SharePoint Daily for October 24, 2008

Top News Stories
Mainsoft Announces Sharepoint Integrator for IBM Lotus Notes (JDJ)
Mainsoft announced the release of its SharePoint Integrator for Lotus Notes. This add-on to IBM Lotus Notes 8, an Eclipsed-based Rich Client Platform based on Java, provides point-and-click access to Microsoft SharePoint content, including Word documents, Excel worksheets, and PowerPoint presentations, from within Notes. Mainsoft professional services can also build composite applications across SharePoint data and Java or .NET line-of-business applications.

SharePoint 2003 Migration to MOSS with Tzunami Deployer for SPS 2003 Migration (ENT News)
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS) is being widely adopted by enterprises worldwide, but migrating existing documents and processes from SharePoint 2003 to the MOSS environment presents businesses with challenges including maintaining content quality; retaining metadata and security characteristics; mapping content to MOSS logical data structures; and maintaining business functions during migration.

IT Skills that Shine in Uncertain Times (The New York Times)
The current economic climate could cause IT professionals to worry about finding and keeping jobs, but research released Thursday shows that despite the financial turmoil, workers with specific high-tech talents will continue to be in demand.

Amazon Battens down the Hatches Before Microsoft’s Cloud Launch Next Week (ZDNet)
Amazon has made a few tweaks and additions to its Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) infrastructure just days before Microsoft is expected to launch its head-to-head competitive service at its Professional Developers Conference (PDC).

Amazon's Linux Cloud Computing Out of Beta, Joined by Windows (CNET)
A central part of Amazon's online computing foundation is growing up. The Elastic Compute Cloud, a service that gives customers on-demand access to Linux servers, is now out of beta testing, said Jeff Barr, evangelist for the collection of online options collectively called Amazon Web Services.

What Microsoft Needs To Fix In Outlook (LifeHacker)
Development of Windows and Office - Microsoft's twin cash cows - often runs roughly in parallel, so if the Redmond crowd makes good on its plans to get Windows 7 out the door in 2009, we may well also see a parallel refresh of the Office line. We know Microsoft has a complex product planning process, so now seems a good time to get a wish list for product improvements out there. Read on for some of my thoughts on where Outlook needs fixing, and then offer up your own additional suggestions.

Windows 7 Before 2010? Magic 8 Ball Says "Don't Count On It" (Ars Technica)
Last week Microsoft announced that product codenamed Windows 7 would retail with that same name. At the time, the company refrained from announcing a ship date, with current predictions ranging from late 2009 to early 2010.

Microsoft Issuing Critical Off-schedule Patch (Enterprsie IT Planet)
Update: Microsoft today is issuing a rare, 'out-of-cycle' patch for a critical vulnerability found in some Windows desktop and server operating systems. The 'critical' vulnerability, so rated for Windows 2000, XP and 2003, has the potential to grant hackers remote access to a system via Windows' Server service. The vulnerability carries an 'important' rating for Windows Vista and Server 2008 and the company is warning of the possibility of 'wormable' exploit code.

Around the Blogosphere
Deploying the Master Page (Master Pages and SharePoint part 4 of 6) (SharePoint Magazine)
In the previous article of this series we discussed how to build a customized master page in SharePoint Designer. At the end of the previous article we discussed that making the modifications directly in SharePoint Designer is not the most deployable solution for production life cycle environments. This article will discuss the other option to customize and deploy a master page for a production ready system.

Just SAY NO to Creating Custom Site Definitions (SharePoint Joel's SharePoint Land)
I thought we were past mucking around with the site definitions except to make tiny little changes that could easily be backed out. Why is it that developers think it's so great that they can create new site definitions.  I think it's lazy and stupid.  Don't do it.  Consider them product code!  If you need to build something, do it in a feature, staple the feature and deploy it in a solution.  Site Templates as horrible as they are, are better than custom site definitions.

SharePoint Limits (zevenseas)
There always have been some discussions around the SharePoint limits. For most end-users these are non-issues because they expect a flexible and powerful system that can provide them a scalable solution that performs well under all circumstances. And indeed SharePoint isn’t the hammer for every nail. However, that brings me to a a few sessions that I had with a few customers. When I started with SharePoint there was a kind of religious phrase that is still buzzing in my mind “try to convince people to dump folders and use META information (columns)”, amen!

Weird Error: SharePoint API List Items XML and Word (Liam Cleary [SharePoint MVP])
During some work I have been undertaking recently I hit a problem when trying to retrieve XML data from SharePoint Views of a List. For this work I simply connected to the views using a simple XMLTransform and render this out. Most lists worked well until I tried to view a list that contained a multi-line text field that was configured for either "RichText" or "Enhanced RichText" and had been populated by pasting from Word 2007. I noticed that when it rendered it for some reason got rid of the rest of my web part. Using the following Word 2007 content added to the field we get the following two different outputs (some text from a previous blog post).

For Those Who Think SharePoint is a Mickey Mouse Portal (Kit Kai's Tech Blog)
Or I quote someone today, who says "SharePoint is not a real portal", here are some statistics I emailed internally to change the perception.

Catch-22 is Popular Today (Mike Walsh's WSS and more)
After I'd installed WSS 3.0 on one VM, I naturally wanted to install MOSS 2007 on another. After the trials and tribulations of doing the OS part of this correctly, (see recent blogs) I had a VM setup that had all the pre-requisites for a Basic MOSS installation. I have a personal MSDN subscription so all I do is to download the latest version from the MSDN site and install. Right?

Using the New Features in SQL Server 2008 with Office SharePoint Server 2007 (To the SharePoint)
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 includes several new and enhanced features that are important for deploying Office SharePoint Server 2007. New and enhanced SQL Server 2008 features are especially relevant for SharePoint deployments in four principal areas:

How To Lock Anonymous Users out of Forms pages (ViewFormsPagesLockdown Feature) (SharePoint Buzz)
There’s quite a bit of planning that you can do to configure and enable anonymous access In SharePoint 2007.  When you enable anonymous access, users will be able to access your view form pages (http://server/forms/allitems.aspx) without logging in.   For quite a few public sites, that’s not what you always want.  Depending on your requirements, this may not be desirable.  In order to help with this, Microsoft provides a Feature out of the box called the ViewFormsPagesLockdown feature, which usually justs call the Lockdown feature for simplicity.

Creating a Center Justified Fixed Width Design (SharePoint Branding & Design)
If you have ever had the task of creating a SharePoint Design with a fixed width that is centered on the page here is a post that might help you. (Sorry about the length...)

Around Bamboo Nation
Dux's PMI Global Congress North America 2008 Diary (SharePoint for Project Management)
I have been in Las Vegas all week, and I woke up at 4:30 am to catch a 7:30 am flight to Denver, CO. Let's just say I didn't get much sleep throughout the week. In spite of this, I was quite excited since I will be officially launching my book, SharePoint for Project Management, at the PMI Global Congress. In addition, I will be presenting "7 Ways to Leverage SharePoint for Project Management Success" tomorrow at 9:30 am to about 160 people.

Getting Started with SharePoint Wiki Pages (SharePoint Blank)
After publishing yesterday's post on how to create a wiki in SharePoint, I realized that I had only told part of the story.  Yes, I detailed exactly how one goes about creating a wiki site in SharePoint, but I pretty much left you high and dry at that point.  As they say in rustic circles, "my bad."

SharePoint Events
October 25-26, Los Angeles, California, SoCal Code Camp
October 25, Orlando, Florida, MOSSmosis Orlando
October 25, Puget Sound, Washington, Puget Sound SharePoint Users Group
October 25, Puget Sound, Washington, Puget Sound SharePoint Users Group: SharePoint Sprint
October 27-30, Los Angeles, California, Microsoft Professional Developers Conference
October 28, Christchurch, New Zealand, Christchurch SharePoint User Group
October 28, Franklin, Tennessee, Nashville SharePoint Users Group
October 28, San Antonio, Texas, San Antonio SharePoint User Group
October 29, Sydney, Australia, Sydney SharePoint User Group
October 31, Perth, Australia, Perth SharePoint Users Group

November 3-7 and 10-14, Barcelona, Spain, Microsoft TechEd
November 4, Grand Rapids, Michigan, West Michigan SharePoint User Group
November 5, Chicago, Illinois, The Chicago Microsoft SharePoint Business Strategies Group November Meetup
November 5, New York, New York, SharePoint User Group: New York City
November 6, Kansas City, Kansas, Office Developer User Group of Kansas City
November 10-13, Las Vegas, Nevada, SharePoint Connections Conference
November 10, Sydney, Australia, Sydney SharePoint User Group
November 11, St. Louis, Missouri, St. Louis Sharepoint Users Group
November 12, Bloomington, Minnesota, Minnesota SharePoint User Group
November 12, Colorado Springs, Colorado, Colorado Springs SharePoint User Group
November 13, Atlanta, Georgia, MOSSmosis Atlanta
November 13, Puget Sound, Washington, Puget Sound SharePoint Users Group
November 13, Reston, Virginia, SharePoint User Group of the District of Columbia
November 13, San Francisco, California, San Fransico SharePoint Users Group
November 15-16, Sydney, Australia, Office DevCon
November 18, Adelaide, Australia, Adelaide SharePoint Usergroup
November 18, Irving, Texas, DFW SharePoint Server Community
November 19, Iselin, New Jersey, NJ SharePoint User Group
November 19, Roanoke, Virginia, Roanoke Valley SharePoint Users Group
November 20, Bay of Plenty, New Zealand, Bay of Plenty User Group
November 20, Columbus, Ohio, Central Ohio SharePoint User Group
November 20, Jacksonville, Florida, Jacksonville Office Geeks
November 20, Louisville, Kentucky, Kentucky Sharepoint Users Group
November 20, Phoenix, Arizona, Arizona SharePoint Professionals Group
November 20, Virginia Beach, Virginia, Hampton Roads SQL Server and SharePoint User Group
November 26, Cleveland, Ohio, Cleveland SharePoint User Group
November 26, Melbourne, Australia, Microsoft Office System Special Interest Group

January 27-29, San Francisco, California, SPTechCon

February 2-4, San Diego, California, SharePoint Best Practices Conference

* Please contact Chris Dooley (chris.dooley@bamboosolutions.com) to include your event in our listing.

Microsoft Updates
Manage Lists and Libraries with Many Items (Windows SharePoint Services)
When a list or library has a large number of items, you must carefully plan its organization and how users need to access the data. By planning and using a few key list and library features, you can ensure that users can find information without adversely affecting the performance of the rest of your site.

Create a Library (Windows SharePoint Services)
A library is a location on a site where you can create, collect, update, and manage files with team members. Each library displays a list of files and key information about the files, which helps people to use the files to work together.

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