Mcbeev.com - Brian McKeiver's Kentico CMS Blog

I'm honored to be a part of the first ever Windows Azure Kentico Virtual Conference hosted by Kentico Software. This event is set to take place on June 11th, 2013. The day long virtual conference will feature multiple sessions that intend to help jump start Windows Azure development using Kentico CMS and Kentico EMS.

I'm presenting my session, "Get set.. Introduction to Windows Azure Development", that reviews how to prepare your development environment for Windows Azure and Kentico CMS. It will include a review of the required components, a walkthrough on how to setup your Microsoft Windows Azure developer account, and an install of Kentico CMS configured for Azure via the Kentico Installation Manager. I will also try to give out some pro tips on how to enhance your day to day Visual Studio 2012 productivity.

Don't miss your chance to sit back, relax, and learn about Windows Azure and Kentico CMS from some of  the best and brightest members of the Kentico community. To find out more about the event and register for it, visit Thom Robbins blog post -  Announcing the Azure Kentico Virtual Conference - Registration open!

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Today I am pleased to announce my latest contribution to the Kentico developer community, the Bit.ly Metrics Module for Kentico CMS 7.0. The purpose of this module is to bring everything you need into Kentico CMS when it comes to using the Bit.ly URL Shortening service. The module gives you a way to see all of your Bit.ly metrics, aka user link history, as a custom Tool in the CMSDesk and at the page or document level. The data for each shortened link is stored in a custom table, and it is kept in sync using the Integration Bus component of Kentico CMS.

The Bit.ly Metrics module also gives content editors the ability to shorten any Document URL right from within the CMSDesk. Utilizing this module saves you or your content administrators the time of jumping out and logging into the backend of Bit.ly to see how often your links are being clicked. My favorite part about it is that with one click I can sort the data and compare how often one or more of my links are being clicked.

Modules in Kentico CMS represent groups of functionality in Kentico. They can be a set of web parts, scheduled tasks, custom settings, and just about anything else in the platform. They are a great way to extend the system to allow for custom functionality. They are also easily exportable from one instance of Kentico to another. This module is a result of my presentation last fall at Kentico Connection 2012 about integrating with Kentico CMS. I demo’d the functionality to the audience during my session, but time flies fast, and I did not have a chance to finish it until a few days ago.

 

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In just about 10 days from now, my fellow Kentico MVPs and I will be joined by Thom Robbins and Juraj Ondrus from Kentico to answer your questions about Kentico CMS and Kentico EMS. Recently I spoke with Thom Robbins about how the first virtual panel went and what to expect this time. You can watch our discussion below. We'd love to answer any of your burning questions so don't miss your chance.

• Date: Wednesday, April 10th, 2013
• Time: 8 AM PST/11 AM EST/4 PM BST
• Location: Everywhere! Google hangouts and Twitter at: #KenticoExperts

 

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If you are reading this blog post then you probably already know that I think Kentico CMS is the best ASP.NET based Content Management System around. Kentico is an incredibly powerful and flexible platform to build web sites and web applications with. With that being said, just like any other system on the planet, if you are not careful you can end up using it the wrong way. Today I am going to try to shed some light on a few common mistakes that I have seen in the wild with Kentico. Hopefully after you read this list you will be able to avoid some of them.

Keep reading to see my list of 7 things that developers should not do with Kentico CMS.

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The holiday season has provided me with some rare downtime, as a result,  I thought it would be a good time to take a moment and reflect on the past year. 2012 was a very successful year no matter which way you slice it. The year started out with a bang for me personally, as I was named a Kentico MVP for the first time. I was and still am honored at having this distinction. My very own blog here at Mcbeev.com saw it’s traffic increase by over 25% from 2011, and the number of followers that I have on Twitter increased roughly about the same amount too. But, enough about me, let’s get to the good stuff.

One of the most significant events of 2012 when it comes to Kentico, was the the release of version 7. The 7.0 release focused on optimizing and improving the Kentico CMS Desk user’s and/or developer’s experience. The overall interface is also a bit snappier than other previous releases of Kentico. And of course the release also included a whole host of new features and functionality; On-site Editing, Advanced Workflow, Translation Management, Chat, Banner Management etc. etc..

But without any further ado, below is my list of the Top 10 Kentico Related Posts of 2012 at Mcbeev.com.

 

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A very common request that my team and I receive at BizStream revolves around adding on a new chunk of functionality to a web site. This request can come in the form of social media integration or a customer feedback form, but 9 times out of 10 it has to do with adding e-commerce functionality to an existing site. This type of work is very common for sites that have been around for awhile or previously acted as just a brochure type site.

These sites commonly already had product pages defined, but were only intended to serve out information about each product or service a company offers. As a web site grows, the logical next steps are to add the infamous “Buy Now” button, configure e-commerce store settings, hook up a payment gateway, and start collecting more revenue (hopefully).

The above steps are all easy to do if the site is built with content management system like Kentico, but what if the site has 100, 500, or even 1,000 products that already exist? I sure would not want to create those SKUs by hand. This scenario is a perfect time to use some automation to solve the problem.  Below is an example code snippet that used the Kentico CMS API to accomplish this task.

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I finally had a few spare minutes to upgrade my blog. Let me know if you see anything that doesn't look right. Now if only I had time to turn on all the cool new features. Oh, and one last thing, Kentico Installation Manager is pretty damn sweet. Download, apply, next, next, done!

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By now I think everyone knows that I am giving away a ticket to Kentico Connection 2012. So let's get right down to business. Drum roll please....

Congratulations to @probrandono!

ProBrandono was selected at random from the 10 different entries that the contest received.

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Yep, its that time if year again, the best, most informative Kentico CMS conference is back. If you read this blog than you probably already know that. On September 17th and 18th Kentico Developers, Partners, Employees and Customers will be meeting up in Denver, CO for the 2012 version of Kentico Connection.

This year I am thrilled to be speaking at the conference. I will be giving a session on integrating Kentico CMS with just about anything you can imagine. I may even show you how you can customize Kentico CMS to wash your car. Full abstract is below.

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In part 1 of this mini blog post series we setup a Twitter App that we will connect Kentico CMS to automatically publish content to. In part 2 of the series we walked through doing the same thing but with Facebook. Now as we wrap things up, this post will complete the series by getting down to heart of the new Auto Publishing feature of Kentico CMS 7. So if you have not read the previous two posts in the series please do so now, and then come back for the finale.

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