Monday, October 11, 2010
I wanted to take some time off from my usual (or less than usual) technology blog to post a review of my road bike, the Trek 7.7 FX.
I wanted to wait and get some miles on the road before posting any type of review to ensure I’m not in some sort of honeymoon period with the bike. My goal was to post the review after 100 miles, but I am happy to say that tonight, I crossed 200 miles!
Before getting into the specifics of the bike itself, let me tell you how I got here. I knew I needed to do something to get in shape and I don’t like to run and am quite honestly not motivated enough to go to the gym. I always had a bike in college and really enjoyed riding and have quite a few friends who now ride road bikes, so I thought this would be a good thing for me to do.
When I went shopping for a bike, I had 3 goals in mind. First, I wanted something that was comfortable to ride. I knew that my butt would be hurting after the first few rides, but other than that, ergonomics was a big factor in my decision. I work behind a computer a lot of times 12+ hours per day and my wrists/back/neck/shoulders just aren’t up to what they used to be, so I wanted something that wouldn’t kill me on longer rides.
Second, I wanted something that was fast. Nothing more to say here, other than a bike that would keep a good pace and is lightweight. I evaluated both aluminum and carbon and settled on the aluminum option (more on that later).
Third, I wanted something that I could pedal around the neighborhood with the kids as well as comfortably ride something like the Jack and Back as well. Most road bikes are great for long races, but miserable when pedaling around with the kids. With most hybrids, you would be NUTS to try a long race (Jack and Back is 150 miles over 2 days) as it just doesn’t have the speed to get you there. The Trek 7.7 FX is a great combination of both a very fast road bike that’s comfortable like a hybrid and can easily slow down to speeds made for spinning around the neighborhood with the kids.
Bike Geometry
Believe it or not, I did a lot of studying on road bike geometry before making my final decision. My top two choices were the Trek 4.7 Madone and the 7.7 FX. They actually have nearly the same geometry with the FX having only a flat bar and the 4.7 having the traditional curly road bike bar (whatever it’s called). I find that being 6’5” tall, I do sit up in the wind quite a bit and on a windy day I can really feel it slowing me down. There’s not really a comfortable way to get out of the wind, so I am going to very likely add a tri-bar or something similar to give me another option to lean out of the wind. Note this hasn’t affected my riding and has only added about 30 seconds – 1 minute to my usual ride of 16 miles, so it’s really not that big of a deal…I’m not Lance. :)
Let’s talk components: Shimano 105
When testing out road bikes, I noticed that many of the bikes in my price range started out with a minimum set of components: Shimano 105 or SRAM Rival. I really liked the all around feel of the Shimano 105’s, so that helped me narrow my choices of bikes quite a bit. These are the first level of the (what I call) “top-tier components” from Shimano. If you move up the line, you just lose some weight, but the quality of the component is still the same. Note that the main difference between the 7.6 FX and the 7.7 FX is the components. The price of the 7.6 FX is $1240 vs. the 7.7 FX which comes in at $1920. Yes, in this rare case the components really are that much better.
Shifting is very fast and very precise. It seems the more that I ride, the better the shifting gets. It really is like a fine Swiss watch and shifts are crisp and immediate. My mountain bike (which is what i have the most miles on) will grind on the gears before falling into place, which causes you to lose a lot of power going through the bike to the road. The only problem that I have is that it does rub a bit when I am on the large crank ring and the large rear cassette gear, but this is mostly because it is such a stretch for the chain. Overall, I love the 105’s and would encourage anyone to start with these (or the SRAM equivalent) for any road bike. These are really top quality components.
Brakes
What can I say…the breaks work. :) This past weekend, I was on a very steep downhill and got the bike up to 37.9 MPH. I could have gone faster, but didn’t want to push it as having to bail off the bike at that speed wouldn’t make for a fun ride. When I squeezed the brakes, they performed as expected and stopped me quick and easy. I’ve heard miscellaneous reports of brakes burning out at high speeds, but I haven’t experienced that at all. Note that on my regular rides, I’m now averaging in the high 15MPH’s with speeds topping out at 24MPH + and haven’t had any problems with the brakes.
Wheels/Tires
The Wheels and Tires didn’t really play a role in my decision, but I know that the 4.7 and the 7.7FX share the same wheelset, which is the Bontregar Race. I don’t know that much about the wheels, other than they’re light and they look cool (just being honest), but haven’t had any problem with it coming out of alignment. So far, so good.
The tires are something that I’ll eventually change before I go on a long ride (50+ miles per day). The 7.7 FX ships with a 28mm tire, which is more of a touring tire vs. the traditional 23mm tire that are on most road bikes. I’ll probably try a 23mm tire when it’s time to change, but so far, I haven’t had any problems with the 28mm tire. Right now, I don’t know if it will even affect my ride times, but for me, it’s worth a try. Note that I wouldn’t do this if I were using the bike for touring as the bigger 28mm tire will be more stable with a load on the bike (via racks and such).
Accessories
I purchased several accessories with the bike: shoes, helmet, bike computer, riding clothes (shorts and shirt), and gloves. While I use all of them, other than the helmet, the most important things of the bunch are the shoes and the riding clothes. At a minimum, get you some shoes and a decent pair of riding shorts. Riding shoes (the ones that clip into the pedals) allow you to transfer power to the upstroke of your pedaling. This lets you use the back side of your leg and your glutes which are invaluable when climbing hills. No matter what, put shoes into your budget.
Riding shorts look dumb, I hate them but they really make riding a lot more comfortable. They are designed for riding and I hurt A LOT after riding around the neighborhood in regular shorts. With riding shorts, I have zero discomfort during or after the rides. They rock and I almost won’t get on the bike without them.
I also downloaded a cool iPhone GPS bike computer (ScreenMedia SprintGPS) for like $3 and it totally rocks. I was looking at spending > $400 on a Garmin that does basically the same thing, but the iPhone application does everything that I need it to do. Again, I’m not Lance. :)
Summary
As you can tell, I really do love this bike. It’s fast, comfortable, fun to ride, and does everything that I ask it to. If you are looking for a good bike that’s fun to ride, then this is your bike but as with everything (specifically high priced items), always try before you buy. A big thanks goes out to Murfreesboro Outdoor and Bikes for helping me find the right bike and when it came in, fitting it to me.
Friday, May 07, 2010
I want to break away from my usual topic of something technical and talk about what I experienced tonight while working in the call center for the Nashville Flood telethon, which was broadcast on WSMV, CNN, and The Weather Channel.
We started receiving calls about 7pm local time and to be honest, I had no idea what to expect when going into this. I mean, I'm a pretty good talker, but this is different...We had a good script of what to say and how we were supposed to say it, as well as paper forms and pens that we used to collect information from people who wanted to donate their money to help. I took my first few calls pretty easily and it went pretty quick and easy. Everyone was upbeat and happy to be in the call center as well as people happy to be donating money. Pizza, snacks, and soft drinks were flowing well. Everyone is smiling and happy. :)
About 3 or 4 calls into my night, I got a call from a lady that had lost 2 family members in West Nashville who drowned in the floods. She was crying when she called and I of course tried to console her. She told me how bad her situation was, losing family members and much of her neighborhood. After all this, she still just wanted to help other people. She was donating all the money that she could to the telethon and I want to share a direct quote from her: "I want to donate this instead of buying flowers for my family members' funeral because people out there need help.".
Please let me pause while I get myself together <again>. That caught me so off guard (and still does).
I had kids calling wanting to donate their allowance, open their piggy banks, whatever they could do. These are kids. Kids not much older than my boys. Kids who should be focused on buying the next cool video game or toy or whatever but wanted to do something. Everyone just seemed to want to help. I took calls from as far away as British Columbia as well and pretty much coast to coast. how cool is that?
Yet another thing that caught me off guard. This kind lady that called from British Columbia told me how much she loved visiting Nashville and just hated to see this happen. I belive that she said that she will be attending the CMA Fest this year too. I was sure to tell her not to cancel her plans! :)
It felt like every call I took (and I took A LOT, as did everyone else) was very personal and heartfelt. I've never had the privelage to do anything like this and fell lucky to have been able to help out with answering phones and logging donations. Nashville will bounce back very quickly, people are out there day and night helping each other, and the spirits are very high here.
I hope that one day, my kids read this blog and better understand who they are, where they come from, and what the human spirt is and can be. I love this city, I love the people here, I love the culture and even more than ever am proud to say that this is me. This is us. We are Nashville!
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
We are very excited to have a flier that will be included with all of the bags that are given to the attendees of the SharePoint Best Practices Conference that is happening in Washington, DC. Below is a preview of the final version that is going to print today.
Be sure to stop by and meet SharePoint Pod Show co-host Brett Lonsdale who will be standing at the Lightning Tools booth and signing his book “SharePoint 2007 Developer's Guide to Business Data Catalog” during the conference.
Sunday, June 07, 2009
This blog is a response to the following report from the Orlando Sentinel that states that the University of Central Florida will be cutting the five following programs:
- Cardiopulmonary Sciences
- Engineering Technology
- Management Information Systems
- Statistics
- Actuarial Sciences
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/education/orl-ucf-program-cuts-060509,0,1772001.story
Now for my rant. Having received my undergrad in MIS, this is mostly targeted at the university cutting the MIS program, which struck a chord with me. :)
Here is what I am having trouble understanding: How can a university cut a program that is in such high demand for people when they graduate? Granted, it is a bit more difficult to get a job these days with no experience than it was in 1998 when I graduated, but jobs are still out there for quality people who want to work hard.
According to the university's President in the video posted below, students that have decided to major in one of these programs have been given two years to:
- complete their degree
- change their major
- move to another college
Two years? Are you serious? Why not four years to allow time for the freshmen to complete the degree that they are paying for? How arrogant and short sighted can an administration be? The victims here are the students who have made a commitment to the university.
Something that's been happening a lot lately (and a lot of the people I work with are being affected) is the off shoring of jobs to India, China, and Eastern Europe where labor is cheaper and almost everyone employed in the IT industry have bachelors degrees (many have masters). What I am afraid of is that if universities cut these programs then companies will be forced to offshore IT jobs because there will not be enough people coming into the industry to support the ever growing demand for IT people. Not that this is a possibility, but who would have ever thought that a respectable university such as UCF would cut programs such as MIS? (Disclaimer: I do support off shoring of the right projects in the right circumstances, but the stars do need to align to be successful.)
I wanted to do this blog to bring an awareness to this and support of my future colleagues who are caught up in this mess (specifically, the UCF students that are majoring in one of these degree programs). You should know that someone in the real world sees what's happening and is as disgusted as you. As you move on with your degree, here are a few things that helped me out that I would like to share with you:
- Go to career fairs and talk to potential employers as soon as possible, it's NEVER too early.
- Try to get an internship. Some of you have only two years to complete your degree and this might not be applicable. For those of you who are moving on, this can help you tremendously and will give you an edge over the competition once you graduate.
- Study hard and try to understand the stuff that seems dumb to learn. Here's what happened to me...I never knew why anyone would want to take a software architecture class. I thought it was dumb and a waste of time when I was taking the class as I knew I was a coder and I wanted to write code. Any guesses as to what I do all day, every day? Software architecture! Good thing I listened in class! :)
- Support each other. The people that you are in class now will eventually have jobs and then work their way into management at a company. Make and keep those contacts. You never know where you'll run into these people once you hit the working world.
- Have fun, enjoy college. There are a lot of social functions that you should be attending...despite what you hear, it will help you later in life. :)
Announcement from the university:
http://news.ucf.edu/UCFnews/index?page=article&id=00240041037381429012136c33d79006600
Message from UCF President John Hitt:
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
I woke up this morning to quite a nice surprise. The SharePoint Pod Show is featured on the Microsoft MVP blog today! It discusses our guests as well as our
latest show about Test Driven Development.
Check it out here.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
As with any typical day, this afternoon I checked my Twitter feed to see
Andrew Connell's big announcement that he and Ted Pattison have launched a new company called
Critical Path Training.
I'm excited about this for multiple reasons. First, take a look at their site...It's all SharePoint 2007 WCM and it's smoking fast! Nice work on the site guys! It's good to see another successful WCM implementation on SharePoint!
Here is what makes me really excited about the launch of this new company. If you have never seen Ted or Andrew teach, give a seminar or conference session then you are truely missing out. These guys are the best out there, period. Every time that I see either of them up on stage or in a classroom, I learn something. If it's not the content it's their stage presence. If it's not the stage presence, it's the flow of the content and demos. You get the idea.
There is a lot of value added to your experience to take the classes offered by these guys. You can really learn and understand the SharePoint platform quickly by sitting with these guys in a classroom for a week (or two).
Monday, April 20, 2009
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
So far, I have received some very warm comments and reviews on my book "
ASP.NET 3.5 AJAX Unleashed" on the Amazon site (located here).
I was checking my email today and I had received an email from my publisher telling me to go check out this review of the book that was done for ASP.NET Pro Magazine.
Click here for the review.
I have been writing books for about 7 years now and this is one of the best reviews that I've ever received and just wanted to share it out to the world!
To Mike Riley (the reviewer), thank you so much for the kind words! You really made my day today!
Friday, February 20, 2009
I am very excited about the new BDC book that is coming out soon from SharePoint Pod Show co-hosts Brett Lonsdale and Nick Swan called "SharePoint 2007 Developer's Guide to the BDC". I have had a chance to review some of the chapters in this book and am very excited to see something like this hit the market.
You can check out the details of the book at the following link as well as pre-order a copy.
http://www.manning.com/lonsdale
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
In
Episode 15 of the SharePoint Pod Show, we discussed the preliminary results from the Big SharePoint Survey that was conducted by Lightning Tools. The results are in and you can get them here:
SharePoint Survey
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
We had fun with this one and I hope that you enjoy it as well. In this episode, you will hear our cheeky humor as well as learn where to focus your SharePoint skills for 2009.
Get it here
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
Our friends at Lightning Tools have created another survey so that you can provide feedback on how you are using SharePoint. The results of this survey will be posted on their site as well as discussed in a future episode of the SharePoint Pod Show.
Monday, December 29, 2008
In Part 1 of this series, we looked at a simple template to help you can use to help document the security roles that need to get created for your new SharePoint application. In this part, we will look at a common process that is used to augment your Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)and targets applications that you think might be suitable for running on the SharePoint platform.
As you read through this blog post it is important to note that this process (or something similar) can be used to augment your SDLC, not replace it. SharePoint does a lot out of the box and can be configured to solve a wide variety of business problems. However, many of your SharePoint-based applications will require custom development. When developing custom code for SharePoint, you should always follow your existing SDLC process.
There are many many blogs/articles/books/etc. that describe how to properly document, architect, develop, test, etc. your application. There hasn’t been much written on how to properly document an application that is configured rather than custom developed. Many times (especially in larger organizations), SharePoint configuration is not done by a development team but rather a configuration team with skills specializing in SharePoint Designer. Before we discuss this, let’s look at an example of a process that can be used for SharePoint application configuration:
Let’s walk through each phase of the process and describe the flow.
1.1 Receive Requirements, 1.2 Review Requirements, 1.3 Revise Requirements
This process starts at the time that the Architect receives the application’s requirements. At this time, it is typical that he/she will review the requirements and determine what type of application is required (custom developed application or SharePoint application). During the requirements review (which usually occurs with a representative of the business and a business analyst), you will quickly begin to understand what type of application will need to be built. This is the time at which you will need to revise the requirements to ensure the best technology fit for whatever type of application you will be building. If the requirements need revision, then you as the architect will need to help revise the requirements and then either re-review or proceed to the next step.
2.0 Determine the Application Type
Probably the most important decision that you are going to have to make in this process is to determine what type of application that you will need to build. This decision will determine how successful your application will be once the users start using it. Many times, your users will have in their mind what type of application they want, but you will need to make the final decision. As a side note, you can get into a real bind if you try to fit a square peg into a round hole here. If your application should live in SharePoint then design it to do so, if not then you will need to develop something custom. The key advice that I can give you from experience here is try to stay objective and don’t let politics, or preconceived notions get in the way of the right decision. You will be thankful in the end.
If you are going to build a custom application, proceed to step 7.0, which is your existing SDLC. If you are going to be building a SharePoint application, proceed to step 3.0 and perform a gap analysis.
3.0 Perform a Gap Analysis
Now that you have decided that you will be building a SharePoint application, you will need to do a gap analysis against the requirements. You can easily store the requirements in a SharePoint list, however for demonstration purposes, this example will use an Excel Workbook. I typically add a few columns for the analysis as illustrated below the sample (and VERY barebones) requirements document.
As you can see, the gap analysis process is very simple. In this example, you are only concerned with four columns: Requirement ID, Requirement, Architect Comments, and Effort. I will be detailing this process out in a future blog posting, so please stay tuned.
4.0 Requires Customization or Configuration
The results of your gap analysis will need to be looked at very closely to determine if your application can be configured using the SharePoint OOTB features or will require custom code to be written. Here, you will need to evaluate which requirements are supported OOTB, which require configuration, and which require custom code. Many times if a small percentage of the requirements require custom development, you can likely negotiate these requirements so that you can deliver a custom configured application.
If your application requires custom development, proceed with step 7.0 (SDLC). If you will be configuring your application then you will next need to document how your application will be configured.
Side note: I have seen that SharePoint applications that do not require custom code can be delivered much faster than SharePoint applications that do. You can deliver a custom configured application in a matter of days as opposed to weeks/months for a custom developed application. This will save you and your company both time and money (in development and maintenance) if you can configure you application with no custom code.
5.0 Document Configuration
Step 5.0 in the process is probably the most controversial. Why do you need to document the configuration of an application when (many times) you can get the application configured in about the same time that you can document the configuration? That’s a trick question and it all comes down to your SharePoint governance plan. I have seen this step skipped in a lot of applications and 100% of the time it will come back to bite you.
Software applications are funny things in that they almost always break. If your application breaks, and it usually happens weeks, months, or even years after your application has been deployed, then you will need to remember how the application was setup before you can begin to solve the problem. It doesn’t have to be complex, so any documentation that you can do here will be helpful.
It is also important to note that a SharePoint application that doesn’t have any custom code offers the ultimate flexibility to add future features to your application. Without documenting what has been configured, you will find it very difficult to add custom-code features to your application without knowing what will be affected when you deploy the custom features.
I will be covering this in detail in a future blog posting.
6.0 Configure and Test the Application
Once you have documented your application configuration, you can now configure it using SharePoint Designer and/or the SharePoint web interface so that your users can start using the application. Once the application is configured, you should always test the application to ensure it works as intended. I have seen this done many ways, but it helps if you have use cases so that you can test different user scenarios. In the absence of use cases, you should walk through the application with your users to ensure everything is working properly.
Once your application has been configured and tested, it is ready to be released to your users.
If you skipped step 5.0, please go to step 5.0 and document your application’s configuration!
7.0 Proceed with SDLC
Step 7.0 represents your Software Development Life Cycle.
I hope that you find this process useful and can integrate it into your SDLC for SharePoint applications. I have seen a lot of success by adding a few steps to the SDLC to ensure that I am developing applications that should be developed and configuring applications that should be configured. Please let me know what you think about this and if it works (or doesn’t work) for you. I will be detailing out sections 3.0 and 5.0 in future blog postings, so please stay tuned!
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
In my role, I am lucky enough to get to design lots of very cool software to solve (sometimes difficult) business problems. Many times, these applications involve design solutions that leverage SharePoint technologies. In this series, I will be discussing some of the design patterns and documentation patterns that I have encountered in my applications.
Disclaimer: this documentation is given as-is, so please use it and modify it as needed to meet your needs. This is just something to help you (and me) get jump-started on building and designing better solutions for SharePoint. :-)
One of the production issues that I have encountered revolves around setting up and configuring security groups within SharePoint. If you give your users too much control, they sometimes go nuts and end up trashing the site’s security. On the other hand, if you don’t give them enough control, then they might not be able to do what they need to in the site. There is quite a delicate balance of architectural design and user control that you must manage through processes and documentation.
As the designer of the system, it is your job to review the application’s requirements and determine what security roles that users will need to accomplish their jobs in the application. Lucky for us, SharePoint has quite an extensive (if not overwhelming) security model that you can use to either grant or deny a user’s rights in your application. First, let’s take a look at the different user roles that SharePoint offers:
| Permission Level |
Description |
|
Full Control
|
Has full control.
|
|
Design
|
Can view, add, update, delete, approve, and customize.
|
|
Manage Hierarchy
|
Can create sites and edit pages, list items, and documents.
|
|
Approve
|
Can edit and approve pages, list items, and documents.
|
|
Contribute
|
Can view, add, update, and delete.
|
|
Read
|
Can view only.
|
|
Restricted Read
|
Can view pages and documents, but cannot view historical versions or review user rights information.
|
|
Limited Access
|
Can view specific lists, document libraries, list items, folders, or documents when given permissions.
|
|
View Only
|
Members of this group can view pages, list items, and documents. If the document has a server-side file handler available, they can only view the document using the server-side file handler.
|
These user roles are completely out of the box and available to every site that you create in SharePoint. Many times, you can use these roles in your application as they map to the most common user roles and functions that are typically found in a SharePoint application. You should start with these to see if they will meet your needs and add users to these groups.
Now what happens if you need more specialized permissions? Lucky for us, you can also create custom SharePoint roles with very specific permissions. Below is a list of custom permissions that are available in SharePoint that you can use to create your custom groups. These permissions are separated into separate categories: List Permissions, Site Permissions, and Personal Permissions.
- List Permissions
- Manage Lists - Create and delete lists, add or remove columns in a list, and add or remove public views of a list.
- Override Check Out - Discard or check in a document which is checked out to another user.
- Add Items - Add items to lists, add documents to document libraries, and add Web discussion comments.
- Edit Items - Edit items in lists, edit documents in document libraries, edit Web discussion comments in documents, and customize Web Part Pages in document libraries.
- Delete Items - Delete items from a list, documents from a document library, and Web discussion comments in documents.
- View Items - View items in lists, documents in document libraries, and view Web discussion comments.
- Approve Items - Approve a minor version of a list item or document.
- Open Items - View the source of documents with server-side file handlers.
- View Versions - View past versions of a list item or document.
- Delete Versions - Delete past versions of a list item or document.
- Create Alerts - Create e-mail alerts.
- View Application Pages - View forms, views, and application pages. Enumerate lists.
- Site Permissions
- Manage Permissions - Create and change permission levels on the Web site and assign permissions to users and groups.
- View Usage Data - View reports on Web site usage.
- Create Sub-sites - Create sub-sites such as team sites, Meeting Workspace sites, and Document Workspace sites.
- Manage Web Site - Grants the ability to perform all administration tasks for the Web site as well as manage content.
- Add and Customize Pages - Add, change, or delete HTML pages or Web Part Pages, and edit the Web site using a Windows SharePoint Services-compatible editor.
- Apply Themes and Borders - Apply a theme or borders to the entire Web site.
- Apply Style Sheets - Apply a style sheet (.CSS file) to the Web site.
- Create Groups - Create a group of users that can be used anywhere within the site collection.
- Browse Directories - Enumerate files and folders in a Web site using SharePoint Designer and Web DAV interfaces.
- Use Self-Service Site Creation - Create a Web site using Self-Service Site Creation.
- View Pages - View pages in a Web site.
- Enumerate Permissions - Enumerate permissions on the Web site, list, folder, document, or list item.
- Browse User Information - View information about users of the Web site.
- Manage Alerts - Manage alerts for all users of the Web site.
- Use Remote Interfaces - Use SOAP, Web DAV, or SharePoint Designer interfaces to access the Web site.
- Use Client Integration Features - Use features which launch client applications. Without this permission, users will have to work on documents locally and upload their changes.
- Open - Allows users to open a Web site, list, or folder in order to access items inside that container.
- Edit Personal User Information - Allows a user to change his or her own user information, such as adding a picture.
- Personal Permissions
- Manage Personal Views - Create, change, and delete personal views of lists.
- Add/Remove Personal Web Parts - Add or remove personal Web Parts on a Web Part Page.
- Update Personal Web Parts - Update Web Parts to display personalized information.
Note that I’m not going to dig into the details of creating custom roles and permissions here as there is A LOT of documentation and blogs on the topic. I would rather focus on documenting the process instead.
Each of the SharePoint roles (see the first table in this blog posting) are configured with these permissions and it is important for you to understand which role has which permission so you can decide on whether to use the out of the box roles or will need to create custom roles. I have created a design template (screenshot below) that helps you document the permissions that are assigned to each out of the box role (see figure below) as well as describe any new roles and any assigned Active Directory groups that will be assigned to each role (not this will be different if you are using Forms Based Authentication).
For the new roles that you need to create, you can simply name the role and then document (with an “X”) each permission that is assigned to that role. This will help you keep a document on file (or as part of your overall architecture documentation) of your site’s security roles and their permissions so that you can easily create (or recreate) the permissions for your site via a documented process.
Again, my point of this blog is not to document the "what and how" of permissions and roles, but rather provide a jumpstart template that you can use in your architectural and operations design documents. I hope that this is something that you can readily use as well as extend the idea to meet your needs.
UPDATE: I was just informed that there is a similar blog post here by Stephanie Grima that documents permissions similar to what I did in the first part of this blog. At the time that I wrote this post, I was unware of her blog post and am providing an architectural design template instead of a description of permissions and how to use them. :-)
Thursday, December 11, 2008
You can download Episode 12
here.
In this episode, Nick, Brett, and I discuss the SharePoint 2007 Business Data Catalog, how to use it, and how it can save you a bunch of money. :-) Check it out!