Dennis J. Bottjer | MVP ASP.NET

On Monday 11/19/2007 @ 10:30 PM, after 2 hour and 45 minutes of pushing (ouch), Carrie gave birth to our first child.  Kate was 7lbs 1 ounce and 17.5 inches long.  We've posted some pictures on Shutterfly at http://katebottjer.shutterfly.com.  Needless to say we had something special to be thankful for this Thanksgiving.

Going home.

It is generally recommend NOT to tamper with a SharePoint database.  Seems like the warning not to remove the label from your mattress. :) However, it is safe to run several SQL Server 2005 Maintenance Plan Tasks against SharePoint databases such as:

• Check database integrity
• Reduce a database
• Reorganize an index
• Clean up the history
• Update statistics
• Rebuild an index

Source: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;932744

When I refer to SharePoint I am referring to both Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (WSS 3.0) and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS 2007).  SharePoint is often thought of as an intranet portal.  However, many public web sites are now powered by SharePoint.  One compelling reason for this is the powerful publishing capabilities built into MOSS 2007 Enterprise.  Furthermore, it is much easier to brand sites in the latest versions of SharePoint then previous versions.  SharePoint know leverages masterpages introduced is ASP.NET 2.0 and CSS which have reduced the number of required file modifications to brand a site.  The following are several custom branded SharePoint Sites.

http://www.glu.com/noram/Pages/home.aspx

http://www.hawaiianair.com/Pages/Index.aspx

http://www.lodgenet.com

http://www.migros.ch/DE/home/Seiten/Home.aspx

http://www.nspi.com/Pages/Home.aspx

Leveraging Virtual Machines is a great way to develop against SharePoint.  I was trying to update Visual Studio 2005 on a dev VM to SP1 and kept receiving "Error 1718. File FileName was rejected by digital signature policy."  The cause of this error is actually related to a lack of Virtual Memory.  However, I still received the error after increasing the virtual memory. The HotFix available in this http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925336 MS Support Article resolved the issue.

Found this project, http://research.microsoft.com/Pex/ from MS Research which apparently dynamically generates tests and code analysis during active development.  Interesting way to enforce code quality and just prove requirements are being met.

http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/pedia/Pages/Home.aspx - this site is described not as a Wiki but as a collection information, in various media formats, about SharePoint.

http://www.codeplex.com/servicesengine - is a Microsoft project released to CodePlex.  This project has definitely grabbed my attention but I would really like to understand it better.  So far I know it provides guidance around WCF Services.  But does it simply help you generate a WCF based service tier or the MSE more like an Enterprise Service Bus implemented with WCF?  If you can provide clarity on this project please do so.

Bookvar http://www.bookvar.net/Default.aspx is a free Mind Mapping Windows Application built on the .NET 3.5 Beta Framework.  It highlights some amazing UI features available in WPF.  The application can be easily extended via add-ins.  The development team plans to make monthly releases.