Sharepoint Regional Settings or the Saga of the Non US Date Format

Actually, this is a rather short saga. Today I've been struggling with the fact that WSS 3.0 (this post does not apply to MOSS), by default uses American date formats (MM.dd.YYYY), and that there seemed to be no way to change this. However, I just happened to be wandering through the LAYOUTS folder in the 12 hive (don't ask me what I was doing there) and found a file called regionalsetng.aspx. Turns out, if you open your Central Administration site and alter the path to point to this file (eg http://myserver:12345/_layouts/regionalsetng.aspx), bingo, you get Regional Settings. It is rather bizarre that there appears to be no link to this page from anywhere. Kind of like the mysterious 13 floor on lots of buildings. Or not.

Update: Not sure why this happens, but a regional change made at the top of a Site Collection will not necessarily populate right through the sites below. Sometimes each site must be opened and the regional settings changed there.

Site Collections in MOSS 2007

Been setting up MOSS lately, primarily to serve as a file system replacement. Due to the large volume of files going in, we felt that it just might be a good idea to break the volume of files up into separate site collections. One of the big advantages of creating a separate site collection for each block of files or part of the business is that each site collection, unlike a site, can have its own database on SQL. Site collections can also be recycled and restored independently of each other. The way to tell MOSS to create a site collection with its own database is to use STADM and use a command similar to the following:

stsadm.exe -o createsiteinnewdb -url "http://myMOSSsite/sitecollectionname" -owneremail "owners.email@mycompany.com" -ownerlogin "mydomain\my.superuserlogin" -sitetemplate "thesitetemplate_I_want_to_use#1" -title "MyCollectionName" -databaseserver "mySQLserver\myMOSSinstance" -databasename "WSS_Content_sitecollectionname"

ASUS U/UX Notebook Series Announced

As some of you may know, I am on the hunt for a new notebook to replace my geriatric Sony Vaio SZ (it's had a hard life). Engadget is reporting that ASUS has announced 2 new notebook series, one of which (the U series) looks pretty good to me. There is little information available on these machines, although from the picture here (note the numberpad) it seems that the UX series will include a 15 inch, and be very sleek and glossy. It also appears that at a minimum it will have:

• Slot loading optical drive (according to Engadget)
• At least 2 USB ports
• HDMI port
• Network port
• Headphone and line in jacks
• Backlit chicklet keyboard with numberpad
• Ambient light sensor
• Altec Lansing speakers with SRS true surround sound

The U series on the other hand looks like having the following specs:

• A 12 inch (U20), a 14 inch (U80) and a 15 inch (U50) options to be available
• Backlit chicklet keyboard
• Normal tray loading optical drive
• Inbuilt webcam
• Ambient light sensor

Updated: The 12 inch U20 (pictured here), will include:

• Intel Core 2 Solo SU3300
• Mobile Intel GS45 Chipset
• Up to 4Gb RAM
• 2.5 inch HDD up to 500Gb
• DVD Super Multi Drive
• Built in 1.2 M web cam
• Less than 2 kg

The 15 inch U50 will, according to Engadget include:

• An Intel Core 2 Duo processor
• NVIDIA GeForce G105M
• Up to 500GB HDD
• Altec Lansing speakers with SRS true surround sound

Both series include what is described as "a frame inspired by the curvature of a butterfly's wings", which sounds pretty lame, but looks like this! So far so good. Let's hope they come up with goods ... 12 inch, internal optical drive, GPU and less than 1.8kg.

Update - Late April: Looks like these may, emphasize, may have been released somewhere. AVING is reporting that the ASUS U/UX Series have been released in Korea. Meanwhile, NordicHardware thinks the U series, the UZ series and the Edge series will be "presented" (whatever that means) at Computex in July. NordicHardware also suggests that the UX series are high end notebooks, while the U will be midrange. Too little information, too slowly,

Update 2 - May 4: ASUS in the Philippines has apparently released a news update on the U Series, with a very entertaining photo. I say apparently because Hardware Zone sites the Philippino Asus site, but I can't find the information on it.

Update 3 - May 5: Sigh! Doesn't look like either the U Series or the UX Series will make the grade. ASUS have just released specs and those that are light enough to meet my criteria (sub 2Kg) lack a discreet GPU. What do we need to do to get a non-Sony, GPU and optical drive equipped sub 2Kg notebook?