Mart Muller's Weblog

Via bink.nu:

“Microsoft chairman Bill Gates is expected to take the wraps off Istanbul, the company's new instant messaging and real-time communications client, in a few weeks.

The software giant sent invitations to journalists and other insiders this week for an 8 March event in San Francisco, during which Gates will "unveil Microsoft's new and revolutionary real-time collaboration offerings".

A Microsoft spokesman said he couldn't specify that Istanbul would be the subject of the event but the software has been widely touted as Microsoft's next major move in real-time communications. Istanbul is an internal code name. Microsoft has not said what the program might be called when it's ready for formal release.

Istanbul, which has been in the beta testing phase for several months, is a new client for Live Communications Server, Microsoft's corporate instant messaging software.

Istanbul goes beyond IM, though, handling a variety of functions based on 'presence', the notion advocated by Microsoft and others of software being able to intelligently route communications among various applications and devices. Istanbul reads calendar information from Outlook, for example, to decide whether an incoming call should go to someone's desktop or mobile phone.

Microsoft executives have said Istanbul would be ready for final release the first half of this year.

Gates will be joined at the San Francisco event by Jeff Raikes, head of the division responsible for Office and Office-branded products such as Live Communications Server, and Anoop Gupta, head of the real-time collaboration unit and the company's chief evangelist for presence.”

Interesting news about the future of Sharepoint is posted more often. However it's all unofficial, some logic moves will taken regarding Sharepoint and Microsoft Content Management Server. With the introduction of ASP.Net 2.0 and WebPart development, MCMS and Sharepoint are merging more and more. MCMS and Sharpoint becoming one single server product is not unlikely, also taken the Office 12 strategy in mind.

Patrick had a talk last week with Office Sharepoint product manager Mike Fritzmaurice about Sharpoint vNext and although things are not confirmed yet, they do give the impression that the Sharepoint/MCMS story is true. Not unlikely, considering the first “add-on“ for Sharepoint 2003 was the CMS content connector for Sharepoint. Besides that, using Sharepoint Search for indexing and searching MCMS sites is also recommended by Microsoft.

I do wonder what place Commerce takes in this story.  Right now, MSIB is a solution to integrate MCMS, Commerce and Sharepoint, but how is this going to be in the new situation? There isn't much news on the Commerce side at all.

Anyway, it's interesting when thinking about what the changes are for the Sharepoint and MCMS community...

Patrick metioned that the MS Office IBF 1.5 is ready for download here.

The enhancements in version 1.5 introduce new functionality that make it even easier to create Information Bridge Framework-based solutions. A few of the improvements you can look forward to in this release are an integrated debugger, integrated XSL transformation capability, Microsoft Office InfoPath® and Microsoft Internet Explorer support, branding capabilities, and wizards that guide you through the development process.

The Microsoft Office Information Bridge Framework includes:

• A client component that displays contextual information about line-of-business (LOB) data in the Office task pane or a modal window. By using this task pane or modal window, users can perform specific actions on that data.
  
• Information Bridge metadata service functionality that enables the client components to connect to Web services that communicate with LOB applications.
  
• The Information Bridge Metadata Designer tool add-in for Microsoft Visual Studio® .NET, which you use to create and manage Information Bridge solution metadata.
  
• An Architecture and Planning Guide that provides a description of the basic Information Bridge concepts and more detailed overviews of underlying architecture and technologies, infrastructure requirements, and planning guidelines.
  
• An Installation and Upgrade Guide, intended for IT professionals who are deploying the Information Bridge Framework server component (metadata service) and the client component to a production environment. This guide briefly describes Information Bridge Framework and its new features, and it provides the procedures for installing the metadata service and upgrading to the new version of the client component.

-----

The IBF 1.5 Resource Kit is available too. Download here.

The Microsoft Office Information Bridge Framework 1.5 Resource Kit includes tools, documentation, and sample solutions. The Resource Kit is a useful aid for new or experienced Information Bridge Framework solution developers.

• MOIBF1.5_Reskit_SampleSolution.exe Resource Kit Sample Solution. Includes a sample solution that demonstrates features included in Information Bridge Framework 1.5.
  
• MOIBF1.5_Reskit_SolutionDevGuide.exe Resource Kit Solution Development Guide. Provides conceptual and procedural documentation that describes how to build a solution based on the sample solution.
  
• MOIBF1.5_Reskit_MDPublisher.exe Resource Kit Metadata Publishing Tool. Includes a tool used to publish or update production metadata from the command line and instruction document.
  
• MOIBF1.5_Reskit_Templates.exe Resource Kit template files. Includes three template files (two XML files and an HTML file) used to create solutions.
  
• MOIBF1.5_ResKit_Tools_GroupPolicy.exe Resource Kit Group Policy template. Includes a Group Polices .adm file and an instruction document that explains the properties within it.
  
• MOIBF1.0_ResKit_Tools_VisioMDExplorer1.0.exe Resource Kit Visio Metadata Explorer tool. Includes a Microsoft Visio® add-in tool that enables you to view Information Bridge metadata, and an instruction document that explains how to use it.
  
• MOIBF1.0_ResKit_Tools_WSE20Adapter1.0.exe Resource Kit WSE 2.0 Adapter. Includes an adapter for incorporating Web Services Enhancements (WSE) security models and installation instructions.

From ComputerWorld.com:

“Microsoft Corp. is set to unveil new Real Time Collaboration (RTC) plans and technologies, including tools for instant messaging and videoconferencing, at a press event on March 8.
....
Gates previewed some upcoming RTC technologies last October, including the company's new front-end application for Live Communications Server (LCS) 2005, code-named Istanbul. Providing IM, voice, video and telephony features, Istanbul will be the preferred client for LCS 2005. At the time, the company expected to ship the client before the end of June.”

Full article

Mark made a posting about how the portal market is devided. According to Forrester, Microsoft is taking a lead here...

Tim Heuer made a list about what a good sharepoint consultant ought to know... In this list he describes what a consultant should know based on his role. I like the list, it might be usefull as checklist testing applicants ;) No, but seriously, it gives a good impression about what a sharepoint developer should know.

About this, I think there is a major difference. The list describes the technical aspects of knowing something about Sharepoint. However, a consultant (and architect) role is more then just know the technical “facts“. What I kind of miss in the list, are questions like “what would you say when a customer tells you he wants Sharepoint?” Would you just say “Ok, let's start”, or might it be better to say “Well, WHY would you like to implement Sharepoint in your organization?”. Another example consultant question: “If you are implementing Sharepoint in a static organization with a average employee age of 50, what would you do to make this implementation a success?“.

I know, these questions are not really measureable, but this ARE the questions where a good consultant makes a difference!

There might be a discussion about “what IS a consultant”.. In my opinion, the term 'consultant' is used where is shouldn't used too much. Anyway, no offense Tim, I like the list, but I would have changed the title to 'what a good Sharepoint developer ought to know..”.

Via Matthew Cosier's Blog we can read that he is working on a toolkit to enable developers to run advanced boolean searches against Sharepoint Portal Search. This is great, because there is a demand for “google-like“ searching with Sharepoint Search. I've been asking myself why Microsoft didn't make a webpart in the first place that works with boolean operators.

Few weeks ago, I say a presentation on customizing Sharepoint Seach at the Office Developer Conference in Redmond. On one of the demo's they showed a webpart that was inherited from the SearchResults webpart on the Sharepoint Search Page. They customized the query in a way that operators like AND, OR and NEAR were possible. They announced that it will be placed on GotDotNet sometime soon...

This looks like it and I hope Matthew is finishing his project soon. Great work!

From the article:

“Features include:

• Full boolean condition support between terms (AND, OR)
• Term negation (Boolean NOT) by placing a negative symbol before a term
• Logically grouped boolean terms by using ( and ) to form complex queries
• Phrased and unphrased search terms which work with both the above mentioned features
• Special term extraction (Special terms are those such as site: language: location:)
• Full site-scoping across the portal by using the site: special term with the site name appended
• Support for Stemming (Inflection transformation performed on terms, which matches a word in its similar/plural forms eg: dog, dogs)“

Read the article

----- UPDATE -----

Matthew has opened a WSS site for SAST (Advanced Search Tools). Apply here to become a BETA tester (of course I did!). He also published some screenshots.

Steve wrote an article on how to get statistics from your WSS and SPS pages, included individual document downloads:

“What's a poor user to do?  Fortunately all is not as grim as things might appear.  Here are some things to help steer you in the right direction.

1. You CAN get usage statistics for both WSS and SPS sites, including individual document downloads.
2. To enable this, you must turn on Usage Analysis log gathering in WSS central administration.  You don't have to turn on usage analysis processing - that's up to you (more on this later).
3. Usage information is associated with SPWeb and SPSite objects.  The real problem in SharePoint Portal Server is that the information associated with the underlying SPSite of a Portal Area is not useful.  What I mean is that to SharePoint, an entire portal looks like one big Site Collection.  As a result, if you look at the usage statistics associated with the underlying SPSite of every single Area in the Portal, the numbers are exactly the same.  However, the statistics for the underlying SPWeb associated with Areas are correct.  Hey, I can live with that.
4. Finally, there are two parts to Usage Analysis - capturing the data, and then processing it.  When you choose to turn on usage processing, a scheduled job will parse the data and write it to the SQL database.  Unfortunately, it's stored in a format that only its mother could love.  That's right folks, you won't be doing any cool JOINs or SELECTs off this data - it's such great information that we decided to store it as a bitmap in an Image column in the database.  And for the heckler in the back, no, you can't open it in Paintbrush either...it's not THAT kind of bitmap.“

Read article

Ed Hild, who's new in blogsphere, wrote an interesting article on impersonating, SSO and SPS.

“The scenario is a common one: An organization has some LOB application that is critical to their everyday needs. In fact users find themselves logging in periodically just to check one particular screen of information. Often, this information is summary data within the system. This article will detail a solution to build a web part that pulls this information into the corporate portal increasing user productivity by giving them access outside of an otherwise siloed application. In this example, the summary data is equally available for all users; therefore the web part will impersonate a specific windows account that has been granted access to the data. The solution will accomplish this using SharePoint Portal Server's single sign-on service.“

http://blogs.msdn.com/edhild/articles/377362.aspx

.....

Today, I gave another Sharepoint developer course... just wanted to share the pic. :)

The is a nice publication on MSDN about the Server Capabilities in Visual Studio Tools for Office, Version 2005. In my opinion, VSTO 2005 is a big step forward in Office Development and the way Information Workers will do their work. As promised I will do some blogging on a VSTO case at Tam Tam soon! Also check John R. Durant's weblog for interesting articles on VSTO 2005.

Read full article

Via Mark's blog I saw this demo about synchronizing Sharepoint data for offline usage. Divi Link's Revelation is a product that enables this offline working with Sharepoint. Kind of interesting, because I've heard several questions lately about how customers can work with Sharepoint even if they are on the road, and not have internet access all the time.

The idea of Revelation is not that complicated, but they've done a nice job creating product that can be very usefull.

See demo

Kris Syverstad wrote a nice article on creating custom site definitions in WSS.

“This article will describe the basic process for creating custom site definitions and will explore some best practices. We are going to build a site definition that could be used as a template for project management sites. Before creating a custom site definition, you should figure out what site definition within SharePoint most resembles your needs. Custom Site Definitions are not typically written from the ground up; it is much easier to start with a working example and add/remove/update functionality in small amounts until you get all of your requirements implemented. The Team Site (STS) site definition seems like the most common starting point and the one we will use as our baseline.“

Read his blog or the full article on .Net Developers Journal

Jan has been working on the U2U RSS Feed for Sharepoint 2003. Great (and advanced) tool for exposing Sharepoint lists as RSS Feeds.

So, what is it? The tool has only one goal: expose information in SharePoint as RSS Feeds. Nothing new you  may think, there are several other solutions for this, so what’s the buzz? I think our approach is unique in quite a few domains:

• Aggregation of items stored in multiple lists on multiple sites
  You can create an RSS feed that contains information coming from more than one lists (or document libraries), that are potentially on different sites.
• Customizable layout of RSS items
  For each list that you aggregate in an RSS Feed you can specify how the items in the RSS feed should look like. You can do that by using some sort of formulas, referring to fields coming from the SharePoint lists.
• Non-intrusive installation
  The installation of the RSS Feeds tool doesn’t change a thing about your SharePoint installation, the IT-Pro guys will be happy! The tool is completely separated from the SharePoint sites and doesn’t require you to add metadata or web parts to SharePoint.
• SharePoint Authorization
  Are you afraid of exposing sensitive data? Well you don’t have to, our tool uses the SharePoint security model, so if a user doesn’t have access to the SharePoint list he or she can’t retrieve information from the RSS feed. Anonymous access to RSS feeds is also supported (if your SharePoint site is available for anonymous users of course).
• GUI Administration
  The administration of the tool (creating feeds, item layouts, …) is completely done by using a nice graphical user interface.

Download at http://www.u2u.net/software.aspx
Watch the video.

..which can be downloaded at Teamcenter Community.

http://www.ugs.ch/evis5/pub/ps/cs/wss/default.aspx (link no longer available)

Poll
Used the Microsoft RateThisPage web part as a base to create a Poll web part.

RateThisPage
I have become cumbersome to Microsoft´s feature to take care about servernames and protocolls. I had for the same page about 6 different ratings. So I decompiled the Microsoft RateThisPage web part and added a config variable to remove this behavior.

QuickTime
The QuickTime Web Part brings QuickTime Movies to your Sharepoint site. You can specify the QuickTime Movie to be displayed with an URL.

The TccRoleSyncer Admin Tool
Synchronize you role definition from a sharepoint site to another site including it's sub structure.

The Active Directory User Information Web Part
The AD User Information web part shows information stored in the active directory about the actual user. It lets the user also change his login password.

The Connected Page Viewer Web Part
You know the Page Viewer web part thats installed by default. This web part works analogue. May it have a lot of more functionality. You can set some attributes to the IFrame and you can use web part connections to show pages.

Site Navigation
The site navigation is used to show the site structure of your Sharepoint site. It's shown below. Use it to navigate to your demo page of interest.

Importable WebParts
This page shows some web parts you can import on a site without installing any component on the server side.

Breadcrumbs
One problem a lot of Sharepoint users have, is to navigate in the site hierarchy of a sharepoint server. A lot of users are thinking the Home link have to be the root site of the server. They don't want to go to the root site by clicking several times the Up link. The Breadcrumbs Web Part helps.

TccFeeder
The TccFeeder client application synchronizes events, contacts and tasks from different Sharepoint servers and from different sites to the users desktop.

Event Rollup
The Event Rollup Web Part rolls up events from all subsites into one single table. This way you have an overview off all events. You can manage events from all subsites in one single web part. You can link all event lists into outlook. The best use case for this web part is ressource planning.

Ressource Plan
The Ressource Plan Web Part shows events assigned to users or groups in a table view. This way you can easely manage your ressources and always have an overview about theire work load.

Google Search
The Google Search Web Part brings the entire Google search power to your Sharepoint site. You can specify search options. As an example you can configure the web part to search your own site!

Google Translator
The Google Translator Web Part brings the entire Google translation power to your Sharepoint site. You can translate text between different languages!

Flash Movie
The Flash Movie Web Part brings Shockwave Flash to your Sharepoint site. You can specify the Flash Movie to be displayed with an URL.

Welcome
The Welcome Web Part welcomes your users with a lot of configuration options!

World Time
The Wolrd Time Web Part lets you choose time zones to display. You can highly configure, how the zones are displayd on the page. You can see on the right side an example of a configuration.

What's New (by Jan Tielens Lead-it, modifications by Konrad Brunner)
The What's New Web Part shows all new items from a site in one single web part area. Add some new items into the events or announcement list to see how the new items appear.
I addedd a site structure walk down functionality and done the web part ignoring hidden lists and document library folders.

The User Alert Web Part (by Jan Tielens, Lead-it)
The User Alert web part allows administrators to manage the alerts from a site. Add, remove and change alerts from any user.

John R. Durant is doing some interesting postings on VSTO 2005. You might want to check it if you're interested (I am!).

Some of his latest postings:

• VSTO 2005 and Data Sources in Microsoft Office
• VSTO 2005, Bookmarks and a Concerned Reader
• VSTO 2005 and Microsoft Word Bookmarks- an unlikely starting point

There is a discussion going on Lamont Harrington's Blog about the idea of using Sharepoint a platform for the GotDotNet community site. This is an interesting idea, because it could use a lot of the Sharepoint functionality:

”Envision this: Registered GotDotNet community users would get their own "My Site" which would serve as their own personal portal to store and share personal content with other users.  GotDotNet workspaces would be replaced with Windows SharePoint Services team sites/document workspaces which would promote a more collaborative environment centered around the numerous open-source projects (both new and old) that are currently hosted by GDN.  The new portal would provide a more elaborate and detailed search mechanism built on SharePoint search, therefore searching for that source code artifact would be made much easier and more efficient.  Because of SharePoint Portal Server's built-in functionality for creating areas for grouping related content/sites/workspaces and audiences for content targeting, the user's experience on GDN would be radically improved.

Architecturally, it will present a challenge to come up with the proper application architecture to determine the overall portal structure (parent vs child portals), facilitate the proliferation of WSS sites, and provide adequate data storage for infinite amount of data that would be consumed.  However, I think that SharePoint Portal Server would be an ideal solution to the GDN woes.” 

Follow this discussion on Lamont Harrington's Blog

from computing.co.uk:

Microsoft is preparing to offer a version of Office that includes small business accounting software. Orlando Ayala, head of Microsoft's small and mid-sized business division, told The Daily Telegraph that a US version would be launched within the 'next six to 12 months'. And he said a UK roll-out would follow soon afterwards.

'The experience is about walking into a retail store where you will see on the racks one version of Office designed for accounting to manage the finances of a small business,' said Ayala. The move into the small and mid-market for business software will pitch it head-to-head with Sage and Intuit, the market leaders in the UK and the US respectively. And it could also mean Microsoft faces another showdown with the European competition authorities.

Paul Stobart, Sage's UK and Ireland managing director, told the Telegraph he would be very surprised if his company didn't bring Microsoft's move to the authorities' attention. 'Microsoft will have to think carefully about how they do it. If they do bundle, they are leveraging a quasi-monopoly position in one market to give a very strong foothold in a new category for them in accounting software,' he said. In the report, Microsoft said its lawyers had cleared the retail strategy against commitments on 'bundling' made by the group to both the US and European authorities.

'The company came into a very clear set of arrangements with the US on what is bundling and what is not,' said Ayala. 'We have had to spend a lot of time on packaging, but we have totally cleared it with our lawyers.' To comply with the rules, the software will be sold separately from Office. Microsoft has also offered rivals the option of integrating alternative accounting applications into the software suite.

Read full article

And another great article on VSTO 2005 about how to use the Visual Studio Tools for Office Application Manifest Editor. This article describes how to deploy your Office applications built with VSTO 2005.

“The Application Manifest Editor sample tool enables you to view and modify the application manifest and cached datasets stored in a document created using Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for the Microsoft Office System, Version 2005, Beta 1 (Visual Studio Tools for Office 2005). The setup program installs source code for the tool, which was developed using Microsoft Visual C#. Visual Studio Tools for Office 2005 enables you to build Microsoft Office Word 2003 or Microsoft Office Excel 2003 solutions in C# or Microsoft Visual Basic .NET, using the complete Microsoft .NET Framework. When developing with Visual Studio Tools for Office 2005, your solution code is compiled into an assembly containing intermediate language (IL) and metadata that gets stored on your development computer as a DLL. Application information, or the application manifest, is metadata embedded in a Visual Studio Tools for Office document that contains information used by the Visual Studio Tools for Office runtime to locate and execute your application solution.

The application manifest format is extensible and may be used in future versions to contain design-time information as well. In its current state, it contains two logical sections: one for manifest information and another for cached data. Visual Studio Tools for Office enables you to program directly against datasets cached in a document without having to use the object model of Word or Excel. Cached datasets are serialized into structured storage of the documents and are identified through the CachedData section of the application manifest.”

http://msdn.microsoft.com/office/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/odc_vsto2005_ta/html/Office_vstoApplicationManifestEditor.asp

Patrick's blog metioned the Microsoft Office Small Business Accounting 2006 Software Development Kit which was just released on MSDN.

The Microsoft Office Small Business Accounting 2006 Software Development Kit (SDK) includes documentation and samples - everything developers need to write, build, and deploy Microsoft Small Business Accounting integrated applications.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/thankyou.aspx?FamilyID=2dae9876-27b4-4103-97b4-4cd1d6c809d4&displaylang=en

Mark Harrison mentions a Sharepoint Portal configuration tool on GotDotNet that helps you build customer SharePoint Portal Server demos very quickly ... all you need is a base image of SPS2003 :

• Installation package
• Source code and installation instructions

Apply themes

Manage content (webparts, area's)

Change color scheme's and fonts

Wat cool and usefull for sure!

Windows Messenger 5.1 has the option to create tabs in your messenger window manually. This option, which is much longer available in MSN Messenger, could help to improve productivity and system integration…well I am just looking for an excuse to mention this is cool. :)

So what did we do at Tam Tam? Creating Messenger tab is just a matter of making a registry entry in which a url and a icon is referred. This way, any web page can be displayed in you Messenger tab.

In order to make this usefull, some websites have created their own registry files for making tabs, like Bink.nu or SmallZone.net.

So, for us as Information Worker Solution Developers, we’d like the idea of getting exchange into our Windows Messenger, right? Well, Exchange 2003 has this nice web interface called Outlook Web Access where components like Tasks, Email and Calendar can be displayed separately. With many thanks to Stef who created the reg files for this, we now put these components separately as tabs into Messenger.

This registry file points to a webpage, that contains XML data for displaying tabs:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MessengerService\ServiceProviders\{83D4679F-B6D7-11D2-BF36-00C04FB90A03}]

"Enabled"=dword:00000001

"Primary"=dword:00000001

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MessengerService\ServiceProviders\{83D4679F-B6D7-11D2-BF36-00C04FB90A03}\Branding]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MessengerService\ServiceProviders\{83D4679F-B6D7-11D2-BF36-00C04FB90A03}\Branding\tamtam.nl]

"Providername"="Tam Tam BV"

"Taburl"="https://[web apps]/TT_MessengerTabs.aspx"

This page (TT_MessengerTabs.aspx) constructs the XML that Windows Messenger needs to create tabs. Part of this XML look like this:

<msntabdata>

  <tab>

    <image>http://[web app]/images/mail.PNG</image>

    <name>My Inbox</name>

    <tooltip>My Inbox</tooltip>

    <contenturl>https://[exchange server]/[login]/Inbox/?Cmd=contents&part=1&View=Two%20Line</contenturl>

    <tabid>1</tabid>

    <hidden>false</hidden>

  </tab>

</msntabdata>

This for displaying email. Likewise, the calendar en tasks tabs can be constructed. Now, run the registry file and the tabs will be displayed! Cool feature. Maybe I’ll create some Sharepoint integration with this like My Workspaces soon…

UPDATE:

There is some more info at MSDN about branding messenger (5.0).

I ran into an aticle from Ricard Roma i Dalfo about the IBF. He talks about the Information Bridge architecture and the way meta data is, and should be used.

“IBF, by separating the Service layer from the UI layer and linking them via Metadata, allows for a high level of abstraction and reusability of both your Services and your UI components. This provides a very powerful platform for specifying the back-end assets in an enterprise and creating solutions around them that can be linked or combined without coding. This Metadata approach adds a lot of flexibility and allows for further refinement of solutions around customer scenarios in a Metadata driven approach. IBF provides powerful UI constructs to help build a complete UI experience and integration with Office applications. It also provides for a secure and deployment free environment of new solutions by building on top of .NET technologies.”

Read the complete article

Today, Microsoft released a security update for a scriptiong vulnerability for WSS (and STS):

Security Update for Windows SharePoint Services (KB887981)
A security vulnerability exists in Microsoft® Windows® SharePoint® Services that could allow cross-site scripting and spoofing attacks. This update resolves that vulnerability

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=6bb93661-0ce7-46cf-b8bb-55546b58a2f2&displaylang=en

Security Update for SharePoint Team Services (KB890829)
A security vulnerability exists in SharePoint® Team Services from Microsoft® that could allow cross-site scripting and spoofing attacks. This update resolves that vulnerability.

More info at the vulnerability can be found here

The WSS and Sharepoint Products and Technologies 2003 SDK's are updated:

• Windows Sharepoint Services SDK
• Sharepoint Products and Technologies 2003 SDK

Windows SharePoint Services Software Development Kit (SDK)

The SDK contains conceptual overviews, programming tasks, and references to guide you in developing solutions based on Windows SharePoint Services as a platform. The SDK includes information about the following technologies:

1. Web Part Framework Create, package, and deploy Web Parts on SharePoint sites.
   
2. Server-side object model Work with individual lists and sites or manage an entire Windows SharePoint Services deployment.
   
3. Web services Use default Web services, or create custom Web services, to interact with Windows SharePoint Services from external applications.
   
4. Collaborative Application Markup Language (CAML) Customize the schemas that define lists and sites, define queries for use with members of the object model or Web services, and specify parameters for use with methods in Remote Procedure Call (RPC) protocol.
   
5. RPC protocol and other protocols Post requests from client applications to the server in order to access or modify data.
   
6. Client-side APIs Use ActiveX controls to launch applications on the client or to provide other features that enhance Windows SharePoint Services.
   

SharePoint Products and Technologies 2003 Software Development Kit (SDK)

Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies uses a common set of Microsoft® Windows Server™ 2003 services named Windows® SharePoint Services, to take advantage of the performance, stability, and security features of the Microsoft .NET Framework. Use Windows SharePoint Services to create and maintain team sites. Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003, a server product, is built on Windows SharePoint Services, and adds features used to build and manage integrated, large-scale portal solutions.

What’s new in the January 2005 update for SharePoint Portal Server 2003:

• Getting Started section that offers:
  • An expanded introduction to SharePoint Portal Server
  • Expanded Concepts and Architecture section with new topics about Profiles and Personalization, Search, and Enterprise Application Integration, and more
  • New Code Snippets section with code examples for topics such as the Audience, User Profiles, and Security object models
  • New FAQ section that offers answers to a wide range of questions about SharePoint Portal Server, including customization issues
• Expanded Reference topics that address:
  • Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server Search SQL Syntax
  • Protocol Handlers
  • IFilter Administration

This SDK also includes documentation for the Web Part Page Services Component (WPSC), which is a client-side component that adds dynamic capabilities to your Web Part Page by providing Web Part discovery, notification, and state management services used by Web Parts; and for Windows SharePoint Services RPC methods.

At the DevCon I became really excited about the VSTO 2005. I Found this download at microsoft.com about Using Dynamic Controls and Views with VSTO 2005:

“This sample solution teaches how to use dynamic Microsoft .NET managed controls and dynamic views in an Excel 2003 solution using Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for the Microsoft Office System, Version 2005 Beta 1. The solution is written in Microsoft Visual Basic .NET“

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=5AC2AB6A-08B9-4476-9772-E9A471800DB8&displaylang=en%20%20%20%20

So, the Office developer conference is over now. I'll be visiting downtown Seattle today before going home with two other attendees of which one of them happened to be someone I've worked on a project before. So, what were the best things I've seen here in Redmond:

1. VSTO 2005: Visual Studio tools for Office 2005.. this is really so cool! Creating smart documents, integrating (XML) datasources and extending the taskpane.
2. ASP.Net 2.0 Web Part Development.. the next level of webpart development.. seen some great things happening there.
3. Bill Gates keynote and his confession he loves Sharepoint ;)
4. Some Infopath stuff I knew that was possible but never new how...
5. Some LCS 2005 tips 
6. The sience fiction museum (including rock 'n karaoke) at the EMP.. seen the real Darth Vader, Terminator and Mars Attack suits.. I wish I was Star Track fan!

There are plans to do another Office Developer Conference next year. Then Office 12 will probably in the big picture. I'm looking forward to that one for sure!

Seattle Space Needle by night

This morning Bill Gates gave a keynote at the Developer Conference. His talk was about how to make dicisions between rich or thin clients and how Office 2003 can provide smart documents.

He also mentioned that he was a big fan of Sharepoint 2003 and the solutions build around it. According to him, Sharepoint provides a foundation for Office applications and system integration. Good to hear this from him ;). Seems like Sharepoint developers won't have to fear to get bored.

Bill Gates on his talk..sorry for the low quality :(

About Asp.Net 2.0 and the next version of Sharepoint in the Office 12 release, he garantueed that the webparts and code that was built on Sharepoint 2003 would be supported completely. This is not surprising when looking at the webpart development in Asp.Net 2.0, which is something that is really cool. I will blog something about this soon when I get back. 

About the next version of Sharepoint; it's quite sure that it will be released with Office 12 in 2006. There is hardly any info given about this next release, but according to Mike, regular lists will support eventhandlers like document libraries do now already. This new version will run on Asp.Net 2.0 and therefore will support the webparts that can be designed (like user controls in Asp.Net) in Visual Studio.Net 2005.

Some great things are going to happen (and happen already)!

Today I attended a session about Live Communication Server 2005 given by Kyle Marsch. It was a clear overview on the new features in LCS 2005 and some features of Istanbul, the replacement of Windows Messenger in the future. This new version (which name will be different from “Windows Messenger”) contains a search feature that will search through outlook contacts.

Besides of some branding tips (help menu, banners, and custom tabs) and how to enable online presence (even if the contact is not in your contact list) in your web application, there was some revealing about a Service Pack for LCS that will be released. This SP enables federation between other IM protocols such as Yahoo IM. This is something which is a demand for a longer time. Good thing, beside the fact that is a service MS will provide at a user-based fee.

Around the Whidbey release, LCS will support managed code, which is something we’ve been waiting for. So, that’s good news. Looks like LCS is clearly moving more into the developers world to be part of the Office System.

Day one of the Office Developer Conference 2005 started with a keynote of Richard McAniff, Vice President of Microsoft Office. In his session, he explained what the philosophy of Office System 2003 is. His talk made clear how Office has become a Smart Client Tool for today’s Information Worker. His session was illustrated with demo's showing how Office integrates with other systems using XML Web Services.

Richard McAniff doing his talk

Produce, Analyze and Use Data
So, in what way can XML Web Services help us? Well, most Office applications have XML support, which means they can use XML as a data source. InfoPath for example, can retrieve, edit and submit data using XML Web Services. The schema’s coming with this XML makes sure that the data is in valid a form, which basically means that a smart application can be built in a very short time. This same XML data can also be used in for example Excel. Using Office Tools in Visual Studio, Office documents can be programmed using managed code. Calling a Web Service and analyzing data in Excel is just a matter of drag and drop. In Word, the Office Task Pane can use the same XML data for research and productivity. Smart tags can be created to insert data in a structured document, which are also based on XML. 

Smart Clients and integrated systems, based on XML Web Services, that was the message Richard was trying to explain. This is not new material, but with the upcoming sessions, I hope to get clear how we can get this technology (or philosophy) to work in real life. I decided to do some blogging based on a case which I will describe in one of my next posts.

Hands-on Labs

Yesterday evening I landed in Seattle after a 11 hour flight via Copenhagen to attend the first MS Office DevCon 2005. Ther will be a lot of great sessions on which, of course, I will be blogging later.

When looking at the MS goodiebag, I found a flyer about a new Sharepoint magazine called Sharepoint Advisor. I ordered a copy, so I'll get back on that one.

For now, first breakfast and then taking off to Redmond for day one!