Agile Sharepoint development by 21apps and Andrew Woodward MVP

Abstract: In this session we will take a look at Sandbox solutions, understanding what they are, why they were introduced and why you would want to build one. Based on a real world project at 21apps we will look at why we chose to build one, how the limitations of the sandbox altered our design and how we mixed server side and client side frameworks to provide the solution. We will also take a look at what the future may be and how Sandboxed solutions could change the face of SharePoint forever!

Should I attend: This session will not be a deep dive into Sandboxed Solutions – this session is aimed at providing the audience with an understanding of where Sandboxed solutions fit, why they would want to use sandboxed solutions, why companies are targeting the sandbox and how this could change the way you work!

If you’re not a developer and want an understanding of what Sandboxed solutions are, this session is for you.

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Slide deck from my Automated UI Testing of SharePoint 2010 with Visual Studio 2010 presented at the Best Practices Conferences in Washington DC in August 2010.

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There are some great articles out about setting up SharePoint 2010 to work on Windows 7.

Spence has a few great tips as always.

MSDN has a good post which actually gets you up and running.

One things that I found after getting SharePoint installed was a lack of access to some of the services – namely Services on Server and Add New on Web Applications.
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I have the pleasure of being a speaker at Best Practices conference in Washington DC in August, 2010. Being a ‘best practices’ conference; speakers are given guidelines to work against to ensure their sessions fit in with the overall theme of the conference: Clarity. Direction. Confidence.

One of the challenges with best practices for a new platform is that a lot of these tend to be emergent at best, invalid at worst or just unknown. With this in mind my sessions at the conference are based on real world work that we have done at 21apps, sharing the lessons we have learnt and looking at the emerging practices that, at the time of writing, feel like they have some grounding in becoming or forming part of an accepted best practice.

The sessions I am presenting are both in the developer track; however they have a different target audience.

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It can often take a long time to get events organised, finding the venue, choosing the date all take time and effort.

Well this is never the case with SharePint – it took a trifle over 21 minutes to arrange for this years Best Practices Conference in Washington DC.

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One thing I always get asked is what features exist in what version,  or more specifically are we licensed to do this? Microsoft have produced a neat feature comparison chart.

http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/en-us/buy/pages/editions-comparison.aspx

This small blog post is really for my own reference as I always struggle to find it…  sure I could do book marks but.. I think this is better

21apps is expanding and we need you!

If you’ve not heard of us before we are a small firm specialising in Microsoft Technologies. In June this year we launched our first product, 21SCRUM, a solution for SharePoint 2010 that allows teams to manage their scrum backlog, sprints and burn down charts. 

As developers we are passionate about the craft and believe that development is not just about writing code, constantly looking for ways to improve our own techniques and skills. The same applies to our consultancy activities, we pride ourselves on doing more than is required and always looking for techniques and approaches that yield greater value.

Why are we expanding?

We have many things that we want to do and need to grow the team, bringing passionate people to help us define and realise these goals. It has never been a better time to be a developer. Developing solutions for the cloud using the latest technologies and techniques the opportunities are endless.

We can offer you the ability to join us at the early stages of our growth, an ability to work on interesting projects where your ideas and input are invaluable.  A place where continuous learning is expected, where the community is valued and promoted.  Where the job does not feel like a job.

Interested?

We could list down a load of technologies that we are interested in,  information about what we think the job entails and other things that traditionally you would be expected to get your CV to match.

We value the person more than the CV – it’s up to you to let us know why you feel 21apps could be somewhere you want to work and what you could bring to the team. Tell us what technologies and techniques excite you most and what you think is the most important things a job should offer.

If your interested I would love to hear from you.  Contact me (Andrew Woodward)  Andrew@21apps.com or Twitter @AndrewWoody

I look forward to hearing from you

PS: Please no recruitment consultants.

Many people use Firefox as the browser of choice.  I myself make use of it for the excellent FireBug add-in.  If you do use Firefox against your SharePoint sites you will have see the, how would you say, different experience when working with document libraries. The most common being the error message:

’The document could not be opened for editing. A Microsoft SharePoint Foundation compatible application could not be found to edit the document.’

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Problem

We have set up the correct email SMTP server in Central Administration and everyone is receiving their email alerts correctly.  When we add new users to the site it always fails to send the email reporting an error has occurred.

Investigation

The error in the SharePoint ULS logs shows that the SMTP server connection failed. 

Cannot connect to SMTP host your.smtp.server

Analysis

For any SMTP testing you rely on Telnet by running the command

telnet your.smtp.server 25

This is likely to fail as well with a similar error,  which immediately leads you to the conclusion that the there is a problem with the SMTP server. 

However there is a niggling doubt – if the SMTP server is not working how do the alert emails get sent?
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To help promote the community aspect of SharePoint Retreat and share the knowledge and lessons learned beyond those that were lucky enough to attend we offer a prize for the best sharing of knowledge. This sharing could be in the form of a web cast, blog post, white paper or even presentation at a user group.

As this was the first SharePoint Retreat the prize is really pretty fantastic.

Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate with MSDN subscriptions valued at $11,899 each!*

The prize was donated, indirectly, by Microsoft, I was sent a number of copies to give away for being an MVP and taking part in testing Microsoft Visual Studio 2010.

There were some great posts:

@WorTony : SharePoint Retreat

@Weshackett: Review of the day

@nigel_price: SPRetreat London

 But there was one that really stood out and provided some great code samples and “how to”s from the day 

… and the winner of the prize is

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