This isn't a review in the true sense of the word as I don't really feel the urge to give this book the time needed to write a real review. That doesn't mean it's a bad book though, so read on.

Each Wrox SharePoint 2007 book has a diagram on the back cover with a heirarchy of Wrox SharePoint 2007 books. At the bottom row there are three books all including "Beginning" in the title. There's Beginning Excel Services; Beginning SharePoint 2007 and Beginning Sharepoint 2007 Administration.

The next two levels are a bit odd in that level two is Advanced Excel Services and SharePoint 2007 Development and level three is (presumably) the Experts level with "SharePoint 2007 and Office Development" and "SharePoint 2007 MVP" .

I have no objection to them regarding the MVP book as for Experts (all except my chapter that is) but it seems very odd that SharePoint 2007 and Office Development is considered more for experts than SharePoint 2007 Development given that because of the inclusion of Office it has to cover more ground and thus not cover that ground in as much detail.

Ah well, I suppose Wrox know best...

Because the MVP book is not yet out "Sales" of it aren't that great (in fact I think I've had a grand total of one Pre-Order of it via the links in my WSS FAQ sites) but I anyway go to have a look at how it's doing in Amazon every couple of weeks or so.

Last time I looked it was position 100,000 in Books with Beginning SharePoint 2007 (which is out) at ca 70,000 and Beginning SharePoint 2007 Administration at 10,000.

This struck me as very odd - why should one of the two Beginning SharePoint 2007 be doing better than the other, especially when Beginning SharePoint 2007 Administration is very much a very straightforward computer manual and if truth be told rather boring in all the detail it includes whereas the Beginning SharePoint 2007 book is much more a labour of love with very useful insights spread throughout it.

I looked at both books again. I decided that there were two reasons why the Administration book was doing so much better.

One reason was simply the title. Many people are SharePoint Administrators so they buy a book with Administration in the title.

The other reason is probably that a book that contains a lot of detail about how to do various standard things (in the same kind of detail that KB Articles contain including Press OK) collected in one place (most information it includes is no doubt spread throughout Microsoft articles and KB article) is precisely what people need who have been given an already-designed SharePoint site and told to administer it.

Note an already designed SharePoint site - by and large the Administration book is not one for people seeking hints as to how to design their sites and what clever things to do when designing it. That is much more the area of the "Beginning SharePoint 2007" book.

That's the reason why I couldn't understand the difference in sales figures. For me designing a site is part of "Administration" but in certain companies (and it seems from what I've heard, in mine too where people administrating Exchange sites for customers seem to be acquiring the job of administrating SharePoint sites too for the same customers) it isn't and these people will really need this book (because at the moment it is the only one that goes into this level of detail when explaining how to do (for me!) the most simple administrative tasks.

It doesn't really explain the 7 to 1 sales ratio, but that I suspect comes solely from the clearer title - after all do you know what the sub-title "Building Team Solutions with MOSS 2007" of the Beginning SharePoint 2007 book really means ?

Ah, with that I've found another reason for the 7 to 1 in sales - the sub-title of the Administration book is "Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007". Maybe all those extra sales come from WSS 3.0 people ?

Finally as always the Book links -

All v3 Books: http://www.asaris.de/sites/walsh/Lists/WSSv3%20FAQ/V%20Books.aspx

Beginning SharePoint 2007: http://www.asaris.de/sites/walsh/Lists/WSSv3%20FAQ/DispForm.aspx?ID=888

Beginning SharePoint 2007 Administration: http://www.asaris.de/sites/walsh/Lists/WSSv3%20FAQ/DispForm.aspx?ID=900

 

P.S. Actually a book like this (Beginning SharePoint 2007 Administration that is) can be really useful even if you know how to do most of the things it covers and don't need the detail it provides. I just had a case where someone asked a question in a newsgroup. Rather than quickly opening a VM to check out my spontaneous answer (which was correct) I just grabbed the book; turned to the right section and quickly found confirmation.

Similarly I can imagine situations where someone asks you how to do something and rather than showing them on a live site you just throw the book at them and say "Chapter 4" ...

I have always kept very quiet about the possibility of installing the Finnish version of WSS (both 2.0 and 3.0) because I didn't want the hassle of having Finnish language error messages that Google wouldn't be able to find (and that I would have difficulty not in understanding but in doing the 100% accurate - "accurate" = getting the same end text as in the English version, which isn't necessarily a correct translation - translation that would allow me to ask an International audience what could be causing the error) even ignoring the fact that the Finnish version might well have fixes coming out later than the English version.

I was aware of course that there were language packs that meant that you could have an English installation but still (say) Finnish language sites, but this seemed far too much of a hassle when you could just use Finnish names (for Document Libraries and the like) in an English language site and could even amend the Help menu item to read "Apua" and so on.

However other SharePoint MVPs that I regularly "talk" with are mostly running single language sites that are installed in the same (major) language - namely English, German and Spanish - and so I suppose it was obvious that at one time one of them would ask me about Language Packs.

The question was luckily one I could answer but only because I'd seen it asked and answered in a newsgroup. It was "can you have more than one WSS Language Packs?" and the answer was that you can.

Anyway I'm just building up the functionality of my Parallels-based VM that I can access either from the Mac itself or - if they are in the same home wireless network - from my Vista portable (Office 2007) or my XPPro desktop (Office 2003; FP 2003), so that seemed a perfect machine to try this out on.

So while in the main machine (the Mac - not the VM) I went to the download page for the WSS Language Packs; selected Finnish and then clicked on Download and repeated this for Swedish. I was a bit surprised that both files had the same names but just renamed them both so that later I'd know when I was installing which.

Then a couple of days later when I had more time, I opened the Win Server 2003 VM and transfered both files to it. (Aside: I've always had problems doing this kind of transfer to a VM Workstation VM but this went completely smoothly and quickly with only the question as to whether I wanted to VM to use the file from the Mac file structure or whether I wanted to copy it to the VM - I chose copy and it was there.)

The next step of course was to install them and so without bothering to look for instructions I clicked on the Finnish file and it told me it was installing the *English* language pack. Oops. So I clicked on the Swedish file and it too told me it was installing the English language pack (only with the addition that it wanted to know if I wanted to Repair the existing installation).

OK. I've been here before. I went to the download page and selected Finnish only *now* I actually clicked on "Change" which gave me a download page in Finnish and there I downloaded what later turned out indeed to be the Finnish Language Pack. Ditto for Swedish and, as I was feeling lucky by now, for Italian.

I clicked on the Finnish installation file and it was installed; and the same for Swedish and Italian. A quick look at "Add or Remove Programs" and yes, I now had *four* Language packs installed. FOUR? Yes, English was there too. There is of course no point in installing an English Language Pack on an English Language WSS 3.0 installation, but Microsoft let you do it.

Now what? I knew that installing a Language Pack means that you can have sites in that language so it seemed natural to simply try to Create a new site under the existing default site.

Select Create Site and everything seems the same as usual. It's all in English and wants a Site Name; Description and File Name as usual. But then you move down the page and you see the one key difference - there's a drop-down box with the word "English" in it and if you select that you see that your options are - not surprisingly - English; Finnish. Italian and Swedish.

I create a site in Finnish; go back in the browser and create a site in Swedish and then do the same in Italian. I've chosen Team Site in all cases (or whatever the translated name for that was in each case - in any case it's always the first choice with blank site coming next) and so i get a completely familiar site with lots of peculiar names.

But, as I wrote in the title, there's nothing to be scared of. These are perfectly normal Team Sites that just happen to be in a different language and (of course) if you get a problem, because the underlying language (of WSS 3.0 itself) is English you will get error messages that both you and the majority of people in the newsgroups wil have a chance of recognizing.

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 2nd - 8th July 2007

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

New

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/939313

Error message when you try to open a help window from a SharePoint Server 2007 site or from a Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 site: "Cannot display help"

6th July 2007

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/938219

Error message when content is crawled in SharePoint Server 2007: "An unrecognized HTTP status was received. Check that the address can be accessed using Internet Explorer"

6th July 2007

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928738

How to configure the Excel Services Unattended Service account in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

6th July 2007

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/936865

Users who are color-blind cannot distinguish between the red presence icons and the green presence icons on a SharePoint Server 2007 site

4th July 2007

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=936864

Description of the 2007 Office hotfix package: June 17, 2007 (2nd one with this name)

2nd July

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;939287

Error message when you use SharePoint Designer 2007 to back up and to restore a site: "Cannot find <path>\ exportsettings.xml"

2nd July

Modified

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=939015

Support WebCast: Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 integration with Contact Lists and Document Libraries of Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) version 3 or Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 (ver 2.2)

5th July 2007

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=929360

You cannot create a new document or check out an existing document in a Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 document library when you have multiple versions of Office installed (ver 2.0)

28th June 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.wssdemo.com/blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=284

SharePoint Designer Workflows (Blog - Ian Morrish)

7th July 2007

http://weblogs.asp.net/erobillard/archive/2007/07/06/how-to-change-service-accounts-and-their-passwords-in-moss-and-wss-3-0.aspx

How to change service accounts and their passwords in MOSS and WSS 3.0 (Blog - Eli Robillard)

6th July 2007

http:///www.sharepointblogs.com/michael/archive/2007/07/06/sharepoint-solution-deployment-handy-post-build-events.aspx

SharePoint Solution Deployment: Handy Post-Build Events (Blog - Michael Hofer)

6th July 2007

http://sharepointsolutions.blogspot.com/2007/07/changing-number-of-blog-posts-per-page.html

Changing the Number Of Blog Posts Per Page (Blog - Ricky Spears, SharePoint Solutions)

5th July 2007

http://blogs.msdn.com/miketag/archive/2007/07/05/estimate-moss-search-disk-space-requirements.aspx

Estimate MOSS Search Disk Space Requirements (MSBlog - Mike Taghizadeh)

5th July 2007

http://www.sharepointblogs.com/michael/archive/2007/07/04/building-professional-internet-sites-using-moss-2007-metatags-part-1.aspx

Building professional internet sites using MOSS 2007 - Metatags (Part 1) (Blog - Michael Hofer)

4th July 2007

http://www.sharepointblogs.com/andynoon/archive/2007/07/04/defining-multiple-authentication-providers-to-a-single-moss-2007-web-application.aspx

Defining multiple authentication providers to a single MOSS 2007 web application (Blog - Andrew Noon)

4th July 2007

http://sharepointnutsandbolts.blogspot.com/2007/07/considerations-when-using-features-to.html

Considerations when using Features to deploy SharePoint files - ghosting/unghosting (Blog - Chris O'Brien)

4th July 2007

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/interopmigration/bb544954.aspx

Resources for Interoperability with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

4th July (date added)

http://www.sharepointblogs.com/tigirry/archive/2007/07/03/custom-site-definition-with-custom-master-page-for-sharepoint-portal-server-2007-moss-2007-and-wss-3-0.aspx

Custom Site Definition with Custom Master Page for SharePoint Portal Server 2007 (MOSS 2007) and WSS 3.0 (Blog - Tigirry)

3rd July 2007

http://www.sharepointblogs.com/tigirry/archive/2007/07/03/custom-site-theme-for-sharepoint-2007-moss-2007-and-wss-3-0.aspx

Custom Site Theme for SharePoint 2007 (MOSS 2007) and WSS 3.0  (Blog - Tigirry)

3rd July 2007

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

None

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

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=a8edfc7b-01d8-4500-845b-01370d4eed21&displaylang=en&tm

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 Virtual PC Demonstration (ver 2.0)

(to get this VM in the VHD list)

3rd July 2007 

Modified

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=692a6e3c-81c9-4d8a-93fa-266d651735dc&displaylang=en&tm

Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 VHD - 32-bit version (ver 1.1)

5th July 2007

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=d22ec2b9-4cd3-4bb6-91ec-0829e5f84063&displaylang=en&tm

Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server Best Practices Analyzer Tool (ver 5.5.12.100)

3rd July 2007

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=da0531e4-e94c-4991-82fa-f0e3fbd05e63&displaylang=en&tm

SQL Server 2005 Best Practices Analyzer (July 2007) (ver 9.00.1004.00)

2nd July 2007

Deleted

None

III WSS v3 FAQ

New

http://www.asaris.de/sites/walsh/Lists/WSSv3%20FAQ/DispForm.aspx?ID=1121

V.58 Windows Workflow Foundation (.NET WF). Workflowprogrammierung mit .NET (Hanser Fachbuchverlag - Matthias Markl, Holger Schwichtenberg)

http://www.asaris.de/sites/walsh/Lists/WSSv3%20FAQ/DispForm.aspx?ID=1123

VI.50 Xpress XML for Microsoft SharePoint (In.vision Research)

http://www.asaris.de/sites/walsh/Lists/WSSv3%20FAQ/DispForm.aspx?ID=1122

VII.24 Inside Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MS Press - ISBN 0735623686) (Chapter 3: Customizing and Extending the Microsoft Office SharePoint 2007 Search)

http://www.asaris.de/sites/walsh/Lists/WSSv3%20FAQ/DispForm.aspx?ID=1120

VIII.15 Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007 - Das Handbuch (mit Sonderteil Forms Server) (in German) (MS Press Deutschland - Egbert Jeschke, Helmut Reinke, Sven Maier)

Modified

None

IV WSSv2 KB Articles (plus SPS 2003 Hot fixes)

New

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/272945

STS: Using the SharePoint Team Services Command-Line Utility (Owsadm.exe) (ver 3.2)

4th July 2007

Modified

None

V. MS Articles for WSSv2

New or Modified

None

VI Non-MS Articles for WSSv2

New or Modified

None

VII WSSv2 FAQ

New

None

Modified

http://www.asaris.de/sites/walsh/Lists/WSS%20FAQ/DispForm.aspx?ID=68

III.05.3 How can I change a site name?

http://www.asaris.de/sites/walsh/Lists/WSS%20FAQ/DispForm.aspx?ID=98

III.24 I get "Access Denied" or "Cannot Complete This Action" when accessing a WSS site. What might be my problem?

http://www.asaris.de/sites/walsh/Lists/WSS%20FAQ/DispForm.aspx?ID=105

III.30 Search isn't working - what could be the reason?

http://www.asaris.de/sites/walsh/Lists/WSS%20FAQ/DispForm.aspx?ID=410

III.102 How do I Filter by the last x days?

Aside: I'm sure I saw something saying that Windows Server 2008 RCP is out but I certainly can't find it ..

We left Windows Server 2008 Beta 3 in a Parallels VM where it couldn't find the networking driver.

I finally decided to spend more than the odd second on this and carefully looked at which driver was being used in a working Parallels VM running Windows Server 2003 (and WSS 3.0 - what else?) and then looking at the same location in the 2008 Beta 3 VM.

In 2003 it was prleth.sys (and there were four more Parallels drivers) and in 2008 there were no Parallels drivers at all.

So more in desperation than anything else I decided to install the Parallels Tools (which just like in VMWorkstation I always install just to get rid of the need to do Ctrl-Alt just for the cursor to be able to leave the VM) and discovered that *that* added several drivers including prleth.sys.

So now I had Ethernet and wireless access and could move to the real program of installing the Server 2008 built-in WSS 3.0.

They've learnt from past mistakes.

You now select "Add Roles" and when you pick WSS 3.0 it says it will need first to install various things (such as IIS and .NET Framework 3.0) and would you like it to install those ? I have no idea what happens if you say No (although giving you the option seems a trifle odd) but I just said Yes and waited to install what in Windows Server 2003 and the WSS 3.0 download is the Basic Installation (although you can as there also have an installation that uses an existing SQL Server).

It's been churning for so long that I've finished everything I wanted to do on the PC portable I'm writing this on so this post goes out without final certainty. But it certainly looks to be a keeper.

 

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 25th June - 1st July 2007

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

New

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;938663

One-time timer jobs in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 are delayed by at least one hour when the jobs are scheduled to occur during daylight saving time (DST)

29th June 2007

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;938536

Description of the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 hotfix package: June 11, 2007

29th June 2007

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;938537

Description of the SharePoint Server 2007 hotfix package: June 12, 2007

29th June 2007

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;938535

Description of the SharePoint Server 2007 hotfix package: June 11, 2007

29th June 2007

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;937291

You receive an error message when you run the pre-upgrade scan tool (Prescan.exe) to scan Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 sites before you upgrade to Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (ver 1.1)

26th June 2007

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;938110

Site groups are not maintained, and users are assigned to roles after you upgrade from SharePoint Portal Server 2003 to SharePoint Server 2007 (ver 1.1)

26th June 2007

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;923589

Error message when you try to change the name of a site column back to its original name in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0: "The column name that you entered is already in use or reserved." (ver 2.0)

26th June 2007

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;938182

Description of the SharePoint Server 2007 hotfix package for SharePoint Server 2007 and for SharePoint Server 2007 for Search: May 31, 2007

22nd June 2007

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;938183

Description of the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 hotfix package: May 31, 2007

22nd June 2007

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;889644

Error message when users try to change their password in Windows SharePoint Services: "Error setting password for user account '<UserName>' " (ver 2.0)

15th May 2007

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;829065

Error message when you connect to the SharePoint Central Administration page in Windows SharePoint Services: "You are not authorized to view this page" (ver 5.0)

15th May 2007

Modified

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;939015

Support WebCast: Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 integration with Contact Lists and Document Libraries of Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) version 3 or Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 (ver 2.1)

29th June 2007

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;929360

You cannot create a new document or check out an existing document in a Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 document library when you have multiple versions of Office installed (ver 2.0)

28th June 2007

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=930887

You experience issues with portal alerts in SharePoint Portal Server 2003 or with search performance in SharePoint Server 2007 after you create SQL Server 2005 maintenance plans (ver 2.0)

19th June 2007

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;823506

Path of the log files in the Log file location box on the Configure Usage Analysis Processing page of Windows SharePoint Services Central Administration is truncated (ver 3.0)

(WSS 3.0 included in Applies To - moved in WSS FAQ to v3)

15th May 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.sharepointblogs.com/mykiep/archive/2007/06/30/overriding-the-content-query-web-part.aspx

Overriding the Content Query Web Part (Blog - MdP)

30th June 2007

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/technetmag/issues/2007/07/PublicFolders/default.aspx?rss%3dhttp%3a%2f%2fwww.microsoft.com%2ftechnet%2ftechnetmag%2fissues%2f2007%2f07%2fPublicFolders&pf=true

A Powerful Alternative to Public Folders (TechNet Mag July 2007 - Alan Maddison)

30th June 2007 (date added)

http://www.sharepointblogs.com/tbaginski/archive/2007/06/29/Which-WSS-3.0-_2F00_-MOSS-2007-site-Template-is-right-for-me_3F00_.aspx

Which WSS 3.0 / MOSS 2007 site Template is right for me? (Blog - Todd Baginski)

29th June 2007

http://blogs.msdn.com/joelo/archive/2007/06/29/sharepoint-groups-permissions-site-security-and-depreciated-site-groups.aspx

SharePoint Groups, Permissions, Site Security, and Depreciated Site Groups (MSBlog - Joel Oleson)

29th June 2007

http://vividgroup.com.au/pdf/MCMS2002ToMOSS2007Migration-WhitePaper.pdf

MCMS to MOSS upgrade (VividGroup whitepaper)

28th June 2007 (date added)

http://blogs.msdn.com/joelo/archive/2007/06/27/file-name-length-size-and-invalid-character-restrictions-and-recommendations.aspx

File Name, Length, Size and Invalid Character Restrictions and Recommendations (MSBlog - Joel Oleson)

27th June 2007

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=92fe268e-c232-44a3-8a78-95a38cc2a765&displaylang=en&tm

Installing and Configuring Microsoft Dynamics AX Enterprise Portal (ver 1.01)

(This document describes how to install and configure Microsoft Dynamics AX Enterprise Portal 4.0 for Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server)

27th June 2007

http://www.sharepointblogs.com/sezai/archive/2007/06/27/setting-up-a-multilingual-moss-2007-farm-english-and-chinese-simplified-websites-running-on-the-same-farm.aspx

Setting up a Multilingual MOSS 2007 Farm - English and Chinese (Simplified) Websites Running on the same farm (Blog - Sezai)

27th June 2007

http://www.sharepointblogs.com/sezai/archive/2007/06/27/programmatically-accessing-bdc-data-in-custom-web-parts-or-user-controls-in-moss-2007.aspx

Programmatically Accessing BDC Data in Custom Web Parts or User Controls in MOSS 2007 (Blog - Sezai)

27th June 2007

http://www.sharepointblogs.com/jeremewatts/archive/2007/06/26/aam-vanity-url-workarounds.aspx

AAM, Vanity URL workarounds (Blog - Jereme Watts)

26th June 2007

http://metahat.blogspot.com/2007/06/people-picker-in-moss-2007-unable-to.html

People Picker in MOSS 2007 unable to find user from Multiple Domain (Blog - Raghu Iyer)

26th June 2007

http://www.sharepointblogs.com/mkruger/archive/2007/06/26/free-sharepoint-dataview-tips.aspx

Free SharePoint DataView Tips (Blog - Mark Kruger)

26th June 2007

http://www.sharepointblogs.com/mkruger/archive/2007/06/26/howto-using-sharepoint-calculated-columns-to-display-a-list-item-as-quot-x-quot-days-old.aspx

HowTo: Using SharePoint Calculated Columns to Display a List Item as "X" Days Old (Blog - Mark Kruger)

26th June 2007

http://www.sharepointblogs.com/llowevad/archive/2007/06/25/site-collection-logical-architecture.aspx

Site Collection Logical Architecture (Blog - Dave Wollerman)

25th June 2007

http://www.sharepointblogs.com/llowevad/archive/2007/06/25/sharepoint-2007-single-sign-on-setup.aspx

SharePoint 2007 Single Sign-On Setup (Blog - Dave Wollerman)

25th June 2007

http://blogs.msdn.com/miketag/archive/2007/06/25/recommended-guidelines-for-search-boundaries.aspx

Recommended Guidelines for Search Boundaries (MSBlog - Mike Taghizadeh)

25th June 2007

http://blog.funknstyle.com/?p=503

InfoPath 2007: Creating a Template Part (Blog - Amanda Murphy)

25th June 2007

https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastRegistrationConfirmation.aspx?culture=en-US&RegistrationID=1291430402

MSDN Webcast: SharePoint Server 2007 and Business Intelligence (Level 200) (Mike Benkovich, Lynn Langit)

22nd June 2007

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb462636(office.11).aspx

Publishing and Synchronizing Excel 2007 Tables to SharePoint Lists (John Adams, Frank Rice)

(1st) June 2007

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

http://www.sharepointblogs.com/michael/archive/2007/06/28/how-to-clone-an-infopath-form.aspx

How to Clone an Infopath Form (Blog - M Hofer)

28th June 2007

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

None

 

Modified

None

Deleted

None

III WSS v3 FAQ

New

http://www.asaris.de/sites/walsh/Lists/WSSv3%20FAQ/DispForm.aspx?ID=1119

III.88.02 Indexing: How do I index OneNote files in a 64-bit system?

http://www.asaris.de/sites/walsh/Lists/WSSv3%20FAQ/DispForm.aspx?ID=1117

V.57 Programming Excel Services (MSPress - Alvin J. Bruney) *released*

http://www.asaris.de/sites/walsh/Lists/WSSv3%20FAQ/DispForm.aspx?ID=1118

VI.49 DWG IFIlter 2007 (CAD and Company)

Modified

http://www.asaris.de/sites/walsh/Lists/WSSv3%20FAQ/DispForm.aspx?ID=958

I.31.01 What issues are fixed in fix packs to MOSS 2007?

http://www.asaris.de/sites/walsh/Lists/WSSv3%20FAQ/DispForm.aspx?ID=971

I.31.02 What issues are fixed in fix packs for WSS 3.0?

http://www.asaris.de/sites/walsh/Lists/WSSv3%20FAQ/DispForm.aspx?ID=1000

III.88.01 Indexing: How do I index DWG files (Autocad)?

IV WSSv2 KB Articles (plus SPS 2003 Hot fixes)

New

None

Modified

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;823279

Digest authentication and Advanced Digest authentication are not supported in Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 or Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services (ver 6.0)

20th June 2007

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;826803

Server that runs Windows SharePoint Services may run low on memory resources (ver 2.0)

18th May 2007

V. MS Articles for WSSv2

New or Modified

None

VI Non-MS Articles for WSSv2

New or Modified

None

VII WSSv2 FAQ

New or Modified

None

I now have a setup with three machines all of which are running on 64-bit processors and all of which are less than 3 years old.

The desktop, used mainly these days by my wife, will be three years old in September. It's running XPPro; Office 2003 and FrontPage 2003. It has 1GB and an Athlon processor (and it's Fujitsu-Siemens because the price was right. It has a 250GB hard disk.

The main portable is 18 months old and cost about twice the cost of the desktop. It's running Vista Ultimate and Office 2007. It has 2GB and a Turon processor. (It's an Acer Ferrari and has a 100GB hard disk)

The second portable is a MacBook. It runs OS X Tiger and has 2GB and a Core 2 Duo processor. It's about a month old (although the model has been out for six months) and is the cheapest MacBook in the range. Bought as an experiment when I was unsure whether I'd like it, I now regret that I didn't buy a more expensive version with a larger hard disk (the disk is 60GB).

At the moment I'm running my VMs on Parallels in the MacBook (as my VMWorkstation 5.5 i slow in the Vista machine and I don't want to pay for an upgrade ...). Because of the lack of local disk space I have only one VM (WSS 3.0) stored locally and am using a Mac-formatted (see earlier blogs) 80GB LaCie (very small) external USB 2.0 drive that runs off the portable's power to store other VMs. At present these other VMs are Office Server 2008 Beta3 (soon to be replaced with RCP) and a copy of the WSS 3.0 VM from the portable (which is soon to be stripped and from that stripped version to be a DC and a MOSS 2007 VM (2 VMs)).

The desktop is needed for a couple of things:
- The WSS FAQ sites still run on v2 so I use FP 2003 with them when needed.
- Edit in Datasheet View only works with the WSS FAQ sites from this machine (i.e. not from the Vista/Office 2007 portable) and so when I needed that (to transfer KB Articles and Articles - 2007 Products to the WSS 3.0 VM) this was the machine I had to use.
- It still uses IE 6.x so I can test its usage here too.

The Vista/Office 2007 portable:
- Here I use IE7 (at work I use Firefox and IE6 so I cover most things) and Outlook Express

The MacBook:
- Here I use Safari although Firefox is also installed.
- I use Thunderbird for newsgroups.

So with the basics established what improvements and non-improvements are there ?

One improvement with Safari (and probably Firefox on both platforms) when used with v3 is that drop-down works. So whereas I can not (using Safari) Edit a KB Article entry in v2 using a dropdown (but need to use the Maintenance View that has an Edit icon), I can do this with the identical v3 version.

What is bad of course is that the Vista/Office 2007 combination has a problem with Edit in Datasheet View with (at least) my SP v2 sites.

I'll add some more later when I come across them ...

I've recently had the Mac on more than one occasion recognize my Wireless router (etc.) but still claim I have no connection to the Internet.

I've been to look and the Internet connection is fine. I've also then loaded up the Acer and it's been able to access the Internet OK, so what's going on.

My theory is that a recent OS upgrade did something it shouldn't. Of course it may be that I installed this upgrade (or some other upgrade) in the wrong way because I for instance assumed that a Parallels upgrade had been done and yet all it had done was to put the file on the desktop.

Then when I started that file it didn't say it was updating but that it wanted to do a new installation (and this of a .x.x update version). All very odd and it's things like this that make me continually conscious that I'm like a child of ten with the Mac compared to with a PC.

Networking too - once it had decided I didn't have an Internet connection - wasn't the easiest thing to get working. There was nothing like repair connection which in the windows world often does the trick and the Assistant continued to insist I turn the hardware off and on which made no difference at all.

In the end I ended up (on both occasions) creating a totally new Internet connection as only that managed to create for me a working Internet connection.

The problem with that method is that I have a very long WPA PSK password that of course I can never remember. So I suppose there is nothing for it but to post it to myself because otherwise I'll be stuck if they same thing happens when I'm on the road.

Maybe it's time to look at that big OsX Tiger edition book and see what it says about Networking. Child of nine, more like.

On thing that I've learnt since buying a Mac and trying to do most of my MVP "work" on it has been that what people moving to the Mac from the PC (or even those like me who are working in parallel with both environments) need is a friend with a good level of Mac experience.

He or she would need to have infinite patience however to put up with a barrage of "how do you do this in the Mac" questions ranging from the extremely simple ("what's the Mac equiavlent of Ctrl-C") to more complicated ones (which turned out in my case to be how do you format a USB drive - or indeed anything).

If you don't have such a friend very handy, the next best step is to have a book. In my case the book I found at Amazon and which has been solving most of my Mac adjustment problems since is the O'Reilly book "Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, Tiger Edition http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0596006608/heme0f

I blogged briefly earlier that I was going to buy this and was a bit worried by the fact that it first came out in September 2005 which seems a lifetime away. Well that's true but it is now on it's Ninth Printing and corrections have been made on its journey there.

In fact the Ninth Printing includes a whole new appendix on running Windows on the Mac (Boot Camp or Parallels) which contains fairly basic information but at least is there (and wasn't in the Eighth Printing). So to a certain extent this is (at least) a Second Edition.

Anyway what of the book?

The good news is that it has solved many of my basic problems - most of which have to do with simple/stupid things such as the afore-mentioned Ctrl-C (which is AppleKey-C like most such Ctrl- codes) and Ctr-Alt-del which thank goodness was in the index because I needed it in order to boot a Windows machine running under Parallels. (It's *in this order* Ctrl; Alt; fn; and 'erase previous' !!).

In fact that is both the strength and weakness of the book. It's written more as a book to read through rather than as a reference manual.

I'd better explain that because it might give the wrong impression.

All parts and programs that come with Tiger are covered and points of difference to Windows equivalents clearly stated. So, yes, you can use it as a "Missing Manual" by looking up for instance the chapter on Mail. The index too while not brilliant (I couldn't find how to format a disk there!) is fairly long - however to a certain extent I thought that perhaps it was a slightly amended version of an index for Tiger for Mac users rather than a newly written index for the benefit of former Windows users (otherwise surely Formatting wouldn't be missing).

To a certain extent however needing to actually read full sections of the manual is beneficial. Certainly I found out things (and they were always compared with Windows things) there when just browsing that I didn't know and what's more that I wouldn't have learnt about if I had only grabbed the book when I had a problem.

A good example of this is the PDF reader. I naturally (?) from my PC background assumed that as I could open PDF files without the need to download Acrobat Reader from the Adobe site, that Apple had done a deal with Adobe and it was built in.

Far from it. Reading the book, I found that it was actually using an internal application called Preview to open the PDF files and that Preview was actually also (mainly) a graphics program. The book gave me the URL of where I could download Adobe Reader for the Mac if I wanted but also gave me some additional information about the functionality of Preview with PDF files that made we wonder whether I'd actually need to.

The conclusion I suppose is that I'm happy with the book and glad that I got it. Without it I'd no doubt be scrambling through the Internet looking for tips (such as I needed to do for formatting - the answer to which was "Use Disk Utility"; something that I found to make formatting a USB disk seem like a major operation). I would have probably in fact given up half way but I wanted to use this USB disk (80GB) to store some Parallels (Windows Servers running WSS and MOSS) VMs and Parallels said that USB disks when used for that needed to be Mac formatted. I took them at their word.

I discovered yesterday after writing the above that the PDF files I was seeing were actually not using Preview but were just being shown by the browser (Safari) which unlike IE doesn't require an installation of Acrobat Reader in oder to show them.

I spotted this thanks to the section in the book that told me how to Zoom In or Zoom Out in Preview (as this wasn't working!) and when trying to correct this with the equivalent of a Right-Click (Ctrl-Space in a Mac without a 2 button mouse) I discovered an "Open in Preview" option. Now Zoom In not only worked but produced extremely good quality enlarged text - very clear and sharp - which made reading the front page of an Italian newspaper (where the first page in pdf form is free on the web) extremely pleasant.