Just a quick update.  I had a lot of success implementing the hybrid solution.  I continued to keep my existing C# projects in tact and used post-build events to copy files from my existing C#/ASP.NET projects to the DNN root /Website folder.  I made a few small modifications to the DNN core to allow for some client-specific requirements, but otherwise left DNN alone.

Overally i'm happy with the solution as it stands.  It was a little difficult to work with since I had existing structure that I didn't want to have to re-code (for both time and for cost reasons!).  After this project wraps up, I'm going to try a ground-up approach to see if I can simplify DNN development for regular ASP.NET developers.  DNN offers a lot of infrastructure and modules at your disposal, but the caveat is that you have to be familiar with DNN to use it and expand upon it; my hope is to close that gap and let standard ASP.NET developers do amazing things in DNN... That is, I want to do all of that, if I have the time to build that framework

Cheers
 -eli

Last week I started a DNN/ASP.NET hybrid experiment.  I've worked with DNN in the past, and overall you get quick, easy, CMS solutions, but it feels a bit cookie cutter.  The way the modules are placed into the site often feels really static and "cheap."  The payoff, though, is that you get the support of literally thousands of developers at http://www.snowcovered.comthat all code to the same CMS, meaning you get lots and lots of out-of-the-boxfunctionality for aCMS or social website.

What I'm experimenting with now is whether or not I can mix and match ASP.NET directly with DNN.  Using a simple Control Wrapper module, which takes any given ASCX control and wraps it in a DNN module so you can insert it into a DNN page, I'm making entire controls for the new 1.FM that are essentiallythe "meat" of all the 1.FM pages.  That means I can still have my own custom admin pages and custom controls without having to code directly for DNN, but when I find an out-of-the-box module that I want to use, such as a forum, image gallery, reporting engine, chat room, or anything else, I can immediatley make sure of them.

So far, everything seems to be going smoothly.  I am planning on writing an article on the process once it's done, and I'll post another blog entry when I have my findings, so stay tuned.

 If this works, it could bring on a whole new way for developers to build websites.  No longer will you have to be a DNN Developer to take full advantage of the DNN infrastructure and supporting features.

To be continued.

 -eli

A few years ago, a buddy of mine wrote an article describing he he called an Entrepre-neer. This was recently brought up in conversation and we discussed what it actually means to be an Entrepre-neer.

To summarize, he characterized an entrepre-neer as an entrepreneur that also had to be part engineer to survive in today's market. It's a pretty interesting observation. Unless you're an entrepreneur with a good amount of startup capital, chances are you won't be hiring a fulltime software engineer to do your "dirty work."

I thought about this term and something just didn't sit well with me. I look at myself more an engineer than an entrepreneur. While it's true that I keep Toad's day-to-day business going by banking, invoicing, tracking timesheets, etc, that effort is really one of those things that I simply have to do in order to keep doing what I love to do, and that's develop software.

So for every entrepre-neer out there, I say that there's an equal number of Engin-eurs! Engineers that are part entrepreneur for the sake of being independent.

I'm not sure if there's much of a point to this post, but I will say that the term Engin-eur definitely fits Phil and me. We both thoroughly enjoy the software development and engineering side of business, but we have this other side of us -- the entrepreneur -- that simultaneously forces us as well as gives us the ability to see the engineering tasks at hand from a business side of things

We've been working hard to push out a new website.  The design is a modification of what we already have, but the real thing to take away about the new website is the content restructuring.

For a long time, people have asked us, "Toad, what do you do?"  Our answer has always been "Everything" and our website was structured to back that up.  However, in saying "everything" no one could find exactly what we offered!  So we're restructuring the site to highlight the keypoints that people will be interested in and we're leaving a "contact us" for those that wish to contact us directly to get the fine grain details.

New site to launch by the end of September.

Cheers
  -eli

Toad Software will be attending Drexel's upcoming Career Fair on Thursday, October 2, 2008.

At the career fair, we will be looking for a wide variety of talent, ranging from: business administration; finance; graphic design; and, of course, software design and programming.

We hope to attract ready-and-willing talent with our new and upcoming projects, which we publicly be discussing shortly after the career fair.

Our goal is to talk with as many people as we can, regardless of professional background, to get a better sense of what is out there and what people are looking for. If you are interested in coming to see our table, Check out the Career Fair Details.