http://web2.0flow.com/top-30-popular-websites-that-still-are-using-tables-as-main-layout-structure/

Will SharePoint does use it as main structuring for layout … :S .. yeah yeah don't tell me Why avoiding tables (for layout) is important I already know it !!

Since more clients are asking me about the same issue, here is the answer below!

Even though Microsoft has done a great job on improving the user interface in SharePoint 2007, some things are still buried and require a little "black magic" to get done. In this entry I'll show you how to enable anonymous access on your site.

First, you need to enable anonymous on the IIS web site (called a Web Application in SharePoint land). This can be done by:

• Launching Internet Information Services Manager from the Start -> Administration Tools menu
  
• Select the web site, right click and select Properties
  
• Click on the Directory Security tab
  
• Click on Edit in the Authentication and access control section
  

Instead we'll do it SharePoint style using the Central Administration section:

• First get to your portal. Then under "My Links" look for "Central Administration" and select it.
  
• In the Central Administration site select "Application Management" either in the Quick Launch or across the top tabs
  
• Select "Authentication Providers" in the "Application Security" section
  
• Click on the "Default" zone (or whatever zone you want to enable anonymous access for)
  
• Under "Anonymous Access" click the check box to enable it and click "Save"
  

NOTE: Make sure the "Web Application" in the menu at the top right is your portal/site and not the admin site.

You can confirm that anonymous access is enabled by going back into the IIS console and checking the Directory Security properties.

Now the second part is to enable anonymous access in the site.

• Return to your sites home page and navigate to the site settings page. In MOSS, this is under Site Actions – Site Settings – Modify All Site Settings. In WSS it's under Site Actions – Site Settings.
  
• Under the "Users and Permissions" section click on "Advanced permissions"
  
• On the "Settings" drop down menu (on the toolbar) select "Anonymous Access"
  
• Select the option you want anonymous users to have (full access or documents and lists only)
  

Now users without logging in will get whatever option you allowed them.

A couple of notes about anonymous access:

• You will need to set up the 2nd part for all sites unless you have permission inheritance turned on
  
• If you don't see the "Anonymous Access" menu option in the "Settings" menu, it might not be turned on in Central Admin/IIS. You can manually navigate to "_layouts/setanon.aspx" if you want, but the options will be grayed out if it hasn't been enabled in IIS
  
• You must do both setups to enable anonymous access for users, one in IIS and the other in each site
  

Hope that helps!

Thanks for http://weblogs.asp.net/bsimser/ for his awesome useful post.

Windows Live Onecare 2.0 released. Hurry up for 30 days trial version.

Windows Live Onecare 2.0 released. Hurry up for 90 days trial version.

To download it, head on over to the Windows Live Dev Connect page on Microsoft Connect, go to the download page and download it.

Check out this awesome Article on Live Tools for VS 2008

http://www.liveside.net/blogs/developer/archive/2007/11/07/download-windows-live-tools-for-visual-studio-2008.aspx

http://www.istartedsomething.com/20071113/zune-v2-print-ad/

In a press release issued this morning, Microsoft announced its plans to acquire French mobile music company Musiwave. The company is a leading provider of mobile music entertainment services to operators and media companies. According to the press release:

The acquisition would bring Musiwave's relationships with music labels, device makers and mobile operators that deliver digital entertainment to consumers, together with Microsoft's Connected Entertainment technologies and services, including Windows Mobile, Zune, MSN and Windows Live. Should the transaction proceed, Musiwave would continue to operate out of its current headquarters in Paris.

MusiWave provides the technology behind the new T Mobile Music Jukebox, and provides technology, marketing, and content for mobile operators and music companies.

This downloadable white paper explains how administrators managing small to medium-size deployments can protect and recover data. This paper describes data recovery from the item level to the farm level.

Download this white paper as a Microsoft Office Word document (.doc) file.

Read this paper online at:

Data protection and recovery for Office SharePoint Server in small to medium deployments (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=102839&clcid=0x409)

25 November 2007

I was reading recently some articles about this topic in Technet and Windows Server Blogs and I found this:

http://blogs.technet.com/windowsserver/archive/2007/10/29/windows-server-2008-and-windows-sharepoint-services-3-0-update.aspx

Check out this new release in the SharePoint Community Kit for SharePoint.

The CKS:WLA is a membership provider that extends the SharePoint user base to include some of the 350+ million users around the world with active Windows Live IDs. It enables an administrator to add Windows Live ID users to a SharePoint site and provides a new "Authenticated Live Users" group that can be added to a SharePoint site via the People and Groups admin page.
This initial version of the CKS:WLA provider has the following features:

• Windows Live ID authentication supported directly in SharePoint.
  
• Ability to add and resolve a WLID user using an e-mail address
  
• "Authenticated Live Users" group, which works just like the built-in "NT_AUTHORITYAuthenticated Users" group that can be used for any SharePoint access control list.
  
• Ability to lock or blacklist a WLID user.
  
• "Windows Live Authentication Setting Sync" Feature at the site collection level, which upon being activated, will synchronize WLID user information to all site collections that have the feature activated, so the users will not have to register again for each new site collection they access.
  

First Google gPhone photos, probably fake photos. ;)

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/gphone/first-google-gphone-photos-probably-fake-definitely-beat-with-ugly-stick-317306.php

http://www.andrewconnell.com/blog/articles/MossWcmResources.aspx

The Eye-Fi. It's an SD memory card that adds Wi-Fi to any camera. Plus the free Eye-Fi service supports automatic uploads to 20 different web photo sites (like Flickr) as well as a computer on your home network.

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/review/eye+fi-adds-wi+fi-to-almost-any-digital-camera-316537.php

More and More CREATIVE SharePoint sites: check this out

http://www.spinebreakers.co.u

Any Website Developer, Start Now developing your sites on WSS ;)

Ian Morrish, another SharePoint Guru, HE IS IN MY TOP FAVOR SharePoint Gurus. … His website http://www.wssdemo.com is the most favorite for Demos /Projects over WSS/MOSS. I will keep demonstrating his awesome through my WSS pre-sales movies.

Simply his website is AWESOME!!!! ..

Regards,

Soma had the news today. F# is an official .NET language now! Functional programming becomes a first citizen in .NET :-)

Soma wrote:

One of the really promising current projects from MSR is the F# programming language, spearheaded by Don Syme. F# stems from the functional programming tradition (hence the 'F') and has strong roots in the ML family of languages, though also draws from C#, LINQ and Haskell. F# is designed from the outset to be a first class citizen on .NET. This means that F# runs on the CLR, embraces object-oriented programming, and has features to ensure a smooth integration with the .NET Framework.

I am a big fan of technology transfer between a research organization and a product development organization so that we can "productize" the great research ideas and deliver to customers in a timely manner. This is one of the best things that has happened at Microsoft ever since we created Microsoft Research over 15 years ago. Here is another great example of technology transfer at work. We will be partnering with Don Syme and others in Microsoft Research to fully integrate the F# language into Visual Studio and continue innovating and evolving F#. In my mind, F# is another first-class programming language on the CLR.

This is really great news! Functional programming is very elegant and has a lot of benefits compared to other approaches. There are also some negative aspects: mostly people complain about the speed that functional languages offer. But the best thing about F# is that the team says that programs written in their language are as fast as programs written in C#.

You get functional and dynamic benefits with the same speed as if they would have been written in C#. Isn't it cool?

Channel 8

Microsoft might have just got the Mediaroom party started four months ago, but already dozens of providers around the world are drinking the kool-aid and having a good time. The much anticipated XBOX 360 integration is also crashing in any day now, but Microsoft's got one last party trick, called the "Mediaroom Personal Server".

On the generously detailed Microsoft Support Lifecycle's portal, where it lists the support availability dates for all previous, current and upcoming Microsoft products, features an entry for "Mediaroom Personal Server". The general availability date provided is "12/29/2007″.

Okay, I have to admit, I have no idea what the Mediaroom Personal Server is. But thanks to Microsoft's ingenious naming conventions, you can't be too far off with a guess either. It is definitely a consumer-orientated software or device bundle, much like Windows Home Server, which serves as an aggregator and hub for your Mediaroom devices.

Some of the scenarios I can think of with a 'personal media server' includes letting you rip and store your DVDs for instant access, let you subscribe to vidcasts which it will automatically download and archive, or even just manage all of your scheduled recordings including remote recordings from web access.

So far, there's not even one reference to this product anywhere on Google besides Microsoft's support page. It is definitely not something they've mentioned in passing. However since it'll be available in exactly two months, I'm pretty sure it's being worked on very hard.

Quoted from istartedsomething.com

There are reports circulating that the next version of SharePoint dubbed as SharePoint 2009 and MOSS 2009 would have its early adopter and CTP by middle of next year. It is also said that knowledge network is included and seamlessly integrated in SharePoint 2009.

These are still unconfirmed reports, though we would keep tabs on SharePoint 2009 and MOSS 2009 developments.

Source: http://www.techticles.com/

http://www.winehq.org/?announce=0.9.48

This is release 0.9.48 of Wine, a free implementation of Windows on Unix.

What's new in this release?

- Still more fixes for regression test failures.

- Much more complete cryptnet implementation.

- WIDL is now able to generate the oleaut32 proxy code.

- Lots of bug fixes.

What an Awesome Virtual Reality

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/military-sim-almost-brings-halo-3-to-reality/military-vr-simulator-is-closest-thing-ever-to-real+life-halo-3-315435.phpm

http://srslycool.com/24.aspx

Since I receive a lot of issues with "How many Web Applications can be running in the Same Application Pool ?" .. Here is your answer ..

For who has no previous experience on this, Here are some tips for designing your SharePoint implementation:

• Do not run more than 10 Web applications per application pool until you have some performance monitoring experience behind you and you can point to your own numbers, which tell you that your application pools can handle more virtual servers.
  
• Do not plan to run more than 20 Web applications on a single physical server without adding a second Web server (or more) in your farm. The reason for this is because if you're running 20 virtual servers, you've got a growing, busy farm and chances are good that you should scale out before you scale up.
  
• Always purchase servers with 4 GB of RAM to give yourself maximum flexibility in memory allocation for your application pools.
  
• Make each application pool a Web garden with two or three worker processes associated with it. When stsadm.exe runs, it locks one of the threads for its own use. Having other threads available to service calls during backup/restore operations or other scripted operations using stsadm is necessary in most environments. In addition, if a thread becomes very busy, the other threads can pick up the slack.
  

Source: MS SharePoint Server 2007 Administration Companion Book

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/startdoingmore/default.aspx?WT.mc_id=sdmvan

Check this out:

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071023-microsoft-to-push-functional-programming-into-the-mainstream-with-f.html

I was tracking MS investment in Facebook and I found this awesome article around. The first thing I did when I saw the numbers, is the mouth thing :S

http://www.techsoapbox.com/even-microsoft-doesnt-value-facebook-at-15-billion-use-your-damn-brain/

Watch the new Release of Virtual Earth on 10 ;) ---

http://on10.net/Blogs/laura/new-release-of-virtual-earth/

Btw for people who are interested on Integrating Virtual Earth with facebook don't miss Codeplex VE Maps community kit ;)

http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2007/10/14/announcing-community-kit-for-sharepoint-virtual-earth-maps-on-sharepoint.aspx

Check this out: http://www.liveside.net/blogs/main/archive/2007/10/25/is-live-search-coming-to-facebook.aspx

The essential guide for implementing Microsoft Office as an application-development platform

Get the practical guide to implementing the Microsoft Office system as an application-development platform. This book highlights the breadth of approaches developers can take for extending line-of-business information to information workers in the familiar, usable format of the Microsoft Office interface. These approaches, Microsoft Office Business Application (OBA) patterns, are based on real-world implementations in many cases. In other cases, they are built on Microsoft Office features that have a generalized solution rooted in input from customers and partners. This reference delivers the seven key Microsoft Office Business Application patterns and provides professional developers with extensible examples and the architectural guidance needed for developing custom enterprise applications and extending business information to users.

RELEASED IN -> 05 DEC 2007, STAY TUNED <= MS Press

India is a well-known country in technology outsourcing not only for its inexpensiveness workers but as well the facilities that been provided by Indian Gov which include Infrastructure, Telecommunication, tax pardon and rich investment support escalated from the interest in this sector. I was excited when i heard that Egypt is now moving towards this one but still Taxes, Infrastructure, Investment Facilities, Insurance are key challenges for investors there. China, Philippine is a successful example of Tech. Outsourcing worldwide and Governments there has realized rapid revenue by empowering Technology outsourcing market which represents a high percentage of total incomes. Where is our Arab world from the outsourcing market??? .. i remember the moment when i was speaking about outsourcing in one of events and i targeted the question to Minister of ICT and i remember by heart his awesome answer which has nothing to do with the subject, "We have initiative to give a laptop for each student" he said.

http://www.codeplex.com/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ProjectName=CKS&ReleaseId=7675

http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2007/10/13/announcing-the-community-kit-for-sharepoint-internet-extranet-edition-forms-based-authentication-solution.aspx

The CKS:Internet/Extranet Edition is pleased to announce the first pre-Beta release of its Forms Based Authentication solution. This solution contains the following features:

• Automated Solution Deployment - Zac Smith
  
• Membership request webpart (including CAPTCHA) - Paul Ballard
  
• Membership request list - Paul Ballard
  
• Login web part - Paul Ballard
  
• Recover Password web part - Edin Kapic
  
• Change Password web part - Edin Kapic
  
• ULS Logging - Edin Kapic
  
• User Management - Zac Smith
  
• Role Management - Zac Smith
  
• User Properties - Brendon Schwartz
  

  
  Special Mentions: Stacy Draper for letting us hijack his code and for moral support
  

  How To Use This Solution
  

  1. Setup Forms Based Authentication
  While we plan to add administrative features that will make setting up a SharePoint site for FBA much easier, for now you'll need to follow the instructions outlined in Dan Attis' Blog http://devcow.com/blogs/jdattis/archive/2007/02/23/Office_SharePoint_Server_2007_Forms_Based_Authentication_FBA_Walkthrough_Part_1.aspx.
  2. Install The FBAManagement Solution File
  Unzip FBAManagement.zip onto the file system of the SharePoint server and you will find three files. Deploy/Undeploy command files and the FBAManagement solution file. From the command line enter:
  deploy [SharePoint Site URL]
  
  This will install the solution and activate all of the features.
  3. Add Webparts to pages
  The self registration aspects of this solution include web parts for logging in users, registering new users, requesting a password reset, and allowing a user to change their password. These web parts can be added to any web part page in the site.
  
  User Login
  This web part is extremely customizable including changing prompts, error messages, and turning on/off links to registration pages or password change pages. When the user logs in successfully they will see a link under the "Welcome User" control at the top of the page called "My Settings". Click on this will let the user change their SharePoint user settings.
  
  User Registration
  This web part is also highly customizable. In addition to the standard CreateUserWizard controls, this registration control adds fields for the First and Last names as well as a CAPTCHA field to avoid programmatic registrations. When a user registers on the site an email will be sent letting them know that their account information has been received and that their membership is pending.
  
  Change Password
  
  This web part will allow the user to modify their password. All prompts and error messages are customizable.
  
  Password Recovery
  This web part allows a user to request a password reset by answering the questions they created when the account was registered. This web part also allows modification of all prompts and error messages.
  
  4. Administering Users
  New Membership Request
  When a user fills out the registration information in the registration web part that information is stored in the Membership Request List. The administrator can then edit the user information by going to Site Settings and under Users and Permissions click on "FBA Membership Request Management". When their status goes from Pending to Approved an email will be sent that will notify the user that they have been approved and will also contain a temporary password for them to use to log into the site. If you deactivate the Membership Request List feature, then all registrants are automatically added to the site and the email goes out immediately.
  
  Modifying a User's Information
  The administrator can modify the user information from the Site Settings page by clicking on "FBA User Management". On this page you can add/modify/remove the users. If the roles feature is activated you can also add/delete roles (note: these are FBA roles, not SharePoint roles). When roles are activated the User Management will let you add/remove users from roles instead of groups. The roles feature is not activated by default.