The primary reason for using AS was the integration of Active Forums (AF). Active Forums in my estimation is the best forum module for DotNetNuke (DNN). It is robust and feature rich and is far easier to set-up than any other. The user-interface (UI) is more intuitive than that of DNN’s core module and well worth the investment. I have used AF for many years with great success.

The other main reason was we needed to tie it into a blog/article module. AS had hooks for doing so with Ventrian’s News Articles module. And while I’m covering this, with News Article v7.69 , Scott McCulloch (developer) includes an option for Active Social journal integration. Sweet! <digression>And if you haven’t used modules from Ventrian yet, I have a question…What the hell is wrong with you? Ventrian offers the best module subscription on the planet, period. </digression>

First, setup was relatively easy armed with the products documentation and a wealth of knowledge at Active Modules knowledge base and forums. The AS package includes two modules,  Active Social and Active Forums. The AS module once installed and placed on a page has 3 different set-up options.

The Simple install creates 4 pages that host modules for:

• Forums – Contains the Active Forums module, which has your discussion forums and your Active Social group forums.
• Groups – A single page contains the Listing of all the Groups and displays individual groups when selected.
• Members – This page will show the member list and the profile of a chosen member.
• Inbox – Contains the private messaging interface.

The Standard install contains 9 pages and has some definite SEO advantages, this was the configuration that we choose. Those pages are:

• Forums – Same as Simple
• Group Directory – Contains the list of all the groups in the network.
• Group Details – Default view of a group profile. Only visible once a group has been created.
• Members – Searchable listing of all members of the network.
• Profile – This is the page used to display a member’s profile.
• Inbox – Same as Basic Configuration.
• Social Summary – The Social Stream. This page will show you updates and activity for members and groups on the site. It can be filtered to show specific types of information or certain user types.
• Login – Create a separate page containing only the active social login. This will be used for verified registration or other non-standard logins.
• Sign-Up – A page containing the Active Social Sign-Up wizard. Set this page as the “User Page” in the site settings. It will automatically redirect users to their profile.

Lastly there is the Expert Option, which is according to the user manual is not for the faint of heart and in fact isn’t really covered.

The next step is to configure the modules on the pages and set the functionality your looking for. This is probably a good place to stop and resign myself that there will be a part two of this blog.

Comments welcome…

• Fixed issue with ExecuteSql method overloads to be able to handle ExecuteSQL(string, nothing) again.
• Fixed issue with Indirect Reference to DotNetNuke Library errors.

The release of 5.5 Alpha was a surprise to me. I have seen it progress in Gemini, I was just blissfully unaware of it progress. The focus of 5.5 is localization. I know, your going to say that DNN has localization. Well, in part that’s true. This is not the static strings localization, nope, we’re talking content localization.

You can read that DNN Blog on the topic here.

In the last two or three releases there have been some major issues, one that directly effects me is a missing method from the DataProvider in 5.4.3. What’s makes it slightly more strange is a very similar issue was found in the previous release (5.4.2). Two other “showstopper” issues that also appeared in recent builds are DNN -12501 and DNN-12412.

In DNN 5.4.0 a change to the PageBase class in DNN has caused aspx pages to break in 3rd party modules. Meaning scripts wouldn’t run, RSS and some AJAX callbacks where broken. The problem was fixed, but a game of Jenga has begun.

When it was first announced the rigid release times sounded like a good idea. Every quarter there is a minor release, every Month a bugfix release. The dates for these releases cannot be missed. And to the Core Teams credit, they haven’t missed a date yet. That said, perhaps DNN needs to find a way to detect breaking issues before RTM, beta has always been an expensive way to do so, but one that DNN seems to avoid.

Of course, you’re going to get the people who press a beta into production, but the beta releases would certain produce a better production build to the DNN community.

I have used this method several time in testing and found it to be flawless (2008 R2, 64-bit). It does come with a few restriction, such as you can’t install using a sub-domain. It said to work on IIS 7 and 7.5 both 32-bit and 64-bit and SQL Server 2005 and 2008 both full and Express editions.

Because MakeDNNSite works on both IIS 7 and 7.5, the Application Pool created uses the NetworkService account. While this is fine for IIS 7, however it is not the preferred account for IIS 7.5, rather the IIS AppPool Idently account should be used. This can be simply changed by right-clicking the newly created AppPool and selecting ‘Advanced Setting’. There, under Process Model, change the identity to ‘ApplicationPoolIdentity’.

If you opt to use the ApplicationPoolIdentity you will need to update you permissions on the website directory as well. I have blogged about this in detail (IIS 7.5 AppPool Identities).

In short, it’s a really nice tool at a great price (Free.) I highly recommend it for all DNN users, regardless of your environment or skill level.

When you first login to 2008 R2 you will be greeted with the Server Manager.

Server Manager

After you expand the Roles node and the Web Server node in the left pane you will be in the main IIS Manager.

IIS Manager 7.5

Right Click on the “Sites” folder and select “Add Web Site.”

Add Web Site

In the next screen we enter the web sites specifics. Fill in the highlighted areas with your information. Note that as you enter your site name an new Application Pool is created.

Web Site Details

During the above process you will create a new directory to which you will deploy your DNN code.

Create Website Directory

After this is complete, select Application Pools from the IIS Manager node. The detailed view should indicate that the AppPool is in Integrated Pipeline mode.

AppPool View

If you have not already done so, copy your DNN files to your website directory. In IIS Manager right click your new website and:

1. Select “Edit Permissions.”
2. Select the “Security” tab.
3. Click the “Edit” and then “Add” button
4. Click the “Locations” button and make sure you select your machine.
5. Enter “IIS AppPool\<YourAppPoolName>” in the “Enter the object names to select:” text box.
6. Click the “Check Names” button and click “OK”.
7. Grant <YourAppPoolName> modify permissions on the directory.

Securing Resources for your Process Identity

At this point you are ready to edit your web.config for your database connection., and get started.

If you have any questions on the Application pool details, I have covered this in an earlier Blog, you can read that here.

Times change however, and DotNetNuke Corporation is adapting to these changes. For instance the Issue Tracking has been reworked, and the new “Just like Clockwork” release dates. The later replacing the “When it’s Ready” policy. I was never a big fan of this policy but I do understand that a project that relied on a largely volunteer staff, this was a best fit model for DNN. Again, times change.

A few personal observations from someone (me) who has used, developed to and profited from DNN since version 1.5, the iBuySpy fork:

1. I have noticed that the quality of releases since DNN incorporated has risen greatly. There seems to be more attention paid to details and the QA/Testing group appears to have things well in hand.
2. The security of a DNN build has always been handled well, but the newer releases have been outstanding with no critical issues in well over a year. Kudos go to Cathal Connolly for an outstanding effort.

If you haven’t installed and tested this rich development platform, or perhaps you have in the past and lost favor; you need to check-it out. You’ll find a robust community and user-groups world-wide. Give it a shot.

Over the past year or so I have become more familiar with and almost comfortable with the LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP.) I have been a die-hard Microsoft developer and admit that my strength is in the IIS, MSSQL, and .NET stack. All developer have they’re comfort zone, but I digress. Lets talk Joomla!.

Lets start with the test server. It’s VM running Ubuntu 9.10 with the LAMP stack installed. A freshly downloaded copy of Joomla! 1.5 in place and the installation begins. Here is where some other CMS’s can take a lesson (including BrandX)! The installation was very straight forward and took literally a minute to complete! A few minor configuration settings,a database name, user and presto, your in business.

That was the easy part. Now what to do in this new interface? A new world compared to BrandX! As with any “new” product a learning curve is a certainty, but Joomla! is truly a whole new world. I’ll write back with my finding and I look forward tou your comments.

To Oracle’s credit, they have published  a press release stating their commitments regarding their acquisition of MySQL by way of acquiring Sun. Personally, I’m not buying it.

For years Oracle worked, behind the scenes to discredit MySQL and tried hard to understand how their customers could ever consider using such an “immature” product instead of their lead product. In fact, it was so important to Oracle that they offered some very substantial discounts to customers who were using MySQL and Oracle. The good news is that this strategy didn’t work. MySQL had and has a staunch following that has always been a little leery of Oracle.

I’ve been a CTO at two locations that used Oracle and have found their practices to be cut-throat, sometimes bordering on ruthless. Is Oracle a serious threat to the open-source community? In my estimation, it certainly is, more than most of my colleagues, although a huge percentage of them would agree that this acquisition is not good for MySQL. Does Oracle participate in the open-source community? Sure, in a manner that supports themselves through commercial offerings. This is not the true spirit of open-source and leads to a slippery slope.

I’ve posted a poll on the right of this post, feel free to participate.

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

If you’ve been waiting for your moment to pitch in, it’s now. First we need tech savvy testers to upgrade their blogs and kick the tires, make sure everything is rolling like you expect it to. Here’s a list of all the fun and geeky new stuff in 2.9 to try out. Second, and more importantly, we need everyone to test out their plugin compatibility.

If you’re a user of plugins, there’s a groovy new compatibility feature on the plugin directory where you can vote on whether a plugin is compatible with a version or not and it’ll get registered in the new plugin compatibility checker. This is as a replacement to the old wiki-based lists we’d do before. To see it in action check out this Akismet plugin page, as you can see 14 people have already registered that it’s compatible with 2.9.