I did it – 8.5 Mile Great Midlands Fun Run

I ran 8.5 miles in a local fun run in Sutton Coldfield. Big thanks to my running partner Paul Hughes who was a big encouragement all the way round.

I know to some this may not seem like a big feat but I’d never run this distance before. 

With temperatures averaging 25 degrees C (77 degrees Fahrenheit) it was a great day.

Not sure of my exact time however hoping it was between 1hr20 – 1hr30. Results published Friday 5th June and will be updated here.

Congratulations to my partner Sarah who raised £300 for the stroke association – a charity close to her heart after a family member recently suffered a stroke but fortunately back on the road to recovery.

More info on the Great Midlands Fun Run.

*** UPDATE 05/06/09 ***

Just got my time in @ 1hr 27mins and 18secs – just over 10 minute miles, not bad considering all I want to do was finish regardless of the time!

401 Access Denied - Unable to Search SharePoint 2007 Sites or Access certain Web Apps in MOSS Farm

Just had an issue where MOSS SSP could not search local SharePoint sites.
When attempting to try and access the url of the sites or the SSP admin site from the local server I kept receiving logon prompts even though I was logging on with the farm account. Interestingly I could logon to the SSP and sites from other servers / client pc’s with no problems.
I initially thought someone had changed the content access (crawl) account so reset this but to no avail.
After some further investigation noticed in the security event log that I was receiving access denied.
Modifying the registry using method 2 from the article below fixed this issue:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/896861

PowerShell Warmup Script for SharePoint 2007

Many of you will know that when you IISRESET a MOSS sever the first logon on to the site can take some time. SharePoint configures IIS to recycle the application pools on a nightly basis between the hours of 1 –2am (This is easily changed if these times are not convenient.

From investigation further I found a great script created by Kirk Hoffer’s – All credit goes to Kirk for this one.

You will need to download and install PowerShell on all SharePoint Server if running Windows 2003 (installed as part of Windows 2008) from here.

There's a great intro on how to run PowerShell scripts here.

From the link above basically you need to run the command in PowerShell:

Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned.

This needs to be entered only once to allow scripts to run otherwise you will receive errors when attempting to run the script.

Next step is to create a bat file to run the script after the application pool recycle nightly. Lets say 2.30.

Simply add the line:

powershell.exe c:\scripts\warmup.ps1 (assuming you placed the ps file in the scripts folder)

Create a scheduled task to run the newly created bat file and your done.

Please note that the script resets all SharePoint sites on the local server and may take time. Please test this script before adding to live environments.

Simply copy the code in the table below and name with the file extension ‘ps1’ e.g. warmup.ps1

############################################################################   

#Assumptions:   

#-Running on machine with WSS/MOSS   

#-C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN in path   

############################################################################   

function get-webpage([string]$url,[System.Net.NetworkCredential]$cred=$null)   

{   

    $wc = new-object net.webclient   

    if($cred -eq $null)   

    {   

         $cred = [System.Net.CredentialCache]::DefaultCredentials;   

     }   

     $wc.credentials = $cred;   

     return $wc.DownloadString($url);   

}   

#This passes in the default credentials needed. If you need specific stuff you can use something else to   

#elevate basically the permissions. Or run this task as a user that has a Policy above all the Web Applications   

#with the correct permissions   

$cred = [System.Net.CredentialCache]::DefaultCredentials;   

#$cred = new-object System.Net.NetworkCredential("username","password","machinename")   

[xml]$x=stsadm -o enumzoneurls   

foreach ($zone in $x.ZoneUrls.Collection) {   

    [xml]$sites=stsadm -o enumsites -url $zone.Default;   

    foreach ($site in $sites.Sites.Site) {   

        write-host $site.Url;   

        $html=get-webpage -url $site.Url -cred $cred;   

    }   

}

Customising Microsoft ISA 2006 Forms (with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007)

I noticed recently that whilst researching customising ISA forms there was very little around. I will run through a quick guide on how to create and modify a simple ISA form for use with Microsoft Office SharePoint Services 2007.

1. Locate the folder C:\Program Files\Microsoft ISA Server\CookieAuthTemplates (The drive may be different depending upon the installation).

2. Copy the folder called ‘ISA’ and rename to something relevant for example ‘Extranet’. DO NOT MODIFY THE CURRENT ISA FOLDER AS THIS IS NOT SUPPORTED BY MICROSOFT.

3. Within the newly created Extranet folder navigate to the sub folder ‘HTML’.

4. Within the folder there are a few files worth noting:

• lgnbottom.gif, lgnleft.gif and lgnright.gif – these are images that surround the ISA form. A simple modification would be to change the colour on these to match that of your corporate branding colours.
• lgntop.gif – This is currently the ISA banner and this is where your corporate image should be placed. Make sure the image is the correct size as the original to avoid issues rendering.
• logon_style.css – This is the style sheet used for the logon form and this will need to be changed to the same colours used on the banner and surrounding images.
• Located in the subfolder nls->en is a file called strings.txt. This contains the text that is displayed on the form for example you could change DOMAIN\user name: to Email:.

5. Once you have made the relevant modifications you need to apply these to the relevant site. Open ISA Server Management console and navigate to the web listener applied to the site published.

6. Navigate to the forms tab as shown below:

Check the box ‘Use customized HTML’ and enter the name of the folder you created in step 2. Notice from the drop down under ‘Display the HTML forms in this language’ there is a list of languages. If you need to modify each language you will need to modify the appropriate strings.txt file as mentioned at the end of step 4. You an also change the form at site level if you do not want to apply this to all site using the web listener.

7. Once you have changed this option make sure to apply your changes.

8. Lastly you need to restart the firewall service – MAKE SURE THIS IS PERFORMED OUT OF HOURS IF ON A PRODUCTION SERVER.

From the monitoring tab, select the tab within the main window called ‘Services’ . Right click on ‘Microsoft Firewall’ and click stop. The service status will change to stopped. Again right click and click start. You call also restart this service from within services.msc.

You should now see when you log onto your a customised login form.

Hope this is of some use.

Microsoft Confirm Service Pack 2 for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 due for release on 28th April 2009

See link for more information:

http://blogs.technet.com/office_sustained_engineering/archive/2009/04/16/service-pack-2-for-the-2007-microsoft-office-system-due-to-ship-april-28th.aspx

Couple (or three) of SharePoint / WSS highlights:

• Internet Explorer 8 has been added to the browser support matrix as level one
• SP2 will provide support for a broader range of Web Browsers (no more info given at this stage)
• SP2 will be the first to have a uninstall client updates through a separately downloaded tool Microsoft Service Pack Uninstall Tool for the 2007 Microsoft Office Suite