Install SQL 2008 Express Management Studio

If you are using standalone instance of SharePoint 2010 and want to add SQL Express 2008 Management Studio to the machine, you may encounter errors during installation. The option looks valid is to add feature to current instance. however, it is not the correct one.

After some search on line, I found this blog with detail information Turns out you need to select New Instance option (I have no idea why) to continue. So if you were not able to install management studio for SQL Express 2008, try this article first.

Where is the Datasheet View in SharePoint 2010

If you have installed Office 2010 64-bit to a 64-bit OS machine, you may find out you are not able to use Datasheet view in a library or list. This will happen to users who is working on a single machine or VM environment with SharePoint 2010 and Office 2010 installed together.

So, what can you do?

According to Microsoft, you can install Office 2010 32-bit instead. The other option is mentioned in this blog, install Access Runtime for 2007 or 2010. When that blog was published, Access Runtime 2010 is still in Beta version. Now you download the full version from here.

Find closed web parts all over your portal

For most users, it's very common to close, instead delete a web part from pages, especially the landing page of a site. As an administrator, you can go to each page and open web part maintenance page to check and removed closed ones.

However, how do we find out which site has the most and deal with them first if you have hundred of sites to manage? You can use a SQL query to geerate a list. (MIcrosoft said do not touch your database, so, this is just for your own reference and risk).

select ''+dirname+'/'+ leafname+'?contents=1'
from alldocs inner join webparts on
Alldocs.id=webparts.tp_pageurlid
where tp_isincluded=0

New book: The Black Bats: CIA Spy Flights over China from Taiwan 1951-1969

I never met Chris before but Clarence Fu is one of my best friends in military aviation field. We have known each other for more than 20 years.

Clarence has published couple books regarding military aviation history of Republic Air Force, including F-100, F-104 service records with ROCAF, covert airborne missions during the early eras of cold war.

History of U-2 missions with ROCAF was rarely mentioned in the English world and I am more than happy to see books like this available. If you are living near National Museum of US Airforce, Chris is going to introduce this book. You can find the news at: http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123199296

You can find this book here: http://www.schifferbooks.com/newschiffer/book_template.php?isbn=9780764335136

THE 1958 QUEMOY CRISIS AN ORAL HISTORY

I like to read history books, especially military history. In recent years, I have chance to know or obtain some good materials that I like to introduce to you. Although this conflict happened more than 50 years ago, rarely this type of historical information was published in English.

THE 1958 QUEMOY CRISIS AN ORAL HISTORY is published by the Military History and Translation office under Ministry of National Defense of Republic of China (Taiwan is usually called by westerners). This was the last major battle between Taiwan and Communist China and some of the U.S. military personals were involved.




The team worked on this book interviewed 28 people in the both military services and some of them became higher ranking officers in both countries. Lots of photos show readers people and events during that periods from different point of views.

I first heard this book last year from a friend of mine. I got it when I went back to Taiwan to visit families. I also had chance to obtain the other two in this series also published in English and I will introduce them later.

If you would like to order a copy from the published, here is the web site. The author of this blog offers couple copies he received and I am not sure he still has any available.

Enjoy it.

SharePoint Conference in the USA in Year 2010

These are the SharePoint conferences in the USA I know so far:

The SharePoint Technology Conference
2/10 -2/12
San Francisco
http://sptechcon.com/


Microsoft Teched North America 2010
6/7 – 6/10
New Orleans, LA
http://northamerica.msteched.com/?CR_CC=100280255&WT.srch=1&CR_SCC=100280255&WT.srch=1

SharePoint.org Conference
4/18 – 4/21
Baltimore, MD
http://www.sharepointconference.org/Pages/default.aspx

The Experts Conference
4/25 – 4/28
Los Angeles
http://www.tec2010.com/

Best Practice Conference
8/24 – 8/27
Washington DC
http://www.bestpracticesconference.com/?gclid=CKGBwIKcx5QCFQ2L1QodLlYVkQ

Magic Dragon Books - Aviation, military and history

Besides IT, military aviation and history is a big part of my life and reading materials since I was in elementary school. In the past years, I wrote and translated articles either in Chinese or English through various publishing medias, digital or printed. I also get to know other people who have the same interest and expertise and become good friends.

Some of them are specialized in the Republic of China (ROC) air force history, either during the war with Japan or after 1945 with Communist China, including secret reconn missions which only been published or heard in recent years.

Magic Dragon Books is an on line book store to bring you these military aviation history unknown to most of the world in Chinese or English. I am not part of the company or business operation, neither details of the company itself. I know this due to a respectable and long time friend who dedicated himself in this field for years.

On the other hand, I always believe history has multiple faces and we can only understand more from various sources. Some of the ROC air force operations involved missions with PLA. Compare to the influence red China has to the world, it it more important than ever to bring up the stories from the other side, not to correct anything, but to provide a different angle, data sources or point of view.

If you are interested to know more about the published materials, please visit the site at: http://magicdragonbooks.com/