The SharePoint Hillbilly

114 Posts | 762 Comments

The SharePoint Hillbilly Fewer Big Words... More Pretty Pictures...

Dec 11

Online Quiz: Is jQuery a valid option for your project?

So, to step back up on my soapbox for a quick moment. The buzz and the noise around jQuery and Client Side development in general is growing and at a fairly rapid pace. This of course is good and bad. It’s good because our applications are becoming more and more user friendly and the visual appeal is increasing exponentially a well. Plus, as developers, ......

Posted On Monday, December 12, 2011 9:20 PM

Dec 11

SharePoint Saturday Denver–Wrap Up and Slide Decks

Comments (1) | Share

Posted On Sunday, December 4, 2011 4:31 PM

Nov 11

Rookie Mistakes–ServerRelativeUrl & SPContext

Comments (1) | Share

So, I love how hindsight is 20/20. I love when I carefully (okay sorta carefully) write code, step through it in the debugger, check values, properly catch errors and dispose of objects and you STILL have some stupid error that humbles me a little. Yeah, welcome to my world. In fact I almost didn’t post this blog because I felt pretty foolish, but I ......

Posted On Sunday, November 6, 2011 12:28 PM

Oct 11

What “The Far Side” can teach us about SharePoint

Comments (6) | Share

If any part of you has a sense of humor, January 1995 was a tragic time in your life as it marked the end of one of the greatest comics of all time The Far Side. No other comic has ever been so hilarious in its intelligence and randomness (although Calvin and Hobbes does come close). Gary Larson’s brilliant sense of humor will forever live on in desk ......

Posted On Tuesday, October 18, 2011 9:51 PM

Oct 11

SharePoint Conference 2011 Wrap Up

Comments (2) | Share

So, what do you get when 7500+ people converge on Anaheim, California from all over the planet to learn and talk about the best darn collaboration platform in the world while attending a host of vendor parties, a night at DisneyLand, and probably giving the Hilton Bartenders nightmares for the next several weeks??? Why, that would be the SharePoint ......

Posted On Sunday, October 9, 2011 11:17 PM

Sep 11

jQuery is “Fast Food” Development – SPC314 Session Teaser #SPC11

Comments | Share

You ever have an epiphany? Have you ever tried to spell “epiphany” without spell check? So, today I was working on my slide deck for the SharePoint Conference in Anaheim on Best Practices with jQuery and SharePoint and I had a little light bulb moment. jQuery is “Fast Food” development. In those three little words you get an immediate understanding ......

Posted On Wednesday, September 7, 2011 12:08 PM

Sep 11

A Dummies’ Guide to SharePoint and jQuery–A Real World Example

Comments (2) | Share

So, I noticed my good buddy Christina Wheeler (@cwheeler76) wrote a little rant post on Twitter and Facebook today: And I thought, here’s a great example where you could use jQuery and SharePoint in the wild. With jQuery you could easily hide the “Upload Multiple Files…” link… well.. I assumed you could.. I mean how hard could it be? Keep in mind that ......

Posted On Thursday, September 1, 2011 8:42 PM

Aug 11

Don’t be “That Company”… Allow your employees to work from home…

Comments (4) | Share

I have been very lucky over the span of my career in that every job I’ve had since college has allowed me some flexibility to work from home. Maybe it was just one day a week, maybe a week at home and a week at work, and now I work from home more than 50% of the time. And you know what? It really struck me as totally illogical that more companies don’t ......

Posted On Wednesday, August 24, 2011 1:17 PM

Aug 11

A Dummies Guide to SharePoint and jQuery–Getting & Setting SharePoint Form Fields

Comments (8) | Share

Part 2 of a Dummies Guide blog posts deals with setting SharePoint’s form fields using jQuery. If you haven’t read part 1 and are a dummy like me, then go do that first because I’m going to assume you’ve read it and not go back over those pieces: A Dummies Guide to SharePoint and jQuery–Getting Started So, I have touched on this topic before in a couple ......

Posted On Saturday, August 20, 2011 4:09 PM

Aug 11

SharePoint Saturday: The Conference–Slides and Wrap Up

Comments (1) | Share

A three day SharePoint Saturday? Yes…a three day SharePoint Saturday. A spawn of speakers, a horde of helpers, A volley of vendors, and an avalanche of attendees converged at a community college in Annandale, VA to create the biggest SharePoint Saturday event to date… and it was good. I don’t think I’ve ever seen attendees so engaged and excited before! ......

Posted On Tuesday, August 16, 2011 8:47 AM

Aug 11

SharePoint Saturday NYC Wrap Up

Comments (1) | Share

So, this previous weekend was my first trip to New York City in over 15 years and I was not disappointed. I was honored to be accepted to speak at SharePoint Saturday NYC. This event was a blast and a well oiled machine executed by Becky Isserman (@mosslover) Greg Hurlman (@ghurlman) and Jason G (not gonna attempt it, sorry) (@PrincetonSUG) along with ......

Posted On Tuesday, August 2, 2011 10:46 PM

Jul 11

A Dummies Guide to SharePoint and jQuery–Getting Started

Comments (11) | Share

I have several conferences coming up where I’ll be talking about jQuery and best practices around deployment, maintenance, and performance tuning in SharePoint and I find that I never have enough time to talk about everything I’d like. So I thought I’d write a few blogs about the subject from a complete beginners standpoint. After all, we were all beginners ......

Posted On Thursday, July 28, 2011 12:09 PM

Jul 11

What’s YOUR Status in the SharePoint Community?

Comments (22) | Share

So, there are a few large SharePoint events coming up including SPSNYC, SPSTC, and the pinnacle of SharePoint conferences The Microsoft SharePoint Conference in Anaheim, CA. As these events approach it becomes more and more important that we label each other effectively. We need to know who is cool and who to avoid. Should I walk up and shake your hand ......

Posted On Tuesday, July 12, 2011 2:11 PM

Jul 11

Microsoft Listens - Send an unsung hero to SPC

Comments (2) | Share

So, a couple of weeks ago the blogosphere was abuzz with several posts about the SharePoint Community and Microsoft’s role in supporting the community including my post: Is the SharePoint Community Past Its Prime? Some people disagreed with me, some agreed with me, and some REALLY agreed with me in private. And do you know what else happened? Chris ......

Posted On Friday, July 1, 2011 5:13 PM

Jun 11

Is the SharePoint Community Past Its Prime?

Comments (19) | Share

So, lots of tweets going on today about an article over at CMS Wire : The SharePoint Community: What it is, Why It's Important and Microsoft's Role. Now, aside from the fact that the CMS web site is a php web site, this article got me thinking… It’s well written and authoritative, with comments from the experts, and is spot on… but couldn’t it basically ......

Posted On Tuesday, June 14, 2011 6:30 PM

Jun 11

Belated SPTechCon Wrap Up & Ramblings – Boston June 2011

Comments (3) | Share

So, I had the honor of speaking at the SharePoint Technology Conference (SPTechCon) for the fourth time on June 3rd. I must admit that this conference is just getting bigger and better every time BZMedia puts it together. For those of you not familiar with SPTechCon (http://www.sptechcon.com), they do the conference twice a year. Once in San Francisco ......

Posted On Sunday, June 12, 2011 7:35 PM

May 11

SharePoint–To the Pain!

Comments (14) | Share

Like I’ve said over and over and in many of my sessions, SharePoint is like a big AA Support Group. “Hi… My name is Mark, and I use SharePoint”… “Hi Mark…” We’ve all had the same pains, frustrations, and struggles. WHY am I getting this error? WHY isn’t this working the way it’s supposed to? WHY did this work yesterday and not today? WHY can’t I find ......

Posted On Wednesday, May 25, 2011 10:57 AM

May 11

The Real Value of Microsoft Certification in SharePoint???

Comments (25) | Share

How many times can I read a resume listing someone’s Microsoft Certifications, get my hopes up that this person has a clue about SharePoint, call the respondent up on the phone to hear them verbally tout their Microsoft Certifications only to learn they don’t know a damn thing about SharePoint?!!?! It happens ALL the time! I’m completely sick of it ......

Posted On Saturday, May 14, 2011 10:50 PM

May 11

You aren’t the Lone Ranger anymore… Working Effectively in a Team Environment

Comments (3) | Share

So, the similarities between the tech bubble of the late 90’s and the current hiring frenzy of SharePoint people is too similar to ignore. It seems as though if you put SharePoint on your resume SOMEONE will hire you. This of course is good and bad. Bad because people who don’t know what they are doing are creating huge messes, and good because those ......

Posted On Wednesday, May 11, 2011 12:48 PM

May 11

SharePoint Saturday St. Louis Wrap Up

Comments | Share

So.. SharePoint Saturday St. Louis was this past weekend and I had the honor of presenting my SharePoint & jQuery session. This session is always a lot of fun and seems to always produce some really interesting conversation from the attendees. Seems like I learn something every time I do it. Thanks to all those who attended and contributed and thanks ......

Posted On Monday, May 2, 2011 11:41 AM

Apr 11

Using Google Maps to Populate an Address in a SharePoint New Item Form

Comments (9) | Share

Only a truly geeky developer can understand the concept that I’ve been working and writing so much code lately they I need to take a break by… well.. writing more code… Anyway! My brain needed a break from my current assignments so I decided to tackle a question I saw posted about populating address fields in SharePoint with a click on a location from ......

Posted On Wednesday, April 20, 2011 3:30 PM

Apr 11

Setting SharePoint Lookup Lists w/ jQuery (+/- 20 items)

Comments (15) | Share

So… A while back I had to set a SharePoint Lookup drop down list value with JavaScript and ran into the quirk where SharePoint handles Lookup drop downs differently if there are 20 or more items in the list. I’m not exactly sure why SharePoint does this. The only common sense reason I can think of is to pass less data over the wire, but if this were ......

Posted On Wednesday, April 6, 2011 7:02 PM

Mar 11

Essential Links for the SharePoint Client Side Developer

Comments (8) | Share

Front End Developer? Client Side Developer? Middle Tier??? I’m covering all my bases. Regardless, I’m sick and tired of Googling with Bing when I forget where information that I need often is located. I was getting ready to bookmark some of them when it hit me… “Hey Mark… (I don’t actually refer to myself in the third person), Why don’t you put the ......

Posted On Wednesday, March 16, 2011 9:12 PM

Mar 11

Stop Spinning Your Wheels… Sage Advice for Aspiring Developers

Comments (9) | Share

So… lately I’ve been tasked with helping bring some non-developers over the hump and become full-fledged, all around, SharePoint developers. Well, only time will tell if I’m successful or a complete failure. Good thing about failures though, you know what NOT to do next time! Anyway, I’ve been writing some sort of code since I was about 10 years old; ......

Posted On Wednesday, March 2, 2011 9:32 PM

Feb 11

You should NOT be writing jQuery in SharePoint if…

Comments (4) | Share

Yes… another one of these posts. What can I say? I’m a pot stirrer.. a rabble rouser *rabble rabble* jQuery in SharePoint seems to be a fairly polarizing issue with one side thinking it is the most awesome thing since Princess Leia as the slave girl in Return of the Jedi and the other half thinking it is the worst idea since Mannequin 2: On the Move. ......

Posted On Tuesday, February 22, 2011 12:14 PM

Mark Rackley