S+S with Outlook 2003
While I am helping Tang to do a S+S Outlook addin, his customer is looking at integration with a back end database and also simple workflow.
Developing such an addin for Outlook 2007 would have easy with the Outlook 2007 S+S blueprint but the customer still running Outlook 2003. Late last night I managed to dig thru MSDN and found an article showing me just how to do it with Outlook 2003 and Visual Studio Tools for Office. http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa537181.aspx
As per screenshot above, it shows you how to add a custom command bar into Outlook, and also how to trigger Windows Form from Outlook. But the cool thing here is the sample showing you how to create a custom folder under Inbox showing your own set of data. While not as slick as what you can do in Outlook 2007, it is good enough for most people out there. 
Community Server 2008 launched [w/SharePoint integration?]
Community Server is a portal server with forums, blogs and wikis built on .NET platform. The latest 2008 version just came out and is available for download. One of the features mentioned in the release note is integration with Exchange, Active Directory and SharePoint. There is a disclaimer though that SharePoint integration will come later. But it is rather interesting what kind of integration work they plan to have in CS with MOSS.
TechEd South East Asia 2008
Mother of all geek’s conference, Tech.Ed is back to KLCC Convention Centre again this year on 11-14 August. There is an early bird ticket of RM699 and to buy just click on the banner above.
With waves of products launch this year (i.e. Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008, Windows Mobile 6.1, Silverlight) it is guaranteed there will be tonnes of contents from our “ang mor” speakers from US and Australia. Of course don’t just come for ang mor, but also catch what our local speakers share about. Some of them whom are MVPs still at MVP Summit in US so I also hope they will bring back cool stuff to share about.
First Impression: SharePoint Products & Technologies Protocols Documentation
I just started reading the SharePoint Products and Technologies Protocol Documentation today, quite interesting and profound to found out the level of details released under this document. All the specification of protocols (sometimes I would like to call it APIs) used by SharePoint from system behaviors, WSDL, XML Schemas, managed (and/or unmanaged) APIs as well as Stored Procedures used by SharePoint. Technologies from CAML, SharePoint list, view, search, workflow, administration all the way to the user interface is pretty well covered in this set of documents.
For Microsoft partners it opens up a whole new opportunities for them to build applications on top of SharePoint. (Almost) gone are the time when we try to figure out why SharePoint behave a certain way and there are no official documents to look at. Most of the time we resort to word by word advices from fellows developers in the forum. Imagine now it is possible for developers to write application (esp. those with different client platform) to works seamlessly with Microsoft SharePoint platform.
Besides SharePoint technologies, Microsoft also release Protocol documentations for Windows(incl. .NET Framework), Office and Exchange and also XAML (the markup language for Windows Presentation Foundation and Silverlight); all of these fall under the so called High Volume Products from Microsoft.
Disposing resources for SharePoint developers
Although SharePoint 3.0/ 2007 (MOSS and WSS) is built on top of ASP.NET 2.0, there are still connection to unmanaged COM+ codes inside. Whenever you programmably playing around with SharePoint APIs, remember to dispose the SharePoint object instance.
Roger Lamb’s blog post here has very details explanation on this subject even it has been mentioned again and again before.
about me
Hi there! My name is Patrick and I code on .NET and build a few products on SharePoint and Windows Azure. I am currently CTO of IPS Infonomics Pte Ltd and co-founder of Tech Insights Conference.
My reading list- How to Deliver a Killer Business Presentation
- 10 Hot Web Startups Changing the Face of Retail
- Visa certifies NFC-equipped Android, BlackBerry smartphones for payWave -- Engadget
- An easy way to use certificates for WCF security - CodeProject®
- 6 Things To Do when you got your Unifi Wireless Router D-Link Dir-615 « Sawanila.com™
- Controlling Registry ACL Permissions with Powershell
- Building the Ultimate SharePoint 2010 Development Environment
- Running SharePoint 2010 on a domain controller
- Using Local Machine Accounts for Managed Accounts in SharePoint 2010
- How Trello is different - Joel on Software