Dennis J. Bottjer | MVP ASP.NET

SharePoint Team Blog Announces SharePoint 2010 System Requirements

dbottjer — Mon, 11 May 2009 22:07:43 GMT

SharePoint Team Announces SharePoint 2010 Preliminary System Requirements

Highlights

The next version of SharePoint will officially be called SharePoint 2010. It was announced today that SharePoint 2010 will have the following system requirements:

SharePoint Server 2010 will be 64-bit only.
SharePoint Server 2010 will require 64-bit Windows Server 2008 or 64-bit Windows Server 2008 R2.
SharePoint Server 2010 will require 64-bit SQL Server 2008 or 64-bit SQL Server 2005.

This Upgrade Checker can be used to help ensure WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007 installations will easily upgrade to SharePoint 2010.

Pig and Chicken

dbottjer — Mon, 11 May 2009 21:17:08 GMT

Our project manager is getting her scrum master certification. She reminded me of the classic pig and chicken story. Here it is for the record:

A Pig is someone who has skin in the game. Mike Cohn aptly refers to the people in that role as, “Having their Bacon on the line.”

Pig roles are considered core team members. Performers. People who “do” work.

Get it?

I would consider the roles of both Product Owner and the ScrumMaster to be pigs on a team.

A Chicken is someone who has something to gain by the Pigs performing, but in the end, really do not contribute day to day to “getting things done.” Their “eggs” are a renewable resource, and many get laid (eggs that is).

I get asked the following question by many people when starting to use Scrum:

“Can I be a Pig and Chicken at the same time?”

No.

You cannot be a Pig and a Chicken at the same time.

Tulsa SharePoint Interest Group May Meeting

dbottjer — Mon, 11 May 2009 19:28:31 GMT

Date and Time:

Monday May 11, 2009 6pm - 8pm

Location:

Tulsa Community College Northeast Campus

3727 East Apache

Tulsa, OK 74115

Topic:

DotNetMafia.com's Corey Roth and Kyle Kelin go head to head debating the best way to provision content in SharePoint: using CAML or using the SharePoint Object Model. This no slides talk will compare and contrast the different ways of provisioning SharePoint sites, providing in depth code examples of each method.This is an informal discussion so please come with lots of questions. They will also be showing how to use the new SPSource tool available on CodePlex.

Speakers:

Kyle Kelin has four years of experience in web development using Microsoft technologies. Kyle has built web applications across multiple industries that include consumer electronics, travel, energy, and investment banking. Kyle is currently employed as a Senior Consultant at Infusion where his primary focus is SharePoint development and architecture. Infusion specializes in the architecture and implementation of enterprise-scale solutions for some of the world's largest banks and government agencies. Kyle a graduate of The Oklahoma State University. When Kyle is not developing he enjoys working out, martial arts, and drinking. Kyle is a member of the .NET Mafia (www.dotnetmafia.com) where he blogs about the latest technology and SharePoint.

Corey Roth is an Enterprise Consultant at Stonebridge specializing in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 in the Oil & Gas Industry. He has ten years of experience delivering solutions in the energy, travel, advertising and consumer electronics verticals. Corey has always focused on rapid adoption of new Microsoft technologies including Visual Studio 2008, .NET Framework 3.5, LINQ, and SilverLight. He also contributed greatly to the beta phases of Visual Studio 2005. For his contributions, he was awarded the Microsoft Award for Customer Excellence (ACE). Corey is a graduate of Oklahoma State University. Corey is a member of the .NET Mafia (www.dotnetmafia.com) where he blogs about the latest technology and SharePoint.

Please click here to RSVP.

Review of Dallas SharePoint Techfest

dbottjer — Fri, 08 May 2009 05:20:12 GMT

Dallas SharePoint TechFest 2009 Presentations Posted

Travis, Kari, Jim and I made it home late last night from the Dallas SharePoint TechFest. Our company SpringPoint was the only Managed Gold Partner from Oklahoma invited to participate and we did so proudly. We were able to attend the pre-event on Tuesday night where Joel Oleson delivered two great presentations. The first was particularly interesting because it explained the business value of www.Twitter.com. On Wednesday Jim (@wowjim) and I (@dbottjer) delivered our presentation “Enabling a Web Content Management Strategy - TDWilliamson.com under the hood.” Later that afternoon I presented again this time on “Simplify Business Processes - 12 Ways to Grow the Bottom Line with SharePoint.”

We had a great time attending and presenting at the first Dallas SharePoint TechFest. We would like to thank all those who attended our sessions. As promised our slide decks are available for download below.

If you liked out presentations please follow me on Twitter @dbottjer

Downloads Available:

Enabling a Web Content Management Strategy - TDWilliamson.com under the hood

Simplify Business Processes - 12 Ways to Grow the Bottom Line with SharePoint

Reference:

www.TDWilliamson.com

www.MySpringPoint.com

SharePoint Search Tips

dbottjer — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 05:23:22 GMT

Issue: How to prevent content such as list and document libraries from being indexed?

Solution:

Open the Advanced Settings for a SharePoint List.

Check the “No” for “Allow items from this document library to appear in search results?”

Note: SharePoint’s Object Model can also be used to programmatically set the list’s NoCrawl Property to false.

Additional Information:

Follow me on twitter @dbottjer

Manipulating SharePoint Lists with Code

403 Error When Accessing searchspsettings.aspx

Cannot Configure Crawling Schedules for MOSS 2007 SSP Content Sources

Special Recognition:

Walter Mosscrop for researching and making sense of some difficult SharePoint search issues.

Technorati Tags: SharePoint,SharePoint Search,SharePoint Search NoCrawl

Why Silverlight?

dbottjer — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 04:56:11 GMT

Why Silverlight? What is Silverlight?

Version 3 of Microsoft Silverlight is on the horizon and there are still some misconceptions regarding why Silverlight exists. Before answering the “Why Silverlight” question we need to understand what Silverlight is. Silverlight, is often compared to Flash because of its vector graphics and animation capabilities. However, Silverlight also provides access to a subset of .NET Framework Base Classes. So this means that complete applications can be developed using Silverlight, with various concerns separated into layers.

Silverlight Provides:

Compiled Language Support (VB.NET, C#, etc.)
IDE Debugging
SEO – Deep Link Formatting
Out-of-Browser Support
- Offline API
- Sandbox

Silverlight would be a good fit for teams building rich internet application on ASP.NET Platform with experience using Visual Studio and writing .NET Code.

Summary

Consider Silverlight if your team already leverage ASP.NET and/or Visual Studio

Consider Silverlight for added Search Engine Optimization Value

Consider Silverlight to build a layered rich internet application.

Additional Information:

Follow me on twitter @dbottjer.

Resources:

Silverlight Frequently Asked Questions

Microsoft Official Silverlight

Technorati Tags: Silverlight,Rich Internet Application

Automated Web Testing with Visual Studio 2008

dbottjer — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 01:32:03 GMT

Tulsa Developers User Group | Automated Web Testing with Visual Studio 2008 (Review)

Corey Roth presented tonight on automated web testing with Visual Studio 2008 at the Tulsa Developers User Group. Visual Studio can be used to record an action such as logging into a web application. Alternatively, users can inspect screen values for specific results. The test would pass if the expect value is present and fail if the value is missing. Visual Studio must be installed to execute the tests.

A tests project actually generates .NET Code (C# or VB.NET). The tool can also be used to show raw header information and cookies. One drawback is that only Internet Explorer is supported.

Additional Information:

Follow me on twitter @dbottjer

Technorati Tags: Web Automated Tested,Tulsa Developers User Group

News: Windows 7, Sharepoint Designer

dbottjer — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 17:06:34 GMT

Window 7 Release Candidate Due April 30th

Windows 7 Release Candidate is expected to be available for download through MSDN and TechNet on April 30th, 2009.

Ref: Windows Team Blog - Windows 7 Release Candidate Update

Also Of Interest:

The Windows 7 team also comment how “At the peak of the feedback cycle, we were receiving a “Send Feedback” report every 15 seconds for an entire week.”

SharePoint Designer now Free!

As SharePoint continues to increase in popularity, Microsoft announced SharePoint Designer is now available as a free download.

SharePoint Designer Free Download – Requires Live ID

Other Stuff:

Follow Me On Twitter (@dbottjer)

Technorati Tags: SharePoint Designer Free,Windows 7 RC

Event: Tulsa .NET User Group April 27th Corey Roth on Automated Web Testing

dbottjer — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 15:42:02 GMT

When: April 27th, 2009

Where:

TCC (Tulsa Community College) Northeast Campus

3727 East Apache

Tulsa, OK 74115

918-594-8000

Intro Presentation:

Geek Speak: How Geeks Can Communicate with the Rest of the Business World

Business Presentation Strategist Shari Alexander is going to share with use the secrets behind successful presentations. She will help you become more persuasive and influential in your communications and, more importantly, show you how to create a technical presentation that doesn't make your listeners' heads hurt. Come and learn the speaking skills that will help you make a positive impression on your clients and supervisors.

Shari Alexander is the founder and president of Presenting Matters, LLC, a business presentation consulting firm. She has works with executives, international speakers, along with other organizations and individuals that want results-driven business presentations.

Shari started out as an actress at a young age. She carried her passion to college, where she was a theatre major. She later gained extra training at the University of London and studied under directors from the Globe Theatre. She then ventured into an actor's life. It was then that she soon realized the term "starving actor" was meant to be taken literally.

Shari founded Presenting Matters when she discovered her unique ability to combine her theatrical background with a marketing perspective and influential communications. This is how she has helped so many organizations increase revenues, productivity, and employee morale. She is now a professional speaker, corporate communications consultant, and speech and presentation coach.

Shari has been named the 2007 Emerging High Impact Professional Speaker by the National Speakers Association-OK and one of the 2008 Tulsa Top 40 Under 40. Her articles on effective presentations and communication have been published internationally. Her clients have included an front-line sales associates and entrepreneurs to Emmy Award Winning executive and an ESPN announcer.

Main Event:

Speaker: Corey Roth , an Enterprise Consultant at Stonebridge specializing in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 in the Oil & Gas Industry. He has ten years of experience delivering solutions in the energy, travel, advertising and consumer electronics verticals. Corey has always focused on rapid adoption of new Microsoft technologies including Visual Studio 2008, .NET Framework 3.5, LINQ, and SilverLight. He also contributed greatly to the beta phases of Visual Studio 2005. For his contributions, he was awarded the Microsoft Award for Customer Excellence (ACE). Corey is a graduate of Oklahoma State University. Corey is a member of the .NET Mafia (www.dotnetmafia.com) where he blogs about the latest technology and SharePoint.

Corey will present on Automated Web Testing with Visual Studio Team System 2008 Test Edition This no slides talk will show you how to record and script testing of your web application using Visual Studio Team System 2008 Test Edition. You will learn what kind of web applications you can test and what kind of validation rules you can use. This is a great talk for any developer or tester that wants to automate everyday repetitive testing tasks.

Comments:

Shari is an amazing presenter with such passion. This session should not be missed and her tips are of value to anyone in our industry. I have seen Cory speak several times and he is the real deal. Cory has much real world industry experience and it comes through in his talks,.

-Dennis

RSVP Here

STL Moss CAMP 2009 Review

dbottjer — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 04:44:04 GMT

SharePoint | St. Louis MOSS Camp 2009 Reviewed

After running into Becky Isserman at almost every SharePoint event this year, I finally had the chance to attend her “Dazzling SharePoint with Silverlight” presentation. In her presentation she demonstrated how to use tools such as blend and designer from expression suite.

What I learned:

Install MOSS / WSS SP1 and Infrastructure Rollup before using Silverlight within SharePoint
Recommended resource: www.Silverlight.net
Silverlight cannot reference the SharePoint object model directly
Silverlight only supports basicHttpBinding and services should be called asynchronously

I also attended Tiffany Songvilay session “Case Study: How Energizer Trained Users to Change.” Tiffany is such an energetic speaker and kept the audience engaged the entire time. The presentation offered some great tips for gaining end user buy in for large SharePoint deployments.

Mark Rackley (http://www.twitter.com/mrackley) Live Blogged most of the event and presented.

Special thanks to Matt Bremer and crew for organizing such a great event.

Related Items:

St. Louis MOSS Camp 2009 Pictures

St. Louis MOSS CAMP SharePoint Performance Presentation

Technorati Tags: St. Louis MOSS Camp,SharePoint Silverlight,Becky Isserman,Tiffany Songvilay,Mark Rackley,Matt Bremer

SharePoint Performance Talk At MOSS Camp

dbottjer — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 14:29:41 GMT

MOSS Camp 2009 Presentation | 12 Tips for Improving SharePoint Performance

I’m speaking this afternoon at the St. Louis MOSS Camp 2009. I’ll be giving my SharePoint Performance presentation “From Knee Jerk Reactions to Proactive Solutions - 12 Tips for Improving SharePoint Performance.” If you’re in the area please join us. There is a great group of speakers presenting today including fellow Tulsan David Walker and KC Office Geeks Leader Becky Isserman.

Hope To See you at MOSS Camp!

For More on MOSS Camp follow me on Twitter @dbottjer

Download Available:

From Knee Jerk Reactions to Proactive Solutions | A Dozen Tips for Improved SharePoint Performance (Presentation Slides)

How To Enable IIS Compression for SharePoint

Technorati Tags: SharePoint,St. Louis MOSS CAMP,Presentation

Talking SharePoint Best Practices with Spence Harbar

dbottjer — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 05:18:54 GMT

SharePoint Best Practices Chat with Spencer Harbar

Background:

I met Spencer Harbar (SharePoint MVP) at the 2009 MVP Summit. My friend AC introduced us. Spencer and Andrew both recently spoke at the European SharePoint Best Practices Conference. Spencer was kind enough to take a few minutes to chat about his slide deck he made available. The following is a transcript of our conversation:

Spence says:

http://www.harbar.net/archive/2009/02/19/sharepoint-best-practices-presentations.aspx

dbottjer says:

ok, so for SSP's

your saying that a common myth is that the SSP should be on a deadicated box?

even in a load balanced situation

I've always done what I think you’re suggesting which is place on all web front ends.

Is that correct?

Spence says:

yeah

so that's basically what i am saying

you have no choice but for the SSP Admin site to run on all WFEs

because it's a regular Web App

it's not possible to have it on a specific box

dbottjer says:

ok, can you explain the statement “…placement of DCs is far more important instead of one dc for every three WFE.”

what do you mean by placement?

Spence says:

so this is how "far away" DCs are from the SP Farm

in other words you need a DC on the same subnet as the SP boxes

dbottjer says:

Spence says:

and forget about the whole 1 DC per 3 WFEs

don't get me wrong

if you have a heavy use SP Farm then you *MAY* need additional DCs

but as a general rule of thumb, there is no rule of thumb

dbottjer says:

So that recommendation is like a you can't go wrong with 1 DC for every 3 WFE but it is the no thought approach.

Spence says:

yup

it's bad advise

because often those machines end up doing nothing

dbottjer says:

how do you test stuff like that

Spence says:

stick it in a lab

and also measure in production

dbottjer says:

What tools to measure?

Spence says:

lsas.sys had a bunch of perf counters

authN requests a second and all that type of stuff

plus the usual CPU, Network, Vmem etc

dbottjer says:

so the magic number thing

This is something I've looked at myself

so take the 2000 items per folder

Spence says:

i feel a nightmare coming on

dbottjer says:

there nothing coded into SharePoint that says you can't go beyond it's just a guideline.

Spence says:

correct

dbottjer says:

but seems like 2000 comes up often

Spence says:

2k is the point where the performance of the *default view* begins to suffer

dbottjer says:

l2k is like a sweet spot and the default view is the key

Spence says:

as having 2k items displayed in a grid is really daft (in any platform)

yup

dbottjer says:

and it really has to do with iteration correct?

Spence says:

yup

that code is a managed wrapped for a COM component

u can have way more than 2k items in a list

it's just the view that causes problems

which is basically the same as if u had a asp.net form displaying 2k items from a DB on one page

without paging etc

Technorati Tags: SharePoint Best Practices,SharePoint Chat Spencer Harbar and Dennis Bottjer

Conclusion

Spencer I would like to again thank you for taking the time to answer my questions. I hope others will benefit from this posting of our chat.

Thanks,

Dennis

SharePOint: Excessive SPRequests Objects

dbottjer — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 22:23:29 GMT

Issue: SharePoint Sites may log “Excessive SPRequest Objects,” under normal use.

When I first saw this message I began thinking the worst… somewhere in our code we are not disposing of objects.

The Good News:

Well after some deeper research it turns out the “Excessive SPRequest Objects” message is often logged by SharePoint because "The default threshold to get the above warning is 8 - which is actually far too small for real life scenarios as we have seen that with navigation controls on your master pages you will for sure exceed this number".

Solution:

Modify the following registry key using RegEdit on your WFEs.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\HeapSettings

LocalSPRequestWarnCount = 50

Note: Create the HeapSettings Key and LocalSPRequestWarnCount DWord

Ref: http://blogs.technet.com/stefan_gossner/archive/2008/05/07/troubleshooting-spsite-spweb-leaks-in-wss-v3-and-moss-2007.aspx

Technorati Tags: SharePoint Excessive SPRequests Objects

Rad Editor AND the MOSS Image Manager

dbottjer — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 21:56:59 GMT

Configure the RAD Editor Lite to use the MossImageManager

The RAD Editor Lite is a common replacement for the out-of-the-box MOSS 2007 Rich Text Editor. The RAD editor is really quite feature rich. However, on a recent project we didn’t like how the RAD Editor was handling image uploads through the editor. After a little digging through some help docs we found out you can easily configure the RAD Editor to use the default MOSS Image Manager.

Solution:

To use the MOSS Image Manager you need to modify the ListToolsFiles.xml file under C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\wpresources\RadEditorSharePoint\4.5.3.0__1f131a624888eeed\RadControls\Editor

Note: The actual path might vary slightly based on the installed version of the RAD Editor.

Change the Image Manager option to MOSSImageManager.

Technorati Tags: SharePoint,RAD Editor Lite MossImageManager

Enable IIS 6 Compression for SharePoint

dbottjer — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 06:19:20 GMT

How to Enable IIS 6.0 Compression for SharePoint:

Microsoft’s Internet Information Server (IIS) has long support HTTP Compression. However, supporting and implementing compression are two different things. Many settings within IIS are easily configured from the IIS Admin GUI. Unfortunately, enabling and configuring compression is not supported through the GUI and requires editing the IIS Metabase. THe metabase can be edited manually or updated from a command prompt. The commands can be combine into the following script:

Script:

cd c:\inetpub\adminscripts

REM Turn On Compression
cscript adsutil.vbs set w3svc/filters/compression/parameters/HcDoDynamicCompression true
cscript adsutil.vbs set w3svc/filters/compression/parameters/HcDoStaticCompression true

REM Set Compression to High Level
cscript.exe adsutil.vbs set w3svc/filters/compression/gzip/hcdynamiccompressionlevel "9"
cscript.exe adsutil.vbs set w3svc/filters/compression/deflate/hcdynamiccompressionlevel "9"

REM IIS 6.0 Only

REM cscript.exe adsutil.vbs set w3svc/filters/compression/gzip/hcscriptfileextensions "css" "js" "asp" "exe" "axd" "aspx"
REM cscript.exe adsutil.vbs set w3svc/filters/compression/deflate/hcscriptfileextensions "css" "js" "asp" "exe" "axd" "aspx"

iisreset
pause

Recommendations:

File Extensions:

Consider Adding: “ascx”, “ashx”, “asmx” “xml”

Testing:

Test the various file extensions and compression levels. Perhaps start with a compression level of 7 to 8 or 9 after monitoring CPU utilization. The results of compression can be monitored using Fiddler.

Related Download Available:

Administration: From Knee Jerk Reactions to Proactive Solutions | A Dozen Tips for Improved SharePoint Performance (Presentation Slides)

Technorati Tags: Enable IIS 6 Compression

Dennis J. Bottjer | MVP ASP.NET

SharePoint Team Blog Announces SharePoint 2010 System Requirements

SharePoint Team Announces SharePoint 2010 Preliminary System Requirements

Highlights

Pig and Chicken

Tulsa SharePoint Interest Group May Meeting

Review of Dallas SharePoint Techfest

Dallas SharePoint TechFest 2009 Presentations Posted

Downloads Available:

Reference:

SharePoint Search Tips

Issue: How to prevent content such as list and document libraries from being indexed?

Solution:

Additional Information:

Related Posts:

Special Recognition:

Why Silverlight?

Why Silverlight? What is Silverlight?

Silverlight Provides:

Summary

Additional Information:

Resources:

Automated Web Testing with Visual Studio 2008

Tulsa Developers User Group | Automated Web Testing with Visual Studio 2008 (Review)

Additional Information:

News: Windows 7, Sharepoint Designer

Window 7 Release Candidate Due April 30th

Also Of Interest:

SharePoint Designer now Free!

Other Stuff:

Event: Tulsa .NET User Group April 27th Corey Roth on Automated Web Testing

Intro Presentation:

Main Event:

Comments:

STL Moss CAMP 2009 Review

SharePoint | St. Louis MOSS Camp 2009 Reviewed

What I learned:

Related Items:

SharePoint Performance Talk At MOSS Camp

MOSS Camp 2009 Presentation | 12 Tips for Improving SharePoint Performance

Download Available:

Related:

Talking SharePoint Best Practices with Spence Harbar

SharePoint Best Practices Chat with Spencer Harbar

Background:

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Spence says:

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Conclusion

SharePOint: Excessive SPRequests Objects

Issue: SharePoint Sites may log “Excessive SPRequest Objects,” under normal use.

The Good News:

Solution:

Rad Editor AND the MOSS Image Manager

Configure the RAD Editor Lite to use the MossImageManager

Solution:

Enable IIS 6 Compression for SharePoint

How to Enable IIS 6.0 Compression for SharePoint:

Script:

Recommendations:

File Extensions: