One of the really ugly things about working with Xsl is that it doesn’t support actual variables. There is a ‘variable’ element but it isn’t actually a variable; it is a constant as the value cannot be changed once it has been set. This leads to all sorts of horrible solutions, like duplicating Xsl for the various possible values/conditions or even turning a block of Xsl into a template and then passing parameters to it every time that value is needed. The latter works and is supported but is frequently overkill.
One of the more annoying quirks with dealing with SharePoint is that once you develop a solution that requires custom code, all dependencies are then tied to the Strong Name of the compiled DLL. That strong name also includes the version number, usually 1.0.0.0, and cannot be changed without breaking all existing references. This is a good thing from a compatibility perspective but it does make it rather complicated to figure out exactly which version of a DLL is in use.
You can open up the WSP and then use the timestamps and take a guess at the version but it is not always reliable. Click to read the full post
This morning I realized that my quasi-antique Optimus V Android had not updated for daylight savings time. A search on the internet showed numerous posts from 2010 all with the same issue and all stating that every possible fix under the sun corrected the problem. Many said to simply disable automatic time settings. Unfortunately, the version of Android installed on the Virgin Mobile phones has that option hidden.
I did find a solution and it was naturally not what was posted in any of the messages I saw. So, to add my voice to the chorus, here is my solution :
Enable the GPS radio for a few minutes
Tough one eh? I normally have my phone in Airplane mode because the building I work in is very unforgiving with radio signals and kills almost all but the most resilient of them right at the door. Thus, to preserve battery life, I leave my phone in Airplane mode and enable only the WiFi radio in order to access the network at the office. I normally have my GPS radio off all of the time to further increase battery life but I imagine that the time would have auto-corrected had I left that radio on.
For those interested, I use the Power Manager utility to manage the state of the various radios on my phone.
With SharePoint 2010, the usage of the Management Shell is pretty much mandatory. However, most corporations have a policy that says something along the lines of “Do not log in with Service Accounts” with the “or else” being implied. Unfortunately, the 2010 Management Shell usually only works properly when logged in as one of the system accounts (usually the setup or farm/admin account). This means that you are left with either logging into the server as the Service Account or using the shift-right-click trick on the Management Shell link and entering the farm account information there – every time.
If your company is anything like mine, the passwords for those service accounts are often an utterly bizarre and random combination of letters, numbers, symbols and stargate coordinates. This also means that you have to go digging for that password every time that you need to use the management shell because remembering such a twisted concoction is not really an option.
There is another way that I’ve found that is better than both of the above options. Simply create a batch file (really!) and enter the commands below and then save it somewhere where you can remember it – or, better yet, create a shortcut to it on your desktop.
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This will start the management shell but will run it as the service account (be sure to replace ‘myDomain\ServiceAccountName’ with your service account info). Best of all, the /savecred option makes it so that you only have to enter the password the very first time you run the batch file which means no more digging around for it. (Note: the credentials are encrypted and tied to your ID on that machine so if someone else logs on and clicks the same batch file, they will be prompted for the password)
Simple and quick, and it still lets me log into the SharePoint server with my normal admin account.
Update 12/4/2012: Corrected a typo and moved the code to Gist on GitHub.
Developing Thoughts 