Articles from September 2008
In an effort to provide information in an easy to find fashion, and a manner to additionally help offset the massive amounts of time spent writing tutorials for posting on this site I have published a small reference book "DotNetNuke Installation, Upgrade, Backup, and Restores: Best of articles from MitchelSellers.com". This is simply a print representation of information provided here in this blog, in an effort to provide helpful information that is easy to keep at your fingertips! No more googling trying to find that article again.
If there is interest in this format, I'll continue to aggregate content in this manner and offer little publications like this. Don't worry though, content here will continue on as always!
Posted by Mitchel on Thursday, September 25, 2008
Today my business sent out an e-mail to all newsletter subscribers about the most recent set of free module releases. This is my final cross-post of this information here on the blog, if you wish to stay up to date, please visit the IowaComputerGurus Newsletters page to subscribe.
New Module Releases
The following new modules were released to the general public. As always, these modules are provided free of charge. Any donations to support future development of these modules and new module additions are appreciated.
Notify License Download Version 01.02.00
The Notify License Download module is a DotNetNuke module designed to ensure that users agree to a set of terms and conditions prior to downloading a specific document from your site. Configuration options exist inside the module to allow the specification of the download location. Standard DotNetNuke UrlTracking features are additionally supported to allow the tracking of user downloads and usage.
This module also supports full localization of all static text elements following the standard DotNetNuke localization schemes. You can see this module in action and download it for your own use on the Notify License Download Module Info Page.
Pop-N-Go Version 01.01.00
Pop-N-Go is a DotNetNuke module designed to present the user with a modal dialog window with a prompt and one or more navigation actions. Configuration options inside the module allow you to only show the pop-up window once per user based on a stored cookie, IP address or both. You may leave these restrictions turned off to be able to show the message to users at all times.
This module is great for presenting optional opt-in surveys by showing a one-time message with a "yes I'll fill it out" option or a cancel option you can get the information to the user and have minimal effect on their viewing of other site content. This module uses the ModalPopupExtender that is part of the AJAX Control Toolkit to accomplish the dialog display.
You can download this module free of charge from the Pop-N-Go Module Information Page.
Module Updates
The following module updates were released today, detailed information and links are included in the descriptions of each update.
DNN Expandable Text/HTML Version 02.03.01
After receiving reports from users of this module that were experiencing problems with images not displaying properly we quickly created this release version which resolves ALL image link issues. This fix has been tested on parent portals, child portals, and installations using the UrlMaster module. We greatly apologize for the troubles caused by this bug introduced in version 02.03.00.
You can obtain the most recent build of this module from the DNN Expandable Text/HTML Module Info Page.
Tell-A-Friend Version 01.02.00
Earlier this week we were notified that the DNN Captcha Control which is used to prevent spam e-mails from being sent via this module is not localizable by default. To ensure full localization support two additional localization keys were added to ensure that full module translation would be possible. In addition to the localization fix an enhancement was added that auto-fills the "Your Name" and "Your E-mail" fields for authenticated users, allowing for a better user experience to help improve module usage.
You can obtain the must recent release of this module from the Tell-A-Friend Module Info Page.
DNN Guestbook Version 03.01.08
To ensure full compatability for localization a new release of this module was completed to ensure that localization of the DNN Captcha control is possible. No other changes were made.
You can obtain the most recent release of this module from the DNN Guestbook Module Info Page.
Please remember that development for each of these modules is completed on an "As time permits" basis, if you find a module useful donations are appreciated to ensure that future development can continue for each of these modules. As always, let us know if you have any feedback regarding these modules.
Posted by Mitchel on Wednesday, September 24, 2008
From Mitchel: I'm happy to announce that Tom Kraak of Seablick Consulting will lend his expertise in the area of DNN Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and DNN Ecommerce as a guest blogger on MitchelSellers.com. You may already know Tom from his own blog or have seen him lurking around the DNN forums, DNN conferences and community events … welcome Tom!
Mitchel recently relaunched his company website and while certainly functional and visually pleasing, there is room for improvement on the search engine optimization front. So let’s help out a good friend and business partner by applying my DNN SEO Quickstart Guide to IowaComputerGurus.com (ICG.)
Title and Description Meta Tags
First, let’s change the home page title from "Welcome to IowaComputerGurus Inc." to "DotNetNuke Modules & Custom .NET Development | IowaComputerGurus." The title now contains important keywords and at the same time much better reflects the company and its mission. While branding is important, I do prefer to put keywords first and the brand name last especially for product and service oriented small businesses.
While it can be challenging to stick to the recommended limit of 65 characters including spaces for page titles, we do have slightly more freedom when it comes to the meta description (about 100 characters more to be exact.) With that in mind, let’s rewrite "Welcome to IowaComputerGurus Inc. a Des Moines Iowa based software consulting firm. Specializing in .NET and DotNetNuke solutions" to something more enticing such as "As a Microsoft Certified Partner, IowaComputerGurus provides information technology consulting services with a focus on .NET and DotNetNuke software development." Remember, as opposed to the page title, the meta description carries almost no weight as a ranking factor and therefore acts more like a pay-per-click ad with the main purpose of attracting clicks in search engine result pages (SERPs) by accurately describing the page content.
Here is one more suggestion of a meta title and description combination, this time for the Custom Module Development page:
Custom DotNetNuke (DNN) Module Development | IowaComputerGurus
IGC specializes in the development of custom DotNetNuke modules by following DNN programming best practices and a proven approach to software development.
Link Building
Yahoo! Site Explorer reports about 9,000 off-domain, incoming links to the ICG home page, which in part contributes to the healthy 5 Google toolbar PageRank. However, the majority of these incoming links are from Mitchel’s own blog as well as the dotnetnuke.com forums, where Mitchel is one of the most active participants. So I recommend diversifying by seeking links from relevant business partners, affiliates and organizations (such as the Microsoft Partner program, the local chamber of comments, etc) and reputable directories. Furthermore, it’s important to pay attention to the anchor text of any links to be acquired going forward. I do realize that this is not always possible, but if the opportunity does arise, Mitchel should request keyword-laden anchor text such as "DNN Module Development" and "Free DNN Modules" pointing to the appropriate pages.
Quality Copy & Content
In regards to website copy and other textual content, IowaComputerGurus.com is a bit too wordy for my taste. I would eliminating some of the corporate jargon and then rewrite the copy starting with the home page by injection keywords and key phrases gathered from free tools such as this one, that one or even Google itself (search for "DotNetNuke" and scroll to the bottom of the search engine result page to find the "searches related to" section.) Also, short of combining MitchelSellers.com with IowaComputerGurus.com, I would reserve case-study type articles for ICG to satisfy the hunger of search bots for fresh and original content.
XML Sitemap
I usually shun DNN’s native xml sitemap implementation and use a 3rd party tool such as this one instead, but for a site mainly build around traditional DNN pages it works quite well as all relevant pages are indeed present in sitemap.aspx. While that’s a good start, I still don’t like the idea of having the lastmod, changefreq, and priority nodes read all the same for every single page. Call me picky, but that takes me straight back to my Notepad "drawing board." And lastly, to get the most of an xml sitemap, I suggest submitting it to Google Webmaster Tools, Yahoo! Site Explorer, and Live Search Webmaster Center.
Robots.txt Exclusion Protocol
Mitchel currently has no robots.txt file in the root directory of IowaComputerGurus.com (server returns a 404 HTTP status code), which signals to the search engines that access is allowed to all resources served by the website. That’s not an ideal situation as some of DNN’s supporting directories and files have no business being indexed and subsequently appearing in SERPs. To remedy that, I usually recommend using dotnetnuke.com’s robots.txt implementation as a base and then adding exclusions specific to your website. In the case of ICG, I would at least additionally disallow /home/ctl/privacy.aspx, /home/ctl/terms.aspx, and /forums/afv/ to restrict access to the privacy statement, terms of use, and certain areas of Active Forum.
That wraps up part one of my SEO overhaul of IowaComputerGurus.com. Check back in a week or two as I conclude this series with a closer look at local search, search engine friendly skins and menu systems as well as Url rewriting and canonicalization.
And as always, comments and questions are appreciated.
Posted by Tom on Friday, September 19, 2008
DotNetNuke site administrators often are tasked with maintaining their sites as well as ensuring that a proper backup/recovery plan is in place. An important part of this is to have a proper site backup, therefore I am re-visiting my two previous versions of backup guides in this updated article. I will walk though the items needed for backup, and considerations when creating the backup, specifically if you are looking to migrate a site to a different server. I will then discuss the process to create a backup in both SQL Server 2000 and SQL Server 2005, and lastly I will quickly touch on the third party options available for performing site backups.
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Posted by Mitchel on Monday, September 15, 2008
I find that web development projects are requiring more and more AJAX functionality. The bells and whistles that come with AJAX are hard things for many people to live without. One of the more common toolsets to use when working with AJAX items in the .NET environment is the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit. I have found that with VERY minimal effort you can fully implement the toolkit inside a DNN installation and it can even be done WITHOUT modification to the web.config file. This blog entry will provide information on how to incorporate the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit into your project. I will simply discuss the DNN implementation, I am NOT going to actually discuss the usage of any specific control.
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Posted by Mitchel on Saturday, September 13, 2008
After my recent change to the new skin design on this site I decided that I need to work on a method to incorporate display for larger images, that under normal situations would break the layout of this site. Most recently I have made a few simple portal configuration changes that allowed me to incorporate a lightbox script, so now I can easily get large images to display like this! In this entry I walk you through the process to obtain the files, load them into DNN, and then to configure Ventrian's News Articles to allow its use.
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Posted by Mitchel on Friday, September 12, 2008
Recently I was tasked with the creation of a large database system that consisted of a database table with 5 date colums, and a varchar primary key. This table was to hold upwards of 3.5 million records, and I needed to know exactly how much disk space was going to be needed to store not only the database, but also the index required to facilitate the search requirements. After looking for a number of different ways to do this, and many free third party tools I decided that the most simple way to do this with the tools that I had available was to generate my own method to populate a test database.
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Posted by Mitchel on Friday, September 12, 2008
This is my fifth revision of a DotNetNuke remote hosting provider installation tutorial. This tutorial will provide you the basic overview of how to perform a clean installation of DotNetNuke 4.9.0 on a remote web hosting provider. In the article I will try to point out the most common differences between different hosting providers, I will also be providing specific examples regarding the use of the Plesk control panel which is what my preferred hosting provider (3Essentials) uses. All steps within this tutorial are promised to work with 3Essentials hosting, others are most likely possible, but have not been fully confirmed with the provider. Additionally this guide is geared towards a manual instlalation at the root of the site, which is not supported by all hosting providers.
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Posted by Mitchel on Thursday, September 11, 2008
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 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 eighth revision and includes additional steps and information based on feedback from previous versions. Additionally a few new instructions and notes have been provided for users installing on Windows 2003 Server to address a few common "stumbling blocks" that have prevented successful installations.
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Posted by Mitchel on Thursday, September 11, 2008
I am working with the new team on the DotNetNuke Documents module project to actually create end-user and administrator user guides for that project. This has lead me to think about the free modules and items that are provided by IowaComputerGurus. Each of these is lacking documentation, and to be honest I just don't have the time to keep the modules going and to keep the documentation up.
Therefore I thought I would reach out to the community to see if there was anyone willing to donate some time to write documentation for my free modules. Since these modules generate no money, and actually cost me money, at this time it would need to be a volunteer effort. However, in exchange for services we will ensure that full credit is given for the creation of the documentation.
If you are at all interested in volunteering to help improve the free modules that we offer, please feel free to e-mail me at msellers@iowacomputergurus.com
Posted by Mitchel on Wednesday, September 10, 2008
For those of you local to the state of Iowa, I will be giving a presentation to the Iowa .NET User Group this Thursday evening. Below is an overview of the content that will be discussed.
Optimizing DotNetNuke for Standards Compliance and Search Engine Optimization
This session will introduce individuals to basic functionality of the DotNetNuke core, and common "trouble areas" when it comes to compliant code, search engine optimization, and ease of use. Discussions surrounding DotNetNuke's ability to support different editors, menu controls, and more will be had, including examples of code reductions. Additionally a discussion regarding SEO friendly modules that help with site optimization.
Posted by Mitchel on Monday, September 08, 2008
Over the past few weeks since I announced that my company, IowaComputerGurus Inc. was going to be an exhibitor at OpenForce ’08 this November I have been asked a few questions by the community. I feel that the answers to these questions are items that should be aired publicly; therefore I am posting this information here for all to see. The two questions that have been coming up quite a bit recently are; Why are you sharing a booth with Seablick Consulting, and How do you choose your business partners. I will start by addressing the second question, and returning to answer the first.
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Posted by Mitchel on Sunday, September 07, 2008
I am proud to announce the release of DNN Expandable Text/HTML version 02.03.00. This release was completed to resolve performance issues and additionally provided support for default module caching.
For full information on the changes in this release please visit the product information page. This page also includes both installation and source package downloads.
This is also the last time that I will be announcing new module releases here on this blog in an effort to keep the content on this blog more focused on technical articles. If you want to stay up to date on the most current releases you can subscribe to the new newsletters available from my business site IowaComputerGurus.com. But as always these modules will be free and continue to be free!
Posted by Mitchel on Friday, September 05, 2008
This is my ninth revision DNN Upgrade guide. Many portions of this upgrade guide are the same as previous versions, however, there are some new items and many minor changes/clarifications. In addition notes have been provided for users on shared/remote hosting environments to help guide the way to a proper upgrade.
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Posted by on Thursday, September 04, 2008
I have previously blogged about the streamlined upgrade process that can be used to ugprade sites starting with version 4.6.2 and later. With the upcoming release of DotNetNuke 4.9.0 (targeted for next week) I thought I would take some time to get all of my installation guides updated, with the most current information to ensure that everyone was ready for the new version as soon as it comes out. Given the enhancements provided to the core in 4.6.2 the upgrade process from this version and later is VERY simple! The following two step process will help you upgrade to your site to the most current version. Instructions are also included regarding items of consideration for users in shared hosting environments.
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Posted by Mitchel on Thursday, September 04, 2008
A while back I made a post regarding the Packt CMS Award nominations, well DotNetNuke has made it into the finals so I thought I would post a quick message out here to all people recommending that you vote for your favorite, DotNetNuke or not. Also don't forget that there is a category for OpenSource MVP as well!. http://www.PacktPub.com/award
Posted by Mitchel on Thursday, September 04, 2008
I am proud to announce that Version 4.1.0 of the Documents module has now been released. To many people this has been a much awaited release as it provides fixes for many "painful" issues that have plagued the module since version 4.0.0. Below you will find a listing of all fixed items for the 4.1.0 release.
DOC-7200: Issue with no category selected defaulting to country list
DOC-7201: Default sort options not properly performing sort
DOC-7202: Display in other languages can result in wrapped headers
DOC-7544: Incorrect spelling in resource file for column heading
DOC-7491: Module doesn't default to full width to fill container
DOC-7490: Alt text on down arrow reads "Move Up"
DOC-7710: .DNN File Missing minimum version specification
With this release I can now say that we have a stable code base to further enhance and start adding new features. I will be working with the team over the next few weeks to create the "roadmap" for what will become version 4.2.0 of the module. As we start to finalize exactly what will become this new version I will be sure to share it here via this site. I appreciate everyone waiting for this release and appreciate all feedback on the new release.
You can download the documents module and read more information about it via the "Documents Module Page" on the DotNetNuke.com website.
Posted by Mitchel on Thursday, September 04, 2008