Upgrading your DotNetNuke website to Version 06.01.02

In the last to last week, DotNetNuke version 06.01.02 was released on their official website dotnetnuke.com. This article explains the steps for the DNN developers like how to upgrade their website to the new version for the older version.

Upgrading DotNetNuke is not that hard to accept!

The steps are actually very easy. And you can find the relevant video tutorials too on the official website of the DNN. Here are the steps:

• Download the UPGRADE package from DotNetNuke.com
• Extract the Contents of the ZIP file (unblock on the properties screen first if necessary)
• Backup your website’s file system (I just make a copy of the website’s folder)
• Backup your database
• Place an app_offline.htm file in the root of your website folder to disable the site (video)
• Copy the contents of the extracted UPGRADE ZIP file over your existing website.
• Remove the app_offline.htm file from the root of your website folder
• Access your website in a browser, if you call http://mywebsite/install/install.aspx the upgrade will fire off automatically.

At SPEC INDIA, our trained team of ASP.NET developers are eager to make very smart and secure use of Caching in ASP.NET programming, thus to ensure the authentication to the browser sessions. If you have any requirement or queries, feel free to drop an email at our id lead@spec-india.com, we will be happy to assist you.

Happy programming!

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An Introduction to DotNetNuke

DotNetNuke is the Content Management System offered by Microsoft. It is an open source CMS for websites development. It was basically written in VB.NET, and later the developers has shifted to C# since version 6.0 came to existence. It uses various skins, modules, data providers, language packs and templates. It offers a solution to create/edit content and add custom features and personalize their website look and feel. It can also be later extended by adding third-party DNN apps. As of now, more than 8000 DNN apps are ready and available for purchase.

It comes in 3 main versions. The following are the details of the same:

Ø  DotNetNuke Professional Edition

Ø  DotNetNuke Enterprise Edition

Ø  DotNetNuke Community Edition

The DotNetNuke Professional and Enterprise editions are proprietary versions of the CMS, and can expand the capabilities of the Framework and can provide .NET developers with additional development possibilities. It can embrace Web Server Farm Support, Document Management, Page and Module Caching, UI Customization and Telerik RadControls and other features. This is just some basic listing, otherwise it can support a lot many features as well. 

So, overall, DNN is probably Microsoft’s answer to all the open source technologies, especially the Joomla CMS. And moreover, these DotNetNuke versions give web professionals, specializing in .NET development, an access to the source code.

At SPEC India, we have a dedicated team of trained software professionals who take the projects for Content Management Systems, who want to use open source technology platforms offered by Microsoft. There are also various 3^rd party APIs and modules available with the .NET developers to take judgement of any requirement for custom ASP.NET of DotNetNuke.

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Introduction to ASP.NET

Classic ASP

Active Server Pages (ASP) was Microsoft’s first server side script engine for dynamically generated Web pages. It is also known as Classic ASP or ASP Classic.  The last version of ASP Classic was ASP 3.0. It has now been replaced by ASP.NET.

ASP.NET

ASP.NET is a framework developed by Microsoft to enable developers to create dynamic web sites, web applications and web services. It is the successor of Classic ASP. As it is built on Common Language Runtime (CLR), it allows developer to write ASP.NET code in any language that is supported by .NET. ASP.NET is not completely backward compatible with ASP Classic.

Differences compared to Classic ASP

·         ASP.NET encourages developer to create web applications using event-driven GUI instead of conventional web scripting like Classic ASP and PHP.

·         Run-time errors are handled more efficiently by making use of exception handling as compared to Classic ASP.

·         ASP.NET code can be written in any language supported by .NET like VB.NET, C#, J# etc as it uses use .NET Common Language Runtime (CLR) abilities while in  ASP only two scripting languages were available VBScript and JScript/JavaScript.

·         ASP.NET uses object-oriented design for developing pages and controls.

·         ASP.NET provides an extensive set of controls and class libraries to develop web applications.

·         To improve performance ASP.NET has the capabilities to cache the whole page or a part of it.

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General Issues in ASP.NET hosting

In the previous post today, we have introduced the various options and purchasing logic for the hosting plans for the ASP.NET developers. In this post now, we will through some light on some general issues arising in ASP.NET hosting. There might be many more issues ahead of the mentioned below too, but these are the general issues, taking precaution to which will definitely support ASP.NET developers to go for the perfect plan. 

Here you go:

1.       Compatibility to the ASP.NET version

One should prefer only those service providers which focus solely on ASP.NET hosting. Those providers who specialize in ASP.NET are more compatible naturally to upgrade the plan according to the version upgrade for the ASP.NET used by the developer, thus making the task very easy.

2.       Initial Experience for testing the plan andthe provider

If Client is recommending a new host particular, the ASP.NET developer should recommend to first test the provider for initial one month or something and then only it is advisable to enter into yearly contract or something. As a matter of concern, the factors such as network speed, query-response time, etc. matter a lot at very crucial stages in product development process.

3.       Online Support (Chat or Phone)

Practically, this is difficult to measure in modern era of marketing, as all the hosts would claim fantastic all-round support always. But still, 24x7 chat support will do the trick at every stage, if the developer or Client is facing some query at any stage pertaining to the hosting service provider.

4.       IP Addresses

If you are running multiple sites, it is advisable to have each one a separate IP address, thus to ensure that an issue arisen on one IP should not affect the same on the other simultaneous projects. And the hosting provider these days do have offers for purchase of more than one IPs under the same domain name or the hosting plan purchase.

At SPEC India, we have a team of around 90 well-trained software professionals. The services provided under our name range from the requirement gathering to analysis to development to hosting plan recommendation. The ASP.NET developers are SPEC India however are the best guys to recommend the suitable hosting plans to the Client, as they are well aware of the features of the system and its hosting plan requirements at any point of time.

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