Chris L. Bennett

I'm currently in the process of putting together a new video podcast which is centered around software development.  As I'm not that much of a blogger, I'm going to switch over to doing a video series.  I'm thinking the video podcast will be about 10-15 minutes per episode and will focus on .Net, ASP.Net and websites in general.  In the next couple of weeks I we should have something up on the site and ready to go ...

For some time, I’ve always had an interest in performance optimizations and just better ways to do things.  I look at both the code behind as well as optimizations to improve the browsing experience, such as using CSS sprites.  The other day, I started wondering if a) this module already exists and b) if not, would it be possible to create.  Basically, my idea would be to create an ASP.Net Module which would be used to provide a starting point to optimize both the JavaScript and CSS files for a site on the fly. 

To start with, the module would be used to cut down on the number of requests needed by combing all JavaScript and CSS references on the page down to a single request each.  If you’ve used something like Yahoo User Interface (YUI) or even jQuery the number of files needed for the base library plus all of the code for the site start to impact the experience for the user.  After reducing the number of requests, made by the browser, we would add code to utilize a minify tool such as JSMIN or the new Google Closure compiler to reduce the code size.  I’m thinking it would be a good idea to provide flexibility to allow for swapping out of the minify engine used for flexibility.  So in the end, it would cut down on the number of requests and reduced the bandwidth necessary to transfer them.  Depending on the design and the complexity of the site, this can have a huge impact. 

In creating the module, I think ASP.Net already has hooks available to make the JavaScript side easier to implement; however, I’m not 100% about the CSS side.  Even if they don’t exist, the module could pull out the appropriate tags, combine the results, through most likely a handler, and update the markup on the way to browser.  Ideally, it would be useful to keep the process transparent so the module could be used to improve existing code and the markup, allowing it to be used across a wide range of projects such as DotNetNuke.  Eventually, it may be possible to include inline JavaScript and CSS in the processing; however, that presents a far more complex algorithm to extract, minify and replace.

Telerik does have a control which can perform some of this by replacing the ScriptManager; however, since it is not transparent the source code needs to be modified to take advantage.  Not to mention the licensing cost.  I’m not sure if there are any other commercial and/or open source projects with close to this functionality.  If they do exist, can someone help out there?  And I’m thinking this would be a good Codeplex project for collaboration, and for visibility.

Let me know if you think this a good idea and or if you have any thoughts on the implementation.  If you would like to be involved, let me know as well.  If this looks like a good idea, per feedback, I don’t mind to create the Codeplex project and coordinate. 

Comments appreciated

 Earlier today, I realized that I missed the 2/9/2010 release of the DNN Blog Module.  The updated blog module is now one step closer to production with the new release candidate.  I went ahead and pulled the version and installed on myDNN Test site.  So, what is new in the Release Candidate?  Well according to the official release page on Codeplex, nothing.  From the lack of information, I would take from this that it is merely a bug fix release.  Which is not all that unusual since this is a release candidate.  However, if we take a look at the Version History it paints a different picture. Starting with the Beta 3 release on 1/10/2010, we can assemble a rough set of additions as listed below:

 A couple days ago, I decided it was time to move my CLB.DatabaseUpgrade Library from this website over to Codeplex.  Before I get too far you can get to the project by clicking here.  Let me start off by saying that the move to Codeplex was surprisingly easy.  Yes, this is a small project.  However, I didn’t simply copy over the executable download and source download, I moved the project into Codeplex source control.  I was very pleased to find out that source control in Codeplex is actually done using Team Foundation Server (TFS).  Since, I’m at home in Visual Studio and TFS this is great.  Codeplex also supports source control in Subversion and Mercurial.  It allows the project creator to choose TFS/Subversion or Mercurial. 

Anyways, it took me less than an hour, from never having a project there to having the opening page, documentation, release ready for download and source code imported.  Now that I have the project moved over to Codeplex, maybe I can create interfaces for other databases such as Microsoft SQL Compact Edition.  Hopefully, I’ll hear feedback on whether this library is useful to other developers.

 As I said in my last blog post, I put together a simple site with the new Blog 4.0.0 Beta 3 Module.  Took me a bit longer than I hoped; however, it seems like a very good module now that I've played with it for a bit.  I cannot wait to get the final version installed on this site.  

To get started, head over to the site http://dnn5test.chrislbennett.com/.  Then you need to go ahead and register.  No I'm not going to sell your email address or anything there of.  Once you're registered, you can jump into the Blog page and create yourself a blog.  You should then be able to create posts, comments, tags, categories, etc.  If you find something you would like to do and are not able to because of a permission on the site, then send me an email and I'll see what I can do ...

Please be kind, do not start doing inappropriate things on the site such as links to inappropriate content.  This is also not an opportunity for SEO.  If you want that, head over to blogspot, wordpress, etc.

And I almost forgot the link to the site ... http://dnn5test.chrislbennett.com

  For some time I’ve had problems with the base DNN Blog Module and I had just reached the point where I was ready to find or purchase a commercial module to replace it.  Of course, I checked out the ones available on Snowcovered  SunBlogNuke and NukePress.  I didn’t really want to drop $100, so I kept looking around.  I came across the News Article Module by Ventrain Systems.  I saw a couple different sites that used the module as well as other modules from Ventrain Systems.  And I was close to the point of paying the $30 to get access to the source code for 3 months. 

Since I’m a .Net developer I went back to the thoughts of just modifying the Blog Module to do what I wanted it to do.  Although, I can make the changes, I would really prefer not to touch it as I have other distractions on my time at the moment.  The thought also crossed my mind to switch to WordPress.  I do have several WordPress blogs on other topics; however, I just didn’t feel right to switch to WP.  I really wanted a CMS system not a Blog System.  So I have a choice …..

And then, I came across something a reference to updates on the way for the base DNN module.  Turns out, version 4.00.00 beta 3 was just released on 1/7/2010.  The list of enhancements looks quite impressive:

For the past year or so I've been using GoDaddy hosting, specially the Windows Unlimited.  While there service is pretty good, the overall performance of the sites are not the greatest.  They have a few qwerks in how you run multiple sites within one account which anoying and their admin site is very slow.  But the biggest problem I have with them is the Database size limitation of 200MB per DB.  While you can have as many as you want, this inconveniece means you have to split up sites and applications in such a way you stay below that limit.

For a while, I've been thinking about switching provides and  never really planned when.  Then, I came across a link to a provider I have never heard of before Arvixe.  They have a similar unlimited hosting plan for Windows.  It was a couple $ cheaper per month, so I thought I would go ahead and give it a try for a month on one site.  After seeing just how easy the first one moved over I made the jump to move them all.  My sites now run much faster and they resolve all of the issues I had with GoDaddy.  Took me about 3-4 hours to move over 8 domains, web content, databases and email addresses.  So far, I'm very impressed.  And best of all, they don't nickle and dime like GoDaddy!

Update: 1/15/2009 - Its been almost 4 months since I completed th switch to Arvixe and I'm still very impressed.  I have quite a few domains setup now and the sites are still very fast and reliable.  Over the time since I switched my downtime has dropped drastically.  I can say that I will be recommending Arvixe in the future to others.

Its been a long time since I last published a blog entry and so I thought I should get to it or shut it down.  Over the last several months, I have not had a lot of free time as I've been publishing a lot of articles lately.  I'll get the Article Page updated later to reflect my most recent ones on Developer.com later today. 

Since I've been putting time into writing articles, I have had the need to keep a lot of separation as to not remove value from the articles or accidentally break my agreement with the publisher.  I'll have to think over the next couple days and decide what I want to do to refocus this blog into something more useful.  In addition, I have a book idea in mind that I've been developing.  I'm not sure if it will go anywhere, but that this point, I just want to proove I can do it.

 Update 11/18/2009: Just updated my article list as of today.

Until next time ...

Over the past couple of months, I've made several different packages with Open Web Studio. And after creating a simple content version package, article manager and a link exchange system I think it is a great tool for creating simple packages.

Unfortunately, the script language it inherited from listX is not exactly easy to master. Not only is the script language a bit difficult, but there is very little documentation available. I was able to learn it by starting with the listX documentation and downloading as many examples as I could find. Nonetheless this is time consuming.

I do believe they have started to address the short comings. Lately, the OpenWebStudio site has drastically improved the content available on the wiki. The lack of information is mainly why I published the packages I've created for this site. There is also a page on the wiki describing changes to the script language to make it more usable.

Even though OpenWebStudio is still fairly new, I would have to conclude that is a very good tool for creating fairly simple packages to augment DotNetNuke. However, if you intend to create complex modules, I would recommend creating native .Net code.