November 2009 - Posts
An old colleague of mine from Avanade has apparently put out a very cool tool for managing re-usable “snippets” of code from a repository. This is a tool that could be used every day, or even for demos…
This is a smooth application that takes advantage of some the P&P smart client framework. Quite a professional tool…
The name of the tools is Snip-IT Pro
http://www.snipitpro.com/index.html
It can also managed / retrieve snippets from a hosted service called http://snipplr.com/ along with
Frankly, I can see using this with a simple folder on Mesh (www.Mesh.com)
The industry it moving towards identity standards, and with the recent release of Windows Identity Foundation (fka Geneva), and the beta of SharePoint 2010, it’s important to take a look at the direction of how identity is being normalized into a “service” within the SharePoint object model.
With SPS 2010, the SPUser object is now a claims identity. Identity management has been normalized to a approach that internally uses an STS that takes all “provider” or external STS identities, then creates a SPUser claims identity. This can have implications for LOB application design. Even Windows identities are presented within SPS as a claims identity after banging against the SP STS for claims transformation.
Venky Veeraraghavan has a great video up on Channel 9 on how WIF was used to create this model within SharePoint and how we get 1) Identities “In”, 2) Identities “within”, and 3) Identities “out” – specifically, when talking to downstream back-end LOB applications, DB, Web Services, etc. These are all things WIF and claims based identity is moving the industry.
This is certainly how we all should be looking at identity management and authentication scenarios.
Ok, I’ve been bitten twice in the past week on this. If you have InfoPath 2010 Beta installed and you’ve also got SharePoint 2007 running, at least with the latest SP2 and October CU, you run into an issue that surfaces in the logs as follows
One or more types failed to load. Please refer to the upgrade log for more details
When you pull that log apart, you’ll see that it’s attempting to load a few types such as Microsoft.Office.InfoPath.Server.DocumentLifetime.XmlFormHost' from assembly 'Microsoft.Office.InfoPath.Server.
Which, they fail – removing InfoPath from the install works.
UPDATE: This article talks about another setting that may also be needed - but I haven't had to set it http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/896861
This KB article (KB926642) explains 2 methods for handling the scenarios that we as developers require for using a local machine for development. My option has been, going forward, of being explicitly in the host names that my development machine will use. From that article:
Method 1 (recommended): Create the Local Security Authority host names that can be referenced in an NTLM authentication request
To do this, follow these steps for all the nodes on the client computer:
- Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
- Locate and then click the following registry subkey: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa\MSV1_0
- Right-click MSV1_0, point to New, and then click Multi-String Value.
- In the Name column, type BackConnectionHostNames, and then press ENTER.
- Right-click BackConnectionHostNames, and then click Modify.
- In the Value data box, type the CNAME or the DNS alias, that is used for the local shares on the computer, and then click OK.
Note Type each host name on a separate line.
Note If the BackConnectionHostNames registry entry exists as a REG_DWORD type, you have to delete the BackConnectionHostNames registry entry.
- Exit Registry Editor, and then restart the computer.
An old colleague (Biff Gaut) of mine has a great daily newsletter from the PDC. This is certainly targeted for those of us looking for a “light” look at all things new that come out of PDC, but at times very technical with a perspective from someone who has been in the industry for some time (20+ years), started off as a C or C++ developer (not sure how early as I started with C/ASM).
But, as always, with the technical content comes the sometimes dry, humor that only Biff can interweave into the Geek content.
http://www.biffspdcnewsletter.com/2009/PDC2009Day1.aspx
To subscribe, find the email on his page it’s “editor AT biffspdcnewsletter.com”
To go back a few years, take a look at some of his prescience`:
http://www.biffspdcnewsletter.com/default.aspx
Kind of reminds me of Mr. Bunny’s Guide to ActiveX – which is on my all time favorite reading list – if you know anything about ActiveX in the early days (COM to be specific), then this book is also a great, dry humor read.
Biff, I apologize for the overuse of the word “dry” in this post.
Many times, your coding, etc. SharePoint features. You’ll code something up, deploy, activate, etc.
Using WSP builder, while a convenient tool, it also leaves some orphans around. It forcibly deletes the solution leaving any place it’s activate with some “broken features”.
Fortunately, there’s a tool to help you cleanup those orphans.
http://featureadmin.codeplex.com/
Take the following and paste into a VBS file – then run.
Still need to choose the Link, then set the “Run as administrator” when UAC is on…
Set Shell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
Set Env = Shell.Environment("PROCESS")
DesktopPath = Shell.SpecialFolders("Desktop")
Set link = Shell.CreateShortcut(DesktopPath & "\WSS CMD.lnk")
cssHive = Env("CommonProgramFiles") & "\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12"
currentPath = RTrim(Replace(WScript.ScriptFullName, WScript.ScriptName, ""))
envBatFile = "setWssPath.cmd"
CreateBatFile currentPath & setWssPath & envBatFile, cssHive
link.Arguments = "/k " & " " & Chr(34) & currentPath & envBatFile & Chr(34)
link.Description = "WSS Command Prompt"
link.HotKey = "CTRL+SHIFT+W"
link.IconLocation = "%SystemRoot%\system32\SHELL32.dll,94"
link.TargetPath = "%comspec%"
link.WindowStyle = 1
link.WorkingDirectory = cssHive
link.Save
Sub CreateBatFile(fileName, cssHive)
Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set file = fso.CreateTextFile(fileName, True)
file.WriteLine("@SET PATH=%PATH%;" & cssHive & "\bin")
file.WriteLine("@ECHO WSS CMD Shell - Shawn Cicoria")
file.WriteLine("CD " & cssHive)
End Sub
Ted Pattison and Andrew Connell have a bunch of Learning SharePoint 2010 content up on Channel 9.
I can say, having attended Ted’s classes in the past, he’s one of the best to learn SharePoint development from. He’s been at the forefront of getting to the reality of how to build things while working with the guidelines, rules, constraints of a “managed” platform such as SharePoint.
If you get a chance take a look at these videos – even better, if you can attend in person, check out http://www.criticalpathtraining.com/ for classes.
SharePoint 2010 Developer | Learn | Channel 9
TeamPrise – the cross platform “client” for TFS, with Eclipse support (plug-in), command line – has been acquired by Microsoft.
So, we’ve been pushing folks to a 3rd parties to get back to the ALM Mothership – which is by far the best Enterprise class ALM platform that can scale from “1” person (see 2010 TFS) to thousands, geo-distributed – now, we can offer it direct resolving client’s concerns.
Not that the SourceGear guys are of concern, they’ve been around for quite some time.
This is great news.
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2009/nov09/11-09TeamprisePR.mspx
http://www.teamprise.com
http://www.microsoft.com/pathways/teamprise/