CodeJedi.NET

Blog migrated to WordPress

2007-03-02T14:26:00.000+11:00

If you accessed this blog via http://williamcornwill.blogspot.com then you probably didn't read a previous post that my site has shifted domain name. I have also now migrated all my posts to WordPress.

My blog can now be accessed at http://www.codejedi.net/
My RSS feed has not be changed and is http://feeds.feedburner.com/CodeJediNET

BDC Meta Man

2007-03-01T16:22:00.000+11:00

I just found this useful tool BDC Meta Man for managing metadata for the Microsoft Office SharePoint Business Data Catalog (BDC).

BDC Meta Man provides the ability to create Application Definitions for the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS) Business Data Catalog (BDC) without writing a line of code.

The BDC Meta Man is offered in three different versions, Developer, Professional and Corporate. For a comparison of the different versions, see this document. Developer is free, doesn't expire and gives one activation, Professional is $US1200.00, doesn't expire and gives one activation, Corporate is $US12,000, doesn't expire and gives unlimited activations.

Has Clippy been replaced with "Stapley"?

2007-02-27T14:55:00.000+11:00

I previously posted about Clippy being retired from the Microsoft Office product. It looks like Google might be adding a new persona to their search engine, "Stapley".

"It looks like you're searching for porn!"

Remaining application templates for WSSv3 released

2007-02-22T12:29:00.000+11:00

The Microsoft SharePoint team have just announced that the 20 remaining Application Templates of the “Fantastic 40” are now available for download!

[via Microsoft SharePoint Team Blog]

These server admin templates for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 provide more enhanced functionality than the first 20 templates, including some with built-in workflows, heavily customized lists and libraries, and advanced data views. Moreover, these new templates (full descriptions here) are available not just in English but 10 additional languages: French, Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese (BR), Japanese, Korean, Hebrew, Chinese (simplified), and Chinese (traditional). The additional languages will be available within the next few days. You can try out the fully functional demo versions of the English templates here, here, or here.

MOSSIG Updater Vista Sidebar Gadget

2007-02-21T19:32:00.000+11:00

I have just submitted my first Vista Sidebar Gadget, download it at Live Gallery.

The Microsoft Office System Special Interest Group (MOSSIG) meet on the 4th Wednesday of every month in Melbourne and Sydney. This gadget is a countdown timer to next MOSSIG meeting, with the meeting agenda in flyout. You can select either Melbourne or Sydney in the settings to get local meeting content.

MOSSIG Meeting - 28 February 2007

2007-02-18T19:29:00.000+11:00

This months MOSSIG meeting will again be at Microsoft Southbank, Level 5, 4 Freshwater Place Southbank on 28 February 2007 at 5:30 (pizza, drinks and networking), 6:00pm (presentation starts).

Show and Tell Session

Willy Vloedmans has developed a simple add-in for Excel that enables rapid navigation to workbooks and worksheets, especially when they contain hundreds of pages. Willy will show case his handy work for the MOSSIG group.

Business Session

Tim Wragg has expanded his show and tell session that was planned for last month and will be presenting a business session on conducting effective meetings using Microsoft Office OneNote.

Technical Session

Marc Dimmick will be diving into Groove to show how to customise and extend Microsoft Office Groove 2007.

To register please email register@mossig.net by COB Monday 26th February 2007.

MOSSIG are also working with Steve Iatropoulous to arrange more Live Meetings this year for preview presentation to the ANZ Office Usergroups. The next Live Meeting will be on 14 March 2007 10am-12pm EST and will present Chris Boyd from the Project product group to discuss Microsoft Project 2007. I will be providing more information and the Live Meeting links in the next MOSSIG newsletter/update.

If you would like to recieve the monthly MOSSIG newsletter send an email to info@victoriadotnet.com.au and request to be added to the mailing list.

Will, the BBQ king!

2007-02-13T09:43:00.000+11:00

My employer SDM just purchased a BBQ for our Melbourne office, so I just had to wheel it out the front of the office and test it out for my lunch...yummy snags!

Bug with Admin jobs in MOSS

2007-02-09T20:27:00.000+11:00

A colleague of mine Elaine van Bergen has just made me aware of a bug in SharePoint 2007 to do with time zones. The issue means that jobs like deploying InfoPath forms and other tasks (anything using the admin jobs) take over an hour, which is an absolute pain for development. If you experience this problem set your virtual image to a time zone without daylight savings, reset IIS and the jobs will run quickly again.

More CodeJedi logos

2007-02-08T10:43:00.000+11:00

Earlier this year I put out the call to design some CodeJedi.NET logos for my blog site. I thought I would share a few more of the submitted designs with you (thanks Chris and Andrew).

K2.net® 2003 Additional Components for MOSS 2007 are Released!

2007-02-06T13:13:00.000+11:00

I just recieved a mail out from K2 regarding the release of the additional components for MOSS 2007 for use with the K2.Net 2003 workflow product.

[via K2.Net mailout]

To download, proceed to the following URL: http://portal.k2workflow.com/downloads/product.aspx

Please refer to the K2.net Additional Components for MOSS 2007 Installation Guide, Release Notes and Getting Started documents for detailed information on this release.

K2.net 2003 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS) Interoperability
K2.net 2003 is able to create, update and delete content and any associated metadata within MOSS 2007.

The following integration points are now fully supported by K2.net 2003:

Access to content in MOSS 2007 lists
Access to files in document libraries including access to their associated metadata
Ability to create workspaces used for collaboration, tracking, and content management
Access to forms libraries including form data and metadata
Ability to leverage MOSS event handling (for example, upon document insertion) to initiate workflow
Ability to support both Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007 and Microsoft Office Forms Server 2007

To leverage Forms Server 2007 (InfoPath web forms) in the 2003 InfoPath templates, see instructions in KB000164 - K2.net 2003 with InfoPath 2007 and InfoPath 2007 Forms Services.

Vista and iTunes

2007-02-04T15:26:00.000+11:00

A colleague of mine Mike Pearson just sent me a link to an article about an iTunes compatibility issue with the new Vista OS. The article describes how Apple have posted an article regarding their latest version of iTune 7.0.2 and recommend delaying the installation of Windows Vista for a few weeks until their next version is released.

I have happily been using Vista at home since RC1 with iTunes 6 with no issues. I haven't upgraded to iTune 7.0.2 because 6 seems stable and fine for my needs. No need to wait for iTune upgrade (an Apple product) to upgrade to Vista (a Microsoft product)...hmmm...wonder if it is just a scam by Apple to delay the sales of Vista...maybe they are a little scared of Microsoft's new OS (now that it can also run on the Mac hardware)...

Role based templates for MOSS My Sites

2007-01-31T10:29:00.000+11:00

It seems that the Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technology team are keeping themselves rather busy. Not only have they published 20 Site Admin templates, they have just announced the intention to release 7 role based templates for MOSS My Sites. The first 2 role based templates have been release are are:

Sales Account Manager
The Sales Account Manager template helps managers streamline the process of analysis of sales and opportunity information for their overall decision making. The template assists in customer account tracking against a set of performance metrics, such as quarterly revenue, growth and opportunity. It also provides a graphical view of the geographical distribution of product sales and opportunities. The objective of this Role-Based My Site Template is to help the Sales Manager attain their goals of customer satisfaction and revenue augmentation.
Controller/Financial Analyst
The Controller / Financial Analyst template helps Controllers to automate the process of analyzing financial data and information, helping them in their overall decision making process. The template assists in tracking top performing products and opportunities at different geography levels. It also provides a graphical view of product sales and revenue. The objective design of this Role-Based My Site Template is to help the Controller achieve their goals of communicating overall corporate performance, budget and future growth projection to the management, investors and other stakeholders.

20 Site Admin templates for WSS 3.0

2007-01-31T08:28:00.000+11:00

[Via: Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies Team Blog]

20 Site Admin templates are now available for public download:

Board of Directors

Business Performance Reporting

Case Management for Government Agencies

Classroom Management

Clinical Trial Initiation and Management

Competitive Analysis Site

Discussion Database

Disputed Invoice Management

Employee Activities Site

Employee Self-Service Benefits

Employee Training Scheduling and Materials

Equity Research

Integrated Marketing Campaign Tracking

Manufacturing Process Management

New Store Opening

Product and Marketing Requirements Planning

Check out the online examples of these templates at http://www.wssdemo.com/application.

William at Adelaide Oval

2007-01-24T14:26:00.000+11:00

Last week I attended the annual SDM Away Days. This is basically two days where the company gets together, away from the office environment to discuss the strategies and direction for the next 12 months. This year there was a lot of show cases of work that has been achieved over the course of the year. Some of the more memorable show cases where the MOSS upgrade project of the SDM Intranet and Internet website from SPS/WSS and MCMS respectively. The other presentation that I found really interesting was the Virtual Earth / WPF proof of concept project (that rocked). The away days this year were at the Adelaide Oval in the Bradman Room, I had never been to the Adelaide Oval and was supprised to see how small it actually is (I am use to the MCG which is considerablly larger). This is a photo of me at the Oval, taken by Andrew Buttigieg.

Another memorable event from the two days away was the Away Days party on Thursday night. Lots of drinking and fun to be had, and lots of sore heads the next morning. Not to mention some individuals with messes to clean up.

Essential resources for SharePoint developers

2007-01-24T10:55:00.000+11:00

Previously I posted about Andrew Connell's fantastic list of resources. Well, a colleague of mine Andrew Buttigieg has pointed me in the direction of another list of essential resources;

Randall Isenhour
Erika Ehrli
Andrew Connell MVP
The Boiler Room - Mark Kruger SharePoint MVP

ASP.NET AJAX - SharePoint and MCMS Kits

2007-01-24T10:37:00.000+11:00

Good news the ASP.NET AJAX framework (previously known as Atlas) has been released - RTM. Other good news for the SharePoint developers is the release, by Daniel Larson, of the ASP.NET AJAX Extensions Toolkit for SharePoint. And MCMS developers haven't missed out either, check out this posting from Stefan Goßner regarding enabling ASP.NET AJAX with MCMS.

My iMate SP5 is no longer

2007-01-24T09:48:00.000+11:00

At the MEDC 2006 conference I was given a brand new iMate SP5 smart phone. Now the phone has been fantastic helping me organise my day with exchange integration being very valuable, I could keep up to date with emails, appointments and alike. Unfortunately on the way to the last user group meeting late last year I dropped the phone, the screen is now shot. As the phone has a sticker on the package stating 24 month warranty I thought I would try and process a claim. I rang up iMate to find out how to get the phone to them and they said that the 24 month warranty was not valid because I did not have a Tax Invoice for the phone. It seems that they offer this service without really offering it - very nasty.

Now I have had to revert to a simple Nokia phone (no outlook, no email, no camera, no productivity). I have been looking around for an SP5 to purchase but they seem to be quite scarce now, so I have started looking at the newer iMate JasJam - this should bring my productivity back up to scratch, not to mention allowing me to demonstrate the MOSS Mobile features.

If anyone know of a JasJam going cheap please let me know. Otherwise, I will have to wait for the purchasing committee (my wife) to agree to a major purchase.

MOSS and WSS SDK's available

2007-01-23T14:59:00.000+11:00

The SharePoint Product Team have posted information regarding the official release of the RTM version of the MOSS and WSS SDK's;

Download the MOSS SDK: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=6D94E307-67D9-41AC-B2D6-0074D6286FA9&displaylang=en
Download the WSS SDK: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=05e0dd12-8394-402b-8936-a07fe8afaffd&displaylang=en

The MOSS SDK contains the following;

SharePoint Server 2007 SDK Documentation (OSSSDK2007.chm)
Office Forms Server 2007 SDK Documentation (OFS12sdk.chm)
Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SDK Documentation (WSS3sdk.chm)
MOSS SDK Code Samples to use in conjunction with SDK documentation
ECM Starter Kit
Supplemental developer whitepapers
Visual Studio Workflow templates for MOSS

The WSS SDK contains the following;

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SDK Documentation (WSS3sdk.chm)
Workflow Starter Kit

More information about additional content, samples, and downloads can be found on the following Web portals on MSDN;

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Developer Portal on the Office Developer Center(shortcut: http://msdn.microsoft.com/moss)
Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services Developer Center(shortcut: http://msdn.microsoft.com/sharepoint)

Update MOSSIG Meeting - 24 January 2007

2007-01-22T15:15:00.000+11:00

An update on the content of this months MOSSIG meeting. Unfortunately Tim Wragg will not be able to present his "Effective meetings in OneNote" show and tell session this month. Ben Walters however, has kindly agreed to deliver a show and tell session on "SmartArt in Outlook".

If you want to register for MOSSIG then send an email to register@mossig.net.

MOSS/WSS Resource Summary

2007-01-20T09:34:00.000+11:00

For those that do not know or have not found it, Andrew Connell, MCMS MVP has a fantastic list of resource relating to Web Content Managemnt in MOSS. Andrew Connell (Web Content Management Links and Resources)

Evil Raptor has gone

2007-01-17T16:05:00.000+11:00

In November 2005, Andrew Buttigieg and I created our first (and only) epic adventure "MSDN Wars - Episode I Attack of the Raptor" as a practical joke (Check it out on MSDN Webcasts Weblog). It is a sad day for me as I say goodbye to Evil Raptor. My son Ethan has sold his beloved toy on eBay. May Raptor find happiness in his new home.

MOSSIG Meeting - 24 January 2007

2007-01-17T14:25:00.000+11:00

This months MOSSIG meeting will be at Microsoft Southbank, Level 5, 4 Freshwater Place, Southbank. The Pizza will arrive around 6:30pm. We will be having a Show and Tell session on OneNote presented by Tim Wragg and Grumpy Wookie will be presenting a combined business/technical session on Workflows in MOSS

Meeting Agenda

Effective meetings with OneNote - Show and Tell Session
Tim Wragg from Professional Advantage will be showing us how he conducts effective meetings using Microsoft Office OneNote.

Workflows in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (OOB and K2.NET) - Business and Technical Session
Chris O’Connor from Strategic Data Management will be showing how workflows work in MOSS. Chris will be showing the out-of-box workflow, where these are good and bad. Chris will also show a third party workflow provider for advanced workflows (K2.NET).

To register please email register@mossig.net by COB Monday 22nd January 2007.

Clippy lives on

2007-01-17T13:50:00.000+11:00

[Via: Ed Richard]

Now that Clippy has retired, it seems that he is busier now than ever. He seems to be making appearances in all sorts of things.

The Enchanted Office, is a comic strip that shows some of the reasons the interface in Office has been modified into the Ribbon. It is a good read (for a laugh) - and has quite a few parodies, just wait until page six with the "Oh my God, they killed Clippy! (...Kenny...)" reference.

Clippy has moved out of Word and is now living at http://thenewpaperclip.com/about/. The landing page also has an old cliché, "It looks like you have upgraded to Office 2007. Would you like some assistance?"

Clippy also made an appearance on "Drawn Together" on SBS the other night, "It looks like you are writting a suicide note. Would you like some assistance?".

Lets stay tuned as you never know where that annoying little paper clip will turn up.

Document Generation using WordML (Word 2003)

2007-01-17T10:58:00.000+11:00

Grumpy Wookie, Ed Richard, Andrew Buttigieg and I have been working recently on generating documents using WordML in Word 2003, here is a step wise guide to get you started.

Creating documents using XML and WordML, requires two files:
1. XML file containing the data
2. The XSL transformation file.

The XML file contains the data that will be applied to the document, while the XSL transformation file contains the metadata required to transform the data into a Word Document. Multiple XSL files can be used against the one XML document, allowing the data to be displayed in multiple ways.

The Microsoft Office Word 2003 XSLT Inference Tool is used to simplify the creation of the XSL document. The simplest way to create the XSL file is to do the following:
1. Create an XML file with sample data.
2. Open the XML file with Word and format the document.
3. Save the “seed” document with the WordML mark-up.
4. Create the XSL file using the Microsoft Office Word 2003 XSLT Inference Tool.

Additionally you can create an XML schema, and use that when creating the seed document. The additional steps required for this is located in the Word 2003: XML SDK’s Memo Styles Sample.

Install Tools

1. Download & install Word 2003: XML SDK
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=ca83cb4f-8dee-41a3-9c25-dd889aea781c&displaylang=en
2. Navigate to following directory : C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office 2003 Developer Resources\Microsoft Office Word 2003 XML SDK\Tools
3. Run installer for “XSLT Inference Tool” (wml2xsl.msi)
a. This will install the command line tool to following dir C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office 2003 Developer Resources\Microsoft Office 2003 WordprocessingML Transform Inference Tool

How to create an XSL file

This section details the steps required to create the XSL file outlined in the previous section.

Step 1: Create an XML file with sample data
With an XML editor or Notepad, create an XML file with the following structure.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?>
<log xmlns="logs"><logon>Logon</logon>
<shutdown>Shutdown</shutdown>
<restart>Restart</restart>
<logoff>Logoff</logoff>
</log>

The XML file created in this step needs to contain elements for each data item to be included in the template. Additionally it is important that the XML namespace is included in the file (eg: <log xmlns="logs">) as it is required to create the XSL and transform the data.

Step 2: Open the XML file with Word and format the document.
Open the previously created XML document with Word. Word will open the XML file, displaying the mark-up Labels. The Ctrl-Shift-X key combination to show and hide the XML mark-up labels.

Now format the document as desired, add headers and footers, etc. Ensure that you do not remove the elements while formatting the document. Additional elements can be added to the document by using the XML Structure task pane.

Step 3: Save the “XSL-template” document with the WordML mark-up.
The “XSL-template” document is the Word document saved in WordML format that is used to by the Microsoft Office Word 2003 XSLT Inference Tool to create the XSL Transform file. Once the document is formatted as desired, create the seed document by:
1. Click File, and then Save As…
2. Ensure Save as Type is XML Document
3. Uncheck Save data only
4. Click Save

Step 4: Create the XSL file using the Microsoft Office Word 2003 XSLT Inference Tool.
The seed document created in step 3 is used by the Microsoft Office Word 2003 XSLT Inference Tool to create the XSL Transform file. Create the XSLT transform file by:
1. Open the command prompt.
2. Change to the Microsoft Office Word 2003 XSLT Inference Tool directory.

Note: The XSLT Inference tool is a command-line–only tool, and is installed by default to the following directory C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office 2003 Developer Resources\Microsoft Office 2003 WordprocessingML Transform Inference Tool

3. Execute the wml2xslt.exe file with the required prameters: wml2xslt.exe “<path to XML template file>” –db
4. Select the namespaces from the dialogue, and then click OK.

Note: Do not check the http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/2003/wordml/sp2 namespace. Doing so will prevent the data from being correctly applied to the document.

Creating the document (merge data)

Once the XML file containing the data and the XSL transformation file are ready, the below function can be used to create the document.

Note: You will need to include a reference to “System.Xml.Xsl”

Public static void WordMLTransform(
string dataPath,
string xsltPath,
string outputFile)
{
XslCompiledTransform xslt = new XslCompiledTransform();
xslt.Load(xsltPath);
xslt.Transform(dataPath, outputFile);
}

The function’s parameters are:
· dataPath: The path of the XML file which contains the data for the document.
· xsltPath: The path of the XSL Transformation file used to transform the data into the document.
· outputFile: The path for the output file which will be created.

Note: When Word is installed on the local computer, Office 2003 detects the application for which an XML file saved out of Word should open. However, when an Office XML file with a ".xml" extension is served from a Web server, the association is not inherently recognizable, so the browser draws the page as an XML tree. To address this issue, use the ".doc" extension to make the file open in the Microsoft Word. The file is still pure XML.

Happy Feet

2007-01-17T08:35:00.000+11:00

I took my 4 year old daugther (Jayde) to see Happy Feet last night. The movie was very enjoyable, however, she was tired and fell asleep about 3/4 of the way through. When asked what her favourite part was, she said "All of it!", well except for the bit where she was asleep...

RSS feed has changed

2007-01-16T22:05:00.000+11:00

The RSS feed for my blog is being changed over to feed burner. Please update your details to feed from the new feed Url. http://feeds.feedburner.com/CodeJediNET. For thos using Outlook 2007 to feed Blogger posts you will notice that all posts are being listed as 01-Jan. Not sure why this is, but I am looking into it, will keep you posted.

www.codejedi.net

2007-01-15T20:18:00.000+11:00

I finally got around to purchasing my own domain name so from now on my blog will be at www.codejedi.net. Thanks to Andrew Buttigieg and Grumpy Wookie for the name suggestions (well most of them), I couldn't believe that this one was available. This name is nerdy on many levels;

1. Code - IT Nerdy
2. Jedi - Star Wars Nerdy
3. .NET - Microsoft .NET Nerdy

It suits me to a tea. I now have to spend some time working on a good looking logo and site design to suit the nerdiness of the name. Maybe this one is good, leave me a comment with what you think.

Update: Andrew Buttigieg has put together a mash of my blog photo, Obi-won Kenobi and my CodeJedi.net logo, so bad that it is good. Thanks Andrew, I may just use that one...

Vista Gadget developers

2007-01-15T12:04:00.000+11:00

It seems that Vista gadgets are causing a gadget developer war at SDM. Two of my colleagues Alex Burton (blurg) and Chris O’Connor (grumpy wookie) are challenging each other on who can develop a useful Vista gadget and have the most downloads from http://gallery.live.com/. I have to say that being an OptusNet user at home and also an avid reader of The Age, I have installed both and they are working well. This is starting to spark the creative juices in me and I am thinking that I may just have to join the war…however, I think I might develop something with an international audience in mind, thus increase my chances of getting record downloads.

It's my birthday

2006-12-26T00:02:00.000+11:00

Hip hip hooray...it's my birthday...pretty sad that I would be blogging first thing on my birthday, but hey it's a nerd thing to do.

Christmas 2006 and my birthday

2006-12-25T23:57:00.000+11:00

It is nearly midnight on Christmas night 2006, so that means that it is almost my birthday... Happy Birthday to me! Merry Christmas to everyone and have a safe new years.

Event Handlers in WSS v3

2006-12-19T21:04:00.000+11:00

Those that are familiar with event handlers on Document Library lists in WSS v2 will be excited to know that event handlers can now be attached to any type of list. Not only do we get access to the Asynchronous events such as ItemAdded, we now also get access to Synchronous event before the fact, like ItemAdding. This will allow greater control over the way in which lists can be used within WSS v3.

This article will set out to describe the step by step instructions for defining an event handler and then hooking it up to a WSS list.

Creating the event handler

Creating an event handler is extremely simple, use Visual Studio .NET 2005.
1. Add a reference to the Microsoft.SharePoint assembly.

2. Create a class that inherits from one of the new event receiver classes, like SPItemEventReceiver or SPListEventReceiver.

3. Implement an override method for the event you wish to implement. Something like the following;

using Microsoft.SharePoint;

public class ListEventHandler : SPItemEventReceiver
{
public override void ItemAdded(SPItemEventProperties properties)
{
SPListItem listItem = properties.ListItem;
listItem["ColumnName"] = "Hello";
listItem.Update();
}
public override void ItemDeleting(SPItemEventProperties properties)
{
properties.Cancel = true;
properties.ErrorMessage = "Deleting items from the list is not permitted.";
}
}

The ItemAdded event will set a column in the list called “ColumnName” to a value of ‘Hello’ and the ItemDeleting event will be cancelled with an error message displayed to the user.

4. The next step is to sign the assembly and deploy it to the GAC.

That is it; we have created our event handler and deployed it ready to a list to start consuming it. The next step is to register the event to be fired from a given list.

Registering the event handler with the list

In the previous version of WSS you could register the event handler using the SharePoint user interface. This facility has been removed in WSS v3. Registering the event handler in WSS v3 can be done in two ways, as a feature or via code. I will describe the registering via code method. For more information on creating a feature the article called “Working with Features” in the WSS SDK documentation.

The easiest way to register the event handlers against the list is to create a Console application, like the one below;

public class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
SPSite collection = new SPSite("http://server/site/");
SPWeb site = collection.OpenWeb();
SPList list = site.Lists["MyList"];

string asmName = "MyEventHandlers, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=f90218d0785d9063";
string className = "MyEventHandlers.ListEventHandler";

// Register the events with the list
list.EventReceivers.Add(SPEventReceiverType.ItemAdded, asmName, className);
list.EventReceivers.Add(SPEventReceiverType.ItemDeleting, asmName, className);

// Clean up the code
site.Dispose();
collection.Dispose();

// Return to calling environment : Success
Environment.Exit(0);
}
}

Basically, the code attaches to the SharePoint site and locates the list “MyList” then adds an item to the EventRecievers collection of the list for each event to be fired.

As you can see it is pretty easy to deal with the new event handlers in WSS v3. Happy coding.

Australia is in a drought

2006-12-18T21:53:00.000+11:00

This picture was sent to me by my future sister in-law Deneale. It was taken at Lake Wendouree in Ballarat. Lake Wendouree was the venue for the 1956 Olympic Games rowing and is all but dry presently. This once full lake that was home to hundreds of birds and fish is now completely dry due to the drought that is affecting the vast majority of Australia. It is going to take a lot of rain to fill this lake again.

Mo-vember update

2006-12-02T10:51:00.000+11:00

The MOSSIG team was able to raise $718 in donations for movember. This amount will be matched by the company I work for SDM. So a total donation of around $1450 has been raised. I think this is excellent and enjoyed growing my mo. I have however removed it as it didn't really suit and the itchness wasn't really growing on me.

MOSSIG / Victoria .NET Hands on Dev Day

2006-12-02T10:45:00.000+11:00

Today I am helping run the MOSSIG and Victoria.NET hands on development day at Cliftons in Melbourne. We are running two streams. Stream 1 is on the new .NET 3.0 framework and stream 2 is on Office 2007.

Presenting in the Office stream are the MOSSIG team Ben Walters, Ed Richard, Tim Wragg and myself.

Movember update

2006-11-17T08:20:00.000+11:00

I am growing a mo for Movember get behind me and sponsor my mo for charity.

The movember initiative is a fund raiser to increase awareness of Men's health issues such as prostate cancer and depression. Please help change the face of Men's health by donating something ($1, $5 or whatever - some have been as generous as $1 a day). Donations of $2 or more are tax-deductible.

To sponsor my mo, go to http://www.movember.com/au/sponsor/ and enter my rego number 4393.

MCMS SP1a support ends soon

2006-11-03T14:37:00.000+11:00

Just read a posting on Stefan Goßner's blog that might be interesting to note for MCMS customers

"A short note for all customers who have not yet upgraded to MCMS 2002 SP2.

As outlined on the Microsoft support lifecycle page for service packs support for MCMS 2002 SP1a will end at January 9th, 2007. Support for SP1 already ended on July 11th, 2006.
Customers requiring support for their MCMS environment will have to upgrade to SP2."

As I stated in a previous post, any customer using SP1a should seriously consider migrating to SP2 or even MOSS 2007.

Knowledge Networks - Live Meeting

2006-10-24T11:15:00.000+10:00

Knowledge Networks - Live Meeting
26th October 2006, 10am-12pm

John Hand will be presenting to the Australian SharePoint and Office User Groups to generate interest as well as get early feedback. John works at Microsoft Redmond in the US and is one of the senior leaders of the Knowledge Network team.

Live Meeting details:

https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/microsoft/join?id=G5PGTT&role=attend&pw=AusKNAttend

Subject: Present the Knowledge Network to Australian MOSS / Office User Groups
Meeting URL: https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/microsoft/join
Meeting ID: G5PGTT
Meeting Key: AusKNAttend
Role: Attendee
Audio Conferencing (Toll): +61 (2) 98702922
Audio Conferencing (Toll-free): +61 (1800) 202713
Participant Code: 821359

November is now known as Mo-vember

2006-10-23T16:33:00.000+10:00

Not sure if you have heard about the "Mo-vember" initiative. I briefly mentioned it at the last MOSSIG meeting. It was undertaken by Dave Lemphers, Microsoft, last year. This year MOSSIG are entering a team called “MOSSIG” and some of our members are keen to "grow-a-mo" - to raise funds for MENS HEALTH.

Male health is a major issue, did you know:

· Men are far less healthy than women. The average life expectancy of males is 6 years less than females.
· Every year in Australia 2,700 men die of prostate cancer – more than the number of women who die from breast cancer.
· Depression affects 1 in 6 men…Most don’t seek help. Untreated depression is a leading risk factor for suicide. Rates of suicide are more than double the national road toll.
Help us change the face of men’s health by sponsoring our mo’s or join us in growing-a-mo.

To sponsor the team go to http://www.movember.com.au/au/sponsor, enter the team name MOSSIG, choose someone from the team to sponsor and enter your credit card details.

To join the team go to http://www.movember.com.au/au/register, click on Join a Team enter your details. The Captain’s rego is 544 and Captain’s email is chris.oc@gmail.com. (Thanks to Chris O'Connor for registering the MOSSIG team, well done).

MOSSIG Meeting

2006-09-29T15:36:00.000+10:00

The MOSSIG meeting on Wednesday evening was really interesting. Tim Wragg provided an informative rundown on the hi-lites and lo-lites of Tech Ed 2006 and Ben Walters re-presented one of his InfoPath presentations he gave at Tech Ed. The third presentation for the night was scheduled to be on Groove in the workplace but the presenter was unable to make it at short notice.

At this stage MOSSIG will not be having a meeting next month due to the relocation of Microsoft from Como to Southbank and the unavailability of a suitable venue.

The November meeting will be moved to the 15th to coincide with a special Vista / Office 2007 event at Crown. MOSSIG are planning on having a stand there during the day and will conduct the monthly meeting after the event (at Crown).

Also announced on Wednesday night was the MOSSIG team "MO-ssig" that will be entering into this years Mo-vember charity for prostate cancer. Anyone interested in joining the "MO-ssig" team should contact myself via email.

Enhance Office 2007 Installations

2006-09-18T08:21:00.000+10:00

The Microsoft SharePoint product group have posted a great summary of community contributions around B2TR, especially the articles around enhancing the installation by slipstreaming the B2TR into the one installation meadia. This will save heaps of installation time for those numerous virtual server environment we all need to setup. http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2006/09/15/756692.aspx

Installing Beta 2 Technical Refresh (B2TR)

2006-09-12T16:17:00.000+10:00

The SharePoint product team have just posted a very important blog about the steps required to install B2TR. Before you do anything with the Tech Refresh (due out very soon), you must read this article.

Variations in MOSS 2007

2006-09-12T13:53:00.000+10:00

I have been involved in building Multilingual websites in MCMS since late 2002. This was achieved with considerable development effort and by using one of two design patterns in MCMS:

Single Channel hierarchy; where each posting contained every language to be displayed in multiple placeholders.
Multiple Channel hierarchies; where individual postings of matching content in the different languages where create.

To make life easier, MOSS 2007 has a feature called “Variations”. This feature allows you to create a page and set it as the source variation then automatically or manually make any changes flow to the target variations. The variation feature is integrated into the workflow mechanisms and also the content import/export which will enable hooking into third-party translation services. Angus and Arpan gave an excellent presentation on variations at this year’s Tech Ed.

Another example of why variations will be very useful is Mobile content delivery. This will allow you to create a source variation page then deploy a target variation for mobile phone delivery, hence target multiple audiences with one content authoring process.

Mapping MCMS terminology to MOSS

2006-09-11T10:32:00.000+10:00

Those that currently develop MCMS 2002 sites and want to move over to MOSS 2007, will need to understand the equivalent terminology in the new platform. The information below provides a list of MCMS terms and their equivalent term in MOSS 2007.

MCMS 2002	MOSS 2007
Template definition	Content Type
Template page (.ASPX)	Page Layout
Content placeholder	List Column
Placeholder controls	Web controls
Posting	Page
Channel	Site
Resource gallery	Document library, picture library
Basic built-in workflow	Windows Workflow Framework (WF)

Other equivalences that you will need to become familiar with would be the namespace changes. A good article on the API differences is on the MSDN site.

MCMS 2002 vs MOSS 2007 Terms

2006-09-11T10:16:00.000+10:00

MCMS 2002	MOSS 2007
Template definition	Content Type
Template page (.ASPX)	Page Layout
Content placeholder	List Column
Placeholder controls	Web controls
Posting	Page
Channel	Site
Resource gallery	Document library, picture library
Basic built-in workflow	Windows Workflow Framework (WF)

Other equivalences that you will need to become familiar with would be the namespace changes. A good article on the API differences is on the MSDN site.

MOSSIG Meeting - September 2006

2006-09-07T14:22:00.000+10:00

Next Meeting is at CITC, Level 1, 257 Collins Street on September 27th 2006 6:00pm.

It has been a very busy month. Tech Ed 2006 was run in Sydney and there were a substantial number of breakout sessions along the Office stream.

TechEd 2006 - Highlights
Tim Wragg, Professional Advantage

Tim will be presenting some quick highlights on Tech Ed 2006, what was good, what wasn’t so good.

Development, Deployment And Hosting For Rich And
Browser Forms (InfoPath)
Ben Walters (InfoPath MVP), Strategic Data Management

Ben was a presenter at this year’s Tech Ed and will be representing one of his presentations for the MOSSIG.

Groove in the workplace.
Marc Dimmick, Brightstar Corp

Discussion and presentation on how to use groove in a number of different areas. Document management, Issue Management, Help Desk, International Projects, HR just to name a couple.

Please note the venue change to CITC, Level 1, 257 Collins Street. Microsoft is moving from the Como to Southbank and we are unable to use the auditorium this month.

To register please email Ed Richard by COB Monday 25th September 2006.

Web Content Management Links and Resources

2006-09-04T19:45:00.000+10:00

Andrew Connell an MCMS MVP has compiled a very comprehensive list of links and resource around Web Content Management in MOSS 2007 and MCMS 2002. Definitely one for bookmarking.

CMS Assessment Tool

2006-09-04T19:34:00.000+10:00

For those who currently operate MCMS 2002 sites and are considering the move to MOSS 2007, it has never been easier. As I have stated previously, migration is a two step process, step one being the content and step two being the site code. Content is migrated to MOSS using the content migration tool. During this process the tool will perform several tests on your MCMS database. Although this will give a fairly comprehensive report on the state of the content, it doesn’t address issues that might arise during the manual code migration.

The CMS Assessment Tool is a tool that has been developed to perform the same tests that occur during the migration plus a review of the source code. Information on how to install, run and interpret the result can be found here.

The CMS Assessment Tool can be run over any current MCMS solution and you do not even need to have MOSS 2007 installed. I would encourage anyone thinking about migration to MOSS, to run the assessment tool to determine any road blocks or areas that will need to be worked on during migration.

Free Willy

2006-08-31T10:03:00.000+10:00

A fellow MOSSIG member Tim Wragg has written an article about my spoils at the recent TechEd event in Sydney. I would like to take this opportunity to highlight that the spoils have all but been given to charitible homes, my son Ethan, daughter Jayde and fellow collegues at SDM are all enjoying the many trinkets I was able to obtain at TechEd (I only kept the T-Shirts and memory of the XBox girls - no photographic evidence).

Also, Tim how are the Wireless mouse and the pens that you obtained going.

TechEd 2006 - Was fantastic

2006-08-30T11:13:00.000+10:00

Last week I attended TechEd 2006 in Sydney. It was fantastic. I was able to attend some excellent sessions on MOSS run by Arphan Shah and Angus Logan. I especially enjoyed the session on Web Content Management and also the one on upgrading MCMS to MOSS by Chris Johnson.

During my time in Sydney I was able to catch up with quite a few of the Microsoft guys including Angus Logan, Pen Lewin, Mike Fitzmaurice and Arphan Shah (I have included a picture below taken by Elaine Van Bergen during the 1:1 session with Arphan - sorry for the quality it was taken using the camera on my phone).

Arphan was impressed to hear that my son (Ethan, 6 years) is currently blogging using Microsoft Office Word 2007.

Ben Walters MVP Presenting at Tech Ed 2006 Sydney

2006-08-02T11:55:00.000+10:00

A collegue of mine Ben Walters, InfoPath MVP will be presenting at Tech Ed 2006 in Sydney, be sure to check out his presentation and visit his blog a http://msmvps.com/blogs/benwalters

Elaine van Bergen: Tech•Ed 06 - "I'll be there"

2006-08-01T12:41:00.000+10:00

One of my esteemed collegues will also be attending at Tech Ed 2006 in Sydney. Check out her blog site Elaine van Bergen's Microsoft Skewed View of the World.

DCA and SQL login KB913400

2006-07-31T12:05:00.000+10:00

When configuring an MCMS in the production environment I did not have access to an Active Directory. I therefore used an SQL logon to access the database with the DCA. Unfortunately I received the following message regardless of granting the SQL login DBO access to the database.

Error verifying rights: Using a SQL Login to access the database requires that this Login have DBO rights because it is used by this application to configure the database. Using Trusted Authentication to access the database only requires that the previously defined MCMS system account have the following database privileges: db_datareader, db_datawriter and db_ddladmin.

I found that Microsoft have release a hotfix KB913400 on 26 July, 2006 that resolves this issue. You will need to log a support call with Microsoft.

TechEd 2006 - I'll be there

2006-07-28T09:02:00.000+10:00

I am going to TechEd 2006 in Sydney. See you there.

Reusing MCMS dialogs

2006-07-27T14:02:00.001+10:00

Have you have written a custom placeholder and wanted to allow the user to select an image from the resource gallery? Well, the AuthFormClient.js has several Javascript methods that allow you to do just this.

WBC_launchImageGallery(strPostingQueryString, strPhName, strPhType, bAllowUpload)

There are lots methods in the MCMS framework files that do all sorts of cool things (and even some mysterious things), so check them out.

Disable the Warning before leaving page message

2006-07-27T14:02:00.000+10:00

I recently had a requirement to remove the warning message that is displayed when a user tries to leave a MCMS posting while editing it.

I found a javascript method in the C:\Program Files\Microsoft Content Management Server\Server\IIS_CMS\WebAuthor\Client\AuthFormClient.js file.

WBC_offWarningBeforeLeave();

This did the trick.

Helicon ISAPI Rewrite

2006-07-27T13:57:00.000+10:00

I have been developing an MCMS site for a customer that consists of an Authoring and Presentation server in Production. The servers have Map Host Headers enabled. The server are mapped as MCMSAUTHOR for the authoring server and the presentation server as mcms.customer.com.au.

In order to allow content to be migrated between the two environments using the SDAPI without getting a new top level channel in presentation called "MCMSAUTHOR", install this tool (Helicon ISAPI Reweite Lite) http://www.isapirewrite.com/. This tool enables you to rename the top level channel in the authoring environment to be mcms.customer.com.au. Thus migration occurs correctly.

The rules for this transformation would be:

RewriteCond Host: mcmsauthor
RewriteHeader Host: .* mcms\.customer\.com\.au

What Service Pack do I have installed?

2006-07-27T13:53:00.000+10:00

A simple way to determine the service pack level installed in your MCMS 2002, is to open Site Manager and go into Help About from the menu. Check the reported Server Version against the following list:

5.0.1581.0 = RTM
5.0.2284.0 = SP1
5.0.4484.0 = SP1a
5.0.5054.0 = SP2

Update: AVG email scanning and Outlook 2007

2006-07-22T17:24:00.000+10:00

Previously I posted about AVG email scanning stripping out the content of emails when using Office Outlook 2007. Upon further investigations I have found that you don’t need to disable the email scanner entirely. Just go into the configuration section of the plugin and take off the Certify mail of both incoming and outgoing mail. That is what is causing the problem.

MOSSIG Meeting 26th July 2006

2006-07-20T21:21:00.000+10:00

Last month we launched the Microsoft Office Special Interest Group of Victoria.NET (MOSSIG). The event was met with much enthusiasm!

We’re happy to announce that we have now organised our regular monthly meeting to run every 4^th Wednesday of the month, starting next week, 26 July. Thanks to the support of Microsoft and Steve Iatropoulos in particular, we will meet in the Microsoft Theatre at Como Plaza. As usual pizza will arrive at 5:30 pm and we’ll start the presentations at 6 pm.

For the 26^th we have scheduled a presentation on how to create documents using XML and XSL, deep diving into the XML features of Word and Excel and also a development overview of Web Content Management in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) - the new MCMS replacement. Both presentations will be of value for developers and end-users and cover the current version as well as the upcoming 2007 features. We will also reserve some time for discussions, questions and other networking opportunities. The meeting will finish around 8:30 pm.

Please RSVP to Ed Richard (ed@wss-ed.nl) by end of business on the 25^th so that he can arrange the right amount of food and drinks.

See you next week!

MOSSIG Launch a huge success

2006-06-28T09:58:00.000+10:00

Last night was the launch of the Microsoft Office System Special Interest Group (MOSSIG), which was a huge success. We had around 50 people registered for this inargural event and about 40 people turned up. This shows that there is a great interest in the new Ofice System. At the end of the night we had a show of hands as to who found the evening enjoyable and interesting and who would attend another MOSSIG event (overwelming support).

It was clear last night that the participants would like a community feel to the SIG, this will involve getting together to discuss and solve real world problems in a group forum, participating in discussion threads and attending presentation evenings like last night.

Some future presentation topics are already in discussions: InfoPath Server 2007 (Ben Walters), Enterprise Content Management in MOSS 2007 (William Cornwill), Workflow in MOSS 2007 (Tim Wragg).

If you have any ideas on what could be presented, if you have experiences you would like to present or if you have any ideas on how the MOSSIG could operate please post comments to this entry.

Launch of Microsoft Office System Special Interest Group (MOSSIG)

2006-06-23T20:05:00.000+10:00

27 JUNE, 6PM

The 2007 Office release is the most significant release of Office for a decade, adding further servers, applications and services to expand and enhance the Office System.

The challenge for us, our businesses and our clients is to collectively know and apply the features that the Office System brings.

Introducing the Microsoft Office System Special Interest Group (MOSSIG) which has been formed specifically with the Victoria.NET members as a community to learn and share their experiences whether they be application, server or solution based.

We will be kicking off our inaugural meeting next Tuesday the 27th June at 6pm with a jam packed session for Office Users and Developers alike, so please consider passing this invitation on to your non-developer colleagues as well.

PRESENTATIONS:

A Lap Around The Office 2007 System

Join Tim Wragg (Professional Advantage) as he gives us an overview of the new & updated servers, applications and services for the Office 2007 System

The new Microsoft Office 2007 Interface - Business Focus Topic

Join William Cornwill (SDM) as he discusses why Microsoft has changed the interface and the new features

Developer view of Microsoft Office 2007 - Business Data - Technology Focus Topic

Join Ed Richard (Software Objectives) as he talks about data storage of Sharepoint 2007 and using Line Of Business data in applications like Word and Excel.

Open Forum

A chance to Network with each other and open up the floor to discuss their thoughts and experiences with the Office System

TO REGISTER: E-mail Ed Richard at Ed@SoftwareObjectives.com.au, by COB on Monday 26 June.

Antivirus (AVG) plugin not compatible with Outlook 2007

2006-06-20T23:21:00.000+10:00

Having sent some emails using the new Outlook 2007 Beta 2, I noticed that they were being delivered with no content in the body. I determined that the AVG Anti-virus plug-in that scans incoming/outgoing emails is not Outlook 2007 Beta 2 aware and strips out all content coming in or going out. I have now disabled the plug-in in AVG and emails are flowing again.

If you use any other applications that use plug-ins for Outlook, you might wish to review that they are functioning as intended.

Mapping host headers causes looping Windows Authentication

2006-06-06T22:09:00.000+10:00

A new feature added to Windows Server 2003 SP1 and Windows XP SP2 (Loopback check security, that helps mitigate reflection attacks). If you configure an IIS site to use a host header and configure that site to use windows integrated authentication, you may have experienced problems logging in to the site.

The symptoms can include:

IIS prompting for credentials event though you are logged into the domain and have configured IE to pass credentials automatically.
Not being able to log into the site no matter what username/password you use
Getting HTTP 404.1 when trying to access the site
Authentication events in the security event log like Event ID 537 : An error occurred during logon

A detailed description of the issue can be found at: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=896861

To resolve the issue you can either turn off the loopback check on the entire server or indicate which host header map back to the local loopback address. (I have found that only the disabling solved my issues).

Method 1: Disable Loopback Checking

open regedit
Find HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa
Create a new DWORD value called DisableLoopbackCheck and give it a value of 1
Restart the computer

Method 2: Specify Host Names

Open regedit
Find HKLM\system\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa\MSV1_0
Create a new multi-string value called BackConnectionHostNames
Add the host headers to this value that map back to the local loopback
Restart your computer

MOSSIG - Microsoft Office System SIG has been formed

2006-06-02T15:27:00.000+10:00

I along with three other colleagues Tim Wragg, Ed Richard, and Ben Walters are starting a new special interest group (MOSSIG - Microsoft Office System Special Interest Group). The SIG will be dedicated to the pursuit of all things Office 2007. The launch evening will be held on the 27th of June at Microsoft Melbourne at the Como Centre, so lock the date into your diary. The MOSSIG has been formed as part of the Victoria.NET group.

Office 2007 is on the way, and the public beta 2 has been released so goto http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/default.mspx and check it out.

Code Camp Oz 2006

2006-04-25T12:53:00.000+10:00

Just got back from Code Camp Oz 2006. This event was fantastic. It provided a great opportunity to discover the various new and upcoming technologies, such as Vista, Windows Presentation Framework, Windows Workflow Foundation, Altas (AJAX for .NET), WinFS, MOSS 2007 and WSS v3, etc... All in all a most enjoyable Sunday and Monday socialising with other like minded Nerds. Thanks to Microsoft and Charles Sturt University for running such a great event (for free). Thanks also to Angus Logan and David Lemphers for spending time and catching up with me.

Upgrade path for MCMS

2006-04-04T14:08:00.000+10:00

Recently I have been investigating the upgrade path for our existing MCMS customers towards Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 . I have been looking at providing the smoothest transition.

Migration to the new platform will be done in two parts, content migration and code migration.

To facilitate the content migration a built-in feature of MOSS 2007 is used that migrates content which includes channels, postings, placeholder content, custom properties, resource galleries, resources, rights groups, users, template galleries and template gallery items. To use the Content migration feature the existing MCMS environment is required to be upgraded to SP2. Content migration can be achieved as an entire site migration or on a channel by channel basis.

Code migration is not as simple as the content migration as the entire architecture has been revisited. Upgrading the existing MCMS environment to SP2 allows the utilisation of Visual Studio 2005 and the new ASP.NET 2.0 features such as SiteMap Provider, Menu control, Master Pages, etc... The upgrade to SP2 also allows the use of SQL Server 2005, which brings great performance improvements. If the MCMS is modified to used Master Pages these can be migrated to the SharePoint Server site. Be aware that Custom placeholders are being replaced with SharePoint Server field controls, any custom placeholders will need to be redeveloped as SharePoint server field controls, so any development effort spent in this area should be assessed in a cost benefit.

So far, I have upgraded three customer sites to SP2 and have found the process to be quite painless. I would recommend that any one still using SP1a consider upgrading their environments.

There are several recommended steps for preparing MCMS 2002 sites for migration, these are:

Upgrade the application to MCMS SP2, which adds support for Microsoft SQL Server 2005, Microsoft Visual Studio 2005, and Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0
Modify the application to use ASP.NET 2.0 features. For more information see Designing your MCMS 2002 Solution for Reusability.
Minimise the number of templates. You can implement most sites with fewer than 30 templates.
Use ASP.NET master pages in the MCMS 2002 templates to encapsulate styles, layout and other site branding artifacts.
Modify the navigation controls to use ASP.NET navigation provider based on the MCMS 2002 Publishing API.
If the site uses ASP.NET forms authentication, use the ASP.NET authentication provider.
Move business logic code out of template files and encapsulate calls to the MCMS 2002 Publishing API into a data abstraction layer.

The future of content management within MOSS 2007 is going to be exciting and given the clear upgrade path from Microsoft it should reasonably easy to migrate (given preparations have been made).

Preparing for Web Content Management with the Office SharePoint Server 2007 (Level 200)

2006-03-10T10:35:00.000+11:00

On Wednesday I attended the Preparing for Web Content Management with the Office SharePoint Server 2007 (Level 200) webcast presented by Manish Sharma and Arphan Shah. This session was very informative. If you were not able to attend the session, you can view the webcast on demand.

Microsoft Enterprise Content Management White Paper

2006-02-21T14:31:00.000+11:00

Microsoft have updated the white paper detailing their direction for ECM within the Office "12" product. The white paper provides:

Overview of ECM Drivers and Challenges

Keys to Successful ECM

Maximize User Acceptance
Meet Diverse Organizational Needs with a Unified Solution
Minimize the Burden on IT

Enterprise Content Management from Microsoft

Key Components of Microsoft's ECM offering
Document Management Capabilities
Records Management Capabilities
Web Content Management Capabilities
Forms Management

The whitepaper can be found on the Office online web site.

Office 2007 Packaging and Pricing

2006-02-17T08:49:00.000+11:00

As reported by Stefan. Microsoft have just release pricing and packaging information regarding the new Office 2007.

MCMS SP2 Article List

2006-02-13T21:28:00.000+11:00

Andrew Connell has compiled a pretty comprehensive list of MCMS SP2 related articles. The list can be found on his blog.

MCMS Roadmap and Future

2006-02-09T15:04:00.000+11:00

Via http://blogs.msdn.com/arpans/archive/2005/12/30/508244.aspx

This is a very interesting read from Arpan Shah, Product Manager for MCMS at Microsoft. He talks about the future of MCMS and its alignment with the SharePoint product.

"...we are building CMS functionality on top of Wndows SharePoint Services (WSS) "v3". CMS and SPS, along with a lot of other great functionality, will be one integrated set of technologies built on top of WSS "v3". The Office Server investments built on top of WSS "v3" are codenamed Office "12" SharePoint Servers..."

Arpan examines the different experiences for different CMS 2002 roles in the Office "12" timeframe for End-User/Subscribers, Content Contributor, Template Designer and IT Professionals

He also discusses some of the new features, such as a more complete API and enhanced Workflow. The workflow functionality will be built on top of Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) for which WSS "v3" is the host. Enterprise Search will also be integrated with the CMS functionality in Office "12" and greater support for multilingual content will be in the base product.

Being built on top of WSS "v3" means that CMS will be able to access a rich set of feature. Several example are Single Item Security, Recycle Bin, RSS, Page Layouts ("template") can have workflow and Web Parts.

In the mean time, if you are a CMS 2002 customer today, Arphan suggest that you take a look at the Reusability Whitepaper as well as his posting on start getting ready for Office "12". You should also contact your account manager/Microsoft representitive for more information on the futures of CMS.

Web Content Management in Office "12"

2006-02-03T14:54:00.000+11:00

Gerhard Schobbe, Group Program Manager – CMS Team, has written a very interesting and informative article on why CMS is being aligned closer with SPS. He states that the CMS team will be posting tons of details on what is actually in the product, who would want to use the feature set and in which scenarios, how things work under the hood (starting with the ‘page rendering model’) and occasionally even why. They’ll also go into details on how the migration from existing, CMS-powered sites will work and how SPS sites will benefit from the enhanced publishing features.

http://blogs.msdn.com/wcm/archive/2006/01/21/515880.aspx

Telerik blog

2006-01-13T14:16:00.000+11:00

Support staff from Telerik are now blogging, check out there new blog http://blogs.telerik.com

Taskbar Icons Missing

2006-01-11T11:59:00.000+11:00

This morning I came into work and noticed that the running application icons that normally appear on my task bar were missing! After hunting around for a cure I came accross a program could TaskbarRepairToolPlus! this was able to solve my problem.

.NET Framework 2.0 broke my Site Manager

2005-12-14T09:19:00.000+11:00

After installing SQL Server 2005 (which also installed .NET Framework 2.0), I recieved the following error message when trying to login to Site Manager:

"The Microsoft Content Management Server proxy component is not correctly installed."

I found that this is because the J# redistributable package installed is v1.1 (for framework 1.1). I downloaded and installed the new J# redistributable package v2.0 from http://msdn.microsoft.com/netframework/downloads/updates/default.aspx and all is again well with Site Manager.