We started our great Conference – TechEd 2010 today and I presented my 1st session in the evening.

I did “SharePoint Server 2010” session and there were 154 attendees and the room was full. It was very exiting to see such a crowd and I covered few demos during 1 hour session.

My special thanks goes to Wellington Perera for giving me the opportunity to present at this event and also special thanks to Arpan Shah and Inder Rathore for helping me with preparing the PPT.

And the other specialty of this TechEd 2010 Sri Lanka is today 03 SolidQ presenters were presenting and this is for the 1st time in this part of world that 3 SolidQ Mentors participated as speakers in a TechEd.

Just 01 more days left for the big IT Conference in Sri Lanka after 3+ years. I’m damn busy with preparing for my sessions though I’m suffering with cold.

I though it’s better if I could share the agenda of my sessions just in case if it’s confusing or difficult to locate my sessions in the agenda.

Come and join with me to discover the power of new technologies.

University of Wayamba is located in Kuliyapitiya-around 02 hours away from Colombo. They organized a 02 days .NET Workshop on 8th and 09th and I did a session on C# Language Features including Visual Studio IDE Features.

There were nearly 25 participants and all of them from 1st & 2nd Year batches. I did a 04 hour session and laid the foundation for them to take it to next level.

Sri Lanka is getting ready for another presidential election. And we have stepped to new year-2010. Sri Lankan government announced year 2009 as the year of ICT and English.

In year 2010, Sri Lankan government will continue their investments in the area of ICT and English. As recognized individual in the industry we have been invited to share our ideas with the responsible individuals in the government and today is the 1st of series of Tech Colloquiums going to happen in this year.

Mr. Lalith Weeratunge, Mr. Gotabaya Rajapakse and Major General Shavendra Silva joined from the government while Mr. Sriyan de Silva Wijeyeratne joined from Microsoft Sri Lanka.

The event was held at Cinnamon Lakeside from 5 pm to 8 pm.

January 1st was a very long day because I was waiting for the email from MVP Administrator but it didn't not reach my inbox. Oh it came on the 2nd.

As I expected they have renewed my MVP status and this is the 3rd time in a row I'm getting nominated as a Microsoft Most valuable Professional (MVP) and the other important thing is they have changed my MVP criteria from Visual C# to SharePoint Server. So that’s it.

I’m very much proud to say I’m the 1st and only SharePoint Server MVP in Sri Lanka.

It’s been a very very long time that we had a TechEd Sri Lanka due to various reasons. Our guys missed a lot of stuffs and it’s time to have one. For those who are not capable of flying out of country and attend any other TechEd events, it’s time to have a TechEd locally.

Guys, get ready and stay tuned…

Microsoft launches Business Intelligence Developer Network (BIDN) Beta site today. BIDN is a FREE ocean of information starting from novice BI guys to experienced BI guys.

Come and join : http://www.bidn.com/

Guys, Microsoft made available Office 2010 Beta 1 last night for MSDN and TechNet Subscribers to download. Check it out and I’m already on my way.

Guys, long awaiting SharePoint 2010 Beta 1 was released to public last night. If you are a MSDN Subscriber or TechNet Subscriber why wait anymore?

I have already started downloading and its 3% completed.

If you have a 32-bit implementation of MOSS 2007, you can’t perform an in-place upgrade to SharePoint 2010. Microsoft recommend 1st upgrading from MOSS 2007 32-bit to MOSS 2007 64-bit and then upgrade to SharePoint 2010.

With this best practice, we will be able to identify what assemblies, WebParts, iFilters, 3rd party controls, etc. not supported in 64-bit environment and we can recompile them.

Get ready for SharePoint 2010 upgrade: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=155576

If your existing SharePoint environment on Windows Server 2003 and in 32-bit, Microsoft recommend upgrading from 32-bit to 64-bit and also from Server 2003 to Server 2008 at the same time and then upgrade from MOSS 2007 to SharePoint 2010 as a separate exercise.

With regard to Database server, if you are using SQL Server 2000 in a 32-bit mode, upgrade it to 64-bit SQL Server 2005 SP2 or SQL Server 2008 at the same time and then upgrade it to SharePoint 2010 as a separate exercise.

Don’t mix up architecture upgrade (32-bit to 64-bit), underline product upgrade (Server 2003 t0 2008 & SQL Server 2000 to 2005/ 2008) and SharePoint upgrade since we will not be able to isolate any issues arises.

I came across this feature very recently and I found this to be a very useful feature. I took few hours to finish this article for you and please be kind enough to give me your feedback.

Though it looks very lengthy article, don’t worry, it’s full of screenshots.

http://www.joyr.ws/page/Article-e28093-Object-Test-Bench-in-Visual-Studio-2008.aspx

Happy coding..!

How many of you like stsadm command? How many operation you have used from the huge list of operations comes with stsadm?

Here is a Silverlight interactive application for you to get familiar with all the stsadm operations and this a very productive application for SharePoint engineers.

It will show you all the stsadm operations and you can click on an operation to get the description, and a link to the full article in TechNet. And you will be able to use the full-text search to search for an operation and locate the required information very easily.

stsadm Technical Reference for WSS 3.0

stsadm Technical Reference for SharePoint Server 2007

Have you ever used Content Deployment tool in SharePoint Server 2007?

Have you eve come across of pain in transferring initial data from Development server to Staging server or Staging server to Production server? How did you do that? Backup & Restore? Recreated the entire solution? Did you know the best approach for that?

Well, Content Deployment in SharePoint Server 2007 is designed for transferring initial content including site structure and the master data from Development server to Staging server or Staging server to Production server.

There were not enough information about this tool and here are some good articles:

Escalation Engineer Stefan's Content Deployment - Best Practices

I have seen the success of this tool with few of our local clients (MAS, Dilmah ).

Are you .NET Developer and are you looking to taste SharePoint 2010 development?

Here you have few videos and 10 Hands-On-Labs to get started:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/ee513147.aspx

Last October 19th was a special day for entire world. Microsoft unveiled SharePoint 2010 in SharePoint Conference @ Las Vegas.

We were all under special NDA and our hands were bound by that. I managed to keep my mouth shut and finally we are FREE to talk about it.

I did very 1st session on SharePoint 2010 today @ .NET Forum and we had a very crowd. Most of them from different organizations and that was a very good indication for Microsoft Sri Lanka to judge how customers are waiting to see the product.

There were nearly 70 and I gave more focus on the SharePoint Development area using new Visual Studio 2010 Beta. I covered WebPart development & deployment, LINQ to SharePoint, Business Connectivity Services (BCS) and few other general features.

I noticed how enthusiastic they are and they are in real hunger to see the Beta coming.

With the key note by Steve Ballmer today at SharePoint Conference, Microsoft unveiled SharePoint 2010 and they will be releasing 1st public Beta in November.

I’m waiting to see some exiting events happening locally and getting ready for few sessions. I would recommend all those who love to see what’s there in the new version of SharePoint, here is the best starting place:

http://blogs.msdn.com/arpans/archive/2009/10/19/welcome-to-sharepoint-2010.aspx

I always like to read Arpan’s posts and here yet another useful post.

It’s been a long time Microsoft published 3 videos on SharePoint 2010. I’m not sure how many of you have watched them completely.

Here is you get a chance to download them and watch offline:

1. Overview Video: 1001251_SharePoint2010_Overview_SneakPeek_Rizzo_mobile.wmv 
2. Developers Video: 1001251_SharePoint_SneakPeek_For_Developers_Andrew_mobile.wmv 
3. IT Pro’s Video: 1001251_SharePoint_SneakPeek_For_IT_Professionals_Riley_mobile.wmv 

Guys, go ahead and download them for offline view.

I’m very much proud to announce that I have been selected as a Mentor for Solid Quality Mentors (SQM) today.

My special thanks goes to Rushabh Mehtha, Managing Director, Solid Quality India (Pvt.) Ltd. and my CEO - Keith Samuel for the recommendation and the guidance towards this achievement in my life. It was a very tough task becoming a Mentor in SQM since we have very few, handful Mentors around the globe. I got the God’s blessing to become the 1st ever in Sri Lanka and this is a great great achievement in my career.

My area of Mentoring will be SharePoint and Custom Development and i will get the opportunity work with great set of highly skilled individuals in future.

What is SQM?

“Solid Quality Mentors (http://www.solidq.com) is comprised of more than 100 of the world's top technical experts who specialize in assuring client success using integrated Microsoft technologies. Since being founded in 2002, we have become a trusted global provider of advanced education and solutions for Microsoft Data Management and Development platforms.

As a global provider of training, mentoring, and support, Solid Quality Mentors creates unique offerings, crafted specifically for your organization's needs. We work daily with the constantly evolving SQL Server and Microsoft Business Intelligence platforms to ensure that your company achieves optimum performance from their Microsoft IT investment and takes advantage of the latest database application features to remain competitive in this ever-changing industry.”

Microsoft’s new financial year started by talking to all the Microsoft managed partners and they introduced new product which they want partners to focus and sell during next financial year.

There were nearly 120 participants including CEOs, CTOs, Sales & Marketing, Technical Specialists, etc. and there were 2 tracks-Business Forums and Technical Track.

I was asked to present SharePoint Server 2007 and to talk about the selling point so that partners can go and sell SharePoint 2007.

I covered all the key features in SharePoint Server 2007 and focused more on the verticals such as Business Process Management, Content Management, Search which every organization can focus in their initial implementations.

Microsoft started joining the club by providing FREE online storage and document sharing. They started giving couple if GBs to store our documents online so that we have access to 24x7 anywhere in the world.

Google for Applications was a another hit in the market and Microsoft has address that with the introduction of FREE Web Sites feature into the existing Office Live tool set. Now it’s called Microsoft Office Live Small Business.

I spent only nearly 30 minutes to get my site up and running (http://www.joyr.web.officelive.com ) and it gives you so a user-friendly toolset to change the design of your site.

Why don’t you try other cool features offered by Microsoft Office Live Small Business? Get started here http://www.officelive.com/en-us/

We all have this question in mind, specially SharePoint Developers. That is - What actions we can do with SharePoint Features and where they can use.

Features are developed to be activated in either Web, Site, Web Application or Farm scope.

Following table summarize the answer for the above question:

Source: Professional Web Content Management Management by Andrew Connell

I tried to get a key for Microsoft Visio 2010 CTP. This is what I saw in the connect site:

For the 1st time in Sri Lanka, we had a Code Camp as part of celebrating 05 years for the Sri Lanka .NET Forum.

We had tables for discussing Silverlight, ASP.NET, SharePoint Development, WPF, SQL Server and I headed the SharePoint Development table.

We had very limited questions about the SharePoint development but it was very useful for others to know about the technology.

I hope we will be able to have more and more Code Camps in future.

As an active member and part of the ASIA MVP Certification Hero Campaign, I stood a chance to be recognized as the ASIA MVP Certification Hero.

As a token of appreciation I received a recognition plaque and Wela presented to me on this special day (yesterday) – 5 years of .NET User Group celebration.

We are celebrating 5 years of the .NET Forum for this July and special thanks goes to all who contributed from year 2004.

We had a special 3 hours session today and there were more than 170 members turned up to the session.

I did 1st session on Visual Studio 2010 IDE enhancements and C# 4.0 language features. I spent a lot of time on 2 main new features of C# 4.0 – Named & Optional Parameters and Dynamic lookup.

I didn’t enough time to cover COM Interop and Variance features, and I will be blogging about them soon.

You can download the PPT from:

http://www.joyr.ws/downloads/PPT.rar

I wanted to write a big number in words and I was thinking why we don’t have a function in Excel to do that.

Here is the answer given by Microsoft:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/213360

We are celebrating 5 year anniversary of the .NET Forum in this special month of July (becoz, my birthday also in July).

We have a special session organized on tomorrow (23rd) 4 pm onward. Guys, come and join with us to celebrate this special moment.

We have 3 cool sessions organized on .NET Framework 4.0, Visual Studio 2010, C# 4.0 and ASP.NET 4.0

More information http://www.dotnetforum.lk

Google, Adobe and Zoho are the most popular online personal productivity tools providers. Microsoft will be joining the club with a huge step with the release of Office 2010.

As you all know Office 2010 Technical Preview is available for download and test. Guys, hurry and grab your download ticket.

If you want to get more information about the new Office 2010 check on this http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/13/microsoft-office-2010-starts-ascension-to-the-cloud/

I have been monitoring all the blogs, news feeds to hear about the new version of SharePoint. Here it is. Microsoft finally started detailing about SharePoint 2010.

Guys, no time to relax. Get ready to use the ribbon user interface, Business Connectivity Services, SharePoint Workspace and much more administrative features.

http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/operatingsystems/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=218500775&subSection=News

One of the leading mobile communication providers in Sri Lanka wanted to know how they can bring their processes in to SharePoint intranet using Microsoft technologies.

They have tried WF and they wanted to have a general awareness session to see the capabilities of WF and opportunities they have in the area of Business Process Management with WF and SharePoint.

I’ve been asked to conduct a session for 5 of Senior Software Engineers. I showcased them the capabilities of the Visual Studio 2008 and the WF and how we can use SharePoint as the platform for deploying WF solutions.

I saw Wela online and wanted to chat with him. He says, “talk to me later I'm in the hospital”.

Do you know the reason? He was telling me that he became a father today morning. His wife has given birth to a little, cute boy.

Congrats Wela..! Now you will feel how tough it is becoming a father. Be a good father..!

Microsoft announced Beta 1 for Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0 today. You can download and give it a try to see what Microsoft Developer Platform team has done during last few months.

I’m still downloading.

MOSS/ WSS Service Pack 2 includes all the fixes prior to SP2, and also several enhancements to improve server farm performance, availability and stability. And also it adds new stsadm operations to help customers prepare for the upgrade to the next version of SharePoint.

For more information including installation steps and the download link go to:

http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2009/04/28/announcing-service-pack-2-for-office-sharepoint-server-2007-and-windows-sharepoint-services-3-0.aspx

C# 4.0 which will be part of .NET Framework 4.0 specification is available for public now.

http://download.microsoft.com/download/7/E/6/7E6A548C-9C20-4C80-B3B8-860FAF20887A/CSharp 4.0 Specification.doc

It’s time to dive deep.

ITPro community in Sri Lanka has organized a DeepDive session and you can get more details from http://deepdive.itproforum.lk

When you install WSS 3.0, and if you select Advanced as the setup mode, you will be prompted with the SharePoint products and technologies configuration wizard at the end of setup process.

In the 4th step (in MOSS 5th step), which shows a summery of the configuration settings we selected, there is a button called Advanced Settings which allows us to setup Active Directory Account Creation Mode.

Active Directory Account Creation Mode allows SharePoint to create new AD accounts that are then sent by email to the users. This configuration option is available in WSS and MOSS.

It’s not generally used in Intranet environments and most organizations like to have the control over their AD account creation process. But in the case of commercial hosting services, this is an ideal option.

If you are planning to use this option, 1st you need to create an Organizational Unit (OU) and delegate control of that OU to the domain account used by SharePoint.

Check the option Enable Active Directory Account Creation Mode and enter the Domain Name and the OU you created.

You can’t turn this ON/ OFF after you install SharePoint.

We can install SharePoint in different configurations that range from very simple to very complex.

Following table shows different installation options available:

It’s always better to setup a staging environment before setting up a production environment directly.

I have recently installed Windows 7 Beta and didn’t have to wait for a long time RC came on board.

I downloaded x64 bit version of Windows 7 Ultimate and the best thing is there are some noticeable enhancements/ changes from Beta to RC.

I’m on Windows 7, why don’t you..?

Microsoft has released a service pack for Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007.

Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007 Service Pack 1 (SP1) contains significant security improvements, stability improvements, and performance improvements.

Get the full list of issues fixed by this Service Pack from following KB article:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/937162

Here is where you can download SharePoint Designer 2007 Service Pack 1:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=B57C805D-2821-4625-A6F1-80725267F887&displaylang=en

Office SharePoint Designer 2007 provides the powerful tools you need to deliver compelling and attractive SharePoint sites and quickly build workflow-enabled applications and reporting tools on the SharePoint platform.

This amazing product wasn’t free and we had to spend money for getting this onboard. Now you can get all the features of SharePoint Designer 2007 with a FREE license.

Watch this video for more information about the roadmap of SPD:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/info.aspx?na=40&p=1&SrcDisplayLang=en&SrcCategoryId=&SrcFamilyId=baa3ad86-bfc1-4bd4-9812-d9e710d44f42&u=http%3a%2f%2fdownload.microsoft.com%2fdownload%2fA%2f8%2fD%2fA8D7704C-079D-418F-B0E8-FAF80F9C79CC%2fTom_Rizzo_Interview_300k.wmv

How many of you have tried this and complained Microsoft about why this feature is missing in Visual Studio 2008?

1. In Visual Studio 2005, when you create a Web Form and drag and drop an HTML control (without runat=”server”), when you double-click the control, it goes an add a <script> block in the HTML view and an appropriate java script function.
2. And then we can go and change the source of the control to have runat=”server” attribute and convert that pure HTML control to a HTML Server Control and double click the control to generate the .NET even handler in the code behind file.

But in Visual Studio 2008, step 2 will not function as we expect. We need to manually go and add the .NET event handler in the code behind file after converting HTML control to a server control. No double-click facility.

Why is this feature is missing?

I’m happy to announce that I got my MCT renewed for year 2009 today.

I’m planning to work more closely with CPLSs in the country but don’t know how I’m going to do that when they don’t consider the quality of the Microsoft Training and they just run after $$$$$$.

MCTs from India-Sub Continent, normally have to go through a huge pain every year when they want to renew their MCT.

They have to send email up and down to get this done and the payment will be done through bank drafts.

Now we have online renewal option, which we can fill all the details-no paper forms, and payment can be processed through credit Card. But still it’s not real-time Credit Card payment and it takes a week to process the payment.

But this is far better than earlier method. Hope we will get a real-time online payment option next year.

I though of sharing some information about the different editions available in SQL Server 2005 product. This idea came because, one of our client had a very big misunderstanding about the difference between Enterprise and Developer editions.

• Enterprise Edition
  • comprehensive functionality to support biggest organizations and complex implementations.
  • Available in  both 32-bit and 64-bit.
• Enterprise Evaluation
  • Expires after 180 days.
  • Can upgrade to commercial version in-place without interrupting the business.
  • Available in  both 32-bit and 64-bit.
• Developer Edition
  • 100% similar to Enterprise edition in terms of the features. But not expensive as Enterprise edition.
  • Licensed only for development, not for production.
  • Available in  both 32-bit and 64-bit.
• Standard Edition
  • Adequate for small and medium size organizations.
• Workgroup Edition
  • Available only in 32-bit.
  • Suitable for small organizations.
  • Contains features.
  • Can be easily upgraded to a higher version.
  • Limited tools available.
• Express Edition
  • Absolutely FREE.
  • Available only in 32-bit.
  • No tools available.
• Express with Advanced Services Edition
  • Absolutely FREE.
  • Available only in 32-bit.
  • Ships with Management Studio Express tool.
  • Supports Full-text catalog.
  • Ability to view reporting Services reports.
• Mobile Edition
  • Mobile data store that can be synchronized with primary data.

Feature by feature comparison is available here:

http://www.microsoft.com/sql/prodinfo/features/compare-features.mspx

SharePoint Development is a very popular are in software development. A lots of developers are trying to get into this area. But they get stuck since they can't find a way to improve their skills.

There is a new course introduced by Mindsharp for you to get started with the SharePoint development. This will allow you to explore what SharePoint development means to a .NET developer.

This is the other mandatory course you need to follow to face 070-542 exam apart from Course: 50026.

Course - 50046A: Introduction to Development Using Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (Mindsharp)

Duration - 02 days

Audience - Developers

Certification - 070-542

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/syllabi/50046A.aspx

Are you planning to take any MCTS, MCPD or MCITP exam? Here is an voucher with 10% discount and 2nd shot FREE.

Voucher code - GS00G2DNQM

You can use above voucher to take any exam towards MCTS, MCPD or MCITP. This is an voucher given to MVPs to use in the community. There is no limit to no of candidates who can use this voucher. It's unlimited. Anyone can use this. But this will expire on 31st March 2009.

Enjoy this and Good Luck for your certification..!

Don't forget to update me with the status of your certification experience.

This is the 1^st of serious of articles on SharePoint. I wanted to start with a topic related to setting up a nice developer environment by adding IntelliSence within Visual Studio.

http://www.joyr.ws/page/Article-Visual-Studio-IntelliSense-for-SharePoint-Developers.aspx

Appreciate your feedback.

This series of 33 hands-on labs allows students to explore the new features of Microsoft SharePoint Server 2007, Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, Microsoft Office 2007, including Microsoft Office Groove
2007, and Microsoft Windows PowerShell.

This is one of the mandatory course for taking 070-542 exam on SharePoint Development.

Course - 50026A: SharePoint 2007 Hands-On Labs

Duration - Not specified

Audience - IT Professionals

Certification - 070-542

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/syllabi/50026AFinal.mspx

This is the 2nd training program you should organize/ follow for the SharePoint technology. This will focus on Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) specific features and experience in WSS 3.0 is a prerequisite for this course.

Course - 5061: Implementing Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

Duration - 03 days

Audience - IT Professionals

Certification - 070-630

 http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/syllabi/5061a.aspx

Being a Microsoft Certified Trainer-MCT, I have decided to share some of the training courses we have for SharePoint.

SharePoint is a very demanding product and people are hunting for  experienced SharePoint trainers and the training courses.

I will share the courses one by one so that it will be very helpful for you/ your organization, to plan a proper SharePoint training program.

This is the very first course every SharePoint professional should follow regardless whether they are end users or administrator or developers.

Course - 5060A: Implementing Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

Duration - 02 days

Audience - Business Application Administrators

Certification - 070-631

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/syllabi/5060Afinal.mspx