Hi folks, we’ve used our SharePoint expertise and knowledge to distil SharePoint 2010 product feature set, to provide a rich 5 day course for you.

I believe with SharePoint in particular that as a developer you *need* to know details about the SharePoint environment that is running your code, and as an Admin, you need to know what and how the developer provides the additions/customisations that they do.

Check out the details and you can register with Microsoft here.

We’re really excited about the offering and have a great Christmas break.

See you soon… ho ho ho…

A few tidbits to share with you so far.

WSS has gone through a name change (there was a time when WSS stood for ‘Web Storage Server’ that SharePoint V1 + Exchange 5.x were based on) and is now called SharePoint Foundation 2010.

I’m guessing that this name is more inline with Microsoft’s thinking around getting SharePoint as the backend/foundation in Companies, as Office is standard on user’s desktops.

Setting up your Development Environment:

(no more WSPBuilder…the SharePoint tools are baked into VS2010 beta 2. A nice feature is that you can select what a ‘Deploy’ does, or a ‘ReDeploy’ by essentially adding all these actions to your config, such as ‘restart IIS’, recycle app pool, make web.config change… You just package them up – nice!)

1. SharePoint 2010 Beta Center - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/ee514561.aspx *** Great place to Start ***
2. SharePoint 2010 SDK - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-au/library/ee557253(office.14).aspx
3. Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 - http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en-us/products/2010/default.mspx (this will work with the upcoming beta release of SharePoint 2010)
   Point to note: .NET 4.0 introduces WF4.0, however at this point SP2010 supports only 3.51. There are some *very* significant changes in Workflow between these 2 versions and we’ll have to wait and see the outcome. Performant 10-30x faster, reduced memory footprint, more flexible, clean XAML, more events etc etc.
   
4. One last little point – where is the Public SharePoint 2010 download….unfortunately not yet will be soon and should be up on Dev Center Downloads - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/aa905690.aspx

In the meantime, be sure to check out the changes and enhancements to the SharePoint 2010 API model and some of the new capabilities such as:

1. Powershell everything
2. Check out LINQ/ADO.NET Entities integration and querying data
3. Performing JOINS in CAML
4. Client.svc – client side proxying, batching of requests and sending them through to SharePoint 2010. Very fast, as we only send what we need.
5. Workflow exporting/importing from Visio->SPD->VS.NET->Deploy.
6. Sandbox Solutions – now we can target our SharePoint Solutions to the Site Collection Level (rather than previously targeting only the farm). When we create this solution in VSNET2010, it rebinds to a ‘fake’ Microsoft.SharePoint.dll (v14.0.0.39 from memory) that introduces all the restrictions in your code and provides special intellisense. Commands such as ‘Run Under Elevated Security’… get caught on compile as these are not allowed.
   
   Could you be in the situation where your code compiles but the *real* SharePoint ‘foundation’ says ‘no!..that instruction is not allowed’ – it’s possible, as you’re not actually compiling against the real DLL.
   
   Currently there are several projects that you can’t sandbox based on their type – such as Workflow Projects. These still need to be targeted to the Farm.
   
   Worth checking out – specifically if you’re hosting SP sites.
   
7. AJAX through out – even WebPart editor toolparts you can introduce AJAX there for alot of the lookups etc.
   
8. Other noted feature is that Throttling is on by default – so if you say “list.Items.AllItems” and that returns back 50000 usually, SP2010 will error. You have to explicitly ask to make the request without Throttling (couple of properties you set before hand)
   
9. Your WSSv3.0/MOSS sites can be *supported* in SP2010 and stay at their existing UI Level (look and feel), then at a later point we can flick the switch and see your site under the newer/AJAXY UI – through the APIs we can change it back SPWeb.UIVersion = 3 or 4.

Enjoy,

Mick.

Grab a look at the SDK – here - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd776256.aspx and interestingly the BDC (now – Business Data Connectors) and BCS (Business Connectivity Services) are the enhanced former 2007 BDC.

BCS = http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee556826(office.14).aspx

I’ve got lots to talk about and show but where to start….maybe “once there was a developer…” :-)

Stay tuned.

Mick.

Last week I met up with Leonid (MCS SharePoint consultant) whom has a great upfront and practical view on life. Funny guy.

He mentioned to me about a SharePoint Faceted Search – which is a series of Search Web Parts that drill into the Search Index and return metadata tags, content types and a bunch of other stuff to give you accurate search results grouped by Author, Content Type, etc. (what ever you want)

Add them to the search results page of your SharePoint Search and you’re away. The webparts examine the Query String and have a bunch of customisations that allow you to tweak it just the way you like.

Great work Leonid!!!! (he’s a very clever guy – SharePoint Search is one of his passions…Red Wine is the other :) )
You can contact him via e.mail on: xsearch a.t. microsoft dot com

Standard View – notice the red regions, categories with the exact number of results. Where std. search says “..about 512 results”

Adding a Couple of Categories – and looking at Content Type Search.

Here I clicked on Author – Mick Badran and a Content Type of ‘Word’. You can see how the ‘advanced search’ is being visually built for me.

The best thing I like about all of this is that the RHS Web Part is totally customisable. The results all come from an XML File (property of the webpart) that you can customise – we can have icons, map different words/terms for things like ‘Word’ as a content type.
You can even add/remove your own.

The webpart has collapsible sections to it (you can even set how many items you want visible when collapse in the section!) and the collapsing/expanding is driven off Javascript calls back to the Server, so no round tripping.

Simply download, install the Solution, Activate the Feature for your Site Collection and add the Web Parts to your page. Easy as that to get started.

Brilliant – absolutely Brilliant (I’ve already had some of our users emailing me to say how easy it is)

Grab them here from CodePlex - http://www.codeplex.com/Wikipage?ProjectName=FacetedSearch

---- snip from the CodePlex Main Page ----

Project Description
MOSS Faceted Search is a set of web parts that provide intuitive way to refine search results by category (facet).
The facets are implemented using SharePoint API and stored within native SharePoint METADATA store. The solution demonstrates following key features:

• Grouping search results by facet
• Displaying a total number of hits per facet value
• Refining search results by facet value
• Update of the facet menu based on refined search criteria
• Displaying of the search criteria in a Bread Crumbs
• Ability to exclude the chosen facet from the search criteria
• Flexibility of the Faceted search configuration and its consistency with MOSS administration

With the SharePoint conference starting this week I’m sure there’ll be some great messaging coming out.

When we’re given the green light I’ll talk about the many fantastic improvements on the way to a SharePoint site near you!!!

Stay tuned….

Hi folks, I recently came across a tool (or enhancements to stsadm) that runs a series of rules against your farm to see if it passes some of the core requirements for upgrading to ‘a future release of SharePoint’ from WSS 3.0/MOSS 2007…so I’m guessing SP2010 :)

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd793607.aspx

Check it out and let me know what you think – I haven’t run it yet…looking into it.

Have fun,

Mick.

Ok – during these more challenging times (who doesn’t love trying to get that Suduko puzzle of life out).

Breeze went into bat for you – my passion and first love (or should I second love – my wife could read this) – the Student!!

Microsoft and Breeze Partner to bring you…

Microsoft and Breeze are bringing you this special SharePoint Training offer during June & July only. This is part of a campaign to help businesses use their existing Microsoft technologies to gain business efficiencies during these economic times.

Being better connected internally as well as externally can save businesses’ time and money. I will show you how Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 can help you achieve just that as SharePoint 2007 has some features we think you shouldn’t live without!

I will focus on delivering a ‘real world’ experience as well as having a strong training component. The things I instruct on have to work for me in the field as well!

This four day, intense workshop is designed for IT Professionals and Developers needing effective skills transfer for the new products and technologies delivered with Microsoft Office 2007.

You will have the opportunity for 'hands-on' experience to Develop, Customise and Integrate solutions on the Office 2007 Platform as well as gain experience from the field.

This course has been heavily subsidised by Microsoft at a cost of $1300 ex GST (RRP $2480 ex GST) and is filling up quickly. For more information and registration go here:

https://www.microsoft.com.au/events/register/home.aspx?levent=344938&linvitation

-----end the blurb -----

Note – Microsoft Partners can use their Readiness training $$ towards this course.

Chances are you’ve got the technology, got the MOSS environment and now needed to extend and explore.

What a great deal…I’ve still kept my first born ;)

See you there…

Mick.

More Variation support, more standard document support, more bug fixes and an upgrade checker (to make sure you can apply SP2)

Should keep those sites happier for longer…

Details from http://blogs.technet.com/office_sustained_engineering/archive/2009/04/23/service-pack-2-for-the-2007-microsoft-office-system-available-today.aspx

Service Pack 2 for the 2007 Microsoft Office system available today!

We're pleased to announce the release of all languages for Service Pack 2 for the 2007 Microsoft Office System, the 2007 Microsoft Office servers, and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. As promised, this post contains a list of the products that are patched by SP2 with their corresponding knowledge base articles, information on how to obtain the packages, and links to additional SP2 resources. We hope you'll find this to be one of the best service packs produced by the Office team ever!

How to obtain SP2

Recommended Method: Microsoft Update

We recommend using Microsoft Update to apply SP2. Microsoft Update's detection will determine the products and languages you have installed and update your machine all at once.

Optional Method: The Download Center

If you choose not to use Microsoft Update, the SP2 packages are available for download from the Microsoft Download Center. Please click here to find links to the downloads.

Yep - hot off the press thanks to Stephen a friend of mine (who brought this to my attention)

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=baa3ad86-bfc1-4bd4-9812-d9e710d44f42

Don't leave home without it.

Thanks to all of you who joined me recently for Shannon & my seminar around Gaining Efficiencies in SharePoint.

We had a great turn out and I hope you found it useful - we had around 60 mins....the clock was ticking.

As promised - here's the PowerPoint slides I used in the presentation.
 

Take care and enjoy.

Mick.

James, a student of mine this week pointed me to a great tool that 'optimises' your SharePoint site (as well as websites in general).

Runtime Peformance Optimisation (RPO) is the place where it's all at. You basically plug your URL in and it sends you a report on how it can be optimised.

(I'm yet to check this out) James mentioned that it operates off a DLL that you include as part of your swag in the \bin folder (or GAC) and it requires the DLL for runtime operations.

Here's the process.....

1. click on the 'Try now button'

2. Plug the values in for your site..

3. Then peruse over the emailed results at your leisure.....

It does things like Image optimisation, file compressions and even gives you the results in cold and warm boot times!
Very very very nice!

Looks like I'll be talking to Santa this Christmas!!! :-)