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Matthew McDermott Profile |
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SharePoint Saturday Austin Session
Matthew McDermott
SharePoint Saturday Austin was terrific! I am grateful for all the speakers that traveled to Austin as well as the attendees (some from as far away as Nebraska!) that came and made it a wonderful collaborative and educational day. We could not have done it without the sponsors and volunteers. All in all an amazing show for our first attempt!
SharePoint 2010 No Code Search Center Customization
My session was fun, I love it when the audience gets involved and really thinks about what I am presenti [read].
Posted: Sun, Jan 22nd '12 |
Troubleshooting SharePoint Search Crawl
Matthew McDermott
Crawl Troubleshooting
Every once in a while SharePoint Crawler will behave unexpectedly on web sites that you wish to crawl. You may get error messages that you can understand and help you troubleshoot the problem or you will get just one error that is not helpful at all. Either way, I have found that you can troubleshoot the crawl by using the following technique with Fiddler Web Debugging Proxy (http://www.fiddler2.com). Using Fiddler we are going to configure SharePoint Search to crawl thro [read].
Posted: Wed, Jan 4th '12 |
Troubleshooting SharePoint Search iFilter Registration
Matthew McDermott
Troubleshooting SharePoint Search
When I first started working on SharePoint Search I was troubled by how hard it was to figure out what was actually happening when the crawl was running. The crawler/indexer is a black box that I could not see into. This made it very challenging when I would open the crawl logs and see a cryptic error message. (Often the cryptic message is not the fault of SharePoint Search, the log is just bubbling the error up, often from the iFilter.) Here are two approache [read].
Posted: Tue, Jan 3rd '12 |
Find Me but don’t Show Me
Matthew McDermott
I recently received a question from a client who has been working on improving the quality of their search results. They are crawling their non-Microsoft CMS with SharePoint and wanted to ensure that the Keywords that they entered in the CMS and were finally rendered in the Web pages, would be findable in the search center. The keywords were emitted as META tags in the page . After crawling the content a search for “Elephant” failed to return the page.
Tell SharePoint to Include the Crawled [read].
Posted: Thu, Nov 10th '11 |
Take Control of Search XSL
Matthew McDermott
This is a demo I often do when asked about how I perform Search Center XSL changes to improve the SharePoint Search Center Search Core Results Web part display. This information is buried in a few of my other posts so I thought I’d call it out all by itself for clarity. I usually perform these steps right after I create a new Search Results page and corresponding tab in the process of customizing the tabbed Search Center as I explain in the post Getting Started with Search Results. I per [read].
Posted: Fri, Sep 30th '11 |
Troubleshooting iFilters and Crawled Properties
Matthew McDermott
As I have taught, before a document property can be used in search results, it must be promoted to a Managed Property. Many properties are already managed properties out of the box. On several recent SharePoint 2010 Search projects I have used third party iFilters to solve specific document indexing challenges and needed to work extensively with Crawled Properties. For example:
I want to extract XMP data from images like Latitude and Longitude
I need to promote a particular field for use as Doc [read].
Posted: Wed, Sep 28th '11 |
Critical Path Training at SPC 2011
Matthew McDermott
Reposted from AC’s Blog: Next week brings the Microsoft SharePoint Conference 2011 in CA. The instructors at Critical Path Training will be in full force as we’re presenting over 14 sessions all week.
We are also giving away over 120 SharePoint books at our booth with hourly book drawings and eight book signings throughout the week!!!
But wait, that’s not all… we’re also giving away over $25,000 in SharePoint training to lucky winners throughout the week.
Where can you get more info [read].
Posted: Tue, Sep 27th '11 |
Getting Started with Search Results
Matthew McDermott
Some of my favorite demonstrations are about how to enhance the Search Results pages in SharePoint. I feel that presenting “actionable” search results can make the difference between a good search center and a great search experience. I am working on some new demos and decided that I need to commit the fundamentals to my blog so that my audience has the necessary resources to apply the guidance from my presentations. I always use the “Enterprise Search Center” also known as the “Search [read].
Posted: Fri, Sep 9th '11 |
SharePoint and Windows Phone 7 Training Course
Matthew McDermott
Microsoft unveiled the SharePoint 2010 and Windows Phone 7 Training Course! If you are looking to create Windows Phone 7 mobile applications that integrate with SharePoint this is the kit for you. This kit was developed by Darrin Bishop, Todd Baginski, and myself. We also worked very closely with Paul Stubbs, Dave Pae, and several engineers at Microsoft throughout the project. Without their help, guidance and willingness to dive in on problems we never would have finished!! The kit takes a soup [read].
Posted: Mon, Jul 25th '11 |
Join the MVP Chat
Matthew McDermott
Do you have tough technical questions regarding SharePoint for which you're seeking answers? Do you want to tap into the deep knowledge of the talented Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals? The SharePoint MVPs are the same people you see in the technical community as authors, speakers, user group leaders and answerers in the MSDN and TechNet forums. By popular demand, we have brought these experts together as a collective group to answer your questions live. So please join us and bring on the [read].
Posted: Fri, Jun 17th '11 |
SharePoint Search XSL Samples Update
Matthew McDermott
A long time ago I pulled together a bunch of my SharePoint Search XSL samples for SharePoint 2007. I spent the morning updating the samples so that they work in SharePoint 2010. I also added a new sample for rendering links directly from a links list (rather than landing on the DispForm.aspx page). Included in this release: Open Document Library Renders a link next to document result items that opens a new window to the containing library or folder. Search Results XML Renders the search results [read].
Posted: Tue, Jun 7th '11 |
Hey Matt Where Have You Been?
Matthew McDermott
I attended the Central Texas SharePoint User group the other night and one of my long time friends said “Where have you been? Why aren’t you blogging as much?” To which I could only reply “I have been BUSY!”. In the past month I have been to:
Orlando for SharePoint Connections
London for the Best Practices Conference
Monterey, CA for my Dad’s 80th birthday
Mountain View, CA to Teach for Critical Path Training
San Jose for the Silicon Valley SharePoint Users Group
Back to Monterey (I [read].
Posted: Fri, May 13th '11 |
Run all Health Analysis Jobs on Demand
Matthew McDermott
Following an installation, nothing gives me more joy (pertaining to SharePoint anyway) than having a clean Health Report days after my installation (AKA: Review Problems and Solutions). Recently though, I was doing an installation and I decided to try to “force run” the health rules rather than wait for them to run. I wrote this in PowerShell to run all the jobs on demand: $jobs = Get-SPTimerJob | Where-Object {$_.Title -like "Health Analysis Job*"}
foreach ($job in $jobs)
{
$job.RunNow()
} [read].
Posted: Fri, Mar 25th '11 |
Silverlight and SharePoint User Profile Service GUIDs
Matthew McDermott
Way back before the 2009 SharePoint Conference I was building a Silverlight and SharePoint demo and ran into an issue whenever I tried to use Silverlight and call certain methods of the SharePoint User Profile Service. If the web service returned a GUID type, which is part of the PropertyData type from methods like GetUserProfileByName, I would get the error: The formatter threw an exception while trying to deserialize the message: There was an error while trying to deserialize parameter http:// [read].
Posted: Fri, Mar 18th '11 |
SharePoint People Search and Alias Fields
Matthew McDermott
Way back in SharePoint 2007 there was a great feature on the Search Settings for each User Profile property page called Alias. The field description states: “Alias properties are treated as equivalent to the user name and account name when searching for items authored by a user, targeting items to a user, or displaying items in the Documents Web Part of the personal site for a user. Alias properties must be public.” One side benefit of marking a User Profile Property as Alias is that a searc [read].
Posted: Tue, Mar 15th '11 |
Add Additional Sortable Properties to your FAST Search Center
Matthew McDermott
I am spiffing up my search demo for my talks at the SharePoint Best Practices Conference in La Jolla and London (and Connections in Orlando) and wanted to add a few additional sort options to the FAST Search Center in my environment like Author and Size. When I set up the environment I was careful to follow the excellent installation and configuration guide on TechNet. Yet, when I tried to configure the Search Actions Links web part in the search center it only showed two properties. I reviewed [read].
Posted: Sat, Mar 5th '11 |
Debugging Design Time Data in Visual Studio and Expression Blend
Matthew McDermott
I am a total convert. I have seen the light. The road is not always easy, but nobody promised that. Here I go. I LOVE Expression Blend 4. (I am learning to love MVVM, we’re still in the “getting to know each other” phase.) Sure, there is tons of help available, including some amazing assistance in the form of MVVM Light. Guys like Laurent Bugnion scare me just a little. They know SO much about the topic that mere mortals like me struggle to get ramped up. Anyway, on to my topic. Design Tim [read].
Posted: Fri, Feb 11th '11 |
Using IIS URL Rewrite after Moving to SharePoint
Matthew McDermott
Many of my clients are concerned about the loss of "link juice" when moving their public facing site to SharePoint. The issue is easy to understand. Even if you keep the structure of your site exactly the same as your current site, SharePoint forces the inclusion of the "pages" library in the URL. This means that moving www.mycompany.com/default.aspx to SharePoint will become www.mycompany.com/pages/default.aspx. In general this is not a problem because accessing www.mycompany.com will redirect [read].
Posted: Mon, Feb 7th '11 |
Slide Decks from St. Edward’s PEC Technology Expo
Matthew McDermott
I had a great time yesterday speaking for folks who attended the 2011 Technology Expo at St. Edward’s University Technology Expo. My topics were: First Look: What's new for Developers in MS SharePoint 2010 Business Productivity: What's new for Developers in Microsoft SharePoint 2010 What's new in Office 2010 for Developers & Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Social Thanks again for the attendance and let me know if you have an questions about the content. [read].
Posted: Fri, Jan 7th '11 |
January 12 Meeting of the Central Texas SharePoint User Group
Matthew McDermott
SharePoint 2010 Multi-Tenant: Why and How to Use it RSVP: http://bit.ly/h0xASH January 12th Meeting Description: As organizations grow in their sophistication, multi-tenant scenarios become a superior alternative to more traditional single-tenant implementations. Speaker Javier Barrera will discuss how you should use a multi-tenant environment and why it might be right for you and your organization. We will also discuss the following: When it makes sense to use a multi-tenant farm for bo [read].
Posted: Fri, Jan 7th '11 |
MVP for Another Year
Matthew McDermott
The fine folks at Microsoft have seen fit to award me MVP for SharePoint Server for another year. I am again honored and humbled to be included in the fine group of exceptional folks who are the Microsoft SharePoint MVPs. 2011 is going to be a big year for Aptillon, AbleBlue, and me personally. I have a lot of speaking engagements already booked for this year. They are: 2011 Technology Expo – St. Edwards University PEC, Austin, TX – 1.6.2011 SharePoint Summit 2011 – Toronto, Canada – 1. [read].
Posted: Sun, Jan 2nd '11 |
December 8th Meeting of the Central Texas SharePoint User Group
Matthew McDermott
Yes, You Can Unit Test SharePoint Code And Here is How"
RSVP: http://bit.ly/gykzHc
December 8th Meeting Description:
One of the challenges of developing custom applications on the SharePoint platform is unit testing the solution. Mocking frameworks allow you to mock sealed classes in SharePoint that you would otherwise have to create stubs for. This allows you to easily isolate the code under test. In this session, Kyle Kelin will walk through the basics of mocking and then dive into exampl [read].
Posted: Wed, Nov 24th '10 |
One Week with my Windows Phone
Matthew McDermott
I have owned an iPhone 3G for a couple years. One week ago I picked up my new Samsung Focus Windows Phone 7 (WP7). My initial impressions were a bit mixed because of my experience with AT&T. The single biggest issue I have with the phone is how lame AT&T is (of course this is the same complaint that I have with my old iPhone). The biggest issues I had with my iPhone was the lack of “business” capability. By that I mean “How I do Business”. One simple example is the ability to sim [read].
Posted: Tue, Nov 23rd '10 |
SharePoint Saturday Sessions
Matthew McDermott
I had a great time at SharePoint Saturday Dallas. I love the SPS events because I get to meet a whole new group of passionate folks who are interested enough in learning that they give up a whole Saturday to hear me and other folks talk about the product. As promised here are the links to my two session decks. Developing Social Applications with SharePoint 2010 SharePoint 2010 Search Overview A couple attendees asked about books to get more info on Search. The two that I have read and can reco [read].
Posted: Mon, Nov 15th '10 |
Using peoplepicker-searchadcustomfilter to Limit the People Picker
Matthew McDermott
div class="ExternalClass37332DC81BE646C381C0AFA18DA6452B"pI was working with some folks that wanted to limit the SharePoint 2010 People Picker to only pull users from a single group. There is an stsadm command to achieve this, though the a href="http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263452(office.12).aspx"TechNet example is not very realistic/a. (Title=David?? Really?!?!)/p
pCreating the expression took me back to an old blog post from my friend Wayne: a href="https://red001.mail.microsof [read].
Posted: Wed, Oct 13th '10 |
Create User Profile and Organizational Profile SubTypes in PowerShell
Matthew McDermott
div class="ExternalClass5B6E3978815A40BE848819C79C4806CA"pI am building a script for one of my demos and just created the User Profile SubTypes and Organizational Profile SubTypes with PowerShell like this:/p p /p pre class="csharpcode"font color="#008000"#Get the Server Context
/font$context = Get-SPServiceContext -Site http:span class="rem"//me/span
font color="#008000"#Add User Profile Sub-Types
#Get the Profile Subtype Manager/font
$psm = [Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.ProfileSubtyp [read].
Posted: Thu, Oct 7th '10 |
The MOSS Show Interview Part 2
Matthew McDermott
div class="ExternalClassA62C224983E943F89059C37B3AA94233"pMy friend Hilton Giesenow from a href="http://www.themossshow.com/" target="_blank"The MOSS Show/a posted Part 2 of his interview of me talking about Search and Social stuff in SharePoint 2010. You can listen to the interview online or download it for later./p pa href="http://www.themossshow.com/2010/08/episode-27-enterpise-social-and-search-in-sharepoint-2010-with-matthew-mcdermott-part-2/" target="_blank"Episode 27: Enterprise Social (a [read].
Posted: Wed, Sep 1st '10 |
Announcing Aptillon
Matthew McDermott
div class="ExternalClass8637D9591A1740CAA36631C16062F023"pYou know the phrase “Great minds think alike.” It’s funny how a bunch of independent minded folks can have an independent idea that is right in line with each other. This is the case with my great friends Todd Baginski, Darrin Bishop, Dan Holme, Gary Lapointe, David Mann, and Maurice Prather. Together we are the founding members of Aptillon. You can read more about it here: a href="http://www.aptillon.com/News.aspx" target="_blank"A [read].
Posted: Tue, Aug 24th '10 |
Adding Safe Controls Entries in Visual Studio 2010
Matthew McDermott
div class="ExternalClassD4B1EA1ABD774E6280CC89CDB9ACF05C"pI have been working on my new web site and needed to upgrade my menu control from the Visual Studio 2008 project format to Visual Studio 2010 format. In doing so I created the proper SharePoint Items (SPIs) for my project to build into a WSP. One issue I ran into is there is nothing in my solution that would cause Visual Studio to automatically create a Safe Controls entry. It was correctly creating the manifest and GACing the DLL, but it [read].
Posted: Fri, Aug 20th '10 |
The MOSS Show Interview Part 1
Matthew McDermott
div class="ExternalClassEB7B7851CF254DB8B74CDDC5E51D7A45"pMy friend Hilton Giesenow from a href="http://www.themossshow.com/" target="_blank"The MOSS Show/a posted his interview of me talking about Search and Social stuff in SharePoint 2010. You can listen to the interview online or download it for later./p pa href="http://www.themossshow.com/2010/08/episode-26-enterpise-social-and-search-in-sharepoint-2010-with-matthew-mcdermott-part-1/" target="_blank"Episode 26: Enterprise Social (and Search) [read].
Posted: Tue, Aug 17th '10 |
Microsoft MVPs share their thoughts on SharePoint Server 2010
Matthew McDermott
div class="ExternalClassE7CAB06055DA4058AE82EE80CEAA1F0A"pLast February a bunch of MVPs got together to share their thoughts on Office and SharePoint 2010. The folks at Microsoft just posted the content on the a href="http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/Blogs/GetThePoint/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=388" target="_blank"Get The Point/a blog. I am happy that the stuff we talk about is still as relevant today as it was back then!/p pa href="http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/Blogs/GetThePoint/"http://sharepoi [read].
Posted: Tue, Aug 3rd '10 |
Presenting at VSLive Next Week
Matthew McDermott
div class="ExternalClass8B404ED750CD4DAA9B68E866235755B5"pI am honored to be presenting at a href="http://vslive.com/events/vslive-summer-2010/tracks/sharepoint.aspx" target="_blank"VSLive in Redmond August 3-6/a. The conference will be help on the main Microsoft campus. I am presenting content near and dear to my heart: a href="http://vslive.com/Events/VSLive-Summer-2010/Sessions/Thursday/Enterprise-Social-Computing-with-SharePoint-2010.aspx" target="_blank"Enterprise Social Computing with Shar [read].
Posted: Sat, Jul 31st '10 |
Join us for the August 11th Meeting of the Central Texas SharePoint User Group
Matthew McDermott
div class="ExternalClass8A76C95D42BE40BA8EA84AEE74D562B6"h2Upgrade My SharePoint!quot;/h2 p brAugust 11th Meeting Description: brYou have SharePoint 2007. You want SharePoint 2010. What are you going to do? You should come to the August 11th meeting of the Austin SP User Group and learn all of the in-depth details. a href="https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile=710D52A0-4A85-47D0-B629-C75376F7B286" target="_blank"Shane Young, SharePoint MVP/a, is going to take you on a dive through the upgrad [read].
Posted: Fri, Jul 30th '10 |
May Central Texas SharePoint User Group
Matthew McDermott
div class="ExternalClass584F93C3C99D40799E6C43D0ECBE6C76"pstrongJoin us for the May 12th Meeting of the Central Texas SharePoint User Group!/strong/p pstrong/strong/p pstrongquot;PlanviewPRISMS.com - Adding Value through Customizing SharePoint 2007quot;/strong/p pstrong/strong/p pstrongMay 12th Meeting Description:/strong/p pPlanview, Inc. has just recently deployed a new interactive website called emPlanviewPRISMS.com/em, which is based on the MOSS 2007 platform. In this session, Michael Dona [read].
Posted: Wed, Apr 28th '10 |
MVP Chats: Take 2
Matthew McDermott
div class="ExternalClass9F755D61F9124B48A21B4F6717852122"
pMicrosoft is hosting another round of MVP Chat Sessions where you can ask deep technical (or ridiculously frivolous) questions of SharePoint MVPs like me, Bill English, Sahil Malik, Shane Young, Clayton Cobb, Asif Rehmani, Agnes Molnar, Darrin Bishop, Rob Bogue, Saifullah Shafiq, and Serge Tremblay./p
pYou can use the link in the Chat Center on MSDN a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/chats/default.aspx"http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-u [read].
Posted: Sat, Apr 24th '10 |
Configuring Profile Image Export in SharePoint 2010
Matthew McDermott
div class="ExternalClass6F54B09BB1DF4E05AA2DE024ACBBB90D"pIt’s no secret that I am thrilled with the new social features of SharePoint 2010. I am most excited about the new Profile Picture handling. I strongly believe that the more we can show the faces of our colleagues to one another the more connected we will feel. Clearly Microsoft feels that way as witnessed by the many features that make use of the Profile Image like the Activity Feed and Colleagues list. /p pa href="http://blogs.catapul [read].
Posted: Sat, Mar 13th '10 |
Chat with the SharePoint MVP Experts
Matthew McDermott
div class="ExternalClass5D90CDF7E3534BA48404E2DAFA94DD71"pCross posted from: a title="http://blogs.msdn.com/mvpawardprogram/" href="http://blogs.msdn.com/mvpawardprogram/"http://blogs.msdn.com/mvpawardprogram//a/p pDo you have tough technical questions regarding SharePoint for which you're seeking answers? Do you want to tap into the deep knowledge of the talented Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals? The SharePoint MVPs are the same people you see in the technical community as authors, speaker [read].
Posted: Thu, Mar 11th '10 |
Building Blocks #1: Silverlight Slideshow Viewer for SharePoint
Matthew McDermott
div class="ExternalClass2155C13C53BB464B9F2904E9C968E59C"pIt has been a while (OK, a long while) since I have published a series of posts on a topic. My last series, a href="http://blogs.catapultsystems.com/matthew/archive/2008/08/28/sharepoint-image-search-part-1.aspx" target="_blank"SharePoint Image Search/a, has been very well received. This series will walk through the Building Blocks that I have created to demonstrate and improve the SharePoint end user experience. I have been using many of [read].
Posted: Mon, Mar 8th '10 |
Upgrading from Bing Maps CTP to Version 1
Matthew McDermott
div class="ExternalClass2D5359DEEF8B4860839F2404FD35440F"pI am in the process of updating all of my SharePoint 2010 projects from Beta to RC. I had a lot of fun learning how to use the Bing Maps Silverlight control for a few social computing demos that I built. Version 1 was released late last year and now it’s time to get upgraded! I figured there might be a few other folks in my position so here are the steps I followed./p h2My Application/h2 pMy application is not terribly complicated. I gr [read].
Posted: Sun, Feb 21st '10 |
Announcing Catapult Systems Web Cast Series
Matthew McDermott
div class="ExternalClass58340E10A2C741E88AF90A468AC7F023"pCatapult Systems is taking the most popular in-person events and producing a series of web casts. /p h2SharePoint 2010 Webcast Series /h2 ul liWednesday, March 17supth/sup - 11:00am CST: Managed Metadata/li liWednesday, March 31supst/sup - 11:00am CST: Social Computing /li liWednesday, April 14supth/sup - 11:00am CST: Search /li liWednesday, April 28supth/sup - 11:00am CST: Improvements in Document amp; Records Management /li liWednesday, [read].
Posted: Thu, Feb 11th '10 |
Better Best Bets
Matthew McDermott
div class="ExternalClassFC33FFFDA8A74EA083F77D933CFAB306"pI haven’t blogged in a while because I have been crushed with both project work and dog training. The project work has exposed me to some JQuery techniques that I have wanted to learn. I have also been reviewing the new features of SharePoint 2010 search and FAST Search Server for SharePoint 2010. There are some great new features coming out with both products, features that many of my clients have been asking for. One feature that is s [read].
Posted: Thu, Feb 4th '10 |
Austin SPUG: Integrating External Data with the Business Data Catalog
Matthew McDermott
div class="ExternalClass452E4D3314334135B642DC402C4D1EBE"pThis session will take an in-depth look into the Business Data Catalog (BDC) with Microsoft SQL Server. It will include an overview of the Business Data Catalog, an introduction to configuring the BDC, and a demonstration of integrating the BDC with list forms./p pDuring this meeting we will also share firsthand information and experience around the value of the Microsoft Certified Master program. These programs offer the top tier techn [read].
Posted: Mon, Jan 25th '10 |
Austin SharePoint User Group: Insights
Matthew McDermott
div class="ExternalClass61C614FE6B6B41C6807FE16B8B0DCD31"pSid Atkinson, Sr. Lead Consultant, Catapult Systems, will provide an overview of the great new Business Intelligence features of SharePoint 2010. /p pThis session will cover the Insights Business Intelligence platform in SharePoint 2010. Microsoft made a significant investment in BI and has made available a broad range of tools and applications to service reporting and analytical needs. In this session we will cover enhancements to Re [read].
Posted: Mon, Jan 11th '10 |
Adding Search Refinements in SharePoint 2010
Matthew McDermott
div class="ExternalClassAD6F778838C042C49641FEB9C5803B70"pI have been playing around with SharePoint 2010 Search this morning. I love the new UI. The search refinements panel is just begging to be messed with. In my case I wanted to add the file extension JPG as an Image Type refiner./p pa href="http://blogs.catapultsystems.com/matthew/Media/WindowsLiveWriter/AddingSearchRefinementsinSharePoint2010_90BC/image_2.png"img style="border-right-width:0px;display:inline;border-top-width:0px;border-bott [read].
Posted: Wed, Dec 9th '09 |
Hard Disk Optimization on Hyper-V
Matthew McDermott
div class="ExternalClass0756FFA2E3DD43389F80E51D506BAF21"
pIn order to support my SharePoint 2010 demo environment I have become quite a fan on Microsoft Hyper-V. I admit that I did not enjoy the learning curve and that there are a few “features” missing that would make it significantly easier to use as a portable demo environment, features that I have grown quite attached to in both Virtual PC and VMware. Now before you get all protective of Hyper-V I do understand that it is not intended f [read].
Posted: Sat, Dec 5th '09 |
ClientAccessPolicy file in SharePoint 2010
Matthew McDermott
div class="ExternalClass87EBC07226784797BE0F5284180B408E"pI am upgrading my Silverlight demo code from the old beta to beta 2 and see that there are a few new considerations for the deployment of ClientAccessPolicy.xml files. a href="http://blogs.catapultsystems.com/matthew/archive/2009/09/18/easier-silverlight-development-against-sharepoint.aspx" target="_blank"In a previous post I demonstrated how to do this for SharePoint 2007/a. The heartburn that I get with that approach is any site collect [read].
Posted: Wed, Nov 18th '09 |
SharePoint Saturday San Antonio
Matthew McDermott
div class="ExternalClassACA9A37A0D954C3E93262F05940CD9B0"pI want to thank the folks who attended my session in San Antonio. I had a great time and think the session is getting better every time I do it. I plan to release all the code after I update it for SharePoint 2010 Beta 2. In the mean time here is the a href="http://blogs.catapultsystems.com/matthew/Media/Developing%20Social%20Applications%20with%20SharePoint%20-%20McDermott%20Catapult.pdf" target="_blank"PDF version of the presentation/a [read].
Posted: Sun, Nov 15th '09 |
It’s the little things: Office 2010 Edition
Matthew McDermott
div class="ExternalClassC9215521A2994682ABCC5D3F4764DC9C"
pI have been SLAMMED lately (mostly traveling and speaking, but also taking time with my family) and not blogging enough, I get it, I hear you all loud and clear. I am going to try (starting this week) to publish little bites of new features and enhancements that I have not seen posted elsewhere. /p
pSince I am in the process of building my post about yesterday’s a href="http://www.sharepointsaturday.org/sa/default.aspx" target="_blank" [read].
Posted: Sun, Nov 15th '09 |
Life After SharePoint Conference 2009
Matthew McDermott
Wow, anyone in attendance at the 2009 SharePoint Conference will tell you, there was a LOT going on. I don’t want to rub your nose in it, it is a simple fact, being at the conference, experiencing the nerdy goodness of ITF collaboration and sharing, seeing the SharePoint Fairy (#SPFairy) granting geeky wishes and stealing the attention from the conference floor, or rubbing elbows with the folks who write (or manage the folks who write) one of Steve Balmer’s “favorite products”, cannot be [read].
Posted: Mon, Oct 26th '09 |
SPC09 Be There Virtually
Matthew McDermott
By now the planet knows that the 2009 Microsoft SharePoint Conference is sold out. Does that mean that you are going to miss all the good stuff? Not at all. You can attend the keynote address by Steve Balmer and Jeff Teper virtually. The keynote address will be streamed live at 9:00 Vegas time and available for viewing later from the Conference Web site. Go to www.mssharepointconference.com for more info. You can follow the conference on Twitter @spconf and #SPC09. [read].
Posted: Sat, Oct 17th '09 |
Catapult Webcast: Overview of Windows Server R2
Matthew McDermott
Join us for this technical webcast as we discuss the new features and improvements in Windows Server R2 and how it brings virtualization enhancements within Hyper-V including Live Migration. We will also explore the management improvements such as: Better Together with Windows 7 (Branch Cache & Direct Access) Platform Scalability Power Management Built-in File Classification Engine This session is geared towards IT Management and Windows Server Administration, with a focus on the up [read].
Posted: Mon, Oct 12th '09 |
Austin SPUG: Building Successful Solutions on SharePoint
Matthew McDermott
Building Successful Solutions on SharePoint October 14th Program Description: SharePoint is a great platform on which to build and deliver solutions. The question, however, quickly becomes what to build, how to build it, and most importantly, how to ensure that what I build is successful. In this presentation, we discuss the SharePoint “Solution Quadrant,” which addresses the many types of solutions you can build on SharePoint. We explore how to build your solution, keeping in mind the conce [read].
Posted: Fri, Oct 9th '09 |
BackConnectionHostNames and DisableLoopbackCheck
Matthew McDermott
Not to beat a dead horse, but if you are working with SharePoint and don’t know what the title of this post relates to, you need to educate yourself. If you have not run into an issue yet, just wait, you will. The usual scenario is “out of the blue” you can no longer browse your SharePoint site from the server desktop, though you can browse it fine from other machines on the network. You receive an access denied page. Your search crawls of SharePoint content fail with Access Denied. You [read].
Posted: Fri, Oct 9th '09 |
Easier Silverlight Development against SharePoint
Matthew McDermott
I have been spending quite a bit of time lately working with Silverlight 3 and SharePoint. One of the first big shifts for me is that Silverlight Development is Client development. Silverlight runs in the browser, but it runs on the client, so no SharePoint Object Model code. You have to access all of the goodness that is SharePoint through its web services. Once you get started on your project you add a Service Reference and point at your desired SharePoint Web service. You will immediately run [read].
Posted: Fri, Sep 18th '09 |
Speaking at SharePoint Conference 2009
Matthew McDermott
I will be speaking at the 2009 SharePoint Conference in October. I cannot publish all the details but my topic is: Developing Social Applications with SharePoint 2010 This lecture focuses on the developer interfaces for the API and Web services for SharePoint 2010. Social Computing with SharePoint involves creating people aware applications that take advantage of User Profiles, People oriented data, and Personalization built into SharePoint. This session will demonstrate development techniques f [read].
Posted: Fri, Sep 11th '09 |
Central Texas SharePoint User Group: "Building Scalable Enterprise Applications with MOSS 2007"
Matthew McDermott
Central Texas SharePoint User Group: "Building Scalable Enterprise Applications with MOSS 2007" September Program Description: There are techniques that organizations with experienced .NET developers should use to develop scalable, distributed, high performance applications for SharePoint Server 2007. Successfully delivering SharePoint applications should involve programming techniques that focus on optimal code execution and efficient application delivery. We will discover proven methodologies [read].
Posted: Fri, Sep 4th '09 |
A Couple Win7 Tips
Matthew McDermott
I have been running Windows 7 for a few months now. I have to say, I am addicted. I was never a huge fan of Vista, but I saw the potential. I saw the need for revamping much of the OS to support administration, security and deployment. That does noting for me as an end user, other than give me a little peace of mind. Windows 7 is a whole ‘nother story (as my niece puts it). I see productivity gains all the time. Here are a couple of my favorite productivity enhancers. MRU and Tacks Every item [read].
Posted: Thu, Aug 20th '09 |
SharePoint Conference Sessions Announced
Matthew McDermott
The sneak peek agenda for the SharePoint Conference has been announced. SharePoint 2010 Overview and What's New Upgrading to SharePoint 2010 SharePoint 2010 Capacity and Performance Planning SharePoint 2010 Security and Identity Management: What's New Visual Studio 2010 Tools for Office Development SharePoint 2010 Ribbon, ECMAScript and Dialog Framework Development Developing with REST and LINQ in SharePoint 2010 Upgrading SharePoint Server 2007 Code to SharePoint 2010 Building Composit [read].
Posted: Fri, Aug 14th '09 |
Free PowerShell eBook
Matthew McDermott
If you are looking for PowerShell resources to get yourself up to speed look no further than “Mastering PowerShell”. 20 Chapters of what appears to be (I honestly have not read the whole thing) a comprehensive work on the topic. The book is available Online and for download as a PDF. From the generous makers of PowerShell Plus. The table of contents: Chapter 1. The PowerShell Console Chapter 2. Interactive PowerShell Chapter 3. Variables Chapter 4. Arrays and Hashtables Chapter 5. The P [read].
Posted: Mon, Aug 10th '09 |
Central Texas SharePoint User Group: "SharePoint Branding - Everything You Need to Know!"
Matthew McDermott
August Program Description: Are you confused with how to change the user interface in SharePoint? Do you have concerns about how to go about making those changes? If so, then come to the August 12th meeting where Heather Solomon will be answering any SharePoint branding questions you have and discuss common issues you may have encountered. Heather Solomon is the Director of Creative Services at SharePoint Experts, Inc. and author/trainer of the SharePoint Branding Bootcamp. She will highlight a [read].
Posted: Mon, Aug 3rd '09 |
SharePoint SP2: “The B2B upgrader timer job failed.”
Matthew McDermott
So I have done several SP2 upgrades. Depending on the size of the farm and number of databases it can take anywhere from 15 minutes to about an hour. Then I decide to upgrade our internal corporate farm. Two hours after I start I get it going but here is the lesson. Always, always, always have a backup plan. That way you can calmly work through the issues without fear of having to roll back. So, what happened? PSConfig reported that the Upgrade Failed and the log file gave me: The B2B upgrader [read].
Posted: Sat, Aug 1st '09 |
Outlook 2010 Suggested Contacts
Matthew McDermott
I noticed the yesterday that I had a HUGE number of duplicate contacts on my phone. I also noticed that I had all sorts of contacts that just did not belong. I sync my iPhone from our company Exchange Server from Outlook so of course I blamed my updated iPhone.
Then I took a closer look at the Contact Groups that were being synchronized with my phone. I noticed a new group “Suggested Contacts”.
Then I looked in Outlook 2010 and found that there is a new contact list that appears to off [read].
Posted: Fri, Jul 24th '09 |
Outlook 2010: First Impressions
Matthew McDermott
I have been using Office 2010 for about a week now and here are some first impressions of Outlook 2010. Installation The installation was a breeze. You have the option to run 2010 along side 2007 as long as you use the 32 bit version of 2010. I opted for the 64 bit version so I had to uninstall all of my Office 2007 applications before beginning the installation. Following the installation I launched Outlook and it picked up all of my 2007 settings including the 5 PST files that I use for filing [read].
Posted: Thu, Jul 23rd '09 |
SharePoint 2010 Get your sneak peek right here!
Matthew McDermott
Just in time for your summer viewing pleasure Microsoft is unveiling some of the new workloads for SharePoint 2010. Head over to the newly revamped Microsoft SharePoint Product site and catch Tom Rizzo, Paul Andrew and Richard Riley as they demonstrate just a few of the new capabilities of SharePoint 2010. Each video has a different audience. General information an technical overview from Tom, IT Pro and Administration from Richard and Developer considerations from Paul. In addition to the video [read].
Posted: Mon, Jul 13th '09 |
Azure Explanation for the Code Phobic
Matthew McDermott
I found this great video explaining Azure. What is Windows Azure? http://blog.smarx.com/posts/what-is-windows-azure-a-hand-drawn-video I love the hand drawn approach to teaching. Just goes to show that the simplest teaching techniques are sometimes the most powerful. The key to his success IMO is the 5 hours he spent up front. Clear, concise and clever. Very memorable. Enjoy! [read].
Posted: Thu, Jul 9th '09 |
Windows Live Writer and Twitter
Matthew McDermott
I just found a plug-in for Windows Live Writer that posts updates to Twitter when you publish a new post to your blog. Twitter Notify lets you format the tweet and prompts you when you publish a post. [read].
Posted: Mon, Jul 6th '09 |
Book Review: Take Back Your Life
Matthew McDermott
I love BEING organized…I hate GETTING organized. I made a promise to myself (dare I say a resolution) in January that each month I would take one step closer to getting myself organized. Actually this was a good time for me because I have been planning on updating my home computer infrastructure so it made sense that I would also get my home office and electronic files all backed up and secure. My first step in this process was to read and really absorb the book Take Back Your Life! Using Micr [read].
Posted: Mon, Jul 6th '09 |
Add “Click to Call” to SharePoint People Search
Matthew McDermott
At Catapult we recently implemented Unified Communications all the way to our phones. People Search There are two web parts that display the people results, “Search High Confidence Results” and “People Search Core Results”. Both need to be edited but the changes are the same. Begin by placing the page in edit mode. Site Actions | Edit Page. Once in edit mode choose the Edit menu on the People Search Core Results web part and choose Edit Shared Web Part. Click the XSL Editor button a [read].
Posted: Thu, Jul 2nd '09 |
Pre or Post SP2 Hotfix for SharePoint
Matthew McDermott
The Trial Licensing issue that was introduced by SharePoint SP2 has been resolved by the product team. If you are affected (or wish to avoid the problem) you can install the fix before or after you deploy SharePoint SP2. The details are available on the SharePoint Team Blog. [read].
Posted: Fri, Jun 26th '09 |
Catapult Awards and Windows 7 Video Contest
Matthew McDermott
As Microsoft Gold Partner and National Systems Integrator (NSI) Catapult enters in all kinds of contests for recognition with Microsoft. Most recently we were awarded the Partner of the Year award for Custom Development Solutions, Web Development. We are also competing in a Windows 7 video contest. You can bop over to Digital Forum TV and check us out. I love the pace and message of the video. Looks and feels like a Microsoft production, but we did it ourselves! If you like it, sign in with yo [read].
Posted: Fri, Jun 26th '09 |
Adventure Works Travel Site and Hands-on-Labs
Matthew McDermott
The Adventure Works Travel site and 10 Hands-On labs have been released to the SharePoint community. These developer oriented labs are available from The MSDN Code Gallery in the SharePoint on the Web Project. The kit comes with an installer for the AWT site with all the bells and whistles. [read].
Posted: Tue, Jun 23rd '09 |
TechEd 2009 MVP Interview
Matthew McDermott
Heather Kostes, Business Group Lead from Microsoft interviewed me for the Microsoft MVP Program at Tech•Ed 2009. Of course I blathered on about Social Networking and Search. I love SharePoint because I enjoy showing clients how to use the tools they have to build business value. (I think that message came through…:) Anyway, it was a fun interview. It’s posted on the Microsoft MVP Award Program Blog . [read].
Posted: Mon, Jun 22nd '09 |
Waiting for ODC? Wait no more!
Matthew McDermott
For those of you waiting for the Office Developer Conference you should stop waiting and sign up for the 2009 SharePoint Conference. The SharePoint Team posted a note that the content will be included in SPC and ODC will not take place this year.
Sign-up and be the first on your block to get the advanced look at Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010. [read].
Posted: Wed, Jun 3rd '09 |
AMD's SharePoint Intranet: Winner, 2009 Ten Best Intranets
Matthew McDermott
Join us for the June 10th Meeting of the Central Texas SharePoint User Group! June Program Description: The Nielsen Norman Group Report: Intranet Design Annual 2009: Year's Ten Best Intranets was awarded to Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), a developer of computer and graphics processors, for their intranet. This intranet, based on SharePoint, was designed for enterprise organization with large amounts of documents and mission-critical applications. Come join the team responsible for this incredible [read].
Posted: Wed, May 27th '09 |
TechNet Edge Social Networking Interview
Matthew McDermott
While I was hanging out at Tech•Ed 2009 I was interviewed by David Tesar from TechNet Edge about Corporate Social Networking and SharePoint. Right now it’s the feature on the TechNet Edge site. If that link does not do it, there is a SharePoint tag that should make it easy to find. Right in the middle of the interview a guy nearly walked through the scene. Then he stopped and stood there watching…uncomfortably close. The interview broke down a bit and David managed to get me back on trac [read].
Posted: Wed, May 27th '09 |
Linux Browser Testing Made Easy
Matthew McDermott
Every once in a while I have a client that requires more extensive browser testing. For most Windows-based browsers I have them installed locally or run a VPC with them installed. I am not a Linux expert by any means so the thought of standing up a particular flavor of Linux to support testing was not appealing. Then I found UNetbootin the Universal Netboot Installer. (http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/) This utility enables me to format a USB stick with my choice of Linux. The default installat [read].
Posted: Mon, May 25th '09 |
Up and running with Silverlight
Matthew McDermott
I have been really wanting to spend time on Silverlight lately. I am a real visual learner (and teacher) so Silverlight and SharePoint are a natural fit for me. I want to build up a few posts about the joys and sorrow of getting started. So here goes: Make sure that the post you are reading pertains to your version of Silverlight. I wasted a lot of time on Beta 2 posts while I was troubleshooting. A few things have changed. Make sure you are using an authoritative source for your info, not a h [read].
Posted: Thu, May 21st '09 |
New Look to SharePoint.Microsoft.com
Matthew McDermott
Have you taken a look at SharePoint.Microsoft.com? Look at the Silverlight navigation and image rendering. Cool! Looking forward to a “How we did it post on the SharePoint blog.” [read].
Posted: Thu, May 21st '09 |
OFC315 Social Networking and User Profiles for Business
Matthew McDermott
My second breakout session at Tech•Ed ‘09 has been posted on Tech•Ed Online. I loved that the audience awoke early enough on the last day of the conference to attend my session at 0900! Coffee in hand they endured my jokes, dog photos and screaming flying monkeys. I forgot to mention that you can follow me on Twitter @MatthewMcD (I currently have 97 followers…can we make it to 100?) and look me up on Facebook. I was asked if I would post the new master page I built for the presentation. [read].
Posted: Wed, May 20th '09 |
OFC317 Search Challenges and Tricks
Matthew McDermott
I really enjoyed the session and thanks to the attendees for your kind comments. (And sorry to the guy from Florida that I teased!) The fine AV folks at Tech•Ed online have posted the recording of my talk: OFC317 Search Challenges and Tricks Links Microsoft Enterprise Search: http://www.microsoft.com/enterprisesearch Microsoft Enterprise Search Blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/enterprisesearch Partner Search Information: https://www.quickstartmicrosoftsearch.com Performance and Capacity Planning: h [read].
Posted: Fri, May 15th '09 |
TechEd Panel Discussion
Matthew McDermott
I had a chance to sit in on the MVP SharePoint Panel Discussion here at Tech•Ed yesterday. The AV folks here at TechEd must be burning the candle at both ends because they already posted the session on Tech•Ed Online. Microsoft SharePoint MVP Development Panel Discussion [read].
Posted: Wed, May 13th '09 |
Speaking at TechFest in Dallas
Matthew McDermott
I’ll be presenting my new talk for the first time at TechFest in Dallas. SharePoint Search Challenges and Tricks Abstract Many organizations struggle with SharePoint search configuration when it falls outside simple document search. This session presents strategies for handling special search scenarios like large files and images. This session also presents techniques for metadata tagging of files that are outside of the control of the search team. The tips and techniques are presented as patt [read].
Posted: Wed, May 6th '09 |
Presenting at Tech•Ed 2009
Matthew McDermott
I will be presenting at Tech•Ed 2009 in LA, May 11-15, 2009.
SharePoint Search Challenges and Tricks
Abstract
Many organizations struggle with SharePoint search configuration when it falls outside simple document search. This session presents strategies for handling special search scenarios like large files and images. This session also presents techniques for metadata tagging of files that are outside of the control of the search team. The tips and techniques are presented as patterns that ca [read].
Posted: Fri, Apr 17th '09 |
Presenting at Tech•Ed 2009
Matthew McDermott
I will be presenting at Tech•Ed 2009 in LA, May 11-15, 2009. SharePoint Search Challenges and Tricks Abstract Many organizations struggle with SharePoint search configuration when it falls outside simple document search. This session presents strategies for handling special search scenarios like large files and images. This session also presents techniques for metadata tagging of files that are outside of the control of the search team. The tips and techniques are presented as patterns that ca [read].
Posted: Thu, Apr 16th '09 |
Coming soon to a server near you SharePoint Servers SP2
Matthew McDermott
Microsoft’s Office Sustained Engineering blog has announced the release date of Office SP2 including the Office servers. From my perspective I see the importance of the following ECM improvements: Enterprise Content Management (ECM) The performance and stability of content deployment and variations feature has been improved. A new tool has been added to the STSADM command-line utility that enables a SharePoint administrator to scan sites that use the variations feature for errors. [read].
Posted: Thu, Apr 16th '09 |
Stump the Panel
Matthew McDermott
Join us for the March 11th meeting of the Central Texas SharePoint User Group!
Stump the Panel!
March Program Description:
This month we're going "Back to Basics" with a Stump the Panel Session. SharePoint experts Matt McDermott, Brad Freels, Coan Dillahunty, Bruce Weatherford, and Janet Taylor will be answering your toughest questions!
We will be giving out $10 Starbucks gift cards to the first 10 people who ask questions and if you actually stump the panel, you will be rewarded with a $25 [read].
Posted: Thu, Feb 26th '09 |
Vista prompt me no more!
Matthew McDermott
Ever since moving to Vista and Office 2007 and MOSS everyone I know with this same configuration has complained about the constant prompting in Office 2007. Here is the scenario and the fix as detailed by one of our AWSOME Desktop Support Engineers at Catapult, Greg (Awesome-O) Tate:
What’s the difference?
I found a fix for the annoying Vista prompts in SharePoint, and both work well on domain computers connected internally and externally. We are still getting many help desk requests for crede [read].
Posted: Wed, Feb 4th '09 |
SharePoint Conference 2009!
Matthew McDermott
Vegas anyone? Microsoft has finally announced that the 2009 SharePoint conference will be held October 19-22, 2009 at the Mandalay Bay Events Center. This is your chance to get up to speed on SharePoint “14” (or whatever they are going to call it by then…)!
Jump over to http://www.mssharepointconference.com/Pages/spc2009.aspx for all the details.
Cheers! [read].
Posted: Tue, Feb 3rd '09 |
What happened to Search Administration?
Matthew McDermott
What do you do when you open your Search Administration site and it looks like this?
Or you open your Search Queries Report (SpUsageSSPSearchQueries.aspx) looks like this:
Or every time you open the Search Query Report you see the following in your Event Logs:
Error Details
Event Type: Error
Event Source: DCOM
Event Category: None
Event ID: 10016
Date: 1/30/2009
Time: 2:16:35 PM
User: foo\srv_moss_ssp_app
C [read].
Posted: Mon, Feb 2nd '09 |
SPDisposeCheck is loose!
Matthew McDermott
Paul Andrew has just announced that the SharePoint Disposable Object checking tool SPDisposeCheck has been released into the wild. Jump over to: http://blogs.msdn.com/pandrew/archive/2009/01/29/spdisposecheck-v1-3-1-is-released.aspx and have a read. If you are a developer and don’t know about the issues related to disposable objects in SharePoint then have a read of Roger Lamb’s blog post on the topic. Cheers! [read].
Posted: Thu, Jan 29th '09 |
Still in the Club!
Matthew McDermott
I am happy to say that I have been renewed as a Microsoft Office SharePoint Server MVP for another year! Each year begins with looking at my e-mail for the renewal notification. I am pleased and honored to be considered in this great group of talented folks. Thanks Microsoft! [read].
Posted: Fri, Jan 2nd '09 |
Color Picking in SPD
Matthew McDermott
For all the bashing we give SharePoint Designer, there are some very cool, though poorly documented, features. For example, have you ever found yourself creating a style sheet from a graphic provided by a designer? Did the designer give you every hex color value? Would you like to be able to select the exact color and be self sufficient? Here is how I use SharePoint Designer to solve the problem.
Color Picking
Size SPD so that you can see the graphic that has the target colors.
In SPD Choose "Pi [read].
Posted: Fri, Dec 19th '08 |
SharePoint and the Seven Words
Matthew McDermott
I am often asked by Human Resource folks about “obscene content” in a SharePoint environment. However the content gets in, they don’t want it to be found. There are utilities like Forefront that will perform content filtering for SharePoint, but most fall short of filtering “everything”. For example, Forefront only filters documents, not list items, publishing pages, content editor web parts, or profile properties. I got to thinking about this issue while listening to a recent intervie [read].
Posted: Sat, Nov 15th '08 |
Work Smarter Not Harder
Matthew McDermott
Every year at Catapult we have a video contest between our different practices. This year the Austin office is working on a great concept. I can’t give away the details, but I can preview two images from my part. Cheers! [read].
Posted: Tue, Nov 11th '08 |
Shameless Self Promotion
Matthew McDermott
It was pointed out to me recently that "I must be busy, because I have not been posting this month..." OUCH! Yes, I have been busy, but that is no excuse. I should point out that twice this month I have been honored with a cross-post from the Enterprise Search Team blog. SharePoint Image Search Taking People Search on the Road It's always crazy to see pictures of my dog on other peoples site...I like it! I promise to post more...I have a few ideas. [read].
Posted: Mon, Oct 27th '08 |
SharePoint Menu Alternative
Matthew McDermott
I was recently working with a colleague who posed the following question: "How can I wrap the top navigation rather than scroll it off screen?" My follow up question was: "Why on earth would you ever have a top navigation that was that wide?" To which he answered: "Don't ask" So, ours is not to ask why... I tried several different CSS approaches using the SharePoint:ASPMenu control. There are a bunch of good posts on how to tweak the control, but none (that I could find) that would let me chan [read].
Posted: Mon, Oct 27th '08 |
Mobile People Search
Matthew McDermott
Every so often I get asked about creating a corporate phonebook or mobile phonebook for SharePoint. I have been doing a lot of planning sessions this week and needed something creative to do, so here's something fun.
I decided to create a lightweight people search page for mobile devices.
I created the page starting with an regular ASPX page. After adding a web part zone I dropped a People Search Box and People Search Core Results web part. I finished it up with a little CSS and this is the [read].
Posted: Sun, Sep 28th '08 |
The loss of a legend
Matthew McDermott
It saddens me to report that the SharePoint community has lost a legend. Patrick Tisseghem passed away suddenly in Sweden on Wednesday. If you have not heard of Patrick, he was a SharePoint MVP and GREAT GUY! He was a prolific contributor to the SharePoint community. The author of many SharePoint books, most recently “Inside Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007” and “Inside the Index and Search Engines”. As a cofounder of U2U he produced CAML Editing & Query tools and many utilit [read].
Posted: Fri, Sep 5th '08 |
IIS Error
Matthew McDermott
Often I blog things so that I can stop searching for them. I run across this error all the time...and then have to search for the KB with the fix. When opening IIS Manager you click on the Web Sites folder and receive the following error: The path specified cannot be used at this time. The only temporary solution I have found is to perform an IISRESET which is a drag, because the site is usually working fine. The patch information is here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/946517 [read].
Posted: Wed, Sep 3rd '08 |
SharePoint Image Search (Part 4)
Matthew McDermott
Introduction
This is Part 4 of a 4 part series on how to create an image search center on a MOSS site. My goal is to create a search results page similar to the Microsoft Live Search Images page. In Part 1 I explored the out of the box search experience for images and walked through the setup required to get the indexer to crawl image file types. In Part 2 I installed the XMP IFilter and demonstrated the capabilities related to Managed Properties. In Part 3 I detailed how to configure Crawled P [read].
Posted: Mon, Sep 1st '08 |
SharePoint Image Search (Part 3)
Matthew McDermott
Introduction
This is Part 3 of a 4 part series on how to create an image search center on a MOSS site. My goal is to create a search results page similar to the Microsoft Live Search Images page. In Part 1 I explored the out of the box search experience for images and walked through the setup required to get the indexer to crawl image file types. In Part 2 I installed the XMP IFilter and demonstrated the capabilities related to Managed Properties. We concluded the post with an issue: Why don't [read].
Posted: Mon, Sep 1st '08 |
Create a XML Test Page for Search Results
Matthew McDermott
I have been working on a couple search projects lately and have found it very helpful to create a XML Results page in my Search Center.
It is easy enough to do.
In the Search Center choose Site Actions | Create Page.
Create a new Search Results page and call it XMLResults.aspx
Once the page is created, set the "Target search results page URL" property of the Search Box to "xmlresults.aspx". This will direct any new queries from the XMLResults page back to the page, rather than the def [read].
Posted: Thu, Aug 28th '08 |
SharePoint Image Search (Part 1)
Matthew McDermott
Introduction
After working on several search projects it is clear that the out of the box search experience for images is, well, less than optimal. I mean look at how cool the Microsoft Live Search Images interface is, then, hover over an image and look at how cool the property display is!
How about the results in SharePoint…
OK, I know, SharePoint is a document centric application and it is built for the indexing, searching and display of documents. I agree! What if your company's documen [read].
Posted: Thu, Aug 28th '08 |
SASUG Search Presentation
Matthew McDermott
Thanks again to my hosts at the San Antonio SharePoint User Group. I had a great time. You can download my deck and the samples that I demonstrated from my SharePoint Conference post. I have not added the information on image search that I presented last night. I am working on a three part post that will pull all of the necessary information together.
Thanks again to Rackspace, our gracious host, you guys take recycling to a whole new level! [read].
Posted: Wed, Aug 27th '08 |
Another EBE Blog in the Wild
Matthew McDermott
The folks over at AMD have been busy getting their message out and they are using the Community Kit for SharePoint: Enhanced Blog Edition to do it! The team developed an EBE theme that goes with their corporate brand. No customizations beyond the XSL that you have to write to complete your concept. [read].
Posted: Mon, Aug 18th '08 |
SDPS and Microsoft RoundTable
Matthew McDermott
I have been spending this week delivering a Microsoft sponsored SharePoint Delivery Planning Services session. If you are a Partner and you don't know about SDPS you should check it out. If you are a customer and have Software Assurance you should talk to your Partner or Microsoft about taking advantage of this great benefit. In a nutshell SDPS is a service provided by Microsoft to assist customers in the deployment of SharePoint. Qualified Partners present 1, 3, 5, 10, or 15 day programs that i [read].
Posted: Wed, Aug 13th '08 |
My Site Availability
Matthew McDermott
I struggled with how to title this post because readers may not know that you have this issue (and if they do, how do you search for the issue?) On the My Site profile page just below the default profile information there is a web part that displays the users availability from Exchange. This web part connects to the Exchange Auto Discover Service to get the information. If the connection fails the whole web part vanishes. You may notice it for just a moment and then it disappears while the pag [read].
Posted: Fri, Aug 8th '08 |
AAM and SSL Termination
Matthew McDermott
Scenario
A few days ago I knew nothing about SSL Termination, the Cisco ACE load balancer or Alternate Access Mapping. (OK, I lied, I knew enough about AAM to hate it. Mostly because I just don't get it.) I was struggling with the following scenario. Spencer Harbar and Shane Young lead me down the right path.
SSL Termination and Load Balancing
We use alternate access mapping to handle the routing of requests to the two web applications Intranet and MySite. This configuration is a result of th [read].
Posted: Tue, Aug 5th '08 |
SharePoint IT Pro Documentation Team Blog
Matthew McDermott
There is a new TechNet blog specifically focused on IT Pro Content for SharePoint. http://blogs.technet.com/tothesharepoint/ provides notification and updates for the SharePoint related TechNet content and a vehicle for you to request topics and provide feedback to the Documentation Team. Next time you find yourself struggling to find content you can bounce to this blog and let them know! The writers on the team are passionate about providing the best content they can to you. They want the quali [read].
Posted: Thu, Jul 31st '08 |
Rich Text Editor Error - RTE2PUEditor.aspx
Matthew McDermott
Today while working on an SP1 MOSS installation our content editor web part started raising an error on key down. The only difference that we could determine is that this build was part of a slipstream installation of MOSS rather than RTM, then WSS SP1 and MOSS SP1. It appears that the JavaScript files BFORM.JS and FORM.JS did not get updated by the service pack. Internet Explorer Script Error An error has occurred in the script on this page. Line: 3032 Char: 2 Error: Object expected Code [read].
Posted: Thu, Jul 3rd '08 |
KB952698 and KB952704 Released
Matthew McDermott
For those of you attempting to use Content Deployment in MOSS there has been a significant effort on the part of the folks at Microsoft to fix the many, many issues with the feature set. Content Deployment or Prime, is primarily used for publishing content from one site to another but has many other uses. The KB articles are here: WSS: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/952698 MOSS: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/952704/ [read].
Posted: Wed, Jul 2nd '08 |
Is it a go button or a magnifying glass
Matthew McDermott
This post is for the folks who want to deploy MOSS without changing the default master page for Blue Band. Please change just one thing...the search button hover state: Normally it looks like this: ...and when you hover... Somebody forgot to set the GoImageActiveUrl on the SearchBoxEx control...set it like this: GoImageActiveUrl="" and while you are in there set the one for RTL languages too: GoImageActiveUrlRTL="" Now your hover state is the same as your default state. [read].
Posted: Fri, Jun 27th '08 |
Add Editor and Modified to a Publishing Page
Matthew McDermott
I have often been asked how to add the name of the person who updated a page and the date to the footer. This is the first time I have had to do it. Though it is not obvious there is a control that helps with the display of any list column. The control is ListItemProperty. So for “Modified By” and “Last Modified” the fields are “Editor” and “Modified” respectively. Here is one way to add the Editor and Modified field to a MOSS Publishing Page. There are probably other techniques, [read].
Posted: Tue, Jun 24th '08 |
SharePoint Sync Job Failure
Matthew McDermott
Recently I noticed on a situation where the sync jobs were failing on a MOSS implementation. Everything else was working great except for the features that surface the "Sites that you are a member of" and "My SharePoint Sites" in office. Looking into the ULS logs I found: OWSTIMER.EXE (0x07E8) 0x040C SharePoint Portal Server User Profiles 8zzy Medium Aborting sweepsynch for [read].
Posted: Mon, Jun 16th '08 |
How does he do it?
Matthew McDermott
One of my favorite stories from the 2008 SharePoint Conference happened during Dustin's presentation "SharePoint Designer: I didn't know you could do THAT!". Dustin was running through his patter and zooming the screen in and out. Every so often for emphasis he would zoom in and then draw a red circle for emphasis. One of my coworkers waved me over (for what I thought was a technical question about something Dustin had just said...) and asked me "How does he ZOOM like that?"
Presentation tricks [read].
Posted: Sat, Jun 14th '08 |
Professional SharePoint 2007 WCM Development
Matthew McDermott
I am very pleased to announce that Andrew Connell, MVP has released a book dedicated to the topic of Web Content Management Development. This book was a labor of love (you never hear that writing a book is easy…) by AC and a couple contributing authors like Spencer Harbar, Bob German, John Holliday and me. The content is great, here is a peek: Embarking on Web Content Management Projects Windows SharePoint Server 3.0 Development Primer Overview of Web Content Management in Microsoft Office [read].
Posted: Wed, Jun 4th '08 |
Speaking at Austin SPUG
Matthew McDermott
I'll be presenting my Social Networking talk at the Austin SharePoint User Group meeting June 11th, 2008 from 6 to 8 pm.
Social Networking and User Profiles for Business
SharePoint offers many features that facilitate personalization in the corporate environment. Organizations are often eager to adopt the features yet spend little time exploring the extent to which personalization and profiles can enhance the user experience. This session will explore the options available to the enterprise fo [read].
Posted: Mon, Jun 2nd '08 |
A better way to evaluate PreUpgrade scan results
Matthew McDermott
Every time I review Preupgrade reports I wish that I had a better way to review the results. I finally wrote a stylesheet to help. The intent for this tool is to apply it to your upgrade reports after your first prescan run to test the results before you actually run the upgrade. Then keep the reports around for evaluating your upgrade after you upgrade the sites. Here is what the results look like. Each URL is click-able enabling you to go directly to the site in question. Configuration a [read].
Posted: Sun, Jun 1st '08 |
SSO Configuration Weirdness
Matthew McDermott
There is a LOT of great information on how to configure SSO for SharePoint. If you are still jaded because of the limited capability of SSO in 2003, you have to take a fresh look at SSO in 2007. As far as I can tell the service has not changed substantially (if at all). The biggest change is that SharePoint Designer now understands SSO and you can use it for your Data Form Web Parts and the BDC. With that in mind I was configuring SSO and kept running into the error message: Login failed for use [read].
Posted: Thu, May 29th '08 |
TechNet Governance Guidance
Matthew McDermott
The folks at TechNet have been busy writing new documentation on SharePoint Governance. There is a lot of great information for organization implementing SharePoint who want to implement a governance plan. The articles and white papers cover tools and techniques to help in your quest for order. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263341.aspx [read].
Posted: Wed, May 28th '08 |
Fitz is Moving!
Matthew McDermott
There are a few "one name" folks in the SharePoint world. You know Joel, but you cannot call yourself a SharePoint developer if you don't know Fitz. Mike Fitzmaurice has long been a technical evangelist for SharePoint in his official capacity as Technical Product Manager. If you ever had a chance to attend any of the Microsoft parties with a karaoke machine, you will remember Mike for his voice and stage presence. (Word UP!)
Mike has decided to move to Nintex as their Vice President of Product [read].
Posted: Wed, May 28th '08 |
Search Results and AAM
Matthew McDermott
I'll be the first to tell you that Alternate Access Mapping confuses the heck out of me. It does not do what I think it should do and it affects things I think it should not affect. I guess my main complaint is the name and not the function. Anyway, here is a fix to a problem that I have seen in several implementations that use an extended web application.
The configuration is a common one for an authoring environment and "production" web site that are hosted on the same web application. We ofte [read].
Posted: Sun, May 18th '08 |
WSS SP3 and Datasheet View
Matthew McDermott
We just applied WSS and SPS SP3 to a production SharePoint installation and it turns out that following the application of WSS SP3 you MAY be unable to open lists and libraries in Data Sheet View! (When I say "may" I mean "will".) As stated in the KB this is a known issue… http://support.microsoft.com/kb/923643/ “You may be unable to open the "Edit in Datasheet" view in some document libraries after you install Windows SharePoint Services SP3. Test for this issue before you implement Windows [read].
Posted: Tue, May 13th '08 |
Web 2.0 and People Who Get It
Matthew McDermott
I spend a lot of my time working with great companies that want to get better. They keep striving for how they can improve incrementally in all areas of endeavor. It it this passion for "baby steps" rather than the "grand slam" that makes them great. I call it "continuous improvement" other call it "restlessness", whatever you call it, working for one of these companies can be exciting and thrilling or unsettling and terrifying, it all depends on your point of view, it all depends on your person [read].
Posted: Thu, May 8th '08 |
SharePoint Conference Videos Released!
Matthew McDermott
If you cannot wait for the Conference DVD the recorded sessions are available on the SharePoint Conference Web site through MySPC.
http://www.mssharepointconference.com
The DVDs will be sent in the mail to all attendees and available for purchase by those of you how could not attend. [read].
Posted: Fri, Apr 25th '08 |
Things that make you go "Hmmmm?"
Matthew McDermott
Wandering through the Seattle airport on the way back home this morning I noticed a few things that cause me to stop and ask, who is this sign for?
Oh sure, I understand the top one, but this is outside the bar inside the secure zone of the airport. Just makes you stop and ask yourself if someone actually made it past TSA with a gun and saw the sign, would they think twice about popping in for a beer with a two year old?
The other sign makes me wonder if Arpan has a gig as a model or musician? [read].
Posted: Sun, Apr 20th '08 |
All work and no play makes Matt a dull boy
Matthew McDermott
The 2008 MVP Global Summit has just wrapped up and what a phenomenal experience. This year was my second Summit and I have a much deeper understanding of how Microsoft uses our feedback to build better products. The MVP community meets once a year for several days of face-to-face interaction with the product group to provide feedback, share ideas and crack some of the geekiest deep technical jokes I have ever heard!
While our feedback is heard year round, the Summit provides "face time" with the [read].
Posted: Thu, Apr 17th '08 |
Search XSL Samples on CodePlex
Matthew McDermott
I have created a project on CodePlex for sharing the XSL samples I have created in my search demonstrations. I have ideas for other samples that I will post as I have time to develop them. If anyone out there is interested in participating just download a sample so you can review how I documented the samples and then send me an example. If you have ideas but no time...I totally understand! Let me know and I'll help you create the sample. SharePoint Search XSL Samples [read].
Posted: Sun, Apr 6th '08 |
Publishing Page Settings Errors
Matthew McDermott
I often find that after I migrate a site from one URL to another the publishing pages retain their reference to the original page layouts. This causes a problem when you try to open the Page Settings page. Fellow MVP Gary Lapointe has written a number of STSADM Custom Extensions and solved this problem with his Fix Publishing Page URL command. I followed the guidance of my friend Travis and used the following query to identify the affected pages. Just create a new Content and Structure Report a [read].
Posted: Sat, Mar 29th '08 |
Top Reasons for My Sites
Matthew McDermott
The genesis for this post was a conversation I had during SPC following my presentation on Social Networking with MOSS. SharePoint offers many features that (when properly configured) enable and facilitate social networking "inside the firewall". The power and flexibility of SharePoint lends itself to providing a great platform for corporate social networking. The key is to have a plan and implement the user profiles correctly. If you do not pay attention to the user profile accuracy, all your e [read].
Posted: Mon, Mar 17th '08 |
ECMS305 Advanced Search Configuration and Management
Matthew McDermott
My second presentation at SPC2008 was Advanced Search Configuration and Management. I presented in "the BIG room" and what a thrill that was. The AV folks were true professionals, the stage was amazing, and the audience (though a bit small due to the early hour on the last day..) was very receptive and kind.
After the session I fired up the VPC to determine what went wrong with the breadcrumb demo and determined that in my haste I chose the wrong master page. Rather than editing blueglassband.m [read].
Posted: Tue, Mar 11th '08 |
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