realised something today - Sunday - it's been a while since I listened to music... and stopped for a few minutes to reflect on some of the good things that have been achieved, and instead of being upset about all the problems I've had, have finally got some things sorted out.

I have a problem with my mail - for some reason, there are people who email me, and when I hit reply mail bounces, and never gets to them.  I'm on the phone to them, and email and it bounces... I am not sure why these things happen, but the last 6 weeks - in fact, since I've moved and on another broadband node, me thinks there are some spammers who get our accounts blacklisted.. So, I'm going to start using the gmail account now..

This mail problem affects alot more people than you can imagine, particularly when the spam lists are updated on mail servers and mail get rejected more and more, or ends up as junk mail and never read. 

I don't recall having so many little annoyances, but wonder if it's because the audience we're working with now is so much larger - and diverse - Anyway - I've called in the big guns to go through out network configuration and might have to look at another provider with dedicated IP or something to eliminate some of these mail issues.

I installed 3.09 - and have been really impressed with the way it's holding together - few more things to iron out, but overall, it's a testament to putting together something that was really a bit big to bite off... in my opinion.. It's overdue, but well worth the wait and the word I'm hearing is that the core team is getting more consistent and some dates for a release have started to come up in conversation - which to me is always a great sign that it's doing what it should.

What is even better is that there will be an enormous growth in the documentation area, so you can quickly access the site for information and my new site will encompass some good usability and alot of common problems explained.

For me, it's been the most frustrating couple of weeks - nothing seems to go well, from my servers to my office issues, and I just have to accept that, so was very pleased to get my new site all but finished - I realised I didn't have a portfolio on line and have about 60 skins to show which I thought was quite cool because I've never really displayed them except in a somewhat haphazard way as I just added pages to my site.

This time, I've put in alot of thought and hope the results are beneficial and that site visitors gain some further insight and ideas to help them understand why we ALL should be running DotNetNuke websites!!!

I installed Catalook on 3.09 - wow, it's cool - there was a bug in the mail setup, so will drop that db, and install a new 3.09 and put in the proper version and you can see it on http://www.dnnbeta.com - where I've been testing it along with many other people who have downloaded and installed it as well.

I've been asked about Localisation - but will wait until a release candidate of DNN before doing anything because I see there are still some problems.  There is also problems in understanding just what localisation is.. I get asked lots of questions and am putting some questions to the core team guru's who will give me the answers and will post something here.

Some of the questions are - Is the site multi-lingual?  Will it automatically convert my html text into someone's language? How do I have a site that has many languages displayed? So localisation has caught the interest of many people, not just the countries that would like to have their site completely managed in their own language, but thos who want to offer a global website with languages displayed for their clients.  So I believer there is clarification needed for all people.  I realise how important information is for people and have made that part of my direction this year as I roll out some more sites.

We have Catalook running on 3 sites now, 1 with payment gateway done, and two taking advantage of  the PayPal facility to pay via credit card - which has been my issue all of last year because I refuse to hold people's credit card details on my server, unlike some other products I've seen where all details sit in xml files unencrypted... just not acceptable in my books, but then again, I guess that's where I miss out on opportunity - won't do some things on principle and not so driven by the dollar.  Now the payment gateways are being resolved and some other things are behind me, once our network is fixed up and servers had their once over by the guru's, I'll be happy - I have now got someone to look after my equipment - it's outgrowing me and takes up too much time.

So, my promise is - from now on, a blog every day - even if it's nothing that exciting.. I really enjoy putting some thoughts down here.. and oh - my new site - won't have many containers.. in fact, none I don't think - I've been working some different strategies and seeing how much I can do with only a few modules - man I'm sick of crappy modules - shitty ones that don't like my time format.. come up with general except errors all the times, and no wonder why I like the catalook product so much- Tell me what other product from $49US can you install, all 22 PA's in one go, without a single error - and then configure your store and have it running in hours.... there is no module that stacks up to this- when looking at the amount of modules required to run a site..

I've got a list of cool modules I'm using, what modules are hot, what are not.... links to patches, fixes, updates, submit a question, portfolio, ideas, just stuff I think helps make a site work well. And then it's my skinning site - On a mission - Armand has got his modules nearly finished, I've got a site format designed, topics for newsletters, and now Kirsty is just doing so well at skinning, she's really able to contribute - and that's very exciting news - as she's doing alot of the help files and screen shots required to explain how to use a DotNetNuke site.

That's it for me - I'm not a tennis fan, but it's the finals - I'm going to chill out on the couch with my puddy tats... they are so cute.. they even like us now!

Bye for now - and thanks for your input in recent blogs.. yes I was in a bit of a spot.. and have worked out alot of the hassles..

Nina Meiers