Configure Microsoft Loop Back Adapter in Windows

Installing the Loopback Adapter: 
1. Start, Settings, Control Panel, Add/Remove Hardware.
2. Click Next on the introduction dialog box.
3. Keep 'Add/Troubleshoot a device' selected and click Next.
4. Select 'Add a new device', then click Next.
5. Select 'No, I want to select the hardware from the list', then click Next.
6.Select 'Network adapters', then click Next.
7.Select 'Microsoft' as the manufacturer, select 'Microsoft Loopback Adapter' as the adapter, then click Next.
8.Click Next to confim the installation.
9.Click Finish to complete the installation.


Configure the newly created adapter: 

1.Open Start, Settings, Control Panel, Network and Dial-up Connections.
2.Select the newly created connection (should be named 'Local Area Connection N', where N is its order number).
3.Right click on the selected connection and choose Properties from the menu.
4.Confirm that 'Microsoft Loopback Adapter' (or 'Microsoft Loopback Adapter #N') is displayed in the 'Connect Using:' field. If it isn't, return to step 2 and retry properties for another adapter.
5.Uncheck (disable) everything except 'Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)'.
6.Select 'Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)', then click Properties to open 'Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) Properties'.
7.Select 'Use the following IP address:' and fill in the 'IP address:' and 'Subnet mask:' fields (e.g. 10.10.10.10, 255.255.255.0).
8.Click Advanced to open 'Advanced TCP/IP Settings'.
Switch to WINS and select 'Disable NetBIOS over TCP/IP'. 
9.Click OK to close 'Advanced TCP/IP Settings'.
10.Click OK to close the 'Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) Properties'.
11.Click OK to close the connection properties

Database diagram support objects cannot be installed (SQL Server 2005/2008)

Solution for the following error in SQL Server 2005 or 2008

Database diagram support objects cannot be installed because this database does not have a valid owner. To continue, first use the Files page of the Database Properties dialog box or the ALTER AUTHORIZATION statement to set the database owner to a valid login, then add the database diagram support objects." 

iisapp Tool on windows server 2008

Following commmand is the alternative for IISAPP in windows 2008 server

%windir%\system32\inetsrv\appcmd.exe list WP

Comparing ListView with GridView,DataList and Repeater

The ListView control is a new data presentation control that was added to .Net 3.5 , you may wonder why its added to the framework , and what it provide .
I believe the ListView control was added to provide The following functionalities :

1. A very flexible and customizable layout.
   
2. A built in data paging support with the DataPager control.
   
3. support data grouping ( repeating items) .
4. Built in support for deleting,inserting,paging,sorting,and updating the data.

Now , to compare the ListView control with the dataList,GridView and repeater control , lets look at the table below

	Supported Funcationalities
Control	Paging	Data Grouping	Provide Flexible Layout	Update,Delete	Insert	Sorting
ListView	supported	supported	supported	supported	supported	supported
GridView	supported	Not supported	Not Supported	supported	Not Supported	supported
DataList	Not supported	supported	supported	Not supported	Not supported	Not supported
Repeater	Not supported	Not supported	supported	Not supported	Not supported	Not supported

The GridView : it supports paging but it doesn't provide a flexible layout , since its mainly used to display the data in a table based layout.And If we looked at data inserting , the Gridview doesn't have a built in support for inserting data( since it doesn't call the insert method of it underlying data source when you click on a button with a CommadName set to "Insert" ).
The DataList : it support data grouping ( through its RepeatColumns property) , but it doesn't have a built in support for paging,inserting ,deleting , updating the data. and if you looked at its laout , you will find that by default  the datalist renders as html table and you will have to set its flowLayout to "Flow" to stop that behaviour.
The Repeater control : you will find that it provides a flexible layout but it doesn't support data grouping ,inserting,deleting , updating  and paging through the data .

Summary :
The ListView control was added to provide a rich data control that can support all the required functionalities at the same time , so now you can easily display a fully customizable layout that supports Grouping,paging , inserting , deleting , updating and sorting the data.

Issue with LogToHistoryListActivity

Sometimes the Hostory discription of this activity is not set when you set the value direclty like

this.logactivity.HistoryDiscription = "some text" is not worked while it is within the loop section.

to fix this, you need to do this:

(sender as LogToHistoryListActivity).HistoryDiscription = "some text" in

LogToHistoryListActivity_methodinvoking event.

This should work fine.

Custom WorkFlow deployement in Visual Studio 2008

If you’re using Visual Studio 2008 the workflow will have been automatically deployed to the site collection you specified as the development site when you first created the workflow project. However should you need to deploy the workflow to a different server or site collection then these are the steps that you’ll need.

The following steps will deploy your workflow to a site collection.

1. Copy the DLL your workflow creates from the build directory (\bin\Debug) to the Global Assembly Cache (GAC)

2. Create a directory in the features directory [C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\12\TEMPLATE\FEATURES] and drop both the feature.xml and workflow.xml files into the directory.

3. Install the feature on your farm, using the following command line statements

stsadm -o installfeature -name DocumentMoveAndShortcut

Figure 18 - Install the feature

4. Activate the feature to a site collection

stsadm -o activatefeature –name DocumentMoveAndShortcut -url http://moss2007win2008

Figure 19 - Activate the feature

NOTE: You can usually find the STSADM command in the directory C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\12\BIN

Sharepoint Workflow

seful information about sharepoint workflows

http://www.cmswire.com/cms/web-cms/web-content-management-with-sharepoint-moss-2007-part-2-workflow-002021.php


http://www.u2u.info/Blogs/Kevin/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=39

SharePoint 2007 Workflow with Visual Studio 2005
http://weblog.vb-tech.com/nick/archive/2006/09/04/1753.aspx

Visual Studio 2005 extensions for .NET Framework 3.0 (Windows Workflow Foundation)
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/thankyou.aspx?familyId=5d61409e-1fa3-48cf-8023-e8f38e709ba6&displayLang=en

How to: Deploy a Workflow Template
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms460303.aspx

Wrangling SharePoint Workflows with Visual Studio http://www.devx.com/webdev/Article/34032/1954

Developing Sequential Workflows for SharePoint Server 2007 Using Visual Studio 2008http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc811589.aspx

Beginners Guide to SharePoint 2007 Workflow Development - Create an InfoPath Web-Based Form
http://www.sharepointbuzz.com/2008/11/07/beginners-guide-to-sharepoint-2007-workflow-development-create-an-infopath-web-based-form/

SharePoint 2007 Workflow with Visual Studio 2005 + InfoPath 2007 (RTM VERSION!)
http://weblog.vb-tech.com/nick/archive/2007/02/25/2207.aspx