By Dylan Barber on
12/22/2009 12:51 AM
One of the aspects I really like in Stackoverflow is that it uses OpenID. Now a lot of sites use OpenID already but none have made it as easy as Stackoverflow has. This really should be viewed as a model to get larger adoption of the OpenID standard across the web.
What’s so great about it? Well the Stackoverflow site has used images of the big OpenID providers clear (Goolge, Yahoo, AOL, myOpenID) then a lot of the the lesser ones that are used a lot (Live Journal, Wordpress, Blogger ,etc..). Simply click an icon or image and Stackoverflow uses a little jquery to try and log you in or ask you for the username at that OpenId provider. Many sites and the DNN provider included simply present the user with a field to paste in the url of the OpenId provider. Not a problem, but not every user on the web knows what that url is or where to find it.
My first project to make my site operate like Stackoverflow is going to be to add so enhancements to the default OpenID provider built by the DNN core group....
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By Dylan Barber on
12/22/2009 12:04 AM
I love Stackoverflow! If you are a programmer and haven't heard about it or used it yet visit it today! Stackoverflow can be as addictive as any other social networking fad out there and more so because of the shear amount of content. The ideas behind Stackoverflow seem to me to be the natural progression of the older forum setup but if you want a clone you either have to pay (http://stackexchange.com/) or you can find and use one of the few clones out there. Quench (http://anantgarg.com/2009/12/09/php-stackoverflow-clone/) seems to be an okay start, there is a simple c# implementation by the guys at RA-Ajax (http://stacked.ra-ajax.org/), and there is a Chinese language site (http://cnprog.com/) that uses a clone that is available at GitHub (http://github.com/cnprog/CNPROG). Those are all great and good starts but since I use DotNetNuke all the time I wanted a module or series of modules that would allow me to duplicate the functionality...
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By Dylan Barber on
12/18/2009 12:08 PM
Lots of people have the perception that effective search engine optimization (SEO) is impossible in DNN. Some of this comes form older versions of DNN where it was hard to do it right and the limited menu capabilities of the older SolPart menu made it difficult.
For those that haven't looked or who may have looked long ago and given up I urge you to reexamine the SEO landscape for DNN today. Tom Seablick has an excellent article on his website that discusses some of the ways to make your site more search engine friendly. The plethora of menus now for sale on Snowcovered also overcomes the limitations that menus may have had.
If you thought SEO for DNN was difficult take another look the latest releases make it easier than ever to have a dynamic...
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By Dylan Barber on
12/17/2009 4:56 AM
I am taking the plunge and offering Web Portals using the DotNetNuke framework. After years of working on DNN portals for others I want to help my clients build value on the web to become more successful. I know I can take care of clients the way they deserve and not the way some boss or marketing rep thinks they should be treated. Check it out here http://www.codemypantsoff.com/WebPortals.aspx
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By Dylan Barber on
12/17/2009 3:45 AM
I am taking the plunge and offering service plans for supporting DotNetNuke and other types of web sites. Many levels of support available. After years of helping people out and working for others looking at moving forward into building my own business where I can take care of those clients the way they deserve and not the way some boss or marketing rep thinks they deserve to be treated. Check it out here http://www.codemypantsoff.com/ServicePlans.aspx.
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By Dylan Barber on
10/15/2009 9:49 AM
Today Bruce Onder (@bonder) posted a link on Twitter to an agile development blog for Target Process (link: http://www.targetprocess.com/blog/2009/10/our-development-process.html ). Now I appreciate reading about other development processes but I just wanted to say some of us don’t get the luxury of developing in such a controlled environment.
In my company there are three developers and I act as a coordinator. Now we usually don’t even work the same projects. In fact one of my developers spends almost all his time just writing reports and another is spending almost all his time wrangling ancient dBase stuff into .NET so we can move the company as a whole forward.
Our development process:
Boss walks in with an idea or a client request.
I start to ask questions and start writing on the whiteboard
He agrees that its bigger than it first sounds.
Tells me he promised it by Friday, of course its already 5:00 pm Wednesday!
I decide if I will do it or hand it...
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By Dylan Barber on
9/15/2009 12:53 AM
When I build my sites in DNN I really do not like to use the default ‘Terms of Service’ and ‘Privacy Statement’ controls. For one thing the controls place the content in the Content Pane of the admin skin the site uses and sometimes this is problematic for a pleasing and cohesive site design. I found a possible ‘bug’ that helps me create my own privacy and terms pages without a lot of work. This is one bug I hope the DNN team doesn’t fix anytime soon! :)
Any skin that uses the current skin objects for ‘Privacy Statement’ and ‘Terms of Use’ can take advantage of this little hack.
Make sure your site is using a url format of HumanFriendly. So in your web.config file you will need to find the line for the friendly url provider and if you are using the DNNFriendlyURL provider make sure it has urlFormat="HumanFriendly" as one of the parameters. Create a new tab/page with a page title of ‘Privacy’. Add your own content, move modules around on this page, and change skins as you would any other...
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By Dylan Barber on
9/4/2009 1:29 AM
The website I work on as a fulltime developer has some unique challenges. Besides covering over 10 languages for both content and UI we have a lot of text areas where users can describe and enter various bits of free form data. We provide reports for the information but for some reason unknown to me lots of our users print out the form with all the text areas they filled in as a ‘report’. This was never intended so the first request to make the text area larger so all the typed in info would print sort of struck me as strange, why not print the report that shows all the info? Well as any developer can tell you it doesn't matter if the problem is the programming or not its your problem!
I set out to fix this with jQuery since I did not want to go back and revise 62 data entry pages! jQuery.com had a few plugins that I was never able to make the work the way I wanted. One of the problems with the plug-in I first used was that they required the user to click in the text area to activate the function and expand...
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By Dylan Barber on
9/3/2009 5:48 PM
OpenForce '09 Connections in Las Vegas promises to be a great opportunity for DotNetNuke and Microsoft .NET developers to meet and learn about the latest developments in the DotNetNuke world. DotNetNuke enables organizations to develop rich, interactive websites and web applications for Microsoft .NET in a fraction of the time that they can develop directly in .NET. This year features a great selection of speakers who will provide insights into DotNetNuke module and skin development and administration. Visit the DevConnections/OpenForce '09 website now to register. The conference is held in conjunction with the Microsoft DevConnections conference at the Mandalay Bay Hotel from November 9th through the 12th. I’ll be there and really looking for people to hang with!
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