Network in my Veins

Today I am CCNA certified, not to mention i already hold MCSD in .NET. This marks the beginning of me being an overly qualified nerd, after trying my hands on every possible technology in programming domain and writing all kind of software applications, where is the peace? I think this started a few yrs back when i wrote my first integration application. Handling data streams over the network was a good change over writing conventional database applications; so much so that i moved my focus to network traffic; stating with Citrix and how IPs are NATted across domains, how firewalls collide with router based access lists; to managing the data center with machines as old as IBM 330s to new HS21 Blade severs; i think am getting the much needed kick out of it.

Hover effect : WSS 3.0 menu customization

Dont understand why its so difficult customizing menus in Sharepoint; for basic things like hover effect or dynamic display. Well 3.0 dont make it any easier either. But well its better; a lot better; simple tweaks and you can give it a dynamic effect.
So here's what you need to do to get hover in left side menu:
1. Change the left side menu to Quick Launch. To do this; Site Actions --> Site Settings --> Tree View --> Check Enable Quick Launch and uncheck Enable Tree View.
2. Click on Quick Launch and generate a hierarchy.
3. Open the page in Microsoft Office Sharepoint Designer. Make sure you open a server copy.
4. Click on the left menu pulldown and look for this section of code
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
&lf;Sharepoint:SPNavigationManager id="QuickLaunchNavigationManager" runat="server" QuickLaunchControlId="QuickLaunchMenu" ContainedControl="QuickLaunch" EnableViewState="false"&rf; &lf;div&rf; &lf;SharePoint:DelegateControl runat="server" ControlId="QuickLaunchDataSource"&rf; &lf;Template_Controls&rf; &lf;asp:SiteMapDataSource SiteMapProvider="SPNavigationProvider" ShowStartingNode="False" id="QuickLaunchSiteMap" StartingNodeUrl="sid:1025" runat="server" /&rf; &lf;/Template_Controls&rf; &lf;/SharePoint:DelegateControl&rf; &lf;SharePoint:AspMenu id="QuickLaunchMenu" DataSourceId="QuickLaunchSiteMap" runat="server" Orientation="Vertical" StaticDisplayLevels="1" ItemWrap="true" MaximumDynamicDisplayLevels="1" StaticSubMenuIndent="0" SkipLinkText="" &rf; &lf;LevelMenuItemStyles&rf; &lf;asp:MenuItemStyle CssClass="ms-navheader"/&rf; &lf;asp:MenuItemStyle CssClass="ms-navitem"/&rf; &lf;/LevelMenuItemStyles&rf; &lf;LevelSubMenuStyles&rf; &lf;asp:SubMenuStyle CssClass="ms-navSubMenu1"/&rf; &lf;asp:SubMenuStyle CssClass="ms-navSubMenu2"/&rf; &lf;/LevelSubMenuStyles&rf; &lf;LevelSelectedStyles&rf; &lf;asp:MenuItemStyle CssClass="ms-selectednavheader"/&rf; &lf;asp:MenuItemStyle CssClass="ms-selectednav"/&rf; &lf;/LevelSelectedStyles&rf; &lf;/SharePoint:AspMenu&rf; &lf;/div&rf; &lf;/Sharepoint:SPNavigationManager&rf;---------------------------------------------
Change
StaticDisplayLevels="1"
MaximumDynamicDisplayLevels="1"

And you get a crappy left menu with hover. Now customization is upto you. You can either change the styles (CSS) on the right side corner of the designer tool or right click and again click "Go to Code" this would open core.css. Any customization done on the css would reflect on the UI of your page.

Moving Lists from WSS 2.0 to WSS 3.0

Just started on this project. Ain't sure if there's an easier way; but considering that we are hosting on a shared server farm and I aint nothing more than an mear admin for the website; with no access to the box or the server howsoever; this is what i figure out so far.
1. Export 2.0 list to excel; then make this change to your local machine:
2. Open the Excel Add-In EXPTOOWS.XLA locate in C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\1033 by default. Press Alt+F11 to display the Visual Basic code editor and search (Ctrl+F) for the line lVer = Application.SharePointVersion(URL). Comment out that line with a single quote and add the line lVer=2 so your Intialize() method should now look like this:
Sub Initialize(List, Title, URL, QuickLaunch)
strQuickLaunch = QuickLaunch
aTarget(iPublishURL) = URL
aTarget(iPublishListName) = List
aTarget(iPublishListDesc) = Title
'lVer = Application.SharePointVersion(URL)
lVer = 2
End Sub

3. On 3.0 site go to Create -> Import Spreadsheet -> Locate the path and click import.
4. Done!

Enjoy! more stuff coming on as i move forward.