PointBridge Blogs

OK- this has been building up in my mind for a while now and I think it’s time to just start saying it: OCS shouldn’t be considered as a "PBX Replacement" now – or ever. <gasp!> Do I not believe that OCS is a reliable voice platform? No way – quite to the contrary. My […]

When developing SharePoint web parts, it is often useful to develop and test the component as an ASP.NET User Control first and then wrap then user control in a web part for deployment to SharePoint. This approach allows you to test the UI and functionality of your component in simplified environment without the added complexity […]

I noticed this a while ago, but for some reason didn’t look into it until it really drove me bananas; which is now. When you use the OCS client "search" bar, you can search for people by name in your Outlook client, GAL, or any Public IM (PIC) contacts you’ve added. Like this: From the […]

The C# 3.0 language and .NET 3.5 framework introduce several new language features. These new language constructs are useful individually in various contexts. In this blog I will show you how to use C# 3.0 extension methods to extend SharePoint (WSS/MOSS) API. The concepts are simple and once you learn them you can extend other […]

I finally had a chance to test drive the beta version of the upcoming Forefront Security release specifically for Office Communications Server 2007 (FSOCS). I deployed this in my lab, co-locating it on an existing Standard Edition server in an internal network segment. To download the public beta release: Forefront Security for Office Communications Server […]

I’m posting this here because I always have trouble finding it when I need it. SQL Server 2005 ships by default with a utility for exporting objects to T-SQL scripts. Unfortunately, it doesn’t allow you to export the data in your tables. There is, however, a freely available add-on that does this for you – […]

In the past I’ve heard at least a few discussions regarding administrators looking for a way to disable instant message functionality in Office Communications Server 2007. Some may want to block IM from certain workstations, while others may be looking to deploy OCS as a Presence-only application. Or possibly even as a contact management solution […]

We have been using STSDEV to automatically generate WSPs for several months now. For the most part, the tool has proven a very useful mechanism to ensure that our WSPs are created efficiently and accurately. Recently, however, we ran into an issue when trying to create a WSP that packages up files from multiple Visual […]

In a recent encounter at a client I discovered that it might be handy for Exchange Administrative and Support staff to be configured such that their Outlook settings do not access or download the OAB. This means that they will always be looking directly at the GAL for their addresses, and will be sure to […]

I recently encountered a strange behavior in MOSS API. In one of my recent projects I had to hide sub-sites from current navigation (Left Navigation) programmatically, so I searched the SDK and came across a nice little property on “SPNavigationNode” object called “IsVisible”. According to SDK documentation, this property allows setting visibility of SharePoint navigation […]

A question that comes up almost weekly in the TechNet discussion forums is: "Can I use only one network card in my Edge server?" Background A definitive answer has always been difficult to nail down as my testing, other user’s experiences, different Microsoft documents, and some other sources all seem to slightly contradict each other. […]

By now, most people are used to thinking of e-mail as “discoverable” material for audits; whether the audits are Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA, SEC, or any other type of regulatory audit. And most companies that are bound by such regulation, as well as many who choose to self-regulate, have a stated policy about e-mail retention. But there […]