Australia SharePoint Confenrence 2010

Hey Folks,

This year the Australia SharePoint Conference will be a bit different. On the 16th and 17th of June in Sydney we will have the SharePoint Conference organized by a dedicated group of SharePoint MVPs and Community Leaders from Australia and New Zealand.

It will be a great opportunity to see the fresh release of SharePoint 2010 from a different perspective. Real life scenarios, and industry case studies! All things that went wrong on MOSS 2007 implementations will be shared, and hopefully avoided on SharePoint 2010.

I've been particularly attending some Sharepoint 2010 pre-launching seminars but mostly have more of a marketing background. I'm honestly really excited to see what the real developers and architects have to say and share!

Registration can be done via: http://www.regonline.com/builder/site/default.aspx?EventID=804948

The registration fee is $AUD650.00 EX GST per delegate.

See you there.

Blogging with Joomla 1.5

Recently a client has asked me about the blogging functionality on Joomla. Since then I've been doing lots of researches on current blogging technologies X Joomla blogging functionality.

Definitely the number one blogging technology is WordPress. Once we talk about blogging its impossible not to mention Wordpress as the blogger's favorite platform. It's a open source CMS available to everyone just like Joomla. I tend to recommend it to most of my clients that require a full featured blogging functionality on their web sites.

The Joomla "out of the box" 1.5 framework supports only basic blogging functionality. It does achieve a simple blog structure but we are still far away of having most of the blogging features. Eg:

• Commentaries
• Avatar
• User rating
• Tags
• Workflows, etc..

I've tested lots of different extensions for Blogging on Joomla. Some of those extensions implement only small solutions. For example; we could install an extension only for comments into a blog articles. Others extensions like "MyBlog" provide the whole blogging functionality for the Joomla Framework.

It's a strategic decision.
We could use an extension like Myblog, I'm sure it will have ALL blogging functionality you might need. But it can be like driving a Ferrari at 30Km/h if you you site/blog activity is not too intense.
Its a complete extension with lots of blogging functionality. Make sure you really need it, otherwise I don't believe its worth putting lots of efforts on something you might not use.

If you are interested in individual blogging functionalities you can find appropriate extensions.
Eg: As far as I know there are no blogs without communication between publishers and the audience trough the comments functionality. It provides feedback and interactions to all blog readers.
In this case wouldn't be hard to implement a comments module just for this specific requirement.

Remember, do not overestimate your necessities!
Cheers!

Aussie Joomla! community

Looking up for Joomla resources online is not very easy, especially if you are a developer! The 1.5 framework, gives you a big library which includes classes for many diferent purposes.

A realiable source of content for a Joomla developer certainly is:
http://www.joomla.org
http://developer.joomla.org/
http://docs.joomla.org/

Those sites are key elements for you Joomla 1.5 learning. At the moment I've been working with some smal and medium Joomla projects, that are requiring me a good knowlodge of the framework. I hope to share some of this knowlodge in this blog on future postings!

A while ago I also found the Australian Joomla Community site.

The Aussie community is putting lots of efforts on the web site, you can get access to the forum and join the Group Meetings around. At the moment they have around 250 users discussing different topics on the forum.
I am sure is a nice entry point for all kind of Joomla fans!

On furtther posts I will give more examples for the 1.5 Joom

MOSS 2007 - Enable Client Integration

Recently, a work mate has asked me a question about using the "Import Spreadsheet" functionality to create a SharePoint list.

This function seems pretty straight forward to me, unless you trying to use it trough Form Based Authentication.

In my environment I had a web application with single site collection, all using Windows Authentication. He was complaining of not having this option once he tries to create a new list, basically the link wasn't available for him.

I've tried to replicate his issue creating a different user and assigning a different set of permissions to it. That's was the only way to simulate his problem. My site collection administrator had full control over the site, and obviously access to the Import Spreadsheet functionality.

My second user had just "Manage Lists" privileges. When logged in with this second user I couldn't find the Import Spreadsheet link, then I thought is was just a permission issue. Told him to double check his permissions and no luck! Everything seem to be alright, his user had full control but no access to this functionality.

After lots of researches he told me that it end up being a Web Application setting. When setting up Forms Based Authentication for a Web application on MOSS, the last option which is called "Enable Client Integration" is by default set to "No".

"You can disable client integration, which removes features that start client applications. This is the optimal configuration for some scenarios, such as publishing read-only content to the Web for anonymous access. Additionally, if you select ASP.NET forms authentication or Web Single Sign-On (SSO) authentication, client integration is set to No by default."



Having this option disabled, your sites under the web application will behave as following:

• Links that start client applications are not visible.
• Documents are opened in the browser.
• Documents cannot be opened by client applications.
• Users cannot edit documents on the site directly from the client applications. However, users can download the document, edit the document locally, and then upload the document.

For security reasons ActiveX controls are prevented to work avoiding you to use fundamental MOSS resources! Eg: Import Spreadsheet.

After changing the Enable client integration option to Yes, the import Spreadsheet link becomes availble as well as some other resources.

In my opinion planning authentication methods for MOSS is not a easy task, specially if you decide using FBA. Before choosing it spend some time doing lots of researches and try to find some people who has done it before. You should be aware of the FAB limitations!

For more information: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263304.aspx

Cheers!

MCTS - Windows SharePoint Serivces 3.0, Configuring

Hi all,

Last week, after spending some time working and studying WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007, I passed with 100% on the 70-631 exam

Passing this exam gives you the MCTS in WSS 3.0, Configuring.
This post helps you, as a guide, that might be interested on passing the 70-631 exam.

I found the exam pretty straigh forward and simple. Even not having too much experience in Network Infrastructure all the questions are not very deep and you are able to easily find lots of documentation doing some "googling".

I recomend you to prepare a test environment using VMWare or any virtualization software you find easy to use to simulate your WSS 3.0 environment.

In my case I am using Windows Virtual PC/Windows 2008 Server/SQL Express/WSS3.0.

The exam is composed by 41 questions to be completed in 2 hours. I would divide the exam in the following sections (You can also follow the Microsoft Learning Guide for WSS3.0, which is pretty much what is aked on the exam test!):

Monitor Windows SharePoint Services
What to research/study: WSS Logs, Logging activities in a farm, What is MOM (Microsoft Operations Manager), IIS Logs.

Configure Security for Windows SharePoint Services
What to research/study: How to implement SSL on WSS3.0, Using Microsoft ISA with WSS3.0, SQL authentication and database permissions and for WSS3.0, Roles and site permissions, Configure Information Rights Management (IRM), Configure Web Applications(Authentication), Apllication pools on IIS, Use of IRM.

Deploy Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (WSS)
What to research/study: Upgrade WSS2.0 to WSS3.0, Configure language packs on WSS 3.0, Install WSS 3.0.

Administer Windows SharePoint Services
What to research/study: What to research/study: Using basic stsadm commands (Backup, Deploy solutions and features), Recylcle bins, Use of content type, Configure Alternative access mapping for Web applications, Configure Workflows.

Manage Customization
What to research/study: Basic use of SharePoint Designer, Master pages, Page Layouts, Adding Web Parts to a page trough SPD,

Configure Network Infrastructure for Windows SharePoint Services
What to research/study: Configure Network Balancing, Configure DNS, Configure Alternative access mapping for Web applications.

If you have gone trough all those items, nothing can go wrong. Two hours is plenty of time to do finish and review all questions! If I had to give you a tip I would recommend you to focus your study on 2 sectons: Monitor Windows SharePoint Services, Configure Network Infrastructure for Windows SharePoint Services.

Also don't forget that the passing score is 70%!
Good luck!

Usefull links
http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/exams/70-631.mspx
http://zieglers.wordpress.com/2007/09/14/exam-70-631-ts-windows-sharepoint-services-30-configuring/
http://grounding.co.za/blogs/neil/archive/2008/06/20/preparation-guide-for-exam-70-631-wss-3-0.aspx