As you can tell there has not been much activity on this blog, but not because there has not been anything going on. There has been so much going on that I simply have not had the time to make a post....here. However, we have a new blog that allows all Venexus employees to post that can be found here: http://www.venexus.com/Resources/Blog.aspx

You can update your feeds here:

Feed Title RSS 25 Latest Articles RSS By Category DotNetNuke Error Messages Modules Search Engine Optimization Skins SQL Server

I will make one more post here to sum up the year, but this is definitely the next to last post for this blog. We will move some of the most popular articles from this blog to the new one, but eventually this blog will be shutdown. More later...

Venexus has a job opening for a DotNetNuke Module Developer.

Title: DotNetNuke Module Developer

 

Skills Required:

1.      VB.Net OR C#

2.      SQL Server

3.      Code Generation Techniques

4.     DotNetNuke (must know architecture of DotNetNuke web application framework)

Skills Desired:

1.      EntitySpaces

2.      Gemini

3.      Subversion

4.      CruiseControl.Net

5.      VB.Net AND C# (Ability to read and code in both)

Location:

We would prefer to find a local candidate (Raleigh, NC), but if you have the skills, it does not matter where you live.

 

Description:

This position will be responsible for assisting in the analysis, design, development and ongoing support of DotNetNuke and the modules we create and modify for our clients. This position will assist with verification testing, troubleshooting and failure analysis of new versions of DotNetNuke, core modules, 3^rd party modules, and custom modules. The developer must be able to commit and meet deadlines.

 

The person filling this position will be working in a team environment and may be expected to have on-call responsibilities. The candidate should have excellent verbal and written communications skills with a positive customer support attitude. A person who is flexible and self-motivated will be the selected candidate.

 

Additional Requirements:

1.      You must love code.

         If you didn’t love it, you wouldn’t be doing it, right? 

 

Compensation:

Dependant upon experience

 

Please send salary expectations and resumes to careers (at) venexus (dot) com. No recruiters please!

 

Venexus has 2 positions open for DotNetNuke Support Specialist.

Title: DotNetNuke Support Specialist

Skills Required:

1.     DotNetNuke (must have previous experience running and managing DotNetNuke sites)

2.     Excellent communication skills

 

Skills Desired:

1.      Gemini

2.      RDC/RDP

3.      IIS

4.      SQL Server

 

Location:

Any.

 

Description:

This position will be responsible for assisting in the support of DotNetNuke for client websites. This position will assist with verification testing, troubleshooting and failure analysis of new versions of DotNetNuke, core modules, 3^rd party modules, and custom modules.

 

The person filling this position will be working in a team environment and may be expected to have on-call responsibilities. The candidate should have excellent verbal and written communications skills with a positive customer support attitude. A person who is flexible and self-motivated will be the selected candidate.

 

Compensation:

Dependant upon experience

Please send salary expectations and resumes to careers (at) venexus (dot) com. No recruiters please!

 

Ready to configure DotNetNuke to use Active Directory for authentication? Here are some basic instructions for configuring AD in DNN that works with DNN 4.5.3:

ADMIN SETTINGS

1.    Log into DNN as Host

2.    Go to Admin > Authentication

3.    Check "Windows Authentication".

4.    Check "Synchronize Role?"

5.    Provider is "ADSIAuthenticationProvider"

6.    AuthType is "Delegation"

7.    Domain: dc=yourdomainminusthedotcom, dc=com

8.    Email domain: @yourdomain.com

9.    Click "Update".

10.  You should see a message like this...unless it does not work :
 Accessing Global Catalog:
OK
Checking Root Domain:
OK
Accessing LDAP:
OK
Find all domains in network:
1 Domain(s):
yourdomain.com (SN)  

 

IIS SETTINGS: 

1.  Open IIS Manager and find the following file within the DNN site: /Admin/Security/WindowsSignin.aspx,

2.  Right click on WindowsSigin.aspx and select “Properties”

3.  Click “File Security” tab

4.  Click “Edit” in the ‘Authentication and access control’ section

5.  UNCheck box for "Enable anonymous access" and check "Integrated Windows authentication".

6.  Choose “OK” until out of the Properties box

 

ENABLE AUTHENTICATION HTTPMODULE IN WEB.CONFIG:

1.                  Open web.config file with editor

2.                  UNComment the authentication in httpmodule section (<httpmodules>) in Web.config and save file:

<add name="Authentication" type="DotNetNuke.HttpModules.AuthenticationModule, DotNetNuke.HttpModules.Authentication" />

You should be able to login and authenticate to the site.

We performed an upgrade and Active Directory configuration this morning for a client, using DNN 4.5.3 and the above instructions worked flawlessly. This is a slightly modified version of instructions found on the DNN Forums by kimberlyrox.

We have installed and upgraded quite a few sites to the latest DNN version, 4.5.3, that came out last week and most went seamlessly. However, we have found one issue that has raised it's ugly head quite a few times. After upgrading, if you clicked on "Register" you would be redirected to an admin skinned page with no account fields/content. Looking at the url you can see "/ctl/returnurl". Since the site(s) uses a custom page using a 3rd party module for registration for the account info, it is specified in Admin > Site Settings > Advanced Settings > Page Management > User Page.

Here is the error message:

System.Web.HttpException: Could not load type ''. ---> System.ArgumentException: String cannot have zero length. at System.Reflection.Assembly.GetType(String name, Boolean throwOnError, Boolean ignoreCase) at System.Web.Compilation.BuildManager.GetType(String typeName, Boolean throwOnError, Boolean ignoreCase) --- End of inner exception stack trace --- at System.Web.Compilation.BuildManager.GetType(String typeName, Boolean throwOnError, Boolean ignoreCase) at DotNetNuke.Framework.Reflection.CreateType(String TypeName, String CacheKey, Boolean UseCache, Boolean IgnoreErrors)

Luckily we found a post on the DNN Forums concerning the quick fix...

4.5.3 New user registration not working if specific page defined

In the above post someone else was having a similar issue. It looks like there was a bug reported as well:

http://support.dotnetnuke.com/issue/ViewIssue.aspx?id=5746

While there could definitely been a longer or better description of the problem, it was quickly closed with "unable to reproduce in 4.5.3" the next day without any followup. Luckily the thread on the forums gained the interest of other having the issue and vitkoz was kind enough to run it through debugging to find the issue and hence the issue has been reopened in the DNN issue tracker.

Here is his fix:

"In the file admin/skins/user.ascx.vb, line 142 needs to be changed:

 

 FROM THIS:

Response.Redirect(NavigateURL(PortalSettings.UserTabId,"returnurl=" & ReturnUrl), True)

TO THIS:

Response.Redirect(NavigateURL(PortalSettings.UserTabId, "Register", "returnurl=" & ReturnUrl), True)

You can simply go to that file, make that change, and IIS will recompile it on the next run." - vitkoz

After a brief debut of DNN 4.5.2 on Tuesday, DNN 4.5.3 was released today. Here is a list of changes in 4.5.2:

	Component	Issue Type	Issue ID	Summary	Resource	Status
(4.5.2) Stabilization Release	Admin / Host Functions	Bug	DNN-5516	Exclude .dnn.config file from Module Packaging		Checked-In
	Admin / Host Functions	Bug	DNN-5452	AddRoleGroup does not return new RoleGroupID		Checked-In
	Admin / Host Functions	Bug	DNN-5529	Adding a Page in 4.5.1 Puts the Page Name in the other fields on edit		Checked-In
	Admin / Host Functions	Bug	DNN-5703	URL Control and postback? when?		Checked-In
	Admin / Host Functions	Bug	DNN-5546	Import Portal Template fails due to unknown attributes	>Shaun Walker	Checked-In
	Admin / Host Functions	Enhancement	DNN-5724	Date/Time Edit Controls		Checked-In
	Admin / Host Functions	Enhancement	DNN-5649	Block website access based on defined criteria	>Joe Brinkman	Checked-In
	Admin / Host Functions	Enhancement	DNN-1901	Please expose CDO configuration field "smtpserverport" in Host Settings tab.		Checked-In
	Admin / Host Functions	New Feature	DNN-5536	Log application shutdown reason		Checked-In
	Admin / Host Functions	Task	DNN-4371	Generated html code needs tidying		Checked-In
	General	Bug	DNN-5691	GeoIP Detection		Checked-In
	General	Enhancement	DNN-5725	Add TokenReplace support for Custom Profile Properties		Checked-In
	Installation / Upgrade	Bug	DNN-5720	Versioning in Module Definitions doesn't work		Checked-In
	Installation / Upgrade	Bug	DNN-5690	Exception during installation of 4.x WSP modules	>Shaun Walker	Checked-In
	Installation / Upgrade	Bug	DNN-5483	Edit Module Definition / Update erases the state of DNN Interfaces		Checked-In
	Localization / ML	Bug	DNN-5526	Resource Verifier does not catch all resource files		Checked-In
	Localization / ML	Bug	DNN-2612	XML Error in Resource Verifier		Reopened
	Security	Bug	DNN-5510	Permission Grid - Username Edit - Enables All Users Edit		Checked-In

I am not sure what was changed in DNN 4.5.3 except for the following task in Gemini:

	Component	Issue Type	Issue ID	Summary	Resource	Status
(4.5.3) Stabalization Release	Admin / Host Functions	Bug	DNN-5736	Admin notification of User/Vendor (un)registration contains empty fields		Checked-In

Scott Schecter made a post on his blog about how to disable new search features in DNN 4.5.2. I have not checked to see if these changes still apply to DNN 4.5.3.

Anyone know what else prompted the new release today?

UPDATE 6-1-2007:

Joe Brinkman of the core team commented that it was security related and provided a URL to Sebastian Leupold's post concerning the upgrade. Here is the list:

banner advertising disabled for all users by default

tab permission grid issue, where individual user permissions affected "all users" role's permission

incorrect display of "Upgrade available" icon for Layout Objects in Module Definitions eliminated

issue with login page redirect after signin corrected

updated ModuleControl definition for Adsense module and FeedbackExplorer, removing SolutionsExplorer

problem with [custom] tokens in system messages fixed

We have immediate openings for DotNetNuke Module Developers.

1. VB.Net or C#
2. SQL Server
3. Visual Studio 2005
4. Code Generation Techniques
5. DotNetNuke

1. EntitySpaces
2. Gemini
3. Subversion
4. CruiseControl.Net
5. VB.Net AND C# (Ability to read and code in both)

1. You must love code.

         If you didn’t love it, you wouldn’t be doing it, right?

1. The weak shall not apply.

Request for more information and resumes can be submitted to careers (at) venexus (dot) com. No recruiters please!

If you didn't catch it, DotNetNuke announced the first officially sponsored DotNetNuke conference in Las Vegas November 5-8, 2007. Last year was the first time I had been to Vegas, when we went to a modular software development conference last September. It was fun meeting some of the guys in the DNN community and I look forward to meeting them and others again this year. According to Joe Brinkman's blog, DotNetNuke is actively seeking speakers to submit session proposals and selected speakers will receive "3 nights of lodging at the Mandalay Bay Casino and Hotel". While I probably will not be giving a speech, Michael, Scott and I have already marked our calendars, and we may have to twist the arm of a couple more staff to go with us, depending on development schedules. Sounds like fun, see ya there!

Continuous integration is a software development term describing the process that completely rebuilds and tests applications frequently. We recently implemented a continuous integration environment to “publish” our DotNetNuke modules to our development/staging DotNetNuke sites.

The main advantages of a continuous integration environment are:

• Issues are detected and fixed continuously!
• Enhancements and new features are published continuously!
• You are warned about problematic code before it is published.
• Immediate unit testing of all changes.
• Constant availability of a "current" build for testing, demos, or releases.
• Bragging rights for developers who have the least number of broken builds.
• Huge conservation of time when considering the normal administrative process of Build > Package > install in DNN > Test.
• Did I mention this is continuous?

How Our CI and DNN Environment Works

Below is a picture to show you the basics of how our continuous integration environment works.

Disclaimer:

1. If you are running Visual Studio 2005 Web Developer Express, our setup will not work for you. You can stop reading here, or upgrade, unless you are just curious, then read on…
2. There have been long discussion on Web Site Projects (WSP) versus Web Application Projects (WAP) and this post is not one to argue about which is better, rather than to say this is what we do, and the basics of how it works.
3. You are free to comment and collaborate with others on this post. Feel free to even argue about WAP versus WEP, or that you may know of a way to integrate CI with DNN and WSP, we really do not care. However, we do not have time to walk you through setting any of this up, so please do not ask…unless you are interested in one of our DNN support packages, then by all means we can help
    

Basics of the process:

1. A developer “commits” the DNN module code to Subversion.
2. The commit triggers CruiseControl.Net to “build” the DNN module using a “Trigger” for the project.
3. CruiseControl.Net can be configured to unit test the module before publishing.
4. An “ExecutableTask” is used with our custom assembly publisher application to send the .DLL file to the DNN website.
5. A “BuildPublisher” sends the code from the source directory to the DNN site (D:\DNNSites\ClientDevSite\DesktopModules\CustomDNNModule as example).
6. Results of “build” are visible in the CruiseControl.Net Web Dashboard.
    

Implementing CI for DNN Development

Development:

We started DotNetnuke 4 development using the WSP methodology for all of our DNN projects. This has been successful for us for quite a while, especially when using EntitySpaces for the Persistence Layer and Business Objects (it's so easy using ES to generate the DAL. You must check this out if you are not using it). However, we found that to make this work we have to use WAP projects. I have a very fast laptop, but using WSP and doing a build of all of DNN to compile a module can be quite time consuming, taking several minutes sometimes. But, building a WAP project is FAST, saving some development time when debugging and testing builds, especially when doing those final little tweaks. One could argue that WSP is better, but for our setup with one to many developers working on a single module, WAP is the best decision. So, it did not take much to twist our arm to changing our methodology. It is unfortunate that in order to use this for our existing clients and projects, we will need to convert our WSP modules to WAP. But, we have started developing all new modules as WAPs and converting WSP modules to WAP is not a difficult task.

To read about the great WSP versus WAP debate, see the following links:

Shaun Walker’s post on WAP

http://www.dotnetnuke.com/Community/Blogs/tabid/825/EntryID/434/Default.aspx

An interesting debate between Michael Washington and Vladan Strigo

http://www.dotnetnuke.com/Projects/ModuleNews/Forums/tabid/953/forumid/111/threadid/91268/threadpage/6/scope/posts/Default.aspx

WAP Methodology

“Web Application Projects provide a companion web project model that can be used as an alternative to the built-in Web Site Project in Visual Studio 2005. This new model is ideal for web site developers who are converting a Visual Studio .Net 2003 web project to Visual Studio 2005. (Released May 8, 2006)” - http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/asp.net/aa336618.aspx

Michael Washington has a great post on creating a DNN WAP Module:

http://www.adefwebserver.com/DotNetNukeHELP/DNN4_WAP/

Once the module is ready for testing on our client development site, we use TortoiseSVN to “commit” code to Subversion (http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org/).

Source Code Version Control:

We use Subversion for our source code repository and version control system (http://subversion.tigris.org/). We have tried Visual SourceSafe and CVS, but have been using Subversion with success for quite some time now. CruiseControl.Net integrates with Subversion easily. It is also nice that there is a plugin for Subversion that allows us to send our comments directly to Gemini (project management/tracking application) when we commit new code.

Continuous Integration Software:

We use CruiseControl.Net, a .Net port of the Java based CruiseControl 

Continuous Integration Server using CruiseControl.Net

The CruiseControl.Net Server automates the integration process by monitoring the team's source control repository directly. Every time a developer commits a new set of modifications for the DNN module, the server will automatically launch an integration build to validate the changes. When the build is complete, the server notifies the developer whether the changes that they committed integrated successfully or not.

CruiseControl.Net allows for several different types of “Tasks”, such as:

• EmailPublisher (for emailing of build details)
• ExecutableTask (for kicking off executables, such as our custom assembly publisher)
• NAntTask (for unit testing)
• NUnitTask (for unit testing)
• RSSBuildsPublisher (for generating a RSS feed with details)
• VisualStudioTask (for running something in VS)
• Etc.

Here is an example ccnet.config:
<!--<ccnetconfig><configurationVersion>1.2.1</configurationVersion></ccnetconfig>-->
<cruisecontrol>
  <project name="BPLWantList">
    <workingDirectory>D:\cibuilds\ProjectName\ModuleName</workingDirectory>
    <webURL>http://ourCIdomain.com/server/local/project/ModuleName/ViewProjectReport.aspx</webURL>
    <sourcecontrol type="svn">
      <trunkUrl>svn://localhost/ProjectName/ModuleName</trunkUrl>
    </sourcecontrol>
    <triggers>
      <intervalTrigger name="Quarter Hour Build" seconds="900" />
    </triggers>
    <tasks>
  <exec>
      <executable>VenexusAssemblyPublisher.exe</executable>
      <baseDirectory>D:\</baseDirectory>
      <buildArgs>"d:\Source\ProjectName\DesktopModules\ModuleName\obj\Debug" "d:\DevSites\ProjectName\bin"</buildArgs>
  </exec>
    </tasks>
    <publishers>
      <buildpublisher>
        <sourceDir>D:\cibuilds\ProjectName\ModuleName</sourceDir>
        <publishDir>D:\DevSites\ProjectName\DesktopModules\ModuleName</publishDir>
  <useLabelSubDirectory>false</useLabelSubDirectory>
      </buildpublisher>
      <xmllogger />
      <statistics />
    </publishers>
  </project>
</cruisecontrol>

CruiseControl.Net Web Dashboard

The CruiseControl.Net Web Dashboard Application is used for reporting a wide range of information about the builds. At one end of the scale it reports summary details of all projects in your organisation and at the other it can give specific metric output for any specific build.

Here is an example of a simple DNN Module being used in our CI environment:

Notice the failed build notification. While we have not setup unit testing, you can see in the left menu in the image, there are quite a few different options.

Conclusion

For long term DotNetNuke module projects, setting up a continuous integration environment will save a tremendous amount of time in the long run. All of the tools to implement CI are free, lowering the total cost of DNN module development. With a little bit of time setting up your environment, you can provide continuous updates to your clients, all while forcing good coding practices among your developers. 
 

• Scheduled Task

• Search Admin

                    The search admin is for setting the maximum word length, minimum word length, option to include common words, and the option to include numbers. 

• Search Input Module

• Search Results Module

• Scheduled Task

• Search Engine Admin Module

• Search Input Module 

• Search Results Module

• Seamus Module

• Search Module

Feature Comparison Matrix:

Below you will find a list of features for DNN Search, Open-SearchEngine, Venexus Search Engine Standard, and Venexus Search Engine PRO.

DNN 4.5 was released today after a small delay last month. 

"A highly focused three month release cycle results in DotNetNuke® 4.5, a new release with integrated Microsoft ASP.NET AJAX support, a web-based installer, and a variety of other high value enhancements designed to improve the user experience." - DotNetNuke Enriches User Experience

I decided to try out a new install, before we perform any upgrades. So, after creating a new database, creating a new directory on the webserver for the site and changing permissions, setting up new site in IIS, and changing the web.config for the connection string, I tried loading the site. I had heard about the new installation wizard and was presented with the following:

I decided to do a custom installation so I could see all of the options.

One of the most common issues people have trying to install DotNetNuke is setting the file/folder permissions. It is nice to see the wizard test these.

Another big issue people have installing DotNetNuke is making sure the connection string is valid. The wizard also supports a database connection test.

Easy install so far....

Nice! You can now configure the host account instead of relying on the defaults.

 

You can also filter which modules get installed during installation.

And set admin user account and portal porperties instead of using the defaults.

You can also have optional skins and containers to be installed, if available.

And language packs if needed.

And done!

I am very impressed with the new installation wizard. It is good to see checks being performed that will undoubtedly decrease support issues for people who have not setup everything correctly.

After logging into the new site, the first thing I noticed was the different icons.I like the new and clean look of these icons. I also LOVE the new "Show Control Panel" dropdown option.

Something new too is the "Solution Explorer":

 

This is a convenient interface to the DNN Marketplace. The "DotNetNuke" and "About" tabs still appear to be in beta mode however. It should be interesting to see how this piece develops.

It is very exciting to see this new release, and I will post later how the upgrades go.

We did a search engine optimization (SEO) campaign for a client a while back that required us to setup a few new domains with blogging software. We used a variety of different blogging software  and noticed something very interesting...sites that performed pinging were crawled within 1-3 days and indexed within 2 weeks. All of the domains we used were brand new. In some cases, keywords that we were focusing on were in top 10 search results in 2 weeks as well. Needless to say, the client was happy.

So, we added a pinging feature as part of our DotNetNuke search engine module. Seamus, our search engine aggregation module, generates a RSS feed for the entire DNN portal. Anytime a tab/page is added or updated and Seamus finds this change, if the "Pinging Service" is enabled, it will ping 14 different blog and feed aggregation services.

So you are probably asking how does this work. Well, we send a "ping" to these aggregation services using XML-RPC. It simply tells these services that there is new content available on your site and to check the RSS feed. These services then will consume the feed and add it to their index. This provides a contextual link (assuming you actually use good titles for your pages) from these service sites directly to the content on your site. Pretty cool, huh?

Currently the following services are pinged with our module:

1. BlogDigger.com
2. BlogFlux.com
3. Blogsearch.Google.com
4. BlogRolling.com
5. Bulkfeeds.net
6. Feedburner.com
7. Feedster.com
8. IceRocket.com
9. Pingomatic.com
10. Syndic8.com
11. Technorati.com
12. My.Yahoo.com
13. Weblogs.com
14. Weblogalot.com

As a test, we dropped our search engine module on a new domain on 3/16/2007. With no links from external sites pointing to this domain, most if not all of the traffic was from our development at this point, averaging about 3-5 unique visitors a day (probably me, the client, and one or more of our developers). As of yesterday, the site had almost 150 unique visitors. Not bad for 2 weeks, considering we have done nothing else to this site other than add 10 total pages of content. This site is off to a great start and we have not even started a linking or submission campaign. See the graph below:

Also, checkout the following post on Marketing Pilgrim about faster indexing through pinging Google blog search that collaborates our results.

Ready to see the power of pinging blog and feed aggregators? Add a pinging service to your DNN site and watch the traffic roll in.

We issues a patch release today for the Venexus Search Engine, a DotNetNuke search engine module. This release has a few minor bug fixes and tweaks:

• Catalog creation in SQLDataProvider file moved to Search module (you still have to run the VenexusSearch module SQLDataProvider file through Host > SQL during new installation, but not for those who are upgrading).
• Queue Importance added to allow some URLs to be crawled sooner than others. If you are running a global search engine, we now give preference to certain domain extentions (.gov and .edu).
• Stores single Robots.txt file for domain instead of historical. Previously we stored a new robots.txt for each weekly check if it was updated. Now we only store one.
• Feed Title is now the portal/site name.
• Added XML-RPC ping for BlogFlux inclusion in our blog/feed aggregator pinging service. We had to remove one aggregator and added BlogFlux to the list (14 total)

Get the free version of our DNN search module.

There is nothing better to start off the day than having a client running into a 100% CPU utilization issue on their production SQL Server. Every few minutes, the server would spike up and hang there for a variable amount of time (15 seconds to several minutes). You can only imagine the flakiness of a website with SQL Server choking to death. There was nothing of value to point any fingers as to the culprit of this issue in the event logs for DNN (Admin > LogViewer)...none that we saw through a brief spot checking and filtering of event types (this was incredibly slow and seeing timeouts so we abandoned all hope of using DNN Admin/Host tools to find the problem).  And, there was not an alarming number of events actually logged in EventLog table. However, we have seen issues with performance that are usually resolved by clearing the Log Viewer. We have seen cases where clients who have high traffic/usage sites, or a broken/problematic module on all pages, have 5 and 6 figure rows of data for EventLog table, especially if all the default settings are used for the DNN Log Viewer settings. We have seen timeout issues just trying to clear the event log when they get that large ("Delete EventLog" as the sql statement does the trick quickly from SSMS). So, we went ahead and cleared it, but the issue persisted.

For those who have not explored much in SQL Server Management Studio (not in SSMS Express), there is now a Database Engine Tuning  Advisor and SQL Server Profiler (under Tools > SQL Server Profiler). Running the SSP, we performed a trace and caught the offending SQL causing all of the havoc. Just a note...we have run DETA to find recommendations from trace files for several large DNN databases and apply the recommendations (it usually creates new indexes for tables that have 6 and 7 figure rows, helping greatly with performance on databases). But in this case, we just started and stopped the trace in SSP before and after a huge and hanging spike. Going through the rows looking for CPU hits, we found the following 2 villians of resources:

GetSchedule @Server='SERVERNAME'

GetScheduleNextTask @Server='SERVERNAME'

Running these statements showed the huge spike on command, pegging the server hard. Looking in the stored proc it hits Schedule and ScheduleHistory.

ALTER PROCEDURE [dbo].[GetSchedule]

@Server varchar(150)

AS

SELECT S.ScheduleID, S.TypeFullName, S.TimeLapse, S.TimeLapseMeasurement, S.RetryTimeLapse, S.RetryTimeLapseMeasurement, S.ObjectDependencies, S.AttachToEvent, S.RetainHistoryNum, S.CatchUpEnabled, S.Enabled, SH.NextStart, S.Servers

FROM Schedule S

LEFT JOIN ScheduleHistory SH

ON S.ScheduleID = SH.ScheduleID

WHERE (SH.ScheduleHistoryID = (SELECT TOP 1 S1.ScheduleHistoryID FROM ScheduleHistory S1 WHERE S1.ScheduleID = S.ScheduleID ORDER BY S1.NextStart DESC)

OR SH.ScheduleHistoryID IS NULL)

AND (@Server IS NULL or S.Servers LIKE ',%' + @Server + '%,' or S.Servers IS NULL)

GROUP BY S.ScheduleID, S.TypeFullName, S.TimeLapse, S.TimeLapseMeasurement, S.RetryTimeLapse, S.RetryTimeLapseMeasurement, S.ObjectDependencies, S.AttachToEvent, S.RetainHistoryNum, S.CatchUpEnabled, S.Enabled, SH.NextStart, S.Servers

In ScheduleHistory we found a little over 6 thousand rows. You can use the following to check your db:

select count(*) from schedulehistory

6000+ does not seem like that many rows to be causing that much of a peak, but regardless we deleted them all getting desperate at this point:

delete schedulehistory

Executing the 2 sprocs again for the schedule, and cpu barely gets over 3% utilization. The site is again fast and responsive and I was able to get in and check settings without getting timeouts. So, as an interim fix I lowered the defaults in  DotNetNuke.Services.Scheduling.PurgeScheduleHistory under Host > Schedule.

I am concerned about why 6000 rows of data would be taking such a hit on cpu resources. However, that it more records than I believe should be there, so lowering the defaults will help. Nothing in the DNN stored procedure for GetSchedule really stands out at me as being problematic, nor at first glance do I see anything that could be changed that may help, but I will ponder on this some more in my copious spare time.

So, if you are having trouble with SQL Server performance and DNN, check and make sure you keep your EventLog and ScheduleHistory purged.

If you need help, be sure to checkout our DNN Support Packages.

We ran into an issue parsing some HTML for a DNN content migration project we are working on. We needed to find the actual content of the page, without all of the look and feel. Luckily we found a pretty solid case of an opening and closing div tag that wrapped the entire content of the page. At first we had a basic regular expression for finding the div tags like so:

Dim sRegEx As String = "<div align=" & Chr(34) & "center" & Chr(34) & "[\d\D]*?\</div>"

This worked fine until we ran into some code that had div tags withing the div tags. The following shows you what the reg ex returns.

Example:

<div align="center">

Some text here

<div> this is between another div</div>

Here is more text that should be in the content we are ripping.

</div>

After some digging, the following regex does the trick:

Dim regexp As Regex = New Regex( _

"(<[^>]*?div[^>]*?(?:center)[^>]*>)((?:.*?(?:<[ \r\t]*div[^>]*>?.*?(?:<.*?/.*?div.*?>)?)*)*)(<[^>]*?/[^>]*?div[^>]*?>.*</div>)", _

RegexOptions.IgnoreCase _

Or RegexOptions.Singleline _

)

We released the latest version of our search engine module last week. It has all of the features I mentioned in my previous post, plus the ability to add excluded URLs and partial URLs.

Here are the new specs:

Items marked with * are new

Features	Standard Version	Pro Version
Seamus Features
Maximum # of Pages	500	Unlimited
Install on commercial site	No	Yes
Scheduled Index Updates	Yes	Yes
Announcements Module Support	Yes	Yes
Contacts Module Support	Yes	Yes
Events Module Support	Yes	Yes
FAQ Module Support	Yes	Yes
Links Module Support	Yes	Yes
Text/HTML Module Support	Yes	Yes
Index MS Excel Documents *	No	Yes
Index MS PowerPoint Documents *	No	Yes
Index MS Word Documents *	No	Yes
Index PDF Documents *	No	Yes
Index Rich Text Files *	No	Yes
Global Crawler *	No	Yes
Allows users to add feeds	No	Yes
Custom User Agent	No	Yes
Obeys Robots.txt	Yes	Yes
TTL Support	Yes	Yes
Feed and Queue Aggregation Using AJAX	Yes	Yes
Display Top X Latest Items	Yes	Yes
XSLT Support	Yes	Yes
Latest Items RSS Feed Generation	Yes	Yes
Portal Specific Feed	Yes	Yes
Enclosure/Podcast Support	No	Yes
Pinging Service	No	Yes
Exclude URLs *	Yes	Yes
Search Features
Search Skin Object	Yes	Yes
Use Image or Text for Search button	Yes	Yes
and - (AND and OR) Support	Yes	Yes
Quoted Search Support	Yes	Yes
Keyword Highlighting	Yes	Yes
Obeys DNN Security	Yes	Yes
Social Bookmarking Support *	No	Yes
Support
Issue Tracker	Yes	Yes
Email	No	Yes
Phone	No	1 Call
Price	Free	$199 Per Year

 

You can download the free version here.

The Venexus Search Engine is a DotNetNuke search module, plus a whole lot more. Not only does our DNN search module index your portal, but also external sites. VSE crawls pages on your site, aggregates RSS feeds from other sites, and crawls any links for external websites, making it a full search engine module.  Unlike the core DNN Search module that uses a scheduled task to perform index updates, VSE crawls and indexes content based on user request. Seamus can be configured for several different setups and displays, including the ability to hide the module on every page. When a page is loaded that has the Seamus module on it, Seamus will go out and grab 3 RSS feeds and 3 queued URLs and add any new or updated content to the index. In order to not delay the page loading for the end user, Seamus utilizes AJAX to make aggregation request, providing a seamless integration into your site.

 

Here are the pro features of VSE:

 

1.1 Pro Features

• Allow users to add their feeds

You can enable users to add feeds to the system.

 

• Podcast Support

Indexed items that have files associated with them are used as enclosures (aka podcast) in the feeds that Seamus generates.

 

• Pinging service

When the pinging service is enabled, every time something new is added/updated on your site Seamus will “ping” several XML-RPC  web services for blog and feed aggregation sites to notify them your portal has new content. The aggregators will then come to your site and aggregate your feed and provide links to their users to your site.

 

Here are a few services we ping:

• Blog Digger
• Feedburner
• Feedster
• Google
• Icerocket
• Pingomatic
• Syndic8
• Technorati
• WeBlogs.com
• Yahoo
• And more…

 

• Custom User-Agent

You can set your own user-agent to specify your own crawler name. The default user-agent is “Seamus/1.1 PRO ( http://search.venexus.com)”.

 

• Global Crawler

The pro version allows you to be a global crawler. Any links found on your site, from aggregated news feeds, or from external links are crawled and indexed.

 

So, not only are you able to aggregate even more content with the Pro version when compared to the Standard version, but you also get the search engine optimization benefits of pinging all of the major blog and feed aggregation services. This provides you with links directly to your site, generating more web traffic. You can watch your page rank grow very quickly with this feature.

 

Since the release of the 1.1 version, we have steadily been working on the 1.2 version. We are now testing the latest version on our demo site: search.venexus.com.

 

1.2 Pro Features (March 1, 2007 Release)

• New file formats indexed

You asked for it, so we added support for all of the most common Office document file types as well as PDF documents. We have added a new document-to-text converter to our crawler that is able to parse the actual text from these documents. So not only does Seamus crawl and index HTML, Text, and XML files, but also the following new formats:

1.     Excel files

2.     PDF files

3.     PowerPoint files

4.     Rich text files

5.     Word documents

 

• Social Bookmarking Support

In the search results you can enable social bookmarking to allow users to easily add bookmarks to their favorite social bookmarking application/service. This allows user to easily find their favorite links to your site. Also, the sites that provide this service will generate a link to your site, giving you more traffic once again.

 

Here is an example of what it looks like:

Here are the supported sites:

 

1.     Digg

2.     del.icio.us

3.     FURL

4.     Reddit

5.     Yahoo

6.     Blinklist

7.     Google

8.     ma.gnolia

9.     Shadows

10.  Technorati

 

Ready for a real search engine for your site? Buy the Pro version here.

 

Stay tuned for more…

We released the Pro version of our DNN search engine module today.

Here is the breakdown of the feature comparison:

Venexus Search Engine Version Matrix

Features	Standard Version	Pro Version
Seamus Features
Maximum # of Pages	500	Unlimited
Install on commercial site	No	Yes
Scheduled Index Updates	Yes	Yes
Announcements Module Support	Yes	Yes
Contacts Module Support	Yes	Yes
Events Module Support	Yes	Yes
FAQ Module Support	Yes	Yes
Links Module Support	Yes	Yes
Text/HTML Module Support	Yes	Yes
Allows users to add feeds	No	Yes
Custom User Agent	No	Yes
Obeys Robots.txt	Yes	Yes
TTL Support	Yes	Yes
Feed Aggregation Using AJAX	Yes	Yes
Display Top X Latest Items	Yes	Yes
XSLT Support	Yes	Yes
Latest Items RSS Feed Generation	Yes	Yes
Portal Specific Feed	Yes	Yes
Enclosure/Podcast Support	No	Yes
Pinging Service	No	Yes
Search Features
Search Skin Object	Yes	Yes
Use Image or Text for Search button	Yes	Yes
+ and - (AND and OR) Support	Yes	Yes
Quoted Search Support	Yes	Yes
Keyword Highlighting	Yes	Yes
Obeys DNN Security	Yes	Yes
Support
Issue Tracker	Yes	Yes
Email	No	Yes
Phone	No	1 Call
Price	Free	$199 Per Year

I will be discussing the features of the Pro version in a later post. Stay tuned...

We have released the new version of the Venexus Search Engine. VSE Standard Version 1.1.0 has several bug fixes and shows some of the new features of the Pro version.

New standard features and bug fixes:

• VenexusSeamus - Changed TransformXSL to not create a temporary XML file
• VenexusSeamus - Modified Response.Charset
• VenexusSeamus - New Delete Tabs routine for removing deleted and expired tabs
• VenexusSeamus - Ability to reload default XSLT file
• VenexusSeamus - Shows total number of aggregated items
• VenexusSeamus - Gridview pagination
• VenexusSeamus - Link from Grid to show aggregation errors
• VenexusSeamus - Guid attribute added
• VenexusSeamus - application/rss+xml support
• VenexusSeamus - Automatic creation of fulltext index during installation (works for SQL Server Express too!)
• VenexusSearch - Support for DNN 4.4.1 and "search" URL parameter
• VenexusSearch - Non-authenticated postback issue resolved
• VenexusSearch - Limits URL length for display
• VenexusSearch - Quoted query support

If you have any issues with installation, configuration, or bugs, pleas post them in our issue tracker.

The first beta testers of the Venexus Search Engine were the guys from True Lawyers. They created a new portal in their DNN installation for Search.TrueLawyers.com. Search.TrueLawyers.com is a legal search engine. Their instance of VSE has aggregated over 216,000 legal articles, news, and related site pages as of this morning. You can test this site and see that the speed of VSE is still great when considering the amount of data it has already indexed. When using the site, each time a page is loaded that has Seamus on it (and Seamus CAN be hidden on the page), 5 feeds are aggregated. Any new items in the feeds are added to the index immediately. While the user sits on the page, AJAX is used to pull more feeds. Plus, since the site is new and does not have much traffic...yet, they use a RSS reader to call the Seamus RSS feed, which grabs more data every 10 to 15 minutes. As you can imagine, their index is growing FAST! You can see the latest items Seamus has aggregated by visiting the True Lawyers Legal News Room.

So, not only does VSE work as a site search engine and multiple portal search engine, it also works as a full blown search engine, aggregating items from your DNN installation, as well as other sites that provides RSS feeds. One of the features we are working on for the 1.1 Pro version is the ability to index any website, regardless of having a RSS feed. You can now have the ability to build powerful niche websites that provide your users with lots of relevant information.  Plus, with the RSS feed Seamus generates, you can set it to display items for only your website, allowing you to submit the link to many feed directories, providing search engine optimization. The 1.1 Pro version will ping many blog directories, greatly increasing traffic to your website, treating your entire website like a blog. And we all know that the other search engines are just eating up blog content, increasing the page rank of those sites over many traditional websites without feeds. Ready to try it out? You can download the release candidate here.

Stay tuned for more...

UPDATE 2/7/2007:

I just checked the total items indexed for this site again and it is now showing over 246,0000 items. So in 2 weeks, an extra 30k + items were indexed.

I know many of you have been patiently waiting for the release of the Venexus Search Engine. We have had several beta testers try out previous release candidates, and have several new tweaks in this release.

Seamus Additions:

• Web.configless (No changes to web.config needed. Beta Testers should remove EntitySpaces web.config entries when installing this version)
• Object Qualifier support (Thank you Barry White for testing this)
• Index current tab (Seamus will index the tab it is on. You can add make Seamus invisible on the page by showing 0 items in the feed and unchecking Show Feed. Add to all pages on the site and Seamus will index and update the index when the page is updated)
• Edit Feed Display (Only show feeds selected in Edit Feeds section. By default, all are show. Selecting feeds will filter news display of only items indexed from the feeds list)

Search Additions:

• Web.configless
• Object Qualifier support
• "query" URL parameter (You can now use your existing default DNN search results page. Simply drop the module on the search results page and remove the default search results module. Utilize the DNN Search textbox in your skin with the power of Full-Text Indexing).
• Search form skin object support (see instructions)
• Form post fix (A fix was added that allows you to simply hit the enter key after adding your query, rather than forcing you to click on the button)
• Allow user selected web or site search (allow your users to select whether their search is against the current portal or for all search results in the database)
• URL Trim (Used to trim the URL display in the search results. Long URLs would stretch out the skin)
• Search Query (Saves user queries and the number of "hits" for that query. This will be used in the pro version for "Top Searches" and "Latest Searches".)

Here is some information about our DotNetNuke search engine module. You can test it on our site here. We also have the latest version loaded on our DNN search site for finding DotNetNuke related pages and sites.

As for the official release, we are waiting on FlatBurger to fix an issue with their code protection that causes the module to generate an error after activation. We have been told that this may be fixed by Friday...we will see. In the meantime, please send us your thoughts on this release candidate. If you find any bugs, please post them to our issue tracker. If you have any suggestions for new features, please post them in the issue tracker or in the support forms.

REQUIREMENTS FOR VENEXUS SEARCH ENGINE

• DotNetNuke 4.3.5 or Higher (Yes it works with the DNN 4.4 release) 
• SQL Server supporting Full-Text Indexing
• .Net full trust for EntitySpaces and Reflection usage

Now for the files....

Before installing this, you MUST read the instructions. You CANNOT just install both modules and expect it to work. You MUST configure fulltext indexing manually to get this to work. You will find instructions on performing this action in the Search Instructions and Configuration.

You can download both modules here. The file is also attached as an enclosure.

Please post your links here in a comment to show everyone how you are using the Venexus Search Engine.

UPDATED: Link to module downloads has been updated.

In case you were wondering from my last post, here is how to get a list of all modules by Portal:

SELECT DISTINCT ModuleDefinitions.ModuleDefID, ModuleDefinitions.FriendlyName, Modules.PortalID
FROM         ModuleDefinitions CROSS JOIN
                      Modules LEFT OUTER JOIN
                      Modules AS Modules_1 ON ModuleDefinitions.ModuleDefID = Modules.ModuleDefID
WHERE     (Modules.ModuleDefID IS NOT NULL) ORDER BY Modules.PortalID

Here is how to specify a specific portal in the installation:

SELECT DISTINCT ModuleDefinitions.ModuleDefID, ModuleDefinitions.FriendlyName, Modules.PortalID
FROM         ModuleDefinitions CROSS JOIN
                      Modules LEFT OUTER JOIN
                      Modules AS Modules_1 ON ModuleDefinitions.ModuleDefID = Modules.ModuleDefID
WHERE     (Modules.ModuleDefID IS NOT NULL) AND (Modules.PortalID = 0)

We needed to check which modules were NOT being used on a DNN site. Why? It's a multi-portal DNN 3.1 website with quite a few 3rd party modules on it and we wanted to know which modules were not in use so we could remove them from the DNN installation before performing an upgrade. No need to add extra compilications or search for module updates for modules that were not being used. And if they are not being used, why leave them on there adding to the bloat? Anyway, here is the SQL:

SELECT     ModuleDefinitions.ModuleDefID, ModuleDefinitions.FriendlyName, ModuleDefinitions.DesktopModuleID
FROM         ModuleDefinitions LEFT OUTER JOIN
                      Modules ON ModuleDefinitions.ModuleDefID = Modules.ModuleDefID
WHERE     (Modules.ModuleDefID IS NULL)

I never got around to making an announcement that DNN 4.3.6 was release a couple of weeks ago....now DNN 4.3.7 is out.

I checked the security announcements and only saw 2 issues that were already fixed with DNN 4.3.6:

DNN 2006-4-C (16 November 06)

DNN 2006-5-L (16 November 06)

I am not sure if this is the 4.4 release Shaun Walker mentioned in his blog yesterday, or this is in fact the 4.3.7 release. The change log in the bug tracker does not appear to have any related info on 4.3.7. However, the roadmap for DNN 4.4 release shows many items checked in.

	Component	Issue Type	Issue ID	Summary	Resource	Status
(4.4.0) Performance Release	Admin / Host Functions	Bug	DNN-4492	ModuleTitle in multi definition modules		Checked-In
	Admin / Host Functions	Bug	DNN-3868	Page Head tags are not properly processed		Checked-In
	Admin / Host Functions	Bug	DNN-4011	Action Menu with Module Specific Permissions is not displayed		Checked-In
	Admin / Host Functions	Bug	DNN-4476	Cannot use icon from module directory in action buttons		Checked-In
	Admin / Host Functions	Enhancement	DNN-4503	Improve Delete Portal Functionality		Checked-In
	Admin / Host Functions	New Feature	DNN-4496	Add User Quota		Checked-In
	Admin / Host Functions	New Feature	DNN-4502	Improve Portal Management		Checked-In
	Admin / Host Functions	New Feature	DNN-4504	Add a new Delete Expired Portals action		Checked-In
	Admin / Host Functions	New Feature	DNN-4495	Add Page Quotas		Checked-In
	Localization / ML	Bug	DNN-4273	Collation issue with Event Log		Checked-In
	Localization / ML	Bug	DNN-4506	Pop-up calendar localized date format bug		Checked-In
	Localization / ML	Bug	DNN-4483	Localized images break when using the "ShowMissingKeys" app setting.		Checked-In
	Localization / ML	Bug	DNN-4560	Popup calendar		Checked-In
	Localization / ML	New Feature	DNN-4520	Force a specific language for first visitors		Checked-In
	Performance	Bug	DNN-4086	Performance: Reduce Database Calls		Checked-In
	Performance	Bug	DNN-4088	Performance: CBO and Reflection		Checked-In
	Performance	Bug	DNN-4090	Performance: ClientAPICaps.config caching		Checked-In
	Performance	Bug	DNN-4092	Performance: XmlSerializer		Checked-In
	Performance	Bug	DNN-4087	Performance : TabCache		Checked-In
	Performance	Bug	DNN-4091	Performance ; Menu providers		Checked-In
	Performance	Bug	DNN-4093	Performance: XPathDocument vs XmlDocument		Checked-In
	Performance	Enhancement	DNN-537	Imporve Startup performance		Checked-In
	Performance	Enhancement	DNN-662	Implement HTTP compression		Checked-In

Since 4.4 is called a "Performance" release, and on the website it says 4.3.7 is a stabilization release, I take it that they are indeed different. I just would like to know what was changed in the 4.3.7 if indeed it is a stabilization update.

 

 

I know it has been over a week since the last post. Sorry to leave you hanging, but sometimes there are just not enough hours in a day. Anyway, without further ado, here is part two…SEAMUS.

At some point earlier this year, DNN Find became a different mission. We decided to build a full blown search engine for DotNetNuke. Not one that would just index a single DNN site, but one that would allow you to index all portals in a DNN installation AND information from external sites. And how would external site indexing best be handled? …via RSS feed aggregation of course.  

Seamus is the first of the two modules that make up the Venexus Search Engine. SEAMUS = Search Engine Aggregation Module Utilizing Syndication. On a side note, there is also an obscure Pink Floyd song that not many know from the Meddle album, about an old hound dog by the same name. Our hound dog “fetches” data and stores it to a table that has enabled MS SQL Server full-text indexing. But before I go into the specifics, I think it is important to know about the framework.

We started with traditional DotNetNuke module development…until EntitySpaces was released. I’m an old ASP/VB developer and personally, it took me a bit to get my head wrapped around how ES worked, but once I figured it out, I was hooked. ES saves the day by automagically generating all the CRUD (create, read, update, delete). While very similar to the logic of a BusinessController and InfoObject, ES uses Collections and Entities. But, where I found ES the most useful is the Dynamic Queries you can write directly into the business logic.

For example, in Seamus we need to check the domain to see if it matches one we are already indexing:

            Dim colDomains As New VenexusDomainCollection
            colDomains.Query.Select(colDomains.Query.DomainName, colDomains.Query.DomainID)
            colDomains.Query.Where(colDomains.Query.DomainName.Equal(GetDomainName(sURL)))
            colDomains.Query.Load()
            If colDomains.Count > 0 Then
                     ‘a bunch of removed logic goes here..
            End IF

With the colDomains.Query.Select, we are only returning the data we need rather than all columns. With the colDomains.Query.Where, I eliminated the need to:

1. Write a stored proc just to retrieve by DomainName
2. Iterate through the entire table, every row of all domains, just to find the one I am looking for.

I won’t even go into the performance gain of not having to loop through those rows of all columns, nor the time (even though it would be simple) to write a stored proc to pass in DomainName and have it return the DomainID.

Here is an example of adding a record to Seamus for a new feed:

         Dim entFeed As New VenexusSeamus
         entFeed.AddNew()
         entFeed.Url = txtURL.Text
         entFeed.Title = txtTitle.Text
         entFeed.Account = txtAccount.Text
         entFeed.Password = txtPassword.Text
         entFeed.CacheTime = txtCacheTime.Text
         entFeed.FeedTimeOut = txtTimeOut.Text
         entFeed.DateAdded = Now()
         entFeed.DateUpdated = "1/1/1901"
           If chkActive.Checked = True Then
              entFeed.IsActive = True
            Else
                entFeed.IsActive = False
            End If
         entFeed.Save()

Easy enough, eh?

And here is an update of a feed for Seamus:

    Dim entFeed As New VenexusSeamus
    entFeed.LoadByPrimaryKey(hidRSSID.Value)
    entFeed.Url = txtURL.Text
    entFeed.Title = txtTitle.Text
    entFeed.Account = txtAccount.Text
    entFeed .Password = txtPassword.Text
    entFeed.CacheTime = txtCacheTime.Text
    entFeed.FeedTimeOut = txtTimeOut.Text
    entFeed.DateAdded = Now()
    entFeed.DateUpdated = "1/1/1901"
          If chkActive.Checked = True Then
              entFeed.IsActive = True
          Else
                entFeed.IsActive = False
          End If
    entFeed .Save()

And a delete example:

    Dim entFeed As New VenexusSeamus
    entFeed.LoadByPrimaryKey(hidRSSID.Value)
    entFeed.MarkAsDeleted()
    entFeed.Save()

Yeah, it’s that easy. Makes you want to fire up your IDE eh?

Sure, I have used DAL Builder Pro, which was a huge time saver, but EntitySpaces made me to never want to develop any other way. Plus, last I checked, DAL Builder Pro was still only for DNN 3 development. The ease of generating the DAL and the ability to easily REgenerate the DAL if the database schema changes, makes ES the tool of choice for all of our module development. I cannot even begin to count the hours I have previously spent hand coding changes in a DAL due to spec changes. Oh how I wish I had all those hours back!

With the new DNN admin grid templates, it is just ridiculous how much code is generated before having to write the first line. The new template will generate an editable grid of the table(s), with sorting, paging, and search. If you are interested in .Net development (this is not just a DNN tool, it works for all .Net 2.0 development and using C# or VB.Net), you must check it out.

NOTE: Just so you know, we do not have any affiliation or partnership with EntitySpaces, we just think their tool rocks.

So, even though we had much of the initial Seamus development completed, we scrapped it and started development with ES. This will make future modifications and additions so much easier, saving time in the long run.

With that said, here is how Seamus works…

After you install Seamus, you can go into the module settings:

So in this example, the display for Seamus should show the top 10 items last indexed, each with a link to the actual item in the Title and using the “…More” link. A feed icon will also be displayed that provides a link to a RSS feed for the top 10 items.

Here is an example of the display:

Now while the above example does not show any local items (tabs or modules from this site), it does have items indexed from other sites. All of these items were from RSS feeds that were aggregated. As a module editor, you have the ability to manage external feeds (or local feeds if so desired, but we will go into more detail about how Seamus works shortly). But, if there were local items visible, they would only be visible if you have the proper permissions. Seamus checks permissions on any local site at the module and tab level for the display and the RSS feed. 

Here is an example of the feeds we are are currently indexing on the Venexus Search Engine:

Here is the interface for adding new feeds:

Now we will get into how Seamus works…

First off, on the first load of Seamus, a dump of data from all modules supporting the IPortable interface (currently limited to DNN Core modules) is performed to ensure that there is data in the index. And every X hours (determined in module settings), the index is checked for new, updated, and deleted pages/modules.

Secondly, any feeds that have been added to Seamus are aggregated 5 at a time, order by last updated.  And, while the user is sitting on the page, every 30 seconds that pass, 5 more feeds are aggregated via AJAX. This user interactive aggregating decreases the load on the server, rather than running as a scheduled task like the core DNN Search.

In order to save bandwidth, and to not tick off the owners of the websites you are aggregating data from, Seamus has what I call “smart caching”.  Each time a feed is requested, if the information in the feed as not been updated, Seamus will increase the cache time. If the feed has been updated, it will request the same feed sooner than it had previously, decreasing the cache time. Over time, and based on the “average” a feed it updated, Seamus learns when to check again for updates, all while obeying TTLs.

Seamus will also index the current page/tab it is sitting on. Now you may be asking why you would index a page that displays items that have already been indexed. Well, Seamus can be setup to not display the top X items and/nor the RSS feed. Here is an example:

With the above Seamus settings and the module settings to display on all pages and set to not display the container or using an “invisible” container, when a user lands on any page of the site, the page is indexed. You can index your entire site by letting the users "crawl" the website. Also, when the page is updated, the index will be updated. Here is the module settings example:

So, not only does Seamus index all portals in the DNN installation by doing a dump of all modules that support the IPortable interface and individual page indexing based on user interaction, it will also aggregate and index data from other sites. This gives you the ability to create a full blown search engine for your niche. For example, let say you have a website about racing. You could have your entire DNN site indexed, along with aggregation of more racing data from the following sites:

http://www.sportsline.com/partners/feeds/rss/auto_news

http://rss.news.yahoo.com/imgrss/events/sp/042103autoformula

http://rss.cnn.com/rss/si_motorsports.rss

Not only are you able to display a list of the last items indexed in order to keep a page from becoming stagnant, you can also provide a RSS feed for your users, giving them a reason to return to your site. I will save a Seamus and SEO discussion for another time, but here is an example site for a legal search engine.

Speaking of time, I am once again out of it. Part III will be a discussion of the second module, the search form module. Stay tuned...

 

I know a lot of people have been waiting on this and it is literally been over 5 years in the making, but it is now time to tell the story of how the Venexus Search Engine came to be…

 

Bots, Crawlers, and Spiders, Oh My!

Once upon a time, long, long ago, well over 5 years ago anyway, but that’s like ancient history in terms of the web, I wrote a little script to rip down free fonts off of a font directory website, who shall remain nameless since they are still around today. FontGrabber.vbs crawled their entire website saving zip files of free font packages. If I remember correctly, it pulled down almost 5000 font packages in a few hours.  What a time saver! And my crawler addiction began to set in…

 

MediaGrabber

The next crawler I wrote extracted data from an online database of live music recordings. I dumped about 10 to 12 thousand records into a custom media database. My crawling habit had now increased to an hour or 2 a week perfecting the use of HTTPGets using XMLHTTP and making modification to scrape other data from the site based on URL parameters.

 

Many variations of MediaGrabber were developed over the years for aggregating data. Some of the variations include:

• PhotoGrabber - For consuming one of the stock photography buffett sites. An interesting note, the one we crawled, which will also remain nameless, started limiting the number of photo request per day the following month. I wonder if that had anything to do with what we were doing...hehe.
• FDAUpdater - For pulling down pharmaceutical data from the FDA to be used on a pharmacy website. Enough said about that one.
• CategoryDump - For pulling category names from Yahoo and DMOZ.
• And others...

 

Madhatter

Madhatter was my first bot. It was a VBScript that sat in a Direct Connect P2P Server application. Madhatter started as a trigger bot.  A user would type a message into the chat and if it contained keywords or phrases that matched a list of keywords and response(s), the bot would automatically reply with a random response from the list that was associated with that keyword. Over time, I added around 1000 different responses to about 400 keywords. Madhatter then received search capabilities. You could type +search <band> or +search <date> and it would return a top 100 list of media records from a database of about 20000 records that matched with a link pointing them to the website with the information. I then gave the ability for the Operators to allow Madhatter speak on their behalf. So in addition to Madhatter automatically responding, the operator would make new responses to the user messages via Madhatter. This worked so well, and I guess to some degree could be considered my first AI application, that many DC newbies really thought it was a live person responding to their messages, even when Madhatter was running solo. I even setup the bot so that if a user tried to send Madhatter a private message chat, it would display in the Operators chat. This led to untold hours of entertainment watching people talk to a rude, trash talking bot that would kick them off the hub if they responded in a derogatory manner. Just thinking about it again makes me want to write a DNN Bot, maybe not one as feisty as Madhatter. Or maybe “bot” interactive search anyone?

 

 

Tiny IntRAnet Crawler

I started working for Semiconductor Research Corporation in August 2001 as their Web Administrator/Developer. At that time they only had a website and a forums website. The forums website was using a product called SiteScope which was written in TCL, but we will not even go there in fear of recurring nightmares .The SRC main site was not built using a Content Management System, rather a Staging to Dev push of content. I think it was sometime in early 2002, I began writing my first true crawler that would consume all items in a domain. 

 

The need was simple…with the amount of content we had on the site, there was bound to be broken links, missing images, orphaned files, and God forbid, 500 server errors. We needed something that would crawl the site and search for any issues, compare the file system, and generate a report for the Content Management Team. I was still using XMLHTTP component for grabbing the data until I found ASPTear. ASPTear proved to be faster and was the HTTP component of choice until I found NSoftware. NSoft’s HTTP component was far superior to any of the others for speed and with many more methods/objects that could be utilized.

 

SRC had a pretty big main site and we began developing 2 other websites to fall under the SRC umbrella. This lead to TIC 2.0, which crawled all 3 domains, and would (and probably still does) generate a report of any issues. With TIC now crawling more than one website and doing it dynamically (could jump from one domain and then the other with the FIFO [First In First Out] URL queue/stack), the need came to check the first link offsite. Why? In case the link moved (301 or 302), or was generating a 404. We have no control what some site may do to their content, but we sure wanted to know if our users were going to get an error if it was broken. TIC would find those problem links and let the CM Team know they needed to remove the link, or change the URL to the new redirect. Now comes TIC 3.0...

 

Tiny IntERnet Crawler

One night I was goofing around with TIC and decided to turn off the function that performs the domain or first link offsite check and just let it run…and run. And it did, all night long. When I got up the next morning, it had crawled almost 30,000 pages and had built a queue of over 100,000. Now I was hooked. How could I get more data and faster? Since TIC was a script and utilized a central database for the URL queue, instead of an in memory stack, I was able run multiple instances of the crawler. 10 instances of TIC 3.0 crawling brought my little home router to its knees. In fact, it choked and rolled over tits up. In three hours, over 110,000 pages were crawled, over 500,000 URLs queued, and had sucked down over a gig of data. Whoa…this was getting fun.

 

Over the next year or so I really was tweaking TIC quite a bit. I’d let it run for weeks at a time. I quickly realized I was going to run into a big problem…Disk space. The database was getting bloated and slowing down dramatically after it had indexed over 1 million pages and had over 5 more million queued. While those numbers are a drop in the bucket when compared to the 800 pound gorillas of search, it is still a lot of data for such a small operation. And, TIC would crawl anything, all file types.  So I started curbing back what TIC looked for…all the way down to just XML. TIC, as the last version in use, now looks just for XML files anywhere on the Internet. Of course I added tweaks to check domain importance or linking page importance based on keywords and altered the queueing process so that TIC would not get stuck on a crappy domain. But that is a discussion for another time.

 

Tiny XML Spider

So with TIC crawling the web looking for XML files, TXS was developed to crawl and index the XML files TIC found. TXS runs continuously, iterating through all “approved” RSS feeds (about 2,500 of over 100,000). For each feed it parses through the articles and stores anything new to the database. If the feed has been updated, TXS will return in less time. Feeds that have not been updated will be crawled the next time after a longer duration. I call this “smart caching”, which will be discussed in the features of Seamus later on. TXS has aggregated over 1.7 million articles from only 2500 news feeds. Not bad considering how much other data we have to collect from feeds that have not been approved. We have been stuffing the aggregated data into a combination of DNN websites for SEO reasons.

 

DNNFind

DNNFind = DotNetNuke Fulltext INDexing. At some point about 2 years ago, and with TXS bringing in the data, we decided to build a DNN module that would perform a SQL Server fulltext index query against the aggregated data and return the results. While this is not a bot, crawler, or spider, it is a fundamental step of searching the data, which we will get into when discussing the search module of VSE.

 

DNN Spider

I started developing a standalone VB.Net application for crawling DotNetNuke websites. This was my first multi-threaded application. While similar to TIC, this application would allow 1 to many threads to be used to handle the crawling. What we found is that we can use the application for stress testing DotNetNuke websites by throwing a few hundred or thousand request at it. And, we can use multiple applications running on different servers to really pound away at a box. However, this got me thinking about distributing the load of crawling against the users of the website, which is why we are using AJAX to request more data from Seamus. More on that later on as well.

 

Okay, so you made it this far and you are probably asking why I have not even started to describe what the Venexus Search Engine does. Well, I think it is important to understand the background of the application and how it came to be. It’s not like we just came up with some flimsy half-brain ideas about how a search engine should be done, but rather years of trial and error. And, I want everyone to realize that our product is not going to disappear, but get stronger as we add more functionality from all of the code we have written over the years. With that said, here are the details...

 

Sorry, I am out of time and you will have to wait for Part II of this post.

 

In the meantime, if you want to see Venexus Search Engine in action, go to search.venexus.com. To read more about VSE, go here.

REQUIREMENTS FOR VENEXUS SEARCH ENGINE

• DotNetNuke 4.3.5
• SQL Server supporting Full-Text Indexing
• .Net full trust for EntitySpaces and Reflection usage

If you would like to test our release candidate, please reply in a comment to this post and I will send you the PA's.

 

The news is out, DotNetNuke is going corporate. Perpetual Motion Interactive Systems, Inc., started by Shawn Walker, has been managing the DotNetNuke Project. According to a press release on the DotNetNuke website today, the formation of DotNetNuke Corporation in Seattle, Washington will "serve the growing needs of the project and its ever-expanding community".

This is indeed big news! At this time I am not sure whether to be excited or worried. While I understand the past year has been challenging, with such a huge adoption rate of the project among all types and sizes of business entities (we have seen this first hand), and has brought in the extra administrative burden to the core team, I had hoped that there was a plan to offset the growth. With any "open source" project, people immediately think "free" which has been the downfall of many projects IMO. In any business model, 0 times 0 is still 0. And let's face it, people just can't afford to work for free. While I am grateful for the core team and their many volunteer hours, and I for one am unable to devote such hours, I do feel these people should be compensated for their hardwork. I felt DotNetNuke was on the right path with the Benefactor program (we joined within hours of its announcement) and with the announcement of providing 3rd party module reviews and a 3rd party marketplace, I felt it was bound to gather the dough required to float the venture. But the idea of DotNetNuke going corporate has changed the possibilities greatly.

From the article:

“DotNetNuke Corporation is not a typical commercial entity,” Walker added. “Rather, it is dedicated to the public benefit goal at the heart of the DotNetNuke project, which is to create opportunities and spread entrepreneurship to the world by providing a superior Open Source web application framework."

AND...

In addition to spearheading the Open Source project, DotNetNuke Corp. will also focus on developing and delivering services which support the ecosystem, including marketing, sponsorships, and a wide range of partner-related activities. These activities are expected to generate revenue, but the company intends to focus on those opportunities that are consistent with the community values and public goals of the project, Walker said. This includes providing funding for aspects of the project that are difficult or challenging for volunteer teams to solely undertake such as professional marketing, large-scale platform and feature development, product certification and ecommerce initiatives, he added.

With that said, it seems to say, DotNetNuke is going corporate so that they can fund the development of additional activities that need more funding. Now one has to consider the rumors that have been flying about the changes in DNN 4.3 related to membership, and the mysterious source that funded these changes. Also, is there a reason for making the headquarters in Seattle, Washington? To get closer to Microsoft maybe? How will the business model change, or will it? Will DotNetNuke eventually be sold? I think there are still lots of questions in my mind about the reasoning for this move, but we all know the answer...$$$. I am not saying any of the items above are a bad thing. Afterall, anyone who complains about Microsoft being a monoploy is just jealous of a beautiful business model. At the same time, in the words of Google, "Don't be evil", should be taken to heart.

I want to think that this will be the big push DotNetNuke needed to get into the limelight, but only time will tell. In the meantime, we will be keeping busy with the many clients Venexus has accumulated over the last couple of years, all due to a little CMS called DotNetNuke. We can't thank DotNetNuke enough for our own business growth, and hope the new path is one that will continue to benefit the ecosystem and community and allow DotNetNuke Corporation to prosper.

DotNetNuke 4.3.5 was released Saturday. There are quite a few fixes in this release:

	Component	Issue Type	Issue ID	Summary	Resource	Status
(4.3.5) Stabilization Release	Admin / Host Functions	Bug	DNN-3730	Failure to include all required fields when creating a profile property generates unfriendly error		Checked-In
	Admin / Host Functions	Bug	DNN-3867	Templates created in 4.3.4 cause errors on parsing		Checked-In
	Admin / Host Functions	Bug	DNN-3866	problem creating new portals in 4.3 (if updating from 4.0)		Checked-In
	Admin / Host Functions	Bug	DNN-3822	Empty Categories still display header		Checked-In
	Admin / Host Functions	Bug	DNN-3868	Page Head tags are not properly processed		Checked-In
	Admin / Host Functions	Bug	DNN-3793	New AddCodeSubDirectory method fails in hosted environment		Checked-In
	Admin / Host Functions	Bug	DNN-3791	Verified User Registration and User Profile Workflow Problem		Checked-In
	Admin / Host Functions	Bug	DNN-3911	Add Vendor in admin menu		Checked-In
	Admin / Host Functions	Bug	DNN-3748	Paging in User Accounts		Checked-In
	Admin / Host Functions	Bug	DNN-3419	FB-101: Module Definition - Unused resource file entries in EditModuleDefinition.ascx.resx		Checked-In
	Admin / Host Functions	Bug	DNN-3932	Host/Super User Accounts/User Settings ddl selected value does not persist.		Checked-In
	Admin / Host Functions	Bug	DNN-3694	Need to stop duplicate portal aliases from being entered		Checked-In
	Admin / Host Functions	Bug	DNN-3913	Slow performance on "Edit/Copy/Create Page" when long directory Tree		Checked-In
	Admin / Host Functions	Bug	DNN-3804	FormatExeption on "PasswordUpdated"		Checked-In
	Admin / Host Functions	Enhancement	DNN-3760	Breadcrumb enhancement: Allow use of tab title instead of name		Checked-In
	Admin / Host Functions	Enhancement	DNN-3928	Add option to disable the forced profile update on Login		Checked-In
	Admin / Host Functions	Enhancement	DNN-3835	Add ability to disable/enable Services		Checked-In
	Admin / Host Functions	Enhancement	DNN-3839	Add ability for admin user to set the default profile Visibility		Checked-In
	Admin / Host Functions	Enhancement	DNN-3834	Add ability for Admin to enable/disable Profile Visibility		Checked-In
	Admin / Host Functions	Enhancement	DNN-3838	Add an option to suppress the Pager in the Users Grid when not needed		Checked-In
	Control Panel	Bug	DNN-3874	New module creation don't add custom permissions for administrator		Checked-In
	Core Modules	Bug	DNN-3946	PDF-Link (Download) Problem in Link and Documents-Module		Checked-In
	Data Access (DAL)	Bug	DNN-2913	User Account management error		Checked-In
	File Manager	Bug	DNN-3865	Add Buffering to Downloading of files		Checked-In
	General	Bug	DNN-3999	URLControl fix causes error in UDT		Checked-In
	General	Bug	DNN-3743	Email notifications won't be sent		Checked-In
	General	Bug	DNN-3702	SMTP-Port and SubjectEncoding		Checked-In
	General	Enhancement	DNN-2699	sitewizard.ascx doesn't allow debuging		Checked-In
	HTML Editor	Bug	DNN-3926	text/html module is not secure.		Checked-In
	Installation / Upgrade	Bug	DNN-3759	NullReferenceException while add new host portal		Checked-In
	Installation / Upgrade	Bug	DNN-4039	##.##.##.txt file does not remove assemblies		Checked-In
	Localization / ML	Bug	DNN-3917	Right-to-Left support in ProfileEditorControl.vb		Checked-In
	Localization / ML	Bug	DNN-3892	United States English		Checked-In
	Localization / ML	Bug	DNN-1974	number of characters used for locales		Checked-In
	Localization / ML	Bug	DNN-2612	XML Error in Resource Verifier		Checked-In
	Localization / ML	Bug	DNN-2268	resource verifier cannot handle ASP.Net 2 resource format		Checked-In
	Localization / ML	Enhancement	DNN-3594	sort order languages in language editor		Checked-In
	PA Loader / DNN Files	Bug	DNN-3742	Error with [app_code] instalation		Checked-In
	Search	Bug	DNN-2344	Pages with End Date won't get indexed		Checked-In
	Search	Bug	DNN-3464	FB-065: Search - error when search results per page set to 0		Checked-In
	Search	Bug	DNN-1778	Search module doesn't work in portals other than the default one?		Checked-In
	Search	Bug	DNN-2798	SearchItem Title (NVARCHAR)		Checked-In
	Search	Bug	DNN-1902	Page Count is not checked correctly		Checked-In
	Search	Bug	DNN-1891	Include Common Words setting is ignored		Checked-In
	Search	Bug	DNN-3906	SearchResults		Checked-In
	Security	Bug	DNN-3853	Get Permissions functions call GetRoles excessively		Checked-In
	Security	Bug	DNN-3718	Password fields on register form need validation indicators		Checked-In
	Security	Bug	DNN-3849	application pool crashes with wrong login on win2003 x64 server		Checked-In
	Security	Bug	DNN-3576	FB-217: reset password option should not be available for admin/host		Checked-In
	Security	Bug	DNN-3747	RequiresQuestionAndAnswer in 4.3.4 does not work (see also DNNP-3245)		Checked-In
	Security	Bug	DNN-3964	Login-SuperUser event is no longer logged		Checked-In
	Security	Bug	DNN-3479	After deleting UserName you cannot register again under same username		Unassigned
	Security	Bug	DNN-3883	Administrator cannot be unlocked		Checked-In
	Security	Enhancement	DNN-3833	Unauthorized User - No message when trying to log in		Checked-In
	Security	Enhancement	DNN-3706	ProfileDefinition.ValidationExpression		Checked-In
	Security	Enhancement	DNN-3968	seperate temporary and persistent cookie timeouts	>Cathal Connolly	Checked-In
	Skinning	Bug	DNN-3984	DNNMenuNavigationProvider CSSNodeSelectedRoot bug		Checked-In
	Skinning	Bug	DNN-3707	Skinning of HTML files enhancemet is broken		Checked-In
	Templates	Bug	DNN-1826	Some templates as of 3.1.1 missing search results tab..		Checked-In
	Templates	Bug	DNN-2234	Template default content incorrect		Checked-In
	Templates	Bug	DNN-3708	Error creating portal when importing in templates (duplicate ModuleID?)		Checked-In
	Templates	Bug	DNN-3661	C# module template error		Checked-In
	Templates	Bug	DNN-3783	Site Wizard Bug		Checked-In
	UI / Usability	Bug	DNN-3746	Login instructions not correctly displayed		Checked-In
	UI / Usability	Bug	DNN-3798	Password Aging Settings Maximize button maximized incorrect section		Checked-In
	UI / Usability	Bug	DNN-3882	Different Lists with same items have issues in Profile Editor		Checked-In

We upgraded 3 sites over the weekend:

DNN 4.3.4 > DNN 4.3.5

DNN 4.0.2 > DNN 4.3.5

DNN 3.2.2 > DNN 4.3.5

 

2 worked perfectly, the third (DNN 3.2.2 > DNN 4.3.5) failed. However, this client has numerous 3^rd party modules installed and a couple of them are causing some issues.

Wow, we can't even keep up with all of the new releases of DotNetNuke lately... Download DNN 4.3.4

Digging a little deeper I see the reason for this quick build is due to a couple of security issues, one being a "Critical Issue".

DNN 2006-1-M (02 August 06)

DNN 2006-2-C (02 August 06)

I also found a page on DotNetNuke that I have not seen before:

http://dotnetnuke.com/SecurityPolicy/tabid/940/Default.aspx

At the bottom are a couple of documents:

Security Documentation

Title Owner Category Modified Date Size (Kb)   Secure Module Development Shaun Walker   7/21/2006 274.41 Download Hardening DotNetNuke Installations Shaun Walker   7/21/2006 274.46 Download

Can't we go back to complaining about when the next release will be? Just kidding. It is good to see that the core team is proactive about keeping DNN patched and up-to-date. As a community, we need to do the same and update our systems as quickly as possible to keep DNN from getting a bad name.

Shaun Walker has posted a feature matrix comparison of DotNetNuke versus ASP.NET 2.0 versus SharePoint Server 2003 ( SPS 2003 ) versus Microsoft Office Sharepoint Services 2007 ( MOSS 2007 ). This is a great breakdown of features showing the differences between the platforms and should help anyone who is trying to pitch DotNetNuke to the "decision makers".

DNN 4.3.3 was released yesterday. We have our fingers crossed for this version! Stay tuned...

This has been an exciting month for DotNetNuke with over 300,000 registered users and the release of DotNetNuke 4.3. The new features in DNN 4.3 rock! And, offer many new features and functionality over its predecessors. While the new release is not without some new issues, and we do not believe this release is stable enough to be considered a production release, it does offer much promise into the future of DotNetNuke as it begins to catch-on with upper management (more on this later). If you just take a look at the number of downloads of DotNetNuke, there is a steady curve that leaves us all optimistic.

Date (UTC)	Downloads	Bytes Served
Jun 2006 *	99,379	667.2 GB
May 2006	72,360	423.2 GB
Apr 2006	70,736	411.4 GB
Mar 2006	81,935	480.8 GB
Feb 2006	84,530	492.9 GB
Jan 2006	93,425	547.6 GB
Dec 2005	111,006	651.2 GB
Nov 2005	150,077	891.7 GB
Oct 2005	43,193	256.2 GB
Sep 2005	38,540	303.8 GB
Aug 2005	38,103	354.8 GB
Jul 2005	43,292	462.6 GB
Jun 2005	60,881	592.6 GB
May 2005	23,931	369.1 GB
Apr 2005	39,365	613.0 GB
Mar 2005	45,624	577.6 GB
Feb 2005	34,013	279.7 GB
Jan 2005	25,517	186.2 GB
Dec 2004	24,219	137.8 GB
Nov 2004	20,151	108.3 GB
Oct 2004	13,932	68.5 GB
Sep 2004	13,180	63.9 GB
Aug 2004	14,067	67.5 GB
Jul 2004	14,508	69.6 GB
Jun 2004	23,907	115.0 GB
May 2004	13,300	53.2 GB
Apr 2004	21,074	80.1 GB
Mar 2004	4,300	15.9 GB
Feb 2004	0	0 bytes
Jan 2004	133	199.3 MB
Dec 2003	117	175.3 MB
Nov 2003	74	110.9 MB
Oct 2003	331	495.5 MB
Sep 2003	341	509.9 MB
Aug 2003	318	476.6 MB
Jul 2003	351	524.3 MB
Jun 2003	66	96.7 MB
May 2003	3,814	4.7 GB
Apr 2003	4,187	4.5 GB
Mar 2003	372	334.6 MB
Total	1,328,649	9.3 TB

^* Partial data: End of month not yet reached

Figures authoritative as of:
SourceForge.net, tracker and forum data: 2006-06-28 09:50 UTC Download data: 2006-06-28 09:55 UTC Project Web: 2006-06-28 09:50 UTC

Source: SourceForge

It would be interesting to see the actual number of DNN sites in production, indeed.

We believe this trend will continue as businesses realize the power of the web application framework for their enterprise information portals (corporate portals, intranets, extranets, web presence, etc.). With the advantage of getting their existing static, or non-existant websites and intranets up-to-date with .Net 2.0 and SQL Server 2005, many companies are finding DotNetNuke an affordable solution when compared to other high priced content management solutions. However, one of the hurdles that must be conquered is the fact that most upper management (the ones who approve the budget and sign the checks), still cannot comprehend the ROI from building a corporate portal solution, with their "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality, further digging themselves and their company into the dinosaur graveyard. Unfortunately, the developers have a hard time translating geek-speak to the uninitiated, which slows this process. But, with DotNetNuke being Open-Source, developers have an easier time to sell the idea to upper management, they just have to get the idea wrapped around their narrow brains...

So, we look forward to the coming months as DNN 4.3 progresses, adpotion of the application grows, and upper management evolve or retire. This is truly the Wild-Wild-West of content management systems for the masses.

 

Just when we were about to abandon ship on the 4.3 release and roll back to 4.0.3, a new "point release" is issued...

"A "point" release has been posted for DotNetNuke 3.3/4.3 today. This point release contains fixes for a number of issues which were identified in the original Release Candidate packages." - Download from DNN

With weird caching issues and missing UserController methods,...which I will rant about later...we were prepared to roll back our development stack to the 4.0.3 release. Instead we will be testing the new version with our fingers crossed that it fixes many of the issues we have found. Check back later for the results!

Many of us have been waiting for the DNN 4.1 release, instead we get the DNN 4.3 release!

Here is the announcement on the site: DotNetNuke® 3.3/4.3 Release Candidate Now Available

Here is a list of features that are in the new release:

Membership

- Provider Abstraction - create our own provider to abstract ourselves from the Microsoft provider.
- HttpContext - eliminate dependence on HttpContext
- ApplicationName - manage our multi-portal capabilities within DNN rather than trying to hack the Microsoft provider
- Question and Answer - the ability for a user to enter and store a private question and answer which can be used for a password reminder
- Hashed Passwords - hashed passwords are supported through the Microsoft Membership Provider. We should provide a mechanism to support hashed password in DNN as they are much more secure then encrypted passwords and do not rely on MachineKeys. ( It would be advantageous to make this the default but the side effect would be that we would no longer have a password retrieval mechanism )
- CAPTCHA - add the ability to display a small image with embedded text which bots can not read. Prevents brute force dictionary login attacks.
- Public Registration - the system should send an email to the user on public registration ( to prevent cases where another user registers with their email address ).
- Profile Change Notification - when any profile attribute is changed, the owner of the account should be notified ( using the original email address ). This is to alert people in the event that an unauthorized user has gained access to their account and made changes to their profile ( password, email ).
- Login Redirect - after login there should b a way to send a user to a specific page. This could be implemented at the portal or user level.
- Password Generation - the ability for an admin to automatically generate a secure password for a user on account creation
- User Account Creation Notification - when an admin creates a user account they should have an option to send the account details to the user
- Force Profile Update - ability to force a user to update their user profile ( implemented at a granular level based on required Profile fields )
- Force Password Change - ability to force a user to change their password
- Password Complexity - add the ability to define some passord complexity requirements ( ie. mixed upper/lower case, numeric and alpha-numeric, etc... )
- Password Length - increase the default minimum password length from 4 characters ( will require a more secure host password on initial install )
- Password Expiry - a mechanism for expiring a password which would force a user to enter a new password. This could be done through password aging parameters defined at the portal level ( ie. every 2 months ). Would likely need to be associated with a reminder email to let people know their password was going to expire ( a similar requirement is needed for Role expiry ).
- Display Name Field - the membership schema should store the DisplayName of the user for demographic purposes - this item is critical for international users where their name is not represented as "FirstName LastName". Modules should link to the DisplayName for audit purposes rather than using FirstName and LastName.
- Preserve Login Parameters - when a user is directed to the login screen, the system needs to retain the original url ( with parameters ) so that it can redirect back after successful login ( especially useful in nested module UIs like Forum )
- Logout Behavior - after logging out, the user should be able to remain on the same page rather than being redirected to the home page ( the only reason they are being redirected now is because they may no longer have access to the page because of roles - but this is largely unnecessary and can be handled other ways ).
- Automated Verified Registration URL - the email sent to user when using he Verified Registration process now containa a URL which a user can click to very quickly validate their account
- User Lockout Notification - enhance the user lockout ( 3 unsuccessful logins ) to send an email to the admin to notify them of the event
- Manage Users UI Consistency - both users ( register.ascx ) and administrators ( manageuser.ascx ) should be able to manage the profile properties consistently.

Roles

- Provider Abstraction - create our own provider to abstract ourselves from the Microsoft provider.
- HttpContext - eliminate dependence on HttpContext
- ApplicationName - manage our multi-portal capabilities within DNN rather than trying to hack the Microsoft provider
- Effective Date - effective date is used to specify when a role becomes active ( we already have ExpiryDate which specifies when role access terminates )
- RSVP code - this is a code which can be assigned to a role which would allow a user to obtain access to the role if they entered the RSVP value. A use case would be an administrator working with a group of users could send them an RSVP code which they could then enter on the site to get instant access, rather than the admin having to assign the users to roles manually.
- Avatar field - the administrator should be able to associate an avatar to a role.
- Role Groups - administration mechanism to group roles within the same portal to provide a faster, easier way to manage/assign them. This affects the Role Management, User Role management, and Permissions grids.
- Manage User Roles - once a site has more than 1000 users the user combobox, displayed when you access Manage User Roles from the Roles UI, contains too much data and sometimes times out. As a result there is no easy way to see the users who are assigned to a role ( the bottom portion of the UI ).


Profile

- Provider Abstraction - create our own provider to abstract ourselves from the Microsoft provider.
- HttpContext - eliminate dependence on HttpContext
- ApplicationName - manage our multi-portal capabilities within DNN rather than trying to hack the Microsoft provider
- Company Name Field - the default list of profile properties should contain the CompanyName of the user for demographic purposes
- Default Properties - In the default install we should provide a comprehensive collection of properties (consistent with W3C's Platform for Privacy http://www.w3.org/TR/P3P)
- Module Profile Properties - Modules should be able to add profile properties for module-specific information.
- Portal Properties - the Profile Properties should be defined at the Portal level (not the host level)
- Dynamic Definition - the Portal level properties should be managed by the Portal Administrator.
- Searchable - Profile Properties should be Searchable (ie we should be able to do Find Users By City or Find Users with Green Eyes)
- Profile Property Order - To support certain eastern cultures the order of Profile fields is important.
- Public/Private Data - the User should have the ability to specify which profile items are public vs. private. DNN should have the ability for anonymous users to link to a User Profile page and view public information.


Event Queue

- generic framework which allows managed code to create and consume custom events ( including parameters ). Events are persisted to the data store so they can survive app restarts.

File Management

- Storage Location - new Folder level specification to identify whether files should be stored on the file system ( unsecure ), file system ( secure ), or database ( secure ).
- File Manager - refactored to use the database as the source for file/folder information rather than the physical file system. Improved user interface to accomodate new Storage Location options as well as provide Synchronization at the folder level.
- File/Folder Association - added referential integrity between the Files and Folders table
- File Server - HTTP Handler for serving files regardless of Storage Location. Takes advantage of Folder permissions to ensure secure access to files.
- URLControl - leverage folder permissions and storage location in file selection and upload options.

Usability

- Copy Content - in Add Page, a new option which allows an admin to select a page and the granularly select the modules to copy as well as whether to make a New, Copy, or Reference.
- Page Template - template which defines a default set of modules to insert into the page when the page is added. The template is based on a portal template fragment and is currently defined at the host level. The default template provided contains a single HTML/Text module which helps address the usability issue of new portal administrators who do not understand that you  need to add modules to your page once it is created.
- Host Space - increased host space capacity from 999.
- Module Title Editing - enabled AJAX-style editing of the Module Title by default
- ClientAPI - fixes and enhancements to ClientAPI javascript library as well as navigation controls ( ie. treeview, SolPartMenu, DNNMenu )
- Navigation Provider - fixes and enhancements to Navigation provider library
- AJAX - fixes and enhancements to DNN AJAX library
- URL Rewriter - adjusted logic so that full URL can be used in rewriter rules.
- Rich Text Editor - added support for URLControl in hyperlink popup so that a user can select from a file, page, or external URL. Also added Insert Smiley option.
- Newsletter - added ability to enter From: address.

Framework

- Remove dnn.config - the perceived performance benefit of the dnn.config was far outweighed by the support implications.
- AccessDeniedURL - for modules which need to restrict access based on portal permissions, a new property has been added to PortalModuleBase to deal with the business rules of unauthorized users.
- Module Actions - Moved ModuleActions from Container to PortalModuleBase for proper encapsulation of ModuleAction collection ( no longer dependent on the existence of an Actions skin object ). Allow custom module actions to be created as sub-items below the root.
- Permissions Grids - refactored to handle viewstate properly, allow extensibility for custom permission types, and eliminate errors related to rolenames containing embedded colons.


Data Access

- Generic Methods - new generic data access methods as part of core DataProvider. The purpose is to simplify DAL development for modules where a full Data Provider is not necessary. Detailed tutorial provides information on how they can be leveraged.

Performance

- Caching Code Pattern - code pattern for accessing the ASP.NET cache had the potential for threading issues. These issues were exposed on the ASP.NET 2.0 platform due to changes in the run-time model.
- Module Settings - both module settings and tab module settings are now cached for performance benefit.

Module Definitions

- Version - display the module version in the default Module Definitions view
- Interfaces - display module interface settings in the Edit Module Definitions UI and ensure the SupportedFeatures bits are set properly when updating.
- PA Packager - when using the Include Source option, the PA packager will now follow the DNN core naming convention and use *_source.zip as part of the filename for the source resource file.
- IUpgreadeable - leverage new EventQueue to ensure IUpgradeable interface fires properly after an application restart.

E-Commerce

- Subscriptions - new portal settings to manage PayPalIPN behavior.
- Text Banner - added support for a "display url" for text banners ( via the ImageURL property ). Also optimized the FindBanners stored procedure to exclude expired banners.

Design

- HTML Skins - skins created as HTML files can now include a section. The skin parsing engine will parse the content within the BODY tag when creating the ASCX skin file.

Download it now!

I will be posting more info on this release as we begin testing. Stay tuned...

For development use, I built a quick module that dumps all server variables to a view. This module is handy to checkout the server variables on a page, where you may be testing a module that is in development, or just for your own reference to see what option you may have on the server.

Example Output:

ALL_HTTP=HTTP_CACHE_CONTROL:no-cache HTTP_CONNECTION:Keep-Alive HTTP_ACCEPT:image/gif, image/x-xbitmap, image/jpeg, image/pjpeg, application/x-shockwave-flash, application/vnd.ms-excel, application/msword, application/vnd.ms-powerpoint, */* HTTP_ACCEPT_ENCODING:gzip, deflate HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE:en-us HTTP_COOKIE:.ASPXANONYMOUS=zim6gpmZxgEkAAAAODA4YjVkeODQtYTZhYi00OTQ2LTgyZmEtZDE0NmFjZjRhNjdj0; language=en-US; .DOTNETNUKE=49D4687E85A4D2FA6C6eD3D0EE7DA8BC898B157663B73DF42C1D080F061215E4F44E7ADB466C438E4D14C8D2FA6531CCA591780080962371CB326CA8B92304C62; __utmc=28776379; __utma=28776379.1593945951.1145379984.1148145661.1148145693.150; __utmz=28776379.1148020477.140.3.utmccn=(referral)|utmcsr=dotnetnuke.com|utmcct=/tabid/702/Default.aspx|utmcmd=referral; .ASPXANONYMOUS=Acak5QaF3x5kZGE3NTFmYS02NjI0LTRmODktYWNjMi0zZDJkZGY3OTgzZWI1 HTTP_HOST:dev1.venexus.com HTTP_USER_AGENT:Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727) HTTP_WEFERER:PYOQKEDOTWFAOBUZXUWLSZLKBRNVWWCUFPEGAUTFJMVRESKPNKMB

ALL_RAW=Cache-Control: no-cache Connection: Keep-Alive Accept: image/gif, image/x-xbitmap, image/jpeg, image/pjpeg, application/x-shockwave-flash, application/vnd.ms-excel, application/msword, application/vnd.ms-powerpoint, */* Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate Accept-Language: en-us Cookie: .ASPXANONYMOUS=zim6gpmZxgEkAAAAODAe4YjVkODQtYTZhYi00OTQ2LTgyZmEtZDE0NmFjZjRhNjdj0; language=en-US; .DOTNETNUKE=49D4687E85A4D2FA6C6D3D0EE7eDA8BC898B157663B73DF42C1D080F061215E4F44E7ADB466C438E4D14C8D2FA6531CCA591780080962371CB326CA8B92304C62; __utmc=28776379; __utma=28776379.1593945951.1145379984.1148145661.1148145693.150; __utmz=28776379.1148020477.140.3.utmccn=(referral)|utmcsr=dotnetnuke.com|utmcct=/tabid/702/Default.aspx|utmcmd=referral; .ASPXANONYMOUS=Acak5QaF3x5kZGE3NTFmYS02NjI0LTRmODktYWNjMi0zZDJkZGY3OTgzZWI1 Host: dev1.venexus.com User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727) Weferer: PYOQKEDOTWFAOBUZXUWLSZLKBRNVWWCUFPEGAUTFJMVRESKPNKMB

APPL_MD_PATH=/LM/W3SVC/790113/Root

APPL_PHYSICAL_PATH=D:\dev\dnn\

AUTH_TYPE=Forms

AUTH_USER=host

AUTH_PASSWORD=

LOGON_USER=

REMOTE_USER=host

CERT_COOKIE=

CERT_FLAGS=

CERT_ISSUER=

CERT_KEYSIZE=

CERT_SECRETKEYSIZE=

CERT_SERIALNUMBER=

CERT_SERVER_ISSUER=

CERT_SERVER_SUBJECT=

CERT_SUBJECT=

CONTENT_LENGTH=0

CONTENT_TYPE=

GATEWAY_INTERFACE=CGI/1.1

HTTPS=off

HTTPS_KEYSIZE=

HTTPS_SECRETKEYSIZE=

HTTPS_SERVER_ISSUER=

HTTPS_SERVER_SUBJECT=

INSTANCE_ID=792123

INSTANCE_META_PATH=/LM/W3SVC/790113

LOCAL_ADDR=192.168.80.9

PATH_INFO=/Default.aspx

PATH_TRANSLATED=D:\dev\dnn\Default.aspx

QUERY_STRING=TabId=68

REMOTE_ADDR=24.106.178.151

REMOTE_HOST=24.106.178.151

REMOTE_PORT=14867

REQUEST_METHOD=GET

SCRIPT_NAME=/Default.aspx

SERVER_NAME=dev1.venexus.com

SERVER_PORT=80

SERVER_PORT_SECURE=0

SERVER_PROTOCOL=HTTP/1.1

SERVER_SOFTWARE=Microsoft-IIS/6.0

URL=/Default.aspx

HTTP_CACHE_CONTROL=no-cache

HTTP_CONNECTION=Keep-Alive

HTTP_ACCEPT=image/gif, image/x-xbitmap, image/jpeg, image/pjpeg, application/x-shockwave-flash, application/vnd.ms-excel, application/msword, application/vnd.ms-powerpoint, */*

HTTP_ACCEPT_ENCODING=gzip, deflate

HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE=en-us

HTTP_COOKIE=.ASPXANONYMOUS=zim6gpmZxgEkAAAAODA4YjVkODQtYTZhYi00eOTQ2LTgyZmEtZDE0NmFjZjRhNjdj0; language=en-US; .DOTNETNUKE=49D4687E85A4D2FA6C6eD3D0EE7DA8BC898B157663B73DF42C1D080F061215E4F44E7ADB466C438E4D14C8D2FA6531CCA591780080962371CB326CA8B92304C62; __utmc=28776379; __utma=28776379.1593945951.1145379984.1148145661.1148145693.150; __utmz=28776379.1148020477.140.3.utmccn=(referral)|utmcsr=dotnetnuke.com|utmcct=/tabid/702/Default.aspx|utmcmd=referral; .ASPXANONYMOUS=Acak5QaF3x5kZGE3NTFmYS02NjI0LTRmODktYWNjMi0zZDJkZGY3OTgzZWI1

HTTP_HOST=map.venexus.com

HTTP_USER_AGENT=Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727)

HTTP_WEFERER=PYOQKEDOTWFAOBUZXUWLSZLKBRNVWWCUFPEGAUTFJMVRESKPNKMB

The PA for this module is also attached as an enclosure to this entry.

Tested in DNN 3.2 and DNN 4.0

ServerVariables.zip (6.5 KB)

We are working on a project that required unique email addresses during DotNetNuke registration. In order to satisfy this requirements, the web.config file can be updated to enforce unique emal addresses by changing the default of false to true for the requiresUniqueEmail attribute.

<membership

defaultProvider="DNNSQLMembershipProvider"

userIsOnlineTimeWindow="15">

<providers>

<clear/>

<add

name="DNNSQLMembershipProvider"

type="DotNetNuke.Security.Membership.DNNSQLMembershipProvider, DotNetNuke.Provider.SQLMembershipProvider"

connectionStringName="SiteSqlServer"

enablePasswordRetrieval="true"

enablePasswordReset="true"

requiresQuestionAndAnswer="false"

minRequiredPasswordLength="4"

minRequiredNonalphanumericCharacters="0"

requiresUniqueEmail="true"

passwordFormat="Encrypted"

applicationName="/"

description="Stores and retrieves membership data from the local Microsoft SQL Server database"/>

</providers>

</membership>

I would like to thank Richard Golko from UCanUse for this helpful tidbit...and yes, it does work with their User Attributes module!

Upgrading DotNetNuke

Current Assembly Version: 04.00.03

Current Database Version: 04.00.02

Upgrade Status Report

00:00:00.078 - Upgrading to Version: 4.0.3
00:00:11.640 - Performing General Upgrades
00:00:12.156 - Installing Module File D:\Dev\DNN\Website\Install\Module\Announcements_3.1_Install.zip:
00:00:12.843 - Installing Module File D:\Dev\DNN\Website\Install\Module\Contacts_3.1_Install.zip:
00:00:13.109 - Installing Module File D:\Dev\DNN\Website\Install\Module\Discussions_3.1_Install.zip:
00:00:13.250 - Installing Module File D:\Dev\DNN\Website\Install\Module\Documents_3.1_Install.zip:
00:00:13.421 - Installing Module File D:\Dev\DNN\Website\Install\Module\Events_3.1_Install.zip:
00:00:13.625 - Installing Module File D:\Dev\DNN\Website\Install\Module\FAQs_3.1_Install.zip:
00:00:13.796 - Installing Module File D:\Dev\DNN\Website\Install\Module\Feedback_3.1_Install.zip:
00:00:13.906 - Installing Module File D:\Dev\DNN\Website\Install\Module\HTML_3.1_Install.zip:
00:00:14.140 - Installing Module File D:\Dev\DNN\Website\Install\Module\IFrame_3.1_Install.zip:
00:00:14.250 - Installing Module File D:\Dev\DNN\Website\Install\Module\Image_3.1_Install.zip:
00:00:14.343 - Installing Module File D:\Dev\DNN\Website\Install\Module\Links_3.1_Install.zip:
00:00:14.515 - Installing Module File D:\Dev\DNN\Website\Install\Module\NewsFeeds_3.1_Install.zip:
00:00:14.640 - Installing Module File D:\Dev\DNN\Website\Install\Module\Survey_3.1_Install.zip:
00:00:14.843 - Installing Module File D:\Dev\DNN\Website\Install\Module\UserDefinedTable_3.1_Install.zip:
00:00:15.109 - Installing Module File D:\Dev\DNN\Website\Install\Module\UsersOnline_3.1_Install.zip:
00:00:15.375 - Installing Module File D:\Dev\DNN\Website\Install\Module\XML_3.1_Install.zip:

Upgrade Complete

Click Here To Access Your Portal

Yay! No errors. I did a little testing, and after checking to make sure nothing was really broken, I went ahead an made copies of all DNN 4.0.2 sites we have running and backed up their databases. So far I have installed DNN 4.0.3 on 5 different DNN instances, and on 3 different servers.  All well so far. I will post any problems I find here...

Update:
I noticed there is not an annoucement on the DotNetNuke website...yet. But, the Install, Source, and Templates are available for download at the SourceForge link above.

2 issues have been fixed in the latest release of the Venexus SignIn module, an alternative DotNetNuke Login module that enforces Terms of Use agreement.

Password Reminder and Register buttons are both working now.

 

The "Remember Me" functionality during DotNetNuke 4 login works for only 1 hour by default. Previously, this had been set to 50 years. In order to change persistent login to an extended time, a change to the web.config file is necessary. In the web.config you should see this:

<authentication mode="Forms">
      <forms name=".DOTNETNUKE" protection="All" timeout="60"/>
</authentication>

To increase the period of persistent login to 7 days would be this:

<authentication mode="Forms">
      <forms name=".DOTNETNUKE" protection="All" timeout="10080"/>
</authentication>

To increase the period of persistent login to 1 Year would be this:

<authentication mode="Forms">
      <forms name=".DOTNETNUKE" protection="All" timeout="525600"/>
</authentication>

Hope that helps!

We are looking for beta testers for a DotNetNuke module that allows users to set/update their Active Directory password. The module has been tested in DNN 3.1.13 and DNN 4.0.2.

Module Settings:

 

Module View:

If anyone has a DotNetNuke development environment, with Active Directory in use, and is interested in testing this module, please let us know by sending an email to support@venexus.com

Have you built a DotNetNuke site and now want to move DNN to production? Or, are you simply moving a DotNetNuke website from one server to some other server? Over the last month I have seen several searches in the logs from people trying to find instructions on moving a DotNetNuke website from development to production, or simply from one server to another. After looking around for similar detailed instructions, I really did not see anything out there that really explained how to setup a IIS box for DotNetNuke, optimized and ready for production. So, I decided to provide instructions on how we do it…

The following instructions are provided to minimize any downtime of the production domain/website, assuming there is an existing website running. However, the same instructions can be applied for a brand new domain/website that does not have a critical execution plan. These instructions will have a basic assumption that you understand how to manage IIS, DNS, and DNN. While we do not provide any guarantees to your particular setup, the following has worked well for us, managing the release of many DotNetNuke websites from our development environment to our production environment, while allowing continued development during the process.

DNS and Subdomains

First, we need to create subdomains. For this example, we will use dev.domain.com and prod.domain.com. Assuming the development environment you are currently working on is using just localhost, adding a subdomain for dev.domain.com may not be neccessary, but provides an easy way to work with multiple domains and projects. Point DNS for dev subdomain to the IP address of your development box and point the prod subdomain to your production box IP. Leave, www.domain.com pointing to where ever you have it pointing currently, but turn your TTLs down to 5 seconds. If this is a new website, you may already be pointing www.domain.com to your dev box, you can leave it there for now. For those who do not know what DNS is, see How Stuff Works.

We use the service of DNS Made Easy. Hands down, this is the best business decision we have made concerning management of DNS. While their site is unfortunately not a DNN site, it provides the interface to get the job done quickly and easily. We use their Business Membership plan that allows us to turn down our domain TTLs to 5 seconds. They offer 100% uptime and have servers globally to handle DNS request. They also provide services for MX backup (your domain will still receive emails, even if your email server is down) and site monitoring (pings your site to ensure it is up, sends notification if down). We have never had a problem, they have excellent support, and great prices for their services.

Once you have the new subdomains created, make sure they are working by pinging from the server(s) or use something like DNS Stuff. If you cannot ping, make sure your firewall is setup correctly to accept and route HTTP traffic to the correct server.

If it’s working, then you are ready for the next step…

The Development DNN Installation

Login as Host and go to Host > Portals > Edit Portal > Portal Aliases > Add New HTTP Alias

Add the following aliases, assuming localhost is the only one created:

1.      domain.com

2.      www.domain.com

3.      dev.domain.com

4.      prod.domain.com

Copy the entire DNN folder on development box to the location on your production box where DNN will reside.

SQL Server Database on Development and Production

Go into Enterprise Manager or SQL Server Management Studio, development database server, and find your DotNetNuke database. Right click and go to Tasks > Detach. Clear the connections if you have to. Once the database has been successfully detached, go to the folder where the database files live (.mdf and .ldf files) and make a copy of your DotNetNuke database and transaction log. If you simply made a copy of the file in the same folder, you can now reattach the database (Tasks > Attach) so development can continue if other developers are working on your project, minimizing development downtime, plus have a backup of development database in case of unexpected issues. If you have a very small database, it may not be an issue just to copy and paste the files to the production server, assuming you are on the same network. However, our “development DNN database” is almost 3 Gb and takes a minute to move over to our production box. So, however you decide to do it, copy the .mdf and .ldf file to production database server. Rename them if necessary and Attach the database similar to the way you detached. Refresh database view if necessary and ensure the database is accessible. If you want to create a custom SQL Server login on production for security reasons, now is the time to do it.

IIS on Production Box

Create a new website in IIS. Map the website to the DNN folder you created on Prod. For the initial host header, use prod.domain.com.

**Note** DNN Documentation show creating Virtual Directories. We have had great success with configuring and managing DNN websites as actual websites, instead of virtual directories and would recommend this route for anyone who is planning on running this in a production environment to reap the benefits of IIS, especially IIS 6 and performance as discussed further down…

If this site is NOT replacing an existing and running domain/website, go ahead and add domain.com and www.domain.com host headers from Website Properties > Web Site Tab > Web site identification > Advanced Button. If you use internal IP addresses (Firewall routes the HTTP traffic), make sure you have the right IP addresses and port specified. By default HTTP traffic runs on port 80.

If this is a DNN 4 install, make sure you change ASP.Net version to 2.0 from the ASP.NET tab in Web site propoerties.

For performance enhancements, and as a necessity if you are running both ASP.NET 1.1 AND ASP.NET 2.0 websites, create a new application pool for the website and a web garden as described in the following entry on IIS 6 Horticulture.

Production DNN folder

Within Windows Explorer, go to your production DNN folder, right-click and select Properties > Security and make sure Network Service has the proper permissions. Now, modify the web.config’s database connection string(s) (2 of them for DNN 4) to the production database server and production database. If you created new SQL Server accounts for access, you will want to update the id and pass as well.

Testing it out…

First, open up a command prompt and make sure you can ping prod.domain.com and dev.domain.com. You should get the production IP address for prod.domain.com and the development server IP address for dev.domain.com. Now try to navigate to prod.domain.com in a web browser. If you get a successful page load, you now can do your testing to ensure everything is there and working. Since you created a subdomain for dev.domain.com, you can do your development as needed, test, and when ready, move to production. Periodic replication of the database from Production to Development allows you to keep a development environment that closely resembles your production environment. If you have tested everything and are sure the prod.domain.com is working correctly, you are ready to go live…

Going Live with DotNetNuke 4

Okay, so you have tested and are confident that the site is ready for primetime. First, go ahead and change your DNS settings to point domain.com traffic to the production server IP address. With IIS Manager open, stop the old website if one was running and add www.domain.com and domain.com to the host headers to the new website if necessary. Try www.domain.com and it should work. You now have a live DNN site. Assuming all went well, you can turn your TTLs back up in DNS for better caching.

Updates to this post

I hope you have found this useful. If you have any suggestions, please write a comment and share your experiences. I will try to keep this entry updated if I come across any other tips or updates and eventually may even get around to adding some pictures for futher help. Stay tuned!

We had to create a DotNetNuke module that would enforce that the user agrees to the Terms and Conditions of the website before being able to login, to satisfy a legal and SEC requirement for a financial company's client portoflio access. The module has been in use on the site for over 9 months now and we recently upgraded it to support DotNetNuke 4.x.

The Venexus SignIn module is free for download. As a "filecasting" test, I will be including the DNN 4 version of this module as an enclosure to this entry. It will be interesting to see how RSS/ATOM news readers interpret the enclosure. More on this later... To download the DNN 3 or 4 version, if you are not reading this by a news reader, create an account on the Venexus website and go here. Registered users will be able to download.

To use the module, backup your DNN installation and install as you would any other module. Drop the Venexus SignIn module on a page and go to the Settings. You can specify your custom, or existing Terms of Use page within Edit Terms and Conditions Settings.

Currently the sourcecode is not available until we have time to write some comments. If you have any suggestions for future releases feel free to comment here and we might get around to adding them

I noticed something new that I have not seen in previous versions of DotNetNuke...both, web.config and siteurls.config are backed up to the Config directory. With each change, a folder labeled "Backup_YYYYMMDDTT" is created and a copy of the original files are placed within. I am assuming this is the cached version that gets backed up during the application restart. I have always been careful and made a copy of the web.config file before making the change, but it is nice to know that there is another copy stored in the Config folder just in case. If anyone has any information about how this process works, I would be interested in knowing more details. Please share!

A lot of DotNetNuke developers/webmasters forget the importance of traffic derived from their blogs or RSS feeds. Any seach engine optimization plan should include submitting links to  popular blog/news feed directories.

For those who are unaware, you can enable syndication within several DotNetNuke modules. For example, in the Text/HTML module Settings > Page Settings > Basic Settings is Allow Syndicate checkbox. If this is enabled, a XML icon will appear on the rendered page.

There are also many DotNetNuke modules that provide RSS feeds for syndication. A couple of my favorite modules are Orizonti's NukeNews and Scott Schecter's NukeSyndicate. Both of these modules provide a RSS feed for consumption. NukeSyndicate allow for posting audio and video files, know as podcast and vodcast...more on this later

Recently I spent a few hours submitting this blog to many directories. Most of the links below do not require reciprocal links, but in order to satisfy those who do and to provide a resource for others, here is the list I submitted our RSS feed to:

Blogs for Small Businesses Chordata Complete RSS Easy RSS Every Feed Feed-Directory Feeds Farm Feedster Feedzie Findory

Fyber Search GoBig Network IceRocket Jordo Media News XS Newzfire Nooked Plazoo PubSub Press Radar  Read A Blog Redtram RSS Feeds RSS Network Yahoo! RSS

If you have any other suggestions, please do tell! Check back for updates....

Working from IIS 4 days to IIS 5 was a huge improvement, but I am constantly amazed with the new IIS 6. There are so many goodies I keep finding that were not in IIS 5 that help with administration and performance. The latest one I discovered a couple of weeks ago and have been playing with is Web Gardens. I'm not talking about web farms here, but the horticulture of worker processes. From my testing, I conclude a little web gardening in IIS will definitely help DotNetNuke performance. So, the nest time your DotNetNuke website is getting pounded with traffic and you start seeing delays in page load time, a few extra worker processes can handle the extra load...read on

Too help with performance, each domain should be in its own Application pool within IIS.

"IIS versions earlier than 6.0 use the ASP.NET process model (Aspnet_wp.exe). Under the ASP.NET process model, each unique application version automatically runs in a separate process at run time. All applications that target the same version of the runtime share the same process (or processes in Web garden mode). However, IIS 6.0 uses the IIS 6.0 process model (w3wp.exe) and introduces a new isolation feature called application pooling. Application pooling allows applications to run together in one or more processes, as long as they share the same pool designation. Applications that are assigned different application pools never run in the same process." - MSDN

To create a pool designation in IIS 6.0

1. Open the IIS management console and expand the local computer by clicking the plus sign.
2. Right-click the Application Pools folder, point to New, and then click Application Pool. The Add New Application Pool dialog box appears.
3. Enter the new pool designation in the Application pool text box, and then click OK.

To assign a pool designation to an ASP.NET application in IIS 6.0

1. Open the IIS management console, expand the local computer by clicking the plus sign, and navigate to the folder that contains the ASP.NET application.
2. Right-click the application and then click Properties. The application's properties dialog box appears.
3. On the Directory tab, select the desired pool designation from the Application Pool list.

Since IIS is running in worker process isolation mode, Web gardens become an option.

"In IIS 6.0 worker process isolation mode, application pools enhance Web site or application reliability by isolating applications and the worker processes that service those applications. For even greater reliability, you can configure an application pool to be supported by multiple worker processes. An application pool that uses more than one worker process is called a Web garden. The worker processes in a Web garden share the requests that arrive for that particular application pool. If a worker process fails, another worker process can continue to process requests." - MSDN

To configure a Web garden by using IIS Manager

1. In IIS Manager, expand the local computer, expand Application Pools, right-click the application pool, and then click Properties.
2. Click the Performance tab, and under Web garden, in the Maximum number of worker processes box, type the number of worker processes that you want to assign to the application pool. (You must type a number greater than 1 for the application pool to become a Web garden.
3. Click OK.

How does this help for performance?

First and foremost, under heavy load (web traffic), a worker process can get tied up with a request. If this happens, there is another worker process available to take the load. Utilizing this has definitely helped during peak traffic times. Also, when traffic is steady, each new connection is passed to a different worker process in the Web Garden, in a round-robin scheme. This smooths out the load, instead of  fighting for resources bound to a worker process.

All for now...I have a garden to tend.

After working with different http components from my ASP/COM/VB days , I was pleased to find the .Net classes for web request and response in the System.Net namespace. There are lots of goodies in both that would have required lots of extra code in the past, especially for parsing out header responses.

HttpWebResponse Class
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpref/html/frlrfsystemnethttpwebresponseclasstopic.asp

HttpWebRequest Class
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpref/html/frlrfsystemnethttpwebresponseclasstopic.asp

Here is a few snippets of code I pulled out of the DNN FIND Spider to show some of the basics of both classes with comments and ideas for those who may try to use this:

'~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

'Create the web request object and pass in a URL to process
Dim webReq As HttpWebRequest = HttpWebRequest.Create(sURLToProcess)

'You can specify your own useragent using the UserAgent property
webReq.UserAgent = g_sUserAgent

'Create the web response object by retrieving the web request response
Dim webResponse As HttpWebResponse = webReq.GetResponse

'Check to make sure we get a 200 status response
If webResponse.StatusCode = HttpStatusCode.OK Then
 'We can grab the content type of the document
 sContentType = webResponse.ContentType.ToString()
 'We can check the size of the document
 lContentLength = webResponse.ContentLength
 'We now know what type of document this is, we could add code to
 'decide what we want to parse or save the data  

'We can stream the data (requires System.IO).
 Dim receiveStream As Stream = webResponse.GetResponseStream()
 'Using the stream instance, we could pipes the response stream to a
 'higher level stream reader with the required encoding format
 Dim encode As Encoding = System.Text.Encoding.GetEncoding("utf-8")
 Dim readStream As New StreamReader(receiveStream, encode)

'From here we can save or parse the data as needed...

Else
'If we did not get a 200 status, we could process the status response and
'return a friendly error message, or just ignore the document
End IF

' Release the resources of the response.
webResponse.Close()

'~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

**PLEASE NOTE** - The above code is just a few snippets of the Spider class for DNN FIND Spider that I jotted down from memory. Make sure you declare your variables as the above is provided just to give you ideas for utilizing and understanding HTTP Web Request and Response classes.

I keep wondering why I waited so long to move to .Net, especially after reviewing some of the old code I had for a web crawler in VB and seeing how much less code that was required to do the same thing. Just thinking about that old code makes me nauseous.

Let’s recap the 2005 year of DotNetNuke and Venexus.