Innovative Technology Weblog

As you might have noticed, my colleague Jeroen is totally wild on Groove… he kinda started the same enthousiasm in me….

So….as I was playing around a bit with the Sharepoint files tool (which unfortunately doesnt work with earlier versions of WindowsSharepointServices) I tried to add an Office Liveworkspace (discussed earlier) as a repository for storing files used in groove…

whilst trying to add a sps2003 document library causes a nasty error; trying to add a Live workspace to the sharepoint files tool just returns the message ‘not implemented…’

interesting….

Although it might be too early to jump to any conclusions, it must be noted that the possibilities to use Groove in conjunction with Live workspaces have clearly been left open… or at least not closed for good….

i’ll keep watching !

Martijn

From the makers of GrooveIT! for Outlook there is now a new tool called GrooveIT! for my documents.

With GrooveIt! for My Documents you can to search for your files and to publish them to a chosen Groove file tool. The best thing for me is the advanced search feature. Searching within Groove it self is not a feature so I’m very happy to see search capabillity. For search within workspaces I also rely on a tool from Information Patterns called Toucan File Finder. But that does only search GrooveIT! for My Documents does much more then only search.

Interface:

Features

Find, file and publish easily:

• Find  your files within your Groove spaces, or in your own spaces, with the “advanced search” feature
• Find your documents easily by entering your key words
• File your Groove resources from one space to another
• Publish your SharePoint or local resources into Groove

+ Simplify the making/creation of documents:

• Create and save your Word 2007, Excel 2007 and PowerPoint 2007 documents straight into Groove, thanks to the incorporate function in the toolbar.
• Find and edit your Groove files with the search functionality incorporated in the Office applications ribbon.

+ Surf in your files lists: filing, searching, publishing:

• Lists of local files
• Groove files tools
• SharePoint Libraries

It is absolutely worth a try. If you use Groove a lot then this could be a must have.

You can get it here.

See ya

Jeroen

As a Groove adapt I’m always looking for nice tools to use with Groove. Hommes & Process is a company that developed a tool called GrooveIT for Outlook. With this tool you sent most items from Outlook to Groove. I’m using this product for about 2 years now and I loved the first version.

But with the release of version 2 there was a bug in one of the features of the product . Creating rules did not work and that is one of the fundamental things that GrooveIT should do for me.

This problem happened when an Outlook client was connected to an Exchange environment.
It looks for the list of Outlook folders and does that to infinity.

But talking to the developers at Hommes & Process they (David Martin) came up with a new updated version of GrooveIT for Outlook V2. It is always great to help out the developers and test the new version. And yes it is running like a charme now. By fixing this bug the product is now compleet.

Other features of the product are:

• Share your RSS feeds
• Transfer your Outlook tasks
• Create GrooveIT! rules on calendars, tasks list, contacts list, RSS feeds
• Discover improved Groove tools including support for Groove links, attachments management, filtering
• Build discussion threads of your emails, avoid duplicates
• Update calendar events, contacts and tasks already published in Groove

Just have a look and see at http://www.grooveit.biz/en/home.aspx You can download a trail version.

See ya

Jeroen

Today I received my Groove MVP status and it is not an April fool’s day joke. I’m very happy with this status. I would like to thank the MS Groove team for nominating me. So this year I even need to work harder to keep this status.

Next week I will receive the MVP award pack, I wonder what will be inside.

Further on this week I started the Groove Exam Cram Tour. The first city in the twelve city tour was Lisbon. Very nice city, nice weather and nice Microsoft venue. My job is to prep Microsoft Partners to pass the Groove 2007 exam (070-555). Also Kevin R, is helping out because Milan and Brussels are on the same date. And still I don’t have a clone (thank god for that). So Kevin will be in Milan and I will be in Brussels. Yippie, I can go by car pffff.  The other city’s are: Oslo, Stockholm, Helsinki, Vienna, Zurich, Zoetermeer(of all places ) , Dublin, Madrid and Copenhagen.  So it will be a busy two and a half month. We also have made tour shirts (GEEK)

Looks like a rock band Tour shirt don’t you think. And yes, Marillion fans out there it looks a bit like a Marillion tour shirt.

So no time to waste got to go…….

See ya,

Jeroen Jansen

I just stumbled over a great tool from Information Patterns called Toucan File Finder. It allows you to search for files within your Groove workspaces. It is an external tool that searches within selected workspaces It is really a life saver for me. I really miss the search option within Groove and this tool just helps a lot.

Below is a screenshot of the tool.

You can search for anything that you want but you have to know what kind of file you are looking for. If you select a lot of workspaces to search in you will see that it takes some time to complete. So knowing what you are looking for is key.

I know you all want this and the best thing about it is that it is free!!! And because I’m Dutch this is the best thing . There is even no registration page WHOEPIE!!!!! And because you guys need to search a lot these days I will spare you a Google moment and just point you to the link. Click on this LINK to go to the download page.

See ya

Jeroen

Last week Microsoft posted the Service Pack 1 for Microsoft Office 2007. For Office Groove there a two different Service Packs of Office 2007. One is for the Client side and the other is for the Servers side.

So for the complete Groove experience you will need both Service Packs. I have installed both packages within our Groove environment and I had no problems what so ever when implementing it.

A great fix is the Sharepoint tool fix in the Groove Client. We had the problem that when we made changes in the Sharepoint library, the changes did not sync to Groove, visa versa it worked just fine. But with SP1 this problem was addressed.

One thing is to bad, the security loophole that Kevin found (click here) is not addressed yet.
Let’s hope that it will be in the next Service Pack or the new Office Groove version in the future.

Below you will find the fixes in Groove. First you will see the client fixes and second you will see the Groove servers fixes.

Client updates:

• Groove KB935874
  When you try to restore your account in Groove 2007, the account is not available. This problem occurs if the account backup file is more than 60 days old.
• Groove KB935874
  You have an auto-activation feature configured on your Groove domain. When you try to enable a Groove 2007 account by clicking an invitation file (.grv), you are notified that you do not have an account configured. Additionally, you may receive a dialog box that prompts you to type an activation key.
• Groove
  When you exit Groove 2007, you receive the following error message:
  Invalid access to memory location
• Groove
  When you open a file from the Files tool, you receive a “Groove Unsaved File Alert” message even though no file is open. Additionally, the message blocks the Groove 2007 shutdown process.
• Groove
  You synchronize Groove 2007 with a server that is running Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. Then, you add some new content to a SharePoint site. When you complete the synchronization, Groove remains unsynchronized.
• Groove
  When you type t in the Groove 2007 chat tool on a computer that is running the German version of Windows Server 2003, the chat tool switches from text mode to ink mode.
• Groove Security Update 936227
  MS07-042: Vulnerability in Microsoft XML Core Services could allow remote code execution

Servers updates:

• Groove KB941092
  Microsoft Office Groove Data Bridge Server 2007 stops responding if all the following conditions are true: • The server that is running Groove Data Bridge Server 2007 is also running the Subscription Manager service.
  - A Web service creates a new record. The record creates an event that has an attribute of type string.
  - The Subscription Manager service on the server tries to enqueue an event that has the XML representation of the new record attached to it.
• Groove
  When Subscription Manager queues an event that has too much binary data, Storage Manager ends the Groove Data Bridge (GDB) process.
• Groove
  You restart Internet Information Services (IIS) on a computer that is running Microsoft Office Groove Manager Server 2007. When you do this, the following error message is logged in the Application log:
  The description for Event ID ( 200 ) in Source ( GrooveManagementServer ) cannot be found. The local computer may not have the necessary registry information or message DLL files to display messages from a remote computer. You may be able to use the /AUXSOURCE= flag to retrieve this description; see Help and Support for details. The following information is part of the event: <IID></IID><Details Process=”w3wp.exe” HRESULT=”0×80004005″ EventMessage=”Groove Management Server beta period expired.”
  However, Groove Manager Server continues to operate.
  Note This issue may occur on a computer on which the beta software was never installed.
• Groove
  If the Windows Firewall service is enabled but the firewall is off, the Groove Relay Server 2007 startup process stops responding. This issue does not occur if the firewall is disabled or if the firewall is fully enabled.

You can download the bits for the Office 2007 client here and for the Office 2007 Servers here.

So now Groove is again a bit better then before, isn’t life sweet!!!!

Happy Holidays,  

Jeroen

Well most of you know me as a Groove fetish guy. I even have a favorite port number 2492 and that is the Groove SSTP(Simple Symmetric Transport Protocol) port.

Now I got really confused when I saw that Windows Server 2008 and Vista SP1 also use SSTP but is not the same as the Groove SSTP. For Windows Server 2008, Vista SP1 and Windows XP SP3 SSTP means Secure Socket Tunneling Protocol.

So we have two Microsoft products with protocols with the same name. I feel a bit schizophrenic now.

SSTP within Groove is used to setup a peer to peer connection to Groove clients. And to talk to the Microsoft Office Groove Relay servers. Its a UDP protocol by the way.

SSTP within Windows Server 2008 the Secure Socket Tunneling Protocol (SSTP) is to allow VPN connections over HTTPS/port 443. SSTP is an alternative for the PPTP or L2TP/IPSec protocols that were available in Windows Server 2003. SSTP will reduce the management and overhead for maintaining a VPN, as most organizations allow port 443 to pass unhindered through their firewalls.

I think that both SSTP’s are great but please change the abbreviations my dear Microsoft. Because we never say the complete names.

By the way, What is your favorite port number???

see ya

Jeroen

Good news for all you wannabe Groove adapts, this is your change.
Microsoft has just published they new and all improved Microsoft Office Groove 2007 Client and Server E-Learning. So this is your change to build up to the Groove 2007 Exam 70-555 and go for that certification.

The E-Learning consist of the following modules

Collection 6452AE: Implementing Microsoft Office Groove Server 2007

• Course 6453AE: Installing and Deploying Microsoft Office Groove 2007
• Course 6454AE: Configuring and Administering Microsoft Office Groove Server 2007
• Course 6455AE: Managing Microsoft Office Groove 2007 Accounts and Workspaces
• Course 6456AE: Using Advanced Microsoft Office Groove 2007 Workspace Tools
• Course 6457AE: Deploying Microsoft Office Groove 2007 Data Bridge and Disaster Recovery
• Course 6458AE: Securing and Maintaining Microsoft Office Groove 2007

These courses can be accessed at http://www.microsoft.com/learning/elearning/course/6452.mspx

So hop on the bandwagon and get certified.

If you have any questions about this just ask me here or if you are on TechEd IT Forum look me up at the Ask The Expert booth of Groove. There you will find me and my Microsoft Groove friends who can help you with all your questions.

See you here or there,

Jeroen

GrooveIT! is a great tool for your Groove 2007 and Outlook environment. It will sync tour email from Outlook to Groove 2007. 

New for the 2.0 version is:

• Share your RSS feeds
• Transfer your Outlook tasks
• Create GrooveIT! rules on calendars, tasks list, contacts list, RSS feeds
• Discover improved Groove tools including support for Groove links, attachments management, filtering
• Build discussion threads of your emails, avoid duplicates
• Update calendar events, contacts and tasks already published in Groove

I have been working with the 1.0 version and that was already great but with the 2.0 version things will get even much better.

The funny thing is that lately people within my company are coming up to me and ask me questions about can I store project emails in Groove and can I sync a calendar.
At first the answer was no but with GrooveIT! you can. 
GrooveIT! is really filling the gap between Groove Virtual Office 3.1 and Groove 2007. The sync with Outlook was gone in the Groove 2007 client. But GrooveIT fills this gap perfectly and does even more. So if you want to try this tool look at http://www.grooveit.biz/en/home.aspx and download a trail.

Have fun and see you on IT-Forum.

See ya,

Jeroen

This is a shameless plug for myself to invite you to come to a session I will be doing with Microsoft’s Mark Ryan at Microsoft IT-Forum 2007 in Barcelona. Look for OFF201 Groove 2007: Real World Infrastructure Challanges.  The time slot is November the 14th form 15.45 till 17:00.

There will also be a Chalk-Talk  “OFF06-IS Groove 2007: Security and Communications Groove” so look out for that to and the 15th of November at 09:00 

We are working on something special about Groove on the Sunday before IT-Forum starts but I that is still a bit hush hush. So look out for more information on that here on Buit.org.

During IT-Forum Erik Luppes, Stefan Stranger and myself will blog new stuff from IT-Forum here. My job will be talking about the party’s, drinks and diners off-course. The serious stuff will come from my friends.

Hope to see you there and please give us good ratings

See ya

Jeroen Jansen