SharePoint Tools Galore v5

Time for another update of the SharePoint and MCMS tools Galore list, version 5 here it comes.... I added some new sections and added some tools to existing sections as well.

SharePoint toolsuites

Coras workplace suiteSuite with
rollup webparts (for news,documents,tasks,...), navigation controls and full language localization (This is way cool...)

Syntergy Provide lots of modules such as
replication technologies for SharePoint, bulkloader, audit for SharePoint,...

Tools for SharePoint from SPSDev.com - contains Pocket Portal,
My Team OrgChart WebPart, Bulk upload

Search

Entopia K-Bus for SharePoint Portal Server: Adds extra information discovery capabilities, also allows
SharePoint to index Documentum, Opentext,...

WSS PowerSearch - The developers ofthis product also have
some other nice SharePoint tools, check out PowerRecycle and PowerNav

Behaviortracking from Mondosearch

Coveo SharePoint search

SharePoint Advanced Search Tools (Gotdotnet)

Ontolica - enhanced search interface for the SPS search engine

SharePoint word breaker update

MCMS (Microsoft Content Management Server)

MCMS Manager 3.0

Telerik RAD controls for MCMS

AchieveForms for CMS

CMS.Rapid

Metalogix migration manager

Smart language connector for CMS

Backup/Data Recovery/Antivirus

SharePoint document recovery tool : Free download from Stephane Cordonnier

McAfee Portal Shield Antivirus solution

AVG SharePoint Server Edition web site Antivirus solution

Sybari Antigen for SharePoint

TrendMicro PortalProtect Antivirus solution

Bitdefender for Sharepoint - Antivirus solutions

SharePoint Dynamic Site Collection backup (Webfox Inc.)

Workflow

NetPoint Solutions

Factiva:Search and workflow tools for Office 2003

Captaris Teamplate: This workflow toolset even adds a module for fax based workflow "RightFax Workflow wizard

Skelta workflow .Net

K2.Net

Nintex smartlibrary

Smart workflow from LMR Solutions

DataLan FlowBuilder

ActiveSPS Workflow Solutions

Biztalk adapter for SharePoint

Document, Records and Digital Assets Management

Meridio: .Net software which integrates seamlessly into SharePoint and provides records management
features needed to be compliant with standards such as Sarbanes-Oxley, US DOD 5015.2 records management standards,...

Towersoft

Wisdom

Mobius

Equilibrium MediaRich for SharePoint- digital asset management (DAM) solution to Microsoft Office Systems 2003.

Workshare Professional -Secure document compliance

Gigatrust

Hyper.Net (Coextant)- Cross-media content automation server

RSS Feeds & SharePoint

RSS Feed for SharePoint Lists (U2U)

PortalBuilder RSS Extensions for SharePoint- RSS XML feeds (and lists) are the building blocks for building live interfaces for SharePoint data using AJAX technologies. Deployed in the _layouts virtualized application, these feeds are available from server and client side code and can be used as an AJAX XML data source.

Syndication Generator for WSS (Bluedog Limited)

SharePoint Syndication Generator (Sig Weber)

RSS Feed Viewer webpart (Sig Weber) -RSS Viewer Web Part based on the built-in SharePoint XML Web Part and a custom XSLT transformation

SharePoint Syndication (DevHawk) -Extension for SharePoint (WSS and SPS) that exposes site information via standard XML syndication formats (RSS, OPML, etc)

Utilities & developer tools

SharePoint Explorer : another free tool which you can use to explore the SharePoint object model

Admin report kit for SPS 2003: configuration and usage reporting tool for SPS 2003

SharePoint site permission manager (Gotdotnet)

SharePoint explorer for VS.Net

BlueDogLimited Webpart Tool Kit

CAML Query Builder (U2U)

SharePoint Configuration analyzer

CAMLViewer 1.0 (Stramit)

James Milne's SharePoint CSS Skinner

Office Web Components

SPS Portal 2003 Search Web Service Tester

Windows SharePoint Services: Usage Blob Parser

ViewPoint - SharePoint navigation and modeling tool

SharePoint Utility Suite Release 2 and SPSiteManager 1.1

SMove for SharePoint

SharePoint analyzer - Gathers information about a SharePoint configuration - Created by Mike McIntyre, an Escalation Engineer in PSS, and is used extensively by PSS in troubleshooting customer issues

SharePoint Explorer (IE Addin)

Admin Report Kit for SharePoint (ARKSP) -Configuration and usage reporting tool for SharePoint Portal Server 2003 and Windows SharePoint Services. ARKSP presents information across virtual servers, portal sites, site collection and lists in SharePoint in simple report formats.

SharePoint Portal Area explorer

Portalbuilder application blocks

Cross-forest people picker-This picker requires and leverages the profiles in SPS for adding users to Windows SharePoint Services sites as a replacement to the Outlook address book button.

Reghost.Net- Reghost your unghosted SharePoint pages

SharePoint Database split (WSSSplit) -This tool automates splitting large Windows Sharepoint Services Databases into several smaller Databases. Based on an input, the process locks, backups, deletes and restores a SiteCollection.

Universal SharePoint Manager (IDevFactory)

Recycle bin solutions

Deleted Items Document Library Custom List Template

SharePoint Recycle BIN (Gotdotnet project)

InfoPath

CaveDigital XML Form WebPreviewer Web Part- allows users without InfoPath to view the contents of forms on their web browser.

AchieveForms

InfoView

NetXPert InfoScope

InfoJet EditPart for SharePointEdit your InfoPath forms from within your browser

WebParts

Acar Learning Technologies - Poll webpart for SharePoint, Quiz webpart for SharePoint

CSEG Rollup webpart

FluidNature image webpart

Calendar webpart

My ChangePasswordControl Webpart for Sharepoint

Office Live meeting webparts

Cave Digtal XML Form webprevriewer webpart

SharePoint FAV 1.1

The Dot Net Factory - Active Directory WebManager Enterprise Edition

Easy tabs webpart

Windows Folder webpart- The Windows Folder web part allows users to store files within a standard Windows (NTFS) folder in a shared network location and display a list of those files in a SharePoint page via a consistent ‘document library’-style interface.

TraceInfo WebPart

High availability & replication

Neverfail for SharePoint- Replication, switchover, failover and switchback for SharePoint

DoubleTake

Echo for SharePoint

Business Intelligence & Reporting

DSP Portal Edition : Adds webparts which can display information from OLAP cubes

Omnisys Power Gauge - displays measurements based on various types of data sources, using dynamic and configurable gauges.

Crystal Reports SPS integration kit

BI Portal

SQL Server 2000 report pack for SPS

Proclarity for SharePoint Portal Server

SharePoint Reports (Gotdotnet)

Miscellaneous

Brightwork: adds MSF (Microsoft Solution Framework) on top of SharePoint

Ratings & expert module for SharePoint

K-Wise - Migration tools

Factiva Modules to integrate news sources into your WSS/SPS (Factiva is a Dow Jones & Reuters company)

Advis site navigator Navigation and UI enhancements

Omnisys Probability Impact Matrix webpart - based on WSS risk list from Project Server 2003

CAHSAL ecKnowledge

KnowledgeLake Connect

Offline/Mobile Portal capabilities

Digilink revelation Lets mobile users synchronise offline information with SPS and WSS

IORA Another solution for offline SharePoint usage

Groove - software firm that Microsoft acquired a couple of months ago, they sell amongst other Mobile workspace for SharePoint

BerryPoint - Adapts SharePoint for display on Blackberry

Colligo for SharePoint

Identity management and single sign on

Version3 - Simple Signon

Web Single sign on for SharePoint - Single sign on between Office and SharePoint in extranet scenario's

Migration tools

Casahl ecKnowledge

Tzunami deployer

SharePoint Import Export tools (Gotdotnet)

sharepoint

Belgian geek dinner with Scoble

Yesterday's Geek dinner, definitely was different from the previous one I attended and not only because I met Robert Scoble.... Quite a different audience, most of them joked around about the evil empire Microsoft - but the conversation was quite interesting:

It seemed that I missed a big blog conference in Paris called Les Blogs 2.0 - with a interesting story about Mena Trott, president of Six Apart, and Ben Metcalfe - Read more about it here - Handbags at Les Blogs 2.0

Interesting comment from Smetty (yes she did kiss Scoble)about podcasts - "They are only mp3s which you put on your blog..." - I can't agree about it more...

You can actually get a degree in "Interactive marketing",... ask this guy.

Scoble agreed with the fact that most companies still seem to be quite reluctant towards using blogs as a communication medium...

Jelle and Scoble had a funny conversation talking about Rory Blyth -Neopoleon- ... I' m not going to give any more details, maybe Jelle will.

There seems to be a pretty big community of Belgian bloggers - here's a list of some which I met yesterday:

[blog.forret.com]
Blogologie (10) [Maarten]
Coolz0r - Marketing Thoughts
Doppler : Redefining podcasting
druppels
LVB.net
net | log
Smetty's Soapbox [Cindy De Smet]

blogsblog
weblog

Avalance - new software distribution solution

Somasegar talking about Avalance:

The frequent Community Technology Previews (CTPs), Betas and other kinds of information across the different products often end up causing a virtual ‘avalanche’ of information flow for our customers. These information 'avalanches’ pose problems related to congested servers, network traffic and download speeds.

To address these issues, Microsoft Research (MSR) is working on innovative technologies with the codename "Avalanche". Avalanche provides a PC-based, fast, internet-scale software distribution solution. The Avalanche model addresses internet software-distribution problems using network coding which ensures that any piece uploaded by a given peer can be of use to any other peer. This research paper and these slides provide more information on network coding and Avalanche.

The Developer Division has a pilot project under way using Avalanche to download CTP bits for our Most Valuable Professionals.

Sounds very interesting, I definitely want to try this out once the pilot project is up and running...

SmartPart - load ASP.Net 2.0 usercontrols in SharePoint 2003

Jan just released a new tool - "Son of the smartpart":

Here’s some good news for everybody that has been waiting for it: I’ve just uploaded the brand new Son of SmartPart to the GotDotNet site! First of all, what is the Son of SmartPart? This version of the SmartPart will allow you to run ASP.NET 2.0 Web User Controls and ASP.NET 2.0 Web Parts in SharePoint sites. Since WSS SP2 you can run your SharePoint sites on the .NET Framework version 2.0, and from now on you can use the power of the new platform to extend SharePoint.

Download the latest release from the GotDotNet site here

Watch the screencast demonstrating the deployment

I just installed it and everything works just great....Nice job, Jan

Updated 26/11: Jan created a SharePoint site behind www.smartpart.info to demonstrate some webparts.... you can still download the SmartPart by going directly to the Smartpart Gotdotnet workspace.
sharepoint

Geek dinner with Robert Scoble

From David:

Robert Scoble is visiting Belgium on on December 8th. So if you want to talk about corporate blogging & its effects, discuss how to deal with blogs, why blogs are hot - or talk about any other geek topic you are invited to join us on December 8th 2005 for the Brussels Geek Dinner. So, if you live in the area, or know other geeks in the area, you might tell them we'll be having this geek dinner! Please find the details below:

What: Brussels Geek Dinner
Date: December 8th 2005
Time: 6:30pm
Where: Serenata, Zaventem
Who is welcome?: Everyone! ... but please let me know!

Send an email to David or leave a comment on his posting when you are going. I know I am....

HOWTO: Use Virtual PC's Differencing Disks to your Advantage

This is a definite must read for everyone using Virtual PC, HOWTO: Use Virtual PC's Differencing Disks to your Advantage . Nice job, Andrew

Dolmen Jobevent

Interested in working at Dolmen - check out the Dolmen Jobevent




PS All of you SharePoint & ASP.Net developers, definitely come and take a look...

Cannot create an SPS Area after installing WSS SP 2

Patrick blogged it first ... but here it goes again:

When you attempt to create a new area in SharePoint Portal Server 2003 after applying Windows SharePoint Services Service Pack 2 you receive the following error message:
An error has occurred in the portal site. Contact the portal site administrator for assistance.

Cause:
The file timestamps on the SharePoint SQL script files is incorrect. These files are located in :\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\60\TEMPLATE\SQL.
Because the timestamps are incorrect WSS SP 2 did not update these files and subsequently the stored procedures for the content databases were not updated.


Resolution/Workaround:
1. Remove the *.SQL files in location :\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\60\TEMPLATE\SQL.
2. Go to Add/Remove Programs, Windows SharePoint Services, Repair/Reinstall.
3. Select 'Detect and Repair errors in Microsoft Windows Sharepoint Services 2.0 installation'.
4. After repair completes you will need to force an upgrade so the stored procedures on the content databases are updated.

To complete this step, use the Stsadm.exe command-line tool to force an upgrade of the content databases.

To do this, follow these steps:
1. Click Start, click Run, type cmd in the Open box, and then click OK.
2. At the command prompt, type the following lines, and then press ENTER after each line:
cd /d %commonprogramfiles%\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\60\Bin
stsadm -o upgrade -forceupgrade
3. Type exit to quit Command Prompt.
sharepoint

Feature Pack for SQL 2005 - Microsoft .NET Data Provider for mySAP Business Suite

I just stumbled on this download - Feature Pack for SQL 2005 . The Feature Pack is a collection of standalone install packages for SQL Server 2005. It includes:

Latest versions of redistributable components for SQL Server 2005

Latest versions of add-on providers for SQL Server 2005

Latest versions of backward compatibility components for SQL Server 2005

One of the interesting providers in this feature pack is the Microsoft .NET Data Provider for mySAP Business Suite. This provider lets you create an Integration Services package that can connect to a mySAP Business Suite solution and then execute commands to access SAP data via supported interfaces. You can also create Reporting Services reports against a SAP server.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 released on MSDN

Microsoft CRM 3.0 is available on MSDN Subscriber Downloads so certified partners and customers with MSDN Universal can download the RTM ISO images. More info about MS CRM is available on the Microsoft Business Solutions site

Installed Google Analytics on my blog

This evening Google announced Google Analytics, a free page tag-based measurement service. The goal of Google Analytics is to help online businesses gather the data they need to improve their site, marketing and product merchandising. After agreeing to the terms of use, you get a little javascript snippet that you can insert into the head tags of your html pages and then you have to wait ...

Waiting for data: jopx.blogspot.com
Analytics has been successfully installed and data is being gathered now. Your first reports will be ready within twelve hours. blog

PDC05 - All session recordings online

All the sessions from this year's Professional Developers Conference are hosted online - go to http://microsoft.sitestream.com/PDC05/

Team-Based Development of WSS and SPS Applications - My 2 cents

On MSDN there is an article about how to deal with SharePoint development environments, Team-Based Development of WSS and SPS Applications.

Some more suggestions for doing team based development:

Create a Virtual PC template with SharePoint, VS.Net and everything you need installed

Make copies of this Virtual PC template and rename the Windows 2003 Server hosted in your Virtual PC for every individual developer

Setup the Virtual PC to use a shared network connection and deploy your Visual SourceSafe database within your LAN

Use Visual Sourcesafe for everything you can imagine : webparts, site definitions, web services, setup projects, etc...

Use scripts and setup files to keep your development, test and production environment in sync

sharepoint

My blog is a spam blog - what the ...

Since Google upgraded Blogger on Saturday, I don't seem to be able to post anymore directly from w.bloggar. Why?

"Blogger's spam-prevention robots have detected that your blog has characteristics of a spam blog (or in short splog). (What's a spam blog?) ".

I guess I should take my blogging frequency down to avoid mistakes ;-).... More info about this here: Why are all my posts being set to drafts.

Update:
Your blog has been reviewed, verified, and whitelisted so that it will no longer appear as potential spam. If you sign out of Blogger and sign back in again, you should be able to post as normal. Thanks for your patience, and we apologize for any inconvenience this has caused.

blog

MCMS 2002 SP2a - It is there already

From Stefan Gossner: MCMS 2002 Service Pack 2 is now ready for download!

This is really nice - I just blogged about it on Saturday and it is there already - JOPX on SharePoint, MCMS, Office 2003 and SOA: Waiting for MCMS SP2.
Related articles:

906142 - How to obtain the latest Microsoft Content Management Server 2002 service pack

906145 - Content Management Server 2002 Service Pack 2 installation information

894691 - A list of the bugs that are fixed in Content Management Server 2002 Service Pack 2

Glitches with MCMS 2002 Service Pack 2

mscms

Blogger- How do I change the default order of my archive links?

Answer to the question above: http://help.blogger.com/default/bin/answer.py?answer=882&topic=41
blog

Clean install for Visual Studio 2005 RTM

From Chris Sells - Scraping old versions of VS05 off your system :

If you read the ReadMe.htm from the Visual Studio 2005 setup, you'll see a detailed list of up to 23 things to uninstall in the right order (plus 2 notes if you have trouble).

To solve this problem, Dan Fernandez posts about a VS05 uninstall tool that worked wonderfully for me.

Another round of SharePoint links

Using the WSS OM and Memory...

Deployment and Customization Best Practices for Windows SharePoint Services

Authenticating users with the Electronic ID (e-Id) in SharePoint

Conduct Team-Based Development of Windows SharePoint Services and SharePoint Portal Server Applications

Windows SharePoint Services: IntelliSense XML File

SharePoint Portal Server 2003: IntelliSense XML Files

Document Library Event Handler and WSS SP2: Cannot complete this action.

WebPart Components for VS 2005 RTM

Deleted items doclib (Todd Bleeker)

You receive an error message when you try to create a new document workspace in a SharePoint Portal Server 2003 area

Microsoft Office Web Parts and Components 2003 (Update:10/17/2005)

Visio IFilter

Programatically remove Manager information from Portal Profiles
sharepoint

Windows Workflow Foundation Beta 1.2 - VS.Net 2005 RTM compliant...

It seems that Microsoft released a new built of Windows Workflow Foundation ( abbreviated WF) - WF 1.2. Two important things mentionned on the download page:

This release is primarily a prerequisite for certain parts of Office 12 beta

WF Beta 1.2 uses .Net framework 2.0 RTM, ... (just what I was waiting for ...)

office12

Waiting for MCMS SP2.

Today I installed Visual Studio.Net 2005 RTM on my portable (It installed like a charm...). But because I also have MCMS 2002 (SP1a) installed on my machine I was wondering what would happen with my MCMS sites. Good news, so far everything seems to be working...

But I'm still waiting for MCMS SP2 so that I can finally use .Net 2.0 code in my MCMS pages and use SQL 2005 as well. For more about MCMS SP2 check out MCMS Service Pack 2 on MCMSFaq and also take a look at Stefan's blog
mcmsmscms

Mendocino - Link Office to SAP

I saw a very cool webcast last week about Mendocino (Recorded webcast available as well as the slide deck) . "Mendocino" is a code name for a joint development by Microsoft and SAP. Mendocino will link SAP functionality directly to Microsoft® Office applications. If you want to know more take a look at http://www.microsoft-sap.com/. A preview release will available by the end of the year and beta1 is planned for March 2006.

P.S. The slide deck also showed something called "SharePoint Report Center", I wonder what that is.

BIWUG - 3d Meeting 9th november

For those of you into Information Worker stuff and living in Belgium or the Netherlands - I can definitely recommend the monthly BIWUG meetings. In the first I talked about IW stuff at PDC (Presentation available here). In the second meeting we had demos of Groove and K2.Net. On the 9th of november we have another exciting meeting coming up:

Here is the agenda:

18.00 - 18.35 Registration + Meet the President
18:35 - 19:15 Presentation VSTO - BJ Holtgrewe – Senior Product Manager (Microsoft Corp.)
19.15 - 20.00 Presentation “Son of SmartPart” (aka SmartPart vNext) - Jan Tielens/Patrick Tisseghem
20.00 - 21:00 Round the Table
21.00 - ... Drink

More info
vstosharepoint

How much is your blog worth?

Business Opportunities weblog just created an applet which shows the worth of your blog based on Tristan's Louis research. Funny...

My blog is worth $22,017.06.
How much is your blog worth?

Bill created a summary for SharePoint blogs worth
sharepoint

VMWare Player

I got this info last week - quite interesting. VMware Player is free software that enables PC users to easily run any virtual machine on a Windows or Linux PC.

Debug timing

Source Debug Timing (and a little design pattern, to boot):

In almost every bit of code I write that's actually destined to go into a real system, I find myself start to look for places to optimize code. But having read the writings of Rico Mariani, I am weary of premature optimizations. So what do we do? We measure, of course.   A full-fledged profiler is often overkill when I just want to check how long a method runs. Sometimes a few quick debug-printouts will do the job just fine. I've written hundreds of Debug.WriteLine("Start block") and Debug.WriteLine("End Block") statements, and it get wearisome typing the same commands, formatting the same start and end times, again and again.   So without further ado, he is the complete code for my little DebugTimer helper class, implemented using the Disposable Design Pattern of which I am so fond. Use it in good health.   public class DebugTimer : IDisposable {    private DateTime start;    private string label;    private static int level = 0;    public static DebugTimer Start (string Label)    {       return new DebugTimer(Label);    }    private DebugTimer (string Label)    {       level++;       this.label = Label;       this.start = DateTime.Now;       string message = string.Format("{2}{0}: {1}", this.label, "Starting", new string(' ', level));       System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(message);    }    public void Dispose()    {       TimeSpan time = DateTime.Now.Subtract(this.start);       string message = string.Format("{2}{0}: {1}", this.label, time.ToString(), new string(' ', level));       System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(message);       level--;    } } EDIT: I forgot to add a little usage sample here. Should be pretty clear, but just to cover all my bases: public void SomeMethod (    {       using (DebugTimer.Start("My Code Block"))       {          // Code to time.       }    }

Failure on Google

This is definitely worth a laugh - Open google and search for "failure" ...

Update: talked with Mark Kruger - he pointed to this article on Wikipedia about google bombing

Citrix Presentation Server - Web Interface for SharePoint

Source InformationWeek:

Citrix's SharePoint Interface seamlessly embeds Presentation Server-based applications into Microsoft's SharePoint Portal. An installable SharePoint Web Part, the interface has been available as a technical preview since July, and it was announced completed and ready for download this week. Download is available from mycitrix.com and requires Presentation Server 3.0 or 4.0. More info on Citrix Presentation Server - Web Interface for SharePoint.
sharepoint

Alfresco - Open source ECM solution

Alfresco is....

Alfresco is an open source, open-standards content repository built by the most experienced content management team that includes the co-founder of Documentum. The Alfresco product has a lean, modular component architecture that allows new functionality to be added without any system disruption and is significantly faster than proprietary commercial systems.

J2EE-based professional portal projects that require a content management system at a much lower cost than commercial systems.

Low-cost, open source alternative to Microsoft SharePoint™.

...

I think that SharePoint definitely has hit mainstream since other vendors/open source products use it as a point of reference ;-) ...
sharepoint

Definitely worth a read

Don Dodge on the Next Big Thing - most recent postings of this guy:

Innovate or imitate ... fame or fortune

Microsoft will acquire my company

Does Microsoft invest, acquire or partner?

SharePoint jobs, average salary & contractor rates UK

For SharePointers in the UK: http://www.itjobswatch.co.uk/skills_and_rates/sharepoint.do
sharepoint

Internet Explorer Dev Toolbar

From Bart Smet - Internet Explorer Dev Toolbar - a must have for every web developer :
Something I missed on the PDC apparently :s. But anyway, you can get it over here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=e59c3964-672d-4511-bb3e-2d5e1db91038&displaylang=en. Keep in mind it's still beta, the installer needs a reboot at the end of the setup!

An overview (copied from download page):

The IE Developer Toolbar provides several features for deeply exploring and understanding Web pages.

-- Explore and modify the document object model (DOM) of a web page.
-- Locate and select specific elements on a web page through a variety of techniques.
-- Selectively disable Internet Explorer settings.
-- View HTML object class names, ID's, and details such as link paths, tab index values, and access keys.
-- Outline tables, table cells, images, or selected tags.
-- Validate HTML, CSS, WAI, and RSS web feed links.
-- Display image dimensions, file sizes, path information, and alternate (ALT) text.
-- Immediately resize the browser window to 800x600 or a custom size.
-- Selectively clear the browser cache and saved cookies. Choose from all objects or those associated with a given domain.
-- Choose direct links to W3C specification references, the Internet Explorer team weblog (blog), and other resources.
-- Display a fully featured design ruler to help accurately align objects on your pages.

Well, I like it. Especially W3C compliance validation (which is in fact just a dynamic link to the W3C validator page) is a nice feature to evangelize in the academic world. Especially when you show that www.microsoft.com has 0 validation errors and a site like www.linux.org has 22 validation errors, www.apache.org has 4 validation errors :d. I should have misheard any "we care about standards" statements from some 'groups' ^0). Also check out the IEBlog post on this tool on http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2005/09/16/469686.aspx.

No excuse for not developing on WSS

Picked this up from SharePoint Products and Technologies Developer Roadmap:

SharePoint products and technologies is the target deployment platform for everything web-based going forward. So if you're an ASP.NET developer, there's no excuse in not being a WSS developer.

sharepoint

Another Dolmen blogger about SharePoint

And yes, here's another Dolmen blogger, Gert has been working on SharePoint projects since SPS2001, so I expect a lot of interesting postings....

BIWUG Meeting on Groove and K2

The Belux Information Worker User Group (abbreviated as BIWUG) is toa central meeting point for the Information Worker community in Belgium and Luxemburg. BIWUG members are people, technical and non-technical, who are interested in Microsoft Information Worker products and technologies. We cover the whole range of products and technologies that influence in some way or another the daily activities of the information worker. BIWUG is there to provide the members the needed organization, infrastructure and support to share their experiences, learn about products and technologies in a different way than at Microsoft organized events, seminars or trainings, discuss problems with other members or IW peers in round-the-table sessions, get product demonstrations from third-party vendors, and much more. Our website: www.biwug.be

On 20th of October we have our second monthly meeting and the agenda is fully packed with lots of exciting topics. Representatives of GrooveNetworks and K2.net will demonstrate their products and after that there is the usual round-the-table discussion with your fellow BIWUG members and peers.

The meeting will be held at the Microsoft office in Diegem.
Interested? Go to www.biwug.be and register for the meeting.

Microsoft Navision demonstrates Microsoft Dynamics Road Map With SharePoint-Based Employee Portal

Microsoft Corp. today announced the general availability of Service Pack 1 for Microsoft® Business Solutions-Navision®, now part of Microsoft Dynamics™. The main objective of the service pack announced today is to improve the customer and partner experience by enhancing the overall quality of Microsoft Navision 4.0 and to make the solution more accessible to a broader range of users via the Microsoft Navision Employee Portal. Employee Portal is built from the integration between Microsoft Navision and both Microsoft Windows® SharePoint® Services and Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server.

For more info check out the press release
sharepoint

[MVP] Congratulations! You have received the Microsoft MVP Award

I got an email this weekend ... it seems that I'm a Windows SharePoint Services MVP now... thanks to everyone who got me nominated. Hopefully I will live up to all of your expectations. Also congrats to all of you who got their MVP nomination renewed or who got nominated for the first time.


Some others got MVP news as well:

I was awarded MVP for WSS (Heather Solomon)

Bart De Smet - MVP Edition - version 3.0 has shipped :-)

The MVP season has opened!

MVP Award

Renewed as an MVP for MCMS! (Angus Logan)

Windows SharePoint Services : core component of the Windows platform

From ComputerWorld - Microsoft's back office blitz:

For customers running SharePoint merely because it's an easy way to build an intranet, or even those not running it all, get set for a change. WSS could become as core as Active Directory to a mostly-Microsoft enterprise.

WWF's integration with SharePoint as workflow repository is only step one. SharePoint will also enjoy direct ties to Microsoft's new application library, including the much ballyhooed Office 12 as well as the new Dynamics suite. This new library, formerly code-named Project Green and now supplanting Microsoft Business Solutions, was renamed as the Dynamics line of ERP, supply-chain, and CRM servers at the Business Summit show in September. But Dynamics is more than just a simple name change.

sharepointwss

Office 12 beta 1 in November

From BetaNews.com :

You mentioned that there is a beta coming in November. What are people likely to see? How far along will things be by this point?
Sinofsky: When we come out with our beta, it will be our Beta 1. That's the first of the betas, so it will be in the kind of shape that people normally expect Beta 1 to be in.

Maybe even beta1 on november 1st....
office12

IBF 2.0

Got this from the slides of Mauro Cardarelli:
In calendar 2005, Microsoft plans to deliver version 2.0 of IBF, which will add support for SharePoint Portal Server Web parts and Visual Studio Tools for Office integration. By the time Longhorn ships (2006+), Microsoft is planning to embed version 3.0 right into the operating system. IBF is an SO (Service Oriented) client built on SO principles: XML schema and WSDL contract driven, loosely coupled, explicit boundaries.

Some other thoughts about IBF:

IBF has a new brother, here comes BDC - Business Data Catalog

IBF vs VSTO 2005

sharepoint

To spang or not too spang...

Anybody an idea:

Spang - what's that all about

Microsoft codename Spang

The future is looking bright

Update 5 oct:
There is no Spang...

How to find the SharePoint version you are running...

Nice article about different versions of SharePoint by Penny.sharepoint

Magic quadrant for Horizontal Portal Products 2005

Interesting quote from this Gartner document - Magic quadrant for Horizontal Portal Products 2005:

Microsoft moves into the Leaders quadrant for the first time. SharePoint Portal Server 2003 continues to improve, and the Office franchise continues to grow. A key part of the Microsoft Office System, Windows SharePoint Services, is being widely adopted, which has created a pull-through effect for SharePoint Portal Server. Microsoft had the highest growth rate of all the portal product vendors during the past year.
sharepoint

Publishing to PDF in Office 12

From Todd Bleeker:

At the MVP summit today, Microsoft announced that Office 12 products: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, InfoPath, Publisher, Visio, and OneNote will be able to save/publish documents as PDF files. The saved documents will be based on Adobe's Open Specification and can be read using any tool that can view PDFs.
office12

Windows Workflow Foundation resources

Patrick has collected an extensive list of Windows Workflow Foundation resources. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, here's a quick description taken from Introducing Microsoft Windows Workflow Foundation: An Early Look

Windows Workflow Foundation provides a common framework for building workflows into Microsoft Windows applications, whether those workflows coordinate interactions among software, interactions among people, or both. Scheduled for release in mid-2006, Windows Workflow Foundation will run on the forthcoming Microsoft Windows Vista and will also be available for Microsoft Windows XP and Microsoft Windows Server 2003.


Some of you have noted the similarities between Biztalk and WWF, here are some thoughts about it and some other links as well:

Windows Workflow Foundation and BizTalk 2006

Windows Workflow Foundation - Where does Biztalk fit in ?

All the Windows Workflow Foundation content from the PDC

Windows Workflow Foundation Community site