http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2009/11/18/sharepoint-2010-public-beta-is-now-available-for-download.aspx

At the PDC in n Los Angeles, Scott Guthrie announced the availability of Silverlight 4 beta:

http://team.silverlight.net/announcement/silverlight-4-beta-is-now-available/

http://www.silverlight.net/getstarted/silverlight-4-beta/

Related posts:

1. Silverlight 3 Released
2. SharePoint Connections 2010 Amsterdam Videos
3. VS2010 / .NET Framework 4 Release Candidate now available!

You can read more about Silverlight 3 in the following blog posts:

• What’s New in Silverlight 3? (silverlight.net)
• Silverlight 3 Released (Scott Guthrie)
• Silverlight 3 Released! What is new/changed? (Tim Heuer)
• Biggest Suprises in Silverlight 3 (Shawn Wildermuth)
• Silverlight 3 Released – Exciting Stuff Here! (Dan Wahlin)
• Silverlight 3 and Expression Studio 3 (RC) Released! (Jeff Barnes)
• Welcoming Silverlight 3 RTW (Pete Brown)
• See the Light: Silverlight 3 & Expression 3 Launch (The Silverlight Blog)
• Get Silverlight 3 and Microsoft Expression 3 Now (The Silverlight Blog)

Related posts:

1. SharePoint 2010 Beta 2 and Silverlight 4 Beta available

• If you need an extranet, VPN could be an option.
• If you have 2 Web Front End servers, one for Intranet and one for Internet, keep both web applications on both servers, it’s easier to update.
• Web Application Best Practices:
  • Don’t allow servers to access the internet.
  • 64 bit hardware.
  • Use Network Intrusion Detection (Host based detection causes extra server load).
  • Consider Transport Layer Security(SSL, IPSEC) between servers carefully, it’s complex.
• SSL Best Practices:
  • Offload from SharePoint.
  • Sticky session on NLB (see white-paper on combined knowledge site).
  • Use port 443.
  • Use A Records in DNS.
  • Use fixed IP Addresses.
  • Use SSL for Central Administration (password sent over the network).
  • ForeFront Anti-Virus for SharePoint.

SharePoint as an SOA platform. (Brad Smith)

• Service boundaries are explicit.
• Services share schema and contract not class.
• Service compatibility is determined based on policy.
• Services are autonomous.
• SOA is a system design strategy, not a technology.
• Use it when there are environmental boundaries.
• When?
  • Geographical distributed locations.
  • Multiple pre-existing applications or data stores.
  • Continuity of operations.
  • Maintenance cost reduction.
  • Interoperability.
• Why not?
  • SOA strategies can be expensive.
  • You need architects.
  • Lots of code.
  • Do you need distributed computing?
  • Other option is Enterprise Application Integration.
• SharePoint SOA:
  • Federated search, records center.
• What is need to make the SharePoint platform an SOA?
  • Node Topology Service.
  • Service Discovery Service (UDDI).
  • Content Definition Service (format).

Deploying SharePoint sites through multiple environments. (Chris O’Brien)

• http://sharepointnutsandbolts.com
• A site is a mix of .NET and SharePoint artifacts:
  • Files / assemblies.
  • SharePoint schema (content type, site columns, …).
  • Content.
  • Configuration.
• Goals:
  • Repeatable (should be able to rebuild from scratch).
  • Predictable.
  • Acceptable packaging efforts – automation scale.
  • Documentation is critical.
• Features:
  • Pro:
    • Classic approach.
    • Fairly rich framework.
    • Provision files as ‘uncustomized’.
  • Con:
    • Deals with schema only, not data.
    • Steep learning curve.
    • Code often required for updates (featureActivationReceiver).
• STSADM export:
  • Pro:
    • Very simple to use.
    • Site collection/web schema and data.
    • Can be scripted.
  • Con:
    • Doesn’t allow setting of certain switches.
    • All objects given new ID’s (listview web part and infopath problems).
    • Bi-directional can cause problems.
    • Is not a backup/restore solution (alert, audit trail, log, recycle bin, workflow tasks/state are not copied).
• Content deployment wizard:
  • Pro:
    • Same as STSADM + more switches e.g. retain ID’s.
  • Con:
    • Files are deployed as customized.
    • Bi-directional can cause problems.
    • Need to understand capabilities.
• Kivati Studio
  • Pro:
    • Package updates into .exe.
    • Nice structure for e.g. content type updates.
    • Workflow designer type op editor, allowing reuse.
    • Can write custom code if no built-in task is available.
  • Con:
    • Fairly steep learning curve.
    • Potential lock-in.
    • Doesn’t move data.
• Choosing a method:
  • Features are generally the best option.
  • Type of solution:
    • Single site = wizard.
    • Multiple sites = feature.
  • Packaging experience, timeframe.
  • Frequency/type of update, more code for updates.
  • If multiple developers consider team development model:
    • Isolated developers.
    • Development farm.
• Best Practice:
  • Always use .WSP.
  • Document how to deploy/rebuild site.
  • Identify how updates will be rolled out.
• Avoid:
  • STSADM backup/restore.
  • Use ‘save as site template’ to move a site.
  • Modify live features or site definition filtes.

High performance programming (Eric Shupps)

• All list data is stored in a single table for each content database.
• Looping operations in the Object Model are resource intensive.
• Use CAML queries for targeted item selection.
• Maintain SQL indexes for optimal query execution.
• Manipulate item data using in memory objects.
• NO 2000 item limit, only for displaying.
• Beware of caching in ViewState, use PageCache.
• Use SPListItemCollection instead of iterating.
• Use CAML when there are more selection criteria.
• Use Search API to query data.

Related posts:

1. SharePoint Best Practices Conference Notes (London 2009) – Day 1
2. SharePoint Best Practices Conference Notes (London 2009) – Day 2

SPOShowBirthdayWebPart is a webpart that will display all users whose birthday is coming up in x days.

Changed in V2.0:

• Replaced username by Firstname and Lastname.
• Made Name column link to the user profile page

Download SPOShowBirthdayWebPart v2.0.

Prerequisites
This webpart uses the RunWithElevatedPrivileges function to impersonate the administrator in SharePoint Server 2007. After you do this, you may receive the following error message when you try to enumerate all user profiles:

“Access Denied. Only an administrator may enumerate through all user profiles.”

Microsoft released a hotfix package for this bug “SharePoint Server 2007 hotfix package: May 8, 2008″,
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/952294

Related posts:

1. Web Part to show upcomming birthdays in SharePoint

• http://sharepointcowboy.com
• Themes – SharePoint Designer – Site Definitions.
• Site Definitions:
  • Pro
    • Packaged customization.
    • Easy migration.
    • Best performance.
    • Complex functionality.
  • Con
    • Difficult to create.
    • Programming.
    • Only for new sites.
• upgradeSolution – STSADM

Search can be your best friend. (Agnes Molnar)

• Information Workers search for about 8h/week, 3.5h/week they don’t find what they are looking for.
• Use keywords, best bets (site collection admin only).
• Different Search result web parts depending on searched keywords.
• Google cannot be federated because it doesn’t return RSS or ATOM.
• Use scopes.
• Use Master Site Directory.
• Train users.
• Use content types.
• Add SharePoint search to IE (Harrison has a post on how to use this with a Group Policy).

Creating Custom Field Types. (Todd Bleeker)

• Custom data validation.
• Custom field rendering.
• Custom behavior logic.
• Limitations.
  • Not in Document Information Panel.
  • Not in datasheet.
  • Farm level.
  • Complex coding.
• Coding:
  • Required.
    • Field Definition (XML).
    • Field Class.
  • Optional.
    • Control Class (custom presentation).
    • Value Class (special data structure).
  • User Controls.
    • Schema User Control (custom properties).
    • Field User Control (for new / edit).
    • Rendering Template (ASCX).
• Field Definitions – fldtypes_Foo.xml
  • .\12\template\xml\fldtypes_*.xml.
• Field Class – FooField.cs
  • .\12\templates\fldtypes.xml.
  • Inherits the field type that comes closest.
• Control Class – FooFieldControl.cs
  • Renders the field types properties.
  • If not used, it uses the default presentation.
• Value Class – FooFieldValue.cs
  • Maintain multiple values in a single field.
  • Custom data validation (getValidatedString).
  • Use SPFieldValidationException for a user friendly error message.
• User controls – FooFieldEditControl.cs – FooFieldPropertyControls.cs
• Start with a class library
• Visual Studio: add user control – use GUID hack (slides)
• Testing:
  • Spaces in column name.
  • 2 Columns in 1 list.
  • Export to Excel.
  • Document Information Panel.
  • Edit custom properties.
  • Required fields.
  • Empty/large values

Building high performance solutions for Publishing Sites. (Andrew Connel)

• Group anonymous and secured resources for more effective caching.
• Minimize number of secured items.
• Keep files uncustomized, custom pages are subject to the safe mode parser.
• Minimize page payload:
  • CSS based design (no more tables).
  • ISS HTTP Compression (watch out for increase in server load).
  • Lazy load core.js (read MSKB #933823).
  • Clustering of images, clipping the images (http://www.getrpo.com/).
  • IIS 7 > IIS6
  • SharePoint caching per site (output cache).
  • Object cache.
  • Disk based cache.

Dev Expert Panel.

• Don’t use web gardens with SharePoint.
• Using State Workflow when you need to go back up in your WorkFlow.
• When you need to update a used WorkFlow, it’s better to create a new one and use it from then on, you don’t want to update an existing WorkFlow.

Related posts:

1. SharePoint Best Practices Conference Notes (London 2009) – Day 3
2. SharePoint Best Practices Conference Notes (London 2009) – Day 1

10 Steps to a successful SharePoint deployment

• SharePoint = a killer bunny, looks cute, but it can bite you in the…
• Governance: consistent management, cohesive policies, processes and decision-rights for a given area of responsibility.
• Executive sponsor with vision and budget.
• SharePoint team: Site Collection admin, SP Designer or Business analyst, Content Administrator, SP Infrastructure admin, SP Developer [Admin <> Devs].

Best Practices for Developing Web Parts. (Todd Bleeker)

• Start with a well named VS.NET library, e.g. companyProject.content.purpose (content = e.g. webpart, workflow), should be unique on the internet.
• Start with a class library.
• Use common webpart suffixes e.g. FooPart.cs.
• .NET webpart vs. SharePoint webpart – .NET webpart can work in all environments not only in SharePoint.
• Never use Render, Rendercontrol, rarely use RenderContent
• Sign or strong name the assembly.
  • GAC = full trust (bad practice and needs IISRESET).
  • BIN = wss_minimal trust and no recycle of the application pools.
• Get public key options (slides).
• Signing Best Practice: AllowPartiallyTrustedCallers() in assembly.cs.
• Use the 12 hive structure in your project to organize your project.
• Use MakeCab.exe, command line tool to generate CAB/WSP.
• Post build vs. Target, use Target.
• Use XCopy commands to install (slides).
• isCallBackEventHandler(), like AJAX.
• Move the UI to a User control – Page.LoadControl.
• User control  vs. Server Control, use User Control.
• Code Access Security (CAS).
• EnsureChildControls().

Making the most of the Out of the box Web Parts. (Brett Lonsdale)

• Excel Web Access (EE).
• Filter Web Parts (EE).
  • Current User Filter.
  • BDC filter – web service.
  • Choice filter.
  • Date filter.
  • Filter Actions.
  • Page field filter.
  • Query string filter.
  • SharePoint list filter.
  • SQL Server Analysis Services filter.
  • Text Filter.
• Content Query Web Part.
• Summery Link Web Part.
• Table of Contents Web Part.
• Outlook Web Access Web Part.
• BDC Web Parts.
• Data View Web Part, db connection, web service.

Difference between Field Controls and Web Parts in publishing sites. (Andrew Connel)

• Field Controls.
  • Window to content.
  • Content in SPListItems.
  • Content Versioning.
  • Structure of page is important.
  • Page History is important.
  • Consistent branding.
• Web Parts.
  • Content is stored in Web Part in the ASP.NET personalization store.
  • Content in the context of the current page.
  • To provide functionality.
  • History and structure are not important.
• Don’t use Content Editor Web Part on publishing sites.
  • No history.
  • No centralized control.
  • Links are absolute, not relative
  • Content owners can use JavaScript, CSS, HTML.
  • Block usage:
    • <SafeControl Type=”ContentEditorWebPart” Safe=”False” />
• http://blogs.msdn.com/ecm
• http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/ProhibitCEWP

Capacity planning and Performance tuning. (Mike Watson)

• Capacity planning is an educated decision.
• Goals are:
  • Performance.
  • Scalability and affordability.
  • Maintainability.
  • Simplicity.
• Monitor growth of system (trending).
• Cheap, fast, good – choose 2.
• Concurrency increase – plan for it through capacity planning.
• Max 5 web front end servers / SQL instance.
• Use 64bit – 32bit is dead.
  • Sequence of upgrading: SQL Server – index – excel – search – WFE.
• Virtualization:
  • Disks:
    • Use pass through or fixed VHD.
    • No dynamic disks.
  • Networking:
    • Use multiple NIC’s and NIC teaming on the hosts.
• 1.2 – 1.5 times the file system is needed on the SQL server.
• 30% – 50% of the size of all content is needed on the index server.
• Size of index is needed for the Query Server.
• Performance:
  • Mirorring 27% performance loss
  • DAS < 1s., SAN > 5s.
• Performance in Visual Studio Test Suite (Trial), Web Test Edition
  • Use 10% of total users for normal tests, use 50% of users for peak tests.
• SPDataPop, Data Population Tool

Related posts:

1. SharePoint Best Practices Conference Notes (London 2009) – Day 2
2. SharePoint Best Practices Conference Notes (London 2009) – Day 3
3. Dropdown to change the View disappeared

It covers:

• Page Navigation
• Page Branding
• Web Services
• Custom Content Types
• User Management

Microsoft Ramp Up is a completely free, online, community-based program that only requires a Live ID to sign up and dig in. It connects you with other professionals while you’re building your skills.

On Ramp Up you can review the content and advance through the learning track at your own pace. At the end of the each level, you take an assessment to unlock the next level. Once you’ve completed the full learning track, you will have gained new skills integral to a successful developer.

Other tracks you can dig into are:

• SharePoint for Developers – Part I
• Visual Studio 2002/2003 Developer
• Visual Basic 6.0 Developer
• Java Developer
• Aspiring Developer
• Visual Studio 2008 Track

Related posts:

1. Online SharePoint 2007 Development Training
2. SharePoint Developer introduction for .NET developers
3. Visual Studio 2008 extensions for WSS v1.2

http://feeds2.feedburner.com/sharepointology

No related posts.

Quoted from Jason’s article How to make a SharePoint list look the way you want at Get the Point

Lookups are one of the more complicated aspects of list making, but can be really useful if you have a process which requires items of different types to be linked to each other. Let’s take this example: you have a list of employees and a list of possible interests. You want to store other information about the employees and about their interests, but you want to link them together.

• One of the reasons we use Lookup columns in our SharePoint site is because it’s easy to give permissions to a user to update the list where a Lookup column get’s it’s data from, giving them the opportunity to add lines to the selection box.

• Another reason is that the chosen value stays linked to the List where the Lookup column get’s it’s data from, for example, if you change the description of a certain item in the List all references to this value get changed too, this is not the case with a Choice field.

The problems I’m experiencing:

• Let’s say you use one of your Lookup columns in a Content Type and you want the user to have the ability to select a value in a Word 2007 document linked to that Content Type. You would think that adding the Lookup column with a QuickPart to your template (linked to the Content Type) would do the trick. Well it doesn’t … it only seems to display the ID of the selected record in stead of the actual values (Title column) in the documents created from the template?

• You can’t use a the “Contains” or “Begins with” filter on a Lookup column while creating a View. “Is equal to”, “Is not equal to”, … are working though. If you try to pick “Contains” you get a “The filter type you selected cannot be used with this type of column.” error.

Related posts:

1. SharePoint Best Practices Conference Notes (London 2009) – Day 1

SP1 for DPM 2007 brings some great new capabilities for protecting SharePoint environments:

• Protect the Index/Search with a single click in the DPM UI
• Performance gains for SharePoint backup, before SP1 backing up a  5TB SharePoint farm took 2 hours to backup and 8 hours to catalog. With SP1 it still takes 2 hours to back up the changes of that farm, but the catalog is now 15 minutes.

Read more about this SP1 release for DPM 2007:

• An executive viewpoint on DPM 2007 sp1.
• A technical, feature overview.

Related posts:

1. Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager
2. Service Pack 2 for Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

After investigating this a bit more I recreated what happened:

Consider this first scenario:

• A user checks out a document from SharePoint.
• He edits the document in Word 2007.
• Then he saves it.
• He closes Word 2007.
• Word displays the next question:

Nothing wrong with that, changed are being saved to the document and you can choose to check in the document, but now for the scenario the user had:

• He checks out a document.
• Edits the document in Word 2007.
• Saves the document.
• Changes it some more.
• The last changes are not correct and the user doesn’t want to save these changes.
• He closes Word 2007.
• Word displays the next question:

• User chooses “No” because the last changes are not correct.
• Word 2007 asks another question:
• Now this is a dangerous question.

If the user clicks “Yes” this will mean he will loose lose all of his changes since he checked out the document and NOT only the last changes he made to the document.

Related posts:

1. Enforce Check Out in Sharepoint

Microsoft Ramp Up is a completely free, online, community-based program that only requires a Live ID to sign up and dig in. It connects you with other professionals while you’re building your skills.

On Ramp Up you can review the content and advance through the learning track at your own pace. At the end of the each level, you take an assessment to unlock the next level. Once you’ve completed the full learning track, you will have gained new skills integral to a successful developer.

Other tracks you can dig into are:

• Visual Studio 2002/2003 Developer
• Visual Basic 6.0 Developer
• Java Developer
• Aspiring Developer
• Visual Studio 2008 Track

Related posts:

1. Ramp Up – SharePoint for developers – part 2
2. Visual Studio 2008 extensions for WSS v1.2

If you ever find yourself thinking “Where did the change the view dropdown go?”

Don’t worry, one of two things could have happened.

1. You added a second document library webpart on your page, but this would be obvious because you would see two webparts, one with a dropdown and one without it.
2. Your user (or yourself) -closed- the webpart and added it again, leaving the closed webpart on the page, but hidden. This one is harder to detect, because you only see the webpart without the dropdown.

How do you fix this?

In the first case there isn’t much of a problem, you -delete- the second webpart from the page or you leave it on there (but without the dropdown).

For the second case you’ll have to edit the page (Site Actions, Edit Page), press Add a Web Part. At the bottom of the dialog is a link “Advanced Web Part gallery and options“, click it. A side bar “Add Web Parts” appears. Below the “Select the collection you want to browse.” is a link called “Closed Web Parts“, when you click it the Web Part List with closed Web Parts appears. Select the Document Library Web Part and click the “Add” button on the bottom of the screen. The page will show the two Web Parts, -delete- the one without the dropdown and you’re back in business.

Why? A web part which shows a list is supposed to display only one view of the list at a time. But you can definitely change the view by modifying the shared web part properties.

Related posts:

1. Change email address that Requests For Access get send to
2. Link To a Document In Another Document Library
3. Add Web Parts to DispForm, EditForm or NewForm.aspx

DPM 2007 continuously protects the core Microsoft server workloads to a DPM server or appliance, which then provides disk-based recovery and tape-based, long-term archival storage for a complete data protection and recovery solution.

Related posts:

1. System Center Data Protection Manager – Service Pack 1
2. Service Pack 2 for Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
3. Microsoft Expands List of Formats Supported in Microsoft Office

The 2007 Microsoft Office system already provides support for 20 different document formats within Microsoft Office Word, Office Excel and Office PowerPoint. With the release of Microsoft Office 2007 Service Pack 2 (SP2) scheduled for the first half of 2009, the list will grow to include support for XML Paper Specification (XPS), Portable Document Format (PDF) 1.5, PDF/A and Open Document Format (ODF) v1.1.

Related posts:

1. Service Pack 2 for Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
2. Metadata not saving when Office Document is password protected
3. System Center Data Protection Manager – Service Pack 1

You can use Content Types to do this. A Content Type is a sort of template for types of documents you store in a library.

We use the Content Type “Link to a Document” to link to a document that could be stored in another document library.

If the document library where you want to use the “Link to a Document” hasn’t been setup to use Content Types, you’ll have to click Settings, Document Library Settings, there you’ll need to access the Advanced Settings.

We need to add a Content Type, but before we can do this we’ll have to tell our Document Library that it can make use of different Content Types. Select “Yes” for the “Allow management of Content Types“.

When you return to the Document Library Settings, you’ll see a new section called Content Types, this is where we’ll add a new Content Type, click “Add from exisiting Content Type“.

The content type we need is “Link to a Document“, add it here.

When you return to your Document Library and click new, you’ll see that you have a new option to choose from, “Link to a Document“.

Let’s make a link to a Document in another Document Library, click “Link to a Document”. You’ll have to enter a name for the Link and enter the path to the Document you want to link to.

After confirming this is what your link looks like.

We made link to a document that’s saved in another document library, whenever you make a change to the master document, you don’t need to worry about the link, it will point to the changed document.

Related posts:

1. Metadata not saving when Office Document is password protected
2. Change email address that Requests For Access get send to
3. Bulk editing metadata in a Sharepoint Picture Library