SharePoint Training

SharePoint911 will be hosting training in the Cincinnati area in early June for more information check out the following links.

Business Users Guide to SharePoint Server 2007

SharePoint Planning and Governance

SharePoint911 Training Home

SPTechCon 2009 Slides and Solutions

For those attended my session LEVERAGING SHAREPOINT IN A SOA-BASED INFRASTRUCTURE the slides and solutions can be found here.  NOTE: You will need to click on the download link once you are on the page.

For the gentleman that had the question about securing calls between the BDC and the sample web service, please read this article for how to pass credentials from the BDC to a web service using SOAP Headers.  As for how to allow for SOAP headers in a WCF based service see the following reference.  I may have originally misunderstood the context of the question that you asked in that I thought you were just asking how to secure the call between the BDC and the web service but the way the conversation went it sounded like you may have been asking a more general question of how to secure web services.  I would be happy to provide recommendations on how to secure web services if you would like to chat.  Either way please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Thank you to those of you who attended and let me know how you liked the material.

SD Times Article: Don't Forget to Lookup!

I recently wrote a small article for SD Times called Share Pointers: Don’t forget to Lookup! on the usefulness of the Lookup column type in SharePoint Lists.  Take a look and let me know what you think.

SharePoint White Paper on TechNet

I recently worked on a new white paper with Shane Young, Randy Drisgill, Jennifer Mason and Chris Caravajal that is available for download on TechNet.  The paper can be found here and is titled Administrator’s Guide of Topics to Consider before Deployment.  The paper covers quite a bit so check it out!

SQL Server 2005 SP3 Offers Performance Improvements for Reporting in SharePoint

SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 3 was recently released and it include performance enhancements for environment running SQL Reporting Services in SharePoint Integrated Mode.
Taken from the "What's New" Section of the SP3 Documentation:

In SharePoint integrated mode, reports typically run slower than the same reports run in native mode. The main cause of this latency can be attributed to SharePoint object model calls that are made. In SQL Server 2005 SP3, the number of SharePoint object model calls that SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services (SSRS) makes are optimized. This optimization reduces some of the latency when you compare report performance with native mode.

Keeping your Desktop Icons Ship Shape with Desktop Restore

I like to use Windows Desktop to launch shortcuts to my favorite and most used applications.  I have the icons arranged in a particular way so that I can find and launch them easily.  If you do this yourself or have tried to do this in the past you may have noticed that from time to time Windows will rearrange the desktop icons when the screen resolution is adjusted, certain applications are launched or if the shell restarts unexpectedly.  When this happens it is often a major inconvenience to readjust all of the icons only to have it happen again the next time you attach to a projector or launch a certain game.

Desktop Restore to the rescue.  Desktop Restore is a shell extension that was created by Jamie O'Connell and can be found on his company's web site at midiox.com.  This little beauty makes saving and restoring you desktop icon locations a snap by providing additional menu items when you right-click the desktop.

It supports multiple monitors and multiple layout configurations.  If you like using your desktop to launch your applications and like to have your icons in just the right place I strongly encourage you to checkout Desktop Restore.  I have been using it for a couple years now and think it is a great utility.

Speaking about SPAXO at the Cincinnati SharePoint User Group

I will be speaking at the Cincinnati SharePoint User Group this Thursday, December 4th. I will be giving the dirt on the ins and outs of the SPAXO Feature that Randy Drisgill and I created. If you are in the area and are able to make it, stop by and see how it works! You could also get yourself a copy of one of Shane Young's latest books like Inside SharePoint Administration or Professional Microsoft Search: SharePoint 2007 and Search Server 2008.