Presstopia

Server Moved

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

Email Issues

My web host has been having a lot of problems with their mail servers and as a result, no email has been going out from this web site for the last couple of days. That means that anyone who registered recently didn't get their verification code to login. To solve this annoying issue for good, I reconfigured Presstopia.Com to use an SMTP server from a different, more dependable organisation - Google! All should be well on the email front from now on.

If you registered and did not get your verification code, please go to the login page and click on "Forgot Password?". Follow the instructions to request your password. The email you receive should include the verification code as well.

I apologise for the inconvenience.

Presstopia CS Map v01.00.00 released

I recently created a mapping application for a Community Server site I administrate. It allows users to plot themselves on a map of the world to show other users where they are located. The application uses Microsoft Virtual Earth to create the maps and geocode the user's locations, and was developed using CS 2.1 and ASP.NET 2.0. It may however work with earlier versions too.

I finally managed to tidy it up and package it, and have made it available as a free, open source download. Enjoy!!

Presstopia DNN Forum v01.02.00 released

Presstopia DNN Forum has been converted and optimized to run on DotNetNuke 4 and ASP.NET 2.0. Please note that, starting from this version, DotNetNuke 3 will no longer officially be supported. Unfortunately, developing and testing for two different ASP.NET versions of the same product is simply too time consuming to be practical.

What Changed :

CHANGED - Converted to run on DNN 4.x and optimized for ASP.NET 2.0. Development now done in Visual Studio 2005. ASP.NET 1.1 versions of DNN is no longer supported.
CHANGED - Minor visual changes to Admin Settings screen, including the addition of a new CSS class, and some changes to the wording.
ADDED - Option to send email asynchronously in it's own thread, or synchronously.

To Install / Upgrade :

Logon as host and upload the module as you would any other DotNetNuke PA. See the FAQ for details. Subscribers should download and install the Premium version of the PA or Source to gain access to premium features.

Presstopia DNN Map v01.00.00 released

Presstopia DNN Map is a realtime geocoding and mapping application for DotNetNuke version 3.3 or 4.3 or later. Member locations are geocoded and displayed on a map of the world using WorldKit. See it in action here. Presstopia DNN Map is available to Presstopia Subscribers. Thank you for your support!

Screenshot

Presstopia Forum v01.01.01 released

Starting from this version Presstopia Forum will be released in two versions - the popular (and free!) Standard version, and a Premium version available to subscribers only. The Premium version has a few extra features and comes with the source code. See the Presstopia Forum Overview and Download pages for additional info.

What Changed :

Email notifications now use MailMessage class instead of DNN SendNotification class
Removed check to see if SMTP address was entered in host settings
Removed sending notifications on a seperate thread because threading didn't work with DNN 3.3/4.3
Standardised breadcrumb navigation across pages
Standardised code-behind class names
Some language settings were removed/updated
Check DNN version and use UserPortals.Authorised in notifications if DNN 4.3 or later
Some icons were added to default template
(Premium) RSS feeds - Individual forum feed
(Premium) RSS feeds - Aggregated feed, eg. for use in a "New In Forums" module. See Presstopia.Com home page for an example.
(Premium) Hide "Powered By Presstopia" link

Presstopia Blog v1.0 released

What Changed :

CHANGED : Please note - Presstopia Blog v1.0 does not contain any new features or bug fixes. However, many changes were made to ensure that Presstopia Blog now not only runs under ASP.NET 2.0, but use as much of the new classes, features and functionality of ASP.NET 2.0 (such as the new mail classes, masterpages, App_Code folder, etc.) as possible. The project is also no longer developed in Visual Studio 2003, but in Visual Studio 2005.
CHANGED : The FreeTextBox control included in the download has been updated to version 3.1.4.

To Install :

See the readme.htm file for installation instructions.

To Upgrade :

No database changes were made. However, this version will only run under ASP.NET 2.0 so please make sure that your web site is configured to support ASP.NET 2.0 before upgrading. Make a backup before uploading the new files, just in case. The files that changed from the previous version and which must be (re)uploaded to your web server are :

/App_Code/*.* (Note : This is a new folder)
pt/admin/*.*
pt/blog/*.*

The following file can be be deleted :

/bin/Presstopia.PTBlog.dll

Presstopia Forum v01.00.10 released

Just one change this time, but one that could make a big difference with larger forums. This version of the forum sends email notifications in a separate thread, thereby reducing the time the user has to wait for a response from the server after posting a message.

What Changed :

ADDED - Email notifications are now sent in separate thread

To Install / Upgrade :

Logon as host and upload the module as you would any other DotNetNuke PA. See the FAQ for details.

Presstopia Forum v01.00.09 released

What Changed :

FIXED - When sending notifications, check if user still has an email address in their profile
FIXED - Adding a new thread that exceeds the max post size no longer creates a thread record without a post record
ADDED - Optional "Email To Address" in Forum Settings for SMTP servers that require it
ADDED - Unsubscribe message in email notifications (message can be changed in language file)

To Install / Upgrade :

Logon as host and upload the module as you would any other DotNetNuke PA. See the FAQ for details.

Presstopia Forum v01.00.08 released

What Changed :

FIXED - Bug where users who subscribed to the forum and then deactivated still received email notifications
ADDED - Smilies are now displayed in a popup window (added ptSmilies.gif to images folder and .ptfSmilies to modules.css)
ADDED - Users can now better manage forum subscriptions from their My Settings page
ADDED - Users can update an About Me field which can be publically viewed by other users (added ptAuthorInfo.gif to images folder and .ptfPostUserBoxButtons, .ptfPostUserBoxPopup to module.css)
ADDED - Admins can make a forum user inactive to prevent access to the forum
CHANGED - Several minor changes were made, such as JavaScript were moved to external files, etc.
CHANGED - Posts entered by admin users are no longer subject to sanitation

To Install / Upgrade :

Logon as host and upload the module as you would any other DotNetNuke PA. See the FAQ for details.

New Suggestions page

The Suggestions forums have been closed and replaced with a new Suggestions page that utilizes the Scott McCullough's excellent Feedback module.

Presstopia Forum v01.00.07 released

What Changed :

Fixed - Bug when database object qualifier is used
Added - Moderators can now move threads to other forums they are moderators of

To Install / Upgrade :

Logon as host and upload the module as you would any other DotNetNuke PA. See the FAQ for details.

Presstopia moved to new web host

Presstopia has moved to to a new web host. Along with the move, I changed the blog database from MySQL to MS SQL 2005. This was a manual process whereby I cut-n-pasted the last 15 blog posts in order to recreate them. Older blog posts and comments are therefore lost. The good news is that the new web host should provide much zippier performance than before.

Presstopia Forum source code now available

The source code for Presstopia Forum is now available for a small subscription fee of only USD $25 / Year. See the Presstopia Forum download page for details.

As always, thank you for your support!

Presstopia Forum v01.00.06 released

What Changed :

Added - Admin can specify a Smilie folder name that's different from the default
Added - Moderators can now see the author's IP address
Added - Added post count for last 24 hours to forum statistics.
Added - Display forum moderator(s) on forum home page
Added - New CSS classes : ptfForumDesc, ptfStatistics. ptfForumMods
Added - New Field : PT_ForumAuthors.AuthorAboutMe (future use)
Added - New Field : PT_ForumAuthors.AuthorStatus (future use)

To Install / Upgrade :

Logon as host and upload the module as you would any other DotNetNuke PA. See the FAQ for details.

Presstopia Forum v01.00.04 released

What Changed :

Added - Configurable time limits on user and moderator post edits.
Added - Admin can add text or HTML to an author's profile which are displayed below the author's info on post list page.
Added - A few extra CSS classes for the author info box on the post list page.

To Install / Upgrade :

Logon as host and upload the module as you would any other DotNetNuke PA. See the FAQ for details.