Alexander’s Blog

The Access Checker Web Part is a Windows SharePoint Services Web part from Codeplex, for use within Windows SharePoint Services v3 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. The Web Part displays a tree view showing permissions on objects for a user scoped to a Site hierarchy. There is a second mode that is useful to see the permission inheritance of objects in a Site hierarchy.

You can download the Web part from Codeplex and extract the zip files in a folder. Run the setup.exe as a farm administrator account. When I ran the setup.exe file I got the following Timer job error:

The Windows SharePoint Services Timer service is NOT started!

Check out my blog post Error: The Windows SharePoint Services Timer service is NOT started! for more details and a possible solution.

Once you’ve install the Access Checker Web Part on your server, you can enable it in the following locations.

1. To use the Site Settings feature go to SharePoint Central Administration site and navigate to
Application Management, Manage Web Application Features. There you can activate the Access Checker Feature to enable the Site Settings Pages.

2. To use the Web part simply navigate to the Site Settings page of a Site Collection, and activate the
Access Checker Web Part feature under Site Collection Features.

At this point you should be able to go to a Web part page and add this new Web part. The Web part is located in the Site Administration area.

Once you’ve added the Web part to your site, you can view a user’s permission on each List and Site. It will also show you the permission inheritance hierarchy so you know how your permissions are setup. Here’s how you can check a user’s access.

1. Type a user’s login name either by using the People Picker or the Browse functionality.

2. From the Access drop-down button, select the type of permissions you would like to view. The options are:

-Full Control

-Design

-Manage Hierarchy

-Approve

-Contribute

-Read

-Restricted Read

-Limited Access

3. Select a filter option to either show all items, show item where user does not have access, or show items where user have access. These options are great for troubleshooting access issues.

4. Click on the Check Access button to see the results. The results are color coded. Green means the user has Read or greater access. Red means the user does not have Read or greater access.

There are two new menu items that are available under Site Actions, Site Settings after you install the Web part.

The Check User Access page contains the Access Checker Web part that is pre-configured for user access mode, while the View Permission Inheritance page contains the Access Checker Web part that is pre-configured for Permission Inheritance Mode. The color coded report makes it very easy to glance at the results and get a good idea of how the inheritance is configured, as shown in the graphic below.

The green items show you which items are inheriting permissions from the parent, while the red items are items that have unique permissions.

Conclusion

According to Codeplex there are a couple of limitations even with this latest version 1.3.0 of Access Checker Web Part. You cannot display list items in the report and the Web part currently does not work with Forms-Based Authentication. I am hoping that the next version will allow the administrators to view the permissions at the item level.

In the current version, SharePoint groups are not supported. You can only use Active Directory users (not Active Directory groups). However, even with these limitations it is great to have the ability to check access on all the sites as well as all the sites and lists within the sites. You really see the beauty of this Web part when you are working with hundreds of sites. I am currently working on a very large SharePoint site collection and this Web part is exactly what I needed to view permissions.

In July I wrote an article Microsoft Surges with TechNet/MSDN Search. In that article I documented my observations, talked about some cool features and listed the areas that needed improvement. Microsoft has been making considerable changes to it’s search engine lately and seems to be more committed to offering consumers search capabilities that rival competitors, such as Google. Recently, I decided to give Live Search a try. The last time I used Live Search, a long time ago, I wasn’t too impressed so I was hesitant at first and definitely skeptical. Anytime Microsoft, or another vendor, tells you to try their new improved product you know they are trying to sell you their product so if you are skeptical that’s natural.

I made Windows Live my default search engine on December 1 and in this article I am documenting my observations. Keep in mind that I have only used Live Search for ten days as my default search so my experience is rather limited. However, I wanted to document my experience because when I wrote the article about TechNet and MSDN Search in July , I clearly stated that I do not prefer Live Search over Google, at least not at that time.

So what changed my mind that I wanted to give Live Search a serious try? Well, the simple fact that Microsoft made tremendous improvements in TechNet/MSDN Search, which impressed me, and I assumed that Microsoft must have made significant changes to Live Search over the past several months. Also, at the last MVP Global Summit Steve Ballmer told us that Microsoft is making improvements to Live Search and asked us (MVPs) to give it a try and then give our honest feedback. So here’s my honest feedback.

For me, the easiest way to compare and contrast two products is to use them both for the same task. And that’s exactly what I did with Live Search. I used the exact same search for both Google and Live Search to better compare the two search engines.

General Observations

Here are some general observations after running same searches on both engines. This list in the following table is not in any particular order.

There are some areas where Live Search blows away Google out of this world, like searching for images. Look at the side-by-side comparison of the two graphics below to get a better idea. With Live Search I can simply move my slider down and it automatically takes me to the next page. Unlike Google search, there is no need to scroll down to the bottom of the page, click Next, wait for the images to load and then start this procedure over for the next page. If you want to search among thousands or even hundreds of images, Live Search is the way to go. Google allows you to refine your images by selecting options from a drop-down button at the top of the page, while Live Search allows you to refine searches by options such as size, aspect ratio, color, style, face, etc. Live Search options are more intuitive and will be easier to navigate and understand by most users.

Live Search Example:

Google Search Example:

In Live Search, when you hover over an image, you get several options including the size of the image. The four zoom options further enhance image searches. Another thing I noticed is that images look much crisper in Live Search. I haven’t spent time to further research this and it may be due to the fact that Live Search has a much cleaner and sharper look to it, while Google feels too messy and the ads definitely add to the clutter.

There is a typo of sorts in Live Search screen. At the time of writing, the cashback link in the upper right hand corner should be spelled Cashback with an uppercase C, just like the rest of the links.

Conclusion

My overall impression about Live Search is that it has made significant improvements since I last used it. I consider it a serious competitor to Google. After using it for 10 days, and mind you it’s only 10 days, I believe an average user is not going to find a significant difference between the two search engines. More sophisticated users will find pros and cons in both search engines. Because I primarily work with Microsoft products, I would prefer to use Live Search just for that reason alone even though I realize that that’s no guarantee for better results.

I like Live Search for aesthetics and clarity, I didn’t notice a significant speed difference in either of the search engines, and the most important factor in search for me is relevance. Well, I didn’t find either of the two search engines having any significant edge over the other in relevance of search results. As far as searching for images, Live Search is light years ahead of Google. For all these reasons, I’ve decided to switch to Live Search for now. I will use it for a while and see how I like it. If I find significant deficiencies I will report back with my findings. Until then, goodbye Google and hello Live Search.

I recently had the opportunity to review Colligo Contributor Pro 3.2 for SharePoint, which received the “2008 Editor’s Best Awards” in the SharePoint category by Windows IT Pro magazine. Here’s how the vendor describes the product.

“Colligo Contributor Pro is an easy-to-deploy .NET client application that drives user adoption of Microsoft by providing an intuitive user experience that better integrates SharePoint into the way users work on their desktops. It enables information workers to easily access, modify, and create SharePoint content through familiar desktop interfaces, online and offline. Contributor Pro includes two user interface options: a rich standalone desktop client and a Microsoft Office Outlook Add-In.”

I haven’t had a chance to use the Outlook integration much at this point so I am not including it in this review. I should point out that Outlook integration is one of the more impressive part of this software so keep that in mind as you read this review.

I liked the product overall. Here are some of my observations, the things I liked and the things that need improvement.

THINGS I LIKE

- You can add multiple sites to Colligo Contributor Pro 3.2 and easily switch between them. You can also manage all the sites very easily. Users will appreciate the ease with which you can access sites from the drop-down menu or download new sites.

- There are all kinds of synchronization options and they are all very intuitive.

- You can copy a URL for the item in a list or library and paste in Outlook or any place else.

- You can upload multiple documents much easier than in SharePoint by simply using control-click or shift-click.

- The synchronization status is clearly visible in the lower right-hand corner and shows the time for the last synchronization which is helpful.

- You can create new documents based on either a site template or any other office application, such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, etc. Very cool!

- With JPEG images I have the option to either Open or Edit them with Windows Photo Gallery. It depends on how your operating system is configured to open images. My system is configured to open JPEGs with Windows Photo Gallery and GIFs with Internet Explorer so those are the options I have in Colligo Contributor 3.2.

- If you upload a PDF, you have the option to right-click the file and select Open with. You can then choose any application, like Acrobat Professional to open and edit the PDF. Save the PDF back in Colligo Contributor 3.2 and it will synchronize it to the SharePoint server. This is one workaround for dealing with the issue of editing a PDF file in SharePoint, which is not supported by default as there is not integration between Adobe products and SharePoint.

THINGS THAT NEED IMPROVEMENT

- There is no product help available within Colligo Contributor Pro 3.2, which is simply amazing. There is a link to Online Help and Support but one of the main selling point of this software is that you have the ability to use it offline. How do you expect a user to work offline (e.g. on an airplane) but access help online? The least I would expect is to have a link to a PDF file within the software (assuming Adobe Reader is installed on the computer) but a lit bit investment from the vendor in more usable help would be nice. Even the Online Help and Support requires a lot of digging to fnd the answers to your questions. As an MCT who teaches SharePoint , I know end users will prefer to have a quick access to the help topics.

- You cannot adjust the columns by double-clicking on the column divider, as you do in all Window applications.

- Lacks an editor so you can only edit the title of an Announcement, not the body.

- When you create a new Announcement you can add a title, an attachment, and an expiration date but you cannot add anything in the body. In other words, you cannot really add Announcements, you can only read the ones created on the server, which cannot be modified in Colligo Contributor 3.2 Pro. At least that’s what I experienced while evaluating this product.

- You do not have all the same views in Colligo Contributor Pro 3.2 as you have on the SharePoint site so its something you will have to get used to if you switch between SharePoint and Colligo Contributor Pro 3.2. If you don’t use both products then you won’t have to worry about it. However, support for views seem to be limited and this is one area that could use some improvement.

- For some sites, the images library shows the exact opposite view as in SharePoint, which is very confusing. For example, the default view is All Pictures but Colligo Contributor Pro 3.2 shows no pictures in the All Pictures view. However, if you switch to Selected Pictures then it shows all the pictures, even though you have not selected any pictures. It seems like the design for the two views was accidentally switched by the developers. At least that’s how it operates.

- On a different site I noticed that both All Pictures view and Select Pictures view show the exact same result. Again, this is unexpected behavior. I see no use whatsoever for the Selected Pictures view in Colligo Contributor Pro 3.2.

- The slide show view should not be confused with a slide show, it simply shows additional columns, such as Created, Encoded Absolute URL, Picture Width, Picture Height, etc. It really should have been renamed something else.

- When you open Web pages (.aspx pages) by double-clicking them, they open in Notepad to edit HTML code, rather than opening in a browser. In other words, they can only be edited with Notepad or SharePoint Designer but not read in a browser or reader. It would be nice to have a context menu option to Open in Browser.

- The option “Use current Windows experience” in Colligo Contributor Options did not do anything different for me.

General Comments

- Editing of wiki pages is currently not supported in Colligo Contributor Pro 3.2. The note on the top of the page warns you about that so the user at least will be aware of this.

- The Events Calendar has an icon next to the paper clip that I am not sure what it is for. There is no explanation and moving the cursor over it doesn’t display any text. These little things can be very helpful sometime and I would like to see it included in the next version.

Summary

Overall, Colligo Contributor Pro 3.2 for SharePoint is extremely easy to use. There are some tasks that are easier to perform in this product than SharePoint, such as uploading multiple files, creating a new item, and even dealing with editing of PDF files. Managing multiple sites is a breeze. There are also some areas that definitely need improvement. The only help available is online help so when you work with the product offline (which is one of the primary reason why most people would buy this product in the first place) you are on your own.

Unfortunately, most people will not find what they are looking for very easily. For example, by default encryption of stored site content is turned off. By modifying a configuration setting you can supposedly turn it on. But good luck finding that information. Providing a usable Help file should be the number one priority of the makers of Colligo Contributor Pro 3.2.

Outlook integration is great. I have used a few features but not all. Based on the documentation you can drag-and-drop e-mails in Outlook, capture e-mail metadata easily, add attachments, edit list items, create documents from content types & forms, drag-and-drop new documents to SharePoint, and update SharePoint content while offline. You might want to try the 30-day free trial and check it out for yourself.

It’s no surprise that Microsoft is working hard on improving its search services. They’ve got loads of information on TechNet and MSDN sites that is searched by thousands of people each day. I heard that Microsoft has been working on its search for some time now so I figured it’s worth checking out. So, for the past 10 days I decided to use TechNet Search & MSDN Search exclusively to see if they are any good. Here’s what I discovered.

First of all, I should point out that both TechNet Search and MSDN Search are powered by Microsoft’s Live Search. However, that doesn’t mean that you should expect the same results from all three. They may be powered by the same engine but depending on which of the three searches (Live, TechNet, or MSDN) you use, the results you get are very different. Live Search results are more generic in nature, while TechNet and MSDN Search results are more targeted.

To prove this point do a search on a topic, for example Web Management Service on Live Search, TechNet Search, and MSDN Search. You’ll see exactly what I mean. Now, one might expect Microsoft to do a better job at searching their own Web site but that has not always been the case so people are naturally suspicious when it comes to using Microsoft’s search engine. Even the folks at Microsoft, at least in the past, have been using Google as their primary search engine. But that might be changing now. Microsoft has made some major enhancements in its search engine and I thought I should definitely take a closer look.

I decided to give TechNet/MSDN Search a try with an open mind. As I mentioned, I have been using it for the past 10 days and I must admit that I am impressed enough that I have added TechNet/MSDN Search to my primary browser (Mozilla’s Firefox).

Adding TechNet/MSDN Search to Your Browser

You can add TechNet/MSDN Search to your Internet Explorer browser by clicking on the link Get our search on either TechNet Search or MSDN Search page. You could also use the drop-down box in the upper right hand corner but using the Get our search link is much quicker. The TechNet Search is shown in the screen shot below. You will be given the option to make TechNet Search your default search by checking a box. Unlike other vendors, like Apple, who forces you to install iTunes, even if you were only interested in installing QuickTime, Microsoft was kind enough to let us decide what we want to do……simply add the search or add it and make it the default.

If you are using a Firefox browser, go to TechNet Search or MSDN Search page and then click on the drop-down button in the upper right-hand corner. You will see the option Add “Search Msdn”, as shown below. Don’t forget to first go to the Search page or else you will not see TechNet or MSDN listed in the drop-down box.

Cool Features

I discovered several nice things about TechNet/MSDN Search that are worth mentioning. You have the ability to refine the search by topic or source, which I really like. The auto complete is yet another useful feature (Google refers to this feature as Suggestions). I am also pleased with the overall speed at which TechNet Search displays the results. However, compared to Google I believe Microsoft is slightly behind in this aspect, but not by much. The lack of ads is another major reason why I decided to make TechNet/MSDN Search my preferred search for Microsoft-related topics. Do I prefer Live Search over Google? No! Not yet at least. Do I like TechNet/MSDN Search enough to use it and to recommend it to my students and other colleagues for Microsoft-related searches? Absolutely!

Room For Improvement

There is definitely room for improvement. The refinements could use some refinement. Autocomplete is good but needs to get better. The areas that Microsoft needs to work on the most to become a serious player in the search business are quality/relevance of hits and speed. One thing that I would like TechNet/MSDN Search to do is to offer better hits when searching for error messages. Unfortunately, when I used Event Viewer error messages in my search the results were disappointing. Another thing I would like Microsoft to improve upon is that the Search needs to be more forgiving and flexible. I discovered that unless you type the words in a way Microsoft Search expects, you may not get good results.

Let’s look at some specific examples. While working at a client’s site, I used copy and paste to search for an Event Viewer error message “Security policies were propagated with warning. 0×57:The parameter is incorrect.” TechNet Search found no results, while Google had dozens of hits and I found the answer on the very first page. At another time I was searching to find an answer with an issue in Exchange Server 2003. I typed “Exchange 2003 last logon by field”. TechNet Search had 49 hits but none of them were really relevant because I didn’t use the words “logged on by.” The first two hits on Google were pertinent. But when I typed the words “Last logged on by”, Google came up with several hits and the hits were okay but TechNet’s search results were excellent with far better results. That’s what I mean by TechNet Search not being too forgiving. Hopefully, over time these issues can be corrected.

One of the major challenges that Microsoft faces is to convince the general public that Microsoft’s Search is a viable contender in the industry and therefore it deserves a serious consideration. TechNet and MSDN’s enhanced search is a good place to start.

NOTE: TechNet/MSDN Search is designed to search information only on Microsoft’s Web sites and therefore ideal for searching only Microsoft-related technical data. You might want to keep that in mind when you compare it to Google or other search engines. If you want to search the entire Internet, Microsoft offers Live Search as an alternative to Google and Yahoo.

Conclusion

Overall, I am quite impressed by Microsoft’s efforts to enhance TechNet/MSDN Search. There are several reasons why I find TechNet/MSDN Search more appealing than Google for Microsoft-related topics.

Among other things, TechNet/MSDN Search:

- Has a cleaner look and feel
- Is fairly fast (but could use some improvement)
- Is very readable
- Is quite easy to use
- Contains links for the next page(s) on top (in addition to the bottom)
- Lets you refine searches by topic or by source……very cool!
- Let’s you add RSS feed with one click of an RSS feed button
- Unlike Google, no distracting ads plastered on the search result pages

Obviously, at this stage I haven’t used TechNet/MSDN Search for very long and my findings are based on a relatively short time frame of experience but here’s what I find very interesting. When Microsoft gets serious about something, watch out! There are numerous examples that can be cited. Internet Explorer was not a serious contender in the days before the browser war began. Netscape, the only player in town at one time, is now only mentioned in the history books. Why? Because Microsoft got serious about its browser.

Going back even further in time, Microsoft had hoped that NetBEUI would be the protocol of choice for everyone. When the rest of the world didn’t like Microsoft’s idea and TCP/IP also became the protocol of choice for the Internet, Microsoft got serious and made tremendous improvements to the TCP/IP protocol suite. Since then perhaps Microsoft has made more improvements to the TCP/IP stack than anyone else in the industry. It’s this “getting serious” business that should be noticed. Sure, there are other signs that you can point to (like efforts to acquire Yahoo) that one might think that Microsoft is willing to invest heavily to compete with Google in the search war. But it’s what Microsoft has done with the TechNet/MSDN Search that makes me want to believe more that Microsoft is really getting serious about this search business. Talk is cheap, actions speak louder. And that is bad news for Google.

Here’s a nice little tool that will speed up your system by getting rid of the junk files, such as temporary files, memory dump files, cookies, etc. This is an impressive tool with lots of features. It’s easy to use, fast and it’s FREE.

I like to configure the option to Minimize to System Tray under Options, Advanced. You can download the tool here.