Chris Kirby's Inner Monolog : Wookie

dotNetWookie now running CS 2.1

Chris Kirby — Mon, 21 Aug 2006 19:26:31 GMT

dotNetWookie.com is now up and running with Community Server 2.1!

Wookie users...dont' forget to check out all of the new features and skins available.

CS 2.1 goes gold...Beta site up and running

Chris Kirby — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 19:23:00 GMT

The dotNetWookie beta site is now running Community Server 2.1! The most noticeably feature right off the bat, is the new Tags feature...Tags have replaced blog categories, and are a great way to quickly find the most popular and relevant content in any section of the site. And, perhaps a not very noticeable feature, but important to me, Feedburner support! For a complete list of new features, check out the announcement at communityserver.org.

The upgrade to the main site should be happening sometime this week...just have to do a few migration test runs and some skin tweaking first.

Windows Live Writer unleashed.

Chris Kirby — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 16:10:04 GMT

A few days ago, Microsoft released beta 1 of a new live product called Windows Live Writer. Its essentially an offline blogging tool that works with live spaces, or any other popular blog platform, out of the box.

For nearly 2 years now, i've been writing my own blogging tools, simply because there werent any out there which had the features I was looking for...until now. Live writer not only has many of the features i need (support for community server, photos, ftp, ping), but has excellent plugin support via their api as well. So, to get Writer just the way i like it, i've already started working on cross-posting, and code formatting plugins to fill is some of the blanks. Once completed, Live Writer should replace the Wookie Blog Extension as my primary offline blogger. Though, I don't plan on killing WBE entirely, future versions will just shift from an all-in-one, to more of an addon to Writer.

Wookie Blog Extension v2 Final

Chris Kirby — Tue, 11 Apr 2006 00:27:00 GMT

The final build of the Wookie Blog Extension v2 is now available under Current Releases in the Files section. This version just addressed some minor issues that came up with beta 2 and now includes a native MSN Spaces plugin with the installation. You can view the complete release notes over in the discussion forums.

All of the plugins are also available for independent download under Plugins in the Files section, including the project files and source code for the Community Server and MetaWeblog plugins.

** update ** I've just updated the rtm installer package with the new Blogger plugin, as well as uploaded the Blogger plugin source and assembly for seperate download.

Wookie Blog Extension v2 Beta 2

Chris Kirby — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 01:03:00 GMT

Beta 2 is now available over in the Files section, and is finally feature complete as of this release. I posted the release notes and a new FAQ to help answer some questions over in the forums.

Wookie Blog Extension v2 Beta 1

Chris Kirby — Thu, 16 Mar 2006 20:29:00 GMT

I've just posted Beta 1 of the new Wookie Blog Extension over in the files section of the site under Beta Releases. Not all of the features I wanted are in there yet but its getting close. I've also posted a release candidate of the IBlogConnection interface, which is used to develop plugins for the blog extension. With the beta, I've included MetaWeblog and Community Server 1.1+ plugins which were working well during testing. MSN Spaces is also supported via the MetaWeblog plugin but I will have a dedicated plugin with the next release due to a few quirks. You can view the release notes over in the forums for more detailed info.

My primary goal with this app was to develop an offline blogging tool/rss aggregator blog extension that would allow me to post rich content to my primary blog as well as syndicate that same content to my various other unused blogs. For example, this is my primary weblog where i currently post all of my (mostly boring) content; I also have an MSN space, because I use msn messenger, and I have a Google Blogger account from a while ago. With this new app, I'm now able to post that same blog entry to all all my blogs (via plugins) simultaneously, notify the various ping services that all sites have been updated, and append the syndicated post with a message directing the reader to my primary blog. To some, this might seem like overkill, but i just think its cool ;)...that, and I wanted something fun to do with winforms 2.0 in my spare time.

Click here to check out some screen shots over in my gallery.

Sql Server Upgrade

Chris Kirby — Thu, 02 Mar 2006 21:50:00 GMT

I finally decided to upgrade the wookie SQL 2000 server to 2005 early Tuesday morning, and as you can see by reading this post, all went smoothly. I'm still running all of db's on the server in 8.0 compatibility mode just to be cautious; with the exception of the dotnetwookie beta site, which hasn't crashed and burned yet. There are a few things that i had to migrate manually, such as my maintenance plans and a few dts packages, but until you do, they will continue to run in legacy mode unless otherwise noted by the upgrade adviser. I'm no dba by any means, but you can't help but be impressed by the ease of administration in the new version. Within minutes I had my operators, alerts, and maintenance plans setup with little effort.

So, fear not, if your contemplating an upgrade. Just make sure to run the latest version of the upgrade adviser beforehand, I know it saved me some potential headaches.

Viagra, Levitra, or Online Gambling anyone?

Chris Kirby — Tue, 28 Feb 2006 02:43:00 GMT

I suppose I should consider myself lucky that I've not been a victim of comment spam until now...but when the spammers decided to hit me, they held nothing back. I'm guessing its because my feed now support rss comments since the site upgrade a few days ago, but I could be wrong.

So, in attempt to combat this, I've enable some of the included spam blocking features that ship with CS 2.0 and I'm hoping that will alleviate most of it. My only concern is that it doesn't inhibit legitimate posts, so hopfully finding a balance wont be too difficult. If anyone else has suggestions on this feel free to let me know.

New dotNetWookie.com

Chris Kirby — Fri, 24 Feb 2006 22:57:00 GMT

The new site and domains are now live!

Be sure to check out the new Files and Roller sections, and for users, the new Reader, Control Panel, and a whole lot more.

** update - Forgot to mention the cool new blog skins that were added during the upgrade. BlackSun, ClearSky, FoggyValley, and WhiteNight. And, a new source code highlight module was added...Just select Rich Editor for Developers as your default editor in your user profile.

CS 2.0 Release

Chris Kirby — Mon, 20 Feb 2006 17:11:00 GMT

Community Server 2.0 is due for RTM today! I will be migrating dotNetWookie.com over to 2.0 later in the week and will be changing the primary url to http://dotnetwookie.com (vs. dotnetwookie.com/cs); the /cs will still work for existing references. In addition to the url change, I've added two new domains which will soon alias the site, dnwookie.com (nice and short) and dotnetwookie.org

The most notable change after the upgrade will be the look of the site. The default skin that is being used now will no longer be compatible, but the skin author is working on, and has released a beta for cs 2.0, so hopefully he will have an rtm this week as well. There are so many other exciting changes, so I'm really looking forward to the upgrade....All other dnwookie bloggers, make sure to check out the beta site for some the migration changes your in for...that means you Hamaze ;)

** The beta site is now running CS 2.0 Final

New Wookie Blog Extension

Chris Kirby — Fri, 27 Jan 2006 18:41:00 GMT

I my spare time over the past few weeks, I've been working on the new Wookie Blog Extension v2.0. It's a totally new code base written from the ground up in .net 2.0. Unlike previous versions of the extension which primarily focused on rss aggregator integration, the focus of this version is to be more of an all in one offline blogging tool, while still building upon previous functionality. Needless to say, this is a lofty goal, and there are already some excellent offline editors like BlogJet and w.bloggar out there, but, unlike those editors, the wookie blog extension will still have full support for the IBlogExtension interface and focus more on the rich blog api's of platforms like community server. The architecture has already gone through several changes over the past 2 weeks, but here is the feature list as it stands now:

Totally redesigned interface, utilizing all the latest and greatest 2.0 controls.
New plugin api based on a new interface, IBlogConnection (more to come on this soon). So all blog api functionality (post,get,etc) will now come from independently developed plugins based on the new interface. So far, along with the interface, I've written both Community Server (1.1+) and Metaweblog plugins, both of which will be installed with the app.

This, in-turn, introduces a host of new features such as: Getting and viewing your x number of recent posts, viewing your rss feed, deleting an existing post, posing to multiple blogs on the same sever, and others.

New ability to configure and post to an unlimited number of blogs.
New native cross-posting support. For each new blog entry, you will have the ability to cross post to any number of your other configured blogs. Similar to the new cross-posting feature in CS 2.0 but with the addition of richer posting features, i.e. support for more than just metaweblog.
Xml-Rpc ping support for both the main and cross-posted blog posts.
Better spell checking
New Template designer. This will carry over all the existing functionality of the previous versions and add the ability to create and edit new templates from within the editor. (still have a lot to do on this one)
Possible more, but if i ever hope to finish it I will have to cut myself off at some point.

This could either be a really cool app or a steaming pile of blog shat... so i'm hoping for the former ;) I should be posting a beta soon so I can try and get some feedback.

dotNetWookie and CS 2.0

Chris Kirby — Thu, 12 Jan 2006 21:29:00 GMT

With the impending release of Community Server 2.0, I decided now would be a good time to start testing out the dotnetwookie upgrade on the latest build (beta 2). There are still some kinks to work out with the photos and other sections, but for the most part the new 2.0 site is up and running at beta.dotnetwookie.com. check it out!

*update*
Worked out all of the upgrade kinks and slapped on a new default theme with the wookie logo. All in all, it appears very solid... and they have really outdone themselves on the new features. The reader, blog roll, and the control panel are top shelf. The only things left are to tweak the theme a little more and figure out how to integrate feedburner (I’ll probably have to hack it in just like 1.1).

dotNetWookie news server

Chris Kirby — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 16:26:00 GMT

Users and guests can now connect via nntp to news.dotnetwookie.com port 119. You will be able to subscribe to any forum discussion and post replys all within your favorite news reader...very cool feature.

dotNetWookie and the Telligent .Net DCP

Chris Kirby — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 21:18:00 GMT

I'm happy to announce that the dotNetWookie community site has been accepted in to the Telligent .Net Developer Community Program. As members of the program we will be given access to the current and future premium add-ons that Telligent offers for Community Server, such as the Enterprise NNTP Server module, the Enterprise FTP server module, and the upcoming File Gallery module. The program is only 1 day old at this point, so I would imagine more details will arise in the coming weeks.

Thanks to all the folks at Telligent for your support of the .net development community!

Great DNS service

Chris Kirby — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 01:03:04 GMT

If you're in need of a good primary or secondary dns provider and are on a budget, i found a great service. XName.org provides primary and secondary dns hosting via a web control panel on their web site which, once logged in, allows you to add and manage as many domains as you like. And, the best part about the service is that is completely free! You are, however, encouraged to donate if you like the service (which I did, I always like supporting solid free services). I believe the dns servers are located in France, so they may not be as snappy as local dns provider, but for the secondary service I needed it was prefect. If you host your own stuff and run your own dns server then its a good idea to have secondary dns service just in case your primary goes down for any reason.

If anyone out there has any experience with this service please let me know your thoughts. I've used a similar free service in the past provided by twisted4life but they limit you to only 10 secondary zones (unless you want to fork over some cash). They might, however, be a good secondary choice if you have less that 10 domains because their updates are much faster than XName and can even be initiate manually on their site.