Presstopia.Com

ReliableSites, the web host that hosts Presstopia.Com, decided to move their servers to a new datacenter on short notice. Unfortunately they moved their databases on 1 January 2008 meaning that any posts, membership registrations, etc. that was made from the 1st to today is lost since those updates would have been made on the database that is still at the old location.

Sorry about the inconvenience but the decision to move was out of my hands.

Posted : Thu, 03 Jan 2008 22:45:00 GMT

Just to keep you abreast of things ...

1. My availability to answer questions over the next couple of weeks will be extremely limited due to my current project commitments. Feel free to post your questions though - someone else may be able to answer them, and if not, I will get around to answering them eventually when I have a free moment.

2. You may experience some problems while posting or browsing through the site. My web host is having some SQL connection issues which will hopefuly be sorted out soon.

Posted : Mon, 03 Sep 2007 13:09:00 GMT

Presstopia Shop Beta 1 Released

The first beta version of Presstopia Shop is now available for download. My objective with this release is to establish a rock-solid foundation from which to build and expand the application. There is an online demo available, both for the front-end as well as the admin area. Please see the product's home page for more info.

Presstopia Shop is available in a free and premium version (subscribers only). The premium version includes source code and project files, and a few additional modules (Canada Post, USPS, and PayPal).

Please remember that, even though the software has been tested quite thoroughly and I don't expect any show-stoppers, there will likely be a bug-fix or two and a few refinements before the final release. Also, I whipped up some installation instructions but documentation is fairly sparse at this point. The application is really easy to use though and a lot of help is built in.

Posted : Wed, 25 Jul 2007 11:15:00 GMT

Presstopia DNN Forum v01.02.01 released

This version focusses primarily on issues relating to compatibility with the latest versions of DNN.

What Changed :

ADDED - Support for the SMTP SSL setting added in later versions of DNN.
ADDED - Admin setting to specify the number of posts in the RSS feeds.
FIXED - Empty RSS feed problem in DNN 4.5 (and later).
FIXED - Search form is submitted when pressing the Enter key.

To Install / Upgrade :

Logon as host and install the module as you would any other DotNetNuke PA. See the Installation section on the forum module's General Info page for details. Note: Subscribers should install the Premium version of the module to gain access to premium features.

Posted : Tue, 17 Jul 2007 21:22:00 GMT

Sneak Preview - Presstopia Shop

I'm finalizing the rollout of a new ecommerce application called Presstopia Shop. The first public beta should be available this week.

› See it in action here : Presstopia Shop Demo

As the name suggests, the application is used to buy and sell products over the internet. Presstopia Shop is written in VB.NET and currently supports MS SQL Server 2005. It runs on version 2.0 of the .Net framework.

As with all my other apps, a lot of time and effort has gone into laying a solid foundation from which to build on, and getting all the "under the hood" stuff right. For example, many important components of Presstopia Shop are implemented as separately installable modules - including shipping rate calculations, tax calculations, and payment processing. The "Featured" area on the front page and "Logged IP" section in the sidebar are also implemented as modules. This makes it possible to support a whole host of shipping and payment services, tax calculations, and the display of dynamic content without the need to modify the core application.

Some other features are ... easy to use web based installer, fully skinable frontend, localizable, SSL ready (including most shared SSL configurations), and much more.

The binaries and a few modules will be available for free. The source code and a few premium modules will be available to Presstopia Subscribers (including modules for getting real-time shipping rates from USPS and Canada Post).

Let me know what you think!

Posted : Mon, 02 Jul 2007 23:12:00 GMT