A .NET developer's blog

If you've ever tried to use a FileUpload control inside an ASP.NET UpdatePanel, you probably already know that you can't do that.  Using the FileUpload control allows you to use the UpdateProgress control to show some sort of indicator that the page is busy. But since we can't use an UpdatePanel with a FileUpload control, here's an alternative solution using jQuery and jQuery's BlockUI extension to display a message while the file is being uploaded.  In fact you can use this solution on any page which involves a long running process.

Download: Click here to download the code
Demo: Click here to view the demo

Here's the snippet of JavaScript code that shows the "Please wait" screen while the file is being uploaded

   1:      <script language="javascript">

   2:          window.onbeforeunload = function() {

   3:              $.blockUI({

   4:                  message: '<h1>Please wait while we 
                             upload your file...</h1>',

   5:                  css: {

   6:                      border: 'none',

   7:                      padding: '15px',

   8:                      backgroundColor: '#000',

   9:                      '-webkit-border-radius': '10px',

  10:                      '-moz-border-radius': '10px',

  11:                      opacity: '.5',

  12:                      color: '#fff'

  13:                  }

  14:              });

  15:          }

  16:      </script>

I've spent the last few days trying to create a new BlogEngine.NET theme by modifying a WordPress theme.

• Click here to view the original and great looking theme from Fresh01
  
• Click here to view the modified version that I've created as a BlogEngine.NET theme
• If you like the theme then click here to download it
• The theme is valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional
• It will work with the latest release of BlogEngine.NET v 1.4.5
• Supports widgets in the sidebar

Click here if you'd like to see the different styles and ways of presenting text/photos with this original theme.

If you're new to BlogEngine.NET and are not sure about how to start using a new theme, here's how you go about it:

• Download the theme from the link above
• Unzip the content of the ZIP file and upload the entire "scruffy" folder to your "Themes" folder of your BlogEngine.NET installation
• Login into your Admin control panel
• Navigate to the "Settings" tab
• In the "Basic settings" section, choose the theme that you'd like to use from the "Theme" dropdown.
• You can then either click on the "Preview" link next to the drop down or, if you're happy with the theme, then click on the "Save settings" button
• That's it!  Click on the "Go to front page" link on the top of the page to view your blog with the newly selected theme!

Let me know in comments if you've used it and if it works for you!

I used to blog from blog.ambujsinha.com but after sticking to one of the out-of-the box themes for sometime I really wanted to update the design to be more simpler and something more unique.  After spending days, if not weeks, looking for a professional looking template which is easy to customise, I've settled for what you're seeing now!  Here are some of the details about the redesign:

• Blog code from BlogEngine.NET: I've blogged about this before as well. It is one of the best blogging software out there - irrespective of whether you are .NET savvy or not.  You can be up & running within a few minutes.  One of the best features that I like about it is the fact that you don't actually need a database to get started - it can read & write data from XML files that it stores in a sub-folder of your blog.  This could be very handy if you're on a hosted environment.  I've to add though that I've done some customisation to the code (I had to satisfy the developer inside me!)

• Template from DIYThemes: Choosing a theme was a very difficult decision!  I spent a lot of time looking around and must have visited at least a few hundred of those "free blog template" websites!  But I just couldn't find something which met all the requirements that I was looking for. I even looked into getting a custom template designed from someone but that was looking like a very expensive option. And then I stumbled upon this theme from DIY Themes and absolutely loved it. There were a few things I wanted in the template:
  
  • Simple & minimalist design which is easy to modify
  • Should be valid XHTML 1.0 Strict markup - and this blog is! (Not trying to showoff but click on the link to test it!)
  • Professional looking

  
  The theme came as a WordPress theme which I have stripped and customised to suit my requirements.

• Hosting from webhost4life.com: I've been using webhost4life.com for few years now to host my other websites and I'd highly recommend them.  I haven't had much downtime and their support is one of the best that I've dealt with.  They've even got a live chat that you use to get your queries answered instantly.  Overall, very good value for money.

That's it!  Needless to say I'll be updating the template even further in the next few weeks to make it even more personal and unique.  Let me know what you think in the comments section.  And thanks for visiting my blog!

If you are like me and use Google Apps for your email solutions then read on about how to integrate your Google Apps email with BlogEngine.NET.  If you haven't looked into Google Apps and if you have got your own domain, the I'd definitely recommend it as a great and useful business solution.

I had to spend sometime trying to setup Google Apps' email to work with BlogEngine.NET.  After learning from experience, here's how you can setup your blog to with BlogEngine.NET:

• Login to your Control Panel
• Click on the "Settings" tab 
• Navigate to the "E-mail" section
• Your settings should look like this

• Set the SMTP server setting to: smtp.gmail.com
• Set the username and email address to your email address
• Set the password to your password for email
• Very important: make sure you've selected "Enable SSL"!  I had this checkbox unchecked initially and I kept getting errors when trying to test mail settings!
• Unlike some other pages on the internet that suggest that Gmail's SMTP port number is either 465 or 587, leave your Port Number setting to the default value of 25.

That's it!  Go ahead and click on the "Test email settings" button and hopefully you'll see a confirmation message in green. 

If you run into any problems, please don't hesitate in contacting me or leave a comment here and I'll do my best to help you out.

PS: Scott Hanselman has got a great post about setting up emails using Google Apps, click here to read more about it.

I was recently looking into starting a blog of mine and, as you've probably guessed it already that I've settled for BlogEngine.NET. This post (and possibly a few more upcoming ones) are just a way for me describe my experiences with it to get you up and running as soon as possible.

Unlike WordPress, BlogEngine.NET is generally seen as a blogging platform that is mainly designed for .NET developers - this is a misconception.  Surely, it does help if you a .NET developer, but if you are not then there's no reason for you to not to be able to use it.  This is same for WordPress, it helps with customisation if you are a PHP developer but you don't have to be one to use it.

First things first - I must admit that BlogEngine.NET is an excellent product and it was pretty straight forward and it didn't take me long to get up and running but there were still a few things that I came across that I'd like to list over here.

• Download: Click here to go to the download website and click on the "BlogEngine.NET 1.3 (website)" link if you do not need to modify the source code or click on the "BlogEngine.NET 1.3 (source code)" link if you are a developer and would like to play around with the code.

• Upload: Use your favourite FTP client (I recommend FireFTP add-on to Firefox) to upload the files on to your website.  Your blog website could be on the root domain (http://www.yourblogwebsite.com/), a sub-domain (http://blog.yourwebsite.com/) or a sub-folder of your main website (http://www.yourwebsite.com/blog/). All of these formats are perfectly fine with BlogEngine.NET but here's a tip: in order to make your blog more Google friendly, it is advisable that you don't use a sub-folder.  This is because Google or any other search engine, look for a special file called "Robots.txt" and they look for this only in the root folder of the your website.

• Configuration: Make sure that your new BlogEngine.NET is set to use .NET2.0 Framework.  You can either do it from the IIS snap-in (if you have got direct access to the server) or using the Admin Control Panel of the website hosting provider that you are using.

• Login: After you've completed the above steps, browse to your new website and click on the Login button and use the default credentials (username: admin and password: admin) to login to the Control Panel which allows you to create and post new blog posts.

• Permissions: As the BlogEngine.NET website mentions that you will need to give write permissions on the "App_Data" folder but one thing that it doesn't mentions is that which users need to be given these permissions.  Here's another tip: along with the website user, you'll also need to give write permissions to the NETWORK and the NETWORK_SERVICE users.

• Themes: Don't like the default theme that BlogEngine.NET comes with?  No problem - you can change it to one of the available ones or download a new.  You can change the themes from the Contol Panel.

• Mads Kristensen's blog
• Definitive List of BlogEngine.Net Extensions