Dolmen - 7 times Microsoft Certified Gold Partner

Time for a shameless plug ;-) ....

I don't know of a lot of Belgian companies which have the same broad overview of Microsoft competencies (Although some seem to get a lot of press when they acquire just one of them ...) - - so here it goes:

Learning solutions

Microsoft Business Solutions

Information Worker Solutions

Business Process and integration

Custom development solutions

Networking Infrastructure solutions

Advanced Infrastructure solutions

More info on the Dolmen Company website or in the Microsoft Resource Directory : Dolmen Computer Applications.

Blogging from my new portable

Just got a new portable - an IBM Thinkpad T43 with 2 GB RAM and 80GB hard drive - finally enough memory to play around nicely with Office12 Servers. For people interested in all the new stuff coming out with Office12 and Vista, register at the Beta Experience - Discover Windows Vista and Office 12

SharePoint stuff oct2005-jan2006

Here's a list of interesting postings about SharePoint posted on the web between october 2005 and now:

Pre-populating a document library with pages/files using ONET.XML

SharePoint List Field Validation

Creating a file on WSS with the same created/modified date as a file on the file system.

Creating a new set of list items from one list into another

Moving a web and preserving permissions using SPUserUtil

Installing InfoView on a SharePoint Server

Advanced coding technique: using AppDomains to get past OM limitations

Using the right Tool for the Job (Part I): Microsoft SyncToy to synchronize SharePoint Document Libraries?

Restoring a WSS site using stsadm command

Free SharePoint Theme Pack

Using InfoPath and SharePoint to Create Personalized Views

Fill Out an InfoPath Form Library From a Link On Another Page

Be Prepared: A Guide to SharePoint Disaster Prevention and Recovery

Service Pack 2 for Windows SharePoint Services and SharePoint Portal Server 2003

MacawSharePointSkinner 1.0.0.1 released - Macaw TraceInfo WebPart, or how to view Trace output in a page using only a WebPart

Using HTTP compression with SharePoint

CAML XML Editor

Integrating MS CRM and SharePoint

KB#900929: Description of the WSS post-Service Pack 2 hotfix packageKB#900929: Description of the WSS post-Service Pack 2 hotfix package

KB#897722: Description of the SPS post-Service Pack 2 hotfix package

Connect SAP R/3 4.6C and SharePoint 2003 - Part III: Develope SharePoint Web Parts

SSL on SharePoint and Explorer View

Renaming the web part page

Id, Ego and Superego, it's all about SharePoint and impersonation

Integrating InfoPath and Lotus Domino (Video)

Quick Launch webpart

SPStatus Tool - check broken links in SharePoint

Extreme SharePoint Design: Custom User Menus, Part 2

Tips from working on the SharePoint Force

Release of The Blogparts 1.1

sharepoint

DevDays 2006 - Office System: What’s New for Developers in “Microsoft Office 12 SharePoint Servers”

David just got the agenda of the Developer and IT Pro days 2006 online. I'm doing a session about the new features in Office 12 SharePoint Servers.

This session introduces the different Microsoft Office 12 SharePoint Servers that sit on top of the new WSS “v3”. Installing them will give your organization a true enterprise portal platform powered with search, rich user profiles and audience targeting, rich personal sites, and better enterprise application integration with single sign-on. This session will also introduce new “Office 12 SharePoint Servers” technologies like the “Business Data Catalog”, “Enterprise Content Management” and “Web Content Management” and discuss what functionality the servers "Microsoft® Office 12 SharePoint® Servers Excel® Services”, "Microsoft® Office 12 Forms Server" and "Microsoft® Office 12 Project Server" will add to the table.

Register as soon as possible.The first 400 persons to submit their registration will get a Microsoft Press Book for free.

P.S. Jan is doing a session as well - Speaking at Developer Days in Belgium and The Netherlands!

sharepointoffice12

SharePoint team is blogging

I expect a lot of news in the coming months on this blog - SharePoint Team Blog, "A blog from the SharePoint Development Team" - here are the first ones:

SharePoint's Role in Microsoft's Collaboration Strategy

SharePoint Roadmap and Light-Up Not Just Roll-Up

BI Portal and Excel Services

Double dogfood week

Content Management Server and SharePoint

sharepointoffice12

Office 12 beta users and the deafening silence

Now and then you hear something about Office12 - most of the time from people working at Microsoft. The rest of us is bound by NDA and it seems that not everybody is too happy about it.

Source: The unofficial Microsoft weblog
Office 12 and Vista Beta Users Second Class Netizens
microsoft censorship | MicrosoftCensorship | nondisclosure | Office 12 NDA | Office12Nda | Vista NDA | VistaNda
This is such a shame. Office 12 and Windows Vista beta users were forced to sign a very restrictive non-disclosure agreement which prevents them from openly discussing the features of the new OS or office suite. While I can understand the need for NDAs at times, the really stupid thing going on here is that internal Microsoft people as well as some external people have been posting screenshots and discussions of both software packages like mad, with no retribution from Microsoft. While I'm enjoying some of the stuff coming out of the Microsoft bloggers (Jensen Harris' stands out above the others), what I really want is to learn about the cool new stuff from people I have come to respect, like Ed Bott. Instead, he's muzzled by this ridiculous lopsided NDA. Over a month ago, Robert Scoble promised to look into this situation. There's been no mention of it since then on his blog. C'mon Scoble, what's up? This is a stinky situation that gets smellier by the day.

Fortunately we don't have to wait much longer - according to Patrick, we can expect beta2 by the end of February. If you want to know more - register at the Office 12 Preview site
sharepointoffice12

Next meeting of BIWUG - 2th of february 2005

Next meeting - 2 february 2006

CONTENT OF THE MEETING

18:00 – 18:30 Welcome & registration
18:30 – 19:15 O12 File Formats and the XML Paper Specification
19:30 – 20:30 Back-up and Restore of WSS and SPS sites
20:30 – 21:00 Round the table

Register on www.biwug.be
sharepointoffice12

Comparing LINQ and its contemparies

For people who know both .Net and Java - this new MSDN article - Comparing LINQ and its contemporaries is a must read.

Summary: Project LINQ addresses object-relational mismatch problems by elevating relations and queries to first-class concepts within language semantics and library-based extensions. Project LINQ offers a degree of type safety and static type checking lacking in most, if not all, forms of object-to-relation persistence found in use today in managed runtime environments such as .NET, Java, or J2EE containers.

Using SPSPredefinedCategories.xml for development, deployment and testing scenario's

From Mart Muller:

When implementing SharePoint Portal Server, there are cases that you have to create the same portal structure a few times. For example, all the developers need to have the same portal on their development machine, there is a test enviroment or a production enviroment. Then when the portal goes live, you’ll have to create an empy portal again with the same stucture and content as the test enviroment. SPS provides config files that can help you with this in a very efficient way: SPSPredefinedCategories.xml.

The SPSPredefinedCategories.xml file is located in the SPS site template directory (Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\60\TEMPLATE\1033\SPS\SPSConfig\) and it contains the complete structure of a clean portal. So, when you create a new portal, it contains the news area, the sites area and a topic stucture etc..

Read more
sharepoint

Passing credentials to a webservice from Workflow Foundation

You can call a webservice from within Workflow Foundation using the InvokeWebService activity. When you associate a webservice with the InvokeWebService activity it will create a proxy class. The InvokeWebService activity also provides an Invoking event handler. In the Invoking handler of the InvokeWebService activity, you can specify the Webserviceproxy credentials property. This proxy object is accessible as property of the WebServiceInvokeEventArgs argument.

private void Invokingwebservice(object sender, EventArgs e) {     wfService.Service svc = (wfService.Service)((WebServiceInvokeEventArgs)e).WebServiceProxy;     svc.Credentials = System.Net.CredentialCache.DefaultCredentials; }

workflow

Top ten blogger lies

Quite funny, definitely take a look :
Top ten blogger lies ... the comments are worthwile as well
blogs

Free Windows Messenger 8.0 invites

Lots of people seem to be giving them out... but for those of you who didn't get it one yet, just leave your email address in the comments section... and maybe click on the Google adsense too ;-) ...

Gert finally blogging about SharePoint ...

After a couple weeks of seeing no activity, Gert finally made his first postings, definitely check them out:

How to reuse the "Modify Shared Page" context menu from a Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 Site.

How to get all meetings with attendees by code from a Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 Meeting Workspace (with template LCID 1033).

sharepoint

Adventures with WSS and Workflow Foundation (Ctd.)

Here's a little appetiser about combining SharePoint and Windows Workflow Foundation.
workflow

Adventures with WSS and Workflow Foundation: Assembly does not allow partially trusted callers

I'm currently working on an article about combining Workflow Foundation and Windows SharePoint Services 2003. I'm using a document library event handler to call into a workflow created with Windows Workflow Foundation which I expose through a webservice. But at a certain point I got this error:

Event Type: Error
Event Source: Windows SharePoint Services 2.0
Event Category: Devices
Event ID: 1000
Date: 14/12/2005
Time: 16:31:36
User: N/A
Computer: SPS1
Description:
Unable to instantiate event handler (assembly "DocLibEventSink, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=a219993018140b5e", class "DocLibEventSink.EventSink"), or report event for "Shared Documents/camlquery.txt" in "Shared Documents". System.Web.Services.Protocols.SoapException: Server was unable to process request. ---> System.Security.SecurityException: That assembly does not allow partially trusted callers.
at System.Security.CodeAccessSecurityEngine.ThrowSecurityException(Assembly asm, PermissionSet granted, PermissionSet refused, RuntimeMethodHandle rmh, SecurityAction action, Object demand, IPermission permThatFailed)
at DolmenWorkflow.Workflow1_WebService..ctor()
at Service..ctor()
The action that failed was:
LinkDemand
The assembly or AppDomain that failed was:
DolmenWorkflow, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null
The Zone of the assembly that failed was:
MyComputer
The Url of the assembly that failed was:
file:///C:/Inetpub/wwwroot2/dolmenwfservice/bin/DolmenWorkflow.DLL
--- End of inner exception stack trace ---


Luckily I found the answer through Google - Using Libraries from Partially Trusted Code. Since the SharePoint document library event handler needs to be deployed into the Global Assembly Cache (GAC), I also needed to deploy the DolmenWorkflow assembly into the GAC. Another workaround would have been to use the AllowPartiallyTrustedCallersAttribute

References:

Official Microsoft Windows Workflow Foundation website

Download Windows Workflow Foundation Beta 1.2 (for Office "12" Beta 1) - for Visual Studio 2005 RTM

sharepoint

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....