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 :).

Run by Blake Crouch

Last night I finished Run by Blake Crouch. One of more difficult books I ever read.

The plot has got many holes in it but it still holds. Basically the story evolves around family of four, parents in their early 40s with a teenage daughter and small boy having to constantly run and fight for their survival against cold, hunger, thirst and savage killers. It is a horrific story that makes you think what if this could really happen. At times it got very gripping and I couldn't put the book down no matter what. Crouch shows some master skills in immersing the reader in the book, so much so that at times I had to take a brake as it was getting too difficult to detach from the horrific events.

On a negative side I did not like the way relationship evolved between husband and wife. I had a feeling that corners were cut or not enough attention was put towards this. Their relationship changes as story progresses but I as a reader did not get the true picture of their feelings as these changes happened.

I rate this book as WWR (Well Worth Reading) - 3.5 stars out of 5.

Down the memory lane

I loved  this when I first read it in high school many years ago. Today I stumbled on it and had to make a note of it here. It is an excerpt from Common Sense, written in 1776 by Thomas Paine:

“Entrepreneur’s Credo
I do not choose to be a common man,
It is my right to be uncommon … if I can,
I seek opportunity … not security.
I do not wish to be a kept citizen.
Humbled and dulled by having the
State look after me.
I want to take the calculated risk;
To dream and to build.
To fail and to succeed.
I refuse to barter incentive for a dole;
I prefer the challenges of life
To the guaranteed existence;
The thrill of fulfillment
To the stale calm of Utopia.
I will not trade freedom for beneficence
Nor my dignity for a handout
I will never cower before any master
Nor bend to any threat.
It is my heritage to stand erect.
Proud and unafraid;
To think and act for myself,
To enjoy the benefit of my creations
And to face the world boldly and say:
This, with God’s help, I have done
All this is what it means
To be an Entrepreneur.”

Removing card details from xbox.com

There are websites now up speficilly opened for hacked Xbox Live members, many claiming that their Live account has been hacked. To be honest I did not panic as I know people sometime use very simple passwords and sometime they fall for phishing sites so I thought as long as I'm careful, I should be ok. Then, I hear about some experienced gamers that their account has been hacked!!! Warning lights started to flash so I thought I better remove my credit card details from my account so at least they can't spend any more if they ever get into my account. Checked my account settings in xbox.com and there it was, my card details and the remove link. Great I thought, simple, easy and quick. But nooooooo, got the message soon as I clicked remove to say that this card is associated with one of the services so you can't remove it as long as you use that service. I was surprised to get this as all my Live is paid upfront and Autorenew is set to OFF! So got in a chat with the support guy who just said to me no, you can't remove your card details even though you do not have any bills to pay! This got me totally pissed and I wished I was a lawyer so I can sue their ass for keeping my card details against my will. In the end had to phone support and they agreed to remove my card details but stupidity does not end there. They still could not remove my card details as my latest subscription was paid using a credit card. What they did is, cancelled my account, reverted it to a silver account, and then emailed me the code to make for the months I already prepaid (minus 6 days). What a pain!

Busy

Wow it's busy (gaming-wise) at the moment!

First of all Gears 3 is just great. Whatever game I play it doesn't go long before I need to get back to Gears 3.

I pre-ordered Battlefield 3 (limited edition so I can get Back to Karkand DLC free). I finished the single player in about 5 days (hard difficulty) and hunted some achievements afterwards. As far as single player is concerned that is it. I don't think they nailed the single player yet. However multi-player will definitely keep me busy for many many months. Bit different to BC2 (can't make myself say better, even thought there are many additions on BF3). BF2 MP was just great, especially Vietnam DLC and BF3 is great on its own right too.

I also got Modern Warfare 3 on the day of the release. This game turned out to be a disappointment for me. It is the first COD game (and I played them all from COD 2 onwards) that I just could not find any enjoyment at playing the campaign. I think they have not changed it sufficiently enough to make it feel fresh for us that played previous Modern Warfare games. MP is not much different either but still feels fresher than SP. Obviously they have invested more time on the MP than SP. Can't say that for the COD Elite though. What a disgrace. Millions of gamers buy every COD game and Activision comes up with excuses that they did not expect so many users. Hopefully they will have fixed it by the time anyone reads this post.

Today I got Skyrim and Halo CE is on its way. Add Forza 4 to this plus several AAA oldies I'm yet to finish on my shelf and you can see why this post was titled busy ;).

Battlefield 3 metascore doesn't look too good

I HATE it when they talk the game up and create unfunded expectations.

I was watching this trailer today "is it real or in game" where they combined real footage with game footage. Journalist wrote "Bold move" but I think it is more like stupid move. Gamers will expect more than the game can deliver and will be left disappointed!


Score currently on 84/100. Only 4 reviews in but I bet it won't even get close to 90. Number of reviews mention that there are too many bugs in the game.

http://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox-360/battlefield-3/critic-reviews

I should play at work and work at home

I installed speed test app this week and thought I should test the Internet connection at different places. Check out my upload speed at work :).

Home test:

Workplace test:

Sync multiple Google calendars with iPhone calendar

After you set your google account on your iPhone the default setting is you will only get to see your default Google calendar in your iPhone Calendar. This is the reason I decided to use GooCal app (mentioned in an earlier blog post- http://drerimix.blogspot.com/2011/06/great-iphone-apps.html) because I have several calendars in Google, my own and shared calendars, and I wanted to see them all in my iPhone and be able to add new ones as and when needed etc.

Today I found out I can set my iPhone calendar to sync all my Google calendars perfectly which made very happy as I like iPhone calendar better than any calendar app I've seen.

To set multiple google calendars to sync with your iPhone browse to www.google.com/calendar/iphoneselect. If you're not already logged in google, login using your google account and tick the calendars you want to be synced with your iPhone. Kaboom! Job done.

Forza Motorsport 4

I had some doubts about this game considering how great Forza 3 was. Basically what was there to improve on? Oh looks like my expectations needed adjusting. Forza 4 looks and feels brilliant. Graphics and sound have improved noticeably which helps the immersion factor considerably. When you see the immaculate graphics and hear beautiful roaring sounds, it just pulls you in. I read that Turn 10 had contractors that work in Hollywood to help them with the lighting etc. You can see the effects.

I must have had ten hours gameplay so far but I only scratched the surface. My career stats say I only finished 1.8% of my career so far. There is Rivals section as well and the club aspect. Famous Top Gear show endorsement was a brilliant move, it puts a smile in your face racing through Top Gear track or listening to Jeremy Clarkson colourful comments.

So far I'm extremely happy with this game and look forward to play it for many many more hours with mates from Gaming Fro Fun.

Gears of War 3 - Epic Finale

I had the great pleasure of playing this game for many hours in the past month and let me tell you - this game rocks. It has got quantity and quality.

Campaign can be played as per usual story mode or with an arcade twist. Basically play through the same levels but with different feel to it. The arcade mode adds scoring, where for each action you get a score and score is calculated after every chapter. I think arcade mode puts more emphasis on action side of the game whiles the standard campaign put more emphasis on the story. Both these you can play on your own or with as many as 3 other player - Ka-chow!

Co-op mode does not end with these two story modes. You can choose to play with up to 4 friends in the Horde mode, where you fight wave after wave of locust horde, or Beast mode where you get to play as locust annihilating gears, again 5 player co-op game. Both these modes are great fun.

The you have the versus mode where you can choose to play private or public matches (standard and ranked). As most versus games are now server hosted, the quality of these games has improved significantly compared to Gears 2.

Well done Epic - top mark from me: 10/10

Can't believe I took so long to come back

Well I've done it again, stopped blogging for months. Shame really because one can just write one or two lines if too busy, but I guess Twitter was there for that.

Hope to synch back in form now. Got a lot new games coming. Currently playing Gears of War 3 a lot and I can't get enough of it. I've started a tournament in GFF, can't wait fo rthe first session this Saturday!

Gears of War 3 guide

Found this guide accidentally today. Looks to be just to my liking, not too detailed, not too brief. The only dowside is they want $9.99 if I want to mark as I get collectables but I can do without that, for now anyway.
 
http://www.gamerguides.com/guides/gears-of-war-3/table-contents/

Scanning to PDF using .NET

I had a request recently to modify a .NET application I wrote years ago. The application was scanning letters and store them in SQL database linked with specific record. The new requirement was to allow saving these scanned documents as Acrobat Reader (.pdf) files.

First time I used iText API - http://www.itextpdf.com/itext.php

After I scan the document I save it as pdf like this:

public static bool SavePDFAs(string picname, IntPtr bminfo, IntPtr pixdat)
        {
            SaveFileDialog sd = new SaveFileDialog();

            sd.FileName = picname;
            sd.Title = "Save file as...";
            sd.Filter = "PDF file (*.pdf)|*.pdf";
            sd.FilterIndex = 1;
            if (sd.ShowDialog() != DialogResult.OK)
                return false;
            
            Document doc = new Document(PageSize.A4);

            try
            {
                FileStream PDFfs = new FileStream(sd.FileName, FileMode.Create); 

                PdfWriter.GetInstance(doc, PDFfs);

                doc.Open();

                Bitmap bmp = BitmapFromDIB(bminfo, pixdat);
                
                bmp.SetResolution(300, 300);

                byte[] imageBytes;

                using (MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream())
                {
                    // Convert Image to byte[]
                    bmp.Save(ms, System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFormat.Jpeg);
                    imageBytes = ms.ToArray();
                }

                bmp.Dispose();

                iTextSharp.text.Image png = iTextSharp.text.Image.GetInstance(imageBytes);
                
                png.ScalePercent(24f);
                png.SetAbsolutePosition(0, 0);

                doc.Add(png);
            }
            catch (DocumentException dex)
            {
                MessageBox.Show(dex.Message);
            }
            catch (IOException ioex)
            {
                MessageBox.Show(ioex.Message);
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                MessageBox.Show(ex.Message);
                return false;
            }
            finally
            {
                doc.Close();
            }

            return true;
        }

Some great free iPhone apps

I've been doing a research for apps I can install on iPhone 4 before ordering one.I’ve had my iPhone for couple of weeks so I could try those apps that I could not try on the iPod and find some new ones in the process. This is the list of free apps I have installed and find quite useful:

GooCal (Google Calendar™ sync) By

Office SharePoint Server Search crashing

I've had Office SharePoint Server Search service crash several times in the past couple of years. Normal service restart made it hang and crash completely. Service status got stuck in Stopping and there was no way to restart it.
.

A quick server reboot would bring things back to normal but apparently there is a quicker way to solve this problem:

You can kill the service using this command:

taskkill /F /IM mssearch.exe /T

 or you can open the task manager in the MOSS box and end 'mssearch.exe' process.

After you kill the service using any of the two methods above, make sure you start the service and in few minutes MOSS search will be fully functional.

Network Attached Storage (NAS) for home use

After several little scares that I recently had with my family photos and videos, I decided I need to shift and get some backup sorted.

First I looked into external USB drive but soon realised that Network Attached Storage (NAS) would suit me much better. In my household there are 2 desktop PCs, one notebook, one llaptop and one MacBook. Consuming LAN also are 2 xbox consoles, Wii console, 2 DS handhelds, 2 iPods and 2 smartphones too. So rather than sorting out the backup manually from each device into external USB drive, I decided to get a server sorted so I can backup and share data.

So I looked and searched anything I could find available for home use and in the end settled for QNAP TS-210 and 2 x 2Tb Seagate ST2000DL003 drives.Full package just under £260. Two external USB drives of 2Tb each would cost me in the region of £140 so almost half of what I paid for NAS but I felt that USB drives would just end up like extra storage and that's it - fragmented backup, poor file sharing, etc.

Here are some of the factors that made me decide to go for NAS:

Backup, backup, backup. With 2Gb (in Raid 1) should be able to backup all devices (not just one or two PCs). I should be able to sleep much better knowing that all my computers are backed up. Also organising backups will be much simpler since all devices will have hassle free access to NAS.

Streaming. Big bonus is the option to watch family videos from any device in the house. Or stream music to any device. Or build the DVD library easily accessible. I plan to use the main Sony Bravia TV, iPod, iPhone and Notebooks as and when needed.

Access. I want to be able to drop files in and get them out when ever and where ever I am. I can think of several times when I could do with this feature when I was at work, shopping, on holiday, etc.

Convenience. All devices can connect to it directly without having to have any particular PC switched on. Sharing the printer as well is a great bonus as I was getting really annoyed having to switch on the PC connected to the printer.Also having all photos, all videos and all music in one place is a great bonus too. With NAS all photos, videos will go in the same place. Same for music we buy online. It is going to be easier to organise too. Documents will be stored on it centrally too, so it won't matter any more which PC we were using last time we worked on a document.