Check out My Interview @ Microsoft Feed
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My interview with Microsoft Feed has been published http://microsoftfeed.com/2010/meet-bander-alsharfi-sharepoint-server-mvp-from-jordan/ Check out more interviews with MVPs |
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Why is Samer Chidiac still single?
I have a presentation coming soon and since I’m always eager to playing with new stuff, I went over the web and put my hands on the new Office 2010 beta and started goofing around interesting articles about PowerPoint 2010. Luckily I started with my friends, Samer had a an excellent article called: Why am i Still Single & What’s new in PowerPoint 2010? He had a very innovative and interesting way of presenting the ideas and content, I highly recommend that you check out his article. Thumbs up Samer! 
Below is the video Samer created using PowerPoint 2010:
You can get your hands on Samer’s presentation material here.
Check out Samer’s site on: http://www.samerchidiac.com/
Family Guy & Windows 7, I never Saw that one Coming!
Honestly I never saw that coming. Looking hilarious! 
Microsoft always amaze me with their marketing, unlike it’s alleged competitor Apple, their ideas are out of the box. Apple always had that I’m a Mac, I’m a PC thing, PC sucks!! At the beginning it was funny, after a while it’s just meh! whatever, same shit different story 
Simpsons and Family Guy are my favorite pass time shows. However, I’m glad they chose Family Guy for this, beside Homer and Peter do share the same IQ
Pimp My Windows Vista: Windows 7!
You can checkout my prevoius technical review post here.
Everyone is excited to get their hands on Microsoft’s new operating system Windows 7. Not having its successor’s marketing launch budget – around $400 million – and coming out in a time were the world is going through a rough credit crunch! It must have been a big challenge for Microsoft to deliver the operating system on time and on budget or maybe less. Some people would say that Microsoft went through an operating system features diet to maintain the budget and the timeline. I would defiantly disagree. Microsoft was smart enough to realize that the only key to Windows 7 success was more eye candy, a performance boost, more mobility support, better backward compatibility, in conclusion they needed to nail Windows XP once and for all.
Windows Vista was a leap into a new era where Microsoft introduced a new graphical interface called “AERO”, User Access Control (UAC), a new Start Menu, Sidebar and Gadgets, Virtual Folders, and many other features. Windows Vista was like an alien mother ship descending to XP’s earth or that at least what Microsoft wanted us to believe with their huge marketing campaign. I attended many of these events and even presented some, where Microsofties go up on the stage and show us the future: 3D applications, embedded videos, live feeds, and connected systems. Microsoft overpromised consumers back then with such user experience ignoring the fact that they were selling the future. Its true Windows Vista introduced a new set of features that developers can use to build amazing user experience, but developers won’t simply ditch their current built products and build new stuff just for Vista’s sake! A transmission phase should be taken into consideration. That was the first domino piece to fall. When Windows Vista was on the shelves, none of the applications demoed was there. Many faced a lot of problems with the operating system performance because of its high hardware requirements. Moreover, we all started complaining of backward compatibility and that UAC annoying dialogue.
By this time Microsoft knows for sure that if they promise the future and shoot for the stars again specially in this period of time they would defiantly fail in selling Windows 7. I’m really impressed by Microsoft’s new strategy, in my opinion Windows 7 is in huge make over for Windows Vista! Most of us watched the “Pimp My Ride” show on MTV Arabia where Exhibit pimps rides with a WOW makeover inside out and door to door. I believe Microsoft did the same to Windows Vista. This time no alien features, time travel, or black holes! Microsoft called their “Exhibit” to pimp Windows Vista and introduce Windows 7. It was a work of love and the outcome was astonishing!
More Eye Candy
Beginners Guide to Installing & Configuring A SharePoint 2010 Virtual Machine Using Hyper-V Technology, Part 4: SharePoint Server 2010 Installation & Configuration
Welcome to the 4th and final part of this guide. The first thing you will notice after starting SharePoint Server 2010 setup is that you have 2 steps of the installation. First you start with the installation of SharePoint Server 2010 prerequisites and then move on to installing the product server components. Click on Install software prerequisites.
The prerequisites installation wizard will be launched and a list of the components to be installed are displayed. Click Next.
Read the license terms and if you’re OK with it place a check next to I accept the terms of the license agreement and click Next.
Beginners Guide to Installing & Configuring A SharePoint 2010 Virtual Machine Using Hyper-V Technology, Part 3: SQL Server 2008 installation and configuration
Welcome to the 3rd part of this guide. We have a vanilla cream Windows Server 2008 installation with Active Directory Domain Services and DNS roles installed and configured. The next step is installing SQL Server 2008.
First of all we need to mount the SQL Server image on the virtual machine drive. Using the Hyper-V Virtual Machine Connection window click on Media, DVD Drive, and select Insert Disk. If you do a have a DVD media instead of an ISO image then select Capture.
A browse dialog will be opened. You need to browse to the image location, select it, and click Open.
AutoPlay dialog will open. Click on Run Setup.
Beginners Guide to Installing & Configuring A SharePoint 2010 Virtual Machine Using Hyper-V Technology, Part 2: Windows Server 2008 installation and configuration for Domain Services and DNS roles
Welcome to the second part of this guide. After creating the virtual machine using the Hyper-V Manager, we need to install Windows Server 2008 and configure both Domain Services and DNS roles.
If you remember from the previous post we instructed the virtual machine to load the Windows Server 2008 image. I remind you again that SharePoint Server 2010 supports a 64bit installation and does not support 32 bit. For our sandbox I’ll choose to install the Standard release of Windows Server 2008. Click Next.
Make sure to read the license terms. If you are ok with the terms, place a check in the acceptance checkbox and click Next.
Since we are installing Windows Server 2008 to an blank hard disk, the upgrade mode is disabled. Click Custom.
Beginners Guide to Installing & Configuring A SharePoint 2010 Virtual Machine Using Hyper-V Technology, Part 1: Creating The Virtual Machine
I’m so excited to get the green light of publishing content about SharePoint Server 2010 Being SharePoint MVPs. we had an early access to the Office 2010 bits, to both Server and Client products but we were asked not to share any of the information, even product screenshots until Microsoft officially launches SharePoint 2010 publically in the SharePoint conference in Vegas.
You can’t imagine how much information I’m eager to share with you about SharePoint 2010! Microsoft worked really hard on making SharePoint better. Many of the annoying tasks and errors were fixed, and tons of features were added. In addition, developers have better support for developing over SharePoint with the new Visual Studio 2010 SharePoint development features.
As developers, the first thing you should do is create your own sandbox, and when I say Sandbox it means that we need to create a machine that we can play with. When building Sandboxes we don’t have to stick to best practices and scalable deployments and this is what this beginner’s guide is all about. If you are looking for a scalable and stable deployment wait until SharePoint 2010 is RTM, then we can talk about best practices. In this series of posts I’ll be discussing the installation and configuration of a SharePoint 2010 virtual machine using Hyper-V. The guide is divided to parts, each part tackles a task of the virtual machine preparation process.
The guide parts are:
- Creating and configuring the virtual machine on Hyper-V.
- Windows Server 2008 installation and configuration for Domain Services and DNS roles.
- SQL Server 2008 installation and configuration
- SharePoint 2010 Server Installation & Configuration
I tried to detail things as much as I can for the beginners sake. SharePoint is now the new trend in the market and everyone is rushing to learn about it, after all it’s one of the fastest growing products in Microsoft. If you have any questions or need any help with the installation, please don’t hesitate to contact me
Building Arabic SharePoint Site Collections
Back in previous versions of SharePoint (e.g. 2003 release) we had to have a full installation of SharePoint for a specific language, one language per installation, which meant that if we install an Arabic version of SharePoint on a specific server then we can only create Arabic sites on that installation, if we need another language then this would mean another installation of SharePoint for that language on a different server!
With MOSS 2007 Microsoft introduced language packs, so instead of having a clean installation and a different machine every time we wanted a new language, you just need to install that language pack. In this walk-through we will go over installing the Arabic language pack for SharePoint and then create an Arabic site collection.
Step 1: Download the Language Pack
To start we need to download the Arabic Language Pack from: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=2447426B-8689-4768-BFF0-CBB511599A45&displaylang=en. Make sure to change the language to Arabic.
After clicking on Change the page will reload in Arabic. Click on “تنزيل”
Windows 7 Review, would it be the last nail in XP’s Coffin?
I remember back in the days when Vista was code named Longhorn. I was so excited that I was reading a big number of blogs, downloading every video I get my hands on and sitting restless on the torrent sites looking for leaks to get my hands on and play with. With the first leaked build installation I was so disappointed, I had XP running my Pentium 3 desktop machine like a charm, but then I convinced myself that new software needs to exploit new hardware capabilities on its disposal assuming that the software industry was following that path. In 2006, being one of the Vista knowledgeable Microsoft community members in the region, I was asked to present Windows Vista and demo Vista Gadgets in real life scenarios utilizing the new set of features of the new Windows Software Development Kit (WinFX back in the days). I faced a lot of question regarding hardware requirements which gave me the impression that people believed Vista was just too early for its time. Imagine Microsoft spent more than $400 million on Vista’s marketing campaign, the results fired back, and rumors about Vista bad performance was on the discussion table. A lot of people where feeding the idea that Windows XP beats up Windows Vista with respect to performance and stability. Over the years, Vista’s performance started to get better and better, but the gloomy cloud of the bad vista activists was not making things easier until Windows 7 showed up. The performance is amazing; I loved the new interface, and the low hardware requirements. Imagine Windows 7 runs better on Netbooks than Vista, it even runs on my Pentium 3 smoothly.
Pop quiz, why the name Windows 7?
"’Windows 7 just makes sense,’" Microsoft Corporate Vice President Mike Nash wrote in a Microsoft corporate blog. "Simply put, this is the seventh release of Windows." That was one of the short answers ever, even though I’m not convinced because they had more than 7 releases since the first version of Windows,
In this small review, I did not have the time to cover everything; there are a lot of features to cover, but the OS basics had the most sun and heat today. We’ll be covering the user experience, performance, and availability.
Windows 7 User Experience: More Treat & Eye Candy
The New Taskbar
Yeeeeha! Got the Highest WAKA.WAKA Score on Facebook, Worldwide!
If you’re not playing WAKA.WAKA on Facebook, Don’t! It is one of the most addictive games I played. Anyways, I’m jumping with joy for scoring the highest score on Facebook ranking in the 1st place worldwide
Hosted Article: On the Prowl, Words By: Hamza Jilani
Source: JO Magazine
Jordan’s government is hoping to expand the country’s appeal in ‘niche’ tourism sectors. But maybe some niches are best left unexplored.
(Emily Carwell)
THE GROWTH OF TOURISM is expected to provide opportunities and jobs for Jordan’s young people. But for some, particularly the Bedouin of the south, the opportunities it’s providing are not quite the ones anticipated.
"I’ve been in the tourism industry since I was 18," says Khalil Halalat, 29, a Bedouin who works as a tour guide in Petra and Wadi Rum. "I lost my virginity on my first trip, to a girl from Belgium. It happens a lot here: women from outside come to Jordan to pick up guys."
Since that first trip it hasn’t stopped, he says. "Just last week a woman from Belgium openly told me that she wanted the ‘Bedouin experience’-while stroking my leg. She followed me later, while I was getting into my sleeping bag, and told me she couldn’t sleep."
SharePoint Event Handlers 101 Screencast
For more articles about Event Handlers in this blog click here.
Presenting BI & SharePoint At Jordan SUG’s Community Night
Just had one super community night! NO, I’m not saying this because I was the speaker 
hehehe I had a rocking audience who had questions about everything. The session went on for 2 hours without any breaks! That was community spirit
The community night was about Business Intelligence & SharePoint, we discussed the following topics:
- What is Business Intelligence?
- Microsoft’s Business Intelligence Offering
- SQL Server
- SQL Server Integration Services
- SQL Server Analysis Services
- SQL Server Reporting Services
- Excel Services
- Business Data Catalog
- Key Performance Indicators
- Dashboards
- Report Center
Sharepoint Excel Services 101 screencast
For more articles about Excel Services in this blog click here.
Are you looking for the Northwind Database?
I’m planning on delivering a BI on SharePoint community night this June. Part of the session will be dedicated for a quick preview on SharePoint Business Data Catalog (BDC). In my quest in looking for a decent data source I stumbled into the Adventure Works database. It was not what I was looking for, way to complicated for the demo! I was looking for a simple data source and Northwind was the answer I started looking for it inside SQL Books Online, apparently Microsoft SQL Server team discontinued Northwind in the 2005 release and presented Adventure Works instead.
If you are like me looking for the Northwind database you can download it from CodePlex here.
Make sure to set the Compatibility mode of the database. Check the screen shots below.
Right click the Northwind database and click on Properties from the context menu.
Worst Telco Company in jordan
I never imagined myself writing such an Article about Jordan. Foremost we as Jordanians try to reflect a good image of our country to attract more investors and tourists. But enough is enough! after all If we don’t take serious actions or at least a stand towards bad customer service and experience the good image reflected will back fire at us! This post is dedicated to all Telco providers in Jordan specially Orange.
I will not start telling stories on behalf of other people, this is my story below:
I have a post paid subscription with Orange called Club 45 (most expensive VIP subscription). My bill was sent to me on first week of May. Since then I tried really hard to pay the bill with all suggested methods: visiting a branch or paying it online. I tried visiting almost all Orange branches in our beloved capital (Amman) but guess what, dozens of people are there before you making a huge queue. You keep on waiting and waiting 15, 20, 30, not even 45 minutes and still waiting. Not enough chairs to sit, bad air ventilation, no conditioning and people are sweating big time, high humidity, and on the top of that everyone’s mobile phone is ringing! I surrendered and went back to work. Next morning I wanted to play it smart, so I decided to go very early, did not even have breakfast just headed directly to their main branch. Guess what?!! A longer queue than yesterday! :-s I felt really frustrated! I tried getting in touch with Orange using their customer service number 1777 but no luck, either you keep on holding for 10 minutes and get automatically disconnected or you get disconnected being told that a long queue is ahead! I kept on visiting branches and trying to call them but no luck at all, as if they don’t want you to pay your bill, they just want to disconnect your line. 2 weeks later (that is today) my line was disconnected because I could not pay the bill, not because I don’t want to (even though the network coverage really sucks) but because they simply try not to facilitate the process. I was pretty much mad and furious, I went to the branch and wanted to get to a resolution, I need my mobile phone back, I can’t survive without it! After yelling and fighting my way through dozens of angry subscribers standing in the queue, a fresh graduate student was handling the customers. I explained my situation and she refused to let me pay the bill and she said I have to get back in the queue, After a big fight the branch manager pops in and sarcastically and with no respect he tells me if you are so busy try paying online using your credit card. hallelujah.. I felt saved! I did not wait to fight anymore so I called one of my colleges on my way back to work and asked him to pay it online. He calls me back after a while saying that their e-payment sucks and it crashes after you enter your credit card information. I was like maybe it’s Windows or Internet Explorer, after all we blame Microsoft for the half of our problems, luckily I had an Ubuntu machine back home, tried it, same thing, a CRASH.. Tried it on different browsers, same thing A CRASH!! I call them up and after waiting for almost 4 hours retrying every 15 minutes and holding with the representative for 10 minutes, he get’s back to me saying that the collections department will call me back in 5 minutes. I refused to hang up and said I’ll wait or transfer my call. But not use, had to hang up!
Absolutely, your guess is right, no one called not even after 2 hours! Again had to go through the painful process of waiting in queue, explaining the story to the call center guy again, holding on the phone for 10 minutes. Same answer the collections department will get back to me, i refused so I got transferred to the supervisor, had to tell the story again and also no answer.. They can’t confirm if they deducted the money so I have to wait for my friends bank statement to come up or listen to the supervisor’s advice: go to a branch, get a mobile chair like the ones used in camping trips, an extra battery for your laptop, a small fan to get some breeze, and a bottle of water. Is this an advice you get from a customer support supervisor!! I felt pretty much offended and mad.. So beside their bad network coverage, very expensive roaming charges, and their suicidal billing centers.. Their customer service is even worse! I can’t imagine how it is for non VIP subscribers or maybe they don’t even classify their customers!
Migrating All Posts Content from My WSS Blog to the New WordPress Blog
Following up on my previous post (Installation & Configuration of MySQL, PHP, WordPress on IIS 7 and Windows 7 using the Microsoft Web Platform Installer 2.0 Beta) it’s time to migrate my posts to the new blog. I had to sit back and think about a strategy. The question was: What is the common thing between blogs? hmm the answer was pretty much easy! RSS… yes! I can save my list RSS to my laptop and then upload it to my new WordPress blog. However, knowing the path is nothing like walking the path.
Exporting the WSS Posts
Of course you can go directly to your list and click on the Actions menu and select View RSS Feed.
The only problem is that RSS Feeds are setup by default to be generated for the past 7 days and with a maximum number of posts (25). First we need to change the settings to include all our posts by raising the maximum number of posts higher than the actual number of all our posts and to include the whole time period you have been blogging. Click on the list Settings menu and select List Settings.
Installation & Configuration of MySQL, PHP, WordPress on IIS 7 and Windows 7 using the Microsoft Web Platform Installer 2.0 Beta
Working with WSS is a lot of fun that is in the company… But I strongly disagree if you’re introducing it as a blogging engine. Don’t ask why? I have my own reasons, nothing on the professional level though, WSS Rocks! =) I think I just need a new flavor and an honorable escape from an expensive and slow WSS hosting.
The plan will be installing WordPress on my machine, migrating all my current blog content to the local WordPress, and finally upload my WordPress blog.
I thought since this is new to me and I bet it’s new to a lot of people that at least I share with you the installation/configuration of MySQL, PHP, IIS 7, and WordPress. Of course I’m running Windows 7 Beta to start with (hopefully this situation won’t cause any problems), so in order for me to install WordPress on my machine I can use Microsoft Web Platform Installer. Both the PHP and WordPress packages are available through the Web Platform Installer but MySQL will have to be done manually.
Part 1: Installing & Configuring MySQL Community Server on Windows 7 and IIS 7
To start with the installation process, first we need to download and install the latest version of MySQL Community Server: Under the download section look for the Windows installation package which you can find here. Remember that you need to download both the Windows Essentials Package and the MySQL Community Server release for Windows.
- Start the essentials setup wizard and choose the typical installation option.
Playing with SharePoint Custom Lists Using SPList Class (SharePoint Object Model)
As a developer you can access SharePoint content using either Microsoft.SharePoint.dll (SharePoint Object Model) or web services. In this post I will be discussing the access using the object model and in the next post I will explain it using web services and JavaScript as well.
Let’s elaborate together more about a Site Collection Structure:
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Summing up our theory: In order for us to access a custom list, we must first create 3 objects, one that points to the site collection that contains the site that contains the custom list; then create a second object that points to the site that contains the custom list, and finally a third object that points to the custom list.
Moving now to the fun part, In order for us to understand this more, let’s create a custom list with 2 fields: Shisha (Huka or Hubbly Bubbly) Flavor Name and Flavor Rating.
Now let’s creae a new webpart and call it Shisha Flavor Rating Form. We will use this webpart to add new list items to our custom list.
Presenting @ Info Edu Day: March 28th, I’ll see you there!!
I’ll be delivering 3 workshops:
- Establishing a Project Management Office in your organization using Microsoft Office Project Server and Microsoft Office Project Portfolio Server
- Leverage Enterprise Data Asset using Microsoft Business Intelligence (BI) Solutions
- Build a Self Service Portal using Microsoft Office SharePoint Server for the HR Department
I’ll be posting the source code and material used once we’re done with the event.
Microsoft Office SharePoint 2007 (MOSS) Data Protection & Recovery Explained
Before diving into SharePoint data protection and recovery practices, let’s elaborate a little bit about the levels of data recovery.
Logically we have 4 levels of data recovery:
- Content LevelContent stands for uploaded files, lists and web parts. This level is the most common and happens when users delete or update content then want to roll back or recover deleted items. Such scenario can be solved on the user level using the Recycle Bin, History Control, Closed Web Parts, etc.
- Sites LevelLoss of site availability because of deletion or data corruption. This will require the administrator to restore a site collection backup on some test server, export the missing site and import it back. The more frequent backup schedulers run the better data protection and accurate recovery you provide. Such scenario can be solved only on the administrator level using STSADM. SharePoint Designer 2007 can be used to conduct the export/import steps, but I prefer using STSADM all the way for faster access, no GUI, and no Mouse. I think black command screens and remote desktop pleads more to my administrative ego needs!
- Site Collections LevelLoss of site collections because of deletion or data corruption. This will require the administrator to restore a site collection backup directly. Loss of sites and content is something being dealt with on regular bases since generally it’s the users fault, but when it comes to Site Collections this will raise a question mark about what really happened and how. I’ve seen some SharePoint deployments that run on one site collection which unfortunately is a bad practice and risks the portal availability.
- Farm LevelHappens on hardware failure, database loss or by some meteor landing on your data center! The administrator will use Central Administration to restore a full farm backup. STSADM Catastrophic Backup /Restore operations can be used as well. This backup will include all applications, SSP, and configuration.
To wrap up check the diagram below (original diagram by Martin Kearn). I added annotations to help you understand more.
As a SharePoint guy I would recommend that you use tool for managing Data Protection and Recovery such as: Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager 2007, DocAve Backup and Recovery for SharePoint and Quest Recovery Manager for SharePoint. Handling backups your self is a big responsibility, however if you come from a corporate environment you’ll be stuck in a 6 months purchase order and enroll in a politics major league with the operations team, then I would strongly recommend to lose the headache and use available tools like STSADM and SharePoint Designer.
Content Level Data Recovery
Using XML HTTP Request in Javascript to parse any text, html or xml files on a remote location over HTTP (MOSS Example)
We all met the "View Source" functionality in browsers. You just right click the page, and click on "View Source"; Notepad (most probably) will launch up and display the page markup. If you are using a server side technology like ASP.NET, you will only get the HTML markup that renders the page in the browser. You will not be able to see any source code even if it is in-lined.
What if you want to read the HTML markup to a variable in your script? e.g. let’s imagine that you have this complicated custom list. Users will need to read a small write up before they start using it. On your first visit, the list should be hidden and the write up will be displayed. Once you create your first item, the write up will disappear. The write up will not be displayed in any future visits. (Sorry had to add the MOSS flavor)
Approaching a solution is simple:
To be able to load the page markup into Javascript we use a XML HTTP Request. Having XML in the name does not limit its usage to XML files only, it can be used over any raw text file e.g. HTML files. However, we can’t use it with binary files.
Configure SharePoint to Import the Entire Forest to your SSP Profile Store
By default SharePoint imports the users from the current domain (domain which the SharePoint server is joined to). But if you work for a big corporate you might need to create more domains in your forest. Most practices will answer that with an Extranet, I would answer with: Import the entire forest
Extranet’s are excellent practices, however the need provisioning, planning, and proper change management. I would encourage this approach if I want to share my information with partners and clients, but when it comes to internal parties I don’t.
To import the entire forest to your SharePoint profile store follow the following steps:
- Browse the SSP site using this URL: /ssp/admin">/ssp/admin">http://<portalname>/ssp/admin, you will need a farm administrator user account to be able to login. Then click on User Profiles and Properties under the User Profiles and My Sites section.
- Click on Configure Profile Import under Profile and Import Settings.
SharePoint Training for None IT People, Part 3
Calendars
Navigation
We can navigate through the calendar by days, weeks, months, and years.
You can use the calendar for appointments, milestones, etc..
To open an existing event on the calendar, just click on it.
Managing Items
Adding New Items
To add a new event to your calendar, click on the New menu and click on New Item.
Updating Current Items
To update the event, click on it in the calendar and the click on Edit Item.
SharePoint Training for None IT People, Part 2
Back to you with the second part of the training. In this part I will be covering document libraries. It took me a while to just try and simplify things as much as possible from an IT perspective, or as one of my colleges used to say: “Take of the technical cap and wear the business cap”. Anyways it did not mean any sense to me then and now! hehe
Document Libraries
Think of them as a repository for documents. Documents can’t live anywhere else in the portal.
Creating New Documents
To create a new document click on the New menu and click on New Document. You can store various types of documents there. For this guide we are using only one document type.
Creating Folders
You can create folders and sub folders as well and store the documents in them. To add a new folder click on the New menu and click on New Folder.
SharePoint Training for None IT People, Part 1
One of my responsibilities is delivering SharePoint training to other departments. They just need to know what they are planning to use, no more or less! You can’t blame them for the fact that in Tatweer everyone is trying to outperform, yields they’re totally swamped with work I love this culture, every IT person does, after all we’re work 24/7. Anyways all MOCs out, manuals, end user toolkits does cover more information than they need and I don’t want to waste either my time nor theirs. So I started this manual over weekends, where I explain a bit on what I believe they really need. I’m done with the first part and would love to share it.
Looking Around
Probably this would be the first time you see SharePoint, We will be looking around the environment and exploring one component at a time. Let’s start with the Navigation then move on Web Parts.
Top Menu
Channel 9 Desktop Buddy
This idea is from jsampsonPC’s C9Guy Desktop Buddy and leighsword’s C9 Buddy(With Source). I wrote it in 2 hours and I believe it’s worth seeing. The ZIP file contains the C# source code and the application. I tried to comment as possible so you can be able to understand it.
Whenever there are new videos, the buddy will go out from the right corner with an alert sound. I faced some problems with loading the RSS feed to the dataset, but got over it using XSLT, I got the solution from Bruce Johnson’s SOA(P) Box Blog. It took me a while to understand the feed and manipulate with it.
Defining Volatile Function Cache Lifetime in Excel Web Services
Sometimes you might need to configure the cache lifetime of the calculated values to days, hours, or to be handled during the session. This really depends on how frequent your users update the data. Some of my users change the data weekly and some they want the data to be recalculated every time to view the workbook. Unfortunately cache lifetime is not set per workbook but instead on each Trusted Location.
To configure cache lifetime, follow these steps:
- Launch your Central Administration site from the start menu
- Browse to the SSP site
- Under the Excel Services Settings click on Trusted file locations
- Open any of your Trusted Locations by clicking on it and scroll down to the Calculation Behavior section.
The default value is 300 seconds.
Enable Windows SharePoint Services usage logging
To enable usage logging we have to go over 3 sections:
- Enable usage logging for the farmLaunch the Central Administration site and click on “Operations”. Inside “Operations” click “Usage analysis processing” under “Logging and Reporting” section.
In the “Logging Settings” make sure to check “Enable logging” and specify the path of the log file. Move on to the “Analysis Processing” section and check “Enable usage analysis processing” and select a time on where you want to run the process.
- Enable usage reportingLaunch the Shared Services Provider (SSP) and click “Usage reporting” under “Office SharePoint Usage Reporting” section.
In the “Processing Settings” section make sure to check “Enable advanced usage analysis processing”. Furthermore, make sure to check “Enable search query logging” under “Search Query Logging” section.
- Activate usage reportingFinally after usage reporting is enabled for we must activate the reporting feature. To do that, we have to go to the Main site settings from the “Site Actions” menu. Click “Site collection features” under “Site Collection Administration” section. Now On the Site Collection Features page, click the Activate button for the Reporting feature.
Rendering Excel Sheets with Excel Web Services and Excel Web Access
Went through this in work, just thought I would share it
Let’s start by creating our Excel sheet.
Nothing fancy, couple lf KPIs pull me back on track. Looks like I’m doing well with the games part! hehe
Now after creating the Excel sheet, we need to upload it.
Let’s create a Document Library and place it there.
To continue with this, let’s make sure we understand how Excel Services works:
Conflict Between HTTP IIS Custom Errors and IE 7 Friendly Error Messages
There are times when you need to use your own custom error messages not the default IIS ones. In my case, I wanted to use it for redirection, assume that you want to tell IIS that if it gets a request like http://i-bander.com/, http://i-bander.com/subsite/, or http://i-bander.com/subsite/subsite/somepage.aspx to redirect to http://i-bander.com/newsubsite. At first when I thought of it, I was hmm, we can defiantly use the Refresh meta tag. But it would only work on http://i-bander.com/ and each virtual directory you set the redirection HTML file in. I know it’s not efficient and dah! Super static! I won’t keep on yada yada, SharePoint itself does not have the sites as virtual directories, and instead they are all virtually stored in SQL Server.
My best bet at the time was utilizing "HTTP 404 – File not found", "HTTP 403 – Forbidden", and "HTTP 401 – Unauthorized" IIS error messages.
Edit the HTTP Error, and place the fully qualified path of your error message HTML file, or in my case the HTML file with the Refresh Meta tag. Don’t start being a smart ass and say, I can use URLs instead, it’s true, BUT some errors won’t be able to use URLs so you don’t want to get stuck in having multiple routs, ones with a HTML file and others with URLs.
Duplication in Alert E-Mails
It started with this Document Library that contains important documentation. A group of people should be subscribed to it and alerts should be sent whenever documents where added, modified, or deleted. That’s the easy part. I used the “Alert Me” in the “Actions” menu of the document library.
More libraries where added to the site and more alert subscriptions where requested. I bumped into the problem were I don’t know if the user is actually subscribed to the alerts. Every time I go on and browse the “Alert Me” page and I get an empty users field! Ironically if you add the user again, he will get another alert, and if added another time, he will get it 3 times! The same alert email.
In the Settings page, we have a “User Alerts” management functionality which shows each user subscriptions to what document libraries, so if you have duplicated alerts, this is the place where you can delete them.
After deleting the duplicates, the user will only get 1 alert per each document library. You have to take into consideration that “User Alerts” management covers document libraries/ lists per site level, yields you have to go to each site settings and delete the duplicates.
Where did the Navigation link in the Settings page go?
Sometimes I used to get confused big time about this. I had sites that had "Navigation" management and others that had the annoying stupid "Tree view, Top link bar, and Quick Launch" in Site Settings.
To get the "Navigation" management back again in your site, go to Site Settings, Site Collection Features, look for the "Office SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure" feature and then activate it.
You get this feature with SharePoint, it is not available over WSS 3.0. Yields, if you are planning to develop a site that will be then deployed to an Internet box running WSS 3.0 only, you should take this under consideration. Because when moving the site to the Internet box, the site navigation will be duplicated. This is caused because with the feature, all links were generated dynamically, and on the new box without this feature, links will be recreated. I can assure you it will be a mess, because you have to go to the Top link bar management, and the Quick Launch removing the duplicated links one by one.
My advice to you, if you are planning to deploy a site on a WSS box instead of a SharePoint box, make sure you don’t use any SharePoint features or use the WSS site templates.
Removing the SharePoint Sign In Link
Once I was asked to remove the Sign In link and deploy the site over the internet. Removing that link was easy, I simply opened the master page and removed the “wssuc:Welcome” control. I ran into a speed bump, how will the content manager be able to sign in and populate content and then sign out?
After digging for a while in the _layouts folder, I found out that the Authenticate.aspx will pop out the IIS windows authentication dialog and the SignOut.aspx will simply sign the user out.
For example,
Will pop out the sign in dialog
First Google Office Screenshot!
The very first screenshot of Google Office leaked to the web. See it here first!
Office Developer Live!
Do you want more power behind your Office-based applications? Check out Office Developer Live!: Master Office Application Development, your pain relief for application development. This series shows you how to build forms using Microsoft Office applications like Word and Excel—the most familiar user interfaces in the industry—that are quick to write, secure, and easy to manage, maintain, and deploy. Learn how to design and write smart client applications, access the Microsoft .NET framework, debug, write managed code, and design Excel and Word-based user interfaces directly from the .NET 2005 IDE using Visual Basic or C#.
AJAX and Atlas recorded MSDN webcast!
How can you take advantage of Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX) in your enterprise Web applications? Which solutions could benefit the most from AJAX capabilities? How does AJAX relate to other solution models like smart clients and traditional Web applications? In this webcast, we address these questions with an overview of ASP.NET code name "Atlas," a free AJAX-based framework from Microsoft. Learn about the capabilities of the "Atlas" framework, and see demonstrations and sample code that illustrate what is involved in implementing an "Atlas"-based solution. We conclude with a look at how "Atlas" compares to other solution models, and recommendations on choosing the best approach for different scenarios.
To register: http://mseventsmicrosoft.com/cui/WebCastEventDetails.aspx…
DotNetNuke vs. SharePoint, the big showdown
I’ve been meaning to do this blog for awhile and it’s a long one so better get a fruit flavored drink of your choice and curl up on the couch with your laptop for this one. Sorry, I do apologize for the rambling (and length) as this post has now encompassed a couple of hours of my time and I’ve been bouncing up and down the text like Tiger on crack. Caveat lector.
Terminology
One thing I want to stress as I go through this posting. I’ll use the term SharePoint throughout this post but it really will refer to both SPS and WSS capabilities. I’ll also use WSS and SPS where I talk about specific features so just keep that in mind as you fall asleep halfway through. Also note that most of this article discusses the current version of DotNetNuke (3.2.2 and 4.x) and SharePoint (SPS 2003 and WSS 2.0) but there’s mention of the v-Next flavors of SharePoint that will be coming with Office 12. I mention these because in some cases, they do level the playing field and create almost exact setups from what DotNetNuke has (for example with membership providers). So it’s a little hard to draw the comparisons without talking about it, but I’ll leave it as an exercise to the reader to draw your own conclusions given all data points. Hopefully it won’t be too confusing.
DotNetNuke
Microsoft introduced ASP.NET and people saw the potential, but they’re not completely sure about how to leverage it. Do we just rebuild our “classic” ASP apps using this new tool. What can we really do with it? Up until this point, anyone building a “portal” application would have done it manually. You all have done it because I’ve seen it time and time again. Corporate intranets built from ASP or even ASP.NET from the grass roots. I’ve even seen “web part” like implementations long before there were these funny doofers that people could drag and drop on web pages interactively.
Enter DotNetNuke. The amazing ASP.NET portal that spewed forth from IBuySpy. Okay, a super brief history lesson. Microsoft puts together a “portal” application to show off ASP.NET and it’s called IBuySpy, a fictional shop for purchasing spy type products (x-ray glasses, hidden microphones, that sort of thing). This app has a few key features showing off ASP.NET like being able to dynamically add “modules” to pages creating content, hide visibility based on membership, and provide simple site navigation (without having to manually edit pages to do any of this). IBuySpy is a starter kit and lets people build off it to create their own storefronts and portals. Life is good.
December 2002 rolls along and Shawn Walker forks the code, creating a VB.NET implementation with a few enhancements, and dubs it the IBuySpyWorkshop. The development community starts to froth at the mouth (as we often do with cool things) and thousands of downloads ensue (think Slashdot effect). It’s an immediate success and eventually evolves into it’s own product which is then renamed to DotNetNuke (this is a brief history, for a more concise one check out the DotNetNuke page or Shawn’s book). Since then, a few other forks have appeared all based off the IBuySpy codebase including Rainbow, etc. and I’m sure there are others. In any case, it’s a big hit and has some great features. Both DNN and SharePoint have a vast number of features where they align, and some other areas where they don’t. Let’s take a look at some of the differences and similarities and what makes each stand out.
Masdoom Rasmi
3al 3adeh nazel nam be hal omeh, bs this time a’7oko masdoom rasmi… most of my posts are oriented on small stuff, guys loving shawerma, or keaf ½ banat el ballad shayfeen 7alhom 3al fady o homeh ma3ateeb! hala2 today’s post is going to be about a bad habit that Jordanian’s developed through the years, let me simplify it 7ata netfaham o netla3 be outcome mo7taram…
hala2 ya jama3ah shaqfeh marqat, it’s either you whistle, or simply call her eash ya b6ah, ya ‘7asseh or even ya karazeh, wila betshid sha3ratak o betdrob ele jambak, ya3ni lazim tet7arkash o etdwen 3leeha, as a part of this community I used to do that too, but in a nicer way, ya3ni e.g. “baqoolha esma3i 3eneiki 7elween, bs 3enik el yameen a7la min el shmmal!” ya3ni o talaween… most of the times you get a good simle, o ebta’7odlak babooj! Even el banat eza maraq shab, la ho wala 7ata ahlo beslamo, ya3ni ana mara wa7deh be2oly eash ya banoos ya abo kalabeez! Ana a’7dt-ha broo7 ryadyeh la2ny dayman bat7arkash bil banat…
The above humor is what we follow and try to keep up with in Jordan, what shocked me ino I got a confusing feedback from the other side, yesterday I went for a walk with my best friend and her sister 3ndna bil 7ara, o men tna7ty ro7et fata7et hal mawdoo3… el feedback ino girls hates such humor, o lama she smiles o heek betkoon 3m ebtetkafa el shar a3deh minshan tesebha bi 7alha! They told me that it sounds jnoon if they go for a walk, or eza nezlo 3a jabal el hussien, ya 7beeby hato hat 3lay et2olo jabal el 7ossen laly ‘7alafny! In the exact words one of the girls said: “nefsi yekoon m3 rashash o anzil o a6o’7 shabbab hal balad!” I replied: “ino malik ya binit enhabalti…” she replied: “ino jareb etkoon binit o tenzil 3a jabal el hussien menshan teshtry pants wila shirts, shoof sho beseer feek!” suddenly I felt their pain, at the beginning I thought eno 3ala 3adet el neswan el 7abeh qobeh, bs they told me stories shayabat rasy… 6b ya jama3ah el 7aky o yalla masheenah, bs oset el ba9ba9ah, 3eeeb ya e’7wan wala 3eeb, 6b et’7ayal wa7ad 3emil heek m3 o’7tak, ma ebtl3n emo 3a abo, hada eza 3alaqto min balash ne7ki…
B3raf fe menkom bs bedha el shabbab yeba9be9o, bs el majority banat 3alam o nas! I don’t want to take a lot of your time, in addition we all go to work, ya3ni stop wasting your time o 7alelo ratebkom… ana 3alay batalet zat el 7aky, wala eny batla3 dayman be nahfat.. bs for the most part I feel sorry for the girls, 3eeb ya e’7wan 3ala oset el ba9ba9a, balash menha… ostor 3a banat el 3alam allah bokra bostor 3a banatak… I knew that a minority does such acts, bs it turned out ino la shoffer taxi, wala 7ata control coseter ‘7a6 el bayader ela nazzel ba9ba9ah o qelet 7ayah! I will start with my friends, you start too, let’s work together on a better community!
The untold story about Shawerma and Jordanian guys, no wonder why local girls hate us?!!
As usual it’s 11:30pm, and we parked our car infront of karam share3 mekka eating 3arabi and drinking pepsi getting ready for a long night of trix or code hacking!
Men don deolt sere, I asked the guys a small question: “ya e’7wan, what do you think about shawerma’s culture?” I got some owsome replies such as it’s a must, or Microsoft should create a shawerma arabi theme for msn spaces! hehe, others replied that 6al3et el shabbab hay wel 3arabi is better than spending time with their girl friends, yeah it’s time for you girls to know, and as for my friends’ girl friends don’t ask me for names coz I won’t bettrey my own sheleh! =p
Back to Jordev culture, I think you have to read this, Jordeis are writing poetry about shawerma 3arabi rather about girls, it’s not about being geeky, it’s about being Jordanian more! hehe a2olkom, iza el shabab kolha betbasbes 3al banat, bs enroo7 nakol 3arabi, wala law tomro2 Haifa Wahbeh bil mayooo ma7adan feehom rafa3 3eeno 3n sa7noo…
Ma bedi to waste your time so I’ll make it short, Jordanian culture = 3arabi, yer7am banat el balad, hehe; anyways we are going for a group 3arabi dinner on Friday June 2nd, so if you are interested to join us reply to this post: http://www.jordev.net/Home/tabid/36/forumid/6/threadid/33…
If you are looking for the poetry and discussion written about 3arabi in Jordev forums, check this post, try to skip the first 20 replies =)
Akalna El Ma2loobeh
Now back to the part were I’m totaly shocked men banat el balad, they support the idea of Queer theory, imagine, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queer It’s not like I’m against they idea of braking bounderies between the 2 sexs, it just really confuses me, in Islam we execute gays and lesbos, cultrly they are totaly rejected! further more they feel being abused and miss understood and they stick with the Feminism theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminism, come on! as a friend used to say: "OOOOOH PLEASE YA JAMA3AH!!" we have women ruling countries, leading political positions, and even 3ndna neswan shofeeeret taxai.. yalla 3ad.. and they keep on saying that they are mazaleeem! wala mafi mazloom el e7na!
Finally, I’m happy to say ino mush kol banat el balad heek, bs the majority are even much worse! allah wakeelkom betmaskano 7ata yetmakano! 7elweh betmaskano =P
Ma2loobeh
During our last camp in dead sea that is last thursday, my best friend T told me this wise line: "folan can be your next best friend for the fact that your current best friend which is me was a total stranger to you when you first met!"
I know 7aki falsafeh o bee3 jarayed, bs I went into a situation that I met this special person that for some reason I just keep contact with, and that’s weird! all my life people thought I was defish kteer o weke7 bs 3adi I belive ino el wa7ad lazim ekoon heek bil balad hoon; akeed mush kol il nas! anyways the thing is some times you meet a person and for no reason, bs heek men saba7o you think that he is going to be part of your life.
hala2 let’s skip el 7aki el mfalsaf and stick to the idea eno keaf banat il balad befakro! It’s a weird culture we live in here in Jordan, and I will tell you why in the next post, coz I have to run now, ma3zoom 3al 3asha, etfadalo!
Tips to negotiating your salary!
Great link here on negotiating your salary…Here is an excerpt:
"In a negotiation on your salary and benefits, DO NOT engage with someone who can say, “I’ll have to get back to you on that.” One of the keys to successful negotiation is that both sides have the same amount of thinking time."
Check it out.
Final Names for Windows Vista Performance Features
Windows PC Accelerators is the new term that encompasses Windows Vista’s new performance-enhancing technologies. The Windows PC Accelerators are:
- Windows® SuperFetch™
- Windows® ReadyBoost™ (formerly code-named “EMD”)
- Windows® ReadyDrive™ (formerly code-named “Piton”)
Windows SuperFetch™ is a memory management innovation in Windows Vista that helps make your PC consistently responsive by tracking what applications are used most on a given machine and intelligently preloading these applications into memory.
Windows ReadyBoost™ (formerly code-named “EMD”) makes PCs running genuine Windows Vista more responsive by using flash memory on a USB drive, SD Card, Compact Flash, or other memory form factor to boost system performance.
Example: Windows ReadyBoost™ is an easy way to make my computer feel faster. I just put in a USB key and follow the instructions on the screen.
Windows ReadyDrive™ (formerly code-named “Piton”) enables Windows Vista PCs equipped with a hybrid hard drive to boot up faster, resume from hibernate in less time, and preserve battery power. Hybrid hard drives are a new type of hard disk that integrates non-volatile flash memory with a traditional hard drive.
Mixed feelings!
You know when people say that sometimes if though you are very good in something, still bad things will happen. Yesterday’s Momentom session went bad.. It was not one of my cool funny enjoyable sessions. maybe its the topic, maybe it is the audience, or maybe its just Lebanon! Let’s discard the Lebanon thing for the mean time for the fact I delivered 2 sessions in the Office Readiness event and 1 Community Night for Lebdev and they were extra successful. Yesterday’s session was boring I totally agree, but with whom? I mean I found it boring but the session got an average 8/10 from attendees feedback.. That is really weird.
Let’s go back now to the fact that why I blamed Lebanon in the first place. The night before Momentom I had already washed my clothes at a friends place so I just needed to press them, but life is not easy, it’s like when you decide to press your clothes you are willing sin! Guess what?!! the iron was not working properly and I burnt my first shirt! ouch =( hala2 so I told him that we have press them somewhere else, say his parents house for example and he agreed. It was 12:30am by then, we started the car and cruised, tak tak taaaaaaak! they care stopped working, we ran out of gas! yields we parked the car and started walking looking for a gas station, finaly we found one, got some fuel and back to the care and to Sacha’s parent’s house, now the sarcasim goes, guess where they put the iron, somewhere near there bed. buy the it was almost 2:00am so we won’t risk waking them up, 3eeeb sa7? Another factor was bugging us too, hala2 regardless ino kan 3andi event the next day, o ino I don’t have clothes to wear, hunger was killing me. So we went to a place called “Breakfast to Breakfast” in Saseeen Yard and got some food and back to his place were I placed a peace of wet cloth on my shirts started pressing, it was 3:00am. finally finished pressing at 3:30am and went back to the hotel at 4:00am. toke a shower and shaved!! now it’s 5:00am and I’m dead asleep. and rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrring its my alarm clock, it was 7:00am, now with 2 hours sleep and a lousy night like that I realized ino It cant go anyworse, can it?
Thank god it didn’t!
I’ll post couple of videos I recorded during Momentum on my blog soon. =)
peace and happiness!
Forcing Glass on Non-WDDM Compatible Cards
WARNING: This tweak may cause a blue screen loop or constant flicker depending on your video card. Use with extreme caution.
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From the Start menu, click All Programs and then expand Accessories.
Right click on “Command Prompt” and click “Run as Administrator”. -
Click on “Allow” from the Windows Security dialog.
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In the Command Prompt window, type “regedit” (without the quotes) and press Enter.
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Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsDWM (if this key doesn’t exist, create it)
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Create a new DWORD (32-bit value) of UseMachineCheck, and set its value to 0.
Vista 5308: Disable DEP / NoExecute Protection to fix random explorer crashes
I’ve had it, offft! Vista just keeps on crashing, If you have the same problem I’d relate it to the no execute protection thing, why? the answer will come: "It’s a Beta version man! chill out" hehe
hala2 due to the way Windows Vista’s boot editor has been created, it is now harder to disable DEP / No Execute Protection. However, after some amount of googling, it would seem that some of the random Windows Explorer crashes that users are experiencing is caused by this technology. You will need to disable it and reboot, which should cure some of the crashes:
- Click Start, All Programs, Accessories, right click on “Command Prompt”, and click “Run as administrator”.
- If asked for permission to run Windows Command Processor, click on Allow.
- At the command prompt, type in “bcdedit.exe /set {current} nx AlwaysOff”.
- You should receive a message saying “Operation Completed Successfully”.
- Restart the computer, DEP / No Execute should now be disabled.
Working Smarter & Harder
I swear I’m not laying! wala…
I have 2 presentations to deliver, one about Windows Vista Sidebar Gadgets and the other one about Integration between Windows Work Flow Foundation, Office 2007 Server, and Excel 2007 Server!! Don’t feel sorry for me at least I like that part, presenting in a forign country, god I miss Jordan, I miss Barnie’s, I miss shawerma day3ah! mmm
OK OK now you can cry for me, hehe
Now the horrible truth, I have been training on BizTalk for 2 days now and I can’t just figure it out! What is the point?? I guess I’ll be able to answer this after fulfilling the training requirements.
Got to get back to my suicide training thing!
BizTalk BizTalk, I’m gonna get you!
