A free MSDN Ultimate subscription goes to Anders Rask

Author: Tobias Zimmergren
http://www.zimmergren.net | http://www.tozit.com | @zimmergren

Introduction

Two weeks ago I posted in the blog about giving out some free MSDN Ultimate subscriptions with VS 2010 to anyone who provided me with a valid enough reason to get them.

One of the first few people who sent me an e-mail was Anders Rask, a Danish SharePoint consultant with an expressed love for SharePoint and related technologies. I was waiting for 2 weeks to see if I got some more valid reasons – and I did. Almost 100 people sent an e-mail providing different reasons for getting a MSDN license.

As I mentioned in my first post it is “first come – first served” that applies.

Here’s Anders reasoning

Here’s the quote from Anders for getting the free MSDN subscription:

I would love to get the license!

I work with SharePoint 24/7 and am active in the SharePoint community in various ways like:
- SharePoint Overflow
- My Blog: http://andersrask.spoint.me
- Twitter: @andersrask.

However I cannot convince my employer to give me my own license for home use. I got 8 farms on my test rig at home all with expired licenses that i can’t use anymore.

I come from a developer background, but are trying hard to learn as much as I can about configuring and provisioning farms, so it’s a real pain that my rigs keep expiring so I have to reinstall..

Summary

Short in short, congratulations Anders Rask – and thank you for being active in the SharePoint community!

Published: Aug-13-10 | 7 Comments | 0 Links to this post

Book: SharePoint 2010 Web Parts in Action

Author: Tobias Zimmergren
http://www.zimmergren.net | http://www.tozit.com | @zimmergren

Introduction

As you might know there’s a whole lot of SharePoint 2010 books coming out quite soon, and some have already been released to the market.

In this article I will highlight one of the books I like in particular, the SharePoint 2010 Web Parts in Action by my good friend Wictor Wilén published by Manning.

As a Technical Reviewer for this book, I’ve been able to read it through and give feedback on it to the publishers and author. This is not a technical review though, this is just my expressed opinion on the book.

Book coverage

This is a developer-focused book, covering a lot of the aspects that you (the developer) needs to get a grip on. If would think this book suits both SharePoint-beginners as it will suit people moving from SharePoint 2007 to SharePoint 2010. However, I would recommend that you have a basic understanding of .NET and C# and how ASP.NET works before digging too deep into SharePoint development – after all, SharePoint builds on top of these technologies :-)

The book consists of three main parts:

Part 1: Getting Started

Introducing SharePoint 2010 Web Parts
Using and configuring Web Parts in SharePoint 2010

Part 2: Developing SharePoint Web Parts

Building Web Parts with Visual Studio 2010
Building the user interface
Making Web Parts customizable
Web Part Resources and Localization
Packaging, deployment and security
Troubleshooting Web Parts
Web Part caching
Dynamic Web Parts
External application Web Parts
Mobility
Web Part design patterns

Part 3: Dashboards and Connections

Connecting Web Parts
Building dashboards

This book will walk you through topics from the basic understanding of Web Parts in SharePoint 2010 to more advanced topics like Web Part design patterns, connectable web parts and building dashboards.

Who should get this book?

So why would someone get this book, you might ask.

First of all, I’m getting it myself – because it’s a great reference to have when you’re a SharePoint developer, that’s for sure!

Part from my (slightly subjective) opinion as to why I would get it, you might want to get it because the following reasons:

Pedagogical
Good and thorough coverage of the topics
Code samples
Written by an experienced developer who knows the common problems you might run into

Published: Aug-01-10 | 7 Comments | 0 Links to this post

Free MSDN Ultimate subscriptions including Visual Studio 2010

Author: Tobias Zimmergren
http://www.zimmergren.net | http://www.tozit.com | @zimmergren

Introduction

A couple of weeks ago Microsoft sent me a set of three (3) give-away MSDN Subscriptions (Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate with MSDN) for me to delegate to those who might want and need one.

I thank the Microsoft Visual Studio and .NET Framework product team for making this possible.

How will I distribute these free MSDN Ultimate subscriptions?

Number one:

Anyone who gives me a valid enough reason to receive a subscription will get one – first come, first served.

Number two:

On our next SSUG (Sweden SharePoint User Group) meeting that will be announced shortly I will randomly distribute one to an attendee that do not already have any subscription

Number three:

On the SEF (SharePoint & Exchange Forum) conference - in one of my sessions – I will distribute the last one of the MSDN Subscriptions

References

What is a Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 MSDN Ultimate subscription?

Subscription overview [Download the chart here, PDF]

The value of an MSDN Subscription is rather high, so I do hope you appreciate the gesture from Microsoft and the VS and .NET product team :-)

Published: Jul-30-10 | 10 Comments | 0 Links to this post

Visual Studio 2010 SharePoint Power Tools - Released

Author: Tobias Zimmergren
http://www.zimmergren.net | http://www.tozit.com | @zimmergren

Introduction

Our good friend Mike Morton over at Microsoft just announced the official release of some great extensions to Visual Studio 2010, called SharePoint Power Tools.

These tools will extend Visual Studio 2010 to give your these additional features:

Sandboxed Visual Web Part
Compile-time warnings on Sandboxed solutions when trying to use disallowed code

Download

http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/8e602a8c-6714-4549-9e95-f3700344b0d9

Published: Jun-18-10 | 1 Comment | 0 Links to this post

SP 2010: Site Collection Keep-Alive Job now available by AC

Author: Tobias Zimmergren
http://www.zimmergren.net | http://www.tozit.com | @zimmergren

Introduction

Normally I don't make link-posts like this one, but it is too good to miss out on. My main man and friend Andrew Connell (AC) have created a new utility for SharePoint 2010 which is essentially a "warmup" job for your Site Collecions.

This job is easy to configure and will keep your demos, presentations and dev-machines fresh all the time by making repeated HTTP requests on the sites.

Awesomeness, AC. Good work!

Get the info, get the goods - SharePoint Site Collection Keep Alive Job

Head on over to http://www.andrewconnell.com/blog/archive/2010/03/27/introducing-the-sharepoint-site-collection-keep-alive-job.aspx to get the latest details and download this fantastic keep-alive job.

Enjoy this piece of awesomeness from AC.

Cheers

Published: Mar-29-10 | 1 Comment | 0 Links to this post

SP 2010: Certification exam details for SharePoint 2010 published

Author: Tobias Zimmergren
http://www.zimmergren.net | http://www.tozit.com | @zimmergren

Introduction

Microsoft has published the two developer-oriented certifications for SharePoint 2010 on Microsoft Learning.

Personally, I think there is a huge improvement now as we're not only getting the MCTS-credit but can now also become an MCPD (Microsoft Certified Professional Developer) on the SharePoint platform. Something I've been waiting for a long time ;-)

SharePoint 2010 exams

For us developers/solution architects there are two certifications of interest (of course you should do the IT-pro tracks as well, but let's start here with the developer ones):

70-573: TS: Microsoft SharePoint 2010, Application Development
70-576: PRO: Designing and Developing Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Applications

SharePoint 2007 Exams

Way back in 2007 I wrote about passing all 4 certifications for SharePoint 2007 (link here). For SharePoint 2007 there is four certifications for the 2007 product-line:

70-541 - TS: Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 - Application Development
70-542 - TS: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 - Application Development
70-630 - TS: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, Configuring
70-631 - TS: Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, Configuring

Summary

So, keep an eye out on those two new certifications and be well prepared when they arrive - should be a fun ride :-)

Published: Mar-28-10 | 7 Comments | 0 Links to this post

My most popular SharePoint posts of 2009

Author: Tobias Zimmergren
http://www.zimmergren.net | http://www.tozit.com | @zimmergren

Introduction

As per requests, I have put together a small list of my post popular and most read blog posts of 2009.

All in all, the year of 2009 was awesome - and we've only got even more awesome things to look forward to in 2010.

But to get on with it, here's my "Top 10 Most Popular SharePoint Posts" of 2009!

My Top 10 Most Popular SharePoint Posts - 2009

MOSS 2007: Getting Started with the Business Data Catalog

Related: Write your first BDC Web Part

WSPBuilder - Walkthrough of the Visual Studio Add-in
Introduction to SharePoint Online
SharePoint Online - Customization
SP 2010: Getting started with the Client Object Model
Although this was very recently posted, it has gained a lot of popularity and is quickly moving up the list of most read posts.
Recover/Fetch your Application Pool Password
How To: SharePoint and Silverlight - Part 1
Upload a document to a SharePoint Document Library programmatically (SharePoint Object Model)
Debugging your code execution for anonymous users in SharePoint
10 Free SharePoint Themes - Visual Overview

Summary

A very short list of the most viewed articles I wrote in 2009. There's plenty more of course, but to keep it short and concise I chose to go with the Top 10 as requested :-)

There's also another cool way to keep track of popular posts in the SharePoint community, and that's using PostRank. Visit this URL: http://www.postrank.com/topics/sharepoint and you'll be presented with popular blogs about SharePoint where you can easily find new content to read.

As for 2010, we've got some really fancy stuff to look forward to - and I've written a few posts about SharePoint 2010 to cover some of the new aspects for developers. Keep an eye out for them.

Enjoy this simple post. I'm still on vacation, so I'm not going to be much elaborate than this ;-)

Published: Jan-04-10 | 2 Comments | 0 Links to this post

SharePoint: Recommended links June 2009

Author: Tobias Zimmergren
URL: http://www.zimmergren.net | http://www.tozit.com

Introduction

I previously posted a short post about some good links around SharePoint. It proved to be a popular post. Not only providing a set of good posts, but actually pointing to good posts that is worth reading instead of having to pile through those 200 new posts/day in the RSS reader..

With that said, here's yet another bunch of recent articles that I would like to recommend.

Announcing TOZIT

Author: Tobias Zimmergren
URL: http://www.zimmergren.net | http://www.tozit.com

Note: Generally I don't like to "promote" things in my blog, rather staying objective. But this is too good not to mention - so bear with me a couple of minutes while you read through this post ;-)

TOZIT is born

After many years in the IT business it is with great pride I am now announcing TOZIT. This business has been running for a couple of years and was in the beginning of 2009 renamed to TOZIT.

TOZIT has a main focus on Microsoft technologies with a strong love for SharePoint and .NET techniques.

What we do

Consulting

SharePoint architecture, development, customizations and general implementations and solutions in projects that ranges from small to enterprise.
Implementations with project management, issue tracking, document management that follow ISO standards and a variety of other niches are some of the things we have done.
SharePoint consulting one of our main focus areas at TOZIT.

Training
- We conduct SharePoint and .NET training in various forms. With a close collaboration with one of the largest training centers in Scandinavia, we can make sure to meet any requirement the customers may have.
- Our Microsoft Certified Trainers make sure to deliver quality training.
Products / Custom development
- Building products on .NET and SharePoint technologies is something we have experience with, and love to do.

Partner network

TOZIT is collaborating with a few selected partners, making sure no assignment is too large to handle.

Contact information

To get in contact with us, please use the below details:

Web
http://www.tozit.com

E-mail
tobias@tozit.com

Visiting address:
TOZIT
Norra Vallgatan 20
SE-211 25 MALMÖ
SWEDEN

Published: Jun-14-09 | 13 Comments | 0 Links to this post

Important note about the SharePoint SP2

Read the full disclosure "Attention- Important Information on Service Pack 2" in Microsoft's SharePoint Blog

There is an issue with installing SP2, which causes your SharePoint environment to fall back to "Evaluation" licence without ever notifying you.

So if you've got SP2 recently installed, have a look at your license type to make sure it's still valid. If it says "Evalutation" - you'll simply need to insert the original key again.

Summary

If you've got SP2 installed, read this article: Attention- Important Information on Service Pack 2

Checking out for the weekend!

Published: May-22-09 | 0 Comments | 0 Links to this post

Next >>

Introduction

Here’s Anders reasoning

Summary

Introduction

Book coverage

Who should get this book?

Introduction

How will I distribute these free MSDN Ultimate subscriptions?

References

Introduction

Download

Introduction

Get the info, get the goods - SharePoint Site Collection Keep Alive Job

Introduction

SharePoint 2010 exams

SharePoint 2007 Exams

Summary

Introduction

My Top 10 Most Popular SharePoint Posts - 2009

Summary

Introduction

Recommended links, in no particular order

TOZIT is born

What we do

Partner network

Contact information

Summary