So I turned to jQuery to calculate and set an offset to guarantee that the modal dialog will always render mid-window. Here is a very simple way to float the ModalDialog window; the ‘html’ argument is your HTML markup, or you can alter this to pass in a URL.

    function openDialog(html) {
        var _options = { html: html,
            allowMaximize: false,
            autoSize: true,
            showClose: true,
            title: "Zoom"
        };
        SP.UI.ModalDialog.showModalDialog(_options);
        var y = $(window).scrollTop();
        var boxBorder = $(window).height() - $(".ms-dlgContent").height();
        y = y + boxBorder / 2;
        $(".ms-dlgContent").css({ position: 'absolute', top: y });
    }

Get-SPWebTemplate | Export-Csv c:\WebTemplates.csv

I also found out why Spence Harbar’s Rational Guide must be followed to the letter. I do not understand however why he thinks the MSDN guide “is now a first class resource”, since I initially followed that guide (6/28/2011 version) to the letter on a new server installation with the June CU and found myself in epic fail land.

Had I followed Spence’s original post, I would have been very close to success the first time, and it was the insights in that post that led me to the last few tweaks and success.

While the version of Forefront Identity Manager (lovingly referred to as FIM) in the June CU is not even the RTM build of FIM 2010, it is working for my customer, syncing its little heart out. A happy ending at least.

UPDATE: This post provides additional insights into FIM architecture and moving parts. Das gut.

BTW, some out there throw all kinds of caution around using the FIM Client GUI, but that is quite literally the same as saying “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!”.

I did a quick comparison the other evening between Mint (a compacted distro) and ChromeOS and found little difference on the surface. If you take Mint and make the ChomeOS home page in Chrome the home page in any browser that will run on Mint, the only real difference is that Mint actually works because all of it is there :-)

With insiders proclaiming death, I think it’s case closed. (Thanks for the link Greg)

Reminds me of snow removal. It comes, it gets all dirty, then it’s shoved aside.

When you try to configure the display properties from the Gnome desktop, you may receive the error ”Failed to execute child process “gnome-display-properties”. The first fix for this is do go into the Software Manager and find the gnome-control-center package and install this. At this point you can see the properties, but cannot change them.

Next I did a little research and found virtualbox guest extension kernel packages, again in the Software Manager, but for the VirtualBox OSE which is not what I use. So a little RTFM on the VirtualBox Users Manual revealed that the VBoxGuestAdditions.iso did contain the proper kernel drivers, up to OpenSuse 11.2 anyway.

Out of the box with the RC, ChromeOS is lacking support for mounting a CD drive, and further, you cannot explore your “Computer”. So using sudo to run the Guest Additions from the virtual CD in the VM is a non-starter, at least while ChromeOS is in a use it “as-is” state. Once ChromeOS goes RTW, I’ll try this again and see if the CD problem is resolved.

However, all of this raises the simple question of what would be the real downside of simply installing a small footprint Linux distro along with a performant desktop choice, and installing the Chrome browser on it? In other words, if you take the approach that Roku did, but target a browser instead of a custom UI, have you not met your goal of essentially building the 2010 equivalent of a WebTV box?

Further, is ChromeOS really about building a better PC OS, or more about the Chrome Web Store? I wonder.

I’ll update on this topic as things sort out a bit more.

Like Ubuntu, ChromeOS boots to full function from CD. There’s at least one post out there already on booting it from a USB thumb-drive.

My current interest in ChromeOS is to build/configure a lightweight but performant HTPC; really more of a set-top web on an HD display (thin client) type of application. OK, Google TV is sort of doing this, but I want to see if I can beat its current price point and get anything available on the web. I recently purchased a Roku XD, and I like it as a very cost-effective alternative to PayPerView or rentals – though Amazon’s VOD is a competitive offering for now. Part of the problem right now with HuluPlus on Roku for example, is support for H.264 but not necessarily for Flash or Silverlight encoded content with DRM. So a PC, even a nettop, still rules until some form of convergence happens as it eventually did with smart phones.

My end goal is to see if it will boot from a Acer AspireRevo AR3700, which I believe it will. If it performs better than Windows 7 with the Chrome browser, then I would keep that configuration as I already have ways to do Windows Media Center from a desktop to our Xbox 360 as a connector, though streaming video from my Windows Home Server may tip this experiment in favor of Win7 (which the AspireRevo comes preloaded with anyway). At $349, the Acer AspireRevo is at the throw-away price point when something better comes along that enables many of us to ditch the cable TV, i.e. I’ll consider the $349 well spent in the interim.

Keep in mind that Google released this as a Release Candidate. For starters, you may get a few errors concerning the fact that the license key file is missing, but they appear so far to be inconsequential.

ChromeOS is using Gnome desktop, which I think might be why folks thought it was built upon Ubuntu, but it’s definitely OpenSuse. Once it’s fully installed, which takes a few reboot cycles, it does boot to the Gnome desktop pretty fast. ChromeOS’s installed application footprint is small, so no surprise here.

Oddly, and somewhat humorously, upon final reboot, the Chrome browser did not autostart, but can be added to the Startup group with a click. Below is a thumbnail of a grab of the Win7 desktop running ChromeOS in VirtualBox (click it for full size).

The playback was excellent considering this was in a VM and no special drivers or tweaks were made. If I can get the display fully functional, i.e. widescreen from the VM like Ubuntu or Mint support, then I can just enter full screen mode in VirtualBox and use the native Win7 HDMI support to get this on my TV, but I suspect it will look pretty poor on a larger display.

Crescent is a data visualization/reporting application built upon a Silverlight 5 stack. Watch the demo (actually watch the whole keynote if you have time) and see what you think. Keep in mind that Silverlight 5 is coming with much improved printing support, so if you really need a paper copy of some insight, you can get it – though the obvious interactivity Crescent provides probably takes away some of the incentive to print.

Here’s a link to a Crescent site MS has put up.

http://www.microsoft.com/showcase/en/us/details/a90a1be4-7125-46b6-abdb-66966d764ddd

First, VS 2010 does not ship with a web part project template targeting MOSS because MS understandably wanted to maintain a consistent upgrade path from VS 2008 and the latter only had Workflow project templates. The Visual Web Part project template by itself is not terribly incompatible with MOSS, but VS 2010 requires that you have a SharePoint 2010 instance present in the environment you are using it in.

While it may be possible to hack your way around the root causes of this issue, there are a few simple ways to just get right down to work.

One such simple approach is to remember that web parts are a specialization of Server Controls.

Create a server control project targeting .NET 3.5 and either proceed to modify the class file stub created for you, or replace it with an old web part class file you have handy. Either way, you will need to make a few other minor tweaks to the project.

1. Add the SharePoint DLL reference (obvious)
2. Change the parent class you are inheriting from if starting from scratch
3. Add a using statement to reference System.Security along with adding [assembly: AllowPartiallyTrustedCallers] to the AssemblyInfo.cs file
4. Add your assembly signing key file (*.snk) to the project if you want VS to sign the assembly on build
5. Add a *.DWP file is you go the WSS 2.0 route, but the ASP.NET web part approach of course negates the need for one of these if you GAC the assembly

That’s pretty much it. If you prefer the VSeWSS approach, there are posts out there on how to migrate these to VS 2010.

xmlns:sdk=”http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation/sdk“

        <sdk:DataGrid AutoGenerateColumns="True"
            Margin="12,55,119,12"
            x:Name="MyGrid" />

You will need to include a reference to System.Windows.Controls.Data and System.Windows.Controls.Data.Input in addition to the reference to System.Windows.Controls included by default in the Silverlight Application template in Visual Studio 2010.

You will not typically run into this kind of problem using the Designer window, but may if (like me) you tend to type your markup manually. Obvious shortcut path to resolving reference issues is to use the designer temporarily to insert the problem control and see what changes in your references and/or markup :-).