Via Mark Kruger,
«I have received several recent emails inquiring about a SharePoint date-time web part. Well, to answer this question for everyone rather than individually... it's actually pretty simple and quick to do as the other SharePoint experts in the field will agree. All you really need to do is place the following script into a Content Editor Web Part. Then just place it wherever you like. I recommend hiding the we part title bar for those needing a bit of UI-assistance ;) The web part is real-time showing the seconds tick away... tick tock.... tick tock... Check out my list of Free SharePoint Web Parts and Tools for some other cool SharePoint additions!
<script language="javascript">
function det_time(){
var d = new Date();
var dstr = d.toString();
document.getElementById('time').innerHTML = dstr;
}
setInterval("det_time()", 1000);
</script>
<div id="time" name="time" style="font-weight:bold;text-align:right;"><br></div>»
Via Robert Ingebretsen,
« Sorry that I've been pretty silent for the last couple of weeks. I was at PDC for a week and then took a week and a half off to visit my wife's family in Ithaca. Well, as you can imagine, this meant a lot of flying and I used my time on the plane to build some control styles. The two I've made so far turned out pretty nicely, so I've posted them for your styling pleasure. So far, I've only created two styles: one for Button and one for TabControl, but more should be coming. These work with the September CTP bits (which are the same bits handed out at the PDC).
You can download the styles here.»
Via Michael Swanson,
«Working on the PDC05 Post-Show DVD Set
 I've spent the past few days reviewing the first-cut of the PDC05 post-show DVD set, and I have to say that I'm very excited about what we're going to deliver! Because I was part of the team that organized and ran this event, I only had time to attend a single session in Los Angeles. No worries, though, because we recorded all of the breakout sessions (including those during lunch), and all of the symposia. We captured four unique data streams in each room: the audio, the PowerPoint presentation, any demos, and video of the speaker(s). After collecting a half terabyte of raw data (!), we've worked very closely with a vendor to assemble all of the content into a seamless, synchronized Microsoft Producer format.
We had originally planned to expand the "normal" 2 DVD set to 3 DVDs this time around. But, because of all the content, we've had to increase it to 4 dual-layer 8.5GB DVDs. Each DVD contains a full index, and DVDs are organized by presentation track. You can either drill down by session or perform a keyword search to find exactly what you're after. Or, if you're an uber geek, you can just sit back and watch over 200 sessions back-to-back. That's over 250 hours of content! Wow!
The background screenshot shows the start-up interface for navigating the sessions along with their descriptions. The screenshot in the foreground shows the actual presentation. You get video of the speaker, an index of the presentation just below, and the PowerPoint slides and demo video to the right. This is the first time we've included video of the speaker for all sessions, and it really makes for a very engaging experience. Best of all, you can use standard Media Player controls to increase the playback speed to 1.6x (Ctrl+Shift+G) and completely throttle your brain with the technical torrent...don't try this with 400-level content.  Oh...we've also thrown in all of the PowerPoint presentations and sample code for many of the sessions.
So, how do you get all this goodness? That's the best answer of all. If you attended PDC05, it'll be automatically shipped to you when it becomes available (targeting early November). If you'd like to order your own full DVD set to keep handy, visit the order page. Or...drum roll please...we'll be hosting all of this, for free, for anyone, for six full months! Now that's awesome.
By the way, did you know that you can download the PDC05 PowerPoints and some sample code already? And here's a session list.
Last, I have to shout out to Robert Ingebretsen (the guy wearing the orange shirt in the screenshot). I keep forgetting to link to his new blog site. Robby has an awesome design sense, and if you're interested in Windows Presentation Foundation, you should check out his stuff.»
Can't wait for those goodies
Via Ryan Rogers,
I've found this post from Ryan that's been around since July...
«The link below is to download the SPSReport utility, which was created by Mike McIntyre, an Escalation Engineer in PSS, and is used extensively by PSS in troubleshooting customer issues. SPSReport, which is very similar to PSS MPSReports for other products/technologies, collects a ton of information from the SharePoint Portal Server machine on which it is run; that information includes: event logs, metabase/IIS settings, hotfix lists, MD5 sums of relevant directories, important registry entries, etc., etc., etc. The download contains a readme file that contains all of the various information that it collects.
SPSReport can be used on SharePoint Portal Server 2001, SharePoint Portal Server 2003, and Windows SharePoint Services, and will gather a slightly different set of information depending on the version.
The tool can take quite a while to run, depending on the configuration of the machine, so it should not be taken lightly. That said, if you can afford the time (the readme suggests "anywhere from a couple of minutes to over an hour") and the performance hit to the machine (again, this will depend on the configuration of the machine) this is a great way to get a whole lot of information stored off into a CAB file for review at a later time.
Get SPSReport Utility Now (1.11 MB)
NOTE: This is an unsupported tool. Use at your own risk.»
Here's something I'm going to try when I find time
During this past week, we attended a U2U course by Nico Jacobs here in Portugal:
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 for Developers
ISV Summer School
Nico did a great job showing the new features and «bells and whistles».
I'm really enthusiastic about Integration Services, Service Broker and Data Mining capabilites on the new SQL Server 2005.
Here are some nice screenshots for you guys wondering 
Integration Services:
This really makes me happy - I can now make in minutes what in the past could easily take me days or weeks!!
Data Mining:
SQL Server 2005 eases the entire data mining thing, in a few minutes, we were predicting Bike Buyers profiles based on the Adventure Works sample database
We've also played a bit with Reporting Services, but in my opinion, it still has space for maturing - although as it is, already adds nice functionality for end users and devies (a «devie» - short for «Developer»... I came up with that, seems to be sticking ).
Web Services for your database is also a sexy topic, which we might try on a project we're on, the team is still in the process of deciding - let's see if we will head that way or not.
Bottom line, SQL Server 2005 makes me, as a developer, feel empowered to build better stuff
Victor Marques called my attention to this new search engine that is emerging: previewSEEK.com
Great searching experience.
You can save your searches, assign ratings and send your searchs via email to other people. What also called my attention was the possibility to navigate a tree with relevant information found to be related to your search to fine tune it and drill down on subjects.
I'm curious to see where this is headed and the impact on Google and other search engines.
Via Mark Wagner,
«Web Part Package Installer for Windows SharePoint Services 2003
Click here for the complete article...
For those of us who are familiar with installing and removing SharePoint web parts, it’s a pretty easy process. However, for those individuals who spend more time using SharePoint than installing and configuring it; locating and using the STSADM command can be a bit tedious. To help simplify the installation of web parts packages, I have created a simple Web Part Package Installer program.
The purpose of this program is to make the installation of web part packages much easier for less-technical people. Web Part Packages are stored in files having a .CAB file extension. The nice thing about a web part package is that a package can define some initial properties and configuration settings for the web part being installed. This is where my Web Part Package Installer program may be useful.
The installer form is very simple.
Click here for the complete article...»
Via Patrick,
«I have been following the WSRP story from a distance, likening the idea but realizing that it would be very hard to make it happen. WSRP stands for Web Services for Remote Portlets and is an OASIS spec you can read more about here. The idea behind WSRP is to create a standard for interactive, presentation-oriented web services. Simply said, it means that WSRP producers (like a vendor of an ERP portal - take SAP) can expose parts of their portal interface (really the presentation of it), expose it as a Web Service in a specific format as defined by the spec, and then have it consumed by any WSRP consumer (like SharePoint). Since it is all about Web Services, we automatically should have platform, vendor and language independence.
Sounds great? Well yes, it does, but it seems that most vendors are very interested in becoming a WSRP consumer but not really going for the investment of building WSRP producers. Why not? It is all about making business. As Doc Holladay is stating in his recent post: "What incentive do business application content providers that also sell a portal have for creating WSRP producers? For example, say I sell an ERP app that holds mission critical data and I also sell an enterprise portal why would I make it just as easy to expose all my content into someone else's portal?" Do read the rest of his posting since it contains other statements why he claims that WSRP is losing the battle. Anyway, it is good to hear that Microsoft internally decided that they will make WSRP consumer support available for the next version of SharePoint.»
Hurray!
Via Patrick,
«Interesting data here for SharePointers in the UK regarding the average salaries, rates, requested skills. Would be nice to map this per country. Tx Joris for the link.»
This makes me think how, in certain situations, it would be profitable to companies in UK to hire a company like ours in Portugal. I'm somewhat skeptic when it comes to certain scenarios when it comes to outsourcing development projects, specially when it comes to beating language and location distance barriers, but in specific cases, development projects based on outsourcing can be very profitable to all involved parties - everyone speaks english, functional specifications can be and are well defined, trust relationship exists, etc. Somethink for us all to sit and have our brains chew on
Another «just found», still, this one has been out since 27th September 2005:
Key topic I got from this: wait for SPS2003 Service Pack 2 to be released if you have SPS2003 deployments instead of WSS only deployments.
You can also check on:
-
List of issues that the service pack fixes
Windows SharePoint Services SP2 fixes the issues that are described in the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
906336 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/906336/) Issues that are fixed in Windows SharePoint Services by Windows SharePoint Services Service Pack 2
-
Security bulletin that is associated with the service pack
Windows SharePoint Services SP2 addresses the issues that are described in the following Microsoft Security Bulletin:
887981 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/887981/) MS05-006: Vulnerability in Windows SharePoint Services and SharePoint Team Services could allow cross-site scripting and spoofing attacks
-
Earlier released updates that the service pack includes
Windows SharePoint Services SP2 includes the previously released updates that are described in the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
841876 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/841876/) Description of Windows SharePoint Services Service Pack 1
View products that this article applies to.
On This Page
SUMMARY
Microsoft has released a service pack for Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services. This article includes information about how to obtain the service pack and about how to obtain a list of issues that the service pack fixes. Additionally, this article includes information about the issues that you may experience when you install the service pack and about how to determine whether the service pack is installed.
Just found this, but it's out since 13 September 2005.
Good reading on Microsoft's upcoming Enterprise Content Management Offering (ECM). The Microsoft Enterprise Content Management Offering
Published: September 13, 2005
Enterprise Content Management (ECM) has become a strategic imperative for most organizations. Businesses have seen a huge explosion of structured and unstructured information over the last several years that includes documents, e-mail messages, voice mail, and video. A recent study by Accenture shows that more content will be created in the next two years than in the entire previous history of humankind. It will be critical for organizations to have a strategy to manage unstructured content through its entire lifecycle—creation, management, storage, and disposal.
On This Page
This past months I have seen clients experiencing problems with wppackaged web parts on italian systems.
WPPACKAGER log usually holds something like this when the problem manifests itself:
========= WPPackager install log started 27/05/2005 12.47.56 =========
27/05/2005 12.48.05: Error: Config file: 'c:\inetpub\wwwroot\web.config' for virtual server 'http://wss/' is missing or appears invalid. Could not apply required CAS settings to this server.
27/05/2005 12.48.01: Success: Installation Successfully Completed
Has anyone else experienced this problem?
Via Mark Harrison:
«From Chris Johnson ...
Joel Oleson (Microsoft IT) has released SharePoint Recycle Bin 1.0.
This solution uses an ISAPI filter that sits in front of the WSS ISAPI filter. It watches for requests from users to delete documents. When it sees one, it grabs the document and copies it down to a file share first, then allows WSS to delete the document. This means that when someone rings the helpdesk with a deleted document issue the helpdesk can grab the document from the file share, and either send it to them or put it back in the WSS site for them!»
Back when I was figuring how CAS (Code Access Security) works in SharePoint, I noted a few tips and guidelines on my OneNote. This is no Bible, nor perfect, but can be useful to someone, so I'm making it public:
Don't be lazy now, use wss_minimal for development - you'll thank the Heavens later on:
Benefits:
Disadvantages:
- Slower development (bear in mind that in the end, if you still need to implement CAS you'll probably be taking more time hunting CAS permissions if you don't develop with CAS in mind).
If you didn't had a chance to develop using wss_minimal (let's say, you felt lazy and though it would be faster to use Full trust level on your web.config - yes, I have walked that path), when hunting for CAS permissions, set Fulltrust for your assemblies and gradually lower each permission set.
Resources:
SharePoint SDK Code Access Security for Developers
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/spptsdk/html/smpscCodeAccessSecurityDevs_SV01071445.asp
SharePoint Products and Technologies Code Access Security
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/spptsdk/html/SPCodeAccessSec_SV01077192.asp
.NET Support and Security in Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/spptsdk/html/tsovNETSupport_SV01018475.asp
Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services and Code Access Security
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/odc_SP2003_ta/html/sharepoint_wsscodeaccesssecurity.asp
Please feel free to comment on this post or send me your tips and guidelines to add your contribution.
CAS needs to be better documented, CAS needs to be better understood amongst the SharePoint community.
I hope this post is useful to someone.
Via Patrick:
«There he is again with his 'Modify Shared Page' extension again some readers will say :). But Carlos Segura Sanz has wrapped up a must-have Web Part (called the csegModifyMenu Web Part) that makes it very simple to move those administrative links over to the 'Modify Shared Page' menu.
Read more on it over here.»
I have recently found Chris Pratley's OneNote blog. Chris is part of the OneNote team and has a lot of posts referecing goodies and tips as well as forecasting news on OneNote 12.
Some examples:
If you are an OneNote fan and constant user like me, you will also appreciate this:
Keep it up Chris!
Via Serge:
«From the online documentation @ http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/spptsdk/html/tsovOMGdlnsShowASPErrors_SV01108995.asp?frame=true:
Displaying ASP.NET Error Messages
You can disable Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services error messaging so that ASP.NET error messages are displayed instead.
To display ASP.NET error messages, perform the following steps:
- In the Local_Drive:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\60\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS folder, change the name of the global.asax file to global.bak.
- In the web.config file in the same folder, change customErrors = "On" to customErrors="Off".
That is the stupid thing when you are working with SharePoint for so long: you forget to reread the documentation for new additions!»
That is the very truth!
Via Patrick:
«Brian Jones posted interesting news this week. The forthcoming Office 12 products will have native PDF support. This is certainly a good investment since organizations heavily use this format in their day-to-day operations. I know also that WSS vNext will have better support for storing PDF files.»
As you can read from Brian's post, the PDF support will be built into Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Publisher, OneNote (GREAT!), Visio and InfoPath (also great!).
This another move that more and more makes me feel that the next line of products comming out of Office "12" are going to empower people to build really great new solutions, thus freeing developers to answer real business and proccess needs instead.
Via Patrick:
«I couple of days ago, I received a mail from Luis Du Solier asking me a good way to find out what version of WSS is installed on the machine. I could not really help him immediately but he found the very useful information on the blog of Penny.
Update: Mike has summarized all you need to know about the WSS versions here. Great job Mike.»
Via Patrick:
«Question from Brian
Is it possible to deploy a SmartPart that already references a user control so that my end users never have to select anything (either via the tool property or the list)? I want to deploy a few Web Parts built with the SmartPart, but not have users switch the users controls I am using in the SmartPart.
Answer from Jan
You have to use this little trick:
1) add a smartpart instance to a page
2) select user control and set desired properties
3) export the web part and save the dwp (using the dropdown menu of the web part title bar)
4) copy the dwp to the WPCatalog folder of your SharePoint site
Now your usercontrol/smartpart web part will be shown in the virtual server gallery.»
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