Server relative and page relative URL for images in the Layouts directory

I was recently creating my custom RSS feeds in SharePoint 2007 and i came across an interesting yet simple issue with getting the RSS icon to render correctly. When I first deployed my site with the RSS icon references, I got a blank image instead of my RSS Icon. The issue was, I used page relative URLs instead of server URLs when referencing the RSS image.

The first image uses a page relative URL reference. The second image uses a server relative URL reference.

I just changed my URL reference from page relative to server relative and the RSS image rocked up.

SharePoint 2010 sites house keeping

SharePoint 2010 makes it easier than ever to schedule unused sites to be deleted.

Central Administration -> Application Management -> Confirm site use and deletion

Sites can be scheduled to be deleted after a specified amount of notices have been sent to the site owners.

Clean and neat !

User Profile Service Application : Manage user profiles

In SharePoint 2010, the management and administration of user profiles is no longer done in a Shared Services provider. Using the new User Profile Service Application, you can administer user profiles, schedule the profile synchronisation, configure audiences (for audience targeting), setup My Sites, and manage Organisations.

Back to basics : Site definition and WebTemp file

The basic WebTemp.xml file


The basic Onet.xml file

Create a default.aspx page and you are done !

Configure service accounts in SharePoint 2010

SharePoint 2010 allows you to configure and change service accounts for Farm, Windows Services, Web Application Pools, and Service Application pool accounts.

This can be done by going to Central Administration. Under Security -> Configure service accounts




Select from the drop down list to pick where you want to change the service account.


Press OK !

SharePoint 2010 Web Part page layout

The interface to add web parts in SharePoint 2010 has improved dramatically.


This is a standard web part page available in SharePoint 2010

Creating web event receivers in SharePoint 2010

I have just created web event receiver in Visual Studio 2010 and deployed to SharePoint 2010. Visual Studio 2010 makes it very easy to build, develop, and deploy to SharePoint sites.

Inheriting the SPWebEventReceiver, you can create some funky event receivers for multiple web events, i.e. WebProvisioned gets triggered when a site is provisioned/created !


This is the elements file !


No different from creating a event receiver for an item, content type, or list, the process and files required are practically the same :)

Two cool features in SharePoint 2010 page layouts

SharePoint 2010 presents a much more refined and easier to use user interface for content authors to go about doing their job.



In SharePoint 2010, there is a preview mode for each page layout. It allows content authors to preview the published page with content before they submit it for approval.


On page check in, spell checker will display the number of spelling errors from the page content.



+2 to SharePoint 2010

SharePoint 2010 Search Administration page

One thing I am happy about SharePoint 2010 is the Search Administration. Not only is the UI much more refined and better organised than in SharePoint 2007, the Search Administration pages are now editable and support the provisioning of custom web parts. This move supports the development of custom search administrative web parts implemented for SharePoint administrators

+2 for SharePoint 2010

A neat little object ..... ContextPageInfo

SharePoint 2010 exposes a ContextPageInfo object that enables easier access to get commonly used properties such as the list id of the current page and the item id. We can also determine whether the current page is ghosted or not.

SPContext.Current.ContextPageInfo.ListId
- Returns the current list id of the pages library/list where the page is stored.

SPContext.Current.ContextPageInfo.ItemId
- Returns the current item id for the item stored in the the pages library/list

SPContext.Current.ContextPageInfo.GhostedPage
- Used to determine if the page is ghosted or not.

These are not that flash hot, but useful at times !

SharePoint 2010 Timer Job Administration

Microsoft has radically improved the administration and management of timer jobs in SharePoint 2010.

SharePoint 2010 Central Administration: Under Monitoring, go to Check Job Status







You can now filter through the list of timer jobs ! A lot better than having to scroll up and down the timer jobs list :)




SharePoint 2010 provides UI functionality to run, disable, and edit the timer job schedule frequency.





On the main page, the top left nav links allow you to go check the status of jobs that have run (or meant to have run), scheduled jobs, all timer job definitions, and jobs that are currently in progress !


+1 for SharePoint 2010 Timer Job administration !!!!!!!!!