Wade Salley

Recently I had a user come up and state that when they would make a new announcement the time would be off by 2 hours.  They said they had checked the servers and time settings were fine and could there be anything else that might be off?  Well, yes there could and most likely is.  There is a regional setting option setting that you can get to by going to:

1. Problem page
2. Site Actions > Site settings
3. Regional settings (under Site Administration)
4. Time Zone settings

Now, this might work well for the page you are working on, but what if there is more?  And how can you tell?  For me the easiest way is to connect to the content database and take a look.  After connecting to the database you can run these queries.

(make sure you are pointing to your content database)
SELECT TimeZone,FullUrl
FROM dbo.Webs
WHERE (NOT (ParentWebId IS NULL))AND FullUrl like 'Url%'

If you are unsure about what to put in for 'Url%', then just run the first two lines and then see what is displayed.

UPDATE dbo.webs
SET TimeZone=11
WHERE (NOT (ParentWebId IS NULL))AND FullUrl like 'Url%'
AND TimeZone=13

The time zone was set to Pacific and I wanted Central, so I set it to Central (11) where Timezone = Pacific (13).  And my result:

(62 row(s) affected)

If you are unsure what your time zone is, then you first change the page and take note of page address.  Ex. /url/teamsite/pageyouchanged, so in the result list you would see you set it to 15 and the rest are 13.  Now you have the two numbers you need to put in.

Just a closing FYI, you can also find the timezone settings in TIMEZONE.xml located in the 14 (SharePoint 2010) hive under CONFIG.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms476633.aspx

I've been heads down with migration to SharePoint 2010 and I have been using ControlPoint to do a lot of the administering of our various sites.  I had worked with this tool before in 2007 and they have really done a lot of upgrades regarding functionality.  You can move sites and content between your environments, run reports, and there is a lot of functionality that really makes your life easier and helps to eliminate doing something several times on your different environments.  I have had to call their customer service department and despite a miscommunication on our initial conversation, they are very friendly, prompt, and knowledgeable.

Studying seems to have taken a backseat recently so I probably won't update on it again until I have actually made some real progress instead of the nothing has changed over and over again.

I had originally planned to write this using the live writer, however it isn't wanting to install so I guess it will have to wait until next time.

I was working along the other day and one of the users I had added in was displaying as his domain account instead of his first and last name.  I was in a semi rushed mode at the time, so I decided to skip the "steps" as I call it to find out all you can about your problem user(s).  But I will list out what I would have done had I had more time.

Side note:  This is different from the logged-in user displaying incorrectly, that is a different issue with a different fix.

I first would have checked the user out using SQL.  There is a column called 'tp_IsActive' and you can see if the user is actually active or not.  It will be either a '0' or a '1', and the user might just not have been getting synced with the user profile synchronization.  The SQL is below to list out all the columns, but I normally just use 'tp_IsActive'  and 'tp_Login'.

SELECT * FROM [content_db].dbo.userinfo

After that there is a few routes that can be taken.  You can sync the database, you can run some PowerShell code, or you can delete/re-add the user.

In my rush I decided to 'Delete User from Site Collection' and re-add them, which worked and all was well with the world.

Using the PowerShell code below should also do the trick as well.

Set-SPUser -identity "DOMAIN\accountname" -DisplayName "First Last" -web http://sharepointsitehere

To give an update on my studying for the MCITP, I wish I could say it had made some progress, but unfortunately it hasn't.  My girlfriend and I recently adopted two kitties and one of them had some health issues, so that has been taking time away from studying.  Add that to the college bowl games, the start of conference basketball play, and a Playstation game I've been trying to beat before its sequel comes out at the end of the month put studying on the back burner.  The bright side?  The bowl games are over, the last of the three top 15 teams we play within a week is tonight, and I'm close to the end of the game.  Studying should resume very soon!

I originally heard about this website several years ago when I was attending user groups with Rob Reynolds and Dru Sellers.  At the time it was still early on in my career and I didn't feel it was the right time to start something like this.  Now, 5 years later, I feel it's tje right time to start giving back, or at least trying to, and hopefully help someone like so many have helped me along the way.

I am a programmer in Topeka, Ks.  I moved here after graduating from Kansas State University and began my career as a programmer using VB.NET.  I enjoyed this language the most out of any that I have used, probably because it was the first programming language that I invested serious time in and like most things we do first, it's usually the favorite.

Fast forwarding 5 years, and a lot has changed.  I now work primarily on server side issues and don't do a log of programming anymore, or at least not of my own.  I do quite a bit of code maintenance on code that others have written, and the languages I primarily work in now are ASP and JavaScript.  We are now in the process of making the move to SharePoint 2010 and the motivated urge hit me once again.

I plan to immerse myself in this and really give it my all.  Initially I plan to get the MCITP (Microsoft Certified IT Professional) certifications for SharePoint and see where I go from there.  I might be changing directions as far as my main area of work, who knows.  Either way, I am really looking forward to this and excited for where this path is leading.

I started working with SharePoint in 2007 but at the time it was lacking a lot of features, or at least it was out of the box.  You could, of course, add in a lot of third party cools, but when 2010 came around, it either compensated for what a lot of these tools did, or changed things so they weren't useful anymore.  Because of the changes I'm going to treat this like it's the first day of school and start fresh.  I plan on taking the 70-668 first and then following it up with the 70-667.  I will post as I work through material, but I'd like to be prepped to take the exam(s) by late February or early March.  I could probably be ready sooner, especially since I am familiar with the program, but I would rather set a far out goal, rather than rush myself.  I haven't decided if I am going to take both tests at once, or take them one at a time.  I will probably do it one at a time, but we'll see.

Initially, I am going to read through SharePoint 2010 Administration and then I'll move through course books I've had or colleagues have had.  I think this, combined with practice exams and my prior knowledge should be a good start, and I can fill in any holes I find as I take the practice exams.  This is starting to become a mini-novel so I think I'll end it here.  Here's to a motivated start to 2012!