SharePoint 2010 audience owner won’t resolve

Published by neil on January 26, 2012 in SharePoint. 0 Comments

This is more of an annoyance than an issue – as it does not appear to cause any problems, however I am having problems with setting the owner of an audience in SharePoint 2010.  I am able to choose the owner via people picker and resolve the name fine, however once clicking save it doesn’t seem to ‘stick.’  When you view the audience properties the owner appears as a claims token, and when you go back to modify the owner it isn’t resolved (as indicated by the red line under the name.)

Note that I’ve replicated this across multiple farms – all running SharePoint 2010 SP1 w/ June 2011 CU (14.0.6105.5000) and it is persistent - I’m unsure if this is an issue with our build process, the patch level or otherwise.  Note that none of the webapps on these farms are using claims – however claims is use by SharePoint by default, internally.

As you can see below once the owner has been modified it appears as a claims token.

 

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Run all available SharePoint 2010 Health Analyzer Checks

Published by neil on January 24, 2012 in SharePoint. 0 Comments

SharePoint 2010 has a built in Health Analyzer which runs via a series of timer jobs to analyze the health and stability of the farm.  Some of the rules behind the health analyzer are a bit strict and often times you’ll find an alert for something which isn’t really an issue at all.  As part of our new build procedure we always address each of these alerts before handing off the farm to the client.  At issue however is that these checks run on a hourly / daily / weekly or even monthly basis.  It’s a disappointment to hand over a farm only to have the client call 2 weeks later indicating an ‘error message’ has popped up in central admin.  The following powershell command, Continue reading ‘Run all available SharePoint 2010 Health Analyzer Checks’

Cost of Microsoft certifications increasing

Published by Neil Sly on April 25, 2011 in Certifications & Training. 0 Comments

Beginning July 1st the cost of most Microsoft exams (essentially all MCP exams) in the United States will rise from the current price of $125 to $150.  The prices will NOT be increasing for the MCM, MCA, MTA, or MOS (Master, Architect, Technology Associated, and Office Specialist respectively) exams.  It’s been a while since the prices were last raised and it’s probably due, Microsoft exams have been amongst the cheapest in cost for several years.  The prices for student exams will also go up, however student discounts (usually 40%) will still be in place.  Additionally the discount structure for MCTs will also change, the exams price will go up but the previous structure will be replaced with a flat 50% off. Continue reading ‘Cost of Microsoft certifications increasing’

Test Taking Skills

Published by Neil Sly on January 31, 2011 in Certifications & Training. 0 Comments

There is a great post over on the Born to learn blog about choosing the ‘most correct’ answer on exams.  Specifically the author is addressing the sometimes confusing multiple-choice type questions often found on PRO level Microsoft certifications.  These are often preceded by a lengthy scenario describing some type of business requirements, of which some or none may be relevant to the actual question at hand.  For someone taking their first PRO level Microsoft certification exam this can be quite stressful.  I remember taking the 70-646 MCITP: System Administrator exam and having covered both sides of my two pieces of note paper only 5 or 6 questions in.  I firmly believe that the path to successfully passing ANY exam is about 33% knowing the material, 33% exam preparation and about 33% test taking skills.  If you figure Continue reading ‘Test Taking Skills’

Lync 2010 beta cancellation

Published by Neil Sly on January 3, 2011 in Certifications & Training. 0 Comments

Has anyone else noticed that their registration for 71-665 has been cancelled by Prometric?  Earlier this morning (around 10:30 AM EST) I received an email from Prometric stating that my “testing appointment scheduled with Prometric had to be cancelled due to technical issues.  Microsoft is aware of the issue and are currently in the process of resolving this matter.”  The email goes on to say that beginning January 5th I can re-register for the exam.  At the time I received the email Prometric was still showing my exam as scheduled.  However I just re-checked the website (3:30 PM EST) and found that it now shows as “cancelled” Continue reading ‘Lync 2010 beta cancellation’