It's odd how things play out sometimes. I was at the library and for the first time the box behind the current issue of the UK computer magazine PcPro had a back issue in it. What's more it was the one for June 2007 (July 2007 being the one available for reading in the library only). So I borrowed it - along with 3 Mac magazines it should be said, but that's the first one I read when I got home.

The coincidence was that that issue contained 32 reasons they had put together why people should use PC rather than Macs, and for balance (their idea of balance) there were 10 reasons from the same publishers Mac mag as to why people should use the Mac rather than a PC.

I actually learnt a couple of useful things from that list of 32 things, one of which was that Ctrl+Mouse Click is the equivalent of Right Mouse Click (as you have only one button on the Mac mouse (and notebook equivalent) but I'm not sure about one of the other points which was that Mac graphics are useless.

Certainly the graphics processor (the Intel built-in Graphics Accelerator which uses system memory) is one I would turn my nose up in a PC system. Shared Memory is Bad. In fact I've often turned my nose up at the sort of portables offered in the big electronic stores here (rather than in specialist computer shops) which seem to often match fast processors; a large hard disk; and lots of memory with just this graphics "card".

Now they said it was useless for games - and it might be - but I don't play computer games (I do play board games) with the exception of chess and that doesn't exactly demand massive amounts of graphics power. Otherwise it's giving extremely sharp text on its own 13.3 inch monitor and that's all I really want and am bothered about. The machine doesn't seem to miss the presumably 128MB the graphics card is grabbing of the 512MB available (I'm waiting for the 2x1GB Kinston memory I ordered - like everyone else who bought this Mac model I guess).

(At this point an aside: why is it that the 12inch screen models of PC portables cost much *more* than their 15 1/2 inch or even 17 inch brothers whereas with Macs the 13.3 inch models are cheaper ? That by the way was another reason for picking the Mac - I couldn't justify another full-size portable but I could justify a much lighter and much smaller portable. All the rest was bonus.)

Anyway so much for coincidences. PcPro - not for the first time (I used to pay exhorbitant overseas charges to subscribe to it) excelled itself even with ths Mac-knocking piece which they in fact followed by a long and detailed article on how to run Windows programs on the Mac BootCamp and the like)

Good magazine spoiled only for people outside the UK by the price of single copies or subscriptions (both many times the price of a UK street copy let only the cheaper price of a sub.

On the Web by the way at www.pcpro.co.uk where once you've registered (free) I really recommend the Real World Computing section.

(Every pressed Back in the wrong Tab - and lost almost your entire newly written blog)

This is now going to be the short version I'm not writing all that again ...

The built-in Apple programs are fine but I'm missing guidance on the simple stuff like Copy/Paste (don't write in, someone's told me already) so I'm going to buy this

Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, Tiger Edition

(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0596006608/heme0f)

and this

Mac OS X Tiger: Missing Manual

(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0596009410/heme0f)

Both are in O'Reilly's Missing Manual series which suits my style of learning (and reference) [although the Starter Editions of them are too simple for me] and neither are particular expensive at Amazon US. (I hate to think what they would cost in a Finnish bookstore!).

The only snag is that the latest editions are from 2005 (late 2005 but still) which does seem a long time ago in computer terms.

But I can't find anything better so the order goes in and in a couple of weeks or so when they finally arrive here I'll be able to report on whether buying them was one of my better ideas or not.

Why both ? Because a) I *am* moving from the PC to the Mac so need to know equivalents and b) because one Amazon reviewer said the first book didn't go far enough and that you needed the full one once you'd moved across. It sounded reasonable and anyway getting two is more economical than buying just one (4.50 per order + 4.50 per book to here I think - something like that anyway.).

P.S. I'm not abandoning the PC. The Acer will remain my main machine. The phrase "I *am* moving to the Mac" just meant that my background when using the Mac is someone who knows a fair bit about the PC - hence "I am moving". It doesn't mean by any means that I am abandoning the PC. But I might I suppose do more of the fun things (music, photos) on the Mac. I'd us it for web casts too if I could get those wmv files to work on the Mac (which try as I may, I can't).

Actually, let's start with the packaging.

I already have a white Apple Ipod (Video 80GB) and a white Apple (IPod) loudspeaker so I know just how much care they take into ensuring that even the packaging is right, so there were no surprises that this MacBook's packaging was perfect.

(It will probably be no surprise to you to hear that my MacBook is white too. In fact this is because the three available models are white; white; and black with the black seemingly costing quite a bit more mainly because it is black. Not for me then - and before you ask I didn't pay any more for the Ferrari trim on my Acer because that portable cost no more than the equivalent model in their business series.)

So packaging aside, then.

Even opening it was different, as was attaching the power cord. No I've not gone mad, the portable just opens - there are no latches to move to the side - and the power cable seems to attach itself to the power input to the machine via magnetism. You'll just have to do it yourself sometime to see what I mean.

The first start-up had me worried a bit. I'd realised when I left the shop (in Helsinki) that I hadn't checked that the Operating System was English. I also knew that Finnish was the default in the Apple Shop's European site when the destination was Finland although you could select English

The machine came with a couple of DVDs with labels in English with the Operating System and programs so I was expecting to start it up; have a Finnish OS and needing to start using those DVDs right away.

In fact the first screen asked me what language I would be mainly using (odd wordage that) my machine in. Sighs of relief as I could naturally choose English although Finnish was on that first selection page as well.

Then I had my location. Well Finland wasn't listed but I usually use England for IE so that was OK wasn't it ? (Not really but read on). Next was if I wanted to move from another Mac (No) and then there was which Keyboard I have British English or US English ?

Hang on, something wrong here! Looks again and sees that there is a boxed marked "Show All"; select that and there's a long list of possible keyboards including Finnish (Extended). Well who knows if mine is Extended or not but it's the only Finnish one listed at all so that's what I'm going to pick. But First! Back to the Location page - yes, there's a "Show All" box there too - select that, than Finnish and move back to the Keyboard page.

Here by the way I notice a nice touch. My going back has not removed from the installation routine the selections I made on the Mac Transfer and the Keyboard pages. So havng set Location to Finnish in two clicks I'm back to Keyboards with Show All already selected. Nice.

The next nice touch is that the installation routine than automatically looks for wireless connections in the neighbourhood (finds 4) and when I select mine it asks me for my password and I'm off. Then I'm creating an account and it wants an image to be associated with that account and offers to take my picture using the built-in camera and use that. (I can't resist even though I look as awful as usual).

That's about it really. The installation was complete but the software update ran automatically and presented me with a list of 8 selected updates (including the biggie - a new version of the OS) without me having to tell it to search etc. etc. as Microsoft insists that you do. Again nice - not necessary, but nice. With those updates uploaded and installed I re-boot; try www.wssfaq.com (!) and turn it off for a while. (The Acer is waiting; MVP work won't keep).

In something like 1984 I had a Macintosh at home for the weekend on loan. Much as I would have liked to have bought it, it was way beyond my price range (I was living in Germany at the time and German (and probably European) Mac prices were way in excess of the US prices (as - thanks to the weak dollar - they continue to be) and of course Macs weren't cheap in any case compared to PC clones.

So it remained somewhat of a dream that I couldn't justify.

By the time I finally had the feeling that I had enough spare money, I was an MVP for STS (later WSS) and it seemed crazy to spend money of a Mac when my "work" needed a PC. It also seemed crazy to need to buy software when I had enough betas (and an MSDN subscription) for all my needs.

Then of course came the move by Apple away from the PowerPC chip and with their Boot Camp the possibility of having both.

It was tempting but I'd just around then bought my Acer Ferrari and it was going to be asking my wife to swallow a bit much to go out and buy a Mac as well.

So why now ?

In typical "careful with money" fashion, because the end 2006 model (i.e. the one which has just been upgraded with a slightly faster processor and 20GB more disk space) was available at a price that would shock people in the US but which here was a bargain - or at least it seemed so to me, so I jumped.

I'm going to be blogging quite a bit in the next few weeks about my experiences with it, but to end this blog with a SharePoint note, Safari shows www.wssfaq.com as it should and without the oddness (empty column of space) that you get with Firefox.

Now how do you do Copy/Paste and why doesn't Ctrl-C Ctrl-V work ? :)

I've been wondering why so many people (as seen in newsgroup postings) have had problems getting search to work *at all*.

After all, all you need to do is get Shared Services setup; start the SharePoint Server Search Service and by default it will search your "Local Office SharePoint Server sites"

Hah!!

In fact all that has been specified by doing that lot is that *when you have specified Crawl Schedules* it will start indexing your "Local Office SharePoint Server sites".

The default for Crawl schedules is namely Off (actually not specified and thus Off).

Now this combination to my mind is Microsoft playing with us. Why give us a default "sites to search" and yet don't bother setting indexing of those "sites to search" going?

... and why remind the administrator that he's using the same username for the Central Administration application pool and yet don't remind the administrator that he hasn't turned crawling on yet ?

Someone wasn't thinking about how normal people behave.

Normal people expect if they are being spoon-fed to be spoon-fed with everything they need to do. Normal people expect that if a logical default is set that another logical default connected to it and essential for it is also set etc. etc.

We know they are all brilliant in Redmond but don't they have user testing labs too? I certainly thought they did. Maybe what they need is an "Administrator's Testing Lab" to get the illogical stuff out of their installation material (or some of it).

By the way I found the confirmation about "By default, this content source is not scheduled to run or crawl...." in page 568 of the Administrator's Companion book (MSPress http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0735622825/heme0f). It's a pity imo it wasn't in bold text there.

P.S. I've of course earlier added the pdf image and run the IFilter but none of the PDF files contents were appearing on the Search page. Was it perhaps because the PDF files were ver 7.0 or ver 8.0 files? That would be a valid reason given that we still only have a 6.0 IFilter available to us from Adobe. However the reason is more prosaic - in addition to not including .pdf files in the lists of recognizable file types, Microsoft also haven't included .pdf in the list of file types that are going to be searched. For that you need to go to the "Manage File Types" section under Search settings.

P.P.S. Don't think of looking for this "Manage File Types" in a WSS 3.0 installation. I have been told in a newsgroup that it's not there and that instead there's KB Article 927675 that you should look at. (Not that it worked for him ....)

This little posting is just to register that you can save time in the simplest of ways. The SharePoint time saver is particularly simple and brings the question of "why didn't you do this before?".

Let's start with that one.

I add a lot of links each week to the two WSS FAQ sites' "Articles - 2007 Documents" sections. Most of the effort is actually finding the articles/downloads etc. that are worth saving a link for, but even so every time I did this I was wasting a few seconds because of a stupid "design" (too fine a word for it).

I had Category set to Other and Sub-Category set to Pending. The idea was that it was better to quickly identify entries where I had been too quick to press Enter (and thus hadn't got time to set Category and Sub-Category to something sensible).

In fact I almost always remembered to set these two values (they were after all staring me in the face) and so - after about a year of doing this (!) - I finally realised the obvious. Namely that as most of the items I added were in the "Info - 2007 Products" Category, it would be sensible to set that as the default.

I left the Sub-Category as "pending" though rather than go for "MOSS 2007" which is the most common alternative there. I do want to be able to distinguish between articles/downloads that are only MOSS / either MOSS or WSS / only WSS and not setting a final value to MOSS seemed to be the best way to ensure that. Even though I lose those couple of seconds every time ...

The first OneNote amendment is similarly banal.

I have a massive structure of notebooks and sections and add throughout the day extracts to it (for my own use) mainly from blogs; or other web pages.

Knowing that the text I'd copied wouldn't fit in the Header row, I've always first moved down into the text section before Pasting my text in with Ctrl-V. I then copy the first line into the header section because even though that first line would automatically be chosen for the right-hand column, I might want to amend the header text in some way and so populating the header row every time is (for me) good practise.

A week or so  I discovered that it wasn't necessary to move down into the text section.  OneNote was smart enough to realise that if I pasted a long text into the header row that I didn't actually want it as a header and it automatically pastes it into the text section. Everything else remains as described about but again there I have a couple of unnecessary movements saved.

The other OneNote saving is (finally) a bit cleverer.

I have *one* set of OneNote files but two machines I use them on - my work portable and my home portable. When I was working 5 days a week I could sometimes forget about transfering the latest version of the My Notebooks file structure (via a USB 2.0 drive) to my home machine and just wait until I went back to work on Monday, but now I work 4 days a week in the winter and 3 days a week in the summer and suddenly being without the ability to update OneNote in one location (with the location depending on where the latest version of those OneNote files are) for several days was a major pain. Meanwhile the transfer of the full set of OneNote files was taking quite a while (plus I also seemed to lose some ...).

So now I have a new method.

I've set up a new notebook called Transfer and put that notebook on the USB drive that is on the "chain" which also contains my two ways of getting into (and out of) the office. I have a designated One Note master (at the moment the home machine) and when at work I now copy/paste data to Transfer (adding the name of the planned final location to the title row).

When I go home I am forced to grab the USB 2.0 device because I can't get out of the office otherwise, so I am bound to have the latest OneNote updates with me when I go home for the weekend / evening. I then, at home, open this Transfer notebook's section which also opens my my OneNote notebooks on the portable's own hard disk and then I transfer the files across to their correct notebooks/sections with drag and drop.

Simple and efficient.

My one remaining problem is with updating the work machine's OneNote as using the above method means that Transfer is empty.

I have three choices I think.

a) copy/paste to both Transfer and the work notebook's main notebooks/sections and then do the above at home

b) when at home, copy/paste to the home notebook's main notebooks/sections and then use drag and drop to move the items when back at work to the work notebook's main notebooks/sections

c) copy the Transfer/section file on the USB 2.0 drive to create a parallel file and then use that one (still filled!) when back at work to drag/drop to the home notebook's main notebooks/sections.

[It's useful needing to write these out knowing there are people out there because otherwise I'd never have come up with the simple c) which probably is going to be the most efficient method!]

Note: All of the addresses of the KB / Articles - 2007 Products / MS / Non-MS Articles below were valid at the time I added them to the WSS FAQ
site and to this file. I can't guarantee that they still are.

(This is also posted to the WSS newsgroup at microsoft.public.sharepoint.windowsservices - web access via http://www.microsoft.com/technet/community/newsgroups/server/sharepoint.mspx)

(Items are added to the WSS FAQ throughout the week so you will find new items more quickly by checking at wss.collutions.com or www.wssfaq.com daily.)

From 21st - 27th May 2007

I 2007 KB Articles    (*now only one section for WSS and MOSS*)

New

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;936910

Warning message when you perform a content deployment or when you import contents to a site in SharePoint Server 2007: "Warning: Provisioning did not succeed"

24th May 2007

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;936914

Error message when you try to search for content in a Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 site: "The site <URLOfSite> could not be found in the Web application"

24th May 2007

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;937771

How to manually collocate ProClarity Analytics Server 6.3 and SharePoint Server 2007 on port 80

21st May 2007

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;936911

Links do not appear as forward links on a wiki page in SharePoint Server 2007 or in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

21st May 2007

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;937290

Error message when you try to upgrade from Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 to Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 or to SharePoint Server 2007: "Violation of UNIQUE KEY constraint 'AllUserData_Url'"

18th May 2007

Modified

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=932056

One or more custom programs do not finish successfully when you run multiple custom programs that use the BreakRoleInheritance function in the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 object model (ver 2.1)

11th May 2007

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=933138

You cannot disable VSAPI scans when you schedule manual scans of content in SharePoint Server 2007 and in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

11th May 2007

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=932347

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 does not comply with daylight saving time in Western Australia for the years 2006 to 2009 (ver 2.1)

11th May 2007

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=932055

You cannot select the values for a custom field when you try to edit the properties on the FldEditEx.aspx page on a Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Web site (Ver 2.0)

11th May 2007

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=932619

You cannot crawl case-sensitive Web content in SharePoint Server 2007 (ver 2.0)

11th May 2007

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=933939

No documents are returned in the search results when a user searches for Lotus Notes content in SharePoint Server 2007 (ver 2.0)

11th May 2007

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=935502

Error message when you configure the Content Query Web Part in SharePoint Server 2007: "The query cannot be completed because the number of lists in the query exceeded the allowable limit" (ver 1.1)

11th May 2007

Deleted (most were replaced by a later hot fix)

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;933819

Description of the SharePoint Server 2007 hotfix package: March 9, 2007

5th April 2007

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;933818

Description of the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 hotfix package: March 9, 2007

26th March 2007

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;932917

Description of the SharePoint Server 2007 hotfix package: February 26, 2007

20th March 2007

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;933586

Description of the SharePoint Server 2007 hotfix package: March 3, 2007

16th March 2007

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=931497

Description of the SharePoint Server 2007 hotfix package: January 25, 2007 (ver 1.1)

6th March 2007

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;932914

Description of the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 hotfix package: February 28, 2007

30th February 2007

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;931636

Description of the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 hotfix package: February 6, 2007

28th February 2007

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;932621

Description of the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 hotfix package: February 10, 2007

22nd February 2007

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;932620

Description of the SharePoint Server 2007 hotfix package: February 10, 2007

22nd February 2007

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;931496

Description of the SharePoint Server 2007 hotfix package: February 7, 2007

21st February 2007

II. Articles - 2007 Products  (no longer with all links to articles for other Office 2007 and other 2007 Products)

New

A. Office 2007 Server Products

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=50b97994-8453-4998-8226-fa42ec403d17&displaylang=en&tm

Feature Pack for Microsoft SQL Server 2005 - February 2007 (ver 9.00.3042)

25th May 2007

http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2007/05/25/sharepoint-and-popfly-integration-yes-really.aspx

SharePoint and Popfly integration (MS Team Blog - Mike Gannotti)

25th May 2007

http://blogs.technet.com/wbaer/archive/2007/05/25/sql-server-2005-database-mirroring-and-windows-sharepoint-services-3-0-microsoft-office-sharepoint-server-2007-part-2-configuration.aspx

SQL Server 2005 Database Mirroring and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0/Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 - Part 2 (Configuration) (Blog - William Baer)

25th May 2007

http://office.microsoft.com/search/redir.aspx?AssetID=XT102255671033&CTT=5&Origin=HA102255701033

Transform your business with SharePoint Products and Technologies (whitepaper)

25th May 2007 (date added)

http://www.sharepointblogs.com/usecases/archive/2007/05/24/displaying-the-document-url-in-a-document-library-column-part-2.aspx

Displaying the document URL in a document library column (Blog - "Toni")

24th May 2007

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=ac03b947-7fe8-4c0b-91dd-083de40e07d7&displaylang=en&tm

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Hosting (White Paper, Microsoft)

24th May 2007

https://www.mindsharp.com/default.aspx?premium=downloads&file=stsadmpart1.pdf

Manage SharePoint Products Using the SharePoint STSADM.EXE Command Line Tool - Part 1 (Ben Curry, Kathy Hughes, Mindsharp) **requires free registration to Mindsharp Premium Content) **

24th May (date added)

https://www.mindsharp.com/default.aspx?premium=downloads&file=CodeAccessSecurityInSharePoint2007ForAdministrators.pdf

Code Access Security in SharePoint 2007 for Administrators (Brett Lonsdale, CombinedKnowledge) **access to this page here requires free registration to Mindsharp Premium Content) **

24th May (date added)

http://blogs.technet.com/wbaer/archive/2007/05/22/understanding-and-handling-microsoft-it-site-delete-capture-1-0-archives.aspx

Understanding and Handling Microsoft IT Site Delete Capture 1.0 Archives (Blog - William Baer)

22nd May 2007

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=e8a00b1f-6f45-42cd-8e56-e62c20feb2f1&displaylang=en&tm

SharePoint Products and Technologies Utility: Upgrade Pre-scan Tool

22nd May 2007

http://blogs.msdn.com/joelo/archive/2007/05/22/how-long-does-a-typical-deployment-take.aspx

How Long Does a Typical Deployment Take? (MS Blog - Joel Oleson)

22nd May 2007

http://www.sharepointblogs.com/johnwpowell/archive/2007/05/22/sharepoint-2007-custom-authentication-using-the-asp-net-membership-database.aspx

SharePoint 2007 Custom Authentication using the Asp.Net Membership Database (Blog - John W Powell)

22nd May 2007

http://www.sharepointblogs.com/martinbailey/pages/create-a-site-column-using-a-feature-deployed-via-a-solution-package.aspx

Create a Site Column using a feature deployed via a solution package (Blog - Martin Bailey)

21st May 2007

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb428899.aspx

Team-Based Development in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (Eric Charran)

21st May 2007 (date added)

http://www.sharepointblogs.com/dooke/pages/part-1-importing-user-profiles.aspx

Use multiple resources to manage your user profiles - Part 1: Importing User Profiles (Blog - Koen)

19th May 2007

https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastRegistrationConfirmation.aspx?culture=en-US&RegistrationID=1290450771

MSDN Webcast: Windows SharePoint Services and Content Types (Level 200) (Mike Benkovich, Lynn Langit)

18th May 2007

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb507730.aspx

Visual How-To: Configuring IntelliSense with CAML files when developing for SharePoint 2007 (Ted Pattison, Ted Pattison Group)

15th May 2007 (date all of these added)

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb457204.aspx

Visual How-To: Create a Custom HttpHandler in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (Ted Pattison, Ted Pattison Group)

15th May 2007 (date all of these added)

http://blogs.msdn.com/jackiebo/archive/2007/02/26/content-deployment-step-by-step-tutorial.aspx

Content Deployment – Step By Step Tutorial (Blog - Jackie Bodine)

26th February 2007

http://bloggingabout.net/blogs/mglaser/archive/2007/01/31/hosting-sharepoint-on-a-fully-qualified-domain-name-fqdn.aspx

Hosting SharePoint on a fully qualified domain name (FQDN) (Blog - Mike Glaser)

31st January 2007

B. Other Office 2007 products (selected few only since 1.1.2007)

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=00a6472c-14df-4da8-8d77-6aa2315b5862&displaylang=en&tm

BizTalk Server 2006 Capabilities

22nd May 2007

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=65ab53ce-78c1-4cc4-96fd-a492dd7f3f4a&displaylang=en&tm

BizTalk Server 2006 Runtime Architecture (version V)

22nd May 2007

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=ae60b18d-c7f0-4089-aeb3-6bc652a3b898&displaylang=en&tm

BizTalk Server 2006 Legacy Modernization with Host Integration Server 2006 (version V)

22nd May 2007

C. Other New 2006/2007 Products  (selected few only since 1.1.2007)

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=FFD86643-7C31-42A2-91D8-7D160449B368&DisplayLang=en

Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team Suite VHD

14th May 2007

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=fa09a01d-ac7b-4a7e-8d28-79e222b14ae5&DisplayLang=en

Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Enterprise / Exchange Server 2007 32-bit VHD

11th May 2007

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=27342759-e9d6-4073-918c-e9dff77d0206&DisplayLang=en

Microsoft System Center Essentials 2007 VHD

11th May 2007

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=C2C27337-D4D1-4B9B-926D-86493C7DA1AA&DisplayLang=en

Microsoft Windows Vista 30-Day Eval VHD

10th May 2007

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=d4e8bc52-3c3b-4bae-b937-987da892fad7&DisplayLang=en

Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2007 Beta 2 VHD

10th May 2007

 

Modified

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=825510

How to stop the !New tag from appearing when you add items to your SharePoint Team Services and SharePoint Services Web site (ver 4.0)

10th April 2007  (moved from v2 and also date and version updated)

Deleted

None

III WSS v3 FAQ

New

http://www.asaris.de/sites/walsh/Lists/WSSv3%20FAQ/DispForm.aspx?ID=1080

III.02.10 Limits: How many lists can a Content Query Web Part query?

http://www.asaris.de/sites/walsh/Lists/WSSv3%20FAQ/DispForm.aspx?ID=1082

III.02.11 Limits: How many links can you have in a Wiki?

http://www.asaris.de/sites/walsh/Lists/WSSv3%20FAQ/DispForm.aspx?ID=1081

III.26.07 Alerts: Alerts aren't working. What might be wrong?

http://www.asaris.de/sites/walsh/Lists/WSSv3%20FAQ/DispForm.aspx?ID=1083

III.94 My Internet Explorer is crashing when I open an Office document. How do I fix this?

http://www.asaris.de/sites/walsh/Lists/WSSv3%20FAQ/DispForm.aspx?ID=1084

V.54 Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Quick Source Guide (QuickSource) *released*

Modified

http://www.asaris.de/sites/walsh/Lists/WSSv3%20FAQ/EditForm.aspx?ID=1078

II.10 How do I upgrade a Trial version of MOSS 2007 to a production version?

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

IV WSSv2 KB Articles (plus SPS 2003 Hot fixes)

New

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;936909

Icons that represent 2007 Office files are incorrect, and the "Edit in Microsoft Office <ProgramName>" option does not appear in a document library in SharePoint Portal Server 2003 or in Windows SharePoint Services 2.0

23rd May 2007

Modified

None

V. MS Articles for WSSv2

New

None

Modified

None

VI Non-MS Articles for WSSv2

New

None

Modified

None

VII WSSv2 FAQ

New

None

Modified

http://www.asaris.de/sites/walsh/Lists/WSS%20FAQ/EditForm.aspx?ID=189

III.55.1 Alerts aren't working even if the Timer Service is running. What might be wrong?

(note: modified with a suggestion for WSS *3.0*)

One of the main misconceptions that I've seen with people sending messages to either the Microsoft public newsgroups for SharePoint or the more recent Microsoft forums for SharePoint is that you quite often see messages for Microsoft there.

These are either complaining about something or requesting that their question is answered by "someone from Microsoft".

In both cases (with one exception which I'll talk about later) this is completely off-the-mark. Microsoft people very rarely reply to messages in the public newsgroups and even when they do they are doing it in their own free time and are thus not official representatives of Microsoft. Similarly when the forums started, Microsoft people were encourage to visit there but to no ones particular surprise and certainly not to my surprise, their participation lasted (Note: in the few SP forums I follow regularly) less than a month and recently I've seen no "Microsoft people" posts there at all.

So that leaves a handful of MVPs and otherwise all the other readers of the various newgroups some of whom also answer questions in addition to asking them. These are always described in Microsoft documentation about newsgroups as "your peers" and that's what they are (= the same as you NOT "peers" in the British sense of "lording over you") and without their active participation the newsgroups wouldn't be what they are today. [MVP replies are well and good but the few MVPs answering messages in the newsgroups on a regular basis can't possibly cope with the quantity and nor do they do so. The days are long gone when active participation in newsgroups was the sole criteria for becoming and staying an MVP.]

So summing up, there are ocassional replies from MS people in their own time; ditto from MVPs and the majority of replies from "your peers" - so what's the exception I mentioned above ?

This exception is "managed groups".

Microsoft do provide enhanced support for people who in MSDN or TechNet have registered for so-called "managed newsgroups". Registration is free, but in these cases Microsoft do promise a response to a question within 24 hours (Chinese mainland [Shanghai] working hours; Monday-Friday to be exact) and these people also stay with the question thread until the person who asked it has either given up (!) or has pronounced him/herself satisfied.

One of the snags with these managed newsgroups is that there are not managed newsgroups for all standard public newsgroups (so you have to post to something as close as possible that is there) and that a managed newsgroup message appears in the normal public newsgroup (that matches that managed newsgroup) and looks exactly like all normal posts to that newsgroup.

This leads to confusion sometimes. First there is always someone (usually me!) jumping up and pointing out that this is the wrong newsgroup for that question (which it is) but not knowing that they were forced to post the question here because there wasn't an equivalent managed newsgroup for the correct public newsgroup. Another confusion is that the way managed newsgroup questions are dealt with leads to over-high expectations in how people reply to normal public newsgroup postings.

As I wrote above managed newsgroups are picked up by a (Chinese) team of Microsoft employees working in their office time. There are only a relative few managed newsgroup messages and this is after all their work so they have time to follow-up on every posting until such time as the original poster has "closed the case".

[Aside looking out for those Chinese names and the style of their posts is the only way normal newsgroup visitors can tell if a message thread is a managed thread or not]

Some people - probably unaware that these are managed (newsgroup) threads - then expect the same kind of continuing support in a *normal* thread from the people who reply to them. Perhaps that's not quite accurate. They expect this continuing support from MVPs.

Now both the MVPs and the normal "peer" posters are working in their own time. There is no way they can find the time to keep hacking at a problem until it is solved. They can do their best and when their suggestions get nowhere in a particular case they can hand in the towel. This they do either by just stopping answering or by explicitly saying so.

(Aside: you would think that explicitly saying that you have no more to offer would be the way that would be most appreciated but my experience is that people take offence at an MVP saying he now has nothing more to offer in a thread, so usually these days [you can take just so much abuse] I just drop off. Often I may add because when moving from one computer to another my copies of Outlook Express  / Windows Mail (Vista) have lost track of which messages I have read and which not - so it can happen that I stop replying even when I intended to continue.)

The main point here is that the second misconception is that once someone has answered the first message in a thread they are bound to continue answering messages until the problem is solved. It just doesn't happen that way. If it was made compulsary there would be a massive reduction in the number of those first replies which would benefit no-one.

As I wrote yesterday my MOSS site had this listed at Order 5 in things to do (and accessing it got a message that Central Administration was using an application pool that wasn't unique).

STOP: I'm now wondering (just that for the moment) what they mean here (in the subject line quote) by "account". So far I've been assuming that they meant simply that it was using the same application pool as something else.

Back to the planned text of this blog regardless.

Yesterday with more than a little help from a couple of fellow SharePoint MVPs I found out that you can't change an already assigned Application Pool within MOSS 2007. Instead you have to go to IIS and do it there. That too is the place you create a new Application Pool. Both things that weren't mentioned in the SharePoint Companion (but very possibly because they have nothing to do with SharePoint - I can just see that counter coming!)

When I went to IIS I discovered that I already *was* using a separate Application Pool for Central Administration - one too that I (?) had cleverly named Central Administration SharePoint v3. All the other web applications (Default; MYSites; Publishing) that I had created were all there too called ApplPool80, ApplPoolnnnn and ApplPoolmmmm respectively and each of these four pools only contained stuff that had some connection with only that one web application.

However it WAS giving me the above message, so I *in IIS* created a new Application Pool and then made sure that that Application Pool was now specified for Central Administration.

How ?  I wish I could remember. I know I was quite tired (and emotional?) by that time.

Anyway it was all irrelevant. That my Appl Pool now being used for Central Administration couldn't possibly be in use for anything else than Central Administration was certain, yet (you've guessed it) it was still claiming that my Central Administration application pool account should be unique.

By Design ?

Hardly seems likely.

Bug?

I'm a Microsoft MVP I don't think we are allowed to use that word

The Result of my trying wrongly to use the same application pool for Central Administration that Default was already using ?

Probably although it didn't let me do it. Seems to me that if that's the case it set something first ("he's going to use the same port as Default") and forgot to turn it off. If that's the case would *you* say that is "by design"?

P.S. The comment from "Gillian" was that it is indeed the *account* it is complaining about. You probably remember (as I do) when preparing your MOSS 2007 installation a Microsoft paper telling you that you ought to be using 6 (something like six) different accounts for different parts of the install. I thought they were mad (I don't think THAT is a banned word for MVPs!)and stuck with two only - one for the database system and one for installing MOSS 2007 and with that one having database creation and security admin rights for the database system. Well with this message Microsoft is telling me they didn't like me ignoring their advice (to have six accounts). As far as I can see nothing bad is going to happen to me if I ignore this Order 5 warning. So that (ignore it) is precisely what I am going to do when I get back to work on Monday! In the meantime I've learnt some useful stuff about Application Pools so none of the time spent looking at the (slightly!) wrong thing here has been wasted. [That's my story - and I'm sticking to it!)