Editor's Note
It felt like September flew by and here we are in October already! When time feels like it passed quickly, it’s usually due to being productive and that is exactly the case in our community. Since the last DNN Digest, we’ve continued to see progress in the community. DNN 9.2.2 released on October 1st marking a milestone in DNN history. The 9.2.2 release was the first full release that was 100% community driven. The community has indeed been empowered and the future is in our hands. DNN Technology Advisory Group Leader, Mitchel Sellers, posted a blog denoting the significance of the 9.2 release.
Did you know that a good deal of work is being done in the area of documentation? Kelly Ford and the team have been working behind the scenes for quite some time updating the DNN Docs. Everyone wants documentation to be good, but how is that achieved? What makes good documentation? That is the very challenge the team is working to solve and I believe there will be some exciting updates and announcements coming from the team in the near future so stay tuned!
Also, you may or may not have noticed some of the updates that were made to the main DNNSoftware.com site and to the DNN Store. Both sites were migrated to new environments which should be more performant and both sites are now running completely under HTTPS! Running under HTTPS is an online expectation and should offer users a more secure experience. These updates are ones that happen and sometimes go unnoticed, but I wanted to highlight them and communicate them with the community.
I was able to attend Microsoft’s Ignite conference a few weeks ago and assist with the .NET Open Source booth. From being at the conference, and specifically the open source booth, I can tell you that Microsoft is serious about embracing and facilitating open source. The .NET Open Source booth was situated right in the very middle of the expo. If you walked directly in the heart of the expo, that’s where open source was promoted. This strategic positioning by Microsoft signaled the importance of the messaging. I also noticed that conference attendees, who were mostly developers and IT Pros, loved the focus on open source and the fact that Microsoft is promoting within the Microsoft ecosystem. And just this week Microsoft made more strategic decisions further solidifying their commitment to open source.
I convey this to you because DNN is a open source project built on Microsoft technology. It’s always good to hear that the open source movement is continuing to gain strength and be embraced by Microsoft. This is relevant because DNN receives a lot of support from the .NET Foundation, which is an organization that fosters and facilitates open source within the Microsoft ecosystem. The organization is led by individuals closely associated with Microsoft. With Microsoft really getting behind the open source movement it’s reassuring to know that we in the DNN Community will continue to benefit from their strategic direction.
Oct 18th, 2018
Southern Fried DNN
Charlotte, NC & Live-Streamed Online
The Charlotte based DNN User Group, Southern Fried DNN, will host their monthly meeting next Thursday. This meeting will feature ManDeep Singh, founder of Mandeeps.com, a very reputable DNN vendor. Mandeep will be demoing a beta version of his team’s latest product announcement, Live StoreFront. The Southern Fried DNN Crew is really anticipating this demo as Mandeep first mentioned to them that his team was working on an E-Commerce solution nearly 3 years ago. This should be another great meetup.
Register for the Meetup
Nov 7th, 2018
TADUG
Live-Streamed Online
The Toronto based DNN User Group, TADUG, will host their monthly meeting on November 7th. The meeting will feature Bogdan Litescu of DNN Sharp. Bogdan is a long time DNN community member and his company is a popular vendor in the ecosystem. Bogdan will discuss the topic “Building Complex Systems with DNN Sharp Modules”. It should be a very informative meeting that you don’t want to miss!
Register for the Meetup
Feb 19-21st, 2019
DNN Summit
Denver, Colorado
DNN Summit 2019 is returning to Denver Colorado. The conference dates have just been announced, registration has opened, and speakers will be notified soon. Don’t waste any time… get the best rates on attending by registering early. We hope to see everyone at DNN Summit!
Register for DNN Summit
Spotlight: DNN Website Awards!
The team at Foremost Media is hosting the first annual DNN Website Awards competition. This competition is a result of the Awareness Ecosystem Advisory Group + the team at Foremost Media’s taking initiative to give back to the community. It’s great to see community members contributing in ways that give back and energize the greater ecosystem. Thanks to the team at Foremost media and be sure to enter your best websites into the competition by October 31st!
Featured Content: An Update From the DNN Technology Advisory Group
DNN TAG Leader, Mitchel Sellers, posted a blog last week highlighting the progress of the technology advisory group plus sharing some insight into the future roadmap of the DNN platform. Want to know what’s going on with DNN… give this blog a look!
Project Updates
This section highlights updates and contributions to the DNN Core platform and to open source extensions plus we provide details around projects that have recently updated.
DNN Platform
As mentioned 9.2.2 shipped on October 1st with several contributions from the community.
DNN Community Projects
There were some recent releases and updates in the community projects area that I’d like to highlight. Thanks to the maintainers and contributors for continued work on these extensions, the community is appreciative!
New Releases:
General Updates:
Other Open Source Module Releases
Partner Spotlight
In this section we’ll feature a DNN Partner and discuss the partner’s firm and any feature projects that show off DNN.
October Spotlight: ITworx
Founded in 2003, ITworx is an experienced Sydney based DNN service provider specializing in enterprise-level web development, front-end design and back-end DNN SaaS integration. IT-Worx has been building DNN based solutions since 2009 for customers in Australia, US and Europe. The team is passionate about providing the very best service and this shows with many long-term customer relationships.
Areas of specialization
ITworx Consulting specializes in building sites that require custom workflow, a custom back-end, and where 3rd party web application integration is required. Along with the technical aspect of projects, they focus on building solutions that empower the customer and that have a modern and professional design. The custom DNN development and integration component is usually built in the following ways:
- Custom DNN modules built in-house
- As an XMod Pro module application
- By using a handful of trusted 3rd party DNN modules
ITworx has plenty of experience with DNN modules such as Hotcakes Commerce (an enterprise grade eCommerce store), Action Forms by DNN Sharp and the EasyDNN Solutions suite of modules. ITworx is also very experienced with complex DNN upgrade projects from very early versions such as 4.x.x and 5.x.x up to the most recent DNN releases.
While ITworx Consulting serves a wide variety of industries around the Australia and worldwide, the majority of their work is in the fields of financial services, professional services and government.
ITworx's Journey with DNN
ITworx Consulting adopted DNN in 2009 after being originally introduced to the platform when some XMod based module development was required by a client. They already had an in-house .NET based CMS they built, but quickly saw the potential that DNN, with its robust features out of the box along with third party modules, could provide for their customers.
Since adopting DNN in 2010, ITworx Consulting has launched over 100+ sites with varying degrees of complexity. The team at ITworx has continued expanding their knowledge of DNN and on the features of DNN 9, new front and back-end techniques and recent popular 3rd party modules found in the DNN Store.
Recent Projects
ITworx recently leveraged the DNN Hotcakes eCommerce module to implement an online store with very specific set of integration requirements to allow the store to automatically load products and send orders to and from the corporate ERP. Gordon & Gotch Australia, was able to launch their eCommerce store within a very tight deadline and with very positive feedback from their customers.
ITworx is currently working on a large scale DNN migration and upgrade project for over 570 DNN sites where their knowhow and experience with upgrades (which can be tricky), as well as their internal business processes, has resulted in the upgrade and remediation of over 70 sites per week, with some sites starting out in versions as old as 4.x.x. and with all sites containing a myriad of DNN 3rd party modules.
Learn more about ITworx
Featured Tweets
Shameless plug: citing my own tweet :-) in case you are curious about the benefits we get from being members of the .NET Foundation.
Dennis Shiao tweeted sharing some shout outs that DNN received from CMSWire.
DNN Summit tweeted announcing registration is open for DNN Summit 2019.
