Vedant Kulshreshtha https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/vedant/feed.xml I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious. Tue, 16 Apr 2019 06:20:01 GMT en-US hourly 1 SharePoint 2010 101 Code Samples now available https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/vedant/sharepoint-2010-101-code-samples-now-available Mon, 27 Feb 2012 09:07:00 GMT https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/vedant/2012/02/27/sharepoint-2010-101-code-samples-now-available/ SharePoint 2010 101 Code Samples are now available on Microsoft Developer Network's Samples website. A extremely useful resource for developers.

SharePoint 2010 101 Code Samples

Each code sample is part of the SharePoint 2010 101 code samples project. These samples are provided so that you can incorporate them directly in your code. Each code sample consists of a standalone project created in Microsoft Visual Studio 2010

]]> SharePoint ‘Strong Positive’ on Gartner’s Enterprise Search MarketScope https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/vedant/sharepoint-strong-positive-on-gartners-enterprise-search-marketscope Wed, 30 Nov 2011 20:30:00 GMT https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/vedant/2011/11/30/sharepoint-strong-positive-on-gartners-enterprise-search-marketscope/ The new 2011 Enterprise Search MarketScope by Gartner was recently published (link: MarketScope for Enterprise Search).  Microsoft is again ranked a ‘Strong Positive,’ the highest ranking given on the report. 

Gartner indicates that “Microsoft has surged to a leadership position by offering effective, basic search and more sophisticated search for inward- or outward-facing applications.”  Microsoft is also credited with strong customer momentum, a broad product line beyond search that makes it attractive for projects with a larger footprint, strong investments in federation and effective social search that allows users to collaborate on information gathering.

More information on Microsoft Search products is available here: Product Information and Enterprise Search Tech Center. Watch this video where Evan Richman, Group Product Manager for SharePoint, talks about some of the new search features and functionality in SharePoint 2010 ...

 

]]> Troubleshooting Excel Web Access errors https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/vedant/troubleshooting-excel-web-access-errors Mon, 21 Nov 2011 22:05:00 GMT https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/vedant/2011/11/21/troubleshooting-excel-web-access-errors/ Office Web Apps give users a browser-based viewing and editing experience by providing a representation of an Office document in the browser. When a user clicks on a document stored in a SharePoint document library, the document opens directly in the browser. The document appears in the browser similar to how it appears in the Office client application. The Web app also provides many of the same editing features as an Office client application.

When you try to open a Excel workbook in Excel Web App, you might see an error message that tells you the workbook contains features that are not supported by Excel Web App. Unsupported features are contents or functionality in a workbook that prevents the workbook from being opened for editing or, in some cases, viewing in the browser.

You can click on the "Details" link to view the message details and then the "Learn more about unsupported features" link to view information on the unsupported features.

Most common reasons are use of Comments, Worksheets with protection, Information Rights Management (IRM), OLE objects and, data validation in Excel sheets.

If you get the “Unsupported Features” message. you can use the <<Open>> command to open the document in Excel client application. Office Web Apps uses an add-on in your browser to open documents in your desktop program. If the Open command doesn’t work, then the only option is to download the document to your computer, work on it there, and then upload it back to the SharePoint library.

The main Office Help articles to refer to are:

 

Keyboard Shortcuts

There are lot of keyboard shortcuts provided for Office Web Apps. In case you are not getting the one you need, refer to following articles:

 

Upgrading to Office Web Apps SP1

Office Web Apps SP1 provides the latest updates for Office Web Apps, please refer to the Description of Office Web Apps SP1 and Patching Office Web Apps to SP1 and June CUs including SharePoint Server 2010 for upgrade information in case you were waiting for one of these features. Before upgrading, do not forget to read Known issues when you install Office 2010 SP1 and SharePoint 2010 SP1  :-)

]]> Microsoft Media Platform Content Manager https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/vedant/microsoft-media-platform-content-manager Fri, 18 Nov 2011 10:13:00 GMT https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/vedant/2011/11/18/microsoft-media-platform-content-manager/ Many organizations are going for a Video Sharing solution based on SharePoint technologies for their Intranet and also for Internet web properties. In SharePoint 2007 era, the most popular choice was the Podcasting Kit for SharePoint (PKS) available on CodePlex. On SharePoint 2010, due to out-of-the-box capabilities related to Rich Media management, much richer media sharing solutions can be built easily.

If you try searching for media related solutions on Microsoft Platform, there are lot of different technologies and solutions available. I am sharing one which would help meet most of the requirements for a typical media sharing solution.

The core of the solution is built on the Microsoft Media Platform. The Microsoft Media Platform provides a comprehensive set of functions to support encoding, delivering and playing rich media to virtually any type of network connected device.  At the highest level, the Media Platform provides out of the box capabilities for each step of a video workflow:

  • Encode - Encode and transcode live and archived media assets using industry standard H.264 and VC-1 codecs.
  • Deliver - Deliver media via traditional streaming, dynamic adaptive streaming over HTTP, and intelligent progressive download.
  • Watch - Create immersive end-user media experiences on PC and Mac using Silverlight, HTML 5 or native client technologies with advanced playback functions and support for closed captions.

It is built on following core technologies:

  • IIS Media Services -The server component that delivers content across the Internet and private networks using IIS Smooth Streaming, a standards-based technology for dynamic, adaptive streaming over HTTP.
  • Expression Encoder - A streamlined video production tool for creating, encoding, editing, and publishing content.
  • Silverlight - The web-based rich client development platform for delivering engaging and interactive cross-platform experiences.
  • PlayReady - A content access and protection technology approved by industry heavyweights such as DECE and major content owners.

and also provides some frameworks which are open source projects from Microsoft that augment the functionality of the core Media Platform:

  • Player Framework (formerly Silverlight Media Framework) - Enables developers to quickly deploy a robust, scalable, customizable media player across operating systems and devices.
  • Video Editor (formerly Rough Cut Editor) - Simplifies the editing and publishing process of media assets, enabling real-time, time-code-accurate, browser-based video editing.
  • Audience Insight - Provides real-time insight into media streaming applications through key performance indicators (KPIs) for decision-making and contextual business analysis.
  • Content Manager aka Microsoft Media Platform Content Manager - Provides content management system (CMS) capabilities and workflow management for creating live and on-demand IIS Smooth Streaming events, managing, transcoding and publishing media, and ad insertion.

The Microsoft Media Platform Content Manager (MMPCM) is an open source solution that can be used by enterprises, educational institutions and broadcasting companies to manage their video assets. This lightweight and highly-customizable solution is built on Microsoft SharePoint 2010 and Microsoft media-related technologies, including Silverlight 4, IIS Media Services and Expression Encoder 4. The MMPCM infrastructure enables users to:

  • Define, edit and approve or reject video assets
  • Transcode video into different formats
  • Broadcast Live Events
  • Insert Ads on Live Event transmissions
  • Edit videos online right within MMPCM
  • Publish videos to external players

You can read the documentation given in the MMPCM_1-0_Documentation.docx document. Given below is the high-level architecture from this document:

You can also know about MMPCM  from Steven Woodward's MIX11 session Introducing MMP Content Manager.

Try it out and let me know how it works for you.

]]> White Paper: Scale Test Report for Very Large-Scale Document Repositories https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/vedant/white-paper-scale-test-report-for-very-large-scale-document-repositories Thu, 29 Sep 2011 22:58:58 GMT https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/vedant/2011/09/29/white-paper-scale-test-report-for-very-large-scale-document-repositories/ A new white paper - "Scale Test Report for Very Large-Scale Document Repositories" is available on the Microsoft Download Center.

This white paper provides details about a test lab that was run at Microsoft to show large scale SharePoint Server 2010 content databases. It includes information about how two SharePoint Server content databases were populated with a total of 120 million documents over 30 terabytes (TB) of SQL Server databases. It details how this content was indexed by FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint. It describes load testing that was performed on the completed SharePoint Server and FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint and shows results from that testing and conclusions about the results from the testing.

]]> Building an Offline Learning Kit for SharePoint 2010 https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/vedant/building-an-offline-learning-kit-for-sharepoint-2010 Mon, 26 Sep 2011 11:56:00 GMT https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/vedant/2011/09/26/building-an-offline-learning-kit-for-sharepoint-2010/ SharePoint 2010 product and documentation teams and, the developer evangelists have done a great job of providing developers and IT Pros with learning material online. This content can be accessed mainly through the product homepages on MSDN and TechNet websites. Channel 9 also has lot of content.

Besides the articles, white papers and Visio diagrams, there is lot of good content in Video format. Accessing this content requires Internet connectivity and the high-quality videos require a lot of bandwidth. This problem gets aggravated if you a large developer team or if you travel a lot.

What’s the solution? Based on my experience, the best (and sometime only) way out is to download all this great content and have it available offline on your laptop, on file server or on your team’s SharePoint site. The flip side is the bandwidth required and time (and patience) it takes to download.

How to Track the Content?

First problem is keeping track of the content being published. I keep track by following blogs and links given below:

Let me know if you know of a better URL to keep track of all the content being published.

Downloading the Content

In this section, I have listed the various sources I found for downloading content. At some places, multiple video formats are available.

White Papers and Guides:

Presentations:

Online Trainings:

MSDN - Learn SharePoint Development

TechNet - Learn SharePoint Server 2010

Channel 9 Videos:

Offline Training Kits:

More offline training kits are available here.

How do I – Videos

Other Kits

Office 365 content

Once you are through with all the downloads you would have exceeded 40Gb if you selected high quality video option (wherever available) !!

HTH.

]]> Best practices for search in SharePoint Server 2010 https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/vedant/best-practices-for-search-in-sharepoint-server-2010 Thu, 08 Sep 2011 09:23:00 GMT https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/vedant/2011/09/08/best-practices-for-search-in-sharepoint-server-2010/ A new TechNet article - Best practices for search in SharePoint Server 2010 describes best practices for configuring and maintaining search in SharePoint Server 2010.  Personally, practice #4 was new to me

4. Defragment the search database - The search database contains metadata and ACLs of crawled content. Over a series of crawls, the search database can become fragmented. To improve performance of crawls and queries, periodically defragment the search database. For more information, see Database maintenance for SharePoint Server 2010.

More best practice articles are available here: Best practices (SharePoint Server 2010).

]]> Office 365 Developer Training Kit Available https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/vedant/office-365-developer-training-kit-available Mon, 18 Apr 2011 23:47:00 GMT https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/vedant/2011/04/18/office-365-developer-training-kit-available/ In Office 365, SharePoint 2010, Exchange 2010 and Lync Server 2010 are hosted in Microsoft cloud datacenters to provide collaboration and communication as software-as-a-service (SaaS). Along with the launch of Office 365 Public Beta, Microsoft has also released the Office 365 Developer Training Kit.

The Office 365 Developer Training Kit contains developer focused presentations, self-paced labs and links to key resources to help you build solutions that leverage SharePoint Online, Exchange Online and Lync Online. Using this kit, you’ll learn how to build collaborative and communication focused cloud solutions that run in Office 365 using Visual Studio 2010 and the .NET Framework.

After downloading the training kit, run the self-extracting executable to extract all of the training kit files to your local machine. This is how the homepage looks:

The equivalent online version is available on MSDN here: Office 365 Developer Training Course. Units in this course are:

First step to develop on Office 365 will be to Sign Up for the Office 365 Beta. Refer to yesterday's post - Office 365 Public Beta launched for details

]]> Office 365 Public Beta launched https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/vedant/office-365-public-beta-launched Mon, 18 Apr 2011 08:15:00 GMT https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/vedant/2011/04/18/office-365-public-beta-launched/ Microsoft has launched the Public beta of Office 365 today. Read: Office 365 Hits Public Beta, Small Businesses Get the Next Generation Cloud Productivity Service and Office 365 Public Beta is Here!

For those new to Office 365, please refer to What is Office 365? page. I also covered it on this blog – read Office 365 posts here.

What’s in the Beta?

Office 365 was till now available to a select set of customers as a limited/private beta program. As of today, Office 365 Beta is publicly available to customers in 38 countries and regions in 17 languages. The Office 365 will eventually have lot of Subscription Plans as options for customers but in this Beta program, you can experience only 2 of them - Plan E3 for Enterprise customers and Plan P1 for Small Business customers. When Office 365 is commercially released, beta accounts will be activated to trial versions and you can easily continue using Office 365 beyond the 30-day trial period if you choose to purchase.

For more details, please download the Office 365 Beta Service Descriptions documents.These documents provide a detailed description of the features and functionality of Office 365 services currently in beta. If you are an Enterprise customer, please do go through the “Office 365 Beta Enterprise Support Service Description_Final.docx” document.

Note: There is currently no Office 365 Beta version for Education customers. You can explore the Office 365 Beta however, your Beta account cannot be transitioned to a trial for Office 365 for Education at conclusion of the beta program. A trial version of Office 365 for education will be made publicly available at a later date.

Sign up now!!

1) Just click on JOIN THE BETA link on the Office 365 website and choose from the Enterprise or Small Business options.

2) Select the Country and fill up rest of the form and hit Submit.

3) You should receive a message like the one below. Next step is to wait for the email invitation.

Office 365 Marketplace Beta

The Office 365 Marketplace powered by Microsoft Pinpoint is now available in Beta in the United States and select countries worldwide. Built specifically to showcase applications and professional services offered by Office 365 partners, this comprehensive marketplace helps customers easily find your applications and professional services that extend the value of Office 365.

Customers can find information at the Office 365 Marketplace, and partners can submit new apps and solutions.

]]> Find useful Compete information on the “Why Microsoft” website https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/vedant/find-useful-compete-information-on-the-why-microsoft-website Wed, 13 Apr 2011 22:25:00 GMT https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/vedant/2011/04/13/find-useful-compete-information-on-the-why-microsoft-website/ Last week Microsoft launched the new Why Microsoft website as part of The Future of Productivity website. On this website you can find useful information to compare Microsoft’s productivity platform against Google Apps, IBM, Cisco and OpenOffice.

Microsoft vs Google Information

On the Microsoft vs Google page, you will find a comparison between Microsoft and Google solution with a link to Resource Center where you can see why customers choose Microsoft over Google. Another resource is: White Paper: Counting the Hidden Costs of Google Apps. You can also Open it in Office Web Apps :-)

In the Word Web App vs. Google Documents demo you will see completely different results when the same document is viewed using Word Web App vs. Google Documents. Screenshot:

Useful Links

  • Industry Leader: Get Gartner’s research reports and see how Microsoft productivity platform stacks up in each of the key markets
  • Resource Gallery: View highlighted content to help you evaluate Microsoft Online Services vs. Google. Check out customer stories, see demos and videos, and read white papers
  • The Why Microsoft Blog
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