I have lately taken it upon myself to do some SharePoint branding for one of our SharePoint servers here at work. I swear, I have spent the better part of 3 days just cleaning up HTML code alone! Unfortunately SharePoint uses a lot of attributes that are proprietary to Microsoft, so no chance of it ever validating any time soon.

Here are a few of the things I’ve learned recently:

• Link bars are pretty unforgiving if you screw with their code, better use the GUI in SharePoint Designer to make any changes.
• If the site might need to be updated regularly, the Content Editor Web Part is your friend! (i.e. pass it off to someone else to maintain!)
• It’s always a good idea to test out a template first for bugs first before letting anyone else know you’re almost done — or where it’s located.
• The command line is your friend! (Actually, I knew this already, but in-dept documentation for SP commands were a little scarce until I found this reference)
• If custom controls and/or code is just not possible within the SharePoint realm, the Page Viewer Web Part is your friend! (As much as I despise using frames of any kind, this wp has saved my tail a time or two!)
• Your site’s content could be the best thing since sliced bread or a splog’s “cheap hotel Las Vegas” surf cache. It doesn’t mean squat if your site design looks like ass. (In other words, never EVER use the default SharePoint templates!)

Hopefully I’ll have more to add to this list later. For now, my head is killing me but my bosses are very happy with what I’ve gotten done so far. I think I’m going to ask for permission to cut out a little early today … it is Valentine’s Day after all!

Jim and I exchanged our gifts last night. He surprised me with a gigantic plush frog, a plush Firefox, a few other Firefox goodies, and a TON of my favorite candy.

I gave Jim a very nice golf shirt and some swanky unmentionables. RAWR!

Jessie’s getting a nifty Hello Kitty lunch kit from me, and a gigantic plush doggie and ton of candy from Jim. She’s spent the week with her mother, so we get her back tonight and most of tomorrow. We’re hoping to have her some this weekend too, but that’s a bit sketchy as we’ll also be helping Jim’s mom move to Montgomery, and I’ve got a side project that I’ve got to finish this weekend. I’m hoping to get out at some point and pick up some books … I’ve been working on a SharePoint template for work and am a little stuck (messing around in MS’ proprietary format/code). So we’ll see …

I hope y’all are having a good day/week!

This made me giggle. (H/T: Original Signal)

(Source)

I’m posting this from within Firefox via the lovely Performancing for Firefox (or, PFF).

I love XUL.

This thing is neat. It supports multiple blogs and works quite nicely with WordPress. I found it while looking up reviews for Microsoft’s new Live Writer app. This Firefox plug blows it out of the water IMO.

The only thing that it doesn’t do (or I haven’t figured out yet) is upload images to my server like WordPress does. But PFF does have a nice user/support forum, so guess where I’ll be heading next.

Ok, smurf that — it has FTP. However, I have noticed something else that I’m not particularly fond of: when I post something, it keeps all of the categories checked.

I would prefer everything be unchecked by default, but that’s just because I’m a picky wiener.

EDIT: I’ve been hanging around their forums ever since reading the review which lead me to PFF. The dev team and regular forum posters have been most helpful in answering my questions regarding this extension.

(Reminds me of the WP forums!)

I’m lovin’ it so far and highly recommend PFF to anyone looking for a multi-blog posting solution! I’ve been able to post to all of my WordPress installs and my WordPress.com blogs. And it also supports other software packages/hosts. (Hello LJ and MySpace users!!!)

I’m going out of town tomorrow for a M$ tech conference. Friday we are celebrating Jessie’s and Jim’s mom’s birthdays — his mom’s was the 2nd (she was out of town at the time) and Jessie’s is today’s, but we won’t get her until late tomorrow night. Saturday is a LAN party at Moporoco’s, but I don’t know yet if I’m going. We’ve got a lot of shite going on at work, so it will depend on how I feel this weekend.

Anyways, I’ll be out of pocket for the next few days. If anyone NEEDS to reach me, hit up my Google Mail account and I’ll get back to you when I have internet access.