Jan Tielens' Bloggings

Ted Pattison has created a new SharePoint tool called STSDEV. I haven't checked it out, but it sounds promising! If you want to hear Ted's sweet voice, check out the screencasts he has made to get you started.

STSDEV: Simple Tools for SharePoint 2007 Development  (http://www.codeplex.com/stsdev)
STSDEV is a proof-of-concept utility application which demonstrates how to generate Visual Studio project files and solution files to facilitate the development and deployment of templates and components for the SharePoint 2007 platform including Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (WSS) and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS). Note that the current version of the stsdev utility only supports creating projects with the C# programming language.

Various settings and customizations (e.g. Master Pages, Content Types) can be pushed to an entire SharePoint Site Collection pretty easy. But crossing the Site Collection can't be accomplished without building your own solution (which typically involves writing code). The Microsoft guys and girls have released a tool that can help you with these scenarios: SharePoint Cross-site Configurator (http://www.codeplex.com/SPConfigurator)

The SharePoint Cross-site Configurator
The tool automates the process of deploying the MOSS site settings in all or selected sites in a server farm as shown in the following list:
Note The Tool also enables IT administrators to customize the site settings to be deployed.

• Applying Master Pages across a SharePoint server farm.
• Setting up Web Titles for all or selected site collections across the farm.
• Applying audit control settings to all or selected sites.
• Adding advanced settings such as “Allow content type management” to all types of lists.
• Adding a new Expiration Policy at the site collection level.
• Adding a new Expiration Policy to content types, lists, and documents.

Yves has passed me this little stick...

• 3 artists I (re)discovered this year:
• Axelle Red in Vorst Nationaal, Brussels
• X-Pose (Belgian photographer) There are a lot of good photoblogs in my RSS Reader, but Bert (aka X-Pose) is one of my favorites; the portraits he makes of his kids are fantastic. He doesn't just displays his photos but takes the time to explain how he took them as well, I learn a lot from him.
• Thomas Hawk is a well know photographer and I enjoy his photowalks with Scoble (and others) a lot.
• 3 things I won't forget:
• Becoming the father of my beautiful daugher Fran.
• Visiting Sowetho (township in Johannesburg, South Africa) The feeling I got after visiting a two weeks old baby and her mother (my wife was still pregnant at that time) in Sowetho, and driving back to my fancy five-star hotel was devastating ... the world is not fair.
• A smile makes you forget sleepless nights.
• 3 stupid things I did in 2007:
• I stopped blogging on this site (more or less) ... now it's really hard to get motivated again.
• I stopped my 365 project (take and publish one photo a day for one year). I have take a picture almost every day in 2007, but I didn't publish them.
• I didn't "safely remove" a USB hard disk from my computer and lost some data. Windows complained about the drive still being in use, I didn't trust Windows, but Windows was right this time.
• 3 thing I'm proud of:
• I'm very proud of my daugther every time she learns something new, she is so intelligent.
• I'm proud of the presentation I did with my buddy Patrick at TechEd, Barcelona (AJAX and SilverLight in SharePoint).
• I'm proud of some photos I took. I don't pretend I'm a good photographer, but photography is becoming addictive and some people tell me they like the pictures I take.
• 3 things I bought or received as a present:
• The Sigma 30mm f1.4 lens. I recommend every photographer to get a fast lens (big aperture, allows lots of light to enter the lens). This is my favorite lens, you can't zoom with it (it's a prime), but you can take pictures when it's near dark (without flash).
• A ticket to go to the Urbanus tribute concert (he is a famous Belgian comedian).
• And of course the most precious gift of my wife: our daughter (including all the love, joys, laughs, tears etc that came with her).
• 3 people who will get this stick (if there are still some people who read this blog?):
• Kevin
• Karine
• Peter