SharePoint Comic

Office 2003 AD RMS Hotfix Update KB978551

Dan Lewis — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 19:31:00 GMT

Body:

A little late posting this, but better late than never. In December, an issue surfaced that prevented Office 2003 documents from being opened, if they were protected by Rights Management Server (RMS). The issue was due to a time-bomb… oops.

Users would get a prompt that stated: "Unexpected error occurred. Please try again later or contact your system administrator"

Microsoft quickly released a hotfix over that weekend, but now the fix is pushed down through Windows Update.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/978551

This is only for Office 2003, and make sure that you have Service Pack 3 installed prior to installing the update.

Published: 2/7/2010 2:31 PM

Month Published: Feb 10

Month Published OrderBy: 2010.02

SharePoint eMagazine

Dan Lewis — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 16:36:46 GMT

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Earlier this year (yes, I’m behind in blogging) a special magazine was released by the Dutch Information Workers User Group: SharePoint eMagazine. Fantastic content around SharePoint 2010, so be sure to download a copy.

I created a special comic for the magazine. The comic included in the magazine references a conference, as the magazine was released and announced at the SharePoint Connections 2010 conference in Europe in January. Enjoy.

Published: 2/7/2010 11:36 AM

Month Published: Feb 10

Month Published OrderBy: 2010.02

Update

Dan Lewis — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 18:13:48 GMT

Body:

Hi… so, how has your year been going so far 7 readers? Mine has been too busy. Busy is a good thing, but not when there isn’t a healthy balance between the items that have you busy.

Anyway, I apologize for the lack of blogging in January, but there just hasn’t been any time to do so. My New Year’s Resolution of only working 40 hrs a week didn’t last very long… ;)

I do have a lot of content to put up however, so expect to see the flood gates open very soon in February.

My break from speaking is almost over, so I’ll be at a few events very soon as well. If you are traveling to any of these events, I look forward to seeing you there!

SharePoint Technology Conference
When: 2/10/2010
Where: San Francisco, CA
Details: http://www.sptechcon.com/

Optimize Your Enterprise
When: 2/25/2010
Where: Charlotte, NC
Details: http://optimize2010.eventbrite.com/

SharePoint Saturday NOLA
When: 2/27/2010
Where: New Orleans, LA
Details: http://www.sharepointsaturday.org/neworleans/default.aspx

SharePlosion Roundtable, an AvePoint & ettain event
When: 3/4/2010
Where: Jacksonville, FL
Details: https://www.clicktoattend.com/invitation.aspx?code=145014

SharePoint Saturday Charlotte
When: 4/10/2010
Where: Charlotte, NC
Details: http://www.sharepointsaturday.org/charlotte/default.aspx

The Experts Conference – SharePoint
When: 4/25/2010
Where: Los Angeles, CA
Details: http://www.tec2010.com/

Published: 1/30/2010 1:13 PM

Month Published: Jan 10

Month Published OrderBy: 2010.01

SharePoint 2010 Certification and SharePoint 2007 Certification

Dan Lewis — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 16:06:25 GMT

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Once upon a time, I use to blog about Certifications for .NET. I felt my first post for this year should have a theme of ‘moving forward’, so decided to write about the future of SharePoint certification.

I’m a big proponent of the Microsoft Certification program and think that anyone in the IT industry working with Microsoft technologies should have a certification for their field. I’ve actually even contributed some content to certain exams, and look forward to helping with more in the future.

Do I think a certification means that you know what you are doing? Nope… I’ve met people that have certifications, and didn’t know diddly-squat when it came to ‘real-world’ work. To the contrary, I’ve also met people that do not have certifications, but know a specific technology inside and out.

Still, I think it’s beneficial to anyone’s career and something that I’m an advocate of. Why is it beneficial though? The Microsoft Learning website puts it best:

Build your expertise and advance your career. By earning a Microsoft Certification, you gain advanced, market-relevant skills that employers recognize and respect as well as opportunities to connect with a global community of other certified professionals. Additionally, certification provides you with access to exclusive Microsoft resources and benefits, such as the MCP member Web site, career-building tools, and training. Explore the benefits of certification—and start your journey to attaining your ideal career.

To date, I’ve been pretty disappointed in the lack of certifications available for SharePoint 2007. Let’s look at what we currently have.

Existing SharePoint 2007 Certifications

MCTS – Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist

IT Pro
Exam 70-630: TS: Office SharePoint Server 2007, Configuring

Exam 70-631: TS: Configuring Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

Dev
Exam 70-541: TS: Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 - Application Development

Exam 70-542 : TS: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, Application Development

So the inherent problem in my opinion now becomes apparent… MCTS is the lowest level of Microsoft Certification, and the next available certification is the Master program.

MCM – Microsoft Certified Master

IT Pro / Dev
Microsoft Certified Master: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

The Master program is an advanced certification, and costs a good bit of money as well. It’s worth it for sure, I will not argue against this. It’s a true practical test of your ability, and comes with 3 weeks of classroom courses led by some of the industry’s best.

But for a certification ‘path’, it has not existed for SharePoint. There is the lower certification and the advanced certification – nothing in the middle.

Future SharePoint 2010 Certifications
(Disclaimer: this information is not confirmed or posted anywhere that I have seen. Its based upon printed marketing material, and the 2010 certification release of other server platforms.)

With the release of SharePoint 2010 this year, there will also be a release of new certifications. The best part however, is that there will be the release of additional certifications that will fill the gap of that middle-ground.

MCTS – Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist

SharePoint Server 2010
Exam 70-667: TS: Microsoft SharePoint 2010, Configuring

Developer, SharePoint Server 2010
Exam 70-573: TS: Microsoft SharePoint 2010, Application Development

MCITP – Microsoft Certified IT Professional

SharePoint Server 2010
Exam 70-668: PRO: SharePoint 2010, Administrator

MCPD– Microsoft Certified Professional Developer

Developer, SharePoint Server 2010
Exam 70-576: PRO: Designing and Developing Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Applications

MCM – Microsoft Certified Master

IT Pro / Dev
Microsoft Certified Master: SharePoint Server 2010

Although I’m not graphically showing a road map here, as you may be able to interpret these are in order of a career path, so MCTS would come before MCITP / MCPD and those would come before MCM. There are also plans for a MCA (Microsoft Certified Architect) that have not been released. Essentially that’s the cream of the crop.

Now that I think about it, the Microsoft Certification path follows almost a Higher Education academic degree system, and probably not by mistake.

MCTS = Associate’s Degree

MCITP/MCPD = Bachelor’s Degree

MCM = Master’s Degree

MCA = Doctoral Degree

I’m pretty pumped about the new certs coming out. I have been studying for MCITP – Enterprise Administrator, and look forward to studying for MCITP – SharePoint Server 2010. If you don’t have any certifications associated with your name, it will be a great year to get started. :)

Additional Information

Microsoft Certification Information Overview
Download: Certification Roadmap for SharePoint 2007
Download: MCM Program information for SharePoint 2007
Training: Microsoft Learning Center for SharePoint

Published: 1/8/2010 11:06 AM

Month Published: Jan 10

Month Published OrderBy: 2010.01

2010 New Year’s Resolution for SharePoint

Dan Lewis — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 16:21:39 GMT

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Well 7 readers, it’s time to start a new year. In January of 2009, I shared a goal I had to give more of my time to the SharePoint community. The great thing about personal goals you see, is that you don’t necessarily have to stick to them… or so I tell myself today. Looking back at those goals – well I don’t think I followed the path I planned but I definitely gave more than I bargained for.

Articles – I really struggled on this one. I had plenty of posts on SharePoint, but I mean really – all of the good topics were already taken to write a true article on. I started a couple, and they never materialized. Shame on me.

Utilities – haha! I mean really?! I barely slept as it was… zero time for this… what was I thinking?!

TechNet Forums – I did pop over and answered a few questions here and there, but nothing like the productivity that I produced in 2008. However, I did notice that often more times than not, there was an increase in people answering questions already, so I wasn’t really needed. :)

User Group – Finally something I did! Out of the park here! Joined the ‘committee’ that runs the group, and have helped with the meetings through-out the year. Great meetings, great people, great group… Love this group!

1 out of 4 isn’t bad… right? Seems weak… what did I do then? User Group (covered that), spoke at 18 events (hey now… wasn’t planning on that!), posted 88 blog posts (some comics), posted 381 tweets from my ‘sharepoint’ twitter account, posted thousands of tweets from my personal account (before I had to lock it down to ensure privacy from crazy people), hosted a SharePoint Saturday in Charlotte, answered about 20 questions on TechNet, joined the Community Kit for SharePoint team, helped the MSL folks with exam content for the Microsoft Certifications, and somewhere in there I managed to work 50-60 hr weeks on my real job (you won’t believe this, but I don’t make a dime off my comics… swear to goodness!)

So there you have it. I didn’t really do all of the things that I planned, but I definitely did give more of my time to the community. Now what on earth am I going to attempt for this year? Which brings me back to the subject of this post (thank you for bearing with me)… my 2010 New Year’s Resolution for SharePoint. (this year I’m going to try and quantify my goals more)

Write 2 White Papers – I already have the topics and both of them started… so no excuses for not finishing them.

Speak at 2 events per quarter – I don’t want to speak as much this year. So I’m limiting myself to 2 events per quarter, and I’m only going to do the sessions from a pre-determined list which are RMS Integration, Blogging w/ CKS, and 2010 Overview.

Add features to SharePoint Comic - emphasis there on ‘comic’. I can’t put a # on this one. I’ve noticed that the comics are easier for me to do if I’m in a good mood, and if you’ve noticed, there haven’t been many comics lately. (things that make you go hmmm)

Community Kit for SharePoint – I really want to help get the word out there about this add-on, and be a part of the awesome things planned for 2010 (ps: I’m using it on this blog… cool eh?)

Host 1 SharePoint Saturday – I’m not an event planner! Boy did I learn that in 2009… so this year my goal is to “help” plan one SharePoint Saturday in my backyard, Charlotte. Leaving the rest to Brian Gough (sucker!)

Twitter – no real goal here, but I’ll tweet good stuff when I see it. Not only on SharePoint but around other great Microsoft products as well: Bing, ~~Vista~~, Windows 7, Office 2010, Server 2008, etc…

Help on 1 Microsoft Learning exam – help with exam content for 1 exam… self explanatory I think?

Okay, looking at that list, I feel like I’m already out of my mind. But there really isn’t one thing in that list that I would cut out, so I’m not. I think it’s also all do-able… it’s something that I enjoy and I find rewarding in its own right. Now I’ll just have to find a way to keep myself from working 50-60 hr weeks…

Whooohoooo – lets go TWENTYTEN, and Happy New Year.

- Dan

Published: 12/31/2009 11:21 AM

Month Published: Dec 09

Month Published OrderBy: 2009.12

2009 Recap

Dan Lewis — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 03:27:40 GMT

Body:

Hi there 7 readers. I’ve been relatively quite on Twitter, and non-existent on this blog for the last month. My apologies, but I’ve been heads down on a project and my life has been on hold other than it.

Taking a vacation this week and some of next, so decided it was time to go ahead and write my last post for the year. It’s definitely been an event packed year for me. It was great to see SharePoint Saturday take off, and was even better to have been a part of that. I know that next year I do not plan to speak as often. It really wore me out this year, especially when it was in addition to working 50-60 hr weeks.

Presenting

I’ve posted some of my presentations for the year up on SlideShare: http://www.slideshare.net/danlewisnet. I’ve already decided that in 2010, I’m only going to have a few pre-determined topics that I’ll be speaking on. Mainly so I’m not preparing a presentation the week before an event… :) Those presentations will be:

- SharePoint 2010 Overview and What's New for SharePoint Sites
- Blogging with SharePoint 2010, and Extending it with the Community Kit for SharePoint
- Social Computing in SharePoint 2010, Blogs, Wikis, My Sites, Oh My!
- AD RMS and SharePoint 2010, extending SharePoint document permissions to the Desktop

Blog

This year I added the comic series to my blog. Surprisingly to me, it was well received. I was pretty humbled at the SharePoint Conference when I met readers of the comics and heard that some look forward to the next publish, print them out to hang in cubicles, and some even put in company newsletters. You all rock.

I have some pretty exciting features that I’ll be adding to the site next year and really looking forward to that.

Friends

Wow! I made so many new friends this year it’s absurd. All of you in the SharePoint community are just great. I can only hope that next year I’ll continue to meet new people just as great. If you took the moment to get to know me, thank you. Hopefully you realized that I’m not as egotistical and arrogant as I may come across online (Twitter). I won’t lie, not everything in the SharePoint community was ‘peachy’ in 2009. I saw some things this year that I really could care less for. But, just like highschool, I’ll just ignore the silliness and ‘do my own thang’, and I’ll continue with that in 2010.

Looking Ahead

The year 2010 is going to bring some exciting things to the SharePoint world, with the much anticipated release of SharePoint 2010, Office 2010, and Office Web Apps. It’s definitely going to keep us on our toes and push us all to learn new things. However, I encourage everyone to keep striving to learn SharePoint 2007 as well – it won’t be going anywhere just yet. :)

On a career level, I don’t know what's in store for me. 2009 kept me extremely busy, and a large growth in the practice at the company I work for. My role will be changing, this I know. To what capacity I’m not totally sure – but I guess that can be said for any role.

What’s Next?

I’m going to kick back and relax. It’s been a crazy hectic year, and I’m pretty tired. So, Happy Holidays to you… see you next year… happy sharepointing.

- Dan

Published: 12/20/2009 10:27 PM

Month Published: Dec 09

Month Published OrderBy: 2009.12

SharePoint Comic Server Security

Dan Lewis — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 17:32:48 GMT

Body:

I created this comic for Joel Oleson to use in his Tech Ed presentation. Cross-Posting it here after the fact, mainly because I have been too busy to create a new comic. :)

Published: 12/20/2009 12:27 PM

Month Published: Dec 09

Month Published OrderBy: 2009.12

SharePoint 2010 Overview and What’s New Presentation

Dan Lewis — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 03:52:14 GMT

Body:

My last two presentations for the year of 2009 were both on SharePoint 2010, a session focused on the overview of what’s new with an emphasis on SharePoint Sites. For those that attended my session at either the Charlotte SharePoint User Group, or SharePoint Saturday Raleigh, thanks for attending. You can download the presentation below.

Those were my last presentations of the year, and I don’t plan to speak again until February of 2010 at the SharePoint Technology Conference in San Francisco. Catch you all on the flip side.

Download

Published: 11/22/2009 9:51 PM

Month Published: Nov 09

Month Published OrderBy: 2009.11

ShareComic – Chuck Norris and SharePoint

Dan Lewis — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 23:01:56 GMT

Body:

Chuck Norris never starts an Approval workflow in SharePoint. Chuck doesn’t need approval.
Chuck Norris’s favorite SharePoint site theme is Cardinal. Chuck enjoys the color Red.
Chuck Norris can modify SharePoint’s application.master in a supportable manner.
Chuck Norris doesn’t have a SharePoint Disaster Recovery Plan. He doesn’t recover data, only hostages.
Chuck Norris can upgrade SharePoint In-Place. (and it will actually work)
Putting Chuck Norris in the SharePoint Visitors group is futile. Chuck always has Full Control.
Chuck Norris doesn't prepare for SharePoint 2010. SharePoint 2010 prepares for him.
Microsoft asked Chuck Norris to sign an NDA about SharePoint 2010. Chuck Norris asked Microsoft to sign a Living Will.
In SharePoint 2010, the Farm Administrators group is being renamed to ‘Chuck’s Group’.
And the #10 Chuck Norris / SharePoint joke is:

Special thanks to Bjørn Furuknaps for some of these ideas!. And please leave your own ideas in the comments section. If every single one of my readers leaves one Chuck Norris SharePoint joke, we’ll have an additional 7 added. Rock on!

ps: my comments list is jacked up, you’ll get an error but you can ignore it, your comment was posted :)

Published: 9/23/2009 11:01 PM

Month Published: Sep 09

Month Published OrderBy: 2009.09

Use PortQry to Determine Ports Listening

Dan Lewis — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 08:12:27 GMT

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Working in a new server farm, it’s inevitable that you’ll have a moment where somebody (application) or something (server) is not talking to each other. Windows Firewall, Hardware Firewalls, ISA Server, Named Instances, Non-Default ports, Load Balancing, Multiple Nics, IIS Ports, and more. When you take all of these different points of communication failure and add in the biggest danger (human error), there will be a communication breakdown.

It’s happened more times than once to me in SharePoint environments, especially the more integration that you start to do (RMS, SSRS, etc…).

When things are not going correctly, I rely on this utility to help me pinpoint what is wrong, PortQry Command Line Port Scanner Version 2.0. It’s very useful for determining if a TCP/IP port is listening or not, specifically LDAP, SQL Server, and ISA.

From Microsoft:

PortQry is a command-line utility that you can use to help troubleshoot TCP/IP connectivity issues. This utility reports the port status of target TCP and User Datagram Protocol (UDP) ports on a local computer or on a remote computer. PortQry version 2.0 also provides detailed information about the local computer's port usage.

Further Information: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/832919
Download: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=89811747-C74B-4638-A2D5-AC828BDC6983&displaylang=en

Enjoy. :)

Published: 11/15/2009 3:06 AM

Month Published: Nov 09

Month Published OrderBy: 2009.11

Manually Register Service Connection Point for RMS

Dan Lewis — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:36:19 GMT

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There are times when deploying ADRMS that your install account may not have the appropriate permissions within the domain to create a SCP (Service Connection Point), or during installation your URL is not ready yet.

Microsoft makes available a RMS Administration Tool Kit (download link at end of post). The current version is SP2. This toolkit is essential for troubleshooting and helping you while deploying. Within the toolkit is a utility for registering / unregistering a SCP in your domain. Make sure the account you are using to run the utility has appropriate permissions to create the SCP (Enterprise administrator, or permission to create a container object underneath the Services container)

To register a SCP, run the utility via command prompt with the paramaters:

registerscp {URLTOREGISTER}

To unregister a SCP, run the utility via command prompt with just the command:

unregisterscp

After running the utility, you can verify that the SCP was created by looking in Active Directory Sites and Services.

You can download the RMS Administration Toolkit here:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=BAE62CFC-D5A7-46D2-9063-0F6885C26B98&displaylang=en

Published: 11/9/2009 7:35 PM

Month Published: Nov 09

Month Published OrderBy: 2009.11

Clear Read Only Attributes

Dan Lewis — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 23:13:15 GMT

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I was recently working on a project at work where the actual development was being outsourced. When the 3rd Party sent their builds over for deployment - the code never worked. The constant complaint was that there were files set to Read Only, and needed to be written to (such as config files, etc).

Yes, so this got old about the 30th time they asked for me to make sure there werent’ any files that were Read Only. A quick little search on the Internet provided me with a link to a tool that I owe my life too now.

CROA - Clear Read-Only Attributes
http://davidcrowell.com/Croa/Default.aspx

I highly recommend keeping this little baby with your other Utilities.

Install/Uninstall support
Easily accessed from Window’s own context menu
Recurses subfolders
Completely free

updated link on 3.19.2006

Published: 7/2/2005 5:45 PM

Month Published: Jul 05

Month Published OrderBy: 2005.07

Convert VB to C#

Dan Lewis — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 05:53:13 GMT

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Ever find a tutorial or code sample that will resolve your current issue…. and Argh! It’s in VB. It’s happened to me a thousand times.

This experimental web app can convert that foreign language for you: http://www.developerfusion.co.uk/utilities/convertvbtocsharp.aspx.

I’ve had some good success with it - and sometimes not so good. But for the most part, it’s a winner.

- Dan Lewis

Published: 8/5/2005 4:25 PM

Month Published: Aug 05

Month Published OrderBy: 2005.08

Performance Analyzer for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

Dan Lewis — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 01:45:31 GMT

Body:

Even if you aren't currently experiencing performance issues with your WSS environment, it's always a good idea to take a step back and inspect your environment and WSS setup to look for areas of improvement and potential points where there may be trouble down the road. But where do you start? There's a lot to look at... so why not let a tool make recommendations for you based upon Microsoft's best practices.

Microsoft actually provides such a tool.

From Microsoft Download Center:
------------
Microsoft Best Practices Analyzer for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and the 2007 Microsoft Office System

The Microsoft Best Practices Analyzer for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and the 2007 Microsoft Office System Best Practices Analyzer programmatically collects settings and values from data repositories such as MS SQL, registry, metabase and performance monitor. Once collected, a set of comprehensive ‘best practice’ rules are applied to the topology.

Administrators running this tool will get a detailed report listing the recommendations that can be made to the environment to achieve greater performance, scalability and uptime.
------------

You can download it here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=cb944b27-9d6b-4a1f-b3e1-778efda07df8&DisplayLang=en

- Dan

Published: 12/3/2007 8:51 PM

Month Published: Dec 07

Month Published OrderBy: 2007.12

SharePointUrlChanger

Dan Lewis — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 04:26:30 GMT

Body:

Buddy of mine (Scott Helm) created a nifty utility for SharePoint that allows you to change url strings in a publishing web. Cool stuff Scott!

SharePointUrlChanger - Home out on CodePlex.

Project Description

This is a utility that I created to change url strings that were placed in navigation and web parts in a publishing web. The client wished to change the url that was being used for the site, and since there were several site collections all containing cross-site list views and 3rd party web parts that used the FQDN, I needed a way to change the url strings being used by the web parts and navigation programatically. This is the result of that need.

Published: 5/15/2008 12:32 AM

Month Published: May 08

Month Published OrderBy: 2008.05

Attachments: http://www.sharepointcomic.com/Lists/Posts/Attachments/52/image_2.png
http://www.sharepointcomic.com/Lists/Posts/Attachments/52/image_thumb.png

GoToCommand - Open Command Prompt on any folder

Dan Lewis — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 04:30:17 GMT

Body:

This registration edit allows you to right-click on a folder, and select Go To CMD. It will open the command prompt with it already on that folder's directory path, thus you don't have to open a command prompt and then change directories.

Download by right-click and save as, then rename from .txt to .reg: Download

- Dan Lewis

Published: 6/18/2008 12:36 AM

Month Published: Jun 08

Month Published OrderBy: 2008.06

Attachments: http://www.sharepointcomic.com/Lists/Posts/Attachments/53/goToCmd.txt
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URL Decoder/Encoder - GUID Converter

Dan Lewis — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 06:36:37 GMT

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What a great little tool by Eric Meyer. Input a nasty looking URL string, and it will make it into something that you can read. To explain the possible benefit, let me show you what I used it for.

In SharePoint, when viewing a list's settings you can see the guid for the list in the URL. So if I copy that URL and paste it into Eric's tool, it can decode it for me into something that is a little more useable.

Original URL: /_layouts/listedit.aspx?List=%7BAA90DD8B%2DD2B7%2D49E9%2DA8DE%2D9138AB94CA68%7D

Decoded URL: /_layouts/listedit.aspx?List={AA90DD8B-D2B7-49E9-A8DE-9138AB94CA68}

Check it out: http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/dencoder/

- Dan

Published: 12/9/2008 1:42 AM

Month Published: Dec 08

Month Published OrderBy: 2008.12

Notepad2 A notepad replacement for Windows 7

Dan Lewis — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 03:25:36 GMT

Body:

I just did a rebuild of my main laptop, taking it from RC to RTM of Windows 7. It rules, enough said there. Probably the most daunting part of a rebuild isn’t the software reinstallation, it’s all of these little utilities that we grow to love – but boy are they hard to keep track of.

Possibly my favorite little utility is Notepad2. I was a little disappointed that Windows 7 didn’t do a revamp of Notepad, but for that extra functionality that I need I lean on Notepad2.

From the Developers notes:

Description

Notepad2 is a light-weight, free and open source Notepad-like text editor with syntax highlighting for a few commonly used languages. It's based on the Scintilla source code editing component and works on NT-based versions of Windows.

Features

- Syntax highlighting: HTML, XML, PHP, ASP (JS, VBS), CSS,
    JavaScript, VBScript, C/C++, C#, Resource Script, Makefiles, Java,
    Visual Basic, Pascal, Assembly, SQL, Perl, Python, Configuration
    Files, Apache Config Files, Batch Files, Diff Files
- Drag & drop text editing inside and outside Notepad2
- Basic regular expression search and replace
- Useful word, line and block editing shortcuts
- Rectangular selection (Alt+Mouse)
- Brace matching, auto indent, long line marker, zoom functions
- Support for Unicode, UTF-8, Unix and Mac text files
- Open shell links
- Mostly adjustable

Download: http://www.flos-freeware.ch/notepad2.html

However, one of the key things with Notepad2 is getting it to replace the Notepad that comes with the Windows OS, to be our true Notepad replacement. There are some other modifications out there (being open source), and there are some registry hacks that you can make to replace the default notepad. This is the method that I use however.

First and foremost, download and then copy notepad2 to your desktop, and rename it to notepad.
The original notepad.exe that we need to copy over, is located in two separate locations:
Before we can copy the new notepad over the old one, we need to take ownership of the file so we can grant ourselves some permissions on it.
Right Click on notepad.exe and select Properties
Click on the Security tab
At the bottom of the window, select the Advanced button
On the Advanced Security Settings for notepad, select the Owner tab.
Then click on the Edit button
On this new Owner tab, select who you want to Change owner to (the account you are logged in as).
Click the Apply button
Click the OK button on the Windows Security prompt (its all good)
Close the windows until you are back at the original Security tab. Set permission for your account to have Full Control (you can change it back later).

There, now you are all set. You can copy the new notepad.exe into C:\Windows\System32 and C:\Windows\System32 over the original.

You now have a fully functional notepad replacement.

Published: 8/23/2009 11:30 PM

Month Published: Aug 09

Month Published OrderBy: 2009.08

Attachments: http://www.sharepointcomic.com/Lists/Posts/Attachments/150/image_28d47586dba949708cfdc6c12238f751_52E21203.png
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Network Card Adapters and Bindings on Windows Server 2008

Dan Lewis — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 03:01:58 GMT

Body:

Well, no wonder I couldn’t find the NIC Bindings on Windows Server 2008. Microsoft didn’t just move it, they hid it. If you need to edit your advanced settings for bindings of your network cards on a Server 2008 box, there are two ways to do it.

Method 1

Start > Control Panel > Network and Sharing Center
Select Manage network connections
Use Alt+N to display the Advanced menu
Select Advanced Settings. On the Adapters and Bindings tab you can make your appropriate changes.

Method 2

Start > Run > ncpa.cpl
Use Alt+N to display the Advanced menu
Select Advanced Settings. On the Adapters and Bindings tab you can make your appropriate changes.

Published: 11/14/2009 10:01 PM

Month Published: Nov 09

Month Published OrderBy: 2009.11

AD RMS Service Group in Windows Server 2008

Dan Lewis — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 02:38:36 GMT

Body:

When configuring RMS server integration with SharePoint, one of the tasks is to add specific rights to the ServerConfiguration.asmx file within the RMS cluster application itself.

It took me a while to figure this out, but the RMS Service Group was renamed in Server 2008. I kept browsing for the group and it kept telling me that ‘RMS Service Group’ didn’t exist… Thinking that I was going crazy I went and checked my actual service account to see who it was a member of… doh! The name had changed in 2008.

In Windows Rights Management Server (a separate download for Windows Server 2003), the service group is ‘RMS Service Group’.
In AD Rights Management Server (which is now a server role Windows Server 2008), that group is now ‘AD RMS Service Group’.

Further Information: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc771307(WS.10).aspx

Published: 11/14/2009 9:38 PM

Month Published: Nov 09

Month Published OrderBy: 2009.11

Kill database connections to SharePoint

Dan Lewis — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:23:07 GMT

Body:

There will be occasions where you need to work with the databases for SharePoint in SQL Server Management Studio. Backups, restores, etc... If you run into problems with there being existing connections to the databases preventing you from performing maintenance items, here’s a way to kill those database connections.

Management > Activity Monitor > View Processes

You’ll then have a list of all connections to the SQL Server. Sort the list so that the connections to the specific database you are working on are grouped together. Right-Click on a process, and select Kill Process.

Once all of those processes (and connection with it) are killed, you’ll be able to perform those maintenance items.

Published: 11/9/2009 8:23 PM

Month Published: Nov 09

Month Published OrderBy: 2009.11

SharePoint Comic

Office 2003 AD RMS Hotfix Update KB978551

SharePoint eMagazine

Update

SharePoint 2010 Certification and SharePoint 2007 Certification

Existing SharePoint 2007 Certifications

Future SharePoint 2010 Certifications (Disclaimer: this information is not confirmed or posted anywhere that I have seen. Its based upon printed marketing material, and the 2010 certification release of other server platforms.)

Additional Information

2010 New Year’s Resolution for SharePoint

2009 Recap

SharePoint Comic Server Security

SharePoint 2010 Overview and What’s New Presentation

ShareComic – Chuck Norris and SharePoint

Use PortQry to Determine Ports Listening

Manually Register Service Connection Point for RMS

Clear Read Only Attributes

Convert VB to C#

Performance Analyzer for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

SharePointUrlChanger

GoToCommand - Open Command Prompt on any folder

URL Decoder/Encoder - GUID Converter

Notepad2 A notepad replacement for Windows 7

Network Card Adapters and Bindings on Windows Server 2008

AD RMS Service Group in Windows Server 2008

Kill database connections to SharePoint

Future SharePoint 2010 Certifications
(Disclaimer: this information is not confirmed or posted anywhere that I have seen. Its based upon printed marketing material, and the 2010 certification release of other server platforms.)