Joseph Fluckiger's Blog

I got a strange error while installing MOSS 2007 yesterday at a client. I've installed MOSS a hundred times, so I knew everything was ok. The error I was getting was " 11/26/2007 16:20:47  7  ERR  Failed to create the configuration database. An exception of type System.Security.AccessControl.PrivilegeNotHeldException was thrown.  Additional exception information: The process does not possess the 'SeSecurityPrivilege' privilege which is required for this operation." This post I read pointed out that  the user running the install needs to have the “manage auditing and security log” privilege. You can see below that even though I was a local admin, I didn't have that privilege. The permission was changed, I logged out and back in, and the install worked fine.

This post was made by Windows Live Blogger. Very nice. So much easier to post pictures and rich content. I'm loving it. No more uploading image, and editing HTML. ug. Freedom from the tyranny of the web browser. -Joseph

The SharePoint utility that I've built called SharePoint SUSHI and made available for free to the SharePoint community has a new permantent home at http://www.codeplex.com/sushi . This site will contain help documentation, the latest release and source code, and FAQ. Please drop by, download SharePoint SUSHI and take it for a spin and send me any added feature requests or suggestions to improve SUSHI that you have. Sincerely, -Joseph Fluckiger

Popfly is an ubelievably cool new tool to build mashups in silverlight. If silverlight wasn't cool enough already, this seals the deal. Let me demonstrate: 20 mintues ago I signed up for popfly. And in that 20 minutes I figured out how to use popfly and built this, a little tile image display of Monet images from the web. Sweet! More to come..

This blog post shows how to apply a corporate theme to all newly created sites. Very handy. http://grahamsibley.typepad.com/thoughtfactory/2007/06/index.html

I was asked the following question today about MOSS: Can MOSS manage passwords? Can I store service account passwords someway in MOSS securely? Here is an important point about MOSS security: MOSS does not provide authentication, it only provides authorization. (very important distinction) It relys on either Active Directory or forms authentication to validate passwords. Once AD says yup this person is who they say they are, then Sharepoint takes over. Nowhere in the sharepoint databases will you find a user's password. What you will find in the sharepoint databases is the roles and permissions that a user has. -Joseph

Here is a great SharePoint trick. Need to move documents from one library to another without losing metadata? With the "Content and Structure" section under site administration, you can! instructions for moving documents without losing metadata

Frequently I will need to open an ISO image on a remote machine, this is a tool from Microsoft which I recommend for opening ISO images. It works with Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. Here is a link directly to Microsoft to download the utillity . Here is an article describing how to use the ISO reader .

I've started using Colligo for SharePoint which makes opening, editing, adding and savings documents to a SharePoint document library much easier. I've used Groove and Outlook, but Colligo is better. The main reason, it is more stable. Outlook kept crashing on me when I would preview a document, and it would slow my Outlook down. If you are like me, your email is critical, and so anything that slows it down or makes it crash doesn't work. Also with Outlook you can't add documents to a document library by drag and dropping them from windows explorer (major feature gap if you ask me). This is where Colligo drag-and-drop shines. Simple and reliable, I like it. Colligo offers a free version which gives you read-only access to a document library and a contributor version which they charge $125 for.

http://gooooooooooooogle.net It's alive! (evil laugh) I've created my own search engine. Ok so I cheated a bit by using the Microsoft SharePoint Server 2007 as the crawl engine and simply put a pretty face in front of it, but hey, it's a real live search engine. And I've actually found out a few useful things, for example, I searched through Cameron's blog for the word "fluckiger" and discovered I'm meantioned 3 times, including being given credit for an XML recommendation. (I'm really big-time now). I'm currently indexing my blog , Cameron Fuller's blog , and 1 layer deep of links from directory.google.com. Cameron pointed out that there is an easier, (though not as fun) way to search a blog using google blog search .

I'm trying out twitter, a microblog. What I think is interesting about the service is how simple the user interface is. Elegant, powerful, simple. No wonder it has been so popular. Here is a link to my twitter blog .

Note, the SUSHI project has now moved to codeplex at http://codeplex.com/sushi I proudly announce the public release of SUSHI (SharePoint Utility with a Smart, Helpful Interface). This Smart Client Utility offers powerful tools for common SharePoint management tasks with refreshing ease-of-use. Documentation for the utility and downloads can be found here: http://wiki.catapultdemo.com The SharePoint document utility is in use at several large clients that I have worked at, and several other consultants at my company have worked at. This utility is free and the source code has also been posted for free download. The documentation site is a public wiki, so I hope to build a community around SUSHI and get lots of participation. I hope that fellow SharePoint administrators will add their own features and improve existing features so that the utility matures and increases in usefulness. -Joseph

Ever used Google code search ? I’ve found a lot of good SharePoint code. Just searching for the Sharepoint namespace “using Microsoft.SharePoint;” you get lots of good practical examples. Sometimes a line of code is worth a thousand MSDN explanations. Here is a great example of rendering a SharePoint webpart by overriding the CreateChidControls() and RenderWepPart() methods.

Here are the tips I wish I had known before this week and this is what I learned so that you won't have to go throught the same pain when learning to build Webparts in SharePoint. -Ted Pattison has the best screencasts on SharePoint that I have found. He is also very funny. I insist that you watch the "Building ASP.NET Web Parts for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0" as your first step to learning how to build a SharePoint webpart! Setup your environment as detailed below, and then walk through Ted's demo with him. IMPORTANT TIP. Make sure you DOWNLOAD the screencast (right click and save target as) so that you can pause and rewind the video as he walks through it. This video is the key to the difference between frustration and success! -Download The latest SDK for Sharepoint WSS 3.0 . Open up the help file WSS3sdk.chm, and start with the "Walkthrough: Creating a Basic SharePoint Web Part" (After you've gone through Ted Pattison's Screencast). The co...

Here is a wonderful, concise article on making your Virtual Machine run faster. http://www.hanselman.com/blog/VMPerformanceChecklistBeforeYouComplainThatYourVirtualMachineIsSlow.aspx Ever considered turning OFF your page file. This option blew my mind. That sounded to me like someone saying "have you ever tried removing your processor". But I'm going to try it..

If you’ve ever wanted to create a windows service. Don’t go to MSDN, go to this post at codeproject.com. The post was written in 2003, but nothing has changed as of today using Visual Studio 2005. It is very straightforward, and in the case of setup projects, a picture is worth a 1000 words. You'll have created your own windows service in just a few minutes. Cool. Lots of applications for services..

Even if you don't care a lick about Ruby , you should read Why’s (Poignant) Guide to Ruby . It is by far the most facinating (and freaky) technical book I've ever read.

Today I presented at the Microsoft DevCares event at the InfoMart in Dallas. As promised I have made available the powerpoints and the VS solutions that I used for the demo. Here are the contents for Microsoft DevCares sponsored by Tekfokus: 1) Lap around Visual Studio Orcas Powerpoint 2) Linq and Data Access in Visual Studio Orcas Powerpoint 3) solution containing demos for ASP.NET 4) solution containing demos for LINQ These documents can be found in this direcotry http://fluckiger.org/joeblogpics/2007-05-25_devCares/ It was a great presentation today at DevCares and a good turnout with 31 developers in attendance. It is amazing how many new great features are being released in this version of Visual Studio. Note you will need to make one modification to the LINQ solution demo, you will need to change the SQL connection string to (insert your path): -pass in the filename using a "user instance" connection in your sql connection string like so: "Data Source=.\SQLEXPRESS;...

Here are some useful numbers for relative data retrieval speeds: Data that lives here... ...will take this long to access CPU Register < 1 nanosecond CPU cache 2 nanoseconds RAM 50 nanoseconds Disk 12,000,000 nanoseconds Somewhere in that pile of paper on your desk 42,000,000,000 nanoseconds (Note that a nanosecond is 1 billionth of a second.) This was taken from a blog by mozy: http://mozy.com/blog/2006/06/13/defrag-the-mozy-way

Virtualization is becomming very popular. The benefits are many and there are two leading products: VMware GSX and Microsoft Virtual PC, but which is faster? I ran some performance tests using passmark performance tester 6.1. VMware GSX is WAY faster than Microsoft virtual PC. Look at the processor and disk marks, they are twice as high for VMware GSX! Microsoft VM = Operating system is Windows server 2003 diskmark =246 processor test= 316 memory =356 Vmware : Opperating system is Windows server 2003 disk=791 processor test = 690 memory=414 Both virtual hard disks are on the same M drive. The M drive consists of 2 10k Raptor drives in a RAID0 (sriped) configuration. My host box is a Dell Precision 690 and the processor is a dual core Pentium, and 2 gigs of ram.

I’ve been wanting to do this for a long long time, and finally I have figured it out. My perfect network is coming together!   The key was given to me, as frequently is, by some smart folks at experts-exchange.com in this question: http://www.experts-exchange.com/Networking/Windows_Networking/Q_22548593.html    

I found a useful post which gives you "secret" access to sharepoint. By directly editing the query strings at the end of the URL (behind the ? ) you can gain direct access to sharepoint views and features without having to use the builtin navigation links. This can save you some clicking when the site is slow and also give you new, hidden functionality in sharepoint. http://blogs.msdn.com/danielmcpherson/archive/2004/10/11/240863.aspx -Joseph

This is a test Blog from Word 2007. Word has definitely been at the top of my worst software list (along with powerpoint and project) but this blog feature in 2007 definitely gives it a demotion in the worst catgory. - You have the advantages of a local editor, including fast and personalized spell checking, full screen editing with complete hot-keys, etc. And you don't have to open up yet another browser window to get lost among the tabs! -Then with one click you can publish, and it remembers your login/password. viola! a new post. Posting using email is is a pretty cool option as well. All you do is send an email to joseph.someemail@blogspot.com and blogger creates a post for me. The drawback is that it does a really poor job of formatting. You'll notice some of my posts have random line breaks, these are posts I have made by sending an email. I'm expecting that Word will do a better job. Another fear was that Word would create some crazy HTML, but it seems to have kept i...

I just had a great idea. I want to build a robot that can scale everest and clean off all the disposed compressed air canisters. I watched a special this week on Discovery channel: "Everest, Beyond the Limit". It was a great show, but the most dramatic moment of the show was when the expedition passed an injured and dying climber and they just had to leave him on the side of the mountain, because the air is so thin and the terrain so rugged that it is pretty much impossible to pull a man down from the mountain. And lots of people have died up there and there are all these dead bodies on the trail up the mountain. There are also lots of disposed air cannisters laying around. And it is never going to get any easier or any more possible for humans or hellicopters to get up there. But a robot could do it. A robot could bring home those discarded cannisters. There is just something about knowing the top of the world is clean. And then it could also rescue people who couldn't g...