Vancouver TechFest 2009

All user group and technology community leaders in Vancouver are working closely together in organizing Techfest-2009. Mark November 21, 2009 on your calendar; it's a Saturday and as usual the sessions will appeal to both Developers and IT Professionals. More details are at http://codecamp.ca/.

The event will be held at three lecture theatres at the BCIT campus in Burnaby, BC. We are oganizing a nerds dinner at the Professor Mugs pub, also at BCIT, a night before the event on Friday November 20, 2009 from 6:30 PM to 9:30 PM. Attendees to the dinner are expected to pay for their own food and drink. Come to the dinner and mingle with your community leaders, fellow nerds, John Bristowe of Microsoft, and speakers.

Registration is now open! Register at: http://vantechfest.eventbrite.com/. This event is filling fast so don't wait.

Get ready for an exciting line up of industry professionals providing you with free training; and be sure to bring your laptops, FREE WiFi will be available for all attendees.

Don't bother to bring lunch, its FREE as well, courtesy of Microsoft!

Although Rob Chartier is spear-heading this event, I am very proud that all user groups leaders in Vancover are actively involved in things like:

- securing the BCIT venue
- securing sponsorship
- finding speakers
- spreading the word
- developing an event website

I should also thanks John Bristowe of Microsoft for being actively involved in planning with us this event and offering valuable ideas. He also organizes a weekly conference call where we all update one another on the status of things pertaining to TechFest 2009. It is shaping up to be a super festival of technology.

Tweaking IIS & web.config connection timeout setting

Microsoft Internet Information Services

If IIS is timing out when you upload large files, you can change "Connection Timeout" property to ensure that larger files can be uploaded successfully.

1. Go to Start –> All Programs -> Administrative Tools –> Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager.
2. Right-click the virtual server you want to configure, and then choose Properties.
3. Click the Web Site tab.
4. In the Connections section, in the Connection timeout box, type the number of seconds you want IIS to wait before timing out.
5. Click OK to save settings.

Web.config

There are other settings that you can change in the web.config file that also affect connection timeout.

Update maxRequestLength and executionTimeout attributes belonging to the httpRuntime tag.

executionTimeout = <Time in Seconds>

maxRequestLength = <File size in KB> (by default for ASP.NET applications, its set to 4096 (4MB), but because SharePoint supports 50MB so its set to 51200)

Example:

<!-- 102400 = 100MB -->
<httpRuntime executionTimeout="999999" maxRequestLength="102400" />

Extending session timeout for SharePoint 2007 instance using forms-based autentication.

Change the timeout attribute belonging to the forms tag in the web.config file:

<forms loginUrl="Login.aspx" timeout="300"/>

This will force a timeout in 5 minutes of inactivity.

This setting equally applies to any ASP.NET application that uses forms-based authentication.

Using blogger for my blog

On Sunday September 20, 2009 I moved all my blog postings from my own SharePoint 2007 server located at http://cisa.ca/ to blogger.com. I have nothing against SharePoint 2007 as it served me quite well. I decided to move my blog because I started seriously falling behind on backups of the blog site and felt that sooner or later I may lose everything. I found blogger.com to be easy to use. More importantly, I do not need to worry about backups as I trust google will take care of that.

How do I disable User Account Control (UAC) in Windows Server 2008?

Control Panel => User Accounts


Click "Turn User Account Control on or off"

Uncheck "Use User Account Control (UAC) to help protect your computer"

Click on "OK" button

How to unsubscribe (or remove) yourself from a SharePoint 2007 alert?

In SharePoint one can subscribe to any document libraray or list to be sent alerts when changes occur such us additions, deletions, and updates. This is done by choosing "Actions" => "Alert Me".


If one wishes not to receive alerts anymore, it is not that apparent how to do it. Well, you would need to go to "Site Actions" => "Site Settings" => "User Alerts". Choose the user in question and subsequently delete him/her from the appropriate list or document library alert.

Presentation to VanSPUG on Enhancing SharePoint with Silverlight 2.0

VanSPUG (Vancouver SharePoint User Group) is less than one year old. I can proudly say that I was a catalyst in the establishment of this young user group when I helped Peter McFarlane organize the launch event on September 17, 2008 at my BCIT workplace. Since then I have attended most of their meetings. Therefore, it was certainly an honor for me to be a speaker for the first time.


I had a blast when I presented at VanSPUG yesterday evening on the topic of "Enhance SharePoint with Silverlight 2.0". The event started just after 6:30 PM and ended promptly at 8:15 PM becuase we had to vacate the meeting room. Sherman was my host who did a good job introducing me at the start. The event was attended by about 30 people and was held at the Microsoft offices at 1111 West Georgia Street in downtown Vancouver. I would have liked to have questions from those who attended. Actually, I cannot recall even a single question. Oh well ...

For those who are interested in the resources clck here to download my powerpoint presentation + examples.