Via Todd Baginski’s recent post (Which SharePoint 2010 site is right for me?) this fantastic list of “hidden” site templates which were to be officially retired from the final release of SharePoint 2010.  Todd notes that these have been marked as obsolete but some can be created programmatically.

And here I thought all the “fun” of hacking SharePoint was going to be lost with this release.

Fantastic find, especially for those situations where customers lament the passing of their favourite site template.  This also goes a long way to explaining why the Fab-40 won’t easily migrate away from SharePoint 2007 to 2010.

It had to be done:  It was time not only for a fresh coat of paint but a whole new engine!  I've officially moved off dasBlog and into BlogEngine.NET - and it was incredibly easy.  Migrating my old posts was actually the easy part:  Fussing about with themes and CSS and fine-tuning the templates to my liking took much more time.  But I think the final product was worth it, right?

Now that the first iteration of the new blog is out, I'll be working on pages to describe my services, rates and approach to IT project delivery (hint to the uninitiated: I employ a technique featured prominently in the tag cloud on the right...).  Keep an eye on this space for more details in the days ahead!

Tonight I caught Todd Klindt’s webcast (after seeing a link for it on the #SharePoint Twitter feed) and came away with some interesting information – I have to admit that while I’m well aware of Todd’s great work as a SharePoint MVP, I’ve not seen his webcast and this was #42!  I’ve clearly missed some great material.

Here’s the highlights I found noteworthy:

• First, Todd mentioned the goodness that comes from using SQL Aliases when it comes to migrating non-content databases to different environments.  Aliases allow you define a local name to point SQL clients (like SharePoint) against, effectively decoupling the connection from a “hard-coded” definition.  This makes it far easier to manage a move between mirrored environments for disaster recovery scenarios or when you need to promote a farm, move servers, virtualize SQL, etc.  There is a LOT of info out there on SQL Aliases – just search and ye shall find.
• Second, Todd has a new book out due for June:  Professional SharePoint 2010 Administration.  He’s a co-author with Shane Young and Steve Caravajal – Shane should be familiar to anyone who has done the SharePoint Ignite training or taken the free ITPro and Dev eLearning courses.
• Third, Todd provided a really cool PowerShell script to expedite setup of your 2010 Virtual Machine images.  This baby will set up your test AD Accounts (from a .csv file), add the farm account to the domain admins group, configure the AD password policy to never expire, disable the “loopback check”, set the machine to log-on as the farm admin, add the PowerShell GUI and turn on the desktop experience bits.  Fantastic!

Great material – I’ve set a reminder for the next show.

Just noticed this site on the #SharePoint twitter feed – excellent resource.  It’s a community-driven aggregation of those fantastic Office and SharePoint tech posters that MSFT publishes but makes incredibly difficult to find in one place.  While with MCS, I took to keeping copies of posters I found on a separate drive that I jealously guarded – I never knew if I’d see them again!

So, someone had an itch and scratched it with a wiki post over on the new-ish TechNet beta wiki with a “call to action” for the community to help add links and keep them current.  Hence:  DIY. 

Here’s a list of what’s there right now:

• 64-bit Client Installation of Microsoft Office 2010
• Microsoft Business Connectivity Services Model
• Getting started with business intelligence in SharePoint Server 2010
• Content Deployment in SharePoint Server 2010
• SharePoint 2010 Products Deployment
• Deployment Options for Microsoft Office 2010
• Hosting Environments for SharePoint 2010 Products
• Deploy Multilanguage Packs for Microsoft Office 2010
• Databases That Support SharePoint 2010 ProductsExtranet Topologies for SharePoint 2010 Products
• Search Technologies for SharePoint 2010 Products
• Search Environment Planning for Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010
• Search Architectures for Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010
• Design Search Architectures for Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010
• Cross-farm Services in SharePoint 2010 Products
• Services in SharePoint 2010 Products
• Topologies for SharePoint Server 2010
• Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products Upgrade Approaches
• Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products Upgrade Planning
• Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 — Services Upgrade
• Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products — Test Your Upgrade Process

I’ll refrain from reposting the links as they may go stale here – bookmark the wiki page and download your faves.

Being a Saturday morning, I’m not on any official cases – however, in a tweet by Bil Simser earlier today I learned something rather disturbing that I thought should warrant a reference in my case files:

bsimser RT @sondergaard: Edit in Datasheet view not possible with Office 2010 x64 http://bit.ly/dD8aFI {among other x64 client restrictions}

Uh-oh.  I followed over to Ishai Sagi’s blog post from yesterday and learned the awful details:

I installed Office x64 - in hope that it would work better on my Windows 2008r2 machine, utilizing whatever it needed from its 12GB RAM (ok, honestly - I don't actually need 64bit office. this version is meant for excel dark wizards who need more power when working on worksheets bigger than 2GB). However, I almost immediately regretted that choice, as now I cannot use the datasheet view in SharePoint (both 2007 and 2010). This  technet article explains that this is because the 64bit version does not support the 32bit activeX that is used by the datasheet view:

"The Edit in Datasheet view functionality is not supported if you install 64-bit Office 2010. However, the functionality is available if you install 32-bit Office 2010. "

Definitely a caveat emptor for your deployments – and rather ironic considering how, for example, Adobe has been given the gears for not having a 64–bit version of Flash available and similarly emploring users to do the 32–bit hokey-pokey.  Diving in to the referenced TechNet Article (64–Bit Editions of Office 2010), there is a downloadable poster that outlines the deployment considerations you may need to be aware of when considering a 64x Office 2010 install – see the following capture:

Highlights:

Advantages – more memory, Excel 2010 can have larger workbooks, Project 2010 can have larger projects (which, if you need it, suggests that technology isn’t your problem) and “enhanced default security protections”.

Disadvantages – 32–bit Access databases can’t be migrated directly to Office 2010 64x; 32–bit Active-X controls, COM Add-ins will not work; in-place activation of 32–bit components will likely fail; due to a lack of 64–bit Intel MMX support, GDI graphics rendering will be impacted; VBA code that uses the “Declare” statement to access Win32 API functions will need to be revised to use the PtrSafe attribute.

Something to bear in mind as you advise customers on migrating to SharePoint 2010 and Office 2010 – it’s always the legacy stuff that will get you.