The Guide of a MOSSLover

Speaking at MOSS Camp in St. Louis...

I will be speaking at MOSS Camp (http://www.stlsug.org/MOSSCamp/default.aspx) in St. Louis on creating/changing multiple sites, lists, libraries through a Windows Application that I am going to port from one of my Console Applications.  I am not a big Windows Application Fan, so I will probably port this application over to a web user control that links into the SMART PART...Anyway, I have too much book stuff to do, sleep to catch up on (neighbor decides they want to play music until 2/3 am every night nowadays), and presentation code to work on...I hope to see you guys in St. Louis this upcoming weekend if you can swing it.  If not, maybe in the future guys;)

posted @ Monday, March 31, 2008 5:20 PM | Feedback (0) | Filed Under [ MOSS ]

Going into Hiding...

If you did not know already I am writing a book with John Ferringer about Disaster Recovery.  We just got the contracts and in the past two weeks.  We finally deciphered them and will have them sent in within the next week.  Now all I need to do is finish up Chapter 2, which so far consists of two pages and some really horrible place holders for screen shots.  I am going to lock myself in my room with my ipod and Dell XPS over the weekend.  All I will be doing is writing book chapters and taking screen shots on my SharePoint VPC.  I am going to download IFRANViewer, which is an open source screen capture tool.  If I do not complete this chapter, then I am depriving myself from this blog until I do.  No Rockband...No Wii...No Freaks and Geeks Episodes...I am going to get this done.  I know that if I put my mind to it I can do it very quickly.  I am setting a goal to make this chapter at least 15 pages.  I bid you guys adieu until I come out of seclusion...*tips hat*

posted @ Friday, March 28, 2008 6:22 PM | Feedback (2) |

DeliverPoint...Oy...

So I wanted to try DelivePoint from Barracuda Tools and I was a bit disappointed.  I was expecting this tool to map out the Active Directory Groups for each site with the type of permissions plus tell me what lists and libraries had a break in permissions and what groups were associated.  When I tried to view the permissions for a given site it only allowed me to choose site collection administrators, full control, designer, and readers.  There was no option to view any custom permissions, contributors or approvers.  Not to mention, all the users for the site were listed and not the groups, so basically it broke out all the users from all my groups and shoved them into this long list with tons of pages.  I also noticed a few options included that would transfer permissions from one account to another.  They were really of no use, considering we use Active Directory Groups mainly.  I was expecting one thing and I am sad to say i was really dissapointed by Barracuda Tools.  I followed one of the developers, Keith Richie, a bit on his blog as he was creating this tool.  I guess I was building up the product a little too much. 
This week, I did, however, find a great tool that tells me every place within SharePoint (including lists and libraries) that has different permissions than the main site.  If you go to codeplex and type in SUSHI, then you should find the project.  This option I am talking about is one of many other tools included in the windows application.  I am going to use this tool as a guide to map out all our active directory groups and sites using a database with two tables in SQL Server and an InfoPath Form (so far).  I have one table that lists all the site information, such as template, url, name, and special information.  I have another table that has a relationship by the id of the first table through a foreign key constraint.  This second table list all the active directory groups related to the sites in the first table.  For example, it has the group name, the purpose of the group, and a check box if the group is related to a list or library or a group of them so I can enter that information.  I added a querying option on my InfoPath Form and the ability to submit to the database.  It's a really simple easy form with only two rules and the base SQL Functionality.  All in all I think this will help me out a great deal when documenting the site structure and security.

posted @ Thursday, March 27, 2008 10:19 PM | Feedback (2) | Filed Under [ MOSS ]

The Lazy Web Parts

I was doing some documentation today on this site that is part of a collection of customized sites.  It has JavaScript (yuck) and web parts galore.  I get to this site that deals with Affiliated Items for this particular site and I notice that there are 5 web parts.  I am wondering why do you need 5 web parts when you take in a query string and provide a list of items.  What you really only need is a Query String Web Part connected to another Web Part or a Web Part that reads the Query String.  For some reason this person is used 3 web parts to do the work and it looks like there are two web parts that are sitting around looking pretty.  There are at least 180 instances of this site, so there are 180 places where 5 web parts are residing, instead of the normal one or two and three of these instances on the 180 places are actually doing something of value.  Think about the colossal waste of space in SharePoint.  We were looking at our backup jobs and noticing how they are at 20.5 gb for the stsadm backups.  The SQL Backups are only about 4.5 gb.  Something is wrong inside SharePoint in a large way when you are seeing such a major inconsistency.  I am going to post in the next week what I do to fix this problem.  I will leave you all with a piece of advice.  Try to create a solution in as few parts as possible with as much modularity as you can.  This kind of programming is what they teach you at school.  I'm  not saying I am an excellant programmer, but I know there are some precautions that you can take when creating web parts or any type of solutions.  Also, another note for you guys please remember to comment as much as possible.  Honestly, I would rather see too many comments than too little comments on programs.  I am dealing with too little comments on a lot of programs and web parts that I am working with right now.  I hope that you all have a nice day and a nice relaxing night.

posted @ Tuesday, March 25, 2008 4:10 PM | Feedback (0) | Filed Under [ MOSS Web parts .Net ]

But My AD Group is Email Enabled!? So Why Can't I Send Alerts?

Well kids if you did not know about this little known bug now you do.  Even if you email enable your active directory group, then SharePoint may still not send alerts.  I have no idea why this problem occurs.  If you search for that AD Group, then you will notice no e-mail address will show up for that group even if it has an address attached...Well I did some googling and I found this beautiful article: http://blog.gavin-adams.com/2007/10/26/sending-alerts-to-groups-in-sharepoint-2007/.  Basically, what you need to do is shove your AD Group in a SharePoint Group and make sure it is added to the permissions for the site that you would like to add the alert.  Now you can add alerts and the e-mail address actually shows up in the user search.  I spent an entire week thinking it's not setup somehow in AD...We should not have to add an AD Group in a SharePoint Group.  It makes me wonder if this is a "feature" or "accident"...
Man I can't wait for 4:30 CDT...My body is not loving returning to work today...It feels like I am 10% healed and needs tons of r&r.

posted @ Monday, March 24, 2008 12:05 PM | Feedback (5) | Filed Under [ MOSS ]

Yep...Not feeling so good...

posted @ Saturday, March 22, 2008 1:28 PM | Feedback (0) | Filed Under [ Personal Life, The Universe, and Everything ]

A Great Man Died Yesterday...

One of my favorite Science Fiction authors of all time died yesterday, Arthur C. Clarke, who wrote some of my favorite Space Odyssey Books.  I just finished reading 3001 a couple of months ago.  It's sad Asimov, Sagen, Adams, and now Clarke...All the greats are going...What next Bradbury?
I'm a little sad 3001 was left kind of open ended...I want to know if humanity finally meets the aliens.  I want to know if they survive and what happens 1,000 further in the future...I guess I'll never know.

posted @ Wednesday, March 19, 2008 11:02 AM | Feedback (0) | Filed Under [ Personal Life, The Universe, and Everything ]

Kansas City Office Geeks in Da HOUSE!!!!!

What is an Office Geek?
An Office Geek is someone - typically a developer or administrator - who works with or is interested in working with some aspect of the Microsoft Office System.  The Office System encompasses both client applications (Word, Excel, etc) as well as server applications (primarily SharePoint, but also Forms Server, workflow, etc).  This could mean that you work with SharePoint, use VSTO to write OBAs, define taxonomies, maintain corporate records, etc.

I found this little blurb on http://www.officegeeks.org.
I am compiling a list of anyone interested in our newly re-branded Kansas City Office Geeks User Group.  If you or anyone you know is interested in this group you can go to our website at http://www.officegeeks.org/kcog/default.aspx e-mail me at rebecca.isserman@gmail.com or call me, Becky Isserman, at (913)738-4098.
Once we get a list of around 20 people we will have another meeting.  Please let me know what topics you would like to see presented.

posted @ Monday, March 17, 2008 9:14 AM | Feedback (0) | Filed Under [ MOSS Life, The Universe, and Everything ]

My Nemesis XPath

I did not realize this fact until today...I really dislike XPath as I am not allowed to express hate due to it being technically against my religious beliefs.  I was working with a form in InfoPath 2003, because Terracon is not getting 2007 until next year.  I created this form that uses a repeating table and a drop down list.  When certain values are selected on the drop down list it will pop up certain text in various columns in this row.  Unfortunately I was getting only the last row using a count function, so only the last row was actually working properly.  I was about ready to give up, then I decided to call my old LRS Buddy Ryan who rocks InfoPath hardcore.  He sent me a function called current().  I used this function to get the current index.  Then I realize that when I remove a column what I just added no longer works, because the field I have getting the index for that row is set to the wrong number.  I quickly added in a while loop to the OnAfterChange function, so it changes my index fields to the right value.  It was about 10 hours of struggle that I feel could have been solved in a custom list on SharePoint with a custom aspx form.  I feel that InfoPath is great for simpler forms, but when you start getting more complex it just feels like you  have chopped off your limbs with a machete.  If anyone is incredibly interested in this convoluted solution I can post an in depth screen shot intensive entry in the next few weeks depending on my ability to write a book chapter or not.

posted @ Friday, March 14, 2008 5:54 PM | Feedback (0) | Filed Under [ MOSS Life, The Universe, and Everything ]

SharePoint Lovers Code Camp in the Lou

If anyone is interested in a MOSS code camp and they can get to St. Louis on April 5th they will be hosting a MOSS Camp Event.  I signed up to present, but I'm not sure if I'll get picked.  I want more experience and this event looks really cool.  Plus I go to St. Louis once a month, so I figure I will get to see my best friend who I am missing this weekend.  After all I have at least two or three extra places I could stay if for some reason I couldn't stay at my parents place.
Here is the link for anyone interested: http://www.stlsug.org/MOSSCamp/default.aspx.

posted @ Thursday, March 13, 2008 2:06 PM | Feedback (0) | Filed Under [ MOSS ]

Oops...Hilarity Ensues...

Look what I did to Paul Galvin's Blog Yesterday:

I posted one comment received an error and gave it.  I guess the error meant my browser wanted to post 6 comments on his blog without my name, even if I was logged into my Live ID.  What I love is that every time I log on with my Live ID at work it won't post my name on comments anymore.  Thank you blocking software...It's really grinding my gears...It's great we don't get to use messenger the productivity level rocks, but every so often something is blocked that absolutely irks me.  I couldn't install Expression Blend yesterday, because they block the installation of .wma files.  I really don't know what I'm going to do.  Most likely just deal with it, because I love my job otherwise.  The people I work with rock and benefits are hardcore plus the salary is pretty competitive.  Anyone else who wants to vent about there job go ahead I'm all ears.

posted @ Thursday, March 13, 2008 12:11 PM | Feedback (0) | Filed Under [ MOSS Life, The Universe, and Everything ]

Hopping on Five Hundred Feet from Behind the Silverlight Train

I know I'm a little slow in doing so, but today I finally sat down and went through all the Silverlight 2.0 Beta 1.0 Templates.  I was incredibly impressed with some of it and sorely disappointed with other parts.  Everyone has said it is really easy to use this technology and I agree.  I have a little PhotoShop experience from my web design days.  I have dabbled in some animated gifs, Flash Creations, PDF Creations, Corel Draw, Paint .Net, and who knows what else.  I opened up the VS 2008 Template and I was banging away in XAML.  It's ten times easier than the good old days with HTML 3.0 writing all my code in notepad and hitting F5 on IE.  I like it, however there was one pet peeve I had with it.  You can't double click on an item in the display and have the Code Behind Open up with a click event or another event.  It took me about 30 minutes to realize I just couldn't do it, then I moved on and realized it's not so bad typing Cick and the equals and quotes displaying and a popup asking me if I would like to create a new event handler.  I also wish that pasting code into the XAML would ask me if I wanted to create the event handler in the Code Behind.  It would save me some time deleting lines of text and re-typing Click....I guess you win some and you lose some.  The next thing I am going to play with is some Windows Applications in WPF.  I did a little preliminary what are the objects playing around with them type deal.  I like the scroll bar and document viewer.  I can definitely see some uses for them.  If you haven't already played with WPF 3.5 and Silverlight 2.0 Beta 1.0 I would recommend going out there and attempting to play around with some of the tutorials.  At the bare minimum you don't need to be a hardcore programmer.  I know I'm a little above the normal administrator/designer.  You don't have to be nuts like me where you touch everything that you see, including a skateboard, nunchuks, flash, Java, PHP, calculator programming...You can just be a regular Administrator or designer who knows a bit of XML, ASP, or HTML.  I am pretty sure you could pick these skills up.  Here is the Silverlight Link: Silverlight.Net. Happy playing guys!

posted @ Wednesday, March 12, 2008 3:15 PM | Feedback (0) | Filed Under [ .Net Life, The Universe, and Everything ]

The DataGrid and His Enemy the Dataview

I was working a SPDataGridView Webpart today.  I was trying to get the grid to refresh and re-bind itself after a specific client was deleted in the web part.  When I tried to clear the grid it would not clear at all.  It would refresh with the exact same data, until I hit F5 on Internet Explorer.  I finally thought to myself what if I get rid of the Dataview as a source and call the DataSet directly.  Sure enough I change it and clear the DataSet, then rebind and grid and when I delete the client it refreshes without the deleted item.  So what is the purpose of a DataView?  I'm really not sure, but I will be finding out in the future.  It seems a little bit extra to bind a grid to two separate objects when one will do.

posted @ Tuesday, March 11, 2008 1:33 PM | Feedback (0) | Filed Under [ MOSS Web parts ]

Contact List Limb Re-Attachment

After struggling for 2 1/2 days I finally came up with a passable solution for this problem.  I would create a custom list mirrored after the Contact List Template, except it would include Full Name as the Title field.  I created a console application that would go through each site and create the new list using the clean template, import all the information, delete the old list, and add the link to the QuickLaunch.  If you go through my old entries I have information sprinkled about in code sample pieces.  The happy end result is that extra columns that are clearly not supposed to be there do not appear.  The morale of this story is that you are opening a world of hurt if you mess with the Contact List Template.  It is a bad idea to try and delete or change the Title field in a Contact List.  I am going to strongly reccomend that you guys do not touch this field or at least if you do beware of the consequences.  You must clearly be a masochist...

posted @ Tuesday, March 11, 2008 1:29 PM | Feedback (0) | Filed Under [ MOSS ]

Asian Support & SharePoint Limb Decapitation Issue

On some contacts this week we noticed that Last Name Phonetic, First Name Phonetic, and Company Name Phonetic were turned on in some contact lists.  I googled around and found a couple articles that said these are Asian Support Fields.  I did not really find exactly what Asian Support entails or how to turn it off completely.  However, I did find a workaround that basically had me go into the Contact Content Type and hide all these phonetic fields.  We are not going to be using these fields anytime soon, so it was not a big deal to turn them off.
Another problem I noticed is that someone had tried to delete and add a new Title field for the Contact Lists.  It looks as though this breaks the Contact List Template in all the sites that include the template with the deleted Title Fields.  As best practices go I will say this is a big NONO.  The first field in just about any list or document library is usually the Title field and it is usually incredibly hard to delete.  I have no idea how this person deleted the field, but it was adding multiple full name fields, the last name field was coming up as the wrong field...What I did was delete this contact list on this specific Site Template and create a default contact list with the default fields, because for this particular template I could not change the title field name at all it was so horribly corrupted.  The moral of this story is don't delete default required Title fields it will not end up in your favor.  SharePoint does not play nice if you cut off one of it's organs...

posted @ Saturday, March 08, 2008 11:18 PM | Feedback (0) | Filed Under [ MOSS ]

Tag You're It!

Heres how you play....Once you have been tagged by a friend, you must then Post a blog with 10 weird, interesting or crazy things we may not know about you. then Choose 10 people to be tagged. List their names and why you chose them Leave them all a YOUR TAGGED comment. You cant tag the person who tagged you.
I honestly don't care if you fill this out...No one is going to cut your hands off or harm you in any weird ways.  The universe will accept the fact that you did not fill out this form.  I felt like doing it...I was a little bored and waiting to play Rockband...Sometimes they are fun to do, because you at least get to know some interesting facts about the other people...

1. My great grandfather was a famous rabbi in St. Louis, Missouri.  He went to Germany and spoke with family members about the Holocaust.  He wrote a pamphlet about the Holocaust, but as per what happened with most people who warned Roosevelt he ignored him.
2. I own two cats Gambit and Rogue named after my favorite X-Men.  Rogue is very emo and acts like she hates Gambit.  Gambit is loud and rambunctious, so there personalities fit.
3. Since I was 10 I wanted to be a surgeon.  In college I majored in pre-medicine, computer science, and math.
4. I was a huge MatchBox 20 Fan in the 90s.  Every time one of there songs is played on the radio I still sing along.
5. My favorite color is purple.  I wish I owned a dark purple coat.  I have a hat that is pink and purple.
6. I have always wanted to live near or in New York City.  My entire life I have lived in the Midwest.  I just want to see what it's like to live somewhere different for a change.  I have always lived within a 300 mile radius of St. Louis.  Kansas City, Chicago, and Springfield, IL...
7. I learned how to keyboard when I was 10 using a 1964 Smith Carona Typewriter.  I used that typewriter to write all my term papers, until I was 14 years old when I bought my first computer with my Bat Mitzvah Money.
8. My dad would not remove the training wheels from my bike until I was 13, so I did not learn how to ride a bike until I was 13.  For the first year of college I road a bike everywhere, including to get the groceries.  I used to ride from North Central College in Naperville Illinois all the way to Jewel/Osco on Ogden Road at least once or twice a week.
9. I started out with Website Design when I was 15 building web pages in AOLPress for a Star Trek Simulation Group on America Online.  A year later I started writing all my websites in Notepad.
10. I went to Orthodox Jewish day school in St. Louis up through 8th grade, where I learned to read, write, and speak Hebrew.  I can still read, write, and speak Hebrew, but not always understand the language.

Here are the 10 people I nominate whether they decide to do this it's up to them:
Jeff Julian
Jerod Crump
John Alexander
Doug Butscher
Sahil Malik
Bil Simser
John Ferringer
Mike Roselius
Michael Gannotti
Brian J. Reeves

posted @ Saturday, March 08, 2008 5:52 PM | Feedback (0) | Filed Under [ Personal Life, The Universe, and Everything ]

Trouble with Solution Packages on a SharePoint Server Farm

I mentioned a while back that we setup a server farm with a Query, Index, Application, and SQL Box.  Well we deployed all the old web parts and we are having all kinds of crazy issues on this farm.  I'm not sure exactly what nuttiness is occurring, but half the time the solution packages are failing to deploy or the feature isn't installing in the batch files.  Unfortunately, I installed VS 2005 and VSEWSS 1.1 and Visual Source Safe.  I tried implementing the solutions through Visual Studio and it will let me after I uninstall and reinstall the solution through command prompt.  It will only let me deploy the solution once.  I have tried turning on remote debugging and giving the main server with VS 2005 access to the 12 hive on Query and Test plus Inetpub.  It is still acting incredibly wonky.  I even tried creating a base "Hello World Webpart" and it's doing some crazy feature is not installed error messages...This is incredibly bizarre and frustrating.  I wish I knew what was going on.  If anyone has even the vaguest of ideas I'm all ears.

posted @ Thursday, March 06, 2008 12:15 PM | Feedback (0) | Filed Under [ MOSS Web parts ]

Looking for More Speaking Opportunities in Kansas City and Surrounding Areas

I would really like to develop better communications skills, so if anyone has a medium for me to speak about any SharePoint Topic please let me know.  So far I have slides for Feature Design and Disaster Recovery, but I can pretty much cover any topic.  I am just looking for a way that I can refine my communication skills and get more experience interacting with other people.  I usually work weekdays from Monday through Friday 8:00 am to 4:30 pm.  I should be available anytime after 4:30 pm on weekdays and just about any weekend.

posted @ Thursday, March 06, 2008 10:34 AM | Feedback (0) | Filed Under [ MOSS Life, The Universe, and Everything ]

Looking For People

We are looking to build a list of people for the Kansas City Office Developer User Group.  If you or your company is interested in getting added to our mailing list send me an e-mail at rebecca.isserman@gmail.com.  Also, if you have any topics in mind please let me know.  I am willing to present anything Office Centric, including SharePoing, Accesss, InfoPath, or any other Office Products Related....We are also looking for future sponsors for meetings...If you contact me I will put you on the list of Sponsors and contact you in the future.  We will be taking a hiatus, so that we can better organize our website and mailing lists.

posted @ Thursday, March 06, 2008 10:30 AM | Feedback (0) | Filed Under [ MOSS .Net ]

Proton Pack Engaged -- SharePoint Ghost Caught

Remember this post I made a bit ago: Is there a Ghost in SharePoint?
Well I spent a good couple of days looking at all kinds of error logs trying to trick it with a feature of the same GUID.  Finally, I thought what is the last thing I played with that could have a feature involved and it hit me the U2U CAML Query Builder.  I installed this feature and activated it, then realized it was showing up on every single list in my site collection farm.  I deactivated the feature and ran the uninstaller.  I didn't really check the Content and Structure Area until last week.  It made a lot of sense that this was causing the problem.  I even found the GUID on there examples for the CAML Query Builder.  I have since reinstalled the solution and made sure that the feature was deactivated.  It stinks, because I would really like to clean up that solution from my Production Server and include it on my Test Server.  Hopefully there is a new version pushed that I can fully uninstall at a later date.

posted @ Tuesday, March 04, 2008 4:13 PM | Feedback (0) | Filed Under [ MOSS ]

Feature Design at the KC Office Developer User Group

Centriq Foss Training

8700 State Line Road, Suite 200

Leawood, KS 66206

Phone: 913-322-7000

posted @ Tuesday, March 04, 2008 10:40 AM | Feedback (0) | Filed Under [ MOSS ]

Day After Birthday Blues

posted @ Monday, March 03, 2008 11:36 AM | Feedback (0) | Filed Under [ Personal Life, The Universe, and Everything ]