Seablick Consulting

Cambrian (DNN 5.0) Beta 6 Out Now

Tom Kraak — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 22:39:00 GMT

Last Sunday, beta 6 of DotNetNuke Cambrian has been made available to a larger group than previous betas including DNN Marketplace vendors and project sponsors. According to DNN Corp, this release includes a number of significant bug fixes and provides a first glimpse at the enhanced skinning engine together with the initial release of a new default skin. I’ve just installed beta 6 and will share first impressions next week. Here are other noteworthy tidbits from around the DNN world.

Speaking of DNN 5, Nina Meiers has blogged extensively about beta 5 in a 3 part series covering host settings, extensions, and the new skin uploader. Never shy of words, Nina does a good job of filling the usual documentation void left by DNN Corp.
Cuong Dang launched dnnGallery “with the goal to create a one-stop resource for all business, designers, developers, and DotNetNuke experts to showcase their work.” Currently the site features mostly Cuong’s own creations, but over time it will hopefully grow into a rich collection of “DNN art.”
Out of the same Engage camp comes Chris Hammond who officially launched DotNetNukeBlogs.com, which acts as an aggregator of DNN related blogs from around the Web. Assuming that Chris can convince relevant bloggers to sign on, the site has great potential to grow into a valuable resource especially for DNN newcomers.
With the support of resident skinner and developer Vasilis Terzopoulos, MitchelSellers.com entered the month of July with an attractive new skin … it was about time Mitch :)-

Mitchel also announced a book deal he recently signed with Wrox, a division of Wiley Publishing, Inc. Professional DotNetNuke 5 Module Development is anticipated to hit shelves at the end of 2008. Congratulations!
The start of the summer also brought a few new DNN Project releases including Wiki, UDT, Repository, and Events. Get them here.
AliCommerce announced the highly anticipated 2.0 release of its ecommerce module suite. I’ll publish a detailed review of the module later this month.

What did I miss this week? Feel free to contact me with suggestions or better, contribute via the comments below.

DNN 4.8.4 Released

Tom Kraak — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 18:58:00 GMT

Shortly after attending OpenForce Connect Orlando, DNN Corp. released 4.8.4, which fixes 3 low-level security vulnerabilities (DNN 2008-8-L, DNN 2008-9-L, DNN 2008-10-L) that have been reported after the 4.8.3 release. Other news next.

Half of the OF Connect Orlando speakers have made their session material available for download on orlando.dotnetnukeug.net. Event photos by Will Strohl have been posted as well. I don’t see anything on OpenForce08.com yet.
Brisinger Group, Inc. released SCORM LMS Portal Online Training Edition, “a fully DNN integrated SCORM compliant online training system.” Demo here.
Dave Bush has written a number of DNN-related blog posts and tutorials on his site at blog.dmbcllc.com. Go check’em out and leave comments as every blogger appreciates that.
Shaun Walker blogs about DNN trademarks in a two-part series (post 1 here and post 2 here.)
Team lead Antonio Chagoury sheds light on upcoming Blog module features including social bookmarks, SEO improvements, and gravatars in a three-part series of blog posts.
Skinner and blogger Cuong Dang offers advice on how to buy a commercial DNN skin. A well compiled list.
And finally, Bruce Chapman elaborates on 3 important on-page SEO factors (page title, description and URL) and how they impact click-through rates from search engine result pages.

Did I miss something or got something wrong? Comments are always appreciated.

Orlando Bound

Tom Kraak — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 18:54:00 GMT

The inaugural OpenForce Connect event is upon us. On Sunday, June 8, roughly 200 DNN enthusiast and community leaders will converge on the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, FL for a day of talks, networking and giveaways. Whether you just discovered DotNetNuke or call yourself a veteran, don’t miss this opportunity to mingle with fellow DNN fans.

Let’s see what else is new:

Active Modules, Inc. announced the acquisition of the social networking module suite MyProfile and MyMessages from DNNFusion. It will be interesting to see how Will Morgenweck and his team will tackle the integration of the two modules with their existing product line.
Ingen Systems continues their free weekly webcasts with an introduction to Telerik's RadMenu, TabStrip, and PanelBar. Learn how to utilize these menu controls within the DNN environment for the sake of SEO and clean and compliant (X)HTML and JavaScript.
In a recent blog post Michael Washington indirectly refers to a little known enhancement to the DNN upgrade process also known as XmlMerge. Starting with version 4.6.2, DNN handles updates to the web.config file automatically. Find out more about this feature from Charles Nurse and Mitchel Sellers.

That’s it for this week folks as I’m heading out the door towards the Sunshine State. Hope to see you there!

Security Scare Prompts Release of DNN 4.8.3

Tom Kraak — Sun, 25 May 2008 18:36:00 GMT

It’s been an interesting week to say the least. A week in which “always glad to help” took on a whole new meaning. I deliberately won’t go into further details about the security scare that rocked the DNN community in the last few days as you’ve probably wasted too much time and popcorn on it already. The bottom line is that there is no need to lose sleep over the issue from now until DNN 4.8.3 is scheduled to be released early next week. Let’s see if we actually got some work done besides dealing with greed and deceit:

Mitchel Sellers was finally promoted to Team Lead on the Documents project. I can’t think of a better developer to drive the module forward. Congrats Mitch!
Bruce Chapman highlights 7 Features DotNetNuke developers must implement in their DotNetNuke Modules to be considered search engine optimized. Bruce is slowly but surely becoming the “must go to” authority when it comes to SEO friendly DNN module development and there is nobody that appreciates his efforts more than I do.
Phil Haack is back on .NET Rocks! As a newly appointed Microsoft employee, Phil talks about his role as a manager of the ASP.NET Model View Controller project and hints on MVC features such as “hackable” URLs and more control over the (X)HTML emitted by ASP.NET. That’s music in the ears of SEOs working on Microsoft’s web platform. Phil also mentioned that a new release of Subtext is indeed imminent.
Out of the box, DNN currently provides only minimal support for multi-language websites, but that does not mean it can’t be done. Here is a comprehensive guide for building DNN multi-lingual portals that you don’t want to miss. Well done DV!

As with any software product, this wasn’t DNN’s first security vulnerability and it won’t be its last. However, the DotNetNuke Security Task Force years ago outlined policies and guidelines that clearly address how to deal with security related bugs. Let’s stick to them!

Fresh New Skin

Tom Kraak — Tue, 20 May 2008 02:19:00 GMT

Vasilis surprised me with a new skin this morning! When I started blogging seriously a year and a half ago, he took it upon himself to “refresh” seablick.com every 6 months or so and that’s just what he has done.

This latest effort focuses mainly on accessibility improvements, but since nothing much goes on around here without SEO in mind, the bot food has been spiced up as well. Vasilis is inundated with work at the moment, but hopefully I’ll get him to give up some of his “skinning secrets” in an upcoming blog post. Now onto this week’s news.

Cuong Dang collects a list of DNN skinning resources for beginners and gives his pros and cons on each. If you know of a resource that is worth listing, leave Cuong a comment.
Mitchel Sellers continues his saga of DNN installation and upgrade tutorials with a new chapter on migrating DotNetNuke from development to remote production. A faq well answered.
Ernst Peter Tamminga keeps us abreast of the long awaited update to the core Events module, but needs your help with beta testing.
I just stumbled apon a well-written (mostly) DNN blog in German maintained by Daniel Müller. There is no better reason to give your high school-German another shot, right?
SEO for developers was a recent topic here on my blog. Now there is a great SEO guide for designers as well.

That wraps it up for this week. Thanks again to Vasilis of thinkofdesign.com for developing a fresh new look for this blog and thanks to you, IE6, Safari, and Opera users, for reporting anything out of whack :)-

DNN Friday is Back

Tom Kraak — Fri, 09 May 2008 23:03:00 GMT

Due to popular demand, our weekly DNN news roundup is back after a 5 month hiatus. There was never a particular reason for DNN Friday's disappearance, it just fell by the wayside as there are only 24 hours in a day ... even on Fridays. Without further mumbling, here is the latest from the "dnnsphere."

As mentioned last week, OpenForce Connect Orlando is near and we are happy to announce our support of the event as a Gold Sponsor. If you are running a DNN shop, please consider to do the same. Either way, I hope to see down in Orlando in a couple of weeks.

Shaun Walker got stuck in Word this week and put out 3 excellent blog posts in short succession. He talks about the upcoming skinning enhancements in DNN 5; he expresses his discontent with Microsoft in regards to the lack of support for .NET open source projects, and he puts his sales suit on to shed some much needed light on the DNN support program offered by DotNetNuke Corporation. All good reads.

9d released an interesting add-on for Ultra Video Gallery. I’ll have to get Jeff to take a closer look at it.

Scott Stokes of Adverageous released Daily Schedule 1.0, a “daily schedule module” for DNN 4.5 and up. You can demo it here. Wasn’t there a similar sounding DNN module development house back in the DNN 2/3 days known for calendar type modules? Is this the same guy / company or am I thinking about somebody else?

Effority.Net, a group of DNN developers and enthusiasts based in Germany, moves its free User Directory Module to CodePlex. I’ve recently tried it out on a cycling club site that I run and it works great.

Mitchel Sellers discusses modules, compatibility, and developer responsibility and shows that one line in the .dnn file is all it takes for a smoother relationship between module and DNN.

iFinity Url Master has been out for a couple of weeks now, but I still have to mention it here as it has had a big impact on my daily DNN SEO work. Check back for a detailed review of the module by the end of next week.

DNN 4.8 Released

Tom Kraak — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 01:57:00 GMT

Just before the year 2007 draws to a close, DNN 4.8 comes to light. This is mainly a maintenance release, which fixes a slew of bugs and annoyances. As always, I recommend to wait at least a week or two before upgrading or building a new site based on this latest release. Here is a good example why. And now on to more DNN news:

You may have noticed that the DotNetNuke Benefactor badges have been replaced with DotNetNuke Sponsor badges. That's because the DNN Benefactor program has been officially discontinued and all current Benefactors have been moved to either the DotNetNuke Sponsorship program or the DotNetNuke Subscription program. Current Benefactors can read up on these changes in more detail here.

Dignuke releases digMeta, which "allows you to use Window Live Writer to create and edit content in your DotNetNuke Portals." I've been using WLW for a while now to write these posts (without it being "hooked up" to my site though) and I'm glad someone finally jumped on this opportunity.

Core team member Sebastian Leupold reaches post number 10K in the DNN forums and reflects on how he got started with DotNetNuke.

Erik van Ballegoij and his team release version 4 of the Announcements module with full support for core token replacements among other enhancements and fixes.

Michael Washington continues his DNN module development tutorials for beginners with Creating a DotNetNuke Module using LINQ to SQL . Also check his blog on dotnetnuke.com where he frequently elaborates on his walkthroughs.

And speaking of module development, Mitchel Sellers shows you step by step how to debug WAP DotNetNuke Modules.

As this is most likely the last post of the year for me, I would like to take a moment to thank you all for reading, participating and subscribing to the Seablick blog. It's been a great year and I can hardly believe that it's been 12 months since my first blog post. Happy New Year and all the best in 2008!

DNN Fires Up the Vegas Strip

Tom Kraak — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 05:21:00 GMT

DNN OpenForce is finally upon us. I've already lined up a handful of meetings outside of the DNN sessions schedule. I should be checking into the hotel around noon on Monday and plan to take a stroll over to the Mandalay in the afternoon for conference registration. Feel free to call or email me if you feel like talking DNN over lunch, dinner or beer. Hope to see you there!

And as the NPR lady says, the news is next.

DotNetNuke core 4.7.0 beta 1 and 2 have been made available to Core Team Trustees, Core Team Members, Project Leads, Platinum Benefactors, and Community Benefactors. The public release of 4.7.0 is tentatively scheduled for next week's OpenForce conference in Las Vegas.
DNN Corporation launches a Service Level Agreement (SLA) for technical support via subscription program, which means you can now get hold of Shaun Walker at 3 am Sunday morning. All kidding aside, this is certainly a push in the right direction as it opens the DotNetNuke framework to larger business entities who might have been turned off by the lack support that they are used to from giants such as Microsoft and others in the same league.
Ventrian Systems upgrades Property Agent to asp.net 2.0 and releases new versions of Subscription Tools and Simple Gallery. Supposedly, News Articles is next up to make the move to an asp.net 2.0 code base ... I can't wait!
I just stumbled over the Infinite Foray and like what I see. If you are an aspiring DNN module developer, you might learn a thing or two from youngster Rafe Kemmis. Lots of people write good code, but only a fraction of them make good bloggers ... I'm sure you know what I mean.
Core team member Lorraine Young updated DNN Online Help for the 4.6.O release, which is soon also available in PDF from the DNN MarketPlace.
Confused by the DNN ABCs? Mitchel Sellers sheds light on commonly used DotNetNuke terms and phrases that might come handy at the DNN water cooler.
The master himself does not blog often on the mothership, but when he does, it's always a great read from top to bottom. Catch his latest insights into Troubleshooting Site Issues.
The DNN Active Directory implementation has undergone some drastic changes with the advent of DNN 4.6.0. Get all the details from Mike Horton as he keeps you up-to-date on the topic.
Last but not least, our own Vasilis Terzopoulos got bored with his skin and came up with a stunning new look that makes PayPal's new design a thing of the past :) Let him know what you think.

As mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I'll be making my first attempt at live blogging next week. So if you have given your best and still can't join the horde of DNN geeks in Vegas, keep your eyes on this blog and your finger on F5 and I promise, you won't miss a thing. I also encourage you to post questions via the comments and I'll be glad to be your voice at OpenForce. Next up, Vegas!

DNN Conference Approaching

Tom Kraak — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 20:11:00 GMT

After a few weeks of contemplating, I finally put my money where my mouth is and registered for DNN OpenForce to be held November 5 - 8 in Las Vegas. Attending this conference should be a no-brainer for anyone who's core business is build around DotNetNuke, but then again, it's not easy for any small organization to cough up the roughly $2K that it takes to be part of the show. At this point I'm confident though that the time and money is well spend and I'm looking forward to meet key players of the DNN community that I've been in contact with for the past few years.

In the unfortunate event that you can't make it to OpenForce stay tuned to this blog as I'll post daily "happenings" including interviews and photos.

Now on to the news:

It sure is old news by now, but I still need to put it on record. Shortly after the release of DNN 4.6.0, problems crept up and the DNN core team put out two maintenance releases in close succession. So that brings us to 4.6.2 as the latest DNN version. ERD diagrams and SQL spec sheet downloadable here and online here.
Stuck with Oracle? Don't despair. Acuiti Solutions has you covered with the latest release of their Oracle Data Provider for DotNetNuke 4.6.2.
I've not pushed DNN beyond it's native English yet, but many people have. If you are one of them you may want to take a look at Effority.Net's free DNN localization components including and API for 3rd party modules, a menu provider, a tab localization module and a text/html localization module.
DNN Creative celebrates it's second anniversary with issue 25 of DNN Creative Magazine: Pure CSS SEO layouts for DotNetNuke skins (8 videos - 72 min.) As both CSS and SEO are closed to our hearts as well, we may have to take a closer look at how Lee Sykes approached the subject.
Vicenc Masanas releases a new version of InfoMap, a DNN module that "can be used to display information on a picture dynamically. It's main intention is to position users contact lists on a map, but you can use to display any kind of information you imagine." Module details and a trial version can be found here.
Core team member Nik Kalyani points out an interesting article entitled Head-to-head: Open Source CMS on Digital Arts in which the author surveys open source CMS offerings from Alfresco, DotNetNuke, Drupal and Joomla, and Plone. DNN was credited with "high usability, a large number of stock modules, and a penchant for commerce." The article goes on to say that DNN " ... is well-suited for moderate-sized e-commerce sites because it supports banner ads and referral programs." That I have to strongly disagree with. If you have been around the DNN community for some time, then you know that historically e-commerce has been one of the weakest points of DNN. Besides, who runs an e-commerce site on banner ads and referral programs?
Does Gemini intimidate you? Well, no more excuses now as Alex Shirley walks you through the process of how to follow DNN outstanding issues within the Gemini project tracker.

To wrap things up, I would like you to voice your opinion on DNN OpenForce. Will you attend the conference? Why or why not? Do you think the price tag will dampen turnout? If you do plan to go, what are your main expectations?

OpenForce Europe Announces DNN 4.6

Tom Kraak — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 01:39:00 GMT

After the summer has ripped a large hole into our DNN news reporting, it's time to pick things up again. And there is no better reason to do so than a new DotNetNuke core release. DNN 4.6.0 has been announced earlier this week at DNN OpenForce Europe. See this blog post by Joe Brinkman for a list of bugs fixes, enhancements and new features. And thanks to Chris Smith, the updated ERD diagrams and SQL spec sheets are available here. One last note though. DNN 4.6.0 seems to have shipped with a serious issue in regards to the white space filter. Not a big deal in my eyes as long as you know about it, and well, now you do!

Here is our usual summary of newsworthy tidbits from the past week.

It's been a busy week for our good friend Mitchel Sellers as he releases a new version of his free DNN Course Gradebook module, a free HTML Code Colorization module, and reports extensively on new DNN 4.6 features such OpenID, LiveID, and the text/html "token replace" enhancement. More details on his blog.
Gadget mania hits DotNetNuke. OnyakTech releases QPoke Messaging, a DNN module "that displays messages at the module, portal or global level with instant notifications through a Windows Vista gadget, Google Sidebar gadget or a Windows System Tray pop-up." I'm not sure when I would ever sit in front of my PC without Outlook running, but hey ... you never know.
OldTurtle Dev Labs announces the beta of EasyHelp Support Ticket Manager, "a light module for DotNetNuke portals that manages customers support requests." Intrigued by the screenshots, I've registered at oldturtle.net and taken the module for a quick test ride. The module is cleanly laid out, functions true to its name (easy) and has been designed with usability in mind, which unfortunately can't be said for most of the DNN modules out there. I for one look forward to the final release.
Engage Software releases version 4.3.6 of Engage: Publish, a sophisticated module to manage articles or similar content. A demo is available here, but there is still no trial download, which should be mandatory for modules in this price-range.
We started with the DNN core, let's finish with it. QA team member Alex Shirley sheds some much needed light on outstanding DNN issues right up to the latest 4.6 release. Thanks Alex!

For a while I was thinking I should do a "summary post" to plug the summer DNN news gap, but now I'm not sure how much sense it really makes to report on "old news." And some might even argue that there was not much going on over the summer anyway. What do you think? Would such a post be of value?

Native SSL Support in DNN 4.5.4

Tom Kraak — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 20:24:00 GMT

Last week the core team announced DotNetNuke 4.5.4 and released RC1 to platinum benefactors for testing. While this is mainly a maintenance release, one important feature has been added to the core: secure sockets layer (SSL) support. SLL ensures secure communication between a web browser and web server and is most commonly seen on sites of financial institutions as well as ecommerce enabled websites. As a rule of thumb though, SSL should be deployed anytime you collect sensitive information such as credit card and social security numbers from your website visitors. But even your DNN login and registration pages might be a good candidate for SSL. So on that note, I'm glad SSL has finally made it's way into the DNN core.

And here are other noteworthy tidbits of the week:

They guys at Effority.Net announce the release of Module Control Center, which enables you to administer your modules from a single page. Great productivity tool.
Travis Whidden revisits the infamous 404 or "Not Found" error message by creating the 404 Smart Redirect Module. It allows you to show a custom error message to your visitors as well as redirect to a new URL. There is no mention of returning a 301 status code when redirecting the the new URL though, which is the preferred method of informing search engine spiders of your new URLs.
As a new installment to his series on DNN installation and upgrades, Mitchel Sellers publishes a new tutorial covering the upgrade process from DNN 3.x to DNN 4.x. An interesting thing that I picked up from the tutorial is that according to Mitchel, you are better off using the "install" package as opposed to the "upgrade" package when making the jump from DNN 3.x to 4.x.
NorthernRoad releases Holidays 1.1, a module "designed to aggregate the chore of managing formally observed holidays for your business." Integration with the core Announcements and Events modules are also provided. I can't help but predict that this module will be a hit in Europe :}-
Considero Information Systems releases Alive Media Player 1.0, a multimedia player module supporting a variety of popular file formats such as Flash video, MP3, iTunes, and many more.
Emerson Lopes proclaims "DNN Content Builder is back. No kidding." The module seems to have a history, but I must have missed it when it first appeared on the scene in 2005. Regardless, according to Emerson, the free module should be out of beta soon and version 1.0 ships with content visioning support.
With issue 21 on Site logs, Event logs and Scheduler, Lee Sykes of DNN Creative Magazine is now up to 225 DNN video tutorials. Congrats Lee, well done!

AspDotNetStorefront ML/DNN Ecommerce Module Released

Tom Kraak — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 17:33:00 GMT

The wait is finally over. As announced, the beta of AspDotNetStorefront ML for DotNetNuke has been released today, with the production release scheduled in 30 to 45 days. I intend to test the module extensively in the next few weeks. Stay tuned to this blog if you are interested in following along. Let's see who else made news this week.

Tom Harris of HowIUseDNN.com dives into socani.org's DNN Module Builder and shows you how to create custom tags to play multiple media formats. I should get Tom "on the program" to talk about the Module Builder and what it means for the future of DNN module development.
OnyakTech announces version 2.0 of SigmaLive, a DNN chat module. New features include improved agent tool performance, new chat invite module, custom response wizard, and custom response hyperlinks and user profile cards.
Webiplex releases DocuPeak 4.5, "a document management Web service with native DotNetNuke modules for administration and document views/lists/toolbars/columns/full-text search." I'm glad to see more and more enterprise level modules and solutions being released lately.
Do you need to go beyond the native DNN forms or AD authentication? Take a look at SeeleyWare's SW.AutoLogon. While I have not used the module myself, the feature list looks impressive, including single sign-on (SSO) and querystring/HTTP form post.
DNNMine releases CVTQuickQuiz Pro, an XML based quiz module for DotNetNuke. See screenshots and download the user guide.

Don't ever miss a piece of important DNN news and commentary. Subscribe to my full feed RSS or get blog updates by email.

DNN Conference Sessions Announced

Tom Kraak — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 20:57:00 GMT

In fact, you can now get all the details about this year's DotNetNuke OpenForce event on the official conference website. And here is a break-down of who is who. Let's see what else is going on this week.

Need a better idea of what's going on in your DNN portals such as changes to pages and modules? Check out Big Brother. Short of the URL, I could not figure out who's behind the module. If you are in the DNN module and consulting business or any business, why do you hide behind a website? I don't get it. Anyway, the module looks interesting.
Darryl Parker releases a feature packed Google Maps module including extensive online documentation. Offer driving directions on your website, take advantage of Local Search and much more.
OnyakTech announces MyLinks 1.6, which enables visitors to create their very own links on your site . There seem to be a bunch of modules around now that try to break into the social networking and user generated content game.
Speaking of Web 2.0, Steve White of Talwrn Technology releases FeedMailer, which sends out email updates based on RSS subscriptions. Similar to what I do on my blog via FeedBurner.
Core team member Nik Kalyani blogs about changes and enhancements to dotnetnuke.com.
Core team member Michael Washington "squeezes" a video player module out of the Silverlight SDK and covers integration with DNN.
Mitchel Sellers provides a good summary of how to tackle website loading delays due to ASP.NET startup, which naturally affects every DNN based site.

DNN Project Release Tracker Now Public

Tom Kraak — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 02:54:00 GMT

It is Tuesday again and due to my current consulting workload I am not able to keep up with my blog as I should. Not good, not good at all, but then again ... I gotta get the bills paid. Let's see what other members of the greater DNN community have been up to.

A few new language packs are out for DNN 4.5.3. En-GB by Ismet Dumlupinar and three different German flavors by Sebastian Leupold.
Core team member Steve Fabian writes about the Release Tracker module, which is now available for public viewing on dotnetnuke.com.
Andreas Di Palma of Xepient Solutions announces a beta of OpenDocumentLibrary v2.0, a document management module. I've read about issues with the Speerio File Manager lately, so this module hopefully grows into a healthy alternative.
Mitchel puts together a neat free module he calls "Text/HTML Deniable." Based on the core text/html module, "it allows you to set a "Deny" role to prohibit module viewing."
Two new core module releases this week: Blog 03.03.00 and Repository 3.01.12.
Ed DeGagne of South Village Software releases SVS Google™ Analytics, a free module which helps with the setup of Google Analytics on your website. I prefer to just paste the Google code snippet into default.aspx though.
Even if you are more of a Windows fan, you've seen the fancy toolbar at the bottom of the screen on Mac OS X, right? Now you can build that right into your DNN skin with the DNN Dock Menu by Inspector IT.
Stuck on an old version of DNN? Will Morgenweck argues there is no reason to.
And to wrap things up for this week, Scott Willhite recommends to always read your license.

New DNN Search Options Spell Trouble

Tom Kraak — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 13:22:00 GMT

With two DotNetNuke releases and a new DNN newsletter it was an exciting week indeed. But besides that, new modules, module updates and tutorials have seen daylight as well. Here is the gist of it:

Recent changes to the DNN search skin object have caused a good share of confusion and community outcry. So before you upgrade to DNN 4.5.3 I suggest you you read up on the new site and web search features and how to configure them for your environement. See this post by Sebastian Leupold and this one by John Mitchell.
Developers listen up! Chris Smith posted the DNN v4.5.2 and v4.5.3 ERD diagrams (Visio, VisioXML and PDF) as well as a SQL spec sheet for download.
And more geeky stuff. Scott Schecter releases EntitySpaces 2007, "persistence layer and business objects for Microsoft .NET." Way over my head, so you are on your own :}
DataSprings, Inc releases Opt In Email 3.0, Stock Quotes and Presentation Archive. While I have not tested Opt In Email yet, I still believe that email marketing is better managed outside of DNN.
Looking for an alternative to UDT? Primoz Licen of component.init.si releases IndooGrid 1.3, a module, "which allows displaying and editing [of] data from very large database tables and views."
DNN 4.5.2 introduced a Google AdSense module. Mitchel Sellers shows you how to get it up and running and Tom Harris released a customized version of the module including the ability to add a Google channel ID and override ad colors.
DNN Creative Magazine releases issue 20 of their popular video tutorial series, shedding light on installing DNN 4..5.x and XHTML compliance.
With the introduction of the DNN Powered! Program, Shaun Walker provides insight into the recently updated DotNetNuke trademark policy.
Have a DNN feature request or enhancement suggestion? Now you can publicly vote and comment on them to help the core team shape the future of DotNetNuke.

I could have easily missed something this week. Let me know in the comments if I did. And to stay up-to-date on the latest in DNN, consider subscribing to my full feed RSS or get blog updates by email.

DNN OpenForce Selects Speakers

Tom Kraak — Mon, 28 May 2007 17:20:00 GMT

Speaker selections for this year's OpenForce DNN conference have been made last week with the final list of speakers and sessions to be announced soon. As Joe Brinkman reports, 75 development topics and 30 skinning /administration topics have been submitted by 40 speakers from 9 countries. Pretty impressive, don't you think? Let's see what else went on.

Not convinced by DNN's build in site search? Wrensoft offers an alternative with its Zoom search engine and has published a tutorial to get you started.
Tim Rolands, most widely known for his HouseMenu module and skinobject, added forums to the House of Nuke website and needs your help with mapping out the future of the menu.
Stefan Cullman announces the release of XML 04.03.04.
John Mitchell releases Snapsis CSS Navigation Menu 3.0, a "completely configurable, quick loading and SEO ready navigation" system for DNN. Hopefully Vasilis will have a review for us soon :-
Jay Kay of BestWebSites continues his SEO module series with the introduction of a Robots.txt Generator module for DNN 4.x.x. While these modules may save you some time, I would like to argue that you don't need any of them. If you are serious about SEO, you should make an effort to understand what's going on "under the hood."
Is DNN right for me? A very common question, especially for people and companies new to the framework. Former core team member Nina Meiers shares her thoughts on the topic.

Stay in Touch With the DNN Toolbar

Tom Kraak — Mon, 21 May 2007 14:59:00 GMT

You may have noticed that the mothership is now running DNN 4.5.2. RC1, which promises an exciting week to come. But first, here is what's going on now.

I can believe I missed this the other week. Rodney Joyce of Smart-Thinker created a free DNN Toolbar for Firefox and IE. Now it's even easier to stay on top of this blog and other DNN resources.
Joshua Guy releases a new version of his DNNFlickr module. Take advantage of Flickr's various photo upload and management capabilities while having your photos displayed on your DNN site.
Travis Whidden blogs about how to configure custom error pages in IIS. I prefer to do this within web.config though.
Project team leader Andrew Nurse releases version 04.05.02 of the Reports module. Read up on new features and enhancements here.
Mitchel Sellers announces the first public release of his Course Gradebook module for DNN, which enables instructors to share grade information with students. The module is free, but donations are appreciated.
Michael Washington releases version 04.00.85 of the Survey Project covering these two issues.
A new "Group Around It!" forum has been set up on dotnetnuke.com to highlight DNN community groups around the world. Now I'm wondering if there is a DNN user group here in Connecticut. Is there?

Generate Hundreds of DNN Tabs (Pages) in Seconds

Tom Kraak — Mon, 14 May 2007 15:03:00 GMT

Another week brings another roundup of DotNetNuke related news and happenings. Here are the highlights:

Mitchel Sellers releases Regular Expression Tester 1.1. Pattern matching with regular expression has become more prevalent within DNN lately. URL rewriting and HTTP compression come to mind. But it can be a nerve-wrecking exercise to get the pattern “just right.” This module will make working with regular expression more enjoyable without even leaving DNN. Free PA and source here.
Active Modules, Inc announces the latest release of Active Forums, which is now available in three different versions: Standard, Professional and Enterprise. A new release of the DNN Forum is on the horizon as well, so it should be interesting to see how things shake out between the two modules.
Ask and you shall receive. To complement its UserGenerator, Effoity.Net releases TabGenerator, a module to “generate hundreds of tabs (pages) in seconds.” Great for testing and “a nice way to kill your db-server” as Benjamin Hermann, Technical Architect at Effoity.Net, jokingly points out.
Well, looks like PHP is good for something after all :)- Mark Broomfield announces the launch of dnnFreelance, a new community site that provides “individuals and businesses with access to the growing number of skilled DotNetNuke professionals, ranging from module developers and skin designers to hosting providers and support specialists.” And yes, the site will be ported to DotNetNuke soon in the good old tradition of dogfooding.
Engage Software releases Engage: Publish 4.2. This module offers flexible article management including workflow, multiple levels of content categorization and organization. Unfortunately, there is no trial version yet, but an online demo is available.

DNN Solutions Explorer on Steroids

Tom Kraak — Mon, 07 May 2007 20:29:00 GMT

A few more weeks like this and this category will be called “DNN Monday.” Oh well, here we go.

Social networking sites are all the buzz these days. Now you can easily have your content “bookmarked” with a new module from Jay Kay of bestwebsites.co.nz.
Mauricio Marquez, a.k.a Locopon, releases FCKeditor provider 1.0.9. This is the version that’s included in DNN 4.5.1.
What’s my favorite SSL module again? I’ve mentioned SSLRedirect many times before and will do it again here since version 2.1 has just been certified with DNN 4.5.1.
Acuiti Solutions announces the release of AcuitiDP, an Oracle data provider for DNN 4.5.1. So if you are tied to 9i, 10g, or 10 Express then this might be worth looking at. According to the announcement, “several core modules” have also been updated to run on Oracle databases.
Stuart Hilbert is looking for beta testers for a new User Directory/Contact List module. Help him out and get a free copy once released.
NorthernRoad releases Talents 1.2, a module “designed to enable churches and volunteer organizations to marshal the talent pool of their on-line communities and put resources to work.”
Timo Breumelhof moved his DNN search engine based on Google custom search to its own domain at searchdotnetnuke.com.
You’ve seen the new Solutions Explorer introduced with DNN 4.5. John Mitchell shows you how to customize it and put it to good use.
And what would this post be without a link to Mitchel Sellers blog. This week he lends a hand with upgrading to DNN 4.5.1 and discusses how app_offline.htm can help along the way.

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DNN's Marriage With Ajax

Tom Kraak — Tue, 01 May 2007 03:11:00 GMT

Oops, it’s already Monday. So let’s quickly warm up last weeks “news” one more time and move on.

The big news of the week was the announcement of the DNN OpenForce'07 conference. We covered it here.
Follow along as Shaun Walker builds a simple module to highlight DNN’s new affection with Ajax.
Running a large DNN site on a web farm? Charles Nurse explores web farm specific settings in web.config and how they may help you even on a single server.
You think you discovered a potential DNN security flaw, but now what? Shawn Mehaffie sheds more light on the proper protocol and the difference between a security exploit and a security issue.
Kariem Ali releases a free IP Geo location module, which acts as a friendly reminder of where you are (in case you get lost between the copy room and the boss’ office)
Mitchel Sellers publishes round two of test results on the support of Ajax in DNN core modules. Interesting read.
Xepient Solutions announces the release of Open-DocumentLibrary v1.5, a document management module with granular control over folder and document access.

Did I miss anything important in my haste to catch up?

DNN Week in Review from Sunny New England

Tom Kraak — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 09:06:00 GMT

We finally got to see the sun again here in the North East. So let’s get a short news brief out so I can get out :)-

Sanibel Logic releases SSLRedirect 2.1 with support for DNN 4.5.x. As mentioned before, this is my favorite SSL module.
The “dudes” from dotnetdudes.com ship TextSizePro, which enables your visitors to customize the font size on your pages. This new “pro” version is capable of setting text sizes for each pane declared in your skin.
Core team member Sebastian Leupold publishes German language packs for DNN 4.5.x including Austrian (de-AT) and Swiss (de-CH) flavors.
Dave Buckner releases TRTControlPanel 2.0.0.2 for DNN 4.5.x. More info and free download here.
Avid DNN blogger and developer Mitchel Sellers is looking for a logo for his website and petitions for your ideas. Not sure what you gonna get for 30 bucks though Mitch :)
And lastly, Nina Meiers alerts us to DNN skinning changes that came along with the 4.5.x release.

Use Google to Search DNN Forums

Tom Kraak — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 20:15:00 GMT

Well, DNN 4.5 is a few days old now, but I have yet to do a new install. Instead, I’ve been knee-deep into AspDotNetStorefront for most of the week, which is inching closer to integration with DNN. As I mentioned before, anybody in the DNN community with an interest in ecommerce should keep an eye on this thread. Now on to the news:

There is a wealth of information in the DNN forums on dotnetnuke.com, but using the forum search is painful to say the least. Timo Breumelhof created a page that uses the power of Google to sift through the DNN forums, the old forums on asp.net, and dotnetnuke.com. We’ve been toying with this idea as well and hope to have searchdnn.com up and running soon. And here is another search related tip: add DNN forum search to IE7.

Here is the situation. You install DNN on a temporary domain such as newsite.mysite.com for development and testing. But once you are ready to go live and move the site to its permanent domain, you’ll notice that all links created through the WYSIWYG editor reference your development domain. Now what? Go through all text/html modules "by hand" to correct the links?

Yes, that was pretty much your only option until Chris Hammond of Engage Software created Engage: F3, a free module that will “search through all text/html modules installed on a site, generate a report of links found, and directly link to the edit control for each of those modules to allow you to correct the invalid links.” As an SEO, I see many more use cases for this little gem. Thanks Chris!

9d Interactive launches HowIUseDNN.com, a playground to test modules, skins, and “usage stories.” Check them out here.

Mitchel Sellers, an active DNN blogger, finally took the plunge and migrated his blog from the core blog module to Ventrian's NewsArticles. And as a good DNN citizen, he documented the module switch in detail. Well done.

Mitchel also released DNN Guestbook 2.0.1 and compiled a list of DNN upgrade tips “lessoned learned” style. This might make your next upgrade just a little more enjoyable.

Believe it or not, some people prefer plain text boxes over WYSIWYG editors. If that’s you, jump on the train with Mr. Rollins, who takes you back to the good old DNN 2 days and “fixes” the text/html module on the way.

Wrapping things up for this week, here is a new DNN-based site built around 30 plus custom modules and a pure CSS driven skin. Still doubting what DNN can do?

What's missing this week? Let me know in the comments.

DotNetNuke 4.5 Finally Out

Tom Kraak — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 19:04:00 GMT

The big news this week is obviously the long awaited release of DotNetNuke 4.5, which was announced on dotnetnuke.com earlier today.

My first upgrade from a fresh 4.4.1 install went flawlessly. As announced, you can now set permissions directly on the user level as opposed to adding the user to a role. You’ll have to look up the username first though since the permission area does not provide that capability.

DNN 4.5 is supposed to support dynamic Google SiteMaps, but I’ve looked high and low and could not find documentation or config files. Could it be that it only applies to new installs? I’ll have to see.

When logged in as admin or host, the Control Panel is not visible by default anymore. Instead, a narrow bar with two radio buttons lets you toggle between View (similar to earlier Preview functionality) and Edit mode. Click the double arrow at the top right of the browser window to maximize the Control Panel. To change the default behavior of the Control Panel go to Admin | Site Settings | Advanced Settings | Usability Settings.

The Control Panel also contains a link to the new Solutions Explorer, which doesn’t do much yet besides bringing the DNN Marketplace into your portal. Notice, however, that the Solutions Explorer has been AJAX infused, which makes for a nice user experience.

Also notice the small toolbar when hovering the mouse over module titles for in-line editing. This does not seem to work for in-line edits of text/html modules though. Is it supposed to?

In my opinion the prolonged wait for DNN 4.5 has been well worth it and I would like to express my appreciation to the DNN core team for another stellar release.

I'll be covering the new features of DNN 4.5 in more detail in the coming weeks. Make sure to check back often!

And now on to other news ...

Besides the core framework, a number of DNN Projects have released new versions. Visit the DNN blog or Project pages for more information.

And last but not least, a piece of in-house news. Seablick Consulting has finally joint the ranks of DNN benefactors (a move that was way overdue!).

As a contributor at the platinum level, we manifest our commitment and support of the open-source DotNetNuke web application framework and look forward to direct communication with the DNN Core Team.

Bumping the Blog Module and Other DNN News

Tom Kraak — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 19:12:00 GMT

Here is this week's news for anybody not totally caught up in the DNN 4.5 craze:

Fuji Nguyen of InDyne upgraded his free Visitor Counter module for DNN 4.x.
KodHeZ Software announces what they call a “new sales platform for KodHedZ modules” at kodhedzsoftware.com where “all of the modules are displayed on separate indexed pages, with the content served up via web services.” Just browsing the site was painfully slow for me though.
DNN Montréal releases the source for their free QuickTask module. Also check out their small collection of other free modules.
I forgot to mention it last week. The always outspoken John Mitchell asks “Which to use? Snowcovered or the DotNetNuke Marketplace?” It will be interesting to see how this shakes out.
Ventrian Systems releases News Articles 00.05.59 with support for many more template tokens for Latest Articles. While I was looking forward to this release, I have yet to install it.
Skin your print previews and preserve query string parameters on the printed page with Vincenc Masanas’s TemplatePrint skin object.
Michael Washington fills us in on Creating A DotNetNuke Module using ASP.NET AJAX and Creating Secure DotNetNuke ASP.NET AJAX Web Services.
Antonio Chagoury proclaims that the blog module project “is out of hibernation” and “alive and well.” He goes on to say that the module needs “a bump in order to get the innovative and creative juices flowing once again.” Better late than never, but I think the module needs way more than a “bump” to catch up with current blogging platforms.
And speaking of hibernation, Nina Meiers returns to her blog shedding light on the increasingly protective nature of the DNN forums. I have yet to make up my mind about it.

As always, us the comments for additional newsworthy tidbits.

Quiet Before the Storm - Another DNN Friday

Tom Kraak — Sat, 24 Mar 2007 03:50:00 GMT

Very quiet week in DNN land as far as I can tell. Looks like the community is taking a breather in anticipation of next week's release of DNN 4.5.

ZLDNN releases Slide Show 1.5 adding export/import support, better site search integration and dynamic thumbnail image creation. View a demo and download a trial version.
Paul Scarlett releases a new version of his SQLGridSelectedView module with improvements to what he calls “Style Expressions.” You are now able to “conditionally apply CSS Styles to rows and now columns within the displayed datagrid.” Free download here.
Core team member Michael Washington blogs about “Creating A DotNetNuke ASP.NET AJAX Web Service.”
Former core team member John Mitchell keeps adding to a thread called "Some tricks for getting TabNames in your DNN Skins."

Got DNN related news the community should know about? Contribute in the comments below.

This Week's DNN Roundup

Tom Kraak — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 21:00:00 GMT

Well, no new DNN release this week, but still a hand-full of news:

Bruno (sorry, no last name to be found) releases dotDNN Manager for editing and managing .dnn files and module packages. Since I’m not the coder type I can’t comment much, but I’ll see what geeky types on my team have to say.
InDyne Commercial Products Corporation releases ReportXP for “seemless integration between DotNetNuke and Reporting Services 2005”
Want to see what DNN is all about without spending hours of research? Check out DNN on a Disc to get a local copy of DNN up and running fast.
iMesser.com releases MesSerChat 2.1, an Ajax chat module for DNN
SoCanI.org releases DNN Module Builder. I have taken a quick look, but have no clue what this is about yet.
German DotNetNuke User Group forms at CeBIT 2007 in Hanover, Germany and gives away free tickets for the show. Too bad I can’t make it, but I’m pleased to see how DNN thrives in good old Germany.
Ventrian Systems releases News Articles 00.05.58 with updates to date tokens for more flexible display of the publish date of articles as well as other token enhancements and bug fixes.

Know an informative blog or other DNN resource? Share it in the comments.

Another DNN Week in Review

Tom Kraak — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 02:31:00 GMT

Not much DNN going on this week as far as I can tell, but nevertheless here it goes:

I’ve pointed you to Mitchel Sellers blog for the last couple of weeks, so why not do it again? This week he launched FreeDotNetNukeStuff.com (the name says it all) and wrote two more tutorials. He shows you how to manually insert repository files and how to back up, restore and move DNN from backup. Both of these tutorials are a must-read for anyone who runs a DNN site.
If you feel more comfortable to let a module handle database backup check out Evotiva.BackupScript 2.1.1. This smells like module review, look for it on this blog soon.
Here is another shot at an ecommerce module. This will be the last time though that I mention a module or skin who’s author does not seem to have a name.
And lastly, the core team member blogs on dotnetnuke.com are stuffed with previews, highlights and even videos on the upcoming release of DNN 4.5.

What did I miss this week? Let me know in the comments.

Late Friday DNN Recap

Tom Kraak — Sun, 04 Mar 2007 02:43:00 GMT

DNN Friday on a Saturday (maybe even Sunday, if you read this post as an email) ... sorry about that, but it’s been hectic around here. Obviously the big news this week was the announcement of DNN 4.5 as reported here. Let’s see what else was going on:

Mitchel Sellers seems to be on a tutorial roll. This week he walks you through the installation of DNN 4.4.1, shows you how to migrate user accounts from DNN 3.3.5 to 4.4.1 and gets you out of the jam after you locked yourself out of your DNN host account. And if that’s not enough, Mitchel also makes his Guestbook module 1.0 available for free download. Great effort for the community is all I have to say.
Project lead Alec Whittington releases version 3.03.06 of the Links module and Scott Willhite points out that the nowrap attribute has been dropped, which may cause layout problems in some containers. As always, thoroughly test before moving to production.
MyDNN.org makes sure you never run late with a new release of the TimeZones module even if the US congress moves daylight savings to March 11.
Speaking of time, Doug Vogel flashes us back to the good old DOS days with his free Batch Processor module. See how it works here.
And speaking of flashbacks, Nina Meiers digs out an old “skin for DNN 1 & 2,” even though there was no skinning engine in DNN 1. Fun memories anyway.
Last but not least, two more DotNetNuke Project module releases: FAQs 4.04.00 and Feedback 4.04.01. I've not used either one of these for some time, so maybe it's time for another look.

Want to be listed here? Tell me in the comments and you might just make the cut.

Rounding Out the DNN week

Tom Kraak — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 19:40:00 GMT

This week things picked up a bit with some interesting module releases and tutorials. Let's get right to it:

Our own Vasilis Terzopoulos shows you how to track any link on your DNN website and then run a side wide link report.
Aurous releases a Flash-based ToDoList module "for displaying a table of to-do items in a tree-view hierarchy." Watch a demo video and download a 14 day free trial.
Tom McMurtry makes RandomImages 1.2 available as a free download. The module displays random images from a folder and can also be used as a skin object. Find samples and instructions here.
Mitchel Sellers writes a tutorial "that explains a fairly simple method to upload multiple images to the gallery module at the same time using zip files." Visit Mitchel's blog for the full scoop.
Michael Washington keeps putting out excellent tutorials. This week he fills you in on "Creating a DotNetNuke Module Using CodeSmith Tools" and explores "Module Navigation Options for your DotNetNuke Module." Definitely worth checking out.
Project leads Alec Whittington and Michael Washington release updated versions of the Links and Survey module.
DotNetNuke Latinoamerica explains how to move DNN 3 modules to work as DNN 4 WAP modules. Interesting concept.

Do you know of a piece of DNN news that should have been included in the list above? Post it in the comments.

This Week in Greater DNN

Tom Kraak — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 21:32:00 GMT

Winter-weather-quiet in and around DotNetNuke this week, but here it goes:

Scott McCulloch releases version 00.05.52 of his famed News Articles module in rapid Ventrian Systems fashion
Featured on the DNN showcase, the City of Denver builds new website on DNN and sheds light on the process in fact sheet
BlueTango releases AuthIntegrator, a module which “provides seamless access from your DotNetNuke portal to other ASP.NET 2.0 applications” according to Shawn Duggan of the Canadian software house
Scott Willhite announces version 03.00.01 of the Help module, a DNN Project

What did I miss? Help me out in the comments.