|
Stephen Cummins Profile |
|
|
SharePoint Server Office 2010 RTM April, on shelves May 12th!
Stephen Cummins
Yes, SharePoint Server Office 2010 RTM April, on shelves May 12th! Which is earlier than I expected, good job guys! Full details of launch event here: http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/businessproductivity/proof/pages/2010-launch-events.aspx#fbid=K5ZL4HL0icIdiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/3237908-3997826519618025611?l=www.spsfaq.com%2Fdefault.htm' alt='' //div [read].
Posted: Sat, Mar 6th '10 |
Why is it such a pain to give someone access to the SSP?
Stephen Cummins
Thankfully, Shane's done a checklist of things to look for when granting access to the Shared Services Provider:nbsp;a href="http://msmvps.com/blogs/shane/archive/2007/08/06/give-a-user-access-to-the-ssp.aspx"http://msmvps.com/blogs/shane/archive/2007/08/06/give-a-user-access-to-the-ssp.aspx/anbsp;but, you know, I mean, sheesh!div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/3237908-5517006294796365688?l=www.spsfaq.com%2Fdefault.htm' alt= [read].
Posted: Wed, Mar 3rd '10 |
SharePoint Evolution in London in April will be brilliant!
Stephen Cummins
Well, SharePoint Evolution in London in April will of course be brilliant, because I am speaking at it but just look at the speaker list,nbsp;span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"a href="http://sharepointevolutionconference.com/Event_Speakers.html" style="color: #4263ab;" target="_blank"http://wbr/wbrsharepointevolutionconference.wbr/wbrcom/Event_Speakers.html/anbsp;how else would you get to be the same room as all these [read].
Posted: Thu, Feb 18th '10 |
MOSS 2007 from 2003 Upgrade.
Stephen Cummins
Maybe last one of those I do, but found a few interesting bits. I used the DB attach method, but 2 things went wrong, sites in the DB were not crawled, and one 10GB site was broken. The solution was to move the good Site Collections to another content DB, they were then crawled. Here are some links on the subject:divbr //divdivdivhttp://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262923.aspx /divdivhttp://support.microsoft.com/kb/969242 /divdivhttp://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc508854.aspx / [read].
Posted: Fri, Dec 18th '09 |
Setting up SharePoint 2010 - Including what hardware to get.
Stephen Cummins
The public beta for SharePoint 2010 is out in 2-3 weeks, so if you don't have the hardware ready already, here's what I did. Although this is not what you'd do in production it is nice and simple. I bought a Dell Precision 390 on eBay for about €300. It had no monitor I connected my main monitor to it temporarily when installing everything, then remote desktoped to it after that. I put 8GB of RAM in it. I bought that on www.memoryc.com (about another €120). Putting RAM in a machine is easy [read].
Posted: Sun, Oct 25th '09 |
Live from SPC09
Stephen Cummins
I will be posting updates from the SharePoint Conference via my twitter page, go have a look!: http://twitter.com/stephencummins [read].
Posted: Mon, Oct 19th '09 |
Capacity Planning.
Stephen Cummins
Definitive article on MOSS 2007 capacity planning, well worth another look since it has been updated: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262787.aspx [read].
Posted: Wed, Sep 23rd '09 |
SharePoint so simple your mum could understand it.
Stephen Cummins
SharePoint is frustratingly hard to simplify into one sentence. "It is a collaboration tool" sounds too basic, but this little movie explains it neatly in just over three minutes: http://www.youtube.com/v/s12Jb5Z2xaE&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x2b405b&color2=0x6b8ab6&border=1 [read].
Posted: Fri, Aug 28th '09 |
I've got the beta of SharePoint 2010 and I love it!
Stephen Cummins
Can't give away anything at all, since this is a very closed beta, but this is one very nice slick UI and blasts SharePoint into the future. Woo hoo! I'll be going to the SharePoint conference in Vegas in October: http://www.mssharepointconference.com/Pages/default.aspx not because I plan on having any fun as well, oh no :-) but just to learn what I can and be involved in the launch. Very glad I got out of website design in 2001, this is way more interesting! [read].
Posted: Fri, Jul 24th '09 |
Requirements for SharePoint 2010
Stephen Cummins
Better to know the requirements for sharePoint 2010 now guys! SharePoint Server 2010 will be 64-bit only. SharePoint Server 2010 will require 64-bit Windows Server 2008 or 64-bit Windows Server 2008 R2. SharePoint Server 2010 will require 64-bit SQL Server 2008 or 64-bit SQL Server 2005. Browsers:Internet Explorer 7, Internet Explorer 8 and Firefox 3.x. running on Windows Operating Systems. In addition we’re planning on an increased level of compatibility with Firefox 3.x and Safari 3.x on [read].
Posted: Wed, May 13th '09 |
Office SP2 including SharePoint Service Pack out 28th April
Stephen Cummins
Details of the Office Service Pack 2 are here:br /br /http://blogs.technet.com/office_sustained_engineering/archive/2009/04/16/service-pack-2-for-the-2007-microsoft-office-system-due-to-ship-april-28th.aspxbr /br /Download links: br /br /http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=enFamilyID=b7816d90-5fc6-4347-89b0-a80deb27a082br / br /http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=enFamilyID=79bada82-c13f-44c1-bdc1-d0447337051bbr /br /Here's the SharePoint related b [read].
Posted: Thu, Apr 23rd '09 |
Welcome Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010.
Stephen Cummins
The new name for the next version of SharePoint is oficially Microsoft SharePoint 2010, details here http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2009/Apr09/04-15Office2010.mspxdiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/3237908-2110318740837819824?l=www.spsfaq.com%2Fdefault.htm' alt='' //div [read].
Posted: Wed, Apr 15th '09 |
SharePoint Designer 2007 now Free!
Stephen Cummins
SharePoint Designer 2007 is now free, here is the download link: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=baa3ad86-bfc1-4bd4-9812-d9e710d44f42 On one hand this is great, since is shows MS wants to invest more in giving users more power on the SharePoint platform. But this putting more power in the hands of users takes it away from us specialists and developers. But that is something we will have to accept. SharePoint is a success because it gives users so mu [read].
Posted: Thu, Apr 2nd '09 |
10 New SharePoint Themes.
Stephen Cummins
You can get the ten new SharePoint themes here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=0a87658f-20b8-4dcc-ad7a-09ad22641f3a [read].
Posted: Fri, Mar 20th '09 |
Keep your SharePoint up to date!
Stephen Cummins
There are a ton of new updates here for SharePoint: http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2009/03/09/uber-packages-of-february-cumulative-update-are-ready.aspx [read].
Posted: Tue, Mar 10th '09 |
I am a Twit(erer)
Stephen Cummins
I resisted as long as I could, but now I see the charm of Twitter, so quick and easy! http://twitter.com/stephencummins The only thing I worry about is I am already tracking so many people (about 50) that I barely get to read about 10 a day. But this may kill off my blogging after 8 years. Time will tell I guess. [read].
Posted: Wed, Mar 4th '09 |
SharePoint Online and jQuery
Stephen Cummins
SharePoint going online is, I think a great idea. There are cost savings of course, and it makes capacity planning easier, and working out licencing, but there is also the fact that more companies need to access their SharePoint from all over the world, and distributed architectures can be complex and costly. Latency can mess up the user experience and make updating the search index slow. But with a web-based model, those issues shrink because everything is on the internet. The problem with Sh [read].
Posted: Tue, Feb 24th '09 |
You can have it all!
Stephen Cummins
OK, you can't really have it all, but you can have SharePoint as your front end and 3rd party repositores as the back end like Documentum and Interwoven, in other words, the content in the other systems, but all the benefits of SharePoint too like workflows, task lists, and extensible metadata. The details are here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd440954.aspx There is also a Code Gallery project on how to do it: http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/spextcontent [read].
Posted: Wed, Feb 4th '09 |
Adjusting the maximum file upload size in MOSS
Stephen Cummins
The default size for MOSS is 50GB, with 2GB being the limit imposed by SQL Server. In some cases, like with AutoCAB because of the fact that files are associted with each other, or with large graphic files, I would say stick to a file share, it will be faster and cheaper, but if you do need to store everything in MOSS, here are the settings you need to change:Changing the maximum file upload size seem simply a matter of changing the following setting in central admin:Central Administration > [read].
Posted: Mon, Feb 2nd '09 |
A great free tool for modeling your SharePoint environment.
Stephen Cummins
This free tool from Microsoft is for modeling your SharePoint hardware architecture, it is really useful as it gives you some ideas as what to look for when designing this, I'm even running it on Vista, so there is no need to have SharePoint installed somewhere to use it: http://www.chandima.net/Blog/archive/2008/02/12/capacity-planning-tool-for-sharepoint-and-platform-hygiene.aspx [read].
Posted: Fri, Jan 30th '09 |
Central Admin on mre than one server in your farm.
Stephen Cummins
There is a great post on Spence Harbar's blog on how to deal with the problem that the SharePoint Central Administration Site only exists on one server, so if that server goes down, you have no way to administer your MOSS farm. The solution is to have it on more than one, and this post explains how, thanks Spence! http://www.harbar.net/articles/spca.aspx [read].
Posted: Wed, Jan 14th '09 |
64bit ifilter for PDFs from Adobe released.
Stephen Cummins
Here is the link to the 64bit ifilter for PDFs from Adobe. I've heard of others who have tested it and it works, and it is free so many will choose it over the foxit option even if Adobe's is slower. http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=4025 [read].
Posted: Thu, Dec 11th '08 |
Keeping up with the SharePoint world
Stephen Cummins
There is so much new information out there, it is hard to keep up and keep focused on what is important, but podcasts offer a new way to get information when you're driving, on the bus or whatever. So take a look at http://sharepointpodshow.com/ They are on itunes too, so you can subscribe that way if you so choose. [read].
Posted: Wed, Nov 26th '08 |
SharePoint: Know the limits.
Stephen Cummins
Here are a few limits you should know about when planning your SharePoint deployment: The 2,000 rule: because stored procedure calls to SQL Server slow down as you reach 2,000 items, have less than that in a view on a List. Less than 200 ideally to have optimum performance. Have less than 2000 AD users or groups in a SharePoint Group for the same reason. An AD group in a SharePoint group counts as one item, but the first time a user edits content in a site collection, they are added to the [read].
Posted: Mon, Oct 13th '08 |
Goodbye Patrick
Stephen Cummins
Patrick Tessighem, a fellow SharePoint MVP, died at the beginning of September. It has been hardest for his family, but the SharePoint community is small and his loss has affected us all. Goodbye Patrick, rest in peace. [read].
Posted: Mon, Oct 6th '08 |
Desiging a SharePoint Information Architecture
Stephen Cummins
Here's a good post on the SharePoint team blog that helps give a template and set of principles for designing a SharePoint taxonomy: http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2007/04/09/investing-in-logical-architecture-design-samples.aspx [read].
Posted: Mon, Oct 6th '08 |
Want a quick try of MOSS?
Stephen Cummins
You can download a VPC here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=67f93dcb-ada8-4db5-a47b-df17e14b2c74&displaylang=en&tm It'll work for 30 days, needs 10Gb of space, 1Gb of RAM and Virtual server 2005 R2 to run. [read].
Posted: Mon, Oct 6th '08 |
Things just got better for apps like SharePoint
Stephen Cummins
Lots of companies have announced new browsers this week, Mozilla (info on Ubiquity), Google (link to the comic about Chrome) and Microsoft (info on accellerators and web slices). They all reflect the fact that the browser needs to move with the times, the internet is not the same as it was 10 years ago, better browsers will mean all kinds of new alternatives for users of the SharePoint platform in the future. Better integration of data, better sharing of credentials, better search and navigatio [read].
Posted: Wed, Sep 3rd '08 |
What's between Sex and Shopping? SharePoint!
Stephen Cummins
Yes, between Sex and Shopping is SharePoint. Have a look if you don't believe me: http://alltop.com/ Another sign how how mainstream SharePoint has become. But what is interesting is it is now more than a technology, or platform, or application. It is a topic of interest, a pursuit, some thing that belongs in a list between Sex and Shopping. That's it, SharePoint has officially Made It. [read].
Posted: Tue, Aug 19th '08 |
Update to SharePoint
Stephen Cummins
The new update MS has posted here: http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2008/07/15/announcing-availability-of-infrastructure-updates.aspx is designed to fix the may problems with Content Deployment, as well as adding the federated search functionality, and a few other bug fixes. It is recommended everyone install it, so go to it! Actually, there's a new blog now that I suppose replaces what Joel used to do:http://blogs.technet.com/tothesharepoint/ [read].
Posted: Wed, Jul 16th '08 |
Supporting SharePoint in your Org.
Stephen Cummins
Support in your organisation should have the following training or knowledge, I've divided support into three levels: Level 1 Support 1. Understand the main content management concepts in SharePoint. These are check in/out, version control (even though it is not enabled), approval/feedback workflows and how to recover deleted items from the recycle bin. 2. Understand the main structural terminology in SharePoint These are Document Libraries, Lists, Columns and Views There are relevant free onl [read].
Posted: Wed, Jun 11th '08 |
Adding Podcasting functionality to SharePoint.
Stephen Cummins
Regarding adding podcasting functionality to SharePoint, I think this will happen more as people see the advantages. You can record meetings for people to play back in the car or the gym. I mean just audio here of course! It would also be useful to video meetings or presentations and then allow people to sync them via a device with podcasting functionality like my Zune. http://blogs.tamtam.nl/mart/PodcastingKitForSharePointPKS.aspx [read].
Posted: Wed, Jun 11th '08 |
Quick updates, but useful.
Stephen Cummins
Here are two useful links I think for the start of a SharePoint implementation SPSFAQ010358 - Where can I see some other sites using MOSS? This gives you ideas about what kinds of designs are possible and what people are using MOSS for. And how to install MOSS in a farm:SPSFAQ020321 - How do I install a MOSS 2007 server farm? [read].
Posted: Thu, Jun 5th '08 |
Never mind SharePoint, this is Social Networking!
Stephen Cummins
You have to see this! Hard not the think of the Jedi council when watching this, but in the end, seeing and hearing the person you are communicating is the essence of social networking. Metcalfe's Law was one I had not heard of, but very true of any network. http://www.musion.co.uk/Cisco_TelePresence.html [read].
Posted: Mon, Jun 2nd '08 |
SharePoint Projects
Stephen Cummins
This is a good article on the MS SharePoint blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2008/05/27/how-we-did-it-australia-national-native-title-tribunal-website-advanced-web-content-management.aspx Because it higlights some very important concepts you need to understand when doing a SharePoint implementation. The first this the importance of content types and columns. I have said before they are the DNA of your information architecture. They also used features to manage and deploy them, and [read].
Posted: Wed, May 28th '08 |
More on the support of Public Folders.
Stephen Cummins
Another important point from that post is Microsoft has clarified their position on supporting Public Folders. They will support them for 10 years from the release of the next version of Exchange 2007. Let's assume the next release is in 2011. I am assuming this because the previous release to 2007 was in 2003. That means support for public folders will continue until 2011 + 10 = 2021. So will be thirteen more years of Public Folders support. This is from the SharePoint blog: http://blogs.msdn [read].
Posted: Tue, Apr 15th '08 |
Exchange Public folders.
Stephen Cummins
Microsoft recently published some new guidelines on whether companies should be implementing Exchange Public folders or adopting SharePoint instead. (http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2008/04/01/updated-exchange-public-folder-vs-sharepoint-guidance.aspx) What interests me most about this is the idea that certain overlaps between products could be removed in this way and give Microsoft a more coherent software platform. For the idea of software as a service, the the functionality in differ [read].
Posted: Tue, Apr 1st '08 |
Adoption of SharePoint and my dreams of the future.
Stephen Cummins
The most common question asked by users once SharePoint is deployed is "What do I use it for?" If specific business tasks have not been mapped to SharePoint, it is in danger of not being adopted to the extent it could be. Microsoft helps generate buzz around SharePoint in general, (http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/gearup/Pages/General/BuzzKit.aspx) but if the organisation has not spelled out to people what they specifically should use it for in realtion to their actual day to day work, it is expe [read].
Posted: Tue, Mar 18th '08 |
Free SharePoint Training
Stephen Cummins
Here are some links to user-led training Microsoft provides free: http://blogs.technet.com/daven/archive/2008/02/21/more-free-training-for-sharepoint-2007.aspx [read].
Posted: Tue, Feb 26th '08 |
SharePoint and FAST.
Stephen Cummins
Why does SharePoint need FAST? The answer, according to Russ Houberg is the relevancy, and what happens to the quality of your search's results as you scale up the size of your index. At the moment, 50 million documents is SharePoint's ceiling, and it needs to be higher because the amount of content we are generating is growing all the time. Back in the 90's Altavista was a good search engine, but as the Internet grew, the relevancy of the results it came back went down. With Search Server 2008 [read].
Posted: Tue, Jan 29th '08 |
Moving MOSS from 32bit to 64bit.
Stephen Cummins
I've very happy to see that Steve Smith and Penny Coventry have published about a whitepaper on moving a 32bit windows 2003 server/32bit SharePoint 2007 farm to 64bit Windows Server 2008 RC1/64bit SharePoint 2007 farm. This helped take a lot of mystery out of the process for me, thanks guys! You can find it here http://www.combined-knowledge.com/Downloads 2007.htm Direct Link http://www.combined-knowledge.com/Downloads/How to move MOSS2007 from W2003_32bit to W2008_64bit.pdf [read].
Posted: Tue, Jan 15th '08 |
No more SharePoint 32bit
Stephen Cummins
Did you notice in the last post on Joel's blog, he mentions MOSS 2007 is the last 32bit version of SharePoint? It will be 64bit only the next version. So what's the advantage of 64bit for SharePoint? It means you can have more than 4GB of addressable memory (RAM) on your Web front-end servers, or in fact any server in your farm. And SQL server 2005 is faster at indexing content on 64bit. More on MOSS 2007 and 64bit here. Another important point is that if you are setting up MOSS 2007 now, and y [read].
Posted: Wed, Dec 19th '07 |
Xmas todo list, and details of SP1
Stephen Cummins
The inestimably erudite Mike Walsh has provided a detailed breakdown of the fixes in the MOSS 2007 Service Pack here: http://wss.asaris.de/sites/walsh/Lists/WSSv3%20FAQ/DispForm.aspx?ID=1298 And, after you have spent time with your loved ones and enjoyed some festive cheer, read Joel's "12 days of SharePoint Christmas" here: http://blogs.msdn.com/joelo/archive/2007/12/17/12-things-to-do-over-the-holidays.aspx They could be made into a song to the tune of the 12 days of Christmas :-) "On the 1 [read].
Posted: Tue, Dec 18th '07 |
SharePoint Training on your Desktop.
Stephen Cummins
The final versions of the MS Office SharePoint training is out now. It's free and comes in two editions, one to add to your SharEPoint site if you are an admin, and another you can just install on your desktop: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointserver/HA102488011033.aspx [read].
Posted: Sat, Dec 8th '07 |
More on accessability.
Stephen Cummins
The AKS (Accessability Kit for SharePoint) is now available in version 1.0 here. This is a set of tools for developers to create accessable sites, rather than a template anyone could use out of the box. There are different standards in different parts of the world, so this is just help towards achieving what is needed for your target audience. Some idea of what an accessable SharePoint site could look like is here if you follow the link in this post. And some clues about how you write something [read].
Posted: Thu, Nov 29th '07 |
Minding my own Business...
Stephen Cummins
Hi all, I'm an independent consultant as you know, and if I want to expand my business, the normal path would be to take on more people. But I am against that because I don't want to become a people manager, with dependent employees. And I don't want to become someone else employee. The problem is I can only sell my time by the hour, and there are only 160 hours or so in a month. So, my solution is to use the "Software as a Service" model and sell "Stephen as a Service". I'm calling it my Share [read].
Posted: Mon, Nov 12th '07 |
Now there are four Search options.
Stephen Cummins
Interesting moves from MS in the area of Search. Before with SharePoint you had 2 options: MOSS Search and WSS Search. MOSS search was not free and included cool stuff like People search and searching in other databases via the Business Data Catalog. WSS search was free, but could only search one WSS site. Now there are two more options. Search Server Express and Search Server. Search Server Express is now release candidate, so you can have a look, it is a free way to search across all your WSS [read].
Posted: Thu, Nov 8th '07 |
Free SharePoint site in 25 mins.
Stephen Cummins
I have decided to set up a SharePoint User Group in Ireland, the first thing I did was create a free site based on SharePoint to share details. First meeting will be in the new year in Dublin, just waiting for my broken arm to heal. More about that in 2008. OK, how to set up a free (or $6 if you want a custom URL) in 25 mins. Just go to this address and register: http://enroll.freesharepoint.com/uddi/freesharepoint/ The URL www.freesharepoint.com works too. And here's a tip, in Site Actions, [read].
Posted: Thu, Nov 8th '07 |
Security Bulletin for WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007
Stephen Cummins
Just thought you should know about this. It is an important update to improve the security of your SharePoint system: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/Bulletin/MS07-059.mspx It fixes a vulnerability that would allow someone to gain elevated privileges within a SharePoint site. Note this will not effect the server or the user's PC, just the rights they have in the site they have access to. Still, security is always preventitive not reactive, so you should get it. [read].
Posted: Wed, Oct 10th '07 |
Useful additions, and qualifications.
Stephen Cummins
It has been a nice few weeks for my ego! I am now a Microsoft Certified Technical Specialist (MCTS), specifically in configuring MOSS 2007. I decided that getting the MVP award was not guaranteed, so I needed a real qualification and passed the exam a few weeks ago. Details on these exams are here: SPSFAQ010356 - What exams can I do to be certified in SharePoint? Then, ironically, Microsoft gave me the MVP award for MOSS for 2008! This is an amazing honour and my sixth year receiving it, so I [read].
Posted: Thu, Oct 4th '07 |
Service Pack 3 out for SPS 2003 and WSS 2.0
Stephen Cummins
Here are the links to the downloads for SP3 for SPS 2003 and WSS 2.0: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=AB086D48-1148-48DE-B4EC-A6298367E5F0&displaylang=en http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=2BBFC89B-EB59-49FF-B58F-684693CB25A7 [read].
Posted: Wed, Sep 19th '07 |
SharePoint for the disabled.
Stephen Cummins
Some great news on the SharePoint team blog, on foot of making SharePoint DoD compliant, Some background here, SharePoint will now be more accessable for people with disabilites, specifically the visually impaired. I have a physical disability myself, I walk with crutches, and so take a personal interest in this. And there are a lot more like me out there. Very welcome news. http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2007/09/05/pre-announcing-the-accessibility-kit-for-sharepoint-aks.aspx Here is [read].
Posted: Thu, Sep 6th '07 |
RSS Feed
