Custom Master Pages in Sharepoint/MOSS

An excellent way to brand your Sharepoint site by developing Custom Master Pages using Sharepoint Designer or Visual Studio 2005.

Read this excellent article on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb727372.aspx

Also follow the post of brand guru Heather Solomon
Part 1 & Part II

Drop in your valuable comments...Happy programming :)

Great Sharepoint Resources to bookmark

Besides Microsoft.com, MSDN and TechNet, here are 5 SharePoint resources that Arpan Shah (from Microsoft) recommends bookmarking/subscribing to:

1) SharePoint Team Blog
http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint

2) SharePointPedia built on SharePoint technology! http://www.sharepointpedia.com

3) CodePlex
http://www.codeplex.com/Project/ProjectDirectory.aspx?TagName=Sharepoint
Community Kit for SharePoint (CKS)
Accessibility Kit for SharePoint (AKS)

4) SharePoint Community Portal
http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/sharepoint

5) SharePoint Forums http://www.mssharepointforums.com

Source: Arpan Shah's blogsite on msdn

Service Unavailable - Central Administration site in Sharepoint

While i was working on Notes migration to Sharepoint, my Central Administration site simply went down without any reason. Whenever, i tried accessing the same, i got an error message saying: Service Unavailable in the internet explorer. But my other MOSS sites were working perfectly fine.

I went into my IIS application pool for Central Administration web application, it had stopped without any reason. I tried to start it, and it would start but it did'nt solve the problem. I was stuck in the same loop i.e Service Unavailable when trying to access Central Admin web application.

I had to find a solution, and like i always do, i found the possible cause of the problem.


Then i figured out that i need to change my System Account password which had full control to Central Admin web application. How do i do that ? Be careful, follow the steps properly:

Solution: Change the passwords if you receive a "Service Unavailable" error when trying to access Central Administration. Change the passwords for the Central Administration Web application pool identity and the Windows SharePoint Services Timer service by using the command line

1. On the computer running the Central Administration Web site, open the command line and navigate to the Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN folder.
2. At a command prompt, type the following command, and then press ENTER:
   stsadm -o updatefarmcredentials -userlogin domain\username -password newpassword
   

   Note
   userlogin is the server farm account. For additional information, see Updatefarmcredentials: Stsadm operation (Windows SharePoint Services).

3. You must restart the Web application pool for the changes to be saved. At a command prompt, type the following command, and then press ENTER:
   iisreset /noforce
4. As an additional step, you can even Go to Start->Run and type services.msc and restart the Windows Timer services(which should use the newly changed password).
5. Try accessing the Central admin site and it should work normally as before.
   

Note userlogin is the server farm account. You must use the -local switch.

Source: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc288991.aspx

In case you find it valuable, drop in your comments.
Happy programming :))

Lotus Notes to Sharepoint migration

I got an excellent opportunity to do some R&D on Lotus 2 MOSS Migration.
It seems really cool that u can easily actually migrate your Lotus Mails, Access Control Lists (ACL) and Domino Directory Users as well as Lotus Notes Applications like Lotus Document Libraries, Discussion Boards, Team Rooms, Calendar etc to Sharepoint document libararies, lists, discussion boards and calendar lists...using migration tools like Microsoft Transporter Suite (click here to download),

I also used a limited version of Notes Migrator for Sharepoint by Quest software, it is actually a fantastic tool, i migrated a Lotus doc library to MOSS List as well as MOSS doc library and it gave fantastic results better than Microsoft's Transporter suite.

The key differentiator is the ability of Quest to actually create doc libraries/lists on fly and auto-map notes and moss fields. So even if you do not have MOSS library/list created, using the tool you just need to specify the fields from Lotus application that you wish to migrate to Sharepoint List/Library & then do an Auto-Map.

You can even migrate your ACL as well your Active Directory using this tool, on the other hand Microsoft's Transporter suite isn't bad either, it also does an mediocre job of migration for you.
(However, i personally can't vouch that all the fields of notes application will appear in moss library/list based on my experiences with the tool...)
It even allows you to migrate your Lotus Domino Directory to Active Directory as well as to Exchange server.

If you find this post useful, please drop in a few lines....