My first SQL azure Application on the Cloud !!!

Hi Folks,

Few months ago, i worked with Azure Services, and since i'm interested to develop applications over the cloud which extensively use SQL Server as a backend, i used BLOBS to store my data... actually it wasn't that easy to use, but the product was still in beta in that time.

Recently, I have some time to develop and start using SQL Azure services, A big start by allowing us to create the Database over the website, then all other operations ( CRUD ) for the Database design and object model can be done using ADO.Net classes.

C# Code for connecting and creating a table over the cloud:

SqlConnectionStringBuilder connString2Builder;
connString2Builder = new SqlConnectionStringBuilder();
connString2Builder.DataSource = "MyServer.ctp.database.windows.net"; // check your profile to know server name.
connString2Builder.InitialCatalog = "YourDB"; // you can create your own their.
connString2Builder.Encrypt = true;
connString2Builder.TrustServerCertificate = true;
connString2Builder.UserID = "myUserName";
connString2Builder.Password = "myPassword";

// Connect to the sample database and perform various operations
using (SqlConnection conn = new SqlConnection(connString2Builder.ToString()))
{
using (SqlCommand command = conn.CreateCommand())
{
conn.Open();

// Create a table
command.CommandText = "CREATE TABLE MostafaTable(Col1 int primary key, Col2 varchar(20))";
command.ExecuteNonQuery();

// Insert sample records
command.CommandText = "INSERT INTO MostafaTable(col1, col2) values (1, 'string 1'), (2, 'string 2'), (3, 'string 3')";
int rowsAdded = command.ExecuteNonQuery();

// Query the table and print the results
command.CommandText = "SELECT * FROM MostafaTable";

using (SqlDataReader reader = command.ExecuteReader())
{
// Loop over the results
while (reader.Read())
{
Console.WriteLine("Col1: {0}, Col2: {1}",
reader["Col1"].ToString().Trim(),
reader["Col2"].ToString().Trim());
}
}
}
}

-- To read more about SQL Azure services:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee336279.aspx

-- SQL Azure Forums:
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/ssdsgetstarted/threads/


Hope it helps.


Regards,
Mostafa arafa

SortedSet <T> new collection type in .Net 4.0 beta 1

Hi folks,

This post based on my readings in .Net 4.0 beta 1, one of the new enhancements in .Net 4.0 is SortedSet<T> collection type, which implements red-black sorting algorithm with complexity O(log n) for the entire list.

Red-Black tree is an efficient sorting algorithm and using this collection will help alot from performance of sorting large sets in the run time.

C# code:

var mySet=new SortedSet <int>() {3,2,7,23,12,879,345,122,98};
foreach(int x in mySet)
{
Console.WriteLine(x);
}

// output: sorted list.


To read more about .Net 4.0 enhancements, kindly check below links:

http://blogs.msdn.com/bclteam/archive/2009/05/22/what-s-new-in-the-bcl-in-net-4-beta-1-justin-van-patten.aspx

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/netframework/dd819232.aspx

Hope this helps.


Regards,
Mostafa arafa

CRM 4.0 Integration with your business applications/products

Hi Folks,

MS Dynamics - CRM 4.0 is one of the recognized products for mid-size, large customers for customers' relationship management products in the market.

If you have a CRM 4.0 in your company, you might want to integrate CRM Data with other business applications. The way to do this is to use MS Biztalk server which comes now with a CRM 4.0 Adapter.

This means that you can make use of CRM schema and Data using Biztalk 2006/2009 in your business applications or other products using this new released CRM adapter in Biztalk.

To download and start integrating with CRM 4.0, this is the download link and some useful documents to wotk with Biztalk CRM Adapter.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=ABD3BB9E-A59A-4EB6-8DE8-FB25B77926D7&displaylang=en

Hope this helps.



Regards,
Mostafa arafa

Code for the power of Windows 7

Hi All,

Do you want to develop for the power of windows 7 ? Do you want to earn money for the submission you will do ? Competition is full of challenge and prizes.... deadline for registration is end of 10th october, Register now :

https://www.code7contest.com/

Start today with Windows 7 development.

Regards,
Mostafa arafa

"an item with the same key has already been added" on CRM 4.0

Hi Folks,

If you are experiencing this error on your CRM 4.0 instance, this means that your CRM 4.0 needs a hotfix to fix this problem.

The hotfix KB article:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/949256

The error # : 951849

Hope it helps.

Regards,
Mostafa arafa

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

First Look for Asp.Net MVC 1.0 Project structure

Hi All,

This post is for new developers who are interested to know the project structure for ASP.Net MVC  project in VS 2008.

If you don't have MVC project in your VS 2008, download it from this link :

http://www.asp.net/mvc/

Once you create MVC project you will find a new project structure different than the usual website or web application structure that we used to work with.

First look for your ASP.Net MVC project shows that you have 6 top level directories:

1) App_Data: Contains your data source files DBs or XML files to read/write.

2) Content: any css files or images.

3) Controllers: contains all controller classes.

4) Models:  contains business model classes or entity framework edm files as business models.

5) Scripts: Contains js files on your project.

6) Views: UI template files.

Bold Directories : MVC specific implementations (New Directories).

Understanding the purpose of each directory is very important since it is part of your understanding of MVC design pattern implementation in ASP.Net.

Hope this helps.

Regards,
Mostafa arafa

SharePoint Service Pack 2 is available

Hi all,

SharePoint 2007 and WSS 3.0 SP2 is available to download, to know the installation steps and enhancements and improvements for this new release, read more on below link:

http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2009/04/28/announcing-service-pack-2-for-office-sharepoint-server-2007-and-windows-sharepoint-services-3-0.aspx

Hope this helps.

Regards,
Mostafa arafa

WCF REST Starter kit is available

Hi all,

A WCF REST starter kit is available to download, this kit contains a set of .Net framework classes which help to build WCF REST-Style Services.

Download link:

http://www.asp.net/downloads/starter-kits/wcf-rest/

Hope this helps.

Regards,
Mostafa arafa

Asp.Net 4.0 AJAX Deep dive with jQuery webcast

Hi Folks,

New webcast on 22 April @ 20:00-21:30 Kuwai/Riyadh Time.

AJAX 4.0 deep dive with jQuery samples and new components.

 

Session outline:

 

• jQuery and the VS 2010
• Using ASP.NET AJAX 4.0 Client Templates
• Using the DataView control
• Conditional attributes

 

 

Speakers:

 

Ahmed Shokr (SafatES – Developers Team Leader)

Amr El Garhy (Microsoft Gulf – Developer Evangelist)

 

-+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-

Amr El Garhy has invited you to attend an online meeting.

Make sure the Office Live Meeting client is installed before the meeting:

Meeting Url: 

Join the meeting

Subject: ASP.NET AJAX 4.0 deep dive with jQuery samples and new components.
When: 22/Apr/2009 20:00-21:30 (GMT+03:00) Kuwait, Riyadh.
Where: Live Meeting 

See you all there. 

Regards,
Mostafa arafa

SharePoint Best practices

Hi folks,

Excellent resource for SharePoint Guidance contains the best practices for Architecture designs,development,test,deploy,internet and intranet applications.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd203468.aspx

Regards,
Mostafa arafa

Important Announcement: SharePoint 2007 SP2

Hi Folks,

SharePoint Product manager announced that a new service pack 2 will be available for sharepoint 2007 and WSS 3.0, and this service pack will be available to be download on 28th April 09.

This service pack has a lot of improvements for new IE 8.0 and firefox 2.0 & 3.0.

It's good to plan for this installation on your existing solutions :).

http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2009/04/15/service-pack-2-for-microsoft-office-sharepoint-server-2007-and-windows-sharepoint-services-3-0-due-to-ship-april-28th.aspx

Regards,
Mostafa arafa

Silverlight development in sharepoint 2007

Hi All,

Excellent resource for developing Silverlight 2.0 in sharepoint 2007, the book covers a lot of important aspects for sharepoint development using silverlight 2.0.

http://www.amazon.com/Professional-Microsoft-SharePoint-Development-Silverlight/dp/0470434007


Regards,
Mostafa arafa

SharePoint Designer 2007 is Free

Hi Folks,

Now Microsoft has released SharePoint 2007 for Free from MS site.

As you know, sharepoint designer was a licensed product before this announcement from Microsoft.

Download url :

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=baa3ad86-bfc1-4bd4-9812-d9e710d44f42



Regards,
Mostafa arafa

Extension Methods in C#

Hi all,

I have submitted a new article in C# Corner website "Extension methods in C#" since i see this is one of most important C# 3.0  language enhancements.

read more about it :

http://www.c-sharpcorner.com/UploadFile/dsdaf/ExtensionMethodsInCSharp03172009150013PM/ExtensionMethodsInCSharp.aspx?ArticleID=9415100d-dff3-4522-b5ab-804475fa9217

Regards,
Mostafa arafa

ASP.Net web development server stop working in VS 2008

Hi folks,

One of my friends told me that he had a problem in the last couple of days, when he is trying to run asp.net web application; he was getting this error message is showing in his browser:

"Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage"

He uninstalled and installed VS 08 since he taught that this will fix the problem.

If you are facing this problem, simply do the following to fix it :

1) open the following file: "c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts"

2) Add the following entry in this file:

127.0.0.1        local host

Save the file and then try to run your asp.net application the development server will work perfect :).

Hope this helps.

Reference:

http://blogs.msdn.com/webdevtools/archive/2009/03/13/asp-net-web-development-server-stops-working.aspx

Regards,
Mostafa arafa

Difference between clear and remove in web.config

Hi all,

I had a discussion with one of my friends about the difference between clear and remove keys in web.config, and I would like to share it with you.
Remove in web.config is to remove a specific key from the web.config, for example:
Note: <> have been replaced by {} because it is not allowed to be posted in http request.

{appSettings}
{add key="MyName" value="Mostafa1"/}
{add key="MyName" value="Mostafa2"/}
{add key="MyName1" value="Mostafa3"/}
{remove key="MyName1"/}
{/appSettings}
Remove is removing the key MyName1.
Clear is used to remove all key mentioned above it, for example:
{appSettings}
{add key="MyName" value="Mostafa1"/}
{add key="MyName" value="Mostafa2"/}
{add key="MyName1" value="Mostafa3"/}
{clear/}
{/appSettings}
I don’t recommend to use clear key in the web.config because it will cause a disaster in your application.
Hope this tip helps.

Free ASP.Net MVC tutorial

Hi folks,

New ebook for ASP.Net MVC is now available for free to download and start practicing ASP.Net MVC framework:

"There has been a lot of excitement in the community about the new ASP.NET MVC framework that is about to ship (literally any day now – announcement coming soon). As with anything new, people are also asking for more tutorials/samples/documentation that cover how to get started and build applications with it." -- ScottGu

download link :
http://aspnetmvcbook.s3.amazonaws.com/aspnetmvc-nerdinner_v1.pdf

Read more from Scott Gu's Blog:
http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2009/03/10/free-asp-net-mvc-ebook-tutorial.aspx?CommentPosted=true#commentmessage

Happy .Netting.

Regards,
Mostafa arafa

Export office system files to PDF

Hi all,

Office System 2007 save as PDF add-in now is available without 3rd party tools/add-ins.

Download link:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=4D951911-3E7E-4AE6-B059-A2E79ED87041&displaylang=en

This add-in work with all office 2007 applications such as: Word,Excel,PowerPoint,Access,Visio,InfoPath and OneNote.


Regards,
Mostafa arafa

24 Hour Virtual Event - TechEd 2009 Developers !!!

Hi folks,

Do you have a problem of different time zones for online trainings and workshops ? If Yes, here is a good news from microsoft :

Defy all challenges of different time zones, Now you can attend Virtual Tech Ed Event for Developers on 1st April 2009 after your registration. No matter which time zone you belongs to.

Event contains 5 tracks:
1) Windows Development.
2) Windows Mobile Development.
3) Office & Sharepoint development.
4) Developer tools , Languages and tools.
5) Web Development & User Experience.

Read more on below link:

https://www.msfttechdays.com/public/home.aspx

Happy .Netting !!!

Regards,
Mostafa arafa

Content Deployment Best practices in SharePoint

Hi all,

Excellent post for content deployment in sharepoint best practices by Stefan Gobner - Escalation Engineer for SharePoint.

Article link:

http://blogs.technet.com/stefan_gossner/pages/content-deployment-best-practices.aspx

Hope this helps.

Regards,
Mostafa arafa

Integrate SharePoint Data to non Microsoft Portal Products

Hi all,

Great News !!! Recently MS SharePoint product team has released Web Services Remote Portlets (WSRP) toolkit, This toolkit provides developers to expose easily sharepoint data to non microsoft portal products such as : AquaLogic Portal, IBM WebSphere Portal, SAP NetWeaver Enterprise Portal...etc.

Now if you have any portal in your organization and you want to expose sharepoint data in two different ways and MS also released the source code for both of them under MS Public License.

**Download Link :
http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/WSRPToolkit/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=1943

**Announcement - Sharepoint Product Team:
http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2008/12/05/announcing-the-wsrp-toolkit-for-sharepoint.aspx

**Videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STP5ArdFlMEhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwetm92V89Q

Hope this helps.

Regards,
Mostafa arafa

Export GridView to pdf

Hi all,

I got a question from one of the DotNet Boom Community on how to export GridView to pdf,read more on below post forum:
http://www.dotnetboom.net/portal/Support/Forums/tabid/63/forumid/5/threadid/97/scope/posts/Default.aspx


Regards,
Mostafa arafa

ASP.Net MVC RC1 is available now

Hi all,

Long time waiting for this new baby,ASP.Net MVC (Model View Controller) RC1 is available now to download,and the final release will be there soon,this is a big SHIFT for all web developers.

New Architecture design for our web application will be implemented using this new pattern,i suggest if you didn't know enough information about Model View Controller Pattern,see below link :

http://www.c-sharpcorner.com/UploadFile/napanchal/MVCDesign12052005035152AM/MVCDesign.aspx

once you understand the purpose and the use of it for your enterprise project,here you can see the new features for RC1:

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2009/01/27/asp-net-mvc-1-0-release-candidate-now-available.aspx

Happy times with .Net

Regards,
Mostafa arafa

Update Lists in SharePoint using web services

Hi,

I got the following email from a developer,it says as follows:
"
Hello Moustafa. I don't want to bother you, but I've been searching for examples of MOSS 2007 Web Services development, and I have not found anything. I have this situation. There is a document library with some items on it. I need to edit some properties of a document (on that doc libr) from an Office application, using the MOSS web services. I need to change the Title and the Category of that document, but I don't know how to do that. Could you help me please, with an example that could guide to me how to do that? ( If you have some interesting links or something about MOSS 2007 development (using web services or api) I'm going to thank you so much ). Regards ...
------------------------------------------------ Ing. José Mauricio Molina Pérez

"

He wants to update Document Library which is a list using sharepoint web services, and he has a windows application which will invoke this web serivce to update document information,Here you go :

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms440289.aspx

If you want a useful site for sharepoint developers :
http://www.microsoft.com/click/SharePointDeveloper/


Hope this helps.


Regards,
Mostafa arafa

New Edition of Patterns and Best Practices Application Architecture Guide

Hi Folks,

New Edition V2.0 has been released from patterns and best practices application architecture Team,This Guide is very important for Architect & senior Designer and Developer who are building and design Complex Enterprsie Projects and Application using .Net Technology.

The book is showing the following:
1) Different patterns for design your applications (Web,Mobile,RIA).
2) Layering and Tiers in .Net.
3) SharePoint LOB Applications.
4) How to build Services using different technologies in .Net.
5) Deployment scenarios in .net.

Download link:
http://www.codeplex.com/AppArchGuide/


I recomment every one to read it to follow the best practices and avoid common pitfalls in your design.

Regards,
Mostafa arafa

3 Tier Architecture Using VS.Net 2008

Hi All,

I had delivered a session on How to build "3 Tier Architecture Applications Using .Net" and i have uploaded my presentation and my demo project on the following link:

1) Presentation:
http://cid-4bc94054914a6469.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Blog%20Code/3LayerArchitectureUsingdotNet011209.pptx

2) Demo Solution contains 3 Layer Asp.Net website and 3 Tier Asp.net Web Application:
http://cid-4bc94054914a6469.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Blog%20Code/EAADemos.zip

Hope this helps.

Regards,
Mostafa arafa

Cookies in Asp.net - An Important Tip

Hi folks,

In this post i want to show how to create a cookie in asp.net page which contains a counter ,This counter will be increased every time you visit the page.

The tip which i want to highlight here-(I got this question from one of my firends),That when you try to update the cookie value in asp.net you have to update the expiry date of the httpcookie object,otherwise the asp.net will store the default value which is : 1/1/0001,which let your code to create a cookie every time instead of update the counter value in the cookie file.

The code to do this on page_load event in C# :


if (Request.Cookies["counter"] != null)
{
HttpCookie coo=Request.Cookies["counter"];
int x = int.Parse(coo.Value);
x += 1;
coo.Value = x.ToString();
coo.Expires = DateTime.Now.AddDays(7);// if you omit this line,the cookie will be created each time.

Response.Cookies.Add(coo);
Response.Write(coo.Value);
}
else
{
HttpCookie coo = new HttpCookie("counter", "0");
coo.Expires = DateTime.Now.AddDays(7);
Response.Cookies.Add(coo);
Response.Write(coo.Value);
}



The code for this post is uploaded here:
http://cid-4bc94054914a6469.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Blog%20Code/CookiePageTest.aspx.cs


Hope this helps.

Regards,
Mostafa arafa

Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) in Visual Studio 2008

Hi All,

A wonderful series of webcasts for managing application lifecycle in VS 2008, this series contains 4 webcasts each cover one role in SDLC activities.

If you are familiar with VS team system 2005, this series covers a little bit new features which shipped with VS 2008.

If you are not familiar with VS2005 or VS 2008 Team suite capabilities, then these webcasts are really a MUST good start to you.

The best is to watch all of them, but if you are playing a specific role in the application lifecycle, you can jump to the specific role which you play in your company as I will describe below.

Web cast 1: covers Business analyst and project manager roles
Including: Tasks, Different Reports, Code churn Report, bugs report, Qos(Quality of Service) document and Requirements, Persona, MSF and CMMI methodologies.
http://www.microsoft.com/events/series/detail/webcastdetails.aspx?seriesid=127&webcastid=5404

Webcast 2: covers Architect role
Including: Application designer, system designer, logical data center designer & Top-Down Design
http://www.microsoft.com/events/series/detail/webcastdetails.aspx?seriesid=127&webcastid=5405

Webcast 3: covers Developer role
Including: code analysis, code analysis configuration and code matrix.
http://www.microsoft.com/events/series/detail/webcastdetails.aspx?seriesid=127&webcastid=5406

Webcast 4: covers Tester role
Including: Load, Unit, Manual, Web, Generic and Orders tests in VS 2008http://www.microsoft.com/events/series/detail/webcastdetails.aspx?seriesid=127&webcastid=5407


Happy New Year for all and Happy New Hijri Year for all muslims.

See you all next year since this is the last post for this year 2008 :)




Regards,
Mostafa arafa

super & base keywords in Java and C#

Hi folks,

Nowadays i'm doing some programming in java,and since all of you know each of these languages are close to each other, I was implementing a class diagram i have done it on class designer in VS 2008.

I had the following inheritance case : a parent class called Publication and a dervied class called Book from publication.

I want in this post to highlight the difference to call the parent class from the derived class in java vs. C#,this is very useful for C# developers if they are reading any java code or vice versa.

If you try to implement the following: the derived class constructor is calling the parent class constructor the code in java and C# will be as follows:

// Java Code :

public class Publication
{
public Publication(String title)
{
this.title=title;
}
}
public class Book extends Publication
{
public Book(String title,String ISBN)
{
//super means the constructor of book will pass title to the publication constructor (Parent).
super(title);
this.ISBN=ISBN;
}
}


// C# Code :

public class Book
{
public Book(string title, string issueNo) : base(title)
{ // base means the title parameter will be passed to the parent class constructor.
this.issueNo = issueNo;
}
}

base and super keywords in c# and java are doing the same functionality by calling the parent class constructor in this case.

base and super used to refer to the parent class in general.


Hope this tip be useful.



Regards,
Mostafa arafa

Get Started with SharePoint Development...

Hi All,

For .Net Experienced developers a good resource to start SharePoint Development,here is the link :

http://www.microsoft.com/click/SharePointDeveloper/

Also, ebook for free "Getting Started with Sharepoint" ,Download link:

http://windowsitpro.com/eBooks/index.cfm?ebid=eeac7d33-c9bb-4059-a0ad-480799e93512&fuseaction=ebook


Regards,
Mostafa arafa

New useful tool to prepare your web server or development machine

Hi All,

We used when we want to install any software for our web servers or any of our development machine is to read alot of KBs article how to install .Net Framewort 3.5,SQL 2005 express edition...etc. and it was a long process you have to have your DVDs or download it from your partnet account website,then start your software installtion process.

Microsoft has released a new wonderful tool,to prepare all required software for installations on your machine,it shows you all available SW based on your machine OS and architecture (32 or 64bit ) and make it available on a list.

The new tool called "Web platform installer",and you can download it from the following link:
http://www.microsoft.com/web/channel/products/WebPlatformInstaller.aspx

This tool should be used by .net web developers who prepare their web server or system admins.

The tool has alot of sensitive tools and updates,the person who use it should be aware about the tools and the conflict that might happen.

I have used it and it's pretty easy and fast :).



Regards,
Mostafa arafa

Write arabic even if you don't have arabic keyboard !!

Hi All,

I had a problem few days ago,I was working on a laptop with English Only characters and i can't write arabic character because i can't memorize the location of arabic keys.

One of my friends sent me a very good site which you can write your word in english and it will be converted to Arabic word representation,then you can (copy) take this word and search on Live.come with it for example.

I want to get this word written in arabic : Shahr,write it on this site it will be converted to : شهر



Wonderful site url :
http://www.yamli.com/editor/ar/




Regards,
Mostafa arafa

Test the performance of you web pages

Hi All,

For all web developers to measure the performance of your web pages,now MS has released new tool to visualize analyze the performance of your roundtrip in your webpages called VRTA.

download link :

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=119F3477-DCED-41E3-A0E7-D8B5CAE893A3&displaylang=en


This is not a substitute for the tests that you can do it with VS team system testing tools such as : load test.

hope this helps.


Regards,
Mostafa arafa

What's behind XBAP web pages ?

Hi Folks,

If you visit one of the sites and you find an interactive website pages with xbap extensions ( such as : home.xbap) those files are .net pages with WPF browser template project available in .Net 3.5.

Don't think its a silverlight pages or any other technology has been used,it's pure WPF browser project in .net 3.5,and all created pages take xbap extension,those files have the power of .net framework in your browser,it's tested on IE and FireFox,I have test it also on the last version of Firefox 3.0.4,it works fine.

If you would like to see a sample of simple interactive page using WPF browser application,here it is :

http://www.hanselman.com/clickonce/takethree/WpfBrowserApplication1.xbap

If you are familiar with ClickOnce Deployment in Windows Applications in .Net,it's the same but on your browser :).

It's really a great step in the web development by using the full power of .Net functionality and deployment mechanism on your favorite web browser.


If you want the sample code for the posted sample,it is here :

http://www.hanselman.com/blog/FirefoxWPFAndXBAP.aspx

Happy .Netting...



Regards,
Mostafa arafa

Different Languages Interface for VS 2008

Hi All,

MS has released a new tool since that all developers all over the globe can see the translation of VS Interface in different languages other than english Interface (CLIP).

This is one announcement,the other one which is interesting,that i have participated in this product 1 year ago and i'm very happy to see it in place and all MVPs efforts are presented in one of the most favourable products for all .Net developers.

One Question will come which language did I support in the VS Dictionary : Sure It's Arabic Translations for VS.


Tool download link :

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=4E5258D2-52F4-46B8-8B74-DA2DBEC7C2F7&displaylang=en


Happy time with VS IDE.

Regards,
Mostafa arafa

jQuery ? New easy life for web developers

Hi All,

For all web developers,new library which ease your life to write javascript code and it is also integrated with VS.Net IDE. if you have your asp.net application or Ajax enables asp.net application you can now download an integrate jQuery with your existing web application or website.

jQuery gives you a great advantage of manipulating your html elements by providing an API selector with the intellisense in VS.Net.

Read more and the download link of jQuery Library :
http://jquery.com/

How to integrate jQuery in your asp.net application:
http://www.hanselman.com/blog/jQuerytoshipwithASPNETMVCandVisualStudio.aspx

Scott Gu announcing the jQuery integration with VS.Net :
http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2008/09/28/jquery-and-microsoft.aspx

Happy .Net programming :)







Regards,
Mostafa arafa

Download SharePoint 2007 VPC Now

Hi All,

If you are looking to work or evaluate SharePoint 2007 for training or development purposes,here's the full download for SharePoint 2007 VPC Files:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=67f93dcb-ada8-4db5-a47b-df17e14b2c74&DisplayLang=en

Thanks Microsoft :)

If you are one of who like to create their VPC manually, here's a great post for this :

http://www.pptspaces.com/sharepointreporterblog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=28


Regards,
Mostafa arafa

PDC 2008 Videos

Hi All,

Best link to view a categorized videos of PDC 2008 Event :

http://channel9.msdn.com/pdc2008/

Regards,
Mostafa arafa

Integrate your SQL Reporting Services Reports in MOSS 2007

Hi Folks,

Out of the box add-on for MOSS 2007 which you can deploy your Sql Reporting Services Reports in MOSS 2007 Sites,Download the Add-on now and you can add Report Viewer webpart and integrate your created reports inside SharePoint Sites ,Download Link :

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=1e53f882-0c16-4847-b331-132274ae8c84&displaylang=en

Note: This build working only with SQL 2005 SP2

Hope this helps.

Regards,
Mostafa arafa

Add-on on Visual studio 2008 for Silverlight 2

Hi All,

Start developing Silverlight 2 application in VS2008 SP1,download the add-on link below :


http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=c22d6a7b-546f-4407-8ef6-d60c8ee221ed&displaylang=en


Happy .Netting.

Regards,
Mostafa arafa

WOW... Get Started with SQL 2008

Hi Folks,


New Site has been published for New MS Product SQL 2008, if you are developer,IT Professional or want to know about the product for fun,Get started with this site :

http://www.microsoft.com/sql/experience/html/Default.aspx?loc=en



Regards,
Mostafa arafa

Next MS Event @ Gulf - Register Now !

Hi All,

"IT Evolution 08" Event is the new MS Event will be around on November 2008 at all Gulf Cities, Register Now and Book your seat in any city in Gulf.

Registration site :

http://www.microsoft.com/middleeast/gulf/ITEvolution/IT_Times/default.htm



Regards,
Mostafa arafa

Silverlight 2.0 SDK is now available

Hi Folks,

Silverlight SDK is a very useful resource for developers to get started with Silverlight Development.


Silverlight 2.0 SDK is now available for download,get it from here :

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=8d933343-038f-499c-986c-c3c7e87a60b3&displaylang=en

Regards,
Mostafa arafa

Download SQL Server 2008 NOW

Hi All,

Now you can download MS SQL 2008 for 180 Days Evaluations period ,try it :

http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2008/en/us/trial-software.aspx

Site contains other very useful demos and virtual labs :

http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2008/en/us/demos.aspx

http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2008/en/us/virtual-labs.aspx

enjoy :)



Regards,
Mostafa arafa

New Book : How To Program C#

Hi All,

New Book has been released "Visual C# 2008 How To Program " Book,This book is an excellent book for beginners and students to get to know all technologies out of the box shipped with VS .Net 2008 including asp.net 3.5,LINQ,WCF,PF,WF and more.

You Can purchase this book from Amazon.com and InformIT.com Sites.



















Regards,
Mostafa arafa

How to Synch SharePoint Documents Offline on Vista

Hi All,

Very good tool to Synch your sharepoint documents offline on Vista OS,read below post :

http://grounding.co.za/blogs/neil/archive/2008/08/02/using-synctoy-to-synchronize-offline-sharepoint-documents-on-vista.aspx


Regards,
Mostafa arafa

For SharePoint Developers: MOSS SDK 1.4 & WSS SDK 1.4

Hi Folks,

New SDK for MOSS & WSS 3.0 has been released,check it out:

http://blogs.msdn.com/randalli/archive/2008/08/28/just-published-wss-and-moss-sdk-1-4-download-and-online-msdn-library-8-29-2008.aspx



Regards,
Mostafa arafa

VS 2008 SP1 is now available

Hi All,

SP1 for VS 2008 is now available for download :

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=FBEE1648-7106-44A7-9649-6D9F6D58056E&displaylang=en

Also,SP1 for .Net Framework 3.5 is now availbale for download :

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=AB99342F-5D1A-413D-8319-81DA479AB0D7&displaylang=en



Regards,
Mostafa arafa

Today Tip : Difference between Asynchronous & Asynchronous Postback in AJAX

Hi Folks,

Today i want to share with you some important tips for asp.net AJAX development,if you are developing an ajax website,sure you are using Synch. and Asynch postbacks in your page,what i want to share with you are the following tips:

1) Asp.Net AJAX executes only 1 Asynchronous postback at a time,which means if you have 2 buttons doing asynch. postback the ajax will execute one action at a time.
2) The difference between Synch and Asynch postback is major,in Synch postback the ajax is renedering the whole page for any postback which is not required usally if you have multiple update panel in your page.
3) In Asych postback the Ajax only render the panel which cause the postback,for example,if you have 3 update panels,and one of them cause postback ,the only update panel which contains the button will be rendered.
4) you can manage Synch or Asynch Postback in your page using an AJAX Class called PageRequestManager,sample code :

Sys.WebForms.PageRequestManager.getInstance().abortPostBack();



Hope this tips are helpful in your ajax programming.

Regards,
Mostafa arafa

Customer Guidance for Implementing SharePoint Solutions

Hi Folks,

New Project hs been created on CodePlex Site to Guide Customer How to implement Solutions on Top of SharePoint 2007,This Guide is very good step for SW Architects and Leads how to design SharePoint Solutions....Hope will be useful.

It's not even in Alpha,it's on Draft Version,Check it out :
http://www.codeplex.com/spg

Be in touch with this project on CodePlex Web Site.


Regards,
Mostafa arafa

In Deep MOSS Crawling Articles

Hi All,

SharePoint Product Group has launched set of useful articles about crawling in MOSS 2007,detials mentioned below :

1) Creating an Enterprise Search Crawl Log Viewer for SharePoint Server 2007 :
http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/crawllogviewersample

2) Using Enterprsie Filters in MOSS 2007 :
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc751808.aspx

3) Creating an Enterprise Search Crawl Log Viewer for SharePoint Server 2007:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc751807.aspx

Happy Times with MOSS :)

Regards,
Mostafa arafa

Silverlight Beta 2 Tips by VWD Team

Hi Folks,

Great Tips from Visual Web Developer Team about Silverlight 2 beta 2,chech it out:

http://blogs.msdn.com/webdevtools/archive/2008/07/01/silverlight-tips-of-the-day.aspx

http://blogs.msdn.com/webdevtools/archive/2008/07/17/silverlight-tips-of-the-day-week-2.aspx

localize silverlight application :
http://blogs.msdn.com/webdevtools/archive/2008/06/10/localizing-a-silverlight-application.aspx

To get an overview about what's new in silverlight 2 beta 2 on VS 2008 :

http://blogs.msdn.com/webdevtools/archive/2008/06/06/what-s-new-with-silverlight-tools-beta-2.aspx



Regards,
Mostafa arafa

Get Started with IIS 7.0

For All web developers, very useful post for getting started with Configuring asp.net applications on IIS 7.0 on vista and windows Srvr 2008 :

http://www.dotnetbips.com/articles/df885319-19cc-47b8-8808-6ed462db1de5.aspx

hope this helps.

Regards,
Mostafa arafa

Open Browser in Outlook in VS Add-Ins

Hi ,

I got a question from one of my friends,he's creating an Outlook Add-In and he wants to open a specific website inside outlook.

To do so,simply create a new project Outlook 2007 Add-In,and paste below couple of lines of code,this will open a url inside your outlook.

C# Code :

Office.CommandBarComboBox webControl1 =
(Office.CommandBarComboBox)this.Application.ActiveExplorer().CommandBars.FindControl(26, 1740, missing, missing);webControl1.Text = "http://moustafa-arafa.blogspot.com";


This code will be used on your Button Click event or any other event handler as per your requirements.

Hope this Tip helps.

Regards,
Mostafa arafa

Podcasting Kit for SharePoint

Hi Folks,

Today SharePoint product team has released Podcasting Kit for SharePoint 2007 (PKS),Now you can upload and show your podcast on your sharepoint sites.

the kit is also available with rating features and support Silverlight controls.

download on CodePlex :
http://www.codeplex.com/pks

Screen shot for Podcasting Site :
http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2008/06/10/announcing-open-source-podcasting-kit-for-sharepoint-the-power-of-social-media-for-the-enterprise.aspx


Regards,
Mostafa arafa

Hands On Labs on WSS 3.0

Hi Folks,

Microsoft released new HOL for WSS 3.0 Development,it contains 10 Labs on different important topics on WSS 3.0 development C# & VB.Net :

- No SharePoint Development Experience is required,Only .Net Development Experience.


The HOLs included are:
1. Web Parts
2. Data Lists
3. Event Handlers
4. Workflow
5. Silverlight
6. Page Navigation
7. Page Branding
8. Web Services
9. Content Types
10. User Authentication

Start your practice now, Download link :

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=b885dce8-c93f-48aa-b798-4422febcc200&DisplayLang=en


Regards,
Mostafa arafa

For .Net Developers....How to Move to SharePoint Development

Hi,

Microsoft has launched a campaign to .Net Developers to move to SharePoint Development

To help drive productivity and knowledge of SharePoint by Software Developers :http://MSSharePointDeveloper.com.

The new material is designed to help .NET Developers to learn the top ten artifacts in SharePoint that are interesting to them.
MS created a variety of materials with different learning styles to make getting started with these artifacts easy and it’s all based on the Visual Studio extensions for SharePoint.

The Top Ten SharePoint Artifacts of interest to .NET Developers being promoted
· Web Parts
· Data Lists
· Event Handlers
· Workflows
· Silverlight Web Parts
· Page Navigation
· Page Branding
· Web Services
· Content Types
· User Management

At the site (which is hosted on microsoft.com) we have:
· An Introductory Whitepaper
· Benefits of SharePoint for Developers
· A Small Public VPC
· Hosted MSDN Virtual Labs in C# and VB.NET
· Video Interview with SharePoint MVPs
· Screencasts
· Web Casts with SharePoint MVPs (incredible 1705 live attendees in just the first four WebCasts)
· Quickstarts
· Labcasts
· Presentation Download
· Hands on Labs Download
· Additional Resource Links

The site encourages developers who use the content to also take a next step and go on Instructor Led Training, Get Certified, and Download an evaluation copy of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server.

http://MSSharePointDeveloper.com


Happy times with MOSS 2007

Regards,
Mostafa arafa

Non Delivery Report Problem for Migrated users from old to new Exchange

Dear All,

I have found a solution for a “Hassle” problem of NDR (Non Delivery Report) on Exchange 2007 for migrated users from legacy Exchange 2003, The problem raised after migrating to new exchange 2007,if you tried to reply to any old emails, the exchange couldn’t recognize cached old contact information, see the attached email.

Kindly read the below KB show/explain the problem deeply, so that and I’m creating a .Net tool to do Bulk update by adding X500 custom attribute to all migrated users and copy it from LegacyExchangeDN in the source AD to ProxyAddresses Attribute to the remote AD.

I have tried it on 19,000 User accounts in our AD and it works perfect J.

Problem as follows:

I’m facing a problem after I have migrated my mail box from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2007,the problem is as follows:
1) Before I got my new email box on Exchange 2003,I have archived all my email to a .pst file.
2) I have restored my .pst archived emails file with my new account on exchange 2007.
3) The problem is when I try to open any of my old emails in the archived email,and try to open the contact profile by double clicking on the email address,I couldn’t get the full details of this account although this account already created in the new domain/Exchange 2007,below screen show shows the problem :















Thanks for C#, Directory Services & LDAP….

Problem Resolution References:
1) MS KB:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/313324
2) PST Problem Resolution:
http://kbalertz.com/275134/Cannot-Reply-Messages-Account-Moved-Different.aspx










Regards,
Mostafa arafa

Support >> Create Custom Group in your WebPart

Support Email :

Hi Abed,

Sorry for replying late,for any future questions please post it on our DotNetBoom forums.

The Answer : To group your properties in WebPart Development,tag your property with this attribute :

[Category("Custom Properties")]

when you deloy your webpart you will find a Group "Custom Properties" and you will find your properties under it.

By Default,This property if doesn't set,your property will be shown under "Miscellaneous" group.

Hope This helps.
Feel free to contact me any time.

Regards,
Moustafa Arafa El-Zoughby
DotNet Boom Supportive Development Manager
Website: http://www.dotnetboom.net
Blog: http://moustafa-arafa.blogspot.com
-------- Original Message --------Subject: Question about EditorPart GroupingFrom: "Abdolreza Zanganeh" <zanganeh@gmail.com>Date: Tue, May 20, 2008 1:37 pmTo: moustafa@dotnetboom.netCc: "Paul Beck" <paul.beck@radimaging.co.uk>
Hi Moustafa,
I have a question on development of our webpart. I am developing new webpart and we are using EditorPart. When the user is in "Edit mode", on right hand side he see the editpart and application configuration. I want to group the webpart properties that shown as textbox grouped with our editorpart not like now separately. I want to know how can I don this.
Thanks for your attention,Rez Zanganeh-- RADIMAGING Technical LeaderAbdolreza Zangeneh

VS.Net WSS 3.0 Extensions V1.1

Hi,

Great News,New version of VS.Net 2005 Extensions for WSS 3.0 V1.1 has been released,New templates and tools has been added and updated from the last version V1.0.

Download it now :
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=3E1DCCCD-1CCA-433A-BB4D-97B96BF7AB63&displaylang=en

User Guide,to get started with VS.Net 2005 Extensions for WSS 3.0:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=A8A4E775-074D-4451-BE39-459921F79787&displaylang=en

The only hope i wish from Microsoft ,i want to see those extensions on Orcas ?!.




Regards,
Mostafa arafa

SharePoint Developers' Tips for better machine performance

Hi Folks,

As a SharePoint developer or any developer who have SharePoint on your development machine, after a while of developing SharePoint sites you will find that your machine is getting slower and slower and your don’t know plus the space is eating without a clear reason.

The fast action I did, I Deleted all created sites which I don’t use or I don’t want to work on them later, I have deleted all sites with their DBs.
This a good action and bring back my machine to the regular performance J.

This is not enough, for any future work you have to take care of the following:

1) SharePoint is creating a lot of Logs in the following path :
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\LOGS
Delete the old file to gain more space.
2) Backup SharePoint DBs to cut down the log files of SharePoint databases or shrink log file size.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/873235


Hope this helps……

Deploy your Windows App using ClickOnce on Vista Machines

Dear Folks,

If you tried to deploy you are windows application using ClickOnce in Visual Studio 2005/2008 on Vista Machine, you will find that your published installation package will not work for clients have Vista machine, Why ? The reason is simple because you as Developer didn’t include Windows Installer 3.1 on your package which is required to run your application on Vista Machine.

The same installation will work for other clients who doesn’t have Vista Machine.

Tip : Windows Installer 3.1 is included on ClickOnce Deployment Package by default if you are running Orcas on Vista Machine J.

Happy .Netting..............

Regards,
Mostafa arafa

Workflow Settings Link is not showing ??!!

Hi Folks,

I got a request from a friend,that when he tried to configre a list in a sharepoint site,the workflow settings link is not appearing/showing at all although the sharepoint site is a collabotation site, i went and checked the site and i discovered the following :

I went to the site administration -> Site Collection Features -> "Office SharePoint Server Enterprise Site Collection features" feature and it is disabled :) , simply enable it and you will find the workflow setting link will be there on your list settings.

Hope this help.

Regards,
Mostafa arafa

Information Workers Program

Hi All,

I will deliver Information Worker Program in MIC (Microsoft Innovation Center) from 27th April to 1st May 2008 : - Details :


Program Name Information Workers & Increase work productivity
Date 27th April – 1st May 2008 (6pm-9pm)
Speaker Mostafa Arafa – http://moustafa-arafa.blogspot.com
Level 200 - 300
Target Audience Architects, Technical Decision Managers, Content Managers.
Description:
This 5-day course teaches information workers and content managers how to get started with
Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (WSS) and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS).
The course will be taught from the business side of the software, teaching you how to leverage
WSS and MOSS to solve business issues you are currently seeing. The course will be hands on
walking you through all of the basic features of WSS and MOSS, so that after the course ends
you can go back into your environment and implement a solution.
Prerequisites:
Attendees should have experience with the Internet Explorer and Office Products such as Word,
Excel and Outlook. No prior WSS or MOSS experience is needed.
Day 1:
Information Workers overview, Program Topics, Overview about MS Solutions for IW,
Why SharePoint 2007, Win Executive Sponsorship, Build a business case.
Day 2:
SharePoint 2007 Collaboration features.
Day 3:
Working with InfoPath forms and get ready with paperless work environment.
Building workflows in SharePoint 2007 and automate your business processes.
Day 4:
Working with excel services in SharePoint 2007, Business Intelligence, KPIs.
Day 5:
SharePoint 101, Tips and tricks, Q&A.

To Register :
Contact: Mrs. Nibal Ali Shukry
nibal@mickuwait.net.kw
Tel: 4956091 / 4956096
Mob: 6545100


MIC In Kuwait -WebSite Url:
http://www.mickuwait.net.kw/

Program Details and Agenda :
http://www.mickuwait.net.kw/pdf/MIC-IW%20Workshop%20Program.pdf


Regards,
Mostafa arafa

problem when creating shared services in sharepoint 2007

Hi Folks,

I was trying to create a SSP in one of the web servers,and i got this error:

"Failure! Shared Services Provider creation failedReason: Timed out waiting for Shared Services Provider 'SharedServices1' provisioning timer job to startCheck the event log for details. "

I have checked the event log,and i found that the problem was from service account failure.

i found that the account which is running the sharepoint services is a user domain account and the user has changed the password of the service user account.

to change the service accounts of MOSS 2007,read below KB :

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/934838


Regards,
Mostafa arafa

How to change SharePoint 2007 & WSS 3.0 Service accounts

Hi Folks,

After you installed SharePoint 2007 or WSS 3.0, you might face some problems regarding the installation account,specially if you change the username/password of the installation account.

as per MS best practices,its recommended to specify a new account for the sharePoint installation perior to install SharePoint 2007 and don't use your domain account in the installation.

this post is to show you,incase you install MOSS with your account or with any other domain account and you want to change it,simply read the below KB how to do it ?

its really a helpful article and to the point,specially if you create the batch file which is metioned in the article to do all of that in one step :).

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/934838

Happy MOSS times :).

Regards,
Mostafa arafa

send email in sharepoint 2007

Hi Folks,

if you are developing a webpart or any sharepoint customized feature,and you would like to send an email through your webpart or custom code,you can achieve this by 2 ways:

1) use normal .net classes to send email (System.Net.Mail namespace).
2) use below code:

using Microsoft.SharePoint.Utilities;

SPUtility.SendEmail(SPContext.Current.Web, false, false,
"to-address@mail.com", "E-mail title",
"E-mail body");

this code will use the configuration of your sharepoint installation (SMTP server configuraiton),in the central administraiton tool.

the benefit of the second choice,you don't need to store any other configuration for your SMTP server on your code,this code will directly use the sharepoint configuration and free your mind of SMTP configurations, if the sharepoint is configured propely and send email notification (throught workflows for example),then you code will work as well :).


hope this trick will help.

Regards,
Mostafa arafa

Microsoft Technology Day

Register NOW

http://www.msexperts.net/




















I will deliver 4 SharePoint 2007 Sessions:
*Building Sharepoint WebParts
*Building Multi-Lang. MOSS Sites
*Enable Forms Auth. in MOSS Sites
*SharePoint Web Parts Deployment

My Presentations with Demos/Code,available to download:

http://cid-4bc94054914a6469.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/MS%20Technology%20Day

Community Kit for Sharepoint

Hi All,
Sharepoint Community Kit is a project which contains alot of added value features for sharepoint 2007.
"The Community Kit for SharePoint is a set of best practices, templates, Web Parts, tools, and source code that enables practically anyone to create a community website based on SharePoint technology for practically any group of people with a common interest.
"
New added features...really cool features:

Enhanced Blog Edition
Enhanced Wiki Edition
Corporate Intranet Edition
Internet/Extranet Edition
User Group Edition (1.0)
School Edition
Home Owners Association Edition
Wedding Edition
External Collaboration Toolkit for SharePoint (Community Edition)

read more & download it now :
http://www.codeplex.com/CKS

Regards,
Mostafa arafa

Get Started with Silverlight 2.0

Hi All,

Get to know about the Silverlight 2.0 beta release which will be shipped soon,with the extra features than first version 1.0 which was released on Sept 07.

very useful post,with attached toturials to get started.

Silverlight 2.0 toturials :
http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2008/02/22/first-look-at-silverlight-2.aspx

Regards,
Mostafa arafa

File Not Found problem in MOSS 2007 Sites

Hi All,

if you configured your SharePont Site to use Forms Authentication,you might go through a very strange problem,when you open any page inside your sharepoint site,you will a white page showing "File Not Found" message,and this is a stopper problem,you can't configure your site or work with it at all.

I tried to find the solution and it's really tricky problem,if you updated the web.cofig try to open it now,you will find this attribute in web.config:

configuration xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/.NetConfiguration/v2.0"

what you have to do:

1) Remove xmlns attribute in web.config
2) reset the IIS.

navigate to your sharepoint site,it's working fine.

happy times with MOSS :).

Hope this helps.

Ref. Read More :

http://www.infusionblogs.com/kguenther/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?List=dd601508%2D904a%2D460a%2Db24f%2D9271325cefda&ID=1829


Regards,
Mostafa arafa

Community Open Day 16 Feb 2008 - Kuwait

How can you set your ConnectionString on your Web part

Hi Folks,

This is a tricky post,alot of question i found on the web regarding how can i put the connection string for my web part once i finished my development and i want to be work with my sharepoint site. simply add your connection string on the web.config of your web site .

web.config of your site path :
D:\Inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\Port#\

simply add the connection string section after the sharepoint key and before system.web key as follows :


{sharepoint}
..........
{/sharepoint}

{connectionstrings}
{add providername="System.Data.SqlClient" connectionstring="Data Source=server;Initial Catalog=mydb;User ID=DotNetBoom;Password=DotNetBoom" name="MyConnect"}
{/connectionstrings}

{system.web}........

please replace {} with <> .

Hope this helps.............


Regards,
Mostafa arafa

Ready Tool for managing Asp.Net 2.0 Membership Data

Hi Folks,


Very useful tool i found it on CodePlex community site,this tools give you easily manage the membership tables,manage user roles,Roles,Reset passwords.

The tools is available with source code also.... :)

Download URL :
http://www.codeplex.com/CKS/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=7450

This tool is a very useful tool for web developers and you can download it and use it without writing a line of code or using VS2005 asp.net security configuration tool.

Happy .Netting.



Regards,
Mostafa arafa

MOSS Design concepts "Content Types vs. Page Layout" with Master Pages

Hi Folks,

Very useful post for understanding MOSS Design Concepts including :

1) Master Pages Design for Sites and Sub Sites.
2) Content Types.
3) Page Layout.
4) Relation between the content types and page layouts.


http://www.heathersolomon.com/blog/articles/MOSS07DesignComponents.aspx

Regards,
Mostafa arafa

This product requires at least Windows workflow foundation version 3.0.4203.2 which is part of Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0

Hi All,

If you are trying to install MOSS 2007,or installing .Net Framework 3.0 redistributable package perior of MOSS installation, you might face an error :

"Set up is unable to proceed due to the following errors: This product requires at least Windows workflow foundation version 3.0.4203.2 which is part of Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0"

I tried all possible scenarios to fix this error and i set almost 4 hours to get a solution for this error,and after long period of searching over the internet and trying all posibble solutions,the only solution which works with me,is the following: when installing the .net framework redistributable package is not enough to fix this problem because its not the Full Package of .Net Framework 3.0,which is not available over any MS internet web site and i get it though on of the .net product team.

The Full .Net Framework 3.0 installer package download URL :

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=70848

No more Nightmares with MOSS installation...........Thanks God :)

Different error messages for the same problem posted on below blog :
http://blogs.msdn.com/astebner/archive/2006/10/30/net-framework-3-0-setup-log-files.aspx



Regards,
Mostafa arafa

Problem when creating new sharepoint shared services (SSP)

Hi All,

When you try to create new sharepoint shared services or (SSP),if you faced that the created site is not coming on the web application list,you have to know that this means that your application is running under Network Service or local service account.

The Solution : change the serivce account which run your web application.

To Do that : open SharePoint Central Administration -> click on Operation Tab -> Services Account.

Select your web application and change the account which running your site.



Regards,
Mostafa arafa

Change SharePoint Site port

Hi Folks,

This post is a tricky post,i faced this problem,i had a sharepoint 2007 site,and i want to change its port,to change it do the following :

1) from IIS Manager,right click on the site,and change the port from the old to the new one.

2) From Sharepoint Central Administration,click on operation tab,and click on alternate access mapping (AAM) to map the new url to the created web application url.

For example : you changed the created site from port 9999 to 90 :

http://MyServer:90/ Map To http://myserver:9999/

This tells that if the sharepoint get a request on the port 90 from the iis,map it to the created url web application.


Another Tip :

If you want to change the port which is used from the sharepoint site to connect via SQL Server 2000/2005,simply by using SQL Configuration manager,follow this article:

http://kbalertz.com/889647/change-SharePoint-Portal-Server-connect-Server.aspx


Hope this helps ...............


Regards,
Moustafa arafa

Difference between SharePoint Web Services and API

Hi all,

One of the most tricky tasks to select the type of development task you will work to integrate your custom application with sharePoint portal as all know that you can work with sharepoint 2007 data either through SharePoint Services or SharePoint APIs.

You can use SharePoint Web Serivces in case your code is not resides on sharepoint server,and you would like to manipulate sharepoint data in oyur application.

In case your code resides on sharepoint server,you can use directly the sharepoint APIs to manipulate sharepoint data in an easy way.


Big enhancements have been done on Sharepoint services,you can manipulate all sharepoint compoenets by consumping sharepoint services such as : users,groups,permissions,meetings,BDC,Workflows,webparts pages,documents,lists...etc.


I recommend using Shapoint API in case your code resides on the sharepoint server than using the sharepoint web services because its OOP Object model and gives you little bit more features in some sharepoint classes than provided on the web services.

and the last decision is to you.....

Hope this helps.




Regards,
Moustafa arafa