I was recently given an opportunity to review the Dynamic User Directory module created by the folks at DataSprings. This module is a a great module for creating a user directory from a standard DotNetNuke installation, and works great for individuals that are using the Dynamic Registration module from DataSprings as well. At the most basic level, this module might seem to be a fairly simple module, it displays a list of users on the portal. However, it is important to not over-simplify the task at hand. Due to the nature of DotNetNuke and the data structures used it is very common for a "user directory" module to be a very complex setup, especially if you are looking to work against a large user base, or to support searching on profile values. This review will take a look at the module and provide some insight to some of the key findings from my testing.
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Posted by Mitchel on Tuesday, January 19, 2010
I have talked to many developers that have one common feature request that we would like to see for Visual Studio, Spell Check. As a developer one of the most troubling things can be minor typo's in code after it has been completed. Although simple to fix, it can be embarrassing to have a typo that goes out in a module that a client is reviewing or that you put up for sale on SnowCovered. Well, today I got an email from Chad Nash at DataSprings, and they have a set of tools that are going to help us out on this front from a DNN module perspective.
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Posted by Mitchel on Wednesday, December 16, 2009
This past weekend I got a tour and demonstration of the facilities over at PowerDNN. You can check out a full report on the IowaComputerGurus site.
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Posted by Mitchel on Monday, August 24, 2009
As some readers of this blog might have known about 2 weeks ago, I suffered from a critical hardware component failure on my primary development machine. Initially unsure of the exact issue I was seeing the hard drive as a potential failure point. It was at that point that I realized exactly how horrible it would be if the drive failed. Don't get me wrong, I have backups both locally, in my source control system remotely, as well as in the cloud using Jungle Disk. But the total time to recovery would be massive. I have a list of around 100 or so applications that would need to be installed to get me back to "full" working state. Not an easy task! Luckily for me, it was some bad RAM and the system was restored after my new RAM came in.
However, this was a very enlightening experience for me and prompted me to re-visit the concept of disk imaging. This is what prompted the review of Acronis Backup and Recovery, as it is my selected and implemented solution for the long term.
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Posted by Mitchel on Thursday, July 30, 2009
My last blog article "Selecting the Right Source Control Provider" touched on the evaluation criteria that I use when looking for a source control system. This article is a review of sorts of SourceGear's Vault product, my preferred source control system. I'll start by reviewing vault as it relates to the criteria from the previous article, I will then provide my overall feedback on my experience with Vault.
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Posted by Mitchel on Thursday, April 16, 2009
For those of you that follow me on Twitter you might have caught a few remarks about my attempts at putting up a DotNetNuke site at Mosso. For those unfamiliar with Mosso, they are a provider of Cloud Computing hosting services, essentially a dynamically scalable solution based on a model where you pay for your usage. For those establishing new sites that are expected to gain popularity, it can be a very helpful thing to have a hosting arrragement like Mosso. The reason is that the cost is affordable when starting out, and continues to be so as your site scales up in usage. There is no need to spend $300+ a month from the beginning to have a big beefy dedicated server to just be ready to handle your later growth! Below I'll provide some feedback on my experiences, their service, and will include a VERY nice discount offer!
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Posted by Mitchel on Monday, October 13, 2008
I have recently been given the opportunity to preview the upcoming Active Forums 4.0 release. In this starter review I will give my first opinions after working with the module for a short time and experimenting with the new features. A full review of the module will come after it has been released and I am able to test/work with the full edition.
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Posted by Mitchel on Sunday, August 17, 2008
In the past I have completed reviews of various DotNetNuke modules, components, and skins, however, recently I have been receiving a number of e-mails with questions about how I manage my business. Typically these questions have been from individuals that are just starting out with consulting business, or those looking for better ways to manage their pending products. Once item that I always recommend to people is BaseCamp, a hosted project management solution provided by 37Signals. This article will go through the features/services offered, and why I use it to manage all projects.
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Posted by Mitchel on Friday, August 01, 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.
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Posted by Mitchel on Tuesday, July 15, 2008
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. 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.
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Posted by Mitchel on Wednesday, February 20, 2008
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