Net Data Design, LLC Blog

A few weeks back I started testing and evaluating SmarterTrack 5 and I’ve been pleased with what I’ve found. And not just with the software, but SmarterTools themselves. First my finding with the newest (soon to be released) SmarterTrack 5 (ST5).

ST5 has, as I’ve mentioned previously, some welcomed new features. SmarterTools says they’re moving toward making ST a CRM application. The new set of features certainly put it on that path. The Call Log feature is a great addition allowing for other forms of communication besides email. Although the Call Log feature is a great asset to the application, the big one for me is the Follow-Up feature.

The Follow-Up as implemented in ST5 allows for agents and admins to place follow-ups on tickets. Follow-ups are incorporated with the system events allowing notifications to be sent to the agent as well as admins. These can be (and should be) assigned at the ticket level, not the agent themselves. Should a ticket be transferred, so is the follow-up.

Even though beta, other than a few bugs the application worked as expected. ST has never been the most intuitive software, but once you start working in it it becomes very clear. The newly added features fit directly into the ST interface, making them easy to deploy and use for agents.

Now, on a more personal note and an observation about SmarterTools employees. I mentioned in my last post I was having difficulty with a web service for single sign-on (SSO). This web service was to integrate DNN and ST logins. Shortly after the beta was released, I was contacted by SmarterTools. They wanted to assist in getting the web service issue resolved so that they where confident in the new web services in ST5. They even went as far as looking at my source code to verify it was not there service (it was my error).

Andrew handled my ticket, he was professional and did a complete analysis, for free!  And yes, he followed-up too. You don’t find many companies willing to spend time and resources on an issue raised in the self-help forum.

They’ve one me over and I highly recommend ST5. And by the way the new ST5 Web Service document can be found here.

An alternative method of installing DotNetNuke on IIS 7.5 9or IIS 7) is using the free helper application by Mike van der Meulen. MakeDNNSite is a nice little package that will give you a new DNN install without a lot of hassle. There is no manual web.config editing, Application Pool creating or setting of permissions (see note below). It will even download the latest build for you or use a package that you already have downloaded.

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.

So, what do I mean by new look? Well, the powers-that-be have moved DotNetNuke (DNN) to an open repository. Since it’s inception from the iBuySpy days the repository has been closed.  I should note that the project has always released a “source” version of the application to the public, and for the first few years this system worked for a majority of the DNN community.

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.

In the last installment of this series I covered the basic tools and theories behind delivering great streaming content to your audience without breaking the bank. Either out of pocket or in bandwidth, so lets talk about Bit Rate Throttling to begin with.

Imagine this – a client connects to your server, clicks on your featured video, watches 5 seconds of it to realize they have no interest in watching further, and move on to the next video.

In those 5 seconds, the server could have sent out 5 minutes worth of the video, and you paid for 5 minutes worth of bandwidth! With the Bit Rate Throtter + media bitrate detection, the server would only end up sending a little over 5 seconds worth, and you would end up paying only for what was used.

Bit Rate Throttling (BRT) is a module plug-in for IIS 7 0r IIS 7.5. It’s an extension of the IIS Media Service. The IIS7 Bit Rate Throttling module was first announced at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) show last April as part of the TCO advantage for Silverlight.  Enabling Web masters to throttle the delivery of any file based on the file type. It also has additional functions for digital audio/video files. Throttling can be set at the following levels within Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager: server, site, virtual directory, and file.

BRT contains the following features:

• Fast Start – the ability to send the first part of the media file without rate limiting, to seed the playback buffer in the player and make sure that playback can begin as soon as possible (most players try to pre-buffer a certain amount of the video, often 5 seconds, before starting playback). This also insures that if the connection suffers a hiccup, the playback can continue uninterrupted.
• Disconnect detection - when the client stops watching the video, goes to another page, or closes the video, the BRT detects the connection closure and stops sending the file.
• Built-in support for detecting the playback rate for common media formats, including .asf, .avi, .flv, .m4v, .mov, .mp3, .mp4, .rm, .rmvb, .wma, and .wmv.
• Ability to configure static throttling rates, and media auto-detection rates at any configuration level.

It should also be noted you can configure the BRT module to handle static files as well, such as a large [progressive] .jpg file. So, if you feel you need to trim the bandwidth, Bit Rate Throttling module is a great place to start.

In the next segment I’ll focus on the Smooth Streaming IIS 7+ features and capabilities.