Six years ago today I met the most beautiful woman in the world. We met for dinner at Applebees, we closed the place down. We had talked on Match.com for a few days prior to meeting, but January 29th, 2005 was the first time we saw each other face to face.

Less than nine months later we were engaged, and less than two years later we were married. We’ve been married 4 years now, and have a beautiful baby girl (almost 4 months).

I love you Natalie.

Last week Microsoft released a new tool called WebMatrix, a tool for developing web applications and easily installing existing web applications. You can learn more about WebMatrix by visiting https://www.microsoft.com/web/webmatrix/. What does this have to do with DotNetNuke? Well WebMatrix makes installing DotNetNuke very easy! Even easier than before when just using the Web Platform Installer also from Microsoft.

To be honest, using the Web Platform Installer alone unfortunately doesn’t work if you’re trying to install DotNetNuke on IIS 7.5 (Windows 7/2008r2) without a work around (demo’d in this video). The reason that WPI won’t work is related to the security model that IIS 7.5 uses and the fact that when SQL Express 2008 r2 gets installed the account that DotNetNuke will run under doesn’t have the ability to connect to the DotNetNuke database.

Doing some work with WebMatrix however shows that it actually works (at least in my testing on Windows 2008 R2). The installation process for WebMatrix is really straight forward, navigate to https://web.ms/ and click on the link to “Install WebMatrix”, the the Install Now link which will download the installation tool.

Once you have WM installed you can then choose from the Application options, DotNetNuke is listed as the first option when sorted by most popular applications. This will download the necessary software/tools to run DNN, including SQL Express 2008 R2, by default when WebMatrix installs it installs SQL Compact 4.0, which is a trimmed down version of SQL that doesn’t run Stored Procedures, and thus won’t work for DotNetNuke.

Once WebMatrix has installed the necessary files for DotNetNuke you will be presented with a URL in which you can click to navigate to your DotNetNuke site, this will fire off the DotNetNuke installation wizard, the easiest option is to just use the “Auto” option.

The process is very straight forward, but if you need help, you should just watch this video!

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This is the fourth post in a series of blog posts about converting from CommunityServer to DotNetNuke.

A brief background: I had a number of websites running on CommunityServer 2.1, I decided it was finally time to ditch CommunityServer due to the change in their licensing model and pricing that made it not good for the small guy. This series of blog posts is about how to convert your CommunityServer based sites to DotNetNuke.

Previous Posts:
Part 1: An Introduction
Part 2: DotNetNuke Installation
Part 3: Converting users from CommunityServer to DotNetNuke

This is Part 4, Getting the conversion tables ready for CS to DNN

If you’re looking to buy an Autocross Helmet you should check out https://www.soloperformance.com/

I’ve been a long time Solo Performance customer, and just recently purchased a number of items from them, including this stylish new autocross helmet!

It should see its first autocross action this Sunday, though it has already seen action at the foosball table here at the office.

Two updates on the series in two days? Woah! So before you get into Part 3 of my CommunityServer to DotNetNuke series catch up if you haven’t read the previous posts.

A brief background: I had a number of websites running on CommunityServer 2.1, I decided it was finally time to ditch CommunityServer due to the change in their licensing model and pricing that made it not good for the small guy. This series of blog posts is about how to convert your CommunityServer based sites to DotNetNuke.

Previous Posts:
Part 1: An Introduction
Part 2: DotNetNuke Installation

This is Part 3, Converting Users from CommunityServer to DotNetNuke

A couple of weeks ago I started off this series, I didn’t intend for it to take this long to get to Part 2, but I’ve had a lot of other things going on.
A brief background: I had a number of websites running on CommunityServer 2.1, I decided it was finally time to ditch CommunityServer due to the change in their licensing model and pricing that made it not good for the small guy. This series of blog posts is about how to convert your CommunityServer based sites to DotNetNuke.

Earlier this evening I release a new version of my DNNSimpleArticle module for DotNetNuke. You can download the latest release from codeplex at https://dnnsimplearticle.codeplex.com/ This release is the first release of the module ONLY in C#, the previous release had both C# and VB.Net versions for example purposes. Going forward I want to keep things simple, and since my preference is C# all the future releases will be in C#. Here are the highlights for this release.

I won’t regurgitate all of Joe Brinkman’s blog post announcing the fact that DotNetNuke 5.6.1 was released today.

There are a couple of new features added, Razor support, and better Portal Alias handling. There are a number of bug fixes, and even some security fixes included so I would encourage you to check it out, upgrade your sites in a test environment then get your production sites upgraded.

If you have never upgraded a DotNetNuke website it is actually pretty darn easy to do. Check out some upgrade instructions in the DotNetNuke Wiki, and check out the video below.

you should always backup the files and database before you perform maintenance on a site

So I was hoping to get going on my fitness goals for the year this weekend. To recap from my 1/1/11 blog post, I would like to bike 500 miles, and inline skate at least 100 miles. As of right now getting the bike anywhere to ride will be difficult because I don’t want to put it in the CX-7 and we don’t have a bike rack yet (hopefully soon). So I decided to skate, the first time in quite a while. I went out yesterday to Redwood Shores and skated on the path there near Oracle’s headquarters. I skated 5 miles, just under 29 minutes total, not bad considering I haven’t done anything in quite a while, but not great for my past times. But I wanted to get out and do it, get the pain over and done with so I can skate on a more regular basis.

So as I try to get ready for the 2011 autocross season I stopped into a tire shop the other day, the Les Schwab on El Camino in San Carlos, California. I was curious how much they would charge to mount and balance for 18” tires. For those of you who don’t autocross, it is very common for autocrossers to need a local tire changing service, while not purchasing the tires from that location as well.

I went for a walk/hike today, taking my Garmin Forerunner 305 and my phone with me running SportsTrackLive.com. It’s definitely overkill to have both the garmin and the phone tracking my trip, but interesting to compare the data to see how the match or differ. Making it home both devices say we live right around 800’, that’s quite a change from Parker Colorado where we were at 6k feet or so, but consider I work at a building that is at or near sea level and it is only a few miles away. There are some downfalls to living up here in the hills, and in the clouds.

So what’s on tap for the weekend? Sleep!

I’m also hoping to wash and wax both cars, get some homework done, and maybe play with the nerdkit a bit as well. We might have to roadtrip somewhere as well like we did last Sunday.

So I was doing some reading tonight on my Nerdkit, I had planned to actually do some playing around with it, but decided just to read a bit. I’ve never coded in C, I did C++ in College (not very well) and do most of my development in C# these days (when I’m doing code, mostly for fun). While all similar, there are a few differences, so doing things in C is a learning experience.

So today is the 12th day. I think I'm going downhill, my photos look worse and worse!

This is day 11, one day it might be what it once was, but not for now.

So, just so I keep up with my posts for the year I submit this pathetic post. I don’t have much to say as I’m working on a post for tomorrow that is SURE to ruffle some feathers, a ton of feathers if you’re a greeny I am sure!

So in place of a real blog post for today, I offer you a photo of me and my daughter from yesterday.

Once again, it’s been far too long since the last show, this time just over 4 months, For Show #14 I am joined by Joe Brinkman. Take a listen and see what has been going on in the DNN world.

So I have been trying to figure out how best to do this blog post for a while now, though I think I will be better off doing it as a series of blog posts rather than one individual one. So this post will be the starting point for the conversion. I will update it with links to the other blog posts in the series as they get created and added.

So here we are, it’s Friday, Day 7 of the Twenty Eleven.

This will be a brief blog post, but hey, it’s Friday night!

I’ve made it 7 days into 2011 and blogged each of the first 7 days, only 358 more days to go? I’ve also managed to keep up with the photo/day thing.

Check out my Flickr365 photos posted so far

and of course Jacqueline’s Baby365 as well!

So here I am, 33 years old. Writing code in C, a language I haven’t written in since college, and technically even then I used C++.

I do C# on a regular basis, but C?

I’m playing with my Nerdkit, and damn is it fun! Why? Well tonight I’m writing code for temperature sensor.

Hopefully once I figure all this out though, I will have something I can plug into my car and it will do a lot more… I’m a long way from that, but I am having fun with this. I wish I had this interest/knowledge back when I was in in college!

So this post is not meant to be rude, even though it might come off that way, so here it goes.

Do I know you? Do you know me? Do you want to know me? Do I want to know you?

These are questions I ask almost every day. Every time someone sends me an invitation to connect on LinkedIn, or a Facebook Friend request, or an Instant Messenger buddy list add, I wonder: Who are you? Do I know you? How do you think you know me?

For some people it’s easy. Yesterday I got a LinkedIn request from Natalie Hammond, that’s an easy one, my wife, though I had to think about accepting it (just kidding) I knew who it was.

Today I got a linked in request from another person, and for the life of me I have no clue who they are. Looking at their profile doesn’t tell me anything except their name and where they are/went to school. Other than that, no hints as to how I might know that person, or if I don’t already, why I might want to know them.

So a word of advice, and a small request. When you send me a LinkedIn request, or Facebook friend request, please include a brief message, remind me who you are, or intrigue me as to why I should know who you are.

That being said, Facebook is for friends, family, and past classmates. LinkedIn is for professional connections, so if you are a DotNetNuke user feel free to send me a LinkedIn invite (with some info about why), but don’t bother with Facebook friend requests please unless we are already friends.

LinkedIn Profile

Facebook Page

Twitter

Flickr

Late last year I created a blog post and video about a new version of the module development template that I released on CodeplexGitHub. This new template uses MSBuild scripts instead of NANT scripts to automate the packaging process for the modules built with the template.

The MSBuild script works well out of the box, to package your module you simple change into RELEASE mode and then execute the build.

With the New Year, why not resolve to learn more about DotNetNuke?

DotNetNuke is the most successful and widely adopted open source project on the Microsoft Stack. Its been around for eight years and isn’t going away anytime soon. While the software itself is written in VB.Net you are not limited to VB.Net when developing custom extensions for the platform, in fact, when I do my module development I do it primarily in C# out of preference.

If you’re a developer out there who shuns learning a framework such as DotNetNuke, you should really take a look around. With hundreds of thousands of websites being powered by the platform it has created a demand for people with technical knowledge of the system. There are job postings almost every day looking for developers and designers for DNN, so it would make sense to learn it and start to understand how it works if you want to take a look at some of those opportunities. There are even job openings here at DotNetNuke Corporation.

So today’s blog post is going to be boring one, but hey, it’s my blog right? Was up late last night, working on a variety of things, but mainly on homework. I’m now halfway through the assignments for my Money and Banking course, I need to get my midterm exam setup somewhere here in the area and get finished up with the rest of the assignments to do the final. I have to be done by the 8th of February, as that’s when my online course expires!

Every January people start thinking “oh crap, I need to update the copyright statement on my website”. And everyone runs out and makes the change to the current year.

Well, if you use DotNetNuke you can easily change the Copyright statement on your site from the Site Settings page, found under the Admin menu. You’ll find a setting like the following.

If your Skin in DotNetNuke uses the Copyright SkinObject then changing that setting and updating the settings page will change the copyright statement across all pages.

Which would produce something like the following

Though you still need to do this every year if you want it to be current. There is a feature in DotNetNuke that will allow you to never need to change the year though. Here’s how:

Go to the Site Settings page, and REMOVE the copyright setting in the text box.

Then update your settings

Now in my skin the copyright section looks like

This is because when you remove the copyright setting, DotNetNuke dynamically builds a copyright statement, how might you ask? Well it takes the word and (c)

Copyright (c)

Then the Current Year (2011) and then the Portal Title, which in my case is “Chris Hammond, Father, Husband, Car Guy, Developer”

Did you find this tip useful? Then be sure to check out my DotNetNuke Training classes

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