MicroApplications, Inc. Web Log

Tuesday, March 30, 2004 #

DotNetNuke 2.0 hosted at MicroApplications.com

After a very short amount of time (hours, literally), I have just completed initial hosting of a moderately customized DotNetNuke portal on our web site. What is DotNetNuke, you ask? DotNetNuke, or DNN for short, is a Best Practices Microsoft ASP.Net web portal application that sits on top of either SQLServer or Access, and that allows site owners to rapidly insert, update, edit and delete content through a series of modules (think news feeds, announcements, documents, and other useful web applications) -- a number of which come with the base release. There is also a growing DNN module developer community that is finding all kinds of ways to enhance DNN. I am currently working on my first DNN module and should have it up an running shortly. Did I mention that DNN is also skinnable? There are now many graphic artists and web developers rushing to produce appealing skins that change the DNN interface, and can even disguise that a site is even based on DotNetNuke. Best of all, DNN is free and Open Source. Skins and custom modules are also either free, or moderately proiced.

We have implemented our lab version of DNN as a membership site, meaning the content is limited for unregistered users. Once you register, additional content is exposed. For example, unregistered users have access to a simple Discussion Board application, but registered users have access to a full-blown discussion forum application. Likewise, registered users also have access to an Events Calendar, a Contacts list, and a Mapping application (via MapQuest). Many companies (as well as developers) are starting to realize that they can rapidly put up a web site application using DNN as a base. Further information about all the modules and capabilities in DotNetNuke 2.0 can be found here.

You can visit our DotNetNuke lab here. Please be advised that content will be changing as I roll additional features in and out of production, as well as modify the site to host modules and skins I develop, or accomodate any bugs found in this newest release. Since I have the DotNetNuke source loaded into a Visual Studio 2003 solution, it is relatively easy to rebuild the application as needed. If you have any comments or questions about DotNetNuke, or our implementation of it, please send us an email (you can simply click on my name below). If you're interested in a full demonstration of how DotNetNuke works, I can even give you administrator rights, and you can see how easy it is to make rapid changes to a DNN site.