Remember Sammy Jankis

We waited an waited and finally it's here. It's called the Ontolica Wildcard for MOSS 2007 and it's free, for unlimited amount of user and for as many servers as you like! How nice is the sound of that, huh?

This greatly anticipated wonder belongs to a company named Mondosoft which is a long lasting Gold Partner of Microsoft. Mondosoft considers itself to be the pioneers in the area of Organizational and Enterprise Search as well as Behavior Analytics and they've actually got something to show for it. They've developed some great solutions in that department (even a separate Enterprise Search engine prior to MOSS/SPS) but the I think we'll find the golden cup to be Ontolica. 

Ontolica is a collection of modules built on top of the MOSS 2007 search engine that improves the SharePoint's search functionality in some very crucial places. Some of the new feature provided in this package are Image search, a rich Metadata search, nice Federated search and some Drill down options for search results. However, the KILLER feature is of Ontolica has to be the Wildcards support and as you probably already understood - it also comes as a separate and free package and you don't have to buy the whole suit. I've heard about that solution for some time now and It was 2 days after one of our customers decided to start developing this feature. Well, I've joined the beta program and have been using it for quite some time now with great success. It's everything you expected the original MOSS Search Center will provide in the Wildcards area. By the way, it worked so great that the original customer demanded it to be installed it on the production server ("Beta Shmeta" he called it "We need it it looks like MOSS himself crashes more often"). Now that's what I call a very enthusiastic customer...

Button line: Why waste hundreds of hours developing your own wildcard search, when you can get it for free, with no strings attached. If you want it - just do the following and easily enough add Wildcards to the list of features you provide in your MOSS implementation:

1. Go to the Ontolica download page
2. Fill out a basic registration form
3. Install the package and deploy the features in the farm.

So that's settled then. No development. No waiting for SP1. Wildcards is here NOW!

Enjoy it...

Adir Ron.

Hey,

Customers tend to ask me for examples of real MOSS Portals after I finish my big-fat explanation about the things we now can do with MOSS (and don't get me started! this is not the point...). To avoid the long mail ping-pong of finding and sending a list to the customer, I've compiled a list for public MOSS Sites available through the Internet.

Since I'm finding it to be very handy, I'm posting it here for you all. I'll try to keep this list alive and kicking so if you see a cool MOSS implementation that I neglected to mention here - just replay this post and I'll add it to the list.

BT Financial Group

Financial Services

Portals, Enterprise Search, EMC-Document Management, Business Process and Forms

Kinex Medical Company

Healthcare & Life Sciences

Portals, Enterprise Search, ECM-Document Management, Business Processes and Forms, Business Intelligence

HealthSTAR Communications, Inc

Professional Services

Enterprise Search, ECM-Document Management, Business Processes and Forms

Phillips Fox

Professional Services

Enterprise Search, ECM-Document Management

NIB Health Funds Limited

Healthcare & Life Sciences

Portals, Enterprise Search, ECM-Document Management, Business Processes and Forms

Blank Rome

Professional Services

Collaboration, Portals, Enterprise Search, ECM - Document Management, Business Processes and Forms

Citizens Development Corps

Nonprofit

Portals, Enterprise Search, ECM - Document Management, ECM - Web Content Management, Business Processes and Forms, Business Intelligence

Golder Associates

Professional Services

Portals, Enterprise Search, ECM-Document Management, Business Processes and Forms

Petroleum Development Oman

Energy, Oil & Gas

Portals, Enterprise Search, ECM-Document Management

Aspire Sports Academy

Professional Services

Collaboration, Portals, Enterprise Search, ECM-Document Management, Business Processes and Forms

Regeneron Pharmaceuticals

Healthcare & Life Sciences

Portals, Enterprise Search, ECM-Document Managment, Business Intelligence

Poste Italiane

Government

Portals, ECM-Document Management

United Properties

Financial Services

Collaboration, Portals, ECM-Document Management, Business Processes and Forms

Monte dei Paschi di Siena

Financial Services

Collaboration, Portals, ECM-Document Management, Business Processes and Forms

Parks Canada (Internal Use Only)

Government

Portals, ECM-Document Management, Business Processes and Forms

Province of British Columbia

Government

Portals, ECM-Document Management, Business Processes and Forms

AXA Technology Services

Professional Services

Portals, ECM - Document Management, Business Intelligence

Chevron Corporation

Energy, Oil & Gas

Portals, Enterprise Search, ECM-Document Management

Bank of Thailand

Financial Services

ECM-Document Management; Business Processes and Forms

Washington State Employee Credit Union (WSECU)

Financial Services

Portals, ECM-Document Management,Business Processes and Forms

Banco Compartamos, S.A

Financial Services

Portals, ECM-Document Management, Business Processes and Forms

INEGI (Instituto Nacional de Estadística, Geografía y Informática)

Government

Portals, ECM-Document Management, Business Processes, Business Intelligence

ISSSTE (Instituto de Seguridad y Servicios Sociales para los Trabajadores del Estado)

Government

Portals, ECM-Document Management, Business Processes and Forms

South Holland District Council (SHDC)

Government

Portals, ECM-Document Management, Business Processes and Forms, Business Intelligence

Guri City Kyungki Province South Korea

Government

Business Processes and Forms

Paradigm

Healthcare & Life Sciences

Portals; ECM-Document Management; Business Processes and Forms

Trivirix

Healthcare & Life Sciences

Portals; Business Processes and Forms

American Gas Association

Nonprofit

Collaboration, ECM-Document Management, Business Processes and Forms

HONSEL GMBH & CO.

Manufacturing

Business Processes and Forms

Tractebel Gas Engineering GmbH (TGE)

Energy, Oil & Gas

ECM-Document Management, Business Processes and Forms

Ziba Design

Professional Services

Collaboration, Portals, ECM-Document Management, Business Processes and Forms

Getronics

Professional Services

Collaboration, Portals, ECM-Document Management, ECM-Recovery Management

TeliaSonera

Telecommunications

Collaboration, ECM-Document Management

California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2) at UCSD

Education

Collaboration, Enterprise Search, ECM-Document Management; Business Processes and workflow

Career Education Corporation

Education

ECM-Documentation Management, Business Processes and Forms

Digitas

Professional Services

Collaboration, ECM-Document Management, Business Processes and Forms

Gates Corporation

Manufacturing

Collaboration, Portals, Enterprise Search, ECM-Document Management,ECM-Web Content Management; Business Processes and Forms, Business Intelligence

Rochester City School District

Education

Collaboration, Portals, ECM-Document Management, ECM-Web Content Management

MTV Networks International (MTV)

Media & Entertainment

Collaboration, Enterprise Search, ECM - Document Management, Business Processes, Business Intelligence

Mary Kay

Retail & Hospitality

Collaboration, Portals, Enterprise Search, ECM-Document Management

Monsanto Company

Agriculture, Fisheries & Forest

Enterprise Search

Cork County Council Planning Department

Government

Enterprise Search, ECM-Document Management, Business Processes and Forms, Business Intelligence

MSN EMEA

Information Services

Enterprise Search, ECM-Document Management, ECM-Web Content Management, Business Processes and Forms, Business Intelligence

Starbucks Coffee Company

Retail & Hospitality

Collaboration, Portals, ECM-Document Management, Busines Processes and Forms

Korean Airlines

Transportation & Logistics

Collaboration, Enterprise Search, ECM-Document Management

Isotechnika, Inc

Healthcare & Life Sciences

Collaboration, ECM-Document Management, Business Processes and Forms

Rabobank

Financial Services

Collaboration, Portals, Enterprise Search, ECM-Document Management, Business Processes and Forms

Festo

Industrial

Collaboration

Kumpulan Karangkraf Sdn Bhd

Media & Entertainment

Collaboration, Portals

Novartis Institute for Biomedical Research

Healthcare & Life Sciences

Collaboration, ECM-Document Management

Napier Univeristy

Education

Portals, ECM-Document Management, ECM-Web Content Management

Hed Kandi

Media & Entertainment

ECM-Web Content Management

Move

Professional Services

Portals, Business Processes and Forms, Business Intelligence

Miami-Dade County Public Schools

Education

Collaboration, Portals; ECM-Web Content Management

Horace Mann Educators

Financial Services

Electro Scientific Industries

Manufacturing

Business Intelligence

Pacific Life Insurance Company

Financial Services

Collaboration, Portals, ECM-Document Management

Enterasys Networks

Professional Services

Business Processes and Forms

NIIT Limited

Education

Collaboration, Portals, ECM-Document Management

Columbia River Bank

Financial Services

Business Processes and Forms

Pfleiderer Europoles GmbH & Co. KG

Industrial

Business Processes and Forms

The Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs (DIMA)

Government

Collaboration, ECM-Document Management

Jack Henry & Associates

Professional Services

Collaboration, Portals

The Department of Education and Training Victoria

Government

Collaboration, Portals, business Processes and forms

Concern Worldwide

Non-Government/Humanitarian

Collaboration

Del Monte Foods

Manufacturing

Portals, Enterprise Search, ECM-Document Management, ECM-Recovery Management, Business Processes and Forms

Muckleshoot Indian Casino

Retail & Hospitality

ECM-Document Management, Business Intelligence

United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS)

Nonprofit

Business Processes and Forms

Hexcel

Manufacturing

Collaboration, Enterprise Search, ECM-Document Management, ECM-Web Content Management

BWX Technologies, Inc.

Manufacturing

Business Processes and Forms

Barrabés

Retail & Hospitality

Collaboration, Enterprise Search, ECM-Document Management, ECM-Recovery Management, Business Processes and Forms

Luther College

Education

Collaboration, Portals

Box Forest College

Education

Collaboration, Portals

Catholic Schools Office

Education

Collaboration, Portals, ECM-Document Management, Business Processes and Forms

Kingston University

Education

Collaboration, Portals

ITT Corporation, Systems Division

Manufacturing

Collaboration, Business Processes and Forms, Business Intelligence

Clarian Health

Healthcare & Life Sciences

ECM-Document Management, Business Processes and Forms

Arthur J. Gallagher & Co.

Financial Services

ECM-Document Management

Enterprise Rent-A-Car

Retail & Hospitality

Collaboration, Portals, Enterprise Search, ECM-Document Management, ECM-Web Content Management

Wimberly Allison Tong & Goo

Professional Services

Collaboration, ECM (general), Business Processes and Forms, Business Intelligence

Komatsu Australia

Industrial

Collaboration, ECM-Web Content Management

London Stock Exchange

Financial Services

Business Intelligence

Durham Business School

Education

Collaboration, ECM-Document Management

Swiss Federal Parliament, Berne

Government

ECM-Web Content Management

Point B Solutions Group

Professional Services

Collaboration, Portals, Enterprise Search, ECM-Document Management,Business Processes and Forms

T-Systems Multimedia Solutions

Media & Entertainment

Collaboration, Business Processes and Forms

Microsoft Corporation (HRIT)

Professional Services

Business Processes and Forms; Business Intelligence

Microsoft Corporation (BICOE)

Professional Services

Portals, Business Intelligence

Microsoft Corporation (MS Web)

Professional Services

Portals,Enterprise Search, ECM (general), ECM-Web Content Management

Microsoft Corporation (LCA)

Professional Services

ECM-Document Management, ECM-Recovery Management, Business Processes and Forms

Sasfin Bank Limited

Financial Services

Del Monte Foods

Manufacturing

BBC World

Media & Entertainment

Portals, Enterprise Search, ECM - Document Management, ECM-Web Content Management

ACNielsen

Professional Services

ECM-(general), Business Intelligence

Tourism Western Australia

Government

Collaboration, ECM-Document Management,ECM-Web Content Management, Business Processes and Forms, Business Intelligence

The Department of Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (FaCSIA)

Government

Collaboration, ECM-Document Management, Business Processes and Forms, Business Intelligence

Gizmo

Professional Services

Collaboration, Business Processes and Forms

Lava World International, Inc.

Manufacturing

Collaboration, Portals, Enterprise Search, ECM-Document Management, ECM-Web Content Management, Business Processes and Forms, Business Intelligence

Linklaters

Professional Services

Collaboration, Web-Content Management, Business Processes and Forms

Scripps Research Institute

Healthcare & Life Sciences

Collaboration, ECM-Document Management

Ampacet

Manufacturing

Collaboration, Business Processes and Forms, Business Intelligence

Van Andel Institute

Nonprofit

Collaboration, ECM-Document Management, Business Processes and Forms

Banco Compartamos, S.A - Methods & Procedures Group

Financial Services

Collaboration, Enterprise Search, ECM-Document Management, Business Processes and Forms

Willcox & Savage

Professional Services

Collaboration, Portals, ECM-Document Management, Business Processes and Forms

Wolters Kluwer

Information Services

Business Processes and Forms

Mydin Mohamed Holdings

Retail & Hospitality

Portals, ECM-Document Management, ECM-Web Content Management, Business Processes and Forms

Eagleville Hospital

Healthcare & Life Sciences

ECM-Document Management,Business Processes and Forms

Esterline Technology Corporation

Manufacturing

Collaboration, Portals,ECM-Document Management, Business Processes and Forms, Business Intelligence

Dassault Systèmes

Professional Services

Collaboration, Enterprise Search, ECM-Document Management,Business Processes and Forms, Business Intelligence

Ministry of Sound

Media & Entertainment

Enterprise Search, ECM-Document Management, Business Processes and Forms

South East Water Limited

Utilities

Collaboration, Business Processes and Forms, Business Intelligence

Melbourne Airport

Transportation & Logistics

Collaboration, ECM-Document Management, Business Processes and Forms

Rocla

Manufacturing

Collaboration, Portals, ECM-Document Management, Business Processes and Forms

Suburban Cook County Tuberculosis Sanitarium District

Healthcare & Life Sciences

Enterprise Search, ECM-Document Management, Business Processes and Forms

dbu Unternehmensberatung

Professional Services

Collaboration, Portals, ECM-Document Management, Business Processes and Forms

CGI - IBS

Professional Services

Collaboration, ECM-Document Management, Business Processes and Forms

SAS

Professional Services

Collaboration

Sasfin Bank Limited

Financial Services

Portals, ECM-Document Management, business processes and forms; business intelligence

Exelon Corporation

Utilities

Portals, Business Processes and Forms

Stonebridge

Professional Services

Business Processes and Forms, Business Intelligence

Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics (OCD), a Johnson & Johnson company

Healthcare & Life Sciences

ECM-Document Management, Business Intelligence

Menninger Clinic, The

Healthcare & Life Sciences

Enterprise Search, ECM-Document Management, Business Processes and Forms

TÜV NORD Group

Professional Services

Enterprise Search, ECM-Document Management, Business Processes and Forms

Asklepios

Healthcare & Life Sciences

Collaboration, Portals, ECM-Document Management, Business Processes and Forms

Civil Aviation Authority of New Zealand

Government

Collaboration, ECM-Document Management, Business Processes and Forms

Portfolio Communications

Professional Services

Enterprise Search, ECM-Document Management, Business Processes and Forms

Heras

Professional Services

Collaboration, ECM-Document Management, Business Processes and Forms

Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton

Professional Services

Collaboration, Portals, Enterprise Search, ECM-Document Management, ECM - Web Content Management, Business Processes and Forms

Workflowone

Professional Services

Collaboration, Portals, ECM-Document Management, ECM-Web Content Management, Business Processes & Forms

Alberta Teacher's Association

Education

Collaboration, ECM-Document Management, Business Intelligence

Statoil

Energy, Oil & Gas

Collaboration, ECM-Document Management, Business Processes and Forms

ILF Beratende Ingenieure

Professional Services

Collaboration, Portals, Enterprise Search, ECM-Document Management, Business Processes and Forms

Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

Education

Collaboration, Portals, ECM-Document Management, ECM-Recovery Management, ECM-Web Content Management, Business Processes and Forms

Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

Education

Collaboration, Portals, Enterprise Search, ECM-Document Management, ECM-Web Content Management, Business Processes and Forms

Telecommunications Company

Telecommunications

Collaboration, Enterprise Search, ECM-Document Management

Some MOSS sites publicly available through the Internet:

Alphamosaik

HedKandi

ShareView.co.uk

CORGI Consumers

Komatsu - Dash8

speakTECH

Paul Mitchell

Tyler Butler

Microsoft-Oracle

ThreeWill

EmpowerID Demo

Oasys (French)

InfoCision

Ruijin Hospital Group

UCB (Une societe de BNP PARIBAS)

Satama

Reveu-d-Etudes (French)

Formextern (French)

Cegos

Sharesquared

And some more MOSS sites I was too lazy to sort out:

http://www.obs.com.au/Pages/default.aspx

http://www.threewill.com/Pages/Default.aspx

http://www.hedkandi.com/Pages/default.aspx

http://www.alphamosaik.com/Pages/default.aspx

http://www.spectracomputers.ro/

http://www.wssdemo.com

http://new.culminisconnections.com

https://live.sharepoint-conference.eu/EN/agenda/Pages/default.aspx

http://www.rjh.com.cn/

http://www.satama.com/en/Pages/Default.aspx

http://www.monsanto-ag.co.uk/layout/default.asp

http://www.ucb.fr/Pages/Accueil.aspx

http://www.oasys.fr/Pages/Accueil.aspx

http://www.revue-d-etudes.fr/Pages/accueil.aspx

http://www.formextern.fr/Pages/accueil.aspx

http://www.cegos.fr/Pages/Default.aspx

http://www.taiwanlottery.com.tw/

http://www.shareview.co.uk/Pages/Default.aspx

http://www.trustcorgi.com/consumers.htmx

http://dash8.komatsu.com.au/Pages/dash8.aspx

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

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

http://www.tylerbutler.com/

http://www.microsoft-oracle.com/Pages/default.aspx

http://demo.empowerid.com/Pages/Default.aspx

http://www.infocision.com/Pages/Welcome%20to%20InfoCision.aspx

http://www.sharesquared.com/Pages/Default.aspx

http://www.cscape.com/Pages/default.aspx

http://www.moss2007.be/Pages/Default.aspx

http://www.fertigung-edelstahl.at/default.aspx

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

http://www.ggs.wa.edu.au/Pages/Index.aspx

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

http://www.ausinnovation.org/Pages/Home.aspx

http://www.cafepedagogique.net/lexpresso/Pages/150307index.aspx

http://eu-shop.swatch.com/eshop/uk/EN/Jewelry.aspx

Pretty fancy for a relatively new product, huh?

Bye,

Adir Ron.

Hey,

I have a confection to make: I love the new Outlook even though it has no ribbon. Yep, the sexy To-Do Bar and the cool integration with MOSS 2007 does it to me so I'm satisfying my ribbon fix elsewhere. But like all good love stories, sometime I find myself staring at the screen when Outlook is one and wishing I could just kill him slowly and painfully - one DLL after another...

This is not an hardware problem. My laptop is packed with all of the nesseray performance goodies available (dual core, 2 GB Ram and most impotent: NO Vista - I recently moved to Windows 2003 R2 with an awesome vista transformation pack) - so I had to ask myself WTF? I also noticed that performance became extremely lame when I'm using the mailbox with the large .pst file. 

I guess someone in Microsoft noticed it as well since they've just released an update for Outlook 2007 which handles some performance issues and especially the one with the large mailbox files. This update also fixes a problem in which a calendar item that is marked as private is opened if it is found by using the Search Desktop feature - I never got around it and heck, let's keep it this way.

Anyway, not too much point in wasting time reading this post. Go ahead and download it from here.

Bye,

Adir Ron.

Hey,

I'm hearing a lot of this question in many variations and I figured it's time to solve it once and for all. The problem is well known: trying to move a WSS Site between 2 different places (such as Site Collections) is still not something we're doing with a click of a button. There is no real and easy of doing so and I've heard about many "nasty" solutions (such as Backup/Restore for entire Site Collection, Copy-Pasting everything with the Explorer View and many other messy evils).

It looks like multiple teams in Microsoft have been tasked with this issue since we actually got 3 different ways to solve it:

• SharePoint Designer Backup/Restore - Definitely the easiest way to move sites around but only WHEN IT WORKS (since that's not a very consistent feature in SPD). To use this method, simply go to Menu --> Site --> Administration --> Backup Web Site and enter the URL of the WSS site you want to move. You can also include/exclude other subsites in the archive you're creating. Restoring it to the new Site Collection is done with the Restore Web Site feature in SPD. Again, remember this is not too consistent so always try to restore before deleting an original site (Even when you get the "Backup Operation was completed successfully" message!). 
• Stsadm.exe export/import - The stsadm.exe admin utility is not a new tool but in the 2007 it has many improvements. Now, we can use stsadm as a way to import and export single sites. By the way, this is actually how Share Point Designer creates the archive in the mentioned SPD method. Don't get confused with the backup/restore operations in stsadm.exe - those operations were already available in 2003 but they are used for entire Site Collections rather than a single site (and in our case it's a major overkill). Sounds great huh? Well, just like the SharePoint Designer way, it could easily become a MAJOR NIGHTMARE when it's not working so let me give you some tips. I hope this will reduce the amount of time spent CURSING THE HELL of our beloved stsadm's command line window and the its log file.

1. The default cabsize value is 25 Mb which is VERY lame for big sites! Always define ur own cabsize (up to 1 GB...)
2. It is highly recommended to add the “-haltonwarning” or “-haltonfatalerror” parameters. You'll be able to see a list of possible problems before proceeding with the creating on the archive.
3. If still encounter failures and you don't understand WTF that could be, You might want to try the –nofilecompression switch. Somehow, exports tend to fail in much bigger numbers when you try to compress them.

And to sum it all up, here's the complete command with all of the available switches for exporting/importing with stsadm.exe:

stsadm -o export -url <URL to be exported> -filename <export file name> [-overwrite] [-includeusersecurity] [-haltonwarning] [-haltonfatalerror] [-nologfile] [-versions <1-4> 1= Last major version for files and list items (default), 2= The current version, either the last major or the last minor, 3= Last major and last minor version for files and list items, 4= All versions for files and list items] [-cabsize <integer from 1-1024 megabytes> (default: 25)] [-nofilecompression] [-quiet]

stsadm -o import -url <URL to import to> -filename <import file name> [-includeusersecurity] [-haltonwarning] [-haltonfatalerror] [-nologfile] [-updateversions <1-3> 1= Add new versions to the current file (default), 2= Overwrite the file and all its versions (delete then insert),3= Ignore the file if it exists on the destination] [-nofilecompression] [-quiet]

• Content Deplyoment - Ok, now we're really talking! Let the real fun begin! This is probably the coolest and by far the most elegant way for synchronizing content between Site Collections. Although this is for a Site Collection level - it's a great way to make a lasting connection and keep moving new content between environments. Before using this method, you need to be familiar with two core conceptual objects: Paths and Jobs. A Path is set of definitions that represents a connection between the source environment and the destination environment. The path contains information about which source web application and site collection you are deploying, authentication information for the destination environment, and the web application and site collection on the destination MOSS. However, a path by itself doesn’t actually deploy any content - it's only a set of definitions. In order to sync the environment, you must create a Job. Each job is associated with a path, and determines exactly which sites in the source site collection will be deployed and on what schedule.

Now the really cool thing about this method: It uses the same logic and internal audit/log files as the Index jobs. That means that you can define a job that only deploys the changes since the last successful deployment and this could for a single item/document level. Great for saving bandwidth and time. Furthermore, if there are no changes since the previous job, the deployment will complete without redoing any unnecessary work. Of course, full deployments every time can be configured if that’s what you really want but this is not necessary in most cases.

Awesome hug? Although this is for Site Collection level, I think it addresses the main scenario that is main reason for wanting to move a list or a whole site between places: Replication between the Testing environment to the real Production environment. Using this method, you can define it once and deploy testing versions whenever you think you're done playing and it's time to publish your changes. You can find the Content Deployment management interface under the SharePoint Central Administration site. One aspect of content deployment that you should be aware of is that it will only deploy content, not any dependent assemblies/controls/webparts, etc.  Administrator is responsible for moving the assemblies for controls and webparts to the destination farm.

In conclusion - We're dealing here with 2 types of scenarios: If we're talking about moving an entire site ONCE between Site Collections - the SPD and stsadm.exe ways are preferred and you should just use them. If you're talking about synchronization between two environments and it's something that should happen every once in a while - we'll need that lasting connection that is provided through Content Deplyoment.

' Till next time,

Adir Ron.

Never get tired of this burning issue and all of the related questions so I decided to try and put all the answers in this one post.

Let's review the problem first: Adobe does not have a x64 version of the PDF IFilter for MOSS and so far there are no immediate plans from Adobe to develop one. The supported (and thus the safest) way to index PDF files is to use a 32 bit Windows Server version as our Farm's Index server and run the 32 bit version of this IFilter. Of courser, since we can only have one Index Server per farm, we're actually bound to crawl and index all of our items in 32 bit mode. Kind of sucks since crawling/indexing data is one of the classic things we'd want to do with our sweet 64 bit machine...

Let's start by clearing the official explanations out of the way. If you take a moment to think about it - there is no real technical reason why we can use the 32 bit PDF Filter in the 64 bit version of MOSS. Something here feels like a planned conspiracy, right? Well, after doing some digging up in internal Distribution Lists (ALA DL's) at Microsoft's network - I came across a very planned Microsoft's strategy for dealing with 32 bit binaries in 64 bit installations.We can sum it up with the words NOT SUPPORTED but I actually think the explanations for this strategy is pretty good.

The IFilter concept is pretty much based on allowing some 3rd party code run inside the Index process and as you can imagine, this could mean serious trouble form MOSS and the big guys from Redmond . For Example: if you install some IFilter that you downloaded or even wrote for some kind of file type and it turns out that IFilter is not thread-safe, this could damage and even kill the entire index process! So of course the MOSS team put some disaster-recovery code from all types of software problems but as always, we'd be better off never getting there at all.

On the other hand, there is no real alternative for Microsoft to prevent 3rd party code in the internal index process. Microsoft can't be responsible for writing all the IFilters in the world - this was (and should stay) the job of those 3rd parties that provided those file types. The only step Microsoft can take is to make sure that each IFilter will be installed on MOSS only if it was specified designed for the requested MOSS server and environment. In our case that means that only IFilters that were originally developed for 64 bit will be available for 64 bit Index Server...

Ok. So Microsoft's could have a point but hell - we want 64 bit Index servers! Well, no need to give up just yet. We have three approaches for trying to solve this critical issue. I like to call it "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly":

• The Good - Foxitsoftware IFilters: It seems that Foxitsoftware are actually in the process of creating a 64-bit IFilter (in addition to their 32-bit version they already have). This is very good right? The only problem is that dates are no where to be mentioned in their forums. Anyway, you can check it out here.
• The Bad - Pressure Adobe: Oh, This is my personal favorite (some will say it's actually the reason for writing this post).There is a petition going on to lobby Adobe to wake up and create the required IFilter.  You can sign up here and help us put some huge pressure on Adobe until she'll create it for us. If you saw the great South Park Movie's - it's just like the main theme song: "Blame Canada!"
• The Ugly - Trying to bypass Microsoft's limitation - Well, I explained it's no a technical issue, right? So.... This solution is only for all you really hard core guys. Of course, I never tried it myself since it's not supported (and I'm a Microsoft guy that never does unsupported things!) but that "close friend of mine" (that's him again - that guy keeps popping in my posts...), he likes to live dangerously and he tried it for me. It's actually not too complicated. The main idea is to wrap the 32 bit IFilter in a 64 bit process and fool the 64 bit MOSS Index Server that everything is OK with this IFilter. This could be achieved using the dllhost.exe file. For those of you that never heard of it, Dllhost.exe is a process belonging to Windows and he is the one that manages all DLL based applications. You could use it as a surrogate host for the 32 bit IFilter and since it's part of the 64 Bit windows, you can totally avoid the 32 bit detection by MOSS. Pretty slick huh? 

So, I Hope I cleared that issue a bit. Anyway, If you read up until now, you deserve a nice treat and here it is: For all you IFilter fans, this is really great site for online shopping IFilters. If you're tired of free-but-very-limited IFilters, you should know that you can always browse to the IFilter Shop and find some really cool things there. So make sure you have the company's Master Card and go ahead. Great IFilters for Open Office, Star Office, Project, WMA/WMV, zip, rar, chm, pdf and some more cool file formats.

Now this is really it,

Next time,

Adir Ron.

UPDATED 4/5/07: Recently, there was a huge update for this issue. For more details - Click here... 

Hi all,

I guess most of you heard about the "Fantastic 40" - 40 Application Templates for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. The basic idea behind those templates is to provide further out-of-the-box custom solution for specific scenarios such as Knowledge Base, Call Center etc. You can also use them a starting point for your own custom scenario (most of the time using regular editing tools such as Share Point Designer 2007).

The "Fantastic 40" was actually divided into two groups, site admin templates and server admin templates that were released separately. Unfortunately, only the admin templates are available for non-English languages (ten to be exact: French, Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean, Hebrew, Chinese simplified and Chinese traditional) while the site templates are available in only in English.

Sucks isn't it? If we're talking about scenarios - think about this one (happened in real life to... hmm a really "close friend of mine"): You browse the Microsoft website and suddenly you see this beautiful template that happens to fit like a glove to a really nasty task you were assigned to just yesterday. You get all excited and tell ur boss it'll take you a day or two to implement (while laughing hard inside  and thinking that it sure looks like someone is going home early today). Finally, when you sit on your desk and clicks on the "download" button you see the small printed words. Those evil phrase that will make you work twice as hard and effectively kill you early departure - "English Only"...

Well NO MORE!!! This is a new, brave and global Hi-Tech world and we're supposed to speak only one unified language (ASP.Net 2.0 in MOSS's case) so WTF? The good people in KWizCom decided to make a stand and released a mega-cool and FREE utility called "STP Language Converter" (available here). This little baby can convert a Site Template (.stp) file that was created in one language to a site template in another language without any hassle. Since it's very easy to create Stp files (supported in the simple MOSS UI) - it means you can totally re-consider the "English-Only Fantastic 20" and any Site Template you'll ever see in the future, as something you can translate to ur own language and use without a problem.

French goes English, Spanish goes Italian and even Arabic goes Hebrew. Peace had to start somewhere, I guess it chose MOSS...

Bye,  

Adir Ron.

Hey,

A really cool and OOTB web part I came across today: MOM web part. For those of you that are not familiar with this server: MOM or Microsoft Operation Manager 2005 is a great monitoring application that allows you "avoid the avoidable" by providing the proper knowledge about Microsoft's servers. A great example for that approach is the MOM pack for MOSS 2007 and the MOM pack for WSS 3.0 that was built by the MOSS team and is defined to send alerts and warning whenever MOSS is getting too close to the edge...

That's cool and all but listen to this. How about getting alerts from MOM in a special Out-Of-The-Box very awesome WEB PART?! Just think about it: SharePoint can actually tell you when he is reaching a known limit. Well, believe it or not but this sweet baby has been around for quite some time and has been hiding all this time in the MOM Power Toys pack (which is part of the MOM Resource Kit - available here). The only problem is that this web part is designed to work with SPS 2003. I actually see it as a real poetic justice since the SPS 2003 is known to crash much more often but what about MOSS 2007?

Well MOSS lovers, I'm not leaving you behind. There is a nice workaround for displaying MOM alerts in MOSS and it's actually not too complicated. The only limitation is that you'll need to have a SQL Server 2005 with the fresh-from-the-oven SP2 installed.

The first thing you should do is to create a simple alert report in Reporting Services. Now, configure the new report to display all of the alerts you'd like to receive from MOM into our beloved MOSS (for example: no connectivity with the SMTP server - great for the administration page!). After the report is done, you can use the new RS Viewer that is part of SP2 for SQL to display the content of this report. If you installed SP2 but never configured you MOSS to integrate with Reporting Services - just follow these instructions. And that's it! You now have all of the MOM info you ever wanted in displayed in MOSS 2007.

Just a little extra thing you should bear in mind about the MOM web part - the main reason why I haven't tried to make a raw-deploy for it to WSS 3.0 is not that I'm a real lazy guy (Hmm OK. But there is actually ANOTHER very good reason!) but that MOM 2005 is actually dying. Yep, we have a new king in town and he answers to the name System Center Operations Manager 2007 or Ops Mgr 2007. So, if you can live with the Reporting Services solution you just read - I think it's preferred since I'm guessing Ops Mgr 2007 will have the proper and supported WSS 3.0 comeback for the old WSS 2.0 MOM Web part.

Just to summarize the circle of life:

Yesterday we had old MOM 2005's web part for the old SPS 2003. Today (after the release of SP2 for SQL 2005), we can use RS to connect old MOM with the new MOSS 2007. Tomorrow, we'll have the shiny and sparkling Ops Mgr 2007 with the new MOSS 2007 and they'll all play together.

Good time to watch Lion King again or something...

C ya,

Adir Ron.

Hey all,

This post will be dedicated to this one, essential and life-altering question - why on earth am I opening a blog? Well, the god-honest answer is that many people really asked me to. Now, this probably sounds really good as a reason but this is exactly why a Prequell post is in order. So hold your RSS's for a minute and let's dig deeper the real deeds behind this blog.

It all started five years ago when I came to understan a very sad truth about myself. I'm a Spammer. Yep, I love to spam the hell out of people. This means that I usually feel an stoppable urge to share all of my fascinating technical discoveries of the day with a whole bunch of people. This would have been OK if those people we're sharing my enthusiasm but the nasty truth is that they're not. And the real sad thing - most of the time they are too nice to tell me they don't really give a rate's ass about all of my floating Tool Panes for Sharepoint or sample codes for kicking up ranking in MOSS Search. 

This problem of mine got worse in the last few months since the people I spam feel started to feel obligated to read my mails. Yes - somewhere along the way, people got the notion I have something important to say and now they can't even delete my junk (or better yet - let an Outlook rule nip it in the bud). This created a situation for many freedom seeking people around me to demand I'll open up my own blog.

Now this is the beautiful thing about perspective: You see - People did ask me to open up a blog and I'm sure as hell was not lying about that.  The only problem is that the reason for that request was not "God Adir, You're so smart - please open a blog" but something that was more around "please stop hassling innocent-5MB-limited mailboxes with you MOSS spam". So, do you see why this blog had to have a Prequell? This is just like a Public Service Announcement at the start of every Gangsta Rap CD. 

Cut to the chase - this blog will be mainly about Office System 2007 (Client and Office Server). Why? Well, this has something to do with the fact that I'm the Office System MRD in Israel. What is MRD you ask? Good question and since this blog is all about information you'll get the full answer. That means official and unofficial Microsoft response:

• The official definitions goes something like this: "Microsoft Regional Director, MRD is defined to be the official Microsoft technical guy for the systems/technologies in his responsibility".
• Well, that got me puzzled as well so I did some investing and get to an unofficial and unsupported definition: MRD is one of those long titles that only the guy that has it believes it actually means something...

Ok - I think that's it for the Prequell post. Just remember, I'm planning to post a lot so if you're not a true Office System 2007 fans - think hard and long before you subscribe!

C ya next time,

Adir Ron.