One of the most common challenges search engines run into when indexing a website is identifying and consolidating duplicate pages. Duplicates can occur when any given webpage has multiple URLs that point to it. For example:

These four cases are just a few of the many possibilities. When you consider all the combinations of these, you could have more than 10 clone URLs for every page on your site. That means if there are 1 million pages on your site, we could possibly find 10 million or more cloned URLs pointing to them. Determining your canonical URL amongst all the duplicate clutter has been an onerous challenge for search engines as we all work to reduce cost and improve relevance.

How to resolve this issue?

To help solve this issue, a new tag attribute that will help webmasters identify the single authoritative (or canonical) URL for a given page. The link tag defines a relationship between a document and an external resource. In this case, that resource is the canonical URL. The following is an example of the new link tag attribute for canonicalization:

<link rel="canonical" href="http://mysite.com"/>

now, the search engine will suddenly count the links it has seen to that campaign tagged URL, towards the canonical URL, and not index the campaign tagged URL anymore. Simple, yet effective. This feature works with Google, and both Live Search and Yahoo!.

The “canonical” feature represents a timely, relevant, and positive partnership between major search engines. It is a step to ensuring more consistency with regard to treatment of duplicates among all of the engines. It will also put more control into the hands of site designers over how their sites are represented within the search indexes.

A couple of notes:

1) This tag is a suggestion to search engines and is not guaranteed to be used. 301 redirects and good link strategy is still important

2) You can not use this tag to redirect between domains. We can’t redirect Domain1.com to Domain2.com using this tag

3) You CAN suggest SSL urls as the preferred format. https://www.domain.com

4) Don’t abuse the tag to redirect users to non-similar content. The search engines are smarter than that now.

5) Try and use absolute URLs instead of relative ones. Point directly to the final destination because a chain of canonical links may not be followed.

Some questions you may have that are answered by google?

Is rel="canonical" a hint or a directive? 

It’s a hint that we honor strongly. We’ll take your preference into account, in conjunction with other signals, when calculating the most relevant page to display in search results.

Can I use a relative path to specify the canonical, such as <link rel="canonical" href="product.php?item=swedish-fish" />?

Yes, relative paths are recognized as expected with the <link> tag. Also, if you include a <base> link in your document, relative paths will resolve according to the base URL.

Is it okay if the canonical is not an exact duplicate of the content?

We allow slight differences, e.g., in the sort order of a table of products. We also recognize that we may crawl the canonical and the duplicate pages at different points in time, so we may occasionally see different versions of your content. All of that is okay with us.

What if the rel="canonical" returns a 404?

We’ll continue to index your content and use a heuristic to find a canonical, but we recommend that you specify existent URLs as canonicals.

What if the rel="canonical" hasn't yet been indexed?

Like all public content on the web, we strive to discover and crawl a designated canonical URL quickly. As soon as we index it, we’ll immediately reconsider the rel=”canonical” hint.

Can rel="canonical" be a redirect?

Yes, you can specify a URL that redirects as a canonical URL. Google will then process the redirect as usual and try to index it.

What if I have contradictory rel="canonical" designations?

Our algorithm is lenient: We can follow canonical chains, but we strongly recommend that you update links to point to a single canonical page to ensure optimal canonicalization results.

Can this link tag be used to suggest a canonical URL on a completely different domain?

No. To migrate to a completely different domain, permanent (301) redirects are more appropriate. Google currently will take canonicalization suggestions into account across subdomains (or within a domain), but not across domains.

site = new SPSite(siteUrl);
web = site.OpenWeb();
SPGroup grp = web.Groups[groupname];

itm=web.Lists["Shared Documents"].Items[0];

oUserRole = web.RoleDefinitions.GetByType(SPRoleType.Administrator);

oUserRoleAssignment = new SPRoleAssignment(loginName, emailId, userDisplayName, notes);//for user
or
oUserRoleAssignment = new SPRoleAssignment(grp);//for group

oUserRoleAssignment.RoleDefinitionBindings.Add(oUserRole);
itm.RoleAssignments.Add(oUserRoleAssignment);
web.AllowUnsafeUpdates = true;
itm.Update();
web.Update();
web.AllowUnsafeUpdates = false;

This is useful for setting item level permission via code.

What I saw was the person who showed a small demo on the LINQ started to write something, in the class he wrote some 2-3 words and the code for the class appeared automatically. I used to wonder on how they do that so I thought let me check on that, you just write couple of words and you have your class ready with you. After doing some research on that here is what I have.

This is a small Add-on for Visual Studio called as AutoCode which helps you to create a shortcut for a piece of code which you use regularly. What it does is helps you to create a template for the most used code and set a shortcut for that, the next time you want to use that piece of code you need not write that code again all you have to do is type the shortcut you have set for the code that that code will be there. Amazing!!!!!!

You can download the Add-on from here. Also check out the quickstart that will help you to learn how you can start using the AutoCode Add-on.

So start using the AutoCode and save your time by saving the repetative code to be used by just a shortcut.

(2) LeechVideo – handy IE addon that lets you download favorite videos from popular video sharing websites (i.e. Youtube, Google Video, DailyMotion, etc.). Other alternatives: Viloader | Video Downloader

(3) Inline Search – integrates an in-page search feature to Internet Explorer. Use ‘CTR+F’ to launch it in the left-bottom corner of your browser window.

(4) ShareThis – lets you quickly (1) email webpages (or embedded pictures or videos) to friends or contacts (gmail, myspace, facebook…) and (2) post notes to your Facebook/Myspace profiles.

(5) Convert with Zamzar – browser addon from a comprehensive, web-based file conversion service, Zamzar. Lets you convert and download desired files from your favorite websites at the click of a button on your browser toolbar. It can be a Youtube video that you want to play in Windows Media Player, a Flickr image that you need in JPEG format, or a word file that you need in PDF.

(6) Browster – integrates link preview capabilities into your browser. For instance, each time you search on Google, Yahoo, MSN or visit some popular website Browster places a special icon next to each link, hovering your mouse cursor over it triggers a pop-up window displaying the contents of the destination page. Other alternative: Cooliris

(7) FeedsPlus (only IE 7) – in case you’re using your browser to follow-up on feeds, then this is for you. It adds couple of handy features, i.e. ability to read feeds in a combined view and receive pop-up notifications when there are new items to read.

(8) ieSpell – allows you to spell check text input boxes on any webpage (i.e. web mails, forum posts, blog comments, etc.)

(9) McAfee Site Advisor (only IE 5.5 – 6.0) – slim and easy-to-use security addon, features include:

• protects you from adware, spyware, spam, viruses and online scams
• advises you about the safety of websites using a colored button in your browser
• places website safety ratings next to each search result

(10) IeSessions – lets you save the current state of all open windows/tabs, store it to a file and restore it anytime afterwards. Especially useful if you have to switch between multiple computers (i.e. office, home) during the day.

(11) Videoronk (only IE 7) – add ‘Videoronk’ to your search toolbar and you’ll be able to search on top 8 video sharing websites simultaneously (Youtube, Google Video, Vimeo, Metacafe, iFilm, Blip.tv, Revver, DailyMotion and Myspace Video).

 (12) Internet Explorer Developer Toolbar (only IE 7) – The Microsoft Internet Explorer Developer Toolbar provides a variety of tools for quickly creating, understanding, and troubleshooting Web pages.

While working on the Sharepoint, I came across this error “Sharepoint site does not exists at mentioned URL”. On searching something I found that we’ll have to change the URL under the Project Properties.

Enter Sharepoint Site URL

To define a MIME type for a specific extension, follow these steps:

1. Open the IIS Microsoft Management Console (MMC), right-click the local computer name, and then click Properties.
2. Click MIME Types.
3. Click New.
4. In the Extension box, type the file name extension that you want (for example, .pdb).
5. In the MIME Type box, type application/octet-stream.
6. Apply the new settings. Note that you must restart the World Wide Web Publishing Service or wait for the worker process to recycle for the changes to take effect. In this example, IIS now serves files with the .pdb extension.

On googling, I found after doing this you can make your text box read only and also it will return the value of the text box. You need to insert this line on your Page_Load

TextBox1.Attributes.Add(“readonly”, “true”);

All you need to install Sharepoint, WSS or MOSS, on Vista is

• You must select the Advanced option during install.
• If you want to run on SQLExpress, manually install it first.  Get it here.
• You have to manually enable IIS7 with the proper options. Web Management Tools and World Wide Web Services. Enable at least the following options in IIS.

Download Vista Helper file from here, and run the setup file WssVista.msi.

Sharepoint on Vista

You will see an UAC prompt select Continue to proceed with the installation.

Once the install has completed you will find the SetupLauncher.exe in the install location you selected. If you didn’t change the default option you will see it under the directory ..\Program Files\WssOnVista\

Sharepoint on Vista

Before starting the setup make sure you have enabled IIS with the following options, Web Management Tools and World Wide Web Services. Enable at least the following options and choose OK.

To set this Go to Control Panel and click Programs. Under Program and Features click Turn Windows features on or off.

Sharepoint on Vista

After completing the above steps it’s time for the interesting part. Locate SetupLauncher.exe and start it. You will once again see an UAC prompt, select Continue.

Sharepoint on Vista

After the SetupLauncher run, select the WSS installation file Sharepoint.exe, or the MOSS installation file, and click OK.  First, the package will be extracted.

Sharepoint on Vista

After the files have been extracted the WSS setup program will be started.

Sharepoint on Vista

The current version only supports the advanced installation option so select that one.

Sit back and relax while SharePoint is being installed, you are running Vista remember

Once installed you can configure your Sharepoint setup.

Sharepoint on Vista

Let the Configuration Wizard do it’s work.

Sharepoint on Vista

The final result is WSS running on Vista, Enjoy!

Sharepoint on Vista

Resource:

Bamboo Solutions

You can find more on their forums. Enjoy!!!

Declare @query Varchar(500)

Set @query = ‘Select * From Employees’

Exec (@query)

OR

EXEC (‘USE AdventureWorks; SELECT EmployeeID, Title FROM HumanResources.Employee;’)

This way you can execute a string in SQL.

This is extremely helpful when you need to add the Where clause based on some criteria. You can have your query in a string and based on that criteria you can append the clause in that string and finally execute the string at the end. This works perfectly.

However this does not work if you want to execute the query and get the result in the Dataset in your .Net application. For that you need to create a #Temp table execute the string and get the result in the #Temp table and then fire the select again on your #Temp table.

Note: Don’t forget to get the brackets ( & ) around your query else SQL will throw an error, Unrecognized stored procedure.