Ramon Scott

This is a follow-up to my original post for a quick solution for a adding a web part to the home page that allows for searching for people using first, last or a combination of names. Wildcards are supported on either.

This version has been tweaked to add a select box that also lets a user choose a department to view or search within. You’ll have to hard-code your departments in. A fancier version might use an AJAX call to read from a list or something similar.

To use this, just add a content editor web part to the moss home page and paste the code below into the source view. The form will submit to the default people search results page.

I’m blown away with WordPress in terms of how well it functions, how organized and intuitive the code base is and how easy it is to customize and augment its look n’ feel and capabilities.

The first things I’ve done is installed a cool photo gallery plugin. This is the NextGEN Gallery available at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/nextgen-gallery/. Wonderful stuff. Very cool end-user presentation and well thoughout administration console on the backend.

I also have loaded my first new theme. It’s amazing how many themes are out there for WordPress. Kind of overwhelming. The new theme is called Xplosive and it’s available at http://www.blogohblog.com/wordpress-theme-xplosive/.

Synopsis: This story revolves around a third-string, washed up NFL quarter back who ends up in Italy playing in the Italian National Football Team.

My 2 Cents: I found the book entertaining, but not as deep a read as some other Grisham novels. Learning about how one of my favorite sports co-exists in the land of soccer was fascinating. Also, the detailed descriptions of the Italian cuisine always left me hungry. Overall, I’d recommend it for Grisham fans or those wanting to know something about Italian football, cuisine or architecture.

Unfortunately out-of-the-box Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 does not play nice with wildcard searches. This is particularly troublesome when searching for people with hard to spell names.

Here’s a quick solution for a adding a web part to the home page that allows for searching for people using first, last or a combination of names. Wildcards are supported on either.

So, entering a first name of Rob would return results for Rob, Robert, Roberta, Robbie, etc. Likewise, a last name search for Smit would return results for Smith, Smits, Smitkerson, etc.

To use this, just add a content editor web part to the moss home page and paste the code below into the source view. The form will submit to the default people search results page.

Here’s a handy XML web part that surfaces an RSS feed of MSNBC US News. It uses DHTML layers to show each story’s description on hovering over the headline. You may need to tweak the position of the description layer in the XSL depending on where on the page you place the web part. I like to put it in a right-hand column. You’ll also want to create and image library named “graphics” to store the logo image in that appears at the bottom. This should function in SharePoint 2003, MOSS, WSS 2.0 and 3.0.

MSNBC Top Headlines Web Part Zip File

Howdee All,

Welcome to my first blog entry. Over the past years, I’ve created a variety of personal web sites and tried a number of different open-source publishing platforms.

But lately, I’ve decided I think I can do most everything I’m likely to do outside of work just using a blog.

A little research, one download and about 20 minutes of configuring and WordPress is up and running. I must say – so far I’m impressed. The interface is clean, well designed and pretty intuitive. I’m off now to play with some of the admin features and get acquainted.