Yes it was interesting reading in the Core Team Chat (CTM as I refer to it) and some of the nitty gritty issues regarding performance has been a main topic, along with getting DNN ready for 3.10 which I believe will be more polished than ever and I am considering launching some of my new projects on a standard installation in this environment. While I will be launching my own site and the skinning store in 2.1.2, I'm now of the belief that 3 is looking very good thanks very much.

Some of the new ideas to make the documentation and help in administering a DotNetNuke site have been addressed and you'll find some new features coming through as DotNetNuke evolves even further.  I think that with the bulk of the 3.0 nightmares over, and the fact a release date is being mentioned, the talk of new projects, regarding documentation and localisation is being consolidated more. 

Due to the problems with DNN, I've had to simply bite the bullet and decide to wait until a proper release because I think that to start carrying information and to update, or upgrade isn't my favourite to be honest because I like the simple approach, clickity click, and off you go.. not that I'm lazy - I'm not a coder, just a really heavy dnn user..

Today a client I have who uses DNN for his running club, contacted me and told me his business site is now coming up for expiry and could I please get him off that shocker of a site he's paid many many thousands of dollars for .. It's the 4th website I know they have lost now, 3 of them to another colleague of mine running dnn sites.  I met his wife around Christmas and he was explaining to her about what I do, and she said - is that the lady who's got the website that you curse about or the other one?  He said - No she's the good one.. and I laughed when she said her son says that Daddy swears when he's on the computer.. hehe.. that's when he's doing his business site..   Yes, DotNetNuke has gone a long way in the two years - when I used to talk about this cool technology and even though it was a bit plain, my clients loved it.. and now - wow, they ask me how my kick butt web stuff is doing..

I think if you genuinely believe in what you're doing, and weather the horrible things - like my server going awol and I could not work out why - and I'm not sure if it's totally related, but I had a client ring up complaining that she couldn't upload her images, and that the website was all wrong, and she's tried now for days - and could she drop a CD around.. so I thought sure - Kirsty can do this - and you are not going to believe what I saw - my client had been trying to upload the images that came from the printer.. 20MB tiff and eps files. and PDF files.. and I thought .. *sigh* ....could this affect my server?  I don't know, but I do believe she was trying very hard... so, we resized a CD full of images, to 1.4mb.. and zipped and uploaded them and now we're in the good books again...

And it was really good to get a phone call from a client saying that since they moved from their other developers server, they just don't have troubles with their site, and if things happen, like today, it's pretty quickly resolved... I run my own sites with my clients - so I know when things are not working .. believe me.

Back to the CTM chat today- I'm now working with some templates.. seeing how I go packaging a complete site, skin and all using the wizard on 3.09, I was going to download the latest build, but will see how this goes.  If all goes well, I'll make sure there are some images added to the instructions that Vicenc has written on creating templates.  There was also something else very cool, which I know is a tease to say, but I can't mention it until I”ve had clarification from others in Core Team who authorise things, but it's just another late enchancement for DNN regarding skinning, and is a good idea.  I'll yabber about it when I've actually tried it out in the next week.

I have converted, and just need to test, all the 3.09 skins back to 2.1.2 excepting the vertical menu, which I will just use the vertical solpart menu I created a while ago and maybe use either the inventua module or not - haven't decided yet.

I spent alot of today finishing/modifying 3 skins I'm working on, but not quite sure what to do next on one of them, will proably package as it and see what's next.  Solpart menu was a bit fiddly and the best result I get is keeping it fairly plain and using other things like images/xml/links which aren't always dynamically managed, but for menus that don't change much, it's no big deal.

Also, read on the forum that this module - MyBlogs is being updated to 3.. which is cool for those wanting a blogs module in 3.09, and I think that Tams TTT forum/blog/gallery module is also done but I'm yet to see the final release - I hear lots of things.. but again, it's just heresay till I either have a link or test a module. 

Spoke with John Mitchell - from dotnetnukeskins.. he's updating his engine to 3 and I will be putting in a couple of extra skins for him to add to it, and there's alot of interest in that.

There was also discussion about the FTB editor - and the image gallery and the lack of ability to turn off the make folder option and brings up a JS error - not sure if you need to have purchased the whole source code to work that out, or what.. but because it's integrated into the dnn core, and the file manager is the way you manage files, and FTB keeps showing the *add new* folder function which has been disabled, so there is something there that needs to be worked out, but I was using the CuteEditor on 2.1.2 and I can create folders, but haven't tried on my http://www.dnnbeta.com site where it's installed and will give it a go when I'm not so busy - I've got jobs for both Shaun and Scott that have to be finished within next 2 days so won't be focussing on that.

So there you have it - spent time on doings some graphics tonight - so blogs are a bit fragmented, but you get the general idea on what's been happening for the day.  Grr. part of my blogs disappeared because it timed out.. because I was doing some tech stuff... and I lost part and I can't be bothered typing in again - so have more to talk about tomorrow..

Oh yes, the Chat module - we're having teething problems with it atm.. with first client - and when that's fixed - hopefully in next day or two it should be suitable to sell. I can't release something that's going to make people hate me..

Catch you tomorrow -

Nina Meiers