Windows Live Expo

Microsoft under it's Live branding had lunch the online classified services to challenge craigslist. It's call Live Expo. Just wonder when they are going to have this service outside US

http://expo.live.com

Workflow in Windows Sharepoint Services 3.0

If you install WSS3 and not able to use the Workflow setting as shown in the Online Help, this is cause by the Workflow Site Features in not activated. Following screen shown how to activate the Workflow features (I found this information from the NNTP) :)

1. Goto Site Settings of the Root Site in WSS3

2. Click Site collection features

3. Activate the Three-state workflow
 

TaDa.... Now you can use workflow features in WSS3

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 on SQL Server 2005

Typical installation for SharePoint Services 3.0 will install the database as an Windows Internal Database, this is not good if you need to scale out for performance. After many times of trial and error finally get it done. Below is a simple step on how I did it.

Install WSS 2.0 by following the Remote SQL Server deployment guide. After this step I had my WSS 2.0 running in one box and sql server 2005 on another box.

Perform an inplace upgrade from WSS 2.0 to WSS 3.0 by executing the SharePoint.exe (make sure you had install the .Net Framework 3.0). Before you start the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard make sure you execute the prescan.exe which is located in the C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN folder. The full syntax is;

prescan.exe /ALL

Note: I am not able to install on a separate instance of SQL Server. Why it tooks me many step before I can achieve this is probably cause by separate instance I used during the installation. Previously I install WSS into a separate instance of SQL which mapped to port 1633 give me hell of problem.

I think it's possible to install a fresh WSS 3.0 with SQL Server, just select Web Form during the installation and follow all the on screen instructions.

Uninstall SQL Server 2005 Embedded Edition

Last week when I was testing the Windows Sharepoint Services v3 (WSS3) I found this is a pretty bad practice provided by Microsoft. When uninstall WSS3 it did not uninstall the SSEE from my Server (they may have some good reason behind this). After searching the web found a solutions on this site.

Uninstall SQL 2005 Embedded Edition SSEE

For ease of reference I add the content below;

• Start Registry Editor, and then locate the following registry key:
  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\
  SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall


• In the left pane, click each GUID. For each GUID that you click, look for a display name in the right pane that matches “Microsoft SQL 2005 embedded Edition…”. When you see a display name that matches the name, copy the value of the Key named “UninstallString”


• Open a Command-Window (Start->run->cmd)


• Paste the Copied string.


• Append "CALLERID=OCSETUP.EXE" eg.
  "MsiExec.exe /X{BDD79957-5801-4A2D-B09E-852E7FA64D01} CALLERID=OCSETUP.EXE"
  
  Alternatively you may want to create a batch file for this, this is because you can't paste the string into DOS prompt. ;)


• There you go Don’t forget to reboot.

GearLog.com

For gadget lover this site is highly recommended http://gearlog.com. Give it a try… I Love it…..

Cool DOS Batch File Trick

Get the Date Information for your batch file. If you like me still need to create DOS batch file to automate some jobs in the server give this a try.

%DATE% is the environment variable which you can use to return the date in the batch file, you can format it by extract the YEAR, MONTH and DAY using this command %DATE:~[BeginPos],[NoOfChar]% (it’s like substring command). Example;

C:\>echo %Date:~6,4%-%Date:~3,2%
2006-08

Please take note that the return date format are according to the system Regional Settings.

For those using Windows NT more information are available in link below
http://www.robvanderwoude.com/index.html

According to the web site above the %DATE% variable suppose to work in NT SP6a but I dunno why it did not work in mine. So I have to use the format below;

@ECHO OFF
FOR /F “TOKENS=*” %%A IN (’TIME/T’) DO SET TIME=%%A
ECHO It’s %TIME% now

Cool…. Blog from Microsoft Live Writer

This is going to be cool if this blog manage to post to my WordPress Blog….. Love it….

FreeDownload Manager

Dunno it's FDM fault or Microsoft Fault... I download the Vista RC1 from the site and up to 75% download it freeze and cannot download :-(.

At the end I need to download again from MSDN ... Arghhhhh

iPhone

Those guy at PC Magazine had created a DIY project to turn a Moto SLVR into iPhone… more details from the link below.

PC Magazine iPhone