Microsoft warns for SharePoint 2007 SP2 bug

For all those users who are using Microsoft SharePoint Server 2007 should know that there's a bug update by Microsoft. This bug is applicable to the users who are using sharepoint server 2007 product with Service Pack 2 update.

Though Microsoft has confirmed that the bug does not harm any data of your application but only effects the expiration state of the software. Aftre 180 days of installing the SP2 the software expires and renders unusable to the end user.

There is manual fix available to this problem and the company is also working on to close this issue by developing the Hotfix to this problem. Though the next software update is suppose to solve all these issues automatically.

Find more details here --> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/971620

My Idea of building Language Translator

I am bit sad today... why...?
I saw Gmail with language translation feature. It is like you choose your language based on the country you have chosen during creating your Gmail account(I guess). After you choose your language you what you need to do is to start typing. Begin to type the words of your language in English. Type in English as you would exactly pronounce the word in your language and just press the pace bar you will see that word getting converted into the the actual language word chosen by you.
Great isn't it!!! and simple too!!

Now why I am sad??

I am sad because in one of the organizations where I have been, I gave the idea and a technical implementation detail of building the language translator, Bad that it was rejected. If it would have been successful we would have been one of the first guys to do the same thing. And you know it was for the mobile phone...

Though my idea of translation was quite different from the Google's Gmail team as I thought of doing it a voice based language translation.

Hope I could do something easier and better...

Build Spam control functionality to your site using Captchas

Do you own a website? Are you working on a website?? Do you want to make your website spam free? If any of the answers of the above is true you may consider using a captcha service which is open source.

We use captcha when we want to avoid unnecessary requests to the server through the web forms open to the users which can send any data to the server. There are too many scripts, programs which are popularly known as automated bots that can send thousands and millions of unwanted data to the server using those forms.

In order to avoid those forms being utilized by these bots you need to build some validation before the form's data is posted to the server. So the application knows that the this data which is being sent to server is sent by a human and not a bot!!

To do this you can put some images which are being displayed to the users randomly each time the form page is accessed. In these images you need to show some alphanumeric characters and ask the user to type it down in the text placed adjacent to this captcha code. If the data entered by the users is correct based on the captcha then you can be sure that this is a human and not a bot as a program will not be able to make out the numbers displayed in the image.


Try to build this and you could be caught in a heavy duty task.

Now, the Carnegie Mellon University comes with a service "reCaptcha" which enables the the developers to implement this services by simple modification in the code provided in context to your application's technology asp.net, php, java, perl etc.

Each time a user comes to fill up the form he will type the captcha and your code in your web page will connect to the reCaptcha server which will in turn validate the user's authenticity.

Check this out at www.recaptcha.net

Increasing the DB Size in SQl Server 2005

Hi again, I am going to write a small post on one of the common issues related with databases. I am talking about SQL Server 2005 databases. This is of course not a bug and is only related to tweaking server and application's performance.
By default during the time of database creation a default size of the database is associated. But this db size is not sufficient to hold the data long enough onto it. As you see things working good at the business end, you will experience data growth in your databases. By default, all db's are set with an auto growth property which avoids any data loss or application failure.

But this is not enough!!

In my personal experience, the db size growed enough and continued growing on extra 1MB automatically after reaching maximum default size. It affected my application's performance badly and made my portal slower than anything! During my investigation I checked the Db size and increased it to some good level manually.

This is what I actually did:

1. Opened the SQL management studio 2005
2. Right Clicked the database name - ex. Mx_Content_DB
3. Selected Properties.
4. On the Files menu I increased the initial size of the database
by 1GB and set the auto growth to increase by 10%.

After the database server restart, things stared looking fine and performance level increased considerably.

Please note that when you are using multiple db's in your application, you may have to do the same with other Db's also if
the same issue happens with them.

Tomorrow I will update the same post with the some screenshots which will help you further on your database management activities.

Make your sharepoint data loss proof - Backup Strategies

Sharepoint portal is Microsoft's business class portal framework which is also a lucative option as an intranet portal because it supports and is build around the Microsoft Office suite.

Sharepoint is a well Mircorsoft's portal development framework or package for portal development. All the entities of a sharepoint site like lists, documents, pages, links, themes and site information including their data almost everything is stored in a SQL Server 2005.

For managing content and having a solid plan to make your valueable data loss proof, it is important that you follow 3 way backup strategy.

1. SQL Server 2005 DB Level backups.
2. Sharepoint site backups from the Shgarepoint Central Admin.
3. Code level backups. (if you are using your custom user-controls
for highly customized experience in the Sharepoint)

Though there is popular tool called Aveo's to backup the deep level sharepoint entities like list columns, versions, document library and list or list items.

Again, I would like to empahises that the DB level backups should be based on the follwoing approach.
a) Weekly Full backups.
b) Differential backups alternate days.
c) Daily transaction log backups.

Sharepoint Server level backups can be planned as below:
a) Farm Level backups.
b) Site collection level backups.
c) Web application level backups
d) Site level backups

Code Level backups include backing up the Virtual Directories before each time you want to deploy the latest changes in the Server.

I am sure when you carry out this bakcup strategy you will be in a better state to secure your data and recover easily and effectively during the backups.

Google offers support OpenID

There are so many websites, portals and other web application which ask for you username and password in order to access their products/services. It is really difficult for any person (getting more diffcult) to remember so many login information. I have personally lost few login credentials for some websites quite a few times. If you also face such challenge to remember and recall the correct login id for your favourite websites then OpenId is for your rescue.

OpenID is simple notion for opend source id using which you can register once and use the same user id at a number of websites. Currently some of most populat brands in the www support OpenId.

Google has just announced that it will also support OpenId 2.0 based credentials to access most of it's webistes and webapplications. With Microsoft, Yahoo and many other key players already nodding and giving clearance to users with OpenId to access their websites is great move towards user freidnliess and provide a better managability to the user records and saving of enough user database and maintenenace related activites for that without compromising on the crucial data related to each user based on which the specific features to users are provided.

You can also register your id for free with OpenID and be the part of the current trend of create once use for a lifetime user logins.

Google RSS news - A reality coming soon!!

Google now promises to add RSS links to it's search results. This is a great news for the people who find it difficult searching relevent information everyday on related topics. Now, you have the power of RSS with the Google Search to get your track on the latest news on products, compaines, persons, places and many more...

Google has recently confirmed this news to organizations who authorize in search engine news. 'Search Engine Watch' is one such organization who claimed to have got this news directly from Google. They have also informed that Google is the only major search engine who is bringing this new feature. I hope after Google all the major search engines will also include the same if they don't lag befind in providing latest info.

Google decision to bring the RSS links for search brings confirmation to us that the Google's promise to make it's products and services more user freindly is very true. As you are aware that RSS technology brings the most updated information about any given topic from the authority sites, now the the search results in Google will be more updated and lastest in the content also.

So all the best for future Googling and enjoy your Sunday !!