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Windows 7 is the latest and greatest Windows version ever, it should be a child’s play to install? Probably, if you’re not installing it on a slightly outdated but still lovely Mac Book PRO. Read more about my experience »

Apparently I’m not the only one waiting for Windows 7, it has just gone live! But MSDN subscriber downloads is down:

Hopefully it will be back soon. Can’t wait to finally get rid Windows XP.

A little while ago my collegue Thomas threw a tantrum over EPiServer CMS R2 SP1. When he made changes to files they weren’t reflected on his site so he had to recompile over and over again. I had the same “problem” on my first CMS R2 SP1 site and help him solve it. Apparently a couple of other guys around us had experienced the same problem and were happy to find out that there was a simple way to fix it. I thought I’d share it just in case you fellow EPiServer developers are upset about this new default activated feature too.

When installing EPiServer CMS R2 SP1 static file caching is enabled by default, and rightly so. But when you’re developing it sucks. This line in web.config exist by default

<staticFile expirationTime="12:0:0"/>

By simply changing the expiration time you solve the problem:

<staticFile expirationTime="-1.0:0:0"/>

Enjoy!

Per Bjurström wrote about this fix on his EPiServer blog a little while ago. Microsoft has a hotfix to improve startup after you compile your ASP.NET project.

FIX: You experience very slow performance on an initial request to an ASP.NET Web site after you change the App_Code folder, the bin folder, or the Global.asax file

Link to the hotfix description kb961884. Read on and download the hotfix »

This is the first part in a planned series of explaining techniques and examples of how you can create more advanced EPiServer properties by utilizing Ajax.

In this first part we’re going “old skool” by implementing Ajax callbacks using ICallbackEventHandler (msdn). ICallbackEventHandler first showed up in .NET Framework 2.0 and when EPiServer 4 introduced .NET 2.0 support it was the easiest way to create an easy to distribute ajax enabled function because it has no dependencies on additional packages, such as the ASP.NET AJAX Extensions 1.0. The ICallbackEventHandler method is still viable today with .NET Framework 3.5 for simpler ajax implementations. In fact, the DataContractJsonSerializer makes it even less painful.

In this post I’ve built a property that might not be very useful for anything other than a proof-of-concept. It’s a page selector property with ajax enabled search functionality, the editor can type a string into a box and the property will search for pages (using FindAllPagesWithCriteria) containing that string in its name. The result is presented in a combo box and the editor can then pick a page from there. Here’s what it looks like:

It might not be the most visually appealing property but that’s not really our goal here. Read on and download the code »

Embedding javascript files into the dll is a good technique I use to make deployment of components easier. When creating properties or other controls that require javascript to work it’s much easier to write the code in a javscript file than to write it inline in the code as a string and then render the string as  a script block. It makes sense that the scriptcode is included in the dll which makes deployment much easier. The resource is served to the user through the axd-handler. Here’s a quick guide to embedding your script files into your dll. Read on »

I’m involved with all of our major clients at Avantime and pretty much all of them are now starting to mention that they would like to include social networking in their intranets etc. Everyone is of course referring to Facebook and wants “their own Facebook”. There are few products available for social networking and even fewer free products.

KickApps.com is a free white label SaaS community platform. Free in the sense that you have to accept advertising on your site or pay to remove it. It’s not Facebook, but it’s the best free platform I’ve seen for social networking. Compared to Ning, Kickapps is awesome. Here’s how KickApps describe themselves:

KickApps provides brands, enterprises and web publishers with solutions that enable them to create and manage next generation web experiences that are social, interactive, dynamic, distributed, and data-informed. KickApps solutions consist of a suite of hosted social and media applications and services that are used by some of the world’s largest websites and brands to grow & engage their on line audiences and foster deeper relationships with customers.

Customers include HBO, National Geographic, Johnson & Johnson, Kraft etc.

KickApps has good features for integrating their platform with any existing platform. Most importantly they support DNS masking and SSO (single sign on). In this post I explain how KickApps SSO is implemented and how you can benefit from it with EPiServer.
Read on for more information and code

I was discussing a new project with one of the newer members of the Avantime team, Simon Sundén (Iconvert). Simon is just like most people at the office: a huge nerd. In fact, I would argue that Avantime has the highest nerd per employee ratio in Sweden. The difference between Simon and me is the subject of nerdines, he’s all about SEO and on-line marketing, I’m all about technology and coding. I think it’s awesome how people can get totally excited over things I personally don’t find very interesting. Back on topic.
Simon loves WP (WordPress) but doesn’t care much for EPiServer. I have more or less the opposite opinion: WP is a great toy for blogs and 4-page websites but you can’t compare the two. Simon’s main concern with EPiServer is that it’s not very SEO friendly, which is WPs’ strong side. So I made it my weekend project to work on plugins for EPiServer that would improve the SEO aspects. My goal is to shut Simon up and perhaps make him like EPiServer, if just a little bit.
Read on and watch the video »