SharePoint Solution Downloader

One of my pain points as a SharePoint “administrator” is having to deal with deployments of solution packages to my environment without the best change management. This means that I often see packages making their way in to the environment without any thought given to keeping the package in case it needs to be reapplied at a later time (Note: I’m not the only one who controls what goes into the environment).

The solution? I whipped up a Windows application so download one, several, or all of the solution packages currently stored in the farm configuration database.

I have posted the application to CodePlex @ http://spsolutiondownloader.codeplex.com/.

SharePoint Solution Downloader

The application must be run in the context of a Farm Administrator (i.e. right-click, Run As…) on a server in the farm for which you wish to download the solution package(s) from and requires the .NET Framework 3.5.

I would love some feedback from the community as to whether or not this useful. I have some other little apps in mind I could put together with the proper motivation.

zevenseas LifeCycle Management Released

zevenseas has released their SharePoint LifeCycle Management solution to CodePlex.  The LifeCycle Management solution can be used to track unused SharePoint sites as well as capture and automatically back-up sites.  Actions can be defined to use against your unused sites, such as emailing the site owner, locking the site, or even deleting it.

What are you waiting for?  Go check it out!

In Case You Missed It – Content Deployment Webcast

Spencer Harbar presented an excellent webcast on content deployment in SharePoint 2007 yesterday. If you’ve ever wanted to learn more about it, now is the time.

Go check it out.

Fixing Absolute URLs in a Content Editor Web Part

Maxime Bombardier has a post on the subject of fixing one of the bigger issues with the Content Editor web part. For the uninitiated, a Content Editor web part always renders absolute URLs when the rich-text editing capabilities are used. I must admit that I would have never have thought to use a control adapter to manipulate the output of the web part on the fly. Now that I have learned something new, you should too.

Go check it out.