Monday, January 31, 2005

r.a.d.controls MCMS Edition


Back in October I mentioned that Telerik would eventually be creating the 'r.a.d.controls MCMS Edition' - this will be a package of their components that have been extended to be driven by MCMS configuration and content.

Telerik will shortly be announcing the release of 'Beta 1 of r.a.d.controls suite MCMS Edition' that will include:

  • r.a.d.editor : premium version
  • r.a.d.treeview
  • r.a.d.menu
  • r.a.d.panelbar
  • r.a.d.tabstrip
  • r.a.d.chart
The Premium version of the Editor that is shipped with the suite has the following differences from the free Standard version:

  • r.a.d.treeview and LoadOnDemand in the File Browser dialogs (Image, Media, etc)
  • Improved Undo/Redo mechanism
  • Improved dialog controls - r.a.d.editor 4 user controls - AlignmentSelector, ColorPicker, CssClassSelector, TableBorderControl
  • Paste from Word /paste plain text buttons
  • "Loading...." message during dialog load
  • Dashed borders in edit mode
  • Skinning support
  • List View and Tree View of the resources in the resource galleries
  • Local Attachment tab in the Document Manager

(the last two features will work their way into the free version)

The beta can be downloaded at www.mcmscontrols.com. You can log in with your User Name and Password obtained from here . You can also generate trial keys if you wish to test the controls on a URL other than http://localhost

Comments should be submitted to betasupport@telerik.com.

EU nixes 'Reduced Media Edition' name


From betanews ...

After objections from European antitrust officials, Microsoft have stopped plans to use the name 'Windows XP Reduced Media Edition' for the version without Windows Media Player / associated media functions that it was ordered to sell in Europe. Apparently the Commission is concerned that the name is uninspired and consequently will have the affect of being unattractive to customers.

So what would you call a version of Windows with reduced media functionality ?

Zero touch RSS Web Part


From Bill Simser ...

George Tsiokos wrote to me about a service he put together and is offering for free (under the MIT Licence). You enter an RSS feed URL on his page and he'll generate a DWP file you can upload directly as a Web Part onto your SharePoint Web Part Page.

More : The Service

MSDN Magazine - Three Free Copies (UK)


Claim your three trial issues now (UK only)

MSDN Magazine is the publication to read for up-to-the-minute, comprehensive coverage of Microsoft technologies for the desktop, the Internet, and devices on the go. As part of the indispensable MSDN family of developer resources, MSDN Magazine brings you solutions to the real-world problems you face every day.

Sunday, January 30, 2005

Class Server 4.0 Coming February 2005


The next version of Class Server is packed with new features that benefit schools, teachers, students, and parents. Learn more here about what's new and the system requirements for Class Server 4.0.

Customizing SharePoint Portal Server 2003


From Hisham Baz ... Customizing SharePoint Portal Server 2003

This article is a guide for developers customizing SharePoint Portal Server 2003 (SPS). Typical customizations include logo branding, applying updated color schemes, modifying navigation menus or adding a header/footer. Intermediate knowledge of SPS, HTML and CSS is required.

Saturday, January 29, 2005

Skelta Workflow Lite for CMS


Skelta Workflow.NET - the embeddable .NET workflow engine based on the Microsoft .NET framework - is to be made available as a Lite version free of charge for CMS users.

We are looking for a CMS expert(s) that would like to volunteer to create the guidance and samples of integrating CMS and Skelta. Skelta will provide the appropriate technical support, training and software for development free of charge. If interested, please contact me at 'blog @ markharrison.co.uk'.

Update3: This will be led by Ben Robb and will be supported by his colleagues at CScape plus Joris Poelmans, Brad Chaney and Angus Logan.

Friday, January 28, 2005

Patterns and Practices - Enterprise Library Download


Further to my entry Enterprise Library coming soon ... its now here !

From http://www.microsoft.com/resources/practices ...

Just Released: Enterprise LibraryEnterprise Library is a collection of seven reusable and extensible application blocks for enterprise .NET development. The blocks in Enterprise Library assist in the following scenarios: Caching, Configuration, Cryptography, Data Access, Exception Handling, Logging and Security.

Setting Up a Shared Development Environment in MCMS 2002


New MSDN Article - Setting Up a Shared Development Environment in MCMS 2002

Summary: Collaborate on building a Microsoft Content Management Server 2002 Web site by sharing a central build computer to store work, and using your own computer to develop and test features. Learn to set up a shared MCMS development environment using the Microsoft Visual SourceSafe source control.

Webcast: Bill Gates - Office Developer Conference Keynote


Join Bill Gates via live webcast for his keynote address at the Office Developer Conference on February 4th. He will examine the business needs that make connected systems increasingly critical, explore core architectural concepts that constitute connected systems, including Service-Oriented Architecture and Smart Clients, and describe how the Microsoft Office System can help make this promise a reality.

Register

Interoperability webcast series


A month-long webcast series focusing on interoperability – why it matters to the business, common strategies and methods, and guidance on specific implementation scenarios between the major platform players. We'll feature over 40 webcasts, cool giveaways, and brand-new technical guidance from experts such as Simon Guest, Dino Chiesa, and Navdip Bhachech

http://www.interopmonth.com

Tzunami Deployer


Tzunami Deployer provides a content migration solution for SharePoint 2003 Products and Technologies. It constitutes a stand-alone application designed for the rapid content migration from multiple sources.

Deployer is an accelerator for the design, modelling, construction and content migration stages of SharePoint. It provides migration from a multitude of content sources, including:
  • File Shares
  • SharePoint 2001
  • Exchange Public Folders
  • Lotus Notes
  • Hummingbird
Deployer also supports copying content between SharePoint 2003 servers.

More : SharePoint+

Thursday, January 27, 2005

Halo2 Original Soundtrack Snippets


Halo2 Original Soundtrack Snippets


More

Cool SharePoint Stuff


From Patrick ...

Tariq has created a CAML Checker. Cool stuff but wait a couple of extra days... Our CAML girl has prepared this awesome CAML tool we are going to put online next week. Just for free. And even more than this. Jan has created a cool RSS/SharePoint generator (also for free). And yes we have more to come. We have invested a lot of time to create a nice little addin for Outlook. It allows you to syncronize SharePoint lists with your folders in Outlook. A trial version will be available online next week.

SPS2003 - 30 million licencees


From Jobx ...

The Register : "According to Microsoft, Office 2003 is ahead of XP after one year in every segment it tracks. Office revenue grew 17 per cent in financial year 2003 to $10.8bn. SharePoint Portal Server is the firm's fastest growing product, with 30m licencees."

Wednesday, January 26, 2005

Software Oven


Ready to deploy, packaged applications for the Microsoft Office System to help employees
  • manage increasing volumes of information
  • work with others more collaboratively and in more coordinated ways
The Software Oven puts you in touch with some of the finest Microsoft software development companies.

Tuesday, January 25, 2005

MCMS Web Author Enhancement v2.0 Beta 1 download


MCMS Web Author Enhancement v2.0 provides a new more effective way to manage MCMS site structure and resources.

Features:
  • Trees replacement in:
    - Select Internal Link dialog
    - Create New Page dialog
    - Create Connected Page dialog
    - Copy Page dialog
    - Move Page dialog
  • New Resources Manager
  • New Insert Image/Attachment dialogs
  • Resources management via Web folders
  • Telerik r.a.d. Editor integration
  • Workspace
  • Create Resource Gallery dialog
  • Create Channel dialog and Console Action
  • Channel Items Sorting tab
  • Kill Lock Console Action
  • Context menus in all trees
  • Drag-and-drop to placeholders from trees and Insert Image/Attachment dialogs
  • Tree items drag-and-drop
  • Thumbnails Generator
Download / More Information

Monday, January 24, 2005

Writing role-based security checks in Web Parts


Barry has just written up about Writing role-based security checks in Web Parts.

The blog describes what is a useful programming technique that turns out to be very tricky to write. Barry has worked hard at gathering information from around the Internet, writing a very digestible code sample and condensing the code and concepts to about 15 minutes of reading for experienced Web Part developers.

The sample code is publicly available for download from the Barracuda site members section.

SharePoint Site Collections Demystified


Spotted by Arno ...

Sample chapter - SharePoint Site Collections Demystified - from the book Sams Teach Yourself Microsoft Sharepoint 2003 in 10 Minutes

Business Intelligence Portal Sample Application for Microsoft Office


Business intelligence portal sample application for Microsoft Office 2003 is an integrated, web-based OLAP solution that enables employees in an organization to create and share OLAP/Relational/XML based views, using SharePoint Portal Server, SQL Server Reporting Services, and Office Web components.

More comment and screenshots:

SharePoint webcasts


From Scott ...

Some interesting deep dive webcasts :

More

Trial Windows SharePoint Services


Trial Windows SharePoint Services:
  • 10 user logons
  • 20MB of shared storage
  • All content virus scanned
  • Secure access through SSL
  • Access from Office 2003 applications or from any web browser
  • 2 month duration
  • Trial site domain - https://companyname.myOfficeSystem.co.uk
  • Hosted Exchange 2003

Elixir - Outlook Integration with Siebel


Since last summer we have been using Outlook to interface directly with our Siebel CRM system and this enabled such operations to be seamlessly integrated with our normal email and calendar activity. This CRM interface was built on some Outlook 2003 extensions code named Elixir.

ZDNET today have broken an article on Elixir: Microsoft turns to Elixir for Office boost.

This information has actually been out for a while - back in December, Patrick blogged Find the Elixir and pointed to the Webcast Outlook Integration with Siebel at Microsoft.

Sunday, January 23, 2005

Wanted - MCMS.Rapid activity feedback


Further to Nicks request for MCMS.Rapid success stories/firm intentions/proof of concepts/etc. ... please do send him feedback. Its very important for us to justify to those up the foodchain that investments/efforts in such initiatives are very productive to the MCMS community. Thank you.

Envision - CMS vNext and SPS vNext


Just back from Envision - an internal technical pre-sales conference in Redmond with two thousand attendees from all over the world. There was some general roadmap sessions but I was also privileged to attend an 'insider group' deep drill down of CMS vNext and SPS vNext. What the product team showed me was superb ... if they deliver then the next generation CMS/SharePoint will rock! Don't believe the FUD stories going around.

AcheiveForms for CMS New Licensing Option


Hakan advises me that it will soon be possible to limit the number of forms in the AchieveForms for CMS licence key. That will enable them to offer other pricing models than just the enterprise license they use now. So a customer who needs just a few complex forms, they don't have to pay for an unlimited number of forms. And AFLite is free !

Contact info: hakan.thyr@businesswebsoftware.com

Friday, January 21, 2005

Active Directory Federation Services / SharePoint Extranet scenario


Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS, formerly known as "TrustBridge"), is a future identity and access management solution which provides a secure environment for managing user identities, authentication methods, and access rights across an organization's various departments, offices, and regions.

This will make the SharePoint Extranet scenario very much easier to manage. For example, with ADFS - an administrator doesnt have to manage individual accounts of their partners employees. No longer do they need to worry about employees joining/leaving a partner or having the hassle of resetting a forgotten password.

The .NET Show on ADFS

Thursday, January 20, 2005

Enterprise Library coming soon


From Scott Densmore ...

Barring any major catastrophes, it is official. On January 28th Enterprise Library will be up and available on MSDN. Spread the word ... download the code, give us feedback, join the GotDotNet workspace.



The Enterprise Library is the next generation of the patterns & practices Application Blocks. This guidance is designed to assist developers with common enterprise development challenges. Our first release will deliver the most widely used blocks into a single integrated package.

Coveo Enterprise Search feedback


Very useful feedback from JOPX re Coveo Enterprise Search

Super SharePoint (and other) Tools


From Eric Schoonover ...

Just a couple links to some very handy SharePoint Portal Server tools, most of them solve problems that I have encountered and been able to solve easily with these tools, the rest just look really cool and have been added ...

more

Microsoft Office Outlook Live now available


Microsoft Office Outlook Live is now available. This a subscription version of Outlook that is targeted at small business office users who may be using MSN Hotmail as their business email, but have not been using Outlook.

Demo

Wednesday, January 19, 2005

MCMS Rapid Launch


Further to my previous save the date blog entry - I can confirm that the MCMS.Rapid Launch Event is definitely confirmed for 15 Feb 2005 evening at Reading, UK. Ive been working with Nick Mayhew and the Microsoft TechNet team finalising the logistics and we should have the full details and registration form on the web early next week.

UPDATE
You can now register at https://msevents-eu.microsoft.com/cui/EventDetail.aspx?culture=en-GB&eventid=118755049

SPS 2003 Sample: Back Up and Restore


New SPS2003 sample ... SPSBackupSample includes programmatic steps and code to demonstrate how to backup and restore all SharePoint Portal Server 2003 or Windows SharePoint Services sites in the server farm. The code shows how to write a backup and restore application for SharePoint Portal Server 2003, and to perform Web Storage System backup for backwards-compatible Microsoft Exchange Server document libraries.

Google and MSN cooperate against Comment Spam


Highlighted by Scoble ... Google and MSN cooperate against Comment Spam.

Plan is for a new tag to indicate that comments or links are not their own or of a lesser value to a search engine. The 'no follow' tag will signal to the crawler that the pages are to be overlooked and so will render comment spam ineffectual.

RSS Aggregator with WSS XML web part


Using the standard WSS XML web part for RSS aggregation has been blogged several times before, but here is another version ... from michael reinhart.

Tuesday, January 18, 2005

ASP.NET 2.0 Web Parts


From Tim ...

take a look at some concepts of developing web parts in asp.net 2 (whidbey):
http://www.devsource.com/article2/0,1759,1751857,00.asp

MyMSN v3 with RSS support


MyMSN v3 and the central MSN RSS Directory were both released today. You can view the new My MSN at http://my.msn.com/ and the MSN RSS Directory at http://rss.msn.com/.

My MSN is the first Microsoft product to include RSS aggregation features for any Microsoft product. Try clicking on this icon to add my feed to your MyMSN...



The RSS Directory provides users of the MSN network with many valuable RSS-related resources.

Windows Orchestration Engine


From InformationWeek ...

Microsoft this summer plans to begin beta-testing its workflow software and framework for the next-generation Windows client and server franchises. According to sources, the workflow code, currently dubbed WinOE (Windows orchestration engine), is a set of XML schemas, APIs and workflow components for Visual Studio 2005 that will enable more business-process automation on the Microsoft platform.

Built from the ground up by Microsoft's BizTalk team, WinOE is expected to be generally available in mid-2006 first as an add-on for the .Net framework and the Whidbey version of Visual Studio.

More

Monday, January 17, 2005

New Architect Journal available


The fourth edition of the quarterly Architect Journal is now available so why not register today on the UK Architecture Centre to receive your copy.

MCMS.Rapid blog


Nick Mayhew - MCMS.Rapid Launch Director - is blogging

http://spaces.msn.com/members/mcmsrapid/

From Nick ...

It is going to be a story about getting RAPID off the ground from my perspective
- hopefully interesting for people involved in MCMS and also others keen to see
the inside view of a product launch.

Sunday, January 16, 2005

Get the facts / Windows v LINUX eval kit



www.getthefacts.com ... here are the facts you need to make the choice between Windows and Linux. Examine recent data from white papers and customer case studies for insight into the advantages of the Microsoft Windows platform.

Saturday, January 15, 2005

Why Choose Microsoft for your Portal?


Why Choose Microsoft for your Portal? by Arpan Shah

Friday, January 14, 2005

Book: Building Websites with MCMS - Stefan Gossner, Joel Ward, Lim Mei Ying


Building Websites with Microsoft Content Management Server (Stefan Gossner,Lim Mei Ying, Joel Ward) is an end-to-end guide to creating a Microsoft Content Management Server (MCMS) website. No prior knowledge of MCMS is required - this book takes you from the basics of MCMS, guiding you through everything you need to create a fully-featured, content-rich website.

Contents include:
  • The basic concepts of MCMS
  • Preparing, installing and configuring MCMS and its supporting technologies
  • Creating an MCMS website from scratch
  • Creating and debugging templates files and channel rendering scripts
  • Working with dynamic navigation
  • Establishing user roles and rights
  • Authoring with MCMS and improving the authoring experience
  • Understanding and customizing workflow
  • Working with the Publishing API
  • Site deployment techniques
  • Enhancing your site's performance with caching

Containing answers to some of the most asked questions in developer newsgroups, this book is a treasure trove of tricks and tips for solving the problems faced by MCMS developers.

CMS dependency reports for resource gallery items


Tool to get dependency reports for resource gallery items - from Stefan ... MCMS does not provide a mechanism to identify if a resource gallery item is currently being used by a posting or not. This tool closes this gap by creating a report for all resource gallery items showing all postings pointing to a specific resource.

Microsoft.SharePoint.Menu


My colleague Ron Bokleman has posted Microsoft.SharePoint.Menu on GDN - this provides a tree control replacement for "QuickLaunch" or simply an enhancement to the existing SPS/WSS site navigation. Very nice !

Wednesday, January 12, 2005

MyMSN supports RSS / 1.5 million Spaces


From Mike Torres ...

- very soon, My MSN will be live with RSS support.
- we hit a pretty significant milestone today - 1.5 million MSN Spaces created

Integration Techniques and Strategies for Internet Business


Nothing new ... but worth reminding people of this great resource:

The Integration Techniques and Strategies for Internet Business book demonstrates integration options for Microsoft Content Management Server 2002, including integration with search engines, workflow engines, and authentication systems.

MSN Search Results in RSS format


Interesting to see that you can tack "&format=rss" onto a MSN Search query to get the results in RSS format. Try:
This is experiemental - suggestions can be posted here.

RSS Popper - feed reader


From Randomelements ...

Chris over at the MS Exchange Blog has blogged about a new freeware RSS feed reader which places the feeds in to your Outlook folder structure. More.
RSS Popper Home

Mondosoft Web Service Search Kit


Mondosoft have announced the availability of a new Web Service Search Kit that facilitates search through web services. Whether you have MondoSearch installed locally or remotely hosted you can use the kit to build customized search pages and uses of search, independent of platforms, programming languages, environments and server locations.

Includes a nice sample that uses the Research Service in Office 2003 [image].

Recycle Bin for Windows SharePoint Services


From Random Elements ...

The code samples for the Feb 2005 edition of MSDN magazine are now available and include the code for the Recycle Bin for WSS article. View the code download page page here.

Update 12 Jan - Article now online.

Information Bridge Framework Webcasts


From Michael Kiselman ... five Information Bridge Framework MSDN Webcasts starting tomorrow.

Using FrontPage 2003 and Visual Studio .NET Together


Excerpt from Microsoft Office FrontPage 2003 Inside Out ...

Using FrontPage 2003 and Visual Studio .NET Together discusses how to FrontPage and Visual Studio can coexist piecefully enabling people to gain from the strengths of each product.

This was written by Jim Buyen a FrontPage MVP. Ive just finished reviewing for Microsoft Press Jims next book Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services Inside Out. This book should be completed and ready for the printers by the end of the week.

ExpressCard


From BetaNews ...

PCMCIA Cards, the credit-card sized cards used in a variety of applications for notebook computers, will soon be getting smaller and faster. A new technology called ExpressCard claims to be twice as fast as the current iteration and about half the size.

More ExpressCard

Tuesday, January 11, 2005

Microsoft Virus Removal Tool


From Bink ...

Starting from January 11th, 2005, Microsoft will provide Windows customers with Malicious Software Removal Tools. These removal tools are an extension of virus or worm specific removal tools that Microsoft released in 2004. While tools released in 2004 have been specific to a single virus (and some of its variants), the new removal tools provide more convenience for customers by rolling up all viruses and variants targeted into a common removal tool.

More

Update 11Jan ... this tool is here and will be updated via WindowsUpdate on the second Tuesday in each month. Online version is here.

From Patrick Gaul - more on "the Future of MCMS"


From Patrick Gaul - proAxent solutions inc. ...

Regarding the recent post on the CMSWatch "Ask Tony" page about concern over the future of MCMS 2002: Concern is perhaps understandable since the MCMS and SPS development teams have merged, and that there haven't been any recent details released about v.Next; however, any "increasing anxiety" about the product's future is misplaced.

As someone who maintains very close contact with several senior people in the MCMS and SPS group in Redmond, I am assured that the future of Microsoft's investment in MCMS is very solid, that Microsoft has in no way abandoned the web content management market, and that they have VERY aggressive plans to continue to continue to enhance and extend this technology. I take the relative silence on v.Next as an indication that the next version will not just be a point release - it will be a major step forward. We as MCMS and NET integrators will naturally need to re-tool for the new generation, but this is certainly nothing new. I look forward to these experiences as new opportunities to explore new solutions and apply the technologies in ways never possible before.

I've also been assured that Microsoft is fully cognisant of - and values very greatly - the extent of the existing MCMS user base and the enormous intellectual capital that exists in the technology and the wide range of available extensions to it (just look at all of the user-submitted MCMS tools available on GotDotNet). This is not just lip service. MCMS now enjoys the most extensive, active, and creative user community of virtually any WCM solution available today, and Microsoft has no intention whatever of turning its back on this enormous asset. To the contrary, it is very clear that they intend to reap more benefits from this community through successive future product generations.

Fostering anxiety over this issue only serves the competing WCM vendors who are simply fear-mongering (a.k.a. FUD). I spent several years of my career in the pre-sales world for a number of different software vendors, and have seen this practice rear its despicable head again and again. It is a most reprehensible practice and belies a lack confidence in the vendor's own product - and desperation to make a sale by slandering its competitors.

patrick gaul
proAxent solutions inc.
http://www.proaxent.com/

Monday, January 10, 2005

CMS vNext ... why so quiet ?


I continue to hear that competitors are spreading FUD that Microsoft CMS is dead. This is far from the truth and Content Management has a big future in Microsoft plans.

We know that from talking to our customers and partners there is great interest in having our web content management and portal strategies more closely aligned, and for this reason the CMS development team has moved into the Information Worker organisation. So the next version of CMS will be architecturally consistent with the SharePoint products and technologies. Whilst it is too early to discuss plans what packaging/licensing and specific functionality will look like, we are committed to providing customers with solutions that enable them to create, share and manage all types of content in their organization.

One of the key reasons that the CMS plans are being kept quiet is that CMS is now an important component of Office 12 and so its not appropriate to discuss CMS vNext in isolation. Office 12 is still deep in development but as soon as our intentions are in stone, the IW team will begin communicating publicly the various pieces of what we have in mind for the complete Office12 wave of products - and that will include details about CMS vNext.

Until then customers and partners can be confident that CMS2002 is hugely successful and that there is considerable investment in CMS futures ... for evidence check the following open job positions to join the CMS vNext team as program managers, developers and testers:

Sunday, January 09, 2005

ieHttpHeaders and Source Tree


I was having problems today debugging a Web application and solved my issues thanks to an IE extension called ieHttpHeaders. This shows whats going on under the covers by logging the HTTP Headers that IE is sending and receiving. The information is conveniently displayed in an Explorer Bar at the base of the IE window.

When reading how ieHttpHeaders worked, I was refered to Source Tree which is another Explorer Bar that displays a tree view to provide quick-access to the source code for a web page, including frames and external scripts and style sheets. Also available was the source code and so is a great example of how to develop functionality in an Explorer Bar.

Perhaps an Explorer Bar would be a nice place to locate the MCMS Web Author menu ??

Friday, January 07, 2005

Analyzing IIS Logfiles for an MCMS site


Mei Ying discusses Analyzing IIS Logfiles for an MCMS site ... and mentions the MSIB +Pack CmsLogFileReporting component component.

Web Part Templates for Visual Studio .NET


Web Part developers can use Microsoft Visual Studio .NET to build Web Part assemblies for use in Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies. These templates are provided to help developers create Web Parts. The templates are similar to the default server control file and project templates included with Visual Studio .NET.

Download

Thursday, January 06, 2005

Microsoft Windows AntiSpyware Beta download




Windows AntiSpyware (Beta) is available ... this is a security technology that helps protect Windows users from spyware and other potentially unwanted software. Known spyware on your PC can be detected and removed. This helps reduce negative effects caused by spyware including slow PC performance, annoying pop-up ads, unwanted changes to Internet settings, and unauthorized use of your private information. Continuous protection improves Internet browsing safety by guarding over 50 ways spyware can enter your PC.

MSIB +Pack - Metadata Control v1.1


A new version of the MSIB +Pack Metadata Control has been made available ... this is not the version supplied in the +Pack.

Improvements are:
  • Bug fixes - several bugs that were discovered after the release of version 1.0 have been fixed
  • Performance enhancements - the placeholder now uses caching internally and deserializes the xml configuration file to objects to improve the performance of the placeholder in both authoring and presentation mode
  • Placeholder designer - the placeholder now has a designer within Visual Studio .NET that loads the configuration file in a shows a template designer the metadata editor within the page
  • Support for alternate elements - you can now specify alternate elements for a metadata element within the xml configuration file; at presentation time, additional 'meta' tags will be generated for the alternate elements. Additionally, you can specify a different scheme attribute for these alternate elements.
  • Dynamic elements - you can now specify an element as being dynamic, adding a dynamic attribute to the metadata element with a value of true and adding a property attribute with the value of the name of a posting property that should be used as the source of the metadata. You can also add a hidden attribute to these dynamic elements, so they are not shown to web authors in authoring mode
  • Metadata type providers - in version 1.0, the choices of entry for a metadata element during author mode was a TextBox or a ListBox. Metadata type providers allow plug-ins to be developed that can provide alternative means of entering metadata during author mode
Support details.

SharePoint Extranets


SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Document: Deploying an Extranet by Using ISA Server 2000 and ISA Server 2004 was released today.

MCMS.Rapid Custom HTML Page Builder


The standard MCMS.Rapid page builder transforms the XML based template definition into DIV tags and uses CSS stylesheets to define how the page should look like. The current Rapid sample site makes heavy use of a complex style sheet and is not easy to understand for those that are not CSS experts.

As an alternative approach, Nicole Bonnai has created a new custom MCMS.Rapid HTML page builder that will render a MCMS.Rapid page using plain old-style HTML tags like tables.

Very clever detective work by Nicole as this was done before the MCMS.Rapid source code has been made available.

Seagate set to ship 5GB compact flash / 400GB external hard disk


Interesting new products from Seagate that meet the growing demand for information storage:

MCMS Site Stager


Stefan has published a Site Stager utility for ASP.NET / ASP CMS sites. This overcomes various problems when using third party crawling utilities.

Wednesday, January 05, 2005

A Random Act of Podcasting - Show 2


Leon and Angus are back at it: Show 2.

Coveo Enterprise Search


Coveo Enterprise Search is available for free for up to 5000 items.

Ive not tried it yet but looks an interesting solution for small MCMS sites. Please pass on any feedback.

cBlog v0.2


A new release of cBlog - a custom site definition to create a blog in SharePoint - has been made available.

Tuesday, January 04, 2005

CMS / MSIB plus pack source is on GotDotNet


Further to my blog entry on Xmas Eve ... the source code for the CMS / MSIB +Pack and LAWS (local authority web site) Accelerator is now available on GotDotNet:

SPS Search and number of documents


I received an email from Nigel @ Diagonal Solutions who told me he now has SharePoint Portal Server 2003 indexing and searching 2.5 million documents at a major UK Police Force. Intereresting to learn that they also tried two popular and frequently mentioned alternative search engines but they were rejected as they just couldnt cope with that amount of documents.

As part of testing SPS2003, it was proven to index and search 20 million documents ... and thats not to say it wont go well above this.

Another point of interest from Nigel is that they are using Exchange Event Triggers to automatically store all incoming/outgoing emails as records so they can be searched for 'Freedom of Information' purposes via the Sharepoint Search Handler.

WinXP SP2 - The Inside Story


Owen Allen points to WinXP SP2 - The Inside Story ... an interesting article about the design and production of Windows XP SP2.

SharePoint 2003 Resource Center


Lamont Harrington has compiled a superb list of SharePoint development resources and information: SharePoint 2003 Resource Center.

Update here.

Sunday, January 02, 2005

MCMS Web Author Enhancement V2 announced


IT Hit have announced the next version of MCMS Web Author Enhancement.
It will include many new features as well as bug fixes and integration with Teleric r.a.d. editor MCMS Edition v2.0. WAE v2.0 will significantly change the look and fill of MCMS Web Author making it more convenient to manage tree structures and resources. It also provides MCMS API extensions not available in MCMS. The Beta 1 release is planned for the middle of January 2005.

Calling A Web Services using Web Service Behavior


Example how to fetch small piece of data from a web service, and display it on a web form, without page getting posted back. Article : Source Code

Saturday, January 01, 2005

Happy New Year!!


A very happy new year to you all. After a great 2004 I'm looking forward to an exciting year ahead.

With four excited kids I am now please to get back to work for a rest!! Ive been offline for a week and now back to a few thousand emails and RSS entries in Bloglines .