2008-12-18T12:24:00.000-08:00

I highly recommend looking at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vsts2008/bb964616.aspx, http://teamsystemrocks.com/tutorials and http://www.asp.net/learn/vsts-videos for training videos on Microsoft Team Foundation Server (TFS) and Visual Studio Team Suite (VSTS).

Some other links to see for training material on TFS, MOSS, Sharepoint, .NET, etc. include:

http://www.asp.net/learn/

http://blog.sharepointhosting.com/Downloads/SharePoint-Tutorials.aspx

http://betterecm.wordpress.com/2006/10/25/moss-2007-videos-screencasts \

http://www.sharepoint-videos.com

http://www.microsoft.com/feeds/msdn/en-us/videos/vsts.xml

http://channel9.msdn.com/Feeds/RSS/

List of 5 Simple SharePoint 2007 Fixes

2008-12-18T12:14:00.000-08:00

Before you waste time on trying to fix complex TFS or MOSS problem I suggest doing 5 things.

1. Run an IIS Reset

2. Run 'SharePoint Technologies and Configuration Wizard'

Only #2 on the list because it takes slightly more time than #1. On the other hand, this should fix more problems than any other on the list. This does automatic IIS resets, so you will have temporary downtime.

3. Reboot your machine(s)

4. Make sure account has proper rights

This one is more for stsadm operations and scripts, but most of the time I have found if a command is giving you some strange failurethat it shouldn't, it is more often the account you are using doesn't have the specific right you need for that operation. The command line runat command is your friend for testing this.

5. Install most recent Service Pack/Update

Be sure to check with Microsoft for any updates. SharePoint is one of their most premier products at the moment, and they are spending a lot of time and money developing for it.

Important to note: Recycling your app pools, restarting IIS and rebooting your machine are no-brainers in a dev environment. However in production you need to proceed cautiously. That's why its important to stage a stable prod server with config/settings changes made off-hours with some automated scripts to generate thousands of hits immediately afterwards as this will find 98%+ of potential problems before the users do.

Source: http://www.naspinski.net/post/Top-5-List-of-Simple-SharePoint-2007-Fixes.aspx

StsAdmn Documentation

2008-12-18T05:16:00.000-08:00

I found a page on a MSDN blog that provides links to wall posters and technical specs on the Stsadm tool/parameters for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0.

http://tinyurl.com/StsAdmn-Params