Joseph Fluckiger's Blog

  After a long delay, a new release of SUSHI has been published. This version includes the following: Improvements Improved "Select A Site" functionality. Updated Documentation. Bulk List creation updated. Profile picture import feature improved. Bulk site creation includes both user site templates and system site templates. Stable Release This release has been tested in multiple SharePoint environments and used in many production environments as well. Stability and Security are SUSHI's highest priorities.   Future Releases I already have another release with some nice graphics improvements which improve the look and user experience of SUSHI. I have enlisted a couple programmers to help with testing, and graphics work. The are quite helpful and good to work with so hopefully we can make SUSHI even better. I have lots of ideas but just not enough hours in the day to turn all my ideas into reality. I'd love to improve the backup/restor...

A few thoughts on picking a URL name for the a SharePoint Intranet site: The URL name is one of the most central branding pieces of the site. From my experience, this is a tough decision for organizations because a corporate Intranet is so many things and (will become many things that are not even conceived yet). Nevertheless, it is an very important one and one that needs to be made at the beginning of the Intranet build. - The URL name needs to be easy to remember, be consistent with company branding, represent the content it delivers but also not be so specific that it can’t be flexible and grow and deliver new functionality. - I would not vote for the name “sharepoint.mycompany.com” because users shouldn’t have to care what technology is being used to deliver functionality. We aren’t selling sharepoint to employees. We  are delivering company content and the company brand to employees. - Many companies use their company name along with a gene...

  I just found this great lightweight ISO extraction utility . I don't need anything fancy, just something to read the ISO. I need: reliably extract an ISO image lightweight /fast install free I've found the tool I've been looking for. So cool. Find out more and download here: Extract Now . -Joseph

  I am a big fan of the SharePoint API and I was thrilled to see this MSDN article suggesting many great uses of the SharePoint API that you might not have thought about:   May 2008 MSDN magazine article on MOSS is a must read for SharePoint developers. It summarizes all the options, and also has a really innovative and I think great way to roll out changes to multiple environments and that is to “script” those changes using the SharePoint API in a console app, and run it in both dev, staging and production. SharePoint API requires just a few lines of code for most tasks and is easy to log, debug etc. You can do almost everything with the API: site navigation changes, webpart customizations, Web.config changes, create web app, create site, create list, create a publishing page from a layout. The one thing you can’t do with the API, is create site and list definitions.   Comments on Site Templates vs. Site Definitions: Using Site Templates ha...

Thanks to Peter Brunone for this post. Peter pointed out that you can extend SharePoint stsadm.exe command line tool and that there are lots of free extensions already out there to download, plug and play.   Peter writes: "I just came across this concept and was floored by it (maybe I’m just a pushover).  With a strong-named assembly and an XML file for description, you can add your own operations to the STSADM utility. http://sharepointsolutions.blogspot.com/2006/09/extending-stsadmexe-with-custom.html Gary Lapointe has a few too many (you can download his 100-command extension from the blog): http://stsadm.blogspot.com/ That’s all. "   Good tip! -Joseph Fluckiger

Coveo vs. Ontolica. Search is very important part of a corporate Intranet portal or Internet site. Choosing the right search engine is critical, but can also be a difficult process because the most important questions like "is this search engine scalable, reliable and secure" take the longest to answer. I've worked with two of the more popular search engines for SharePoint over the past 6 months and have gathered enough data on the two to make some valuable, well-tested observations. Below I will compare Coveo and Ontolica. Both Ontolica and Coveo are very good products. I have really been impressed with both. They offer fantastic, have-to-have features over out-of-the-box SharePoint. After you have used either Ontolica or Coveo, you will not want to go back to native SharePoint Search. About Ontolica Ontolica uses the SharePoint native search engine. Note that the native SharePoint search engine is included with the purchase of WSS 3.0 and MOSS...

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