Filter SharePoint List by Today

I needed to filter a task list in SharePoint 2010 so only tasks that are due in under 45 days will be shown. It turns out the easiest way is to just use [Today]+n. I had my filter set to Commited Date < [Today]+45, with no spaces. This will show all items that have a Commited Date in less than 45 days. It works the same with greater than, greater than or equal to, and less than or equal to as well.

I found my answer at the following link:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/745059/filtering-sharepoint-lists-on-a-now-or-today 

Application Icons Missing

I removed a shortcut for MS Visual Studio 2010 and the application icon became a white page. This is obviously not preferred so I struck out to figure out why. Apparently the icon cache database was out of sync and need to be rebuilt.
Open up the command prompt and input the following commands:

• ​taskkill /IM explorer.exe /F
• CD /d %userprofile%\AppData\Local
• DEL IconCache.db /a
• shutdown /r /f /t 00

That should rebuild your IconCache.db and get your icons working properly again.
The steps are also at the following website with a nice .bat for those of you that don't want to do it manually.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/49819-icon-cache-rebuild.html

SharePoint RAG Indicator

If you need to create a RAG indicator, or other type of status indicator, it is a fairly simple process.​ I have found a site that walks through both the 2007 and 2010 setups for creating these indicators. It is not an overwhelmingly difficult task but it does require you to use SharePoint Designer, formulas, and a calculated column. Sarah Haase has a very nice blog about SharePoint which answered the question perfectly.

The steps for this are in the following link:
http://sarahlhaase.wordpress.com/2012/06/06/using-calculated-columns-to-add-color-coding-to-your-sharepoint-lists/

Blank Dropdown Selection in SharePoint

​I needed to have a blank line as the first choice in a field's dropdown in a SharePoint field of type Choice. There is not an OOTB option by any means. Many answers to this use code, but the simplest way is to just use the 0129 ascii character. 0129 is just a blank character which will not get wiped by SharePoint.

InfoPath Permissions

In InfoPath, I was not able to set permissions for controls. This restricts us from setting certain controls from being hidden or from disabling when a certain user is looking at an InfoPath form. In order to do this I followed the steps at the following link. It is pretty simple with only a few minor changes to the code and a couple of data connections.

http://www.projectpoint.at/?p=97

SharePoint

SharePoint is the topic du jour. I am using SharePoint to maintain tasks by using two different lists. The first list is a request list which allows other people to requests tasks, in other words time to work issues/enhancements. The second list is the living list which displays all of the tasks I am currently working. In the Request list, requesters are allowed to attach documents to a list item. Now, this is where the issues arises since SharePoint's attachment process is basically a black box, especially to myself. Using a workflow, I want to use the "Create List Item" action and in the attachments field I want to pass the attachment as the value. SharePoint shows the value of the attachment field as a boolean, which obviously doesn't pass the actual file to the new list.

This is an issue that I have no solved yet to be honest. I will continue looking into this issue but the outlook is bleak so far, but I will update if I find a good solution that doesn't involve VB or C#.

Edit:
I have not found a solution for this that does not use custom code to get the attachment.

JDK Installation Issue

I was installing JDK today on a new virtual desktop that will be used by developers. I got the JDK to install fine but was unable to run the JMeter Java application used for load testing. It was throwing an error that the java.exe is not recognized.

error "'java.exe' is not recognized as an internal or external command, 
operable program or batch file. 
errorlevel=9009 

I found the solution at http://www.coderanch.com/t/95488/Testing/start-JMeter. The user tgrtgr lakmini added the solution with a step by step. The trick is to change the PATH system variable to include the path of the JRE runtime binary folder. 

I had the same problem with Win 7. I copied the java installed path and copied it to environment variable path in the Advance system settings..
1. Copied "C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jdk1.7.0_01\bin" this path
2. Right click Computer --> properties --> Advance system setting --> environment variables
3. In the system variable section select path and then paste the above copied java installed path following with ";"

It should look something like, C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jdk1.7.0_01\bin, or  C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre7\bin for the JDK 7 version. 

Keep your eyes towards the eaves of IT.

SharePoint 2010 Jump Links

Today I am working with SharePoint 2010 to create some training documentation that is more accessible and centralized than just Googling for answers. I am working on a page and it was becoming large enough to be unwieldy and thought jump links would be a nice way to navigate pages. Now my original thought was that this would be clear and easy, but no it is not! I found a solution from another blog that works great so I thought I would share it.
http://mccoard.net/ThoughtfulTech/post/2011/05/11/Creating-a-Bookmark-(anchor)-link-in-SharePoint-2010.aspx

Installing Visual Studio 2010 on a VM

I was tasked to install Visual Studio 2010, among other developer's software, on a virtual machine this past week. I spent the last week doing numerous installs with little to no trouble, until I attempted to install Visual Studio 2010. The software before VS 2010 had all been digital media, but VS was a DVD. For some background, I am using a dummy terminal to connect to my host OS which then remotes the to virtual machine. Long story short, Visual Studio 2010 did not rip properly when creating the ISO and the MSDN ISO gave a file invalidation error. In the end, I had to use the Visual Studio 2010 Pro Test web installer to unerringly install the program and afterwards change the product key.

Protip: If you ever lose your Product Key, open up the Setup.sdb file from the original ISO or disk in Notepad or another text editor. Then, search for the [Product Key] section of the document which will have the Product Key copied down. I found this solution at...
http://www.mydigitallife.info/how-to-change-integrated-product-key-in-visual-studio-installer/

Keep Your Eyes On VDI

Numescent, OnLive Desktop, and Moka5 are some companies to keep an eye on. Each has their own blend of offering desktops through a VDI service.

Numescent has introduced a new cloud paging system which breaks software into functional parts. When the user needs a different part of the code, that functional piece will be processed and set to the user and the unused sections will be released. This is an interesting strategy that would seem to keep bandwidth usage extremely low. This is my personal service of interest right now, why load it all when you only need a fraction?

Moka5 offers a more simple and streamlined approach to Client-side VDI. It is a much cheaper way of using VDI compared to the traditional server based VDI. The "Golden Image" they talk about seems to be effective if you are only implementing one image, but I would like to see how the system works when multiple images are necessary.

Onlive Desktop is a ramped up version of offering Operating Systems as a Service(OSaaS). Onlive runs a vanilla Windows OS on a server and the user is allowed to save data to that OS. That data can be transferred between the device and the server effectively allowing you to run Windows on your mobile device. One thing to watch out for is that Microsoft says that Onlive currently violates their licensing.

Another Co-op Bites the Dust

Wow, so it's been awhile...long enough for me to finish off another co-op. I am just finishing up a Co-op with JCPenney as a software tester. I worked on an item management application performing all sorts of testing. My main job was to perform initial testing, retesting, regression, and user acceptance testing. I also worked with the load tester to begin accumulating an understanding of load testing and all it entails. This was really a neat co-op as we got to be with the company before and after Ron Johnson's changes to the business and it's vision.