Today I tried to configure the User Profile Synchronization service in SharePoint 2010. When I clicked on start for the User Profile Synchronization service the service would constantly fail (status: starting and then stopped).

To resolve the issue I made the farm account (the account under which the User Profile Synchronization service runs) member of the Local Administrators on the SharePoint Server. After a retry of starting the services it would now enter a running state and the ForeFront Identity Manager Service and ForeFront Identity Manager Service Synchronization Service started also

Hope this is still an issue that will be corrected when the RTM will be released. Making a service account a local administrator isn’t  i.m.o the correct way.

note: seems that it is still in the RTM

If you want to add the content query webpart in SharePoint 2010, you might not find it.
For this webpart to be active you have to enable  the SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure feature.

• go to the Top Level Site Collection settings.
• click on [Site Collection Features] in the Site Collection Administration Menu (you must be a site collection administrator off course to see this)
• Activate the [SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure Feature]

   

You can now add the Content Query Webpart.

note: don’t be disturbed by the blue color

A great web presentation given by SharePoint Guru Joel Oleson on optimizing SharePoint Performance.

Link to source

Something I wanted to share.
A comparison of the different SharePoint Backup Tools.

The first Column is the Sharepoint 2010 Native Backup, the 2nd is Microsoft Data Protection Manager (awesome tool according to my colleague Jan-Willem). Column nr. 3 is VSS Writer and column nr. 4 is SQL backup.

Then a comparison between DPM (version 2010, which would come out in April) en Sharepoint Native Backup

This table was taken from a presentation by Mirjam van Olst, a Sharepoint Architect from the Netherlands.

NetworkWorld published a list of SharePoint 2010 versions and what each version is suppose to include.

SharePoint Foundation 2010 — The basic SharePoint. Windows SharePoint Services is now Microsoft SharePoint Foundation. It requires Windows Server 2008 64-bit operating system with SP2 or later or Windows Server 2008 R2 64-bit.

SharePoint Server 2010 – adds collaboration features to the Foundation edition that allows it tie into data repositories outside of SharePoint (including Lotus Notes). Also adds more management features and supports more users. Successful SharePoint projects require better management, experts agree.

FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint –Takes SharePoint Server 2010 and adds the high-end search technology Microsoft acquired when it bought FAST Technologies for $1.23 billion in January, 2008. Features include contextual search (such as recognizing departments or geographies), ability to tag meta data to unstructured content, more scalability.

SharePoint Server 2010 for Internet Sites, Standard Edition — For SMBs looking to create Internet or intranet sites using the standard features of SharePoint Server 2010. For companies who want to host the server on premises.

SharePoint Server 2010 for Internet Sites, Enterprise Edition — Similar to Standard Edition, presumably with more scalability and management functions. An exact list of how this differs from the standard edition is hard to come by. (Ditto for a features list on how Internet Sites standard edition differs SharePoint Server 2010).

FAST Search Server 2010 for Internet Business — the FAST search engine is added on top of SharePoint Server 2010 for Internet Sites, Enterprise. If you don’t want to spring for the high end FAST search server, Microsoft will be releasing options for the enterprise to use Search Server 2010 andSearch Server Express 2010. I would assume that by opting for these less scalable and less sophisticated search servers you will reduce the cost of new SharePoint 2010 server licenses.

SharePoint Online — one of two cloud versions of SharePoint. Note that hosted SharePoint is already available from Microsoft via its Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS), which combines hosted SharePoint with hosted Exchange. Microsoft counts more than 1 million users among those using some version of hosted SharePoint.

SharePoint Online for Internet Sites – It isn’t clear how this will differ from SharePoint Online, except a good guess is that it will support more online capacity. One of these cloud versions will be under the software-plus-services model, for companies that want some SharePoint sites to be hosted on premises, with some sites available via the cloud. The other will be a fully hosted option. Microsoft says that these options will be half the price as on-premises SharePoint because Microsoft will not require CAL licenses.

original source: here

and a nice picture