CTO 2.0 - A Technology Blog by Antonio Chagoury

Tweeps List: Microsoft Visual Basic MVP’s and Influencers

antonio@inspectorit.com — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 13:59:00 GMT

As I sifted through my inbox for my daily VB-Insiders list email reading the other day, I wandered how many of those VB MVP’s and insiders shared their thoughts, knowledge and random comments on Twitter as well.
I decided to send out an email to the VB-Insiders distro asking everyone who had a twitter account, and who wanted to be listed on this Tweeps List to send it to me. The response, and you can see from the list below was great. (For the record, there were a few who still felt that twitter was pointless and a waste of time; I still cannot disagree with them 100% – who knows, maybe someday I will.)

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SharePoint VS DotNetNuke, a Recap

antonio@inspectorit.com — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 00:32:49 GMT

Yesterday afternoon Hal Hayes and I were invited to speak at the SharePoint Technology Conference hosted and organized by the SharePoint User Group DC (SUGDC).

The event was packed with sessions hosted by leaders and top professionals in the Microsoft SharePoint space. I was quite honored to be invited to speak, and if that wasn’t enough, I was speaking more on behalf of DotNetNuke rather than SharePoint.

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Show us how you did that, so we can do it in-house!

antonio@inspectorit.com — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 18:32:15 GMT

Just the other day we had a customer with the exact same quote: “Show us how you did that, so we can do it in-house”… and the following video, although an obvious exaggeration, depicts what I am beginning to see more and more; is this a sign of the economy, or…? Well, you decide – I just thought this was too funny to not share.

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My Community, User Groups & Events Speaking Schedule

antonio@inspectorit.com — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 13:29:38 GMT

While the first half of 2009 is almost behind us, there is a lot more community work left to get done. As I try to arrange my life-work-community schedule I see that I have quite a busy couple of months coming up yet.

I am still waiting for responses from other community leaders and events such as the SDN/Open Force Europe, so I won’t list those here just yet. Meanwhile, here is what I’ve got lined up.

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I’m a VB: Interview with the Microsoft Visual Basic Team

antonio@inspectorit.com — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 12:28:06 GMT

Earlier this year the Microsoft Visual Basic team conducted several interviews with VB MVP’s. I just received an email from Lisa Feigenbaum that my interview was posted on the Visual Basic Team’s website.

Check out the interview here and learn just a tad more about what I do, and why I LOVE VB.

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June 17th CDUG Event: Developing DotNetNuke modules that interact with 3rd-party RESTful APIs

antonio@inspectorit.com — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 17:31:05 GMT

The June Capital DotNetNuke User Group event promises to be yet another great meeting chuck-full o’great insight and information. DotNetNuke module development still remains one of the most requested event topics. On June 17th, Chris Busse will demonstrate how to mash-up external Web 2.0 web services with your modules to provide right user experiences.

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Speaking at the SharePoint User Group of DC, about DotNetNuke!

antonio@inspectorit.com — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 13:05:59 GMT

On June 26th, I will take the stage once again at the Regional SharePoint User Group. I will be joining Hal Hayes in a battle that from the looks of it may rival “David and Goliath”. The event topic is labeled as follows:

Prepare for the battle of the titans! Which platform is right for you? Each one has its uses depending on the audience.

If you are interested in watching this battle in real-time the register for this event and join on on June 26th between 3:00PM and 4:00PM.

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Reston, Richmond Host MSDN Mid-Atlantic Road Show

antonio@inspectorit.com — Sun, 24 May 2009 12:18:21 GMT

MSDN road shows are FREE events organized and managed by the Microsoft Developers Network to educate, train, and share knowledge with everyone and anyone interested. I particularly like this event as it is a one day event packed with lots of valuable information. I’ll be attending the event in Reston, VA on June 2nd.

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One Function to Rule All URLs

antonio@inspectorit.com — Sun, 10 May 2009 17:47:00 GMT

I was recently working on implementing Twitter integration features to the DotNetNuke Blog Module (I’ll write up the details about these features in another blog entry) when I quickly ran into the requirement of having to shorten the blog entries’ URLs. As you may or may not know, Twitter requires that messages be less than 140 characters in length and when you include a link and a title, among other things, character real estate quickly becomes precious.

As it turns out, there are several services out there that provide just this service, for example TinyURL.com. Almost all URL shrinking services also provide APIs that enable developers to gain access to the URL shrinking function.

As I began researching the multitude of URL shrinking services in order to select my provider of choice I found that they all pretty much exposed the shrinking method the same way. Well, since that was the case, then why restrict myself to just one service? Why not just write one function to rule them all?

With that thought in mind, I built this function, that while it does not include ALL URL shrinking services (I don’t think I could possibly find all of them – you can help though, read through the end) it does include 3 of the most popular ones out there: TinyURL, Is.gd, and zi.ma; here it is:

        Public Shared Function ShrinkURL(ByVal Url As String, ByVal Provider As String) As String
            Try
                'TinyUrl's minimum url lenght is 25
                'We should shrink our url only is legth is more that 25 charachters
                If Url.Length <= 25 Then
                    Return Url
                End If

                Dim strServiceUrl As String = String.Empty
                Select Case Provider.ToLower
                    Case "tinyurl"
                        strServiceUrl = "http://tinyurl.com/api-create.php?url="
                    Case "isgd"
                        strServiceUrl = "http://is.gd/api.php?longurl="
                    Case "zima"
                        strServiceUrl = "http://zi.ma/?module=ShortURL&file=Add&mode=API&url="
                    Case Else
                        strServiceUrl = "http://tinyurl.com/api-create.php?url="
                End Select

                If Not Url.ToLower().StartsWith("http") AndAlso Not Url.ToLower().StartsWith("ftp") Then
                    Url = "http://" + Url
                End If

                Dim UrlShrinkRequest As WebRequest = WebRequest.Create(strServiceUrl + Url)
                Dim UrlShrinkResponse As WebResponse = UrlShrinkRequest.GetResponse()

                Using reader As StreamReader = New StreamReader(UrlShrinkResponse.GetResponseStream())
                    Return reader.ReadToEnd()
                End Using

            Catch ex As Exception
                'If there was an exception, 
                'then just return the original url
                Return Url
            End Try

        End Function

As you can see from the “select case” you can pass it the service name (tinyurl, isgd, or zima), and it will shrink the URL using the appropriate service. You can also augment this function, of course, with any other service that exposes a RESTFUL API that takes a string as input (the original URL), and returns a string back (the shortened URL).

I will continue updating this function by adding additional services as time goes on. If you find any service that you think should make it to this list, please let me by posting a comment below.

Technorati Tags: TinyURL,Zi.Ma,Is.GD,Twitter,.net,Visual Basic,URL Shrinking Services

OpenForce 09 Call for Speakers, Sessions Submitted…

antonio@inspectorit.com — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 03:17:00 GMT

Today Joe Brinkman announced the official OpenForce ‘09 Call for Speakers.

Apart from being excited about the event and what it has in store, I particularly liked the way the topics were split into 4 simple and concise categories:

Development
Design
Administration
Open Source

If you are an avid DotNetNuke user, then I am sure that you are asking yourself: how do I join in the fun? Well, Joe put it best by answering that question with the following quote:

“Are you a DotNetNuke expert? Do you like to share your DotNetNuke knowledge with the community? Do you enjoy speaking in front of large crowds? You are exactly the person we are looking for.”

Obviously, those who know me, know that I fit that bill, and therefore I proceeded to submit two abstract (at least so far) in the “Development”, and “Administration” categories, and they are as follows:

DotNetNuke as a Blogging Platform - Part 1: Setup and Administration (Category: Administration)

DotNetNuke is a highly extensible and configurable content management platform and it includes several free core modules that provide powerful out-of-the-box functionality, one of which is the DotNetNuke Blog module.

The DotNetNuke Blog module includes several modules that together provide a rich user experience and provides functionality that empowers you to harness DotNetNuke for more than just a website management but to engage your users and members with up-to-date information about your business, your cause and your message.

In this session Antonio Chagoury will provide a detailed walk-through of the core Blog module, setup best practices, and demonstrate its full capabilities. So if you are thinking of using WordPress or any other external blogging platform for your blogging needs then hold that thought for a little longer; If you are already on another platform Antonio may persuade you to switch by showing you how to consolidate your operations into one single system, DNN.

DotNetNuke as a Blogging Platform - Part 2: Extending It! (Category: Development)

You've probably setup the DotNetNuke Blog module and you are on your way to becoming the next great blogger, but you are now running into feature limitations and would like to simply DO MORE! You may want to integrate and syndicate your content with other third party services or you might simply want to add more pizzaz and dazzle to your blog, but your thinking: "where do I begin?"...

If you are either a blogger, a DotNetNuke Blog user, or you are simply interested in learning more about developing feature-rich DotNetNuke modules then session is for you! In this session Antonio will demonstrate some valuable module development tips, tricks and information by extending one of DotNetNuke's largest and most complex modules. After this session we are confident that you will adopt what we demonstrate in your module development practice.

I would appreciate your feedback on the choice of my topics and I am, as usual, open to all suggestions… please do keep them coming!

Finally, as some of you may know, I co-founded and I organize the Capital DotNetNuke User Group (CDUG). CDUG is a forum for members of the DotNetNuke community in the D.C. metro area to discuss and share ideas, challenges and solutions about their DotNetNuke experience.
I am still tinkering with the thought of submitting an abstract in the “Open Source” category that would provide attendees a “How-To Guide to Starting a User Group” in their local communities. There is a lot to talk about on that topic and a lot of knowledge to share that would certainly provide helpful information and insight that interested users will find extremely valuable. I am certain that life would have been much easier had I known then what I know now; I would like to share that knowledge. Once again, let me know what you think!

I look forward to sharing my thoughts and knowledge at Open Force 09, should I be privileged to do so.

Technorati Tags: DotNetNuke,DNN Blog,DNN,OpenForce,Events

Add a PimpThisBlog Counter Badge to your DNN Blog

antonio@inspectorit.com — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 14:00:46 GMT

PimpThisBlog.com is a place where you promote, publicize and socialize your content.

Don’t be fooled, this is not yet another social bookmarking website, although it may look and feel that way to you. It's a simple to use and effective way to get your content noticed and FAST. All you have to do is let PimpThisBlog.com know that you have content that you wish to publicize and it’ll "pimp it" for you. PimpThisBlog.com will share your content, by syndicating it to various RSS readers, it will tweet your posts on Twitter (make sure you follow @PimpThisBlog to see how that works), it will tell Google that there’s new content to crawl, post the status on FriendFeed, and on and on… In no time at all your web traffic will grow faster than ever before.

In this post I wanted to share with others a simple way to display the PimpThisBlog Counter Badge on the DotNetNuke Blog module and who wish to promote their content though this channel. Here is a step by step:

Locate the “ViewEntry.ascx” file located in the “/DesktopModules/Blog/” folder.

Go to (approximately) line 38 and add the following code:

<p>
<a rev="vote-for" href="#" id="pimpLink">
<img alt="pimp it" src="/images/1x1.gif" style="border:0px" id="pimpBadge" />
a> <script> var url = parent.window.location.href;
document.getElementById("pimpLink").href = 'http://pimpthisblog.com/submit?url=' + url;
document.getElementById("pimpBadge").src = 'http://pimpthisblog.com/image.axd?url=' + url;
> <p>

Save, and upload to your server.
Yup, you're done - start pimping!

Note: You can use the very same code on other blog or content platforms although this was specifically designed to work around the limitation of not have the data variables available to the page.

Technorati Tags: PimpThisBlog.com,PimpThisBlog,Social Bookmark,badge,DNN Blog,DotNetNuke,WordPress

Silverlight Toolkit adds Visual Basic samples

antonio@inspectorit.com — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 18:18:30 GMT

Yesterday I wrote about how the Microsoft P&P folks released a QuickStart and Tutorial in Visual Basic, and today I happy to say that the Silverlight team has followed suit by adding Visual Basic code samples to their toolkit in the March 2009 Release…

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Just got a BSOD or simply just found a parking spot? You should Tweet it then!

antonio@inspectorit.com — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 15:52:27 GMT

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Microsoft Patterns & Practices Release: QuickStarts and How-to Topics for the Composite Application Guidance for WPF and Silverlight, in Visual Basic

antonio@inspectorit.com — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 11:57:01 GMT

Traditionally Visual Basic has been missing from the Microsoft Patterns & Practices’ (P&P) QuickStarts and tutorials. The P&P team has received lots of feedback on that and I am pleased to say that they listened. The P&P team, has now released VB versions of the QuickStarts, Hands-On Labs, and How-to Topics! …

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MVP Summit 2009: The VB-Insiders Party (#MVP09)

antonio@inspectorit.com — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 00:58:20 GMT

It’s about time I wrote a little bit about my experience at my very first MVP Summit, so here I am.

First of, so much went on, and so much was learned, that I could not possibly cram everything into one single blog post… well I could, but then it would be too tedious for me to write and for you to read. So what I plan on doing is to write a series of blog posts, each about a specific event that I felt was worthy of a post. The first in the series is about the VB-Insiders Party.

The VB-Insiders party (oh, and everyone was welcome to attend, by the way, not just VB’ers) was organized and hosted by Serge Baranovsky of SubMain.com and VBCity.com. The event was sponsored by Visual Guard (http://www.visual-guard.com/) and Serge’s very own SubMain.com, so thank you guys for keeping the food coming, and the beer flowing. Great stuff!

The event was well attended, by folks from all over the globe.
Obviously, not everyone knew everyone else, so a quick round of introductions did the trick! I even found myself saying a few times: “Oh, so that’s the guy/gal!” – What can I say, I was star struck!

The event was nearing the end and the grand prize, “A Zune-Like” device (Photo on right), was about to be won by a lucky winner.
As the raffle tickets were being shaken in their nice little container, I remember telling Steve Fabian, one of the fellow DotNetNuke’ers that I had brought along: “I never win anything… Let’s go!”. Well, let’s just say that I am no longer in a position to make that statement again because, yep, I WON!

This newly acquired “Zune-Like” device was an awesome (and unexpected) loot! You have no idea how many brownie points you get by giving this great toy to your spouse as you return from a 5-day-party (basically), while leaving them behind to take care of your two children!

Finally, Serge, Wendy and David McCarter have posted some photos of the event and the MVP Summit 2009 at the following URLs:

If you were at the VB-Insiders party and have some photos you would like to share, please send me the URL and I’ll include it to the list.

Disclaimer: The “Zune-Like” device and the accompanying photo above is actually and iPod Nano… so, Apple, don’t get up all in my face for Photoshop-ping it, ok? It’s just funny that I won an iPod (not raffled by Microsoft) while attending a Microsoft Tech Event :)

Technorati Tags: MVP Summit 2009,MVP,Microsoft MVP,VB-Insiders,#MVP09

A Chat With Tom Turned Into This…

antonio@inspectorit.com — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 15:34:14 GMT

At last month’s Capital DotNetNuke User Group (CDUG) meeting we had the pleasure of having Tom Kraak give us a great presentation on Search Engine Optimization with DotNetNuke.

Tom took the train down from his home town in Connecticut just to make the event – thank you Tom!
Tom also accepted my invitation to spend the night at my home, but little did I know it would turn into an interview, and a long night!

Tom and I share quite a few things in common, the most common one being our passion for DotNetNuke and Technology. The outcome of our conversation is a transcript of the way I feel about DotNetNuke, the community, and my thoughts on its present, past and future.

Let me know what you think!

Technorati Tags: DotNetNuke,DNN,MVP,Interview

February CDUG Event: Intro to Search Engine Optimization with DotNetNuke

antonio@inspectorit.com — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 23:42:38 GMT

I am very pleased to announce yet another exciting Capital DotNetNuke User Group (CDUG) event. Next week, on Wednesday February 18th, 2009, Seablick Consulting’s very own Tom Kraak will be driving down from Connecticut to give us an Intro to Search Engine Optimization with DotNetNuke.

Here is a quick abstract and bio:

Database-driven websites and content management systems such as DNN are traditionally labeled as "hard to optimize" or "outright bad" for search engines by many “SEO experts.” Don’t believe the hype!
Explore how the basics of on-page search engine optimization (SEO) apply to DotNetNuke. No previous online marketing and SEO experience required.
Revisit your HTML meta tags and learn about the importance of quality copy and standard-compliant skins. Minimize duplicate content and discover XML sitemaps, robots.txt as well as modules, tools, and techniques used to impress Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft Live Search.
Don’t cripple your DotNetNuke investment by ignoring SEO. If managing and maintaining a public-facing DNN-based website is part of your job description, then attend this session and follow along as we strive to not only help your website rank with Google and company, but more importantly, help it rank better!

Tom Kraak founded Seablick Consulting LLC in 2005, but has been developing websites since the release of the IBuySpy portal framework in 2001. He quickly moved on to IBuySpy Workshop and ultimately DotNetNuke as it’s known today.
Since then he has been growing Seablick Consulting into a “one stop shop” for DotNetNuke based web development including DNN support, training, consulting, and hosting. More recently, Tom has moved into the search marketing arena with a focus on DNN search engine optimization, which he blogs about on http://seablick.com and talks about at DotNetNuke events nationwide. He lives in Branford, CT with his wife and 4 year old son.

I look forward and hope to see all the group’s great members, and hope to meet some new enthusiasts as well.

For more event details and directions make sure to visit the Capital DotNetNuke User Group Website.

See you there.

Technorati Tags: DotNetNuke,DNN,Capital DotNetNuke User Group,CDUG,SEO

“Pimp” Your Blogs and Content @ PimpThisBlog.com

antonio@inspectorit.com — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 02:47:33 GMT

Earlier this month my company launched PimpThisBlog.com. PimpThisBlog.com runs on ASP.net MVC, a SQL Server database and combines a number of online third party services, such as Gravatar, Re-Captcha, ShareThis, and more, to provide a rich Web 2.0 user experience.

While I will soon publish another blog post to outline the details of the application’s technology stack, I first want to use the spotlight of this first post on the topic to outline how PimpThisBlog.com works, how it can HELP YOU promote your business and content, and how you too can harness its wit and power with very little effort.

What is PimpThisBlog.com?

PimpThisBlog.com is a place where you promote and publicize your content. It is a social community where its members help promote your content by way of “Pimping” (A.K.A rating -- YES, IT’S A GOOD THING), commenting, and sharing your content across a multitude of social networks and web communities and circles.

The act of spreading content generates an incredible amount of inbound links to YOUR content. Ask any SEO, inbound links are what increase your search engine page ranks and therefore make it more likely that your customers will find you, your products and your services. The more the better!

PimpThisBlog.com is simple to use and effective based on the early results. Just feed your content to PimpThisBlog.com and it'll take care of "pimping it" for you. As soon as it is published, your content is shared, syndicated and extended on Twitter, Google, FriendFeed to name a few.

Why should I use PimpThisBlog.com?

If you own a business, a web site, a blog, or anything that hosts relevant electronic content, then surely you want to direct web traffic to it. Industry experts, SEOs, and web marketing GURUs agree, inbound marketing is the key to being found, and most importantly found before your competition is. Make no mistake, outbound marketing is dead, and if you waste another cent on that yellow pages ad, well, that’s just too bad.

PimpThisBlog.com unleashes the power of social networking to the fullest extent possible, so that you don’t have to. The main value proposition is to save you time, money and trouble it takes to be discovered.

How and Where do I use PimpThisBlog.com?

Using PimpThisBlog.com is easy. If you are simply interested in being part of the community, simply visit http://www.pimpthisblog.com, register, and pimp on!

If you are publisher, or in other words host content that you can harness to promote yourself, your company, your products or services, then you can place a badge for it. There are currently 2 ways you can start “pimping” your content:

Pimp Badge

A pimp badge is a dynamically generated image that displays the number of active “pimps” – this badge is also linked to the resource entry on PimpThisBlog.com, and once clicked the “pimp” count is automatically incremented. Here is as example badge for this very blog post:

Here is some sample code to get the badge installed on your blog, just make sure to replace the {YOUR_CONTENT_ABSOLUTE_URL} string token, with your content’s URL:

<a href="http://pimpthisblog.com/submit?url={YOUR_CONTENT_ABSOLUTE_URL}" rev="vote-for">

<img alt="pimp it" src="http://pimpthisblog.com/image.axd?url={YOUR_CONTENT_ABSOLUTE_URL}" />
a>

The are alternative ways with which you can get the code snippet generated for you directly from the website. To do this, first “pimp” (or submit) your content to PimpThisBlog.com, then navigate to the “pimped” content’s detail page on PimpThisBlog.com, and click on the “show counter code”. Using this functionality you can even customize the colors of the badge to match the color-scheme of your own web site – cool!

Pimp Link

This a simple link that your web site users can click on to “pimp” your content, and increment its “pimp count”.
This method might generate a simple link looking like the following:

Pimp This Blog Post

… and here is the code for it, where, once again, you would replace {YOUR_CONTENT_ABSOLUTE_URL} the string token with your content’s URL:

<a href="http://pimpthisblog.com/Submit?url={YOUR_CONTENT_ABSOLUTE_URL}" rev="vote-for">
Pimp This Blog Post
a>

Go ahead clicked on the badge or link above, and “pimp” this post for us… after all this is what it’s all about, isn’t it?

Now, if you Twitter you should follow @PimpThisBlog (http://www.twitter.com/PimpThisBlog).

Technorati Tags: Inbound Marketing,Digg,PimpThisBlog.com,SEO,Social Bookmark,Promote,Website,SMB

Hot Off The Press: DotNetNuke Wrox Blox

antonio@inspectorit.com — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 02:35:11 GMT

I am pleased to announce the publication by Wrox Press of Wrox Blox Done in 60 Minutes: Building a Custom DotNetNuke Membership Provider by yours truly.

In this publication, I put down into more detail the topic which I presented at last year’s OpenForce08 / DevConnections conference. In this eBook (Wrox Blox) I demonstrate how to build and configure the DotNetNuke (DNN) Membership provider without modifying any core DotNetNuke (DNN) code.

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How To Run GoToMeeting on Windows 7- Duh!

antonio@inspectorit.com — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 02:24:11 GMT

When Windows Beta (Build 7000) was released to the public, I rushed to download and install it on a Virtual PC. I was very impressed with what I saw, and it proved to be much more stable and usable than I had anticipated. Today I decided to take the proverbial plunge and install Windows 7 on my main laptop. So far all the apps that I use on a daily basis seems to be running fine except for a little snag I ran into when I needed to join a last minute meeting with GoToMeeting (GTM).

As I clicked on the meeting invitation (in IE8) I expected the usual GTM page prompting me to download/run the application’s installer, but instead I got the following message telling that that the application was not supported by my OS/Browser combination.

Easy peasy (That’s me, thinking to myself) – I’ll change my User Agent to reflect a supported platform. The easiest way for me to do that (remember I was rushing at the time) was to use Firefox’s User Agent Switcher plugin. I changed the User Agent to “Internet Explorer (Windows Vista)”, refreshed, and voila’, the Launch Software button reveled itself.

I clicked the button only to realize that GTM’s software download uses .net’s Click Once deployment, which in turn uses Internet Explorer as the host to download it, and therefore that did not work either. Once again, there was an easy solution, which is to instead click on the link “Manually download the software” on the very same screen – and that worked!

I joined my meeting, albeit five minutes late, but everyone understood as soon as I explained the situation.

Now, the reason why I am posting this is because everything I did above, although it worked, was MUCH more involved that what I could have done to get it working with a lot LESS effort! Additionally, with this method, you would have to switch the user agent EVERY time you go to GTM, because the User Agent Switcher only does that temporarily and does not persist that setting.

I should also mention that the easier way to do it, was suggested by Steve Fabian, a fellow MVP and DotNetNuke Core Team member, following a Tweet I had posted while franticly trying to get into the meeting.

So, without further ado, the easier way is to simply right-click on the Firefox icon, select properties, and then click on the compatibility tab. Nothing is checked in this tab by default. Check the “Run this program in compatibility mode for:” checkbox and select “Windows Vista” from the dropdown (As demonstrated on the screen shot below). Badabing!, you’re done.

This “Compatibility” feature has been around since Windows XP (to my knowledge) – but given that I had NEVER used it before, I never even thought about it. What I should also note is that this is only possible to do on the Firefox browser, as the same screen in IE is disabled and not modifiable because, according to Windows, “It is [IE] part of the Operating System” – whatever that means :s!

This was my “Duh!” moment for day.

Technorati Tags: Windows 7,IE8,GoToMeeting,GTM,Firefox,User Agent,Compatibility

Can’t Make it to Obama’s Inauguration? Then Come See “Joe the Programmer”

antonio@inspectorit.com — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 01:16:32 GMT

If you live in the Washington DC area you cannot help but be consumed with the constant news about the presidential inauguration and related events. Never have been so many streets been closed, and never has the anticipation of the attendance of million people been so high.

With that being said, and although I am not looking forward to the chaos that the inauguration promises to bring, I am very excited to have Joe Brinkman, DotNetNuke Corp. Co-Founder and Technical Fellow, come to our User Group to give a presentation on DotNetNuke and JQuery. Here is the abstract:

Over the last few years, with the adoption of AJAX and RIA frameworks, JavaScript has taken on added importance in the development of web applications. jQuery is one of the leading JavaScript frameworks and greatly simplifies JavaScript development. Microsoft’s recent announcement about adopting jQuery as a standard part of the ASP.Net platform prompted the DotNetNuke team to make the commitment to improve jQuery support within the platform.
In this presentation, we will provide a brief overview of jQuery and look at how we can leverage it in DotNetNuke to improve user interactions. We’ll look at the jQuery support offered in DotNetNuke 5.0 and how we can take advantage of these features in our module and DotNetNuke widget development.

If you are in the Washington DC area on January 21st for whatever reason, and are interested in meeting and networking with other DotNetNuke enthusiasts as well as meet a DotNetNuke Corp Founder, then come to 1900 Gallows Rd, Vienna VA 22182 at 6:45pm (AT&T Building). Food and drinks will be server and sponsored by Inspector IT, Inc. Door prizes such as books, t-shirts and software packages such as Telerik, Infragistics, Nevron Charts and more will be raffled right after the presentation (Raffle tickets are FREE!).

For more information please visit the Capital DotNetNuke User Group website. Make sure you register if you aren’t already – that will ensure you are kept updated with the user group’s news and events.

I hope to see you all there.

Technorati Tags: CDUG,C-DUG,User Group,DNN,DotNetNuke,Capital DotNetNuke User Group,Tech Events,JQuery

Outbound Marketing is Dead, and this is Hilarious!

antonio@inspectorit.com — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 18:06:05 GMT

I was invited to attend an all-hands meeting this morning at company called SMBLive.
I had the pleasure of working at SMBLive until last year as their CTO.

CEO, Matt Howard, gave a great presentation on his 2009 vision and goals for his company's products and services. To put it in context, SMBLive has developed online social commerce solutions - 1StoreFront and 1WorkSpace - that demystify the web for SMBs and help them grow faster and work smarter. By licensing, branding and providing these social commerce solutions to their SMB customers, broadband carriers are strengthening SMB loyalty, reducing churn, increasing ARPU, and growing faster themselves.

The centerpiece of this morning's conversation was the fact that Outbound Marketing as we know it is dead. Inbound is where its at. He played the following video, which captures the way I (and I am sure many of you) feel about how we are marketed, and stimulates our thinking as to how we must change our marketing strategies to be successful in an age where the consumer is in control.

If you are interested in this topic, you should follow Matt's blog, www.broadbandevolved.com -- you can also find him on Twitter at @matthewjhoward

Technorati Tags: Inbound Marketing,Outbound Marketing,SEO,SMBLive,Broadband Evolved,MLM,SPAM

Who, Me? MVP? An Awesome start to 2009!

antonio@inspectorit.com — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 18:21:16 GMT

Family, friends, colleagues, and business partners,

I can’t think of a better way for me to start 2009 than by thanking everyone for their support and encouragement over the past year. I received word on January 1st that I have been selected as a 2009 Microsoft MVP, which is a great honor for me. It seems like a long time since I first began work in this field, and while I grew to love my work and enjoy the community I entered because of it, I never dreamed I would get an honor like this! …

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Tips & Tricks: Post to DNN Blog From Your Email

antonio@inspectorit.com — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 23:51:08 GMT

Sometimes, inspiration hits when you’re away from your desk. However, you don’t have to miss out on blogging about it!

With the new DNN Blog Module (version 03.05.00) and it’s support for the metaweblog API, there are a variety of tools and technologies that make it easier to blog. One in particular is the ability to blog via email with a service like Blogmailr (www.blogmailr.com).

Setting this service up is free and quick. Simply create an account at www.blogmailr.com. Once completed, log in and visit the “My blogmailr” section. Once there, click on “Add New Blog”. You’ll be asked for your blog URL, your username, and password. Simply copy and paste the URL for your new DNN blog in the URL field and use your DNN blog account credentials. Click “Find my Blog”. Blogmailr then autodiscovers everything you need (similar to setting up Windows Live Writer) via the metaweblog API.

Once it finds everything it needs, you’ll be provided with your @blogmailr.com email address. This is the unique alias to which you’ll send email that is then in turn posted to your blog. Be sure to add this to your address book on your PDA or whichever device you’ll be using to blog from.

You’re almost finished. There is one more, very important step. To help ensure that others are not able to post to your alias, you need to register the valid “from” email addresses for your blogging. Under the “Valid Senders”, simply add the account(s) you’ll be sending your blog post(s) from. You can add multiple from addresses, one per line, and then simply select “Save Senders”.

At this point – you’re ready to blog from email. Create a new email message, enter the subject (this will be your blog title), and complete the body of your message. Click send and within a fairly short period of time, your post will appear on your DNN blog.

For serious bloggers, you may also want to include some saved text on your PDA that includes Technorati tag script, etc.

“Credit for this blog post goes to Jeff Browning. Jeff works for F5 and is co-creator of http://devcentral.f5.com, a large technical community site running on DotnetNuke. He also runs a blog called www.charterisland.com. Check them out!”

Technorati Tags: MetaWebLog,DotNetNuke,DNN,DNN Blog,blogmailr

My OpenForce '08 Presentation Files Posted

antonio@inspectorit.com — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 16:58:58 GMT

OpenForce '08 has finally come to an end :-( and I am now back home in Northern Virginia (Washington DC area).

While at OpenForce, between the presentations, manning the DotNetNuke Community booth from time to time, and meeting a lot of great people, my work backlog begun to pile up.

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