The topic of choosing a hosting provider for DotNetNuke is something that I see appear on a regular basis on the DotNetNuke forums and here on my forums as well.  The way I see it the selection of a hosting provider isn't just about the price, it is something that requires a much more detailed look at what services you get and what services you really need.  You can then balance those to find the right hosting provider for your needs.  As many people are aware I typically direct people towards 3Essentials or PowerDNN. In this article I will walk you through my decision process on the items that I look for in a hosting provider, and why I might choose over the other.  Consider this my approach towards Shared Hosting solutions.  These statements in no way are considered offical, and you MUST take the time to do your own research to form your own conclusions before making a decision.  Moving hosting providers is not all that complicated, but it is a somewhat complex and time consuming actiivity and something that you don't want to do unless you have to. 

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. 

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.

As I am sure that many of the regular readers of this site have noticed I recently changed my website navigation structure and overall skin design. As part of this site re-design I switched away from the standard DotNetNuke Menu control to using the “Css NavMenu” provided by Snapsis. This article is a detailed review of this skin object and the ease of use to implement as well as the noticed benefits over the standard DotNetNuke menu.

As promised this article is an update with more testing results of DNN core modules and the enabling of AJAX. I will investigate multiple core modules and will provide the test results for each of the modules, regardless of success or failure, to give you an idea of where each of these modules are for potential use of AJAX.

To view the entire details please click "Read More..."

This morning I have started my review process for the newest version of DotNetNuke 4.5 as I prepare to update this site to the newest version.  Upon my inital review I am very impressed with 4.5.  We will start with the upgrade process, this went VERY smoothly just like the upgrade from 4.3.7 -> 4.4.1 that I completed early this year.  (That means my article on upgrading does still apply!). 

After updating my testing environment to 4.5 I noticed a few of the "little" features right away.  Those changes I noiticed were the overall updates to the menu item icons and the ability to "hide" the page control panel!  Being able to hide the control panel and limit yourself to a small portion of the screen being dedicated to the view/edit selector is very nice, you can get a much better idea what your pages will look like in the end.

After completing the install I thought I would play around with a couple of core modules that I use frequently to see if we could happen to get by allowing partial rendering (AJAX).  In my tests when enabling partial rendering in the forums module on a "postback" you would loose all table stylings, therefore, it is NOT supported.  However, I was able to get AJAX to work correctly for the main display page of the "Repository" module, allowing comments and ratings to be submitted via AJAX!

This is all I have as of now after a few hours of testing the newest version, more information will come soon!  Share your experiences in the comments below!!

Today I just started using FireFox 2.0 RC2 and I have to say I am already very impressed by the added features. Like most FireFox users in the past I have resorted to various extensions to get additional functionality that has made FireFox easier for me to user. One of those extensions was "Tab Mix Plus" which was an extension of the tab functionality allowing links to be opened in new tabs instead of new windows when the target was "_blank". In version 2.0 this functionality is standard with FireFox, they have provided native support for this functionality, which was a very good thing as "Tab Mix Plus" is not compatible with version 2.0 as of today.

Aside from the advanced tab control and a nice visual upgrade my favorite change to the browser is spell checker. Yes, it will provide MS Word style spell checking for your input on any and all form fields. I have been testing this functionality and it appears to be very reliable, a great benefit for all of those times posting on message boards etc if you spell like I do!

Another added feature to the core FireFox system is Session Restore. This was another feature that was part of "Tab Mix Plus" where if FireFox is unexpectedly shutdown due to a system crash or some other reasons you will be prompted with the ability to "Restore last session" which will reopen all tabs you had and restore any form fill data that was populated just prior to the crash.

Since this application is still in Release Candidate stage it might not be at its most stable operating point yet, however I am having no difficulties running it as is, therefore I will simply use the RC until the new version comes out. Mozilla does state that you could install the RC and revert to 1.5.* without loosing any bookmarks or other important settings.

For more information on FireFox Version 2.o RC2 please view their information site http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/2.0/releasenotes/#whatsnew.

So like many personal development projects, I have a few ASP.NET applications I am working on that have no money backing them and I need to create reports.  So for the past week or two I have been looking for a good free .NET charting component that I can use to create bar and pie charts for my ASP.NET application.

So far, I have found one free control called "WebChart" provided by Carlos Aguilar Mares via his website, a link to the control is here.

Overall I am very happy with his control, however it does take some manipulation to get things laid out correctly if you are using datasets that have large (20+ character) element titles as the legends and row indicators are sometimes rendered in a non visible location.

I found this to be a very helpful tool for creating simple to moderatley complex data charts. If anyone knows of more "Free" chart components please let me know.