Real World SharePoint 2007: Indispensable Experiences from 16 MOSS and WSS MVPs

This book represents the efforts of 16 MVPs in the SharePoint community to present core areas of SharePoint 2007 products and technologies seasoned with significant field experience. This book is for the community of SharePoint professionals including architects, designers, developers, administrators, and engineers. Readers should have prior experience with SharePoint 2007 products and technologies. The topics were selected by SharePoint MVP and Editor Scot Hiller to represent a cross-section of the most important areas within SharePoint. The chapters stand alone as independent articles.

Specifically, here's what the book covers:

• Introduction by Mike Walsh
• Forms Based Authentication by Stacy Draper: approaches to FBA, along with their strengths and weaknesses
• SharePoint Administration by Todd Klindt: backup, recovery, command-line utilities
• Developing Publishing Sites by Andrew Connell: challenges the conventional thinking
• SharePoint Designer 2007 by Dustin Miller: a powerful part of your toolkit
• Customizing and Branding the SharePoint 2007 Interface by Shane Perran and Heather Solomon: look and feel using master pages, style sheets, and graphics
• Creating and deploying of Web Parts using C# by Jan Tielens
• Robert Bogue creates custom workflows and forms for deployment in WSS using C#
• Workflow in SharePoint Server 2007 by Joris Poelmans: coverage of InfoPath forms and how to use them with MOSS workflows
• Business Data Catalog by Nick Swan: Using the BDC to allow MOSS to access line-of-business databases
• Excel Services by Luis Du Solier Grinda: presenting spreadsheet data to users through a browser
• Securing Communication by Adam Buenz: Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), Kerberos security, ISA Server.
• Information Rights Management by Jason Medero: setting up IRM and using it with libraries to restrict documents
• Different approaches to upgrading from SPS 2003 to MOSS 2007 by Shane Young

Scot Hillier is an independent consultant and Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) focused on creating solutions for Information Workers with SharePoint, Office, and related .NET technologies. He is the author of ten books on Microsoft technologies, including Microsoft SharePoint: Building Office 2007 Solutions in C# 2005 (Berkeley: Apress, 2007). When not writing about technology, he can be found presenting at industry conferences such as Microsoft TechEd and SharePoint Connections. Hillier is a former U. S. Navy submarine officer and graduate of the Virginia Military Institute. He can be reached at scot@shillier.com.

Robert Bogue, MCSE (NT4/W2K), MCSA:Security, A+, Network+, Server+, I-Net+, IT Project+, E-Biz+, CDIA+, is the president of Thor Projects LLC, which provides SharePoint consulting services to clients around the country. He has contributed to more than 100 book projects and numerous other publishing projects. He was recently honored to become a Microsoft MVP for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server. Before that, he was a Microsoft Commerce Server MVP, and before that, a Microsoft Windows Servers-Networking MVP. He blogs at http://www.thorprojects.com/blog. You can reach Robert at Rob.Bogue@thorprojects.com.

Adam Robert Buenz is a SharePoint Architect and Developer for ARB Security Solutions, LLC (sharepointsecurity.com). He focuses on security-centric collaboration environments that build off the SharePoint and .NET Framework. Focusing heavily on the security of SharePoint, along with integration of sister Microsoft platforms into SharePoint (such as ForeFront, ISA, MIIS, and DPM), he has developed against several of the largest health care, financial, and federal implementations of SharePoint within the United States. He is co-author of Professional SharePoint 2007 Development (Indianapolis: Wiley, 2007) and co-author of 7 Microsoft® Office Business Applications for Office SharePoint® Server 2007 (Redmond, WA: Microsoft Press, 2007). He lives wherever he is contracted, and can be contacted at adam@sharepointsecurity.com.

Andrew Connell is an independent consultant, instructor, and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server MVP with a focus on Web Content Management. He has authored and co-authored numerous books on the subjects of Microsoft Content Management Server and SharePoint, including the first published books on the latest release Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) v3 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007. Connell has spoken on the subject of Office SharePoint Server 2007 development and Web Content Management at various community events in the southeast United States, as well as national conferences such as TechEd, SharePoint Connections, VSLive, and the Microsoft SharePoint Conference. You can reach him at me@andrewconnell.com or subscribe to his popular SharePoint and Web Content Management focused blog at http://www.andrewconnell.com/blog. He would like to thank his wife, Meredith, for the support and encouragement in all his efforts; his son, Steven, who’s always there to put things in perspective (as well as put a smile on his face); and the other SharePoint MVPs who make up the most incredible and diverse group of talented professionals that he has been privileged to be a part of.

Stacy Draper is 37 years old, married, founder of Wild Wires, LLC (a consulting firm based in South Florida), author, and member of PMI. He holds an MCSD certification and MVP award. Being involved with Web development since 1993 has led his life in a very interesting direction. He started out in UNIX and, since 1997, has had a strong concentration in Microsoft technologies. Draper enjoys public speaking and has spoken at conferences, code camps, and user groups. Draper would like to dedicate his contribution to this book to his wife, who is his driving force, and his little bundle of joy, Alicia.

Luis Du Solier Grinda is a Microsoft Office SharePo