People have asked about the metaPost videos we created, specifically how we got the overall file size as low as we did.  Well, here's how we did it...

If you're running a DotNetNuke site on Windows Server 2008 with IIS 7, there are some great new features you can use.  In fact, you'll see them in use on this site with the extensionless URLs.  In order to achieve this effect, I had to switch my server from classic mode to integrated mode, and this switch caused the Captcha images throughout the site to stop working.  Here's how to solve this problem...

I took a quick trip to France this afternoon to sit in (yes, unfortunately, it was all virtual) on a great panel discussion between representatives from Google, Six Apart, MySpace, Facebook and Microsoft...

The latest release of the DotNetNuke blog module contains a bug that affects sites using Unicode characters in Page names.  This post contains a couple of workarounds that can be implemented temporarily until the fix is made available in the upcoming 4.0 release of the module.

OK, I'm probably a little more paranoid than 95% of the population, so it's no wonder that I haven't posted pictures of my family through Facebook for my friends to see.  I've had this fear that if I post galleries to Facebook, they're visible to more than just my trusted group of friends.  Part of the problem is that I'm still learning the ropes at Facebook after more than a year of using it and I'm not quite sure how visible galleries are.  I know I can see images from the galleries of my friend's friends, at least when they've posted a comment on an image; but how far down the chain does this go?  To my knowledge there's no way to track this.

Well, it turns out that my fears weren't unfounded...

One of the things I love about being involved in a large open source project, like DotNetNuke, is the opportunity to work with people who love what they do and who work like lunatics to get things right.  I learn a lot working with the rest of the members of the team.  While chatting via email this morning with Rip Rowan regarding changes to the new comment interface for the blog module, I realized that some of the interface elements we've added to support a new feature have what I think is best labeled as a low value to screen space ratio, or V/SS ratio for short...

As many of you know, IT Crossing staff have been actively involved in a couple of open source projects.  One project of particular interest to us is DotNetNuke.  For those interested in keeping track of DotNetNuke related posts on our blog, we have created a separate category for DotNetNuke related posts with its own distinct RSS feed. 

In this first post to the DotNetNuke category, we highlight some updates to the DotNetNuke blog module...

Get ready for the gold rush of 2009.  ICANN announced on June 26th that starting in the second quarter of 2009, you'll be able to purchase a generic Top Level Domain (TLD).  Up until now, web addresses have ended with one of 21 TLDs accepted by ICANN, the organization which oversees the names allowed in the Internet addresses we use every day.  This is great news for organizations which may have showed up late to the first domain name party only to find that another guest had taken the domain of choice for their association.  This new ruling by ICANN will pave the way for...

Most strategies fail.  The research backs this up and most likely your own personal experience too.  Not your strategies, of course. You're strategies probably succeed most of the time, at least when the strategy depends only upon your own stage 3 doggedness and persistence to get things done.  No, we're talking about the strategies of your organization that require buy in and proper execution by an entire team of people.  And because research shows that these strategies fail most of the time, it's essential that systems be in place to help ensure that your team is able to avoid the most common pitfalls that stand in the way of achieving the outcomes that are important within your organization.  Can technology help with this process?  I think so, but let's find out together.

This has been a series of articles on Tribal Leadership, a great book that has helped on a number of levels to identify the underlying dynamics of organizational communities.  In this post, we pick up where our last post left off.  How do you facilitate stage 4 connections in your organization?  The authors of the book give some great recommendations and I'm sure that if we think about this ourselves, we could extend the conversation and come up with some ideas of our own.