I just want to tell the world sometimes I really wish I didn't have to sleep. I often resent going to bed when I haven't quite done what I set out to do bue have come to the harsh realisation that nothing it going to happen fast enough. So many ideas and now having tossed the idea of the beta in my head, and seeing that there is some great progress happening in the fixes, new roles that will be involving the public/dnn community, new language packs and the dnn momentum picking up, it's again, just so exciting to be involved in DotNetNuke.

There are alot of newcomers into the area, many who don't know anything, told to pick up information by their bosses, or marketing people who are looking at ways to better get their message out to their suppliers, clients, you name it, and all I can say is that no matter where you are in the loop, DotNetNuke will take a while to learn.

The lack of fantastic documentation is obvious, but spending a bit of time getting into DotNetNuke and having an open mind, and being prepared to click and try the modules, adding content, moving things around, changing the look and feel. Simply becoming familiar is a real start that many people don't bother with. They download it, get it going and expect that without prior knowledge, just get this thing looking like a million dollars. 

It's the most diverse applicaiton I've ever come across and back when it was DNN1 with about 1/3 the functionality it has now, I loved it.. Couldn't skin it easily, but looking beyond that, saw how all of a sudden, things I had to pay a developer to do, were not necessary any more. Even the simple form - have you seen how many websites lack forms or forms don't work becuse of some cgi scripting error, or the thousands of sites that exist with code snippets, where you would spend literally hours trying to work out how to get a form to work, only to realise that no matter what you did, you weren't able to because of some server setting, or whatever.

Every day I get email, msn questions, and now phone calls from all sorts of people asking about how to do one thing or another.  Funny thing, not all to do with skinning, in fact, only a small proportion - often questions that simply require a task being done in a different sequence.  And I'm always learning too, which is part of the reason I adore DotNetNuke. It's like an ever evolving application that has allowed people from so many different walks - developers, ISP's, designers, businesses alike to have a common goal - get their site into DotNetNuke. 

And I take my hats off to those very talented core team guys who have carried this forward and managed to give back in a usable format for so many people, a product that is nothing but inspirational to work with.  I've finally finished setting up the 17 demo sites and I know every one of these people are going to be thrilled when they log in and see what they can do. 

Are there bugs and problems, sure, and I guess by simply doing the same thing over and over again, we've identified a few little glitches, which can now easier be explained and then modified and fixed/altered/enhanced for the next release.  But we all started somewhere and I can only urge those newcomers to start with a small idea, get familiar with how it works by actually logging in and adding simple things, not trying to make the site into a mini amazon portal, but a simple 5 - 10 page site that helps create a pattern of understanding. This will lead to many pennies dropping in how things are done.

My time over Easter to committed to getting tied up many of the loose ends I know I have had since spending lots of time on the Beta versions, and working through learning/testing each version with it's own set of frustrations, but after two weeks out, I'm so excited and committed to DotNetNuke - it is the way technology will move in reference to robust, scalable, powerful content management.  So what if it's free, you don't lose business opportunities, you gain an edge.

I would also like to thank Scott Willhite for his extended time in his busy day to help sort out the little problems I had. He's another person who's committment to DotNetNuke is out there, and the other core team guys - Cathal - a gentlemen, knowledgeable to the enth degree when it comes to security issues with DNN, Chris, Tam & Bryan  working on the forum which has received so many posts with request, fixes, suggestions, and they chip away at this for hundreds of hours, and I mean hundreds of hours to get that forum into the core.  Now I've got it installed, I can do my part and get the skinning done for it.. I love customising things, it's sort of like making it look just how I want.. if I can do it, then others can too.  John Mitchell - who's knowledge and understanding of code and css and problem solving, coming up with ideas .. I'll continue on my kudos tomorrow - because I could write a book on these guys, and their work.

Thanks for your input.. and to those on the forum that criticise the efforts, work, application... shame on you.. come up with ideas, but don't give them a hard time!!  I adore all those hard working core team guys - the hard working ones that is.!!

Cheers and catch you soon - I've got so much to say- but you already know that.

Nina