By Brian Swanson on 1/15/2009 12:00 PM

DotNetNuke is more and more being used and implemented in enterprise environments.  Having recently celebrated its 6th anniversary, it has become not only a full featured application framework/content management system, but a VERY stable environment for deploying high quality sites that demand high availability and quick response times.  Different companies, of course, go about providing the "high availability and quick response times" in different ways: load balancers, web farms, etc.

As of version 4.5.x (I believe) DotNetNuke introduced support for SSL as a core feature of the framework.  This functionality allows you to enable SSL on the site, which instantly cause all host and portal admin pages to be redirected to an HTTPS URL, and selectively individual pages on the site to be required to be viewed over HTTPS as well.  By enabling SSL on DotNetNuke, and marking a given page as "Secured", DotNetNuke will no longer allow that page to be viewed over the unsecured HTTP URL.  This presents a HUGE challenge...

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By Brian Swanson on 1/14/2009 3:33 PM

I recently went through an upgrade from a custom compiled DotNetNuke release 4.0.3.  It was interesting to say the least, but I faced quite a few challenges.  All of which would have been so much easier if I just thought about what I was doing instead of blindly following someone else's guide for the upgrade.

Keep in mind for minor revisions where you are only upgrading to a release that is a couple revisions newer the upgrade process SHOULD be fairly straight-forward.  In the past, when upgrade from 4.7.x, or 4.8.x to version 4.9.x it was as simple as unzipping the upgrade package and copying the contents into your website folder overwriting whatever files already exist.  Since this was a major jump in revisions, I assumed at least some things had changed significantly enough that I'd do a search on the Internet for a guide on the upgrade.  I couldn't find anything to go from 4.0.x to 4.9, but I did run across Mitchell Seller's...

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By Brian Swanson on 1/12/2009 8:58 PM

I've participated in the local Memphis .Net User's Group on and off for the past couple of years...More off than on to be completely honest.  I always have the best of intentions of going to the meetings, but then something comes up and I don't end up making it.  Last month I made a concerted effort to attend as I had contacted the current president of the group, Colin Neller, about running a food drive for the Memphis/Mid-South Food Bank, an idea that came from Steve Andrews and GeekFoodDrive.com.  During the break at the meeting last month, I introduced myself to Collin, and we discussed a few things about the food drive and potentially starting a "geek lunch" in the Memphis area. 

...

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By Brian Swanson on 11/4/2008 6:30 AM

Snowmint Creative Solutions has released version 1.1.5 of their expense tracking software Budget Workbook.

This release REALLY fixes a minor bug found in the previous version that kept the preferences file from being saved. Ah the joys of different operation systems and their nuances...

Purple Ant is responsible for creating the Windows versions of several of Snowmint Creative Solution's products.

By Brian Swanson on 10/22/2008 8:09 AM

Snowmint Creative Solutions has released version 1.1.4 of their expense tracking software Budget Workbook.

This release fixes a minor bug found in the previous version that kept the preferences file from being saved.

Purple Ant is responsible for creating the Windows versions of several of Snowmint Creative Solution's products.

By Brian Swanson on 10/22/2008 8:02 AM

Snowmint Creative Solutions has released version 1.0.4 of their financial planning software Budget Planner.

Purple Ant is responsible for creating the Windows versions of several of Snowmint Creative Solution's products.

By Brian Swanson on 10/6/2008 11:22 PM

Snowmint Creative Solutions has released version 1.1.3 of their Expense tracking software Budget Workbook.

Purple Ant is responsible for creating the Windows versions of several of Snowmint Creative Solution's products.

By Brian Swanson on 10/3/2008 4:34 PM

I'm working on a new "secret" project web site with a friend of mine.  One of the features we want to implement on the site is the ability to enter a sub-domain as a search/filter of sorts for the site.  There are two different elements that come in to play when implementing a feature like though (well three when you count the programming on the site itself):  DNS, and IIS.

It turns out that both are actually trivial...

To implement a wildcard sub-domain using Microsoft DNS it is as simple as adding an A record for your given domain where the hostname is '*' (no quotes).

To implement a wildcard sub-domain using Microsoft IIS requires a dedicated IP address for the site.  Open IIS Manager, find your website, right-click and then click on Properties.  on the "Web Site" tab of the properties window that opens up, click the "Advanced" button.  Typically there should only be a single entry, so you might need to edit it.  Make sure an IP address for the server is selected (instead of "All Unassigned"),...

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By Brian Swanson on 9/9/2008 4:51 PM

After upgrading my AT&T Tilt to Windows Mobile 6.1, I was suddenly unable to sync with my Vista PC.  After a little poking around and 'Net searching, I found a new setting under Settings->Connections->USB to PC.  Unchecking the "Enable advanced network functionality" allowed my phone to once again sync with the PC.

 

By Brian Swanson on 9/9/2008 4:50 PM

Just a couple of quick blog posts, because I am always having to track down this information over and over again when I get an update for a phone, or get a new Windows Mobile phone...

 If you are wondering how to change the default area code that comes up when creating a new contact.  Here's the steps:

1. Go to Start->Contacts (or open the Contacts app in your preferred method)
2. Select Menu->Options in the Contacts app
3. Change Area Code from default 425 to your local area code

 If nothing else this will help me remember next time I'm trying to make the same change.