This weekend was a great time to go shopping on behalf of a non-profit organization, as there were great bargains everywhere!  I had been eye-balling some sales going on at our local CompUSA for several weeks now.  This weekend, it got even better.  I was able to procure an HDTV and an HP Laptop to be given away as grand prizes at the Day of DotNetNuke® this year!  I would post pictures, but they are still in their respective boxes.  Those pictures...

In terms of SEO (search engine optimization), one of the biggest issues with DotNetNuke® has been that the site map it generates assigns the same priority to every single page in the portal.  The priority should be a value between 0.0 and 1.0, but historically DNN has assigned every page the priority of 0.5.  If you submit your site map to Google, and then check the parsed results later, you will see an error like shown below.

 

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I finally have found some time to look at the newest version of DotNetNuke®, or in this case, the most recent Beta.  The beta can be publically downloaded and participated in.  One of the first things I have stumbled upon during my run through tonight was the new Google Analytics...

I was recently asked to show someone how to use the DotNetNuke® Wiki Module.  While I can usually whip up a demo in seconds and wing it, I was not able to this time.  It had been too long since I had last used it, and was having a brain lapse.  So, I decided to put that demo here, so to speak.  Before I get into it though, I do want to mention that there are some features that are missing and planned to be in future releases.  Chris Hammond is the project lead, and he admittedly is looking for time and contributors to help in continuing the development effort.  Use the Wiki project forum if you’re interested in helping (or need support).

First of all, you need to install the module, as it is not installed...

The Orlando DotNetNuke® Users Group, or the ODUG, is not as old as some might think.  Our first meeting was February 2, 2008.  So, we are working on completing our second year as a user group.  It began simply enough… Brian Scarbeau signed up to reserve the user group on the DotNetNuke® website, and then began to...

The DotNetNuke Corporation has begun broadcasting webinars for anyone to register and watch.  They are mostly hosted by Nik Kalyani, a Co-Founder of the corporation, Former CEO, and the current Director of Products and Strategy.  His first webinar was today, and it was basically an introduction to DotNetNuke®.  While his demo today was run on the new Professional Edition, the webinar strictly focused on introducing some of the most common and powerful features that would be of interest to anyone evaluating our favorite web application framework.

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The Day of DotNetNuke® is very fortunate to have the support of the DotNetNuke Corporation for the event.  Part of that support is a bit of advertising on the official DotNetNuke® website.  We have a skyscraper...

A lot of things have been happening in preparing for the first annual Day of DotNetNuke®.  We have been speaking with sponsors, potential partners, service providers, hotels, speakers, and more – making sure that everyone that attends will have the best possible time that they can.  Our goal is to provide the best DNN content anywhere, and provide the best social, learning, and networking environment possible.  All of this, and it is absolutely FREE to attend!  Can you believe it?  Here is what has been going on in terms...

Last night, we went to see a sneak preview of the newest Tom Hanks’ & Ron Howard joint project, Angels & Demons.  With all of the buzz (good and bad) that religious movies get, I am going to assume that you’ve heard of this movie.  It is based on another book by the infamous Dan Brown.  As I understand it, this book was actually first in Brown’s story following the main character, Robert Langdon.  You can kind of tell this in this recent installment of the movie series.

First of all, there are a lot of familiar faces in this movie.  There is Ewan McGregor, the bad guy from Eastern Promises,...

Scott Willhite just announced via twitter that the Beta version for DotNetNuke® version 5.01.00 is available for download.  Basically, the DNN team is making the betas available publically, as the number of possible use cases has exceeded those that they are able to test right now.  As a result, more than the acceptable number of bugs have been coming along with recent DNN releases. 

Before I tell you the download link, know this:  PLEASE report any and all bugs you find.  It is up to people like you and I to help make DNN better.  And what easier and cheaper way to help support the project?  Report bugs to:  http://support.dotnetnuke.com

Download DotNetNuke version 5.01 Beta

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We have had many great submissions to the Day of DotNetNuke® speaker pool.  Many of those submissions are from some fantastic speakers!  However, we are also looking for the lesser known and local speakers.  Many of the topics submitted so far are very great, but we are also looking for some more general topics, such as using the DNN Core Modules. 

We would love to see new faces and community members taking the plunge and speaking for the first time.  Believe me, no one will make fun of you.  Community events are perfect for first...

This news was already announced at the May Orlando DotNetNuke® Users Group meeting, and subsequently announced on Twitter as well.  We are very lucky to be able to announce that Joe Brinkman is the Keynote Speaker for the Day of DotNetNuke® this year.  Here is an excerpt from the Day of DotNetNuke® website:

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I blogged before about my new hosting account with Applied Innovations. Here is an update on how that new adventure is going. 

Tonight I began making some of my preliminary adjustments and staging of files.  I began with getting familiar with the control panel used by Applied Innovations, Helm.  Despite the popularity and widespread adoption of Helm, this is my first time ever using it.  I had many problems finding settings and getting started with the control panel, but that is very little fault of the host.  Even though they manage the control panel, all of the short comings and difficulties I experienced had to do with Helm itself.

One of my first steps was to use one of their temporary URLs to install and stage my new DNN installation.  Through my investigation of my options in their control panel, I noticed two things to note...

Last night was the May meeting for the Orlando DotNetNuke® Users Group (ODUG).  We were lucky enough to be able to host Mitchel Sellers to our meeting, to present “Advanced DotNetNuke® Module Development” to the attendees.  Though, Mitch being our speaker wasn’t the only thing special about this particular meeting.

Only moments before arriving at our meeting venue, I received a phone call from the DotNetNuke® Corporation, officially confirming their...

I was recently offered sponsored hosting from Applied Innovations.  As much as we all pay for hosting solutions, I couldn’t turn down the opportunity.  As the word “sponsored” implies, while I may not be paying for this account monetarily, I will be in other ways.  During my transition to move to this host, and during my time using this host and their features, I will be blogging, tweeting, and otherwise voicing my experiences.  It goes without saying that Applied Innovations is...

There have been plenty of reviews already on this book, by Mitchel Sellers, which I made sure to not read.  I have not been able to find as much time to finish this book, even though it is quite short.  Also, unlike the previous Wrox book that I reviewed, I did not help to do any technical editing for this book.  So, you can rest easy knowing that even...

My family and I were luck enough to get tickets to see a screening of the new Star Trek film this morning.  Sneak previews are nothing new to us, and in knowing that, we are usually at least 1-2 hours early to get a good place in line.  Today, we were incredibly lucky, in that we arrived after the line went through, and the movie theater opened a second theater to allow everyone to see the film.

I have not been excited about anything “Star Trek” since I was a young child, and I am for the most part not a fan of science fiction.  However, the trailer for this film did a great job of intriguing me, and getting me excited to see the movie.  I could not wait to see it today!

This installment of the Star Trek franchise takes us back to the beginning, to show us were all of the characters of the U.S.S. Enterprise came from, and how they came together...

I am so excited to write this blog entry.  Especially since I have been fielding requests almost daily from potential DotNetNuke speakers from all over.  We having finally opened the call for speakers for the Day of DotNetNuke!  Unfortunately, we need to get things done very quickly, so we need speakers to submit their session abstracts fast – and we will in turn need to make our selections and draft the agenda even faster.

The rules for being chosen...

That’s right!  The attendee registration for the Day of DotNetNuke has opened!  I know it’s a bit backwards, but due to our tight timeline, availability of certain options and features, we have had to open the attendee registration before the open call for speakers.  Typically, the registration would happen after or near the end of choosing all of the speakers and sessions.  We will do that right next year.

Since we opted to use the Microsoft Events registration process, and we needed additional...

I really haven’t stayed up with promoting this meeting as much as I normally would.  I must apologize for that.  But this is indeed an important meeting to attend if you ever have or plan on developing modules or providers in DotNetNuke.  We are very lucky to be able to welcome Mitchel Sellers to Orlando for our next ODUG meeting.  Why are we so lucky?…

You might recognize...

Some twitter conversations today led me to see the need for a jQuery tips blog entry to help DotNetNuke developers integrate jQuery into their modules easier.  There are a handful of things that can easily stumble someone new to the jQuery scene.

Make sure you call jQuery.noConflict();.  This is necessary to not cause other client scripts and libraries to run errors.  This is due to the fact that other client scripts might be using the $ designator for a JavaScript class. [jQuery.noConflict(); documentation] If manually adding jQuery, try to load the jQuery library in the header before all others.  Not doing this can lead to the jQuery...

Last month, the family and I went to the Annual Pig on the Pond event.  It is basically a carnivore festival where the kids ride the rides, and the adults “pig” out on outstanding Bar-B-Que.  Yummy!  While the fireworks were a dud this year (pun intended), we still managed to get some great pictures, and even some where I was playing with my low light settings.











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Even though there is a Map Module available to DotNetNuke, I had a need to use the Live Maps, instead of the default Google Maps.  I found a couple of modules that looked to provide the Live Maps, but the project I was working on didn’t have a budget to purchase any of the modules.  A friend sent me a snippet of code to get me started with the map, and everything sky-rocketed from there!

First of all, the easiest and most reliable way to get the map properly initiated on page load requires a bit of jQuery.  I have posts that can help you include jQuery in your DNN site, if you are not yet upgraded to version 5.  DNN Version 5.00.00 and higher have jQuery support out of the box.  No modifications are necessary.

Adding jQuery to DotNetNuke 4.09.02+ Using the Injector Module Add jQuery Support to Pre-DNN 5 Sites Using PageBlaster Once you have jQuery added to your site, we can move on.  Add a Text/HTML Module to your page.  Go to edit the text of the Text/HTML Module.  Make sure that you switch to the Basic Text Box view, and then to HTML mode.



Now comes the fun part.  Add some HTML to the textbox to load the map into.  Also, be sure to include the script for the Live Maps client-side API.  Here is a snippet:

div id="mapDiv" style="position:relative;display: block; width:550px; height:600px;">div>...

The last Orlando DotNetNuke Users Group (ODUG) meeting featured Tom Kraak, from Seablick Consulting.  During his visit, we had a great time.  We talked about a great many things.  One of the things that happened though, is that he gave me a few interview questions.  I am honored that he feels that I am interview-worthy.  If you haven’t already heard about it or read it, visit Tom’s blog at Seablick.

Tom’s Blog: 7 Questions for “His Mightiness” Will Strohl

I...

Pretty much every community event these days has an after party of some kind.  I wouldn’t dream of disappointing you, and having the Day of DotNetNuke be different.  After consulting with someone local to the area, our Microsoft Developer Evangelist, Joe Healy, the choice of an after party has come down to one of two choices.  Unfortunately, I have not been to either place.  So, I will not be able to give you any constructive clues to help you vote.  And that is just...

I recently read from someone that they suggest to always perform a Server.HtmlEncode on user-entered text.   While this is good advice, it reminded me that the DotNetNuke core gives us some additional security options in the DotNetNuke.Security.PortalSecurity class.  I figured that I would blog about this, as the DNN core gives us a great deal of pre-written methods to help make development easier and faster.  Even though a ton of functionality is written and provided to us, most people don’t know that much of this functionality exists.

The DotNetNuke.Security.PortalSecurity Class The PortalSecurity class contains several methods to help you provide encryption, decryption, portal permissions, and user entry security to your modules and providers.  Here is a listing the publically available methods in DNN version 5.00.01:

ClearRoles() – This method deletes the “portalroles” cookie.  As a result, the current user will not match any roles...

You may or may not know this, but jQuery has been available to you since DotNetNuke version 4.09.01.  It was not publicized at all, as it is not officially supported until version 5.00.00.  In this blog entry, I will show you how add jQuery to your DNN site using the WillStrohl.Injection module.  This is a free and open source module I have on CodePlex.  I posted a variation of this blog entry in the past, using the PageBlaster Module.  While I love the PageBlaster Module,...

Growing up, I didn’t really have a preference for pizza.  I had not idea how good pizza could possibly be.  It was not until a family vacation to Philadelphia and New Jersey in 2002 that I found out how different GOOD pizza was from what I had been eating. 

I am a fan of New York style pizza, but that’s mostly because I have never had good Chicago style.  Anyhow, a GOOD New York style pizza has a somewhat thin crust, the best and freshest ingredients, and oregano on the sauce.  When it comes out of the oven, the pizza is as greasy as they come.  But the taste is so incredible!



When we returned from our vacation,...

If you don’t already know, there will be a free one-day event that focuses only on DotNetNuke in Tampa, Florida on June 13.  This is just around the corner, and information will begin to flow very fast.  This event is being called the Day of DotNetNuke!  If you are on twitter, you can follow the event and event news by following @DayOfDNN.  And we are using the #dodnn...

For those of you that don’t know, I am German, American Indian, and Guamanian.  Did I confuse you with the last one?  If I did, that means that my Grandfather was shipped over here as a child during WWII from a little island in the middle of the Pacific, called Guam.  I used to more closely resemble my family in terms of my skin tone, but I rarely spend as much time in the sun as I used to.  Which was a lot of time…

My family takes pride in many things, not the least of them being cooking.  One of my favorite family recipes is for a food called Lumpia, which can very easily be described as a mini seafood egg roll.  They are absolutely delicious!  However, they take a long time to prepare.  For some reason, they are usually gone in a matter of minutes though.

I am not going to give you the entire recipe.  That’s partially because I do not give out family recipes, and also because for better or worse we learn to cook by sight, and...