Speaking of email... continued background book stuff

Hey everybody,

Speaking of the VMs and configuring them for the book, there is a pretty big shortcoming to using server 2008 R2 as the OS for the VMs-- No email services.  Yup, Server 2003 (and 2003 R2) had built-in SMTP and POP3 capabilities in the form of IIS and a POP3 service that could be enabled.


But with 2008 R2, POP3 support is no longer available. (you've gotta love upgrades that are not an improvement...)  Also, let's not forget, a built in email client isn't even supported in Windows 7...



Except I need to be able to demonstrate (and screenshot) alerts and incoming email (and if I do DMS, I need to be able to demo email there as well).  What will I do?

Well, I rebel against using anything that costs extra money on these little VMs.  They're just for demo purposes, so I don't want to pay for a full email server package when, after the book is done, the VMs are likely to be shutdown and archived, and not used again.  Not to mention that I won't really be sending email to anyone from the VMs, heck most of the accounts I create there won't be sending email either.  And let's not forget that, as a frugal admin, I already paid for a server.  I hesitate to spend more money after that, that's one of the reason's I like SharePoint Foundation (or WSS).


You might think that, because I do have TechNet and MSDN subscriptions, I could install Exchange on one of the VMs as well.  That would give me an email server.  But have you tried to conserve resources on a laptop running VMs and use Exchange on one of them?  Can you imagine how long it takes to start or shutdown a VM running Exchange? Not to mention the fact that, if I included any email server configuration, I'd be implying to the readers that Exchange might be required.  Which is exactly not what I want to do.


So, no Exchange. 

So, should I roll back to Server 2003?  Can't.  SPF will only install on Server 2008 or higher.  That means, exploring other options.

Free options.  Options that take very, very little storage space, RAM, or processor resources. And, they have to be easy to implement and manage-- because I don't have time to waste learning a one time, one use product.

I started with hMail Server (http://www.hmailserver.com/).  It didn't work on my DC1 VM no matter what I tried.  I'm sure it was just a little configuration glitch that, if I'd had time, I could have fixed.  But, it just wasted too much of my time-- so hMail Server was out.

Then I tried SmarterMail, by smartertools (http://www.smartertools.com/).  It installed easily, was super easy to set up (once I figured out the obscure configuration button to add users), and it worked flawlessly.  No tweaking, no learning curve, no lengthy configuration, no fiddly install requirements.

But, poor SmarterMail is a memory hog.  It just kept taking more and more RAM for a server that was to be the leanest of the bunch, the domain controller.

So SmarterMail had to go too.

And then I stumbled up MailEnable, (http://www.mailenable.com/standard_edition.asp).  This little program does require some fiddly pre-install steps.  It was written more for 2003 than 2008 or later, so you have to add web server role, IIS 6 compatibility, and asp.net support, just to install properly, but that's it.

Once you have it up, it works.  It has a webmail interface that actually functions (well after I removed then reinstalled the webmail bits, a single button click btw, from the default web site in IIS, and then rebooted the server), and it even support Active Directory.

Yeah, it actually supports AD authentication and accounts.  Most of those free mail server say they do, but don't really work that smoothly with AD.  But imagine my surprise when it did actually create a new user in AD based on a user account that was created in the MailEnable admin console.  I was stunned, but there you go.

And best yet, MailEnable is taking up very little RAM or hard drive space so far.  So I think I found a winner.

And because you're reading this blog, and you're getting the behind the scenes info about the making of the Mastering SharePoint Foundation 2010 book, even if no screenshots are ever done of the email server on DC1, you will know that, in the background, the author was using MailEnable to do the email for the book. And if anything looks funny, you'll know why. ; P

Oh, and speaking of the screenshots for the book.  Anything email related will, more often than not, be shot from the client machine.  So what am I going to use for an email client if I like free things that don't take up many resources?

If you thought I was going to do live mail, well, you're out of luck.  Thunderbird?  Good idea, but it can be slow, clunky, and a bit of a resource hog for just getting and receiving a little email.

Now, a lot you know that I've been using portable apps (http://portableapps.com/) since I started working with Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2.  Money's tight, so I had to make do with everything on one laptop.  That means that the machine I'm using for beta testing, presentations, and writing the book are all one machine.  If you've been reading my server edition blog, you know that my laptop is running Windows 7 with a 2008 R2 vhd boot. I'm actually writing this blog entry from the 2008 R2 vhd boot.  As a matter of fact, I'm spending most of my time on the 2008 R2 partition because it's where all my hyper-v VMs are.

But, that vhd has only about 25GB of storage.  That plus the fact that I need that OS to run lean, so all resources go to my VMs, means you can see why I am reluctant to install anything on the OS itself.

Therefore, to have my favorite amenities while I'm logged into the 2008 R2 VHD, I'd have to find them among the portable apps.  That and I need them to be free, of course.

To that end I'm running VLC and XMplay for my audio and video needs (and using my fave, Audacity, for recordings, portable version of course).  I can also run Firefox portable as well, but I've already got IE on the image, so it's not really a requirement.  I just use it for some sites and downloads.  I'm using Xnews for NNTP newsreading, but I'm not really crazy about it.  Using Lightscreen for screenshots-- that'll work until I actually have to edit them, then I'll probably have to install Snagit or something. Filezilla for FTPing files to and from the publisher for the book. Infrarecorder for burning DVDs (not super crazy about it), Foxit reader for PDFs, and pidgin for IMs (on the very rare occasion I use IM). I'm also experimenting with Open Office portable (particularly Writer) for writing the book.  Wiley has some OO templates that I could use, to avoid installing big, bloated, slow Word, but I am spoiled by some of the nice extras Word offers.  Darn you Word! ; P

I am using Thunderbird for email, portable version of course.  I was also using the calendaring and task support features (task integrated with remember the milk) in Thunderbird, but Thunderbird really, really, really lagged with the add-ons, so I just use it for email and a few newsgroups.  Instead, for calendar and tasks I use Rainlendar2.  It's a little quirky, but I really like the skins, countdowns, and weather widget.  I'll try to post screenshots of my desktop so you can see it-- very HUD (heads up display). All these apps are conveniently used from my portable apps popup menu, nice feature that.

Of course, that brings me back to trying to find a free, skinny email client for my Windows 7 VM for the book.  As you know, I've been using Thunderbird (version 3, still in beta but pretty sweet), and I've been trying to find something better than Thunderbird for simple email that is fast, dependable, and portable.  So far, my two big contenders are i.scribe (otherwise known as Scribe) and sylpheed. And honestly, I prefer iscribe, with it's pared down simplicity, but that's just personal preference.  But both are less heavy and slow than Thunderbird.

So the W7Client VM used for the book will probably have email screenshots from i.scribe. 

And now you know, and you know why.

A bit of an insider's view of the making of the Mastering SharePoint Foundation 2010 book. Just so you know.

Little things about the SPF book

Howdy all.

I am hard at work on installation chapter of the Mastering SharePoint Foundation 2010 book. This is only supposed to be a "revision" book, which means that I am supposed to only revise what's in the original Mastering Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 book, not rewrite it from scratch.  But there's a lot of new stuff in there.

; )

But as you know, there are so many things that are different with this version of SharePoint, that what I am doing is using as much of the old layout, organization (well, whatever is best for the data I have now), etc., as I can, and simply writing from scratch what I can't.  So there will be a lot of new things, and maybe some improvements that I wanted to apply to the first book and couldn't, and so on.

I will be using essentially the same domain and server names.  I will be primarily working in three, maybe four VMs-- DC1, RR1, SPF1 (or SPF2, depending on where I am in the book-- SPF1 is the standalone install, SPF2 is the complete install), and possibly the W7Client.

The configuration of these VMs are as follows (in case you want to install your own matching lab):

All servers will be running Server 2008 R2 as their OS, and Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit for the client.

DC1-- domain controller (of course) and mail server.
RR1-- RRAS, SQL server 2008, SP1 with CU2 (of course, otherwise SPF is unhappy)
SPF1- WCF hotfix, SPF2010 installer, Standalone install
SPF2- WCF hotfix, SPF2010 installer, Server Farm, Complete install
SPF3- WCF hotfix, SPF2010 installer, Server Farm, Complete install (for load balancing demos)
W7Client- Windows 7 Ultimate, Office 2010, Firefox 3.5 (or higher by the time the book prints)

I may also have an SPF4 to demo a Active Directory Account Creation mode install.

Speaking of ADAC, something I have to think about in the coming months is what was formerly chapter 15, the advanced stuff chapter.  I am going to start running out of room in this book, so I may have to omit things that were in the previous version in order to include new features.  I am wondering if maybe Directory Management Service (DMS) and ADAC should be omitted in order to include a complete section on Business Data Connectivity and maybe Office Web Apps (depending on how the licensing turns out)?

What do you think?  Did a lot of you use DMS with WSS 3.0?  How about ADAC?  I mean, it was good to know, and no one else was writing about it, but do you need them to be updated and included in the SPF book?

Yay! I got renewed. SharePoint Services MVP 2010

Happy New Year everybody!

I hope you all had a great holiday season.

I just wanted to touch base and let you all know what's going on.

To start, I am beginning the first chapter of the Mastering SharePoint Foundation 2010 book this weekend/week. I'll be posting regularly to let you know how it's going. For those of you that I begged to help me, there may be emails in the near future with requests as to whether or not I am making sense with this or that, etc.. And for those of you who would like to help me with the book (in a purely voluntary capacity of course, book advances aren't what they used to be), feel free to comment here.

For most of December I was working on a Server 2008 R2 deep dive, Firestarter launch event. It had a lot of live demos and moving parts, and overall was crazy fun to do. If anyone needs a 2008 R2 launch event in their area, I am looking to do that sort of thing at least three times in 2010, so feel free to comment here (or contact my errata account).

It was fun to stop working on SharePoint for a moment and focus on my roots, the Server, for a little while. Especially now that I know more about Branch Caching than I ever expected to, LOL. It also gave me insights into some of the new features of WS08R2 that I otherwise wouldn't have messed with. I know I'll be rolling those new skills right into making the VMs for the book, and will probably find myself using them again and again throughout the year.

On to other news:

As a lot of you know, I was honored with the MVP award in SharePoint Services last year. However, that year was slated for other things, and I was really worried that I would not qualify for renewal this year.

You see, you get an MVP award if you prove you are an expert in a Microsoft product and you do a lot of work supporting the community with that expertise, like newsgroup answers, blogs, wikis, event presentations, podcasts, etc. You earn the award at a certain time, based on the work you did the year (12 months) before, and it's only valid for one year. I'd earned the award in 2009 for work I'd done in 2008 (and to be honest, in 2007 as well).

In order to keep your MVP (in otherwords, to be re-awarded), you have to continue to do community work (for free) throughout your award year.

The award is in effect for only one year (like Miss America). So if you want to be awarded the following year, you need to continue to work for it throughout the year as if you didn't have it yet, sort of working today to have the award tomorrow. And at the end of the year, you need see if what you'd been doing all year long was enough to keep your MVP status. It's sort of a leading game, where the work you did last year gets you an MVP for this year, which you need to work on to get renewed the following year, and so on.

I'd feared, because I was doing less written work, and more presentations, that I would not be renewed.

But, I guess I did enough presenting (about one event a month, ten months out of the year) and other work, to keep my MVP.

Yay!

I know there are folks out there that knew I was worried, and I wanted to reassure them that I will now be able to put that acronym on a book I'm writing for the first time. I am pretty happy about that.

Also, just for those who are interested, the publisher has informed me that the book will list my name as "Callahan" this time as well. Since that's what I go by, not "CA", it is a welcome change, and I look forward to seeing it. It's not often that a publisher will let you put a name on the cover that's only one word. So here's hoping it looks okay. : )

So that's my news for now. Currently I'm exploring what Business Data Connectivity (formerly Business Data Catalog) can actually do in SharePoint Foundations (WSS 4). It's been introduced in this version of SharePoint for the first time, with limitations. I am, of course, exploring what those limitations are, and we can do with what parts of BDC we do get. It's been a bit of an adventure, and I'll probably be writing a note or two about it soon.

And in other news-- SharePoint public beta has, well, gone public...

In a somewhat anticlimactic state of affairs, after all the hoopla of the public beta being released to TechNet/MSDN customers first, Microsoft sent out the email invitation to download the new beta to the many, many (thousands and thousands of?) people who signed up for the beta a while ago.

So congratulations, those of you who applied to be in the SharePoint public beta, the bits are available for download. And also, congrats because you are going to get to play with the new beta without spending the money a subscription to TechNet/MSDN would have cost you.

That appeals to the frugal admin in me.

(unfortunately, I'd already renewed my TechNet subscription...)

Welcome to the beta adventure! I spend a lot of time doing beta testing, and it's nice to know, at least this time, I am not alone. : )

In the coming months I will be writing about things and stuff concerning SharePoint Foundation 2010. Feel free to visit and even suggest things that you've found that might need a closer look.

SharePoint Server 2010 beta 2 is available on Technet/MSDN- but where's SharePoint Foundation?...

You may have noticed that I have been really quiet about the release of the SPF 2010 beta 2 to the public. This is because, as an MVP, I have under NDA not to peep about it until today-- even though the bits were actually made available on TechNet/MSDN for those with a subscription since Monday.

Now for those of you who might have a subscription (like I do), you might've been looking for the link to download SharePoint Foundations 2010 to mess with it and see what has changed, and more importantly, what has been taken away.

You might have gone to the site (TechNet or MSDN, name your poison), selected Downloads, and looked for SharePoint Foundation 2010 under servers-- only to find it missing.

Check it out, you'll see (unless MS changes it) I'm right.

Early in the evening on Monday, November 16th, 2009, SharePoint Foundation 2010 was listed under Servers to download from TechNet or MSDN, as is posted by Jan Tielens SharePoint 2010 Public Beta Available on MSDN. However, that is now not where the download bits for SharePoint Foundation 2010 are located anymore.

SharePoint Foundation-- the product, meant to be installed on the server that is the foundation of the SharePoint Server 2010 product-- is now to be found under Applications, just like SharePoint Designer.

So if you are looking to download SharePoint Foundation 2010 beta 2, go to Applications or Updated Products on the left side of the screen, and scroll. It will be listed right beneath SharePoint Designer (sigh).

Or you can do what I did, and do a search among the products. Regardless, you will find SPF 2010 listed somewhere other than with SharePoint Server 2010.


Think Microsoft's trying to tell us something?

Content Editor Web Parts, Standard Personal Views, and lists don't work together, Or "Something Sandy discovered..."

I started tweeting in July, to celebrate the SharePoint Saturday Baltimore event. Around July 28th, I noticed a tweet by a nice lady in my neighborhood named Sandy Ussia saying she was having a problem with List Views. I checked it out and discovered she's right.

Here's what happened.

She wanted to create a personal view on a list in SharePoint. In that personal view, she wanted to add a content editor web part.

But when she created a personal view of a list and then edited the page so she could add a content editor web part, things went wobbly. The list itself disappeared from the page and the content editor web part could not be edited. If you left edit mode on that view-- the page would be empty.

It happened for her, it happened for me, it was crazy. It didn't empty all the time, only if you edited the page and tried to add a content editor web part from the Site Actions menu. If you edited the page in personally, from the Welcome Menu, it would keep the list view web part, but would never, ever, ever, no matter what you did, let you add that content editor web part.

Let me show you,

I decided to simply work with the easy and ubiquitous "Announcements" list, but it seems just about any list will do.

I went to the Announcements list, showing the standard "all items" view.


I then clicked on the View drop down and selected Create View. I then selected Standard View as my type of view.

On the create view page, I named the view (MyView1) and set it to be a personal view. I kept the default fields and settings for the demo, the important part is that it's personal, and clicked OK.


And, unsurprisingly, ended up back on the list page, in my new view.

I then went to edit that view so I could add a content editor web part (otherwise known affectionately as the CEWP). Now there are two ways to get into edit mode on this page, from under Site Settings, or under the Welcome menu, Personalize this page. But when I try to edit it in Shared View, the list view web part disappears-- which makes sense, since the view is private. Therefore, to edit this page, I am using the Welcome menu, Personalize this page.


In edit mode, click on Add a web part.


In the Add web parts list, scroll down and select Content Editor Web Part and click Add.

Back on the List page, you'll see that now you can edit the CEWP that you just added.


Click on the link in the new web part so you can you can open the tool pane and start editing the content editor web part. Keep in mind that at this point the new web part has absolutely nothing in it, so of course you'd want to add data...


...but when you do, you'll get an error saying you can't edit the web part you just added (and the list view web part might disappear right then)-- "The web part you attempted to change is either invalid or has been removed by another user.". If you try to exit edit mode, or refresh, like it says in the tool pane, it drops out of edit mode and the CEWP just goes away as if you didn't try to add it.


If you try to edit it using Site Actions, edit page, the list itself goes away and you are left with an empty page that doesn't even have a list view box to click on (although I have a very battered install, so that might not happen to everyone).


(what I did to get out of that, was go to the Welcome menu, and select Show personal view. Then, in that view, since the view list showed up, I went back to all items...)

It looks to be a pretty bad bug, and one no one else seems to even think about (I wonder if it'll be in the 2010 version?).

You've been warned. To recap-- don't try adding a content editor web part to a standard, personal view of a list.

Thanks Sandy.




(and you may have noticed a sudden rise in posts, particularly about past things. Well, my health's been a little sketchy, so while I'm okay, I'm trying to catch up. Expect more, especially as I do more with SPF 2010 when the next beta build comes out)

A little something I'd forgotten- addtemplates. (when you absolutely positively have to have that template handy...)

So, I've travelled all over the US doing presentations about WSS 3.0, and particularly things that stretch the boundaries of the out of the box capabilities of WSS without spending a penny.

One of the sessions is a follow up about creating a site template out of the nifty site that had been modified and made more useful in the previous sessions. It showed the pros and cons about site templates, some of the things that need to be considered, etc..

Now when you create a site template, it is made into a template file, or package, with the file extension .stp. Site templates were meant to be added to particular site collections where you'd like the template to be available.

Therefore, it stands to reason that site templates would not normally be available to be used for the first and top level site of a site collection-- because the site collection must already have a top level site in the site collection to have a site collection gallery to put the .stp file in.

However, there is a work around.

Did you know that you could use the "STSADM -o addtemplate" operation to allow any site template to be available as a top level template? Yup. Not only that, but if there is a site template you'd just like to have available everywhere without having to add it to each site collection's gallery, addtemplate is your friend.

It is a farmwide, or global operation, meaning that the template is added to the farm and is available for every web application and every site collection within those web apps. So top level to bottom most subsite, the template would be available.

To add a site template to the farm so it will be available everywhere, including to be applied to top level sites, use the STSADM -o addtemplate command (here's the command syntax and parameters):

STSADM -o addtemplate -filename -title -description

So, in my case I'd like to add the User Group Edition site template from the SharePoint Community Kit from Codeplex (codeplex makes free stuff for the community). I've always liked that site, for numerous reasons, but have not liked that, to use it, I needed it to be a subsite of an existing site collection. I'd like to take that .stp file and make it available as the first site in a site collection I can dedicate to a user group.

So first I, moved the stp file to my C: drive for easy access. Then I opened a command prompt and navigated to the bin folder in the 12 hive where STSADM is kept.

Then I typed in the STSADM command that would add the user group edition template I like so much (cks_uge_1.0.stp) to the global templates available for the whole farm. I am also going to add a title (remember the title) and description (remember that, for the sake of this demonstration, I put the template in the root of the drive):

STSADM -o addtemplate -filename "c:\cks_uge_1.0.stp" -title "User Group Site" -description "User Group Edition site template"

After running the command I was prompted to do an IISRESET, which I did (I like doing iisreset /noforce, but that's just me).


Now that the template has been added globally to the farm, I can create a site collection in any web application within the farm and the template will be there. That means that I can apply the User group edition template to the first site in a collection.





To delete a template you only have to specify the title:

STSADM -o deletetemplate -title "User Group Site"

Somethings to note-- don't delete a site template that's being used, it can cause issues. Don't delete a site template and then try to add it back-- it can cause errors as well.

Over all, measure twice, cut once. Only add templates you don't intend on ever removing, and remove them with caution.


I also rather like the simple little timecard template that Microsoft offers as part of it's Fantastic 40 templates. I often add it to site collections so I can tack it on to demos and examples as I go.

To avoid having to keep adding the file to each site collection's gallery (and having to remember which site collection already had it), I just did an add template with it:

STSADM -o addtemplate -filename "c:\apptemplates\timecardmanagement.stp" -title timecard -description "Site to track hours and tasks"


After that (and an IISreset) I could easily go to any web application on the farm, and any site collection in those web apps, and easily select the template to apply to any subsite (or top site for that matter) that I wish.


If you ever need to check to see what templates you've added to the farm, you can do:

STSADM -o enumtemplates


Which will show you what templates you have available (this screenshot, like the one above, is from a similar deployment, but it's not identical, the UGE template is "UGE" here and not "User group site", for those of you watching closely).

I want to give a shout out to Mario Fulton (who is a Microsoft Certified Master in SharePoint 2007), out of Columbus, who so kindly mentioned adding templates globally after attending one of my sessions at a Columbus. I had totally and completely forgotten about it. He was a kind and generous guy, who was extraordinarily gracious in mentioning the command (which, among other things, I didn't have time to talk about), rather than shouting it out during an already busy session and playing stump the speaker.