blog bits
- Ning launches. I can't give you a first-hand review because the home page has a message that Ning is "taking a short break." Uh-huh. I did watch the Scoble Video with CEO Gina Bianchini though. Drag and drop application selection, visual theme selection and customization, on-the-fly profile question creation, member selection from gmail and yahoo address books, a video section, mirrored RSS feed displays, full localization, free with ads or $19.95 a month without ads. When comparing something new and sexy like this to Community Server you see how very much less sexy Community Server is in comparison. On the surface, anyway. But the beauty under the CS hood keeps me faithful, for beyond being an online community platform, Community Server is a framework for building community applications. You also don't see too many cute home page graphics on Community Server sites saying "we're taking a short break."
- Scott Watermasysk with another ASP.NET Quick Tips post that I love so. ScottW on State Management.
- If this ASP Alliance review of the Community Server Quickly book was a movie trailer, we'd all be complaining that they showed us the entire plot.
- Jeff Gabriel with an overview of Customizing Community Server 2.1 from 5000 feet, but he does a good job covering the essentials with Master Pages, MPContainers, MPContent controls, content markers, naming conventions of templated controls, and using skins.
- Telligenti Dan Hounshell flatters me to the extreme by implementing my CAPTCHA mod on his blog. Like The Wizard always says about CAPTCHA, "Set it...and forget it!"
- Community Server MVPs Nick Brown, J-O Eriksson and Rich Mercer are meeting-up in London for a "CS Beer," How cool is that? J-O's post on the meet-up.
forum bits