iFinity

I've just published the latest release of the Url Master module, which contains an exciting new feature.  The new feature is the ability for any DNN site, regardless of what other software it uses, to use 'Vanity' Urls.  A vanity url is just a simple url which acts a shortcut to your user profile page.  The most famous recent case was the decision by Facebook to open up their system to associating a Url to a members facebook account.  But it's nothing new : twitter use simple User Profile urls (http://twitter.com/brucerchapman), as does LinkedIn and countless other sites.

I started to get a few requests for this type of thing, mostly for people who are using Url Master on a site setup for social networking.   Initially I said it couldn't be done, but if you leave the subconscious working on something for long enough, a bright idea is bound to occur.  So I'm happy to announce that, from version 1.14, the Url Master module now contains a feature to allow any...

This is becoming a very common help request for me lately, as increasing numbers of people convert old html (and asp and php) based websites into DotNetNuke based websites to take advantage of the extra power of the DNN framework.  The problem occurs that many Html based websites have been around a long time and generally rank well in search indexes.  Typically, the site owner wants to make sure that none of that existing ranking and associated traffic is lost when converting to a new DotNetNuke site.

This post will cover all of the steps necessary to divert traffic away from an old html based website to a new, DotNetNuke based website.  If you have an old .asp or .php based website, the instructions are virtually the same with just the file extensions changed.

0. Do your backups. You're going to be modifying the web.config file, so take a backup of this file before you start.  If you mess it up, getting it all back will be as simple as restoring your previous web.config file.

1. Install the Url Master software...

Every programmer loves to have a little kit-bag of common functions, workarounds, hacks and shortcuts.  It's the stock-in-trade of a seasoned developer : they've seen the common problems before, developed a solution once, and unit-tested the living heck out of it.   The iFinity.Utilities DLL is such a file : it's a very small .NET library which contains base classes, common functions, database shortcuts and the like.   It's been bundled into quite a few of the DNN modules that I have distributed over the years.

There's a small problem though : DotNetNuke doesn't really 'do' shared file installations for modules.  Basically, if you include a file in a module manifest (the listing of all the resources that get installed with a module), DNN remembers that you copied the file in when a module was installed.  And, when you uninstall that module, it takes the file straight back out again.  It's a modern, DNN version of the old DLL hell you could get yourself into with Windows 95 and COM.

Now back when I...