Uploading files using the Client Object Model in SharePoint 2010

In the article Uploading files using the Client OM in SharePoint 2010 by Tobias Zimmergren,

he guides us through the process of uploading a document to any chosen document library in SharePoint 2010 through the Client Object Model, with sample project for download.

Thanks for sharing this.

SharePoint 2010 Themes and Resources for Upgrading a Custom Master Page - SharePoint Joel's SharePoint Land

SharePoint 2010 Themes and Resources for Upgrading a Custom Master Page - SharePoint Joel's SharePoint Land

Adding Custom Action to SharePoint 2010 Central Administration

The information on MSDN is not correct. The following blog

Custom Action Definitions in SharePoint 2010

By Arjen Bloemsma

lists some custom actions, and their locations and group ids. 

For example, the following custom action is placed on Central Administration ->System Settings ->Farm Management

        Id="C98CC48A-6F60-48CF-BC4E-94C998A921EC"
        GroupId="FarmManagement"
        Location="Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SystemSettings"
        Sequence="100"
        Title="the title here"
        Description="the description.">
   
 

Note the aspx page is in the _admin directory, instead of the _layouts, since it is a page used in Central Administration.

One take-away is if you have solutions which add custom actions to SharePoint 2007 Central Administration, then you need to make sure the custom actions show up at the right location, if showing up, under SharePoint 2010 Central Administration. As you probably know, MSFT has done a lot of re-organization in SharePoint 2010 Central Administration, not to mention the introduction of Ribbon.

 

Chris O'Brien: Customizing the ribbon (part 1) – creating tabs, groups and controls

Chris O'Brien: Customizing the ribbon (part 1) – creating tabs, groups and controls

Fast Search Server 2010 for SharePoint Installation and Configuration

The home page of Fast Search Server 2010 for SharePoint: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/enterprisesearch/ee441234.aspx is a must read in order to get started on this.

I won't bore you with detailed steps setting up FAST on SharePoint for a development environment since above link has many pages of detailed instructions, I will just point out some issues I ran into and the resolutions of those.

First, you can install FAST on SharePoint server. For my development environment, I have SharePoint 2010 and FAST on the same server, and databases are on a separate SQL server.

After the installation, during the configuration, If you run into error about "Username or domain is incorrect", please use full domain name, please see this post on TechNet. You can use "ping -a servername" to find out the FQDN.

After I have setup everything, I got the error message "The search request was unable to connect to the Search Service". After ensuring that the SharePoint certificate is copied to the FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint query processing node, the search works like a charm.


Also I created a new site based on FAST Search Center template and made necessary changes to My Site and the Portal to ensure that SharePoint uses FAST as the search provider. Please see the bottom of this post for directions on this.

Good luck with your FAST installation and configuration.

 

Using SharePoint 2010 Secure Store with Business Connectivity Services

Great writeup on using SharePoint 2010 Secure Store with BCS by Fabian Williams.


Job well done!

 

External Content Types Error Message

Using SharePoint Designer 2010, whiling trying to create a new External Content Types, I got the following error message while trying to expand the Tables/Views under the database:

"Can't complete refresh"
"Skipping the following table because it is not configured for use"
"Line 1: Incorrect syntax near '('".

The Routines folder expands fine.

The data source type is SQL Server,  For SQL Server Connection, I have "Connect with User's Identity"
What could be wrong? Is there a minimum SQL Server version requirement? The version for this SQL Server is 8.0.2050, SQL Server 2000 SP4. I can connect to another sql server with version "9.0.3054", SQL Server 2005 SP2.

I unerstand that there is a minimum requirement for SQL Server for SharePoint. SharePoint Server 2010 requires that its database server must be a 64-bit version of one of the following: Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2, SQL Server 2008 with Service Pack 1 (SP1) and Cumulative Update 2, or SQL Server 2005 with SP3 and Cumulative Update 3.

It does look like the minimum requirement for SQL Server for BCS purpose is SQL 2005 or higher, according to this post. Also you  can work around this problem by using stored procedure or web services wrapper.

Or maybe it is time to upgrade that sql server.

Using SharePoint 2010 Developer Dashboard for Debugging and Performance Monitoring

Basically, we can use the following code pattern:

    using (new SPMonitoredScope("My code block (WebPart1)"))
    {
        // the code to be monitored here
    }

Please see the blog from Waldek Mastykarz for detail.

SharePoint 2007 Auditing Feature, Site Collection Level Auditing and List/Library Level Auditing

Quick steps:

1. Create a policy at the site collection level: click on Site collection policies under Site Collection Administration of the site collection Site Settings.
2. Within the same site collection, go to the list/library to be audited
3. Go to Settings of the list/library, select Information management policy settings under Permissions and Management
4. Select the policy from step 1

Note: site collection auditing NEEDs to be enabled. Audit log reports is only available at the site collection level. And audit logs take additional content database space.

Also there are 3 good article on MSDN about auditing:

• Item-Level Auditing with SharePoint 2007
• Custom Auditing in SharePoint
• Auditing in SharePoint 2007

Don't forget to trim the audit log, this tool SharePoint Audit Log Tool from codeplex can help.