Ok, bear with me here a minute. I don't usually use this forum for personal rants but I've had it with these Spammers (to put it kindly) that are participating in the Busby SEO Test contest putting up inane and irrelevant comments on this site just so that they can get a link back to their site and increase their SEO rankings. My understanding is that this contest awards a cash prize to whoever gets the highest rankings for a particular term with a from scratch site. Or something like that. I put up with the lame "Nice article" or "good info" kind of comments but the last straw came when someone posted a comment to the effect of "Great information, I'll use this technique on my blog" when the content of the posting was source code on how to add Video to a product page in ASPDNSF. Good try sweetie... So, I've added a BE.Net extension that will automatically add certain types of comments (not gonna say how so they can't try and game it) to our blacklist. And if new ones slip through, comments are MODERATED on this website so I will be deleting, not approving, any comments that come in that hint of being affiliated with this contest that is turning normal people into spammers, all under the guise of a competition. </RANT>

One of our clients was facing a desire to move torwards placing videos or other flash objects into the product display pages of ASPDNSF. The introduction of a Tabbed UI provided a great framework for this but the same concept could apply to any of the product display XMLConfig package. One of the first criteria was that it needed to be seamless to site visitors; when a video was available, it had to show but they didn?t want any thing ?trumpetting? the lack of video for a particular product. It also needed an easy to administer interface on the product edit pages. They didn?t want to jump through hoops to embed the javascript/flash code into a product description field since the WYSIWYG editor is not always kind to this type of content. More importantly, I didn?t want to have to create a new administrative interface to edit this new data. Luckily, the product data store has a number of suitable fields that are currently available for custom use. One of these is the MiscText field. Thankfully, the stored procedure used by this XMLPackage uses the aspdnsf_ProductInfo stored procedure already retrieves this value so we won?t have to make a change to the stored procedure. Making a small change like adding another field to the stored procedure?s SELECT statement is very easy to do but we always try and keep an eye towards ease of upgrades. When a newer version of ASPDNSF comes out, the fewer changes we have to make to stored procedures the better. So, if you look at the XMLConfig package for the Tabbed UI, you?ll see that each of the tabs is defined by a list item in an unordered list (for the tab iteslf) and a div for the page that is presented when the tab is clicked. Below you?ll find the additional LI that we added to get the tab to show up. You?ll notice that the LI is wrapped up in a conditional xsl:if statement that checks to make sure we have any content in the MiscText field. If it is empty, the tab isn?t shown. <xsl:if test="aspdnsf:GetMLValue(MiscText) != ''"> <li> <a href="#" rel="video"> Video </a> </li> </xsl:if> Of course we could created the word video as a string resource and called it using aspdnsf:StringResource('product.tabUI.videotab') but the client assured me that they had no intention of changing their mind on the text (we?ll see). Next we?ll need to define the tab to contain the video. Again, we?ll be creating this div conditionally: <xsl:if test="aspdnsf:GetMLValue(MiscText) != ''"> <div id ="video" class="tabcontent"> <xsl:value-of select="aspdnsf:GetMLValue(MiscText)" disable-output-escaping="yes" /> </div> </xsl:if> And that is all you need to do really. With minimal effort and only 12 lines of code, you?ve added added a new container for ?difficult to present and edit? data in your product pages. If you?ve got any thoughts about this or questions, please use the Comments below to carry on this conversation. .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; }  

Hopefully this will be one in a series of quick hit information bites about Google Apps. Did you know that - with Google Apps Standard, you are limited to 500 email sends per day as opposed to 2000 emails a day with the Premier Accounts? This is yet another compelling reason for hard-core power users to step up to the plate and upgrade to the Premier edition.

Google announced recently that the Standard version of Google Apps is now limited to a maximum of 50 users. If you were a previous customer with more than 50 accounts on the Standard version, you will be allowed to keep your users in excess of this number but future implementations will be limited. Frankly, I don?t see this as a deterrent to the use of Apps. Anyone with more than 50 users should be either in a position to pay for the service or, if they were a non-profit organization they can apply for a free version of the Premium edition of Google Apps. From Google Apps help: Standard Edition User Accounts Effective 14 January 2009 For new organizations using Standard Edition: Standard Edition users get a custom email address, tools for word processing, spreadsheets and presentations, a shared calendaring system and access to a flexible intranet system. Organizations using Standard Edition get up to fifty free, ad-supported user accounts. If your organization requires more than fifty user accounts, Google recommends using Premier Edition. For organizations already using Standard Edition: If your organization currently uses Standard Edition, you may continue using Standard Edition free of charge with your existing user account allowance free of charge. If you need to add additional user accounts over your current user account allowance, you'll need to upgrade your entire domain to Premier Edition. Any thoughts or comments? Please use the comments form below to bring up your points.

I received an email from an EMM customer today asking about how best to advise HIS client when it came time to talk about the value of Enhanced Mail Manager for ASPDotNetStorefront versus hosted services like Constant Contact. Aside from the obvious cost discussion (a HUGE factor for many small businesses) here is the rest of what we discussed via email: Thanks Jonathan for your continued support of EMM. Has your client done side by side testing of open counts with their mailing list in Constant Contact and in EMM? Seems to me this would be the best possible comparison. It would give them a solid foundation for a discussion about where they are getting the most bang for the buck. I've done everything in software that I can to minimize the likelihood of filtering based on common information (ie : it is better to NOT encode graphics as attachments, always have a text and HTML version done as multi-part, include proper CAN-SPAM support, etc). However, there is much about filtration that cannot be addressed in software and must be addressed by either a service bureau (like CC) or by the organization doing the mailing. The following items will all contribute to mail getting through: Ensuring that the IP address of the sending mail server is not on any real-time blacklists or shared by any spammers if in a shared hosting environment. IF your website is hosted in an environment that has strikes against it for clients who spam, you would want to use the mail settings in ASPDNSF to ensure that your mail is going out through that mail server rather than through the web server's SMTP server.  This is one of the services I?ve used in the past to check up on this: http://www.mxtoolbox.com/blacklists.aspx Ensure that your mail server can be matched forwards and reverse DNS to eliminate "No Reverse DNS Pointers Found" type of bounces. Setting up proper SPF and SenderID DNS records for the sending email domain. SenderID and SPF are becoming more and more critical for acceptance of email at ISPs and corporate email hosts. You can learn more about it here: http://www.openspf.org/SPF_vs_Sender_ID Keep your mailing list clean. This means immediately remove not only manual unsubscribe requests, but probably more important is to process bounce backs immediately. While EMM will accept one-click unsubscribe requests (as required by CAN-SPAM requirements) it doesn't automate processing of bounce backs or manual unsubscribes. We do, however make it easy by accepting a list of email addresses to unsubscribe as well as attributing the type of unsubscribe to a specific mailing for reporting purposes. By running a "dirty" list, you will find that your emails are much more likely to get bounced since ISPs have been known to "shut the door" temporarily or permanently to mail servers who consistently attempt mail delivery to large numbers of old or invalid mailboxes. This helps protect not only against dictionary spam attacks but also against old data lists. Consider subscribing to reputation system/service. While I'm not certain if these actually work or not, there are a number of people who swear by their effectiveness. An example of this is GoodMail: http://www.goodmailsystems.com/. Nothing against the quality of their service, I?d have to have a pretty darn good reason to subscribe to a service like this as I feel that just contributing to a system that could tier email deliverability based on how much money you want to spend is just plain wrong. Some of these items are set once and forget it kind of things while others will require a little bit of work on the part of merchant to keep their reputation clean. That is why it is always good to immediately monitor the results of each mailing (true for in-house or outsourced). You can spot trends in your bounce backs as well as in your open rates using EMM's reporting features. I hope you find this information helpful. If I can help in any other way, please feel free to shout! MJG

I?ve received a few inquiries about the features that are available in BE.Net in our comments section. Here is the latest grid posted (showing 1.4 although they are now up to 1.4.5): Feature table This is a list of all the features of BlogEngine.NET Current Version 1.4 License Ms-RL Cost Free and open source Server Requirements ASP.NET 2.0 or Mono Mono support Yes Localization Yes, support for 31 languages Multilingual No Multiply authors Yes Static pages Yes. You can create pages not part of the blog chronology Navigation Theme based and a sitemap provider for static pages Alternate front page Yes. All pages can be the front page of the blog Each author have own feed yes New comment notification Yes. Either by RSS, ATOM or e-mail Data Storage Provider based. XML or SQL Server, MySQL, VistaDB and many more Post rating Yes. Visitors can rate the individual posts Gravatar support Yes as well as MonsterID, Identicons and Wavatars Tag cloud Yes Post calendar Yes. AJAX enabled Search posts Yes. Maybe the best blog search available Search comments Yes. The search can include the comments as well as posts User control injection Yes. Any user control (.ascx) can be added to a blog post Contact form Yes Comment moderation Yes. Can be turned on/off in the admin Disable comments Yes. You can even disable comments after a given interval of time E-mail attachments Yes. The contact form can send attachments Post ordering Descending by date Categories Multiple Subcategories Yes Tags Yes Post Editor TinyMCE but others can be used Draft Mode Yes Auto save Yes Microformats xFolk, Rel-Tag, VoteLinks, XFN, XOXO, rel-home, rel-directory, rel-enclosure Other export formats FOAF, SIOC and APML OpenSearch support Yes Google sitemap Yes HTTP compression Yes (optional) Live comment preview Yes Post API Support MetaWeblog (supports newMediaObject method Post Moderation No Syndication feeds RSS 2.0 and ATOM 1.0 Feedburner support Yes OPML support Yes Windows Live Writer Yes, extended support for both posts and pages Ping services Yes. Pings various services and more can easily be added Comments Yes Comment Spam Invisible CAPTCHA and AJAX Comment syndication Yes, as either RSS or ATOM AJAX enabled comments Yes Themes Yes (master pages and ascx files) User Security Users and roles can be defined freely Trackback Yes, both send and receive Pingback Yes, both send and receive RSS Aggregator The dynamic blogroll aggregates feeds Forum No Gallery No Plugins/Extension Full extension model Mobile device support Yes, special theme for mobile devices Referrer Logs Yes Import/Export BlogML and RSS Search Engine Friendly URLs Yes Cross-post No Spell checker Yes (ieSpell) XFN support in editor Yes Password Protected Posts No Blog By Email Not yet API MetaWeblog, javascript API and full SOAP web service API Tracking scripts You can change your tracking script from the admin. Works on all themes HTML header tags You can add your own from the admin File extension .aspx by default, but can be changed in the web.config Development principles KISS and no third-party assemblies. Very small and clean architecture Code syntax highlighting Yes. C#, Java, VB.NET, HTML, Javascript and T-SQL User Community CodePlex Documentation http://www.dotnetblogengine.net/wiki Sample Sites http://blog.madskristensen.dk/ If anyone has other questions about implementation or ??? Please, speak up in the comments below and we?ll do the best we can to answer your questions about this great blogging platform.

Ok, I?ll have to admit that I?m drawn to this site since my first paying gigs in photography was a forensic photographer to local attorneys documenting construction defects. That being said, this is a fun little site that combines evidentiary job listings along with mini-tutorials. Started only in November of last year, the Crime Scene Photography blog has great potential if they can keep it up. I find it interest too that it appears they are just up the road from me. Their first posting is about a photo class starting at Golden West College just up the road from me. Hmmm?. Wonder if I can squeeze a little time out of my schedule this spring to attend? I also like their (admittedly short right now) link list of interest to those who document crime scenes photographically. Have you ever fancied yourself entering the world of crime scene photography? Perhaps this is a great place to start!