Article about Me & the MVP Award in Academia #56

Dear all,

as of 1st of July, I received the MVP for SharePoint Server. Now, the ACADEMIA science magazine of EURAC research, published an article about this achievement, and I see it as a nice recognition. Here is the full article (German only):

Thanks to the ACADEMIA team, but especially to Alessandro, Marjorie and the whole MVP CEE team!

Best regards,

Martin

SharePoint 5: Set Up Document Sets in SharePoint Server 2010

Dear all,

the second episode of SharePointFive is ready to be viewed here:

The topics covered are:

• Setting up Document Sets site collection feature
• Setting Up a Document Library
• Adding a Content Type
• Creating a Document Set

You can find all SharePointFive videos here:

www.youtube.com/SharePointFive

 

Enjoy and stay tuned till the next time!

Martin

SharePoint 5: Want to Learn SharePoint 2010 in 5-10 Minutes’ Chunks?

Dear all,

it is my pleasure to announce a new initiative of communicating SharePoint knowledge via videos using the “SharePointFive” approach: Show how technical configurations are done within only a few minutes (guideline: 5 mins per video, up to a max of 15 in special cases.

If you want to learn about SharePoint 2010 configurations, but only want to invest a few minutes at a time, if you are looking for the essentials that make up what you actually want to do, then SharePointFive is for you.

SharePointFive (SharePoint5)

SharePointFive is a youtube channel, that you can access under the below mentioned URL. It contains all videos (currently 1 only ) that have been and will be published, showing how to apply SharePoint (or related) configurations in just a few minutes. Usually, like in this case, there will be published a related blog post on angler.wordpress.com, in order to facilitate it for you to copy scripts and apply them.

http://www.youtube.com/sharepointfive

The Video

The video will give you an idea of the steps to be executed, a few caveats. But most of all, it is only a few minutes long and won’t take a long time to watch. This first episode of SharePointFive is  a bit longer (about 12-13 minutes), since it contains also the explanation and motivation why SP5 has been launched.

The Scripts

1. Create the Master Key:

 1: USE master;
 2: 

 3: go
 4: 

 5: CREATE MASTER KEY ENCRYPTION BY PASSWORD = 'n0PWStealingAll0w3d!';
 6: 

 7: go

2. Create the Certificate:

 1: CREATE CERTIFICATE SP5Certificate WITH SUBJECT = 'SP5 DEK Certificate';
 2: go

 3: 

 

3. Back up Certificate & Private Key (EXTREMELY IMPORTANT TO KEEP IT BACKUPPED AND SAFE!):

 1: USE master;
 2: go

 3: BACKUP CERTIFICATE SP5Certificate TO FILE = 'C:\Certificate\TDECertificate.cer'
 4: WITH PRIVATE KEY (

 5: FILE = 'C:\Certificate\PK.pvk',
 6: ENCRYPTION BY PASSWORD = '?pkP4SsW0rD!');

 7: GO

4. Create Database Encryption Key:

 1: CREATE DATABASE ENCRYPTION KEY WITH ALGORITHM = AES_256 ENCRYPTION BY SERVER CERTIFICATE SP5Certificate;
 2: 

 3: GO

5. Enable Transparent Data Encryption for a Specific Content Database:

 1: CREATE CERTIFICATE SP5Certificate WITH SUBJECT = SP5Certificate;
 2: go

Please bear in mind:

• Scripts need to be adapted to your needs, of course
• Please run everything in a isolated test environment, before applying on production level
• Consult your DBA before applying any changes to the SQL Server Instance, like running the beforementioned scripts.
• The author of this blog cannot take responsibility for any damages caused by executing scripts, programs and configurations shown
• It is your responsibility to inform yourself about possible side effects that are not reported. Usually, Technet and MSDN are good references for complete documentation of the concepts shown.
• The scripts of SharePointFive are provided “as is”

Stay tuned till the next episode of SharePoint 5 and enjoy!

Best,

Martin

Some Numbers about Authoring a SharePoint 2010 Book

The good news

The manuscript is finished and submitted! Now I’m waiting for feedback, and certainly some corrections will be made. However, the big stuff is done.

Preview it here: Einstieg in Business Intelligence mit SharePoint 2010

Below you can get some numbers about how I passed the last 4 months writing:

 

Book numbers

• 1 Book
• 9 chapters
• 3 appendices
• 340 pages
• 250 images
• 1.5 GB of content created

Time statistics

• 500 hrs of writing
• 142 hrs/month (yes, it’s become my second fulltime job)
• 4.5 hrs sleep/day
• 14 holidays taken for fulltime writing
• Average hour of going to sleep:
  • First month of writing: 11.30 p.m
  • Last month of writing: 03.00 a.m.

Trivia

• 15 albums listening to while writing (7 from which Rammstein)
• 1 640GB backup hard disk smashed on the floor, causing:
  • INF swearings over the broken hard disk
  • 1 shock proof hard disk purchased
• 1 MacBook Pro AC adapter cable chewed to death by cat
• INF amount of:
  • Coffee
  • Red Bull
  • Tea
  • Fresh Fruit
  • Sweets

It was a great experience to write the book and I had the chance to take a 4 month intensive course in specializing on selected topics. However, now I’m really looking forward to increase my sleeping again back from 4.5 to 8 hours!

 

Stay tuned and best regards,

Martin

Speaking at the Collaboration Days 2011 in Lucerne, Switzerland

Hi there,

a few days ago I received the definitive confirmation that I’m going to speak at the Collaboration Days in Lucerne, Switzerland. The conference’s motto is as follows:

‘creating hands-on value’

Hence, the goal is to communicate best practices and tutorials, sessions that can be used right away in the field. No marketing or ads, just real-life SharePoint 2010 usage scenarios. Microsoft is supporting the conference as platinum sponsor, among many other sponsors.

 

Contents and Speakers

Here are some numbers:

• 2 days (November 29th and 30th)
• ~20 speakers
• 7 MVPs
• 4 tracks (IT Pro, Developer, Management, Solutions)
• 40+ sessions

My session has been placed in the “Management” track and is called “Einstieg in Business Intelligence mit SharePoint 2010”. It will deal with the configuration of PerformancePoint Services and the creation of BI content using Dashboard Designer.

It’s a great honor to speak alongside with gurus such as Thorsten Hans, Dux Raymond Sy, Christian Glessner Michael Greth, Samuel Zürcher (who organises the Collaboration Days) and many many more!

 

Where and when?

The conference takes place at the KKL Luzern (CH).

Check out the official information at www.collaborationdays.ch.

I’m really looking forward to meeting many of you at the conference. More or less at the same time, my book, titled “Einstieg in Business Intelligence mit SharePoint 2010” should be printed and available. For the ones who want to give a glance at the book’s summary, here it is:

 

http://www.amazon.de/Einstieg-Business-Intelligence-Microsoft-SharePoint/dp/3866456832/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1315309414&sr=8-1

 

Hope to meet many of you there!

Best regards,

Martin

MVP Award Kit Unboxed – Back from Holidays

Dear all,

 

I already got the happy notice on July, 1st while on the way to the holidays. I returned 2 days ago and finally could embrace the MVP Award Kit!

 

In fact, I’m the first SharePoint Server MVP from South Tyrol, and one among only few in Italy.

 

The MVP Award Kit box.

 

The Certificate.

 

I also updated my MVP Profile, which you can find here:

 

https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/profile/angler

 

The kit contained:

• Glass-made award
• Certificate
• Plastic card w/ MVP ID
• MVP Pin
• NDA agreement

Thanks, Microsoft, and big thanks also to Ale and Marjorie! I hope to be able to contribute many, many more times to the communities and wish you all a nice week start!

 

I also hope to meet some of you at the conference Collaboration Days in Luzern, on November 29^th and 30^th this year!

 

Best regards,

Martin

SharePoint Server 2010 SP1 Cool Feature: Restore Deleted Site

Dear all,

 

one of the definitely nicest features of the Service Pack 1 for SharePoint Server 2010 is the ability to restore single sites, which wasn’t possible before.

 

Procedure for restoring a site pre-SP1:

• Restore entire farm from backup.

 

Drawbacks: Time consuming, costly. Most of the times not performed at all.

 

Procedure for restoring a site post-SP1:

• Ensure user is a site collection administrator
• Go to Site Actions –> Site Actions
• Click Site Collection Administration
• Click Recylce Bin
• Check the site you want to restore and click Restore.

 

Quick and simple, isn’t it?

 

In Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 w/ SP1, a deleted site is not permanently deleted, but moved to the 2nd stage Recycle Bin. The default setting for automatic deletion is 30 days – however, this is modifyable. You can see how to do these changes here:

 

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263125.aspx

 

Restoring whole Site Collections:

 

You can use the following PowerShell cmdlets to restore, delete or view deleted site collections:

 

Get-SPDeletedSite
Remove-SPDeletedSite
Restore-SPDeletedSite

 

Stay tuned till the next time and best regards,

Martin