Colt Kwong Blog

Microsoft HK Technial Support Forum Announced

After several months of "silent" evaulation and discussion among local MVPs and few members, Microsoft HK office today announce the technical support forum and put an icon next to Bill :)

From the previous meeting with Microsoft DPE team and my fellow MVPs, this forum will only be announced in TechEd Hong Kong but now it seems the team is eager to show the latest homepage to Bill. Personally, I'm tire of seeing the bug of the old forum application and looking forward for the upgrade to V3.0, just like the US TechNet Forum. (mouthwatering...)

VS 2008 and ASP.NET 3.5 SP1

With the release of the SP1, I refresh my local Web developer tool this weekend. :)

Also, please check out the VS 2008 preparation tool and install the MVC Preview 4 explicitly.

SharePoint Error: Some or all identity references could not be translated

I create numerous SharePoint sites with the same port number in my virtual machine frequently during envisioning / POC phrase, and I face an error when I try to re-create the same Web app in SharePoint today: Some or all identity references could not be translated. The result from google is not so helpful but I finally figure out that the problem is caused by an old app pool in IIS after reading this post - I need to clean up the content db, virtual directory and app pool properly next time.

Misleading Error Message about Trial Period Expiration in MOSS

A very misleading error message that I came across last week.. 

Trial period of my MOSS has expired? No way.. check out the permission and security settings first.

Microsoft DreamSpark - Free Professional Tools for Students

Just see this DreamSpark program on the Visual Studio home page and it is definitely a good news for students. (Personally, I'm glad to see that this program covers and beneficial to students in China as well :)

Enable SmartPart with AJAX in SharePoint

I just try SmartPart and enable AJAX functionality in SharePoint tonight, here are few notes:

1. Download and install SmartPart (make sure SmartPart is deployed and affect all WSS sites as shown in the last step of the Setup wizard)
2. Activate SmartPart features (either admin UI or stsadm -o activefeature command)
3. Config AJAX extension in SharePoint (otherwise, you will get an "Unknown server tag 'asp:UpdatePanel' " error)
4. Create a AJAX-enabled website and "user controls"
5. Copy ASCX to UserControls folder to your SharePoint app

All developers are recommended to read the blogs from Jan and Michael first of course.

BTW, I saw another error message "This control does not allow connection strings with the following keywords: ‘Integrated Security’, ‘Trusted_Connection’." in my experimental application. After a quick googling then I change (it's the normal practice BTW) to use a limited rights user account instead of using integrated security in connection string and the problem solved.

Provisioning User to ADAM in ILM2007

I just finish provisioning a user object to ADAM from AD today, the process is pretty smooth and below is the first piece of codes that I wrote for the metaverse rule extension in ILM2007. 

// Provision to ADAM
MA = mvEntry.ConnectedMAs["ADAM_MA"];
Connectors = MA.Connectors.Count;
rdn = string.Format("CN={0}", cn);
dn = MA.EscapeDNComponent(rdn).Concat("OU=Alpha Users,DC=ALPHA,DC=COM); 

if (Connectors == 0)   
{       
  csEntry = MA.Connectors.StartNewConnector("user");       
  csEntry.DN = dn;       
  csEntry.CommitNewConnector();   
}   
else if (Connectors == 1)   
{       
  csEntry = MA.Connectors.ByIndex[0];       
  csEntry.DN = dn;   
}   
else   
{       
  LogAndThrowUnexpectedDataException("Multiple connectors in MA");   
}

The code is obviously incomplete, but there are lots of useful resources on the net and below are the links that I read today:

• http://www.developer.com/net/net/article.php/11087_3522101_1
• http://blogs.msdn.com/therabournidentity/
• http://www.topxml.com/rbnews/Biztalk%20Adapters/re-79365_MIIS-ILM-Code-Experiment---Generic-AD-ADAM-Provisioning-Function.aspx
• http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver/en/library/611d41bf-f4ae-4a2d-8e98-77bc6ee5da1b1033.mspx?mfr=true

If you are new to MIIS / ILM like me, make sure you check out the first article which is extremely useful, easy to read and understand.

IIS Feature is missing during SQL 2005 Installation

This is not the first time for me to see this message, so I think it may be a good idea to blog about it for future reference.

The error message is:

Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) is either not installed or is disabled. IIS is required by some SQL Server features. Without IIS, some SQL Server features will not be available for installation.

Last time I saw this error when I try to install SQL 2005 in my Vista environment. I do have IIS installed in my Vista and I have no idea what's wrong with this error message. (Solution can be found here BTW)

Today, I see this error again in my clean Win2K3 server box. (ha) It is much easier for me to solve this problem because the cause is just because IIS is not enabled by defafult in Win2K3. So I just select and enable IIS in Add/Remove Windows Components then the SQL 2005 installation go well.

Install WSS Tools: VS 2005 Extensions on Vista

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Tools: VS 2005 extension can improve the productivity of developers because it comes with a lists of useful project and item templates. However, this tool is only limited to OS of either Win Server 2003 or Win Server 2008.. If you are running Vista or develop SharePoint solution remotely, you may want to take a look at the hack from this blog post.

P.S. The latest version of WSS Tools: VS2005 Extension should be V1.1, instead of V1.0 as mentioned in the blog post.

Note on Customizing Content Query Web Part

Content Query Web Part (CQWP) is a powerful feature in SharePoint, where users can create custom view of data that is queried from various sources, lists, libraries, and present all in one web part. One of my tasks yesterday is to create a content query web part, and query the contents from two sub-sites. Specifically, I have 2 calendars in 2 sub-sites and I have to query all events and combine into a master calendar in the top site (Of course I can make use of the great filtering, sorting and grouping features in CQWP).

After adding the CQWP, my next step is to customize the layout because the default one is too plain. I google and find all these useful articles:

• Display Content Query Web Part Results in a Grid / Table
• Customizing the Content Query Web Part and Custom Item Styles
• How to: Customize XSL for the Content Query Web Part
• How to: Customize the Content Query Web Part by using Custom Properties
• Configuring and Customizing the Content Query Web Part

One of the techniques in customizing CQWP layout is to make use of internal field name and modify CommonViewFields in the exported .webpart file. I follow all steps, modify the .webpart and xsl files as I wish, but I still can't display the content in my CQWP (I can see some other default fields like Title though).

Later, I find the bug is at the key element - CommonViewFields - It does not allow SPACE in the value string. For example:

Wrong:  <property name="CommonViewFields" type="string">Title, Text; Description, Note;</property>

Correct: <property name="CommonViewFields" type="string">Title,Text;Description,Note</property>

My note is that we developers cannot add SPACE when typing the value, or even anywhere in the tag. And, we should not add a semi-colon at the end of the string.

P.S. After customizing the layout and fields on the CQWP, we will most probably need to format the field, such as changing the time format of a DateTime field, number of decimal points etc, and here is a very useful reference article: Customizing the Content Query Web Part XSL