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SocialMe: A Social Networking Experiment in Sitecore
Nov 17th
In a recent post, I linked a video that outlined my initial experiences with building XAML applications for the Sitecore desktop. Coming off that experience, I was super excited to try out another application–SocialMe is the result.
Basically, SocialMe allows Sitecore users to save social networking credentials (currently Flickr, Twitter, and Facebook) to their Sitecore user profile, which can be leveraged on a web site to display custom content for that particular user–recent tweets, uploaded photos, and most recent Facebook status.
Anyway, here is an overly-long video that describes this in fuller detail, as well as provides a demo of what it allows you to do.
Possibly Related Posts- My First Sitecore Desktop Application
- Writing My First XAML Application (Tutorial)
- Working with Custom User Profile Properties
Working with Custom User Profile Properties in Sitecore
Nov 15th
Over the last several weeks, I've been working on a pretty nice little app that will allow for the integration of several social networking sites with Sitecore user profiles. As a part of this application, I've been utilizing the Sitecore 6.0 API to manage the creation and manipulation of custom user profile properties (for storing usernames, passwords, etc.).
I've summarized my experience at LearnSitecore, so be sure to head on over and check out my latest article.
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Mortality and Resonance
Nov 1st
(Thanks to Kevin, as always, for the inspiration!)
This week at church saw the start of a new message series entitled “Resonate.” The series seeks to answer how we are to live our lives in such a way as to leave a lasting impact on the world in which we live.
Quite appropriately, Kevin kicked off the series by calling attention to the 30,000-pound elephant in the room. This elephant, of course, is the stark realization that all of us, without exception, have the prospect of death looming powerfully and ominously on the horizons of our lives. Try as we might, we cannot escape or otherwise elude this fate; we are mortal, and our days are numbered. In the face of this reality, the psalmist’s words are still poignant thousands of years later:
“Please, LORD, show me my future. Will I soon be gone? You made my life short, so brief that the time means nothing to you. Human life is but a breath, and it disappears like a shadow. Our struggles are senseless; we store up more and more, without ever knowing who will get it all.” (Psalm 39:4-6 CEV).
I found today’s conversation particularly meaningful for several reasons. First, as part of More >
IE8 Issues in Sitecore
Oct 29th
So IE8 comes set up in such a way that breaks Sitecore functionality pretty handily, including:
Smashing pop-up menus and displaying horrible scrollbars on them (like when you're inserting a new page…) AND
Disabling the drop-down menus on the WYSIWYG editor.
Fortunately, the fix is pretty easy:
In IE 8, go to Tools – > Internet Options -> Security –> Trusted Sites –> Custom level. About halfway down the giant list of security settings, you’ll see an option for "Allow script-initialized windows without size or position constraints." Set this to ENABLE.
Choose "OK" to apply the settings changes.
Next, do the exact same thing under Tools – > Internet Options -> Security –> Internet –> Custom level.
Once you've made these changes, be sure to choose "OK" to apply them.
Finally, to ensure the new settings take effect, restart your browser.
These changes should resolve the issues.
Happy Sitecore-ing!
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Headin' to Vegas!
Oct 17th
Tomorrow morning, I jump on a flight (fortunately non-stop) for the Microsoft SharePoint Conference [09]. I'll either be not blogging at all, or very regularly…it's tough to tell at these kinds of conferences.
Things I'm hoping to learn:
- This conference will unveil the newest release of SharePoint–I'm interested to see if there have been significant changes over the current version. I've heard that there are some cool new features, but you never really know about this kind of stuff until you see it, especially when early reports come from fanboys 🙂
- I've been getting into XAML and Flex a little bit recently, so I'm interested to see what's going on in the world of Silverlight. It's very rarely spoken of in the circles I frequent (the cool ones, of course!), so it will be nice to see what the status of SL development is.
- Now that we're getting close to a more or less stable architecture at work, we'll be getting to place pretty soon where we'll be able to start building on top of SharePoint. Several of the sessions are devoted to UI/Social Networking/Pretty, so hopefully I can come away with some decent/fun/workable ideas.
- Other stuff/how not to get mugged in Las Vegas
While I'm away, More >
It's Really About Us
Oct 15th
This year's Blog Action Day topic is all about climate change. Hardly non-confrontational, right? Depending on who you ask, you can get a variety of opinions about this subject. Some will foam at the mouth, ranting about how humans are killing the planet and that we're all going to freeze to death, or burn up…or both. Others, with equal rabidity, will quixotically assert that climate change is a hoax, foisted upon the minds of the gullible by political forces with nefarious agendas.
Who's right? Well, it's a difficult question. We don't exactly have the right kinds of data from which to make accurate predictions about whatever future the current, apparent trends in climate change might bring. Given that we have not had the opportunity to examine the effects of similar conditions on more or less equivalent celestial masses, all of the prognosticating about doom-and-gloom weather models is really quite tenuous. And on the other side of the frenzy, the sometimes intentional distortion of whatever-limited-research-we-do-have does not help provide meaningful answers. Both approaches are not only naive, but in fact are diametrically opposed to actually getting at what is important regarding the discussion of climate change.
How so?
Let's think about this for a More >
It's Really About Us
Oct 15th
This year's Blog Action Day topic is all about climate change. Hardly non-confrontational, right? Depending on who you ask, you can get a variety of opinions about this subject. Some will foam at the mouth, ranting about how humans are killing the planet and that we're all going to freeze to death, or burn up…or both. Others, with equal rabidity, will quixotically assert that climate change is a hoax, foisted upon the minds of the gullible by political forces with nefarious agendas.
Who's right? Well, it's a difficult question. We don't exactly have the right kinds of data from which to make accurate predictions about whatever future the current, apparent trends in climate change might bring. Given that we have not had the opportunity to examine the effects of similar conditions on more or less equivalent celestial masses, all of the prognosticating about doom-and-gloom weather models is really quite tenuous. And on the other side of the frenzy, the sometimes intentional distortion of whatever-limited-research-we-do-have does not help provide meaningful answers. Both approaches are not only naive, but in fact are diametrically opposed to actually getting at what is important regarding the discussion of climate change.
How so?
Let's think about this for a More >
My First Sitecore Desktop Application
Oct 12th
Over the weekend, I downloaded Sitecore Xpress and spent some time developing a Sitecore Desktop application based on XAML, C# and the Sitecore API. Here's the result:
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Interesting XSLT Gotcha
Oct 8th
Today, I got around to trying to tackle some of the XHTML validation errors we've been receiving on our sites at work. One of the peskiest errors was what appeared to be a simple unclosed <img> tag–easy to fix, right? Well, I promptly navigated to the xslt file, opened it up, and quickly found the offending tag.
…
…it was already closed.
…
…hmmm…
Honestly, I couldn't figure out what was going on. Just to make sure, I recopied the most recent, seemingly correct version.
No change.
I went back to the file, made ABSOLUTELY sure that the tag was closed and that there were no weird quotes floating around.
No change.
By now, I was desperate. I even started commenting out random bits of code around the <img> tag until I was POSITIVE that nothing else was causing this issue.
No change.
Blurg.
Well, it turns out the fix is pretty easy, and it all has to do with the "method" attribute of the <xsl:output> directive. On my xslt file (which I did not create, BTW), the method was set to "HTML" like so:
<xsl:output method="HTML" …./>
For whatever reason, this method of output can do funky things like remove the self-closing parts of tags. Dumb.
Anyway, I simply switched the More >
Just Installed Sitecore Xpress
Oct 8th
At my day job, we use Sitecore as our enterprise-level Content Management System. We are currently running 9 (or so) sites through it, although we'll have nearly 20 installed by the end of Spring 2010.
I like Sitecore quite a bit, so when I found out that they offer a free, downloadable personal developer version of Sitecore 6 (the newest release), I just had to get it! Sure, it's a stripped down version…but it still appears to have a TON of functionality, so whatever.
The install itself takes only about 15 minutes and is smooth and easy. Even with a non-supported version of Vista like I have (Home Professional), the install runs without a hitch. I even had time to add a custom background image to my Sitecore desktop!
Anyway, if you use Sitecore or are interested in seeing what it's all about, grab the download. At the very least, your experience installing it will be positive 🙂
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