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About Me:
I am a 26 year old female SharePoint Enthusiast. I work for B&R Business Solutions from my home in Olathe, KS. I have been working with SharePoint since I attended the Portal University in 2005. I hold a BA in Computer Science from the University of Missouri - Kansas City. I love playing Rockband, organizing user group meetings, working with MOSS, attending Code Camps as a speaker, and having bizarre conversations about geek things with cool people. If you have any comments or questions fill out the contact form and I will try my best to help.

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June 2008 Entries

Conference Day #1


I swear a good day lasts forever.  This day lasted a long time.  Let alone this week was pretty good too.  First off this unrelated, but I have an MSDN Premium Subscription with Team Systems, so I can finally develop at home without any issues.  How awesome is that?  I can do what I love to do for fun without have to use trial copies and uninstalling and reinstalling programs.  It gets so annoying after a while.  I am so excited, because I can finally do the real playing that I want do with Server 2008 and SharePoint.  Anyway, so you probably wanted to see the stuff about the Regional SharePoint Conference...
I sort of met Bob Fox on Friday night.  I thought it was him and my suspicions were confirmed on Saturday morning.  He comes up to me and says "I know you" in this real sarcastic tone...Dude's a real interesting guy.  He reminds me a lot of my Uncle Harvey.  Who is a real joker and likes to mess with people.  He's can be a very sarcastic guy too.  It makes me feel a little better about my speaking experiences knowing that he gets pretty nervous when he goes out and speaks with people.   I feel bad that I missed his session, but I debated long and hard about his session vs. Paul Galvin's Session.  I am glad that I went to Paul's session, because he talked about creating custom actions in SharePoint Designer and provisioning sites.  I thought it was cool how he started up this workflow in SharePoint using a list and then showed us how to create it with Visual Studio and SharePoint Designer.  He has a CodePlex Project out there with some samples that I really want to play with when my MSDN goodies arrive.  Jumping back a notch I met some really great people setting up...Gary Vaughn, who is in charge of the whole event.  He's a really nice guy.  He seems like one of those wise sages who has been around the IT Field for a while and can teach a lot to people around himself.  I also met two very cool people.  They remind me of some of my parents friends who I really like.  There names are Janice and Harold Brangman.  I spent a lot of time with Janice.  She's a very outspoken, but very cool person.  I usually try to hang out with people I am most comfortable, so Paul Galvin and Janice Brangman kind of felt like people I wanted to hang out with.  Paul, though, reminds me of a lot of my friends back home.  He's very cool and liberal and laid back.  We spent about 3 or 4 hours just sitting around chatting about everything from cats picking up mice and killing them to New Jersey, Cape Cod, and St. Louis.  I guess you follow someone's blog and there Twitter sometimes you just get a feel for that person.  I predict that Paul will be an MVP the next cycle.  At least I'm hoping.  He is the most deserving person I have ever met in my entire life (well him and John Ferringer).  Ok so other than Paul Galvin, Bob Fox, and the Brangman's I also met Rachel Appell, Wes Bryan, and a bunch of other people (I am sorry I don't remember everyone's name).  Everyone I met was really cool and really great.  I have not met anyone I really disliked so far.  I wish that I felt less like a zombie today and was cooler.  I felt like one calorie of myself, because this bed was a little on the hard side.  I was fueled with a lot of caffeine and awesome people.  I am glad I got to talk to Wes Bryan at Bamboo Solutions a bit about alerts and the guy who did the Disaster Recovery Presentation from AvePoint, Tony Lanni.  I'm really exhausted and I bet you get the jist of the awesomeness of this conference, so I think it's time for me to pass out...No I really don't think it will matter what the bed quality is when I am this tired, so my sleep should rock...

posted @ Friday, June 27, 2008 10:21 PM | Feedback (2) |


Going to D.C. for the Regional SharePoint Conference


If you are in D.C. for the SharePoint Regional Conference this week as of 4 pm I should be in town.  I am pretty excited, because this is my first technical conference as a speaker and attendee.  If anyone is interested in meeting up I will be staying at the Holiday Inn Dulles, so just send me a direct message on Twitter.  If anyone wants to chat about the MOSS Comic I'm all ears for ideas or anything else.  I am taking submissions.  So far I am going to re-work the first comic when I get my new drawing tablet at the end of the week and Rob Foster has submitted a second idea that I will be using.  If you are not going to be in D.C. and you have an idea send your idea via the contact form on my blog.  I'll catch you guys later.

posted @ Thursday, June 26, 2008 9:12 AM | Feedback (0) |


KC .Net User Group Meeting Tonight


One of my fellow Coders 4 Charity Groupmates, Lee Brandt, will be speaking about Test Driven Development using C# tonight.  If you are in town you must come.  If you are not in town and you want to come.  Well hop on a flight?  Anyway, here is the official information *commenses brainwashing tactics*:

Topic:  TDD Using C#

Test-Driven development is a methodology that can help developers write solid, well-designed code. Very few developers practice it because very few understand how it works and how to make it work for them. We will discuss what TDD is, why developers would want to use it, and the basics of how to actually do it using Visual Studio 2008, MS Test and C# 3.0. Come find out what Red, Green, Refactor is all about and why you should care.

Presented by: Lee Brandt
Lee is a .NET Solutions Architect for Examinetics, Inc. int Overland Park, Kansas. Lee has been programming professionally for over 10 years and developing solutions in .NET and C# since the early beta releases in 2000. He is an advocate for test-driven development, design patterns and agile methodologies. Lee spends most of his free time reading about programming, discussing programming and actually writing code. Any time leftover is spent with his wife Stacey and their dog Frieda.

So you want to come now right?  Can't say I didn't try...See you there:)

posted @ Tuesday, June 24, 2008 8:22 AM | Feedback (0) |


MOSS Comic is a Go


I drew up a quick comic tonight and posted it on twitter.  It is a really bad prototype that I am having converted into a better version by a friend.  He has a tablet and I have seen a couple of his drawings.  I will probably have a few people draw items as things progress and more people get involved.  If anyone has an idea for a comic please let me know and I will try to get something out there in the upcoming months.  I have no idea what the frequency will be on updates.  I'll let you guys know when the first comic is posted.

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posted @ Thursday, June 19, 2008 9:29 PM | Feedback (0) |


Calling Out for Sponsors and Speakers for Kansas City Office Geeks


If you are interested in sponsoring Kansas City Office Geeks in July or a later month this year please submit a contact form on my blog.  We are currently looking for sponsors for July, November, and December of this year.  So far we have August, September, and October covered.  Usually the sponsors buy food for dinner and speak for about five minutes about there company and current job openings.  Occasionally, the sponsors will provide swag from there company and leave business cards or other items.  Sometimes they stay for the meetings.  So far our first successful meeting had about 13 people and we are expecting more people at the next meeting.

If you are interested in speaking at the Kansas Office Geeks Meetings.  We have openings in September, October, November, and December.  We could really use a presenter on Visual Studio Tools for Office.  The topics must be Office Development related, so you could speak about anything on SharePoint, Groove, Outlook, Access, Excel, Word, etc.  Please fill out the contact form if you are interested.

posted @ Monday, June 16, 2008 5:32 PM | Feedback (0) |


My Battle with the Quick Launch Accordion Slider Control


A good portion of this week was spent recovering some documents that were deleted by a rogue console application (most likely my fault).  I wrote a Console Application to combine some document libraries and I spent a good portion of a week testing it.  However, I did not really think of enough scenarios, because it obviously did not move the documents properly.  Some libraries were moved and others were not.  At any rate I practiced my SQL Restoration skills and wrote another two console applications to print out the document count for the libraries on our current portal and the restored portal.  Then I compared the lists and copied over the missing files.  The rest of the week was spent on this quick launch modification issue.  I am not a JavaScript Guru, but I am stubborn person who will tackle Google and my own brain for a few days before giving up.

It was a pretty long day and I was pretty frustrated, so I went to our JavaScript Guru at work, Kevin.  He's a really cool guy and knows some pretty neat things about JavaScript and AJAX.  I told him we wanted to use the SharePoint Quick Launch Menu Control (<SharePoint:ASPMenu>) with an expand/collapse accordion/slider control type menu.  I had tried a few different menu options and realized that most of them would not work, because SharePoint will override the CSS.  The easiest way to do anything is to stick with there controls and bend the rules a little.  About 6/7 pm on Friday I check my Gmail account and Kevin sent me an e-mail with some code.  One hour later after some dinner and a movie I crack open my web user control and test it out.  Sure enough it works.  Here is a reference to the link that he used:
http://weblogs.asp.net/asmith/archive/2003/10/06/30744.aspx

Here is the code that finally ended up at the top of the user control:
<script type="text/javascript">

var _Menus = [];
_Menus.push("<% QuickLaunchMenuID.ClientID.ToString() %>");

//attach to the load/onload event the method
//to add the handler to add the animations when
//menu section is clicked.
if (window.addEventListener)
    {window.addEventListener("load", AttachMenuAnimation, false);}
else if (window.attachEvent)
    {window.attachEvent( "onload", AttachMenuAnimation );}

function AttachMenuAnimation()
{
    if (_Menus != null) {
    for ( i=0; i < _Menus.length; i++)
    {
        InitMenuAnimations(_Menus[i]);   
    }
    }

}
//this function will attach events to all the TR elements that
//have IDs

function InitMenuAnimations(cntrl)
{

    //get all of the TR elements in the table, TBODY is the first element
    //so get all of the TR elements from the TBODY element

    var allTr = document.getElementById(cntrl).childNodes[0].childNodes;

    //loop through all of the TR objects and if it has an ID
    //it is a section header so attach an event to hide or unhide
    //its content, Attach the event in a non destructive manner

    for(i=0;i < allTr.length;i++)
    {       
        if (allTr[i].id != ""){
            allTr[i].MyClick = HideUnhide;
            //add the handler
            XBrowserAddHandler(allTr[i],"click","MyClick"); 
        }           
    }
}

function XBrowserAddHandler(target,eventName,handlerName) {
  if ( target.addEventListener ) {
    target.addEventListener(eventName, function(e){target[handlerName](e);}, false);
  } else if ( target.attachEvent ) {
    target.attachEvent("on" + eventName, function(e){target[handlerName](e);});
  } else {
    var originalHandler = target["on" + eventName];
    if ( originalHandler ) {
      target["on" + eventName] = function(e){originalHandler(e);target[handlerName](e);};
    } else {
      target["on" + eventName] = target[handlerName];
    }
  }
}

function HideUnhide(e)
{
    var el = this.nextSibling;
    if (el.id == ""){
        if (el.style.display == "none")
            el.style.display = "block";
        else
            el.style.display = "none";
    }
}
</script>

If you paste that into the header of your page and add the ID of the menu above, then it should expand/collapse your headers and hide/un-hide your child nodes.  In future I will show you guys how to loop through and add Quick Launch Nodes and any additional nodes you would like to the Quick Launch Menu Control.  This is just a neat little tidbit that you guys can play with for now.  Remember: JavaScript is fun, but if you can use a .Net Control or Code it is more manageable in the long run.  Have a good weekend guys!

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posted @ Friday, June 13, 2008 9:49 PM | Feedback (13) |


What I've been up To and Will be up to...


I have been participating in the KC Corporate Challenge for the past few weeks.  I have been hitting the gym and going to practices for Softball, Basketball, Soccer, and Flag Football.  Unfortunately, I pulled something in my foot, so I could not actually play in soccer.  I am trying to encourage better fitness in my life alongside more self confidence by speaking at various conferences and user groups. 
My next speaking engagement (and the biggest one) will be a 15 minute presentation on how to create user controls for SharePoint using AJAX and I probably will hit on the difference between .Net and SharePoint.  This presentation will be at the Regional SharePoint Conference in Washington D.C. (www.sugdc.org) on Saturday, June 28th.  I am a little nervous about this presentation, because I have to condense my normal 30 minute presentation into 15 minutes.  I am going to cut out most of what you need to do with the web .config and probably just mention the steps that you need to take and give everyone the link to the full presentation with links and all the web .config information.  When I give this presentation it will have been the fourth time giving the presentation.  This presentation by far is my favorite presentation.
As you guys know I am also working on a book with John Ferringer(http://www.sharepointblogs.com/fortheuser) about SharePoint Disaster Recovery.  Here is a link to the book: http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Office-SharePoint-Disaster-Recovery/dp/1584505990/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1213277015&sr=8-1.  John showed me this link recently it's really weird about the reality of the situation.
Thanks to Brian Laird for hooking me up with a server to use for the MOSS Comic.  I think that I finally need to get my ideas on paper and meet with whoever wants to work on the MOSS Comic.  If you wanted to help out with the comic fill out the contact form.  I am going to try and do something within the next week.
As usual if you have a comment or question please let me know.  Have a good week as usual!

posted @ Thursday, June 12, 2008 8:32 AM | Feedback (0) |


How to Upgrade from SQL Express to SQL Enterprise Edition


I was using a VPC today, so that I could restore our content database and keep a copy of our SharePoint instance for development.  I noticed that SQL Express only allows about 3-4 gb of data in a database.  That wouldn't work out considering our Content DB is 21.9 GB.  So I need to find a way to upgrade the SQL Server instace to SQL Enterprise Edition.  I did some research and some tweaking and figured it out.  If you open up a command prompt window and type in this information:
start /wait C:\setup.exe ADDLOCAL=SQL_Engine INSTANCENAME=NameOfServerInstance UPGRADE=SQL_Engine SKUUPGRADE=1 /qb
Unfortunately, if this is a production server you may experience some down time, so plan accordingly with your maintenance schedule.  If anyone has any comments or questions please let me know.

posted @ Tuesday, June 10, 2008 11:20 AM | Feedback (0) |


New Firewall Woes


Our networking department is implementing a new firewall/vpn device a Cisco ASA 5520.  They allow access to the main Intranet Portal, but there are some links from one of the groups that go to SharePoint.  The firewall is encrypting the links using SSL and allowing access to the entire SharePoint Portal.  I am trying to figure out how to block access to SharePoint using this VPN Connection.  I am going to look around into some type of redirect option.  It is new and exciting for me, but entirely uncharted waters.  If anyone has dealt with a similar issue please let me know what you did to fix the problem.  I am up for anything no matter how crazy.

posted @ Friday, June 06, 2008 3:03 PM | Feedback (5) |


Kansas City Office Geeks Meeting Recap


As promised here is the links to the presentation and code samples: http://www.codeplex.com/MOSSLoverAJAXControl.  We had a total of 13 people, which is a massive improvement to the three people that we have been getting.  Hopefully, we can continue the trend and have at least 10-15 people at the next meeting.  See you guys at the next meeting.

posted @ Thursday, June 05, 2008 10:17 PM | Feedback (0) |


Twitter - How it has saved me...


Everyone is talking about Twitter and half the SharePoint Dev Community is using it (Lawrence Liu, Bil Simser, Alpesh Nakar, Matt Ranlett, etc...).  I joined Twitter a long time ago and never really used it.  I found it asinine and annoying at first, then a ton of devs joined.  So I started to actually post and keep up with what was going.  It is a neat little tool, because people post links for tools and blog entries that are not always aggregated in the places that I normally look.  Sometimes I can post something like "Hey I'm working with the Search Object Model what is the best blog entry to find information on how to create a custom query" and people will respond with useful information.  For the reason I love Twitter, because it connects to me to all these devs without using instant messenger.  I just get the impression from messenger that most people don't want to be bothered 75% of the time.  That is where Twitter is great, because you do not feel like you are pressuring someone to respond instantly.  So that is how I use Twitter as a Dev othertimes I just use it for social networking.
I was online tonight after an outage using some wifi in the area.  I posted about how there was a Comcast outage and how we had no idea what was going on or when it would get fixed.  Someone called "ComcastCares" started following me and told me if I sent him my number he could look up the account info.  After following him and sending him a dm with my phone number he ended up telling me what was going on exactly.  Usually when I call Comcast I get a vague response like the net is out it will be back up in 30 minutes (that is what my boyfriend got precisely when he called earlier).  So just when you are thinking about writing off Twitter think about this scenario and about the scenarios I listed above.  It is not just a really annoying social networking buzz word tool that all the annoying people will use.  It is actually a tool that is powerful in the right situations and scenarios.  Yes I know it has it's drawbacks, but nothing is perfect.  Look at SharePoint it's not perfect, but we all love it and hate it at times.  Overall though the benefits of SharePoint outweigh the negative side effects that can occur (i.e. someone adds 1,000 alerts on one document library and clogs the timer job - yeah this is one of my pet peeves).  So in conclusion you should accept and love Twitter like you accept and love SharePoint.  Also, remember it's only as good as the people that use it just like Facebook.

posted @ Tuesday, June 03, 2008 11:40 PM | Feedback (0) |


Reminder: Kansas City Office Geeks Meeting Thursday, June 5th


Title: Developing with AJAX in SharePoint 

 

Register: http://www.clicktoattend.com/?id=129056 Must Register for Prizes )

 

Sponsor: Levi, Ray & Shoup, Inc. - Food Provider for the June Meeting

 

Presented: Becky Isserman

 

Date: Thursday, June 5th (Each meeting will be on the 1st Thursday of the month)

 

Time: Food at 5:30pm; Presentation from 6:00pm - 7:00pm

 

Location:

Centriq Foss Training

8700 State Line Road, Suite 200

Leawood, KS 66206

Phone: 913-322-7000

Description:

 

AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) allows developers to create loading screens easily without a great deal of development in SharePoint 2007.  In this session we will walk through how to create various page load events using the AJAX toolkit, Web User Controls, the SmartPart, and SharePoint.  We will also convert the web .config, master pages, and server, so that the Site Collection is AJAX ready. 

 

Bio:

 

Becky Isserman has been a SharePoint Developer, since 2005 when she went through the Portal University with Levi, Ray, and Shoup in Springfield, IL.  She is an Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) and a Microsoft Certified Application Developer (MCAD).  She has been a web designer/developer since she was fifteen hand coding HTML 3.0 websites in NotePad.  She enjoys working with SharePoint 2007, because she can perform the roles of administrator, developer, designer, and architect.  She currently lives in Olathe, Kansas, where she works at Terracon Consultants, Inc. and lives with her two cats, Gambit and Rogue, plus her boyfriend, Johnny.  If you would like to contact her you can e-mail her at rebecca.isserman@gmail.com or fill out the contact form at her blog http://www.mosslover.com .

posted @ Tuesday, June 03, 2008 2:32 PM | Feedback (0) |