Brian Goldfarb is soliciting help about what type of MasterPage templates to build. (He doesn't say so, but I assume he means that these would be shipped with ASP.Net 2.0 or at least downloadable.)

My response in his comments:

I think have at least a few "ready-to-go" pages would be helpful. Like SharePoint services -- some templates are full of web parts, others are just shells.

Mom

The most powerful force in this universe.

John Buccigross; ESPN.com; January 2, 2005

I wrote about and dismissed SmarterStats for web server log analysis. It's been almost a year, so a little update is in order.

I have licensed and installed the enterprise version of this tool. With the web farm deployed (read the Sharepoint category) and some legacy web servers, SmarterStats became a very attractive option.

For those with less demanding needs, Microsoft has a KBase article that shows how to use the bulk copy program (bcp) to load the log files.

Update: KB Article discovered via John West

UPDATE: John points out “It should be noted that when you change the setting to CT with UIiB, an automatic Full or Incremental (depending upon the presence of a timestamp column) is executed to re-sync the table data with the FT Catalog.“  I missed this when I posted, but new visitors should be aware of this. Thanks John!

John Kane came across my post on the forums at Joel on Software about full-text indexing on SQL Server. I suggested that I could post a script that sets all of the tables in an index to background change tracking, but I never did make that post.

So, here is a T-SQL script that will check every table in every catalog in the current database:

DECLARE @FTCatID smallint, @FTPath nvarchar(260), @FTStatus int
DECLARE @FTName sysname, @FTNbrTbls int DECLARE @csr_FT CURSOR

DECLARE @FTTOwner sysname, @FTTName sysname, @FTTIndex sysname
DECLARE @FTTColid int, @FTTActive int, @FTTCat sysname
DECLARE @csr_FTT CURSOR

-- Get all the catalogs in the current database
EXEC sp_help_fulltext_catalogs_cursor @csr_FT OUTPUT
FETCH NEXT FROM @csr_FT INTO @FTCatID, @FTName, @FTPath, @FTStatus, @FTNbrTbls
WHILE (@@FETCH_STATUS = 0)
BEGIN

-- Get all the tables in this catalog

print @FTName
EXEC sp_help_fulltext_tables_cursor @csr_FTT OUTPUT, @FTName
FETCH NEXT FROM @csr_FTT INTO @FTTOwner, @FTTName, @FTTIndex, @FTTColid, @FTTActive, @FTTCat

WHILE (@@FETCH_STATUS = 0)
BEGIN

print ' ' + @FTTName
EXEC sp_fulltext_table @FTTName, 'Start_change_tracking'
EXEC sp_fulltext_table @FTTName, 'Start_background_updateindex'

FETCH NEXT FROM @csr_FTT INTO @FTTOwner, @FTTName, @FTTIndex, @FTTColid, @FTTActive, @FTTCat

END

CLOSE @csr_FTT

DEALLOCATE @csr_FTT

FETCH NEXT FROM @csr_FT INTO @FTCatID, @FTName, @FTPath, @FTStatus, @FTNbrTbls END

CLOSE @csr_FT
DEALLOCATE @csr_FT

If your server is setup like mine, you might have multiple databases on the server. If you want to run the above script on all the databases, here is a VBScript to do so:

dim oServer, oDB, oFS, oFile
dim sCmdBatch

Set oFS = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set oFile = oFS.OpenTextFile("FT_change_tracking.sql")
sCmdBatch = oFile.ReadAll

Set oServer = CreateObject("SQLDMO.SQLServer")

WScript.Echo "Connecting..."
oServer.LoginSecure = True
oServer.Connect "servername"

On Error Resume Next

For Each oDB in oServer.Databases
    WScript.Echo "Database: " & oDB.Name
    oDB.ExecuteImmediate sCmdBatch
Next

The February 2005 issue of MSDN Magazine has an article titled Add a Recycle Bin To Windows SharePoint Services (no link to the article yet).

Written by Maxim Karpov and Eric Schoonover

Patrick Cauldwell reports about configuring Firefox to authenticate with NTLM to improve the SharePoint experience.

He states that Firefox works fine with SP. This is different from my Firefox/SharePoint report, but mine was based on a linux installation. I was a bit hesitant to debug the problems that I was having -- but it would appear the problems are related to the differences between linux and Windows, not between FF and IE. Maybe I'll make some time to research this...

I received a very geeky Christmas present this year - Ubuntu! Ubuntu is a linux distribution (Debian I believe) that includes the Gnome desktop, Evolution Groupware and the OpenOffice suite. (I bet my brother would have loved the math formula editor back in the day when he was teaching physics.)

The package has two CDs. The first is a “live cd” that sets up a RAM disk (remember those?) and then boots into linux with touching your hard drive! Very creative! This is a great way to show non-technical execs what linux can bring to the table.

The second CD is a bootable install disk, with a character-based installer. I loaded into a Virtual PC machine (refer to this How To from the Ubuntu site) and have been working in the corporate environment for a few days. WSS sites are mostly usable. There is a Citrix client for Linux, so all of the “corporate” apps are available.

Being a .Net guy now, there is probably not much more to do. If I had time, then perhaps Mono would be fun to try...

I had the opportunity to play around with Firefox the past few days. For the most part, WSS sites look just fine. That is most likely because WSS sites use table for their layout instead of using CSS.

The only problem that I've run across is with lists have collapsible groups. The javascript to expand/collapse the groups does not work.

Maurice Prather has joined the conversation about SharePoint development.

Maurice asks if the developer community is too small. Compared to what we see on ASP.Net, it is. But I have been seeing more SharePoint related posts and pages almost daily. So I going to try and do something about it.

I know there are several SP community sites already (see the list on the left), but I want to build a developer-centric community. So, I've registered SharePointDevelopers.org. (There's nothing there yet!)

Watch this space for more news. And, if you have ideas, please post comments here.

An update to the SharePoint User Manager program I mentioned a few weeks back has been released. With a new name: SPUM2003.

Not sure I like the name, but the tool is very nice.

Mads Nissen has a very good post about the SmartPart and its effect on the SharePoint community. He also includes a great graphic showing the various customization methods. You must read it!

Mads also points out that Steve Ballmer stated SharePoint is the number one growing product, yet the developer support is certainly less that other areas of Microsoft's business. I second his call for more content.

Amanda, your virtual SPS user group might help in this area. Any news on that?