IWKID

Moving iwkid.com

2008-03-25T08:07:00.001-07:00

As terrifying as it is for me, I am transferring the iwkid.com domain to a new registrar. The company that has been hosting iwkid.com actually went away a while ago (RIP: http://www.ihost.biz) and iwkid.com then got transferred to eNom. Since then things have just "worked" even though their control panel doesn't show my web hosting or email.

I've been very nervous about moving it for fear of losing my email, web site, etc but I've decided that now is the time to make the move (and possibly update the site).

Wish me luck and be patient if my blog images disappear for a few days!

IWKID in 64-bit

2008-03-17T05:52:00.001-07:00

After a few great hours spent paving my laptop:

So far I'm underwhelmed with 64-bit, to the point of considering a 32-bit rebuild. We'll see how this week goes. The only casualty of the rebuild thus far was InstantSource. A quick email to their support confirmed that there are no plans for them to ever support 64-bit. I've been pretty pleased with the driver support - everything just worked after the rebuild. Well, everything except my Creative Labs Web Cam... but honestly, when has something from Creative worked on the first try?

While I was out...

2008-03-10T05:00:00.000-07:00

I picked a rough week to be sick! There were a ton of announcements and tons of new toys released last week. Here's the top three things I need to check out this week:

Back to work!

Unconference Presentation - 1st place?

2008-02-19T05:45:00.001-08:00

Wow! I was happily surprised with the news on Friday that my unconference presentation was the top rated session! Thanks again to all that attended and submitted evaluations!

More Info:

Session Resources

Mentioned on:

MSDN
Ton's blog

ODC Unconference Presentation

2008-02-13T14:30:00.001-08:00

For those of you that attended my Unconference presentation, here are links to resources from the talk:

Slide Deck
WSS RPC Test Page
My other blog: http://blogs.inetium.com/blogs/rmitchell

For those of you that did not attend I hope to post some demos from my presentation here shortly!

ODC 2008 - a good start!

2008-02-10T20:26:00.001-08:00

So this morning I left for the Office Developer's Conference in San Jose, CA. We had a few laughs when the gate attendant announced "we're just about set but as you can see, we're still looking for our plane..." Apparently the plane was in the hanger but the hanger doors were FROZEN shut. That'll happen when it is -11F outside. Good news is, they got the doors open and they didn't have to find us a replacement plane. Better news? It is sunny and in the 60s here in San Jose!

The conference officially kicks off tomorrow with Bill Gates presenting the opening keynote. I am SUPER excited to hear him speak and for the rest of the conference! It is going to be a great week!

If you're also here at the ODC, leave me a comment or send me an email!

TweakSP referenced in the SharePoint Governance and Manageability site

2008-02-07T06:00:00.000-08:00

TweakSP was just added to the list of tools on the SharePoint Governance and Manageability site:

http://www.codeplex.com/governance

Thanks Joel!

On My List...

2008-02-06T06:00:00.000-08:00

I spent a few hours this morning catching up on blogs (2000+ unread) and now I have a smaller list of things I need to look into. Thought I'd share:

Rebuild my laptop?
http://blogs.sqlxml.org/bryantlikes/archive/2008/01/07/switching-to-windows-server-2008-on-my-laptop.aspx

Look into the ASP.NET MVC Framework:
http://weblogs.asp.net/bsimser/archive/2007/12/09/soaking-up-the-asp-net-mvc-framework.aspx

Create a Site Collection in a specific Content Database:

http://blogs.tamtam.nl/mart/HowToCreateASiteCollectionInASpecificContentDatabase.aspx

Visual Studio 2k8 & SharePoint Workflows:

http://blogs.msdn.com/vsto/archive/2008/01/17/sharepoint-workflow-tools-video-interview-with-john-durant.aspx

Installing SharePoint on Windows Server 2k8:

http://blogs.msdn.com/bharry/archive/2007/12/13/installing-sharepoint-on-windows-server-2008.aspx

SPUtility Gems:

http://zac.provoke.co.nz/archive/2007/04/30/programming-in-wss-use-sputility.aspx

LINQ Resources

http://blog.svencipido.be/Blog/PermaLink,guid,66d36c37-ebc9-4c7b-84d4-8227be15cf9b.aspx

Community Server:

http://communityserver.org

STSDEV @ CodePlex

http://www.codeplex.com/stsdev

Creating a Custom User Site Provisioning Solution with SharePoint Server 2007

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb687711.aspx

TweakSP v0.0.0.2 Released!

2008-02-01T06:34:00.001-08:00

This morning I released the second early release of TweakSP. The project is moving along pretty well and I have learned a TON during development. Hopefully I'll be posting some of those lessons learned on this blog shortly.

For now, a quick walk-through of what's in v0.0.0.2:

Once you add the solution and deploy it, you will get an additional top link bar and Quick Launch element in Central Administration:

Clicking on either will bring you to the TweakSP Dashboard:

The two pages I'm most excited about for this release are the View Logs and View Extended Site Content.

View Logs displays the top 300k of the current log file:

The View Extended Site Content is the first Tweak Layout page in the project so it will be available for any web on your farm. It displays information about the lists and files in the current web:

I'm very excited with the potential for this page. I'd love to be able to list out the web parts for each aspx page, allow users to easily reset a customized page to the site definition, etc, etc...

If you have a development SharePoint environment and would like try it out, visit http://www.tweaksp.com (currently redirects to the codeplex project homepage) and download the latest release and installation guide.

Thoughts on the Xbox Gamerscore

2008-01-23T06:35:00.001-08:00

For those of you not familiar with the Xbox, they have a Gamerscore feature that gives you points when you get certain achievements in a game. For instance, if you pass a level you'd get 20 points. They have all kinds of achievements but one thing I haven't seen: Negative Achievements.

Now I know we all need positive reinforcement to keep playing our games but I really think that moments of true stupidity should be recognized. For instance:

In a single player campaign mode, killed 5 times or more by the same bad guy: -5
In a Halo 3 ranked playlist, killed 3 times while reloading when you should have been using your melee attack: -10
In any FPS, walking around with your head looking at the floor or ceiling for 5+ minutes: -25

Hmmm... after a quick search on Google it looks like I'm not the only one with the idea.

TweakSP Feature List

2008-01-23T06:19:00.001-08:00

We've started listing some of the features we've been thinking about for TweakSP to the Issue Tracker on the CodePlex site. You can see a list of the features here:

http://www.codeplex.com/TweakSP/WorkItem/List.aspx

Take a look, vote for your favorite, or add something you'd like to see included!

Office System Developer Conference

2008-01-21T16:12:00.001-08:00

So in a few weeks I'll be at the ODC 2008 (http://www.odc2008.com/). The question is, what sessions should I go to? Are you going? Are you presenting? What sessions will you be at?

TweakSP on CodePlex

2008-01-18T06:33:00.001-08:00

If you head to http://www.codeplex.com/TweakSP you can see what I've been up to the last two weeks. It is still in its very, very early stages but I think there is a good foundation now and we can start to focus on the meat of the project.

If you are interested in installing what we have on your own non-production SharePoint server, you can download SharePoint solution file from the project releases page.

Once on the server you can install the .wsp using STSADM. Once you deploy the solution, links for TweakSP should show up in your Central Administration.

Huge thanks to Mike and Neil for getting me up to speed with CodePlex!

First thoughts - Assassin's Creed

2008-01-11T06:05:00.001-08:00

Last night my brother dropped off Assassin's Creed for my birthday. I first saw the game a few weeks back and was amazed at how pretty the game looked. There are lots of great panoramic views and although the game play (especially the camera controlling) takes some getting used to, the end result is very cinematic.

So far the plot is very interesting as well but I have a history of easily tiring of single player campaign-style games. We'll see how this one stacks up!

SharedView

2008-01-03T08:34:00.001-08:00

If you are looking for a nifty NetMeeting-but-better desktop sharing application, you may want to check out Microsoft's SharedView (currently in Beta 2):

SharedView page on Connect:
http://connect.microsoft.com/site/sitehome.aspx?SiteID=94

3.5MB Download Link:
http://r.office.microsoft.com/r/rlidSV?clid=1033&p1=1&p2=DF_SWdownload

SharePoint Custom Actions - Digging in

2008-01-03T06:08:00.001-08:00

There have been a lot of great posts about how to add your own custom actions to the SharePoint UI:

And from this article I can see a list of all the possible locations I can attach to:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb802730.aspx

The question I had was what if I want to create a new location to host links? Yesterday I discovered a magical SharePoint Web Control:

Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls.FeatureLinkSections

You can see it in action on the applications.aspx page (used in Central Administration).

<SharePoint:FeatureLinkSections ID="Sections" runat="server" CellPadding="4" CellSpacing="4"
Columns="2" Location="Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.ApplicationManagement" Width="100%"
OnAddLink="OnAddLink" />

The interesting part is, the Location attribute matches the Location specified in the MSDN article above. Do a little tracing and you can really get an understanding of how Custom Actions work. My how the pieces fall into place...

IWKID - Reborn!

2008-01-02T05:01:00.001-08:00

Ok, enough is enough... After 8 months of guilt I have decided to bring back my IWKID blog. In 2007 I put most of my effort into my Inetium blog: http://blogs.inetium.com/blogs/rmitchell. To be completely honest, I've just been lazy. With the start of a new year I decided what better time to kick things back into gear!

Flash CS3?

2007-04-16T05:00:00.000-07:00

For years I’ve kept an eye on Macromedia and particularly Flash. One complaint I had was that whenever there was a new version, Macromedia wasn’t the best at telling us. Sure, they’d tell us a new version was coming but when it was time to launch, they would quietly release the latest and greatest without telling the world. When Adobe purchased Macromedia, that was one of the things I had hoped would change. Today while catching up on some blogs I saw that Flash CS3 has been released. I don’t know when it happened and was only slightly aware that a new release was on its way so either I’ve gotten busier/less observant or the problem has gotten worse.

It does sound like there are some cool new features available - check here for the list.

There is also a product tour here: http://www.adobe.com/products/flash/features/

Makes me want to write some ActionScript...

Exciting Times

2007-02-02T05:20:00.000-08:00

PowerShell install released for Vista

Vista drivers for NVIDIA

Official Launch of Office, Vista, and Exchange

Vista Frustration

2006-12-27T07:39:00.000-08:00

So you're one of the few who has access to an RTM build of Vista. You get it installed and think all of your beta blues will disappear? Not so fast…

Want to use PowerShell? There isn't a Vista installer yet.

What about the new service pack for Visual Studio 2005? It isn't available for Vista yet either. Scott says they'll release the RTM Vista installer in about a month.

Interested in the new XNA Framework? Better stick to XP because "Right now XNA Game Studio Express is only designed and tested for Windows XP SP2. Windows Vista and Windows Server 2003 are unsupported platforms, although we are working on bringing Vista support in a future update."

The problem isn't limited to Microsoft, though. If you've got an NVIDIA graphics card they're not ready to play with the RTM yet either. Microsoft does ship with some decent drivers but it doesn't look like they're being all they can be.

Run PowerShell on Vista

2006-12-07T05:00:00.000-08:00

A huge disappointment with the release of PowerShell 1.0 was that it was not made immediately available on Vista. Last week Neil and I talked about the issue and as far as we could tell the only reason PS was not released for Vista was because the installer was not ready yet. If that was the case then we should be able to come up with our own installer, right?

Yesterday I spent some time and was able to successfully get PowerShell to run on my Vista machine. If you are interested, here are the steps I took:

First realize that you're pretty much on your own when you do this. These steps are in no way supported by Microsoft

Install PowerShell on a Windows Server 2003 or XP machine (or virtual machine)

Copy the c:\windows\system32\windowspowershell directory to your Vista machine

Retrieve and install the required GAC assemblies:
- On the 2k3/XP machine open a command prompt and browse to c:\windows\assembly\GAC_MSIL
- There will be a directory for each of the assemblies required and a version folder containing a .dll
- Copy the following .dll files to your Vista machine:
    Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.Management.dll
    Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.Management.resources.dll
    Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.Utility.dll
    Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.Utility.resources.dll
    Microsoft.PowerShell.ConsoleHost.dll
    Microsoft.PowerShell.ConsoleHost.resources.dll
    Microsoft.PowerShell.Security.dll
    Microsoft.PowerShell.Security.resources.dll
    System.Management.Automation.dll
    System.Management.Automation.resources.dll
    System.Management.dll
- Next you will need to add each assembly to the GAC on your Vista machine. To do that, you'll need the .NET Framework 2.0 SDK
- Use the gacutil.exe tool to install each assembly (C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\SDK\v2.0\Bin\gacutil.exe /i path to .dll)
Add the following keys to your registry (save to your desktop, rename to .reg, double-click to run)

Add C:\WINDOWS\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0 to your PATH environment variable

That should do it! When you first start up PowerShell you'll receive a bunch of errors related to code signing. Neil helped me out with that and had me run Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned and that cleared it right up!

Project Tamarin

2006-11-08T05:01:00.000-08:00

I thought this was kind of interesting.. According to InfoWorld, Adobe will be releasing source code for its ActionScript language (currently used by Adobe’s Flash Player) to Mozilla for use in Firefox. The end goal is to have an ECMAScript 4 language that can be used in both Flash and Firefox for “rich, interactive applications.”

The official project page: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/tamarin/

Thanks #44

2006-11-07T04:28:00.000-08:00

Upon reaching the office this morning I reached into my computer bag to retrieve my laptop and, surprisingly, felt a sharp pain. I had somehow managed to slice my thumb pretty good. When I looked inside this is what I found:

So, I just wanted to say thanks, #44. Next time maybe ship a band-aid with your card.

Minnesotan no longer

2006-10-30T18:54:00.000-08:00

Part of the reason for my blogging silence is that we have been in the middle of buying a house and preparing for a move. Tonight, half that battle is over as we are the proud owners of a new home in Wisconsin!

Yay!

Wake Up!

2006-10-09T08:30:00.000-07:00

I've taken a little vacation from the blogosphere but what better to bring me back than a nuclear explosion? Courtesy of the USGS, you can get the general location of North Korea's nuclear test this morning. Add Google Maps and you can get an areal view of the area.

Click here to see!

Google Maps/Earth

2006-08-26T11:02:00.000-07:00

I love Google Earth but I haven't played with it enough to figure out how to send locations to other people. Sometimes you find cool stuff and just want somebody else to take a look. Yeah, I could just grab a screenshot but then they can't browse around or zoom in! What fun is that? I could also just browse around using Google Maps, and then just send a link... but browsing there seems to take longer and just isn't as smooth as Google Earth.

Well, I noticed that Google Earth displays the latitude and longitude of the cursor (bottom left) so I started to wonder if I could just put those coordinates into Google maps and have it take me where I wanted to go.... it turns out that you can!

http://maps.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=18539

One bummer though... Google Earth displays the longitude/latitude coordinates as degrees... Google Maps wants them in decimal degrees. No problem! Thanks to the FCC you can punch them into a calculator:

http://www.fcc.gov/mb/audio/bickel/DDDMMSS-decimal.html

Pretty cool stuff! Necessary? No... but cool!

Vista Links

2006-08-25T09:11:00.000-07:00

I did a presentation on Vista a few weeks ago and had few resource links that I gathered:

Vista:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Vista

Ximage:

http://windowssdk.msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms722795.aspx

SQL 2k5 SP1 (required to run SQL 2k5 on Vista)

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=cb6c71ea-d649-47ff-9176-e7cac58fd4bc&displaylang=en

IIS 7:

XAML/WPF:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/winfx/technologies/presentation/default.aspx

Gadgets:

Remote Desktop: Too Many Concurrent Logins?

2006-08-18T07:54:00.000-07:00

When you've got too many users logged in via Remote Desktop (2, if the server is configured for remote administration mode) you have one additional option. You can use Remote Desktop's '/console' switch to remote into the actual console session.

Open a command prompt and cd to %SystemRoot%\system32
Type mstsc.exe /console and press enter to launch
Login!

Can't Find that GAC'd DLL?

2006-08-15T15:29:00.000-07:00

Here are a few locations to check:

C:\WINDOWS\assembly\GAC

C:\WINDOWS\assembly\GAC_32

C:\WINDOWS\assembly\GAC_MSIL

You can also browse the GAC in the file system by adding a non-zero binary value called 'DisableCacheViewer' at HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Fusion.

Windows Live Messenger Issues

2006-06-29T07:32:00.000-07:00

So I installed Windows Live Messenger this morning and I was bummed to discover that I wasn’t able to log in! The error message was 80072efd and as it suggested I checked my firewall rules and internet connection, which both appeared to be configured as they should be. I had someone else on the network try it and they were able to get in so I’m not really sure what the problem could be.
I popped open Ethereal and pretended to know what I was looking at as the chatter scrolled by. The only hint I saw was a message saying that a packet had been "Administratively Filtered." Other than that, I was surprised to see a link to an install embedded in the chatter:
http://msgr.dlservice.microsoft.com/download/5/a/8/5a892c0f-5b87-4767-8927-6fe5d8cfc582/Install_MSN_Messenger.exe
It turns out that’s the link to the messenger 7.5 install - which I took to be a sign I should revert back to 7.5.

System Blues

2006-06-26T15:52:00.000-07:00

So my laptop decided to crap out today. First it was just freezing once in a while, then it started blue-screening, then it started making some interesting noises and shutting down. So, after much too long troubleshooting we swapped out my hard drive and RAM with another machine of the same model. That seems to have taken care of the issue so it sounds like something in the shell of the computer (Motherboard/CPU/etc..) is on the fritz. Luckily we have a spare shell that I can borrow until that gets fixed otherwise I would be in a world of unproductiveness.

Thanks Vista, I think I'll wait

2006-06-15T06:21:00.000-07:00

So I'm back on Windows XP after a few days with Vista. Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of things I like about Vista but I also experienced more than a few problems that caused me to go back. Some thoughts:

My number one complaint is with the network center. To me, managing networks in Windows XP is super simple. In Vista? There are options and wizards and views all over the place. I never could seem to find what I was looking for. On top of that, doing an ipconfig showed that I had 15 gazillion network adapters which made troubleshooting very painful. Eventually I always found the screen I was looking for but why does it have to be so complicated?

Performance. My machine is getting a little older, yes, but things in Vista just took too long. I know that I will definitely need some upgrading before I make the switch.

I don't need a defrag? So with performance chugging like it was I thought I'd check to see if I needed to defragment my drive. I was surprised to find a new defrag tool in Vista but it didn't really tell me much... just that "You don't need to defragment this drive." Well, I was dual-booting with Windows Server 2k3 and when I booted into there and checked I saw that I certainly DID need to defrag. How bad was it? It took close to 5 hours to complete.

Games don't play! How can I possibly have a production computer that doesn't run Battlefield 1942 and Civ 4? Unacceptable.

Certificates. In order to authenticate on the corp wireless network I need to update my certificate. Every time I opened certmgr in MMC it crashed. Makes pulling down a certificate real tricky.

Printer weirdness. I configured my printers and they worked for a full day. After that, any document I sent would sit in the printer queue "pending." Remove and re-add the printer and it worked just fine. I call the feature "expiring printers."

IE 7+. The tabs are cool but not really necessary. Other than that, I just saw a lot of weirdness with it. Sites didn't always render quite right (though most did) and I experienced more crashes than I do today. I think I'll wait for the RTM.

Things I'm going to miss? I really like the "start and type" ability in Vista (hit the start key and type... your text goes into the run input box). It makes it very easy to get to where I'm going. The look and feel is nice, but again... not really necessary. Gadgets - same thing. I like the idea of the user access control (not running as admin all the time) and it really wasn't that big of a hassle - except when I'm re-arranging the programs menu.

Overall, I mostly liked it but when I needed to get things done Vista slowed me down. I think I'm just going to have to wait a little longer to run it full time.

Vista Demonstration Web Site

2006-05-31T19:41:00.000-07:00

Via John Howard, check out this new website going live: http://www.seewindowsvista.com.

Vista Beta 2 - Day 2 impressions

2006-05-25T05:57:00.000-07:00

So I’ve started installing a few more apps on Vista 2 and things are going "ok" so far.

I installed Visual Studio 2k5 and SQL Server 2k5 (which requires SP1 to run on Vista). I ran into a little bit of a snag with Visual Studio where it didn’t want to load because of some missing registry keys... but when I right-clicked it and ran as administrator, that took care of it (you only have to do that the first time you run it).

I also installed Battlefield 1942 to see how that runs... so far, it just doesn’t. I’ll have to check into that and see if it is just a Battlefield on Vista issue or if my other games suffer the same fate.

Virtual PC 2004 (with SP1) seems to run happily, I installed it and started building out an XP image to host my "legacy" apps (VS 2k3, Office 2k3, etc). You do get a prompt that some of the visual effects will be disabled while you run it, but it looks like the disabling is confined to Virtual PC... so you don’t lose your sidebar or anything like that (like you used to). My biggest fear was that performance was going to make it impossible to run VPC’s hosted on Vista (at least on my current hardware). That doesn’t seem to be the case so far. I gave my VPC a gig of RAM and it ran pretty happily and my machine stayed pretty responsive too.

I installed IIS 7 and for fun tried to install WSS V3 on top of it. I know it isn’t on the SharePoint team’s radar to implement but it really would be nice if that worked. Alas, it does not... You get a bogus "requires Server 2k3 SP1" message. Lame.

Next on the agenda? Gadget Development for Vista...

Beta 2 Day

2006-05-23T21:03:00.000-07:00

Wow, what a day. For the early adopters out there today was like Christmas. Microsoft released the Beta 2 versions of Office 2007, Vista, and Longhorn Server. There just isn’t enough time to play with them all. I was, however, able to get Vista installed and an Office 2007 install on top of it and I have to say I LOVE it. I’ve only been at it a few hours but the experience is exactly what I had hoped for. With previous builds, especially of Vista, the experience left a lot to be desired. The screen flickering, constant prompts (to allow me to do what I just TOLD it to do), and poor performance had me a little concerned. No more. I will get some screenshots and experiences up in in the next few days – for now? Time for bed!

Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor

2006-05-19T05:04:00.000-07:00

Are you anxious to know if your hardware will support Vista? Check out the Upgrade Advisor, a small app that will check your system specs and let you know if you're Vista-Ready.

The best part? It does a quick check of your devices and lets you know what will install automatically and what drivers you'll have to go hunting for.

Hidden functionality

2006-05-18T13:45:00.000-07:00

I've been using the Yahoo Music Engine now for a few months but the other day I made a huge discovery. Every now and then, the transparency of my player (using their Kamino skin) would increase… sometimes to the point of me not being able to find it! I was never really sure what caused it or how to get it back!

The other day I discovered, completely by accident that if my music player has focus and I use the scroll wheel, the transparency changes! All of the sudden, this weird occurrence is transformed into an awesome feature!

What's even better, I discovered today (again, completely by accident) that if you hold control while you use the scroll wheel, you can change the size of your player! Again, another very nice feature.

It makes me wonder how many other features there are out there just begging to be found - not just in the YME, but in all applications. Today I also tracked down the help file that references this functionality. Makes me wonder if I should see what else I'm missing by reading the rest of the help file...?

Here are some screenshots:

Normal:

Transparent:

Super Transparent:

Big:

Small:

Waiting Patiently

2006-05-15T16:00:00.000-07:00

If the word on the street can be trusted, we should see Beta 2 builds of both Windows Vista and Office 2007 in the next week. That means its time to back up files, re-build virtual machines, and get plans in order for testing the next builds.

I'm really excited to see the next rev of Vista. I'd like to start running it production but the latest build just isn't ready for that. We'll see if Beta 2 is a little more baked.

As for Beta 2 of the Office world? Where do I begin? I guess the thing I'm most excited about is the possibility of more info surrounding IBF v-next. I have heard mixed messages on when we'll hear more but I'm crossing my fingers for this next build.

RAM's not supposed to smell like that...

2006-05-07T19:32:00.000-07:00

File this one under "Should have known better…" I have built three computers at the house and changed countless computer components over the years and aside from a few memorable moments with my LS120 drive, I have not had any significant issues. Tonight though, I was changing some memory sticks around to see what I could get to work and I must not have seated one of the memory sticks quite right. There were a few interesting clicking noises and then there was a bright read glow that you are never supposed to see on the inside of a computer. I unplugged it and removed the (quite warm) chip from the motherboard. Here's what's left:

And close up:

Sigh... I think I'll stop for the evening.

"Mendocino" released as "Duet for Microsoft Office SAP"

2006-05-04T03:56:00.000-07:00

Well, the IBF guys are blogging again, only now they're talking about Mendocino: the joint software collaboration project between Microsoft and SAP.

Yesterday the code name was dropped and Mendocino became Duet. It sounds like Duet is built on a version of the Information Bridge Framework, however, their first pass only works in Outlook.

Check out http://www.duet.com for more information and a video demo.

Webcasts

2006-05-01T05:37:00.000-07:00

I listened in on two interesting Webcasts last week:

Visual Studio Team System Extensibility: Creating Graphical Designers with Domain-Specific Language (DSL) Tools

and

Building Rules-Based Applications Using Windows Workflow Foundation

Both Webcasts were very interesting, but a little ahead of their time with me. The DSL Tools are still in CTP mode and there's a fair amount of XML tweaking that should go away with the V1 release later this year. As far as WF goes, every time I see it I realize there's so much more I have to learn! :-)

Additional Venue

2006-05-01T05:30:00.000-07:00

Today I made my first post to the Inetium Blogs! At first I had a really hard time deciding how to manage two technology blogs but this morning it just clicked. I work at Inetium and I encounter more than enough things at work to blog about. I still "play" with tons of other technologies that aren't necessarily related to my job and this will be my home for posts on those technologies.

So check out my additional venue at http://blogs.inetium.com/blogs/rmitchell

STLSUG Rescheduled

2006-05-01T04:36:00.000-07:00

I was bummed to get a note on Friday that the STLSUG was being rescheduled for June 5th. I was really looking forward to checking it out and I don't think next month is going to work for me. Oh well, some day I'll get down there! Now I'll just shift focus to this month's MNSPUG where we'll be celebrating our TWO YEAR anniversary!

Ghosting in Windows SharePoint Services

2006-04-28T06:02:00.000-07:00

Version 2

A page is considered Ghosted when it is built using the site template files on the file system. That site template is merged with personalization data from the database to display the final output. There are two reasons we like Ghosted pages:

They read from the file system, which is faster than the database.
They reference the site template, which means if you update your site template, you update all the sites referencing the site template - this was key to customizing the look and feel of your WSS deployments.

A page is considered unGhosted when it has been modified by a SharePoint compatible editor (read: FrontPage 2003) and can no longer be built using site template files. Behind the scenes, there is an entry in the Docs table for each file in your WSS site. As long as the Content field is NULL, the file is considered Ghosted. The moment you make a change using an editor, a snapshot of the file is saved into the database and your file is unGhosted.

Version 3

The concept of Ghosting still exists in WSS Version 3 but it is not as big of a problem as it used to be. In my experience, the issue most people are concerned with is the inability to centrally update the look and feel of their web site if their pages have been unGhosted. With the introduction of Master Pages, users will still be able to update a page's look and feel centrally, even if pages have been unGhosted. The SharePoint guys have also done some work to improve performance so the performance hit on unGhosted pages is smaller.

Lots of fun stuff going on!

2006-04-26T12:12:00.000-07:00

This morning we reviewed a few chapters of "Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture" which a few of us are reading at the office.

Friday I was scheduled to take the 70-229 exam for SQL but things have just been too crazy and I don't feel quite prepared enough. I bumped it to the 12th so now I will study for 70-300 which I have scheduled for the 5th. Should be great!

I've also been doing a lot of research into Community Server for our Inetium Blogs We'd like to change the look and feel but we don't want to invest a ton of time into it. It sounds like version 3 (due this summer?) should take advantage of ASP.NET 2.0 and so hopefully customizing the look and feel will be easier.

This weekend I'll be heading down to St. Louis for their SharePoint User Group (STLSUG) I'm really looking forward to seeing another SharePoint user group in action. Hopefully I can get some ideas or tips for the MNSPUG! If you're planning on attending please let me know!

Lunch with Jeff

2006-04-20T10:42:00.000-07:00

I had a great lunch with the original jk today. That’s one thing I love about the Twin Cities – even after someone has moved on, they don’t move too far :-)

Windows SharePoint Services "V3" Videos

2006-04-20T05:23:00.000-07:00

Here's a quick look at the two new site templates for WSS:

Blog Sites

Wiki Sites

Windows SharePoint Services "V3" Videos

2006-04-19T05:14:00.000-07:00

Two more videos:

Recycle Bin Administration

Backup and Restore

Sorry Neil, they both went over 60 seconds :(

Windows SharePoint Services "V3" Videos

2006-04-18T05:06:00.000-07:00

Two more videos:

Security Trimming

Item Level Security

Windows SharePoint Services "V3" Videos

2006-04-17T05:20:00.000-07:00

I started putting together screenshots of what I demoed at the MNSPUG last Wednesday but then I decided that some screen captures might show it better.

RSS Support for Lists

Site Recycle Bins

Let me know what you think and if there are any other features you'd like to see highlighted!

Partner Technology Night - Vista

2006-04-15T06:17:00.000-07:00

This past Thursday I attended a Microsoft Tech Night event here at the Bloomington office. The topic was Windows Vista and the presenters were Ken Lince and Galen Auch. They both did an awesome job and presented a TON of content. Here are some highlights:

Keep an eye out for imageX - a "Ghost" like tool to be released with Windows Vista.

From November 2005 to December 2007, Microsoft is refreshing EVERY SKU.

It sounds like the Beta 2 of Vista will be in the May timeframe, at which time Microsoft will start dogfooding Vista and Office 2007.

In Vista, metadata is everywhere. One great example was opening a document and adding a "tag" to a file. In Windows Explorer you could then group by tags.

There is also no Administrator account. Even if you have admin rights, when you log in you are not running as administrator. When you try to do something that requires more rights, you get prompted.

Use Control + Shift + F9 to toggle the "glass" effect.

Vista has a File and Registry Virtualization concept. Because no one runs as administrator, they won't have access to things like the program files directory or registry keys. To support craptastic legacy apps, Vista virtualizes those locations and allows reads/writes to a virtualized folder structure/registry key.

We also got a quick view into some of the Server updates coming down the pipe. Ken discussed the concept of Windows Longhorn Server Core, which is a Windows Server with no IE, no media player, and no start menu. You boot into server and you get a desktop with a command prompt on it. Why would you want to do that? Anyone who has had to reboot a production file server because media player needs to install a security update knows exactly why!

File this under - I wish I knew that. Apparently with a Windows Server R2 license, you are licensed to run 4 virtual instances (running on the newly free Virtual Server R2)

Ken also walked through some Exchange 12 info that blew me away. I'm always amazed at how much better OWA gets with each new rev and the upcoming version is DEFINITELY no exception. Even better is OVA - Outlook Voice Access. Imagine you're on your way into the office for a meeting and you're running a bit late. With Exchange 12, you call into OVA and send an email to all of the meeting attendees to let them know you'll be 10 minutes late.

They also touched on Windows Fundamentals (formerly Windows Eiger). Fundamentals will be an OS that will run on crappy old(ish) hardware. It won't run everything but it is meant to give you internet access, Remote Desktop, and document viewer capabilities. Here's the bummer, it will only be available to enterprise customers with Microsoft Software Assurance. No word yet on if MS will release an OS to help us get the most out of our old hardware at home...

Are you in the North Central District? Want to go to the next Tech Night? Check out http://tn.microsoftnorthcentral.com for more info!

SharePoint Case Studies - MNSPUG

2006-04-13T20:16:00.000-07:00

We had another great session at the Minnesota SharePoint User Group on Wednesday. We had around 90 people in attendance which was fantastic! Most of the session was user-presented case studies but at the end I was able to give a quick preview of Windows SharePoint Services "V3". It was the first time I was able to show off an "O12" product and the energy in the room was awesome! Tomorrow I will try to get some screenshots of what I covered but for now you can check out the presentation at http://www.sharepointmn.com. Also, if you are in (or will be in) the Minneapolis area, next month is the MNSPUG's 2 year anniversary! If you've been before, we'd love to see you back - if you've never been we'd love to meet you!

SharePoint Connections Recap

2006-04-13T06:09:00.000-07:00

I know - I’ve been a slacker. I should have had this information posted last week... better late then never though, right?

For those of you that don't know, the Dev Connections conference was split into 4 tracks: ASP.NET, Visual Studio, SQL, and SharePoint. The reason the conference is such a good deal is that if you pay for one conference, you basically get the other 3 free; that is, you can attend any sessions from the other three tracks.

I spent most of my time in the SharePoint track but I did step out for a few ASP.NET sessions. Here are a few of my favorite sessions:

How the core ASP.NET engine works (Rick Strahl) - Rick did a fantastic job and clearly knows ASP.NET backwards and forwards. He took us from the 10,000 foot level all the way down to the microscopic level, showing us what makes ASP.NET tick.

Working with Lists and Document Libraries from a Developer’s Perspective (Patrick Tissenghem) - I didn't learn a ton in this session but it was great to finally meet one of the u2u guys. Patrick walked us through accessing SharePoint via the object model, web services, and touched on using RPC.

Incorporating Smart Documents Into SharePoint Solutions & The Information Bridge Framework (Scot Hillier) - Two great sessions that really got me excited again about developing with Office. Scot showed how to develop Smart Documents using VSTO 2k5 which looks SO much easier than how I used to do it (Smart Document SDK). In the IBF session, Scot walked through building a simple solution using IBF 1.5. It is so hard to find someone that actually knows what IBF stands for, let alone how to use it!

Search and Indexing Configuration and Administration for SPS (Brad Smith) - Brad was just hilarious in this session. He had a lot of great content as well and I was bummed that I had to step out of his session a little early.

SharePoint 2007 (Mike Fitzmaurice & Tom Rizzo) - There was basically a whole day of SharePoint 2007 talk and both Mike and Tom did an excellent job. There were a few great nuggets but a lot I had seen/heard before. I definitely enjoyed seeing Excel server up and running - I hadn't taken the time to check that out yet. Overall I walked away super excited for SharePoint 2007.

There was also a MS Unplugged night where we were able to pose questions to a panel of Microsoft folks from the various product teams. I was more than a little bummed that there was no representation from the SharePoint team but there were a few good questions asked and I did win a free T-Shirt.

Overall the conference was good. I think if I go next year I won't schedule a vacation the week before - that made for a very, very long two weeks. The conference is definitely worth it though and really raised my excitement about all the new technologies coming down the pipe!

So long, Orlando!

2006-04-06T12:36:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the last day of SharePoint Connections but Neil and I stuck around for a post-con session on Mobile Development. After a week of vacation and a week here, I decided to get a head-start on email/bloglines catching up.

And, if you’ve got to be on your computer, it may as well be here:

Sorry I haven’t posted much in the way of techy stuff from the conference but I’ve mostly been going back to my room and playing with all the cool stuff I learned throughout the day. No worries though, I will be posting some of that soon!

DEVCONNECTIONS Conference (swag) Challenge

2006-04-03T11:03:00.000-07:00

For those of you at one of the DEVCONNECTIONS conferences, be sure to check out the vendor expo. In particular, stop by booth #316, the MaximumASP kids. Sure they might have a cool product/offering – I guess we didn’t really check. But what really matters? They have projectile swag (as Neil calls it).

Here’s a video of said swag in action.

But do be careful, we have already had one swag casualty. Though we paid attention to warnings: "don’t pull by the fins," one of our rockets inflicted heavy damage on one of its brothers.

So, your challenge? Post your best projectile (or other) swag videos! Also, if any of you at Connections are interested in a shoot-out, let us know.

No word yet on how far the rockets will go when shot from the balcony... more on that later.

Vacation

2006-04-03T05:25:00.000-07:00

I finished up my vacation with a day in Virginia Beach, and then two days in DC.

A walk on the beach.

The pandas at the National Zoo

The "pointy thing"

Cherry blossoms on the Mall

So now back to work… well, sorta. I’m actually down in Orlando at the Connections Conference. Should have some posts on that later today!

Vacation

2006-03-29T03:51:00.000-08:00

As day five of my east coast vacation gets under way I thought I would share a few pictures. So far we’ve seen Petersburg, Williamsburg, Yorktown, Jamestown, and (of course) Busch Gardens.

Fort at Petersburg National Battlefield

Loch Ness Monster (Busch Gardens, Williamsburg)

My old house in Williamsburg

Fort at Jamestown Settlement

We’re off to Norfolk/Virginia Beach today and then we head up to DC for a few days!

Web Parts, Web Parts, Web Parts…

2006-03-14T05:52:00.000-08:00

It has been a busy, busy March! On the 1st I did an internal presentation on ASP.NET 2.0 Web Parts and on the 8th I co-presented at the Minnesota SharePoint Users Group covering Web Part Development (SharePoint V2 and ASP.NET 2.0). With the presentations behind me, Neil and I have been able to make some progress on our CRM 3.0 Web Part project.

More on that later though, there’s BIG news happening at Inetium tomorrow and there’s lots to be done in preparation!

Chkdsk saves the day

2006-03-05T13:23:00.000-08:00

There are few things in life that give you that "special feeling" like trying to read from your external hard drive and getting a "cyclic redundancy check" error. Before you throw that hard drive into the wall you might want to give chkdsk.exe a try. Here is a link with all the helpful switches and options.

Thanks Word, but no thanks

2006-02-22T05:18:00.000-08:00

I usually compose my blog posts in Word to avoid any spelling errors but I frequently have to update my posts after pasting them into the submit form. The problem is with Word’s auto formatting, especially with quotes.

Word likes to change straight quotes () into smart quotes () by default.

So how do you make it stop?

Click on the Tools menu and select "AutoCorrect Options"

Switch to the AutoFormat tab

Under Replace, uncheck the "Straight quotes" with "smart quotes" option and choose ok

Windows Server 2k3 Enhanced Security

2006-02-22T04:54:00.000-08:00

Windows Server 2003 is configured by default with "Enhanced Security" enabled. This prevents you from using ActiveX controls which is what I needed to test yesterday. So how do you disable enhanced security?

Browse to Add or "Remove Programs":

Choose "Add/Remove Windows Components" from the tab strip on the left and scroll down to the "Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration" option:

Click details and un-check the group you wish to disable enhanced security for:

Next time you open IE, you should receive a notice that enhanced security is disabled:

Now that you know how... should you do this on a server? Probably not unless you have a specific reason to do so. I was testing an ActiveX control yesterday on a test machine so the risk was pretty low.

Messenger 8.0 - Beta

2006-02-21T09:36:00.000-08:00

To sum up the beta in one screenshot:

The Death of FrontPage

2006-02-16T06:47:00.000-08:00

That’s right; today Microsoft shared the news of FrontPage’s eventual demise. The product will live on though, at least in some forms, in both the SharePoint Designer and Expression products.

The new Microsoft Web Authoring and Design Tools:

Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007
Microsoft Expression Web Designer

Read the Press Release here.

Read more about Expression Web Designer here.

2007 Microsoft Office System

2006-02-16T06:25:00.000-08:00

Brian Jones’s announcement

Microsoft Press Release

Microsoft Office Preview

Book Reviews - Raving Fans and Unwritten Rules of Management

2006-02-16T05:17:00.000-08:00

This book has been passed around at the office and I finally got around to reading it. It is a little quirky but definitely a good, fast read and it really helps you think about customer service the way it could and should be.

Speaking of fast reads, I also read through Bill Swanson’s Unwritten Rules of Management which I thought was an interesting read as well. Lots of good tidbits that would be great for anyone to read - from the new recruit out of college to the CEO.

Exam 071-552 Beta

2006-02-16T04:32:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I took a small chunk out of my day to take the beta version of the MCAD --> MCPD upgrade exam. It’s been a few months since my last test and I gotta say, I didn’t miss it! The test was pretty tough but definitely passable with the proper preparation. Unfortunately, I won’t find out if I passed for a while. I guess for the beta exams they don’t send you your score report until 1-2 days before the live version of the exam is released. That means I won’t find out until "towards the end of May" according to the exam prep page.

Resources:

And in case you’re wondering like I was: 071-552 is the beta version of 070-552.

SharePoint Connections - Orlando

2006-02-14T04:32:00.000-08:00

It sounds like Neil and I will be heading to Orlando in early April for the SharePoint Connections conference. Anyone else going to be there?

Quick Tip: IIS 6 Application Pools

2006-02-13T08:32:00.000-08:00

If you have multiple application pools in IIS, you’ll probably have multiple w3wp.exe entries in your running processes list. If you need to know which is which (say because one is eating up all your memory) try the following:

Open up a command prompt and type iisapp and then hit enter. This is a shortcut for C:\windows\system32\iisapp.vbs which should run using cscript by default.

That should give you something like the following:

Now you’ve got the PID which is great except that by default Task Manager doesn’t show the PID:

That’s ok though, click View --> and choose "Select Columns":

And now you can see who’s taking up what:

MN SharePoint User Group – WSS Application Templates

2006-02-13T03:55:00.000-08:00

First of all, I have been participating in the Minnesota SharePoint User Group since it started in April, 2004 and have been very pleased with the number of attendees – again, thank you all for coming!

Last week I presented on the 30+ WSS Application Templates available for download on Microsoft’s site. While preparing for the demo I realized one thing – these are not applications. What they are is a collection of templates that can be installed to demo the power of Windows SharePoint Services. This can be a great way to help customers (internal or otherwise) visualize the SharePoint way.

Some thoughts:

Most of the downloads contain two template versions, a basic and a custom/pretty version. The custom/pretty versions are great examples of how much you can change the look/feel of a WSS site.

When the templates contain InfoPath forms, they are broken/miss-linked. I know there are several blog-posts out there on how to fix/relink the forms but I am still disappointed that there is no information/warning on the download page or within the downloads themselves (which already contain readme files).

The templates are full of sample data. This is great for demos but if you actually did want to use these templates you have to go through and remove all of the data.

If you haven’t seen the templates, we have created a site for each template that you can browse at http://sharepointmn.inetium.com/Templates. As always, the slides from last week’s presentation is available at http://sharepointmn.inetium.com/User Group Presentations.

Remote Desktop Shortcut Keys

2006-02-09T16:05:00.000-08:00

If you always use Remote Desktop in full screen mode, you probably won't be as thrilled with this info as I am. In "windowed" mode, many windows shortcuts are actually sent to your local system, not to your remote desktop. This makes switching between applications painful at best. There is hope though! Here are some shortcuts you can use if you are in windowed mode:

ALT-PAGE UP – Switches between programs from left to right.

ALT-PAGE DOWN – Switches between programs from right to left.

ALT-INSERT – Cycles through the programs in the order they were started.

ALT-HOME – Displays the Start Menu.

CTRL-ALT-BREAK – Switches the client between a window and full screen.

CTRL-ALT-END – Brings up the Windows Security dialog box.

ALT-DELETE– Displays the Windows menu.

CTRL-ALT-NUMPAD-MINUS - Places a shadow copy of the active window within the client, on the Terminal server clipboard, which provides the same functionality as pressing PrintScrn on a local computer.

CTRL-ALT-NUMPAD-PLUS - Places a shadow copy of the entire client window area on the Terminal server clipboard, which provides the same functionality as pressing ALT+PrintScrn on a local computer.

Display Document Version Numbers using the Data View Web Part

2006-02-09T05:43:00.000-08:00

Out of the box, SharePoint doesn’t allow you to display the current version number as a metadata field for a document library.

Using the Data View Web Part, however, you can display this and other hidden fields – here’s how:

1) Open the Web Part Page in FrontPage:

2) Add a List View Web Part for the document library:

3) Right-click on the Web Part and choose "Convert to XSLT Data View":

4) Remove the table columns you don’t want to display:

5) Add a new column (Right-Click on the Modified column and choose “Insert Columns”):

6) In the Data View Details taskpane, find the owshiddenversion field and drop it into the first cell in the version column:

7) Save the page and preview in Internet Explorer:

Wireless Calzone

2006-02-08T12:28:00.000-08:00

I’ve got a meeting up in Plymouth at 3:30 and I haven’t had lunch. I could:

A) Go down to the overpriced cafeteria that always makes me sick
B) Drive up to the Davanni’s and hook into Dunn Bro’s free wireless internet

Build your own PC

2006-02-06T08:20:00.000-08:00

The Pieces

The first thing to realize if you’ve never built a PC is that, just like anything else, a PC is just a bunch of pieces. All you have to do is figure out which pieces you need, where to put them, and then put it all together. So what are the main components of a PC?

Case/Power Supply

You’ve got to have something to hold all the pieces together – this is obviously it. Power supplies are typically included.

Motherboard

The main board that connects all the thinking pieces of the PC

The brain of your computer

Memory/RAM

Short-term memory for your PC – needs to be really fast

Hard Drive

Long-term memory for your PC – needs to have lots of room

Media Drives

Can include CD-ROM/DVD-ROM and floppy drives

Video Card

Tells the monitor what to show

PC Cooling

Keeps the computer for cooking itself

Sound Card

Plays your music and sound effects

Networking Card

Talks with your home network and links you to that internet thing

Monitor

Shows you where you’re clicking

Operating System

You won’t get far without this – runs all your apps and manages your system’s resources

CPU Options

Because the type of motherboard you get depends on what CPU you get, that is usually a good place to start. There are still two major contenders in the CPU world: AMD & Intel. Some people are very passionate about which is better – I’m not even going to go there. Your best bet is to look into it for yourself or talk with people to see what their experiences have been. One thing I will offer – AMD processors are typically a little less expensive than their Intel counterparts.

We are currently at a crossroads in the processor world. We have been running with 32-bit processors for a long time but the industry is now pushing towards a 64-bit standard, which will allow CPU’s to handle more memory and larger files. The truth is, the PC market is just getting started in the 64-bit arena so unless you’re looking to build a bleeding-edge gaming/video editing machine, you should be just fine with a 32-bit processor. A key thing to remember here is that applications have to be specifically designed to take advantage of 64-bit technology in order to see a performance boost.

Multi-Core processors have been on the market for a few months now and offer a significant performance increase over single-core processors. Regardless of what you want your new PC to be used for – a little extra power goes a long way towards extending the life of your PC. Both AMD and Intel offer “Dual Core” processors and while they are a little more expensive, the performance they provide should be worth it in the long run.

Choosing a Motherboard

Now that you’ve chosen a CPU, its time you give it somewhere to sit. Choosing a motherboard can be a big decision but for me, it’s always been kind of an easy one. Motherboards can come with lots of things built in (“on board”) – Network cards, video cards, sound cards... Unless you want to buy those separate, or have a reason to, you may as well get them with the motherboard. And, since you are limited by what type of CPU you choose, you really start to narrow your options down.

A few things to keep in mind:

Playing games? You may not need an on board video card. Most motherboards don’t come with high-end video cards. If you’re looking to play 3-D games, you’ll probably end up buying a video card anyway. Don’t worry if the motherboard you want has one, however, you can always disable it when you install the better card.
Really, really, really like your audio? Unless you can say all three really’s with conviction, you do not need a separate sound card – an onboard one will do just fine.
An onboard network card is nice, but not having one isn’t a big deal either and will only add a little bit to your final cost. If you want wireless for your PC, you’ll probably have to buy a card as most motherboards don’t offer that (yet).

Pick a Case

Based on the type of motherboard you get, you’ll have a few different options for case sizes. There are two main standards ATX and M(icro)ATX, and most MATX motherboards will fit in an ATX case. You’ll also just want to make sure that your case comes with a power supply. There are different sized power supplies but anything 300+ watts should do. Other than that you can go cheap ($25 or so) or go crazy and get one with see-though sides and blinking LED’s.

Cool things down

You’ll need at least 1 fan for your processor to make sure you don’t have a mini- Chernobyl, and possibly another fan for the case (especially if you’re running an AMD processor, which tend to run a little hotter). You can also look into liquid cooling if you have lots of extra money just lying around… It is supposed to be quieter but it is also a heck of a lot more expensive.

Add some RAM

You’ve gotta have RAM. Your motherboard will tell you what kind you’ll need and it will typically give you some options for what speeds it supports. These days you’ll want at least 512MB but the more you’ve got the better. Different motherboards support different numbers of “slots” for your RAM – it’s a good idea to make sure you have extra room to grow in the future.

Hard Drive Options

You can really go crazy with these now days with 200+GB drives becoming more and more common. One big thing to note is that these days there are two main types of interfaces, IDE and Serial ATA. Check your motherboard to see which types you can have. There are three main things to consider when buying a hard drive:

Capacity – you’ll want to have at the very least 20GB. 80GB is a reasonable amount for most applications these days.
RPM – this is how fast the drive physically rotates. There are three options: 5400, 7200, and 10,000. Unless you’re doing video editing you probably don’t need to pay a premium for the 10k – but I would recommend that you always go for the 7200 when given the option. It is a sad thing to have a super fast computer slowed down by a hard drive.
Buffer – 2MB and 8MB are your options here… It can be $5-$10 more, but I’d go with the 8MB if possible.

Media Drives

Floppy Drives, CD ROMS, DVD ROMS, CD and DVD Burners… there are tons of options here. One thing to note, unless your family has a lot of floppy disks laying around that you still use – you do not have to buy a floppy drive for your PC. You should consider a DVD burner though. It will play DVD’s and CD’s plus typically burn both DVD’s and CD’s as well. The cost difference between a regular DVD and DVD Burner is around $30-$40 but the flexibility it adds is pretty nice.

Video Card

I could write an entire article just about video cards but the main thing to note here is the three standards and the memory options. From fastest to slowest there are PCI Express, AGP, and PCI cards. Your motherboard will need to have a special slot for PCI Express and AGP so you definitely want to pay attention to that. As far as memory, for today’s games you’ll want at least 128MB of memory for your graphics card. The top of the line cards can be around $6-700 but you can find typically find one that can handle today’s games for around $60-$120.

Monitor

Your video card will support one of two connection types – DVI or VGA. You’ll want to make sure that your monitor will support the proper format. You can still buy both LCD’s (small/flat) and CRT’s (big/ugly) – which you buy depends on how much space you have available and your tolerance for cost of convenience.

Networking

Not much to say here... if you need to buy a networking card, you can get one for around $20. Wireless PC cards are closer to $30.

Operating System

Almost done, now you need to pick an OS. Obviously there is Windows XP but you have a few other options as well. There are a number of free Linux operating systems that are available for download as well as a few that you can buy and get support for. The difference is usually cost and support. Windows XP costs a bit more but it is also what you’ll be running at work so there’s a good chance you’re already pretty used to it. Regardless of which OS you choose, you may want to visit their website before ordering all the pieces for your PC to make sure they are compatible.

Ways to buy

For your first experience, you may want to look into purchasing a barebones kit. They take some of the work out of the process for you by combining the CPU, motherboard, and case into a single purchase. The advantage is you don’t have to worry about compatibility because they should (or at least better) work together. The downside is you obviously loose a little flexibility but there are generally still lots of options to choose from.

Putting it all together

Now that you’ve got all the pieces ordered you have to put it all together. Most motherboards come with instructions on how to put everything together. That being said, most of the instructions leave a little to be desired. There are plenty of books and DVD’s out there that can help walk you through the process but my advice is to just talk with someone that has done it before and maybe even have them walk through it with you. Once everything is together you will also have to install the operating system but today’s Operating Systems install much easier than their predecessors and there are tons of resources available to help you.

Resources

TigerDirect http://www.tigerdirect.com
Micro Center http://www.microcenter.com

Book Review - Foundation ActionScript Animation: Making Things Move!

2006-02-01T04:30:00.000-08:00

I saw this book a while ago and picked it up over the holidays. While it is not easy, light, “chapter before bed” reading I think this is a great book and a wonderful reference. It walks through some pretty complex math and physics topics but the great thing is that you are applying those concepts in a visual way, inside of Flash. Here is an example that you are coached through:

One thing I was a little disappointed in was the lack of using ActionScript’s OO capabilities - but that just means I have something to try out :)

Read about it here

Get it here

SharePoint Document Library Event Handlers – Development Environment

2006-01-23T18:32:00.000-08:00

Recently I got stuck while trying to develop a doc lib event handler. Everything looked like it should be working fine but I could not verify that my events were firing properly. After talking through the issue with Neil he suggested I look into a tool called DebugView by Sysinternals.

The basic idea is that you can view debug output on your local machine or on a remote machine. This, combined with a virtual machine with SharePoint installed, makes for a killer development environment.

Before I get too far into it, here is an idea of what my environment looks like:

I also have my C:\ drive shared as S:\ on my virtual machine:

That allows me to write nice deploy scripts for my event handlers:

Then, in your virtual machine you’ll need to start a client version of DebugView (/c /s switches work well, see Help --> "Remote Monitoring" for more details).

You can then connect to your virtual machine using an instance of DebugView on your host machine. You may get prompted for a user/password but in my environment I was able to press ok and not authenticate. Once connected, any System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine statements in your code will be displayed on your local instance of DebugView!

Resources:

Profile

2006-01-20T05:32:00.000-08:00

Technorati Profile

Virtual Server Performance Recommendations

2006-01-19T04:56:00.000-08:00

A very nice KB on getting the best performance out of your virtual server.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;903748

Yahoo! Music Unlimited*

2006-01-18T06:06:00.000-08:00

When I first heard about Yahoo! Music Unlimited from Neil I was pretty excited to try it out. I’d been using Launchcast for years and this looked like the next best thing – the same music selection but more control over what plays when.

My journey began by downloading the Yahoo Music Engine which I was pretty pleased with at first. It has a nice skin version that has a small footprint (but still tells me what I want to know) and could even play my Launchcast station before I signed up for anything extra.

Launchcast works pretty well in their web-player but sometimes the javascript they use to update the "what’s playing" doesn’t always work. Anyway, being pretty pleased with the Music Engine, I decided to sign up for Yahoo! Music Unlimited. Everything seemed to go just fine until I clicked on a song to play and got this message:

Ok… something was obviously not right since I had just signed up. So I went to Yahoo’s support pages and there the runaround began. On December 20th I submitted my first support issue. Over the next 4 weeks I went back and forth with the most incompetent support staff I have ever worked with. My original support inquiry bounced between Billing and "Support Escalations" to "senior Care representatives" week after week after week. I have twenty-one emails in my inbox and not one of them seemed to be getting anywhere and I was… somewhat irritated.

Luckily, Neil came to my rescue with a link to a posting on the Y! Music Blog. Down at the bottom was my answer... I logged onto an IRC chat room that people from Yahoo frequent. Once in there I explained my problem and two of the people in the room were nice enough to forward my concerns on to real people in the Music department. They were then able to determine that my account was not created properly at signup. Even better, they were able to correct the issue and in less than 2 hours I was listening to the Crash Test Dummies!

Now, from what I’ve heard my issue is pretty unique but my trouble with support is not. I was informed in the IRC room that the support emails I received were all just pre-written responses (which is what they looked like to me) and that most of the support documentation is based on conversations in that chat room.

Final verdict? If you can get it to work, it is a beautiful thing with thousands of songs at your fingertips and a decent enough user experience – just know that you are basically on your own if you have any issues.

Greatest Website Ever

2006-01-06T05:51:00.000-08:00

It’d be nice if there wasn’t a need for this kind of site but after a morning commute like today’s, I’m glad its there. The Minnesota Department of Public Safety has a website where you can report unsafe driving incidents. All you have to do is remember the license plate, make, and model of the offending vehicle and give a description of the event. I’m not sure there’s anything they can do about the event in question, but down the road it’ll at least be on their record. And who knows? Maybe they were driving unsafe because they just robbed a bank and your description helps catch them? Either way, it’s a great site to keep in mind!

https://www.dps.state.mn.us/patrol/unsafe/report.htm

Oh, and if you’re outside of Minnesota (or the US), you’ll have to check with your local public safety officials’ website.

A Great Vacation...

2006-01-03T05:07:00.000-08:00

11 Days

1600+ highway miles

1 Snowman

5 hours at Lambeau

The future looks great

2005-12-22T05:49:00.000-08:00

I’ve installed the December CTP for Vista and I gotta say I’m having a hard time not using it full time. While I still experienced some issues with installation/networking, once I got those resolved things have been working fantastic. Some thoughts:

There’s a really cool feature where Vista doesn’t save my volume settings when I shut down so every time I load Windows I get BLASTED out of my chair with the welcome tune.

IE 7 feels pretty good. I never jumped on the tabbed browsing bandwagon but I can see how some people would like it. I still find myself opening new windows but I’m sure it’s just a matter of time...

The Window Switcher feature is amazing! Not only does it look cool, but I’ve found it pretty useful as well!

The application preview functionality is awesome too - who needs tabs with something like that? :)

I really love the idea of System Rating too! It would be really nice if the gaming industry in particular took hold of this idea.

The basic concept is you run a tool that checks the specs on your system and you get a number. That number remains constant unless you upgrade something on your system - RAM, processor, graphics card, etc. The idea being that as better systems come out, they’ll have higher numbers. I was a little sad to see that my system only got a 1, but at least it wasn’t negative!

Windows Defender makes me feel safe and secure ALL the time. I think they’ve still got some work to do on it but I think this will be a good addition to Windows. In the current build it pops up and wants me to permit/deny all the time, even when launching things like the Computer Management Console (right-click My Computer --> Manage).

The Diagnostic Console pretty much rocks. If you permit windows to open the Computer Management Console, click on “Diagnostic Console” and you can get a quick view of how/what your system is doing; very handy for troubleshooting. If I got a say I’d like to see it as part of the task manager…. I’d also like to know what the heck my disk is doing...?.

For extra fun I’ve installed the O12 Beta on top as well and the combination is just flawless!

The Web’s Top 10 Moments?

2005-12-13T05:24:00.000-08:00

I was reading an article about the top 10 moments in the 15 years of the World Wide Web and I gotta say I disagree with a few of their choices. So, here’s my top 10 list, in no particular order:

Browser Wars – how could they leave this off? The battle between Netscape and Internet Explorer pushed the limits of the Web Browser and led to many of the anti-trust lawsuits that Microsoft is fighting to this day.

Boom and bust – who can argue?

Instant Messaging – it’s not that chatting hadn’t been around before IM took off, but IM brought it to the masses - for better or worse.

Free Email/Homepages – click here to sign up! Hotmail wasn’t the only player on the block and the free “wave” went beyond just email. A rush of competing free web hosts and email offers brought many people into the world of the internet.

Bloging/Podcasting – “user generated content” (as Scoble hates to hear it called) has given thousands of people a voice. Whether or not anyone is listening? Well...

Music/File Sharing – it wasn’t just at college campuses and small company MP3 servers, Napster and other file sharing tools changed the way we look at media, copyrights, and the Recording Industry.

Rich Internet Media – Flash, high-res photos, and streaming video allow us to “experience” the web.

Broadband – without it, we’d still be waiting for this page to load and the rich media wouldn't have a chance.

XML/Web Services – the promised information sharing language that produced its own wave of innovation.

The Mouse Wheel – because we’re really that lazy

New Web Host - the quest continues

2005-12-09T06:06:00.000-08:00

So I thought I had found the answer - WebHost4Life.com. I created an account with them yesterday and here are some first impressions:

It took six and a half hours for them to setup the account.
I found their control panel terribly confusing, especially when it came to managing domains.
I registered a new domain to test the process and I had to create an additional account on another web site which seemed completely disconnected from their other processes.
I tired adding another web domain to the account and found out that it would cost $15/month more for each web site (not domain, web site)
Their control panel seems to be as much a billboard as a configuration panel with “click here to add this,” “click here to add that” and hidden prices all over the place.
I was able to create and extend a sub-domain with Windows SharePoint Services (with anonymous access) after filing only two support issues to figure it out.
They offer a 45 day period during which you can cancel and get a full refund – I’ll let you know how that process goes.

So yeah, back to looking. Does anyone have any suggestions? Is what I’m looking for really that hard to find?

New Web Host

2005-12-07T06:55:00.000-08:00

I need a new web host. Anyone have any suggestions?

Needs:

ASP Support
ASP.NET 1.1 Support
Multiple Domain/Sub-Domain support
Domain forwarding
POP3 and email aliasing

Wants:

SQL Server Support
Windows SharePoint Services (with accounts)
ASP.NET 2.0 Support
Company that won’t get purchased and then change everything that I like about them...

I was paying $12 a month… looking for something near that range again, under $30 but I'm looking for features and support over cost.

Friends passed, past, and present

2005-12-07T05:57:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I said goodbye to a good friend from my days at NCS Pearson. While it was a sad thing, I am happy that he passed peacefully. It was an event of mixed emotions as it was somewhat of a reunion as well as a farewell. I saw many people that I haven’t seen in 2-3 years. It is sad that we don’t all get together more often, but I am glad so many were there to share memories. There are few better feelings than being in a room full of friends.

What do you do with your AOL CD’s?

2005-11-30T08:27:00.000-08:00

I was down in St. Louis for Thanksgiving and since I hadn’t been in a while, I went to the Zoo. If you’ve never been, I highly recommend it – especially with the new penguin exhibit. Anyway, I was in the monkey house and saw something that made me smile. I had heard of people using AOL CD’s for Christmas tree ornaments but never had I seen them used as toys for the monkeys.

It was pretty amusing – but what was even better was that the monkeys weren’t interested.

Sorry AOL, even the monkeys know better..

A search on Google yielded several other sites out there with info on AOL CD’s

http://www.nomoreaolcds.com
http://neil.fraser.name/hardware/lamp
http://www.spiritone.com/~english/humour/aolcd.html
http://www.eddnet.org.uk/comedy/aolcd00.php

*Note – I didn’t have time to read through all of these sites, therefore, I make no warrantees as to their funniness; browse at your own risk.

Windows 'Eiger' and 'Mönch'

2005-11-22T06:30:00.000-08:00

So back in April/May word hit on the street that Microsoft was readying two new "Server Centric Computing Clients." From the looks of it they want you to be able to run at least a form of XP on junk (read: older) hardware.

How's this for system reqs?

Windows XP "Eiger"
  64MB RAM (128MB Recommended)
  Pentium class processor
  500 MB HD (1GB recommended)
  800x600 graphics or higher
  Network Interface Card

Windows XP "Mönch"
  64MB RAM (128MB Recommended)
  Pentium class processor
  500 MB HD (1GB recommended)
  800x600 graphics or higher
  Network Interface Card

Sounds pretty interesting... I have a project in mind that I'd like to use Mönch (supports 802.1X) for but I can't find any info on how to get in early. Anyone have any ideas?

Net Services Command

2005-11-17T11:30:00.000-08:00

I always forget how great the "net" command is. Check out this page for info on all it can do.

Outstanding!

What do people think about SharePoint Portal Search?

2005-11-15T08:30:00.000-08:00

A SharePoint admin who is currently debugging a search configuration inspired the following search:

So I clicked on “Alternatives to SharePoint Search” and got:

Could be a coincidence...

Session State on a SharePoint Virtual

2005-11-13T18:15:00.000-08:00

So you’ve got an ASP.NET application you want to run side-by-side on your Windows SharePoint Services IIS Virtual Server. You’ve created a managed path and deployed your application and everything runs fine until you hit a page on your site that is trying to use ASP.NET’s session state. You are then greeted with the following error:

Session state can only be used when enableSessionState is set to true, either in a configuration file or in the Page directive

The problem? According to MS Support you need to add the following httpModule into your application’s web.config:

<httpModules>
<add name="Session" type="System.Web.SessionState.SessionStateModule"/>
</httpModules>

I tried it out tonight and it works like a charm.

SharePoint MN User Group and Atlas Presentation

2005-11-10T05:30:00.000-08:00

Yesterday’s user group meeting was a lot of fun. The meeting kicked off with a 1/2 hour intro to Groove. I’ve heard about Groove since my SharePoint Team Services days but I couldn’t honestly tell you what it brings to the table. And after yesterday’s intro? Pretty much the same holds true. All I really took away from it is that they will be releasing their 4.0 release around the time of the O12 launch, so I made a mental note to check them out again around that time.

The remainder of the meeting was a panel Q&A. On the panel we had:

New Horizons of MN:
Rick Flath

Mindsharp:
Todd Bleeker

Microsoft:
Carol Wimsatt

Inetium:
Erik Mau
Wes Preston
and me

We got a lot of really good questions and will be posting resources out at SharePointMN.com soon! We are also going to move all the questions we didn’t get to over to the discussion board and attempt to get answers to those as well.

Right after the SPUG finished up I returned to the office where John Howes and I gave a presentation/walkthrough of ASP.NET Atlas. It went well but we weren’t able to get as far in our demos as we would have liked. The resources that are available aren’t all that complete and haven’t been updated in weeks. Most likely they are all busy working on Windows Live. Still, I expect great things from Atlas in the future.

A break from the future

2005-10-11T19:17:00.000-07:00

I’ve been doing a lot of research lately on yet-to-be-released technologies; today I decided to take some time to remember the past... So I opened up my Windows 3.11 Virtual Machine I started a while back and started making some updates. Now it has CD, Audio, and Network support. I also created a startup menu that lets me tweak the startup options to save memory for some memory-loving games.

Startup Menu

Windows Startup

Stumbling down the information superhighway

And a few classic games

Betrayal at Krondor
Duke Nuke’m 3D
Doom II
Aces of the Pacific
Aces over Europe

All the games run too fast at the moment so I’ll have to figure out how to get a slowdown tool working. Of course none of this would be working without the help of Virtual PC Guy’s WebLog.

Tomorrow it’ll be back to the present; I’ll be at the MNSPUG (stop on by!) in the morning and then back to some InfoPath + SharePoint Document Library Event Handling in the afternoon. Tomorrow night? Time for some Atlas or Workflow...

Book wishlist grows…

2005-09-25T18:30:00.000-07:00

WWF:
Presenting Windows Workflow Foundation

O12:
Exploring Microsoft Office 12

Development:
The Pragmatic Programmer
Code Complete

Flash:
Macromedia Flash 8 ActionScript: Training from the Source
Foundation ActionScript Animation: Making Things Move!
Foundation XML for Flash
Foundation ASP.NET 2 for Flash
Foundation Flash Applications for Mobile Devices

Win2k3 Server - please just shutdown

2005-09-25T17:45:00.000-07:00

Raj posted on how to turn off the Win2k3 Server shutdown prompt. I thought it was kinda funny because I was just looking for this the other day. I don't use it for my VPC's though; instead I just click close on the VPC image's window and choose "Shutdown Windows Server 2003," which bypasses the prompt/nag.

This is only available if you have the VPC add-ins installed, but it works very nice if you do!

Fun with Flash ActionScript 2.0 – Phase 2

2005-09-22T21:00:00.000-07:00

John stopped by again tonight for some more ActionScript (and a little Battlefield 2). He had made some good updates to the look and feel and tonight we added:

Titlebar to display the library name
Navigation status (slide x of y)
Fade-in/Fade-out transitions

My favorite part is how easy it is to re-use: just modify an XML file and upload it with your images and the .swf (6kb).

Check out the 'Lil Shab sample here.

What’s next?

Indicate selected image
Scrollbar for handling 12+ photos
Loader/Progress bar?
Optional thumbnail image path?

Remote Desktop: Disconnect vs. Log Off

2005-09-16T06:00:00.000-07:00

I see it all the time:

There are two ways to exit a Remote Desktop connection:

Log Off – Click on the Start button and choose “Log Off.” This is appropriate if you are done with the server meaning you don’t have any open applications, or windows open that you’d like to come back to in a reasonable amount of time.
Disconnect – This can be done by closing your RDP window. This is appropriate if you have some applications running or windows open that you will be coming back to.

The nice thing about using disconnect is that as long as you don’t change network adapters (LAN to Wireless for instance) you can re-connect to your disconnected session. The bad thing about disconnect is that people use it all the time without knowing the difference, even though you get a nice warning every time you use it:

Since Windows Server 2003 limits you to 2 remote sessions (active or not) if someone(s) has two disconnected sessions, you won’t be able to log in. How do you get around this? Open up Terminal Services Manager (from another Win2k3 Server on the network unless you have the Win2k3 Admin Tool Pack installed). From there you can connect to the server in question and view the sessions:

If you see any Disconnected sessions that have been disconnected for say…. 17 hours, you can probably safely assume that they are no longer needed. Right-click and choose "Log Off."

Fun with Flash ActionScript 2.0

2005-09-15T21:30:00.000-07:00

Tonight my buddy John came over and we worked on a dynamic Flash image gallery project that we've been talking about for a while. It’s been a long time since I've been able to pound out some ActionScript but it was great fun and I think we made some really good progress.

We had a few goals in mind for the evening:

Obviously, make some progress on the image gallery
Practice using Object-Oriented Development in ActionScript
Convert John from using name/value paired text files to xml data sources
Overall knowledge transfer – John is a designer and doesn’t know much about events, objects, classes etc… He has, however, been using Flash day in and day out for 2+ years without needing OO-ActionScript

Since I was driving we ended up this evening with a fairly ugly but functional image gallery framework.

Click here to see the config file
Click here to see tonight’s version

Next steps:

Text labels/custom images for next and previous buttons
Resize/dynamic organization of thumbnails (with scrollbar)
Titlebar to display thumbnail library name
Navigation status (image x of y)
Configurable image transitions
Overall user experience enhancements

"Sparkle" - Microsoft Expression

2005-09-15T05:00:00.000-07:00

This is for you designers (Jedd, John, and Kris):

“Microsoft Expression Interactive Designer helps you create streamlined, innovative and just plain beautiful applications.”

Check out the demo here.

Also, check out Scoble’s interview here.

ISV Day at the MN SharePoint Users Group

2005-09-14T15:15:00.000-07:00

We had a great group of presenters today at the Minnesota SharePoint Users Group plugging SharePoint-related products:

• Scott Rooke from K2 demoed K2.NET’s workflow solution

• Tom Moen gave us a humorous walkthrough of FileNet’s Enterprise Content Management Solutions

• Michelle Panuccio of Digineer presented BrightWork’s Project Management offerings

• Eric Raarup of Inetium showed us some very cool OLAP/BI Web Parts from DSP

• Malcolm Eaton demoed just a few of the many CorasWorks Web Parts and solutions available

At half an hour each the pace was pretty quick but it was great to get a look at each of their offerings and see some of the amazing stuff these guys are doing to extend SharePoint!

Catching up

2005-08-31T04:30:00.000-07:00

Now that I’m back on track with work/projects at the office I’m trying to get caught up on what’s happening in the industry:

I’m looking forward to seeing what happened while I was gone. I’ve also got more than a few R&D efforts I’m anxious to jump (back) into:

I ended up rebuilding my 2nd hard drive the other day because my Vista image was out of control. I made lots of changes at once so I’m not sure what caused it but I had a svchost.exe process that would go nuts and steal all my processor time when I booted up. I decided that I wanted to dual boot WinXP and Vista anyway, so I just rebuilt.

More soon!