OLEDB: Create connection string

A little trick to create a OLEDB connection string:

• On a Windows desktop (or any other folder) create a new text file.
• Rename the file to MyNewConnection.udl
• Double click the file which will open the guide Data Link Properties.
• Insert your connection data, test the connection and close the guide by pressing OK
• Open the file in your favorite text editor and view the connectionstring

Examples of generated connection strings:

•  Provider=SQLOLEDB.1;Password=MyPsw;Persist Security Info=True;User ID=MyUser;Initial Catalog=MyDb;Data Source=mydbserver\mydbinstance
• Provider=MSDASQL.1;Persist Security Info=False;MyUser ID=user1;Data Source=MyOdbcDsn;Initial Catalog=MyDB

Thanx to Rakesh Moturi

The End

BTS09 – New VPC

Just saw a new VPC for Biztalk 2009 has become available for download.

Seems like the demo has integration with Sharepoint

MOSS07 Exam 70-542 App Dev

Just passed the Exam 70-542 Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 – Application Development.

Here is a short resume of that experience.

Here you can read about attending a certification exam.

The exam 70-542 were max 80 minutes long and there were 32 questions.

SQL: Install AdventureWorks

This post shows how to use the SSMS GUI to attach a DB.

1) Download Adventurworks from http://www.codeplex.com/Wiki/View.aspx?ProjectName=SqlServerSamples

2) Install the DB. This will only unpack the mdf file.

3) Attach the DB. Then you can see it in SSMS:

You can either use commands like here: http://www.codeplex.com/SqlServerSamples/Wiki/View.aspx?title=SQLServerDatabasesandSamplesOverview&referringTitle=Home

Or you can browse for the mdf file:

Moss07: Discovering samples from Book – Inside MOSS 2007 – Part 2

This post examines the samples from the book:  Inside MOSS 2007

To be able to execute the samples you need to:

1) Do part1:  http://rasor.wordpress.com/2009/06/26/moss07-discovering-samples-from-book-inside-moss-2007-part-1/

Chapter 2. P.58 – Walkthrough: Populating User Profiles Remotely – Sample FavoritesManagerApp

MOSS07: SSP and Search errors

In my development environment I get some errors with Moss Search and other SSP services once in a while – I haven’t found the cause, but a fix.

Moss07: Discovering samples from Book – Inside MOSS 2007 – Part 1

This post examines the samples from the book:  Inside MOSS 2007

To be able to execute the samples you need to:

1) Download samples and execute the setup

Chapter 2. P.32 – Walkthrough: Creating a collaboration Portal

WSS30/MOSS07 – Links

A handfull of links. Might be something I want to do something about later.

 

Whois

As so many times before ZoneAlarm, the firewall, alerts me with some network traffic.

But what can I do with an IP address. Do I trust it?

Found a nice site that provides Whois service to present me with owner of the IP range:

http://www.ip-adress.com/whois/213.199.170.72

WSS30/MOSS07: Cleanup VPC

So how do you cleanup your VPC for making it look like a clean MOSS07 machine?

In this way you retain the patches from automatic update and whatever utilities, personalisations and whatever else you have to do from scratch.
This might be faster, be possible to automate or at least just to make a checklist of like here:

SQL: Object Created date

Where to find Object Created date?

In SSMS have open Object Explorer and Object Explorer details.

The details view of the latter will show created date.

Thanx to Kim Bach

You can also use a query:

USE AdventureWorks;
GO
SELECT name, create_date, modify_date
FROM sys.objects
WHERE type = 'P'
AND name = 'uspUpdateEmployeeHireInfo'
GO

Thanx to Pinal Dave

The end

WSS30/MOSS07: SharepointManager07

Mr. WSPBuilder has made a nice WSS object browser called Sharepoint Manager 2007 (SPM07).

Except for browsing you can also do changes:

• You select an object. The properties of the object will be shown and be editable in a property editor.
• Many objects can be deleted.
• From an alphabetic list of all features in the 12hive, you can install/uninstall the feature
• When the feature is installed you can go to the webapp/sitecoll/site and activate/deactivate it.

… and much more.

It has a nice restore feature for restoring individual files from a unconnnected restored content base to the recycle bin of an online site.

WSS30/MOSS07: WSPBuilder Documentation

Mr. WSPBuilder himself, Carsten Keutmann, has made a collection of WSPBuilder documentation. 

Thanks, Carsten.

Mobile: Why wouldn’t my mobile call out?

My mobile wouldn’t call out. What was wrong?

I thought it had something to do with network setup.

Found a nice page that showed the awailable networks (including MCC and NCC) in many countries.

After playing around a while it loked like the network selection had nothing to do with the problem.

And also incoming calls did work. SMS too.

So I started loking elsewhere. It turned out that the problem was here:

Call Setup – Line Switching was set to Line 2. This had to be changed to Line 1! Now I could call out.

WSS30/MOSS07: SPD07 is now free!

WSS30/MOSS07: SPD07 is now free!

Download at: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=baa3ad86-bfc1-4bd4-9812-d9e710d44f42

BarCampCph Nov 2008 visit

On november 22nd 2008 I paid Barcamp Cph a visit.
In my head: It is a chance to hear about the doings of other programmers in exchange for a presentation yourself will have to give.

WSS30/MOSS07: Navigation

A few navigation wonderings:

Why wouldn’t my custom breadcrumb menu show lists, when my leftnavigation would?

Andy Burns shows how much fun breadcrumbs can be.

For the current document two breadcrumb providers are provided:

        <add name="SPContentMapProvider" type="Microsoft.SharePoint.Navigation.SPContentMapProvider, Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" />
        <add name="CurrentNavSiteMapProviderNoEncode" description="CMS provider for Current navigation, no encoding of output" type="Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.Navigation.PortalSiteMapProvider, Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" NavigationType="Current" EncodeOutput="false" />

The former is from WSS and the latter from MOSS.

XP – down

My 5 year old PC with many partitions and several OS’s needed a repair of XP.
When times are good I only have to reinstall an OS with years between. This also meens I never remember how to do.

This time there was a partion that needed more space.  I had some space infront of it, so I could move the whole partition a little forward using Partition Magic. With a Windows version that is straight forward.
Unfortunately XP in that partition wouldn’t fully load and stopped before login after the move. Probably due to bad sectors on the disk.

Skiferie – fra DK

Moved to http://rasordk.wordpress.com/2009/02/06/skiferie-fra-dk/

WSS3.0 Custom Workflow forms

Must take a test run of this one day.

WSS3 Workflow Tools on codeplex

Testing Scribd and Slideshare

Both sites has embedding tags specific for WordPress.

A random doc was found from each site.

Hvordan finder man en multimedialæreplads?

Hvor ville du lede efter en multimedialæreplads?
Svar gerne med nogle kommentarer.

Mere specifikt er det min nabos datter, der leder.
Hendes meritliste er ganske imponerende, så hun kan være produktiv fra dag 1. Browse gerne ind og kik.
Hun er en selvlært webdesigner på 17 år med 6 års erfaring. Hendes uddannelse kaldes Multimedia Integrator. Hun mestrer uden videre en bunke grafiske- og web programmer.

WSS3.0 Exam 70-541 App Dev

Just passed the Exam 70-541 Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 – Application Development a few day ago.

Here is a short resume of that experience.

BarCampCph Nov 2008 Presentation

Wants to visit BarCamp Copenhagen. The idea is to share knowledge. This forces me to find some topics to precent…

Blogging gives me content for a presentation – A few .NET samples

So what is a topic I can present to catch other peoples interest? Luckily I have started blogging. WordPress (wp) gives me the answer. Wp has a statistics page. You will not be able to follow that link, since you need admin rights. 

TFS 2008 test drive

At work I use TFS only for Source Control for .NET source code. Since TFS is much more I will in this post just get started looking a little around…

TFS 2008 inst: Errors

While trying to install TFS 2008 as in standalone mode on a Win server 2003 several installation prerequisites had to be met:

WSS3.0 Adm: Farms, WebApps, SiteCollections and Sites

When you have to choose scope for your feature you have to choose between:

1. Farm
2. WebApplication
3. Site (SiteCollection)
4. Web (Site)

This post links those words with the visual presentation of sites.
First a look at sites in a browser and secondly a look at how to create them.

Visual Studio: Cool keyboard shortcuts

A few cool Visual Studio 2008 keyboard shortcuts…

WSS Dev: HowTo Link to a List from a ListItem (Or HowTo contain Collections)

How can a ListItem contain a collection?
By having a field contining a link to another list.

VPC: HowTo optimize VPC

When you are using VPC’s, there are ways to optimize performance and enhance usage.

In Bios:

• Create full isolation between VPC’s: In Bios: Enable Virtualization Technology.

In VPC Console:

• Enable use of special chars like “{” by using AltGr: File – Options – Keyboard – Change AltGr to RightCtrl
• Add RAM and increase memory amount allocated to the Virtual Machine: Select the VM – Settings – Memory – increase using the ruler, while the VM is shut down.

Each Virtual Machine:

• Sync the HW of your PC with your image: With the VM open: Action – Install or update VM additions – Select C:\Program Files\Microsoft Virtual PC\Virtual Machine Additions\VMAdditions.iso

If your host is Win2k8 srv and the VPC is Hyper-V then use Remote Desktop as Client. Graphics update is faster and the look and feel is like when you are operating the production environment.

Link: http://blogs.msdn.com/Virtual_PC_Guy/

Thanx to Peter Karpinski

WSS Dev: HowTo make a Custom FieldType

Draft…

If you want a column in a WSS list, where you either want custom validation or database filled dropdownlist then a Custom FieldType migth be the solution.

WSS Tool: Sharepoint Solution Generator

Exploring the tool Sharepoint Solution Generator (SSG)…

WSS Dev: WSPBuilder Templates

When you start out building WSS features from WSPBuilder then what is there to choose from?
What is in the WSPBuilder templates

WSS Dev: HowTo debug a WebPart

Can you debug a webpart in a WSS page? Yes – not a problem.

Cisco VPN Client maybes

If you also has a Cisco VPN Client V.4.6.01.0019 you might have been anoyed about it quite often.

VB6 ADO upgrade to .NET

To ease the upgrade of VB6 it is possible to keep old VB6 ADO in .NET.
Microsoft has made some Primary Interop Assemblies (PIA’s) that are tweeked in a .NET way, so they are to prefer compared to generating them yourself.

WSS Dev: A simple feature – Type Custom Action

So what was a feature? Let’s see if I can come up with a good explanation. I think it is here explanations often is too vaugue.
A feature is zero or more elements. Elements can be list and/or what a lists consists of like content type, list items and fields, but also other kind of site content. See the list below.
A feature must be activated. If the feature has zero elements then it is only code in the activation/deactivation eventhandler that makes up the feature, but that code is optional.
With that definition a feature is a plug-in to sharepoint, that adds more than the standard elements.

In the below table the features are printed from a sample WSS site collection. The elements are printed from MSDN.

WSS: Exceptions

 In this post I will add exceptions when I meet them.

WSS: Development – Quick Start with WSPBuilder

So how to get started quick and easy with development of WSS features?

It is not that bad after all. You can

1. Use WSPBuilder as a starting point
2. Use an already build WSPBuilder feature as a starting point

For debugging a WebPart see here.

SQL: HowTo import new rows to a Domain table from a flat file

Terminology:

• Domain table: A table with a function like an Enum in C#. In some cases it needs new lines, but never needs changes.
• ImportTableTemp: a table that is a mirror of a flat file with only varchar as column types

PreRequisites:

• Delete all rows from ImportTableTemp
• Import rows to ImportTableTemp from a flat file

Now use the following join to add new rows from the flat file to the domain table.

Note: In this example the Domain table uses a varchar as ID.

Insert Into TargetDomainTable (ID, Name) -- targettable
Select Distinct IT.TTID, IT.TTName -- data from importtable
	From ImportTableTemp IT  -- importtable
	Left Outer Join TargetDomainTable TT On IT.TTID = TT.ID -- all rows from importtable
	Where TT.ID is NULL -- targettable has not data
	AND IT.TTID is not NULL -- importtable has data
	AND IT.TTID != '' -- importtable has data (optional - when TTID is a varchar)

WSS: What is installed on a WSS3.0 server with VS2005?

This article was earlier posted togeter with this post: WSS terminology.

Look here http://rasor.wordpress.com/2008/08/25/wss-howto-build-a-wss-project/, if you want to get a running WSS.

In this section a WSS server is explored.

Refer to http://rasor.wordpress.com/2008/08/23/wss-request-lifetime/, to see the technology behind WSS.

WSS: A console program

Here is a console app, that demonstrates two things:

• You can code towards a site from outside of its boundaries just by adding the URL of the site. 
• You can see how the some of the internal objects hierarchies compared to the “All Site Content” page.  

WSS/MOSS posters

All posters are available from this site: http://blogs.msdn.com/andrew_may/

and here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms473633.aspx

CAS: Intro

Draft…

Microsoft hosted two events about Code Access Security (CAS) and Role Based Security (RBS) in august 2008.

LINQ: Entity intro

Draft…

Lessons learned while trying to learn ORM mapping with LINQ in .NET.

VSTO: Intro

Draft….

Michell Cronberg made a presentation of VSTO 3.0 SP1 intro at Microsoft 17/09-2008.

It was the first time I saw him live, so the expectations were big. And he didn’t disappoint – only the opposite. He knows his stuff and he presented it, so you got the feeling that this is a nice toy you want to play with.

With the easiness it has become to write office addins (and docs) and deploy them, then you only need to tell the customers that such a possibility exists.

Visio: Adding Connection Points to a Shape

If you ever used Visio you probably have been using shapes that had to little connection points. You don’t have to live with that:

• On toolbar select “connection point tool” – it is hiding on the dropdown list of the “connector tool”
• Optional: zoom to 200% in order to be able to hit a shape
• Select a shape. => the shape will reveal a dotted line on which you can drop the connection points on
• Hold down Ctrl while dropping a connection point onto a shape by clicking on the dotted line

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa200985(office.10).aspx

SQL server Backup

I never thought SQL server backup was easy to remember.

This is probably because the restore command involves 3 physical files, 2 logical names and the Db name.

SQL server login

I guess I am not the only one, who thinks the SQL user account setup is a strange mess.

WSS: HowTo edit a Site Page

Navigate to the page you want to edit and select Edit Page in the Site Actions dropdown list