Thinking out aloud - Dave Hunter's blog

I've moved!

2007-11-18T17:36:00.000Z

I haven't posted for a while, during this period I have moved to a new blog. Any new posts will be on www.davehunter.co.uk/blog.

Technorati Charts - SharePoint 2007

2007-08-14T12:30:00.000+01:00

Technorati has a charting feature that allows you to see the volume of blog posts during a period of time graphically. Here's a few SharePoint 2007 related charts ....Posts that contain SharePoint 2007 per day for the last 30 days.Posts that contain SharePoint 2007 ECM per day for the last 30 days.Posts that contain SharePoint 2007 Search per day for the last 30 days.Posts that contain

SharePoint 2007 Hotfix KB 936867

2007-08-08T20:20:00.000+01:00

I recently had problems when the security inheritance was broken for a document library on a WSS site for a MOSS 2007 installation. After raising a support request Microsoft issued a hot fix. The hotfix package also addresses KB 934577, 935958, 937038.934577 - Not public936867 - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/936867935958 - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/935958937038 - http://

SharePoint 2007 Forms Authentication with Sql Server

2007-08-03T12:35:00.000+01:00

Dan Attis has two great articles about configuring forms authentication against SQL Server with MOSS.Part one - Configuring Forms Authentication with SharePointhttp://devcow.com/blogs/jdattis/archive/2007/02/23/Office_SharePoint_Server_2007_Forms_Based_Authentication_FBA_Walkthrough_Part_1.aspxPart two - Configuring Forms Authentication with MySiteshttp://devcow.com/blogs/jdattis/archive/2007/03/

SharePoint 2007 Maximum Limitations

2007-07-31T09:00:00.000+01:00

The following is a list of names and other parameters with the maximum allowable size of eachEntityMax Permissible SizeSite Name128 charactersSite URL255 charactersDisplay name128 charactersConnections diving384 charactersEmail address128 charactersVersion numbers064 charactersVirtual Server Friendly Name064 charactersSQL Database Name123 charactersSQL Database Column128 charactersSQL Database

Get a hotfix without calling MS

2007-07-30T12:50:00.000+01:00

You can now request hotfixes via the web. This saves time phoning up a MS customer service operator, explaining the problem, hot fix number and product the hot fix relates to.Hotfixes that haven't been made public are also available.Screen shot of the MS Hotfix Request Formhttps://support.microsoft.com/contactus2/emailcontact.aspx?scid=sw;en;1410&WS=hotfix

Tip - Quickly find out an assembly's public key

2007-07-25T12:50:00.000+01:00

When working with MOSS / WSS you need to find out the Public Key Token of your assembly for a feature, manifest or the web.config file.One of the ways to retrieve the Public Key Token is to build the project (making sure the assembly is signed) and drop the assembly in the Global Assembly Cache (GAC).You can however use the SN.EXE (.NET Strong Name Tool) with the -T parameter (please note the

SharePoint 2007 menu item feature - attach to debugger

2007-07-24T17:50:00.000+01:00

The SharePoint team have posted an article about adding a new menu item to the site actions allowing users to easily debug SharePoint 2007. The updated menu looks like:http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2007/04/10/debugger-feature-for-sharepoint.aspx

SharePoint 2007 SQL Server Failure Audits in Event Log

2007-07-24T17:40:00.001+01:00

Q. Are your event log's getting full of SQL Server Failure Audits for a service account or database access account you have created for MOSS?Q. Have you also re-installed MOSS?If you have answered yes to both of the above questions then you will have SQL Server Agent Jobs that are associated with old Shared Services databases running.To resolve thisOpen SQL Server Management Studio.Expand SQL

MOSS Case Study - Endsleigh Insurance

2007-07-20T13:00:00.000+01:00

Endsleigh InsuranceEmployees Gain Better Access to Corporate, Industry Information with Enterprise Search.Read how we (CIBER UK) helped Endsleigh Insurance migrate from their SharePoint 2003 platform and improve productivity using MOSS and enterprise search.http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/casestudy.aspx?casestudyid=4000000373

SharePoint 2007 Running SPSecurity.RunWithElevatedPrivileges

2007-07-18T13:00:00.000+01:00

In SharePoint Portal Server 2003 you may have needed to impersonate a user with higher priveledges than the current user executing the code. You did this using WindowsIdentity.Impersonate() method. In SharePoint 2007 and WSS V3 you have SPSecurity.RunWithElevatedPrivileges call. The code looks like:SPSecurity.RunWithElevatedPrivileges(delegate() { // put your code here. any code within these

MOSS SDK download updated

2007-07-18T12:45:00.000+01:00

The MOSS 2007 SDK download has been updated and ready for download http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=6d94e307-67d9-41ac-b2d6-0074d6286fa9&displaylang=en.OverviewThe Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 SDK is designed for solution providers, independent software vendors, value-added resellers, and other developers to learn about the new Office SharePoint Server 2007

WSS V3 SDK download updated

2007-07-18T12:30:00.001+01:00

The WSS V3 SDK has been updated and ready for download http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=05e0dd12-8394-402b-8936-a07fe8afaffd&DisplayLang=enOverviewThe Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SDK contains conceptual overviews, programming tasks, and references to guide you in developing solutions based on Windows SharePoint Services as a platform. The SDK includes information about

Adding web.config settings to you WSS or MOSS site

2007-07-18T08:45:00.001+01:00

This article describes how to add web.config settings automatically to your new web applications under WSS V3 and SharePoint 2007.You need to create a file in the format of webconfig.[name].xml, copy the file to C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\CONFIG folder and the settings in the file will be merged with the web.config file on any new web application.

Blog tools - Colour code you C#, HTML or XML code

2007-07-18T08:30:00.000+01:00

I found this great tool for formatting your code ready for your blog. http://www.manoli.net/csharpformat/.Turns this:Into this:When Microsoft refer to this template being obselete

Visual Studio .NET 2005 - Code Snippets Demo

2007-07-16T20:00:00.000+01:00

The above Code snippets demostrates the following snippet typesSimple expansionTemplate expansion (with variables)SurroundOpen the snippet managerCtrl+K, Ctrl+BTo activate a snippet ... start typing the name of the snippetTab,Tab (in C#)?,Tab (in VB.NET) .. and the snippet will appear. If it's a templated snippet:Tab advances to the next fieldShift+Tab moves to the previous fieldEnter completes

Hosting UserControls vs Delegate Control

2007-07-13T08:30:00.000+01:00

There are two main approaches for adding user controls to your site: Deploying them to the "wpresources" folderUsing the DelegateControlMany people have blogged about each technique, but which is the best or the recommended approach?Tony Rahbun has posted an article called "WebParticles: Developing and Using Web User Controls as WebParts in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007" http://

SharePoint 2007 Supported Browsers and Languages

2007-07-10T19:30:00.000+01:00

Supported Web Browsers Internet Explorer 6 and 7 are recommended for site administration.Firefox 1.5, Mozilla 1.7 Netscape 8.1, Safari 2.0 (Mac) are supported for the front-end.For more information please see http://technet2.microsoft.com/Office/en-us/library/ff6c5b8c-59bd-4079-8f0b-de4f8b4e0a861033.mspx?mfr=trueMulti-lingual Languages Supported on the front end through

SharePoint 2007 Backup Failed - Cannot open backup device

2007-07-09T19:15:00.000+01:00

You may have seen this error Error: Object SharePoint_Config failed in event OnBackup. For more information, see the error log located in the backup directory. SqlException: Cannot open backup device '\\servername\backup\spbr0001\0000001.bak'. Operating system error 5(error not found).After reading this article http://technet2.microsoft.com/Office/en-us/library/b4dfe06a-40a5-4826-8d4b-

Use Cases vs Requirements

2007-07-09T18:30:00.000+01:00

I'm about a quarter of the way through MCPD 70-547 Designing and Developing Web-Based Applications using Microsoft .NET Framework, I have already picked up some good tips. One that comes to mind is about Use Cases and Requirements.Mike Snell talks about why you need both use cases and requirements. His mentions a real world example, in which he takes two projects. One project captures the

SharePoint 2007 Virtual Labs

2007-07-08T17:30:00.000+01:00

Here's a list of SharePoint 2007 Virtual Labs Building InfoPath Forms that Run as Both Rich Client and Browser Applications Virtual Lab - become familiar with browser-based scenarios for Office InfoPath 2007 forms.Creating Workflows for Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Virtual Lab - learn how to create workflows for Office SharePoint Server 2007Getting Started with the Business Data

TechEd IT Forum 2007 - Powered by SharePoint 2007

2007-07-08T17:10:00.000+01:00

Microsoft's website for TechEd IT Forum 2007 (12-16 November 2007 Barcelona, Spain) is built upon SharePoint 2007. It's also a nice example of a usable flash / html mix site which doesn't look like a typical SharePoint 2007 site.http://www.mseventseurope.com/teched/07/itforum/pages/default.aspx

Removing hidden and damaged webparts from a page

2007-07-08T17:00:00.000+01:00

You can remove hidden or damaged webparts from a page by appending "?contents=1" to the url (if the url already contains a querystring parameter replace "?" with "&"). This will bring up a screen listing all the webparts on the page (both visible and hidden). You can then select any web part and remove it.If a webpart is causing significant damaged to a page (ie throwing an exception which isn't

Devil wears Prada featuring Microsoft Exchange Unified Messaging

2007-07-05T14:30:00.000+01:00

Not sure how geniune this is, but worth taking 5 minutes out to watch :)

Are your labels getting out of hand?

2007-07-05T14:15:00.000+01:00

If you use http://www.blogger.com/ and the label widget you may find that you have too many links displayed under the labels section ... I did. There aren't any properties to restrict how many links appear. After looking through the html of the template, you can add an if clause to only show labels if they appear more than once. You will need to find the label widget with the HTML of the template

Complete list of STSADM operations (with parameters) in SharePoint 2007

2007-07-05T13:55:00.000+01:00

Jose Barreto wrote a great reference article on the STSADM operations and the parameters.http://blogs.technet.com/josebda/archive/2007/03/22/complete-reference-of-all-stsadm-commands-with-options-in-moss-2007.aspx

STSADM Import / Export

2007-07-05T13:45:00.000+01:00

STSADM has two operations called "import" and "export".Export allows you to backup a copy of a site to the file system. This will generate one or more .CMP files (based on the size of the site, this will distribute the contents over many .CMP files).Import allows you to take the files generated by an export and import over a blank SharePoint Site.Please note: Both Import and Export operations for

Microsoft Demo: Configure a SharePoint Server 2007 Site to Receive E-Mail

2007-07-04T20:40:00.000+01:00

Overview - By configuring your Office SharePoint Server 2007 site to receive e-mail messages, you can enable team members to use e-mail to send information, messages, and files directly to different areas of the site. http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=c910a323-164d-4fad-8646-64872ffe4c46&DisplayLang=en

MOSS & WSS Management Packs

2007-07-02T09:59:00.000+01:00

MOSS and WSS V3 Management packs for Operations Manager 2007 (MOM)WSS V3 downloadhttp://www.microsoft.com/downloads/info.aspx?na=22&p=8&SrcDisplayLang=en&SrcCategoryId=&SrcFamilyId=&u=%2fdownloads%2fdetails.aspx%3fFamilyID%3d6803aa1d-0578-4d7d-bc2f-9600f0440d92%26DisplayLang%3denMOSS 2007 downloadhttp://www.microsoft.com/downloads/info.aspx?na=22&p=9&SrcDisplayLang=en&SrcCategoryId=&SrcFamilyId=&

Guidelines to Design and Develop Acessible Websites

2007-07-02T09:45:00.000+01:00

Microsoft whitepaper - Guidelines to Design and Developer Accessible websites using MOSS 2007, MCMS and SharePoint 2003http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/info.aspx?na=22&p=12&SrcDisplayLang=en&SrcCategoryId=&SrcFamilyId=&u=%2fdownloads%2fdetails.aspx%3fFamilyID%3d35487ef8-8e92-4f3b-96bf-2dfd7f4602d2%26DisplayLang%3den

Hands on labs for Windows Workflow Foundation (WF)

2007-07-02T09:30:00.000+01:00

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=2e575633-e357-4ee7-aaff-34138f00e830&displaylang=enWindows Workflow Foundation gives you the building blocks (model, engine and tools) to enable you to create workflow enabled applications on the Windows platform. The download contains 10 hands-on labs in C# and VB.NET. MSDN has more information about Windows Workflow Foundation.Labs

SharePoint 2007 - MySite Self Service Site Creation

2007-06-29T20:00:00.001+01:00

After setting up a new SharePoint 2007 installation an end user got the following error message when trying to create a new MySite "Your personal site cannot be created because Self-Service Site Creation is not enabled. Contact your site administrator for more information".You can enabled Self Service Site Creation byOpen Central AdministrationClick on the Application Management tabClick on the

Integrating Office SharePoint Server 2007 and SAP

2007-06-29T19:45:00.000+01:00

I've been recently looking into MOSS integration with SAP. Found this whitepaper useful.from saptech:The SharePoint Team published a new whitepaper which describes the innovations in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 that make interoperability with SAP easier than ever. The paper explains the general business and technical challenges facing customers who want to bring the power of their SAP

Telerik RadEditor available for MOSS

2007-06-29T18:59:00.000+01:00

The Telerik RadEditor is now available for SharePoint 2007 (MOSS) in Lite and Full versions. If you've worked with MCMS you would of heard of Telerik. The Telerik RadEditor was a huge improvement over the native HTML placeholder control even in the Lite (Free) version.After looking at the comparison chart http://www.telerik.com/documents/RadEditorMOSS_Feature_Comparison.pdf both the RadEditor

Creating Content Types with the Content Types Viewer

2007-06-21T13:30:00.000+01:00

This post shows how to create content types using the Content Types Viewer and features. In this post we are going to create a "car" content type with a "door", "engine" and "colour" site columns. This post assumes you are familiar with SharePoint 2007 administration.The Content Types Viewer is available to download from http://www.codeplex.com/MOSS2K7CTypesViewer/ 1. Once on your SharePoint 2007

Prescan now available to download

2007-06-21T13:20:00.000+01:00

You can download PreScan.exe here http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=e8a00b1f-6f45-42cd-8e56-e62c20feb2f1&DisplayLang=en.You will need to run PreScan.exe against your WSS V2 or SharePoint Portal 2003 sites before they are migrated. PreScan scans the V2 SharePoint site for customised site templates, sites based on custom site definitions, unghosted pages, custom webparts,

Articles for Microsoft 2007 Products

2007-06-20T15:30:00.000+01:00

Great source of useful articleshttp://www.asaris.de/sites/walsh/Lists/Articles%20for%202007%20Products/Grouped%20By%20Category.aspx

Team Collaboration Feature SharePoint 2007

2007-06-20T13:10:00.000+01:00

Someone in the Microsoft SharePoint 2007 product team has a sense of humour or a good example of creative coding or maybe a good way to distinguish between features ... I'll let you decide. The GUID of the collaboration feature is Is it me or does this look like collaboration?

Using the Content Types Viewer

2007-06-19T14:30:00.000+01:00

The content types viewer is a windows form which displays information about content types that exist in SharePoint 2007. I came to write the tool because creating custom content types using features was quite time consuming. Creating content types with a web browser is more intuitive but there is no easy way to deploy them. The content types viewer looks like:Download it here http://

Tip: Creating content types in SharePoint 2007

2007-06-19T13:20:00.000+01:00

When creating content types try and think generically. One great feature of content types is that they support inheritance. If you have an object for example a car, create a base car content type that contains all the common attributes that a car supports (doors, engine, colour etc) and then create a content type based on the car content type.For example: Content types that inherit from the car

Dilbert on consulting

2007-06-19T09:50:00.000+01:00

SharePoint 2007 Support Knowledge Base

2007-06-18T14:35:00.000+01:00

It's worthwhile to keep an eye on this page http://support.microsoft.com/search/default.aspx?catalog=LCID%3d2057&spid=11373&query=&adv=&mode=s&cat=False&range=1-180 it lists workarounds and support information for SharePoint 2007.

SharePoint 2007 Books

2007-06-18T14:25:00.000+01:00

Studying for 70-551 Upgrade MCAD to MCPD Web Developer

2007-06-18T14:20:00.000+01:00

I'm currently studying for exam 70-551 UPGRADE: MCAD Skills to MCPD Web Developer by Using the Microsoft .NET Framework. The exam is very substantial (4 hours long and 90 questions).More information about the exam http://www.microsoft.com/learning/exams/70-551.mspxThis package of Microsoft Self-paced training kit books are worthwhile MCPD Books from Amazon I've bought these books, all I need now

Kingston Bagpuize a hive of activity

2007-06-18T14:00:00.000+01:00

Kingston Bagpuize is a small village outside of Oxford just off the A420 (the road which joins Oxford with Swindon and Bristol). However small Kingston Bagpuize is, 3 gold partners are based there, CIBER UK, ndl-metascybe and Business and Decision.CIBER UK http://www.ciber.co.uk/ndl-metascybe http://www.ndl.co.uk/Business and Decision http://www.businessdecision.co.uk/ (formerly Domino Systems).

Emirates cup

2007-06-17T19:00:00.000+01:00

Maybe I shouldn't admit to this being a Liverpool fan, but I've just bought two tickets for day two of the Emirates cup.Day 1 - Saturday 28th July 2007Inter Milan v Valencia (2pm)Arsenal v Paris Saint-Germain (4.15pm)Day 2 - Sunday 29th July 2007Paris Saint-Germain v Valencia (2pm)Arsenal v Inter Milan (4.15pm)Two games for the price of one. Hopefully the football will live up to the expectation.

Configuring and Integrating Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Microsoft Commerce Server 2007 Whitepaper

2007-06-16T14:40:00.000+01:00

The white paper is available here http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=2AEB1A5E-43B8-483B-8CB2-86C0E82BF0AB&displaylang=enYears ago Microsoft had a solution called MSIB which intergrated Commerce server and MCMS together to provide a plarform for building rich content authoring enabled eCommerce sites.Overview of the download .. (from MS site)This download provides setup and

SPS 2003 upgrade to MOSS 2007

2007-06-13T13:20:00.000+01:00

I’ve successfully completed several migrations from SharePoint 2003 to MOSS 2007 with sites that have had various degrees of customisations. Mainly these have used the database migration approach. This was due to minimising the amount of downtime and to new hardware requirements.Microsoft have whitepapers and information on technet for upgrading to SharePoint 2007, for more information go here

STSADM Import / Export

2007-06-12T18:40:00.000+01:00

Tip: When exporting a site in SharePoint 2007 using STSADM, you may get a .CMP file 17KB in size. This will be because the user who is running STSADM doesn't have access to the site. If you give the user permissions to the site, you will export the site successfully.Always run STSADM as a user with a site collection owner rights on the target site.

MOSS Variations … Alternative approach

2007-06-12T15:27:00.000+01:00

Variations in SharePoint 2007 work well if you have direct translations from one main language into one or many languages, but if you want a more flexible solution to cater for having pages in other languages but not the source language then you can’t do that with the out-of-the-box approach.For example, under the standard approach:A global company has a multi-lingual website with content

Holiday

2007-06-01T18:40:00.000+01:00

Time for a break ... and I'm off to Paphos for a week. Weather looks good to:Will post some info on SharePoint 2003 migration to MOSS once I return.

Colour Picker

2007-05-31T19:35:00.000+01:00

Recently I've been customising the look and feel of SharePoint 2007 for a client. I needed to get the hexadecimal colour codes from an existing website, but the website was using flash. I found this colour picker http://iconico.com/colorpic/ very helpful and best of all its free.

MOSS Query Tool

2007-05-31T19:15:00.000+01:00

If you haven’t seen it already, its worth looking at the MOSS Query Tool. It’s great for searching your index and creating CAML search queries.http://www.gotdotnet.com/Community/UserSamples/Details.aspx?SampleGuid=89b3cda7-aad9-4919-8faf-34ef9b28c57b

MOSS Variations …. Customising the landing page logic

2007-05-29T23:04:00.000+01:00

The out-of-the-box variation landing page functionality in SharePoint 2007 is very flexible (the default language is based on your browser settings), but if you want to provide a more strict route into your site. For example: A site which is predomiately in German would want to show German first and then allow the user to select another language. You can do so by:1. Setup variations with the

First Post

2007-05-29T23:00:00.002+01:00

Hello and welcome to my blog.Who am I?My name's Dave Hunter. I'm currently working as a senior consultant at CIBER UK. I've been working with Microsoft Information Worker technologies for nearly 6 years. My main depth of knowledge and skills are with Microsoft CMS and SharePoint. I started working with MCMS when Microsoft aquired the product in 2001 and have been working with it ever since. More