Sharepoint for project Management

So, I have just finished "SharePoint for Project Management" by Dux Raymond Sy and I am pretty impressed. In general I think any project manager with access to Sharepoint should use this book and a variation of the PIMS site that writer walks you through.

The style is clear and accessible and he walk one though the necessary steps. The biggest issues i had were with my Sharepoint installation. Since I was on my own and working with a self administrated site (while at the same time being a Sharepoint and Windows Server novice) I did not have a proper email setup, so I could not test that aspect of the book and also I do not have Office 2007 so I also could not follow the steps there. However, the latter is not such a big deal as the steps are not at all complicated.

All in all I highly recommend the book and would recommend it to anyone involved in Project Management.

Some initial notes. Host Names and New Websites

As I had stated in a previous post, this blog is as a way to document my adventures in sharepoint and codeing, so I will have somewhere to look up things I learned previously but have forgotten right now.

So before I forget, some things to record. Hostnames for SharePoint sites need a valid website and a DNS entry. At this point in time I have no idea how to add DNS entries in Windows Server 2008 and it is not germane to what I am trying to do. I will not pursue this any further at this point in time.

That said, when I use Sharepoint to create a new web site and add a site collection, while I can browse to it locally on the server I cannot on my laptop even though I can borwse to the default website and to any site collections I create there. So what is with that? Again I suspect is is some subtle DNS issue and in all probability there are some terrible issues with the server as configured by me.

One does not really appreciate the work sysadmins do.

What happened next

So a week ago, I had a basic Domain Controller setup in Windows 2008 server and managed to get my laptop connected as a client. Though it seems to kill my net connection when I connect to the domain.

The last week was mostly spent trying to get MS Virtual Server 2005 up and running on the server. I had to find out about SSL certification of the web site and getting the virtual network up and running. Nothing seem to work as expected initially. For instance, to connect to the actual network I had to set up a virtual network with the NIC on it despite the installer having create such a network. I could see that network in the dropdown but could not select it. Once I created one myself I could then create new virtual machines and select the External Network.

However, the project ended in failure, or at least I no longer had the patience to continue down that route. Windows server administration is, at the moment, at least, a means to an end. So I was not really interested in exploring virtual server technology. I want to get a sharepoint site up and running so that I can explore sharepoint and sharepoint development.

Therefore, I resorted to putting it all on the one box. So now I have a brand new untouched Sharepoint portal to muck about in. I really want to get my teeth into "SharePoint for Project Management" by Dux Raymond Sy. I have a former client that could really use something like this.

The plan is, there fore to explore "Sharepoint for Dummies", then move on to the project management book and eventually the coursework and training for Sharepoint certification.

What am I doing here

Currently uemployed software developer, I have decided to explore the world of Microsoft Sharepoint, and possibly other software adventures.
I have tried this before but I was using virtual pc on my laptop to create the server envoirnment to host Sharepoint but it was dog slow and after I configured the root site I could not access it in a browser.

I presume it was some security issues. Anyway I was 2 months unemployed at that stage and the I got a little down and left it at that for a while.

However, I rent some land so when that money came in I decided to have another go. I got a cheap PC with 4 gigs of Ram to act as a server and went for an MSDN subscription from Micromail. I have often toyed with the idea of using a blog to document my adventures in development to record those really irritating little things that are never mentioned in the books, blogs or documentation (especially the documentation) that take days to resolve and track down and only happen when you have forgotten what you did the last time to resolve them.

So this is it, a start. Not sure if I will keep this up but here goes anyway.

So I restarted this week with some interruptions for this and that. So I have installed Windows Server 2008 and discover that HyperV only works on 64 bit machines. I have spent the last two days getting the server up and running.

Trying to get it connecting to the internet so I can authenticate Windows and get updates. I spent most of the time messing with DNS, the problem being that my broadband uses dynamic ip and assigns dynamic DNS servers, they do change though not often. Eventually I discovered that putting the server in the DMZ of the router seems to get it working. I have no real idea why though.

The next trick is to get the laptop working as a client on the server. There seems no option other than making it a member of the domain, it has gotten a lot more complicated than when I last had a serious look at server management and networking (about 10 years ago on NT4 and Red Hat 5.0)