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What's the best Sharepoint 2007 book for developers in C#?
thanks!

Inside Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Server 2007
http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/books/10472.aspx
Inside the Index and Search Engines: Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Server 2007
http://www.microsoft.com/MSPress/books/12195.aspx

Pro SharePoint Solution Development: Combining .NET, SharePoint and Office 2007 (Expert's Voice in Sharepoint)
by: Susie Adams, Ed Hild - ISBN: 1590598083, 9781590598085
Pro SharePoint Solution Development: Combining .NET, SharePoint, and Office 2007 takes a practical problem/solution approach to common business challenges. Youll not only encounter interesting code samples, but also see how to combine these examples with the Microsoft collaboration platforms services. The books solutions focus on using Visual Studio Tools for Office to build the user interface layer. And solutions can interact with SharePoint as a service provider, taking advantage of SharePoints many collaboration features like document repositories, collaboration sites, and search functions.
This book is unique because it starts with challenges that end users deal with every day when using the Microsoft collaboration platform to support business processes. The solutions are presented as the hypothetical business challenges of a fictional company. By presenting the examples in this context, authors Ed Hild and Susie Adams make it easier to relate to the challenges and solution value. And the goal of these examples is to build applications that apply the benefits of the Office desktop interface with the richness of SharePoints collaboration features.
Professional SharePoint 2007 Web Content Management Development: Building Publishing Sites with Office SharePoint Server 2007 (Wrox Programmer to Programmer)
by: Andrew Connell - ISBN: 0470224754, 9780470224755, 9780470396315
This book is for SharePoint developers working with Publishing sites—sites that leverage MOSS 2007 WCM capabilities. It does not cover administrative topics in any great detail, only where absolutely necessary. For the most part, no two chapters are dependent upon each other, so each chapter can be used as a reference independently of the others. Readers need not have any development experience with SharePoint, but they should have some experience with and a working knowledge of ASP.NET 2.0 development practices and topics. Of course, it is beneficial if the reader does have at least a working knowledge of what SharePoint is all about.
This book covers MOSS 2007 WCM Publishing sites. You will find some chapters that seem to cover general WSS 3.0 topics, but everything is treated in the context of a Publishing site. While the chapters are arranged in a logical order, it is not necessary to read the book from cover to cover in a linear fashion.
Advanced SharePoint Services Solutions (Books for Professionals by Professionals)
by: Scot P. Hillier - ISBN: 1590594568, 9781590594568, 9781430200024
Whether or not youve already benefited from Scot P. Hilliers first renowned Apress book, Microsoft SharePoint: Building Office 2003 Solutions, this fantastic follow-up is sure to please! This book will cover advanced techniques for programming web parts and SharePoint Services.
Hillier also covers advanced integration techniques with related products like BizTalk Server 2004 and Content Server. Intended for you advanced developers who already know all of the basic SharePoint Services, this book will steer you to solve ultra-specific, advanced problems.

Here's three I've purchased and found to be very good:
Real World SharePoint 2007: Indispensable Experiences From 16 MOSS and WSS MVPs
Inside Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
SharePoint 2007 User's Guide: Learning Microsoft's Collaboration and Productivity Platform

The Connel and Pattison books listed above are both great, must-read books for SharePoint.

I'd start with the Pattison book as mentioned above. This gives you a great starting point.
Inside Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

Related

Guidance on the most effective way to learn sharepoint

I am a .NET developer with a few years of experience in Winforms, WPF and some ASP.NET with C#. What would be the best way for me to go about learning sharepoint, as a developer? I would be Learning on my spare time, My work currently has nothing to do with sharepoint, but I have seen a bit of what sharepoint can do and I felt that It is a technology worth investing my time in.
I am interested In books, videos, possible training, webcasts, videos, blogs, forums, communities and any advice you may have.
I made a pretty detailed list here that I have accumulated over the past 5 years trying to learn SharePoint - I hope it helps:
Best way to learn SharePoint
I always receive the emails about SharePoint training. But it needs to pay $100+.
Here is the one.
http://elearning.left-brain.com/event/preparing-for-sharepoint-v15?code=EP3328D1
One of the ways to get started learning about SharePoint is to use Sharepoint Hands Labs. You can read about it here SharePoint 2010 Hands on Labs. Also interesting tutorials are Sharepoint Labs on Codeplex and
SharePoint Server Virtual Labs on MSDN.
Good luck!
I took the official Microsoft SharePoint 2010 developer course and that was very useful. Several different companies offer it but it isn't cheap. Also SharePoint 2010 Development with Visual Studio 2010 was a big help as well. Also find out if your city has a SharePoint user group in it. Mine does and it is a great way to network with other SharePoint users and developers.
Here are a couple resources that may help you get started.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/sp2010devtrainingcourse.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee557253.aspx (Download for the examples is near the top)
And I would likely start with either a custom event receiver or a visual web part and just work on accessing data in a list.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff728093.aspx (Custom event receiver that prevents deletes on a list).
For books I like
Inside Microsoft SharePoint 2010
Professional SharePoint 2010 Development
Real World SharePoint 2010: Indispensable Experiences from 22 MVPs
Also as a first step you should install SharePoint and get a feel for it, once you do that look at SharePoint designer as it can accomplish a lot of tasks that users normally want.

What are some recommendations for books, when talking strictly about programming against the Object Model API for SharePoint 2007?

I've read quite few books regarding programming for SharePoint 2007, but in reading these books*, and referencing the online MSDN documentation there still seem to be large gaps/flaws/errors in what is documented, and how the API works.
Is there any book about the SharePoint 2007 API that delves deeply into everything? I would think that Microsoft would commission/ship such a book? :)
*I've found "SharePoint 2007 Development Recipes - A Problem Solution Approach" by APress to be very helpful, but I think it barely scratches the surface of the API.
Look into the Inside Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
I've had a lot of luck with this book, can't guarantee it goes into EVERYTHING, but it has mostly developer resources...
I agree with Mike above. Also, Inside Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 is a good reference.

Career in SharePoint? [closed]

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I would like to learn SharePoint. Are there any jobs for SharePoint professionals in this recession time? I have .NET knowledge.
To say there is a demand for SharePoint would be an understatement. Because prior to 2007 SP developers were very few and far between, there are precious few people out there that as of now have enough SP experience to work on the really complex projects.
However, SharePoint is not going away, and will be growing even further with the release of MSSPS 2010 next year. If you're a good ASP.Net developer looking to find a niche, then SharePoint would be a good way to go.
My #1 tip for new SharePoint developers: Download the WSPBuilder Visual Studio add-on, and install it before you start any custom SharePoint work. By seeing how the add-on structures your projects and adds SharePoint capital-F Features to SP Solution Packages, it will make it a LOT easier for those concepts to click in your head.
My #2 tip: Inside Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 - the best book, hands down, to really explain how SharePoint works, top to bottom. Read this cover to cover, and you'll know more than at least 30% of the SharePoint people out there.
I'd say two sites are worth checking:
MS SharePoint Developer: http://mssharepointdeveloper.com
My RampUp: http://myrampup.com/
These sites contain a lot of information on SharePoint development including the labs and a Virtual PC with SharePoint and Visual Studio.
SharePoint is Microsoft's fastest growing product. It's complex to administer and develop for, and SharePoint expertise gets a pretty nice premium (at least, in the three markets I'm familiar with: Dallas, Seattle, and central Midwest). I get a few calls a week from recruiters who want my SharePoint knowledge.
If you want to be a SharePoint developer, you will need to be familiar with .NET and either C# or VB.NET, so it looks like you're covered there.
The first thing you should do is spend some quality time reading the SharePoint questions here to see what kinds of issues SharePoint developers face. There are some excellent SharePoint folks on SO.
There is still plenty of SharePoint work around. However, most companies hiring SharePoint developers are looking for someone who is already an expert and will be able to help the existing .NET team learn SharePoint.
There is enough demand that you don't need a huge amount of experience to be considered an expert. However, you'll need at least some time on a real SharePoint project before you can get a job as a specialist. Your best option is probably to be working as a .NET developer for a company starting to use SharePoint or a consultancy that has both .NET and SharePoint projects.
You can go to job sites such as http://www.indeed.com/ to gauge the demand for different products/technologies in your area.
A few places I have worked customized SharePoint pretty extensively.
Personally I see quite a bit of SharePoint use locally. I have gotten a few head hunting calls about SharePoint jobs recently, so there does seem to be demand here.

Learning Sharepoint [closed]

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I'm starting a new job involving Sharepoint design/development. While the job will involve training courses on Sharepoint and other technologies I haven't used, I am interested to get a headstart and learn a little more about Sharepoint.
Are there any good articles explaining Sharepoint development and what I need to know (being a beginner in the technology)? I am strong with C# and ASP.NET as I use it everyday (job or no job), it's just the Sharepoint specific stuff I wonder. I am checking out MSDN. I did check out some other threads on this, but I am not really looking for a book.
A better question would be what blogs are there which focus on code snippets and best practises?
Thanks
There are lots of SharePoint virtual labs. They are good b/c they let you get your hands on the technology without too much of the setup hassle. :)
http://www.microsoft.com/click/SharePointDeveloper/html/Default.html
This site has the information I started with when learning SharePoint: webcasts from TechEd by Andrew Connell and Rob Bogue and the hands-on-labs that go along with them.
There are very many SharePoint MVPs that have blogs that are easy to find and many of them hang around on twitter so it's easy to get help.
http://andrewconnell.com/blog/archive/2008/11/25/Free-MSDN-Webcasts-amp-HOLs-for-MOSS-2007-WCM-Development.aspx has info on some newer webcasts
http://www.sharepointpodshow.com/ and http://www.methings.com/podcast/70342/MOSS-Gone-Wild.php
are 2 excellent SharePoint Podcasts.
A few months ago I was looking for decent SharePoint articles just to get an introduction to the technology. I found an entire section on CodeProject dedicated to it. Check it out if you haven't already, I found a number of good articles there.
Also, check out the SharePoint dev wiki
In addition to all the links provided by others:
Microsoft has a Best Practices Resource Center for SharePoint Server 2007 on Technet
The official SharePoint Team Blog has some good info.
Sharepoint Joel has a list of Top 100 SharePoint blogs, though a year old provides a good starting point of blogs to look at.
Several MSDN articles such as:
Disposal Best Practices
Common Coding Issues using the SharePoint Object Model
Edit: Also just noticed that the Patterns & Practices team has a SharePoint Guidance project on codeplex.
Sharepoint was a disaster for me (as I've said before), but I'd be willing to give it another try once .Net 4.0 and VS 2010 are released.
I would definitely download the VS 2010 beta and give the new Sharepoint integration a spin. I hear that it is a big improvement over what we have now.
As for documentation, msdn was the best learning resource I could find. It was more concise than what you will get with most books, although books usually provide a storyline and cohesive progression of learning.
Hope that helps, Good luck.
Codeplex is good for examples of developement. Given the rate of change with "best practices" I have seen some books that have become out of date quite rapidly.
I personally have gained a lot of valuable knowledge from looking at questions on forums like this one, trying to replicate the issue on a developement VM. I would recommend having a VM for "play" as hands on will run you up against many of the strengths and weaknesses with different approaches.
If you can get a backup of an existing content database you are using, having lots of documents and document libraries is good for hitting real data and trying out different search configurations etc.
One additional site you shouldn't forget is myrampup.com. It's a community-based training site which will help you get the knowledge you need to develop solutions on the SharePoint platform.
Before learning SharePoint development, learn what SharePoint can do. Use it and become familiar with its features. Many people's first thought is to develop new features when much of what they want to do can be done with existing SharePoint features. It's a huge, complex product.
I've found some very good videos for learning Sharepoint at Point8020
Very good reference for SharePoint Object Model:
http://www.etechplanet.com/post/2009/08/28/Overview-of-SharePoint-Object-Model.aspx
A good starting resource is the Microsoft RampUp Site it's a free resource that has 2 tracks for SharePoint for developers. Each track consists of articles, slide casts and virtual labs to help you gain an understanding of what goes into developing for SharePoint. They are not all inclusive but it should give you a good starting point.
There is also a user centric overview on the Microsoft Office Site for SharePoint 2007 that can help get you an understanding of some of the features in SharePoint.
I don't know if any of the resources have been update yet for SharePoint 2010, but hopefully those will follow soon.
Also check Microsoft Learning with SharePoint 2010 around the corner you might find free courses. Microsoft usually releases free online courseware for new products around the time of release.
For uo to date announcements check out the SharePoint Team blog, usually there's lots of good information around there.
Good Luck.

What is Microsoft SharePoint? [closed]

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I have heard that Microsoft SharePoint was used by many companies. Could someone tell me briefly what is SharePoint and why is it popular?
What is SharePoint?
The latest version of Microsoft SharePoint software is really two different products:
Windows SharePoint Services is a free download for Windows Server. In the latest version, known as WSS v3, collaborative web sites templates include basic blog and wiki services along with list templates for Image Libraries, Document Libraries, Contact lists, Calendars, Tasks and much more.
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 or MOSS for short is built on Windows SharePoint Services. As a member of the Office Server product platform, it leverages the Microsoft Office client software to provide content on the web. Integration with Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Access and InfoPath provide rich web content from familiar content creation tools.
Why is it so popular
File Sharing
SharePoint originally became popular because it was an easy way to share documents on the web. Many organizations that adopted SharePoint in the 2003 versions capitalized on the ability to upload documents to Document Libaries and share those documents with others.
Company Extranets
One great example of this web based sharing, is a company extranet where users are not all in one location or authentication domain. Using form based authentication, accounts can be created for people across physical and company boundaries. By allowing one place for shared documents around a task rather than a corporate entity, SharePoint goes way beyond the common file share.
Content Management
There are plenty of other Content Management Systems, but MOSS incorporated the functionality of the previously name Microsoft Content Management System which itself often cost more than MOSS alone.
Search Search is greatly improved in SharePoint 2007 technologies. Search results are security trimmed, relevant and performant unlike the previous 2003 version. Bad search in SharePoint 2003 products lead to a lot of dissatisfaction with the product.
what is sharepoint
Sharepoint is really two different technologies: Windows Sharepoint Services (WSS) and Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server (MOSS). WSS is free and it comes with Windows Server 2003. MOSS isn't free.
WSS provides lots of out of the box functionality for managing documents and projects online. It manages documents in "document libraries." These are folders with permissions and different views of your documents. Projects, tasks, issues, or any tabular data, is managed in lists. Lists are similar to document libraries. They have permissions and views as well. It provides some simple search as well.
MOSS provides a better search (it's supposed to at least). It also has more publishing capabilities (WSS doesn't). And you have more control over page layouts. It's meant more for internet style sites while WSS is more for intranet sites.
and why is it popular?
WSS is popular partly because its free and partly because it just does so much out of the box. You can solve many common office requests with WSS. Stuff like issue trackers, project management and document management are trivial in WSS. That said, its a jack of all trades - good at many, master of none.
MOSS is probably less popular because its not free and having used it for a year, I don't see as much value in it as WSS. Search isn't that great. It does do a good job of creating a company directory.
I've been working with SharePoint since v.1 and I could tell you that SharePoint is a:
Document management server
Web content management server
Portal solution
Search engine
List-based repository
Collaboration site
Replacement for file shares
etc etc...
...but if I have to summarize in one sentence what SharePoint is I would say:
Sharepoint is Microsoft's Web OS.
That's real the secret of its success. Many people imagined the Web OS as something like these. A Web OS is not something that is meant to look like a desktop OS. A Web OS should be a WEB PLATFORM in which all sort of applications can be built on and users are able to collaborate with.
Think of SharePoint as the 2.0-era version of Windows :-)
Previous answers describe what sharepoint is, but don't do a good job describing why it's popular. Yes, it gives you all that neat doc-management stuff out of the box. Yes, it integrates tightly with Office.
The OOB features are 1/10th of the whole story. Sharepoint exposes a comprehensive .Net object model that lets you customize the thing to your hearts content. People are coding amazing things with MOSS 2007. With the object model, you can build and customize sites via code, in response to external events. You can write custom "web-parts" (controls hosted on special pages) that consume both internal (sharepoint) and external data.
Check out Sharepoint Blogs to see what people are doing with it.
Very good points so far but I'll try my best to add something. :)
SharePoint is not just 2 technologies. It is a set of products and technologies brought together by Microsoft into one immense product that comes in 2 flavors. The 2 flavors are Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS). MOSS does come in standard and enterprise.
[Some of the technologies used in SharePoint: Windows Workflow Foundation, ASP.NET, Web Parts, XML (included XPath, XSLT, etc), SQL, Web Services - to name a few I can think of off the top of my head]
No matter the version you choose, SharePoint allows for web-based capabilities to allow users to create, organize, distribute, and maintain information. Because of this, the most common uses for SharePoint sites are intranets and project/team sites.
SharePoint also has incredible possibilities as an application platform. Looking at the web part and workflow pieces alone you can begin to realize the potential. For example, automation of authorization processes within an organization can quickly be developed without any code using SharePoint Designer. (FYI: more complex workflows would require Visual Studio but many simple workflows can be designed using the point and click functionality of SharePoint Designer)
While MOSS only extends upon the WSS, it does add a large amount of functionality that can be very important and useful to a business. Some of the more important features available in MOSS and not in WSS are: records management, document retention and auditing policies, browser based forms (InfoPath forms without installing InfoPath on client machine), and some of the business intelligence capabilities. Amazingly we're seeing interest in the social networking features of MOSS too. (easy to read list of features not in WSS that MOSS has)
Why is SharePoint used? I was doing some research not to long ago on this exact subject and I found a research study that cited 5 key benefits:
Ease of information access
Streamlined internal communication
Increased end-user productivity
Optimized document management practices
IT time savings
Sorry if that turned into a bit of a ramble.
It's a collaboration website. All of the members on a team can update a single calendar and upload shared documents to a single repository.
I think in this case Wikipedia have it right
Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) is the basic part of Microsoft SharePoint, offering collaboration and document management functionality by means of web portals, by providing a centralized repository for shared documents, as well as browser-based management and administration of them. It allows creation of Document libraries, which are collections of files that can be shared for collaborative editing. SharePoint provides access control and revision control for documents in a library.
In a nutshell Sharepoint is all about corporative management and collaboration features. Your company have a Windows 2003 server? Here you go. WSS 3.0 is here up and running.
SharePoint is the reason I'm considering taking advantage of a suicide booth.
In all seriousness, the rest of the answers are spot on. The differences between WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007 commonly trip people up ("why pay for MOSS when WSS is free?" for example). SharePoint is a very complex and rich product that is integrated into other Microsoft applications, like Project Server 2007 and Team Foundation Server.
Why should you care about it? It depends. There are quite a few opportunities out there for experienced SharePoint developers and administrators. It can very quickly become the singular focus of your career if you decide to put a lot of effort into learning it.
Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server (MOSS) is a combination of two previous products, Microsoft SharePoint and Microsoft Content Management System.
It has a large number of features out of the box that are very desirable for any single system, including hosting files with customisable metadata. Page and file publishing that is enabled for end users, excellent search... the list goes on.
Essentially it is designed to enhance and organisations collaboration activities across the entire enterprise, leveraging the organistations existing Office application to create an enterprise system.
Sharepoint, MS OFFICE proxy circa 2003...
remember when you emailed a copy of that word doc out to the whole company, that's what sharepoint is for, but apparently you missed the introductory gotomeeting training course.

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