SharePoint Blogs

Adding subfolders programmatically when a new folder is created

misterbeefy — Fri, 16 May 2008 22:22:00 GMT

I was recently presented with the task of allowing subfolders to be created automatically whenever a new folder is added to a document library. I had my own ideas on how to go about this, and did some searching on the net to confirm, and found there were a couple of different snippets suggesting how to do it. Trouble is, in my instance, I needed an event handler that would create additional subfolders to the folder that was being created, at the time of creation. So I fooled around with it a bit...(read more)

Microsoft Popfly and SharePoint

SharePoint Application Development — Fri, 16 May 2008 21:58:54 GMT

If you haven't seen Microsoft Popfly yet, I encourage you to take a little time and begin investigating it. Here's an overview of what this site is: Popfly is the fun and easy way to build and share mashups, gadgets, and Web pages. It’s made up Read More......(read more)

DBA script: how to quickly assess all of your SQL instances

moffitar — Fri, 16 May 2008 20:35:00 GMT

Hi All,

I'm sure most of you who play with SharePoint also wear the DBA hat from time to time (or the other way around). I have been working with a customer who has hundreds of instances scattered across the enterprise. This script customized to answer several questions, but mainly to report on the patching level of each instance. Note that this is not a discovery tool; you have to know the instance names ahead of time, and have to have access to them.

Anyway, I find it comes in handy when you have lots of instances to manage.

SQL Server Auditing Tool

This is a custom VBScript I developed to quickly audit a number of SQL Server instances at once. The script uses SQL DMO libraries to connect to SQL 2000 and 2005 instances on the network, using Windows authentication to connect and gather properties of each instance to include:

Instances:

Name and SQL version (also indicating service pack)
When the instance was installedo The version and service pack of the Windows OS

Databases:

Name, file location, file size
Tally of disk space consumed by all databases in instance

Paste the following code into a text file and save it as DBChecker.VBS. You can then call it from a command line using CSCRIPT. Don’t just double-click on the VBS file because it will output the results in a series of Windows popups, which is annoying as hell.

You can “pipe” the output to a text file, e.g. CSCRIPT DBChecker.vbs sql01\sharepoint sql01\tigerpaw sql01\tigerpawtest > dbcheck.txt

You can then paste the comma-delimited text into word and convert it to a table for reporting. Or you can open the txt file in Excel.

To run, this script requires a local instance of SQL Server or MSDE. It uses those libraries to instantiate. If you have SQL 2000/MSDE, it will only connect to other SQL 2000 instances. If you want to connect to SQL 2005 instances, you have to have SQL 2005 (which can connect to both SQL 2000 and 2005 instances).

' Script name: DBChecker.VBS
' -- SQL Server auditing script
' -- Version 1.3a Written 5-16-08 by Greg Burns
'
' Description:
'               This script enumerates all databases in a SQL server instance,
'               then calculates the size of each database, and displays the
'               path to the database files on disk. The Version of each instance is
'               also displayed.
'
'               You can specify a
'               space-delimited list of SQL Server instances and the script will
'               process all of them in sequence.
'
' Usage: CSCRIPT VBSIZE.VBS [<instancename>] [<instancename>] [<...n>]
' Notes:
'               1. Instance name uses the following syntax: HOSTNAME\INSTANCENAME
'               2. To capture output to text file, use the redirect,
'                               e.g. "CSCRIPT DBChecker.VBS myserver\myinstance > dbcheck.txt
'               3. Leave <instancename> blank to assess only the default SQL instance.
'               4. This version of DBChecker uses Windows Authentication (SSPI) to
'                               connect to the SQL instance. If you attempt to
'                               connect to a SQL instance or DB for which you do not have
'                               login access, the script will abort with an
'                               'unspecified error.'

wscript.echo "Database Size and Location Reporter"
wscript.echo " Size = Total Size of Data File + Transaction Log of DB."
wscript.echo "-------------------------------------------------"

'Configure array based on command line arguments
'               If no arguments, assume local hostname
If Wscript.Arguments.Count = 0 Then
    arrComputers = Array(".")
Else
    Dim arrComputers()
    For i = 0 to Wscript.Arguments.Count - 1
        Redim Preserve arrComputers(i)
        arrComputers(i) = Wscript.Arguments(i)
    Next
End If

For Each strComputer in arrComputers

'Connect to instance:
                strDBServerName = strComputer
                Set objSQLServer = CreateObject("SQLDMO.SQLServer")
                objSQLServer.LoginSecure = True
                objSQLServer.Connect strDBServerName

'Instance information
                wscript.echo "SQL Instance: " & strDBServerName
                wscript.echo "Version: " & objSQLServer.VersionString
                wscript.echo "Number of databases: " & objSQLServer.Databases.count

'Table header
wscript.echo "Database, Size (MB), Path"

'Iterate through all Databases in instance
for i = 1 to objSQLServer.Databases.count

                                set objDB = objSQLServer.Databases(i)
                                intSize = objDB.Size
                                intTotalSize = cdbl(intTotalSize) + cdbl(intSize)
                                strDBName = objDB.Name
                                WScript.Echo strDBName & ", " & intSize & ", " & objDB.PrimaryFilePath

'Post total size of all databases in instance
wscript.echo " Total: ," & intTotalSize & ","
wscript.echo "-------------------------------------------------"

intSize = 0
intTotalSize = 0

'Next Instance
Next

Posted on SharePoint Blogs

Ready Steady SharePoint!

toni — Fri, 16 May 2008 20:01:00 GMT

Selling SharePoint (document management system / collaboration platform) to customers is not easy.
There are two approaches you can take when selling SharePoint:

It works the way you business does - Microsoft’s approach
I believe that SharePoint really is very good platform but it is not an out-of-box solution. If you are experienced partner, you will be able to create added value for your customer, and your SharePoint project might be a success even with “it can do everything you need” approach.
Keep it simple - Toni’s approach
Potential customer for SharePoint solution is every company with two or more employees. (Look for companies using Windows operating systems and Microsoft Office). Each company is different, so I am trying to approach each customer with unique approach.

1) The first meeting is usually just an interview: we sit down and discuss customers problems in areas of collaboration, working with documents, information etc. Customer is the actor in leading role, you are just asking smart questions while trying to focus on problems that you can solve with SharePoint.

2) From information gathered I prepare a presentation/demo that focuses on problems emphasized by the customer. With focused presentation you can really show the real benefits of SharePoint platform.

Usually customers have similar problems, so we have a set of predefined solutions for them. (Microsoft has done great ground work for you so you should check their WSS application templates).

Usual problems are:
Inability to track documentation
I usually propose standard Windows SharePoint services / document libraries, calendars, contact lists etc. The key here is to focus on added benefits of SharePoint sites over standard file shares

Paper based HR processes(Vacation approval, Education needs, Various requests)
I usually propose tracking all these requests using WSS. In case of complex processes we are implementing Nintex Workflow.

Help Desk request are not centralized
Solution is based on combination of Issue Tracking, Wiki library and workflow that follows their business process. If there is no process defined, you should try to recommend one, take look at ITIL for more details.

Legal department spends too much time to generate contracts
In a large organization majority of contracts is based on a template. So you can save a lot of time by integrating process of contract generation into a SharePoint list/document library

Paper based processes to route and approve incoming documents
Proposed solution is storing your scanned documents to a SharePoint document library. With combination of proper tagging and workflows you can completely eliminate the need for paper based approvals and routings

Inability to find documents
Recommendation is based on company size and it may vary from WSS Search, Microsoft Search Server 2008 or full blown Microsoft SharePoint 2007 Enterprise. Microsoft solutions are really good because they are built on existing IT infrastructure

So, keep it simple. Your first step is to find a business problem you can solve with SharePoint. The first project will show your customers hot to use SharePoint and what are the real benefits of SharePoint implementation.

Posted on SharePoint Blogs

SharePoint TechNet White Papers: Plan for software boundaries

Andrew Connell [MVP MOSS] — Fri, 16 May 2008 19:40:04 GMT

These aren't new... I just can't ever find them when I need them, so this is my personal note to myself: » WSS 3.0 - Plan for software boundaries » MOSS 2007 - Plan for software boundaries Mirrored on SharePoint Blogs Posted on SharePoint Blogs Read More......(read more)

EndUserSharePoint.com: Iron Man vs Indiana Jones… Are you kidding me?

End User SharePoint — Fri, 16 May 2008 18:48:28 GMT

Is there any discussion here? I never thought there would be but it looks like the case of HR vs IT. Check with your IT department and I don’t think you’ve find any hesitation: Iron Man with no doubt. Then call up someone in HR and casually Read More......(read more)

Some icons disappear in MOSS

mindy — Fri, 16 May 2008 17:40:00 GMT

I ran into an interesting problem this week in SharePoint (MOSS). On some sub-web sites, the attachment (paperclip) icon disappeared. I also noted that some other miscellaneous icons were replaced with the ugly red X. However, this problem did not occur in the top level site in the collection. Odd.

I checked permissions all over the place and couldn't find any reason why this would be happening. Then I discovered through a forum that the application pool settings do indeed affect permissions to virtual directories. A colleague had recently changed the primary application pool for our portal as a troubleshooting step with Microsoft support (we're experiencing some memory leak issues).

The changed application pool propogated down from the web site to the virtual directories, but not to the applications below (such as 'images'). Voila! Changed the app pools on those applications to the new app pool and everything worked again.

Another SharePoint mystery solved!

Posted on SharePoint Blogs

SharePoint Database Indexes and Statistics

Russ Houberg — Fri, 16 May 2008 17:20:00 GMT

In the storage whitepaper that I recently released, I talked a bit about the SPDatabaseStatisticsJobDefinition timer job and the fact that it can, in most cases keep SharePoint running smoothly. However, I recently had to research a bit further into what exactly this timer job does. This is what I discovered:

This timer job is associated with each web application in the farm. It is automatically created and configured to run weekly when the web application is created. I mentioned that it might be a good idea to run some sort of statistics refresh after a large migration (into SharePoint) or similar operation. Well, the interesting thing is that I traced this timer job definition all the way down to a stored procedure that exists in every content database. The stored procedure is called proc_UpdateStatistics.

So if it were my farm, I might be inclined to try to modify the schedule for this timer job but this may not be possible (haven't had time to check). The other possibility is to just execute the stored procedure manually but that might not be supported by Microsoft. Interestingly, according to this KB article, Microsoft specifically says that it's OK to update statistics, so maybe it is supported.

Anyway, I just thought all of that was interesting. On a related note, I want to clarify, that this timer job runs the statistics update on CONTENT DATABASES. So it is highly likely that you will need to create an additional maintenance plan specifically for the SSP search database. If the search database is large and/or supports millions of documents, it's a good idea to keep it cleaned up regularly.

Finally, a bit of a warning. No matter how you manage your indexes/statistics refresh, you don't want to be updating statistics any time a crawl is running. Particularly if the crawl has a lot to do (full crawl), if you're trying to update statistics at the same time, you could end up grinding the SQL Server into oblivion.

Posted on SharePoint Blogs

Getting the correct MOSS / WSS version for each server in the farm

bobbyhabib — Fri, 16 May 2008 17:01:00 GMT

I have seen a few blogs recently talking about how to get the correct version of MOSS from your server's in your server farm. Sound easy enough.

What I have seen; are articles telling you to go to the web sites properties of your site collection in IIS and then to select the HTTP Headers tab, here you will see a "Custom HTTP headers" text box which displays a version number of MOSS. GREAT!

Go to "Add/Remove Programs" within control panel select "Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007" and click "Click here for support information". On the dialog you will see a version number indicating MOSS version. Suppose to be good!

If you think this is correct then read on!

This method of getting the version number for MOSS is not correct. What you will see in the HTTP header tab in IIS is the build version of MOSS at the time when the Virtual Directory [Web Application] was created, if you patch the server with a Service Pack, Hot Fix or a Roll up Fix, the HTTP header tab is not updated with new build version number on existing sites, which can confuse a lot of people. If you create a Web Application [Virtual Directory] after you have patched the server you will get the Build Version number of MOSS, at the time the site is created. I bet most SharePoint veterans must have wondered why one HTTP header on there site collections may have been different to another site collection on the same server. It proberbly because you have created both site collections at different times with different patches applied to your farm. I noticed that the "Add/Remove Program" method too did not update.

The correct way to get this information is to open up "Central Admin", click on "Operations" and then click on "Servers in Farm". in this administration page you will see the Database Schema Version in the top of the screen and a list of servers with the version numbers listed in the relevant column against each server in the farm. You can also see the database schema version in "Site Settings", "Modify All Site Settings" in the Site Information section. The other alternative is to look at the MOSS configuration database [SQL Server] of your site collection and open the Versions table, there will be entires in this table with the versions that have been applied to in your farm and the date when the Service Pack, hot Fix or Rollup was applied.

I have listed below the version numbers for MOSS;

MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 post-SP1 hotfix (KB952294)       12.0.0.6314 [In SSP admin you will get a new Search Administration option, which brings the Search Server features to MOSS.]
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

Posted on SharePoint Blogs

NJSPUG May 21st, 2008 meeting SharePoint Open Disccussion!

jmedero — Fri, 16 May 2008 16:42:00 GMT

This months NJSPUG is featuring a unique format in which there will be an open SharePoint discussion panel. There will be a great group of panelists answering all types of questions ranging from architecture, governance, and development! The members on the panel are seasoned SharePoint experts and will be featuring two SharePoint MVP's! Bob fox and yours truly will be on-hand to help out answering questions and add to the discussions. This is going to be a really excellent meeting because attendees...(read more)

Email Enabled List Alias Management

josef.nielsen — Fri, 16 May 2008 16:06:45 GMT

Ever notice that there is not way to centrally manage or get information about email aliases? Oh that annoys me! So I did what any self respecting geek would do, and I started taking it apart... Here are a couple SQL utility scripts to help you get more out of your SharePoint! Standard Disclaimer - Don't mess around with the DB... You can break stuff! Now, here's the goods:

-- SQL Script to find out where an Email Alias is in use

-- Written by Josef Nielsen, 2008
-- nielsenjl_at_ldschurch.org
-- http://www.sharepointblogs.com/echef

-- Run this script against the Farm Configuration DB
SELECT [Alias], [Deleted], [SiteMap].[Path], [Objects].[Name], [ListId]
FROM [WSS_Farm_Config].[dbo].[EmailEnabledLists]
INNER JOIN [SiteMap] ON [EmailEnabledLists].[SiteId] = [SiteMap].[Id]
INNER JOIN [Objects] ON [SiteMap].[DatabaseId] = [Objects].[Id]
-- Change this value to the Alias you are looking for
WHERE [Alias] = 'MyEmailAlias' -- This is the Name part of Name@SharePoint.server.com

-- Run this script against the Content DB that the Site resides on
SELECT [tp_Title], [tp_ServerTemplate], [tp_ItemCount], [tp_Description], [tp_EmailInsertsFolder], [tp_EmailAlias], [tp_Fields], [tp_ContentTypes], [tp_DefaultWorkflowId]
FROM [WSS_ContentDB_01].[dbo].[AllLists]
--Replace the GUID Below with the GUId of the List you are looking for
WHERE [tp_Id] = 'A4BB3401-3161-430A-B330-42143C3DE879'

So, what do you get out of this? Well, the first script, run against your Config DB will give you the managed path and site collection name where that alias is in use. It will also tell you which content DB contains that site collection. It also gives you a GUID for the List.

In the second script, add the GUID you got for the list and run it against the Content DB that was also specified by the first script. This will give you the friendly name of the list that uses this alias, as well as a few other yummy bits of data about this list.

Enjoy!

Posted on SharePoint Blogs

TED: Secrets of success in 8 words, 3 minutes

IT and DEV — Fri, 16 May 2008 15:08:00 GMT

Secrets of Success Richard St. John has a nice little talk featured on TED where he talks about the secrets of success. He interviewed several members of TED and came up with the following list of features: Passion, love for what you do Work hard and have fun Practice Focus Push Yourself Serve Ideas Persistence, through C.R.A.P. Crap stands for Criticism, Rejection, Assholes and Pressure. Never knew they could say words like that and publish them. Mirrored on SharePoint Blogs Posted on SharePoint...(read more)

Missing Microsoft Robotics Development Studio Templates in Visual Studio 2008

IT and DEV — Fri, 16 May 2008 14:52:00 GMT

After I installed Visual Studio Team System 2008 and the April CTP of the Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio, the Robotics project templates were missing from the Visual Studio 2008 project templates list. After a bit of digging around I finally solved the issue. These are the steps I took to resolve it: Exit Visual Studio 2008. Go to C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\ProjectTemplates\CSharp and create a folder called ' robotics ' . In the folder 'robotics'...(read more)

Pre-populating Form Fields for a New Item

josef.nielsen — Fri, 16 May 2008 14:29:50 GMT

So for surveys and such I thought it would be nice to pre-populate a SharePoint List "new" form with some data from the link... This makes it very nice for surveys and such from users. In this case it was to automate and remove error from some user feedback for our helpdesk. So what I did was make the URL contain an extra parameter for a field value, then I added some JavaScript to the NewItem.aspx page in that list. This script is specific to one field one (as you can tell by the long auto-ID). Here is the script I used:

    function getURLParam()
    {
        var strReturn = "null";
        var strHref = window.location.href;
        //find the "Ticket" parameter
        if ( strHref.indexOf("?") > -1 )
        {
            var strQueryString = strHref.substr(strHref.indexOf("?")+1);
            var aQueryString = strQueryString.split("&");
            for ( var iParam = 0; iParam < aQueryString.length; iParam++ )
            {

              //find the Task Parameter
              if (aQueryString[iParam].indexOf("Ticket=") > -1 )
              {
                var aParam = aQueryString[iParam].split("=");
                strReturn = aParam[1];
                break;
              }
            }

//insert parameter to Task Field

document.aspnetForm.ctl00_m_g_2a4ef5db_f38c_4101_b1e9_bd5bce3e5a04_ctl00_ctl04_ctl01_ctl00_ctl00_ctl04_ctl00_ctl00_TextField.value = strReturn;
}
}
_spBodyOnLoadFunctionNames.push("getURLParam");

Notice the execute line, using _spBodyOnLoadFunctionNames. This is required to get the script to execute after all the content has been populated. The URL to feed this function would look something like this:

http://sharepointserver.company.pri/sites/feedback/lists/tickets/NewItem.aspx?Source=http%2A%2F%2Fsharepointserver%2Ecompany%2Epri%2Fsites%2Ffeedback%2FPages%2FThannkYou%2Easpx&Ticket=123456

Two things to note... first, the "Source" parameter needs to be Escaped (using "%" codes for all symbols), and second, that it doesn't have to be where you came from... It is actually where you go to when you click OK or Cancel. In this case, I'm sending the user to a Thank You page since they have filled out the feedback. This can be anything, including a custom page with code to close the browser window if you want.

Posted on SharePoint Blogs

Seven habits of highly effective bloggers

Mirjam — Fri, 16 May 2008 13:36:09 GMT

I'm a fan of the book "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" by Stephen Covey.

While I was searching for a related consultants training I came across this blog post from Alison Cameron about the seven habits of highly effective bloggers. Like the book it's nothing new or shocking, but still it's good to remember the obvious once in a while.

Posted on SharePoint Blogs

Comprobar la version de SharePoint 2007

Sharepoint 2007 | InfoPath 2007 | C# | VB.NET — Fri, 16 May 2008 11:12:00 GMT

Aquí os dejo un listado donde se especifica la versión de SharePoint que tenemos en nuestro servidor: MOSS 20071 or WSS 3.0 post-SP1 hotfix ( KB948945 ) 12.0.0.6303 MOSS 20071 or WSS 3.0 post-SP1 hotfix ( KB941274 ) 12.0.0.6301 MOSS 20071 or WSS 3.0 post-SP1 hotfix ( KB941422 ) 12.0.0.6300 MOSS 20071 or WSS 3.0 SP1 12.0.0.6219 MOSS 20071 or WSS 3.0 October public update 12.0.0.6039 MOSS 20071 or WSS 3.0 August 24, 2007 hotfix package 12.0.0.6036 MOSS 20071 or WSS 3.0 RTM 12.0.0.4518 MOSS 2007 1 or...(read more)

"The Best of Techdays 2008 ITPro" - Innovation Day - Electronic Public Sector: Gov 2.0

Pedro Serrano — Fri, 16 May 2008 09:59:38 GMT

Hi all, Daniel Dias Pereira will be presenting our Board Meeting solution on a live webcast this afternoon. His presentation will be in portuguese: Webcast 26 - "The Best of Techdays 2008 ITPro" - Innovation Day - Administração Pública Electrónica: Gov 2.0 - CaveDigital (Daniel Pereira): Reuniões e Colaboração Digitais; A solução CaveDigital Board Meeting 2007 vem potenciar a Modernização Administrativa ao nível dos Decisores de topo, permitindo que as suas reuniões passem a ocorrer no...(read more)

Open XML to DAISY XML Translator download

Mark Harrison — Fri, 16 May 2008 09:39:00 GMT

Microsoft has released a software add-in to help those who have difficulty reading printed documents to turn Word documents into audio files. The "Save as DAISY XML" add-in makes it easier to create audio books from text files, and was developed Read More......(read more)

Notes and Resources from SQL User Group Session on SharePoint

Chandima.Net Blog for SharePoint solutions: Posts — Fri, 16 May 2008 02:08:04 GMT

Body: First of all thanks to SQL Server User Group leaders Adrian Engelbrecht and Clive Trott for the invitation to speak and to Ron van Moorsel of Prophesy for helping with the tricky SQL questions and help with demos. Also I want to thank Todd Klindt Read More......(read more)

MOSS Small Farm Installation and Configuration War Story

Paul Galvin's SharePoint space — Fri, 16 May 2008 01:32:01 GMT

This week, I've struggled a bit with my team to get MOSS installed in a simple two-server farm. Having gone through it, I have a greater appreciation for the kinds of problems people report on the MSDN forums and elsewhere. The final farm configuration Read More......(read more)

Lesson Learned: New GUIDs and Workflow

Blogging about SharePoint: Posts — Thu, 15 May 2008 22:51:08 GMT

Body: So I am developing a sequential SharePoint workflow right now. The process I've followed for this workflow and the previous one is as follows: Prototype the workflow in a demo site using SharePoint Designer. Review it with the business stakeholders Read More......(read more)

Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 Update download

Mark Harrison — Thu, 15 May 2008 22:48:00 GMT

Update for Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 now available - supporting Windows Server 2008, Vista SP1 and XP SP3 Download Mark Harrison Mirrored on SharePoint Blogs Posted on SharePoint Blogs Read More......(read more)

Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 SP1 download

Mark Harrison — Thu, 15 May 2008 22:45:00 GMT

Service Pack Update for Virtual PC 2007 now available - supporting Windows Server 2008, Vista SP1 and XP SP3 Download Mark Harrison Mirrored on SharePoint Blogs Posted on SharePoint Blogs Read More......(read more)

EndUserSharePoint.com: How can I get an aggregated list of all my tasks?

End User SharePoint — Thu, 15 May 2008 15:46:52 GMT

The question of the day comes from Diane: Is there a web part that would pull all tasks assigned to me from sites and sub-sites into one aggregated list? Diane - Yes, you want to use the Content Query Web Part (CQWP). Put the CQWP on your desired page Read More......(read more)

SharePoint 2007 : Extension Method (TryGet)

Philippe Sentenac [MVP SharePoint] — Thu, 15 May 2008 06:00:00 GMT

Ca fait un moment que je tripatouillais ca dans ma tete, il est temps que je vous en parle : L'utilisation des extensions de methode pour SharePoint. Si par hasard, vous n'etes pas familier avec ce concept, vous trouverez plus d'informations sur le b... Mirrored on SharePoint Blogs Posted on SharePoint Blogs...(read more)

LINQ4SP - Simple Query

Agnes Molnar — Thu, 15 May 2008 04:36:00 GMT

In the last demo I showed you are able to generate the context and business classes with the LINQ4SP code generator. This time I would like to go through and easy query generation and some basic filtering. First we generated the context from a SharePoint list and created a test project. This is, where the current video starts ... More to come, stay tuned ! http://www.lmsolutions.hu Posted on SharePoint Blogs...(read more)

Help, my database updates don't stick

Rod Dot Net — Thu, 15 May 2008 04:02:00 GMT

Just a quick post to remind people of the ASP.net life cycle. Most people learn this early on in their ASP.Net life, but it's something that can be overlooked and leave you slapping your head in frustration. Recently, I was working on a simple page that has some text box fields, which are pre-populated with a users details, you edit those and click submit, it submits the new details and refreshes the page, hopefully with the new details. My database updates didnt seem to work, I searched through...(read more)

Mea Culpa -- SharePoint Designer CAN Create State Machine Workflows

Paul Galvin's SharePoint space — Thu, 15 May 2008 01:45:04 GMT

I've recently learned that it's possible and even fairly easy to create a state machine workflow using SharePoint Designer. Necessity is the mother of invention and all that good stuff and I had a need this week that looked for an invention. Coincidentally Read More......(read more)

Troubleshooting SPSite/SPWeb leaks in WSS v3 and MOSS 2007

bobbyhabib — Thu, 15 May 2008 01:41:00 GMT

Just wanted to make the community aware of a new blog just written by Stefan Gobner (EE Engineer at Microsoft and also a colleague of mine). He explain very well the steps that can be taken by SharePoint Administrators to isolate if a site that contains custom code, which does not properly dispose objects correctly and also how you can isolate components that are leaking these objects.

http://blogs.technet.com/stefan_gossner/archive/2008/05/07/troubleshooting-spsite-spweb-leaks-in-wss-v3-and-moss-2007.aspx

Keep up the great work Stefan your a living legend.

Posted on SharePoint Blogs

Visual Studio extensions for SharePoint – Developer User Guide Released

Chandima.Net Blog for SharePoint solutions: Posts — Thu, 15 May 2008 01:31:40 GMT

Body: Via [ Paul Andrew ] I'm pleased to announce the release of the User Guide, Samples and Walkthroughs for the Visual Studio 2005 extensions for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, v1.1 . The Visual Studio 2005 extensions for SharePoint were released Read More......(read more)

Very Busy May!

LTI Blog: Posts — Wed, 14 May 2008 23:41:11 GMT

Body: Don't know how I managed to get myself so tied up, but the net several weeks are going to be very busy - and challenging to fit around a busy work schedule! Tomorrow, May 15th is our monthly HRSSUG meeting. This month is part two our ouf 2008 Launch and we also have a speaker from Mindsharp - Corro'll Driskell - to talk to us about a SharePoint topic! In addition, TekSystems is hosting the meeting and we have the usual Launch SWAG to raffle off. Then Saturday, May 17th, is the No Va...(read more)

Receiving "There was an error in the callback" error message when expanding tree in Content and Structure page.

ScottM — Wed, 14 May 2008 22:25:00 GMT

Background:

We recently ran into this issue when attempting to access our site through the Content and Structure page on the main site. This error presented itself when attempting to expand the tree for a particular site. After clicking the plus sign and waiting for a while, the error message would appear just below the site name. After receiving the error, attempting to expand any other site resulted in the immediate display of the message. Also, when trying to access the Content and Structure page from any site under the problem site, SharePoint would display the Error page with the very useful “An unknown error has occurred” message. This was a big problem for us because we needed to move items, lists, and sites.

Solution:

Ultimately the problem was caused by the server timing out on the request. Our system administrator changed the IIS timeout settings from 120 to 600 for an unrelated issue. After the setting was changed we no longer encountered the error. We made the change on a development server that was having the same issue, and this solved the problem there as well.

Posted on SharePoint Blogs

Indy Search

Mark Harrison — Wed, 14 May 2008 21:21:00 GMT

We've teamed up with Paramount for Indy Search powered by Windows Live ... if the stones turn green you win one of the great prizes on offer . Indy Search Mark Harrison Mirrored on SharePoint Blogs Posted on SharePoint Blogs Read More......(read more)

Connecting Visual Studio 2005 to Team Foundation Server 2008

moffitar — Wed, 14 May 2008 18:43:00 GMT

Hi All,

I had a heck of a time finding all the information I needed to complete this task, so I thought I'd put it all together in one place, in case any of you are ever tasked (like I was) to implement TFS 2008.

I’ve figured out how to get Visual Studio 2005 Professional to connect to and create Team Projects on Team Foundation Server 2008. There are a few patches to install, but it works!

1. Install Team Explorer 2005

This adds the basic functionality of the Team Explorer to the vs 2005 environment. You get the ability to open and create Team Projects.
However, attempting to create a Team Project on a TFS 2008 server, you get the following error:

This is due to the fact that you’re trying to create a workspace on a WSS 3.0 site instead of a WSS 2.0 site. There is a patch available. But in order to install the patch, you have to re-apply Visual Studio 2005 SP1.

2. Install (or re-apply) Visual Studio 2005 SP1

Note: there are two components to the service pack, which will run separately. The first is the general VS 2005 update. Then a second wizard runs to update the Team Explorer.

3. Install hotfix VS80sp1-KB932544-X86-ENU.exe

This will configure the Team Explorer to properly create projects on TFS 2008 sites.

Posted on SharePoint Blogs

XPath, XQuery, and XSLT Functions

ssa — Wed, 14 May 2008 17:49:00 GMT

Some XML functions can be very useful in InfoPath, especially if you are an InfoPath developer. For example, suppose you are using data validation in your InfoPath form and you want the users to enter a value in one of the text boxes on your form. Of course, you can use the built-in data validation functions, for example, "If field is blank then show error alert" but users can dodge you by entering a space in the text box. In this case, InfoPath won't generate any error and will accept...(read more)

Debian security flaws, more of them. But it's still sovery safe they keep telling us?

jbenisek — Wed, 14 May 2008 17:30:00 GMT

The Debian Security Advisory posted up DSA-1571-1 openssl -- predictable random number generator issue today and strongly advised its users to take steps to avoid possible compromising of any systems running on Debian, such as Ubuntu.

The researcher Luciano Bello discovered a security flaw in Debian's random number generator that allows to predict a random generated number. This is caused by an incorrect Debian change to the openssl package. As a result, cryptographic key material may be guessable.

This problem not only affects Debian, but also all its derivatives, such as Ubuntu.

It is strongly recommended that all cryptographic key material which has been generated by OpenSSL versions starting with 0.9.8c-1 on affected systems is recreated from scratch. Furthermore, all DSA keys ever used on affected systems for signing or authentication purposes should be considered compromised.

News Source: Debian Security Advisory DSA-1571-1

Posted on SharePoint Blogs

SharePoint WallPapers!

Sharepoint 2007 (el otro blog) — Wed, 14 May 2008 16:24:00 GMT

Por el momento son solamente 2, y en base a la Genial T-Shirt de Joel Oleson espero les agraden, estan en Resoulcion WideScreen 1680x1050. Aguardo sus aportes para publicar en este sector. Descargarlo / Download Descargarlo / Download Mirrored on SharePoint Read More......(read more)

SharePoint at Twynham School

apearce — Wed, 14 May 2008 15:50:48 GMT

A few months ago I posted a PDF of what a school in Christchurch, UK had done with SharePoint which included making their own webparts.

I met up with the guys from Twynham and it was a great meeting which also include the representatives from Shirelands.

I had a email from Dave at Twynham the other day to say he has made some videos of the use of SharePoint in the school and has published them on the internet.

These are great thing to look at if your looking at implementing SharePoint are you school.

http://www.twynhamschool.com/supportinglearning/

Posted on SharePoint Blogs

Error: The parameter is incorrect. (Access denied by BDC.)

Corey's .NET Tip of the Day — Wed, 14 May 2008 14:47:08 GMT

When attempting to configure the Business Data Catalog for use with MOSS Enterprise Search, it can be quite common to get this message when you try crawling for the first time. The cause is actually pretty simple, but I figured I would give some troubleshooting Read More......(read more)

Incoming eMail Settings

SPRobot — Wed, 14 May 2008 14:25:00 GMT

Sure, we'd like to have inbound eMail working because it can do alot for corporate communications. Our friend, Joel, has a great outline of these capabilities here.

When I try to enable inbound eMail for a document library, I click on the link on the list settings.

You can set the inbound mail to sort into folders depending on subject or sender and you can tell it to overwrite files. I presume, if the library is set for versioning, overwrites will create a new version.

I can't tell because, when I click OK on the Inbound Email Settings page, I get one of those ugly SharePoint errors that says:

The request failed with HTTP status 401: Unauthorized.

Troubleshoot issues with Windows SharePoint Services.

I always wonder if we'll ever see those people again that click on that bottom link because, once you do, you are in Hell.

So, digging around, we find this. Seems to be perfectly on point. It says:

To enable or configure incoming e-mail support for a list or library, you must have the Manage Lists permission on the list or library. The Manage Lists permission is granted by default to the Site name owners SharePoint group.

I don't see a Manage Lists permission on the doc library. All I see is Full Control. And, otherwise this page doesn't help. Even though I have the "full control" permission, I get the unauthorized error.

At this point, I tried a new blank team site and created an discussion board. During the creation process, I checked the Enable email option and gave it an email address. When I clicked OK, I get an Operation Completed page that says:

The list was created successfully, but could not be assigned an e-mail alias because of the following error: The request failed with HTTP status 401: Unauthorized.

So I check the Windows Event Logs and I see I have some number of these:

The Execute method of job definition Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPIncomingEmailJobDefinition (ID f940c454-b2f0-4bb0-bdec-fa034f5e6ee7) threw an exception. More information is included below.

Value cannot be null.
Parameter name: path

On MSDN, I see that someone else has the exact same problem.

I've seen several references to this from our new best friend Steve in the UK.

-robot

Posted on SharePoint Blogs

SharePoint Kaffeetasse #67

SharePoint, SharePoint and stuff — Wed, 14 May 2008 14:14:36 GMT

Entwicklung Entwickeln für SharePoint SP1 und SP0 Tools Using the Virtual Earth Control in SharePoint Tipps WSS SP3 and Datasheet View Change Top BreadCrumb into Nice Menu Filter List View by Current Week SharePoint Designer 2007 Business Administrator Read More......(read more)

Architect Academy in Hungary

Agnes Molnar — Wed, 14 May 2008 13:32:00 GMT

Microsoft Hungary will start a new, intensive training series for architects and senior developers. The main goal is to give a wide and deep architectural knowledge for participants. The Architect Academy 's main topics are: development methods and tools design patterns development tools: application lifecycle management (ALM), TFS+VSTS+EPM application platform: .NET, WCF/WF/WPF/CS application platform: DSI application platform: application integration, ESB/ISB application Platform: SharePoint...(read more)

Planning for End Users: Connect to Outlook

AutoSponge: SharePoint — Wed, 14 May 2008 13:06:10 GMT

Part of planning for a SharePoint deployment is planning for people to use (or ask to use) many of the features it offers. A great feature available to end users is the "Connect to Outlook" action. For many end users, seeing important data refreshed Read More......(read more)

Interesting article on using folder content types

John Holliday's SharePoint Reflections — Wed, 14 May 2008 09:18:17 GMT

When you have a lot of different content types attached to the same document library, it can be confusing for users. Wouldn't it be nice to organize them into separate folders, so that users see only the content types they need to see? Folder content Read More......(read more)

SharePoint Kaffeetasse #66

SharePoint, SharePoint and stuff — Wed, 14 May 2008 07:00:47 GMT

Entwicklung Getting Started with SharePoint Development von Paul Andrew dazu auch SharePoint Community Wiki Entwicklung und Entwickler Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Tools: Visual Studio 2005 Extensions User Guide, Version 1.1 als Anleitung für Windows Read More......(read more)

ASP.NET Developer Looking for a SharePoint Ramp-Up?

Andrew Connell [MVP MOSS] — Wed, 14 May 2008 03:45:27 GMT

[via Paul Andrew ] Are you an ASP.NET developer who's been curious about this whole SharePoint thing? What's it all about? How can you just test the waters without diving in and buying a bunch of books or booking travel to the next greatest training Read More......(read more)

Learning the Hard Way -- DMZ WFE Must be in a Domain

Paul Galvin's SharePoint space — Wed, 14 May 2008 00:28:16 GMT

Although it's not literally true, as a practical matter, an internet-facing web front end in a DMZ must be in a domain (i.e. not some standalone server in its own little workgroup). It doesn't need to be in the same domain as the internal WFE Read More......(read more)

JOG May 2008 Meeting 5/15/2008 CANCELLED

Jacksonville Office Geeks: Announcements — Wed, 14 May 2008 00:10:26 GMT

Body: We regret to inform you that the JOG May 2008 monthly meeting on Thursday, May 15th, has been cancelled. Please stay tuned for future meeting announcements which will be posted to this list. Mirrored on SharePoint Blogs Posted on SharePoint Blogs Read More......(read more)

SharePoint & BI

Sharepoint 2007 (el otro blog) — Tue, 13 May 2008 23:48:00 GMT

Con la llegada de Performance Point, se han empezado a generar interesantes Reportes graficos, para ello el siguiente portal nos muestra muchisimos ejemplos de que es lo que podemos lograr, asi como una interesante aplicacion gratuita. Direccion del Sitio Read More......(read more)

Guia de Usuario para las VS Extensions para SharePoint

Sharepoint 2007 (el otro blog) — Tue, 13 May 2008 23:10:00 GMT

El Dia de ayer fue liberada la guia de usuario para las Extensiones de Visua Studio 2005 para SharePoint. La pueden descargar Gratuitamente desde AQUI , incluye Demos, Paso a Paso, etc, etc, (8MB de Info). Para utilizar una esta tool, necesitamos tener Read More......(read more)

SharePoint Blogs

Adding subfolders programmatically when a new folder is created

Microsoft Popfly and SharePoint

DBA script: how to quickly assess all of your SQL instances

Ready Steady SharePoint!

SharePoint TechNet White Papers: Plan for software boundaries

EndUserSharePoint.com: Iron Man vs Indiana Jones… Are you kidding me?

Some icons disappear in MOSS

SharePoint Database Indexes and Statistics

Getting the correct MOSS / WSS version for each server in the farm

NJSPUG May 21st, 2008 meeting SharePoint Open Disccussion!

Email Enabled List Alias Management

TED: Secrets of success in 8 words, 3 minutes

Missing Microsoft Robotics Development Studio Templates in Visual Studio 2008

Pre-populating Form Fields for a New Item

Seven habits of highly effective bloggers

Comprobar la version de SharePoint 2007

"The Best of Techdays 2008 ITPro" - Innovation Day - Electronic Public Sector: Gov 2.0

Open XML to DAISY XML Translator download

Notes and Resources from SQL User Group Session on SharePoint

MOSS Small Farm Installation and Configuration War Story

Lesson Learned: New GUIDs and Workflow

Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 Update download

Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 SP1 download

EndUserSharePoint.com: How can I get an aggregated list of all my tasks?

SharePoint 2007 : Extension Method (TryGet)

LINQ4SP - Simple Query

Help, my database updates don't stick

Mea Culpa -- SharePoint Designer *CAN* Create State Machine Workflows

Troubleshooting SPSite/SPWeb leaks in WSS v3 and MOSS 2007

Visual Studio extensions for SharePoint – Developer User Guide Released

Very Busy May!

Receiving "There was an error in the callback" error message when expanding tree in Content and Structure page.

Indy Search

Connecting Visual Studio 2005 to Team Foundation Server 2008

XPath, XQuery, and XSLT Functions

Debian security flaws, more of them. But it's still sovery safe they keep telling us?

SharePoint WallPapers!

SharePoint at Twynham School

Error: The parameter is incorrect. (Access denied by BDC.)

Incoming eMail Settings

SharePoint Kaffeetasse #67

Architect Academy in Hungary

Planning for End Users: Connect to Outlook

Interesting article on using folder content types

SharePoint Kaffeetasse #66

ASP.NET Developer Looking for a SharePoint Ramp-Up?

Learning the Hard Way -- DMZ WFE Must be in a Domain

JOG May 2008 Meeting 5/15/2008 CANCELLED

SharePoint & BI

Guia de Usuario para las VS Extensions para SharePoint

Mea Culpa -- SharePoint Designer CAN Create State Machine Workflows