In my first blog of this series I covered several topics related to Kentico CMS and Windows Azure. With more and more companies looking to adopt Microsoft’s cloud platform I realized there’s a lot of information to know and not many areas to find it. So to help the dev community out I started this series to hopefully offer some guidance and answers to some of tough areas when deploying to Azure. So, time for another round of tough Kentico / Azure questions!“What is the best way to manage session in Windows Azure?”Just as in any web farm scenario, deploying Kentico to Wi
Kentico and Windows Azure Questions – Part 2
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Site Generation using the Kentico API
Over the years I’ve been asked about automated site generation with Kentico CMS numerous times. Because Kentico’s extensive API is so accessible, this is much easier than people think. In this blog I’ll review some of the API calls to automate site content within a Kentico application.NOTE
Most the examples leverage the “clone” method of objects. Almost every object in the system has this ability and it’s a great way to get all the properties of an object quickly to populate in your new one.Creating page templatesOne of the first steps in creating content i
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Marine Scout Windows 8 App Root Frame Cert Issue
After many, many, MANY months of testing and certifying, Marine Scout for Windows 8 has finally been released! You can check out the app here: Get The App!
There is a free and paid version. The Paid version allows you to share buoys, set “favorite” buoys, and removes the ads. I’ll be updating the Paid version with more features in the future. This was my 2nd Win 8 app, and my first for a trial / paid scenario. It also uses Bing Maps and the Advertising SDK. The total development time (not counting the recent submission time) took about 2 months to develop.
OK.. so wh
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How to add event attendees using the Kentico CMS API
The Kentico CMS platform is one of the most extendable and usable APIs I’ve ever worked with. There is literally nothing I haven’t been able to do with, assuming it’s programmatically possible. For many projects we have leveraged the API to automate processes, enhance functionality, and create dynamic, feature-rich applications. This blog details using the API to automatically add attendees to an existing Event/Booking event.1. Make sure there is an event to assign the user to.The first step in adding an attendee to an event is to make sure there is an event to add them to. T
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Kentico Web Farms Explained
Every business website should be running a high-availability configuration, ensuring it’s always available and responsive to traffic. In order to facilitate this environment, Kentico has built in synchronization for web farms. This features keeps all servers updated as content / information changes within the sites. With the advent of Windows Azure and other cloud platforms, this functionality has been modified and expanding to handle the multiple deployment scenarios and dynamic architecture. This blog details how some of those changes work and tips on how your site should be configured
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What you’ve been missing at Kentico training events
One of Kentico’ s greatest assets is it’s development community and the accessibility of information. From a dedicated developer portal (DevNet) to blogs from developers and MCP’s like Brian , Jeroen , and myself, there’s never shortage of information to get the answers you need fast. Also in the mix are a number of events Kentico hosts for the community, including the Ask The Experts series, webinars, and most recently the Kentico Azure conference. Here’s a brief recap of these events and what you missed.Ask The ExpertsAs a developer, getting answers to complex p
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IE10 Adding Session to URL
So recently we had a couple of our sites randomly having weird issues of injecting strange characters in the URL when a user browsed the site in IE10. At first glance I thought the values were GUIDs but after some great help form Juraj Ondrus (Head of Kentico Support) I discovered the values were in fact the session id. After a quick search I found that there is a known issue with .NET 4.0 and the IE10 User-Agent causing ASP.NET to not use your Set-Cookie settings for your application.What it looks like1. User attempts to log into the site using IE10
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What You’ve Been Missing at Kentico Training Events
One of Kentico’s greatest assets is its development community and the accessibility of information. From a dedicated developer portal (DevNet), to blogs from developers and MVP’s (Most Valuable Professional) like Brian, Jeroen, and myself, there’s never shortage of information to get the answers you need fast. Also in the mix, are a number of events Kentico hosts for the community, including the Ask The Experts series, webinars, and most recently, the Kentico Azure conference. Here’s a brief recap of these events and what you missed.Ask The ExpertsAs a developer, gettin
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Kentico & Microsoft PunchOut for the Gulf Coast .NET User Group Site
Running the Gulf Coast .NET User Group is one of my favorite activities and I’m always looking for ways to improve the group and generate interest. Whether it’s planning the next meeting and lining up an awesome speaker or adding new social and media features to the site, enhancing the experience for the group members is essential to keeping the group strong and relevant. I wanted to highlight how we are using Kentico CMS and Windows Azure to power an awesome user group site with many exciting capabilities. Body blow! – Built on Kentico CMSThe main focus of the GCDNUG si
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Hosting a Custom Application Inside a Kentico CMS site
Given how easy it is to configure and mold Kentico to your needs, hosting a separate application inside of the platform is fairly simple process and can make life a lot easier for developers. Leveraging many of Kentico’s built-in features within your custom app is a great way to extend functionality without having to do a lot of heavy lifting. This blog details a few ways you can use Kentico functionality within your apps with just a little configuration.NOTE
For these examples I’m assuming your custom app is a folder Kentico root and its code is compiled with the CMS app.Security
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Hosting a Custom Application Inside a Kentico CMS site
Given how easy it is to configure and mold Kentico to your needs, hosting a separate application inside of the platform is fairly simple process and can make life a lot easier for developers. Leveraging many of Kentico’s built-in features within your custom app is a great way to extend functionality without having to do a lot of heavy lifting. This blog details a few ways you can use Kentico functionality within your apps with just a little configuration.NOTE
For these examples I’m assuming your custom app is a folder Kentico root and its code is compiled with the CMS app.Security
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Retrieving Attachment Info using the Kentico REST Service
The REST service that comes with Kentico CMS is a great resource for any project that needs to extend the functionality of deleting and updating content through a programmatic interface. This service has a ton of great features that allow for content retrieval, document manipulation, and object data retrieval, all of which simplify interacting with the system from an external application. While we have used the service to return document information many times in the past, I recently had the requirement to return document attachment info, as well. REST Service to the rescue!
This guide will
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Kentico CMS - Missing Web Part Icons
I recently encountered an issue while working on a site with the standard Kentico web part icons disappearing. After talking with Dominik Pinter, I found the issue was something kind of interesting so I wanted to pass the info along to everyone.
First, a little background. I have a site I currently have deployed into Windows Azure using Kentico’s recommended configuration. All files are being stored in Windows Azure storage, and more importantly, all web part icons show up. The site is configured to store all images on the file system (Site Manager / Settings / System / Files) and ever
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Kentico Rocks - A New Podcast For Developers
OK, I’m a little late in putting out this blog, but I wanted to let everyone know about a new blog series I’m a part of. First though, a little history. For the past few years at the Kentico Connections Brian and I have had tons of conversations with developers on all kinds of topics. From best practices to random topics, as MVPs we have answered many questions for the development community. Brian, Jereon, and I love helping out and we stay pretty busy at the annual events. Some of the best parts of the Connections are actually the conversations we have with each other. Brian and
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Kentico Rocks Episode 3 - Upgrading
Another helping of Kentico Rocks is fresh out of the studio! In this episode Brian and discuss upgrading Kentico sites, from the olden days to today. We talk about improvements of the system, document, the Kentico Installation Manager, and our experiences along the way. With both of us starting development around v3.0, we cover a lot of ground and how Kentico has greatly improved the process and documentation.
We also threw in a good bit of tips for anyone wanting to move up to the latest versions to make sure the process is as smooth as possible. All in all, We think you’ll get a lot
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Kentico CMS Custom Table Registration
Kentico is a great platform for creating and maintaining your entire site and data. Occasionally, you may have some data that existing before your site was created, or is just disconnected in some way. With Kentico v7’s
Custom Table functionality, you can easily register these tables in your system. This gives a ton of advantages like being able to create standard Kentico Queries and Transformations with CMS controls.
Let’s say you have a non-Kentico table full of information you HAVE to have on yours site.
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How to disable K# SQL Injection Protection in Kentico CMS
Kentico CMS has a ton of great security built-in that helps ensure your site is safe from malicious attacks. Sometimes that security can prohibit functionality that you may need in your site. This blog post is to explain a way around the SQL Injection in a web part, assuming you want to do so. Background
I recently worked on a project that I needed to dynamically build up a Where Condition for a Repeater web part, based on Query String values. In my web part properties, I configured the Where Condition to first check if the QS value was not NULL and then if it was a number. Once I verified th
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Kentico CMS in Windows Azure – Smart Search Lock Error
If you have a Kentico CMS application deployed to Windows Azure and it uses SmartSearch you may have encountered this error: Lock obtain timed out: CMS.SiteProvider.SearchLock
This error is causes by a lock on the SmartSearch index for the site. Kentico is constantly manipulating these files as content is updated on the site to ensure the search results are accurate. Occasionally, the application tries to access file in use by something else and the error is generated.
In the Developer’s Guide is a great area for web.config values. In that section are a number of keys that can be use
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I’ll be at Kentico Connections 2012!
Kentico CMS will be hosting their 3rd annual Kentico Connections next month. After the inaugural 2010 conference in Prague, Kentico expanded the event to Denver to reach even more partners and customers. Kentico has a site dedicated to both the Denver and Prague conferences with detailed schedules, venue information, and speaker bios.Tip
The Kentico Connections Denver is September 17-18, 2012. You can find more info here.
The Kentico Connections Prague is October 1-2, 2012. You can find more info here.This year I will be speaking at both conferences on “Migrating Existing Web Applica
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New Kentico CMS 7 Webparts
Kentico CMS v7 will be releasing in a few weeks at the Kentico Connections 2012. With every new version, Kentico packs in tons of new functionality and features for developers to use. New web parts are one of my favorite parts of exploring a new version so here are a few gems I’ve found in v7.Tip
A great way to learn about version 7 is attending the Kentico Connections in Denver and Prague. Find out event details here. Text & Images / QR Code
The QR Code web part allows you to generate a QR code for text and display it on the site. This is great way to give your users a quick
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