Alex Pearce's SharePoint Blog

Couldn't believe the email I got today!  "Congratulations – You have received the Microsoft MVP Award!"  Get in!

Thanks to all those who have helped me in the last year to get this and thanks for nominating me as well!

Alex

Microsoft have released a press statement on the new update on the SharePoint Learning Kit.  No sign of when it will be availability for us to download but a bit more information on what it will do.

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2008/jul08/07-01slkaddonpack.mspx?rss_fdn=Top%20Stories

Technorati Tags: Education,MOSS,SLK,

I've talk a lot about the Microsoft Learning Gateway and have just implemented it into the largest school in Europe (this school is massive).

I use this image below in my presentation and it shows from the end-user to the back-end of the Microsoft Learning Gateway.

Any stakeholder from the educational organistation can access the information with the site users any device, whether its a laptop or tablet to a mobile phone.

The bottom step is the operating system.  All the product have got to be installed on a Microsoft OS.

The next step is in two sections, front-end and back-end.  The left is the front end and has products such as SharePoint, Exchange, Office Communications Server, Live Meeting and at the bottom you have ISA which is the security for internet access.

The back-end includes Active Directory, SQL and other features required.

The arrows coming down from the top are other products that are not Microsoft products.   If your a SharePoint developer you will know you can add webparts into the the web application and these arrow are the same.  Many schools have other none Microsoft products installed such as a timetabling system that can be bolted onto the system using the .net framwork or just a pageview.

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I was recently at a Microsoft event in Reading, UK in which 23 companies presented their SharePoint/Microsoft Learning Gateway solutions.

Microsoft also announced that the new version on SharePoint Learning Kit will be released on the 30th June.

I don't know too much more than that but it looks very promising!!!

I've never really liked the image web part that came out of the box with SharePoint!  Looking at it from a users point of view it was too many tasks to upload a single image.

1. Add a picture library to your site
2. Upload your image to the image library via Microsoft Office Picture Manager
3. Find the URL of the image
4. Add the image web part to your site
5. add the URL of the image to your web part

This new image web part does all this for you.

1. Add the image web part to you site
2. Use browse to add the images
3. Click save

So much more user friendly.

It adds the URL of the image for you, saving the user having to find, copy and add this information.

You can download this web part from codeplex

http://www.codeplex.com/ImageUpload/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=13397

A document file is attached to the download – I didn't user it – so here is how to install it

Install the WSP file and add the solution to your site.

When you add the web part to your site it tells you that you need to set the default location to upload images.

Create a image library at the top of you site.  All users who need to be able to add images to anywhere on your site application need to have write permission to this library.  You can hide the library where ever you want – even in another web application.

the script for this is

C:Program FilesCommon FilesMicrosoft Sharedweb server extensions12BIN>STSADM -o SetImageUploadLocation -webapp http://127.0.0.1/ -library http://127.0.0.1/PublishingImages

Microsoft are giving away software to students for free.  This is great!  I'm so please that they have decided to set up a scheme that allows this.

Microsoft Dream Spark gives students access to Microsoft Windows Server, Visual Studio, Expressions Studio and XNA to help them become either IT Pros or Developers.

Your local authority or university have to join the scheme but after that you can apply to get it.

I think this is a great step to giving students free software.  Next step – feel licensing to all schools!

https://downloads.channel8.msdn.com/

Sorry its a little off subject but education is my passion!

A few months ago I posted a PDF of what a school in Christchurch, UK had done with SharePoint which included making their own webparts.

I met up with the guys from Twynham and it was a great meeting which also include the representatives from Shirelands.

I had a email from Dave at Twynham the other day to say he has made some videos of the use of SharePoint in the school and has published them on the internet.

These are great thing to look at if your looking at implementing SharePoint are you school.

http://www.twynhamschool.com/supportinglearning/

I've been playing around a lot with Silverlight 2 recently, I'm find it a lot easier to code than version 1.

In many of the schools I have been to, they have had a proxy server for all their internet traffic.  I created a bat script that wrote to the registry and asked the user to either type 1 to turn the proxy on or 0 for off.  It worked great but wasn't easy on the eye and one network I went to it stopped the users from using command lines.

So I thought it was time to create something that was more graphical.  It would also solve the issue of a user typing 2 on the above script and causing errors in the registry.

So this is what we are going to create

Download the Microsoft Expression Blend 2.5 March Preview (available at time of writing this post).

Create a WPF Application and call it ProxyEnableDisable

Add 2 buttons and name one Proxy On and the other Proxy Off

Now we want to let our users know what this silverlight application can do so we'll provide them with some instructions

We've done everything we need to now in Expression Blend so we need to move the project over to Visual Studio.  Make sure you save your project.

Over on the write hand side you will see Solution 'ProxyEnableDisable'. Right click here and click on Edit in Visual Studio.

This should have now opened up Visual Studio.  You will see the same layout above, down the right hand side.  Double click on Windows1.xaml.  This is the silverlight coding.  If your using Visual Studio 2008 you will see the xaml code and a graphical view of our project.

We need to start adding come code to the buttons.  We'll give it a x:name and then add a click handler for both of the buttons.

Find the line of code for the button with the content that is equal to Proxy On and add x:name="On".  Also type click and click on <NewEventHandler>.  This will allow us to add come C# handling code to this button.

Your line of code should now read

Do the same for the Proxy Off button but instead of giving the x:name the value of On – call it off

This is the last bit of XAML coding for this project.  The window1.xaml should now read

Expand the Windows1.xaml and click on windows1.xaml.cs

We're now going to add some C# coding that will write to our registry to either add turn the proxy on or off depending on which button the user clicks on.

We need to add a reference to our C# code.  At the top add Using Microsoft.Win32;

The below code will turn the proxy server on.  The 4th line down is where you are telling the registry to either have the proxy server enable or disabled.  The value of 1 will turn the proxy on where 0 will disable it.  Add the line of code to both of your button event handlers remembering to change that 1 to 0 for proxy off.

If you press F5 now you will be able to turn your proxy server on and off with a simple application

Now its all yours to be customised.

Don't forget to install Silverlight 2 on your clients before rolling it out.

Click here to download the bat file

Click here to download the application

Click here to download the source code

Microsoft Education UK are running a vendor days on the 21st May in Reading.  It should be a really good day as they have arranged for 23 different companies to come and talk about their SharePoint solutions including companies such as RM, ITWorx, LP+ and Nisai Academy.

Some of these including fully hosting products, in house products, library systems and VLEs (Virtual Learning Environments).  Here is a full list of all the vendors that I have taken from the Microsoft UK Schools Blog.

1. Nisai Virtual Academy

2. MicroLibrarian Systems – Eclipse

3. RM – Kaleidos Learning Platform

4. Hunterstone/ER4L – eLibrarian and Content Server

5. Scholaris Learning Gateway

6. Etech – StudyWiz

7. Parabola Marking Records

8. Business Insights Group – Student Billing

9. ITWorx – Catalyst Provisioning (MLG)

10. LP+ Learning Gateway

11. Arc – Vitaelity ePortfolio

12. NetMedia Education – MyClasses

13. eLearningForce – SharePoint LMS

14. Fronter VLE

15. WinVision – Digital Portfolio

16. Core Education – Talmos Primary

17. Cambridge University Press – Global Grid for Learning

18. Morse – Wisdom

19. eCopy

20. Digi-Link – Revelation

21. K2 – K2 Workflow

22. Houghton Mifflin – Learning Village

23. Visual Software – SIF Agent Wizard and Zone Integration Server

If you want to attend click here and book for free.

See you there

Back at Christmas I showed what SharePoint looked like on a Apple IPhone/ITouch.

The other night I was babysitting my god daughter and after she had gone to bed I turned on the Nintendo Wii to play a bit of Mario Kart but when I turned it on I noticed it had the internet connection.  I understand you have to pay for this to be added to your Wii.  As it loads the browser it says it is powered by Opera.

The TV is a Samsung 32" – great picture.

I entered, using the Wii remote pointing at the screen, the address of my test site and load the page.

This is the same screen you get when entering your password.

I'm using ISA 2006.  The text boxes aren't the same size but still work.

Front page loaded normally but doesn't fully fit on the screen.

Same for the calendar – not the whole calendar fits on – only a few dates

On the bottom of the Wii remote is the 'B' button.  If you hold that down and move the controller in the direction you want to see, you can navigate around the page.  In the image below you see me moving it down from top right to bottom left