Add external sites to Sharepoint Search

Hi Folks,

One of the most imoportant features in sharepoint 2007 is the enterprise search. Enabling search for extenral sites are extermely needed in any organization specially if the organization has other sites hosted on other platforms other than sharepoint sites.

To implement this, First make sure that crawling services configuration are set properly on your sharepoint "SharedServices" assigned to your site that you are working on.

From Central Administration:
- Select SharedServices.
- Select crawl rules.
- click on new crawl rule.
- set the url of your site, select include all items in this path.

Then click ok, wait till the next crawl service will run or run it manually, then you will get search results.

Hope this helps.

Regards,
Mostafa arafa

Exception when implement function overloading in WCF

Hi Folks,

If you tried to develop a simple WCF function, and you tried to write in your WCF 2 overloading functions in WCF, you will not be able to deploy your serivce and the clients will get an exceptions.

The solution: give Aliases to the overloaded functions in the WCF service.

Code :


public interface IMyWCFSvc
{
[OperationContract(Name="GetCustomerById")]
string GetCustomerInfo( int CustId);

[OperationContract(Name="GetCustomerByEmail")]
string GetCustomerInfo( string CustomerEmail);
}

The proxy when you reference to your serivce, will create 2 methods with the Alias names and not with the actual overloaded name in C# code.

Hope this helps.


Regards,
Mostafa arafa

Service unavailable after changing the identity for a sharepoint site

Hi Folks,

If you try to change the identity for the applicaiton pool that the sharepoint site is running under, You can do this from the iis manager open identity tab and change the account for the application pool.

After you change this, you will get "Service Unavailable" error message when you try to open your sharepoint site, to fix this:

1) Make sure that you type the password for the service account which the application pool will run under correctly.

2) Make sure that the Service account is part of the following groups: IIS_WPG and STS_WPG .

3) Reset your IIS.......MOST IMPORTANT STEP.

then, you can navigate to your website.

Hope this tip helps.

KB Article:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/823552


Regards,
Mostafa arafa

Asp.Net MVC 2 has been shipped ....Developer comments

Hi All,

Asp.Net MVC 2.0 has been shipped, some features have been improved and other new ones, From the first reading for the new things and the improved features, here is the features that i like:

1) You can write Lambda Expression in the View.......Very Cool feature in your code will be like this ; c is a customer model

HTML.LabelFor(c=> c.CustomerAddress)

2) Areas: MVC 2.0 project support new concept which is Areas, you can divide your solution as Areas. Suppose you are building MVC 2.0 website, and this website contains Home,Forums and Support. each module in this website will be an area in your project with all related files.

3) Strong typed in the view : in the view you can use the intellisense to explore the model fields..........very important and most annoying thing while developing projects in MVC 1.0.

Read more about the product version:

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2009/07/31/asp-net-mvc-v2-preview-1-released.aspx

Hope my comments help.

Regards,
Mostafa arafa

Error when trying to connect to or download PerformancePoint designer

Hi all,

I was getting an error message when i'm trying to connect to Performance point server, and the error message wasn't descriptive at all, this is the error message :

" ERROR SUMMARY Below is a summary of the errors, details of these errors are listed later in the log. * Activation of http://ServerName/DesignerInstall/ resulted in exception. Following failure messages were detected: + Access is denied. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80070005 (E_ACCESSDENIED))
COMPONENT STORE TRANSACTION FAILURE SUMMARY No transaction error was detected.
"
If you don't have performance point server on your machine and you are not able to download it below shows how can you do this.

To do this, get the download from your server, this is the path:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server\3.0\Monitoring\DesignerInstall

Take 3.0 folder, and install the designer on your desktop.

After installation, you will have another problem, you can't connect to your server because you didn't install it from the browser, to fix this do the following:














Replace localhost:4000 with your server name and click ok.

Then you can click on Refresh to get all the contenct on your designer.

Hope it helps.


Regards,
Mostafa arafa

Learn how to build interactive WCM portal in sharepoint

Hi folks,

Excellent video by Technology Director of Razorfish, he shows how can you build interactive content management portal in sharepoint using jQuery,Ajax,Silverlight and flash ?

The video also shows how to enable RIA features/Web 2.0 in your sharepoint enterprise portal using flash and silverlight and social networking.

The video is full of best practices and initiative ideas.....

Enjoy watching this video:

http://videos.visitmix.com/MIX09/C19F


-- Mostafa Elzoghbi

Send Email activity is not working problem

Hi all,

I went through a problem in Sending Email using Email activity in SharePoint, it doesn't work when you try to send email to specific email format using sharepoint designer 2007.

To read more about the problem and the workaround that i developed, check below url :

https://connect.microsoft.com/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=474381&SiteID=470&wa=wsignin1.0

Hope this helps.

Regards,
Mostafa arafa

How to control which Silverlight version does your application run on ?

Hi Folks,

I have been asked from one of my colleagues that he developed a Silverlight 2.0 and he doesn't want to upgrade his application to Silverlight 3.0.

To control which Silverlight version your application will run on: simply open the page which contains the Silverlight object (default.htm or default.aspx) and check the Silverlight object, you will find the following:

- minRuntimeVersion: used to control the version of the Silverlight that your application will run on at minimum.

For example: if you built your application on version 2.0, the client will not be prompted to install version 3.0 when visiting your website if he has version 2.0 and this attribute is set to use version 3.0.

autoUpgrade: when it is true, the application will be upgraded to the newest Silverlight version automatically. If it is false, noting will happen.

Some use cases for different situation:

- - Before shipping your application make sure that make autoUpgrade to false, unless you developed some features which requires the client to upgrade his Silverlight version to the newest one.

- - Set the value of minRuntimeVersion to the version you test your application on, and make sure this is the minimum version you want to make your application is running with no issues.

Regards,
Mostafa arafa

Get to know SharePoint 2010

Hi all,

Interested to know more about next version of sharpeoint, here is the site that gives you good information about the new features of Sharepoint 2010 features...check it out.

http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/2010/Sneak_Peek/

Hope this helps.

Regards,
Mostafa arafa

MVP 2009 Award - 4th Year

Hi All,

Today i have been awarded as a C# MVP for the forth time, I got an email from Microsoft saying:

"
Dear Moustafa El-Zoughby,
Congratulations! We are pleased to present you with the 2009 Microsoft® MVP Award! This award is given to exceptional technical community leaders who actively share their high quality, real world expertise with others. We appreciate your outstanding contributions in Visual C# technical communities during the past year."

Thanks a lot all for your continous support.

Wait me for new challenges this year and so on.



Regards,
Mostafa arafa

Get started with jQuery library from its own creators !!!

Hi Folks,

As you know, MS announced that jQuery is a built-in library in VS 2008 SP1 for ASP.NET Developers.

I recommend for all developers, to see the series of jQuery Library videos from its own creator : John Resig and his team, this series of videos help you to understand the jQuery library features,jQuery UI and other important notes for advanced developers.

I enjoyed watching these series, and i suggest all of you to understand and start using jQuery library in your .NET Projects and solutions.

After you finish this series, i like to share with you these posts for integrating ASP.NET with jQuery library:

1) ASP.NET with jQuery: Scott hanselman:
http://www.hanselman.com/blog/jQuerytoshipwithASPNETMVCandVisualStudio.aspx
2) ASP.NET with jQuery:
http://dotnetslackers.com/articles/ajax/Using-jQuery-with-ASP-NET.aspx

Hope this helps.

Regards,
Mostafa arafa

C# Visual Developer Center website

Hi all,

I'd like to share with you this website: C# Developer Center, This is a good site it contains all C# language enhancements, C# MVP Blogs, C# highlights, C# Community blogs and more.

This website you can subscribe for RSS and check it frequently.

** link:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vcsharp/default.aspx

Regards,
Mostafa arafa

How to develop out-of-browser applications ?

Hi Geeks,

A question needs an answer for most of web developers these days : Can we develop a web application and this application can run out of the browser ? The answer is YES, You can do that.

But How ? Use Silvelight 3.0 Beta.

One of the interesting features in Silverlight 3.0 is that you can detch your application from the web browser and this browser can work as a desktop application.

Silverlight 3.0 Beta have other interesting features such as: checking network availability,storing data offline and much more.


If you have no experience with silverlight 2.0 or earlier, this is the site you want to get started with :

http://silverlight.net/getstarted/silverlight3/default.aspx

This site is a good reference for all Silverlight 3.0 Features and samples.

Hope this helps.

Regards,
Mostafa arafa

Sharepoint designer custom workflow activities

Hi all,

Good project in CodePlex for samples of custom activities which can be used in Sharepoint designer when creating your workflow.

Email, InfoPath, Security & user info custom activites are available to use.


Link to the project:
http://www.codeplex.com/SPDActivities


Regards,
Mostafa arafa

Microsoft Translator - Bing

Hi all,

New microsoft translator powered by Bing, you can use it now :

http://www.microsofttranslator.com/Default.aspx

You can use tbot messenger contact or ESL (English as a second language) tools.

Regards,
Mostafa arafa

How to return IEnumerable from XML web services

Hi ,

This post gives you an idea how to return IEnumerable object in your XML web services, the tip for this post is how to convert this IEnumerable object to something that can be serialized in your xml web serivces.

If you are using LINQ in your xml web serivces, below is an example for the signature of your xml web service:

[WebMethod]
public IEnumerable ListUser()
{
return logic.ListUser();
}

If you run this xml web service, you will get this error :

"Cannot serialize interface System.Collections.Generic.IEnumerable"

To solve this problem, simply convert the IEnumerable Object to Array using ToArray() extension method.

[WebMethod]
public TwitterUser[] ListUser()
{
return logic.ListUser().ToArray();
}

This will fix this problem and return the result as XML in your xml web service.


Hope this helps.

Regards,
Mostafa arafa

Cloud Computing Presentation - Azure

Hi All,

Today, I have given a session about "Cloud Computing Platform" using Azure Services platform provided by Microsoft, it was an interesting session since it was targeted to Computer science students - Master's Students. the session was so interesting and the audience was so proactive regarding their questions and their thoughts about the future of Cloud computing.

In this session, I covered the main concepts behind Cloud computing environment, and the new trends for the Software evolution with cloud computing environments.

-- Since i was using Azure platform as an example of cloud computing environment, i have covered the main services in Azure services platform:
1) Windows Azure services.
2) SQL services Services.
3) .Net services.

I gave couple of demos for windows Azure serivces and Azure sql services.

You can get my presentation from below link:

http://cid-4bc94054914a6469.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Blog%20Code/Azure%20Services%20Platform%20Overview.pptx?ccr=8594


Hope this helps.


Regards,
Mostafa arafa

Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1 is available for public

Hi All .Net Developer,

Impressed news for all .Net Developers, VS 2010 Beta 1 is now available for download for all users ( Wednesday 20 May) , VS 2010 was available for MSDN subscribers earlier, VS 2010 is packaged with new features and new enhancments for what we are doing in VS 2008.

New Features in VS 2010 :

1) Enhanced User Experience.

2) Support for Parallel Programming.

3) More Features and support for ALM ( Application Life cycle Management).

4) Inspiring Developer Delight ( more support for office tools, understanding existing code).

5) New features for Web Development ( One Click Deployment, Full support for Silverlight).

6) Cloud Development.

7) More DB support for DB2 and Oracle DBs.

A lot of interesting features if you would like to read more, visit below link:

http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en-us/products/2010/default.mspx

Download it and start developing with VS 2010.

Regards,
Mostafa arafa

How to open office files in FBA SharePoint Sites

Hi All,

New Hotfix for Office Client applications has been released to fully integrate uploaded documents in Forms based authentication (FBA) sharepoint sites using office client applications.

Before this hotfix, we couldn't open sharepoint office files using client office applications in FBA SharePoint sites because the client can't authenticate the user in FBA SharePoint Sites.

Now with this hotfix, the client will be prompted with a page to enter the username and password, then the request will be sent to the sharepoint site to authenticate the user and reply with a response contains the  requested document.

Other than this hotfix you have to go on the FBA SharePoint settings sites and set enable client integration check box.

Read More :

http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2009/05/13/update-on-sharepoint-forms-based-authentication-fba-and-office-client.aspx

Hope this helps.

Regards,
Mostafa arafa

Simple Counter Web Application using Asp.Net MVC 1.0

Hi,

I have created a simple MVC Asp.Net Web Application, This Application contains a page with 2 buttons to increment or decrement a counter value (2 actions on the same view).

This sample is demonstrating how to understand the MVC pattern in Asp.net and how to pass data between the viewer (You page) and the actions in the controller class in your model.

Download Link   - C# Project , VS 2008 :

http://cid-4bc94054914a6469.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Blog%20Code/MvcCounterApp1.zip?ccr=377

Hope this help.

Regards,
Mostafa arafa