Google / Blogger custom domain fix

Google / Blogger custom domain fix

So long story short is to delete your custom domain, find a windows computer (or Virtual Machine), boot up Internet Explorer and re-add your custom domain to your profile. Seriously. It works.

No idea what's going on behind the scenes, however, if you're not an IE user and you try to set up a custom domain you're probably going to end up with something that looks like this: 

404 error. The requested URL / was not found on this server

(The google 404 page that says it can't find a URL "/")

Trust me. Go to IE, delete your custom domain settings, redo the settings in IE. 

Disclaimer: If your CNAME records are not properly set up then this fix won't work.

From Google's Web site on how to set up your CNAME records:

CNAME whateveryourcustomnameis.customdomain.com ghs.google.com

CNAME COPYANDPASTETHEFIRSTVALUE gv-copyandpastethisintothefield.domainverify.googlehosted.com

(the above values can be found in the directions for setting up your Blogger custom domain under "custom domain instructions")

Microsoft SharePoint Basics

Microsoft SharePoint Basics

What this post is for:

This post is for people that would like to learn a thimble-full of knowledge about Microsoft SharePoint, it includes some basic vocabulary so as to provide a foundation for a basic conversation about main features.

The Main Features of Microsoft SharePoint

1. Search
2. Document Mangement
3. Portal (website)
4. Wiki's
5. Task managment
6. Workflows
7. (Business Processes)
8. (Business Intelligence)

SharePoint Basic Vocabulary

Library

A Library is a collection of documents

List

A collection of rows of data, much like an online Excel sheet that is integrated into SharePoint

Workflow
Application logic that corresponds to documents or lists on the SharePoint server

Application Logic
Application Logic is essentially taking a business process (like the creation and approval of a contract) and creating an automated process to guide that document through its life cycle. To continue with the contract example, application logic within a SharePoint workflow would handle the following:

1. Creation of the Contract (most likely with a form that will collect the necessary information and automatically populate the contract document template.
2. Validate the content.
3. Pass the document to a reviewer - notify the reviewer that the document is ready for review and track their changes or comments on a document
4. Publish the document on a SharePoint portal
5. Keep an indexed copy of the contract for continuity purposes that can be easily searched through

Indexing / Indexed

Indexing means that a document has been parsed or crawled through by a service and optimized for search with that service. For example, with SharePoint, documents are indexed to make them easily and quickly searchable through the SharePoint search function. If a document is not indexed, it will not appear in search.

Intranet Portal

A SharePoint portal that is only accessible to people inside of the company / enterprise LAN.

Extranet (public) Portal

A SharePoint portal (homepage) that exposes data to visitors outside of the corporate/enterprise LAN.

Enterprise LAN

The Local Area Network (LAN) that encompasses and includes all internal company resources. LAN resources are those resources available to someone that is connected via network cable on-site (physically) at the company, connected to a company internal wireless network, or connected to a company VPN.

VPN

Virtual Private Network (VPN) this is a method of connecting to a LAN from an off-site location (from an external network). It often consists of a client (piece of software) that runs on the computer that you're connecting from and a server component that is public facing and also connected to your company LAN (that serves as a gateway between people on external networks and the internal company LAN).

SharePoint Workflows

SharePoint workflows can be (most easily) created through the use of the Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer.

SharePoint Links

Outlook + SharePoint = Tasks (winning)