Contents tagged with Scoilnet

  • Scoilnet down :-(

    5 Comments

    After checking my logs, I decide to close Scoilnet for the day. Sad because I feel useless against such denial attack.

    I am not sure if it's related to the Mydoom story (well I didn't know I was famous as Microsoft or SCO;-)), but the imbeciles behind this forced me to shutdown the site for today.

    The log entries increased by a factor 3 in less than an hour so unfortunatly it doesn't let me other choices.

    Bastards :-((

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  • Build a CMS -- Project dScribe

    3 Comments

    Today is a big event for me. I decide to launch a new initiative on my blog.
    I hope it will work as planned ;-)

    OK, here we go.

    For my project Scoilnet, using my personal experience on CMS(Content Management System just in case you still don't know;-)), I was confronted with many options.

    Because I still don't believe (don't flame me ;-)) in the big CMS tools for medium websites, I decided after a long brainstorming session (with myself, easier to make decisions) to jump in the DIY CMS on my own.

    Don't misunderstand the project. I am not going to compete with Vignette or other big cheeses  !

    Well it's not really a premiere for me, but in .Net, surely yes.

    I studied and read a lot of books, websites, of course and analyzed all the aspects of the project.

    Because so many marvelous things around us were created by some talented folks, I decided to follow their footsteps, and to develop my solution based on the excellent book Building a Content Management System written by Stephen R.G. Fraser.

    As I said already this is an excellent reading. Because I am also more comfortable with VB, I had to rewrite a lot of things from C#.

    I say rewrite because I am not interested by just 'copy and paste', I really want to do my own stuff.

    So this CMS is loosely based on the book content.

    The other different thing is that I like the concept of N-tier architecture, and for that I included in my project the Data Access Application Block from Microsoft.

    I will have the presentation layer and the business rules separated from the data layer

    Using this, it's surely more job, but much more readable code at the end of the day.

    So now, this is working smoothly, and I am now at the moment where everything start to be clear in my mind about what I can achieve with the tool.

    Rather than just publishing a big zip file with all the codes, I want to innovate and I am going to publish dScribe (Ok OK not great name but I like to name things) brick by brick.

    I'm going to start talking about the Workflow, followed by the Content creation, and so on.

    I have no clue about the number of stories I will have at the end, but it's surely an exciting project (for me! And I hope for you too).

    Of course, feel free to comment and if you have some ideas or resources to improve dScribe, let me know.

    So the first part in a couple of hours, about building a nice expandable menu for the Workflow part.

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  • Scoilnet part 2

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    Thanks to all the nice comments I received on Scoilnet .

    To look backward my experience on this project has been so interesting.

    Indeed, I used 100% of .Net in Scoilnet (and 20000 liters of sweat ;-)). For me it was also a way to be familiar with .Net.

    I like the idea to write some snippets on some obscure programming stuff, like reflection or other not so funny things.

    But I am a real person living in a real world.

    And there bringing everything I knew about coding and implementing this with .Net was really a tough challenge.

    But I certainly have no regrets at all, because it's so cool to see things making sense when they are linking together.

    On the coding, I also have to thanks .Net for the huge amount of Javascript headache it removed from my brain.

    It was like a constant painkiller, everything working so smoothly.

    Well almost, because now I enter in the grey zone of testing the site, and it's a little bit like the twilight zone.

    I have to check for different browsers, different platforms, analyze the first stats to see what people are using, trace all errors, etc...

    Well I say to myself, another challenge, and surely not the last one.

    I am also working now on a parallel project for kids about science in schools. It's quite exciting, because it will involve a lot of dynamic rendering, inclusion of videos and bright colors ! Yes I like bright colors ;-)

    To come back to Scoilnet, I have also the task now to do a stronger code, cleaning all the garbage I collected these past few weeks.

    I think also about a data layer, but I am not sure about that, because I am stuck to MS Sql, and I don't think I will move soon to another database provider.

    Another task to be implemented is an accessible version, and it's not really easy. I read a lot on the subject, but a lot of contradictions and misunderstanding surround the subject.

    And finally I hope to have the site running full throttle around September.

    Hey it's only in 3 months ;-)

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  • Scoilnet Live !!!

    4 Comments


    After one full year of discussions, meetings, and more meetings, and IMHO a very short period of development, 3 months, my new baby Scoilnet  is finally ready. Well it has been a long year but I think it worth it.

    This first release need certainly some more job, but we're getting there.

    I can just say it's really fully Scoil .NET !

    Yahooo !! ;-)

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