Articles from July 2008
To those that regularly look to this site for new information I wanted to quickly make a post here with some updates on the items I am working on that are of benefit to the community.
DotNetNuke Documents Module
Yesterday I submitted version 4.1.0 of the DotNetNuke documents module to the DotNetNuke release process. Sadly it failed the release process this morning due to packaging issues. I will be resolving them tonight and will get it re-submitted. Please visit my blog on DotNetNuke.com for full information regarding the changes that were released with that version.
Professional DotNetNuke 5 Module Programming Book
To update everyone on the progress of my book in progress, I have almost 25% of the book completed, and overall it is fairly well on track to meet all deadlines. At this time I am not yet sure on a firm release date.
New Modules
I have recently posted my first module for purchase, which is a generic external authentication provider which allows connection to an external database for user authentication rather than using the internal DotNetNuke database. Both installation and source versions are available from snowcovered.
Secondly, the long awaited update on the Quiz module is here. At this time, I have 90% of the quiz engine built and am trying to work in time between other projects to get the module out there. At this time, I anticipate September 15th, as the release date for the first version of the module. This moudle will be a free module!
Upcoming Blog Articles
Lastly, I have a list of articles that will be pubished to this blog in the next few weeks as I get time to create them, below is a quick-hit listing of the items.
- Review of BaseCamp Project Management Tool
- Javascript and DotNetNuke, how to make it work?
- Creating a Custom Authentication Provider
- Friendly Modules - Multiple Views without Isolation
- Using the DNN Objects with Other Data Providers
Each of these will be tackled when I have time, but it gives an idea of some items that are planned. As always thank you for following this blog, and if you have any comments, requests, suggestions feel free to e-mail me at msellers@iowacomputergurus.com.
Posted by Mitchel on Wednesday, July 30, 2008
All site display issues should now be resolved, if anyone is experiencing difficulties with this site and the navigation, please send me an e-mail at msellers@iowacomputergurus.com.
I apologize for the difficulty in site navigation while I worked to get this issue resolved.
Keep an eye out for updates on this site, if you have a blog that you would like to see up here, please let me know!
Posted by Mitchel on Wednesday, July 23, 2008
To let everyone know I am aware of an issue that currently exists with this site and the navigation menu in FireFox 2 and FireFox 3.
I am working with Vasilis to identify why this has become an issue.
Posted by Mitchel on Monday, July 21, 2008
In one of my previous blog entries I provided a helpful script that would allow you to find the space used for all SQL Server tables in a single database. It was a very simple method using the SP_SPACEDUSED stored procedure that is included in SQL Server. In that article I touched a bit on the general usage fo the method.
SP_SPACEUSED TableName
Where TableName was the specific table you are researching. Well there is a secondary option with a second parameter that is a very helpful item as well. I'll provide a quick scenario that sets up my specific example. I was working with a table that has about 80 columns, and somewhere in the neighborhood of 1.8 million records. Trying to condense the size of the database, we removed 20 columns that were no longer necessary. Prior to dropping the table we ran SP_SPACEUSED to get the table size, which provided us the following.
Reserved: 5,474,304 KB Data: 3,451,368 KB Index_Size: 196,704 KB
Overall the table itself was in the nighborhood of 3Gb, we executed a statement that dropped 20 columns from the table, however, running SP_SPACEUSED for the table only provided us the same results. You can pass SP_SPACEUSED a second parameter which expects a value of 'true' or 'false' with a default of false. If it is set to true, it will update usage information before returning the results. We then ran the following statement
SP_SPACEUSED TableName 'true'
Now we got the accurate information that showed our reduction in size.
Reserved: 1,826,320 KB Data: 1,727,624 KB Index_Size: 98,344 KB
I hope that this might help those of you optimizing table sizes and noticing incorrect numbers!
Posted by Mitchel on Friday, July 18, 2008
As many of you may have noticed in the past few weeks since I have updated this site that there were a number of major changes. Improved site performance, new site skin, re-organized content, and most importantly new URL structures. In this article I will provide a review of the Url Master module created by IFinity, with a detailed account of my experiences with the module and how it helped make recent content changes possible.
Read more...
Posted by Mitchel on Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Starting this morning (7/15/2008) I have opened up the IowaComputerGurus Customer Support system to allow all users to register and submit issues. This is the new fast-track method to report bugs, or to request enhancements to any free module or content that is provided via my business website.
This applies to ALL DotNetNuke modules and other content that was previously available via this site. I have implemented this systems in hopes of providing a more streamlined process to handle bug and enhancement requests, this system is also the system used for any of my DotNetNuke Technical Support customers.
If anyone has questions please feel free to let me know.
Posted by Mitchel on Tuesday, July 15, 2008
 | An error has occurred.
Error: Mitchel Sellers' DotNetNuke, .NET, and Other Topics Blog is currently unavailable. |