SharePoint Designer is now FREE!

SnagIt Capture 

 

No, this is not an April Fool’s Joke that is just a day late.  The image above comes from the SharePoint Designer Online Office Site and as the download link shows SharePoint Designer is now a FREE download.  You can find an open letter from Microsoft here that explains the change.  The key points as explained by the letter are these:

  • Starting on April 1, 2009, Microsoft is making SharePoint Designer 2007 available as a free download.
  • Customers with SharePoint Designer 2007 Software Assurance (SA) current as of April 1, 2009 will receive upgrade rights to Expression Web for the lifetime of their SA agreement.

SSWUG Spring vConference

SSWUG conference
 
I spent last Friday in Tucson, AZ recording three sessions for the upcoming online SharePoint conference being hosted by the SSWUG.  In these times of tight budgets and restricted travel this is just the conference you need to learn more about SharePoint.  Even better I can provide you with the following VIP code, SPVPSTSP09, which will get you a $10 discount when you register for the conference.  Even better the VIP code can be used in combination with other codes like early bird or alumni.
 
Abstracts for my talks are listed below.  I hope you’ll attend the conference and will find my talks useful.  You can register using the following link:
 
 
 
Configuring SharePoint Anonymous Access: Tips and Tricks
Enabling Anonymous Access in SharePoint isn’t just a matter of flipping a switch in IIS manager.  Anonymous Access must be enabled in IIS and then configured in SharePoint.  But there are also situations where this basic configuration isn’t sufficient.  In this talk we’ll review how to enable and configure anonymous access for SharePoint web sites, lists, and libraries.  Then we’ll enumerate some "Tips and Tricks" for overcoming specific issues with SharePoint anonymous access.  We’ll demonstrate solutions and workarounds for questions like:
1) How do you require authentication for certain files and list items while maintaining anonymous access for the rest of a list?
2) How do you enable anonymous responses to a discussion list?
3) Can BLOGS and Wiki sites be used in an anonymous access site collection?
Migrating ASP.NET Applications: Four ways to convert them to SharePoint
The establishment of a new SharePoint Portal frequently involves the temporary or permanent migration of an existing ASP.NET application to the new SharePoint environment.  There are at least four different ways that this can be accomplished.  Choosing the correct method is a matter of balancing the amount of effort involved against the resulting functionality and performance.  In this talk we’ll review the following four approaches and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of each approach.
1) Using a Page Viewer web part to display the existing website from inside SharePoint.
2) Configuring the ASP.NET website to run from a Virtual Directory inside the SharePoint Web Application
3) Converting the existing ASP.NET web pages and code beside files to run inside a SharePoint web site.
4) Refactoring the ASP.NET web site as a set of Web Parts in the SharePoint site.
 
Microsoft Single Sign-On Service: Configuring SSO for SharePoint Designer Data Sources
DataFormWebParts are a very flexible and powerful way to display and format data, including data from external databases like SQL Server.  One of the biggest issues involved in creating and using SQL data sources in SharePoint Designer is the lack of support for Windows Authentication to the database.  The best solution to this is configuring and using the Microsoft Single Signon Service to authenticate in the data source.  In this talk we’ll demonstrate how to configure and use the Microsoft SSO service when creating a SQL data source in SharePoint Designer.
 
UPDATED 4/1/2009
You can see a brief excerpt of my SSO talk for the upcoming conference at http://www.vconferenceonline.com/speaker.asp?id=Pstork .  Watching the video will help you decide whether attending a virtual conference is worthwhile or not.

SharePoint Best Practices Conference

Best Practices Conference Logo

I just got back from the second SharePoint Best Practices Conference, and if anything this was even better than the first.  Of course the weather was wonderful.  I left Cleveland on Sunday with it snowing and arrived in San Diego to sunny temperatures in the 70s.  The hotel staff were terrific, the other speakers were knowledgeable, and there were lots of attendees looking for answers.  I did two presentations and promised that I would post my slides as soon as I got home.  They’ll also be coming out on a Post Conference DVD, but that may take 6 weeks or so.  So PDFs of the slides from my talks are posted below for download.

PDF  Anonymous Access Best Practices

PDF  Publishing (Web Content Management) Best Practices

We’re already talking about the third SharePoint Best Practices Conference so if you missed this one keep an eye out for the next one.  Most conferences focus on the “HOW“ to do SharePoint.  This conference focuses on the “WHY“.  You don’t want to miss the next one.

I’ve got a NEW BLOG address

The Cobbler’s Kids are finally getting shoes! 

Have you ever noticed that sometimes the people who work with technology are the last ones to have time to use it?  Well that’s the way its been for us at Mindsharp since the release of SharePoint 2007.  None of us really liked the Blogging software we were using, but nobody had time to install and configure a new Blogging engine based on SharePoint 2007.  Finally after more months than I would like to count we’ve finally had enough time to get our new BLOG site up and running.  Thank You Todd!

From now on you can find my Blogs on http://SharePoint.mindsharpblogs.com/Pauls. I’m hoping that with the new easier to use software I’ll be able to get some of the Tips n Tricks I’ve been meaning to write about written.  Watch the new BLOG for more entries.

Microsoft Extends SharePoint Virtualization Support to Hyper-V

Microsoft announced today that it will be offering Support for MOSS SP1 and WSS SP1 running under any Virtualization Software that meets the requirements of the Microsoft Server Virtualization Validation Program (SVVP).  As of now Microsoft will support SharePoint running on Hyper-V in a Server 2008 environment and running on Virtual Server 2005.

This is also an important announcement for those who want to run SharePoint on Vmware.  Although they aren’t currently listed on the SVVP website, NetworkWorld is reporting that Microsoft and VMware have reached agreement this week for VMware to join the SVVP.  There is no Press release on this, but you can read the Network World article here:

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/081908-vmware.html

You can find out more information about Microsoft’s expanded Virtualization Support for SharePoint from the SharePoint Team BLOG at:

http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2008/08/18/update-on-virtualization-support-for-sharepoint-products-and-technologies.aspx