Assigning permissions the right way in SharePoint 2010

This week I'm attending a course on SharePoint administration and today we talked about permissions. I was very surprised when trainer did not mention the method I've been using for a while to "force" power users to assign permissions the right way. When I mentioned to him that I have a method he told me that in 13 years working with SharePoint this is the first time he heard about this method so I thought maybe I should blog about it and maybe other people will find it useful.

When assigning permissions in SharePoint arguably best way to doit is via SharePoint groups. The problem arises when you have to delegate the permission so "power" users (not administrators) start managing permissions and start dishing out explicit permissions and do a mix and match on site, library, folder and item level.

My method is really simple:

• You create all SharePoint groups you need in specific site
• You then set the person to manage permission as SharePoint group owner. This gives that user permission to add/remove users from that group and therefore assigning permissions in their site.
• If more than person is managing permissions, create a SharePoint group and add all "power" users to this group, let's call Access Administrators. 
• You can then set SharePoint group Access Administrators to be owner of SharePoint group they use for giving other users to their site
• Note you might need to give or publish a direct link to SharePoint users as typically power users will not have access to Site Action therefore will not be able to navigate to Security Settings to open groups they own. 

Example

Site: Finance

SharePoint Groups: 

Finance Access Administrators (FAA), owner SharePoint Administrator, Contribute 

Finance Visitors, owner FAA, Read

Finance Members, owner FAA, Contribute 

Gears of War 3 versus tips

Weapons
Make sure you try all weapons.
General rule use Hamerburst if you want to stay back and support, Lancer for long/medium range and Retro for medium/close range.
Use Gnasher if you like near close/close range or SawedOff for close range 1 shot kills.
Experiment with all of them and find the one you're most comfortable with but try and master them all.

Power weapons
Each map will have power weapons and you'll find in versus games most gamers will aim to get to them first. Some of these you might find difficult to use (like Torque Bow, LongShot, etc.) but others will be much easier to use (like BoomShot, Grenades, Ink, Mortar, etc.) If you can get to them use them.

Team play
Stay close to your team mates. Numbers make the difference and reduce your time spent in waiting to respawn. Hold LB to see where your team mates are and move towards their direction. If you're total rookie, stay behind your team mates and use long range weapons and grenades.

Movement
Try to go  from cover to cover. Pay attention where can you get cover in split second if you're moving about. Learn the maps and always assume there might be someone behind a corner.

Active reload
One on one it is a decider. Sure damage to head, body and legs varies but active reload is very important. Try to hit every time and if you notice enemies approaching spend some bullets (half a clip should do) and active reload.

Enjoy
Gears can be very frustrating at times. You can die soon as you respawn in gruesome death by someone camping behind the corner but do not get discouraged.  Expect to die a lot in the beginning and you should have great fun with this game.
Don't think about your K/D ratio, instead focus on learning maps and controls, use power weapons and stick with your team mates, have a laugh and you will love Gears

Witcher 2

My RPG mojo has come back full swing. Even though the number of excellent games were still waiting for me to have time to play them, I could not resist Witcher 2 after reading several reviews and watching some game clips (the power of advertising, eh(?)).

Anyone planning to play this game and don't like spoiler best stop reading this post now as it will likely have some spoilers.

I finished Prologue and I'm almost at the end of Act 1. There is a 'tutorial' in the beginning but it's not great. I played the prologue wondering about a lot of things and just going with a hunch. When I got to Act 1 things got a bit more serious and I got stuck in several places. Put it simply the combat system is not the easiest I seen and there way to many things you need to learn in order to succeed. To make things worse the game is noticeably disbalanced soon as you start Act 1. Enemies seam to take less damage and dish lot more than you do. With it being a new game and working out how to play it, you inevitably end up between enemies which usually results in almost instant death.

And that is about it as far as negative is concerned. Everything else about this game is just brilliant. RPG that is interesting and looks like a next gen game. Main quests and side quests are equally interesting. The decisions you take during the game can not be always classed as good or bad so there is no karma like in Fallout or paragon/renegate in Mass Effect. Game branches and depending how you decide to play it you get different quests/stories so second play through is a must.

...more to come....

Mercenaries 2 & Gears 3 songs

I just stumbled upon a song from Mercenaries 2 game (the best thing to come from that game)

 

In the same list I had the song from Gears 3 trailer. Sounds so much  better when you watch the video.

 

It's raining games...

Following stories that Game retailer is in deep trouble and about to go under, I went in and spent all my sizeable credit. I wasn't planning to get any games any time soon as I only just bought Batman Arkham City and Mass Effect 3 came via post few days ago. So from my two visits to games I now have

1. Driver San Francisco,
2. Guitar Hero Warriors of Rock,
3. The Elder Scrolls Oblivion 5th Anniversary Edition,
4. Top Spin 2,
5. Dues Ex: Human Revolution,
6. Rage,
7. Project Gotham Racing 4,
8. Batman Arkham City,
9. Mass Effect 3

I initially got Saints Row The Third but after reading some reviews decided it wasn't for me as I would get bored of it to quickly, so I went back and got Driver SF, Oblivion and GH Warriors of Rock for it. If I include many other games that I have played but not finished playing yet (Gears of War 3, Battlefield 3, Forza 4, and many more), that is me sorted for this decade :).