Currently browsing: SharePoint

It’s busy time!

Jessie’s been sick and I’ve been slammed at work, so just saying that I’ve been “busy” is an overstatement. ;P

The game this past weekend was a disappointment, but while wallowing I realized that honestly Bama DID have a good season this year. In fact, just saying they were “good” doesn’t do them justice — this season was awesome. Hell, they were Number freakin’ 1 for Pete’s sake! We kicked a lot tail and shut up a lot of nay-sayers.

That, my friends, is a good thing.

So yeah, I was a little sad coming in yesterday morning. I’ve looked forward to making wallpapers every Monday following a Tide win. Who knows … perhaps I’ll get to make another in a few weeks!

Things at work have been crazy. Usually, things are slowing down this time of year, but with the recent merger, we’ve taken on a huge workload and unfortunately cannot slow down. I have had some time to work on porting one of my designs to SharePoint though.

Hooray for creative time!

It’s a bit minimalistic, but I’m hoping to use it on a soon-to-be-public site that desperately needs a facelift.

I’ve also been working on a side project involving some heavy-duty Blogger hacks, so once I’m done I’ll be posting them on here as well. (note: using the newer Blogger beta XML coding, not the “classic” templates) Basically someone has a Blogger site and did not want it to “look like a blog.”

I had to really thump hard on the ole noggin for that one, but I’m pretty pleased with how it’s turning out. A lot of the mods I’m using either aren’t well documented, or were very hard to find, so I’m hoping that sharing them on here will help others. (or, at least, that’s my intent anyway!)

I’ve also made a few modifications to this site and have it all Christmas-sied up. I still haven’t decorated my house yet though. With Jessie being sick, I didn’t think it fair to do anything without her, so I’m looking forward to spending some time with her this weekend and do a little holiday decorating.

I hope everyone is having a great holiday season so far!

LinkedIn is useful

I’ve been on LinkedIn for well over a year but never really got into maintaining my profile until recently. Honestly, I never saw much use for it until I started working for UAB. A couple people in my department are heavy LinkedIn users and encouraged me to use the service to “grow” my connections, by reconnecting with old friends and coworkers and reaching out to new ones. (I even ran across my old auto insurance salesman on there!) It’s been pretty cool so far. LinkedIn has added plenty of new features over the last year or so and recently overhauled their Groups. I’m a member of a handful and hadn’t really gone back to check out the new additions.

At the urgings of a coworker last Friday, I logged into my account and checked out the new features — namely the discussions for each of my groups. I’d spent a little time over the past couple of days reading over various discussions for a few of my groups: SharePoint Users, the Libertarian Party, GMail Users, Internet Professionals Society of Alabama (IPSA), and so on.

I’ve discovered that there are a LOT of interesting things posted to these groups. I was reading over the Tweeple (as in “Twitter People”) postings this morning and ran across two Twitter-related gems that I wanted to share with y’all:

• How to add your latest tweet to your email signature
• How to send a DM to a person who is not following you

There are plenty more where those came from …

I’m not really sure why I overlooked this aspect of LinkedIn. Given the new groups I’ve recently discovered, I’m looking forward to finding a lot more insightful tips in the near future on various topics.

Tres geek. Sweet. :mrgreen:

When the ‘right way’ is the biggest PITA

This is one of those times when doing things “the right way” also happens to be the biggest pain in the ass…

I spent the last 2 hours messing around with a layout that I created a few weeks ago. I thought, “No problem, I’ll slice it up and throw the pieces in some DIVs and start on a new SharePoint layout.”

In the words of the immortal Vizzini … “You’d like to think that, wouldn’t you?!”

The problem I was having was that the left and right borders (background images) of the “main” div wouldn’t tile because I didn’t (couldn’t) set a height. So I looked ALL over the web, read up on every ‘clearfix‘ known to man, hundreds of X/HTML and CSS help boards, (and accidentally ran across this air tools site, not sure why it was in the search results!) and then FINALLY stumbled across this article on A List Apart. (and considering how long I spent looking for it, it’s titled appropriately! LOL!)

See? I *knew* it could be done, and remembered reading the article, but could not for the life of me remember where I saw it!!

And so now that my pretty layout is behaving, all I need to do is spending the next 3 weeks beating SharePoint into submission.

Lesson Learned

Ever have one of those moments where you realized you had just done something really stupid?

Yeah, I had one of those moments last night. I was up late playing around on my laptop with a SharePoint template and for whatever reason, I decided that it would be a good idea to play around with the MS themes which control the look of the backend (admin) stuff. Really stupid. It overwrote a few things in my template.

Even worse: my backup was a tad bit older than I originally thought. Colossally stupid.

So I am spending today trying to clean up my mess. I knew better than NOT to check my backups before screwing with templates and themes in ANY system, much less SharePoint.

*sigh* Lesson learned.

Gunning for perfection

Thank my husband for the snazzy post title, LOL! I was sitting here trying to think of a title that would encapsulate all of the topics that I wanted to cover, and that’s one of the first suggestions he blurted out.

He has his moments of brilliance …

Friday went pretty well. Jessie had both a dental and eye doctor appointment that morning. End result: she’s getting new glasses thanks to my insurance, and she needs braces and all her baby teeth pulled. So now my mission is to find an area orthodontist that can fit her in pretty soon. Oh the joy. :roll: Good news is: no new cavities, and her vision hasn’t changed dramatically so all in all everything went well.

My mother-in-law’s move to Montgomery went pretty well. We arrived not too long after the moving truck left, so Jim helped move boxes and furniture around as I helped out in the kitchen. The kids were exiled to the back yard. (It’s a really pretty house, very modern style … got some really funky bathroom lights in one of the guest b/rooms!) We stuck around and helped unpack a good majority of the boxes that night, and rolled back into B’ham just before midnight.

Saturday was pretty fun. We met up with Captain Fantastic and the Lovely Miranda for some fun at Alabama Training Institute & Pistol Range. Jim had his new rifle and I rented one of ATI’s pistols — a Beresa 380. I like to think I did pretty well considering that it was my first time firing a “real” handgun. (results) We hopped around to a few places afterwards before hitting the Galleria, and finally settling on California Pizza Kitchen for dinner.

Side note to ‘flavored’ martini lovers: their Caramel Apple Martini just totally rocks!

Jess is out of school tomorrow, so I’ll be working from home. Well, I don’t know exactly how much work will get done, but I will at least be continuing my fight with our SharePoint server. I worked a little on it today and have just about gotten the CSS cleaned up enough that I can manipulate the MS ‘core’ to look about the way I want.

Woot! :mrgreen:

I was showing my progress to Jim a few minutes ago, and he thought it looked great. However, when *I* look at it, I see the margins are still off a bit in IE (grrrrrr), and SharePoint keeps overwriting my font sizes on certain web parts, and the background doesn’t quite line up the way I want, and … you get the idea.

You know me, I’m not happy unless I’m obsessing.

SharePoint lessons I have learned …

I have lately taken it upon myself to do some SharePoint branding for one of our SharePoint servers here at work. I swear, I have spent the better part of 3 days just cleaning up HTML code alone! Unfortunately SharePoint uses a lot of attributes that are proprietary to Microsoft, so no chance of it ever validating any time soon.

Here are a few of the things I’ve learned recently:

• Link bars are pretty unforgiving if you screw with their code, better use the GUI in SharePoint Designer to make any changes.
• If the site might need to be updated regularly, the Content Editor Web Part is your friend! (i.e. pass it off to someone else to maintain!)
• It’s always a good idea to test out a template first for bugs first before letting anyone else know you’re almost done — or where it’s located.
• The command line is your friend! (Actually, I knew this already, but in-dept documentation for SP commands were a little scarce until I found this reference)
• If custom controls and/or code is just not possible within the SharePoint realm, the Page Viewer Web Part is your friend! (As much as I despise using frames of any kind, this wp has saved my tail a time or two!)
• Your site’s content could be the best thing since sliced bread or a splog’s “cheap hotel Las Vegas” surf cache. It doesn’t mean squat if your site design looks like ass. (In other words, never EVER use the default SharePoint templates!)

Hopefully I’ll have more to add to this list later. For now, my head is killing me but my bosses are very happy with what I’ve gotten done so far. I think I’m going to ask for permission to cut out a little early today … it is Valentine’s Day after all!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Jim and I exchanged our gifts last night. He surprised me with a gigantic plush frog, a plush Firefox, a few other Firefox goodies, and a TON of my favorite candy. :mrgreen:

I gave Jim a very nice golf shirt and some swanky unmentionables. :twisted: RAWR!

Jessie’s getting a nifty Hello Kitty lunch kit from me, and a gigantic plush doggie and ton of candy from Jim. She’s spent the week with her mother, so we get her back tonight and most of tomorrow. We’re hoping to have her some this weekend too, but that’s a bit sketchy as we’ll also be helping Jim’s mom move to Montgomery, and I’ve got a side project that I’ve got to finish this weekend. I’m hoping to get out at some point and pick up some books … I’ve been working on a SharePoint template for work and am a little stuck (messing around in MS’ proprietary format/code). So we’ll see …

I hope y’all are having a good day/week! :grin:

My day yesterday, and I think we found our cake

Had pretty much a shit day yesterday. It wasn’t just the thing with Mother, several factors really. I was aggravated because I spent a good part of the day working on a web app in .NET that kept borking every time I published it out to our development server (ASP 2.0). It could see our SQL server and connect to it, but for some reason would bork every time it tried to pull data out of a particular table. It turned out to be a really obscure permission setting. By the time I left, the only problem I had left was that my stylesheets weren’t showing up when I published from Visual Studio, but by that point I was so pissed off I could care less. (I just wanted to go home!)

I had to deal with a room temperature IQ user who kept blabbering on about not being able to access her site, but when I asked her three times where it was, she couldn’t remember. I assumed it was one of our SharePoint sites (as that’s the main focus of my work) and I FINALLY found out at the end of the day that it turned out to be a system to which I have no access, so Monday I’ll need to pass her off to someone else which will piss her off, and I’ll have to listen to her bitch and whine some MORE. Oh good GOD these people don’t honestly know how good they have it compared to other places I’ve worked! Get over yourselves, people!!

So yeah, I came home in a huff, and in a bad mood in general. Jim, God love him, greeted me with a big smile and says, “Guess what honey? I found where we’ll buy our wedding cake! C’mon, drop your stuff and let’s go!”

I could have decked him. :lol:

Good thing he’s learned to read my moods over the years and recognized that I wasn’t ready to go cake shopping JUST YET, and needed a few minutes and a heavy dose of migraine meds to recover. (Hooray for my doc’s office for fulfilling my meds like I asked!)

So fast forward a few hours, I’m feeling better, headache’s gone and off we go … I got a chance to look at the book Jim and Jessie looked at earlier and we picked a style and layout of cake:

The first one is the style, we’ll get it with red accents, but the second is the layout we like. Her prices were a good bit cheaper than the other vendors we’ve spoken to so far, and she’s in Gardendale, which isn’t too far from the reception. The only thing is that she doesn’t deliver, so Jim is insistent on him picking up the cake and handling that. I’m not happy with that, but we’ll see what kind of arrangements can be made. I’m hoping some kind of arrangement can be made with the hotel to have the cake delivered early. (Maybe … I’ll have to speak with our rep we’ve been dealing with about that.)

We stopped by Wal-mart on the way back from the shop and I saw the CUTEST line of mp3 player/speakers: I-cy (penguin), spi-Dog, iDog. They also had iCat and iFish but were out. These are made by Hasbro and were around $20 at Wal-mart. I’ve been looking online on eBay and have seen then for a LOT more, up to $40!!

They light up and dance to the music. I might go back and get the I-cy one today after my dress fitting. Those are adorable!

While I was there I also snagged a new pair of slippers … what can I say, I’m a sucker for frogs.

(And besides, the proceeds go to a foundation to benefit kids with cerebral palsy. Win, win!)

SharePoint: How do I get started?

I’ve spoken a little about it here, but hadn’t really expanded as much as I’d like. I must admit that I’ve advanced farther on my own than the O’Reilly or Sam’s books had covered. (Yay me! ) I’m not near as far as I need to be yet, but not bad for only a coupla months’ work, I think.

Anyways, a few of you had asked me where and how to get started with SharePoint and I thought I’d share a few things I’ve found:

Free SharePoint hosts

• AppTix – Free trial, 30 days. 25 MB storage, 25 users. You get your choice of SharePoint 2003 (Version 2.0) or 2007 (Version 3.0). Note: You must upgrade to a pay account or move to another host BEFORE your 30 day trial is up! (This is what I’m currently using.)
• Frontpages – 5 MB storage, 5 users. No credit card required. SharePoint version is 2007 only.
• Microsoft Office Live – Choose the free option for a “starter” account to play around with. 500 MB storage, 25 user accounts. Note: You can register a domain, but this will require a credit card and a small fee. SharePoint version is 2007 only.

I’m sure there are a few more out there, but those are the ones that I’ve been playing with myself. Feel free to add to this list in the comments below!

Resources

There are a TON of websites out there, but these are the ones that I run to the most when I have a question, or need to hack something up and can’t find the answer inside one of my books:

• CSS Reference Chart for SharePoint 2003
• Microsoft Office SharePoint Server site
• Microsoft SharePoint site
• MS web-based training
• MS2D SharePoint boards
• SharePoint 2003 (v2) Resources
• SharePoint Boot Camp
• SharePoint Community Search
• SharePoint Kicks
• SharePoint Products and Technologies discussion group
• SharePoint Related Webcasts
• SharePoint Solutions
• SharePoint Team Services
• SharePoint Training Classes
• SharePoint University

If the above resources don’t have what you need, simply Google it. Just make sure you are very specific (e.g. “bernedes cookware“, LOL), get it?

Anyone with any good resources, tips, or otherwise helpful SharePoint related info please feel free to share via the comments form below…

Sleep, I know you not.

Sooooooo sleepy today. I stayed up late last night watching tv with Jim. I should know better — I do know better. But it was one of those “togetherness” moments, and I’m a sucker, hehe. When the alarm went off at 5:30, my body protested loudly. LOL! Oh well, I’ll go to bed early tonight to make up for it. Lucky for me I only had one meeting today (unlike the 4 I have tomorrow, plus the IPSA meeting at the McWayne Center!), so thankfully my day has been pretty light overall.

I swear, I have the coolest workmates. We often end our meetings by sitting around talking about movies, telling jokes, and generally just pal’ing around. Today we hit up “Will It Blend?” and watched an iPhone meet a gruesome end. I’m told that I enjoyed it too much. :grin:

Just now, I was challenged to a bout of fencing (using pens of course, LOL!). So I think I’m going to finish up some experimentation I’ve been working on with a test SharePoint site and wrap it up so I can go home early. Heck, I’ve already borked up one of my test systems this week, so I honestly can’t do any worse!

Next Page »