Visual Studio Tools for Office, Version 2005

Applies to: Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for the Microsoft Office System, Version 2005

Summary: Expert developers blog about their personal experience of designing, implementing, and deploying Visual Studio Tools for Office solutions for Word and Excel. Check out some of the best articles we found. (http://msdn.microsoft.com/office/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/odc_vsto2005_ta/html/OfficeVSTOBestOfBlogs2005.asp)

Web Part Development Resources To Get You Started.

Greetings,

As mentioned in the Regional Sharepoint TTT in Singapore recently, here is the resources/links i promised to post. Also note topics with regards to administration/managment(non-developer stuff) of a SharePoint POrtal Server or Windows Sharepoint Services, see my IT Pro blog, http://gill-itpro.blogspot.com. I would have something by Tuesday.

Anyway here it is:

Building Web Parts for Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies Part I - The Basics
This is the first of a 3 part series of Web Part development. This is during the beta days of SharePoint 2003. For an absolute beginner, this is a great start.

Building Web Parts for Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies Part II - Web Parts and User Controls
In this article, Patrick Tisseghem talks about using ASP.Net User Controls in the development process of Web Parts for SharePoint. There was a lot of excitement about using ASP.Net user controls in Web Part development. Here is another write up on using generic ASP.Net user controls in Web Parts.http://www.reflectionit.nl/WebPart1.aspx. This is written by Fons Sonnemans, a .Net and Sharepoint expert, to name a few. Of course at a later stage, the SmartPart was developed by Fons Sonnermans and Jan Tielens, which made using User Controls in WebParts very simple and straight forward. More information on SmartPart below under Additional Resources.

Building Web Parts for Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies Part III - Connectable Web Parts
In the third part, we are shown the basics of connectable webparts.

Here you will find Patrick Tisseghem's Blog, the author of the three parts above. He is a true expert of Sharepoint development. I will give you a list of blogs most useful for SharePoint Development.

Additional Resources.

1. MSDN's "A Developer's Introduction to Web Parts". This is much more complex then the 3 parts above, but still, this is from MSDN
2. Here is another: "Using Wppackager to Package and Deploy Web Parts for Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies". This is a packaging and deployment tool from Microsoft.
3. SmartPart: Firstly, Jan Tielens has written an introduction and even created a video demonstrating it in action. At the GotDotNet Workspace, you can download an installation package that will install the SmartPart, the source code and an example user control. These guys are coming up with some cool idea and SmartPart is going to get better in it's new releases. In the recent Office DevCon in Redmond, SmartPart was discussed :).
   Folks like Jan Tielens and Maxim Karpov, have extended the functionality of SmartPart. To get you started, here is Introducing "SmartPart for SharePoint"
   
   Here is some write-up about the latest version of SmartPart Ver. 1.0.0.0 from Jan's blog.
   
   An important aspect of using SmartPart of as a matter of fact any webpart and ASP.Net development is Code Access Security. CAS really comes into play because in most scenario’s your code won’t have Full Trust. At SharePoint, Code Access Security and the SmartPart, you would find very valuable information on Code Access Security with regards to Sharepoint/Asp.Net/WebPart/SmartPart.
   
   Since Maxim Karpov added the CAS policy support in the latest version of SmartPart, read Maxim's CAS articles:
   Code Access Security (CAS) and Design Patterns.
   SmartPart 1.0.0.0 Architecture and Code Access Security (CAS) .
   
   There is also something on MSDN on CAS and Windows Sharepoint Services
   Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services and Code Access Security
   
4. Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies 2003 Software Development Kit
   You would need this to go right down to technical details on web part development. Like Mr. Sivakumar (in the SharePoint TTT class) mentioned, come real good info is available on Code Access Security and Custom Control Security policies in the SDK. Note both Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies 2003 SDK and Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services SDK is available. This includes the latest updates from Jan 2005.
   
5. Next, is the Microsoft SharePoint Products and TechnologiesWeb Component Directory (Web Parts, Templates, Tools, and Complete Solutions). The Directory was designed to provide a place where thousands of developers and users who use Microsoft Windows® SharePoint Services and Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 can download and submit custom extensions.
   
6. Sharepoint top blogs
   http://weblogs.asp.net/soever/
   http://ipattern.com/simpleblog/
   http://weblogs.asp.net/jan
   http://blog.u2u.info/DottextWeb/patrick/
   http://www.reflectionit.nl/DotNetLog.aspx
   http://www.sharepointblogs.com/
   http://randomelements.me.uk/blog/default.aspx
   

That is all for now. Again, it was great having you guys and gals in the Sharepoint TTT class in Singapore from the 31st Jan 2005 to 4th Feb 2005. Have a great week ahead.

/Sarbjit Singh Gill

Did you know about the Elevated Privileges Application Launcher

Greetings,

Problem: You have an application that needs the user using the application to have administrative rights to execute successfully. But due to security policies, you don't want to give users admin rights. You want users to use the apps normal or power use only.

Solution: Look at, Elevated Privileges Application Launcher .

It should allow you to run your applications as a member of the Administrators without explicitly granting the end user the same privileges.

/Gill

Biztalk Server 2004 Information: New to Biztalk?

Greetings

If you are new to Microsoft Biztalk Server, start by watching a 15 minutes demo of the product.
http://www.microsoft.com/biztalk/evaluation/demo

Next, a great whitepaper giving you high-level technical overview of Biztalk 2004 and related technologies and all Biztalk 2004 features.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/bts2004is/htm/understanding_abstract_syfs.asp

Next, would be MSDN Webcasts:
http://www.microsoft.com/biztalk/evaluation/introduction.asp. Following is a quick list of webcasts available. They are all pre-recorded webcasts.

Getting up to Speed with BizTalk Server 2004
Architecture
Orchestration
Business Rules
Integrating with SharePoint™
Using Web Services with BizTalk Server 2004
Advanced Orchestration Concepts in BizTalk Server 2004
Building on BizTalk Server 2004 Human Workflow Services for the Visual Studio .NET Developer
BizTalk Server 2004 Adapters for the Visual Studio .NET Developer
InfoPath Service Pack 1 and BizTalk Server
Adding Business Activity Monitoring Your BizTalk Server 2004 Projects
Real-World BizTalk Server 2004 Editing and Mapping Techniques
Performance and Early Adopter Experiences
Extending Mainframe Applications using BizTalk Server 2004 and Host Integration 2004
Migrating from BizTalk Server 2002 to 2004

Next, information on the Business Process Execution Language for Web Services (BPEL4WS)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnbizspec/html/bpel4wsspecindex.asp
Learn more about this emerging OASIS standard for cross-company, cross-product business process automation and execution using web services that Biztalk Server 2004 supports.


Cheers
Gill

Biztalk Server 2004 Information: Product Downloads

Greetings,

As promised to the trainees at Avantus Training in my recent Biztalk 2004 training, here is the information about Microsoft Biztalk 2004 that i have collected so far. I will be posting regularly until i get all the content i have, out.

1. Biztalk Server 2004 Public Website
http://www.microsoft.com/biztalk/downloads/versions/default_2004.asp. Here you would find, BizTalk Server 2004 Trial Software, BizTalk Server 2004 Rollup Package 1, Orchestration Designer for Business Analysts, Management Pack for MOM, Product Documentation Update, Tutorials, User Guide for Information Workers, SDK Refresh. New stuff maybe added but this is what i see as of 21, Jan 2005.

Note that if you are a MSDN Universal subscriber, you could download the Developer edition of Biztalk 2004. BizTalk Server 2004 Developer Edition is limited solely to designing, developing, and testing purposes. You may not use it as a passive failover server or for disaster recovery.

Cheers
Gill

Web Services (ASMX) in Framework 2.0

Greetings,

I read this great articles at TheServerSide.net by author Christian Weyer. He is a MVP and Microsoft Regional Director. He has a blog at http://weblogs.asp.net/cweyer/

He starts off by writing an intro on web services in Framework 1.0 and 1.1. What was not good enough and what were developers looking to have, which even the service packs did not provide.

He goes on to the next parts showing you the amount of re-work Microsoft has done on Web Services 2.0 (hence the title of the articles, Web Services Strikes Back !).

Here are the urls:

http://www.theserverside.net/blogs/showblog.tss?id=WSStrikesBack (Intro)
http://www.theserverside.net/blogs/showblog.tss?id=WSStrikesBackP2
http://www.theserverside.net/blogs/showblog.tss?id=WSStrikesBackP3
http://www.theserverside.net/blogs/showblog.tss?id=WSStrikesBackP4


Happy reading.

/Gill

Second-order Code Injection Attacks

Abstract:
"Many forms of code injection targeted at web-based applications (for instance cross-site scripting and SQL injection) rely upon the instantaneous execution of the embedded code to carry out the attack (e.g. stealing a user's current session information or executing a modified SQL query). In some cases it may be possible for an attacker to inject their malicious code into a data storage area that may be executed at a later date or time.

Depending upon the nature of the application and the way the malicious data is stored or rendered, the attacker may be able to conduct a second-order code injection attack.
A second-order code injection attack can be classified as the process in which malicious code is injected into a web-based application and not immediately executed, but instead is stored by the application (e.g. temporarily cached, logged, stored in a database) and then later retrieved, rendered and executed by the victim."

The paper is available from:
http://www.nextgenss.com/papers/SecondOrderCodeInjection.pdf

Monitoring blocking on a Microsoft SQL 2000

Quite often, due to a bad application design, SQL Server connection/process blocking becomes a major issue with application performance and in worse-case scenarios, the break-point of the applications.

Developers may be good at programming code writing but they are not experts at writing T-SQL. A true DBA would know the exact T-SQL syntax which would bring out the best of performance.

The main point of this blog entry is to let developers know that there is published techniques in obtaining detailed instrumentation of blocking activities on a SQL Server

The original articles was published for SQL 7.0.

This articles document the usage and design of a stored procedure that you can use to diagnose blocking and performance issues.

251004 How to monitor SQL Server 7.0 blocking
224453 Understanding and resolving SQL Server 7.0 blocking problem


The articles has now been updates for SQL 2000 and the latest is here:
How to monitor SQL Server 2000 blocking.

Cheers
Gill

What is this blog is for.

Greetings,

As a Microsoft Certified Trainer, I provide training and pre-sales services to Microsoft Learning Partners. Occasionally I get to present at TechNet and MSDN events for Microsoft Singapore. There are times where I am on-site for trouble shooting, development, design or merely working on a tender.

Anyway back to the point of me starting this blog, I get asked a lot of questions during and after courses with regards to .Net development for the Microsoft Official Curriculum courses that I conduct. So this blog is for those questions. Also from time to time, I will be writing my experiences as I learn/explore new technologies with regards to Microsoft Technologies as part of my preparation for training and projects.

/Gill