Woody's space

First, I want to apologize to anyone who follows me on Twitter if they received any inappropriate messages from my account.

This message is cross-posted in its entirety from my new primary blog site, just to make sure everyone potentially impacted gets the message.

My Twitter Account is Currently Suspended

I got home from a road-trip yesterday, and found that my Twitter account had been suspended "for suspicious activity". While I have opened a support call with Twitter, I still do not know exactly what kind of activity triggered the suspension. I can only assume that my account was somehow hacked, and was sending inappropriate messages.

If you were the recipient of such a message, again I want to extend a heartfelt apology. Please understand that there are certain things I would never, ever do, and I am horrified to think that someone else may have been doing them under my name.

A Teachable Moment - Life Goes On

I've been in this industry for years, and I know all about the things that can lead to accounts being hacked. I take a wide array of precautions, from firewalls, to antivirus and antispyware software, to complex passwords, to not opening unsolicited email attachments. I keep my patches up to date. I don't run "unknown" applications, and I don't do torrents or other methods of illegally sharing files.

Yet I'm also aware that even with the best practices, the only sure way of avoiding problems is to never create an online account, or even turn your machine on at all. Since that is not an option, we must all accept the fact that there will always be some risk.

Now you know as much about the situation as I do. I'll keep you up to date on what I find out. If there were any other steps I could have taken to prevent it, I'll be sure to share those, too, so you can avoid the same problem.

Thank you for your understanding, and I hope to be back on Twitter soon.

The migration to my new site has been completed. I will be leaving all of the existing SharePoint articles here as well, in order to ensure that any links to them continue to function. For the latest information, though, please see http://www.thesanitypoint.com, and/or direct your RSS feed to http://feeds2.feedburner.com/thesanitypoint .

Thanks!

Well, my new server is up and running, and most of my articles have been re-published. Although I'm still tweaking, I've started the DNS redirection. If you're getting this page, you have either still reached the old site, or you have accessed my Live Spaces site directly.

To find the latest content, point your shortcut to http://www.thesanitypoint.com, and your RSS reader at http://feeds2.feedburner.com/TheSanityPoint. Once the DNS changes propagate, you'll be able to get the most up-to-date info.

Getting Ready to Move...

I've always been a proponent of sites about SharePoint using SharePoint for hosting whenever possible. In fact, The Sanity Point was hosted on SharePoint for a long time. A few months ago, though, I moved my site onto Office Live hosting and started using Live Spaces for my blog.

Now, Office Live is (sort of) based on SharePoint. The problem is, on OL, I don't have full access to the SharePoint functionality I want. For example, it doesn't include SharePoint blogging, hence the Spaces-sourced blog.

Now I'm getting back on SharePoint. I've got my host, and I'm starting to get things set up the way I want them. So, watch this space! Something new is on the way...

Critical Issue with SharePoint Service Pack 2

Hi Folks. I don't normally blog about news that lots of others are also covering, but this is too important not to get publicized everywhere possible.

A problem has been discovered with Service Pack 2 for SharePoint Servers (MOSS, Project Server, Forms Server, and Search Server including Express). The service pack inadvertently sets a trial expiration date for the product of 180 days following the installation of the service pack.

If you have your product key handy, you can simply re-enter it in Central Administration to resolve the issue. Otherwise, you will need to wait for Microsoft to release a hotfix. If neither of these options is acceptable, do not install SP2 until a resolution is provided.

This problem does not apply to the Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) only portion of the service pack.

While Search Server Express is affected by this issue, there is no "key" available for the product, so you will need to wait until an official fix is provided.

To get the latest news on this issue, make sure you follow the SharePoint Team Blog, or check this KB article, which should be online shortly (Update: the KB article is now online).