You should already be aware, but there is an incredibly active and vibrant user group in Charlotte, North Carolina called Queen City DotNetNuke User Group or QCDUG.  These folks were also the masterminds behind the Day of DotNetNuke Charlotte last year.  When they agreed to do another event this year, I couldn’t even tell you how excited I was because last year was so awesome!  These gentlemen sure did not disappoint when they organized and held their second event, this time branded in a fun way as Southern Fried DNN!  What a great way to participate in our community!

Before I get through any of the run-down, I want to first thank the organizers for their amazing super-human efforts at making sure Southern Fried DNN was a success.  Allen Foster, Robb Bryn, Fred Ellise, Ryan Moore, and Clint Patterson all worked day and night when their day jobs weren’t in the way.  Their families need to be thanked too, because these gentlemen had plenty of family hours dedicated to organizing the event and all of its details. 

Also to be thanked are the event sponsors.  We need speakers (who deserved to be thanked as well since they pay their own way and donate their time and expertise) and attendees, but there would be no place to hold the event, nothing to eat, and none of the fun or cool things to be had if it were not for the sponsors.  Please take a moment and visit and thank each of the sponsors if you can.

Another special thanks goes to the folks that travelled from far and wide…  We had attendees from as far as Australia and Peru!

Training

If organizing a full-day event wasn’t enough, the organizers decide to throw in a full day of community based training that focused onboarding people that are new to DotNetNuke.  Robb Bryn appeared to lead the charge in doing all of the logistics, including creating and managing over 50 virtual machines in Windows Azure!  A staggering achievement of participation that is nothing short of impressive!

Training appeared to go off without a hitch, with a group of excellent seasoned DNN instructors that included: Cassidi Brickner of 10 Pound Gorilla, Scott Wilkinson of DotNetNuclear, Mitchel Sellers of Iowa Computer Gurus, Ralph Williams of Arrow Consulting & Design, and Joseph Craig of Patapsco Research Group.  Each of these instructors really have become pillars in the DNN community through their participation and subject matter experts, so it is no wonder that all of the 50+ training attendees unanimously loved the training event!

If you missed training, not only did you miss leapfrogging yourself into a new state of DNN knowledge, but you also missed the chance of winning a free year of unlimited online training.  The lucky winner of this prize was Clark Ruhland of the City of Salem – who happens to be a Professional Edition subscriber.

Keynote

The keynote speech was given by yours truly… Something that I had never before done.  For some very odd reason, I didn’t get nervous about it at all.  It is several days later now and I still don’t know how to feel about it just yet.  I have seen numerous keynotes at this point of my life and they all have been different and had their own spin and style on this kind of prestigious presentation.  Being a self-proclaimed presentation expert myself, I took this responsibility seriously from day one.  So much so that it did rob me of some community networking time that I normally enjoy at this kind of events.

I decided to re-focus the keynote towards the community.  You see, we have literally over a million people in the DotNetNuke community.  This is awesome, but where’s all of the activity?  There are more than enough downloads for example, but it seems that the only time most people pop-up is when they want support.  But where’s their new forge projects, new skins, blogs, forum posts, user groups, and other activity?  Probably about 98-99% of the ecosystem use and benefit from the Community Edition of DNN – which is perfectly fine.  However, if we are to thrive as a community and ecosystem, we need more than just downloads and a commercial product.  We need the community to participate.

In the keynote, I gave numerous examples of how participate can take place, including: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, forums, blog, create videos, create projects, join/run a user group, speak at user groups & code camps, update the wiki, or recruit another community member.  You don’t need to be a programmer to participate.  You just need to find out where you can help.  It can be to help an open source DNN project get documentation or make it pretty.  Find your niche and participate how ever much you can – even if it’s 10 minutes here and there.  Heck, you could just be taking pictures at events for everyone if that’s what you like to do.  :)

Sessions

There were 25 sessions in total by 18 speakers.  The sessions ranged from simple administration and general web practices to some very advanced topics, but there were also some fun ones such as Chris Paterra’s Sharks with Laser Beams where he demonstrated how he built an interactive game on DNN Social that allows website visitors to participate in the game to earn points and achievements such as badged using the Gaming Mechanics API.  He even took it a step further and wrote a quick game that emulated the whack a mole concept using DotNetNuke founder Shaun Walker as the mole! 

Lunch

What can I say about lunch, but that it was delicious!  I was told by some people that the meal was better than some of the area restaurants.  We had some delicious fried chicken, corn, corn bread, green beans, mashed potatoes and gravy, cole slaw, and hot sauce!  And who can forget the sweet tea (or was it syrup)?  Hehehe…

Ignite Sessions

Ever since the organizers introduced Ignite to the DNN community last year, it has become an incredible hit… And something I hope to become a staple at all DNN events in the future.  Ignite sessions are 5 minute presentations where the speaker needs to be concise and quick to get an idea across to the audience.  Like last year, Ignite was hosted again by Gifford Watkins and the speakers that participated in Ignite this year included: Cara Pluff of Applied Innovations, Dan Thyer of Logical Advantage, and Jeff Hardy of PowerDNN.

DNN MVP’s

When it comes to participation in the DNN community, one of the ways you can get rewarded is by being nominated and voted in as a DNN MVP.  There were 11 new MVP’s announced by DNN Corp Community Director and co-founder, Scott Willhite.  Those that were in attendance include: Allen Foster, Gifford Watkins, Robb Bryn, and Chris Hammond.  While two of these folks are co-organizers of this event, all inductees are more than deserving of this prestigious title and I thank all of you for your participation in the DNN community.  Congrats to all of the MVP’s!

DNN After Dark

I’ve said it many times before, the DNN community is my family and this family loves to party!  Er, I mean network.  Hahaha… 

The best things I have seen come from any community event seem to all come from the networking aspect of the event, and DNN After Dark is all about networking.  There’s a ton of connections and opportunities that seem to spring up over a beverage and plate of food.  This year the organizers figured, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”  So DNN After Dark was held at Whiskey River again where we enjoyed Carolina style BBQ, drinks, and mechanical bull riding, all sponsored by PowerDNN. 

Whether you’re a trainer, organizer, speaker, or attendee, I can think of no better picture to sum up the event…  Here’s Clint Patterson enjoying a nap at the after party…  Until next time!  See my next blog post to find out about the next event!

Additional Southern Fried Articles

Here are some other re-caps and information about the event that I saw while writing my own.  Check them out!

• Southern (Re-)Fried DNN, and insight on the DNN Store
• DotNetNuke Gets Southern Fried (again)
• Southern Fried DNN 2013: Where DotNetNuke and Fried Chicken Collide
• Southern Fried DNN: Different Skin Designs from Just One Skin File
• Southern Fried DNN: Best of Both Worlds: Great Design and Flexibility
• Southern Fried DNN: Chicken Wings and Techie Things

There’s really nothing bad I could possibly say about any code camp in Florida.  Community leaders like Dave Noderer make such a thing impossible.  They are so amazing in their ability to organize a fantastic event.  South Florida Code Camp 2013 was just as amazing as this code camp always has been.  This is about my 3rd or 4th time presenting here.  It just gets better and better!  This blog post is mostly about the resources for my sessions though.

I had two and a half sessions that I presented.  The first session was alongside Ryan Morgan of Arrow Consulting & Design, a gold partner in the DotNetNuke partner program and the founder of Arrow.  I have known Ryan as long as I’ve known DNN, so it was nothing short of an honor to finally present along side him during the first session that introduced DNN to a nearly full room of attendees.  We even had a DNN-hater in the crowd that we managed to turn around into a DNN-lover.  Him and his co-worked stayed for the remainder of the DNN track!  This session didn’t really have any resources for you to download here.

Build a DotNetNuke Module in Minutes!

My next session was geared to show attendees how fast they could be up and running with DotNetNuke module development. We covered the architecture of the past and the architecture of today.  Then, we built a module using the wildly popular module templates built by Chris Hammond.  This allowed us to use the new DAL2 method of building DNN modules.  We literally had a usable module up and running and packaged in minutes!  This session has a slide deck that attendees might be interested in having, as it had a bunch of references in it.

• Build a DotNetNuke Module in Minutes! slide deck

Probably the best thing about this session was how packed the room was!  There were all kinds of new faces of people that wanted to learn about DNN and how to create modules.  There were even a few people that were interested in building modules for the Store.

DotNetNuke Makes your Website and Web Application SOCIAL!

I may have given this session a few times before, but it has more and more meaning as we get closer to the launch of something you may have heard called “Nebula” at DNN World 2012.  I spoke to the attendees about why social is so important, showed them the existing social features, and then showed them how easy it is to integrate with those features.  Finally, I briefly told them about the great things that are coming.  We had Will Morgenweck at the DNN Corp table where he was showing off the upcoming social release.  People were so excited at what they saw… It was awesome!

This session did have a slide deck with several resources. 

• DotNetNuke Makes your Website and Web Applications SOCIAL! slide deck

In Closing…

In closing, I just wanted to thank a few people…  First, Dave Noderer for putting on yet again one of the best code camp events I’ve been to.  Ryan Morgan and his folks at Arrow Consulting & Design for sponsoring and helping with the DotNetNuke track.  And also Jess Coburn and Applied Innovations for supplying the critical display adapter we needed at our own sponsorship table.  There are plenty of other people to thank for the code camp, but you’d get bored in a heartbeat. 

Keep your eyes and ears posted for the next DNN event…  And let me know if you have one! 

It’s been a while since I’ve been to South Florida Code Camp (#sflcc).  If you’re not aware, it is the largest code camp in the State of Florida.  They regularly have at least 700 attendees.  People come from all over the state to attend this code camp, and if you’re reading this blog, you should too.  Code camps are a one-day event that allows you to learn about all kinds of useful information.  In fact, Day of DotNetNuke was modeled after the code camp model.  If you want to meet and learn from some of the most passionate people dealing with Microsoft technologies… Go to a code camp!

Code Camp Basics

If you have never been to a code camp before, you can expect several tracks of content to include things like Windows Phone, SQL Server, coding techniques, and SOOOOOOOOO much more.  South Florida Code Camp has 15 tracks this year.  You also get fed.  Don’t bring your lunch unless you want to and you will have plenty to drink too.  Expect to get free stuff!  Code camps are 100% sponsored and as a result, you get all kinds of free swag and prizes from the sponsors that are there.  The freebies can range from stickers and to-shirts to XBoxes and Kindle Fires!

Why South Florida Code Camp?

Quite honestly, I could not wait to write this blog post!  During my time in Florida, I was one of the speakers that would “do the circuit” in the state by speaking at all of the code camps.  Being as crazy about DotNetNuke as I am, I also made sure that every code camp had an entire track of DNN sessions.  It has been sad to see that DNN tracks had faded away when I left… Until now!

Arrow Consulting & Design is a Gold Partner in the DNN partner program.  They are sponsoring an official DNN track at this code camp.  If you want to learn all that you can about DotNetNuke in a day, this is the place to be!  I am very thankful to Ryan and the others at Arrow for putting this together.  I love DNN so much, so it’s comforting to see it rise up to a premiere spot at again at a code camp in Florida.

If that wasn’t enough, Arrow and DNN Corp. will both have a booth for you to stop by for demonstrations and swag.  You might be able to expect other surprises too.  If you know what’s on the horizon for DNN, you know what I mean.  Get your head out of the clouds and see the stars!  ;)

One more thing about this code camp in general…  This code camp usually boasts the most Microsoft MVP’s and authors that you will find at other code camps.

When and Where Is South Florida Code Camp 2013?

Date:  February 9, 2013
Time:  8:00 AM – 5:30 PM EST
Register to Attend:  http://www.fladotnet.com/codecamp/Register.aspx 

Registration opens at 7:30 AM.  I would suggest showing up closer to 7:30 AM to skip registration lines and so that you don’t miss any opening announcements.  (Hint, hint!)

DotNetNuke Content

There will be a total of 5 sessions on DotNetNuke. 

A Lap Around Your Free CMS

Get started with DotNetNuke by understanding what it is, what you can use it for, and how to install it so you can start working with it. Presented by Ryan Morgan and Will Strohl.

Presenter(s):  Ryan Morgan & Will Strohl

Designing for DNN 7

DotNetNuke 7 continues to build upon the user interface changes introduced in DotNetNuke 6. DotNetNuke 7 goes even further to give site designers greater control and flexibility. In this session you will learn everything you need to know to build great looking websites with DotNetNuke 7. You will learn about all of the CSS enhancements and what that means for existing site designs. We will also discuss best practices and guidelines for building high quality DotNetNuke skins.

Presenter(s):  Ralph Williams

Build a DotNetNuke Module in Minutes!

You may have heard of DotNetNuke. You may have been told horror stories from developers that are 6 years old now. DotNetNuke has changed. It looks different. It feels different. Today you can develop different. You can roll out a site in a fraction of the time it would normally take. You barely have to write code today to build a production-ready module. In this presentation, learn about how you can use project templates, form patterns, DAL 2, and more to build a module in minutes – not days!

Presenter(s):  Will Strohl

Mobile Website Development for DotNetNuke

Join Arrow Consulting & Design Founder, Ryan Morgan, as he explores the business case, creative process, and technology used to create the three types of mobile experiences and how DotNetNuke supports them. Ryan will walk through the decision-making process of choosing a mobile website, versus a responsive design and show examples of how to integrate mobile iOS applications into the data stored in DotNetNuke.

Presenter(s):  Ryan Morgan

DotNetNuke Makes Your Websites and Web Applications SOCIAL

In recent years, the tools and features of DNN have grown by leaps and bounds, including the latest social features that allow you to have a Facebook-like experience on your own website with nearly no effort. We will show you some of the new social features that you can take advantage of out-of-the-box to instantly change your website to one that engages your visitors in a way that creates a sticky experience. We will also show you how you can take your own applications and integrate them with features like the activity feed to create a socially engaging experience for your own applications and content. Finally, we will give you a sneak peak into the ultimate social solution for .Net code-named Nebula.

Register to Attend

What do alligators, gators, and DotNetNuke have in common?  The University of Florida!  That’s right…  The University of Florida – or Florida to most of you – is looking for a talented DNN developer to build some state-of-the-art applications.  This is not a remote gig.  You need to move to or live near the university.

The University of Florida has been a long time supporter of DotNetNuke.  They are the team behind the popular Shibboleth Authentication Provider.  People such as Nik Kalyani, DNN Corp co-founder, have been onsite doing consulting in the past.  Now it’s your turn to help them build the next generation web applications using your favorite CMS and application framework! 

Here is the official job description:

The UF Office of Research has a web developer/web designer opportunity for an innovative individual that would like to participate in rebuilding current administrative applications, and designing and creating new web applications at the University of Florida using state of the art tools. These applications will be modules used in our DotNetNuke intranet. This development will focus on building high performance highly interactive mobile friendly web applications to access our SQL Server databases using client side binding, server side binding, and web service binding. We will be using state of the art tools including Knockout JS, jQuery, Javascript, Telerik controls, CSS, vb.net, C#.net and others. This is a full time position that provides excellent benefits and a flexible work environment. You can find more information about this position by emailing Cheryl Bearden at cbearden@ufl.edu. In addition, the official job description is posted here: https://jobs.ufl.edu/postings/33827. Any new tools, ideas, experiences, module experience, etc. that you can bring to the table will be considered as we are open to pursuing the latest and best technologies available in rebuiding and building our new applications. This is primarily a module developer position but skinning and design experience is also highly valued. Please contact us soon if you are interested in this position.

I don’t know about you, but this definitely sounds like a great job to have, and in one of the most fun college cities in the US.  Happy job hunting!

It may surprise you to hear that in such a populated region such as London to hear that there has never been a DotNetNuke user group there.  That’s right!  There isn’t an area in the United Kingdom that is considered to be more metropolitan.  It’s also considered to be a leading global city in numerous areas such as arts, commerce, education, entertainment, fashion, finance, healthcare, media, research and development, and more.  Yet DNN hasn’t reached their techie scene.  That’s changing!  The very first user group meeting that focuses on DNN will be held there in just a couple of short weeks.

It is with great pleasure that I can yet again introduce you to a brand new DNN user group.  LonDNN is led by John J. Royle of Glanton Corporate Web Services – which is currently a Gold DotNetNuke Partner.  Their first meeting is on Wednesday, December 5, 2012 – or 05/12/2012 for you locals.  Hehehe…

What Can You Expect?

First, don’t forget that this is the kick-off meeting.  This usually consists of a lot more networking than anything else, and also helping to form what the user group will be moving forward.  However, you can thank awesome sponsors like PowerDNN and Novus Leisure Ltd. for making sure that you will have a great venue, refreshments, and prizes at the very first meeting!  And of course thanks goes to Glanton Corporate Web Services since they are helping to sponsor the coordination and promotion of the monthly events.  Did you know they are sponsoring the S.E. Queensland DNN User Group too?

Many user groups have to work months or years before you have a chance to meet notable community members.  This first meeting already has people like James Roswell of 51Degrees (the software behind the awesome DNN mobile redirection features), Harvey Kandola & Saar Cohen of Gemini (the software that runs the DNN bug tracker), and Salar Golastanian.  You may have seen or heard of Salar from any number of community and ecosystem contributions through Salaro.  I’ve looked at the attendee list personally and saw quite a few familiar faces there, but there’s too many to mention.  Sorry, gents.  :)

On a final note for what to expect…  I heard through the grapevine that there is some really nice DNN swag on the way to the event.  If you want some of that, you have to show up!

Where and When?

The first monthly meeting of LonDNN will be held at the Piccadilly Institute, in the Shrink room.  All details and registration can be found below:

• Target Audience:  All types of DNN users, even if you’re new to DNN
• When:  December 5, 2012 @ 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM
• Where:  Piccadilly Institute, in the Shrink Room
• Address:  The London Pavillion 1 Piccadilly Place, London

Register to Attend

First of all, if you haven’t already heard, there was a contest.  The annual DotNetNuke SUPER Fan contest.  There was voting.  There were shenanigans.  There was all kinds of friendly competition.  And in the end, there was a winner.  That winner was awarded at DNN World 2012 in Orlando, Florida.  Not only was the contest a bunch of fun as usual, but the awards ceremony continues to be a blast since it’s held at the most prestigious and informative event about open source CMS in the world… 

Like last year, we awarded the top 3 finalists in the contest.  I kept my eye on the voting daily.  (You kind of have to do that to make sure that the shenanigans don’t go unchecked.)  The number one leader changed a few different times.  It wasn’t until the final days of the contest that we knew what was going to happen.  In fact, in preparation for the awards ceremony, I was still checking the voting just to be sure that I didn’t need to make any final changes the day before.  There’s nothing like this kind of excitement!

Thank You!

Before I announce the winners, I must take a moment to thank all of the people that took the time to submit entries.  They were all fantastic.  It’s really great to see you all participate in the contest.  This years entrants included Cara Pluff, Clint Patterson, Joe Brinkman, James Wallace, Peter Donker, and Ryan Morgan.

I also want to quickly thank the people that took the time to vote.  Even though it was a very quick and easy thing to do, it is also a very easy thing to forget to do.  Your participation is a key ingredient to the success of the contest and choosing the winner.

Finally, I have to thank DNN Corp.  I absolutely loved running the contest, but every contest needs to award the winner.  Without the backing of my favorite employer, this contest would have not been nearly as cool as it was.

And the winners are…

Third Place:  Ryan Morgan

Even though you might not have heard his name before, Ryan Morgan has been part of the community pretty much since the beginning.  He is the founder of Arrow Consulting & Design, a DotNetNuke author, speaker, and more.  For his entry, he decided to embrace the super hero theme and create a comic showing part of why he loves DNN.  If you’ve seen him in person, you might question his physique in the comic though.  Just saying…   Hahaha!

I was once told that second place is the first loser…  While there are no losers in the SUPER fan contest, you can see that Ryan clearly feels that way here.  :D

Second Place:  Cara Pluff

If you ask Cara, she doesn’t like to be in the spotlight.  I don’t believe her, but it shows when you look at the visible areas of community involvement.  While she hasn’t been in the community nearly as long as Ryan, she is part of Applied Innovations, who hosts too many DNN websites for me to count.  She is a networking machine at all of the events I’ve seen her at, so her fandom is very much an in-person thing that you’d have to see.  Her entry takes a very popular internet meme of creating a music video based upon a pop song, and apply other people to it.  In this case, she involves some prominent community members, DNN Corp founders, as well as DNN Corp employees.

Cara was much more gracious in her winning photo…

2012 DotNetNuke SUPER Fan Winner:  Clint Patterson

I must say that I was really rooting for Clint to win this year.  I was a huge fan of his entry last year and voted for him daily.  If you have your ears or eyes open to any part of the community, you will undoubtedly see or hear his name, if not see him in-person.  Clint does so many different things for the community.  His entry this year goes a long way to basically serve as a DotNetNuke SUPER Fan Contest resume.  If only the DNN MVP winners were announced sooner, his video would have one more thing to have in it.  I am so proud and honored to be able to let you all know that Clint Patterson is this years winner of the DotNetNuke SUPER Fan contest.  This is a well-deserved win!

Clint certainly deserves his title of DotNetNuke SUPER Fan this year.  You can see that he definitely is happy about it too!

Once again, I want to publicly thank everyone that was involved in this contest.  Some of the people behind the scenes that helped make this possible include Quoc Ngo, Richard Dumas, Chris Hammond, Joe Brinkman, Scott Willhite, and Stephanie Tejada.  They all had a direct impact on the coolness of the prizes, getting them made, and promoting the contest.

Start getting your ideas cooking now for next year.  I can’t wait to see what everyone comes up with next time!

Chris Hammond just announced that there will be an organized ride for anyone that wants to show up Saturday morning following DNN World.  It will be an early ride to ensure that we get some good weather and that we don’t interfere with anyone’s checkout times or plans.  Don’t worry if you are not a pro rider or don’t have your own gear.  We have that covered.  Chris found a bike rental place that will being all the gear you want.  Unfortunately, we won’t be able to pick up the bill.  Sorry.

Here is the run-down of what you need to know:

• Don’t have a bike?  You can rent your bike, helmet and get it delivered for $90 each
• What should I bring?  Shoes, clothing, yourself, and any additional gear that you want.
• Where are we riding?  Still up in the air.  It depends on who shows up and what skill levels you are.

Don’t worry if you are not a cycling expert or if you don’t think you can “keep up” with anyone.  This is intended to be a community ride for everyone to have fun, so it will be conducted as a no rider left behind (NRLB) ride.

Hammond did a great job of laying out the details and how to register for the ride.  I hope to see you there!

This blog post isn’t about another one of my presentations.  Actually, I just wanted to let you know about a .Net user group that is having a DotNetNuke presentation given in the New York area on October 4, 2012.  DNN is rampant across the east coast of the US, but it’s not often I hear about a DNN presentation in the New York area.

Vincent Malanga is presenting a DNN session at the LI.Net Users Group where he will be re-acquainting some people with DotNetNuke, and introducing it to others for the first time.  Vincent is an experienced software architect at IMI Software where he helps deploy DNN-based websites. 

If you are new to DotNetNuke or haven’t seen it in a while, this is a great session and venue to learn more.  The presentation is expected to be high-level.  However, if you’ve ever been to a user group meeting, you know that the presentation could go any direction.

If you happen to follow me on twitter, then you might have caught the photo below.

Attend the LI.Net Users Group meeting on October 4th, 2012 at 6:30 PM EDT, and you could be the lucky recipient of a DNN mug, shirt, or something even cooler…

• When:  October 4, 2012 at 6:30 PM EDT
• Where:  5 Hub Drive, Melville, New York 11747

Register to Attend

Well, it’s finally here.  The DotNetNuke SUPER Fan Contest entries have been collected.  They have been reviewed.  They have been sorted.  And they have been put together for you to view, share, comment, and VOTE on!  Like last year, we have had some excellent entries.  I was personally excited to see that most of the entries this year were videos.  I don’t know about you, but I love videos!  They are a lot of work, but they are so much more fun to look at.  Without any further babbling, let’s get to the point…

It is pretty clear that we got a lot of hard work in the entries.  There was a ton of thought and creativity that went into them.  I wish we could award them all, but only 3 winners will survive from the entries that were submitted, and they will be rewarded at DNN World 2012!  Those that make it into the top 3 will win some AWESOME prizes!  Literally…  I mean it!  Hehehe…

If you haven’t installed DotNetNuke yourself, then you should know that a fictitious bicycle store called Awesome Cycles is the default website template in DNN  6 for you to use as a baseline to build your website.  Ironically, many of us have taken up cycling since then.  You don’t have to have a bike, much less enjoy cycling to love these prizes…  You have to just be a fan.  If you’re a fan, you know what I mean.  You want anything and EVERYTHING that has a DotNetNuke logo on it.  And something with the default website template worked in just sweetens the deal!

Third Place Winner

The third place winner wins an Awesome Cycles bicycle helmet like shown above.  Don’t worry if you have a large noggin either.  We have you covered! ;)

Second Place Winner

If you’re lucky enough to win second place, you get an Awesome Cycles kit.  A kit is the jersey and pants combo like you see above. 

Grand Prize Winner

The grand prize winner is someone that I will be SO jealous of.  As the world’s most elite SUPER fan of DotNetNuke, they win both the kit and the helmet.  They also win a custom painted Awesome Cycle.  The world’s ONLY Awesome Cycle.  There will not be another one made.  You have bragging rights for life for not only being the SUPER fan, but this one-of-a-kind bicycle.  I just rode it from the car to the shop where it’s getting customized yesterday.  Let me tell you – it’s a REALLY nice bicycle!  More photos of the bicycle will be coming soon.  Keep an eye on our Facebook page for an ongoing photo album of the bicycle getting customized.

(Awesome Cycle concept design by Ube’s Icecream Shop)

(Awesome Cycle - before)

You’re still here?  Help a lucky someone win this Awesome Cycle! 

Vote for the 2012 Super Fan Now!

I couldn’t believe it when I saw it, but the last official release of the Media Module for DotNetNuke was in January of this year!  That is way too long for this module to go without having a release.  Therefore, I am very excited to get this release out the door, and even more excited about the nature of the updates that can be found in this release.

PLEASE NOTE:  The Forge where the module is hosted will take up to 24 hours before the release is reflected.

If you are not aware, the Media Module began several years ago and was called the Image Module.  All it could do was allow you to choose or upload an image.  Not the most exciting module out there, I know.  Later, the module included support for rendering the appropriate HTML for videos and Flash and was renamed as the Media Module.  It wasn’t long after this when I took over the project.  There have (in my opinion) been some great releases since then adding things like oEmbed support, and more.  These kinds of upgrades really redefined what the module allowed you to do since now “media” could be anything.  It could be embed codes from your favorite site, or content from well over 200 websites that support oEmbed. 

Today, I am excited to announce some very exciting updates that have just been rolled out in this release which I hope you will enjoy to take your media integration and features to the next level…

C# Conversion

This release marks the very first release of the Media Module written in C#.  All prior versions was written in VB.  There were no ideological reasons for this.  The reason was simple…  I was about to speak at a C# user group – so I needed to either build a new module in C#, or convert an existing project to C#.  With the core of DotNetNuke being written in C# now, it made sense to convert this module due to it historically being included with the core. 

I used a tool called Instant C# to convert the project, and it did amazingly well.  This project isn’t huge with only 2,600 lines of code, but I was still impressed that I only needed to resolve 18 errors in the entire project.  They were very easy things too.  Mostly, it was adding appropriate references to the class files.  The only other thing I had an issue with were the user controls.  I kept trying to build the project, but the designer files for the user controls were not properly picking up the correct types.  After way too much troubleshooting and trickery, I finally found that the class files for the user controls had been turned into abstract classes.  Once I fixed that, the module was already usable with the existing features from the earlier release.

Media now Includes SOCIAL

Part of the reasons I chose to update this module was to integrate it with the social features in the 06.02.00 release of DotNetNuke.  This means that you cannot install this release on any prior versions of DNN.  However, the integration is pretty nice (and fairly easy to do). 

Administrators can set a site-wide setting to determine whether updates to the media module are posted to the journal as a status update.  You can also set another site-wide setting to notify site administrators when the media module has been updated.  This could be a useful feature, if you want to keep an eye on what media people are posting on your site.

Media HTML Generation Now an API

Part of the roadmap for the Media Module has always been to take the HTML logic out of the views in such a way that it could be an API for another other module to use.  This would allow other modules to also display media in the same way this module does.  Thanks to the social features and how the integration was needed to be done, this has been done as of this release.  As long as this module is installed on your development site, you can program against the Media Module to easily display any content using a simple API call.  Just make sure when you redeploy your own modules, that you also redeploy this one too.

The code sample above literally returns either a useful error, or the HTML you want to display.  This is abstracted a level further in the actual Media Module business controller class.

Other Updates

All of the other updates are pretty minor.  The module is now branded with the DNN-colored M for “Media.”  When you choose to edit this module on your site, or add it to a page, look for this logo.

I thought I had support for MPG in the past, but as it turned out, there was a bug in a very specific spot that would actually ignore the MPG files entirely.  Now, these files are fully supported.

There was another nasty bug that I didn’t anticipate on sites where the original superuser/host account had been deleted from a site.  On any site with this configuration, the module actually wouldn’t install properly.  This issue has been fixed for this release.  However, it is not back-ported to prior releases.

Download the Media Module

PLEASE NOTE: The Forge where the module is hosted will take up to 24 hours before the release is reflected.