The SharePoint Hive

I am pleased to announce that TechNet have published two new Training Courses for Implementing SharePoint Solutions. Each of these courses contains 15 modules representing 5 days of instructor led training and each module includes video lessons, hands on labs, and a quiz.

SharePoint Enterprise Content Management Implementers Course

This course teaches implementers how to leverage features in SharePoint Server to implement an Enterprise Content Management (ECM) system. ECM systems are designed to manage large amounts of content, including content in the form of documents and content in pages, wiki libraries, blog posts, and other types of non-document content. Document management is the heart of ECM. Document management in SharePoint Server consists of a rich feature set that includes tight integration to Microsoft Office client applications, standard version-control features, and innovative features that allow SharePoint Server to bridge the gap between a folder-based mindset of the typical user and the metadata-based mindset of a records manager. This course develops the key skills that are necessary to deploy SharePoint Server for ECM solutions at organizations of any size. Larger organizations should start with this course and supplement it with expertise in large-scale ECM implementations, whereas medium and smaller organizations may find all they need in this course to implement their systems successfully.

SharePoint for Internet Sites Implementers Course

This course describes how to implement and brand a SharePoint based public web site using SharePoint web content management (WCM). Once the course is completed, you will be able to implement a SharePoint deployment of a branded web site with structured content management. You will also be able to successfully plan, deploy, monitor, and maintain an Internet site on SharePoint. No development experience is required, but experience with HTML and CSS is recommended.

Read More

As I mentioned in a post last week, our public website is a MOSS-based site and we are celebrating its first birthday this month (We launched it on October 1, 2008. Prior to that we had a standard HTML website since 2003.). For the most part, we are very happy with our decision to launch our new site on MOSS.

Reality is that there aren’t that many companies that can afford to pay the licensing costs to have their public Internet running on MOSS. The stated retail price for MOSS for Internet Sites is ,134 per server.

So, if you are running a couple of load-balanced servers for your Internet site, you are looking at around 80k to license MOSS for Internet Sites for them. The only piece of good news here (financially speaking) is that this gives you unlimited anonymous user access – so there are no CALs to buy. (In case you are wondering, since we are Microsoft Gold Partner, we get our licenses as part of the Gold Partner program and pay much, much less than this – otherwise, we wouldn’t be able to afford MOSS for our Internet site.)

So, what are you to do if you want a SharePoint-based Internet site? Well, it is not all that widely publicized, but several businesses around the world have figured out how to do this quite nicely with WSS only. And, more importantly, there are no (zero) SharePoint licensing costs if you do it this way.

You say, hold on now, there is no way that can be true! First, I don’t believe that you can develop a really polished public site with WSS!

Well, I am not going to argue about this using words. Instead, I am going to point you to some examples that I think prove differently. All of these sites are built using WSS 3.0:

http://6sc.com/default.aspx (check out this page for how they did it)

http://www.zevenseas.com/en/default.aspx

http://www.nestle.si/default.aspx

http://www.acision.com/default.aspx

There are more out there, but these are four that I particularly like.

OK, if I have convinced you about the viability of developing a public website using WSS 3.0, what about whether or not I have my facts straight about the no-cost for licenses?

First, in case you don’t already know, WSS 3.0 is a free add-on to Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008. If you have Windows Server licensed properly, you don’t have to pay anything else for WSS – period. This is a pretty commonly known fact so I am not goint to bother hyperlinking to any proof of it.

Second, there is a very popular and well-respected Microsoft (as in, employee) architect in New Zealand, Ian Morrish, who blogged about this in March of this year. Here is the link to his blog post: http://www.wssdemo.com/Blog/archive/2009/03/06/Web-Content-Management-with-Windows-SharePoint-Services.aspx. Make sure and read the comments at the bottom of the post, because Ian says the following in response to a question about whether this is “legal” or not:

Ian says:

“It is legal. If you are using full SQL server then SQL Server must be per-proc licensed but the built in DBthat comes with single server WSS is free. If you want to authenticate Internet users then you only need the Windows Internet licence which is cheap compared to MOSS for Internet license.”

The Windows Internet license he mentioned (its formal name is Windows Server External Connector license) is required (but, according to Ian only if you want to authenticate external users – which most Internet sites don’t), but it is a Windows Server licensing add-on, not a SharePoint license. Again, as long as you have Windows Server properly licensed, there are NO additional licenses required for WSS in any scenario. WSS is truly a free add-on to Windows Servers.

I know at this point you are wondering what is the cost of the Windows Server External Connector license if it turns out I need it? Well, according to this page on Microsoft’s site it retails for 99 for Windows Server 2008 (scroll down towards the bottom to find it). This license is purchased per server. So, if you have a two server farm for running your public website and you want to use WSS as the platform, the retail license cost to get you there would be 98. Furthermore, this will allow unlimited external users to access your website.

Now, I am not saying that WSS is as good as a platform for public websites as MOSS is. PLEASE, don’t hear me say that! MOSS has some great features that make it very, very nice as a web content management system. WSS does not include these features at all. One of the biggest of these features is the publishing subsystem that allows you to decentralize content authorship for different portions of you website. It includes a robust approval system so that approver’s can be assigned to review authored content before it goes live. WSS does not have this same level of functionality.

But, for those companies where MOSS is simply not an option due to the cost, it certainly appears that there is evidence that WSS 3.0 can be used successfully as an extremely low-cost platform for building Internet sites.

I’d say that right now WordPress is probably the most popular open source platform for building high-quality websites. If you thought WordPress is only for blogging, you thought wrong. There are thousands of websites around the world running on WordPress (here is a good example). I like WordPress a lot, but I think WSS 3.0 is a very capable website platform as well and would definitely evaluate both of them if I were setting out to build a new website.

Read More

Just a quick one this morning as we all get started in the week. Something that comes into play (sometimes in a big way) is the user agent string your browser gives off. So for example using the User-Agent field in the request header, you can determine what browser the user is running and act accordingly.

Internet Explorer 9 modified the UA string slightly so just in case you’re looking for it here are the user agent strings for IE9 (in various modes):

• Internet Explorer 9 Mode: Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; MSIE 9.0; Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; Trident/5.0)
• Internet Explorer 8 Mode: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; Trident/4.0; SLCC2; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; MS-RTC LM 8; InfoPath.3; .NET4.0C; .NET4.0E; Zune 4.7)
• Internet Explorer 7 Mode: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; SLCC2; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; MS-RTC LM 8; InfoPath.3; .NET4.0C; .NET4.0E; Zune 4.7)
• Internet Explorer 9 (Compatibility Mode): Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; Trident/5.0; SLCC2; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; MS-RTC LM 8; InfoPath.3; .NET4.0C; .NET4.0E; Zune 4.7)

A couple of things to note here:

• This was from a 64-bit Windows 7 client so that might account for the WOW64 in the agent string (I don’t have a 32-bit client to test from)
• Various applications and platforms add to the UA string just like they do in previous IE releases. So for example you can see I have various .NET versions installed as well as Zune. You can take advantage of this by querying the UA string for compatibilities and present options accordingly to the end user.
• As applications will continue to add and modify this string you’ll want to query the string for parts not the entire string. For example if you want to detect if you’re coming from IE running  on a Windows Phone 7 just look for “iemobile” in the user agent string

Happy hacking!

Read More

The SharePoint 2010 Mobile View is not useful, actually its hopeless, for Internet Facing sites. Here’s how to switch it off.
Read More

Read More

When i downloaded some homework from sharepoint.innovajc.moe.edu.sg, there was some internet web folders that came in with it which was located in “My Computer”. When i tried to remove it, there was problem deleting them because some pop ups says ” desktopini” is vital for the computer’s normal operations. If deleted, the computer will fail to work. hence, i deleted them one by one, and some files are not deletable.

What should i do! HELP!!! thank you very much

Chosen Answer:

by:
on: 1st January 70

When I log on to my school sharepoint with google chrome, it always asks me for the username and password. However, when using internet explorer, the little screen shows up with username (witha drop down menu for saved accounts) and a password box and also a little check box asking me if i want to save the password – and it does save it. how can i make the little check box show up in google chrome?

Chosen Answer:

1.If you have installed other browsers on your PC such as Firefox or Internet Explorer, run one of them by clicking their icons.
2.Now, open the website Google Chrome doesn’t allow you to save your username and password. At this point the browser should ask you to save your private info. Click Yes.
3.Now, open your Google Chrome.
4.Click the spanner icon.
5.Click Options.
6.Click the Personal Stuff tab.
7.Click the Import Data from another browser button.
8.In the from drop down menu, select select Internet Explorer or Firefox (depending on what browser you have just used)
9.Tick the Saved Password check box and untick all the other options.
10.Click the Import button.
11.Done
by: G
on: 17th September 10

There’s a college I wana study at, but I want to study PHP & Javascripting… so I can like write scripts for the internet and stuff. But, they don’t seem to offer it. However, there is a SharePoint course, and it’s contents seem to be close enough…

What is sharepoint? And, will I be studying PHP and stuff if I take a SharePoint course?

Chosen Answer:

SharePoint at no point relates to PHP.
SharePoint is a Microsoft Server.

Its about, ASP, C#, VB. DotNet.

http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/en-us/Pages/default.aspx

by: Tamour
on: 2nd August 10

Here’s the scenario: I have 2 Win 7 Ultimate desktops, 3 Win 7 Home Premium laptops, an XBox 360 console, and 2 iPod Touch (4 people in household). Currently, all machines are stand alone and access the internet via WiFi/FiOS router. I’d like to set up a network but I don’t want to go through a lot of trial and error in an attempt to “get it right.” Here’s what I think I want from my network:

* All machines can access the internet (wirelessly or connected to router)
* Network drive for shared files
* Auto backup/syncing of shared and non-shared files to network drive when laptop or desktop is connected to network
* Auto backup of network drive to external drive w/ some folders going to cloud (Dropbox?/Skydrive?)
* Wireless printing (currently have 4-in-1 inkjet connected to 1 of the desktop)
* Everything (network and files) must be secure
* Stream Netflix on Xbox 360

I’d really appreciate any help 1) what software to use (I have licensed install disks for Home Server and Sharepoint/Groove but not sure if there’s another approach), and 2) how to set it up. Any other features that you think I should add would also be appreciated. (I’m competent, but not a network admin, so links to instructions/guides would really be great!)

Chosen Answer:

Windows 7 does that for you. Just open Network and sharing center.
Just type Net in the search box.
by: Arther
on: 17th July 10

Here are some of the add-ons listed that can run without my permission. I’m not sure which ones I need and which ones I don’t. Will disabling any of these make my internet run more smoothly or something?

-Free Threaded XML Document 6.0
-html dlg safe helper class
-information card helper sign in class
-a bunch of java plugins
-microsoft office 12 authorization control
-microsoft office list 12.0
-microsoft shell ui helper
-a bunch of OSE.discussion stuff
-a bunch of OWSclient stuff
-personal site class
-quick time object
-registration control
-RMGet licence class
-a bunch of SharePoint stuff
-a bunch of XML HTML or XML Document stuff

Chosen Answer:

First, make sure you are running Internet Explorer 8?

I recommend running IE8 in No Add-ons Mode. Go to Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> Internet Explorer (No Add-ons) – If this fixes the issue, then go to Tools -> Manage Add-ons and enable the add-ons one by one to find which one was causing the problem.

I hope this solves your problem!

Cheers,
Bryn
IE Outreach Team
by: Bryn
on: 11th May 10