Getting started with SharePoint Server 2010 for IT pros

Fantastic set of training videos by Microsoft. Very good starting point for beginners in SharePoint.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/ee518660

What Can SharePoint Server 2010 Do for Me?

SharePoint 2013 is Coming Up

SharePoint 2013 is coming up soon. Here are the links to the Microsoft Training videos for SharePoint 2013.

• SharePoint 2013 training for developers
• SharePoint 2013 training for IT pros

SharePoint 2010 Easy Setup Script

The SharePoint 2010 Easy Setup Script will enable you to easily build your developer machine. Here is the link http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=23415

Collection of SharePoint 2010 Training Links

Found a very good collection of SharePoint 2010 training links on Manish's SharePoint blog

SharePoint 2010 Virtual Machine

SharePoint 2010 Virtual Machine can be downloaded from the location - http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=27417

Blocking access to application pages (_layouts) and Forms Pages

All the pages having _layouts before them are application pages. Pages created automatically for various views are called Form Pages. Most often with SharePoint implementation we allow users to access these pages. However we may further want to cut down access of users from the application pages and the form pages.

SharePoint allows this by enabling the feature “ViewFormPagesLockDown”. This feature is activated at the Site Collection scope. All groups / users not having the “View Application Pages” permission will not be able to navigate to pages like “_layouts/viewlsts.aspx” or “pages/forms/allitems.aspx”.
Below are the steps to block access from application pages:

1. Identify users / group to restrict.
2. Set their permission to "Restricted Read" or remove the "View Application Pages" from existing assigned permission level.
3. Enable "ViewFormPagesLockDown" feature using the command - stsadm -o activatefeature -url "SiteCollectionURL" -filename ViewFormPagesLockDown\feature.xml

The above steps will block all users not having "View Application Pages" permission from accessing the application pages and form pages.