Sorry for the late notice on this.  I wanted to pass along some information from our friends at the SQL Server User Group:

You must register for this event by noon today (July 9) !

Perficient sponsored the monthly Philly.Net meeting featuring presentations on SQL Server Integration Services and Sharepoint. 

Don't miss our next meeting:  July 18th at Microsoft in Malvern.  This meeting is sponsored by Solvepoint.  The speakers and topics haven't been announced yet, stay tuned for more information.  And keep an eye on this blog for more information about Philly.Net Code Camp 2007.2 scheduled for September.

As always, here is my synopsis of the meeting.  If you miss a meeting or want some information about something you've seen at Philly.Net, hopefully you'll find the answer in my synopsis.  I try to put in links and information that the presenters think are useful.  Click on Philly.Net in the category cloud to see all Philly.Net related content (or click here).

Presenter:  Tony Testa, Perficient

Topic:  SQL Integration Services

Tony started off with a quick intro to SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS), the next generation of SQL Server DTS (Data Transformation Services from SQL Server 2000).  SSIS has many uses but it is well suited for the ETL process.  Improvements over DTS include many new features, logging, configuration, debugging, an API, better deployment, and more.  He quickly jumped into a quick demo showing an SSIS package with a For Each Container using a Script Task - with debugging too!  With these simple demos you can easily see the power of SSIS.  He continued on to demonstrate many other cool features in SSIS.  He wrapped up showing us several different ways to execute a DTS package including from SQL Server, from the File System, and from a .Net application.

Here are the files from Tony's presentation:  SSIS_Demos.zip (522.14 KB)

Presenter:  Afshin Zavareh, Perficient

Topic:  Sharepoint 2007 Features and Components

Afshin started off good.  I always like a presentation that starts with "I only have one slide"!  The one slide was a good introduction to the various Sharepoint Feature Areas.  He quickly moved on to the demos.  One interesting point he brought up... all of the information for the Sharepoint demo site he created is stored in SQL Server.  There are no actual aspx files.  Sharepoint provides so many cool features that you can easily add into a site.  Here are some of the features Afshin showed us:

• Using templates to create sites
• Implement RSS
• Use built in search - not only for pages but other content like word docs.
• Create a custom search results page using web parts.
• Using Site Master Page settings to define the look of the site.
• Workflow for approvals.
• Using business forms.
• and more...

This is a big topic and Afshin did a great job at showing us the basics to many features.  He sent me a nice list of Sharepoint blogs that should be helpful to people who want more information:

• Developer Blogs
• http://blogs.msdn.com/jjameson/default.aspx
• http://andrewconnell.com/blog/Default.aspx
• http://blogs.tamtam.nl/
• http://www.codeplex.com/Project/ProjectDirectory.aspx?TagName=Sharepoint
• Admin/Deploy Blogs
• http://blogs.msdn.com/joelo/default.aspx
• http://msmvps.com/blogs/shane/
• Training Blogs
• http://tedpattison.net/
• Evangelist Blogs
• http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/blogs/mikeg/default.aspx
• MSFT Sharepoint Team Blogs
• http://blogs.msdn.com/arpans/
• http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/

Meeting Sponsor: Perficient... Thanks for the Pizza!

Additional Door Prizes courtesy of:  Microsoft and Wrox Publishing.

I'm still in the process of getting my computer all set up since the move to Vista.  Like most developers, I have a lot of software and tools to install.

The other day I installed SQL Server but I had a little trouble getting Reporting Services installed because I didn't meet the requirements. 

I've installed Reporting Services a few times in the past on XP.  So before I even started I installed IIS.  To do so, go to Control Panel > Programs.  From there you can click "Turn Windows features on or off".  You'll get a little pop-up with a list of features.  I later learned that just choosing Internet Information Services (and the sub topic World Wide Web Services) is not enough.  I know this because that is all I did and Reporting Services would not install!  Luckily I found this article at support.microsoft.com.  I had to go back and choose some extra features of IIS that did not get installed by default.  The article explains the whole thing, but this picture should make it easy to see which features need to be enabled. 

Yes, it is a small picture but click it so see it full size!

 After making these changes, Reporting Services installed in a snap.  Good luck.