Recently I was given the opportunity to review and test the Dynamic Registration Module offered by Data Springs Inc.  I have to say of the DNN modules that I have reviewed this is one of the better ones out there.  I have yet to implement this on a production site yet, but have extensively tested the module and their documentation and it passed with flying colors. 

Recently I have been fielding a number of requests regarding blog linking to Del.icio.us, Digg, DotNetKicks and a few of the others with Ventrian's News Articles module.  I decided that at this time it would be best for me to go ahead and share this informaiton publicly so that everyone can benefit.  (Not to mention Chad Voller requested a blog on this topic as well.....)  So without futher delay, below is information regarding adding these social networking links to your blog site.

When playing around with DotNetNuke 4.6 I discovered a new feature that can be very helpful yet that I have not noticed any formal discussion about on the DNN site.  Therefore I am taking the time here to give you a breif overivew of this new function.  The feature I am talking about is the support for tokens wiithin the Text/HTML module. This new feature provides a MUCH needed enhancement to the Text/HTML Module and is something that I think many users will find to be very helpful.

This article is a revisit to the Windows Live authentication functionality within DotNetNuke that I discussed earlier this week.  After creating the inital linking to my site I found that I was able to setup the link properly and that users were able to go out to Windows Live, however, they were never able to successfully associate their Windows Live account to their DNN account on my website.  After much research, and a helpful post from another DNN community member I have found out how to do it.

Part of getting ready for OpenForce '07 involved looking into Visual Studio 2008 and Silverlight.  As happens every time I browse new technology I got quickly sidetracked and sumbled upon a Microsoft document that outlines all of the new features with C# 3.0 which will be released with Visual Studio 2008 as part of the .NET 3.0 framework.  This article will give you a quick overview of the first thing I found, and honestly one of my favorites overall "Automatically Implemented Properties"

As noted in my previous blog posting I have upgraded this website to be running DotNetNuke 4.6.0.  Prior to the upgrade this site was running DNN 4.5.2 and I performed a direct upgrade to 4.6.0.  Also as I mentioned in my previous posting the upgrade didn't go all that smooth, with the site being down for almost an hour as I worked out the "bugs" that I identified with the 4.6.0 upgrade.  This article will discuss one of the issues that I encountered relating to the Whitespace Filter.

To those visiting the website this morning I apologize for the downtime, I upgraded the site from DNN 4.5.2 to DNN 4.6.0 and encountered quite a few problems, but it is now up and running! 

I have just enabled Windows Live authentication, if there is a desire I can also enable OpenId.

DotNetNuke 4.6.0 provides built in support for the Windows Live and OpenId authentication systems, allowing you more ways to make your site easy for visitors to use.  The best part is that DotNetNuke makes it easy for you as a site administrator to enable these login features for your users.  This article will talk alittle bit about each authentication system and what is needed for integration, then we will actually implement both in a DNN 4.6 website.

In previous articles on this site I have provided tutorials for installing DotNetNuke to a local machine, however, I have never yet approached the topic of installing DotNetNuke to a remote web hosting provider.  I have been asked many times why and the answer is simple; installations to remote hosts are not really standardized as depending on the hosting providers environments the steps to install can differ greatly.  However, due to popular demand I have created this tutorial which will provide you the basic overview of how to perform a clean installation of DotNetNuke on a remote web hosting provider.  In the article I will try to point out the most common areas of difference between different hosting providers, I will also be providing specific examples regarding the use of the Plesk control panel which is what my hosting provider (3Essentials) uses.  This article is my second revision updated to add some more clarifying points, be sure to share any feedback in the comments section at the bottom of the full article!

Installing DotNetNuke can be somewhat difficult at times, therefore I am writing this article to give you a full step by step guide to installing DotNetNuke on a Windows XP Pro system. The instructions are similar for Windows 2000 and XP Home but might vary slightly, I have tried to note as many differences as possible. Windows Vista installation is similar but requires a few different steps relating to IIS.  This guide is my third revision and includes additional steps and information based on feedback from previous users. 

This is my fourth revision DNN Upgrade guide.  This version of the document includes important updates for the upgrade process to DotNetNuke 4.6.  Many portions of this upgrade guide are the same as previous versions, however, there are some new items.  This is simply due to the LIMITED changes that have truly occured in the area of DotNetNuke upgrades.

This guide is geared towards performing an upgrade in-place directly to the server.  If you are on a hosted web server you will need to make modifications to the instructions to fit your access to the production environment.  Additionally I STRONGLY suggest attempting to perform an upgrade locally BEFORE you update a production hosted site to check all processes.

Managing the development process using DotNetNuke as a development framework is something that many individuals ask about yet it is something that is not often discussed.  I thought I would take this time to discuss a few of the ins and outs od development with DotNetNuke and maintaining a development and production environment from my experience. Please remember that the following comments are my personal opinions and are no way affiliated or associated with the feelings of DotNetNuke Corporation.

In previous articles on this site I have provided tutorials for installing DotNetNuke to a local machine, however, I have never yet approached the topic of installing DotNetNuke to a remote web hosting provider.  I have been asked many times why and the answer is simple; installations to remote hosts are not really standardized as depending on the hosting providers environments the steps to install can differ greatly.  However, due to popular demand I have created this tutorial which will provide you the basic overview of how to perform a clean installation of DotNetNuke on a remote web hosting provider.  In the article I will try to point out the most common areas of difference between different hosting providers, I will also be providing specific examples regarding the use of the Plesk control panel which is what my hosting provider (3Essentials) uses.

Due to propular request and due to the finding of CamStudio (a free screen recording software) I will start providing free DotNetNuke video tutorials on this site staring no later than Monday 9/10.

The first tutorial that will be created is a FULL installation guide for a clean DNN 4.5.5 installation on Windows Vista!

If you have requests for future tutorials please let me know either in the comments to this posting or via e-mail.

As mentioned above these tutorials will be FREE to all registered members of this website!

I have been toying with the idea of starting to offer video tutorials from my site to compliment my text based items.

I would be looking at using a screen capture utility to capture the exact procedures needed to do each of the tasks with guided voice instruction and explaination.

Overall they would be somewhat similar to others out there and I would try to keep them as short and simple as possible.

Is there an overall demand for this?  I would need to charge a nominal fee, say $5 a piece to cover my bandwidth usage and the purchase of the recording software.  I could even possibly consider the offering of package deals.

What are everyones thoughts?  I do have a poll about this in my forums under DotNetNuke as well.

As many of my regular readers have noticed I have recently migrated from the Core DNN Forum module to the ActiveForums module created by ActiveModules. This article is a full review of the new forum and my overall thoughts regarding the switch and the new features provided by the ActiveForums module.