Thursday, March 24, 2005

SharePoint 2003 Resource Portal

About SharePoint 2003 Resource Portal:
This site has been developed 100% in Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server 2003. It started as a way for SharePoint Solutions to a) begin cataloging all of the SPS 2003 resources we had found on the Internet for our internal team's use, and b) as a small project to put the great features of SPS 2003 to good use.


Mike about SharePoint

It seems that Mike Fitzmaurice is blogging again:
  • Dev Tools: What We Can Do and What You'll Have To Do - There will be no CAML editor for v3 of Sharepoint ...

  • WSS Isn't Just For Collaboration

  • CAML is here to stay - CAML is too good to kill,... mmm I can't say that I agree - I definitely think it is a developers nightmare. For those of you who think that ASP was spaghetti code, take a look at CAML... Stramit seems to agree about this one - "... so UNdocumented, such apoor example or so complex , nothing really to fall in love with ..."


  • Good "SharePoint Development" = Good .NET Development


  • Visual Basic 6 - Dead and ...


    VB6 - six feet under....

    Tuesday, March 22, 2005

    Read your blogs within VS.Net

    Whow, way cool, an addin for VS.Net to read blogs and wait it gets even better - it's open source... Download it here.

    VS.Net and SQL 2005 shipping dates slip again

    From PC Pro UK News:
    Microsoft has announced that its next-generation software development suite, Visual Studio 2005, and its long-awaited new database system, SQL Server 2005, will now appear in 'the second half' of 2005. ...

    Thursday, March 17, 2005

    PHP .Net Compiler Phalanger

    From Jeff Sandquist...

    "We just posted a video interview on Channel 9 from the lab with the folks behind the PHP compiler.

    Tomas Matousek and Ladislav Prosek talk about their PHP .NET compiler, Phalanger. These guys don't work at Microsoft, Charles Torre ran into them at a recent CLR compiler lab held on Microsoft's main campus. Very cool stuff. You can learn more on their Web site"


    Wednesday, March 16, 2005

    Microsoft Project Tesla - Virtual filesystem with tags

    The problem with blogs is, that you can't really see if somebody is full of s**t or not - anyway Project Tesla definitely sounds way coolrel="tag" style="color:#ffffff">microsoft

    Use group policy to manage Outlook - SharePoint interaction

    Great posting from Bart :
    "You can use Group Policy to set policies that manage how Outlook and Windows SharePoint Services interact for users in your organization. You can set a policy to specify the time interval between information synchronizations or you can disallow linking altogether. You can change the synchronization interval to make it longer, if, for example, users are linked from Outlook to a large group of Contacts which would trigger a time-consuming synchronization; or shorter, if users need access to updated information at all times...." Read more

    SharePoint integrated BPM evaluation

    Great comparison of BPM solutions by Bob Mixon, feature comparison of Skelta, Captaris and K2.Net.

    This guy who works for Captaris doesn't seem to agree...) - For a more complete reply read Comments on Bob Mixons Review of workflow

    Tuesday, March 15, 2005

    Active Server Pages error ''ASP 0131'' - Disallowed Parent Path The Include file cannot contain ''..'' to indicate the parent directory.

    Apparently IIS configuration on a Windows 2003 server disallows the usage of ".." in ASP include files. You can easily solve it in this way

    1. Go to your IIS Manager
    2. Right click your web site
    3. Choose Properties >
    4. Select Home Directory Tab
    5. Click ‘Configuration’ button
    6. Select App Options Tab
    7. Check the Enable Parent Paths
    8. Click OK and your new configuration will be saved.

    Microsoft to target Healthcare market - an update

    Interesting comments on Microsofts recent press release about its Healthcare initiatives - Digital Pharma What?

    Monday, March 14, 2005

    Microsoft acquires Groove Networks - a short synopsis

    I had heard of Groove before, but never actually tried any of their tools. Definitely something I should try out if I read all the comments about it. I guess it is definitely a serious blow now that the inventor of Lotus - Ray Ozzie has moved to Microsoft territory.

    Collection of links related to the acquisition:
  • Microsoft to name Ray Ozzie Tech Chief (SmartMoney)

  • Groove - Microsoft middleware move (Internet News)

  • No surprise in Microsoft acquiring Groove

  • Microsoft takes a strategic leap with Groove

  • Microsoft gets into Groove

  • Microsoft grabs Groove and its guru




  • Selection of blog entries:
  • Microsoft acquires Groove Networks

  • Let's Get that GDN+Groove Thang ON!

  • Microsoft to acquire Groove, but will they fix it ...

  • From Groove to Burst

  • Microsoft's Groove thing
  • Visual Studio Team System Team System on MSDN ASP.Net 2.0 Tour

    A couple of weeks ago, the MSDN ASP.Net 2.0 arrrived in Belgium, unfortunately David Platt and Dave Webster were still in Copenhague. So we got another interesting speaker,
    Prashant Sridharan which is a group manager for VS Team System (He arrived at 5 in the morning after getting a phone call at 1h30 at night ...and did a great job...). I hadn't seen a lot about it and I have to say I'm pretty impressed, here are some highlights
  • Integrated unit testing tools (including code coverage tracking),profiling tools and code analysis tools (with a predefined set of rules which you can completely modify)

  • Creating code from within your architecture modeling tools

  • You have a complete designer surface for all of your classes and you can switch between visual design mode and code mode. The modeling is not UML2.0 compliant but you can plug in your own modeling tools


  • Team system will ship with 2 different process methodologies which you can fully adapt (a process editor will be shipped as well...):
  • MSF Agile which you can already download separatelyhere.

  • A more formal methodology which is CMMI Level 3 compliant

  • You will be able to enforce rules from these methodogies within your VS.Net e.g. do not allow check in of code if no workitem is associated


  • Some more info is to be found on the VS.Net Team System site

    Domain Specific Language (DSL) Toolkit

    Together with VS.Net 2005 a new exciting technology will released which you can already explore,the Domain Specific Language (DSL) Toolkit. The DSL toolkit allows you to building custom visual designers based on the modeling technology in Visual Studio 2005.

    Blogging is good for your career...

    Lets try to advance my career a little bit, just writing this blog item should already help according to this posting - Blogging is Good for Your Career?

    1. You have to get noticed to get promoted.
    2. You have to get noticed to get hired.
    3. It really impresses people when you say “Oh, I’ve written about that, just google for XXX and I’m on the top page” or “Oh, just google my name.”
    4. No matter how great you are, your career depends on communicating. The way to get better at anything, including communication, is by practicing. Blogging is good practice.
    5. Bloggers are better-informed than non-bloggers. Knowing more is a career advantage.
    6. Knowing more also means you’re more likely to hear about interesting jobs coming open.
    7. Networking is good for your career. Blogging is a good way to meet people.
    8. If you’re an engineer, blogging puts you in intimate contact with a worse-is-better 80/20 success story. Understanding this mode of technology adoption can only help you.
    9. If you’re in marketing, you’ll need to understand how its rules are changing as a result of the current whirlwind, which nobody does, but bloggers are at least somewhat less baffled.
    10. It’s a lot harder to fire someone who has a public voice, because it will be noticed.


    Microsoft and Intel to target Healthcare market

    From Davids blog ...

    Microsoft Corp. and Intel Corp. have partnered to create products and services targeted at European healthcare providers, who the vendors say have antiquated IT infrastructures.

    The partnership to create an E-Health Integration Platform currently covers Germany, Austria and Switzerland, but the companies are looking to expand across Europe and possibly beyond, representatives for Microsoft and Intel said Thursday. The partnership agreement will be formally signed Monday at the Cebit trade show in Hanover, Germany.

    The companies plan to create several product and service bundles for healthcare providers. They currently have 20 projects running with several healthcare providers, including the biggest telemedicine project in Germany, according to Jens Dommel, manager for the healthcare sector at Microsoft in Germany.

    While the partnership is limited to three countries today, Microsoft and Intel are keen to replicate it elsewhere, said Garbis Bedoian, business development manager at Intel in Germany.

    "This is a local initiative created by Microsoft and Intel in Germany, but we are taking it to our European headquarters to broaden it," he said.

    Healthcare is a key area for both vendors as it has the biggest growth in IT spending in Europe, Bedoian said. The spending is driven by upgrades and government-backed initiatives to streamline healthcare services, he said. "In German hospitals, the IT infrastructure is 10 to 15 years behind what we see in other sectors," he said.

    The telemedicine project is with hospital group Asklepios Kliniken GmbH. The objective is to electronically connect about 1,000 doctors and specialists to the group's hospitals. The system will support capabilities such as remote diagnoses, as well as more basic features such as online billing, Microsoft's Dommel said.

    Another project is for a "medical dashboard" that will make all of a hospital's applications accessible through one user interface. With help from partners, Microsoft and Intel are delivering the first dashboard to Lahn Dill Kliniken GmbH, a Wetzlar, Germany-based operator of three hospitals, Dommel said. This project was begun off in the third quarter of 2004.

    The medical dashboard uses Microsoft software including Windows Server 2003, SQL Server, SharePoint Portal Server, Windows XP and Office 2003. The software runs on servers equipped with Intel processors and other hardware including Tablet PCs, according to Microsoft and Intel.

    Once developed, Microsoft and Intel plan to use the system as a reference case to help it sell to other customers. The information will be shared with systems integrators who may be able to provide related services, Dommel and Bedoian said.

    Friday, March 11, 2005

    Random collection of SharePoint links

  • Logparser 2.2 - How to check what your users are searching for in your portal

  • WPPackager documentation error

  • Macaw discussion board - Enhanced implementation of discussion boards in Windows SharePoint Services.

  • Analyzing SharePoint logs

  • SharePoint DVWP: xslt limitations...

  • Formatting SharePoint schema.xml

  • Best practices for developing webparts (webcast 14/03/2005)

  • How to create WSS top level sites under the root of a virtual server

  • A conversation about SPWebCollection


  • Microsoft using Sun hardware

    The world has gone crazy, check this out:

    "For example, the EEC (Microsoft's Enterprise Engineering Center) has recently sealed a deal to partner with Sun to deploy two racks worth of Sun's latest generation of AMD64 gear running Windows Server 2003 and an outstanding mid-range SAN unit to make them available for our customers to conduct testing engagements. The Sun people we've be working with have proven to be outstanding partners and we're very excited about working together...."

    Read more about it



    Wednesday, March 09, 2005

    Office 12 Preview (Updated 10/3/2005)

    Nice article about what features to expect in Office 12 .... (Updated: the article has been removed at the request of Microsoft - I should have taken a copy.... Does anybody still have the article content?

    Monday, March 07, 2005

    Coveo Enterprise Search for SharePoint Technologies

    From Angus Logan:
    Coveo recently announced CES for SharePoint Technologies,...
    "Customers recognized and requested the enhancements that CES can offer for the SPT user, including:

    Intelligent summarization and concept extraction technologies, both of which help users optimize their search experience.
    A “View as HTML” feature that provides cached HTML versions with highlighted query terms for Microsoft Office documents, Adobe PDFs and other non-HTML documents.
    Improved relevance with query capabilities based on powerful syntax that supports spelling suggestion, stemming, exact phrase and Boolean operators.
    Configurable search preferences that allow users to tailor the search experience to their liking.
    Advanced handling of metadata and XML data to provide more accurate search results.
    Plug-in-style integration with SPT so that users are presented with the familiar look and feel of the SPT environment.
    Robust search technology that leverages existing SPT security to control access to sensitive company data.
    ....
    Product versions supported by CES for SPT will include SharePoint Portal Server 2003 and Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 (WSS).
    "


    But unfortunately I didn't find any additional info except for the press release ....

    Saturday, March 05, 2005

    Team System dogfood

    The guys from VS.Net teamsystem are using Team Foundation Server for their own code, check out some of the TeamSystem statistics

    Thursday, March 03, 2005

    VS.Net Team System version 2

    We haven't seen the final release of VS.Net Team System yet but I already heard about features we can expect in version 2:
  • Functionality testing will be made available, a winform functional testing tool will be introduced based on the Avalon framework

  • VS.Net Team System current focus is on people close to the development team, version 2 will expand to other roles within your companies and will offer features such as portfolio management (for managing large groups of related projects) through tight integration with Project Server, integrated systems management for system engineers, ... Expect also tighter integration with products such as SharePoint Portal Server.
  • VS.Net 2005 powertoys

    The guys from the VS.Net 2005 team are already working together with the developer community to create new VS.Net powertoys, check out the VS Core Community PowerToys.

    Portals and industry knowledge

    I was last week at a customer for a proof of concept of a SharePoint Portal Server solution when I heard mentionning the term FPFQ. For all of you SharePoint geeks, don't worry this is not a technical portal term. It seems that FPFQ stands for "First Pass, First Quality" a production metric which is used in industries which use bulk materials. A lot of terms like this surfaced when building a balanced scorecard solution based on the Business Scorecard solution accelerator. This however shows that you will need a lot of domain or industry specific knowledge when implementing portal solutions since these solutions typically touch the core of the business of your customers.

    Wednesday, March 02, 2005

    Problem - Edit a document requires a SharePoint compatible application

    Great support article to solve the problem "Edit a document requires a SharePoint compatible application"

    Rumors of VS.Net 2005 delay false - it will ship late summer 2005

    I saw a presentation from Prashant Sridharan today (Lead product manager VS.Net) today and he explicitly stated that VS.Net 2005 and SQL Server 2005 will ship together late summer 2005. It seems that these can't be released separately since VS.Net Team System relies heavily on SQL Server 2005.

    Feedback about VS.Net 2005

    Did you know that you can give feedback about VS.Net 2005 as well as some other technologies. you will also see an overview of bugs and change request for which you an vote. Unfortunately it is not meant to be used for SharePoint,...