Access and Manipulate Data in Your CloudShare SharePoint 2013 Farm from Anywhere with CSOM, REST and OData

SharePoint 2010 introduced the client-side object model (CSOM) to allow developers to write applications which interact with SharePoint from client-side code. In SharePoint 2013, Microsoft steps things up a notch by allowing developers to use Representational State Transfer (REST) in conjunction with the Open Data (OData) protocol to perform Create/Read/Update/Delete (CRUD) operations against SharePoint sites and lists for nearly every API in the CSOM. Through the magic of CloudShare web access, we can leverage the CSOM along with REST and OData to interact with our SharePoint 2013 environments from literally anywhere, using any type of client! All code samples in this blog post will be run from my local workstation over 1,000 miles away from my SharePoint 2013 server running in the CloudShare datacenter!

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How to configure the Site Access Request in SharePoint 2013

SharePoint 2013 introduces many cool improvements in terms of user experience when working standard sites. For instance, users can easily request access to a specific site by using the new site access request and invitation mechanism. At the same time, a site administrator can easily do a follow up of all the access requests to a specific site. In this article, I am going to show you how to configure the site access request mechanism in a SharePoint 2013 site.

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SharePoint 2013 Site Templates

SharePoint 2013 offers a vast variety of out-of-the-box site templates. One of the success factors of your SharePoint deployment is choosing the most suitable site template that meets your business needs.

I’ve been asked many times which site template can serve particular required needs and what differs one template from another, so I decided to write a quick overview of all the available SharePoint 2013 site templates and their common uses. I’ve also prepared a SharePoint 2013 environment configured with all site types for some hands-on experience.

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Basic PowerShell cmdlets to Upgrade Content Databases from SharePoint 2010 to SharePoint 2013

In my previous article about upgrading from SharePoint 2010 to SharePoint 2013, I explained how to complete this task by using the Database Attach upgrade method. This technique implies the necessity to use some PowerShell cmdlets available in SharePoint 2013 to work with either content databases or service applications ones.

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Setting up the CloudShare SharePoint 2013 RTM Farm to Support Apps

With the recent Release to Manufacturing (RTM) of SharePoint 2013, I figured it was time to see what the new app development model is all about.

Spinning up the farm

When it comes to getting a SharePoint environment spun up quickly, nobody beats CloudShare. Within days of RTM, they had a “SharePoint 2013 RTM Small Farm” environment ready to spin up.

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How to insert custom JavaScript code in SharePoint 2013 pages – Part I!

Adding custom JavaScript code to SharePoint 2013 site pages is just one of the many extensibility points available in the platform.

In this article I will show you how to add client logic to your pages by using the new “Script Editor” Web Part. As you can deduce, this Web Part allows you to add custom code (HTML and/or JavaScript) to an existing site page.

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How to fix SharePoint 2013 Web Application error “The context has expired and can no longer be used”

I came across this odd error a couple of times in the past few weeks, so I wrote a quick guide that might help you get rid of it.

If you see this error after opening your SharePoint 2013 site, there is a lack of synchronization between Date and Time settings in your SharePoint 2013 Server and your SharePoint web application.

Sorry, something went wrong. The context has expired and can no longer be used. (Exception from HRESULT: 0×80090317)

Here is how you fix it!

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How to Enable Anonymous access to a SharePoint 2013 site!

Site Collection Themes in SharePoint Server 2013

Whether you are using SharePoint as your enterprise portal or company website, your clients and users pay a great attention to your website design. In my experience, one of the critical success factors for implementation of an Enterprise Portal is choosing the suitable design that will improve user experience.

Here is the default theme of SharePoint 2013. The good news are, your SharePoint site does not have to be Blue and White anymore!

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Harnessing the cloud to improve ALM processes

Too often, current application lifecycle management (ALM) practices are cumbersome to the point that they slow down the development process. The tremendous number of variables in the ALM process makes software development work resource intensive and difficult to manage. How can we make this better?
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