Sharepoint: Site vs Application Pages

1)Site pages support customisation while application pages do not.
2)Application pages allow in-line code.


Example of site pages are the home page, and pages that have lists.

Sharepoint: Page Ghosting

Page Ghosting - The page template is loaded from the file system of the web server. No access to the content database is required. The opposite of this occurs when you have saved customised a page -changes are saved to the content database. This is known as unghosted pages.

The SPVirtualPathProvider is responsible for retrievin unghosted pages from the content database.

Sharepoint: Two methods for Restarting an Application Pool

Two different methods for restarting an application pool

1) IISRESET

-this restarts all the processes associated with IIS

2) cscript.exe c:\windows\system32\iisapp.vbs /a ""DefaultAppPool"

- This restarts a specific application npool (/a parameter with the name of IIS application pool)

Sharepoint: Customisation vs Personalisation

Personalisation - changes made are only seen by the person making them,

Customisation - seen by all users, performed by administrators.

Sharepoint stores personalisation and customisation separately in the content database.

Sharepoint: Moss vs WSS

In Inside Microsoft Windows Sharepoint Services 3.0 - Ted Pattison & Daniel Larson

"While WSS and MOSS re both pieces of software built by the Microsoft Office team, WSS is included as part of Windows Server 2003 SKU operating system while MOSS is a separate product with its own SKU.You should think of WSS as the underlying platform and think of MOSS as a value-added set of components and services that has been built on top of this platform."

Automatically moving Dll to GAC

Thanks Sahil
(http://blah.winsmarts.com/2007-10-AutoGAC_your_class_library_after_build.aspx)

Place
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\SDK\v2.0\Bin\gacutil.exe" /i $(TargetPath)

in postbuild events - so class library automatically be added to the GAC.

Also can the uninstall event to the prebuild event.

Microsoft Sharepoint 30 - day VHD

I found a problem with the 30 day trial period Sharepoint VHD found at in a previous post:-

I installed the 30 day trial Sharepoint VHD from

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=67f93dcb-ada8-4db5-a47b-df17e14b2c74&displaylang=en

But the Windows Server 2003 is asking for a product key - and if not supplied - does not continue. I telephoned Microsoft's Activation and they do not know the product and keep passing me to other department. After speaking to four different people I decided to Hang up.

Resolution: Change the date from d/MM/yyyy to MM/dd/yyyy

How to create VHD for Sharepoint

A step by step guide on how to create a Vhd for Sharepoint can be found at

http://www.pptspaces.com/sharepointreporterblog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?List=7537e639%2Db4e5%2D48b6%2D97c0%2Da75e44ee9be3&ID=28&Source=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Epptspaces%2Ecom%2Fsharepointreporterblog%2FLists%2FPosts%2FAllPosts%2Easpx

Come on Microsoft you can do better

Installing Vistual Studio 2008 Beta 2 gave errors including:-

"Microsoft SQL Server Compact 3.5. MSI returned error code 1603"

How hard is it for Microsoft to get a product installation right. If everybody has to waste the hours to find the solution. And believe me there are many issues out there if you google it.

My problem hopefully resolved by doinf a maintenance repair when I have stopped IIS

Not good enough Microsoft.

Chipper J

Chipper J breaks a large piece of code into smaller piece in order to isolate a problem.

For more information see
Review
http://blogs.zdnet.com/emergingtech/?p=710

Actual research
http://www.cs.ucdavis.edu/~olsson/pubs/2007/sterling.pdf

Pre-installed VHD for Sharepoint

A one month expiry is the only limitation -but this can save lots of time setting up a test platform

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=67f93dcb-ada8-4db5-a47b-df17e14b2c74&displaylang=en

I will be trying this out shortly.

There are also other VHD available.

Different Definition of Mock Objects

Interesting take on Mock Objects is found in DotNetRocks show with Eli Lopian show 278 http://www.dotnetrocks.com/default.aspx?showNum=278

Eli Lopian stated - Mock object is a means of isolation. The Mock object is not important what is important is what it is isolating. ... We want to isolate our code to test it - so we must mock whatever is around it. It does not necessary have to be an object or an interface. We want to isolate our piece of code so we mock everything around it.

Interesting.. well worth a listen.

Microsoft Terminology Around Fixes

On Hanselminutes.com show 83 (http://www.hanselminutes.com/) - definitions of QFE,GDR and service pack are supplied.

QFE- quick fix engineering (like a hot fix). 1 or 2 assemblies to fix a specific issue. These assemblies are accumulative overtime.

Service Pack - Rolled up QFE with a higher lever (additional) testing

GDR - General Development Release. These are versioned QFE but not as big as a Service Pack. Normally for something really bad.

MDA error in c#

I got the MDA error. This as with any Microsoft error set me back a few hours. I read a couple of blogs - but still do not understand why the error & fix should occur.

Anyway solution was to go to
Debug->Exceptions ... > Expand the MDA node and uncheck the box against contextswitchdeadlock .

NB: I had to first expose the Exceptions menu - as it did not appear by default.

Sorry Mitch (http://feeds.feedburner.com/mitchwheat) - I wasted to much time and hence - no time to treat the cause only the symptom.

A good way to learn new Look & Feel to Office

Having problems finding the commands in Office 2007 - I did and constantly shouted at my computer. But then..

I stumbled across the following url
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word/HA100744321033.aspx

I have not used this in great length - but currently this is working for me.

Information gathering made a little easier

Live.com allows you to create macros of search sites (see Christian Longstaff ). I know google has had this for a while as I use Dan Appleman's www.searchdotnet.com as my starting point for searching anything dot net related. But I have never tried to create my own.

Along comes this post, I go to the site, and the wizard was extremely simple.

The proof in the eating is if I can use it and more importantly to clients to use it, to help them save time , and enhance my company reputation.