John Chapman :: Blog About SharePoint, ASP.NET, C#, jQuery, SQL

[SharePoint 2010] Specifying Which Server a Custom Timer Job Will Run On

John Chapman — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 16:38:48 +0000

By default timer jobs in SharePoint are scheduled for all servers in a SharePoint farm and whichever server picks up the job first is the one that runs it. There [...]

[SharePoint 2010] Web Analytics: Monitors the health of the Report Consolidator component

John Chapman — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 16:19:37 +0000

When the SharePoint Web Analytics Service Application takes longer than five hours to process the Health Monitor will report the “Web Analytics: Monitors the health of the Report Consolidator component” [...]

[SharePoint 2010 / SQL Server 2008] Query the SharePoint Object Model from a .NET SQL Server CLR Function

John Chapman — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 22:01:25 +0000

There are times when there is some SharePoint list data that needs to be accessed from a SQL Server query. However, it is unsupported by Microsoft to query the SharePoint [...]

[SharePoint 2010] Debugging a Custom SharePoint Timer Job

John Chapman — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 19:50:15 +0000

When creating custom SharePoint timer jobs in Visual Studio 2010 you cannot debug the timer job like you would a web part or application page by simply hitting F5 or [...]

[SharePoint 2010] Set Access Request Email for All SharePoint Sites

John Chapman — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 23:01:30 +0000

I recently needed to set the email address that Access Requests from SharePoint 2010 go to for all sites int the Web Application. Since there is no way to do [...]

[ASP.NET / LINQ] Access GridView DataItem Properties of Anonymous Types

John Chapman — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 18:22:18 +0000

I tend to use LINQ for just about everything I can. Many times this involves populating ASP.NET GridViews from code with anonymous types from LINQ. For example: The issue that [...]

[.NET / LINQ] Dynamic SQL-Like LINQ OrderBy Sorting Extension

John Chapman — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 15:43:03 +0000

Over on his blog, Adam Anderson posted a very nice helper class that allows you to use SQL-Like Sort Expressions in LINQ. I have found this to be invaluable in [...]

[ASP.NET] Multiple Command (Select, Delete, etc.) Fields in a GridView

John Chapman — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 15:33:18 +0000

I recently had the requirement to provide multiple select-type commands on an ASP.NET GridView that each resulted in a different action. Using an only provides you with the ability to [...]

[SharePoint 2007/2010] WebDAV Connections Slow (Open With Explorer)

John Chapman — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 21:06:19 +0000

Have you noticed that when you connect to SharePoint via WebDAV or use the Open With Explorer option from a Document Library that it is incredibly slow? There is a [...]

[SharePoint 2010] Custom Timer Job in Visual Studio

John Chapman — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 17:02:18 +0000

One of the great aspects of developing custom solutions on SharePoint is the ability to create timer jobs. Rather than creating a Windows Service or Windows Scheduled Task, using a [...]

[SharePoint 2010] Missing Scrollbars in Google Chrome

John Chapman — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 18:38:08 +0000

On one of my SharePoint sites that has a heavily customized master page users couldn’t scroll in Google Chrome. The page would load normally, however, there was no scrollbar to [...]

[SharePoint 2007] Server Out Of Memory and Internal Server 500 Messages

John Chapman — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 17:12:20 +0000

On one of the SharePoint 2007 servers that I support, we started receiving intermittent Internal Server 500 error messages. Upon further investigation, we found that in the ULS logs we [...]

Export Quicken Essentials for Mac Data to iBank

John Chapman — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 18:22:11 +0000

I am one of the many who have regretted their move to Quicken Essentials from whatever other version of Quicken they were previously using. In my own case, I have [...]

[SharePoint 2010] Getting “Login failed for user ‘NT AUTHORITY\ANONYMOUS LOGON’” When Trying to Connect to SQL from Your Custom SharePoint 2010 Web Parts?

John Chapman — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 18:10:16 +0000

When writing web parts and such for SharePoint 2010 it is common to have the need to access external SQL databases. Since SharePoint 2010 runs with ASP.NET Impersonation enabled (required [...]

[SharePoint 2010] Cross-Domain Proxy Page for Client-Side Scripts

John Chapman — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 23:23:15 +0000

Following my blog post about ASP.NET Proxy Pages for Client-Side Scripts I have created a SharePoint 2010 solution to add a proxy page to a SharePoint 2010 farm. CodePlex Project [...]

[SharePoint 2010] SQL Reporting Services Report Builder Cannot Connect in SharePoint Integrated Mode

John Chapman — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 15:00:32 +0000

One thing that I discovered the hard way about SQL Reporting Services running in SharePoint integrated mode is that it DOES NOT SUPPORT HAVING ANONYMOUS ACCESS ENABLED IN SHAREPOINT. After [...]

[Windows Server 2008] SQL Linked Server Queries Running Slow

John Chapman — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 18:54:05 +0000

A colleague of mine discovered that many of our linked-server SQL queries were running very slowly on SQL Servers running Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2. Since the [...]

[SQL Reporting Services 2008 R2] Hide Header, Toolbar, or Parameters When Viewing in SharePoint Integrated Mode

John Chapman — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 17:38:57 +0000

I have a number of instances where SSRS reports are displayed through Page Viewer Web Parts in SharePoint. When doing so, I like to only display the report, not the [...]

[SQL Reporting Services 2008 R2] Enable Remote Errors

John Chapman — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 15:52:30 +0000

When encountering errors with reports on Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) 2008 and 2008 R2 the generic error message isn’t very meaningful: Thanks to this blog post we have [...]

[SharePoint 2010] Fill Out and Flatten PDF Forms with iTextSharp

John Chapman — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 21:26:35 +0000

In a recent project I used this solution to take fillable PDF forms, fill them out based on user input, flatten the PDF document and save it back to SharePoint. [...]

[SharePoint 2010] Move All My Sites – Personal Sites – From One Content Database to Another With PowerShell

John Chapman — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 00:23:50 +0000

In one of my SharePoint 2010 farms we have all of our My Sites under the same web application as our main SharePoint portal. For example, we have http://portal as [...]

[SharePoint 2010] FIMSynchronizationService Errors After SP1 Install – Microsoft SharePoint is not supported with version 4.0.30319.235 of the Microsoft .Net Runtime

John Chapman — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 16:46:50 +0000

Update 2011-07-13: This issue was fixed in the re-released version of the June 2011 Cumulative Update. If you have installed the initial release of the June 2011 Cumulative Update, it [...]

[SharePoint 2010] Error 7043: Load control template file /_controltemplates/TaxonomyPicker.ascx failed

John Chapman — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 16:32:41 +0000

One of the nuances of SharePoint 2010 that has been plaguing my Windows Event log is Error 7043 indicating an issue with the TaxonomyPicker.ascx control: Apparently, someone over at Microsoft [...]

[SharePoint 2010] Programmatically Add JavaScript, Meta Tags, and CSS Styles to the Header of Every Page

John Chapman — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 04:34:17 +0000

For SharePoint sites, particularly public-facing ones, there are times when adding JavaScript, Meta Tags, CSS Styles or other content to the page <head> section is more practical than modifying master [...]

[SharePoint 2010] PowerPivot: The referenced file is not allowed on this page.

John Chapman — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 08:41:37 +0000

After installing PowerPivot for SharePoint 2010 for the first time, I added a PowerPivot Gallery to one of my existing sites and I was presented with the following error message: [...]

[SharePoint 2010] Solution to Load jQuery on All Pages

John Chapman — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 22:50:42 +0000

I have written a simple solution for SharePoint Foundation 2010 and SharePoint Server 2010 to allow site administrators to add the jQuery library to each SharePoint page without modifying master [...]

[SharePoint 2010] Custom Actions Default Locations and Group IDs

John Chapman — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 18:06:21 +0000

Custom Actions in SharePoint can be added to virtually every part of the SharePoint interface. Finding a complete list of the locations to reference in the Custom Action ELEMENTS.XML file [...]

[SharePoint 2010] Create a Simple Custom Action Using Visual Studio 2010

John Chapman — Tue, 31 May 2011 22:19:55 +0000

Visual Studio 2010 has added a multitude of new features to make custom development on SharePoint 2010 much simpler that it was previously. Though Visual Studio 2010 does not include [...]

[SharePoint 2010] Custom Actions – Intro

John Chapman — Tue, 31 May 2011 21:51:03 +0000

This is the first in a series of posts about using Custom Actions in SharePoint 2010. To get started, I thought it prudent to introduce the topic to those who [...]

Best Web Browser – Internet Explorer 9, Firefox 4, Chrome 10, Safari 5, Opera 11

John Chapman — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 15:36:55 +0000

With the latest versions of the 5 major web browsers it is increasingly more difficult to choose the best among them. Each one has their own unique strengths and weaknesses. [...]

[SharePoint 2010] Change Diagnostic Log Storage Location

John Chapman — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 15:04:48 +0000

One of the options I wish that could be configured during the installation of SharePoint 2010 is the location to store log files. Since it is not, you can set [...]

[SharePoint Foundation 2010 Series] Install SharePoint Foundation 2010 Standalone on Windows Web Server 2008 R2

John Chapman — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 04:05:20 +0000

Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 is freely available to install on licensed copies of Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2. See http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc288751.aspx for hardware and software requirements. For this [...]

[SharePoint 2010] Point My Site URL to SharePoint 2007 My Sites

John Chapman — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 18:02:56 +0000

Many organizations choose to stage their migration plans from SharePoint 2007 to SharePoint 2010 instead of migrating or upgrading everything all at once. My Sites might be one of the [...]

[SharePoint 2010/2007] Get the User Who Created a List or Library

John Chapman — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 15:33:00 +0000

A user on one of the forums had a need to find out who the creator of a SharePoint List (or Document Library) was. The SharePoint GUI gives no way [...]

iPad GUI Sketch Elements AI – Adobe Illustrator

John Chapman — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 20:09:19 +0000

The guys over at Teehan+Lax have posted another useful tool for mockups and such: iPad GUI sketch elements for Adobe Illustrator. You can download it from their website or from [...]

Windows 7 – Enable or Disable Windows DreamScene

John Chapman — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 19:58:03 +0000

One of the neat features that was available in certain editions of Windows Vista was DreamScene (Wikipedia Article on DreamScene). DreamScene allowed you to set a animation or any compatible [...]

[Project Server 2007] Login Failed. Project could not connect to server

John Chapman — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 17:42:35 +0000

At my company we use Microsoft Project Server 2007 extensively. Our Project Managers had been reporting an issue where they get a message that says “Login Failed. Project could not [...]

[WordPress] Remove Version Query Strings From JavaScript JS and CSS Stylesheet Files

John Chapman — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 21:53:19 +0000

In efforts to increase the performance of a WordPress website, tools like Google Page Speed and Yahoo YSlow may direct you to remove the query string from JavaScript and CSS [...]

[Fedora 14] Install VirtualBox Guest Additions

John Chapman — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 16:49:19 +0000

This morning I downloaded the brand-spanking-new Fedora 14 to run in a VirtualBox virtual machine. At first I was unable to install the VirtualBox Guest Additions. Thanks to this post [...]

[jQuery] Return User to Referring URL – Exit Link/Button

John Chapman — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 21:21:26 +0000

A user over at Experts Exchange was looking for a way to create an Exit button of sorts that would return the user to the page that referred them to [...]

[VisualSVN] Visual Studio Solution Explorer TFS Icons

John Chapman — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 16:58:34 +0000

I am a regular user of both VisualSVN and Team Foundation Server. One thing I have noticed is that I really dislike the icons VisualSVN uses in the Visual Studio [...]

[VMWare Fusion] NAT Port Forwarding

John Chapman — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 15:52:11 +0000

I recently had a need to access my virtual machine in VMWare Fusion through the Windows Remote Desktop (RDP, port 3389). I needed to also keep the NAT setup rather [...]

[SharePoint 2007] Update SharePoint Document Property from Excel VBA

John Chapman — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 22:31:14 +0000

The Scenario: Let’s say you have a quote worksheet in Excel that you use to work up sales figures and such for your clients. You utilize SharePoint 2007 to manage [...]

[SharePoint 2007] Remove Commas From Number Column Workaround

John Chapman — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 15:05:41 +0000

I thought this article was a brilliant workaround and wanted to share. It was original posted over at: http://sharenotes.wordpress.com/2010/05/11/workaround-format-sharepoint-number-column-to-remove-commas/ Let’s say you have a column named “TicketNumber” of number type [...]

[SharePoint 2007] Immediate Alerts Console Application

John Chapman — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 20:03:07 +0000

For SharePoint 2007 I had a need to write a console application that fires the Immediate Alerts timer job manually. The Immediate Alerts timer job executes every 5 minutes by [...]

iPhone AI Illustrator Sketch GUI Elements

John Chapman — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 19:56:52 +0000

Teehan+Lax have posted another useful mock up toolset. This time they have created an Adobe Illustrator file with sketch versions of the iPhone interface. Great for storyboarding and creating instructional [...]

iPhone GUI Interface PSD for iPhone 4

John Chapman — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 19:23:10 +0000

Teehan+Lax have done it again and updated their iPhone GUI Photoshop file for the iPhone 4: http://www.teehanlax.com/blog/2010/06/14/iphone-gui-psd-v4/ iPhone_GUI_PSD_4.psd.zip Related content: iPhone AI Illustrator Sketch GUI Elements iPad GUI Interface Photoshop [...]

ASP.NET C# Change GridView Cell Background Color Based on Value

John Chapman — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 19:02:45 +0000

On of the useful things you can do with GridViews in ASP.NET is to run code during the rendering of each individual row. This allows you to change aspects, such [...]

ASP.NET Proxy Page – Used for Cross Domain Requests from AJAX and JavaScript

John Chapman — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 15:43:41 +0000

One of the pain points with developing AJAX, JavaScript, JQuery, and other client-side behaviors is that JavaScript doesn’t allow for cross domain request for pulling content. For example, JavaScript code [...]

Compressing Images (JPEGs and PNGs) For the Web

John Chapman — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 20:52:34 +0000

When designing high traffic websites, it is important to ensure the pages load quickly and not make excessive use of server resources. One of the biggest culprets to slow page [...]