AWDNUG Meeting #2
Here I am fresh back from the second meeting of the Albury/Wodonga Dot Net User Group!
As I described in my previous post, this month's meeting was focused on content-management systems on which we will be running our web site (awdnug.org, coming soon).
In attendance were (if I recall correctly) seven people, which is not an increase on last month's figure. However, three people from last month's meeting were unable to attend, and we had three new people this month, so things look promising in that respect.
After both presentations, we kind of came to a non-decision of making an attempt at running both Community Server and DotNetNuke concurrently. Since both systems prepend their database objects with a custom string (cs_ and dnn_ respectively), the two should live in harmony on the one database and domain.
Even more interesting, both systems make use of the ASP.NET Membership Provider, so there's a chance that the site could maintain a single membership roster across both CMSes.
Right now I'm of the belief that CS will provide 99% of what the site requires. DNN has some interesting features (payment systems and some integration with PayPal piqued our interest), but in reality I believe we'll get by on pure CS for the foreseeable future.
Our next meeting will be on the 12th of July, and at this stage it looks like we'll be changing venues. More on that as news comes to hand. Rumours abound that we might be getting some high-profile support for our group, too, which is really exciting.
Once the group's web site is operational I'll post my presentation for y'all to see. It's a modest slide deck, so don't raise your expectations too high. Save those high expectations for the inevitable Comicster presentation. ;-)
So ... .NET developers (and developers in general) from the Albury/Wodonga region: See you next month!

# Trackback from Community Server Daily News on 15/06/2006 5:51 AM
Comments
# crucible
14/06/2006 11:22 PM
or tomorrow! :)
If we find someone with a paypal add-on do we still win?
Both systems are relatively extensible... I'm not sure how much development beyond setting up the basics will go on though - I mean how much will the site need?
Anyway, I'm sure that was discussed, or will be discussed sometime - so I'll have to catch up with you tomorrow.
Inevitably at my morning romp up to the top office to annoy you... or will I? Maybe I'll mix it up a bit just to keep you guessing!
Although given I actually have a meeting at 9, the probability is high.
Anyway, I'm heading off-topic so I'll shut up now :)
# crucible
14/06/2006 11:23 PM
hey, if I'm logged in and it knows who I am, why the hell doesn't CS remember my url when I post a comment?
Get your mate Burke onto this one!
# Chris Hammond
15/06/2006 6:36 AM
Being a fan of both applications, and knowing them both pretty darn well. For a user group I would have to suggest DNN over CS.
All IMHO of course.
# mabster
15/06/2006 7:14 AM
Really, Chris? What DNN features are better suited for a user group over CS?
We talked about what we'd want in a web site, and it came down to a front page with a welcome and "about" message, blog for members, forums and a file storage area. CS does all these things *really* well, and looks really good without any skinning.
I'd be interested to hear your take on DNN's strengths in these areas!
# Chris Hammond
21/06/2006 3:57 AM
A few points I'll try to cover. There are plenty of free/cheap modules available for DNN that you can utilize, and I'm always a fan of skinning a site differently than it comes out of the box.
Skinning for DNN is a breeze, anyone who knows basic HTML can tackle a good skin in a couple of hours. Skinning CS is a big ole PITA, I've done my share of minor skin tweaks to CS, I'd love to do more, but it's honestly such a pain I haven't taken the time.
The "community" for DotNetNuke is also far more robust, plenty of free and inexpensive modules are developed almost daily, so there always something new available.
Once you have DNN up and running if you need to create a page, you do it through the browser. If you need to add a page to CS, you've gotta do it through the file system. Then to add it to the navigation you must take a crack at the siteurls.config file, etc etc etc.
As for the functionality you're looking to provide. DNN has blogs, file management, and forums, all supported modules from the Coreteam as well. Getting this functionality setup and running is a quick and simple.
Your biggest issue, IMO, with a user group site, will be getting a site that someone can easily manage. CS while easy to setup, is far from easy to manage when you try to add new content and functionality to the site. That's where DNN excels, it's simple to install and deploy new features through the Module installer.
I could go on and on, but I've got work keeping me busy over here ;)
# Brenton Dearing
23/06/2006 8:38 AM
Im not a .Net developer as such, i work more in SysAdmin, but am extremelly interested in being a part of this group, as i am moving into MS CRM etc. Just wondering if you have considered adding the new group to the International .Net Association? http://apac.ineta.org/
What i would love to see in this area is IT Pro group, but one thing at a time ;-)
Cheers,
Brenton
# mabster
23/06/2006 1:22 PM
Good to hear from you, Brenton!
Yeah we definitely should get affiliated with INETA. Anthony (our de-facto president who has done all the hard work organizing us) has been in contact with Microsoft, so one we're "established" INETA will be the logical next step.
Hope to see you there in July!