To continue on with an idea that Will Strohl gave me with his end of the year blog entry. I thought I would take some time and do the same here. A bit of a "year in review" if you will of the things that I think have been notable accomplishments in 2008 as well as a few thank you's along the way.
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Posted by Mitchel on Thursday, January 01, 2009
The other day I was reading Antonio Chagoury's blog and came across one of his recent postings "Just In Case You're Not Keeping Tabs" ahd it got me thinking. I just got done filling out a few forms where I needed to list my community involvement, and much like Antonio I had a hard time sitting down and really coming up with the list of everything that I do on a volunteer basis. So I though I'd do something similar to what Antonio did and post my list here. I know I'm missing items, so if you know of something I'm leaving out, let me know!
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Posted by Mitchel on Thursday, October 23, 2008
As we start winding down to the end of the year and the upcoming OpenForce 2008 event, I thought I would take a few moments to give everyone an update on some of the things I have in the works, and a few fun new announcements.
Announcements & Updates
The past few months have been very busy times, and for a while I disappeared from the community while trying to arrage a few things, and to get over a really bad cold that took me out of commission for over a week. So with this hiatus, I thought I would share some updates on progress that has been made since my last update on this blog.
Product Support Website
Late last week IowaComputerGurus launched a new Product Support website. This site was launched to create a formal roadmap and issue tracking system for the various products we provide. Historically new feature requests were submitted via the forums and I simply kept track of the items in the works. Well, the projects have all outgrown that process and this should help keep a solid process behind the madness. So take this opportunity to submit your feature requests today!
Open Force 2008 Giveaways and Discounts
I am also proud to announce that not only is IowaComputerGurus an exhibitor in booth 606 but we have also provided two items to be given away at the community event that will take place during the conference. One of these items is 10 hours of custom module development services, a $950 value!
In addition to the product giveaway items, we will be extending 10% discount coupons to attendees for use with our Technical Support plans. We have a proven track record of providing quality, responsive, technical support for DotNetNuke site administrators and development teams and want to pass a conference discount on to attendees. (If you are not going and are still interested in the discount, send me an e-mail)
Book Update
I am also proud to announce that as of last night there are only two remaining chapters to be written for the Professional DotNetNuke 5 Module Programming book. Those chapters should be completed by next Monday and the book will continue to move through the production process. I hope to see a release of the book close to the current target release date.
Microsoft MVP Nomination
The last announcement comes from an e-mail that I received from Microsoft a few weeks ago. I have received a Microsoft MVP nomination, I will find out for sure if I receive the award on January 1st. I have to say that even receving this nomination is something that I am proud of.
Upcoming Items
Will all the above in mind, it is time to put the eyes on the future. What is coming up, and what can you expect to see here on this site?
Articles
Well, right now I have a listing of over 20 topics that I will be writing about in the near future, but the following is a quick hit listing of items to expect in the very near future.
- Final review of Active Forums 4.0
- Installing DotNetNuke on Mosso's Cloud Computing Service
- Advantages of using VS 2008 for DotNetNuke WAP Module Development
- Fun new items in DNN 5.0
- Why using ObjectQualifier can cause you pain?
- How to add helpful information to the Visual Studio Debugger
- Multi-view DNN Controls? How to do it without Isolation
Modules
Recently a few community members have been donating time to help crate documentation for the free modules. This has created some free time for me to focus on new releases and some much needed enhancements to existing modules. However, the most promising upcoming item of all is the DNN Quiz module. it has been my long promised module, and finally it will become a reality! The module has been tested in one format, and only needs slight modifications before I can release it to the general public!
Videos
Lastly after almost a year hiatus I have secured video capture software and will start to record and publish video tutorials to go alongside the text based articles.
Comments/Feedback
As always feedback from the readers of this blog and the greater community is always appreciated. If you have any comments, suggestions, or requests please be sure to let me know via one of the many available communication systems.
Posted by Mitchel on Monday, October 20, 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
A while back I created a monitoring application for Pingdom Corporation called Pingdom Alerter. This application has been used by a wide customer base to monitor their site status on the Pingdom service. I am looking to find at least 3 individuals that have used the Pindom Alerter, created by my company IowaComputerGurus Inc. that would be willing to be a reference to state that the application works as described. The application can be found on the Pingdom Services Page.
If anyone can help me out with this I would greatly appreciate it as this is the final step needed for my business to attain Microsoft Certified Partner status. Please e-mail me at msellers@iowacomputergurus.com if you are willing/able to help.
Posted by Mitchel on Monday, August 18, 2008
After a change of heart I have decided today that I will be attending OpenForce '08 this fall, I will also have a booth in Expo Hall that I will be sharing with another company. So I'm looking forward to another sucessful conference and opportunites to put faces to names. From the schedule of events it looks like this fall's conference will have plenty to offer for everyone. For full information on OpenForce you can visit the information site OpenForce08.com.
Just like last year if there is anyone that would like to meet with me specifically during the conference please feel free to contact me anytime to arrange!
Posted by Mitchel on Wednesday, August 13, 2008
This is just an update to regular visitors of this site, as of this morning Google AdSense ads have been removed from this site entirely. Due to a lack of control over these advertisements and the selection of advertisements that were included they have been removed.
Posted by Mitchel on Tuesday, August 12, 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
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