I had the opportunity to spend the day in Microsoft's new office in Cambridge, MA. The facility is wonderful! The Boston Globe has some good coverage of the Concept Development Center in today's paper...check it out:

http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2008/06/30/microsoft_seeks_next_big_idea_in_cambridge/

I've had several people ask me what the difference is between .MSPX vs the standard .ASPX extension. 

The answer is that Microsoft uses the .MSPX extension to generate custom XML-driven HTML content. Microsoft created a custom HTTP handler to process requests for the custom .MSPX extension. 

The site includes some great info, such as :

·          An Introductory Whitepaper

·          Benefits of SharePoint for Developers

·          A SharePoint VPC

·          Hosted MSDN Virtual Labs in C# and VB.NET

·          Video Interview with SharePoint MVPs

·          Screencasts

·          Web Casts with SharePoint MVPs

·          Quickstarts

·          Labcasts

·          Presentation Download

·          Hands on Labs Download

·          Additional Resource Links

Check it out!  http://MSSharePointDeveloper.com

I get a lot of questions regarding the use of SharePoint as a solutions platform. I personally think it's a great tool for many (but not all) applications. The reason?  SharePoint lends something that we like to call the "productivity tier," which is missing from most platform architecture stacks.  We're all used to the UI tier, application tier, and data tier.  Those three, however, fail to address a common requirement, which is being able to accomodate things like frequent changes to business processes, human workflows, tie-in with unstructured information, and data or visualization mashups that an end-user might want to create.  SharePoint can help with all of those scenarios.

So let's say you're going to use SharePoint as your platform. Then the main question I get is "give me a methodology for team-based SharePoint development that combines custom code that I write and content that will be managed inside of SharePoint".

To that end, here's a great doc:  http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=65F21935-CBC0-4178-8C08-4C56F721C87D&displaylang=en

The document suggests implementation scenarios, tools, and development environments for SharePoint-based solutions.  It's quite handy.

Take a look and let me know what you think.

The SharePoint team has released post-SP1 hot-fix rollups for both WSS and MOSS. If you haven't installed SP1 yet, be sure to take some time to plan your deployment. And then review and install these rollups:

WSS Post-SP1 Rollup:  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/941422
MOSS Post-SP1 Rollup: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/941274

One of the most popular requests I see from customers regarding enterprise search is to be able to refine search results by category with a simple click.

The best free way to enhance MOSS 2007 search with this type of feature is via the free faceted search web parts out on codeplex: http://www.codeplex.com/FacetedSearch

Want to check it out?  Here's a live demo: http://www.wssdemo.com/Search/Pages/results.aspx?k=search. Check out the "Search Facets" section on the right.

The new 2.0 release encapsulates foundation changes in the design and code, that provides perfect balance between accuracy and performance.

Highlights:

• Multi-thread processing. 1st thread runs for up to 500 facets synchronously, while the 2nd thread is running asynchronously against up to ~30,000 facets
• Client side refresh (not AJAX) that updates only Facets web part w/o page refresh
• Web part connections to pass Facet settings to the Bread Crumbs
• Extended facet schema now supports:
• Facet icons. Default icon per Facet name complimented by an icon per Facet value
• Friendly names for facet values
• Exclusions. Allow exclude facet when values match pattern
• Built-in wild-card match, especially useful for exclusions
• Improved search syntax, added supports for sentences and quoted phrases

This release includes numerous fixes and complemented by extended documentation.

I just wanted to take a moment to remind everyone about the SharePoint Capacity Planning Tool.

Official description:  The SharePoint Capacity Planning Tool comprises models of both Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS) and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (WSS) that allow you to explore the necessary infrastructure for either deployment based on usage requirements. This tool uses the System Center Capacity Planner 2007 (SCCP) as an engine to provide for data collection, visualization, simulation, and report writing. The tool can be used in pre-sales and feasibility studies of a deployment project to give you a rough estimate of hardware requirements.

The tool is able to consider variations in usage, size of installation, networking technology, scale, and availability.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb961988.aspx

According to Forrester, 2008 will be the year that Web 2.0 will make it big in the enterprise, with SharePoint being a huge part of it.

Check it out:  http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/013008-forrester-predictions.html

Many of you are planning to deploy SharePoint SP1, which is a good idea.  There are many, many useful updates and fixes.

For a detailed rundown, make sure you take a peek at this spreadsheet, which lists all of the 2007 Office System SP1 details: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/942390.

I'd also like to give you a few additional tips:

• Install SP1 on a test server to make sure all of your 3rd party and custom web parts and features still work.
• You can't go back. There's no uninstall. Back up everything.
• The farm is down during the upgrade. Plan accordingly.
• For MOSS 2007 servers, you need to install WSS 3.0 SP1 and MOSS 2007 SP1, in that order. At the completion of the WSS 3.0 SP1 installation, you will be prompted to run the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard. DO NOT RUN IT YET. Instead, cancel it and then run the MOSS 2007 SP1 install. Then, manually start the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard.
• If you're installing SP1 on multiple servers, make sure you complete SP1 on all servers in the farm. If some of the servers have SP1 and some don't, your farm won't work.
• After you install SP1, more disk space is required for your query server or index server. If adequate disk space is not available, your query servers will slow down or stop. This issue occurs because the method used to merge indexes has been modified to significantly improve performance and reduce server downtime. However, this change increases the disk space required to perform a master merge. Previously, a maximum of 2 times the physical size of the index was required. The new maximum disk space requirement on a query server or index server is increased to 2.85 times the physical size of the index.
• If you are using the Content Editor Web Part on a MOSS 2007 Web server that offers languages other than the installed language, users will receive a script error when they use the Web Part. You can prevent this issue by installing the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Service Pack 1 Language Template Pack.
• You may get an error related to orphaned objects in one of your content databases. SharePoint requires a clean environment going forward. Here's some information on orphans: http://blogs.technet.com/corybu/archive/2007/05/31/sharepoint-orphans-explained.aspx

Happy upgrading!