TechDays San Francisco. Nifty small conference everyone should attend.

Howdy,

I don't know about you, but for me, money's just getting tighter these days. I can afford to attend fewer and fewer events. Despite their being the best way for me to connect with other IT professionals; meeting readers, meeting other industry experts, speakers, and trainers, I just can't afford to go to all of the events I used to, year after year.

Now I have to pick and choose.

As for information, training, insider tips, and simply finding someone qualified, that I can trust, to ask questions and get real answers-- I now mostly depend on the internet. Which, as all of you know, can be hit or miss.

I wish I were independently wealthy. I wish I could go to every industry event out there. Go to every party, every session, every mixer-- but I can't.

So, this year, I am going to go to TechEd. I will be (hopefully) volunteering again to staff the hands-on labs. Hopefully, I will also get to staff the labs at the SharePoint Conference later in the year. And, hopefully, I will be selected to speak at the SEF event in Stockholm, SE again in November.

I didn't get to go to SPTechCon, or the MVP Summit. I won't get to go to SPCincy, or WPC (Worldwide Partner Conference). I'm going to have to skip a number of SharePoint Saturdays too. Times are tough.

So, when I find a bargain, I like to pass it along. I am going to be speaking at a small, community driven, two day event in San Francisco call TechDays, run by the PacIT Pros (Pacific IT Professionals user group) in a couple of weeks. This two day event is going to be jam packed with the very people who do keynotes and incredible sessions at TechEd and other high profile events. People like Stephen Rose, Mark Minasi, Darren Mar-Elia, and Joey Snow.

Mind you, this is a Microsoft topics event, like TechEd, so the sessions won't just be about SharePoint  but will cover content from Windows Server 2008 R2 and the upcoming Server 8, IIS 7.5, DNS, MDOP, Deployment, Exchange, Linux, Hyper-V, System Center, Forefront, PowerShell, and even SharePoint (thanks to yours truly). This is the time to get some insight into those products you need to know about, while you're working day in and day out with SharePoint. Each speaker is doing two sessions about their favorite subjects, so you know they'll be good.

Ever attend a large conference and wish you had a chance to talk to the speaker, but there were too many other people around and not enough time? Maybe you attended a session at TechEd given by one of the people listed to speak at TechDays, and had a question you wanted to ask during the session, but the room was packed with hundreds of people and there was no way to get noticed before the session ended?

Well, now's your chance. That's the point of these smaller, shorter, cheaper events. They have the same great, experienced, professional speakers, at a fraction of the cost. And you aren't away from home for a whole week. And you get excellent, useful, sessions to learn about all kinds of Microsoft products from people you can trust. People who know what they are talking about.

The site for the event is: http://techdays.org/techdays-sf-sessions/
The date of the two day event is March 22nd and 23rd.
The cost for two, session packed days is just $400 (that's sessions from 9:00am to 5:00pm, with a meet and greet party the first night- when does anybody get two days of real expert training for just 200 dollars a day?!).
The location will be the Microsoft Office in downtown San Francisco at 835 Market Street, Suite 700, San Francisco, CA 94103.
The hotel that PacIT pros has a group rate with is Diva Hotel, within super easy walking distance from the event (I've really grown to love those Personality Hotels in San Fran. Ask me about Hotel Union Square. Adorable!).
There are a whole lot of seats still available. So quickly click the link to the event and sign up before it's too late.

I would dearly love to see you there. I am currently checking to see if Wiley can send me some free books to give away. So this may also be a rare chance to get a free copy of my Mastering Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 book (and get it signed), since I'm not going to be out speaking at as many events this year.

TechDays San Francisco- like bow ties, being there is cool. :)

Blacking out the site in protest against SOPA

For my 6 followers, I wanted to give you all a heads up. I will be blacking out this blog for a day in support of those who feel that SOPA and PIPA are too restrictive and are being considered by/voted on by/could be enforced by those who don't understand the internet. These laws, if they pass can cause (will likely cause) damage to the democracy of published content on the internet and free speech there. Please consider signing one (or every one) of the many petitions out there against these laws.

If you don't like the fact that so many useful or interesting sites are going black- then imagine what could happen if these laws were enacted. It would be very likely that they would either have to go offline or be censored so tightly as to be useless. Although every single bit of content in my blog entries is my own (as is evidenced by the typos), all it would take is a comment linked from somewhere that a big company didn't like and all my content, all my work to give you information, would be gone. So, in protest, I might as well black it out now. Please consider the ramifications of these laws and any like them when you vote for your politicians. Those that think this will be effective against pirates are too deep in the pockets of their corporate masters to realize that it will only be effective in stifling the constituents that actually vote for them.

You need a government for the people, by people- not for corporations, by corporations. We all do. Please help us keep the internet safe. Protest against SOPA and PIPA while we still can.

Thank you,
CA Callahan

Frugal Admin, special edition: How to get your SharePoint Foundation 2010 server to index RTF files

Hi there,

In this special edition, I am going to tell you how to index rich text files (document files with the rtf extension).

(to see it done in action, go to http://www.livestream.com/callahanSPF4admins and watch "Enabling RTF indexing on SharePoint Foundation 2010")

Now I know, I know, you've got to be saying, "Callahan, how often does anyone need to upload a rich text file? I mean c'mon."

But hey, it can happen. How about having users that are working on different platforms and don't have Word installed? What if there is a piece of software on your network that puts out RTF files for some reason, and you need to have them in a library on your SharePoint site? Maybe your tech support site uses RTF files so they're compatible with everyone?

For whatever reason, it appears that there is a little something broken in the registry for SharePoint so it can't do something so simple, so assumed, as search rich text files.

You see, it all started when someone tweeted asking if SP2010 could index rtf files natively or if it "needed an ifilter" (meaning they'd have to go install one). I just so happened to be doing a lot of work with PDF ifiltering, so I was well qualified and ready to check into it.

I thought their question was sincere, so I started looking. It turns out that seconds after the question, someone tweeted back saying it couldn't be done.

Of course, I was busy digging, so I didn't know it couldn't be done.

And so..

...I did it.
(later I did find out that there is a book out there telling SharePoint Server people to just register the rtf ifilter DLL and it will work fine for them-- but that definitely doesn't work in SharePoint Foundation, and might've stopped me right there had I known...)

[for my tl;dr readers- the short form of how to get rtf ifiltering to work in SharePoint Foundation:

• change the value of the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\14.0\Search\Setup\ContentIndexCommon\Filters\Extension\.rtf to the correct DLL CLSID: {e2403e98-663b-4df6-b234-687789db8560}
• run the AddExtensions.vbs script that you copy from the internet so it will permanently add an rtf extension to the extensionlist at key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\14.0\Search\Applications\6519b45e-2869-4f5a-9bb5-ec60370309fb\Gather\Search\Extensions\ExtensionList
• reboot server (you have to to get it to read the changes to the registry)
• upload an rtf file that has at least one unique word in it to a library in SharePoint
• then wait for search to run an index, or force a fullcrawl- when it's done, you'll be able to search your RTF by that unique word and have it show up in the search results.

And that's it. but to see why and how I knew to do this stuff, how to do it in step by step detail, and why it works for SPF, read on]

First I checked to make sure that SharePoint Foundation 2010 (SPF) could not, in fact, index RTF files by uploading one to a library, doing an iisreset, then a fullcrawl (stsadm -o spsearch -action fullcrawlstart --keep in mind to run that command in 2010, as opposed to early more security conscious versions, the account your logged in as must OWN the search database...). Then I did a search on the file name, which proves the full crawl worked. Finally I tried to search by text in the RTF file and had it fail- proving that RTF file indexing failed.

Once I knew it failed, I then went to the registry, because I knew that other than an ifilter's DLL, the settings in the registry were key to having ifiltering work in SharePoint Foundation.

Now, when using Adobe's PDF ifilter, I needed to go to the registry, add an entry to the "ExtensionsList" for applications, and a Extension key for .pdf with the correct CLSID pointing to Adobe's PDF ifilter DLL. These two things were critical for success.

So I checked to see if there were any entries for "rtf" in the same places in the registry. I found something interesting.

There was no listing for "rtf" in the ExtensionList key (see figure below for details- the full path in the registry is listed at the bottom of the window). I've been given to believe (and I am correct) that an ifilter won't work for SPF without a listing for the file extension here.

Then I went to check the second registry entry I'd learned was important, a key under Setup\ContentIndexCommon\Filters\Extension. Each file type that SharePoint Foundation can possibly search is listed here with it's own key. The key contains, at the minimum, a default value that is the CLSID of the DLL used by the ifilter for that file type. RTF did have a key.

To be thorough, I wanted to know what DLL that value was pointing to. It should be the CLSID for the file's ifilter DLL.

To check that I selected the CLSID key under HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT and did a find (go to Edit on the menu bar, and click Find, or use ctrl+f keys) for the CLSID value listed for the rtf extension ({35500004-002C-0000-0000-000000000000} as it happens to be). What came up was the plain text filter's CLSID not the one for rich text files:

Every CLSID key for an ifilter has to have an InProcServer32 sub-key. It will list the path to the DLL for that ifilter. In this case, to really prove it has nothing to do with rich text, the InProcServer32 sub-key's path goes to tquery.dll-- the dll used for simple, plain text indexing.

I thought that couldn't be right. It looked like the wrong CLSID for the rtf key for ifiltering had been entered by the SPF installer during setup.

And I figured, if that was the case, I just needed to find the rtf ifilter, if it existed by default (which I had to assume it did, I mean, really), and use it's CLSID instead.

So I went back up to the CLSID key under HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT, and did a Find for "RTF Filter". Why, you ask, did I know to use those exact words? Because the name for the CLSID for the PDF ifilter was PDF Filter, so I figured it would probably be like that for rtf.

And I found it. The value for the rtf ifilter was: {e2403e98-663b-4df6-b234-687789db8560}

Also notice in the picture that the DLL for the rtf filter is "rtffilt.dll". During all this I'd also looked on the internet to see if anyone had been trying to use an rtf ifilter. There were blog entries and forum posts about getting rtf ifilters online, downloading them and using those, and few for SharePoint except, ironically, two for SharePoint Search Express. One refers to a DLL that Microsoft apparently published several years ago named "rtffilt.dll" (now it appears built into server 2008 R2) and one that actually had you register a DLL that was already in system32, so I knew the file already existed on the server.

(to note: however, the blog entry that registers the DLL does something interesting, it has you copy the file from system32 to the sysWOW64 folder and register both: http://thetrainndt.posterous.com/?tag=ifilter Just mentioning it in case your system requires that for some reason- not sure why you would...)

Anywho, obviously, the correct CLSID for the existing rtf ifilter is the value I listed before the picture.

So I copied the correct CLSID value (I right clicked the CLSID key on the right side of the window, and selected "Copy Key Name"), then went back to the rtf Extensions key under ContentIndexCommon\Filters\Extension and changed it's value to the correct one (never forget the curly brackets have to be on either end of the alphanumerics) by pasting the key name. You'll have to delete some of the key information so only the CLSID remains.

Once that was done, I needed to add the .rtf extension to the Applications\Gather\Search\Extensions\ExtensionList (we checked that earlier in this entry, and it was missing). Now these extensions are numbered, so we have to add a string value of the next higher number (in my case that'd be 49, in yours it'll probably be 48). Then double click the value to enter "rtf" (without the quotes of course) as the value.

However, I have found that, with server 2008 R2 (especially with all the most recent updates and service pack) that ExtensionList key is protected, and no matter what I do (take ownership of the key, subkeys, etc., for example), the change is deleted in a few hours or on next reboot.

To overcome this, there is a simple visual basic script you can run to override that behavior and "register" your extension correctly in the ExtensionList. It won't disappear and it won't delete after reboot.

The easy way to get that script is to go to http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2518465 . In that KB article is the text for the visual basic script- just copy and paste it into a text file (if you don't feel like going to the KB, here it is for your convenience):
---------------------
Sub Usage

    WScript.Echo "Usage:    AddExtension.vbs extension"
    WScript.Echo

end Sub

Sub Main

    if WScript.Arguments.Count < 1 then
                Usage
                wscript.Quit(1)
   end if

    dim extension
    extension = wscript.arguments(0)

    Set gadmin = WScript.CreateObject("SPSearch4.GatherMgr.1", "")

    For Each application in gadmin.GatherApplications
        For Each project in application.GatherProjects
                    project.Gather.Extensions.Add(extension)
                Next
    Next

End Sub

call Main
-------------------

Once I copied the text above into a text file, I saved the text file as AddExtension.vbs (make sure you select All Files *.* for the "Save as Type" field, so it doesn't save the file with a txt extension anyway). Always pay attention to where you save files, it comes in handy later.

That script has to be run in order to make the necessary change in the registry. That's why I needed to know where the script was saved. So I opened an explorer window and browsed to the location where I put the new vbs file. Then I shift+right clicked in the window and selected to Open command window here.

I then entered the following command in the command prompt window and hit enter (of course):

wscript AddExtension.vbs rtf

That ran the script and added the correct entry in the registry, which now won't disappear if I reboot.  Which is good, because after the script runs, you have to reboot the server to get it to read the change (I know, that sucks, but at least you know for certain that it's necessary).

--You can confirm if the command ran by trying to run it again- it should give you a warning dialog box saying the object already exists. You can also go into the registry and check for a value in the extensionlist at key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\14.0\Search\Applications\6519b45e-2869-4f5a-9bb5-ec60370309fb\Gather\Search\Extensions\ExtensionList. If it's there, then the script worked.--

Once the server rebooted, I needed something to test to confirm if rtf ifiltering would work. So I uploaded a rtf file with unique text in it:

Then I ran a full crawl (you can wait for the server to do it itself).

An example of how to do that using STSADM:

stsadm -o spsearch -action fullcrawlstart

[remember that to use a PowerShell or STSADM command to do a full crawl with SharePoint 2010 be sure the account you are logged in with owns the search database (yeah, I kid you not)]

People may say you need to restart the search service (net stop spsearch4 then net start spsearch4) before doing the full crawl, but that is not necessary- rebooting the server, by definition, restarts the service.

To test if the full crawl worked, after the master merge has been completed (you can see two entries in the Applications Event log under the category "Content Index Server"), I went to the SharePoint site where I uploaded the RTF file, and did a search using a word in the title of the file. When it came up in the search results, I saw two things. 1) it proved that the full crawl was successful, because SharePoint was at least able to index the metadata for the file's title. 2) if under the title of the file in the search results, a little summary of the text in the file is displayed, then SharePoint was able to index the content inside the file, meaning the rtf ifilter did work.

And, of course, the true test- doing a search on the site where the file is located, using one of the unique words in the rtf file itself- if returns the rtf file in the search results, then it worked. And in my case, it did.

So the bottom line:


-Do not let anyone tell you that SharePoint Foundation 2010 cannot index/search RTF files. It can. Out of the box, with only two registry entries and a reboot.
-Do not let anyone tell you that you must BUY and install an RTF ifilter in order to be able to index RTF files. Spending money is NOT necessary, the file should already be in the system32 folder.
-The suggestions made to get SharePoint Server 2010 to index RTF files (namely, just registering the rtffilt.dll) do not work for SharePoint Foundation 2010. Just because that fix doesn't work for SharePoint Foundation does not mean SPF cannot search rtf files. That's just silly, and I've proven it. Thanks for reading this far. :)

A little thing about reliability monitor- a note to self

Hi there everyone!

I've been a busy server grrl over these last several months, and am trying to catch up on my blogging. Lately I've been doing a lot of online livecasts and presentations. In order to do them, I've found myself doing much more in my facebook SPF group and twitter than here. (btw, the link for my SPF group in facebook is: www.facebook.com/groups/callahanspf for anyone interested)

My apologies for the delay in getting back to this venue. I plan to rectify that over the next few weeks.

To start, I was talking with someone at a conference in Sweden last week (that SEF 2011 event I mentioned in the sidebar). I'd just finished a monitoring session, and wished it could be longer because there are so many free and useful tools to monitor a server (SharePoint Foundation or otherwise), that it's hard to even mention them all in just an hour.

One of the tools I didn't get to talk about, because it required extra set up, was the Reliability Monitor. I brought it up because Performance Monitor for server 2008 can display a bad link in it's opening interface that refers to a Stability Monitor that doesn't exist in Server 2008 (or 2008 R2), and that what's left, the Reliability Monitor, doesn't work on the server out of the box.

I'd written an entry about it in my server edition blog on livespaces, but that was deleted by Microsoft while I was editing the SPF book. (yes, all that work gone...) So I thought I'd quickly rewrite it here.

What is Reliability Monitor anyway?

The Reliability Monitor pulls data from the Windows event logs concerning the performance and stability of the server. It ranks stability from 1 to 10, with 10 being very stable. It doesn't just graph the stability of the machine from day to day (or week, or month, however you want it displayed), it also displays the events that occurred in that time period, which you can click on to view additional data (should you need to act on those events). It also displays a list of events below the graph. You can even click a "problem report" and just see a window filled with a listing of problem events that have occurred (such as a firefox plug-in not working properly). Microsoft may be able to offer solutions for listed problems, but don't bank on it.

First thing you might notice is you can't find the Reliability Monitor anywhere. It's not under Administrative Tools, Accessories, or System Tools. It's actually listed under the Action Center in the Control Panel, as "View reliability history" (just to give you an idea as to how far this nifty tool has been deprecated)

Once you've click on the "View reliability history" link in the Action Center (it's in the Maintenance section), it will open a window displaying nothing useful- because it's not on by default.

To get Reliability Monitor to work, you need to:

• Change a registry setting from 0 to 1
• Change a scheduled task's "One time" task to the current date and time
•  Run or enable the task

Once you've done that- you're good to go.

To demonstrate:

Go to the registry (type "regedit" in the start menu's search field, then click on the regedit object that comes up in the start menu list.

open the key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Reliability Analysis\WMI\WMIEnable

Change the value of WMIEnable from 0 to 1 (then click OK to save the change). It has to be 1 in order to be enabled.

Then close out of regedit.

After that you can start the Reliability Monitor's scheduled task so it checks the logs regularly for stability information.

To do that, open the Scheduled Tasks (start menu search field, type Task scheduler-- you can just type in the first couple of characters if you want to avoid typing out the whole thing-- and then select the Task Scheduler icon in the list).

The task is hidden, so you need to go to the View menu and enable "Show hidden tasks."

Open the Task Scheduler library folder on the left side of the window, then open the Microsoft, then Windows folders. Scroll to the RAC folder and select it.

Select RACtask and go to its Properties. In the properties of the task, select the Triggers tab.

On the triggers page, select the "One time" event, and click the Edit button. Note that it's date is probably sometime in 2008. Even though the task's settings state that it should run as soon as possible if its start date has passed, it will not run until you change that date to, essentially, now.

To do that, just change the time and date to the current date and maybe a minute in the future. And click OK.

Back in the Task Scheduler console, make sure the RACtask is select (I make sure the one time task is selected as well, just to be sure) and click Run to start the task. That should enable the task.

Be sure the task is not disabled, should you run into any problems. Also, for domain controllers- if the task still won't start, try changing the account to the System account, not Local Service. On non-DC's local service works perfect for me.

Then wait a few minutes, seriously only a few minutes, and then open the Reliability Monitor again.

It will display at least enough information to let you know it's working. Another interesting feature of the Reliability monitor, in addition to it's list of reliability details (most of which can be viewed in detail it their own window), is the View all problems report. It will display all problems, even those reported by 3rd party software and drivers, so you can see what might be effecting (or have ever effected) the stability of the server.

If you double click one of the items listed, it will open a more detailed report about the issue, with information you can use to find out things on the internet, or contact the provider for a solution.

So that's it-- Reliability Monitor a hidden little tool for monitoring your server that most people don't know they have or can't use because they don't know how to start it.

The final issue I have with it is accessing it. I don't like having to hit the start menu and search for it every time I want to use it. But trying to get a shortcut to it has turned out to be impossible (at least the easy ways that I know of). The best I could do is go to the Action Center in Control Panel and drag the flag icon in the address bar to the desk top, which will create a short cut (you knew you could do that, right?).

Then, at least, I can click the shortcut for the Action Center, then click the Maintenance heading, and then click View Reliability History to get to the Reliability Monitor.

I know, I know, it's not ideal. But remember, I didn't create this stuff, I only use it- just like you.

That's Reliability Monitor. Another thing you know, in case you might need it.

Argh, where have all my blog posts gone?! (and other things)

So things have been busy at casa Callahan, and I have been writing blog entries using live writer, and posting them up to this blog with a scheduled publish date. I have been bad in that, after uploading, I didn't check the blog to make sure they took.

And now I've gotten my comeuppance, when coming to the blog and seeing that at least six blog entries have not actually been publish.

Argh!

Okay, so there should have been a detailed blog entry about how to enable PDF ifiltering and associating the correct PDF icon to PDFs in SharePoint Foundation 2010 (there was some confusion that it couldn't be done. Ppfftt). There was an entry following TechEd about the hands-on labs that were available to TechEd attendees (with one I wrote for multi-tenancy), my wanting to go to SharePoint Conference 2011 and what an "Unsung Hero" is, then an entry about me actually winning a slot at SPC as an "Unsung Hero". There was also a post about my upcoming events, such as the wonderfully fun User Group Meeting in Cleveland (those folks are great!), and SharePoint Saturday Columbus (well, I was afraid that Multi-Tenancy session might not be popular (I had one student)). Things happened, I chased storms and attended SharePints. Much fun was had by all.

Now what I have going on is this:

SharePoint TechDay, San Francisco
Organized by: PAC IT Pro
Date (currently scheduled): September, 23rd, 2011
Time: 10am-5pm (apx)
Speaker: Me
Cost: $99

Pac IT Pro is sponsoring a SharePoint TechDay featuring Me as the speaker. The session is currently listed at the incredibly low price (for a custom, 6 hour, essentially day long class) of $99, and scheduled for September 23rd (rain date of October 18th, if necessary). It's going to be a "Kitchen Sink" session, covering as many topics as I can fit in 6 hours (and those who know me, know I can pack six hours with a lot of info). The main point of the class is going to be "say you inherited an existing SharePoint Foundation installation-- what would an admin do to get up to speed that first day?" or "a day in the life of an SPF admin". The content is going to include everything from, "how can you tell what type of installation this is", "what kind of permission/group/user structure does it have", to managed paths, web application security, monitoring the server, what's it's disaster recovery look like, and more. In addition, at each point, I'll cover what these things are, why you need them, and some pros and cons on how they *should* be set up in most situations. I'll also be hitting some basic points, for better understanding overall, on common things like the difference between web applications, site collections and sites- for those not sure which they should really use, when. The session is going to be a practical, almost entirely demo experience, where the attendees can walk away with a real sense that they saw real work be done and with a good set of tools to better understand what they have, and what they might need to do when they get back to the office.

The session is primarily for SharePoint administrators who are relatively new, or have been around for a while (maybe they were thrown in the deep end of an implementation) and need a clearer understanding of the full picture of how to administer SharePoint, what it is, what it does (and doesn't do), and other essentials. Advanced administrators (particularly those advanced in a large enterprise environment) and Developers are welcome, but the content is geared to an audience of IT pro admins that need a more solid grip on the ins and outs of SharePoint.


The catch to the event is I needed at least 30 people to register before the event could be held (they pay for my travel and hotel from the attendee fee, not enough attendees, no me). Right now there are about 28 people registered. So, really I need two more people to reach my 30 person goal. However, keep in mind that the room can hold more than 60 people (or so I am told), so there will absolutely be no cut off concerning registering. Register right up to the day of the event, I'd be happy to have you there. Remember that the fee for the event is $99-- cheaper than even some of the other, shorter TechDays that have been held this year.

After the TechDay in San Francisco on the 23rd, I will then be preparing to go to Anaheim California to work the Hands-On Labs at the SharePoint Conference 2011. I am really psyched about going, because there was no way I could afford to simply pay to attend. I lost my MVP just at the time they were doing the call for speakers, so I couldn't even apply to speak at the event. If I did not volunteer for the event, I would definitely not get to go. But the volunteering process just didn't seem to be open to people like TechEd is, so I could not figure out how to get in. Then I got told about the "Unsung Hero" contest. It sounded "interesting"-- and the reason I put that in quotes is, the unsung heroes would not simply win a pass to the event, no. They would win an opportunity to work at the event for free in exchange for a conference pass. So that was how to volunteer for the event.

There was no guarantee that I would get in, competition was pretty fierce, but I managed to win a slot as an Unsung Hero, and although the hotels are ridiculously expensive out there (my credit card is groaning), I am going to SPC 2011. Woo hoo! I will be working the SharePoint Hands-On Labs, and proctoring the post-conference administrator's deep dive session. So I hope to see you all there.

Finally, to top off the year, I am going to do my first speaking engagement in a country whose natives don't speak English as their first language-- Sweden. I am pretty nervous about it. For those who know me, you know I have food allergies that are kind of specific-- namely gluten and corn. In the US, those are two things that are in everything. But it turns out that Sweden is very gluten-free friendly. Especially the city I'll be in, Stockholm. The McDonalds there even offers gluten free burgers and fries. They don't even have that in the US (but they should).

So the event I'll be working is the SharePoint and Exchange Forum 2011 (known as SEF 2011, which seems to be a very popular acronym in Sweden). I'll be doing two sessions, chosen by the organizers: SharePoint Design Fundamentals, and Monitoring your SharePoint Foundation server at no extra cost. The first session's title worries me-- because it's not necessarily only about design. It's really about what you are designing, and suggestions on how to design it. Like what kind of implementation should you do (given your situation), then what kind of namespace, permissions, comparing web apps, to site collections, to subsites for organizing people and content. Using AAM, managed paths, and more. All in an hour of course, so it won't be as deep as a six hour course (like the one I'm doing to the TechDay in San Francisco). I hope that my title is okay on that. If you have any suggestions for a better title, please let me know as soon as you can. Maybe I can ask the organizers to tweak it on the website.

So that should catch us up. I'll be churning out the PDF iFilter article in a few days, I may post it to it's original date though-- but I'll also give you all a heads up on it in case it slips out of your RSS because of the date. Other things I am looking into, besides all of the travel I am doing these days: I put in proposals for speaker sessions for the Cincinnati SharePoint Saturday. It'll be a long drive for me, but I had to cancel on a user group meeting I was supposed to speak at, and I'd like to make it up to them. In addition, I'd like to get back to doing live (then recording) sessions online again. Freebinar, now called AnyMeeting, didn't really work that well for me, so I am considering livestream. It doesn't have all the tools that AnyMeeting does, and I could go back to that in the future if necessary, but at least the livestream records well and does do live chat during the event (just like anymeeting).

Thanks to all for your patience. I'm still here, chugging along, believe it or not...

My "Mastering Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010" book is releasing for purchase on Valentines day!

UPDATED UPDATE:
Just a quick update-- the book, Mastering Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010, is in stock and available on Amazon, Prime shipping, two day delivery. (Yay) Interestingly, almost as soon as they had some in stock to sell, they were down to one book. I have to assume that is because of the pre-orders. And if that is the case, big thank you to all of you who pre-ordered.

http://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Microsoft-SharePoint-Foundation-2010/dp/0470626380/ref=wl_it_dp_o?ie=UTF8&coliid=IW4IHPKD5J3PF&colid=1DPHWYF9PWK9R

Due to the difference in the name on my SharePoint books, the WSS book has "C.A. Callahan" on it, and the SPF book just has "Callahan", Amazon has had some confusion concerning the byline for the books, and which book goes to what author page. They are sorting it out, but if you do notice there is some oddness there, they are working on it as we speak.

In addition, we have sorted out the tiny, little mistakes in the original product description of the SharePoint Foundation book, so now it more closely represents the content inside.

 UPDATE:
Turns out that the book is available from the Wiley site to purchase today (Valentines day): http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470626380,descCd-tableOfContents.html, but it is not yet available on Amazon (I must admit, I was a little disappointed). I will be updating this post with the actual date the book will be available for shipment from Amazon as soon as I find out.

.....

The day has finally come. As of Monday Feb. 14th, 2010, Valentines day, Mastering Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010-- the book I've been working on for at least a year-- has been printed and is available for purchase (and shipment).

http://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Microsoft-SharePoint-Foundation-2010/dp/0470626380/ref=wl_it_dp_o?ie=UTF8&coliid=IW4IHPKD5J3PF&colid=1DPHWYF9PWK9R

The cover of the book has gone through a few incarnations. First, it was going to look like my previous Mastering Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 book; a white Mastering Series cover with burgundy and black text, and a compass on the bottom half of the cover. Kind of classy.

Then, I discovered that the cover had been changed, showing a stark, white server room with people in motion, and an orange box in the middle containing the title of the book.

But, as of last week, I noticed yet another cover for the book- hopefully, this is the cover that will be the final one- of a person standing at a workstation in front of a server rack (in a room full of servers apparently), all in silhouette, with a green box in which the name of the book is located. I rather like the look, and green is my favorite color.

The first part of the description of the book, something I did not write, is not entirely what the book is about (the publishers do try). This book is basically the updated version of the last- so it is a comprehensive look at SharePoint Foundation (as much as I could cram into about 1300 pages) from the ground up:

• From how to plan and prepare for SharePoint Foundation, to both types of installation (a chapter is devoted to each)
• To how to use SharePoint (from the interface, to web parts, to lists, libraries, sites, subsites, workspaces, site collections and web applications)
• To how to administer SharePoint (users and permissions, maintenance, monitoring, and disaster recovery)
• To more advanced topics, such as a detailed, step by step look at how to migrate from WSS 3.0 to SharePoint Foundation, to an introduction to PowerShell for SharePoint, and a quick reminder of how to use STSADM (SharePoint's command line administration tool)
• And finally advanced installation and configuration- covering detailed step by step information of how to, install additional servers for the farm, with a detailed overview of how to load balance them (using Windows Server's own network load balancing service as an example), as well as how to set up SSL, Kerberos, external data types using Business Data Connectivity (or BCS for some people) and SharePoint Designer 2010, and finally, a quick look at what an administrator needs to know about installing Office Web Apps.

As you can see, this book contains far more information than just what has changed since the last version (and doesn't really go into Exchange Server at all). Instead it is a one stop shop to help server administrators master SharePoint Foundation, giving you the grand tour, cover to cover.

And keep in mind-- there are bonus chapters on the web for the book: one is a lot of extra material, things I wanted to keep in the book but didn't have space, concerning extra coverage of web parts, lists and libraries. The other is about 24 pages of tables that go along as an addendum to the PowerShell and STSADM chapter. It is an extensive and convenient list of PowerShell and their corresponding STSADM commands, organized loosely by where their equivalent setting would in Central Administration. This bonus material is being completed and uploaded as we speak (well, you know what I mean), so feel free to stop by and grab them (the link to the content is listed in the introduction to the book).

So if a thorough and detailed book intended to give IT administrators mastery over SharePoint Foundation (and deep preparation for the foundational functions of SharePoint Server 2010 as well), then this book may be for you.

Special thanks to all of my reader reviewers and loyal attendees over this last year. The reader reviewers read every version of every chapter, giving me precious feedback, and answering my questions about if the information I was covering was what the readers want and if how I covered it will work for them, given the fact that all of this stuff had to be fit into just 1300 pages (or less-- the last book, without all the new features of SharePoint Foundation, was 1100 pages). It was a long, rather arduous labor of love for me, and is flatly all written for the audience of the WSS 3.0 Mastering book and all the students, attendees, and others who need a thorough, practical explanation of SharePoint Foundation. I tried to give you all what I would have needed if I was looking for a book to teach me, as server admin, what I needed to know to get my server up and running, and keep it running through thick and thin. Remember, this is not in any way a book for developers. There is no coding (except, maybe, when explaining how to use PowerShell), this is just for administrators who actually manage SharePoint, from top to bottom.

There should be a link on the right side of this blog that takes you to the Amazon page for ordering Mastering Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010, for your convenience. Feel free to give it a click and take a look (you can see if the cover has changed again, for starts...).

Something to remember: Now that the book is done, I will be posting a lot more on this blog, as this is the way I keep in touch with my readers concerning changes to the product due to service packs, new things I've learned, and any presentations I am doing-- particularly the free ones, I want to do a lot of free presentations in relation to the book.

Please feel free to leave me comments or post to my errata account (servergrrl.wss at gmail dot com) if you find any errors or issues with the book. I was, by far, not the only person who worked on the book (it turns out it takes a village to write a book). And between me rushing to finish (or rushing my contributors), and the technical editor, developmental editor, copy editor, proof reader, production editor, compositor, and even indexers, things I wrote, and pictures I took, may have changed far outside of my control by the time the book is printed (notice the number of editors, they are in charge of editing sentence structure, grammar, layout, capitalization, and more, and can do so without me). If there is an error, I really, really want to know personally-- so I can fix it here for you and all who might need to know the correction before they come across it too.

I'm happy to have done this work for you. I hope you enjoy it.

SharePoint Foundation 4 Admins session- the remix.

Hi there everybody,

An observant anonymous reader of this blog discovered, not too long ago, that Microsoft had deleted the recordings of the sessions I'd done last year. I had them posted in a previous blog entry, and I apologize to those of you who might have tried to access those links.

To make it up to you, I am going to re-record those sessions, by offering them, live, for free, again. This time I will be using Freebinator to broadcast the events. This product is free, runs in the browser (no client to download and install), but it does use flash heavily, so be forewarned. In addition, the reason it is free is it is ad driven, so be prepared to see advertising. I know that's unfortunate, but it has a bunch of features that are really nice (such as giving me control over my recordings).

My first re-recording session will be tomorrow, 2/1/2011, at 1p Eastern time (until 3p, or whenever we're done). The topic will be "Preparing for SharePoint Foundation and Standalone Installation." I will post the registration link here. Please realize this is the first time I will be broadcasting using this product, so I will be expecting feedback concerning performance.

http://www.freebinar.com/PIID=ED52DE8589

Please note that I am testing out the registration form, and there will be a survey form after the session as well. This session and all others will be recorded. This includes not just my shared desktop, but the text chat where your can make comments and ask questions. Please keep those comments and questions safe for work. Thanks.