Chris Hammond

How to get a dynamic Copyright in your DotNetNuke Portal

Here's a quick DotNetNuke Tip.

If you want to have your Copyright statement that will appear in the DNN Copyright token (skinobject) of a skin you can do the following.

Edit your Portal's settings, in the copyright section remove the copyright statement. If you do this, DNN will sub in the copyright statement in the format of

Copyright (c) YEAR PORTALNAME where the YEAR will be replaced by the current year, and the PORTALNAME will be replaced with the name of the portal.

Just another quick tip, I've been using DNN for over 5 years, and  still learn something new on a daily basis!

Changes coming to DotNetNuke

A few notable blog posts over on DotNetNuke.com this past week.

1. Cathal posted about a change for DNN 5 (Cambrian) that will remove the ability for administrators to upload skins to their portals, only host users will be able to do so. This has received mixed reactions from the community. I've been just north of Baltimore here in Maryland this week doing DNN training for a client and had a discussion with them early on about skin development, and stumbled across an idea that I figured could be a major security hole with the ability for administrators to upload skins. I ran across Cathal's post and that change nearly negates the vulnerability. Just keep in mind, as an admin or a host, it is probably adviseable to review all skins and modules before you upload them to your website. You're potentially uploading "code" and you should be sure of what that code does before you upload it.

2. The DotNetNuke Blog module has some major changes coming (1 2 3). Antonio, inbetween all his round the world trips, has blogged about some of the upcoming functionality. Be sure to check it out!

That's all for my DNN post this morning, I might get more together later in another post, but those two topics should keep you busy for a while!

DotNetNuke Info: The difference between Parent and Child portals

So, in training classes I always get the question "What is the difference between parent and child portals?" Well, the Professional DotNetNuke 4 book defines the two pretty well, but me being a programmer and lazy, I wanted to come up with a more simple description.

Here's what I've come up with:

Parent portals require configuration in IIS, either though the configuration of a virtual directory, or a website. Child portals will create a directory in the root of your DNN website, placing a default.aspx file in the directory, and then handling URL requests through the URL handler.

A tad more info, child portals will reside within (under) whatever domain you've created the child portal. Parent portals can exist in their own domain, or as a subdomain of another domain, or as a directory (virtual) under another website/domain.

Do you have DotNetNuke questions? Email them to me at chris.hammond@dotnetnuke.com with the subject of "DotNetNuke Tips and Tricks Questions" and I will try to post questions and answers here on my blog.

DotNetNuke homepage won't load, keeps redirecting

Alright, so I was setting up my new laptop this week and ran into a problem. It was a familiar problem, but I couldn't track it down. Forum posts didn't help, google didn't help (I kept finding my own damn blog as the number one result when searching) so I figured I would post the appropriate fix. That way when I search again and I find my own blog I will find the solution!

I've now seen this problem twice, once in Windows 2003, and now in Windows Vista.

DNN will install successfully, but after install I couldn't get the homepage to load. Trying it in Firefox results in the dreaded redirection detection that Firefox has.

I uninstalled DNN, tried a different version of the Source package, no luck same problem. Then I stumbled across the fix.

Medium trust! I was using the development.config file as the web.config file, the development.config file has the trust level set to Medium, changing this value to Full corrects the problem.

So, if you're having problems with your DNN instance redirecting indefinitely when you try to browse to the root, check your Trust settings in the web.config file.

Now that I have that figured out, I can start planning my day for tomorrow. I think I'll start out by visiting the Smithsonian Museum, though I need to figure out which one to start at. I am pretty sure I've only been to the  Air & Space museum, and while I would like to go there again, I feel like I must change it up! I can tell you one thing though, if I do go to the A&S museum I will be buying some astronaut ice cream like I did the first two times I went. I only have half the day or so before I need to head out ot Fedex Field and get registered for the ProSolo I'm racing in this weekend.

OpenForce is coming, OpenForce is coming!

So I've been saving this blog post for over a month, now that there is information out in the open I'm going to post it! OpenForce08 is coming! Being held at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas again this year, November 10th thru the 13th. The OpenForce08.com website is still getting updated but you can find out information about OpenForce08 by checking out the DevConnections website http://www.devconnections.com/openforce/

I'm proud to say that I have been selected to present two sessions at OpenForce America this year, having presented one session last year. I will be covering the following

DSA103: An Introduction to DotNetNuke 5.0 Administration
Chris Hammond
This session will provide an in-depth discussion on common installation and upgrade scenarios, along with the new Installation features in DotNetNuke Cambrian (5.*). After installation, the session will cover the new administration functionality provided in Cambrian, as well as best practice scenarios for this new functionality. Get yourself up to speed on Cambrian in one session!

and

DSA101: Selling DotNetNuke—Why Your Clients Should Be Using It
Chris Hammond
This session is for anyone who has ever asked or been asked “Why DotNetNuke?” In the session you will learn some of the benefits of DNN, making you better informed when someone asks you why you should use the DotNetNuke platform. This will include tips and insights into how to sell your customers on the platform. We will also cover some of the common misconceptions about DNN and how to correct your client’s perception of the application.

A good friend of mine, and team member here at Engage Software, Cuong Dang (Dang for short) will be presenting for the first time this year as well. Dang is our resident skinning guy here at the office and will be presenting

DSD201: DotNetNuke and Web Standards
Cuong Q. Dang
Professional web designers and developers are embracing web standards more than ever before. This presentation will demonstrate a bulletproof approach to building web sites and web applications by defining a flexible XHTML/CSS layout. This session will also explore a new approach to the module development process and Search Engine Optimization techniques when building DotNetNuke modules and sites. When clients request a web standards implementation in their next project, this session will better prepare you to meet their your clients’ needs.

If you can get out to Las Vegas in November I highly recommend the conference. Last year's conference was exciting, a great opportunity to meet and mingle with the leaders in the DNN community, this year promises to be just as exciting. The sessions, the people, the exhibitors, it is something a true DNN person shouldn't miss!

For a list of Sessions at OF08 check out this link, and this one for a list of speakers.

DotNetNuke 4.8.4 Released

To go along with my earlier post about DNN today, 4.8.4 has been released due to some minor security issues that were found after the 4.8.3 release shipped. You can get information about the security fixes via Cathal's blog post.

Now, I'm off to upgrade some sites.

A new way to Upgrade DotNetNuke

THIS IS AN OLD BLOG POST, for my latest instructions on How to Upgrade DotNetNuke check out this new post.

If you've ever had me as an instructor for a DotNetNuke class, or heard me present at a user group or conference you've likely heard me say that I always use the DotNetNuke Install package when performing upgrades on my DNN sites. I rarely use the Upgrade package, the main reason for this WAS that the upgrade package came without a web.config file being defined. The ease of the upgrade package was that you could just extract it directly over your existing site and things would upgrade, the problem with this is that if there were web.config changes for the newer version they would be missed, and potentially cause problems with the site down the road.

I was excited to learn that is no longer an issue! Starting with DNN 4.6.2, DNN will now handle upgrades in a much more graceful manner. Michael Washington made a blog post a few weeks ago discussing this, and then Charles made another blog post detailing the XML Merge functionality that gives DNN the ability to do this.

XML Merge also provides module developers the ability to define web.config change that DNN will implement when installing modules, so you can now put custom information into a web.config file without having to tell those who purchase your modules to do this manually.

If you're in need of upgrading your DNN website, be sure to give this a shot, it might save you some time and headache if you already have custom information in your web.config file. As with all changes to your DNN site I recommend doing a backup of the database and filesystem before you upgrade DNN, install modules, upgrade modules, or even delete modules, just to be safe.

THIS IS AN OLD BLOG POST, for my latest instructions on How to Upgrade DotNetNuke check out this new post.

DNN.net

How cool is that, www.DNN.net now points to www.dotnetnuke.com. Check out why this is over on Shaun Walker's latest blog post.

Not netnuke, not .nuke, not dot net nuke

Alright, time for a little rant here, as I am starting to hear this ····more and more. There seems to be a misconception in the community regarding what the name of DotNetNuke actually is. Over the past few weeks I've heard the name butchered too many times! DotNetNuke is pronounced as one word!

Let's break it up into syllables

Dot is pronounced \'dät\

Net is pronounced \'net\

Nuke is pronounced \'nük\

All together now, \'dät·net·nük\

I can't even list all the random ways I've heard people butcher the name, but I will say that it is not NetNuke, DotNuke, or just Nuke.

If you're too lazy to say the whole word, DotNetNuke, just say DNN!

Pet peeve rant over, it's Friday afternoon, time to go have some fun.

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