Check out SQL Server 2008 White Papers. The following white papers are for developers.

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and Microsoft Data Platform Development

What's New for XML in SQL Server 2008

Managing Unstructured Data with SQL Server 2008

SQL Server 2008: Delivering Location Intelligence with Spatial Data

 

Recently Microsoft released couple of guides which basically target IT Professionals who are responsible for installing and managing infrastructure (web servers, Active Directory, Terminal Services, etc). Some of the technologies such as Active Directory, IIS 7.0, Terminal Services, etc are covered in those guides. Check them out @ the following URL Infrastructure Planning and Design.

If you are a Software Architect then I am sure there are times when you are asked for some recommendations, ideas, and suggestions about the hardware and overall system architecture which will run the applications that you architect. Since most of us are developing web applications these days, hence IIS is the backend technology that we should learn, explore and play with whenever we get a chance. One of the guides available @ the above URL is on IIS 7.0 and I think every Architect should read it in order to get some idea about the factors involved while taking decisions about the architecture for IIS 7.0 environment.

 

Updated technical libraries (in .chm format) for Office Servers (MOSS 2007, Performance Point Server 2007, Project Server 2007) are available from the following links. Please note that these are not the SDKs, rather these are the technical libraries which are located on the Technet Web Site.

MOSS 2007 Technical Library

Performance Point Server 2007 Technical Library

Project Server 2007 Technical Library

 

If you are like me then you prefer to download videos, pod casts, web casts, etc from such conferences, burn those on DVDs and refer to them time-to-time without referring back to the web site that initially hosted those files. The benefit, you ask? You got all the stuff and you are not dependent on anyone or anything in order to learn from those artifacts in your own time.

I normally use GetRight for my downloading needs and right now I am downloading PDC 2008 sessions using the same tool. So what would you do if you want to download all of the files from PDC 2008? One way is to go to each and every session on the PDC Sessions Web Site, right click on the download link and click Save As. There has to be a better solution.

I am making the GetRight PDC 2008 Sessions List available for you all to download all of the sessions. So no more right clicking on each session's download, no more renaming files from ABC123 to the actual session name, etc. I have also made sure that the file name also specifies if the file is high quality WMV (WMV HQ), or normal quality WMV (WMV), or if the file is for Zune (Zune). Everything is done for you.

Just install GetRight, import the GetRight PDC 2008 Sessions List and you are done!

Do let me know if I am missing any sessions; I will update the file accordingly.

 

We have just released one more article @ www.techconception.com. Check it out @ http://www.techconception.com/articles/2.aspx

 

Microsoft has released the new version of the ASP.NET Deployment Guide which is targeted for ASP.NET 3.5. This guide is meant to be used by the Hosting Providers but nothing is stopping us, the developers, from reading the intricacies of the ASP.NET deployment.

Check out the ASP.NET 3.5 Deployment Guide.

Back in 2005, Microsoft had released the similar guide for ASP.NET 2.0. I could not find that link on the MSDN web site so I have uploaded that document for you all to download. Check out ASP.NET 2.0 Deployment Guide.

Let me know if someone finds the link to the ASP.NET 2.0 guide and I will point the above link to that.

 

Microsoft has recently released the updated version of the WSS/SharePoint Hands on Labs and PPTs and Demos for Introductory SharePoint Developer Modules.

You can also download a WSS 3.0 SP1 VPC if you don't already have the development environment.

 

Following are some of the free SQL Server 2008 resources available from Microsoft. Check them out before they are gone!

eBook – Introducing Microsoft SQL Server 2008

Clinic – What's New in Microsoft SQL Server 2008 for Enterprise Data Platform

Clinic – What's New in Microsoft SQL Server 2008 for Business Intelligence

Clinic – What's New in Microsoft SQL Server 2008 for Database Development

Clinic – New Features of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services

Or better yet book mark the SQL Server 2008 Learning Portal.

 

Today I installed SQL Server 2008 Enterprise Edition and following is my experience with the installation process.

Running the Setup.exe resulted in the new SQL Server Installation Center screen.

On the left-hand side of the screen is the list of categories; each of those has the options which are shown on the right-hand section of the screen. In order to install SQL Server, you would have to go to the Installation category which is shown below.

Clicking the New SQL Server stand-alone installation or add features to an existing installation link resulted in the following screen.

The next screen either let's you install an evaluation version if all you are doing is exploring SQL Server otherwise enter a valid product key to install the version that would not expire after 180 days.

Accept terms and conditions.

Clicking Next resulted in the following screen which displays the list of features which are needed by the setup. Clicking Install would install the setup support files.

After installing the setup support files, the setup checks for the following rules.

As you can see, two of the rules failed on my machine because my machine is a domain controller and has Windows Firewall enabled on it. The setup showed the following Warning dialog box upon clicking the Warning link next to each failed rule.

    

Check out the following article for more information about setting up the firewall for SQL Server to work properly http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc646023.aspx

Those warning did not stop me from installing SQL Server. Clicking the Next button took me to the Feature Selection screen which allows one to select the features that need to be installed.

I selected the features that I wanted to install and clicked on Next which took me to the following screen which allowed me to specify the SQL instance related values. I decided to install SQL Server 2008 as the named instance SQL2008.

Clicking Next checks for the disk space.

The next screen shows different SQL Server services which will be installed and allows one to change each service's Account Name and the Startup Type. I used the same account for all of the services and set the Startup Type to Manual because I did not want those services to start automatically; rather I would start those services myself whenever I need to play with SQL Server 2008.

The 2^nd tab let you change the database Collation which I left as is.

The next screen asks for the Authentication Mode and the SQL Server administrators. I chose Mixed Mode authentication and added two users as the SQL Server administrators.

I left the Data Directories tab unchanged and enabled the FILESTREAM feature.

The next screen was about setting up Reporting Services. I was presented with this screen because I chose to install the SQL Server Reporting Services. Since I have MOSS 2007 installed on the same machine, hence I chose the 2^nd option.

On the next screen I enabled both of the options. It is always good to help our friends in Redmond so that they could come up with improved applications.

The next screen checks a different set of installation rules.

The next screen shows a summary of all of the features selected and this is your last opportunity to go Back and change any options that you need to change.

Clicking Install started the installation process which took a long time to complete. All of the components were installed successfully.

Clicking Next took to the following screen! Finally the SQL Server 2008 is installed on my machine.

I ran the SQL Server Management Studio.

SQL Server Management Studio detected that I already have SQL Server 2005 running on the same machine, so it gave me an option to import the settings from SQL Server 2005. I chose No.

After that it gave me an option to add the SQL Server 2005 instance to the new version of the Management Studio and I chose Yes.

After starting the SQL Server 2008 service and login to the database, I was able to run the SQL Server Management Studio. Note that I have both the SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2008 instances listed in the new SQL Server Management Studio.

Now I can't wait to see what new developer features are offered by Microsoft in this version of SQL Server!

 

Following are some of the upcoming In Person MSDN/TechNet events in Virginia. Check them out. I am planning to attend the Richmond events.

Richmond

TechNet Events: Windows Vista, Windows Power Shell and Group Policy

MSDN Event - Visual Studio 2008, WPF and Vista Security

Reston

TechNet Events: Windows Vista, Windows Power Shell and Group Policy

MSDN Event - Visual Studio 2008, WPF and Vista Security

Roanoke

MSDN Mid-Atlantic Roadshow

Subscribe to the RSS Feed for the upcoming In Person events in Virginia.

 

I just got an email from Ted Pattison Group about the new article which is available on their web site. This article is about implementing branding in a Publishing Site. Could you guess the author without reading the article first? Of course, it is nobody else but the WCM Guru Andrew Connell.

Check it out @ Implementing a brand in a SharePoint Publishing Site

 

I have been using the Oracle Developer Tools for quite some time now but I admit I have not used those tools quite extensively. I think it's about time I should take those tools seriously.

Oracle has just published a developer's guide for the .NET developers who want to use the Oracle Developers tools for Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio 2008. It's called Oracle Database 2 Day + .NET Developer's Guide. Download the PDF version here and browse the HTML version here.

I also found the following guides which I find very useful as an SQL Server developer.

Oracle Database 2 Day Developer's Guide - PDF Version - HTML Version

Oracle Database 2 Day DBA – PDF Version – HTML Version

For developers who have not worked with Oracle PL-SQL before, I would suggest to read the 2 Day Developer's Guide first to get some basic understanding about PL-SQL, its constructs, etc and then read the Oracle .NET Developer's Guide.

All of the Oracle 11g books can be found here.

For those who are still working with Oracle 10g, see the books here.

 

Microsoft has just released the F# CTP. The neat feature rolled up in this version is its integration with Visual Studio 2008!

Download the CTP from the following URL: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=61ad6924-93ad-48dc-8c67-60f7e7803d3c&DisplayLang=en

For those who are not familiar with F#, check out the F# Developer Center.

 

 

I came across this jewel last week. A must have for a MOSS developer. Following is the excerpt from the download page.

Learn how to build a business solution leveraging a broad range of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Enterprise capabilities. This white paper focuses on the real-world example of an application to help consulting companies track client engagements and business performance. But the insightful lessons learned and best practices will apply wherever your next SharePoint development project takes you.

Topics include Office SharePoint Designer 2007, workflows, Excel Services 2007 and the Enterprise Search API. Whether you are a SharePoint development guru or a Microsoft .NET developer evaluating the platform, this white paper has something for you.

Check it out @ Developing Custom Applications with SharePoint Server 2007

 

After a long time I am able to launch my own technical articles' web site @ http://www.techconception.com

I have just published the very first article so check it out here

Don't forget to leave your comments and/or suggestion on this blog about the web site.

 

I just received this email from a co-worker about the upcoming live event in Richmond VA. Check out the events web site @ http://www.msdnevents.com/ or register here for the event.

In a nut-shell, some of the new technologies such as WPF, ADO.NET Entity Framework and ADO.NET Data Services will be covered. The event is on Thursday September 18. The developer sessions are from 1:00 P.M. – 5:00 P.M.

 

I am not sure if I ever got to post about this but you can view the newly published content and subscribe to the RSS feed for the Microsoft Office Products (WSS, MOSS, Project Server 2007, Forms Server 2007, etc) @ the following URLs.

Newly Published Content

WSS 3.0

MOSS 2007

Office Forms Server 2007

Office Groove Server 2007

Performance Point Server 2007

Office Project Server 2007

RSS Feeds

WSS 3.0

MOSS 2007

Office Project Server 2007

 

WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007 offer many OOTB site definitions for different types of sites. More specifically, the following are OOTB categories and the site definitions available under each category. Note that some of the site definitions are only available while creating site collections.

• Collaboration
  • Team Site
  • Blank Site
  • Document Workspace
  • Wiki Site
  • Blog
  • Microsoft Office Project Workspace
• Meetings
  • Basic Meeting Workspace
  • Blank Meeting Workspace
  • Decision Meeting Workspace
  • Social Meeting Workspace
  • Multipage Meeting Workspace
• Enterprise
  • Document Center *
  • Records Center
  • Site Directory *
  • Report Center * *
  • Search Center with Tabs *
  • My Site Host
  • Search Center
• Publishing
  • Collaboration Portal *
  • Publishing Portal *
  • Publishing Site
  • Publishing Site with Workflow

* - Available while creating a site collection.

** - Available while creating a sub-site but resulted in an error. Created the same as a site-collection and it worked fine.

It's kind of difficult to remember the default look & feel of an OOTB site which requires one to create a "throw-away" site just to see the look & feel. I have done it many times! This morning I spent some time and created all of the sites on my development machine and have made the screen shots available.

Collaboration

Team Site

Blank Site

Document Workspace

Wiki Site

Blog

Microsoft Office Project Workspace

Meetings

Basic Meeting Workspace

Blank Meeting Workspace

Decision Meeting Workspace

Social Meeting Workspace

Multipage Meeting Workspace

Enterprise

Document Center

Records Center

Site Directory

Report Center

For some reason I got the following error while creating a sub-site of this type under a site-collection. Not sure what am I missing.

Creating the Report Center as a separate site collection worked like a charm!

Search Center with Tabs

My Site Host

Search Center

Publishing

Different Publishing site definitions are available depending on the context (as a site collection vs as a sub-site) in which the site is created.

While creating a site-collection, the following site definitions are available:

• Collaboration Portal
• Publishing Portal

While creating a sub-site under a site-collection, the following site definitions are available:

• Publishing Site
• Publishing Site with Workflow

Collaboration Portal

Publishing Portal

Publishing Site

Publishing Site with Workflow

 

WSS/MOSS deployment packages are nothing but the CAB files which are created by the MakeCAB tool. We have been using MakeCAB for creating the WSP file for our project and it works like a charm.

Today, I recreated the WSP package for the project we are working on and realized that instead of generating one of each of the output files (.inf, .rpt and .wsp file) it generated more than one .wsp files; all in all, I ended up having the following files in the output folder.

Figure 1. More than one .wsp files generated by MakCAB.

The folder named 681984000 was also created with another .wsp file in it which was around 1300 KB in size!

Before going further, let's see the output files generated by the MakeCAB. The MakeCAB generates different files but the two important files are setup.rpt and setup.inf.

The setup.rpt contains the information about the total files included in the cab files, how much data was compressed, time taken to compress the data, and so on. The following is the setup.rpt file which was created on my development machine.

Figure 2. setup.rpt generated by MakCAB.

The setup.inf file contains information about the disks and the cabinet files which were created and also contains the list of all of the files which were included in each cabinet file. See below.

Figure 3. setup.inf generated by MakCAB.

The above setup.inf specifies that there were two disks/cabinet files created. Similarly each and every file which was included in the cabinet file has the numbers like 1,1 and 2,2 prefixed to it. That specifies which disk/cabinet file contains that particular file! In this case, some of the files went into first cabinet file whereas the other files (including the manifest.xml) went into the second cabinet file.

So going back to my problem of having more than one .wsp files, in the past the same project generated one .wsp file! I was wondering why it generated more than one files this time around and even if it did, how more than one wsp files would play with WSS/MOSS.

I gave it a whirl anyways! Running the addsolution command against stsadm returned the following error. Obviously it was looking for the manifest.xml file in the root Project.wsp but it could not find manifest.xml in that file because the manifest.xml file was included in the second .wsp file which in turn was in the 68198400 folder! – This happened because MakeCAB places files on disks (and in cabinets) in the order they are specified in the directive file(s).

Figure 4. Adding the Project.wsp to MOSS failed!

I changed the Project.ddf file and listed the manifest.xml file @ the top of the list of files to make it go in the first .wsp file, re-created the WSP package again; again it generated more than one files (which was expected) but this time around the manifest.xml file was included in the root Project.wsp file! I ran the above stsadm command again to see how it works this time but it generated the same error even though the manifest.xml file was part of the root Project.wsp!

So that means WSS/MOSS don't play well with more than .wsp files!

What should we do? First we need to find out why MakeCAB was generating more than one file and then somehow make it to generate only one .wsp file with all of the project files in it.

CAB Directives

I dig around the makecab SDK and found the "Make Cab User Guide" which explained how to use the MakeCAB and most importantly how to customize its behavior. While reading through the user guide, I found the following statement in it: The MakeCAB defaults are configured for a floppy disk layout ….

That was it! It did not take me long to realize that the first of the two .wsp files generated by the MakeCAB was around 1.4 MB (See Figure 1 above), which is the maximum size supported by a floppy disk! That means while processing the .ddf file of the project, MakeCAB created the first .wsp file and when the size limit reached, it started to create the next file!

I had the answer to my first question. More than one file was generated because the output cabinet file size was more than the default size of 1.44 MB.

How to fix it? Read on.

The CAB files are driven by the "CAB Directives" which are listed @ the top of the .ddf file and which govern the behavior of MakeCAB. Since we did not use any specific CAB directive in our .ddf file except the CabinetNameTemplate and DiskDirectory1 that means the MakeCAB used default values for the other settings. Which CAB directive to change?

Some of the important CAB directives are listed below along with their purpose and the default value.

 

It was a no brainer once I read the above directives; I had to increase the MaxCabinetSize; since the default value of MaxCabinetSize is same as that of the MaxDiskSize, then I decided to change the MaxDiskSize directive instead and added the following line in the .ddf file of the project.

.Set MaxDiskSize=CDROM

This time around the output of the MakeCAB was only one .wsp file with all of the project files inside it. See below – note the size of the .wsp file; it is more than 1.4 MB which means it contains all of the project files.

Figure 5. Only one .wsp file generated by MakeCAB after changing the .ddf file

 

There is couple of new Visual Studio 2008 Virtual Labs available @ Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Virtual Labs

MSDN Virtual Lab: Visual Studio 2008 - Developing an Outlook Add-In

MSDN Virtual Lab: Visual Studio 2008 - Integrating Windows Communication Foundation and Windows Workflow Foundation

MSDN Virtual Lab: Visual Studio 2008 - Developing a WPF Application

MSDN Virtual Lab: Visual Studio 2008 - Developing a .Net Compact Framework 3.5 Application

MSDN Virtual Lab: Visual Studio 2008 - Lighting up MFC Application

MSDN Virtual Lab: Using LINQ to SQL with the .Net Framework 3.5 and Visual Studio 2008

MSDN Virtual Lab: Visual Basic 9 and LINQ

MSDN Virtual Lab: Building AJAX/JSON Services using WCF

MSDN Virtual Lab: Syndication using Windows Communications Foundation

MSDN Virtual Lab: Silverlight Monster Factory- Using a XAML Template

 

Last night I spoke @ the Richmond .NET User Group meeting. The topic was Advanced ASP.NET Concepts and Tips/Tricks. A decent number of people showed up (around 40+) and I sure had fun delivering the presentation. I hope the attendees also had fun and were able to grasp some of the concepts and techniques that I shared with them.

After the presentation I received the email addresses of around 16 people who wanted me to email them the copy of the presentation and the code. I will do that tonight and I am also making the presentation and the code available for download from the following links.

Advanced ASP.NET Concepts and Tips/Tricks [ Presentation ] [ Code ]

 

As described in this post, I was scheduled to speak @ the Richmond Code Camp 2008.1 on last Saturday.

Oh boy, that was fun. Decent crowd showed up for the code camp; around 15-20 people attended my session on "WSS and SharePoint for Developers". Presentation went smooth, no hiccups except the quality of the projector in my room L The projector was of a poor quality and attendees of the session complained about it. Setting aside the projector related problem, ECPI has been a great host for such events; kudos to them for providing their facility and for making sure everything goes smooth.

Following is the link to the presentation download.

WSS and SharePoint For Developers [ Presentation ]

During the key note, Andy Leonard announced that he is leaving VA and going to Atlanta GA. That's for sure is a great loss for the developer community in Richmond and surrounding area. He is a fine architect, author, speaker and one of the few good people around us. I wish Andy and his family best of luck in their future endeavors. Andy and the family, God bless you.

In the end, big thanks and appreciations for Kevin Israel, Andy Leonard, Darrell Norton, Robin Edwards, Susan Lennon and the team for making this code camp one more success. Guys, you rock!

 

I will be speaking @ the May meeting of the Richmond .NET User Group. The topic is Advanced ASP.NET Concepts and Tips/Tricks.

You might be wondering why I chose this topic. Well, let me bring you in context. I have been interviewing .NET candidates for quite some time now. My personal experience from those interviews is that most of the developers lack the knowledge of some of the powerful ASP.NET concepts. So I decided to share some of my knowledge and personal experience with those technologies.

I am sure it is going to be fun. So stop by.

Information about the event is as follows.

Thursday, May 1, 2008, 6:30 PM - 8:00 PM

Social Time starts at 6:00!

Location: Markel Plaza

4600 Cox Road

Glen Allen, VA 23060

 

As we all know by now that the Office 2007 products use the "Office Open XML Format" as the default format for the files' content. The following resources would be handy if you ever need to create/manipulate the Office 2007 files in Visual Studio.

Open XML Format SDK

The SDK contains the documentation and the classes for creating/maintaining the Open XML files.

2007 Office System Sample: Open XML File Format Code Snippets for Visual Studio 2005

The name says it all!

2007 Office System Document: Open XML Developer Map

The poster that contains the visual schemas for the Word documents, the Excel spread sheets, and the Power Point presentations.

2007 Office System: XML Schema Reference

The reference documentation for the 2007 Office System XML schemas.

Open XML Developer

Read/learn about the Open XML Formats.

XML in Office Developer Portal

The following articles are a great resource for learning about how to manipulate the Open XML files using code.

Building Server-Side Document Generation Solutions Using the Open XML Object Model (Part 1 of 2)

Building Server-Side Document Generation Solutions Using the Open XML Object Model (Part 2 of 2)

Manipulating Word 2007 Files with the Open XML Object Model (Part 1 of 3)

Manipulating Word 2007 Files with the Open XML Object Model (Part 2 of 3)

Manipulating Word 2007 Files with the Open XML Object Model (Part 3 of 3)

Manipulating Excel 2007 and PowerPoint 2007 Files with the Open XML Object Model (Part 1 of 2)

Manipulating Excel 2007 and PowerPoint 2007 Files with the Open XML Object Model (Part 2 of 2)

 

I had done some Outlook/Exchange programming back in the days of COM and OLE automation but never got a chance to do the similar kind of coding in .NET. I came across the following resources while searching on how to program against Outlook in Visual Studio. I am sure there are many other resources available but this is what I have so far.

Articles

What's New for Developers in Outlook 2007 (Part 1 of 2)

What's New for Developers in Outlook 2007 (Part 2 of 2)

Customizing the Ribbon in Outlook 2007

Creating an Outlook Task Add-in Solution with Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office

General and Add-in Samples / Hands-on Labs

Outlook 2007 Sample: Visual Studio 2005 Templates

Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office Sample: Outlook Samples

Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office Training: Outlook Hands-on Labs

Add-Ins

Outlook 2007 Sample: Ribbon Extensibility Add-In

Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office Sample: Outlook Tasks Add-in Sample

Outlook 2007 Add-Ins: RulesAddin, TravelAgencyAddin, and PrepareMeAddin

Outlook 2007 Sample: What's New Add-Ins

Outlook 2007 Sample: Ribbon Extensibility Add-In

Outlook 2007 Add-In: Form Region Add-In

Snippets

Outlook Add-in Snippets for Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office

2007 Office System Sample: Visual Studio Code Snippets for the Office Fluent UI

Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office Sample: Outlook Snippets

Root of all evils

Office Developer Center

Outlook Developer Portal