Robba's Weblog

New header background image

I said before that I was going to put a new image on the header as soon as I found one.  Well I found a couple that I liked, so I spent a couple of hours playing with Photoshop tonight.  First of all I used the PaperClip_Blog PSD to create the individual images.  Then I used the ImageReady tool in Photoshop and made a "moving" image.  I set the time interval for 60 seconds so it wouldn't be too annoying.  Then saved and exported to GIF.  Upload the GIF and tada I have a background image that rotates between two beautiful places.  I just wish I could be there right now.  Ahhhhh a cold drink and, warm sun and a morning dive. Wishing wishing wishhhhhhh

Smart Phone sync issue

Yesterday I received a case from one of our Telligenti telling me that he hadn't received any emails on his phone since 2pm the day before.  He also sent me this error message:

"The security certificate on the server is invalid. Contact your exchange server admin to install a valid cert on the server."

Since we presently do not run our own Exchange server I contacted MailStreet to resolve the problem. (sidebar-  I'm not a fan of MailStreet, but they serve a purpose for small business.  If you need to contact them about a problem I have found that the best way is via their online chat link on their website.)

The first thing I was told to do  was to soft reset the phone.  Soft reseting the phone consisted of turning off the phone, removing the battery for one min, replacing the battery and then turning on the phone again.  This didn't resolve the issue.  Our next step was to re-establish a connection to the Exchange server.  In order to do this we opened the Active Sync application and navigated to menu\options.  Inside options I deleted the Exchange connector.  After this make sure you reboot the phone.  This step is VERY important as I tried this wthout doing that and it didn't resolve the issue.  After the reboot set up your connection to the Exchange server again.  You should then be able to sync the phone again.

My first modification (shhh don't tell any Devs)

OK, so I like having the lists of sites on the left hand side, but when you create a list entry in the Control Panel it gives an option to add a description.  I've been adding descriptions, but they don't show up on the  link.  I thought  "well that is silly, I want a tool tip to show the description so people know what the link is for".  So today I posted on our internal CS distribution list that I wanted to do that and within just a few minutes Ben sent me a reply with the code needed to do it.  WOW, I love our team!!!  As I said before I am using the PaperClip theme but this should work for them all.  You'll need to modify the web\themes\blogs\paperclip\themes.master file.  Remove this:

<CSControl:LinkCategoryList runat="Server">
    <HeaderTemplate></HeaderTemplate>
         <ItemTemplate>
          <CSControl:LinkCategoryData runat="server" Property="Name" Tag="H3" />
          <CSControl:LinkList runat="server" />
         </ItemTemplate>
     <FooterTemplate></FooterTemplate>
 </CSControl:LinkCategoryList>

 

 And add this:

<CSControl:LinkCategoryList runat="Server">
   <HeaderTemplate></HeaderTemplate>
   <ItemTemplate>
     <div class="CommonSidebarArea">
     <div class="CommonSidebarTopRound"><div class="t1"></div><div class="t2"></div><div class="t3"></div><div class="t4"></div></div>
     <CSControl:LinkCategoryData runat="server" Property="Name" Tag="H3" />
     <div class="CommonSidebarContent">
     <CSControl:LinkList runat="server">
     <HeaderTemplate><ul class="CommonSidebarList"></HeaderTemplate>
     <ItemTemplate>
     <li>
     <CSControl:HelpToolTip runat="server">
     <PopupActivatorTemplate>
     <CSControl:LinkData runat="server" LinkTo="Link" Property="Title" />
     </PopupActivatorTemplate>
     <PopupContentTemplate>
     <div style="background-color: #fff; border: solid 1px #000; padding: 4px; font-size: 80%; width: 140px;">
     <CSControl:LinkData runat="server" Property="Description" />
     </div>
     </PopupContentTemplate>
     </CSControl:HelpToolTip>
     </li>
     </ItemTemplate>
     <FooterTemplate></ul></FooterTemplate>
     </CSControl:LinkList>
     </div>
     </div>
   </ItemTemplate>
  <FooterTemplate></FooterTemplate>
</CSControl:LinkCategoryList>

Restart your app pool and you should now have a tool tip that describes the items in your lists.  I hope this helps someone else.  Thanks Ben for working with me to get this in place.
 

I love CS2007

OK, Call me a jaded since I work for Telligent, but hear me out.  I admit that I install many instances of CS as part of my duties, but I don't usually build the site.  (Thats what devs are for )  Yesterday I decided that it was time that I had my own blog, so I said to myself "self you should create your blog with CS 2007".  So I did, and WOW I was soooo happy with how easy it was.  I normally prefer to setup a site manually and I did this one that way too.  I created a database and website, then dropped the web files into place and ran the database script.  BAM the site was up and running a full CS instance.  But I didn't want a full CS instance, I wanted a single blog so I IM'd Rick (one of our support GURUS) and he sent me this link: single_blog.  It is just a simple matter of dropping those two files into the root of your site and making one small change, then you have a single blog instance of CS.  (*** adding info-  ScottW has asked me what the change that I had to make was, so I thought I would clarify here.  I just had to change the defaultApplicationKey to point to my blog name.  That was it!!!)  After that I went into the control panel and played around.  I LOVE how easy it is to change the blog theme, click, select, save, done.  That makes it sooo easy to change the theme of the site.  I also loved how many themes are available.  As you can see I chose the PaperClip theme.  I'll be modifying the header image as soon as I find a photo I like.  This tool will make that easy to do as well: PaperClip Blog Skin.  Like I said I am not a dev, but I only had to change two lines of code to get this site up and running.  To me that is AWESOME!!!

I just have to say how impressed I am with the product team and CS 2007.  They all did a great job on this product.
 

My first blog

Well, here I am writing this, my first blog.  Why am I doing this?  What is my goal here?  What am I going to write about?  I think I have a couple of reasons.  1) this will provide a place to store the things I learn.  So when I learn something new and useful I will attempt to post it here, both to share and as a central repository that I can look back on.  2)  I figure I read other people's blogs and get new insights, so maybe someone will read mine and find something useful.  3)  I'll probably write about technical things and everyday life things.  There's always an anecdote or story about my daughter I can share.

I hope you find this fun.

Robba