I been given a task to maintain a SPS2003 Portal.

 

I was asked to give some stats on the Site Usage for newly launched Discussion form. 

 

Thinking this would be a walk in the park, I go to relevant admin area to generate some reports, I first find out that the Usage Analysis Prcoessing option was not switched on since the portal has been live (nearly a year!), hence no stats been logged! :(

 

So I switch on the logging and also enable anlysis processing to allow the SPSTimer Service to process the logs overnight - this only generates reports on the last 24hrs.

 

I come back in the morning expecting to see some usage data by viewing through the View site usage data link in the Management and Statisitics section of the Portal Administration, to my horror I see:

 

Now I wondering whats going on!! Check in the logs directory to make sure SPS is writing the logs, and it is.

 

I do some googling and come across a blog article by Jeff Cate which explains why Site Statics page keeps coming to a blank, see below:

 

 

 

 

Happy Days!! I am now seeing my Site usage Stats!!!

via Ryan R. Donovan's:

A frequently asked question that has come up quite a bit lately is what is Microsoft's policy going to be on supporting .NET 2.0, SQL2005, and 64-bit Windows with CS2002. I figured this was worthy of a blog post...

The short answer is that there are currently no plans to support any of these. If you want to use these platforms, you will need to use CS2006.

The longer answer is that there are A LOT of collective changes in these three platforms. CS2002 is an old product rapidly approaching its fourth birthday. It took the team several months worth of work to get through it all and at times it was not an easy task. All of this work is done and in CS2006. Right now, I honestly don't see us back-propagating these to CS2002 given the other things that still wouldn't be there (like integration between our Profiles and ASP.NET 2.0, etc.).

However, you can still run .NET 2.0 on a box with CS2002 in a .NET side-by-side configuration (.NET 1.1 is installed and the CS-specific applications are using 1.1).

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

I guess this is not good news for companies planning to move a MSIB 2.5 (MCMS 2002 & CS2002) website over to a SQL Server 2005 / ASP.NET 2.0 or a Windows 64 Bit enviornment.

It will mean investing in the new CS2006 which will be out this year.

As for MCMS 2002 with SP2 it will support ASP.NET 2.0 and SQL Server 2005. SP2 also supports x64-compatible versions of Microsoft Windows in 32-bit emulation mode.

SO what does this mean for CS 2006 and MCMS vNext/ Office 12 integration. Will Microsoft come out with a new MSIB Toolkit or a connector?

I came across a blog which demonstrates how to Create Resource Galleries programmatically, this is a totally unsupported by Microsoft and could lose your support with them on the product.

 

There is no way with the current MCMS API to allow you to create Galleries on the fly.

 

I am sure this feature will be availabel in the vNext version of MCMS/O12.

 

Another similar approach by Cubik to create Galleries programmatically.

Stefan has come up with a great hack to switch MCMS Databases, this will be great when you are working with multiple test databases!

 

via Stefan:

 

Today I received the question if it is possible to script the actions of the DCA when changing the MCMS database. This can be extremly useful in developer environments where users develop against different databases.

Actually the DCA cannot be scripted but it is possible to backup and restore the configuration settings the DCA does in the registry. To ensure that no side effects show up (especially with MCMS node cache coming out of sync) it is require to restart all MCMS services while changing the database configuration settings.

The following steps will do the job:

1. You need to manually configure the database using the DCA.
2. Then export the following registry key into a .reg file:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\NCompass\Resolution Content Server\Configuration\0\Local\Database
3. You need to repeat this for every database to get a reg file for every database configuration (e.g. DB1.reg, DB2.reg, ...)

To switch to another database you now need to do the following:

• IISRESET /STOP
• NET STOP AESecurityService
• REGEDIT /S DBx.reg                              <--- here you need to pass in the registry file for the desired database configuration.
• NET START AESecurityService
• IISRESET /START

There has been further developments to Commerce Server, they have now released a beta version of 2006.

 

MCS2006 Beta available

 

You can get further information on Commerce Server 2006 from :

Ryan Donovan and Nihit Kaul .

 

 

There is a lot of information emerging about the next verson of MCMS and Office 12 in past few weeks, here are some links below:

 

MCMS/O12 vNext -

 

MCMS migration to vNext - early adopter opportunity -

 

Microsoft CMS Futures

 

Content Management Server and SharePoint (Office 12 Blogs)

 

Microsoft Enterprise Content Management (ECM) white paper-

 

 

via Jawad:

 

 

 

 via Chester's Blog:

 

CompareHTML is a component which ships with MCMS which can be used to compare two postings. This blog explains how it can be used to compare two postings. It can be extended as needed.

via Vinayak's WebLog:

 

This is the first in a series of posts on how you can program the product catalog system. The product catalog system that shipped in Commerce Server 2002 provided three programming models:

1. The Catalog Com objects :  These are a set of objects which allow you to perform management and runtime operations on the catalog system. These were implemented using COM and they communicate directly with the SQL server. Methods on this object were intended to be called from VB scripts, ASP, ASP.Net, C++ etc (COM aware) clients.

2. The Catalog PIA : These are a set of objects in the Microsoft.CommerceServe.Interop.Catalog namespace which wrap the Catalog com objects and can be used to program the product catalog system from managed clients. To know more about PIA's see this link. Methods on these objects were intended to be called from managed clients.

 3. The Runtime BCL: These are a set of objects which were provided to  program the catalog system from your web sites. These types reside in the Microsoft.CommerceServer.Runtime.Catalog namespace and  provides methods to access the run time functionality (readonly operations) of the catalog system. Internally though these objects call methods on the PIA but expose a consistent, flexible and easy to use programming model from your runtime commerce server sites.

4. Web services model : The Commerce Server 2002 feature pack further extended the programming model by allowing the product catalog system to be managed by a catalog web service.

Well if Xzibit needs a challenge on the next Pimp My Ride is to drop the cars and take on the Pimp My PSP challenge!

 

Here is the first - Baby Phat PSP by Simmons Jewelry Co.

 

The Baby Phat by Kimora Lee Simmons piece is made with one pound of gold and 8ct yellow and black diamonds on the front and crock finishing on the back.

 

Baby Phat and Phat Farm logos accented with Simmons Jewelry Co diamonds dangle from the bottom of the luxurious accessory. The $35,000 design easily fits over any PSP to add extra bling.

 

 

 

r.a.d.callback is a suite of AJAX-enabled UI controls, which allow you to update page content without postback and loss of scroll position. The short response time combined with the smooth interface transitions results in superior users experience and level of interactivity, which can only be found in desktop applications.

This site includes a Google hack that combines Google Maps with hurricane tracking data, for a comprehensive view of Rita's activities.

 

Google Maps  of Storm Rita

 

These application templates are tailored to address the needs and requirements for specific business processes or sets of tasks for organizations using WSS.

 

 

 Absence and Vacation Schedule
 Board of Directors
 Case Work Management
 Change Management
 Classroom Management
 Competitive Intelligence
 Employee Activities Site
 Employee Timesheet and Scheduling
 Employee Training
 Event Coordination 
 Expense Reimbursement
 Help Desk
 HR Programs and Services
 IT Developer Team Site
 Legal Document Review Workflow
 Loan Initiation Management
 Marketing Campaigns
 Meeting Management
 New Product Development
 Performance Review
  Professional Svcs Contracts
 Professional Svcs Site
 Project Team Site
 Public Official Activity
 Public Relations Work Site
 Publication Editorial Review
 Recruiting Resource Center
 Request for Proposal Management
 Room and Equipment Reservation
 Travel Request

 

Download from : http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sppt/wssapps/default.mspx

 

via Stefan:

Arpan Shah, Product Manager for MCMS and SharePoint has provided a nice list of his personal top 10 features in the next version:

There's a lot of great buzz in the community as well as Microsoft around the next version of Windows SharePoint Services and Office "12" servers. The amount of investment that's going into these technologies, if it wasn't obvious at PDC, is tremendous. I thought I'd take a moment to share with you my list of the top 10 favorite "things":

- Security/Auth "stuff" from supporting the ASP.NET 2.0 authentication provider model and security trimming to single item security. :-)
- Built on top of Whidbey - support for ASP.NET 2.0 web parts, nav/auth provider models, master pages :-), and more
- SPS/CMS integrated architecture from end-user to development and deployment
- RSS, Wikki and Blogging support.. the RSS support is especially great w/ the new version of Outlook... or any RSS reader really
- Content types - very cool and super useful.. define a content type that includes metadata and actions
- Recycle bin - IT orgs will love that
- Lists - things like eventing support, scalability
- Search investments - relevancy and User Experience are fantastic
- ECM investments - from content creation, sharing, searching, publishing to retaining
- Workflow based on Windows Workflow Foundation

There's a lot more... but I thought I'd list my top 10. I bet Fitz's top ten is more developer focused... and Mark's top ten is more solutions focused... mine is more of a mix of everything.

If you're already developing SharePoint solutions - your web part investments with the current version -will- carry on to VNext.

If you're a CMS customer, there's a lot of great things in the next release. However, there are some architectural changes. So, I recommend taking a look at the best practices whitepaper that I listed in my previous. On SP2 and Beta availability, we'll have more guidance on how to prepare.

via Nikhil:

I demonstrated some features of the latest version of my Web Development Helper during my PDC session. Version 0.8.1 is now published and available for download.

The tool is implemented as an Internet Explorer browser helper object. When installed, it provides a console window at the bottom on the IE window, and can be launched using the View | Explorer Bar, or Tools menu. This is a pet project that I work on during my spare time. It started as a tool scoped to ASP.NET scenarios, but has evolved into something that targets Web applications in general. A number of features described below are useful for those developing AJAX-style, rich Web applications.

 

Read more...

Exciting news on the vNext version of MCMS!

 

via Stefan:

 

Ok, finally some official information next version of MCMS has been officially anounced and presented at PDC. Here is a short summary of everything that has been anounced so far:

• Next version of MCMS will be build on top of WSS in Office 12
• ASP.NET 2.0 features like Masterpages will be leveraged
• Plugable Membership and Role providers allow authentication against any 3rd party authentication source
• Plugable Navigation Providers allow easy to build navigation for your website
• Improved Content Deployment Concepts
• Improved Caching
• Publishing Content from documents in a SharePoint document library through an extensible converter framework
• Build in Search capabilities
• Extensible Workflow through use of Windows Workflow Foundation (WinFX)
• Automated Content Migration from MCMS 2002

via Chester:

This version includes

1. Posting Revert.
2. Resource Replace.
3. Multiple posting Approve, Submit, decline etc...

Download the newer version of MCMS Manager from here. Please post your feedbacks.

via Bink.nu:

 

LOS ANGELES -- Microsoft today unveiled Microsoft Expression, a suite of Web site design and graphics software that enables .Net developers to handle tasks similar to those that users of corresponding software from from Adobe Systems and Macromedia have performed for years.

As expected, Sparkle Interactive Designer, a new tool for building 3D animation and graphics, is part of the suite. Eric Rudder, senior vice president of Microsoft's Server and Tools division, unveiled a prerelease version of Expression in his keynote speech at Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference here on Wednesday morning.

In addition to Sparkle, Expression includes Acrylic Graphic Designer (a painting and illustration tool) and Quartz Web Designer (a layout and design tool for building Web sites). All of the current names for individual tools are Microsoft code names.

Microsoft Expression is now available as a community technology preview; the company expects the suite to ship in 2006. Microsoft plans to make several more CTPs available before releasing a full production version of the suite.

Continue At Source

via Arpan:

 

There were several large announcements made at PDC that are very relevant to SharePoint and CMS customers. I'm personally super excited about this and to be part of this. Microsoft revealed Office "12" - client and servers and talked about our investment in ECM. This is great news for CMS and SharePoint customers that there is one integrated architecture for end-to-end document and content lifecyle.

Another huge announcement was the introduction of Windows Workflow Foundation - WinFX. http://www.msdn.microsoft.com/windowsvista/building/workflow/ Office "12" servers will build on this technology to provide some great workflow!

A lot of CMS and SharePoint customers and partners are wondering what they can do to better prepare for the next version of the technology. If you are a CMS customer, take a look at the newly published whitepaper at: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnmscms02/html/CMSDesigningCMS2002Sol.asp.

If you are a SharePoint customer, make sure you follow guidelines published at: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/odc_SP2003_ta/html/WSSSharePointCodeReuse.asp

Google has just launched a Blog Search Service....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now you can search and find all your favorite Blogs on the net!

 

 

This is what I been looking for.... I have a 6.1 Speaker Setup at home and the problem is running those dam wires along the skirting board or ripping the carpet up and then feeding the wires up the walls up to the wall mounted speakers, which sometimes can be a bit of a hassle and looks a mess, even with plastic cable trunking.

 

Taperwire is a flat adhesive-backed speaker-wire that you stick to your walls and paint over:

No drilling necessary. Just press Taperwire on the wall and attach your speakers and sound system. Hidden by paint, wallpaper or spackle, this paper-thin wire will go unnoticed. You can even lay it under carpets—no bulges!

http://www.taperwire.com/