SharePoint Saturday Toronto July 11, 2009

An opportunity to attend a SharePoint Saturday event within three hours was a treat. With my passport in hand I left my house about 5:00am, easily travelled across the border into Canada, no lines, and made my way up the QEW to the 407 ETR toll road. What I found interesting there was the sign stating ‘a bill will be sent to you for your toll.’ I’m like, how the hell are they going read my license with me driving 70mph! After a mile or so on the 407 ETR I passed under a bank of, what appeared to be, lights and cameras. It kind of looked like a stage light setup except mounted above a highway. So I’m assuming I will be receiving a bill in the mail with them obtaining my address from scanning my license plate. We’ll see! http://www.407etr.com/ 

I arrived at the Microsoft Campus in Mississauga a little early.

So I went up the street looking for a wifi spot to connect with my iPhone to check email and twitter. As luck would have it I was able to get a great wifi connection sitting in my vehicle near a Timothy’s. I proceeded to tweet and catch-up from my two hour disconnection from any 3G activity. The reason for this disconnection is due to the insane cost of using my AT&T iPhone in Canada on the Rogers network: $.79 per minute talk and $15 per mb data! If I sent one picture over the Rogers 3G network it would cost me over $30! How ridiculous is that? I could have signed up for AT&T global for $6 but I still would have had a high per min and per mb charge on top of that. Crazy.

Upon entering the Microsoft campus I was greeted by Cathy and Kanwal, AKA @catpaint1 and @kkipple on Twitter, both busy at their tasks at hand.

It was great to have had an opportunity to speak with both of them at the event. I made it a point to wear a name tag with @ricknology on it should anyone recognize my twitter name and it worked. Kanwal was very busy working the floor of the event making sure the give-aways were secure, session rooms were setup, and over all worrying about all aspects of the event!

Cathy and other presenters were hard at work stuffing the give-away bags and handing them out along with answering any questions that came up. I really wish now I would have done a “Dux” and started recording some interviews. I had my 3GS iPhone with me and could have started some interviews and just had a blast with it. Unfortunately having no cell connection and a very spotty wifi I was preoccupied and didn’t jump at the chance. Sorry guys. I’ll practice up on my filming and interview skills for next time!

 

Here is a brief synopsis of the event from the pictures I took:

The keynote consisted of upcoming Microsoft announcements and details about the days events.

There was a full house at the event. Great turnout!

Here is a quick moment with myself, Cathy and Kanwal.

The first presentation I attended was SharePoint Branding with Cathy Dew. I’ve communicated with Cathy for awhile on twitter and it was exciting to sit in her session to listen to her expertise on the subject of SharePoint designer and branding. I took from the session how important the first step of site construction and planning should include, at the top of the list, branding and layout. Another important tidbit from Cathy offered was to not change the fonts! Cathy explained how trying to change a font within a site is very difficult and time consuming. Is it possible to change the fonts in a site? Yes. But it isn’t a couple hour task. Great session Cathy. By the way during the session the lights flickered a few times and we could hear thunder. A severe storm went through during the session. All was well though!

 

Next up I went to Anderson Nogueira’s session on SharePoint and social computing. This was an interesting session and a great topic for discussion. I believe the main point of his presentation is that the social aspect of SharePoint is a critical part of the architecture and adoption of the technology. Don’t underestimate the psychology of social networking when struggling with adoption of SharePoint.

 

Hasan Shahid and his colleague presented on building content query web parts. Very informative session.

 

Next I went to Ruven Gotz session on using Mind Mapping for The Information Architect. This was a great session both on showing the organizational expertise required to architect a large SharePoint site and utilizing Mind Mapper techniques effectively. I’ve already purchased a MindJet Mind Mapper license since this session. Bettween Mark Miller and Ruven I was convinced it was time to step up from FreeMind and go to the real deal. 

Here Cathy is taking a picture of me and Ruven during the give aways.

Speaking of give aways. I was telling Ruven that I’ve never won anything at the few SharePoint events I’ve attended and right after that they pulled my name for the grand prize of a $3,000 training voucher with LearningTree! I am so excited to have a chance to spend 3 or 4 days in a class room on a specific topic regarding SharePoint. I’m leaning toward one of these two courses: Developing SharePoint Solutions with SharePoint Designer or their certification training on MOSS. We’ll see! They have already contacted me via Twitter and eMail and I’m expecting a voucher any day now.

 

The presenters. A little blurry. I took about five pictures with five different cameras for everyone and I was last.

SharePint! I wasn’t able to stay long but there were some fun conversations going on. @rharbridge brought up the Mythical Man Month book that I have written down as a book to read. Good times.

When I got back into the states I stopped by a McDonalds, which is a rare event for me, and saw this! Nice way to end a fun and informative day.

Thank you http://SharePointSaturday.org/toronto for a great day.

VMWare ESXi install problems on Dell Optiplex 210L

During the bootup of the VMWARE ISO, and after the loading phase, I received an error

“Unsupported BIOS setting CPUID is limited. Disable ‘limit CPUID value’ or ‘SUPPORT LEGACY NT4/OS’ in BIOS.”

Upon investigation, I found that this error is fairly common on various PCs. The DELL Optiplex 210L does not have an option in the BIOS to set the CPUID. I upgraded the BIOS to A02, however, this didn’t add that functionality. Further investigation via GOOGLE revealed that the bootup options could be changed to have ESXi install not check for the CPUID. How does this impact the use of ESXi? I have no idea. Here is how to disable this feature during in stall:

1. At the bootloader screen (when booting from the ISO), press TAB to edit the boot options. You may not see a cursor. Hit the space bar to see where you might be.
2. Hold down the left-arrow key to move the cursor back to the beginning of the boot options, and add ‘nocheckCPUIDLimit’ right after ‘vmkernel.gz’, so that the first part of the boot options BEFORE the first “---“ reads: “mboot.c32 vmkernel.gz nocheckCPUIDLimit ---“
3. Press ENTER.

I found this information in the community forums here. http://communities.vmware.com/message/1011419#1011419

Unfortunately I still received the same error after the install. So far no joy.

The Extra Benefit of SharePoint Saturday Edification

This all started back in January with a local Rochester SharePoint event being held by Entre computer services. Long story short, due to my obvious enthusiasm I conveyed with the person running the local user group, I was asked to hold three sessions at the event. I did Outlook integration, a case study on how my business is using Windows SharePoint Services, and a session on creating a basic CRM package out-of-the-box. People genuinely enjoyed my sessions and after that I’ve been hooked attending events ever since. Though the last few as an attendee and not a trainer.

This is my second SharePoint Saturday event - SharePoint Saturday DC. The first, where I drove about six hours to Waltham, MA near Boston a few weeks ago, was a fantastic event in more ways than one. The same is shaping up for the DC event as well.

First, it is a SharePoint event! I am not an expert in SharePoint nor claim to be. However, I am on a quest to become as knowledgeable as possible to eventually be able to help others with this fantastic product - plus, of course, to better my SharePoint initiative at work. Thus my motivation for travelling to these events. The key I believe to any success is to surround yourself with peers who are successful. SharePoint Saturday is just the event for that. Having the chance to hang with (I’ll user their twitter handles) @joeloleson, @eusp, @usher, @mosslover, @sharepointreviews, @erickraus, @tlanni, @meetdux, and others has been fantastic. Interestingly enough, it wasn’t so much that we talked only about SharePoint, but it’s just a group of great people out having some fun after the events.

Second, the events are held at places that I would never have gone to. I wouldn’t have stayed in the great towns of Waltham or Reston if it weren’t for these events. My wife and I have found these places to be inexpensive and very enjoyable. Waltham’s Moody Street has lots of restaurants and live music. Not far from there is an awesome Mexican restaurant called the Taqueria Mexico. A few miles away by car is the red train to downtown Boston for easy access to the city. We just arrived in Reston at the Hampton Inn and are blown away. For $65 this place is awesome: clean, free wi-fi, great reception area, pool, workout room and 40 miles of trails right outside. Within a mile is the Reston Town Center full of restaurants and shopping. Who would have known?

Third, the sessions at the events are outstanding. Experts in the field fly in from all over, and for no fee at all, and share their knowledge. It doesn’t get much better than that.

So yeah. Here I am again, having driven over six hours to get to another SharePoint Saturday; the event hasn’t even started yet, and we’re having a great time already!

The Dreaded iPhone ‘Cannot Get Mail’

I’ve been struggling with this problem ever since going to 2.1 on the iPhone. Everything will be fine then for whatever reason when checking my inbox for my Exchange email, I’ll get the ‘Cannot Get Mail’ message. Once this message appears I’m basically screwed. Or so I thought. My solution has been to delete the Exchange setup on the iPhone and recreate it. A bit nerve racking since all contacts, calendar, and email are wiped. Now granted every time I’ve re-added the Exchange server everything has come back. But man when this happens and I’m out of town; it isn’t pretty! So after this recently happened AGAIN, I found a solution.

Go into the Exchange settings within the iPhone and add a / to the server address.

so if it your server address is:    

jackfrostexchange.com

Make it now say:

jackfrostexchange.com/

Accept that, give it a few minutes, and when you go to check your Exchange email, the inbox will be empty but will begin to sync.

If this should happen again the solution would be to take out the / from the address and it should fix it all over. Basically add or take away the / and you’ll be good to go.

 

Needless to say what a great and easy solution to a really stupid problem!

 

Here is the link to Carlos Rivero, the source of this solution and a few others if needed.

XP SP3 and Remote Web Workplace ActiveX Error

When XP SP3 came out, Microsoft in their infinite wisdom, disabled the mstscax.dll from running within Internet Explorer 7. This little tidbit is the .dll that ActiveX calls for the terminal services client when connecting to a remote PC from the Small Business Server Remote Web Workplace. Basically a big middle finger to all those customers out there running their Small Business Server and using Remote Web Workplace. Still today THEY HAVE NOT FIXED THIS. They leave it to the end user, consultant, and/or admin to figure it out.

Here is the wonderful message that pops up when trying to connect to a remote desktop within Remote Web Workplace:

The first step is to first see if the add-on within IE7 is there and is simply disabled. I have yet to see this happen. 99% of the time the add-on is simply no longer there at all.

Either click on Tools – Add-ons or click the gear at the bottom of the web browser. This will load the add-on window. Look for the Microsoft Terminal Services client.

IF you see it there and it IS disabled. Simply enable it and you’re good to go.

Most likely that won’t be the case.

So first try to register the mstscax.dll file.

Then restart IE7 or IE8 and give it a shot. If it still doesn’t work then the next step is to remove the registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Ext\Settings\{7584C670-2274-4EFB-B00B-D6AABA6D3850}

Of course backup your registry prior. If that all fails look at the below article describing all of this from Microsoft.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/951607

And to think. You may have to walk a client or end user through this? Give me a break Microsoft.

Take the Hyper-V vs VMWARE ESXi Survey!

Active X Control and Internet Facing SharePoint Sites

Does it get annoying having to ignore or accept the ActiveX request when going to your public facing SharePoint site? Here is a synopsis from Microsoft and a link to their solution.

“Message in the Information bar in Internet Explorer 7 when you browse to a Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 site or to a SharePoint Server 2007 site: "The Web site wants to run the following add-on: 'Name ActiveX Control'"”

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/931509