Microsoft Office

Oklahoma City SharePoint User Group Opportunities

Wayne Larimore — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 17:39:42 GMT

We have two events happening in March that you should be aware of if you are in the Oklahoma City metro area. It will be great time to share what you are doing with SharePoint and struggles you are having. Perhaps there will be someone in attendance that can provide an answer to your problem.

When: March 11th, 2010 11:30am - 1:00pm (please rsvp, see below)

Where:

Dell Oklahoma City office
3501 SW 15th
Bldg A, Hudson Hall on 1st Floor
Oklahoma City, OK 73108

Who:

Eric Shupps, The SharePoint Cowboy will be our guest speaker for this first meeting of the Oklahoma City SharePoint User Group.

Subject:

Overview of SharePoint 2010 and talk further about features in SharePoint 2010 of interest to the IT Pro and the developer.

Please RSVP to: balcock [at] ou.edu or call (405) 325-7307

When: March 29, 2010 6pm - 8pm

Where: http://okccoco.com/

Who:

Corey Roth is a consultant at Stonebridge specializing in SharePoint solutions in the Oil & Gas Industry. He has ten plus years of experience delivering solutions in the energy, travel, advertising and consumer electronics verticals. Corey has always focused on rapid adoption of new Microsoft technologies including Visual Studio 2010, .NET Framework 4.0, LINQ, and SilverLight. He also contributed greatly to the beta phases of Visual Studio 2005. For his contributions, he was awarded the Microsoft Award for Customer Excellence (ACE). Corey is a graduate of Oklahoma State University. Corey is a member of the .NET Mafia (www.dotnetmafia).

Subject:

Introduction to SharePoint 2010 Enterprise Search

This intro level talk will teach you the basics of Enterprise Search in SharePoint. Here you will learn about the basic building blocks such as content sources, crawled properties, managed properties, and scopes. We will also cover what types of data can be indexed. We’ll use demo search using SharePoint 2010, but all of the topics apply to MOSS 2007 as well.

Hope to see you there :o)

SharePoint 2010 Post Conference Takeaways

Wayne Larimore — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:16:28 GMT

I have had some time to ponder the ton-of-stuff at the 2009 SharePoint Conference. Overall, I really like what Microsoft has done with this version. They seem to have addressed the majority of pain points. Here are some of the highlights of what comes to mind...

Service Applications - Previously, we were forced to use the SSP service for all services (Search, BDC, Profile, Excel). Now, the Service Application approach is providing a Service Model. AC gave a level 400 session on this and built a cleverly simple load-balanced calculator that was indeed an independent service.

The Ribbon - consistency is always a good thing. The Ribbon provides a consistent place where the end-user knows where his / her actions can be acted upon.

Sandboxing / Visual Studio 2010 templates - Developing for SharePoint has always been a confusing effort. Once the developer became familiar with creating the solution structure and with the repetition of doing it lots of times, it was second nature. Deployment? eck! Now, with VS 2010, the necessary structure and files are generated via SharePoint project templates and even builds the wsp file for deployment. Sandboxing provides a way to deploy your solution with a subset object model and deployed to a special gallery, a more secure environment and allows admins to upload instead of IT/Ops. Visual Web Part templates now have a built-in Designer also.

Lists - Lists and libraries are pretty much the bread and butter to SharePoint. I use Custom Lists a lot in my day-to-day activities. New in SP 2010, they have introduced a way to prevent Duplicate Values, provided Column Validation (via Excel formulas) and More Robust Metadata defining.

LINQ Support - The need to write / build CAML seems to be nearly eliminated with the introduction of Microsoft.SharePoint.LINQ ; at least that is what we were told. It will now translate LINQ into CAML for us!

SharePoint Designer / InfoPath / No Code approach - I sat in on a session demonstrating a no code approach to an end-to-end business case. I was pretty impressed by it, but still leary of it in real life business situations. However, I am real eager to start working with SPD and InfoPath to see if no code solutions are really possible in SharePoint 2010. They have addressed some short falls that were in InfoPath 2007. Here are some of the new features I remember: Web Part creation, SP list/library form creation, ability now to do filtering in browser forms, and the rules manager. Lastly, workflow management has been improved significantly in both SharePoint Designer and InfoPath 2010.

Missing SQL Server Management Studio

Wayne Larimore — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 15:36:23 GMT

Missing your SQL Server Management Studio after installing SQL Server 2005? When creating my Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) development environment I had the same problem. Thankfully, Pete Orologas posted a solution and it worked for me. Apparently, if there is already a \Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Tools folder that exists then the installer moves on to the next step. How does that subfolder get there? Well, if you install Visual Studio before SQL it creates the folder when installing SQL Express. Or if you install the SQL Express edition it will create the tools folder.

THE SOLUTION?

Rename the Tools folder to something like Tools_bkup and run the "SqlRun_Tools" exe or msi file. This is located on the install media inside the {drive}:\{platform_specific_pathing}\Tools\Setup subfolder.

This worked for me. I hope it helps in your situation. Leave comments of your experience.

My Own SharePoint Resource Page

Wayne Larimore — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 15:45:26 GMT

I have started a SharePoint resource page. I have been recommending (and still do) some of the great ones out there. However, I have found that some of my experiences and needs differ in a lot of ways. As with others, my resource page has started out as something I use to personally reference in my day-to-day work routine. If it helps others that would be great too. Here's the beginnings of my MOSS SharePoint InfoPath Workflow .NET Resource Page. It will be growing significantly over the coming days.

Waynester's SharePoint Resource page

Do Less, Get More, Develop On SharePoint

Wayne Larimore — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 18:05:34 GMT

Great Resource for us SharePoint developers!

http://www.MsSharePointDeveloper.com

Hands on Labs for Developing Apps on WSS 3.0

Wayne Larimore — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 04:28:54 GMT

[via AC]

Do you need hands-on development experience with Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Applications? Here's a link to start your journey:

Hands on Labs for Developing Applications on Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

SharePoint Business Decision Maker (BDM) & Technical Templates

Wayne Larimore — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 02:44:49 GMT

[via TechNet]

Each application template has a companion set of two datasheets. For business decision makers, the functional overview (BDM datasheet) highlights the features and details of the scenario which can be used to consider deployment. The technical overview (TDM datasheet) is for IT professionals and describes the scenario, Web parts, relevant workflows, lists, and document libraries that are part of the template.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsserver/sharepoint/bb848090.aspx

Microsoft TechEd 2007 - Days 1 thru Day 5

Wayne Larimore — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 19:54:33 GMT

Keynote - Bob Muglia, Christopher Lloyd

Bob is the senior vice president over the Server and Tools Business at Microsoft. The opening was pretty dramatic with a spoof on "Back To The Future". They taped a movie-quality version for the first few minutes. Then out came Bob and Christopher Lloyd AND the Delorean.

Many demonstrations were shown during the keynote. However, the one that stood out to me was the Microsoft Server 2008 Management Tools related to Virtualization. It came across really cool in the way they were able to host many servers and move them to different physical servers at "will". The monitoring tools drove home how much improvements are coming next year with Windows Server 2008.

A Lap around Microsoft Visual Studio 2008

A disappointing session, mainly due the virtual pc problems that Jay had at the beginning. He came with a lot of demos and very slide shows (which is great)... but with this vpc hanging he was struggling to stay afloat. After restarting and waiting a few minutes he was able to recover. I look forward to all the new features in VS2K8.

Lunch at Tech Ed

Eating lunch at Tech Ed is an amazing spectacle of crowd management. We got our food buffet-style and then got a table. On our table we had a cake - every table the same. These extra touches that Microsoft provides developers is what makes us come back for more each opportunity we can. All the free swag is fun. And the Free food everywhere is truly amazing and over-the-top. Way to go Microsoft.

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Overview

Tom Rizzo did a pretty good job summarizing all that is MOSS 2007. A tough job in an hours timeframe. I enjoyed the differences he pointed out between 2003 and 2007. It shows how much Microsoft listened to their customers by what was included. What I especially enjoyed watching was the integration between Outlook and Sharepoint. Being able to pull down content Offline is especially attractive.

A Lap around Microsoft Windows Presentation Foundation

I'm blown away by this framework being rolled out by Microsoft. The 3D effects and the power of producing it within code is overwhelming to a developer like me. It makes me want to put everything to the side and start writing games. The demonstration of the traffic control airport monitoring was cool! Then he took us through many, many, many examples of XAML, graphics terminologies, code and more code.

A Lap around Silverlight

Again, the presentation possibilities of Silverlight is phenomenal. The power given to control the presentation to the users is incredible. I'm sure there will be a tremendous learning curve at first. But, if the future looks so bright, I've gotta wear shades :o)

Building Advanced Web Parts for SharePoint v3 the ASP.NET 2.0 Way

Andrew Connell did a good job in his first debut at Tech Ed. He was "coding example" heavy which is what I prefer when going to dev events. Leave the slide shows behind and show us the magic - WOW me! AC gave a demonstration on Asynchronous Web Parts. He went under the hood and showed the code that made it happen. When it was all over, I felt like wiping my brow of sweat like he was doing with his signature towel. He reminded me of Jerry Tarkanian. The best part of the session was watching a former colleague and friend succeed in something he is passionate about - developing solutions that make a difference.

Branding and Customizing Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Sites

I really didn't need to attend this session as I am a developer and not a web designer. However, Heather Solomon was the speaker and I worked alongside her for a few years. I consider her one of the best web designers (heck, designer period) I have ever had the pleasure working with. Now, she is teaching many people from many nations her skills - and they were eating it up. I must admit that even though we have web designers in our corporation doing the prettying up stuff, I would like to know how. And Heather certainly gives up all her secrets (within the short hour timeframe). Check out her website for tons of resources. I really enjoyed her session and learned a few things.

Islands Of Adventure, Thursday Evening

This was my second (2nd) Tech Ed event. It amazes me how Microsoft can lease out an entire amusement facility and pay for everything! All of the amusement rides were free. Walking by all the food vendors and grabbing a snack and drink - free. All the entertainment available - for free. It was a nice ending to a week of intense learning and walking. Thanks Microsoft for pampering us geeks who make you all the money :o)

InfoPath External Data Reference Issues Solved in 2007

Wayne Larimore — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 15:45:00 GMT

This is a boon for InfoPath developers out there! I caught this over at Jan Tielens' blog. It's concerning the use of newly introduced Universal Data Connection (UDC) files. In previous postings I ranted about the lack of (or pain of) accomodations for distributed solutions in InfoPath. I found myself creating data sources in development that were difficult to change when migrating to Testing or Production environments. Jan does a swell job of explaining this new approach. He also throws in some upgrade and migration tips.

External Data & InfoPath: Server Upgrade and Migration Tool

MOSS Office 2007 Client Suite Microsoft FREE eLearning

Wayne Larimore — Wed, 04 Oct 2006 14:14:00 GMT

I got wind of these from a co-worker, Jake Wilds. Microsoft has provided free eLearning courses on MOSS 2007 and Office 2007 Client Suite. You can find them here:

https://www.microsoftelearning.com/catalog/itproDev.aspx#officeSystem2007