Not Fit For Print - Robert Bogue [MVP]

Andrew Connell, Indianapolis, August 26th: Building High Performance Features and Solutions on Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

Robert L. Bogue — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 08:27:00 GMT

I'm happy to announce that Andrew Connell of Critical Path Training has agreed to come to Indianapolis on August 26th (2009) to deliver his "world famous" session "Building High Performance Features and Solutions on Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007" to the SharePoint Users Group of Indiana (SPIN). If you've ever seen Andrew speak at a conference (Microsoft TechEd, SharePoint Connections, etc.) you know this will be a great presentation filled with tons of real world advice from the work Andrew has done with clients on large scale deployments of SharePoint. Andrew is perhaps best known for his Web Content Management expertise in the SharePoint platform but he's also a powerful developer. Andrew and I worked together with Paul Andrew on http://www.mssharepointdeveloper.com/ where any ASP.NET developer can get 10 sessions on the basics of developing for SharePoint for free.

The abstract he provided for this session is:

"Performance should be one of the top areas of focus on everyone's mind when embarking on a Internet facing Microsoft Office Server 2007 site. In this session we'll look at the built-in caching capabilities in the SharePoint platform, including disk-based and page output caching. In addition we'll take a look at various hot-button issues developers should be aware of when developing components for a public site built on MOSS 2007. Topics include object model techniques, how to properly manage memory in order to avoid the dreaded OutOfMemory exception, key sizing numbers to keep in mind when architecting your implementation and minimizing the page payload to speed up those page load times. After this session, you'll be armed with the power to create high performance and scalable solutions in MOSS 2007!"

If you're within three hours driving distance or so of Indianapolis I'd highly recommend you attend this meeting. The registration url is: http://spinaug.eventbrite.com/. The doors will open at 5:30 PM and the meeting will start at 6:00 PM. We've moved from our normal venue to accommodate a larger than normal attendance -- however, we recommend that you sign up early to make sure that you get your seat at this special event.

MOSS 2007 Field Guids, Internal Names, Display Names, and Types

Robert L. Bogue — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 08:31:00 GMT

On a project I'm currently working on I needed to do some translations between Guids, Internal names, and display names for some of the out of the box fields so I generated a quick tool that would dump the fields out with their GUIDs so I could do the translation quickly. The output is below for those who might find it handy.

GUID	Internal Name	Display Name	Type
246d0907-637c-46b7-9aa0-0bb914daa832	_Author	Author	Text
0fc9cace-c5c2-465d-ae88-b67f2964ca93	_Category	Category	Text
58014f77-5463-437b-ab67-eec79532da67	_CheckinComment	Check In Comment	Lookup
52578fc3-1f01-4f4d-b016-94ccbcf428cf	_Comments	Comments	Note
370b7779-0344-4b9f-8f2d-dc1c62eae801	_Contributor	Contributor	Note
6b4e226d-3d88-4a36-808d-a129bf52bccf	_CopySource	Copy Source	Text
3b1d59c0-26b1-4de6-abbd-3edb4e2c6eca	_Coverage	Coverage	Text
9f8b4ee0-84b7-42c6-a094-5cbde2115eb9	_DCDateCreated	Date Created	DateTime
810dbd02-bbf5-4c67-b1ce-5ad7c5a512b2	_DCDateModified	Date Modified	DateTime
2ea78cef-1bf9-4019-960a-02c41636cb47	_EditMenuTableEnd	Edit Menu Table End	Computed
3c6303be-e21f-4366-80d7-d6d0a3b22c7a	_EditMenuTableStart	Edit Menu Table Start	Computed
8a121252-85a9-443d-8217-a1b57020fadf	_EndDate	End Date	DateTime
36111fdd-2c65-41ac-b7ef-48b9b8da4526	_Format	Format	Text
26d0756c-986a-48a7-af35-bf18ab85ff4a	_HasCopyDestinations	Has Copy Destinations	Boolean
3c76805f-ad45-483a-9c85-7ac24506ce1a	_Identifier	Resource Identifier	Text
c101c3e7-122d-4d4d-bc34-58e94a38c816	_IsCurrentVersion	Is Current Version	Boolean
b835f7c6-88a0-45d5-80c9-7ab4b2888b2b	_LastPrinted	Last Printed	DateTime
43bdd51b-3c5b-4e78-90a8-fb2087f71e70	_Level	Level	Integer
34ad21eb-75bd-4544-8c73-0e08330291fe	_ModerationComments	Approver Comments	Note
fdc3b2ed-5bf2-4835-a4bc-b885f3396a61	_ModerationStatus	Approval Status	ModStat
1020c8a0-837a-4f1b-baa1-e35aff6da169	_Photo	Contact Photo	URL
2eedd0ae-4281-4b77-99be-68f8b3ad8a7a	_Publisher	Publisher	Text
75bed596-0661-4edd-9724-1d607ab8d3b5	_PublishingMigratedGuid	Migrated GUID	Guid
5e75c854-6e9d-405d-b6c1-f8725bae5822	_Relation	Relation	Note
edecec70-f6e2-4c3c-a4c7-f61a515dfaa9	_ResourceType	Resource Type	Text
16b4ab96-0ce5-4c82-a836-f3117e8996ff	_Revision	Revision	Text
ada3f0cb-6f95-4588-bb08-d97cc0623522	_RightsManagement	Rights Management	Note
034998e9-bf1c-4288-bbbd-00eacfc64410	_SharedFileIndex	Shared File Index	Text
b0a3c1db-faf1-48f0-9be1-47d2fc8cb5d6	_Source	Source	Note
c63a459d-54ba-4ab7-933a-dcf1c6fadec2	_SourceUrl	Source Url	Text
1dab9b48-2d1a-47b3-878c-8e84f0d211ba	_Status	Status	Choice
7841bf41-43d0-4434-9f50-a673baef7631	_UIVersion	UI Version	Integer
dce8262a-3ae9-45aa-aab4-83bd75fb738a	_UIVersionString	Version	Text
78be84b9-d70c-447b-8275-8dcd768b6f92	_Version	Version	Text
b0b3407e-1c33-40ed-a37c-2430b7a5d081	ActualWork	Actual Work	Number
7b016ee5-70aa-4abb-8aa3-01795b4efe6f	AdminTaskAction	Action	URL
93490584-b6a8-4996-aa00-ead5f59aae0d	AdminTaskDescription	Description	Text
cf935cc2-a00c-4ad3-bca1-0865ab15afc1	AdminTaskOrder	Order	Number
9d76802c-13c4-484a-9872-d7f9641c4672	Anniversary	Anniversary	DateTime
d3429cc9-adc4-439b-84a8-5679070f84cb	ArticleByLine	Byline	Text
71316cea-40a0-49f3-8659-f0cefdbdbd4f	ArticleStartDate	Article Date	DateTime
53101f38-dd2e-458c-b245-0c236cc13d1a	AssignedTo	Assigned To	User
f55de332-074e-4e71-a71a-b90abfad51ae	AssistantNumber	Assistant's Phone	Text
2aea194d-e399-4f05-95af-94f87b1f2687	AssistantsName	Assistant's Name	Text
67df98f4-9dec-48ff-a553-29bece9c5bf4	Attachments	Attachments	Attachments
3329f39d-70ed-4858-b8c8-c5237634bf08	AttendeeStatus	Response	Choice
61cbb965-1e04-4273-b658-eedaa662f48d	Audience	Target Audiences	TargetTo
1df5e554-ec7e-46a6-901d-d85a3881cb18	Author	Created By	User
e977ed93-da24-4fcc-b77d-ac34eea7288f	AutomaticUpdate	Automatic Update	Boolean
96226eed-ec6f-4f0e-add5-9cfe66a441a0	AutoUpdate	Auto Update	Boolean
e9359d15-261b-48f6-a302-01419a68d4de	BaseAssociationGuid	Base Association Guid	Text
7615464b-559e-4302-b8e2-8f440b913101	BaseName	Name	Computed
4f03f66b-fb1e-4ed2-ab8e-f6ed3fe14844	BillingInformation	Billing Information	Text
c4c7d925-bc1b-4f37-826d-ac49b4fb1bc1	Birthday	Birthday	DateTime
7662cd2c-f069-4dba-9e35-082cf976e170	Body	Body	Note
c7e9537e-bde4-4923-a100-adbd9e0a0a0d	BodyAndMore	Post	Computed
af82aa75-3039-4573-84a8-73ffdfd22733	BodyWasExpanded	Body Was Expanded	Computed
6547d03a-76d3-4d74-9d34-f51b837c0879	Business2Number	Business Phone 2	Text
344e9657-b17f-4344-a834-ff7c056bcc5e	CallbackNumber	Callback Number	Text
92a011a9-fd1b-42e0-b6fa-afcfee1928fa	CarNumber	Car Phone	Text
9ebcd900-9d05-46c8-8f4d-e46e87328844	Categories	Categories	Text
6df9bd52-550e-4a30-bc31-a4366832a87d	Category	Category	Choice
2a464df1-44c1-4851-949d-fcd270f0ccf2	CellPhone	Mobile Phone	Text
3881510a-4e4a-4ee8-b102-8ee8e2d0dd4b	CheckoutUser	Checked out User	User
6440b402-8ec5-4d7a-83f4-afccb556b5cc	ChildrensNames	Children's Names	Text
e52012a0-51eb-4c0c-8dfb-9b8a0ebedcb6	Combine	Merge	Computed
6df9bd52-550e-4a30-bc31-a4366832a87f	Comment	Description	Note
9da97a8a-1da5-4a77-98d3-4bc10456e700	Comments	Comments	Note
038d1503-4629-40f6-adaf-b47d1ab2d4fe	Company	Company	Text
27cb1283-bda2-4ae8-bcff-71725b674dbb	CompanyNumber	Company Main Phone	Text
034aae88-6e9a-4e41-bc8a-09b6c15fcdf4	CompanyPhonetic	Company Phonetic	Text
35363960-d998-4aad-b7e8-058dfe2c669e	Completed	Completed	Boolean
86a78395-c8ad-429e-abff-be09417b523e	ComputerNetworkName	Computer Network Name	Text
939dfb93-3107-44c6-a98f-dd88dca3f8cf	ConnectionType	Connection Type	Choice
3a4b7f98-8d14-4800-8bf5-9ad1dd6a82ee	ContentCategory	Content Category	Choice
c042a256-787d-4a6f-8a8a-cf6ab767f12d	ContentType	Content Type	Text
03e45e84-1992-4d42-9116-26f756012634	ContentTypeId	Content Type ID	ContentTypeId
b0204f69-2253-43d2-99ad-c0df00031b66	CorrectBodyToShow	Correct Body To Show	Computed
8c06beca-0777-48f7-91c7-6da68bc07b69	Created	Created	DateTime
4dd7e525-8d6b-4cb4-9d3e-44ee25f973eb	Created_x0020_By	Document Created By	Text
998b5cff-4a35-47a7-92f3-3914aa6aa4a2	Created_x0020_Date	Created	Lookup
58eb8694-8bd6-4f98-8097-374bd97ffec4	CustomContentTypeId	Content Type ID	Text
81368791-7cbc-4230-981a-a7669ade9801	CustomerID	Custom ID Number	Text
38269294-165e-448a-a6b9-f0e09688f3f9	Data	Data	Note
a9ea6e2d-bc5c-4ccc-bad8-8ddfe519710f	DataSource	Data Source	URL
24bfa3c2-e6a0-4651-80e9-3db44bf52147	DateCompleted	Date Completed	DateTime
ac3a1092-34ad-42b2-8d47-a79d01d9f516	DecisionStatus	Status	Choice
4ed6dfdf-86a8-4894-bd1b-4fa28042be53	Deleted	Deleted	Boolean
05fdf852-4b64-4096-9b2b-d2a62a86bc59	Department	Department	Text
9730102c-9470-4515-960e-6dfb2d89a68b	DetailLink	Detail Link	URL
59956c56-30dd-4cb1-bf12-ef693b42679c	DiscussionLastUpdated	Last Updated	DateTime
c5abfdc7-3435-4183-9207-3d1146895cf8	DiscussionTitle	Discussion Subject	Computed
f0218b98-d0d6-4fc1-b15b-aabeb89f32a9	DiscussionTitleLookup	Discussion Title	Lookup
dd83a5ed-83c5-47b7-823a-415c6ea1b8a3	DisplayFolder	Display Folder	Text
2fd53156-ff9d-4cc3-b0ac-fe8a7bc82283	DLC_Description	Description	Text
80289bac-fd36-4848-b67a-bc8b5b621ec2	DLC_Duration	Duration	Number
081c6e4c-5c14-4f20-b23e-1a71ceb6a67c	DocIcon	Type	Computed
4d54445d-1c84-4a6d-b8db-a51ded4e1acc	Duration	Duration	Integer
503f1caa-358e-4918-9094-4a2cdc4bc034	Edit	Edit	Computed
d31655d1-1d5b-4511-95a1-7a09e9b75bf2	Editor	Modified By	User
fce16b4c-fe53-4793-aaab-b4892e736d15	EMail	E-Mail	Text
e232d6c8-9f49-4be2-bb28-b90570bcf167	Email2	E-mail 2	Text
8bd27dbd-29a0-4ccd-bcb4-03fe70c538b1	Email3	E-mail 3	Text
8cbb9252-1035-4156-9c35-f54e9056c65a	EmailBody	Email Body	Note
32f182ba-284e-4a87-93c3-936a6585af39	EmailCalendarDateStamp	E-Mail Calendar Date Stamp	DateTime
7a0cb12b-c70c-4f99-99f1-a232783a87d7	EmailCalendarSequence	E-Mail Calendar Sequence	Integer
f4e00567-8a9d-451b-82d4-a4447f9bd9a5	EmailCalendarUid	E-Mail Calendar UID	Note
a6af6df4-feb5-4dbf-bef6-d81230d4a071	EmailCc	E-Mail Cc	Note
e7cb6f60-f676-4b1d-89a3-975b6bc78cad	EmailFrom	E-Mail From	Text
124527a9-fc10-48ff-8d44-960a7db405f8	EmailReferences	References	Note
4ce600fb-a927-4911-bfc1-11076b76b522	EmailSender	E-Mail Sender	Note
072e9bb6-a643-44ce-b6fb-8b574a792556	EmailSubject	E-Mail Subject	Text
caa2cb1e-a124-4068-9496-14feef1a901f	EmailTo	E-Mail To	Note
b9e6f3ae-5632-4b13-b636-9d1a2bd67120	EncodedAbsThumbnailUrl	Thumbnail URL	Computed
7177cfc7-f399-4d4d-905d-37dd51bc90bf	EncodedAbsUrl	Encoded Absolute URL	Computed
a1ca0063-779f-49f9-999c-a4a2e3645b07	EncodedAbsWebImgUrl	Web Image URL	Computed
2684f9f2-54be-429f-ba06-76754fc056bf	EndDate	End Time	DateTime
20a1a5b1-fddf-4420-ac68-9701490e09af	Event	Event Type	Integer
b8bbe503-bb22-4237-8d9e-0587756a2176	EventCanceled	Event Canceled	Boolean
5d1d4e76-091a-4e03-ae83-6a59847731c0	EventType	Event Type	Integer
6a09e75b-8d17-4698-94a8-371eda1af1ac	Expires	Expires	DateTime
1c5518e2-1e99-49fe-bfc6-1a8de3ba16e2	ExtendedProperties	Extended Properties	Note
7d95d1f4-f5fd-4a70-90cd-b35abc9b5bc8	fAllDayEvent	All Day Event	AllDayEvent
8fca95c0-9b7d-456f-8dae-b41ee2728b85	File_x0020_Size	File Size	Lookup
39360f11-34cf-4356-9945-25c44e68dade	File_x0020_Type	File Type	Text
56605df6-8fa1-47e4-a04c-5b384d59609f	FileDirRef	Path	Lookup
8553196d-ec8d-4564-9861-3dbe931050c8	FileLeafRef	Name	File
94f89715-e097-4e8b-ba79-ea02aa8b7adb	FileRef	URL Path	Lookup
78a07ba4-bda8-4357-9e0f-580d64487583	FileSizeDisplay	File Size	Computed
c53a03f3-f930-4ef2-b166-e0f2210c13c0	FileType	File Type	Computed
4a722dd4-d406-4356-93f9-2550b8f50dd0	FirstName	First Name	Text
ea8f7ca9-2a0e-4a89-b8bf-c51a6af62c73	FirstNamePhonetic	First Name Phonetic	Text
e9df93f4-7951-474b-8cc4-e240c2f5e600	FormattedGoal	Formatted indicator goal	Text
3366aae9-30a9-43f5-a2cb-1a6ee44e2ce4	FormattedValue	Formatted indicator value	Text
f53d350d-854e-4962-9318-89d56d30773a	FormattedWarning	Formatted indicator warning	Text
65572d4d-445a-43f1-9c77-3358222a2c93	FormCategory	Form Category	Text
78eae64a-f5f2-49af-b416-3247b76f46a1	FormData	Form Data	Note
1fff255c-6c88-4a76-957b-ae24bf07b78c	FormDescription	Form Description	Text
1a03fa74-8c63-40cc-bd06-73b580bd8744	FormId	Form ID	Text
96c27c9d-33f5-4f8e-893e-684014bc7090	FormLocale	Form Locale	Text
66b691cf-07a3-4ca6-ac6d-27fa969c8569	FormName	Form Name	Text
467e811f-0c12-4a93-bb04-42ff0c1c597c	FormRelativeUrl	Form Relative Url	Text
17ca3a22-fdfe-46eb-99b5-9646baed3f16	FormURN	Form_URN	Text
94ad6f7c-09a1-42ca-974f-d24e080160c2	FormVersion	Form Version	Text
f2e63656-135e-4f1c-8fc2-ccbe74071901	fRecurrence	Recurrence	Recurrence
30bb605f-5bae-48fe-b4e3-1f81d9772af9	FSObjType	Item Type	Lookup
d733736e-4204-4812-9565-191567b27e33	FTPSite	FTP Site	URL
9c4be348-663a-4172-a38a-9714b2634c17	FullBody	FullBody	Computed
475c2610-c157-4b91-9e2d-6855031b3538	FullName	Full Name	Text
23550288-91b5-4e7f-81f9-1a92661c4838	Gender	Gender	Choice
6e4b3aad-350d-42fa-bd61-d1de715b45db	Goal	KPI Goal Threshold	Number
4181b96a-3125-4f75-b823-3a4d675c6b19	GoalCell	Goal Cell	Text
20906227-d1c8-430c-989a-30a62e3e40b2	GoalFromWorkBook	Goal from workbook	Boolean
69ac2b6e-f626-49b4-b0cc-c2b9580e8719	GoalSheet	Goal Sheet	Text
da31d3c9-f9da-4c35-88d4-60aafa4c3f19	GovernmentIDNumber	Government ID Number	Text
c86a2f7f-7680-4a0b-8907-39c4f4855a35	Group	Group Type	Integer
ae069f25-3ac2-4256-b9c3-15dbc15da0e0	GUID	GUID	Guid
47f68c3b-8930-406f-bde2-4a8c669ee87c	HasCustomEmailBody	Has Custom Email Body	Boolean
a932ec3f-94c1-48b1-b6dc-41aaa6eb7e54	HeaderStyleDefinitions	Style Definitions	HTML
203fa378-6eb8-4ed9-a4f9-221a4c1fbf46	Hobbies	Hobbies	Text
8c5a385d-2fff-42da-a4c5-f6a904f2e491	Home2Number	Home Phone 2	Text
5aeabc56-57c6-4861-bc12-bd72c30fc6bd	HomeAddressCity	Home Address City	Text
897ecfd7-4293-4782-b463-bd68440a5fed	HomeAddressCountry	Home Address Country	Text
c0e4b4c6-6245-4846-8561-b8c6c01fefc1	HomeAddressPostalCode	Home Address Postal Code	Text
f5b36006-69b0-418c-bd4a-f25ca7e096bb	HomeAddressStateOrProvince	Home Address State Or Province	Text
8c66e340-0985-4d68-af03-3050ece4862b	HomeAddressStreet	Home Address Street	Text
c189a857-e6b0-488f-83a0-f4ee0a3ad01e	HomeFaxNumber	Home Fax	Text
2ab923eb-9880-4b47-9965-ebf93ae15487	HomePhone	Home Phone	Text
0c5e0085-eb30-494b-9cdd-ece1d3c649a2	HTML_x0020_File_x0020_Type	HTML File Type	Text
1d22ea11-1e32-424e-89ab-9fedbadb6ce1	ID	ID	Counter
4cbd96f7-09c6-4b5e-ad42-1cbe123de63a	IMAddress	IM Address	Text
a5d2f824-bc53-422e-87fd-765939d863a5	ImageCreateDate	Date Picture Taken	DateTime
1944c034-d61b-42af-aa84-647f2e74ca70	ImageHeight	Picture Height	Integer
922551b8-c7e0-46a6-b7e3-3cf02917f68a	ImageSize	Picture Size	Computed
7e68a0f9-af76-404c-9613-6f82bc6dc28c	ImageWidth	Picture Width	Integer
f6df49ec-807b-4d40-a7da-a17684121f92	IncludeHierarchy	Include child indicators	Boolean
26c4f53e-733a-4202-814b-377492b6c841	Indentation	Indentation	Computed
68227570-72dd-4816-b6b6-4b81ff99a393	IndentLevel	Indentation Level	Computed
7a282f86-69d9-40ff-ae1c-c746cf21256b	Initials	Initials	Text
50a54da4-1528-4e67-954a-e2d24f1e9efb	InstanceID	Instance ID	Integer
af5036db-36f4-46c8-bde7-a677bd0ef280	IsActive	Is Active	Boolean
a579062a-6c1d-4ad3-9d5e-035f9f2c1882	ISDNNumber	ISDN	Text
bd2216c1-a2f3-48c0-b21c-dc297d0cc658	IsRootPost	Is Root Post	Computed
9ba260b2-85a1-4a32-ad7a-63eaceffe6b4	IsSiteAdmin	Is Site Admin	Boolean
3f277a5c-c7ae-4bbe-9d44-0456fb548f94	IssueStatus	Issue Status	Choice
92b8e9d0-a11b-418f-bf1c-c44aaa73075d	Item	Primary Item ID	Integer
b824e17e-a1b3-426e-aecf-f0184d900485	ItemChildCount	Replies	Lookup
c4e0f350-52cc-4ede-904c-dd71a3d11f7d	JobTitle	Job Title	Text
b66e9b50-a28e-469b-b1a0-af0e45486874	Keywords	Keywords	Note
291aacda-4cfb-4d59-968b-5e2ea0c9eab7	KPI	KPI	Text
0121cb2b-4515-44f2-9d5a-0dcb3bf556aa	KpiComments	KPI Comments	Note
249a1c1a-5a3e-4173-abad-779b01892510	KpiDescription	KPI Description	Note
3c497036-038f-41db-aec7-c9849649b135	KpiStatus	KPI Status	Number
d81529e8-384c-4ca6-9c43-c86a256e6a44	Language	Language	Choice
173f76c8-aebd-446a-9bc9-769a2bd2c18f	Last_x0020_Modified	Modified	Lookup
fdc8216d-dabf-441d-8ac0-f6c626fbdc24	LastNamePhonetic	Last Name Phonetic	Text
fd3e3a59-bf10-4c99-b678-5dd7fcc6cb28	LastUpdated	Most recent indicator data update	DateTime
076193bd-865b-4de7-9633-1f12069a6fff	LessLink	Less Link	Computed
61b97279-cbc0-4aa9-a362-f1ff249c1706	LimitedBody	Limited Body	Computed
46045bc4-283a-4826-b3dd-7a78d790b266	LinkDiscussionTitle	Subject	Computed
3ac9353f-613f-42bd-98e1-530e9fd1cbf6	LinkDiscussionTitleNoMenu	Subject	Computed
5cc6dc79-3710-4374-b433-61cb4a686c12	LinkFilename	Name	Computed
9d30f126-ba48-446b-b8f9-83745f322ebe	LinkFilenameNoMenu	Name	Computed
03f89857-27c9-4b58-aaab-620647deda9b	LinkIssueIDNoMenu	Issue ID	Computed
1a03fa74-8c63-40cc-bd06-73b580bd8743	LinkTemplateName	Form Name	Computed
82642ec8-ef9b-478f-acf9-31f7d45fbc31	LinkTitle	Title	Computed
bc91a437-52e7-49e1-8c4e-4698904b2b6d	LinkTitleNoMenu	Title	Computed
f44e428b-61c8-4100-a911-a3a635f43bb5	List	List ID	Guid
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56747800-d36e-4625-abe3-b1bc74a7d5f8	LowerValuesAreBetter	Lower values are better	Boolean
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What is a Best Practice?

Robert L. Bogue — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 07:07:00 GMT

Recently I've been being bumped into by things that are claiming to be best practices. In some cases they absolutely are, and in other cases it's more questionable. As I'm preparing for a SharePoint Saturday event in Chicago this morning I'm wearing my speaker shirt from the SharePoint Best Practices Conference. (A conference where many best practices are indeed shared.) I'm skimming through blog posts and emails and I see a note from Eric Shupps about a "best practices" article (that isn't). I'm reminded of a recent conversation about an article in MSDN magazine titled "10 Best Practices for Building SharePoint Solutions" – which has some summarily bad advice, some poorly communicated advice, and a few nuggets that are helpful.

The articles above sparked a lot of conversation about whether the articles were really best practices or whether they were bad advice. Because the answer was so clear that there were things in them that were bad advice we quickly left the conversation about best practices. So quickly in fact that we didn't clearly articulate what best practices even are.

In the general software development improvement presentations I used to do I had a tendency to quote James Bach "There is no consensus about what practices are best, unless consensus means 'people I respect also say they like it.'" (No Best Practices: How to Think About Methodology). I like this quote because it reflects what most people think of as a best practice and points out the slippery slope that we're on when we're talking about best practices.

Dictionary.com has this definition for a best practice "a practice which is most appropriate under the circumstances, esp. as considered acceptable or regulated in business; a technique or methodology that, through experience and research, has reliably led to a desired or optimum result." That's a fine definition but it's not much help in the key problem – knowing whether something is a best practice or not. Before I go there, I have to pause and say one of the points that my buddy Ben Curry makes is that Best Practice may not be best for you – you should evaluate whether the "best practice" is really appropriate for your organization – that's an important point. The standard disclaimers should apply to all "Best Practices". (Your mileage may vary; past performance is no indication of future returns, etc.)

So how do you determine whether something is a best practice? You open it up to peer review. One of the great things about the way that the patterns & practices team is working on their guidance is that they solicit feedback from an advisory committee and anyone that wants to talk about a code drop that they make available. In my work with the SharePoint Guidance team I can say that the input from the advisors is critical to helping to determine what guidance is provided. They're careful not to call their work best practices, but the process they're going through in talking through various approaches and finding what seems to be the best is the right process.

From my perspective, what makes a Best Practice a best practice is that it has been vetted with industry experts and talked through. In the computer security industry it's expected that new cryptographic algorithms will be open so that they can be examined and tested by the industry. The same process should apply to best practices throughout the computer industry. We should raise ideas as potential best practices to have others validate or reject our perspective on the approach.

The really sticky part about this is that you have to communicate an approach that you think may be a best practice before you can be sure it's a best practice. In general this means that the person putting forward the idea should say something like "This is what I do because I think it's best" and should follow that with "Does anyone here disagree?" However, many folks want to skip the validation step. (How many developers do testing?) They want to believe their approach is the best practice and put it forth as a postulate. Of course, life is rarely this simple.

This leaves us with a simple challenge for anyone claiming best practices (thanks James) – "Who says it's a best practice, that I trust?" (or besides you). Thought of another way (thanks Ben) – "Who says this practice is best for my situation?" In either case, saying something is a best practice doesn't make it so. (Unless you implicitly trust the author.)

I should now fully disclaim that no one has yet said that this article is a best practice. If you want to participate in making this article a best practice, feel free to comment below on why this is (or isn't) a best practice for identifying best practices ;)

Central IL SharePoint Users Group

Robert L. Bogue — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 06:39:00 GMT

On Wednesday I had the pleasure of speaking at the inaugural Central Illinois SharePoint Users Group in Springfield. I did a topic called "Do You Know SharePoint." The deck is built around the idea that there are tons of things about SharePoint that most folks don't know. We talked about Content Types, Word, and QuickParts (get users to enter metadata without knowing it) and globally deployed site templates – and why they can be valuable sometimes.

With 35 people in attendance for an initial meeting the group is off to a great start. If you're interested in sponsoring or participating contact Darrin Bishop for more details.

Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, NAS, Samba, NTLMv2, 1326, and Why can’t I get in?

Robert L. Bogue — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 06:23:00 GMT

Sometimes my past comes back to haunt me. You see many moons ago in a land far away I wanted to learn about Linux. So I setup a server and ran it. I got to learn all about Samba and the ability to make Linux disks look like they were coming from a Windows file server. Back then I can loosely remember this problem with NTLM and NTLMv2. Windows in whatever flavor that it was didn't want to talk to Samba unless you hacked the registry. This particular fact was something that I let get buried over by new facts about SharePoint. However, that came back and bit me.

What some folks know is that many of the Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices, particularly on the low to middle of the market, actually run Samba underneath. Such is the case with the Thecus 5200Pro that I have here. I recently installed Windows 7 RC and the Windows Server 2008 R2 RC. Everything was going relatively well and then I realized that neither of them could see my NAS. That's bad. After some digging I started thinking about Samba because Thecus mentioned that their latest firmware upgrades the Samba version (to a well and truly out of date version of Samba). A bit of digging lead me to a message from Jim Pinkerton where he lays out the details of the issues related to connecting to Samba from Windows. If you want the cliff notes version, you need to set HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Netlogon\Parameters DWORD RequireSignOrSeal = 0.

What was my NAS doing when I tried to connect? Bad username or password. (Logon error 1326) Why? Because it didn't/doesn't understand NTLMv2 – and Windows was requiring it.

Honestly, I'm going to be very interested to see where this goes. I'm quite curious to see if all of the vendors using Samba for their NAS devices will support Samba.org to get the extra code in it to support all of the things in Jim's message – or if the project will slowly die because of a lack of support. In the mean time, I'm being a little less secure than I want to be.

Don't use LocalHost when Developing for SharePoint

Robert L. Bogue — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 18:30:00 GMT

In a recent situation with a client I was called into look at some problems that they were having making some web service calls and through a discussion I realized that the URL for the web service was hard coded to use localhost. On the surface this doesn't look like a problem. You know that localhost will resolve and it will point back to the same server. So what's wrong?

Well, SharePoint, because of its centralized management of multiple servers in a farm, by default uses host headers to determine which web application that a request should be routed to. A typical SharePoint server farm will have a few web applications (at least the main web application, central administration and a shared services provider.) So what happens when you hardcode a reference to localhost?

Well, on a local development server where there's really only one web site on port 80 and someone has gone in and manually added an entry into IIS to accept all requests on port 80 -- without requiring a host header or requiring local host -- everything works magically. However, when you get to a controlled environment which has multiple applications and the IIS entry hasn't been changed bad things start to happen.

First, the request isn't answered so someone adds allowing all requests without a matching host header entry to go to the web site. That makes the request physically go to the same server. However, doing this can make authentication information break.

So the second problem that's seen is that when you try to use the default network credential cache it doesn't work for the web service. This will either be the NTLM double hop issue or an issue with Kerberos and the application pool being trusted for delegation. Let's deal with the first situation with NTLM. Essentially for security concerns the credentials supplied by the user on one server can't be supplied by that server to a second server. I.e. we can't get off the same box with the credentials. I know you're saying that localhost isn't leaving the same box. However, from the perspective of Windows -- it might. You see localhost isn't really that special. It just happens that it's defined in the hosts file. Other than that it could be some other computer. (In fact you can map localhost to something other than the local computer if you want to -- but I wouldn't advise it.) What Windows sees is a request coming in on one URL (servera, for instance) and leaving on another. that's a double hop and it's blocked for NTLM traffic.

If you're using Kerberos and you're seeing problems it may be because the application pool account isn't trusted for delegation (in other words, it's not allowed to wrap credentials and send them on.) It's easy enough to trust the account for delegation -- but this creates a pretty large exposure area for that account and isn't generally something that should be the first choice.

So what's the answer? Simply, pick off the fully qualified host name off the current request and then manipulate the path to get to your web service. If you do this you stay on the same box (in the same application pool/application domain in most cases). This eliminates the double hop issue and substantially reduces the ways that Windows can get generally upset with your application from a security perspective.

So don't reference your web services via localhost -- if you want things to work.

[[ Note: I've framed this in the perspective of SharePoint, however, if you're calling yourself in any application you should do it from the URL the user used when you can. ]]

Article: Create Your SharePoint Governance Plan

Robert L. Bogue — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 22:23:00 GMT

It's been a while since I've written an article but this one at IntranetJournal.com is designed to help people understand the process I go through to work with folks on developing and maintaining a governance plan. It begins:

"One of the most common questions that I get from prospects as I'm talking to them about the creation of a governance plan and process is what does it look like. In other words, there are materials available which describe what should be in a governance plan but there isn't a ton of guidance on what the process of creating a governance plan and process are.

Unlike a few years ago you now have sample governance plans you can look at, there are articles describing the kinds of things that you need to make sure are in a governance document, and a governance resource center on TechNet.

The goal of this article is something slightly different. The other resources available describe what to create, in this article I'll focus on the process for creating the plan based on the engagements I've been a part of. Rather than a specific step-by-step process, what appears here is a rough framework that you can and should tailor to your unique situation. In the following you'll also find some insight as to the psychology of putting a plan together as well as the aspects of how we as humans learn and process information."

The full text is available at http://www.intranetjournal.com/articles/200906/ij_06_04_09a.html

InfoPath Pick Lists and Other

Robert L. Bogue — Sun, 31 May 2009 07:41:00 GMT

Recently I was trying to build an InfoPath form -- with the help of a form designer - -and we stumbled across a pattern that might be obvious for some, but it involves using multiple controls connected to the same spot in the in the data source. For instance, let's say that you have a city field but you want to help the users fill out the popular cities -- but new cities and towns are popping up so you don't want to have to have an up to date list. So you can do something like this:

You have a drop down list for the cities you know -- if they start typing InfoPath will start to locate the city. If they don't find what they want, they can select an entry from the list, OTHER (Specify). This (because of conditional formatting) will reveal the text box -- which is connected to the same spot in the data source. So here's what happens when they select OTHER (Specify). When they select it the secondary textbox shows up. When they type the value in and exit the field the property is copied into the data source and the conditional formatting for the text field will hide it again (since it doesn't say OTHER (Specify) any longer). And the drop down list will show the new value.

There is a problem with this approach. It only works for drop down lists that are based on a secondary data source not those where the values have been entered directly into the control. However, worst case you can base the drop down list on an embedded resource.

Why We Build WSPs and Option Explicit

Robert L. Bogue — Sat, 30 May 2009 21:46:00 GMT

Recently I got called in to look at something by a client and in a part of the process it became apparent that the developer hadn't created a SharePoint Solution (WSP) to deploy the solution. That and the lack of a centralized Visual Studio project made the problem really hard to find. The conversations were effectively ... "Well, we're going to do that when we're ready to deploy it."

This whole thing reminded me vividly of a conversation I had with a developer of mine that happened nearly ten years ago. At the time ASP was the name of the game. It was a huge jump forward from trying to write web applications with CGI-BIN. The problem with ASP pages is that they used VBScript for their development language. VBScript was/is a bad language. It was hard to debug and had all sorts of odd side-effects that you had to learn to expect. One of the really challenging things with VBScript is that by default it allows you to just use variables -- they don't have to be declared. This sounds like a great timesaving features. You don't have to write the code to declare the variables.

In reality this is a pretty pesky thing. What happens is that you mistype a letter in a long variable name and they don't see it. When the code EXPECTS that a previous line set a value and it doesn't happen weird/bad things happen. This particular developer called me over from time-to-time to help him look at problems in his code -- I was happy to do it. However, after about the fourth time I had found the issue was that he mistyped a variable name, I was tired of explaining how important it was to use Option Explicit. Option Explicit was a command you could put at the top of your file and among other things it would require variable declarations. The result is that if you do mistype a variable it will generate an error.

His response was that he added Option Explicit at the end of the process -- before he turns the code over. Here's the problem with that thinking -- you don't add Option Explicit because you want to, because it's a requirement, or because you feel like it. You add Option Explicit at the top of ASP files because it makes your life easier. It saves you hours of debugging on weird issues because a variable name was mistyped. I should say that I did get to the point that where I told him if I ever found another piece of code that didn't have it -- I'd fire him on the spot no matter what. That was finally effective at getting him to help himself. I didn't end up firing him he left on his own.

Why did this come up? Well, because we build WSPs not because it's easy. We build WSPs because it MAKES OUR LIFE EASIER. In this situation the problem was that the particular thing showed up in one environment but not in another. That screams to me that there was some sort of a deployment error. If we had a WSP we could have tested it in a few minutes on a blank virtual machine. (Of course the problem wouldn't have happened in the first place if the deployments were consistent.)

So the next time you're wondering whether you should start building WSPs at the start of your project -- help yourself out and do it. (Repeating for effect... Build WSPs EVERY time.)

Do you know how to leak an exception in SharePoint?

Robert L. Bogue — Tue, 19 May 2009 13:59:00 GMT

I've mentioned a few times that I'm participating in the patterns and practices SharePoint Guidance advisory board. One of the things I raised with regards to exception handling was that some exceptions leak past your try-catch blocks. Does anyone have scenarios they can share where this happens? I know it does it but it's been so long that I don't remember the exact circumstances. My email is rob.bogue@thorprojects.com.