Always great to find some good articles on the workings of BizTalk.

Lee Graber has given some outlines and numbers behind some decisions in his post:

Have you ever thought of using a Send Port Group?
Why? - because 1 subscription is evaluated for all Send Ports in the group, hence reducing the load for the BizTalk Messagebox DB.

Lee mentions that if you have 8+ identical subscriptions(filter expressions) on individual Send Ports, then consider creating a Send Port Group and adding the Send Ports to it.

http://blogs.msdn.com/biztalk_core_engine/archive/2004/07/22/191888.aspx
(check out the last paragraph)

Here's a great whitepaper on applications, deployments and upgrades in BTS 2006.

BTS Deployment Whitepaper - from the MS Biztalk site.

Enjoy

Great 3-part series here on MSDN if you havent seen it already :)

Customizing and Branding Web Content Management-Enabled SharePoint Sites (Part 1 of 3): Understanding Web Content Management and the Default Features

If you're waking up after the new year and thinking about looking at SPS v3/MOSS 2007, it appears that you're not alone.

Breeze Training has put on extra courses due to popular demand. Breeze are partnering with Dimension Data Learning Solutions to bring these to you around Australia!

‘Additional dates have been put on because the 1^st bootcamp sold out with a waiting list. For those that missed out we now have an additional date in Sydney for the end of Feb. If you are keen, book quickly as seats are limited.

Here’s the link Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Boot Camp (fixed link) check for dates in a city near you.

MOM just got that much better!! - grab the following WebPart for Sharepoint V2 + V3.

MOM Web Part Power Toy 

Enables you to show MOM data from within SharePoint leveraging the MOM 2005 SDK tools.

Find it in the MOM 2005 resource Kit

http://www.microsoft.com/mom/downloads/2005/reskit/default.mspx

It's all pretty easy actually - if you have IE7 look in the drop down list of search providers (top RHS) and you'll see me  

Dont know whether you'll use it - but it saves me all the time when I'm out on site and "I know I put that somewhere....." thought comes into my head.

The way to set your own provider up:

1. Create an XML Sample Provider file - from here 
2. Upload the file to your blog somewhere - let's say the root.
3. Add the line to the top of the page
   <link rel="search" title="<your title>" href="<url to searchProvider.xml>" type="application/opensearchdescription+xml" />
4. Save all and you get a nice little drop down entry like mine!
   
   Enjoy!

Here's an per an Email from Eric earlier - grab it!

Hi all,

An updated version of the BizTalk Server 2006 CHM has been published and is available for download here.

Thanks,

Eric

Basically - it can act as a fast backup/restore using this feature. No need to trawl throughback through the tapes and yes....I know WSS 3.0 has 2 levels of Recycle.....BUT guaranteed those Users are fantastic creatures :)

We could put 7 recycle bins in.....

Check out http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/929649

Here's a great page I came across maintained by Heather Solomon doing some great work around showing us what the styles look like and do in MOSS - all ready for customisation Doctor....

http://www.heathersolomon.com/content/sp07cssreference.htm

Snippet.....

Table of Contents

1. Global Links (Sign In/Welcome, My Links, etc.)
2. Search
3. Top Horizontal Navigation Bar
4. Site Actions Menu
5. Left Vertical Navigation Bar
6. Quick Launch Picker (Date Picker)
7. Title Area
8. Content Area
   1. General
   2. Breadcrumbs
   3. Edit Console
   4. Mini Console
   5. Web Parts
   6. Menu Toolbar
   7. Toolbar
   8. Calendar
9. Search Center
10. Site Directory

I came across this several times while onsite the other day and we have used MSMQ extensively.

Fortunately there is a FIX from MS available (yay!!)
If you have the problem, get it!

FIX: Error message when you try to use the SC tool to stop the service for the BizTalk host instance in BizTalk Server 2006: "The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion"

Enjoy

A buddy of mine sent me this link
http://www.thesuperheroquiz.com/

Do the quiz and see who you come out to be.

I got SuperGirl!!!!!!! now I dont know whether that was who I am, or who I'd like to end up with :)

We had a great session last Wednesday at Microsoft - I gave the above session.

As promised, here's the slide deck

A collegue of mine pointed me in the direction of this whitepaper
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb220799.... that talks about

Building Interoperable Insurance Systems with .NET 3.0 Technologies
(me being onsite at the moment at a financial services client - this comes in super handy!)

Talks and walks through the design and developing tooling and problems faced during implementation.

A great article to get a feel for some of the issues at hand.(look past the SQLServer 2006 mentioned on page 2 :)

Enjoy.

Came across some great sql to dig into the state of documents and their libraries.

Things like - 'top 100 largest documents in all document libraries' plus lots more. Check it out

http://www.codeproject.com/dotnet/QueriesToAnalyze...

Cheers,

Mick.

While struggling to get all the links together and the correct version of all the accessories to .NET 3.0 RC1 (as this is what BTS requires).

I wanted to develop Workflow based solutions as well and noticed my friend Paul Andrew has read my mind in his post HERE

Here's a snip:

• Install the .NET Framework 3.0 RC for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. This is not required for Windows Vista since it already has the .NET Framework 3.0 but you do need to ensure you are using the RC of Windows Vista to get the right build of .NET Framework 3.0.
• Install the Windows Vista RC SDK from which you get help documentation and SDK samples. This install isn't required for .NET Framework 3.0 development as you can view the SDK documentation and access the SDK samples online.
• Install the Visual Studio "Orcas" CTP which includes tools for WPF and WCF. Of course you must already have Visual Studio 2005 installed as this CTP adds to it.
• Install the Visual Studio 2005 extensions for Windows Workflow Foundation. This is the matching part to "Orcas" but for WF. If you aren't planning to use WF then you don't need this, and if you aren't planning to use WPF or WCF you don't need "Orcas".
• Install the Expression Interactive Designer matching RC build. This is for creating WPF user interfaces to be used with the "Orcas" tools in Visual Studio 2005.
• Install the Hands on Labs for Windows Workflow Foundation.

I have a Windows Vista RC machine and a Windows XP machine which I've installed these on. It's also the same install on Windows Server 2003 if you use that as your development environment.

While researching something else I came across this problem. I've been wrestling with the Admin Console's *.MSI creation and for the most part it works really well.

The next step is to add custom installer actions, registry keys etc. stuff that exists as part of the MSI install.

Here's a handy tool from the Windows Installer SDK and a related CHM file that talks about How to Edit the MSI

How to use the Orca database editor to edit Windows Installer files
http://www.codeproject.com/dotnet/MSIShortcuts.asp

Enjoy.

Hi folks just to let you know that there's has been a recent update to this, make sure you grab the latest copy. Sept. 06 is the latest I believe.

How handy to have all that material in a searchable CHM file!!! (might add it to my classroom images :) )

Get it here