SharePoint Dragons

We always find ourselves looking for this info, so we’re posting it on our own blog for future reference. Here’s an explanation of problems caused if you don’t Disable Loopback on your SharePoint 2013 machines: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/896861?wa=wsignin1.0 (and solutions as well).

Alternatively, you can just run the following PowerShell script:

new-itemproperty HKLM:\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa -Name “DisableLoopbackCheck” -Value “1” -PropertyType DWORD

SharePoint 2013 is an awesome product, but for some features we have to wait and see if they’re mature enough before reaching a verdict (SharePoint Apps will be great eventually, but are they in this release?), but there is one feature that just fails to enthuse us: the Machine Translation Service.

We’ve heard a presenter say on SPC 2012 that it’s all about translating words into foreign words, and okay, you might loose some context, but the foreign reader will at least be able to understand it. We’re pretty sure that this presenter only speaks a single language, because this is not what translation is all about. More than being able to translate the words, it’s about being able to capture the context of the original text. Did you ever run a real text thru a translator service? This could be a party game in its own right, because the garbage you get is incredible typically resulting in the most incomprehensible texts imaginable.

We remember doing a job for Intel Europe and they had a team of dedicated translators ready because normal translators weren’t able to translate technical content into something readable, the total opposite of a machine translator but that worked.

Is there anybody out there gaining real benefit from this machine translation service? We’d love to know!

The following Wiki page provides an overview of service account naming conventions: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/14500.sharepoint-2013-best-practices-service-accounts.aspx , based on the SPC 2012 Installation presentation by Dan Holme ( http://www.sharepointpromag.com/author/5052626/DanHolme ).

The SharePoint 2013 Best Practices page at TechNet Wiki has been updated: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/12438.sharepoint-2013-best-practices.aspx

We’ve liked Distributed Cache back from the day when it was still called Velocity ( http://www.loisandclark.eu/Pages/Velocity.aspx ), but an unexpected benefit from its inclusion in SharePoint 2013 is that it no longer requires a load balancer to be configured for session stickiness. Cool!

It kinda defeats the purpose of learning and getting a technology, and then start using it, but this HTML 5 based SharePoint PowerShell editor is still kinda nice: http://www.microsoft.com/resources/TechNet/en-us/Office/media/WindowsPowerShell/WindowsPowerShellCommandBuilder.html It also has support for SharePoint Online.

When you’re a developer or IT Pro working with SharePoint 2013, you’d better bookmark these two links:

• http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee662513.aspx , provides an overview of the administrative and service accounts you need for a SharePoint 2013 installation.
• http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc678863.aspx , describes SharePoint 2013 administrative and service account permissions for SQL Server, the File System, File Shares, and Registry entries.

A general overview of SharePoint 2013 Best Practices can be viewed here: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/12438.sharepoint-2013-best-practices.aspx

SharePoint 2013 Apps can’t communicate with each other (hey, did we just address a new feature for Apps vNext, the App communication framework? We bet your hat it is). But since SharePoint 2013 can interact with parent SharePoint sites, it might be a good idea to create lists and libraries in one of the parent SharePoint sites if you want multiple Apps to access them or need to establish basic interaction between multiple Apps.

What’s the ideal dev machine now that SharePoint 2013 no longer supports being installed on a client OS? Probably run a Windows Server 2012 virtual machine using Hyper-V on Windows 8, with at least 24 GB.

Although it’s still really early in the life of the SharePoint Store, it will be interesting to see how and if a potential issue will be resolved. The enterprise market is a totally different one than, let’s say, the smart phone market. Although it’s certainly possible that a one-man developer shop creates a valuable SharePoint App, and, through the SharePoint Store has no trouble reaching a huge audience, it remains to be seen if companies are willing to put enough trust in unknown smaller vendors to buy and/or use their Apps within their own SharePoint environments. We did notice that most of the Apps that are currently available ask for Full permissions, almost by convenience. We’re afraid that this will become the trend. It will definitely help smaller vendors trying to sell their Apps if they limit themselves in their needs for permissions.