Pauls Point

IE Proxy Settings shortcut

2012-01-24T15:56:00.001+11:00

To set up a shortcut on the desktop to IE Connections Tab,

On the desktop, right click and select "New Shortcut"
In "Type the location...." enter the following "C:\Windows\System32\control.exe Inetcpl.cpl,Connections,4"
Give it a name.

And thats it.

70-583- Designing and Developing Windows Azure Applications.

2011-10-19T11:02:00.002+11:00

Yesterday I passed this exam - Exam 70-583 Designing and Developing Windows Azure Applications.More details here.

Visual Studio Remote Debugging - Reminder Checklist

2011-10-14T10:03:00.001+11:00

Steps to implement remote debugging.

You need to run msvsmon.exe on the remote pc
1. Share this folder C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE\Remote Debugger
2. Go to remote and navigate to shared folder
3. copy Remote Debugger folder onto remote pc
4. run the relevant 32 or 64 bit version of msvsmon.exe
5. Not sure on the permissions required for this but I know it works if you are an Administrator on this machine.
Double click msvsmon.exe on remote pc
1. Go to Tools > Permissions and add the user that is logged onto the dev machine.
2. Go to Tools > Options and copy the string that is in server name box - eg "DomainName\username@machinename"
Start the web app to be debugged on the remote machine
In Visual Studio on local machine - Debug > Attach to process
1. Leave Transport as Default and in the Qualifier paste the server name copied in Step 2.2 above and click Refresh
2. Select w3wp.exe to attach to
Start debugging.

Internal names of columns in SharePoint list

2011-06-19T21:29:00.000+10:00

To find internal name of a column in a list you can use Visual Studio 2010 or SharePoint Manager 2010 (spm.codeplex.com)To get to Server Explorer CTRL W L and Select sharepoint connections and you can navigate down to the list in question.When running SharePoint Manager 2010 run as administrator and again you can navigate down to the list in question and determine the InternalName property of the column.

Exam 70-667: TS: Microsoft SharePoint 2010, Configuring

2011-04-27T14:41:00.006+10:00

Today I passed the first half of the MCITP qualification, Exam 70-667: TS: Microsoft SharePoint 2010, Configuring

More details here.

Update 17 June 2011, I've now passed the other half of the MCITP qualification, Exam-70-668 PRO: Microsoft SharePoint 2010, Administrator.

I'm now MCITP SharePoint Administrator 2010.

More details here.

I'm now MCPD Microsoft SharePoint 2010

2011-04-14T20:44:00.004+10:00

Today I passed this exam - Exam 70-573 -Microsoft SharePoint 2010, Application Development. More details here.

Together with the 70-576 exam I passed last month, I'm now MCPD Microsoft SharePoint 2010.

Exam 70-576 - Designing and Developing Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Applications

2011-03-17T13:58:00.000+11:00

Today I passed this exam - Exam 70-576 - Designing and Developing Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Applications.More details here.

SharePoint 2010 upgrade

2011-02-28T10:34:00.015+11:00

Some Useful stsadm/PowerShellPre upgrade audit

stsadm -o enumcontentdbs –url http://server01
stsadm -o enumallwebs
stsadm -o enumallwebs –includewebparts
stsadm -o enumsolutions
stsadm -o preupgradecheck
Test-SPContentDatabase -Name dbname -WebApplication http://server01

other

stsadm -o setsitelock -url http://server01 -lock none
stsadm -o addcontentdb -url -databasename
make sure you spell databasename correctly

Some Useful linksTechnet/Microsoft links

Tools

Blog posts

Windows Azure Training

2011-02-04T17:58:00.000+11:00

I have just attended a 2-day partner training @ Saxons training centre in Sydney.
Instructor: Ryan CrawCour - Intergen NZ
@RyanCrawCour

The course was taken from presentations and labs within the Windows Azure Platform Training Kit. The kit includes a lot of Labs, Presentations, Videos and Demos. It also has a dependency checker to ensure local environment has all it needs to do Azure development.

The following powerpoint presentations were shown over the two days (they were 95% the same as the ones in the training kit)

Windows Azure Platform
Windows Azure Compute
Windows Azure Storage
Intro to SQL Azure
Windows Azure App Fabric
Storage Strategies
High Performance Applications
Advanced Web and Worker Roles and the Windows Azure VM Role
Windows Azure connect

Links - mentioned during course

Windows Azure Platform Training Kit

Two recommended blogs

Azure management links

Other sites/articles

JQuery Posts Updated to use JQuerify

2011-01-11T19:51:00.004+11:00

JQuery Predicates - Attribute contains
JQuery Predicates - Attribute starts with
JQuery Predicates - Attribute ends with

JQuery Predicates - Attribute equals

JQuery - Count Paragraphs
JQuery - Basic Show and Hide
Learning Simple JQuery - Part 4. - There are many plugins developers have created to use with JQuery, including this one "tablesorter"
Learning Simple JQuery - Part 3. - This example demonstrates using JQuery selectors to add css classes to specific html table row elements.
Learning Simple JQuery - Part 2. - This example uses JQuery to set the background-color of input text boxes, and attaches the focus/blur events to those text boxes with a "required" class.
Learning Simple JQuery - Part 1. - This example demonstrates using an jQuery id selector on anchor tags to attach a click event. It also uses an id selector to attach the slideDown and slideUp JQuery functions to a html div element.

Here is a blog post from encosia.com on how to learn JQuery with FireBug

Prince2 Foundation Exam Success

2010-06-22T20:16:00.001+10:00

Last week I went on PRINCE2 training in Sydney, I found it pretty interesting all in all at the end of which I took the PRINCE2 foundation exam and passed.

C# - yield

2010-02-16T10:40:00.002+11:00

The yield keyword was introduced with C# 2.0.

Here is some further reading;

from C# reference -yield (C# Reference)
from stackoverflow - C# - Proper Use of yield return?
from stackoverflow - What does “yield break;” do in C#?
from stackoverflow - Yield keyword value added?
from C# in Depth - Sample Chapter 6 - Implementing iterators the easy way

Visual Studio 2008 Shortcuts

2010-02-01T10:15:00.004+11:00

Following on from earlier post - Visual Studio Keyboard Shortcuts

CTRL W S - Solution Explorer
CTRL W L - Server Explorer
CTRL W E - Error Explorer
CTRL W X - Tool Box
CTRL W O - Output Window

CTRL D I - Immediate Window
CTRL D C - Call Stack
CTRL D W - Watch Window

CTRL E F - Format Selection
CTRL E \ - Delete white space
CTRL E S - View white space
CTRL E C - comment selection
CTRL E U - uncomment selection

CTRL U - To Lower
CTRL Shift U - To Upper

CTRL + \ D - Code Definition Window
CTRL + \ M - Team Explorer

CTRL ALT B - Breakpoints window
CTRL ALT ↓ - Files Open List

Firefox Add-Ons

2010-02-01T10:09:00.002+11:00

Adblock Plus
CodeBurner for Firebug (Extends Firebug with reference material for HTML and CSS)
ColorZilla (Advanced Eyedropper, ColorPicker, Page Zoomer and other colorful goodies)
CoLT (Makes it easy to copy link text and locations)
Delicious Bookmarks
Dictionary Search
FiddlerHook
FireBug
FireFTP
LeechBlock
Shorten URL
Tab Preview
Web Developer
YSLow

Useful Utility programs

2009-12-24T09:52:00.008+11:00

A good place to start would be Scott Hanselman's 2009 Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List for Windows.

This is my list from 18 months ago - Utility Programs, Tools, Add-Ins plus other stuff.

Updated list.

Ninite - Pick from a big list of utility programs ninite will go get them all for you, install them and make sure the crapware toolbars and ebay links are not installed. Reviewed on HowToGeek.com.

Unlocker Assistant - When you try and delete something and you get the file locked message, the Unlocker Assistant will pop up, giving you the option to unlock the files and perform your delete. Download from here

DiffMerge -is an application to visually compare and merge files for Windows, Mac OS X and Unix. Download from here
- If using DiffMerge with Subversion, the following settings can be used to 'Diff' and 'Merge'
  
  Diff Viewer
  C:\Program Files\SourceGear\DiffMerge\DiffMerge.exe /t1=%bname /t2=%yname %base %mine
  
  Merge
  C:\Program Files\SourceGear\DiffMerge\DiffMerge.exe /m /r=%merged /t1=%yname /t2=%bname /t3=%tname /c=%mname %mine %base %theirs

Sysinternals Suite - Has many useful tools including

AutoRuns - This utility shows you what programs are configured to run during system bootup or login. Download from here.

BgInfo - is a little tool that displays a load of your system information as a bmp on your desktop. More information from here

Daemon Tools - Mount iso image

Regular Expression Workbench - a utility that lets you experiment with .NET regular expressions.

SqlScripter - simple, low-cost tool for quickly exporting data

Foxit - a pdf reader

Paint.Net - a free image and photo editing software for computers that run Windows

CCleaner - removes unused files from your system.

Driver Max - find updates for your drivers, also backup and restore them.

LinqPad - A great way to learn LINQ.

Microsoft Security Essentials - its a virus checker, and its free, reviewed here

Moo0 System Monitor - An easy way to monitor your computer’s system resource usage. Reviewed here.

MWSnap - free screen capture software

Reflector - If you dont know about reflector, you probably dont need it.

Secunia Personal Software Inspector - Scans your machine to find out of date software that you are using, this could have security implications for you. Is covered in this article from HowToGeek.com

VHD Resizer - Heres a how to from Serverfault.com.

DBAN - Boot and Nuke - DBAN will automatically and completely delete the contents of any hard disk that it can detect, which makes it an appropriate utility for bulk or emergency data destruction.

Some random HowToGeek Links

2009-12-24T09:43:00.005+11:00

What is WCF?

2009-12-23T15:41:00.004+11:00

Certified Scrum Master

2009-12-15T20:59:00.003+11:00

Last month I attended a certified Scrum Master course facilitated by Kane Mar

It was a two day course well run and enoyable, at the end of which after taking the Scrum Master exam I can now call myself a Certified Scrum Master. A bit of a grandiose title maybe but I feel the knowledge learnt was definetly worthwhile.

To output special characters not on your keyboard.

2009-08-21T16:22:00.002+10:00

To output special characters that arent on your keyboard you can use the number key pad and the ALT key

For example ALT 0235 will output ë

To find the number you can use the Character Map application;

Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Character Map

A whole lot of Linq

2009-08-18T21:37:00.005+10:00

A blog post on Linq 2 Sql performance from Jeff Atwood

A whole load of linq posts from Bill Wagner' s blog

SQL Versions and Service Packs

2009-03-20T11:04:00.004+11:00

Some links for determining SQL Server versions and getting up to date service packs.

Increase the size of your Microsoft Virtual PC hard disk

2009-03-19T14:56:00.007+11:00

So you have a virtual PC disk with 20 Gb C drive on it and after a few installs you decide to install Visual Studio service pack 1, and it tells you it needs 4Gb to do it...

So you need to increase the size of your vhd, and you need to do it on the system volume, heres how;

Download VHDResizer from here
Following these instructions from "Murnic" on this thread didnt work, on entering EXTEND, not sure on the exact wording now, but it was along the lines of cant extend this volume.

The easiest way to do this (as long as you have enough hard drive space) is to extend your existing VHD using VHD Expander which gives you two VHD files. The newly extended file will take the name of your existing VHD. You might want to Defragment, Precompact, and Compact your VHD prior to extending your VHD.

In Virtual PC 2007 go to Settings.

Select your OLD VHD as Hard Disk 1
Select your newly extended VHD as Hard Disk 2
Boot your VM
Open an Command Prompt
Run diskpart
From DISKPART>
- Execute LIST VOLUME
- Select your new VHD volume by executing SELECT VOLUME where is your new VHD most likely 2
- Execute EXTEND
- You should see a success message. If not you may have to recreate your extended VHD due to an error in the process.
Quit Diskpart.exe by typing EXIT
Shut Down the VM
Remove both VHD files from the Hard Disks list
Add your newly extended VHD as Hard Disk 1
Boot your VM.
You will get a Windows Newly Added Hardware message after a short time.
Reboot the VM when prompted
Start using your newly extended VHD!

Here is Microsoft's information on extending volumes using Diskpart.exe: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/325590

So I went back to these instructions from 'AutoSponge' at the start of the same thread,

Mount the image

C:\>Program Files\Microsoft Virtual Server\Vhdmount>vhdmount /m “C:Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\Shared Virtual Machines\\.vhd”

Start diskpart

C:\>Program Files\Microsoft Virtual Server\Vhdmount>diskpart

Expand the partition

DISKPART>list disk

DISKPART>select disk 3 -----check the number in the list

DISKPART>list part

DISKPART>select part 1 -----check the number in the list

DISKPART>extend

DISKPART>list part -----check the new size

DISKPART>exit

Dismount and save changes
C:\>Program Files\Microsoft Virtual Server\Vhdmount>vhdmount /u /c “C:Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\Shared Virtual Machines\\.vhd”

You can get download Microsoft Virtual Server here.
You can do a custom install and only select VHDMount

Some more information using VHDMount

Using VHDMount with Windows XP -

It is not possible to use '/m' (Mount), you can only use '/p' (Plug in).

The reason for this is that VHDMount uses VDS (the Virtual Disk Service) to assign a disk letter to the virtual hard disk after it is mounted, but VDS is only included in Windows Server 2003 and later. This is not too big of an issue though, as unlike Windows Server 2003, Windows XP will automatically mount the virtual hard disk when it is plugged in. This means that the only functionality you lose on Windows XP is the ability to specify exactly which drive letter should be used.

SQL Intellisense not updating - SQL Server 2008

2009-02-20T11:36:00.004+11:00

I created a new table in SQL Server 2008, then when SELECTing from it I got the red squiggly line.

Closed the query window, still no luck.

Found a post that suggested CTRL+Shift+R which worked!.

More info here.

LDAP tutorial

2009-02-03T15:26:00.002+11:00

I was reading the MOSS install on this link, and one of the first things it says is 'Start by creating the following users in an OU in AD '.... Whats an OU? - it took a couple of minutes but I found a couple of links.

OU is an organisational unit.

Exam 70-542: TS: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 – Application Development

2009-01-29T16:47:00.000+11:00

Today I passed, Exam 70-542: TS: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 – Application Development, with 1000 points which I was quite pleased about!

SharePoint on .NET Rocks

2009-01-27T07:38:00.002+11:00

SharePoint on .NET Rocks Tv.

Part 4 covers the BDC with the same content as in this post

SharePoint 2007 - The Business Data Catalog

2009-01-23T12:04:00.002+11:00

A good link giving a series of articles on the Business Data Catalog from Sahil Malik.

BDC - The Business Data Catalog

Records Management and Creating a custom Information Management Policy

2009-01-22T09:35:00.003+11:00

A good series of posts from Zlatan Dzinic on Records Management.

A good series of posts from Ton Stegeman on creating a custom information management policy.

Exam 70-541: TS: Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 – Application Development

2009-01-15T18:40:00.000+11:00

Today I passed, Exam 70-541: TS: Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 – Application Development.

Well done me!

101 LINQ Samples from MSDN

2009-01-10T07:39:00.000+11:00

101 Linq Samples from MSDN.

Create a WSS Site Collection.

2009-01-09T08:48:00.003+11:00

It is very simple to create a WSS Site Collection!

Startup SharePoint 3.0 Central Administration
Select Application Management tab
Click 'Create Site Collection' under SharePoint site management heading
Enter details and Click Ok.

The book - Inside Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

2009-01-09T08:29:00.005+11:00

I've just finished reading this book Inside Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, it was straight forward to read beginning to end, containing a lot of useful information for the WSS developer. It has lots of good code samples, available here.

Here follows my scribbled notes from the first chapter.

WSS is a site provisioning engine.
WSS is part of Windows Server 2003.
MOSS - value adds a set of components and services that have been built on top of this platform
A WSS site is a storage container for container, eg lists, libraries and child sites.
A WSS site is a securable entity.
WSS doesnt do authentication, it does authorisation.
A WSS site is an application with an extensible fully customisable user interface.
A WSS site is an application with an extensible, fully customisable user interface.
A WSS site is a foundation for using web parts.
A WSS site must be created within the scope of an existing Web Application, not as an independent entity; it must be created within a site collection.
A site collection is a container of WSS sites.
Each site collection requires a top level site, it can contain a hierarchy of child sites.
A Web Application, contains site collections, contains sites, contains lists,libraries,child sites.

How should you as a developer partition sites across site collections?

To answer this you need to gain an understanding of how partitioning sites affects the scope of admin priviledges, security boundaries, backup and restore and site design.

The concept of the site collection is important because it allows an IT dept to hand off the admin burden to the business divisions that own the sites.
A site collection is an 'island' ie they provide scope of membership and security authorisation.
A site collection provides a convenient scope for backup and restore.
WSS object model allows for queries that span lists within a site collection but not across site collections.

The WSS developer platform provides a comprehensive framework for scalable portable applications it includes;

the object model
web part framework
web services
site provisioning model

It is important to differentiate between customisation and development.

A user can customise lists, libraries, the appearance of pages using web parts, master pages and css using SharePoint designer. Customisation is saved within the content database. This is an advantage as it provides great flexibility to users and site admins. But a disadvantage for development as they are now hard to version and make repeatable across multiple sites.

How can you move a customisation from dev > staging > production. How do you customise a single site and then reuse it across multiple sites. The answer is its difficult! If this is what you need to do you should be looking at development.

WSS 3.0 has site columns
WSS 3.0 has content types
WSS 3.0 can work with Office Open XML file formats.
WSS 3.0 is built on top of Windows Workflow Foundation
Security and site membership within WSS 3.0 can be extended.

If you dont use Active Directory, you can build or acquire ASP.NET authentication provider.

Features, Features, Features! - they feature a lot in the book.

Features are a new developer focused innovation that has been added to WSS 3.0 They provide a mechanism for defining site elements and adding them to a target site or collection.

Several object types in WSS object model such as SPSite and SPWeb use unmanaged resources and must be disposed of in a timely manner.

Get Quick Access to WSS '12' directory.

2009-01-06T10:30:00.004+11:00

Set up an environment variable,

eg.

Right click 'My Computer' select Properties

Select Advanced Tab

Click Environment Variables button

Click New and give it a name eg 12 and value eg 'C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12'

Click Ok

Within windows explorer you can now enter %12% in the address bar
In the command window you can type cd %12%

Windows SharePoint Services - Site Pages, Application Pages, Ghosted/Unghosted Pages

2009-01-06T10:20:00.005+11:00

Site pages support customisation. A customised site page is now an unghosted page. A site page that hasnt been customised is a ghosted page.

The fact that site pages support customisation provides flexibility but raises performance concerns and security issues.

Site pages do not support in-line code under the default security policy enforced by WSS.

Example Site pages

default.aspx

AllItems.aspx

NewForm.aspx

EditForm.aspx

Application pages do not support customisation. Each application page is always compiled into a single DLL so it will perform and scale better than a site page.

Application pages support in-line code.

You can create your own application page for a custom solution.

Application pages are in C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS

Example Application pages

settings.aspx

Windows SharePoint Services - Site Collection, Sites, Webs and Root Webs.

2009-01-05T12:52:00.002+11:00

There is obvious potential for confusion between some of the terminology used in Windows SharePoint services WSS and its predecessor, SharePoint Team Services STS.

WSS term	STS term
Site Collection	Site
Site	Web
Top-level site	Root Web

The confusion is increased a bit by the WSS object model class names being based on the STS terms.

As a result you program against a site collection using an SPSite object, and against a site using a SPWeb object.

SPSite object provides a public property named RootWeb that returns an SPWeb object.

Windows SharePoint Services - Virtual Servers or Web Applications ?

2009-01-05T11:02:00.003+11:00

The WSS product team initially used the term virtual server to describe an IIS Web site that had been extended with WSS functionality. The current WSS version and supporting documentation use the term Web Application mainly to avoid confusion with another Microsoft product of the same name. Unfortunately we must remember that the new term Web application and the old term virtual server are often both used interchangeably.

For example, the WSS object model provides the (now obsolete) SPVirtualServer class to program against Web application objects.

New features in C# 4

2008-12-15T22:32:00.002+11:00

Follow the links for New Features in C# 4.0 Paper

Microsoft Ajax client life cycle events cheat sheet

2008-12-15T22:27:00.003+11:00

Click link for Microsoft Ajax client life cycle events cheat sheet.

Aspnet life cycles events Cheat Sheet

2008-12-15T22:23:00.000+11:00

Click link for Aspnet life cycles events, plus lots of other cheat sheets here as well.

Profiler for .NET

2008-12-12T14:32:00.001+11:00

A good profiler tool... not free but you can download and evaluate
http://www.jetbrains.com/profiler/

JQuery - Count Paragraphs

2008-12-01T22:00:00.012+11:00

Add JQuerify bookmarklet to this page. (Get JQuerify here)

Add following click handlers to page using console in FireBug

$('#NoOfParagraphs').click(showNoOfParagraphs)

Example taken from here docs.jquery.com

..1..

"The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" is a pangram (a phrase that contains all of the letters of the alphabet). It has been used to test typewriters and computer keyboards, and in other applications involving all of the letters in the English alphabet, because it is also a short coherent sentence.

Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into....

..4..



function showNoOfParagraphs(e) 
{
  $('#NoOfParagraphs').click(function() {
  $("div.FadeAndAnimation p.ParagraphResults").append("   Paragraph Count :-" +
                   
  $("div.FadeAndAnimation p").size() + "");
 }

JQuery - Basic Show and Hide

2008-12-01T21:13:00.010+11:00

Add JQuerify bookmarklet to this page. (Get JQuerify here)

Add following click handlers to page using console in FireBug

$('#hideh1').click(function() {$("div[class='titlewrapper']").hide();});
$('#showh1').click(function() {$("div[class='titlewrapper']").show();});
$('#toggleh1').click(function(){$("div[class='titlewrapper']").toggle();});

Example taken from here... docs.jquery.com

Use the following buttons to show and hide this blogs title.

JQuery Predicates - Attribute contains

2008-11-30T19:33:00.015+11:00

Add JQuerify bookmarklet to this page. (Get JQuerify here)

Add following click handlers to page using console in FireBug

$("#lnkRedAttributeContains").click(showRedContains);
$("#lnkYellowAttributeContains").click(showYellowContains);

To find an element with an id of 'HelloGoodbyeAttributeContains'
click me yellow
click me red

The click me red also finds the two links as their ids match the predicate. The click me yellow is specifically looking for div elements therefore the two links are not turned yellow.


JQuery Predicate, attribute Contains
$("[ @id *= 'ributeCont' ]").removeClass("YellowAttributeContains").addClass("RedAttributeContains"); 
$("div[ @id *= 'ributeCont']").removeClass("RedAttributeContains").addClass("YellowAttributeContains");

JQuery Predicates - Attribute ends with

2008-11-30T18:52:00.019+11:00

Add JQuerify bookmarklet to this page. (Get JQuerify here)

Add following click handlers to page using console in FireBug

$("#lnkRedAttributeEndsWith").click(showRedEndsWith);
$("#lnkYellowAttributeEndsWith").click(showYellowEndsWith);

To find an element with an id of 'HelloGoodbyeAttributeEndsWith'
click me yellow
click me red

The click me red also finds the two links as their ids match the predicate. The click me yellow is specifically looking for div elements therefore the two links are not turned yellow.


JQuery Predicate, attribute Ends With
$("[id$='teEndsWith']").removeClass("YellowAttributeEndsWith").addClass("RedAttributeEndsWith"); 

or

$("div[id$='teEndsWith']").removeClass("RedAttributeEndsWith").addClass("YellowAttributeEndsWith");

JQuery Predicates - Attribute starts with

2008-11-30T18:52:00.018+11:00

Add JQuerify bookmarklet to this page. (Get JQuerify here)

Add following click handlers to page using console in FireBug

$("#lnkRedAttributeStartsWith").click(showRedStartsWith);
$("#lnkYellowAttributeStartsWith").click(showYellowStartsWith);

To find an element with an id of 'HelloGoodbyeAttributeStartsWith'
click me yellow
click me red

JQuery Predicate, attribute Starts With



$("[id ^= 'HelloGoodbyeAttributeSt']")
    .removeClass("YellowAttributeStartsWith")
    .addClass("RedAttributeStartsWith"); 

  or

$("div[id^='HelloGoodbyeAttributeSt']")
    .removeClass("RedAttributeStartsWith")
    .addClass("YellowAttributeStartsWith");

JQuery Predicates - Attribute equals

2008-11-30T18:51:00.025+11:00

This example uses JQuery attribute selector to add or remove a css class from an html element.

Add JQuerify bookmarklet to this page. (Get JQuerify here)

Add following click handlers to page using console in FireBug

$("#lnkRedAttributeEquals").click(showRed)
$("#lnkYellowAttributeEquals").click(showYellow);

click me yellow
click me red

This is an html div element with an id="HelloGoodbyeAttributeEquals"

 

JQuery Predicate, id attribute equals
$("#HelloGoodbyeAttributeEquals").removeClass("YellowAttributeEquals").addClass("RedAttributeEquals"); 

or another syntax for an id attribute equals

$("[id='HelloGoodbyeAttributeEquals']").removeClass("YellowAttributeEquals").addClass("RedAttributeEquals"); 

or a div tag with an id equals

$("div[id='HelloGoodbyeAttributeEquals']").removeClass("YellowAttributeEquals").addClass("RedAttributeEquals"); 

function showRed(e) {
    e.preventDefault();
    $("[id='HelloGoodbyeAttributeEquals']").removeClass("YellowAttributeEquals")
                                           .addClass("RedAttributeEquals");
}

function showYellow(e) {
    e.preventDefault();
    $("#HelloGoodbyeAttributeEquals").removeClass("RedAttributeEquals")
                                     .addClass("YellowAttributeEquals"); 
}

A RadioButton is a Checkbox

2008-11-28T09:12:00.004+11:00

If you have this code and you are dealing with a RadioButton control
then the output CSS class will be HighlightedBackgroundCheckbox because
a RadioButton is a Checkbox.

Simple fix is to check its a radiobutton first.



namespace System.Web.UI.WebControls
public class RadioButton : CheckBox



foreach (string boundNameToCompare in boundNames)
{
    CheckBox cb =
        this.FindControl(this.TargetControlID) as CheckBox;
    if (cb != null)
    {
        cb.CssClass = "HighlightedBackgroundCheckbox";
        continue;
    }

    RadioButton rb =
        this.FindControl(this.TargetControlID) as RadioButton;
    if (rb != null)
    {
        rb.CssClass = "radio HighlightedBackground";
        continue;
    }

}

Learning Simple JQuery - Part 4.

2008-11-23T15:33:00.024+11:00

There are many plugins developers have created to use with JQuery, including this one "tablesorter" - http://tablesorter.com/docs/

Add JQuerify to this page (Get JQuerify here)
Add table sorter to this page as a bookmarklet - TableSorter Bookmarklet
$("#myTableSorter").tablesorter();

The following table should then have clickable/sortable headings.

/tbody>

Row Number	Big Number	Word	Date
1	4345	Animal	23 January 1987
2	32546	Vegetable	18 November 2005
3	265	Mineral	9 September 1973
4	4456	Element	31 December 1976
5	56	Zebra	14 August 2008

This simple JQuery example was taken from Stephen Walthers PDC 2008 talk.
http://channel9.msdn.com/pdc2008/
http://channel9.msdn.com/pdc2008/PC31/

Learning Simple JQuery - Part 3.

2008-11-23T15:23:00.017+11:00

This example demonstrates using JQuery selectors to add css classes to specific html table row elements.

Add JQuerify bookmarklet to this page. (Get JQuerify here)

Add following JQuery to page using console in FireBug

$("#myColourTable tr:odd").addClass("tablerow"); $("#myColourTable tr:even").addClass("tablealtrow");
$("#myColourTable tr:first").removeClass("tablealtrow").addClass("heading");

Row Number	Big Number	Word	Date
1	4345	Animal	23 January 1987
2	32546	Vegetable	18 November 2005
3	265	Mineral	9 September 1973
4	4456	Element	31 December 1976
5	56	Zebra	14 August 2008

This simple JQuery example was taken from Stephen Walthers PDC 2008 talk.
http://channel9.msdn.com/pdc2008/
http://channel9.msdn.com/pdc2008/PC31/

Learning Simple JQuery - Part 2.

2008-11-23T14:06:00.015+11:00

This example uses JQuery to set the background-color of input text boxes, and attaches the focus/blur events to those text boxes with a "required" class.

Add JQuerify bookmarklet to this page. (Get JQuerify here)

Add following JavaScript to the page using the console tab in FireBug

$("input:text").css("background-color", "yellow");
$("input:text.required").focus(hilite); $("input:text.required").blur(unlite);

a textbox

a required textbox

 
  function hilite() {   
   $(this).css("background-color", "red"); 
  }
  
  function unlite() {   
   $(this).css("background-color", "yellow"); 
  }

This simple JQuery example was taken from Stephen Walthers PDC 2008 talk.
http://channel9.msdn.com/pdc2008/
http://channel9.msdn.com/pdc2008/PC31/

Learning Simple JQuery - Part 1.

2008-11-21T21:17:00.078+11:00

This example demonstrates using an jQuery id selector on anchor tags to attach a click event. It also uses an id selector to attach the slideDown and slideUp JQuery functions to a html div element.

Add JQuerify bookmarklet to this page. (Get JQuerify here)

Add following click handlers to page using console in FireBug

$("#lnkShowLoginBox").click(showLoginBox);
$("#lnkHideLoginBox").click(hideLoginBox);

Show Me Code - Hide Me Code

 
function showLoginBox(e) {  
   e.preventDefault();  
   console.log('in fn. showLoginBox');  
   $("#PaulsPointLoginBox").slideDown("slow");  
 }  
   
 function hideLoginBox(e) {  
   e.preventDefault();  
   console.log('in fn. hideLoginBox');  
   $("#PaulsPointLoginBox").slideUp("slow");  
 }

This simple JQuery example was taken from Stephen Walthers PDC 2008 talk.
http://channel9.msdn.com/pdc2008/
http://channel9.msdn.com/pdc2008/PC31/

JavaScript - get the client Id inside a formview

2008-11-06T13:51:00.003+11:00

Code snippet to get the client id of an asp control inside a formview




  var radio = $get('<%= searchFormView.FindControl("RangeRadioButton").ClientID %>');
  if (radio.checked)
  {
  }

JavaScript - Loop around properties of a textbox

2008-09-16T11:26:00.003+10:00



var allprops="";
 var count = 0;
 for (var prop in RangeFromTextbox)
 {
     allprops += prop + "=" + RangeFrom[prop] + " \n" ;
     if (count > 20)
     {
         alert(allprops);
         allprops = "";
         count = 0;
     }
     count++;
 }
 alert(allprops);

Ajax Page Methods / Update Panels

2008-09-09T20:08:00.002+10:00

Here is a blog post suggesting that UpdatePanels are often used in places where an Ajax Page Method would be better suited, it goes on to give an example of how to use Ajax Page Methods.

ASP.NET AJAX Page Methods

Heres another article with the same idea - Page Methods good, UpdatePanel bad.

Why ASP.NET AJAX UpdatePanels are dangerous

Recursive function through controls

2008-09-08T12:06:00.003+10:00



        /// 
        /// Recursive loop through form controls.
        /// 

        private void SetFormDisabled (Control control)
        {
            foreach (Control ctrl in control.Controls)
            {
                if (ctrl is TextBox) 
                {
                    ((TextBox)(ctrl)).Enabled = false;
                }
                else if (ctrl is Telerik.WebControls.RadNumericTextBox)
                {
                    ((Telerik.WebControls.RadNumericTextBox)(ctrl)).Enabled = false;
                }
                else if (ctrl is CheckBox)
                {
                    ((CheckBox)(ctrl)).Enabled = false;
                }
                else
                {
                    if (ctrl.Controls.Count > 0)
                    {
                        SetFormDisabled (ctrl);
                    }
                }
            }
        }

Regular Expressions - The Bare Minimum

2008-09-06T12:37:00.002+10:00

A good link to read and pick up The absolute bare minimum every programmer should know about regular expressions.

Exam 70-630: TS: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, Configuring

2008-07-28T16:27:00.002+10:00

Today I passed Exam 70-630: TS: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, Configuring.

Exam link

Well done me!

Cant find User.Identity.Name in a user control?

2008-07-17T13:48:00.000+10:00

Its, Context.User.Identity.Name

Last Months SharePoint Bootcamp Course

2008-07-01T15:51:00.005+10:00

During 27-30 May I was on the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Bootcamp course, the instructor was Mick Badran again which was good. This time the course was longer and included lab work which is definitely an easier way to learn.

Some random notes from the week;

its possible to map Features to Delegate controls
admin tools --> active directory users and computers -- > 'saved queries' --> use to build LDAP queries.
key focus points to take away include
Content Types - good to attach workflow to a content type not a type
VS Extensions for SharePoint - has solution generator, can point to a site and generate a solution for it.
SharePoint Exporer - codeplex tool
Silverlight.Net - SharePoint starter kit for SilverLight
SPLA Licensing - Leasing payments, usually no contracts, you pay for usage. eg SharePoint user = $50 per month. If you have a floor of 80 people, 200 need MOSS usually Microsoft answer is whole floor requires MOSS - with SPLA licensing you can pay for just the 20 MOSS you require. SPLA Licensing is also good for seasonal pressures.
Enterprise Content Management not really covered in this course, its more of a niche thing, its UI section of product
Pretty much anything you do in SharePoint browser UI can be done via developer API
www.wssdemo.com
Enterprise Search Resource Kit - get from Microsoft Rep.
SharePoint Team Services - previous version of SharePoint
MOSS can be installed on top of WSS
Outlook 2007 allows you to edit portal calendar within Outlook
Word 2007 Research pane you can search your portal
64 bit good, especially for SQL
No IIS configuration is necessary for SharePoint, its all in web.config
at site collection level you can nominate a content database
Joel Olsons blog - Sharepoint capacity and performance white paper
you can have 50,000 site collections per server
SharePoint Designer - gives the ability to work with DataView web parts
SharePoint Designer - recognizes the master page, VS doesnt due to way SharePoint does it
SharePoint Designer - doesnt lend itelf well to deployment
Development team should be using virtual servers
Subversion with cruise control for auto builds
rename a .docx file to .zip and open it to see folder structure of file
Forms Services can be a stand alone add-in to WSS
add the '12' directory to your favourites
add the 'bin' directory to your environment variables can then use cd %12%
always install WSS in farm mode - it gives you the option to extend, if you dont you cant switch to farm later
its WSS that is farm aware not MOSS
central admin database gets created on install
PSConfigUI.exe is wizard that create Sharepoint admin database, so you can give your own db name
3rd party web parts can be used to write back to AD
Permissions - keep it simple - keep the same default groups
Permissions - you can use the AD groups you already have within SharePoint
Upgrading - make sure first step is back up your content db
reason to move content into sharepoint is if it lacks a sensible structure
if directory has '_' in front of it then stuff runs in elevated mode, ie has high priority set, _layouts
Master page - to minimise processing you can put unused content place holders into a visible=false panel
SPContext class can be used when coding web parts to get handle on SharePoint context
For 'complicated' web parts you can configure it, then save it , then add it back in as a new web part already configured for the user
On deployment, modified pages are considered as 'customised' pages and are treated differently
VS Extensions for SharePoint should be used for packaging and deploying web parts
Heather Soliman blog - has css snippets with what they affect within SharePoint
keep away from site definitions as much as possible - these were used in V2 for customisations
'MasterPage' pack is a download available from Microsoft.
deployment is a significant part of the total amount of work that needs to be done

Utility Programs, Tools, Add-Ins plus other stuff.

2008-06-30T12:57:00.005+10:00

If your looking for a tool/utility list, this is a good place to start - Scott Hanselman's 2007 Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List for Windows.

This is my list,

Utility Programs

Unlocker Assistant - When you try and delete something and you get the file locked message, the Unlocker Assistant will pop up, giving you the option to unlock the files and perform your delete. Download from here

DiffMerge -is an application to visually compare and merge files for Windows, Mac OS X and Unix. Download from here
- If using DiffMerge with Subversion, the following settings can be used to 'Diff' and 'Merge'
  
  Diff Viewer
  C:\Program Files\SourceGear\DiffMerge\DiffMerge.exe /t1=%bname /t2=%yname %base %mine
  
  Merge
  C:\Program Files\SourceGear\DiffMerge\DiffMerge.exe /m /r=%merged /t1=%yname /t2=%bname /t3=%tname /c=%mname %mine %base %theirs
AutoRuns - This utility shows you what programs are configured to run during system bootup or login. Download from here.

BgInfo - is a little tool that displays a load of your system information as a bmp on your desktop. More information from here

Daemon Tools

Regular Expression Workbench
SqlScripter

pdf reader

Paint.Net

FireFox Add-Ins

Adblock Plus
ColorZilla
del.icio.us Bookmarks
Firebug
Snap Links
YSlow

Visual Studio Add-Ins/Registry Settings

GhostDoc
ReSharper
Consolas Font Pack for Visual Studio. Download from here. More information from here.
Line Character Length Indicator - More information from here.
- Run one of these registry files,
  
  VS2005 .reg file
  
  Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
  [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\8.0\Text Editor]
  "Guides"="RGB(128,0,0) 80, 120"
  
  VS2008 .reg file
  
  Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
  
  [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\9.0\Text Editor]
  "Guides"="RGB(128,0,0) 80, 120"

Other Stuff

Add "Delete SVN Folders" to Windows Explorer Context Menu. More Information here.

Create a registry file with the following.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Folder\shell\DeleteSVN]

@="Delete SVN Folders"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Folder\shell\DeleteSVN\command]
@="cmd.exe /c \"TITLE Removing SVN Folders in %1 && COLOR 9A && FOR /r \"%1\" %%f IN (_svn) DO RD /s /q \"%%f\" \""

Ajax Control Toolkit Popupcontrol and fieldsets

2008-06-23T15:43:00.001+10:00

If you have

<fieldset> some content... including ajax popup </fieldset>

<fieldset> some more content </fieldset>

then the ajax popup pops up underneath the second fieldset,

to fix set the z-index on the first fieldset to be higher than the one on the second, ie as below.

<fieldset style="z-index: 2;"> some content... including ajax popup </fieldset>

<fieldset style="z-index: 1;"> some more content </fieldset>

Deleting takes a long time

2008-06-19T15:33:00.003+10:00

Deleting files was taking a long time. Windows Explorer was freezing for 30 seconds plus. Checked out my recycle bin and it was full of big files.

Solution - empty your recycle bin more often

AgilePoint Snippet - Stored Procedure and Custom Attributes

2008-06-18T08:28:00.003+10:00

To get data out of your database and into a custom attribute, you can use the Query Database shape, set the SqlType property to StoredProcedure. the above shape would set the $ProjectName custom attribute.

Below is the start of the create script for the stored procedure,

CREATE PROCEDURE [dbo].[spGetProject]
@ProjectId int
, @ProjectName varchar(50) output

AS
BEGIN

Below is the sql to call the stored procedure for testing,

declare @pn varchar(50)
exec spgetproject @projectid=320, @projectname=@pn out
select @pn

AgilePoint Snippet - Get/Set Custom Attributes

2008-06-17T12:26:00.002+10:00

In a C# snippet shape, or in aspx code you can use the following to Get and/or Set a Custom Attribute.

if (api.GetCustomAttr(pi.WorkObjectID,"MyAttrName") == null)
{
api.SetCustomAttr(pi.WorkObjectID,"MyAttrName","My Custom Attr Value");
}

SQL Snippet - Common Table Expressions

2008-06-03T15:03:00.005+10:00

A Common Table Expression can be used to:-

Create a recursive query.
Substitute for a view when the general use of a view is not required; that is, you do not have to store the definition in metadata.
Enable grouping by a column that is derived from a scalar subselect, or a function that is either not deterministic or has external access.
Reference the resulting table multiple times in the same statement.

see Using Common Table Expressions and Recursive Queries Using Common Table Expressions

SQL Snippet - Using Cross Apply

2008-06-03T14:51:00.001+10:00

Use Cross Apply with a user defined table-valued function.

read about it here..
Using CROSS APPLY in SQL Server 2005

SQL Snippet - Returning Ranked Results with Microsoft SQL Server 2005

2008-06-03T14:09:00.003+10:00

TSQL in SQL 2005 provides the following options for ranking your result set.

```
ROW_NUMBER()
```
```
Ntile(int)
```
```
Rank
```
```
Dense_Rank
```

The above can optionally be used with "Partition By"

see this article. Returning Ranked Results with Microsoft SQL Server 2005 from 4guysfromrolla.

Configuring Visual Studio to Debug .NET Framework Source Code

2008-05-08T15:17:00.001+10:00

From Shawn Burkes Blog...

Configuring Visual Studio to Debug .NET Framework Source Code

And Scott Guthries...

Releasing the Source Code for the .NET Framework Libraries

What does 'Strongly Typed' mean exactly?

2008-04-23T13:17:00.003+10:00

Some links explaining that there is not necessarily a definite answer without the question being asked in context.

Perl *is* strongly typed (was Re: Perl description)
Wikipedia - Strong Typing

Last Months AgilePoint BPM Technical Training

2008-04-21T21:31:00.004+10:00

Last month the project team got trained up on AgilePoint by Ascentn consultant Chris Custer.

AgilePoint BPM Technical Training 10th-14th March 2008

This was the course outline.

Day One

Module 1 - What is BPM?
This module will review the concepts and requirements for BPM.

Module 2 - How do I develop a BPM solution?
This module reviews a best practices approach for defining, developing, managing and analysing business processes with BPM.

Module 3 - What is AgilePoint BPM Suite? (What are the differentiators?)
This module reviews the components, the architecture, system usage roles for the product suite, and reviews the functionality of each product in the suite.

Module 4 - What Solution Architectures does AgilePoint BPM Support?
This module reviews a number of development scenarios that are supported.

Module 5 - How do I develop a BPM Solution with AgilePoint BPM Suite?
This module will provide the participants an opportunity to build, debug and deploy a basic process template that is integrated with InfoPath.

Day Two

Module 6 - How do I develop a BPM Solution with a SharePoint Document Library?
This module will provide the participants an opportunity to build a basic SharePoint BPM Solution using the asp.net pages provided during install.

Module 7 - Hos do I develop a BPM Solution with ASP.Net Forms?
This module will provide the participants an opportunity to build a solution that interacts with asp.net forms for the manual activities

Module 8 - Am I up for the Challenge?
This module will include a practical exercise to design a process template to meet the requirements for a BPM solution. The practical exercise will include a role playing exercise to gather the requirements for the solution from the key business stakeholder.

The resulting designs will be reviewed and discussed by the participants.

Day Three

Module 9 - What are the System Usage Roles (SURs) for the AgilePoint BPM Suite?

This module revies the different SURs involved in an AgilePoint workflow environment.

Module 10 - How is the AgilePoint BPM Suite deployed?
This module reviews the installation scenarios and requirements to install the AgilePoint BPM Suite in your clients environment.

Module 11 - How do you manage users and permissions in an AgilePoint BPM environment?
This module reviews the options to add users and manager groups and roles.

Module 12 - How do I monitor the AgilePoint BPM Environment?
This module provides the participants with a review of best practices for monitoring system health and performance.

Module 13 - How do I backup and recover the AgilePoint BPM data?
This module provides the participants with a review of best practices to protect BPM data.

Day Four

Module 14 - How do I develop a custom BPM Solution using Custom SOA Components?
This module will provide the participants an opportunity to build a solution that includes a custom web service and AgilePart to abstract the service as a business service in AgilePoint Envision.

Module 15 - How do I develop a custom BPM Solution using Multiple Forms for Single Activities within a Process Model?
This module will provide the particpants an opportunity to build a BPM Solution that leverages InfoPath and asp.net for each approval step in the process.
A cusom AgileWork component will be developed to synchronise the data collected in the asp.net form with the InfoPath XML.
This module focuses on the composite application framework and SOA design.

Day Five

Module 16 - What are the Advance development components to extend the AgilePoint BPM Suite?
This module will review the AgileStub and AgileConnector components, The module will provide participants with the opportunity to explore the .Net class structure of the components and discuss scenarios in which they should be used.
Code samples will be provided for future reference.

Module 17 - How do I develop Reports for AgilePoint BPM Solutions?
This module will first review the sample reports delivered with the AgilePoint BPM Suite.
The remainder of the module will demonstrate Microsoft SQL Reporting Services capabilities.
The exercise will create a process analysis report to identify average task times and list the tasks that exceed that average for exception reporting.

FireFox Keyboard ShortCuts

2008-04-19T19:14:00.002+10:00

Ctrl w	Close Tab
Ctrl Enter	adds '.com' to what you enter in address bar
Ctrl Shift Enter	adds '.org' to what you enter in address bar
Shift Enter	adds '.net' to what you enter in address bar
Alt Enter	opens a website in another tab
Alt +D	navigate directly to the browser address bar
Ctrl T	open a new tab
Ctrl Shift T	reopens the last closed tab
Deletekey	delete specific addresses in browser history or autocomplete forms
Ctrl tab	navigate between different tabs
Ctrl 'tab number'	Ex:To go to the 3rd tab use Ctrl+3
Spacebar or PageDown	scrolls down the webpage you’re on
Shift Spacebar or PageUp	scrolls up the webpage you’re on
middle mouse(scroll) button	opens the page in a new tab

SharePoint Course.

2008-04-12T09:33:00.006+10:00

I've been on a MOSS course the past couple of days, which has been good...

Microsoft Office SharePoint 2007 Chalk Talk

The facilitator was Mick Badran,
blogs.breezetraining.com.au/mickb/

Course Outline

Day One

Module 1: Platform Overview

Module 2: Server Topology and Administration

Module 3: Collaboration

Day Two

Module 4: Search

Module 5: Web Content Management

Module 6: Business Data Catalog

These are my random notes taken during the two days.

81m licences in 2007 expected 170m in 2008
http://www.wssdemo.com/default.aspx

list of publishing sites for references on what you can do with WSS publishing.

Search - there are web services that you can consume in your own web app.
Talks about importance of classifying documents with extra meta data.
free MSFT search product "Search Server Express" that you should use if deploying just WSS search
there are 9 different web parts providing search functionality
Sharepoint is base for other MSFT products eg Performance Point
BDC - link up other sources of information into your portal
magnifying part of screen zoomit.exe
wss comes free with Win 2003 licence
MOSS has 153 features some of which turn on/off on installation
"SPLA" licencing can be against features for eg. you can have 20 enterprise licences and n other licences on the same deployment
could manage licencing through groups but is basically on a trust basis
about 20 different licensing programs available - so if licensing is issue with partner then contact MSFT for information
Win 2008 - runs faster
64 bit better again, supports more users
Application Pool - set memory recycling - max virtual memory should be 700M on 32 bit
once MOSS successfully installed you do have Central Admin web site up and running
Advice - alwasy install in farm mode as you then have option to grow
Sharepoint solution can have 1 or more fetures to be developed within them
Visual Studio Extensions for SharePoint
Site Features not only apply to new creations but also apply to all past ones as well
you can have dependencies between features
2 main areas of Central Admin site - Operations and Application Mgmt
Biggest benefit to V3 is "Site Features" eg

Master page deploy
publishing
3rd party

Partners might create site features as a good differentiator.
Sharepoint Solution Generator allows you goto exisiting sharepoint installation and pick out libraries/sites/whatever that you might want to generation a solution from
WSP View in VS2005 - windows sharepoint project
Reporting Service Integration Features
Sharepoint Capacity Planner - used to give guide line on how many servers you require on your system.
3rd party - wan accelerators
one way to deply would be to save site as template then you can move this template around
use Kerberos (not NTLM) security - will save effort down the track
Sharepoint workflows are document centric - they are built on WWF
User Profiles can be sucked down from AD
Audiences - based on series of rules - ie yrs of svc, first name beginning with A
when selecting web part you can set display only for 'target audience'
'target audience' could also be an AD group
set environment variable to 12 for the long folder name

program files\common files\msft shared\web server extensions\12\

can then use %12% in explorer
logs folder has the logs
bin folder has psconfig.exe

enables you to name your admin database without a GUID in the db name

with sharepoint v3 you can incorporate sharepoint url into your own separate web application
run 'winword' for office word
my site url gets written to AD only time sharepoint writes to AD
my site url also gets written to registry
Open docs in word and have sharepoint lists available to open doc from - these lists can be controlled in 'Published links to Office Client Applications under SSP admin
Usage reporting - turn on SSP admin
Word 2007 - 'Research Window' can integrate Sharepoint searching into this search tool - by adding a service. moss/vti bin/search.asmx
can leverage this search service in your own apps
each person under my site is their own site collection
you can switch a web sites SSP but you would lose what the original SSP stores, eg index,audiences,my site
in central admin web site, sites are site collections, webs are sites, also known as sub sites
due to size/usage/load you may choose to have a site collection in its own content db
you can 50,000 site collections in a content db.
site collection is smallest granular unit you can move from 1 content db to another.
Incoming Email Settings - enable sites on this server to receive email

ie email a doc to a list
this doesnt need exchange - its just a drop folder for email

does need configuration on exchange server

eg create a moss sub domain - mylist@moss.mycompany.com

Directory Mgmt service will enable AD tie in that will mean address list in outlook will have document lists email address
under doc lib settings you will have communications --> incoming email settings
alternate access mappings - gives you url rewriting
a lot of users dont know enought about lists - havent used the 'actions' menu
there are maybe other company polikcy/politics that affect way you would do collaboration
smallest unit of division you can move is a site collection
within site collection certain things inherited like

regional settings
quotes
recycle bin settings

'Site Collection Administration' area in Site Admin is only available at the root subsite
If for example

Add 15 cols to your doc library in your root site
the cols will be inherited down at sub site level, but you still need to add those 15 cols into the doc lib at that level
instead at 15 cols to content type at root level
you then just need to at single thing at sub site level

rule of thumb is always create stuff at root level even if you think you are only going to use it at a single sub site.
Managed Paths - tell browser things under this address are/are not sharepoint sites
MAjor version increases whenever doc is published and approved
minor version increases when doc is checked in
if you have do with version 0.2, a user with read priv for that library wont see anything

if the doc is version 1.5, a user with read priv will beable to read v1.0

if the search indexer is under an admin account they will beable to index V1.5 and see a snippet of V1.5 in the search results but if you just have read priv when you click on the link it will take you to V1.0
to stop above point happening you should set up crawl rule
users docs default is 90 days in their recycle bin
sites/subsites dont go into recycle bin
add network place

paste url of doc lib and you get webdav view of doc library

stsadm tool can be used to increase defaut content limit of 10MB when creating document library template by UI interface 'exporting template'
you could also use sharepoint designer if content is larger than 10Mb
Prune your doc versions - find out requirements for company - what is cut off time - then move content to an archive
Document Library is implemented as a feature
you can turn of any menu settings for you doc lib
you can only have 1 indexer machine per SSP
if you add a new property - eg content type, then you need to do a full index for that property to be searchedon
search was rebuilt from ground up concentrating on importance of relevance
Foxit software - pdf plugin for crawling
make site 'authoritative' and it will bump up in the rankings
'search for "hammer and nail" will normally never be found as "and" is noise word
can map properties from sources to be certain thing in index - eg search for name = 'friday'

source = people = map first/last name to name
source = files = map filename to name
source = sps sites = map page title to name

can set best bets to expire
index engine known as gatherer service
can set best bets to expire
configuring search

sps3://moss/ - tells crawler to activate SP APIs and get more goodies out

Incremental Index - doing this often - every 5 mins perfectly possible
to add pdf icon add to images folder in '12' folder

and modify doc icon xml file

Scopes can be used to generate diff search page and search results page
search for "author:Paul" any property can be searched in same way as author
'Form Web Part' can be used to do searching if you want.. doesnt matter what form is used just pass query to searchresults.aspx with 'k=' is querystring
WCM - telerik have some free useful controls
Content types,master page, layout page combine to give you your WCM
WCM needs 'Office Sharepoint Publising Infrastructure' feature turned on
when publishing public sites - look at core.js (400k) to see if you still need it all
BDC Action could be developed to write back to LOB system
sharepoint exams have lots of Q about BDC API
SSO is enterprise feature
App Def file is an xml file
BDC MetaMan 3rd party tool allows write to LOB
other tools on codeplex and the net
you could point VStudio at xsd filer and then get intellisense

Tools and Utils - File/Folder Compare and Merge

2008-04-02T08:49:00.002+11:00

DiffMerge can be used to compare and merge files, also folder compare.

http://www.sourcegear.com/diffmerge/

Tools and Utils - Firefox Add-ons

2008-04-02T08:47:00.001+11:00

Useful Firefox add-ons.

Adblock Plus
ColorZilla
del.icio.us Bookmarks
Firebug
Snap Links

SQL Snippet - Reseed Identity Column to Zero

2008-03-31T08:28:00.003+11:00

Reseed Identity Column to Zero



 delete from Table_Name

 DBCC CHECKIDENT (Table_Name, RESEED, 0)

Sql Snippet - Get Table Column Names In A Query

2008-03-31T08:27:00.002+11:00

Get Table Column Names In A Query



SELECT Column_Name + ', '
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS
WHERE TABLE_NAME = 'Table_Name'

CTRL ALT DEL in Remote Desktop

2008-03-19T16:48:00.000+11:00

Use CTRL ALT End in Remote Desktop (mstsc)

Documentation - Software Projects

2008-02-18T11:20:00.003+11:00

I'm currently writing technical documentation for a $2.6 million dollar software project. Most people you ask about what this documentation should include and what format it should be in will have a different answer for you.

So I guess the first step is to talk to who you are writing the documents for and see what they want, are there existing templates being used in your organisation? Are these templates relevant for your project?

Tools and Utils - System Information

2008-02-14T09:02:00.003+11:00

BGInfo is a little tool that displays a load of your system information as a bmp on your desktop. Follow the link for more information

BGInfo

Excel Training - Small Tips - Pasting

2008-02-14T08:51:00.002+11:00

Some small tips when using Excel.

On pasting you get smart tag next to the newly pasted cell where you can select to maintain existing formatting.

Excel Training - Small Tips - WorkSheet Size

2008-02-14T08:50:00.002+11:00

Some small tips when using Excel.

There are 256 columns in default sheet to get to last column CTRL + {right arrow}
There are 65536 rows in default sheet to get to last column CTRL + {down arrow}

Excel Training - Small Tips - Password

2008-02-14T08:49:00.000+11:00

Some small tips when using Excel.

To enforce a password when opening or modifying your spreadsheet.

File - Save As - General Options.

Excel Training - Small Tips - Insert Comments

2008-02-14T08:48:00.001+11:00

Some small tips when using Excel.

To Insert a comment, select your cell then right click and Select Insert comments.

Excel Training - Small Tips - Entering Data

2008-02-14T08:47:00.003+11:00

Some small tips when using Excel.

You can enter the same data to multiple cells by highlighting them, enter your data, then hold down CTRL when pressing Enter.

Or.
On selecting a cell, move your mouse over thick border, you get big 4 way arrow, click and drag to move the data to another cell.

Or.
On selecting a cell, move your mouse over bottom right corner get smaller 4 way cross, click and drag to copy to data to new cells. At this point you can also select the smart tag and select Fill Series to generate series of data.

Excel Training - Small Tips - Undo Button

2008-02-14T08:46:00.001+11:00

Some small tips when using Excel.

Next to the Undo button in the toolbar there is a little down arrow. When selected you can select and undo multiple previous steps.

Excel Training - Small Tips - Default Data Entry

2008-02-14T08:43:00.002+11:00

Some small tips when using Excel.

To change the default direction of cell selection after entering data, then pressing Enter, goto Tools - Options - Edit

Agile - Scrum for Team Systems.

2008-02-07T11:30:00.001+11:00

I'm starting on a new project at the moment and we are going to use Scrum for Team Systems as a project management methodology. More info on here.

• SCRUM
• SPRINT

Sprint is duration of work.
Scrum is meeting to discuss this duration of work

Product Backlog – list of activities eg
• Create install doc
• Implement AD security
• Create LOA workflow

Prioritise and Precedent your list

Add length of time to each activity.

Create Sprint of 1 month say this equals 160 hours.

Team Member	Hours	Time Available	Drag Coefficient	Total
Donald	160	0.8	0.8	103
Carlos	160	0.5	0.2	16
Jim	160	1.0	0.9	144
Michael	160	1.0	0.9	144
				407

Pick items from Product backlog for Sprint Backlog.

Expand each item from product backlog to have more detail and give each item length of time eg between 2 and 16 hours.

Get to your total of 407 hours and this what your going to do complete in the Sprint.

SCRUM is daily or regular meeting that is around 15 minutes long and has 3 questions.
• How did you go with yesterdays tasks
• Are any impediments stopping you from completing tasks
• What are you going to do today.

Have ‘burn graph’
Y axis max is 407 min 0 and is hours in sprint
X axis min is 0 to 15 days in sprint.

Ideally you will follow linear line down to 0 hours left…. But realistically you will have visual indication how sprint is progressing and you can react to it…

Excel Training - Templates on Office Online

2008-02-06T08:44:00.000+11:00

I'm just flicking through some xls training videos and was reminded of this link which can be found in Excel when you go File > New Workbook - Templates on Office Online.

Ascii Codes Reference Sheet

2008-02-01T08:28:00.000+11:00

Ascii Codes Reference Sheet

GBP Pound Sign on Australian Keyboards

2008-02-01T08:24:00.000+11:00

Hold down ALT and type 156 on numeric pad. - £

Other special characters at this link

New job Links

2008-01-29T10:45:00.000+11:00

I've been in my current position for over 3 months now, I found this series of articles from Rands in Repose interesting,

"First off, there’s A Glimpse and a Hook, which will describe how managers read your resume. Then we’ve got The Sanity Check, which will prepare you for the phone screen. And finally, there’s Ninety Days, which sketches out a plan for the first three months of your new gig."

Visual Studio 2008 - Unrecoverable Build Error

2008-01-15T12:11:00.000+11:00

Using VS 2008, I just started getting this error for no apparent reason, after a few hours of frustration recreating the solution adding fresh web setup projects etc, I found this link.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/329214/EN-US/

which didnt work,

then this link
http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=128028&SiteID=1

suggested trying
"regsvr32 ole32.dll".

which did work...

Using the System Restore wizard I was reminded that yesterday I uninstalled SnagIt as the trial period had expired... putting SnagIt and ole32.dll into google brings me the SnagItGuide page telling me that back in March 2007 - "Fixed the bug where SnagIt removes ole32.dll registry keys." As I just got the SnagIt trial a month ago I guess the bug wasnt fixed to well after all.

Stored Procedures - Reasons to use/not use them

2008-01-14T12:15:00.000+11:00

Some reasons to use/not use stored procedures found from doing a bit of googling..

Reasons to use them

Your organization's DBAs won't give users or applications SELECT privileges on production SQL Server tables.
Stored procedures result in easier maintenance because it is generally easier to modify a stored procedure than it is to change a hard-coded SQL statement within a deployed coponent.
Stored procedures add an extra level of abstraction from the underlying database schema. The client of the stored procedure is isolated from the implementation details of the stored procedure and from the underlying schema.

Reasons not to use them

LINQ

Validation of viewstate MAC failed....

2008-01-14T09:30:00.001+11:00

Getting this error just after release to prod. Its a simple .NET 3.5 app without any web farms etc... this thread suggests the following solution is to update your web.config as following..

<pages validaterequest="false" enableeventvalidation="false" viewstateencryptionmode="Never">
</pages>

Thread title is
Validation of viewstate MAC failed / The state information is invalid for this page and might be corrupted

Thread link is
http://forums.asp.net/t/955145.aspx

Visual Studio Keyboard Shortcuts

2008-01-14T08:40:00.002+11:00

F12	Goto declaration for selected symbol in code
CTRL -	Return to where you were before pressing F12
CTRL K CTRL N	Goto Next Bookmark
CTRL K CTRL P	Goto Previous Bookmark
SHIFT ALT ENTER	Toggle Full Screen
CTRL M CTRL O	minimise functions in code view
CTRL K CTRL C	Comment section
CTRL K CTRL U	UnComment section
ALT W ALT L	Close active windows.
CTRL K CTRL M	add a method to existing class.. by writing it as if it exists bool b = aNewMethod()
CTRL .	add a method to another class.. by writing it as if it exists bool b = myClass.aNewMethod()
CTRL ALT P	Open up Process window

Links to the Microsoft Visual C# Default Key bindings

VS2005
http://download.microsoft.com/download/e/7/9/e79cce22-b196-4b9f-9ea7-b1a21f5342e9/VCSharp_2005_color.pdf

VS 2008
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=E5F902A8-5BB5-4CC6-907E-472809749973&displaylang=en

Tools and Utils - Install an iso image

2008-01-10T15:18:00.000+11:00

Tool to emulate mounting a drive, point Daemon tool at iso image and you can then install as normal.

http://www.daemon-tools.cc/dtcc/download.php

Tools and Utils - Regular Expressions

2008-01-10T15:15:00.000+11:00

Simple application to help you write and learn Regular Expressions.. "Regular Expression Workbench"

http://blogs.msdn.com/ericgu/archive/2003/07/07/52362.aspx

Tools and Utils - SQL Scripts

2008-01-10T14:44:00.000+11:00

Generate INSERT scripts from existing data (amongst other things)

http://www.sqlscripter.com/

Tools and Utils - PDF Reader

2008-01-10T14:41:00.000+11:00

One that is small in size and doesn't do to much in the background...

http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/reader_2/down_reader.htm