Archive for category Free Software

DotNetNuke on Windows 7 & IIS 7.5

Posted by Terry Apodaca in .NET, Free Software, Programing Languages, Technology, Web Development on October 18, 2011

There are tons of Forum and Community posts about all these Permission issues when installing the latest version of DotNetNuke, a ASP.Net based, Open Source CMS (Content Management System).

If you are running into this…this is what got me past the install, and past all the permissions issues.

  1. Download and Install the latest version (I installed the Source version so I can modify things and/or build themes (Portals/Skins).
  2. I would also recommend using this Installation Helper Application if you are not too technical, or you just want to make things a lot easier!
  3. After everything is installed, you will run the website either in the browser or from your Visual Studio, either way you will have to run the InstallWizard…and step 2 is where the Permission issues will start.
  4. Go to the web root folder you designated when you installed it, Right Click, Properties –> Security tab –> Edit –> Add (these ‘users’ to the list)
    • IUSR
    • NETWORK SERVICE
    • IIS_IUSRS (yourmachinename\IIS_IUSRS)
    • DefaultAppPool (you’ll have to find it by typing in “IIS AppPool\DefaultAppPool”)
  5. Make sure you grant Full Control to the Application in the Web.config and if you want to even to the AppPool Identity
  6. If you still get the “your site failed permissions check” error after all this, you will need to go to IIS Management Tool –> Your Website –> .Net Trust Levels and change the Trust Level to Full.

I hope this clears some things up. I spent two days trying to get a local installation and everything I tried was failing…until the last step above.

Please let me know if this works for you, or if you did something else to get past some of the Permission errors.

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List of Open Source/PHP CMS

Posted by Terry Apodaca in AJAX, Code, CSS, Design, Free Software, HTML, JavaScript, MySQL, PHP, Programing Languages, SilverStripe, SQL, Technology, Web Development, Web Service, XHTML on January 19, 2011


I’ve seen a few recent blogs ask where are all the good PHP and/or Open Source CMSs? I’ve even seen a few touch the surface of this subject: The Great CMS Roundup, Judging Five Open Source CMS. EDIT: and Matt has pointed me to a nice site that might list just about all of them: http://php.opensourcecms.com/

I am not going to do a ‘Roundup’ because I am not going to review every single one of them. I am not going to even list features, nor am I going to show what each one supports. All I want to do is put together a nice LIST of all the PHP based CMSs out there…so please, if I missed one that you know of…leave a comment for me.

Here is your list, in no particular order other than by maybe popularity and my personal preference. It can be argued between Joomla, WordPress and Drupal about which is in the lead….but either way…here they are:

  • SilverStripe
  • Drupal
  • Joomla
  • GetSimple
  • Frog
  • WordPress
  • ExpressionEngine
  • Concrete5
  • CMSMadeSimple
  • Contao
  • Modx
  • Phire
  • TomatoCMS
  • Habari
  • Croogo

I will be adding to this, if/when someone suggests another one because I know there are hundreds of them out there. So keep this bookmarked!

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Telerik RadChart vs MSChart (Microsoft)

Posted by Terry Apodaca in .NET, AJAX, Code, Design, Free Software, Technology, Web Development on August 19, 2010

We had a very large project that required some pretty intense charting of data…coming from an Oil and Gas company. So, you can only imagine the amount of data we had to massage and chart in some way, shape, or form.

We used a very nice set of controls for this project in Telerik. They are by far my favorite set of proprietary controls for the .NET Framework. The project was heavily built around these controls so it was only natural to want to keep with them. One problem…98% of the charts had to be Logarithmic. If you are not familiar with this…its when a charts Y Axis is equally spaced with labels dramatically increased (1, 10, 100, 1000, so on) instead of your normal Linear charting (1, 2, 3, 4, etc).

This presented a problem because the Telerik RadChart did not represent the logarithmic minor ticks and lines properly. They didn’t increase and scale the way they were suppose to. It’s hard to explain in words, so here is a screenshot:

The image above still shows a Linear scale even though it’s actually Logarithmic. Well, I searched all over the internet to see if this was just a bug in the Telerik RadChart control or if I was just doing something wrong. Turns out, Telerik knows (recently) about this issue and it has been logged. I added a reply to that thread (in the link) asking if there was any update on the issue…and as you can read there…they said they were not going to fix this. They did offer a workaround though…and here is a screenshot:

What they said to do was just remove the Minor Grid Lines and Ticks from the chart. Well, I had already done that as a temporary fix, but if you know anything about the oil and gas industry then you know how sensitive and important the data is. So, when we are charting their data it is very important to be as precise as possible. The minor grid lines were very important. (BTW, this is just test data in the images, so don’t worry about any issues about showing the clients stuff).

I did some more digging and searching because I really didn’t want to spend too much more time and/or money on this Charting need. I was very lucky too. I came across Microsoft’s latest Charting Controls (add-on to Visual Studio 2008). What’s even better is that as of VS 2010 and .NET Framework 4 it will be already incorporated so there won’t be any installation needed. It did take me about a day to configure, get the data bound to it, make it pretty, etc…but this was the solution I ended up using. And, it turned out to be a lot better…and much more visually appealing. Here is the final:

My only other option would have been some Flash solution or Silverlight. And if you know me very well, you know that I HATE Flash and/or Silverlight. This is one time I can say Hurray for Microsoft this time.

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Free Software List – Revisited

Posted by Terry Apodaca in Free Software on February 11, 2010

I’ve had a running list of free software for a long time…and I think it’s time to revisit this list and update it. At some point I will also be adding free Mac and Linux software I prefer too…so keep this page bookmarked.

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AVG 8 Free

Posted by Terry Apodaca in Anti-Spyware, Anti-Virus, Free Software on May 29, 2008

Message to those of you that I have either worked on your computer and installed the Free AVG Anti-virus software, or to all of those many others that read and bookmark my free software list and have installed the Free AVG.

If you have noticed a popup in the background that tells you that AVG 7.5 will soon be no longer supported…have no fear. AVG 8 is indeed still going to be free. You can get it here! I do recommend that you upgrade your version though. It’s always best to keep all your software updated. I’ve already done the upgrade and it went seamless. If you have also installed the older version of the AVG spyware, I would also recommend allowing AVG 8 to uninstall all your old stuff and let it install all it’s newest features which will include both the Anti-Virus and the Anti-Spyware. It has also added a cool new feature when you do a search you’ll see a nice star/checkmark by your search link because AVG is telling you the link is safe.

Please let me know if you need any help with this upgrade.

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