Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Dolmen - 7 times Microsoft Certified Gold Partner

Time for a shameless plug ;-) ....

I don't know of a lot of Belgian companies which have the same broad overview of Microsoft competencies (Although some seem to get a lot of press when they acquire just one of them ...) - - so here it goes:
  • Learning solutions

  • Microsoft Business Solutions

  • Information Worker Solutions

  • Business Process and integration

  • Custom development solutions

  • Networking Infrastructure solutions

  • Advanced Infrastructure solutions

  • More info on the Dolmen Company website or in the Microsoft Resource Directory : Dolmen Computer Applications.

    Blogging from my new portable

    Just got a new portable - an IBM Thinkpad T43 with 2 GB RAM and 80GB hard drive - finally enough memory to play around nicely with Office12 Servers. For people interested in all the new stuff coming out with Office12 and Vista, register at the Beta Experience - Discover Windows Vista and Office 12

    Thursday, January 26, 2006

    SharePoint stuff oct2005-jan2006

    Here's a list of interesting postings about SharePoint posted on the web between october 2005 and now:
  • Pre-populating a document library with pages/files using ONET.XML

  • SharePoint List Field Validation
  • Creating a file on WSS with the same created/modified date as a file on the file system.

  • Creating a new set of list items from one list into another

  • Moving a web and preserving permissions using SPUserUtil

  • Installing InfoView on a SharePoint Server

  • Advanced coding technique: using AppDomains to get past OM limitations

  • Using the right Tool for the Job (Part I): Microsoft SyncToy to synchronize SharePoint Document Libraries?

  • Restoring a WSS site using stsadm command

  • Free SharePoint Theme Pack

  • Using InfoPath and SharePoint to Create Personalized Views

  • Fill Out an InfoPath Form Library From a Link On Another Page

  • Be Prepared: A Guide to SharePoint Disaster Prevention and Recovery

  • Service Pack 2 for Windows SharePoint Services and SharePoint Portal Server 2003

  • MacawSharePointSkinner 1.0.0.1 released - Macaw TraceInfo WebPart, or how to view Trace output in a page using only a WebPart

  • Using HTTP compression with SharePoint

  • CAML XML Editor

  • Integrating MS CRM and SharePoint

  • KB#900929: Description of the WSS post-Service Pack 2 hotfix packageKB#900929: Description of the WSS post-Service Pack 2 hotfix package

  • KB#897722: Description of the SPS post-Service Pack 2 hotfix package

  • Connect SAP R/3 4.6C and SharePoint 2003 - Part III: Develope SharePoint Web Parts

  • SSL on SharePoint and Explorer View

  • Renaming the web part page

  • Id, Ego and Superego, it's all about SharePoint and impersonation

  • Integrating InfoPath and Lotus Domino (Video)

  • Quick Launch webpart

  • SPStatus Tool - check broken links in SharePoint

  • Extreme SharePoint Design: Custom User Menus, Part 2

  • Tips from working on the SharePoint Force

  • Release of The Blogparts 1.1


  • Monday, January 23, 2006

    DevDays 2006 - Office System: What’s New for Developers in “Microsoft Office 12 SharePoint Servers”

    David just got the agenda of the Developer and IT Pro days 2006 online. I'm doing a session about the new features in Office 12 SharePoint Servers.

    This session introduces the different Microsoft Office 12 SharePoint Servers that sit on top of the new WSS “v3”. Installing them will give your organization a true enterprise portal platform powered with search, rich user profiles and audience targeting, rich personal sites, and better enterprise application integration with single sign-on. This session will also introduce new “Office 12 SharePoint Servers” technologies like the “Business Data Catalog”, “Enterprise Content Management” and “Web Content Management” and discuss what functionality the servers "Microsoft® Office 12 SharePoint® Servers Excel® Services”, "Microsoft® Office 12 Forms Server" and "Microsoft® Office 12 Project Server" will add to the table.

    Register as soon as possible.The first 400 persons to submit their registration will get a Microsoft Press Book for free.

    P.S. Jan is doing a session as well - Speaking at Developer Days in Belgium and The Netherlands!

    SharePoint team is blogging

    I expect a lot of news in the coming months on this blog - SharePoint Team Blog, "A blog from the SharePoint Development Team" - here are the first ones:
  • SharePoint's Role in Microsoft's Collaboration Strategy

  • SharePoint Roadmap and Light-Up Not Just Roll-Up

  • BI Portal and Excel Services

  • Double dogfood week

  • Content Management Server and SharePoint


  • Sunday, January 22, 2006

    Office 12 beta users and the deafening silence

    Now and then you hear something about Office12 - most of the time from people working at Microsoft. The rest of us is bound by NDA and it seems that not everybody is too happy about it.

    Source: The unofficial Microsoft weblog
    Office 12 and Vista Beta Users Second Class Netizens
    microsoft censorship | MicrosoftCensorship | nondisclosure | Office 12 NDA | Office12Nda | Vista NDA | VistaNda
    This is such a shame. Office 12 and Windows Vista beta users were forced to sign a very restrictive non-disclosure agreement which prevents them from openly discussing the features of the new OS or office suite. While I can understand the need for NDAs at times, the really stupid thing going on here is that internal Microsoft people as well as some external people have been posting screenshots and discussions of both software packages like mad, with no retribution from Microsoft. While I'm enjoying some of the stuff coming out of the Microsoft bloggers (Jensen Harris' stands out above the others), what I really want is to learn about the cool new stuff from people I have come to respect, like Ed Bott. Instead, he's muzzled by this ridiculous lopsided NDA. Over a month ago, Robert Scoble promised to look into this situation. There's been no mention of it since then on his blog. C'mon Scoble, what's up? This is a stinky situation that gets smellier by the day.


    Fortunately we don't have to wait much longer - according to Patrick, we can expect beta2 by the end of February. If you want to know more - register at the Office 12 Preview site

    Next meeting of BIWUG - 2th of february 2005

    Next meeting - 2 february 2006

    CONTENT OF THE MEETING

    18:00 – 18:30 Welcome & registration
    18:30 – 19:15 O12 File Formats and the XML Paper Specification
    19:30 – 20:30 Back-up and Restore of WSS and SPS sites
    20:30 – 21:00 Round the table

    Register on www.biwug.be

    Comparing LINQ and its contemparies

    For people who know both .Net and Java - this new MSDN article - Comparing LINQ and its contemporaries is a must read.

    Summary: Project LINQ addresses object-relational mismatch problems by elevating relations and queries to first-class concepts within language semantics and library-based extensions. Project LINQ offers a degree of type safety and static type checking lacking in most, if not all, forms of object-to-relation persistence found in use today in managed runtime environments such as .NET, Java, or J2EE containers.

    Saturday, January 14, 2006

    Using SPSPredefinedCategories.xml for development, deployment and testing scenario's

    From Mart Muller:

    When implementing SharePoint Portal Server, there are cases that you have to create the same portal structure a few times. For example, all the developers need to have the same portal on their development machine, there is a test enviroment or a production enviroment. Then when the portal goes live, you’ll have to create an empy portal again with the same stucture and content as the test enviroment. SPS provides config files that can help you with this in a very efficient way: SPSPredefinedCategories.xml.

    The SPSPredefinedCategories.xml file is located in the SPS site template directory (Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\60\TEMPLATE\1033\SPS\SPSConfig\) and it contains the complete structure of a clean portal. So, when you create a new portal, it contains the news area, the sites area and a topic stucture etc..

    Read more

    Tuesday, January 10, 2006

    Passing credentials to a webservice from Workflow Foundation

    You can call a webservice from within Workflow Foundation using the InvokeWebService activity. When you associate a webservice with the InvokeWebService activity it will create a proxy class. The InvokeWebService activity also provides an Invoking event handler. In the Invoking handler of the InvokeWebService activity, you can specify the Webserviceproxy credentials property. This proxy object is accessible as property of the WebServiceInvokeEventArgs argument.




    private void Invokingwebservice(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        wfService.Service svc = (wfService.Service)((WebServiceInvokeEventArgs)e).WebServiceProxy;
        svc.Credentials = System.Net.CredentialCache.DefaultCredentials;
    }




    Top ten blogger lies

    Quite funny, definitely take a look :
    Top ten blogger lies ... the comments are worthwile as well

    Free Windows Messenger 8.0 invites

    Lots of people seem to be giving them out... but for those of you who didn't get it one yet, just leave your email address in the comments section... and maybe click on the Google adsense too ;-) ...