MOSS gathers momentum: Readers rave about the new and improved Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 May, 2007: Redmond Magazine, Joanne Cummings "With SharePoint, we've shown the management people that yes, you can really keep a project on track with team members dispersed all over the country and all over the world.”

Microsoft Financing

The Microsoft Corporation now offers flexible financing options to their customers. Through this program, customers can finance the entire cost of their acquisition of technology solutions including hardware, software, and professional services. Contact us today at 866.844.5055 to discuss your finance options.

Social Computing

Microsoft announced Community Kit for SharePoint, a Web add-on that enables businesses to take advantage of "Enterprise 2.0" services, such as enhancing a blog's look, better wiki tools, and a tag cloud feature.

SharePoint Win!

The readers of asp.net PRO magazine have voted SharePoint Server 2007 as the best content management system for ASP.NET development.

asp.netPRO Award

asp.netPro recently awarded their Readers' Choice Awards. Voting was based on readers' perspective on products and services that make ASP.NET development easier, more efficient, and more profitable. Awarded Best Content Management System was Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.

ESP Master Template Instructions

Required Components: Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 or Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007; The tasks below reflect SharePoint Administrative functions that will require an Administrator-level login.

Step 1: Download and extract the ESP template

From www.expertsharepointconsulting.com, click download and specify a place to save the file on your local machine.
Right click the downloaded file named “esp.zip” and select “Extract All”
Upon successful extraction, the following content in should be in your ESP folder:
- An “Images” folder
- esp.css
- esp.master

Step 2: Import the Branded Master Template

Log in to your SharePoint site as the Site Administrator or a full control user.
From your SharePoint Site, go to “File/Edit with Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer” on the top menu bar. This option will not show if you do not have Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer installed.
SharePoint Designer will launch in a new window.
When prompted, click “Edit Page Layout” in the pop window.

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Once the SharePoint page fully loads, notice the folder list in the upper left hand section of SharePoint Designer.
Within that folder structure, navigate to the “_catalogs” folder and expand the folder.
Upon the expansion of that folder tree, select the orange folder labeled “masterpage (Master Page Gallery)”.

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Within SharePoint Designer click on the File menu, select Import > File. This will bring up an Import dialog box.
In the Import dialog box, select Add File.
Browse to the location of the extracted master page files and select the “esp.master” file.
Click OK.
Once completed, verify that “esp.master” is present in the “masterpage (Master Page Gallery)” folder. If done correctly you will see the file present marked by a green checkmark.

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Right click the newly imported “esp.master” and select “Check In”.
This will launch a dialog box allowing you to select “Publish a Major Version” and version comments. Hit OK.
Click Yes on the message box that prompts you to modify the files approval status.

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You will be redirected to your SharePoint site’s Master Page Gallery where you will see the esp.master file in the “Approval Status: Pending” section.
Click the esp.master file in the “Approval Status: Pending” section and select “Approve/reject”
Click “Approved. This item will be visible to all users” radio button and select OK.
This will bring you back to the Master Page Gallery with the “esp.master” file now residing in the “Approval Status: Approved” section.

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Step 3: Import the ESP.CSS

Go back to SharePoint Designer with