SharePoint 2010 training material for developers

If you are a SharePoint developer and you are planning to start with SharePoint 2010 – definitely take a look at these links:

• Download the SharePoint 2010 SDK
• Sharepoint 2010 Developer Training Kit
• SharePoint Server 2010: Advanced Developer Training Presentations
• Microsoft SharePoint Designer 2010 (32-bit) – yes, even you as a developer should definitely take a look at SharePoint Designer. This a must have tool in your development toolkit.
• SharePoint 2010: Getting Started with Development on SharePoint 2010 Hands-on Labs in C# and Visual Basic
• SharePoint 2010: Professional Developer Evaluation Guide and Walkthroughs 
• Certification exams (availability 9/2010):
  • Exam 70-668 Pro:Microsoft SharePoint 2010, Administrator
  • Exam 70-667 TS: Microsoft SharePoint 2010, Configuring
  • Exam 70-576 Pro: Designing and developing Microsoft SharePoint 2010 applications
  • Exam 70-573 TS: Microsoft SharePoint 2010, Application Development

Technorati Tags: sharepoint,sharepoint+2010,development,microsoft,sharepoint+server+2010,sps2010,SDK,training+material,certification

WP7 Suggestions

Today at Remix I had the opportunity to play for the first time with a WP7 device (it was an LG flashed with a build from last week that includes the XBOX Live hub) . The device looks nice and pretty responsive.

Playing with the LG there are some suggestions that came me to mind and that could be implemented (improvements from my point of view):

• In the call answer menu in the current build there is a big image and two small buttons (Answer and Deny I think) . There is a lot of space for more functionality. One would be the ability to deny a call using an SMS message (I am using it every day on my Omnia 2)

• This one I've already posted on the WP7 forum. It is important for developers to receive error reporting from applications that they've posted on Marketplace (of course ask the phone user if he agrees to send that error). It would be a feature that would make WP7 Marketplace unique and more attractive.

• At this moment (from what I've understood) silverlight applications can only intercept the Back button. It is important to be able to intercept/use also the Search button (I saw that this functionality is currently implemented into Marketplace). This way the developer doesn't have to put another button on the UI.

Namaste

WP7 Device Request

What better time to blog than during a conference (I am attending ReMIX in Milano). As every Windows Mobile developer out there I would love to have a test device before the official launch. So when I read the post of Brandon Watson about the availability of developer devices in July I've "spammed" him with a message on Facebook and he put me in contact with Microsoft Italia. Today I had the pleasure to talk with Lorenzo Barbieri which told me that it will be difficult (almost impossible) to have a test device without an application proposal that really requires a device (because in Italy there will not be many devices available and there are some "big names" in the queue to which Microsoft wants to "push" the new device to). Of course I started processing to find something that would justify a developer device. The bad thing is that all our end-user applications rely on "features" that are missing from the initial release of WP7: Wasabi (used internally by Maybelline Italia, Mediaset, Samsung, L'Oreal developed for DP&V) uses Sql Ce with replication so is definitely out, our s.f.a. solutions (Neomobile, Memo) are using printing so without socket they are also out (I have to look at HP WebPrinter which might be a solution for this part). The good thing is that I could finish (or at least make it usable) the Sqlite library for WP7 (my second post on the blog). I will definitely need a device to test :) this way I don't risk to develop/optimize something that isn't usable on a real device.

Hope my proposal qualifies

Namaste

Access Services in SharePoint Server 2010

In Access 2007 you were able to publish data to SharePoint 2007, Access 2010 – in combination with SharePoint Server 2010 extends this functionality by allowing you to publish full Access applications to SharePoint including forms, reports, queries, etc … This can be done without involvement of developers or server administrators. Once published, your Access application can be worked with from within the SharePoint native web interface.

• The Access Show – Publish a Access 2007 database to SharePoint with Access 2010 and the related article – Build an Access database to share on the Web
• The Microsoft Access Team Blog
• The Access Show (video channel on Channel 9)
• Utter Access (Access Discussion Forums)
• Access 2010 – Performance improvements against SharePoint lists
• Access 2010 on Channel 9  - Building solutions with Access 2010 lab
• Tips to migrate legacy databases to SharePoint and the web
• Develop advanced Access 2010 web databases and publish to SharePoint 2010 
• The Access show – How the Microsoft Legal Department uses Access 2010 web databases

PS Access Services is part of SharePoint Server 2010 Enterprise edition – check out SharePoint 2010 edition comparison for more details

Technorati Tags: sharepoint,access+services,sharepoint+2010,sps2010,microsoft

Access Services: solving this report failed to load because session state is not turned on.

I noticed the following error recently in one of the Access web databases driven by Access Services in SharePoint Server 2010.

“This report failed to load because session state is not turned on. Contact your SharePoint farm administrator. Troubleshoot issues with Microsoft SharePoint Foundation. Correlation ID: 6968e6db-d139-4b88-bf5a-7c39c2e4a6be  Date and Time: 6/16/2010 7:37:01 AM”

The strange thing was that the State Service was in running state (within SharePoint Central Admin > Manage Service Applications). Underlying Access Services seems to use a ReportViewer Control so this article – Using Access Services with SQL Reporting Services provided the solution:

Enable the Session State for the farm by opening the SharePoint Management Shell. Enter the command [Enable-SPSessionStateService –DatabaseName “foobar”] — The DatabaseName value is the database that will be created on the computer that is running SQL Server. Perform an IIS reset.

Technorati Tags: sharepoint,access+services,sharepoint+2010,sharepoint+server+2010,microsoft

WP7 Marketplace Limit download size over 3G

I was looking at the Teched sessions and one of the aspects that cut my interest was the limit for application download using 3G network (maximum 20MB). It's a choice that Apple made and from my experience with the end user they are loosing clients for some applications. For example A friend of mine that owns an iPhone, uses it, loves it but is not able to connect it to a PC via iTunes. It's not said that somebody that will own a WP7 will also know how to connect it to a PC (it's a sad reality but it's like this). A lot of people will buy a "trendy" phone but don't know how to use a PC, or more are not interested in connecting the phone to the pc.
Another scenario would be that I am in a town, don't have a car navigator but I need to arrive in some place in town and I don't have an internet connection besides the one my WP7. In this case I would happily pay 40Euro to download TomTom with Italy map and I would wait 5-10 minutes to download it (download size around 400MB).
So why "block" the user buy applications that they are interested/need it? The price in Italy for unlimited data traffic it's really small (Tim Italy offers unlimited unlimited data transfer from for just 2 Euro/week but only from the phone)? Ericsson declared that the world wide data traffic over the cellular network surpassed the voice traffic.
If battery it's a problem wait for the user to connect the power plug. I personally would prefer not to power up my pc, connect the phone and download the application especially if it doesn't matter if I download using 3G or ADSL. You are also cutting off the users that don't have internet at home but have the latest phone on the market in their pockets and those are the users for which the price doesn't really matter.

The only reason I can think of is if the voice provider Vodafone, T-Mobile is imposing a maximum download size (it would be strange, but also in that case I cannot believe that all the providers have the same conditions).


So my way would be WARN THE USER but if he agrees DON'T LIMIT HIM

Namaste

WP7 Multilanguage App Proof Of Concept

For quite a while I wanted to write this post but always the same problem NO TIME. There is nothing innovative, but it's something that you might need/use in your apps. As you know I am romanian, I live in Italy and I usually develop in english :). So we usually add multilingual support to our solutions. The way we did it in previous version of Windows Mobile(Phone) is using xml files. I've implemented this mechanism slightly changed for WP7. I've added xml language files as resources to the solution. Each xml file has a tag which gives us the culture.

language name="English" culture="en-US"

I use it to set CurrentCulture and CurrentCultureUI of the current thread (it's just a proof of concept that can be improved).
Inside the language tag we have all the classes (xaml pages) with the various controls and properties that need to be set :
class name="MainPage" Title="Main Page"
control name="textBlockPageTitle" Text="MY APPLICATION"
Obviously it's easier to look at the code than to explain it. I also use a singleton class to share the XDoc, loaded from the xaml language, between various pages of the project and also to "translate" the pages.



There are still some problems with the ApplicationBar as there is no way to get a reference to the MenuItem using the name (when you debug the property doesn't even exist). I think it's a problem/missing feauture of the CTP. The solution I've adopted is to add a control name that doesn't exist on the page "AppBarMenuItem" that has 2 attributes Index and Text. This way I use the index to set the text of the MenuItem

control name="AppBarMenuItem" Index="1" Text="First"

The sample attached to this post is a project with 2 pages. If you need more details or you think it's useful please let me know

MultilanguageApp.rar

NAMASTE

Update: New version: http://sviluppomobile.blogspot.com/2010/10/wp7-multi-language-v2.html

Selling ECM,WCMS, BPM ….

Funny video  -  a fictional discussion between a business software salesperson and an IT Manager. …

Technorati Tags: fun,ECM,BPM,Acronyms

Dear CEO , why you should really consider moving to Windows 7 from Windows XP

Dear CEO, yes it is time to move away from Windows XP – here are some reasons why:

• Mainstream support for Windows XP has already ended last year and extended support is available until 2014 – so you probably won’t be able to wait until Windows 8. You can only hold off for so long …
• You might want to take a look at Windows 7 Business Value Analysis – depending on the type of organization you will have a different ROI and cost structure. “I haven’t heard about possible advantages” seems like a lame excuse for just sticking with what you know.
• There are some great improvements – maybe you will not notice a lot of difference but believe me – when your workforce will adopt it Windows 7 in their home environment – they will notice these differences and might be disappointed for the lack of these features in their work environment. Yuo can even guide them using the new Enterprise Learning Framework My favorite improvements:
• Performance improvements – yes even with older hardware I see that it just boots faster and that the settings screens load faster as well.
• Support for 64 bit – I’m a SharePoint dev so …
• Search desktop and programs (my personal favorite)
• Better wireless support – I haven’t had any issues since I moved to Windows 7 – both Windows XP and Vista gave me severe headaches when using it in combination with my wireless network.
• Productivity enhancement due to the new UI
• DirectAccess – accessing networks without the need to VPN – I can’t wait for this one.
• Boot from VHD option (yep probably not a typical end user operation)
• Use the Windows 7 refresh to assess your desktop environments and try to rationalize the application portfolio you currently need to support. A migration is not only a technical operation – if you approach it intelligently you might create extra value while migrating.
• Although the standalone user operating system becomes less relevant in a corporate environment – I do think that IT consultancy and services firms should typically lead the pack in migrations. Consider an account manager (or consultant for that matter) trying to sell the value of Windows 7 when giving a presentation with Office 2003 and Windows XP – must be a hard sell in my opinion.

If you agree or disagree … just leave a comment

Technorati Tags: windows7,upgrade,microsoft

SharePoint Saturday Belgium Presentations and code samples

I finally collected all the presentations and code samples from the different sessions about SharePoint 2010 at our first SharePoint Saturday here in Belgium. Enjoy

• Demos and slide decks of Stephane’s sessions about REST and WCF in SharePoint 2010
• Serge Luca did a presentation about SPLinq – download the SPLinq at SharePoint Saturday pptx.
• Steven explained about Sandboxed solutions – more about it here – BIWUG SPSaturday – wrap up
• Karine’s intro about SharePoint 2010 and Visual Studio 2010
• My presentation about Metadata in SharePoint 2010

Technorati Tags: sharepoint,wcf,sharepoint+2010,biwug,community,sharepoint+saturday,vs2010,metadata+folders,rest,splinq