Serkant Samurkas

SharePoint Conditional Field V1.1.4.3

2011-05-05T02:19:00.001-07:00

SharePoint Conditional Field V1.1.4.3 beta version has been released http://spconditionalfield.codeplex.com/

How To: Customizing alert emails using IAlertNotifyHandler

2010-12-14T01:59:00.000-08:00

Nice post about How To: Customizing alert emails using IAlertNotifyHandler.
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sharepointdeveloperdocs/archive/2007/12/14/how-to-customizing-alert-emails-using-ialertnotificationhandler.aspx

Customizing Alert Notifications and Alert Templates in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

2010-12-14T01:55:00.000-08:00

Nice post about how to customize alert notifications and alert templates in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sharepointdeveloperdocs/archive/2007/12/07/customizing-alert-notifications-and-alert-templates-in-windows-sharepoint-services-3-0.aspx

SharePoint Outlook Connector Advanced Alert System Integration

2010-11-10T10:12:00.001-08:00

SharePoint Outlook Connector Advanced Alert System Integration
http://www.sobiens.com/default/sharepoint-advanced-alerts-spoc-demo.aspx

Digital Signature Support in InfoPath 2010

2010-03-16T04:57:00.000-07:00

Here is the improvement in InfoPath on Digital Signature from Gergely Kota.

http://blogs.msdn.com/infopath/archive/2010/02/18/digital-signature-support-in-infopath-2010.aspx

Building a SharePoint 2010 tag cloud search refiner

2010-03-16T03:52:00.000-07:00

Nice blog from El Otro

http://httpcode.com/blogs/PermaLink,guid,8b267ee2-e214-4187-8e8d-e3c4f092fc66.aspx

myspace for outlook

2010-03-16T03:50:00.001-07:00

What is MySpace for Outlook?
It's a newly available add-in that puts MySpace inside of Outlook:

Uses Microsoft's Social Connector to add the "People Pane," which shows a profile picture and other MySpace info for each contact who's also a friend
Creates a special MySpace Contact List
Shows your friends' status updates and other Stream activities
Provides one-click access to your friends' profiles
Enables you to easily email your friends

http://www.myspace.com/msoutlook

TWITTER ADD-IN FOR MICROSOFT OUTLOOK

2010-03-16T03:47:00.000-07:00

TwInbox seamlessly integrates Twitter into Outlook. It is a perfect Twitter client for any Outlook user, from a Twitter newbie to a business professional.

http://www.techhit.com/TwInbox/twitter_plugin_outlook.html

New Ajax Control SeaDragon

2010-03-16T03:12:00.000-07:00

The Seadragon control can be used for interactively viewing images. Use your mouse to pan and zoom around the image.

http://www.asp.net/ajax/ajaxcontroltoolkit/Samples/Seadragon/Seadragon.aspx

ASP.NET ComboBox - Master / Detail with Unlimited Detail Levels

2010-03-16T03:10:00.000-07:00

The ComboBox provides a built-in master / detail feature, which allows you to organize data from multiple data sources in the same ComboBox. To set up a detail ComboBox, add a new ComboBox control inside the Details section of the master ComboBox.

http://www.obout.com/combobox/aspnet_master_detail_unlimited.aspx

Powershell articles from Ted

2010-03-10T04:43:00.000-08:00

http://blog.tedpattison.net/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=3

SQL Reporting Services data from SharePoint lists

2010-03-08T17:53:00.000-08:00

Nice post to create reports with SharePoint data in SharePoint 2007
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/reporting-services/ReportFromSharePoint.aspx

Using the SharePoint Business Data Connectivity Designer in VS 2010

2010-03-04T16:28:00.000-08:00

Nice web cast. Thanks to Boris and Beth.

Boris shows off the new Business Data Connectivity designer in Visual Studio 2010 and how it allows you to describe data coming from multiple data sources and how to work with them in SharePoint. He builds a master/detail association across entities coming from separate data sources (a database and a service) and demonstrates how the entities can be displayed and edited.

http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/funkyonex/Using-the-SharePoint-Business-Data-Connectivity-Designer-in-VS-2010/

Visual Web Part in SharePoint 2010

2010-03-04T15:49:00.000-08:00

Visual Web Part in SharePoint 2010

Before I explain what it is, I will remind what we were doing to have visual control in SharePoint 2007. We were creating our ascx controls in TEMPLATE\CONTROLTEMPLATES folder. To be able to use the control in our webpart, we were loading it in CreateChildControls method with this.Page.LoadControl(_ascxPath); . _ascxPath is path for our control. You can see the following complete syntax.

protected override void CreateChildControls()
{
Control control = this.Page.LoadControl(_ascxPath);
Controls.Add(control);
base.CreateChildControls();
}

So what is new now. To be honest nothing has changed in strategy. But Visual studio made a great job including this future into Visual Studio. We do not need to think about deployment hassle and all other painfull operations. Now we can just simply add and change this future quickly.

Here is the sample about How to create Visual Web Part in Visual Studio 2010.
http://www.helloitsliam.com/archive/2009/10/20/sharepoint-2010-%E2%80%93-create-a-visual-web-part.aspx

Asp.Net 4.0 - Session State Compression

2010-03-02T17:17:00.000-08:00

Using sessions sometimes may cause performance problems. To prevent these we usually split the IIS and State machine server. Additionally we would store session in SQL server. One of the new future in ASP.net 4 will definetly be our pain killer on this subject. It is very simple configuraation. When we configure the sessionstate in web.config, we will simply set compressionEnabled as true. Then ASP.NET will compress (and decompress) serialized session state by using the .NET Framework System.IO.Compression.GZipStream class. You can simply give it a go and see the difference via configuring SQL DB as a sessionstate server and checking the size of SessionItemLong field in ASPStatesTempSessions table. On text values we can see incredible difference, but if it is an image file the difference will not be that incredible.

mode="SqlServer"
sqlConnectionString="data source=dbserver;Initial Catalog=aspnetstate"
allowCustomSqlDatabase="true"
compressionEnabled="true"
/>

Getting started with LINQ to SharePoint in SharePoint 2010

2010-03-02T16:20:00.000-08:00

Nice blog from Tobias Zimmergren, it clearly explains how to use LINQ to SharePoint in SharePoint 2010. I am now planing to integrate this into SharePoint Explorer in VS 2010.
http://www.zimmergren.net/archive/2010/02/19/sp-2010-getting-started-with-linq-to-sharepoint-in-sharepoint-2010.aspx

Nice posts from MS CS Forum

2010-03-02T11:09:00.000-08:00

Post1: Displaying advertisement depending on basket content

Requirement:
1. User has 1 of product 12345 in their basket
2. They navigate to the cart page
3. See advertisement which says to "buy 1 more to get free shipping" or "buy 1 more to get 10% off" (just examples). There would be discounts defined for these.

Elegant solution of Ravi
1. Create a user profile to store basket line items information.
2. Whenever an item is added to the basket, we will update this user object.
3. whenever a basket is converted into purhase order we will remove items from this profile,.
4. Using marketing manager, set basketitems as target profile. Check my blog which explains how to set target profile.
http://microsoftblog.co.in/commerceserver/targeting-on-other-profile-objects/
5. Create advertisements or discounts based on that target expression.

Windows Mobile reloaded!

2010-02-28T02:18:00.000-08:00

http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/15/windows-phone-7-series-hands-on-and-impressions/
http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/15/windows-phone-7-series-is-official-and-microsoft-is-playing-to/
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/pocket-gamer/7196-The-Pocket-Gamer-Report-Android-and-Windows-Mobile-7

SharePoint Outlook Connector now works with SharePoint 2010

2010-02-25T15:56:00.000-08:00

Finally I was able to make it working on SharePoint 2010. To be honest I did not have to do much things as most of the functionality worked pretty straightforward.

It also supports saving email meta data to SharePoint lists and attaching documents from SharePoint explorer panel.

Here is the link where you can download it.
http://spoutlookconnector.codeplex.com/

How to Add Current Item Field Values to DataFormWebPart as a parameter

2010-02-25T04:56:00.000-08:00

How to Add Current Item Field Values to DataFormWebPart as a parameter

One of my colleague had to implement a page which should give master detail functionality. So the requirement was displaying related items in the display form page. So she placed two webparts one for current list item (master) and one for related items (details). As it was display form (DispForm.aspx) the only she had was ItemID which is in the querystring. But it was not enough, she wanted it to pass One of the current item field value to filter related Items List. There is no option in the DataFormWebPart to get that. Therefore she asked me if there is any workaround for this.

I did couple of investigation but could not find anything. Then I produced the following solution.

Basicly you place the following class into your project. That is a replacement for DataFormWebPart which allows you to set current Item Field Values as parameters.

* Deploy this class with your DLL into GAC

* Add this as a safe control into web.config

* Open your page do the following modifications

Place this to your page and change assembly, namespace with yours.

<%@ Register Tagprefix="ExWebPart" Namespace="Sobiens.SharePoint.WebParts" Assembly="Sobiens.SharePoint, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=e76709a445fee1d6" %>

Goto DataFormWebPart tag and change it to <ExWebPart:EnhancedDataFormWebPart

Finally change your parameterbinding

This will set Parameter named Country to current item Country field's value.

Hope this helps.

public class EnhancedDataFormWebPart : DataFormWebPart

{

XmlDocument _ParameterBindingsXmlDocument = null;

XmlDocument ParameterBindingsXmlDocument

{

get

{

if (_ParameterBindingsXmlDocument == null)

{

_ParameterBindingsXmlDocument = new XmlDocument();

_ParameterBindingsXmlDocument.LoadXml("" + this.ParameterBindings + "");

}

return _ParameterBindingsXmlDocument;

}

XmlNode _ParameterBindingsXmlNode = null;

XmlNode ParameterBindingsXmlNode

{

get

{

if (_ParameterBindingsXmlNode == null)

{

_ParameterBindingsXmlNode = ParameterBindingsXmlDocument.SelectSingleNode("/ParameterBindings");

}

return _ParameterBindingsXmlNode;

}

private void SetParameterBinding(string key, string value)

{

XmlNode node = ParameterBindingsXmlNode.SelectSingleNode("/ParameterBindings/ParameterBinding[@Name = '" + key + "']");

if (node == null)

{

XmlNode parameterBindingNode = ParameterBindingsXmlDocument.CreateElement("ParameterBinding");

XmlAttribute nameAtrribute = ParameterBindingsXmlDocument.CreateAttribute("Name");

nameAtrribute.Value = key;

XmlAttribute locationAttribute = ParameterBindingsXmlDocument.CreateAttribute("Location");

locationAttribute.Value = "None";

XmlAttribute defaultValueAttribute = ParameterBindingsXmlDocument.CreateAttribute("DefaultValue");

defaultValueAttribute.Value = value;

parameterBindingNode.Attributes.Append(nameAtrribute);

parameterBindingNode.Attributes.Append(locationAttribute);

parameterBindingNode.Attributes.Append(defaultValueAttribute);

ParameterBindingsXmlNode.AppendChild(parameterBindingNode);

}

else

{

node.Attributes["DefaultValue"].Value = value;

}

private void ReplaceFormParameterBindings()

{

foreach (XmlNode node in ParameterBindingsXmlNode.ChildNodes)

{

string defaultValue=node.Attributes["DefaultValue"].Value;

if (defaultValue.ToLower().StartsWith("currentitemvalue(") == true)

{

int startIndex = defaultValue.IndexOf("(");

int lastIndex = defaultValue.IndexOf(")");

string fieldName = node.Attributes["DefaultValue"].Value.Substring(startIndex+1, lastIndex - startIndex-1);

if (SPContext.Current.Item[fieldName] != null)

{

node.Attributes["DefaultValue"].Value = SPContext.Current.Item[fieldName].ToString();

}

private void SetPropertiesAsParameterBindings()

{

ReplaceFormParameterBindings();

this.ParameterBindings = ParameterBindingsXmlNode.InnerXml;

}

protected override void OnLoad(EventArgs e)

{

base.OnLoad(e);

SetPropertiesAsParameterBindings();

}

FireFox's FireBug sometimes cause double postbacks

2010-02-16T05:49:00.000-08:00

FireBug's double postback bug

"Thanks for the great responses here. In my case it turn out to be FireBug (version 1.05) with FireFox 2.0.0.20. Once I switched off the FireBug Add-in, the double posts stopped."

http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?p=3022038

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/283011/firefox-sending-request-twice

SharePointOutlookConnector

2010-02-15T17:50:00.001-08:00

SharePointOutlookConnector makes it easier for outlook users to upload emails to SP and attach SP documents to an email message . You'll no longer have to save your email to desktop and upload from SP UI or download SP documents to your drive and attach them to your email.

http://spoutlookconnector.codeplex.com/

A GridView CommandField of type Image causes a double submit.

2010-02-01T05:16:00.000-08:00

When clicking on a CommandField of type Image in a GridView, there are two submits. One is the onclick eventhandler and the other is the default submit of an input element of type image. In Beta2 and before there was no onclick event handler and so there was only one submit, this is only a problem since RTM.

http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/105123/a-gridview-commandfield-of-type-image-causes-a-double-submit

Tutorial: Getting Started with TFS in VS2010

2009-12-17T01:13:00.000-08:00

http://blogs.msdn.com/jasonz/archive/2009/10/21/tutorial-getting-started-with-tfs-in-vs2010.aspx

SharePoint Explorer in SharePoint 2010

2009-12-16T16:42:00.000-08:00

SharePoint Server Explorer is a new feature in Visual Studio 2010. You can navigate between all objects in SharePoint 2010 but you are limited to see their properties only. The way to extend this control is creating a new class which will inherit from IExplorerNodeTypeExtension.

http://www.chakkaradeep.com/post/SharePoint-2010-Extending-a-SharePoint-Node-in-Server-Explorer.aspx

Spec Explorer - advanced model-based specification and conformance testing tool

2009-12-16T16:13:00.000-08:00

Spec Explorer 2010 is a tool that extends Visual Studio for modeling software behavior, analyzing that behavior by graphical visualization, model checking; and generating standalone test code from models. Behavior is modeled in two ways: by writing rule machines in C# (with dynamic data-defined state spaces) and by defining scenarios as action patterns in a regular-expression style. One of Spec Explorer’s major features is the ability to compose models written in these two styles. This technique enables users to slice out test cases from large state machines by defining relevant scenarios, thus tackling the notorious state-space explosion problem pervasive in model-based testing. Spec Explorer also supports combinatorial interaction testing with a rich set of features.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/devlabs/ee692301.aspx

Doloto - AJAX application optimization tool

2009-12-16T16:10:00.001-08:00

Doloto is an AJAX application optimization tool, especially useful for large and complex Web 2.0 applications that contain a lot of code, such as Bing Maps, Hotmail, etc. Doloto analyzes AJAX application workloads and automatically performs code splitting of existing large Web 2.0 applications. After being processed by Doloto, an application will initially transfer only the portion of code necessary for application initialization.

The rest of the application's code is replaced by short stubs -- their actual function code is transferred lazily in the background or, at the latest, on-demand on first execution. Since code download is interleaved with application execution, users can start interacting with the Web application much sooner, without waiting for the code that implements extra, unused features.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/devlabs/ee423534.aspx

How to Increase your VMware Hard Disk's size

2009-12-14T01:01:00.000-08:00

Following command line works like a magic :)

vmware-vdiskmanager -x 15GB "C:\VMs\Win2008VM\SharePoint2010.vmdk"

Microsoft Project Code Named “Velocity” Community Technology Preview 3 (CTP3)

2009-12-13T04:07:00.000-08:00

"Velocity" is a distributed in-memory application cache platform for developing scalable, high-performance applications. "Velocity" can be used to cache any common language runtime (CLR) object and provides access through simple APIs. The key aspects of "Velocity" are distributed cache performance, scalability, and availability.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=B24C3708-EEFF-4055-A867-19B5851E7CD2&displaylang=en

How to add parameters from different sources to DataFormWebPart

2009-12-12T21:44:00.000-08:00

Although DataFormWebPart supports several ways to get such as QueryString, Control values, CAML variable etc, There are some cases we need to assign parameters from codebehind. I am not going to show all the scenarios but I will give you hint how you can extend dataform webpart to allow taking parameter variables from different sources.

The first thing we need to do is, creating a new class which will inherit from DataFormWebPart.

using System;

using System.Text;

using Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages;

public class EnhancedDataFormWebPart : DataFormWebPart

{

}

The way we do is, replacing ParameterBindings string property inside of DataFormWebPart. This property is a xml string. We will load it as xml document and use following properties to make it accessible in our code.

XmlDocument _ParameterBindingsXmlDocument = null;

XmlDocument ParameterBindingsXmlDocument

{

get

{

if (_ParameterBindingsXmlDocument == null)

{

_ParameterBindingsXmlDocument = new XmlDocument();

_ParameterBindingsXmlDocument.LoadXml("" + this.ParameterBindings + "");

}

return _ParameterBindingsXmlDocument;

}

XmlNode _ParameterBindingsXmlNode = null;

XmlNode ParameterBindingsXmlNode

{

get

{

if (_ParameterBindingsXmlNode == null)

{

_ParameterBindingsXmlNode = ParameterBindingsXmlDocument.SelectSingleNode("/ParameterBindings");

}

return _ParameterBindingsXmlNode;

}

Lets also add this helper class to be able to manipulate xml document.

private void SetParameterBinding(string key, string value)

{

XmlNode node = ParameterBindingsXmlNode.SelectSingleNode("/ParameterBindings/ParameterBinding[@Name = '" + key + "']");

if (node == null)

{

XmlNode parameterBindingNode = ParameterBindingsXmlDocument.CreateElement("ParameterBinding");

XmlAttribute nameAtrribute = ParameterBindingsXmlDocument.CreateAttribute("Name");

nameAtrribute.Value = key;

XmlAttribute locationAttribute = ParameterBindingsXmlDocument.CreateAttribute("Location");

locationAttribute.Value="None";

XmlAttribute defaultValueAttribute = ParameterBindingsXmlDocument.CreateAttribute("DefaultValue");

defaultValueAttribute.Value = value;

parameterBindingNode.Attributes.Append(nameAtrribute);

parameterBindingNode.Attributes.Append(locationAttribute);

parameterBindingNode.Attributes.Append(defaultValueAttribute);

ParameterBindingsXmlNode.AppendChild(parameterBindingNode);

}

else

{

node.Attributes["DefaultValue"].Value = value;

}

Here is the key method we are going to use. This is where we set our custom properties. Via using this you can set your binding parameters from anywhere you like (web.config property, sql data etc)

private void SetPropertiesAsParameterBindings()

{

SetParameterBinding("WebPartTitle", this.Title);

SetParameterBinding("WebPartTitleURL", this.TitleUrl);

this.ParameterBindings = ParameterBindingsXmlNode.InnerXml;

}

Last thing we should do is calling this method on OnLoad method of the webpart.

protected override void OnLoad(EventArgs e)

{

base.OnLoad(e);

SetPropertiesAsParameterBindings();

}

Now it is time to replace DataFormWebPart with our EnhancedDataFormWebPart.

Add this line into your page and replace values with appropriate values from your solution.

Here the webpart comes :)

<ExWebParts:EnhancedDataFormWebPart id="TasksDisplayDataFormWebPart" runat="server"
FrameType="None" NoDefaultStyle="TRUE" ViewFlag="1" Title="Tasks"
DisplayName="Tasks" __markuptype="vsattributemarkup"
__WebPartId="{418745AA-67C6-481e-95F9-5C824AD0CE61}" WebPart="true">

<DataSources>

<SharePointWebControls:SPDataSource runat="server" DataSourceMode="List"
UseInternalName="true" selectcommand="<View/>" id="SPDataSource1"><SelectParameters><webpartpages:DataFormParameter Name="ListName" ParameterKey="ListName"
PropertyName="ParameterValues" DefaultValue="Tasks"/>

</SelectParameters>

</SharePointWebControls:SPDataSource>

</DataSources>

<ParameterBindings>
<ParameterBinding Name="ListName" Location="None" DefaultValue="Tasks" />
<ParameterBinding Name="dvt_apos" Location="Postback;Connection" />
<ParameterBinding Name="UserID" Location="CAMLVariable"
DefaultValue="CurrentUserName" />
<ParameterBinding Name="Today" Location="CAMLVariable" DefaultValue="CurrentDate" />
<ParameterBinding Name="WebPartTitle" Location="None" DefaultValue="{Title}" />
<ParameterBinding Name="WebPartTitleURL" Location="None" DefaultValue="{TitleUrl}" />
</ParameterBindings>

<datafields>@ID,ID;@ContentType,ContentType;@Title,Title;@Modified,Modified;@Created,Created;@Author,Author;@Editor,Editor;@_UIVersionString,_UIVersionString;@Attachments,Attachments;@LinkTitleNoMenu,LinkTitleNoMenu;@LinkTitle,LinkTitle;@FileRef,FileRef;@FileDirRef,FileDirRef;@FSObjType,FSObjType;@ProgId,ProgId;@ScopeId,ScopeId;@DocIcon,DocIcon;@MetaInfo,MetaInfo;@Priority,Priority;@Status,Status;@PercentComplete,PercentComplete;@AssignedTo,AssignedTo;@TaskGroup,TaskGroup;@Body,Body;@StartDate,StartDate;@DueDate,DueDate;</datafields>

<XslLink>/Style Library/XSL Style Sheets/test.xsl</XslLink>

</ExWebParts:EnhancedDataFormWebPart>

Last thing you need to do is adding following lines into Style Library/XSL Style Sheets as test.xsl file .

<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:x="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/dsp" version="1.0"
exclude-result-prefixes="xsl msxsl ddwrt"
xmlns:ddwrt="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WebParts/v2/DataView/runtime"
xmlns:asp="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ASPNET/20"
xmlns:__designer="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WebParts/v2/DataView/designer"
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
xmlns:msxsl="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xslt"
xmlns:SharePoint="Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls"
xmlns:ddwrt2="urn:frontpage:internal">

<xsl:output method="html" indent="no"/> <xsl:decimal-format NaN=""/>

<xsl:param name="dvt_apos">'</xsl:param>

<xsl:param name="WebPartTitle">

</xsl:param>

<xsl:param name="WebPartTitleURL"></xsl:param> <xsl:variable
name="dvt_1_automode">0</xsl:variable>

<xsl:template match="/">
WebPartTitleURL:<xsl:value-of select="$WebPartTitleURL"></xsl:value-of>
WebPartTitle:<xsl:value-of select="$WebPartTitle"></xsl:value-of>
<xsl:call-template name="dvt_1"/> </xsl:template>

<xsl:template name="dvt_1">

<xsl:variable name="Rows" select="/dsQueryResponse/Rows/Row"/>

<xsl:if test="$dvt_1_automode = '1'" ddwrt:cf_ignore="1">

</xsl:if>

<xsl:call-template name="dvt_1.body">

<xsl:with-param name="Rows" select="$Rows"/>

</xsl:call-template>

</xsl:template>

<xsl:template name="dvt_1.body">

<xsl:param name="Rows"/>

<xsl:for-each select="$Rows">

<xsl:call-template name="dvt_1.rowview"/>

</xsl:for-each>

</xsl:template>

<xsl:template name="dvt_1.rowview"> Title: <xsl:value-of select="@Title"/><br/>

</xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>

Reduce VPCs size

2009-11-24T15:21:00.000-08:00

This is a common issue we are all having. Creating seperate vhd files for each different environment such as SharePoint, Biztalk, Backend servers (Exchange, SQL etc). We still need to create different vhd files for these but instead of having 30 GB per environment, we are going to create one base vhd and inherit others from them( like an OOP ;) ). So lets take windows server 2008 as main operating system. We are going to create one vhd file and install Windows 2008 Server into that one. So lets name it as BaseWin2008.vhd .For the rest we are going to create them as using BaseWin2008.vhd file as base file. So that new vhd will only save the difference. It is saving pretty GBs is not it :)

So here is the command to create a vhd from base vhd file.

diskpart
create vdisk file=C:\SharePoint2010.vhd parent=C:\BaseWin2008.vhd
exit

Howto compact a vhd file

2009-11-24T10:24:00.000-08:00

1. First of all, install cccleaner. This tool is very usefull. It will remove all unnecessary files from your drive.

2. Defrag your drive.

3. From the CD menu, select Capture ISO Image and browse to the Virtual PC additions directory, which is %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Virtual PC\Virtual Machine Additions by default.
Mount Virtual Disk Precompactor.iso. Click ok to allow it to prepare your drive to be able to compacted.
4. Unmount the ISO from the CD menu.
5. Finally execute the Virtual Disk Wizard from the File menu and compact your VHD file.

Do not forget to make it read only if you want to use it as a base disk.

ADO.NET Data Services v1.5 CTP2

2009-11-19T15:16:00.000-08:00

This release (v1.5) will target the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 & Silverlight 3 platforms and provide new client and server side features for data service developers. In addition, the features included in this release (v1.5) will be part of the .NET Framework 4 release.
http://blogs.msdn.com/astoriateam/archive/2009/08/31/ado-net-data-services-v1-5-ctp2-now-available-for-download.aspx

Creating Proxy Object with Using Generic

2009-08-13T07:55:00.000-07:00

public class ObjectA : MarshalByRefObject
{
public void MethodA()
{
Console.WriteLine("MethodA is called.");
}
}

public class ObjectB : MarshalByRefObject
{
public void MethodB()
{
Console.WriteLine("MethoB is called");
}
}
public class GenericProxyManager : RealProxy where TObject : new()
{
private TObject _objectInstance;

public GenericProxyManager(TObject objectInstance) : base(typeof(TObject))
{
this._objectInstance = objectInstance;
}

public static TObject GetProxyObject()
{
TObject objectInstance = new TObject();
GenericProxyManager proxyObject = new GenericProxyManager(objectInstance);
TObject transparentProxyObject = (TObject)proxyObject.GetTransparentProxy();
return transparentProxyObject;
}

public override IMessage Invoke(IMessage msg)
{
IMethodCallMessage message = (IMethodCallMessage)msg;

// Unless you are sure the implementation covers only methods, you need to write some additional code for properties ( get/set )
if (message != null)
{
Console.WriteLine(message.MethodName + " has been handled before it called");
// Write necessary code here - this is before you invoke the method
object methodRetval = message.MethodBase.Invoke(_objectInstance, message.InArgs);
// Write necessary code here - this is after you invoke the method
ReturnMessage retVal = new ReturnMessage(methodRetval, null, 0, message.LogicalCallContext, message);
return retVal;
}
return null;
}
}

Lets execute the following code now
ObjectA obj = GenericProxyManager.GetProxyObject();
obj.MethodA();

ObjectB obj2 = GenericProxyManager.GetProxyObject();
obj2.MethodB();

Result will be

MethodA has been handled before it called
MethodA is called.
MethodB has been handled before it called
MethoB is called

Database Normalization

2009-08-12T09:08:00.000-07:00

Normalization is a process of certain rules to be applied while a database is being designed. The goal of this process is to prevent unnecesary data repeats and ensuring data dependencies and efficent use of data.

So what are these rules? There are five known normalization forms. Lets explain these one by one;

First Normal Form (1NF):
One row can contain only one information for a specific data.

Example;
WRONG: We have a Cars table and this table has a column called FuelType as nvarchar(255) and we are storing the data as

Cars
CarID	FuelType
1	"Petrol, Diesel"
2	"Diesel"
3	"Electric, Diesel"

CORRECT: We need to create a new table called FuelTypes which will store all the fuel types and instead of using FuelType nvarchar(255) column, FuelTypeID int should be used and needs to be related to FuelTypes table.

FuelTypes
FuelTypeID	Name
1	"Petrol"
2	"Diesel"
3	"Electric"

Cars
CarID	FuelTypeID
1	1
1	2
2	2
3	3
3	2

Second Normal Form (2NF)

A table that has a lookup column (which is primary key in other table) can not contain any information from that lookup table.

Example;
WRONG:

Services
ServiceID	WorkerID	WorkerName
1	2	Serkant
2	3	Catherine

Workers
WorkerID	WorkerName
2	Serkant
3	Catherine

CORRECT:

Services
ServiceID	WorkerID
1	2
2	3

Workers
WorkerID	WorkerName
2	Serkant
3	Catherine

Third Normal Form (3NF)

A table whose non-primary key fields are dependent only on the primary key and therefore have no dependence any other non-primary key field in the table.

Example;
WRONG:

Services
ServiceID	WorkerName	WorkerPhone
1	Serkant	0777 777 7777
2	Daniel	0777 888 8888

CORRECT:

Services
ServiceID	WorkerID
1	2
2	3

Workers
WorkerID	WorkerName	WorkerPhone
2	Serkant	0777 777 7777
3	Daniel	0777 888 8888

Fourth Normal Form (4NF)

A table can not contain two or more 1:n or n:m relationships that are not directly related.

Example;
WRONG:

Book Deliveries
Bookstore	Book	Area
Bookstore A	Book A	Area A
Bookstore A	Book A	Area B
Bookstore B	Book B	Area B
Bookstore C	Book B	Area C

CORRECT:

Bookstore Books
Bookstore	Book
Bookstore A	Book A
Bookstore B	Book A
Bookstore B	Book B

Bookstore Delivery Areas
Bookstore	Area
Bookstore A	Area A
Bookstore B	Area A
Bookstore B	Area B
Bookstore B	Area C

Fifth Normal Form (5NF)

This form deals with cases where information can be reconstructed from smaller pieces of information that can be maintained with less redundancy.

Example;
WRONG:

Salesman	Company	Product
Salesman A	Company A	Product A
Salesman A	Company A	Product B
Salesman B	Company B	Product A
Salesman B	Company B	Product B

CORRECT:

Company Salesmen
Company	Salesman
Company A	Salesman A
Company B	Salesman B

Company Products
Company	Product
Company A	Product A
Company A	Product B
Company B	Product A
Company B	Product B

Salesman Products
Salesman	Product
Salesman A	Product A
Salesman A	Product B
Salesman B	Product A
Salesman B	Product B

[SQL Server Performance] Speed up your query with covering index

2009-08-12T01:08:00.000-07:00

Do you use the same statement often? Are you facing performance issues on that query? Covering index is what you need :) (Ofc depends on your statement/data size)

So what is covering? Covering index is a technique of designing indexes for a table, not a type of index. I will explain this technique with an example.

Lets take Orders table from Northwind sample db. Orders table has a clustered index on CustomerID. We would like to see shipping fee for daily basis. To get this data execute to following query.

select OrderDate, SUM(Freight) from Northwind.dbo.[Orders] where group by OrderDate

As you can see from execution plan, it scans all clustered index data then sorting and grouping the result from index scan.

Lets put an index for OrderDate and Freight fields and see what happens

CREATE INDEX IX_OrderDate_Freight ON dbo.ORDERS(OrderDate, Freight)

then execute the same query

select OrderDate, SUM(Freight) from Northwind.dbo.[Orders] where group by OrderDate

It is directly accessing to the index and getting all the necessary information from index. Normally if sql scans a non-clustered index and there are some fields in the statement which does not exist in the index, Sql Server engine goes to original record to get the field values for every single record. This may cause a performance issue. In this example as it gets all necessary information from index it will speed up the query. Additionally as non-clustered index is sorted, it saves the engine from making additional sorting process.

Note: When you select your index, try to pick small size ones like smallint, integer, datetime. If you have bigger size fields then the implementation may cost more then you had. Try to prevent to put index on the table which has big number of insert/update/delete operations as well. Because everytime a record is changed, indexes will be reviewed from SQL Server Engine to see if they need to be sorted again.

Difference between Clustered and Non-Clustered Indexes

2009-08-07T05:40:00.000-07:00

Most of the performance issues are being faced is about how indexes are implemented. Although indexing is very benefical, it can cause performance problems if it is not well structured. In this post i am going to explain the difference between Clustered and Non-Clustered, and also on which condition we should prevent using indexing.

Following explains the methods we are going to use ;

* Lists all of a table's data and index pages
DBCC IND
(
['database name'|database id], -- the database to use
table name, -- the table name to list results
index id, -- an index_id from sys.indexes; -1 shows all indexes and IAMs, -2 just show IAMs
)

* Setting via trace flag 3604, It allows to instruct the engine to send output to the console
DBCC TRACEON(3604)

* DBCC PAGE statement lists the page header, data rows, and row offset table for any data page in a database.
DBCC PAGE ( {dbid | dbname}, filenum, pagenum [, printopt] [, cache]

Lets have a look how they stored by SQL;

1) Non indexed Table
Tables do not have a default index.

. Create the test table

Create Table TestTable
(
Id Int,
Name Varchar(255)
)

. Insert test data

Insert Into TestTable Values (3, 'Name3')
Insert Into TestTable Values (1, 'Name1')
Insert Into TestTable Values (2, 'Name2')

. Query the table

Select * From TestTable

. See the result

Id Name
-------------- ------------------
3 Name3
1 Name1
1 Name2

As there is no index, data was returned as the same order as they were inserted.

. See the structure of the data
Declare @dbID Int, @TableID Int
Set @dbID = db_id()
Set @TableID = object_id('TestTable')
DBCC ind(@dbID, @TableID, -1)

Here is the result

The columns mean:

* PageFID - the file ID of the page
* PagePID - the page number in the file
* IAMFID - the file ID of the IAM page that maps this page (this will be NULL for IAM pages themselves as they're not self-referential)
* IAMPID - the page number in the file of the IAM page that maps this page
* ObjectID - the ID of the object this page is part of
* IndexID - the ID of the index this page is part of
* PartitionNumber - the partition number (as defined by the partitioning scheme for the index) of the partition this page is part of
* PartitionID - the internal ID of the partition this page is part of
* iam_chain_type - see IAM chains and allocation units in SQL Server 2005
* PageType - the page type. Some common ones are:
1 - data page
2 - index page
3 and 4 - text pages
8 - GAM page
9 - SGAM page
10 - IAM page
11 - PFS page
* IndexLevel - what level the page is at in the index (if at all). Remember that index levels go from 0 at the leaf to N at the root page (except in clustered indexes in SQL Server 2000 and 7.0 - where there's a 0 at the leaf level (data pages) and a 0 at the next level up (first level of index pages))
* NextPageFID and NextPagePID - the page ID of the next page in the doubly-linked list of pages at this level of the index
* PrevPageFID and PrevPagePID - the page ID of the previous page in the doubly-linked list of pages at this level of the index

But we are only interested with PagePID, IndexID and PageType

SPDataSource

2009-06-25T02:15:00.001-07:00

There are many ways to retrieve SharePoint content such as SPDataSource, SPQuery
and looping through in SharePoint Object library.

Today we will have a look at the SPDataSource. SPDataSource is an object
datasource which supply information from SharePoint by given parameters.

Here is a sample of SPDataSource syntax.

<SharePointWebControls:SPDataSource runat="server" DataSourceMode="List"
UseInternalName="true" selectcommand="<View/>" id="SPDataSource1">

<SelectParameters>

<webpartpages:DataFormParameter Name="ListName" ParameterKey="ListName"
PropertyName="ParameterValues" DefaultValue="Tasks"/>

</SelectParameters>

</SharePointWebControls:SPDataSource>

DataSourceMode:
(

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.sharepoint.webcontrols.spdatasource.datasourcemode.aspx
)

• List: Retrieves
data from a list

<SharePoint:SPDataSource ID="SPDataSource1"
runat="server" DataSourceMode="List" UseInternalName="true"
SelectCommand="<Query><OrderBy><FieldRef Name='DueDate' Ascending='true'
/></OrderBy></Query>">

<SelectParameters>

<asp:Parameter
Name="ListName" DefaultValue="Tasks" />

<asp:Parameter
Name="WebID" DefaultValue="RootWeb" />

</SelectParameters>

</SharePoint:SPDataSource>

<asp:GridView ID="GridView1"
runat="server" DataSourceID="SPDataSource1" AutoGenerateColumns="false">

<Columns>

<asp:BoundField HeaderText="Due Date"
DataField="DueDate" />

<asp:BoundField HeaderText="Priority"
DataField="Priority" />

<asp:BoundField HeaderText="Title"
DataField="Title" />

<asp:BoundField HeaderText="Status"
DataField="Status" />

</Columns>

</asp:GridView>

• ListItem: Retrieves
data from a single list item

<SharePoint:SPDataSource
ID="SPDataSource1" runat="server" DataSourceMode="ListItem"
UseInternalName="true" >

<SelectParameters>

<asp:Parameter
Name="WebID" DefaultValue="RootWeb" />

<asp:Parameter
Name="ListName" DefaultValue="Announcements" />

<asp:Parameter
Name="ListItemID" DefaultValue="1" />

</SelectParameters>

</SharePoint:SPDataSource>

<asp:GridView
ID="GridView1" runat="server" DataSourceID="SPDataSource1"
AutoGenerateColumns="false">

<Columns>

<asp:BoundField
HeaderText="Title" DataField="Title" />

<asp:BoundField
HeaderText="Expires" DataField="Expires" />

</Columns>

</asp:GridView>

• CrossList:
Retrieves data from multiple lists in multiple websites in the same site
collection.

<SharePoint:SPDataSource ID="SPDataSource1" runat="server"
DataSourceMode="CrossList" UseInternalName="true" SelectCommand="<Webs
Scope='Recursive'></Webs> <Lists ServerTemplate='106'></Lists> <View>
<ViewFields> <FieldRef Name='EventDate'/> <FieldRef Name='Title'/> <FieldRef
Name='Location'/ </ViewFields> <Query> <Where> <And> <Eq> <FieldRef
Name='Location'/> <Value Type='Text'>Your office</Value> </Eq> <Eq> <FieldRef
Name='EventDate'/> <Value Type='DateTime'><Today/></Value> </Eq> </And> </Where>
</Query> </View>" >

</SharePoint:SPDataSource>

<asp:GridView
ID="GridView1" runat="server" DataSourceID="SPDataSource1"
AutoGenerateColumns="false" Width="75%" HeaderStyle-HorizontalAlign="Left" >

<Columns>

<asp:BoundField
HeaderText="Date" DataField="EventDate" />

<asp:BoundField
HeaderText="Title" DataField="Title" />

<asp:BoundField
HeaderText="Location" DataField="Location" />

</Columns>

</asp:GridView>

• ListOfLists:
Retrieves properties of lists in a specified web site.

<SharePoint:SPDataSource ID="SPDataSource1" runat="server"
DataSourceMode="CrossList" UseInternalName="true" SelectCommand="<Webs
Scope='Recursive'></Webs> <Lists ServerTemplate='106'></Lists> <View>
<ViewFields> <FieldRef Name='EventDate'/> <FieldRef Name='Title'/> <FieldRef
Name='Location'/ </ViewFields> <Query> <Where> <And> <Eq> <FieldRef
Name='Location'/> <Value Type='Text'>Your office</Value> </Eq> <Eq> <FieldRef
Name='EventDate'/> <Value Type='DateTime'><Today/></Value> </Eq> </And> </Where>
</Query> </View>" >

</SharePoint:SPDataSource>

<asp:GridView
ID="GridView1" runat="server" DataSourceID="SPDataSource1"
AutoGenerateColumns="false" Width="75%" HeaderStyle-HorizontalAlign="Left" >

<Columns>

<asp:BoundField
HeaderText="Date" DataField="EventDate" />

<asp:BoundField
HeaderText="Title" DataField="Title" />

<asp:BoundField
HeaderText="Location" DataField="Location" />

</Columns>

</asp:GridView>

• Web: Retrieves
properties of subsites of the current web site.

<SharePoint:SPDataSource ID="SPDataSource1" runat="server" DataSourceMode="Webs"
IncludeHidden="true">

<SelectParameters>

<asp:Parameter
Name="WebId" DefaultValue="RootWeb" />

</SelectParameters>

</SharePoint:SPDataSource>

<asp:GridView
ID="GridView1" runat="server" DataSourceID="SPDataSource1"
AutoGenerateColumns="false">

<Columns>

<asp:BoundField
HeaderText="Site Title" DataField="__spTitle" />

<asp:BoundField
HeaderText="URL" DataField="__spUrl" />

<asp:BoundField
HeaderText="ID" DataField="__spID" />

<asp:BoundField
HeaderText="Web Template" DataField="__spWebTemplate" />

<asp:BoundField
HeaderText="Web Template Id" DataField="__spWebTemplateId" />

</Columns>

</asp:GridView>

SelectCommand: This is where we define our
query to get data. CAML is the query syntax. Custom parameters such as
QueryString, existing variables, programmatically defined
parameterbindings can be used.

SelectParameters (

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.sharepoint.webcontrols.spdatasource.selectparameters.aspx
): That is used to define to
pass parameters into data control.

Following list states
what can be assigned as default values

WebID	”RootWeb” for the root Web site. Otherwise, a string representation of a GUID such as the value of the SPWeb.ID property.
WebURL	An empty string for the root Web site. Otherwise, a string containing a server-relative URL.
ListID	A string representation of a GUID such as the value of the SPList.ID property.
ListName	The value of the SPList.Title property.
ListItemGUID	A A string representation of a GUID such as the value of the SPListItem.UniqueId property.
ListItemID	A string representation of an integer such as the value of the SPListItem.ID property.
RootFolder	The value of the SPFolder.Name property.
FolderID	A string representation of a GUID such as the value of the SPFolder.UniqueId property.

Additionally we can assign parameters from;

QueryString: <asp:QueryStringParameter Name="CompanyName"
QueryStringField="Company" DefaultValue="Contoso" />

Control: <asp:ControlParameter Name="CompanyName" ControlID="DropDownList1"
PropertyName="SelectedValue" />

ParameterBinding: <webpartpages:DataFormParameter Name="PostID"
ParameterKey="PostID" PropertyName="ParameterValues" DefaultValue="0"/>

DataFormWebPart

2009-06-24T05:19:00.001-07:00

One of the most important part in SharePoint is displaying the content without
braking any SharePoint features.

In this scenario DataFormWebPart is our guidance. There are always other ways to
display the content like custom webparts/webpartpages, but developing with these
methods may cost us lots of time.

In the following example we will learn how to develop a simple DataFormWebPart.

This is the syntax we will work on it.

<WebPartPages:DataFormWebPart id="TasksDisplayDataFormWebPart" runat="server"
FrameType="None" NoDefaultStyle="TRUE" ViewFlag="1" Title="Tasks"
DisplayName="Tasks" __markuptype="vsattributemarkup"
__WebPartId="{418745AA-67C6-481e-95F9-5C824AD0CE61}" WebPart="true">

<DataSources>

<SharePointWebControls:SPDataSource runat="server" DataSourceMode="List"
UseInternalName="true" selectcommand="<View/>" id="SPDataSource1">

<SelectParameters>

<webpartpages:DataFormParameter Name="ListName" ParameterKey="ListName"
PropertyName="ParameterValues" DefaultValue="Tasks"/>

</SelectParameters>

</SharePointWebControls:SPDataSource>

</DataSources>

<ParameterBindings>

<ParameterBinding Name="ListName" Location="None" DefaultValue="Tasks" />

<ParameterBinding Name="dvt_apos" Location="Postback;Connection" />

<ParameterBinding Name="UserID" Location="CAMLVariable"
DefaultValue="CurrentUserName" />

<ParameterBinding Name="Today" Location="CAMLVariable" DefaultValue="CurrentDate" />

<ParameterBinding Name="WebPartTitle" Location="None" DefaultValue="{Title}" />

<ParameterBinding Name="WebPartTitleURL" Location="None" DefaultValue="{TitleUrl}" />

</ParameterBindings>

<datafields>@Title,Title;@ID,ID</datafields>

<XslLink>/Style Library/XSL Style Sheets/SPTest/FullContent.xsl</XslLink>

</WebPartPages:DataFormWebPart >

Now let’s have a look at the properties;

a) DataSources: This defines where the data to get from We have some controls to
get the data, here is some of them;

i) SPDataSource: Gets the data from single or multiple (cross, we
will mention it in later blogs) SharePoint libraries content.

DataSourceMode:

• List: Retrieves
data from a list

• ListItem: Retrieves
data from a single list item

• CrossList:
Retrieves data from multiple lists in multiple websites in the same site
collection.

• ListOfLists:
Retrieves properties of lists in a specified web site.

• Web: Retrieves
properties of subsites of the current web site.

SelectCommand: This is where we define our
query to get data. CAML is the query syntax. Custom parameters such as
QueryString, existing variables, programmatically defined
parameterbindings can be used, but it will be shown on feature blogs.

SelectParameters: That is used to define to
pass parameter binding values and also other type of parameters.

ii) SPXmlDataSource:

<SharePoint:SPXmlDataSource runat="server">

<DataFileParameters>

<WebPartPages:DataFormParameter Name="FileName" ParameterKey="FileName"
PropertyName="ParameterValues" DefaultValue="items.xml"/>

<WebPartPages:DataFormParameter Name="FilePath" ParameterKey="FilePath"
PropertyName="ParameterValues" DefaultValue=""/>

</DataFileParameters>

</SharePoint:SPXmlDataSource>

b) ParameterBindings: To supply user defined or environment defined values to
the actual query.

c) DataFields: Fields those are used in xsl.

d) XSLLink: Xsl file to display content in a custom format.

Sample of the following code xsl;

<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:x="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/dsp" version="1.0"
exclude-result-prefixes="xsl msxsl ddwrt"
xmlns:ddwrt="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WebParts/v2/DataView/runtime"
xmlns:asp="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ASPNET/20"
xmlns:__designer="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WebParts/v2/DataView/designer"
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
xmlns:msxsl="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xslt"
xmlns:SharePoint="Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls"
xmlns:ddwrt2="urn:frontpage:internal">

<xsl:output method="html" indent="no"/> <xsl:decimal-format NaN=""/>

<xsl:param name="dvt_apos">'</xsl:param>

<xsl:param name="WebPartTitle">

</xsl:param>

<xsl:param name="WebPartTitleURL"></xsl:param> <xsl:variable
name="dvt_1_automode">0</xsl:variable>

<xsl:template match="/">

<xsl:call-template name="dvt_1"/> </xsl:template>

<xsl:template name="dvt_1">

<xsl:variable name="Rows" select="/dsQueryResponse/Rows/Row"/>

<xsl:if test="$dvt_1_automode = '1'" ddwrt:cf_ignore="1">

</xsl:if>

<xsl:call-template name="dvt_1.body">

<xsl:with-param name="Rows" select="$Rows"/>

</xsl:call-template>

</xsl:template>

<xsl:template name="dvt_1.body">

<xsl:param name="Rows"/>

<xsl:for-each select="$Rows">

<xsl:call-template name="dvt_1.rowview"/>

</xsl:for-each>

</xsl:template>

<xsl:template name="dvt_1.rowview"> Title: <xsl:value-of select="@Title"/><br/>

</xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>