Earlier this Week a public version of the DotNetNuke 5.6 Beta was made available on CodePlex.  For information on how you can help with this release and to get access to the current version please visit our Beta Release page on DotNetNuke.com.  In this release we have spent quite a bit of time cleaning up some lingering...

DotNetNuke is a web content management system and an application framework that has grown over the past 8 years to solve many of the challenges faced by developers when building websites and web applications.  Because of this rich feature set, it is possible that there may be areas of the platform which you have yet to explore.  In this ongoing series, I plan to use short video clips to highlight some of my favorite features of the platform.

In this first video, I focus the spotlight on the Configuration Manager, a new feature that will be...

Over the last couple of years, I have been doing more and more work with JavaScript.  Whether it is work on web pages with jQuery or work in mobile applications with Appcelerator Titanium, I often find myself needing to transfer data to and from the server as JSON.  In DotNetNuke I frequently found myself constantly converting my .Net objects to and from JSON and it seemed to be a waste of time to constantly figure out what framework I should use to handle the JSON serialization/deserialization tasks. 

I have tried the JavaScriptSerializer,  the DataContractJsonSerializer  and even JSON.Net but I always keep coming back to the JavaScriptSerializer because it is the simplest solution that doesn’t impose any 3rd party dependencies.  The problem with all of these solutions is that I am constantly having to remember how to use them.  The API, even for the JavaScriptSerializer, still requires several lines of code whenever I want to use it.  I wanted something that was drop-dead simple, yet still powerful enough to handle 95% of my serialization/deserialization needs (for the really tough stuff I can still use one off code with an appropriate serializer)

This past weekend I had the opportunity to watch Al Stirt demonstrate some of his woodturning techniques at the North Coast Wood Turners meeting.  Al has created numerous pieces which use various texturing techniques to provide a very distinctive look to his work.  On Sunday, October 3rd I was able to sit in on a hands-on class where the students were able to get a little more one-on-one time with Al.  During this session I turned the piece pictured in the upper left corner.

The black rim on the piece is created using Gesso paint which is great for hiding any figure or grain patterns on the wood underneath.  This gives you a clean canvas on which you can carve your own pattern.  Al has some great examples of this technique on his site.  When creating this piece, I used Sassafras, which has a very open grain to the wood – much like Ash or Oak.  A little sanding dust got into the grain after I had painted the rim which gave me the idea for this piece.  Instead of making my own pattern, I just followed the one that mother nature had already provided.  Even Al like the final results (although it definitely was not as refined as his pieces).