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The value of old data

2013-02-15T13:53:00Z

Recently in one of my projects we had a vendor that would deliver code that they swore they tested and passed all validation tests only to have it fail on the first couple of tests every time. This was frustrating for us, since we were paying this company to test the code before sending it, and for them, since their reputation was getting hurt with each "bad" release. After they tested the code again and we tested the code again and we each received different answers, we decided to have...(read more)

SharePoint 2010: Showing the Context menu on any field in a List View when defining lists

2012-07-09T14:27:00Z

I am working on a project that requires me to show the context menu on columns other than the default 'Title" field that normally shows up (at least when creating a list based on the "Item" template). While doing research I came across two different ways to do this when using XML to define the lists. The first just involves renaming the "Title" field to something else. I was taking this approach as I was playing with Visual Studio 2012RC's new wizards for creating...(read more)

Conditional requiring of fields using SharePoint 2010 List Validation

2012-02-28T14:54:00Z

My customer wanted to be able to make a field required only if another field had a specific value, AKA Conditional Requiring. While SharePoint has the ability to make fields required (or even check for uniqueness) it still does not yet have the ability to make a field required based on another. That is where List Validation comes in. If you do not already know, List Validation (along with Column Validation) allows you to perform checks on fields to make sure that they pass certain requirements. They...(read more)

Creating a Core Results web part for FAST for SharePoint

2011-03-30T14:13:00Z

There are a few postings out there that explain how to subclass the core results web part for SharePoint to add your own functionality. Those work great...until you try to use them with FAST for SharePoint. For some reason they just do not seem to work. After much pounding of head against desk and then using .Net Reflector I figured out that there are two variables that need to be set. base.ShowActionLinks = false; //This tells the code it is a results web part and not an action links web part base...(read more)

Know thy customer

2010-07-31T11:42:00Z

I was reading an excellent article by David S. Platt called " Using WPF for Good and Not Evil " in which he takes a sample application written to show off Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) and tells what he feels are the good and bad points of the program. One thing that I read that really resonated with me was "Platt’s First, Last, and Only Law of User Experience Design states, “KNOW THY USER, FOR HE IS NOT THEE.” " He wrote this about software developers...(read more)

Favorite feature of SharePoint 2010?

2010-05-17T12:15:00Z

There are a lot. I think that the Client Access Model is really going to change how interaction with SharePoint will occur. I can see a fully Windows based SharePoint in the near future. However, my favorite change is the new notification area of the User Interface. For those that are not familiar with it, compare it to the pop-up that shows when a user logs into Live Messenger or Communicator. There is a pop-up that shows for a small amount of time telling you that someone you care about has logged...(read more)

Style sheets in real life

2010-05-06T18:45:00Z

For those who do not know, a stylesheet, AKA CSS, is used to help define the look and feel of a web page. Check out the CSS Zen Garden for some great examples of what CSS can do. While working on a recent project I noticed that the incredible web page I created did not look quite so incredible at the customer's site. Some things would be off by a few, or not so few, pixels or images were just not showing. To make a long story short their MOSS custom master page called a custom stylesheet which...(read more)

Issue to be aware of upgrading Windows Server 2008 to R2 with MOSS

2009-09-06T20:40:00Z

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/962216/EN-US First you get a message telling you to look for KB article 962935, which canot be found. One MS employee on the forum (who is really very helpful) suggested it may not ready for public release yet. If you are going to put the KB article in an error message at least make sure it exists! As an aside, I wonder if it is the MOSS install program that is telling me it cannot run in Windows Server 2008 R2 or if there is something in the OS telling the installer...(read more)

In defense of the MVP program

2009-05-05T15:19:00Z

Some of you may have read Joel's recent blog posting regarding the MVP program in general, and it appears, the SharePoint MVP program specifically. While some of the point raised may be valid I do not think they tell the entire story. I am not sure if this will help or hurt but I felt like I needed to write something. First a little background for those who do not know me. I am proud to have been one of the first SharePoint MVPs and kept my MVP award until last year when I joined Microsoft. I...(read more)

Update panel not working like you expect

2009-04-29T18:14:00Z

We have been using a lot of updatepanels (yeah, I know there is a performance issue but that is a different post) and, as usual, it worked great on my computer but not so great at the customer site. What the panel does is to process a search request without the postback. At the customer site we saw the information being sent to the search engine and the data coming back, but it would never show the results.\ To make a long story short, after many network traces and a rather long call with Microsoft...(read more)

SharePoint 2010 - I want to start a trend

2009-04-16T19:18:00Z

Since we called Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 MOSS what are we going to call Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010? MSS is already taken as an acronymn (Microsoft Search Server) but I would bet it catches on in the general population. I was thinking we would call it "Mizz S" or "Missus". Maybe take some leeway with the acronym and call it "MiSS"? Any other ideas?...(read more)

SharePoint 2010 - the year we make contact?

2009-04-15T19:09:00Z

Well, assuming the release schedule that Microsoft just posted is actually correct we will. Now if only they would start releasing tidbits as to what we can expect in the product. So no more MOSS, or SharePoint Portal Server. Now it is just SharePoint! http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2009/Apr09/04-15Office2010.mspx Other good tidbits in there other than SharePoint also....(read more)

Best SharePoint site ever!!!

2009-03-30T11:38:00Z

Well, maybe not the best technically....or graphically, but you have got to love the subject matter! http://www.ferrari.com/Pages/Country_selector.aspx...(read more)

Working with quotes in XSLT

2009-03-24T17:40:00Z

I have a XSLT file where I need to pass strings to javascript. Due to the way the code is written the string designator is the single quote. Typically that is not an issue but what happens if the text you pass in contains an apostrophe, AKA single quote? You will need to perform a translation within XSLT to change the apostrophe to " Now comes the fun part. Here is a XSLT translation: <xsl:value-of select="translate(.,'a','A')" /> so how to you tell XSLT that...(read more)

Make sure to check out the Microsoft Incentives web site

2009-03-13T17:24:00Z

Kind of like sales on Microsoft licenses: http://www.microsoftincentives.com/ For a limited time only! 15% off L&SA - Exchange Server Standard, Office Communication Server Standard, SQL Server Standard, Office SharePoint Server , Visual Studio Team Suite, Office Project Standard, Office Project Professional, Office Visio Standard and Office Visio Professional. 25% off L&SA: Exchange Server Enterprise, Office Communication Server Enterprise, Windows Server Enterprise and Sever Management Suite...(read more)

Cannot unregister UpdatePanel with ID '' since it was not registered with the ScriptManager and MOSS

2009-03-11T23:03:00Z

I have run into this while trying to get the AjaxControlToolkit working with MOSS. Turns out there are a couple of things that can cause this. The first is using CreateChildControls to create your controls. While this is typically a best practice in this case it can cause an error. You can create your controls in the OnInit call instead. The second one, and the most annoying is any other error thrown but not caught. This took a while to figure out and can be a real pain if you do not have the ability...(read more)

Sending data from javascript to a .Net object

2009-02-24T13:04:00Z

Recently I came across an issue where I had checkboxes outputted via XSLT (which only outputs HTML) but needed to have the values of the selected checkboxes sent to a C# object. After banging my head against the wall and trying various schemes I remembered that JavaScript can be used to perform a postback. Now if there was only some way to pass data when performing the postback. Turns out there is. In JavaScript you can use the call "__doPostBack(variablename, value);" to perform the postback...(read more)

No mapping between account names and security ids was done

2009-02-19T14:37:00Z

I just created a new SQL Server 2008 server with Hyper-V and was in the process of setting up my VMs complete with AD. When I got to the point of adding a SQL Server 2008 to the mix I recieved the above error when I was trying to add the domain users as the service owners. Another odd thing was when I tried to add a domain account to a local security group it would say the user was added however I would not see the account show up in the group. After rebuilding my AD and SQL 2008 VMs a few times...(read more)

Great news in the world of Business Intelligence and SharePoint

2009-01-23T19:02:00Z

"PerformancePoint scorecarding and dashboarding capabilities will now become part of SharePoint Enterprise CAL and available to customers who are on SharePoint SA. This means that customers who want to deploy PerformancePoint can do so today at no additional cost. " Read the full story at the SharePoint Team Blog http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2009/01/23/microsoft-business-intelligence-strategy-update-and-sharepoint.aspx...(read more)

Limiting who can create a MySite

2009-01-20T14:48:00Z

I have had a few customers ask how they can control who can create a MySite, whether it was just for a trial run, to try to control hard drive usage, or for other reasons. In any case here is how you can do it Open the "Central Administration" web site Go to your Shared Service Provider's Administration page Click on the "My Site settings" link On the left side of the screen click on the "Personalization Services Permissions" link In this screen you can take away...(read more)