Net Data Design, LLC Blog

RC1 contains a few more fixes, bringing the number of fixed tickets up to 23.  If you are already running Beta 1, visit Tools->Upgrade in your blog’s admin to get RC1.  You can also  download the RC1 package and install manually.  If all goes well, 2.9.1 will be here soon.

While the newest DotNetNuke release (5.2.1) is primarily a stabilization release, it does pack a much needed new caching provider that allows the application to run much better under load with improved performance. There have been a few cases, from what I can see, with some minor upgrade issues but as a whole this is a worthwhile upgrade.

The major highlights are:

• Fixed issue where banners were not properly rotated according to the specified views/clicks.
• Fixed issue where upgrades could fail if the the user account did not have permission to update objects in some db schemas.
• Fixed issue where list values were visible outside of the Portal where they were created.
• Fixed issue where caching providers were not rendering unicode characters properly.
• Fixed issue with missing Telerik assembly in the source package.
• Fixed issue where Ajax HostSetting was not properly set on upgrade from 4.x installations.
• Fixed issues where upgrades would fail with a unique index violation.
• Fixed issue with the Starter Kit which was missing HTML module files.
• Fixed issue where page templates were not working correctly.
• Fixed default settings for the module and output caching providers.
• Fixed issue which prevented Blog module from working after some upgrades to 5.x.
• Fixed issue when creating a new module in the Module Definition Wizard if the .ascx extension was not specified.
• Fixed issue where localization was not working if the application virtual directory name was also part of the module name.
• Fixed issue where the FriendlyName for Schedule Items was not being saved.
• Fixed issue where GetUserCountByPortal was making excessive database calls instead of using cached values.
• Added binding redirect setting in web.config to prevent versioning issues with Telerik assembly.

Providers:

• FileModuleCachingProvider 05.02.01
• MemoryModuleCachingProvider 05.02.01
• SchedulingProvider 05.02.01

Wordpress has released version 2.9 of their popular blogging script Wordpress which can be downloaded from the official Wordpress website. Users who have configured automatic updates can also upgrade to the new version of Wordpress from within their blogs. It is however recommended to backup the files and database before initiating the update.

The new version comes with over 500 bug fixes, changes and enhancements which makes it a recommended download and install. Some of the new features include:

• Trashbin: Posts that are deleted are now moved to the trash instead of being deleted irrecoverably. It is possible to recover posts from the trash at a later time.
• Image Editor: A basic image editor that can be used to edit, rotate, scale and crop images.
• Batch plugin support: Update up to ten plugins at once.
• Video Embeds: video embeds for popular sites have become just a tad easier as it is now possible to simply paste the url into the post which will be turned into an appropriate viewer by Wordpress automatically.
• Automatic database optimization which can be enabled by adding define(‘WP_ALLOW_REPAIR’, true); to the Wordpress config file.
• Post Thumbnails options which can be used to display thumbnails in every post if the theme supports it.
• Better SEO thanks to rel=canonical.
• Custom galleries with the ability to add pictures from several posts.

Image my suprise this morning when I grabbed my Blackberry off the nightstand to find I didn’t have my usually 20-30 emails. Even more startling was there was no emails! Had the world come to an end and I was unaware.

So, it’s down the stairs I go to crank up the laptop and what did I see? You guessed it, emails! It wasn’t the world that came to a stop, it was my Blackberry email service! You never know how dependent you are on something until it’s not available.

While I was still able to make phone calls (the first being to my phone carrier), browse the Internet and send and receive text messages. It was the phone call to my carrier that confirmed my suspicions about the email outage.

Research In Motion’s (RIM) service is normally very reliable, but it centralized approach mean a small issue can affect millions of Blackberry users. Maybe it’s time to rethink the architecture.

For myself the outage appears to lasted about 7 hours, but while I was awake, the 3 hours seemed like a much longer time. So, any other BB dependents go through withdraw? Maybe the nickname Crackberry fits!