SharePoint 2010 - My Sites default page to My Content

Now that I have My Sites configured I enabled the NewFeeds....

Well, I like what it can do but I HATE that the site defaults to the NewFeeds first.

Ahh - found someone that has the same problem and knows how to fix it.

http://sharepoint.licomputersource.com/2010/11/how-to-remove-the-whats-happening-status-message-from-the-user-profile-page-in-sharepoint-2010/

"So lets jump into the technical side of today’s post. How do we go about changing the default home page of the My Site Host? Then disable and remove the What’s Happening Status Message. Pretty simple believe it or not. To change the default home page open the site collection in SharePoint Designer (you need to be a site collection owner of the my site host). After its open click on all files on the left hand side. In the right main area you should now see a bunch of items one being default.aspx which is the current default page. The other being person.aspx which is our desired default page. So go ahead and select person.aspx and then in the ribbon click set as home page."

 Many thanks again to the SharePoint community for posting these great articles - what a time saver!

SharePoint 2010 setup My Sites

On the the MySites adventure.

I found an Excellent series of postings that explain exactly how to setup/configure the User Profile Service and setup/configure MySites in 2010.

http://sharepointgeorge.com/2010/configuring-the-user-profile-service-in-sharepoint-2010/
   - This is how to setup the user profile service to import profiles into SharePoint
   - I had an issue where our FQDN is not the same as our NetBIOS domain name so there was some tweaking I had to do to make this work properly to import our users with the domain\username
     Our setup is for machines to join the corp.domain.com and our NetBIOS shortname is domain
        When you run the default import you will get corp\username which is incorrect...
          You need to first update to the newest CU - I used the December 2011 CU
           Then follow the steps outlined here to use PowerShell to enable NetBIOS for UPA
             http://tremblayse.wordpress.com/2011/10/17/ups-and-netbios-domain-name-different-then-fqdn-domain-name/

Now, I want to verify that we will only import user profiles that are enabled in AD.  We have a policy that allows for accounts to be disable for a period of time prior to their removal from AD and I don't want those accounts in SharePoint.

http://lindachapman.blogspot.com/2011/06/sharepoint-2010-user-profile-importhow.html
   Thanks Linda - I would have never found this obscure setting on my own!


Now verify the proper domain names are in the user profiles...

On to setup for MySites - again SharePoint George to the Rescue!
   This guy has EXCELLENT postings - saved a ton of time

http://sharepointgeorge.com/2010/configuring-my-site-sharepoint-2010/


There you have it - configured MySites with their own seperate Web Application

SharePoint 2010 PDF icon and display in browser

You have to make some edits to allow SharePoint to display the PDF Icon in the libraries.
Here is the KB article on this:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/832809

You have to download the small icon from Adobe at:
http://www.adobe.com/images/pdficon_small.gif

Once you have the icon fixed you will notice that when you click the document it asks to save and does not open in the browser PDF viewer.
This is due to a change in security with IE8 and above.

I found the fix on the following site:
http://whitepages.unlimitedviz.com/2010/05/opening-pdf-files-in-sharepoint-2010/

It involves changing the Web Application / General Settings / Browser File Handling to Permissive instead of Strict (which is the default).
Don't forget to also change this on the MySite web application as well !

SharePoint 2010

I'm working on an upgrade from MOSS 2007 to SharePoint Server 2010.

I'll be posting updates and links to other sites with information that I used for my upgrade.

VMware iFix Webspace Performance Issues - JAVA

We have consolidated some JAVA based workloads into ESXi and some performance issues found us.
Specifically, we virtualized the GE Webspace product for our manufacturing equipment and after a few concurrent users it would respond erratically - either slowly or just crash outright.

After attending a VMware support session they talked about how JAVA was one of their Top-10 support calls.  Webspace is a JAVA based application.

Here is the link to the Support Best Practices from VMware for JAVA:
http://www.vmware.com/resources/techresources/1087

What I found - use the RAM reservation!!

I enabled the RAM reservation and rebooted the server and all of our performance issues went away.  There are several other best practice suggestions in the document and I'm sure they will help in an environment that is more heavily utilized then ours.  But for us, the RAM reservation solved the problem.

First Step to Virtualizing - Consolidation

Several people I have talked too think that virtualizing their environment with VMware is just too expensive.  They are looking at the whole pie and not taking individual pieces.

Step #1 - Consolidation

How many physical servers do you have in a server room (or closet as the case may be)?

For most mid-size companies this could be 10-15 or more servers.  In our case it was close to 30 servers and growing when I started our virtualization project.

So how to start?  This seems to be one of the thorniest issues around.  Do you go "all-in" or start slow with some small scale proof-of-concept P2V (physical-to-virtual) conversions?  Truth is, go with what you are comfortable with.  If you have zero virtualization experience, I suggest starting with a workstation product for a few weeks to get used to working in a virtualized environment. 
If you are more comfortable in virtualization then find an older server and install on of the free hypervisors - my preference is VMware ESXi free edition.  It is exactly the same as the super expensive vSphere Enterprise Plus edition but just does not contain all the management tools and features.  A great way to start down the path.

Also, don't be fooled by the hype - Consolidation ratios published by VMware are TRUE!!
I have achieved 12 to 15 server consolidation ratio.  That is, on a single dual processor server I am running, in production, 12-15 virtualized servers.  The largest constraint on consolidate I have found is - RAM.  Not disk I/O, not network performance, not CPU but physical RAM in the server.

We have virtualized SQL Server 2005, Exchange 2007, Red-Hat Linux, Hyperion, GE iFix WebSpace and many other production, "Tier 1" applications.

Next post - Step 2 - Physical Servers and why you don't need to purchase the newest, greatest fire-breathing monster of a server for virtualization.  Chances are you either have one today you can use or you can get one rather inexpensively.
So, get out there and go for it!

New Blog Focus - Virtualization in the Middle of SMB

I am going to try and renew some focus to this blog and my work on virtualization projects.

Specifically - how do you virtualize a Middle size business and do so within the constraints of small budgets.

So - stay tuned, more to come