I have thought, with the amount of free skins available that the free modules would have appeared higher than it did.  Then I realised that perhaps people are aware of the diversity of DotNetNuke and are quite satisfied with the initial overall installation and we have a larger audience of newcomers from so many different industries and community groups, who are looking for skins and that will suit their installation.

The fact that e-commerce rated so highly also indicates there is a need for good e-commerce solutions or that perhaps the existing ones not documented well enough, so it means that I will probably have to spend a little more time, providing better explanation of some of the very good modules that are available but perhaps not being used as widely as they could be.

It could also be left up to the developer to provide better documentation and information that I think there will always be that bridge or gap between the developer and the end user, that regardless of the program will never be explained clearly enough, so even just a few simple instructions will go a long way.

It's great to see so many people taking the time to post their vote and these surveys have have been very interesting to go over and review and get ideas for new articles or information that I think people might want.  I think people like to see other opinions or just read the newsy bits and pieces anyway.

Overall I can see that a free skins, with 30% of the vote has proved to be the most popular vote from those who are registered users on this site.  But that perhaps it's because this site is predominantly known for its free skins, and if it was a developer site the results might be slightly different.

Thanks to those who voted as next month will see the results for survey number six, which asks users on what they think of DNN3!

Nina Meiers



April 06, 2005

It also showed the amount of beta testers or those who just use technology whether it's beta or not, and 50% of people on this survey were currently using DotNetNuke. Of course the question didn't elaborate any more about whether they were using in beta environment only, but I suspect there are a few people who can't help themselves, or who have had no experience in working with software in this environment and what the outcomes are when you use beta builds.

We've had many beta versions in this build but with the code freeze on March 04, 2005, means that this will probably be the last one unless something so unforseen happens and it can't be released as a final build. I was surprised to see such a small percentage of people will be staying with DNN2 - we're only talking 3% so either people are updating their modules, waiting for new ones, or the percentage of custom module users (eg.. not third party purchased ones) is no that high.

I would envisage many people would attempt to upgrade their existing sites and although I know lots of people have custom modules installed, whether they're using them is another matter. 

My decision to create a new ecommerce site using DNN3 has been one of great deliberation, and not because of the long time in beta version, but most likely because I really do think that this generation of DotNetNuke is a mature, well designed and architectured product that has features you probably won't see in any other application like this.  And I feel compelled to practice what I preach - and that is .. if DNN3 rocks - why not use it myself.

Our current survey asks what poeple want to see in DNN3 ... this is for registered users only.

Nina Meiers



March 06, 2003

For a change, I decided to run this site using 100% width, not only based on popular results here, but because I felt alot of the audience of users I have, would have monitors larger than 800 x 600, perhaps the average being 1024 x 768 and some, like me run on 1280 res, but I also have an 800 x 600 for testing - I call that the reality check as running with a TFT monitor is not always displaying information in a manner that a broad audience would be viewing it.

 These are simply my own opinions and observations on how pages render in general and the format of information is sometimes displayed incorrectly when freeform designs are in place.  This is fine and dandy if you know your target audience, but can be more difficult to maintain a 100% width site.

On this site, some of the considerations I had to take in were use of  lefthand menus and image sizes as the writing just didn't work properly when looking on an 800 x 600 screen.

Just my opinion, regardless of DotNetNuke  -

Nina Meiers

The other articles module is very nice, it allows me to use a third party editor, hence I can choose to embed flash into a file and format it nicely - similar to what I'm doing here.  This editor doesn't render quite as nicely but does have some good features like linking directly to other pages, articles in site or external links.  I would think this is like an extended announcements module.  It also has a Features, New, Publish and Expiry date with a popup calendar for quick date selection.

Nina Meiers

For those using a learning tool, it could easily be considered that perhaps they're going to be tomorrow's  famous DotNetNuke developers, and with the changes between DotNetNuke 2 & DotNetNuke 3, we might see those newcomers moving more in the 3 direction as there are vast differences in initial writing of modules.  Not being a developer, I have no authority at all to comment on the differences, excepting that once you understood how 3 worked, in principle, and how 2 has been written, the key area was learning where the namespace changes were.  Of course if' you're a developer you're going to know just what I'm talking about, but the point is, it's not impossible to pickup.

The high usage of Personal users, leads me to believe we have alot of people who simply want to manage their site themselves, don't have big budgets or requirements, but like the ability to log in quickly and simply update their site themselves, practise some skinning techniques or have a site that's as good as a commercial site, but at a fraction of the cost.

I thought there would have been more community users, but again, many of these new sites stem from being able to learn about DotNetNuke, present to a group of people and convince them they are able to easily update it themselves.  The key area I see with DotNetNuke is the abiltity to keep the information and integrity of layout/structure and information very uniform.

A great application with an excellent future. Any time you invest in learning will only bring benefit to your business or community.

Nina Meiers


Monday, 14 February 2005

Given that we're talking about software here, and it's ongoing fixing, enhancement and update path, it's interesting to note that DotNetNuke is now recognised as being the Microsoft Open Source iniative. While for obvious reasons, Microsoft cannot be involved directly in the coding and such, their advice, assistance, and insight to upcoming code developments including the adoption to ASP.Net 2, Visual Studio 2005 and SQL 2005.

This type of strategy and involvement alone should give any developer or company confidence, particularly those using the Microsoft platform as their business choice. It's easy to see that DotNetNuke has a long life ahead of it with ongoing development in it's site keeping developers in mind and looking ahead at working with them with the latest technology provided by Microsoft.

One thing that I hear time and time again, even those who sometimes have different reasons for not using Microsoft, is that their development tools are second to none.  And now with an open source application that knits so well with Microsoft's developer tools, is it any wonder that the uptake of DotNetNuke has grown so much.  You have an out of the box solutuion, and now a couple of books to help you, a forum for answers, and a community who are willing to assist and share their knowledge.

So from the perspective of those who want an out of the box solution, it looks like confidence all around, and from the perspective of the developers, great to see the confidence there as a great starting point to base some brilliant applications on.

Nina Meiers


Tuesday, August 02, 2005

Sometimes those who have experience in the web developing field are at a disadvantage as they often bring their old ideas and habits.. and wow they are so different to how a DotNetNuke site is handled.

While we have a huge amout of people - 45% who want to learn how to skin, I feel that those who learn how DotNetNuke works will achieve much better results, not much better, exceedingly better as you understand how the methodology and depth of functionality this amazing application has.

Some of the key things I really think people are missing, is the content in their sites - I see a pattern (having fallen for the same trick myself)  Firstly - you stumble across this thing called DotNetNuke, somehow manage to get it installed, the see you can change the colours and look and feel, and make it do things with these free module things and hey presto you're in business..

And that's not really the way to go - I think you need to look at what you want your website to do, in great detail, and what content you have on there, and then once the content is in, look at how you can enhance it with modules - unless you some really specific need, most content can go directly into a website and not get bogged down with trying to find modules that may or may not do the job.  To be honest, most of my clients don't use anything but the standard modules - now, with the dnn3 build, I put in one or two of my gems - the one's I think are important, but I've setup intranets with standard modules and it has really been successful and what I think the benefit here is the upgrade path - you always have one.

Of course you can have your own site with a few members and add heaps of modules that you like, but in business, and I don't think I'm alone here, is the worrying part about upgrading.  DotNetNuke is an amazing application that provides their user base with usually great emphasis in creating an upgrade path, not without pain now and again, but the point is it's part of their road map - to provide dotnetnuke users upgradablity - the respect for earlier versions becoming later versions.. however, third party modules don't always guarantee this.. And I'm always confused about how are they implemented.  I have never really received any clear instructions, on how this procedure works and after having dreadful times upgrading my own personal sites, (probably due to working with beta's ok, so it's partially my fault) my criteria is not to upgrade unless I absolutely have to.

So, going back to my initial comment about content, skinning, learn how DotNetNuke works, work the application to it's full extent, and then, when your content is in the site - look for the modules that might help you, and then apply the look and feel over it.

Just my two cents worth after taking the rocky road of what I initially thought would work and then having to backtrack and rethink so many things.

Nina Meiers


Tuesday, August 02, 2005