Yesterday afternoon Hal Hayes and I were invited to speak at the SharePoint Technology Conference hosted and organized by the SharePoint User Group DC (SUGDC). The following is some information about the event: For two exciting days, you'll be eating, drinking,  talking and living Microsoft Office SharePoint  with Microsoft's Most Valued Professionals (MVP's) from across the country. There are tracks for developers, users, managers, and administrators. There will be time to network with some of the areas top employers where you will discover just how much ... [More]

While the first half of 2009 is almost behind us, there is a lot more community work left to get done. As I try to arrange my life-work-community schedule I see that I have quite a busy couple of months coming up yet. I am still waiting for responses from other community leaders and events such as the SDN/Open Force Europe, so I won’t list those here just yet. Meanwhile, here is what I’ve got lined up. 6/26/2009 Sharepoint User Group DC Session: Sharepoint VS DotNetNuke (3:00pm – 4:00pm) Prepare for the battle of the titans! Which platform is ri... [More]

The June Capital DotNetNuke User Group event promises to be yet another great meeting chuck-full o’great insight and information. DotNetNuke module development still remains one of the most requested event topics. On June 17th, Chris Busse will demonstrate how to mash-up external Web 2.0 web services with your modules to provide right user experiences. With the proliferation of "Web 2.0" sites and applications, such as Google Maps, Twitter, and Basecamp, has come the ability to programmatically interact with many sites using APIs (Application Programming Inter... [More]

Today Joe Brinkman announced the official OpenForce ‘09 Call for Speakers. Apart from being excited about the event and what it has in store, I particularly liked the way the topics were split into 4 simple and concise categories: Development Design Administration Open Source If you are an avid DotNetNuke user, then I am sure that you are asking yourself: how do I join in the fun? Well, Joe put it best by answering that question with the following quote: “Are you a DotNetNuke expert?  Do you like to share your DotNetNuke knowledge with the... [More]

At last month’s Capital DotNetNuke User Group (CDUG) meeting we had the pleasure of having Tom Kraak give us a great presentation on Search Engine Optimization with DotNetNuke. Tom took the train down from his home town in Connecticut just to make the event – thank you Tom! Tom also accepted my invitation to spend the night at my home, but little did I know it would turn into an interview, and a long night! Tom and I share quite a few things in common, the most common one being our passion for DotNetNuke and Technology. The outcome of our conversation is a transc... [More]

I am very pleased to announce yet another exciting Capital DotNetNuke User Group (CDUG) event. Next week, on Wednesday February 18th, 2009, Seablick Consulting’s very own Tom Kraak will be driving down from Connecticut to give us an Intro to Search Engine Optimization with DotNetNuke. Here is a quick abstract and bio: Database-driven websites and content management systems such as DNN are traditionally labeled as "hard to optimize" or "outright bad" for search engines by many “SEO experts.” Don’t believe the hype! Explore how the basics of... [More]

If you live in the Washington DC area you cannot help but be consumed with the constant news about the presidential inauguration and related events. Never have been so many streets been closed, and never has the anticipation of the attendance of million people been so high. With that being said, and although I am not looking forward to the chaos that the inauguration promises to bring, I am very excited to have Joe Brinkman, DotNetNuke Corp. Co-Founder and Technical Fellow, come to our User Group to give a presentation on DotNetNuke and JQuery. Here is the abstract: ... [More]

I am pleased to announce the publication by Wrox Press of Wrox Blox Done in 60 Minutes:  Building a Custom DotNetNuke Membership Provider by yours truly. In this publication, I put down into more detail the topic which I presented at last year’s OpenForce08 / DevConnections conference. In this eBook (Wrox Blox) I demonstrate how to build and configure the DotNetNuke (DNN) Membership provider without modifying any core DotNetNuke (DNN) code.  By reading this publication you will soon see what a powerful tool this can be for gaining control over the DNN mem... [More]

It's finally here, version 03.50.00, chock full of new and exciting features and bug fixes. I wanted to take a moment to personally thank every member of the DotNetNuke team. Without their hard work and dedication, all this free software would not be possible. Well, what are you are waiting for? Go Download it here: http://www.dotnetnuke.com/tabid/125/default.aspx The Blog team has also made available some blog posts about the new features in version 03.05.00. I have compiled the list for your convenience, and here it is: Features and Enhancements: Upcoming Blog F... [More]

Sometimes, inspiration hits when you’re away from your desk. However, you don’t have to miss out on blogging about it! With the new DNN Blog Module (version 03.05.00) and it’s support for the metaweblog API, there are a variety of tools and technologies that make it easier to blog. One in particular is the ability to blog via email with a service like Blogmailr (www.blogmailr.com). Setting this service up is free and quick. Simply create an account at www.blogmailr.com. Once completed, log in and visit the “My blogmailr” section. Once there, click on “Add New Blog”... [More]

OpenForce '08 has finally come to an end :-( and I am now back home in Northern Virginia (Washington DC area). While at OpenForce, between the presentations, manning the DotNetNuke Community booth from time to time, and meeting a lot of great people, my work backlog begun to pile up. On my flight back home, I decided to make a list of things that I absolutely must accomplish today. The first thing on my long list of "to-do's" is to post the power point presentation and source code for my talk: Done in 60 Minutes: Building a Custom DotNetNuke Membership ... [More]

Last call! If you have not already registered, it's not too late! Seriously, if you work with DotNetNuke, or are even planning to use it for your enterprise then you cannot miss this opportunity. All the people that make DotNetNuke happen are going to be available to educate you, and support you with every question or concern that you may have on the platform. Great sessions will be given, great events are planned, great topics will be discussed, and need I even mention, it's Vegas Baby! If you are going to be there, make sure you hit me up... I'd love to meet you!

The latest release of DNN Blog, 03.05.00 includes MetaWebLog API support. This means that you can use any MetaWebLog capable client to post your entries directly to your blog without even going to the site itself. The most common clients that support MetaWebLog are MS Word, Windows Live Writer (WLW), MS OneNote and others. In this blog post I'll take you through the steps you need to take to setup Windows Live Writer. If you do not have Windows Live Writer, no worries, it's free and available for download here. Once you installed Windows Live Writer fire it up and fol... [More]

For quite a while now, some folks in the DotNetNuke community have been experiencing a peculiar issue with localization on the Core DotNetNuke Blog module. While we worked on version 03.05.00 of the module, I ran into a ticket that I thought I had already fixed in a previous version release and marked it as fixed. Somehow, just like the villain in bad horror movie, this ticket was back! I and the entire Blog team tried to replicate the issue to no avail, so what to do? – We closed the ticket, and this time marked it as “Cannot Reproduce”. A couple of days ago, the vill... [More]

My company, Inspector IT, Inc. is proud to support OpenForce ‘08 and the DotNetNuke Corp by offering free product licenses. The free licenses will be raffled off to OpenForce ‘08 attendees during an evening event (To be announced). 3 product license will be raffled off for DNN Site Map and 3 other for DNN Dock Menu. Are you coming to OpenForce ‘08? If so, you may be one of the lucky 6 to win one of the following modules: DNN Site Map™ (3 Licenses) Look again, this is not just another Site Map. DNN Site Map™ is more that just another menu, it is a DotNetNuke Tab ... [More]

I am currently working on a new skin for my Blog, as well as revisiting the overall user experience of this site. Since I Tweet quite a bit, I figured that displaying the list of my latest 5 Tweets would be a neat idea. A couple of thoughts came to mind, including writing a module that would consume the Twitter API to retrieve my tweets. After doing some researching around, I found that there is a much much, much simpler way to do this with a little (already provided) JavaScript. First, add the following html UL element somewhere on your page: <div id="twitter_div... [More]

I was updating my professional profile on LinkedIn the other day, and I realized that there was a lot missing about what I do. In essence my profile contained a lot of the stuff I did for a living, but not was lacking all the work I do on volunteer basis. All the community contributions such as speaking, organizing, writing etc, was left out all together. I decided to start compiling a list of my community contribution and while I am sure I missed some things, here is what I came up with so far: Open Source Projects DotNetNuke Core Team Member DotNetNu... [More]

This is the first in a series of blog posts filed under the "Trimming the DNN Fat" category. I hope to add as many of these "tips and tricks" as I discover them. In this edition we'll take a look at how the Module's Settings are being stored, used, and how they end up orphaned and therefore unnecessarily cluttering your database and as a result, you application footprint (Because DNN caches this data). A lot of modules in the  DotNetNuke eco-system, commercial and non-commercial alike, provide configuration capabilities that allow its users t... [More]

As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, I had a great time speaking at the RockNUG (Maryland .net User Group) this past Wednesday, October 8th, 2008. RockNUG hosts their meetings at the Montgomery College Campus, and I have to admit, it felt really weird standing in front of a full classroom while "playing professor"; If you were in school with me you'd understand where I am coming from... trust me, I paid a couple of visit to the principle's office quite a few times. If only my teachers and professors could see me now, ha! The presentation was called &qu... [More]

Following my CodeCamp Presentation back in May of this year I was invited to do a repeat of my "DotNetNuke Module Development" talk for the Rockville (Maryland) .net User Group. Tomorrow night (10/8/2008) I will have the pleasure of spending the evening with .net and DotNetNuke enthusiast alike, and am privileged to share my knowledge on the topic. I am also happy to see that the RockNUG website is powered by DotNetNuke, as are many user group websites in the DC area. Event Date: Wednesday, October 8, 2008 6:30-9:00 PM Event Location: Montgomery College, ... [More]

I will be doing a talk on Wednesday, September 17th, 2008 at the Capital DotNetNuke User Group. For those of you interested, here are the details: Title: Enabling SharePoint Authentication Against DotNetNuke Start: 9/17/2008 7:00:00 PM End: 9/17/2008 9:00:00 PM Description: You probably already know that you can setup SharePoint to authenticate via Forms Based Authentication and better yet using the AspNet Membership and Role providers as its bac... [More]

I am excited to join this great group of people in Las Vegas for this year OpenForce / DevConnections conference, and most of all honored for the opportunity to give the following talk. Done in 60 minutes: Build a Custom Membership Provider The Provider Model is a design pattern introduced in .net to provide a simple way to extend API functionality.  DotNetNuke uses this architecture to allow some of its core functionality to be  replaced without modifying core code.  In this session Antonio Chagoury will give you a high-level overview of the core... [More]

After much anticipation, hard work and dedication (from this extraordinary team of professionals) I am pleased to announce that we are "code-complete" and that the Blog module was submitted to the release tracker just moments ago. I would also like to take a few moments to thank each and every team member without whom this would not have been such a memorable release: Don Worthley Dario Rossa Rip Rowan Jim Bonnie Eoghan O'Neill It takes a smart group of people with talent, passion and dedication to develop open source software without finan... [More]

The slides and code of my presentation from last Saturday's "Developing DotNetNuke Modules" presentation were posted on the NoVa Code Camp South website. Thanks to everyone that attended the event, and my session (of course). I had a great time attending other great sessions as well as doing my own presentation. For those of you who could not make it this time, but are still interested in learning more about DotNetNuke, I have volunteered to do the same presentation at the Reston Code Camp in May '08. None of the sessions have been confirmed yet, but I will... [More]

Recently I was invited by Scott Mendenhall, the organizer of the Web Content Mavens User Group, to be a panelist on DotNetNuke. The meeting's topic is Open Source Web CMS. It is on Wednesday, February 27, 2008 at 7:00 PM at R.F.D. Washington, 810 7th St. NW, Washington , DC 20001. If you wish to attende you can sign up at the meetup site. The discussion will be moderated by Scott Mendenhall and will feature the following panelists: Keith Casey from Casey Software on Drupal Antonio Chagoury from Inspector IT on DotNetNuke (Yes, that is me) Scott Davis from ... [More]