Every year since the first North American DotNetNuke conference (then named OpenForce), it was nothing short of the who’s who of the DotNetNuke community and ecosystem.  The buzz resulting from people before, during, and after the event was simply gravitating, and was sure to make anyone who didn’t attend jealous of those that did.  If you pay any attention to the blogs, forums, and twitter during this time, this proves true every year.

This year, a major change has been made.  The conference is no longer in Las Vegas, and the event is now run 100% by DotNetNuke Corporation.  This means to you that it’s more affordable than ever to attend the most prestigious DNN event of each year!

What does that mean to you? 

You can now spend just a fraction of the cost of attending DNN Connections to attend DotNetNuke World! 

You can be right in the middle of all of the action.

You can be the first to learn the latest and greatest news from and about DotNetNuke in the ecosystem and community.

You can meet and create more meaningful relationships with people whom you’ve only known online in the past.

Meet people that you never thought you would meet.

Catch your friends at some of the funniest moments!

Bring the family, and maybe see a sight or two.

This list could potentially never end.  At the end of the day, there’s way too much to miss.  Find a way to justify the trip, and get your hind parts to DNN World. 

I guarantee you that this is an investment in yourself and your career that you will not regret.  Think about it…

Have you ever heard anyone say that they wish they didn’t attend the official DotNetNuke conference?

Register to attend today!

This year I have decided to place a bigger focus on speaking at Developer Conferences and so over the last few months I have been submitting session proposals to major conferences around North America.

I am pleased to say that many of my submissions have been accepted and I have quite a busy speaking calendar for the upcoming Spring conference season.

VSLive

Conference Dates: April 18-22, 2011
Venue: Rio, Las Vegas
Website: http://vslive.com/lv

This excellent conference for .NET Developers is held two or three times a year and in April it will be held in Las Vegas.  I will be presenting two sessions at this conference.

• The Almighty @ – A Razor Primer
• WebMatrix Real World Data Centric Applications

If you would like to see me speak please use the registration code – VLSPK23 – for a $400 savings.

DevTeach

Conference Dates: May 30 – June 3, 2011
Venue: Intercontinental Hotel, Montreal, Canada
Website: http://www.devteach.com/

This excellent conference which is held annually in one of Canada’s 3 major cities, is this year planned for Montreal in the beautiful province of Quebec.  Come and see me speak on:

• The Almighty @ – A Razor Primer
• Have your Cake and Eat it Too - Using the WebFormsMVP Framework to Develop Testable Web Applications

Prairie DevCon

Conference Dates: June 13-14, 2011
Venue: Delta Regina, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada
Website: http://www.prairiedevcon.com/

The Prairie Developer Conference is the conference event for software professionals in the Canadian prairies!  At this conference I will be teaming up with my son Andrew to give two Razor presentations

• The Nurse² Razor Show – Parts 1 and 2

Notice that the focus is Razor – Razor and WebMatrix are new technologies and DotNetNuke’s support for Razor means that I will be able to put a DNN spin on many of my speaking engagements.

If you plan on attending any of these conferences – ping me (@cnurse is my twiiter alias) – and we can meet up.

Mix is another conference-type event where developers from all over gather to learn the greatest and newest things about technologies that work with or on the Microsoft stack.  This year, it’s being held on April 12-14 at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, NV.  For those of you that are familiar with or have attended DotNetNuke Connections (formerly known as OpenForce North America), this is the same hotel on the Vegas Strip.

The organizers had an open call for sessions to be submitted for the event, gaining an incredible number of submissions from very talented speakers all over the world.  Among those speakers are the DotNetNuke community’s very own Shaun Walker and Charles Nurse.  Each have two sessions submitted for consideration – and YOU can help get their sessions approved!

That’s right.  You have the opportunity to vote for their sessions to help them be speakers at Mix11.  All you have to do is visit the links below and click on many animals to prove you’re human for each vote.

Oh. And here’s the best part…  You can vote EVERY DAY between now and February 4th!

Don’t wait or put it off for tomorrow… VOTE NOW!

Shaun Walker’s Sessions

• Tapping into the Social Network
• The Many Faces of Mobile

Charles Nurse’s Sessions

• DotNetNuke (Hadron) – “Not Your Mamas DotNetNuke
• Have your Cake and Eat it Too Using the WebFormsMVP Framework to Develop Testable Web Applications

Why are you still reading?  VOTE! 

Some of you will already know, and some will be surprised to find out that this was my first time attending DotNetNuke Connections.  I have been to all but one of the Day of DotNetNuke events, and other events all over the United States, but never to DotNetNuke Connections.  I could tell early-on that this event was going to be different than anything I had attended before.  It was…

I arrived in Las Vegas early on Sunday with Chris Hammond and my lady, Kim.  We spent much of the day exploring the Vegas strip and taking pictures, while we waited for our rooms to be ready.  We would then turn in to prepare on our respective projects, awaiting for the next day to come, where the events would begin.

DotNetNuke Connections

The week would truly begin the next day, on Monday, and fly by so fast.  DNNCon was over before we realized it.  There were a ton of meet-ups, gatherings, and other networking to be had at all times of the day, all over the area.  It was extremely cool to meet people from all over the world in one place, many of which that were literally new to the DotNetNuke platform.

Photo courtesy of Chris Hammond's Flickr Stream

Being the Global Organizer of the Day of DotNetNuke, I was most interested in seeing how different the event, attendees, topics, and speakers were in contrast to the various DoDNN events.  There was a huge contrast in my opinion.  Many of the speakers were the same, but this event seemed to bring in a completely different crowd than the DoDNN.  There were many more decision-makers and other focused attendees that I don’t normally see at community-based events.  Some of the topics and speakers were the same, but the presentation styles were completely different, and the speakers came from around the world as well – from as far as Australia and Portugal. 

In talking to people, they were all very focused on getting the most out of every conversation.  This is something I try to breed into the community events, but people here seemed to be much more proactive about it on their own.  Everyone was either trying to promote themselves, or trying to learn something new from everyone else.  It was incredible.

No matter where you went at DNNCon, it appeared to be the who’s who event where you would be able to see nearly everyone that you’ve heard of walking around, talking, speaking, or just plain hanging out.

I think no matter who you were, you were learning and seeing new things.  In fact, I spoke to another vendor about their DNN site that has over a million pages on it, and uses Active Social pretty extensively.  Here is a screen shot of that vendor’s site, F5 DevCentral.

Another vendor I spoke to was helping with the implementation of a major college football website, NCAAFootball.com.  Their site gets around 10 million page views per month.  Impressive!!!

DNNCon Keynote by Shaun Walker

Photo courtesy of Chris Hammond's Flickr stream

I don’t think we can speak about DNNCon without speaking about the keynote speech, given by DotNetNuke founder and DNN Corp co-founder, Shaun Walker. You can always expect to have a great presentation from Shaun.  He is a fountain of knowledge, and has a unique and passionate perspective over open source, Content Management, and of course with DotNetNuke.  He spoke briefly about where DNN is, but spent a great deal of time going over where DNN will be, not only next year, but also the year after.

Some key points made revolve around:

• InstantOn – a way to have an App Store experience from within DNN
• Overall UI Overhaul – including the admin modules, there will be significant improvements to the DNN UI
• Social Media Integration – being able to manage your social media presence from within DNN
• Folder Provider – Being able to host your folders using a provider that can point to nearly any location, including the cloud
• SharePoint Integration – A folder provider for SharePoint, to pull in SP files and folders into DNN
• Seamless Integration into Mobile Devices – being able to face your DNN sites on any device, and allow any device to have apps built for DNN
• DotNetNuke adopted as the official standard for CMS’s in the State of Kentucky

There of course was an hour of content in the keynote, but it was streamed & tweeted out to everyone that morning.  Overall, I think Shaun did a great job, and it appeared from the applauses and the buzz that everyone was extremely happy over the keynote.

The Sessions

I went to many other sessions by DNN notables such as Bruce Chapman (of Ifinity fame), Cuong Dang (of r2Integrated), Chad Nash (of Data Springs), and even those of the newer faces, such as Beatriz Oliveira (of Bind).  The thing that appeared to be consistent all the way through was QUALITY.  These were all top-notch speakers, and they all delivered top-notch presentations.  I especially enjoyed Beatriz’s presentation and speaking style.  I wish that Bind was in the US, as we’d all be raised to a higher standard. :)

My session went pretty well.  I had been pretty nervous about it ever since being picked to speak – mostly because I’ve never spoken at a paid conference before.  When you speak predominantly at code camps and user groups, you can fallback easily on the thought that “so what” – they didn’t have to pay for anything mentality.  Not true here.  However, once the people began to filter into my room, and after speaking to some of the people there, I was put at ease.  I had a whole list of possible demo-able things to do, depending on how the crowd interest swayed.  Interestingly though, they appeared to really enjoy my SEO tips, so we never made it to the more complicated portions of my demo.  Thank you SO MUCH to all of you that came to my presentation!  I’m just sad that I forgot to ask someone to take pictures of me presenting.  It was my first time speaking at a DevConnections / DotNetNuke Connections.

My favorite presentations is nearly a tie between the Community is Good Business talk by Joe Brinkman and Scott Willhite, and the closing panel discussion.  I simply LOVE the DNN community, so I am quite biased there, but the closing panel discussion is invaluable to those who want to know about the inner-workings of DNN and DNN Corp, upcoming features, business strategy, preferences, code processes, and so much more.  It even re-sparked the debate on whether the core code should be in C# or VB.  Shaun’s answer was pretty surprising to most, as he didn’t rule out there being a C# version one day.  The reasoning wasn’t a religious debate type of answer, but rather one that centered mostly around hiring.  The truth is, that when you look at the two languages today, the only differences these days is the syntax.  Peter Donker has written a pretty good post recently, highlighting that.

Media from DNNCon

You can find plenty of media from the event at the DNNCon r2iSmash portal, and through the DNNCon Flickr group.  And of course my DNNCon Flickr set, shown below.

In closing, I just want to say thank you to those who choose the DNNCon sessions.  I was chosen before I was hired at DNN Corp, so it is still very fulfilling to know that I was worth having at the event.  I am equally thankful to DNN Corp for allowing me to continue to go.  Sometimes business gets in the way of things, so I was a bit scared when I was first hired.  I also want to thank those who attended the event.  You made this a very fun event to be a part of.  Every day and night was more fun than the average person could handle.  We could tell as soon as people began peeling off to their rooms.  :)  Lastly, I would like to thank DevConnections for having us.  Despite me being disappointed in the amount of cross promotion that our track had, it is nothing short of an honor for them to think that DNN is worthy of its own track at such a prestigious event.  Thank you!

The header image of me was taken by Chris Hammond.

DMX 05.03.02 has just been released. And next week is the primary European DNN conference.

Have you ever installed a piece of software but weren’t sure where to go from there? Have you struggled to find that feature that you know is there, but you’re not quite sure how to turn it on?  Have you occasionally had problems just getting some complex piece of software installed?  These are challenges faced by the average user of almost every piece of software ever created.  Few software applications are so straight forward and simple that no documentation is required.  As software becomes more and more complex, the documentation and training requirements increase as well.  You need documentation and training that caters to the beginner as well as the expert.

I have heard many DotNetNuke users recite these same challenges.  Like every content management system or application framework I have ever encountered, DotNetNuke is a complex system, so it is not unusual that some new users will find it challenging to get started.  It is also not unusual that many experienced DotNetNuke users and developers will find new features and capabilities that they never knew existed.  The biggest hurdle for many users is the perception that DotNetNuke is not well documented or that the only place to find information is in the forums.

Over the last 8 years, the DotNetNuke team, and the DotNetNuke community has created a wealth of documentation, videos and books covering all aspects of DotNetNuke.  As an Open Source project, DotNetNuke has relied heavily on community members not just for coding and design skills, but also for providing much of the documentation that is available for the platform.  Unfortunately, we have not always done a very great job of making that information easy to find for users.  Some of the information is available on DotNetNuke.com, but often you may need to venture out to other websites to get information provided by the broader DotNetNuke community.

My purpose with this post is to provide a good starting point for anyone who is new to DotNetNuke, and even for many long-time DotNetNuke users, administrators, designers and developers.  This list is far from exhaustive, but will provide a very solid foundation that should answer a lot of questions.  I have used everyone of these resources and know that they are all provide high quality material that is fairly up to date.  If you have been using DotNetNuke for any period of time, I am sure you have your own list of resources that you find valuable.  Feel free to leave a comment and tell me what documentation and training resources you have found helpful.

Documentation

There are a number of documents, both free and commercial, that are available for DotNetNuke.  All of these documents are kept up to date with the latest releases of DotNetNuke and are extremely valuable to new and experienced DotNetNuke users.

• Installation Guide – This basic installation guide should get you started with installing DotNetNuke.  It assumes that you already know how to setup SQL Server and IIS and focuses entirely on the DotNetNuke side of things in order to keep the guide short and simple.
  
• Quick Administration Guide – At 375 pages, the Quick Administration Guide is not all that quick, but it does provide information on practically every feature in DotNetNuke making it a very valuable resource.   Of course, compared to the 1700+ pages that is the full SuperUser Manual, the Quick Administration Guide is a quick read.
  
• DotNetNuke User and Superuser Manuals – Before there was a book, or online help, or really much documentation at all, there was the User Manual created by Lorraine Young.  This is the grand daddy of all user guides and is well worth the cost if you really must have a portable version of the documentation.  If you are a DotNetNuke Professional, Elite or Enterprise subscriber then you already have access to these manuals.  If not then you can purchase them on Snowcovered.
  
• Online Help – If you want the information in the User and Superuser Manuals but don’t really need it to be in PDF form, then checkout the Online Help.  It is the same documentation, except that it is not portable.  The really good news is that it is FREE!
  
• DotNetNuke Core API Help File – This documentation is brand new on the list.  The DotNetNuke Reference Team has been hard at work this year trying to pull this together, and starting with DotNetNuke 5.5 we finally have a Windows Help file that contains the complete core API.  This is a work in progress so some sections of the API will contain much greater details than other sections.

Free Videos

Some people have an easier time understanding content that engages both their visual and auditory senses.  To help those individuals there are a number of free videos available which cover a wide range of topics.

• Installing DotNetNuke – This video is a great place to start if you are new to DotNetNuke and want to get it installed.  Chris Hammond spends some time explaining how to install DotNetNuke and how to deal with some of the issues you may encounter along the way depending on your specific machine configuration.
  
• Basic DotNetNuke Administration – In the second video in the DotNetNuke Basic series, Chris covers the fundamentals of DotNetNuke and shows how to perform many of the common administrative tasks.
  
• Basic DotNetNuke Module Development – This is the third video in the DotNetNuke Basic series by Chris Hammond.  If you are interested in creating modules for DotNetNuke, then this video will help you get started.
  
• Basic DotNetNuke Skinning – In the fourth video in the DotNetNuke Basic series, Chris covers how to create your own custom DotNetNuke Skins.  The DotNetNuke Basic series contains over 6 hours of instruction and provides a wealth of information to help users get started with all aspects of DotNetNuke development and administration.
  
• DNNHero Tutorials – Aderson Oliveria has over 130 videos on various aspects of using DotNetNuke.  Each video is 5 to 10 minutes in length.  In these videos, Aderson covers a wide variety of topics that span both configuration and administration of core DotNetNuke features as well as discussing 3rd party modules and extensions. 
  
• PSDtoDNN Tutorials – Like Aderson, Rick Beddie has created dozens of videos that cover many different administrative tasks in DotNetNuke.  These videos are much shorter than those from DNN Hero and often only run between 1 and 5 minutes.  Don’t let the length fool you, these are still very useful videos when you are just trying to find that one button or dropdown box to enable or disable a feature.
  
• DNNProfessor Tutorials – Before Aderson and Rick started creating their videos, Buck Anderson had created a number of terrific videos on DNNProfessor.com.  While Buck has been somewhat quiet in 2010, there is still a lot of useful information in these videos and they are well worth your time to review.  If you have purchased XMod, then Buck has a number of videos covering that particular module.

Paid Videos/Webinars

The free video content is great, but sometimes you just need more information or you need very specific information that is more targeted to your particular needs.  In those cases, you should checkout some of the paid video options.

• Advanced DotNetNuke Webinars – DotNetNuke Corporation provides a number of paid webinars that go in depth on every aspect of DotNetNuke.  If you don’t see a scheduled webinar that specifically addresses your needs then speak with Chris Hammond and he can customize a training course specifically tailored for your organization.  These training courses go well beyond the free webinars and videos available online and are offered for those looking to take the next step into the world of DotNetNuke.
  
• DotNetNuke Creative e-Zine – Lee Sykes has created a large number of videos and articles covering most aspects of DotNetNuke.  These videos fall somewhere between the 10 minute videos provided by DNNHero and the 90+ minute comprehensive training videos and webinars created by Chris Hammond.  Like the DNNHero videos, each DNN Creative video is generally focused on a single task, feature or module.

Books

While the community continues to churn out more and more free documentation, sometimes a book is the best resource for the job.  If you want to know how to package your module or you want to know what a specific skin object does, then chances are that you will find that information in one of the many reference books available for DotNetNuke.

• DotNetNuke 5 User’s Guide: Get Your Website Up and Running – In this book is a good beginning reference for people wanting to get a DotNetNuke website up and running quickly.  Chris Hammond and Patrick Renner focus on those tasks commonly faced when installing and configuring a DotNetNuke website without bogging the reader down with all of the advanced options and settings which are rarely needed by most DotNetNuke users. 
  
• Professional DotNetNuke 5: Open Source Web Application Framework for ASP.Net – If you really need more in-depth coverage of the features in DotNetNuke 5 then this is a good book for you.  Written by some of most active members of the community, this is a well researched book which goes into great detail about all aspects of DotNetNuke including, installation, administration, development and skinning.  The only downside to this book is that it is starting to get a little dated.  Originally written for DotNetNuke 5.0, there are many features which have come out in the last 18 months that are not covered in the book.  If you are looking for a great reference book on DotNetNuke then this is the one to get.  When supplemented with the current user guide and API Help file, it provides a solid foundation for fully understanding DotNetNuke.

Community Generated Content

DotNetNuke has a very large and passionate user community.  That community is constantly creating great content that is made freely available to other members of the community.  If you need a question answered – check the forums.   Want to get the latest scoop on a feature that was just released - read the blogs of the developers who work on the platform.  Want to find out what kind of sites you can create with DotNetNuke – browse through the sites on the DNNGallery.  These sites are just a few of the ways that the DotNetNuke Community gives back to others in the community.

• Forums – The DotNetNuke forums are the hub of the DotNetNuke Community.  This is where the most active community members hang out.  If you need a question answered, chances are pretty good that someone in the forums knows the answer and is willing to provide the assistance you are seeking.  Just remember that everyone in the forums is there as a volunteer, so be nice.  We were all new users at some point and have not forgotten some of the challenges of learning a new system.  As long as you approach the forums with a little bit of respect for those who are volunteering their time to help you, then you should have a pretty positive experience.
  
• Blogs – The blogs on DotNetNuke.com are written by members of DotNetNuke Corporation and members of the Core Team.  If there is some new feature in DotNetNuke or some major community event, chances are pretty good that you will read about it here first.  Some of the blogs are pretty technical and some are more social in nature, but all of them provide a lot of insight for the community into what is happening with the platform.
  
• DotNetNukeBlogs.com – Originally created by Chris Hammond, DotNetNukeBlogs.com aggregates blogs from many of the leaders in the DotNetNuke Community.  There is some overlap with the blogs on DotNetNuke.com, but there is quite a bit of unique content that is aggregated from the blogs of various community members like Mitchel Sellers, Cuong Dang, Will Morgenweck, Bruce Chapman and many others.
  
• DNNGallery – The DNNGallery is a great site to checkout some of the top websites built using DotNetNuke.  All of these sites were submitted by various community members to help show off the great capabilities of DotNetNuke.

Conferences and Community Events

Every year, DotNetNuke users across the globe get together to discuss DotNetNuke.  We meet at local and national conferences and user groups.  This is a chance to get a little more direct contact with key community members and learn from some of the best minds in the DotNetNuke community.

• DotNetNuke Connections – The DotNetNuke Connections conference is held every year in Las Vegas in conjunction with the DevConnections conferences.  This conference is the premier event in North America for DotNetNuke developers, administrators and designers.  With attendance by most of the major DotNetNuke vendors, DotNetNuke Corporation engineers and DotNetNuke Core team members, if you have a question about some aspect of DotNetNuke, you are guaranteed to find someone here who can answer your question or at least put you in touch with the right person.  This is the place to be if you want to find out about the new features that have come out this past year, and those features that are being worked on for 2011.
  
• DotNetNuke OpenForce Europe – OpenForce Europe is the counterpart to the DotNetNuke Connections event and is the place where Europeans come together to learn about the latest with DotNetNuke.  Attendees tend to be predominantly from Europe but still include a number of high profile DotNetNuke Corp employees and DotNetNuke Core team members.
  
• Day Of DNN – The Day of DNN is a series of community driven events that started in 2009 with Day of DNN – Orlando.  This year there was a Day of DNN – Europe in Paris this past spring and there is also an upcoming Day of DNN – Chicago that is coming up on October 2nd.  Much like the Connections and OpenForce events, DayOfDnn provides a great opportunity to meet some of the leaders in the community.  These events are generally well attended and provide great content but are mostly regional events.

DotNetNuke is a great platform, with a great community.  If you are really interested in learning how to use DotNetNuke to its fullest then there is documentation, videos and websites that can help you.  If you know of other websites or content that didn’t make my initial list, then just leave a comment below and I’ll be happy to review any additional items that you think are worthy.

I feel a bit overwhelmed right now.  I haven’t presented at any community events in at least a couple of months, and I have somehow found myself committed to 7 different public presentations at 4 different events in 4 different cities over the next 2 months – and that’s not including 2 huge presentations that are not public.

I am not complaining though.  I wouldn’t agree to any of them if I didn’t enjoy it.  I just didn’t realize how quickly they all sprung up on me!  :)

Bay Area DotNetNuke User Group

Date: Sept. 16th
Location:  DotNetNuke Corporation Corporate Office, San Mateo, CA
Cost:  FREE
Registration:  http://baydug.org/

Page One: All of the SEO Hooks in DotNetNuke that YOU Need to Know
It's one thing to be an "SEO expert" and it's another thing to know how to implement the varying search engine optimization techniques.  Many CMS solutions claim to be SEO-friendly, or "the best at SEO," but this session will show how DotNetNuke has the most built-in SEO hooks out of any CMS platform available today.  You don't need to be a programmer or a skinner to benefit from this session - but you do need to be ready to be inspired to increase your search engine results page ranking at the end of this session!

Day of DotNetNuke Chicago

I will be presenting 2 different sessions at the first annual Day of DotNetNuke Chicago.

Date:  Oct. 02
Location:  Northern Illinois University, Chicago, IL
Cost:  FREE
Registration:  http://chicago.dayofdotnetnuke.com/

Programming Your Way into Your Designers Hearts
All to often, we as programmers, paint our designers into corners. Unfortunately, our designers may also be our customers. This session is meant to teach you how to develop your DotNetNuke modules using basic methods and standards to enable your designers instead of making them angry. Using what you learn here, your designers and customers will be able to change your modules to fit their designs with the greatest of ease. Before you know it, if you follow my advice, Fridays will be "buy your programmer a beer" day at the office! (One can dream, right?)

Installation and Upgrading of DotNetNuke and DNN Modules
There are quite a few misconceptions out there about the level of difficulty when installing and upgrading DotNetNuke. This session is intended to walk you through the entire installation and upgrade process, outlining some of the common problems and solutions. As an add-on, we will also go through installing modules on DotNetNuke. At the end of this session, you will walk out being inspired to install DotNetNuke right away, and install all of your favorite modules. After we're done, you too will think it's easy!

Silicon Valley Code Camp

To be honest, this code camp format really confuses me.  I have 3 sessions submitted.  I have no idea if I will be presenting one or all of them.  I will be ready though.

Date:  Oct. 09-10
Location:  Foothill College, Los Altos Hills, CA
Cost:  FREE
Registration:  http://www.siliconvalley-codecamp.com/Register.aspx

Introduction to DotNetNuke 5
Have you heard of DotNetNuke (DNN) and don't know what it is? Have you used it, but just don't know where to start with it? This session is designed to show you how to get started with DotNetNuke, and give you the tools and information to leap forward to be able to use it for your websites and company. First, we will show you how to install it, and then give an overview of the features that the newest version of DNN has. Finally, we will give you guidance on how to move forward with DNN in your company, consultancy, or personal endeavors.

DotNetNuke 5 Administration: Tips & Tricks
It is one thing to install DotNetNuke, but it is an entirely different thing to manage it. Oftentimes, the person who manages a DotNetNuke website is not the person who installed it, and may not have the skill set to know how to manage their DotNetNuke website effectively. In this session, we will walk through some of the more common DotNetNuke management and administration scenarios, showing you how to be a POWER Administrator and overcome administrative challenges.

Using Advanced jQuery Techniques to Enhance Your DotNetNuke Modules
You may know how to build a DotNetNuke module. You may know jQuery pretty well. But do you know how to use jQuery to really punch up your UI to wow your clients and website visitors? Do you know how to leverage jQuery UI to make your module UI more flexible? This session aims to get you in the right direction by providing you the techniques and tools to answer those questions. The next module you build will have that extra something that you never knew was missing!

DotNetNuke Connections

I am more excited about this speaking event then nearly any other speaking event I’ve been lucky enough to present at!  This is also my first time going, so I really hope to see every single one of you there!  :)

Date:  Nov. 1-4
Location:  Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino, Las Vegas, NV
Cost:  $1,595.00 (discount available for user groups)
Registration:  [link to site]

DotNetNuke 5 Administration: Tips & Tricks
It is one thing to install DotNetNuke, but it is an entirely different thing to manage it. Oftentimes, the person who manages a DotNetNuke website is not the person who installed it, and may not have the skill set to know how to manage their DotNetNuke website effectively. In this session, we will walk through some of the more common DotNetNuke management and administration scenarios, showing you how to be a POWER Administrator and overcome administrative challenges.

** PLEASE NOTE: This session will be updated specifically for this event.

I hope to see you at one of my upcoming presentations.  Please make it a point to tell me hi, and tell me how much you hate my blog!  :)

So if you’ve been under a rock lately you might not have heard that the annual DotNetNuke conference is coming up. While in the past it has been branded as OpenForce, this year it is just simply DotNetNuke Connections, to better fit inline with the DevConnections banner.

This years event is once again going to be held in conjunction with DevConnections in Las Vegas Nevada, November 1-4. The conference is at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, a great venue that has been the amazing home to the DotNetNuke conference for the previous three years.

I am happy to announce the release of DotNetNuke 5.5.  Since we first released Localization support in DotNetNuke 3.0, we have known that the story was not complete.  With DotNetNuke 5.5, I am pleased to say we now have full localization support.  This was one of the main features that we laid out in our DotNetNuke 5.x vision at OpenForce 2007 and was the last major feature missing from our original roadmap for the 5.x platform. 

Content localization in DotNetNuke 5.5 will allow you to easily manage your web pages in a primary language and then utilize translators to keep the content synchronized in multiple secondary languages.  Whether you are maintaining your site in a single language or dozens of languages, the content localization system will help guide your content editors and translators through the process.  Although content localization required extensive changes to the core platform, we have been able to add this new feature while still improving overall system performance.  In addition, with the hundreds of other changes, enhancements and bug fixes, people are already saying that they are finally ready to migrate off the 4.x platform.

DotNetNuke 5.5 also marks another milestone: earlier today we announced the immediate availability of DotNetNuke Enterprise.  DotNetNuke Enterprise adds Content Staging to an already impressive list of features available in the DotNetNuke Professional platform.  As we have done with DotNetNuke Professional since we originally launched it 16 months ago, we will continue to expand and strengthen the features of the DotNetNuke Enterprise platform over the coming months to ensure our customers are receiving a great return on their investment.

Below are the highlights from this months release.  As usual, you can see a full list of changes in the changelog.

Major Highlights

• Added Content Localization support
• Added new wrappers for additional Telerik controls
• Improved performance by updating Data Access Block.
• Updated Telerik components to latest release.
• Added core Unit Tests to the source code package
• Added new Default Visibility setting for Profile Properties.
• Added ability to suppress auto-injected Module css class.
• Added new Settings and Configuration properties to base Presenter class.
• Improved logging during upgrades.
• Added support for Media element in styles skin object.
• Fixed issue which prevented system from running correctly when using alternate port number
• Fixed issue with portals not being created after upgrade.
• Fixed issue where incorrect AdministratorRoleId could be added leading to UI incorrectly showing "padlock" icons in permissions grid
• Fixed issue with welcome emails not being sent if system is set to use a double byte langugage.
• Fixed issue with viewing Profile picture.
• Fixed portal creation so User profile page is set correctly.
• Fixed broken link to verify language resources.
• Fixed issue with Host updating Site Settings.
• Fixed issue with HTML module's database level dependency on the Modules.ModuleTitle field.
• Fixed issue with Host/Admin being able to disable all languages.
• Fixed issue where it was possible to have a disabled portal default language by enabling the applicable values on upgrade.
• Fixed issue with User Profile Image not showing.
• Fixed issue with Tab Order starting at -1 when hard deleted from Recycle Bin.
• Fixed issue where an exception occurred when editing page settings of a disabled language (that once had been enabled)
• Fixed issue with File Manager when adding new folders, no longer have to Click the root folder first.
• Fixed parent drop down in edit page settings so that users who have edit rights, bt are not Administrators get None Specified option.
• Fixed issue with Profile Image Control.
• Fixed issue where wrong portalid was used if accessing site settings via host->portals menu. This could display the wrong set of languages for a portal and lead to portal display language being incorrectly updated.
• Fixed issue with GetTabPaths Stored procedure to handle null culture pages correctly.
• Fixed issue with case insensitive fonts in Captcha control.
• Fixed issue with Telerik editor file management.
• Fixed issue with exception thrown when creating new languages.
• Fixed issue where host vendors did not allow selection of an image from a host folder.
• Fixed issue with upgrades when there are deleted portals.
• The Edit Profile link in the View Profile should redirect to the Manage Profile page.
• Fixed issue where language editor page size was not defaulting to 10 as required.
• Fixed issue with SendMail removing HTML formatting.
• Fixed issue where anonymous users were not respecting the browser default language setting for current locale
• Updated CoreSitemapProvider to use the ModifiedDate of the Tab and Modules on the Tab for the LastModified date for the PageUrl.
• Verify Language Resources to Verify Language Resource Files to match the wireframes for the Content Localization project.

Security Fixes

• Potential Resource Exhaustion

Updated Modules/Providers

The following modules and providers have been updated in the 5.5.0 packages.  Please see the specific project pages for notes on what bugs or enhancements were corrected with each release.

Modules

• Events Module 05.01.04

Providers

• none

Isaac Asimov was once quoted as saying “The only constant is change”.  That has certainly been true of my time with the DotNetNuke project. Over the last seven years of working on the DotNetNuke project and working at DotNetNuke Corporation I have held a number of different roles within the organization.  I have defined and coded major product features, built and managed the DotNetNuke Marketplace, managed the release process, managed both OpenForce Conferences, oversaw the QA function, and created and managed the DotNetNuke Professional support team.  During this time there have been a lot of things for which I am proud to have hand in developing and a few that I wish I could go back and do differently.  Through it all, I have been extremely proud to be a part of this organization, both as a volunteer and later as a co-founder and employee at DotNetNuke Corporation.

Once again, my role within DotNetNuke is changing as I hand over my responsibilities on the Engineering team to Rob Chartier and his team.  I am moving away from having day to day involvement in the code or managing the associated engineering teams.  The upcoming 5.4.3 release will likely be my last release as an official member of the engineering group.  While I am capable of functioning in the engineering role, my skills and passion are more closely aligned with those of the Product and Community Teams.  Change is always hard, but I am happy that we’ve been able to grow DotNeNuke Corporation to the point where we have a great team of engineers and support personnel, allowing me to pursue different opportunities within the company.

I am currently in the middle of transitioning to a role on the Product team working closely with Shaun Walker and Israel Martinez in helping to analyze the competitive landscape, and taking input from various stakeholders to define a product roadmap and specific product requirements which will guide the engineering team moving forward.  I will also have the opportunity to do some feature prototyping and proof of concepts so that I can stay somewhat involved in coding which I still love.  Finally, I will also be working closely with Scott Wilhite and Chris Paterra on various community building initiatives, which I will be discussing further later today.

DotNetNuke has always been a community driven product built around the vision and leadership of Shaun.  Even with the formation of DotNetNuke Corporation that has not changed.  This is a great opportunity for me to get back to working more closely with Shaun and Scott and I look forward to this change in my day to day responsibilities.  When Shaun, Scott, Nik and I started this company almost four years ago, we didn’t know how things would ultimately end up, but we knew that like a rollercoaster, there would be ups and downs and sudden course changes.  That has certainly held true and I am excited to see what the future of DotNetNuke holds for me around the next curve.

In previous years, one thing or another has consistently prevented me from attending the popular DotNetNuke OpenForce events.  Last year, my only chance was to go as a speaker.  That didn’t work out for me.  This year is different though.  I will be seeing you there!  Why?  Easy…  I am very honored to be able to announce that I have been selected to be a speaker at this years event!

I submitted around 8 sessions for consideration to DotNetNuke Connections this year.  Luckily, one really fit in with what they were looking for this year, but it wasn’t the session that I would’ve thought it to be.  I had a few cutting-edge sessions there, and a couple in-depth sessions as well.  However, the one that caught the eyes of the selection committee was, “DotNetNuke 5 Administration: Tips and Tricks.”

I have done this session and sessions like it uncountable times.  However, this will be the first time that I wanted to see what you’d like to hear in such a session.  What are you biggest administration gotchas?  What would you like for me to go over?  If I can fit it in, I will.  Leave a comment to let me know.

For those of you that follow me on Twitter, you might have noticed my posting the other day noting that I have submitted my session topics for OpenForce 2010. I thought I'd share with you the topics that I submitted, if you have any ideas for other sessions feel free to post a comment, and I might try to get something proposed for it.