.NET to the rescue

If you are upgrading your BlogEngine from 1.4.5 to 1.5, you are bound to have read this post: http://www.nyveldt.com/blog/post/BlogEngineNET-15-Upgrade-Guide.aspx

At first I thought it’s going to be a very simple & smooth sailing process… perhaps I didn’t follow the steps properly. Anyway, here are some tips & tricks to ease your upgrading process.

1. Backup your site first!

2. Overwrite the new BE 1.5 files over the old ones

3. In doing so, some of the settings will be overwritten. For eg., About the author, users accounts, your settings, etc.

4. To restore the following, copy the following files from your backup & replace the new ones.

i) About the author - App_Data\datastore\widgets\1ef27b78-0218-420c-bfda-038163510def.xml

ii) Users accounts - App_Data\users.xml

iii) Categories – App_Data\categories.xml

iv) Settings – Do not copy as there are new things added. Open up in text editor and copy over your previous settings

v) Blog Roll – App_Data\blogroll.xml

5. As stated in Nyveldt’s article, there are some additions to the comments css. If you use your own custom theme, remember to add the additional css in so that the nested comments will look better

That’s it! Good luck ;)

1. Install the Technical Preview of Live Writer
2. Install the official WLW onto a Windows XP/Vista machine
3. Copy & overwrite the WLW folder from the XP/Vista machine to Server 2008 (C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Live\Writer)

I wanted a syntax or code highlighter solution for my site (BlogEngine) but have no lady luck in getting it up on the first 3 attempts and spent quite a good amount of time troubleshooting :(

The Syntax Highlighter solution by Chris Blankenship that I feel is the best so far is:

• http://www.dscoduc.com/post/2008/05/01/SyntaxHighlighter-Extension-for-BlogEngineNET.aspx 
• http://www.dscoduc.com/post/2008/09/25/More-Efficient-SyntaxHighlighter.aspx 

Well, the mistake I’ve made is that in order for this to work, you MUST use Windows Live Writer with the plugin to post.  This is the caveat.

$j = jQuery.noConflict();	
$j(document).ready(function() {

    var shBasePath = 'dp.SyntaxHighlighter/';
    var shScriptPath = '/js.axd?path=' + shBasePath + 'Scripts/';
    
    $j.getScript(shScriptPath + 'shCore.js', function(){
        dp.SyntaxHighlighter.ClipboardSwf = shScriptPath + 'clipboard.swf';
        $j('head').append('<link href="/css.axd?name=' + shBasePath + 'Styles/SyntaxHighlighter.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />');
        ...  
    };  
})

Yes!!! It’s finally working! :)  Thanks to Chris.  I didn’t know that I must use it with Windows Live Writer.

PS: I’m now using the jQuery method.  The cool thing is that it helps to save your bandwidth by downloading only the necessary scripts.

BlogEngine on GoDaddy

Hi, welcome to my blog. In case you are curious on what engine this blog is running on, it's BlogEngine.NET 1.4.5.  No surprises here since I specializes in MS technologies :)

You can find out more about it at http://www.dotnetblogengine.net/

Theme

The current theme I'm using right now is Dilectio.  I downloaded it from http://designdisease.com/portfolio/dilectio_wordpress_theme/ on 02/11/2008.  At that time, there are a coupole of bugs which you may want to go around it.

Issue 1: It will cause a horizontal scroll bar on IE for 1024 x 768 resolution

You just need to edit the following to solve it:

wp-content\themes\dilectio\style.css:

#bgcontainer - width: 999px
.Header - width: 999px
.CON - width: 969px
.Footer - width: 969px

Issue 2: Text appears on the right side of the image

Edit style.css and remove the following:

/**/ * html .PostContent p img {} /* */
.PostContent p img { max-width: 420px;}
.PostContent p img { width:expression(this.width > 420 ? “420px” : this.width); }
.PostContent img { margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; float: left; border:solid 1px #495b6b;}

Hosting

After searching Google, GoDaddy.com is by far the only web hosting company that offers everything (ASP.NET, SQL, MySQL) at a bargain price! They even give 10GB of space + 30GB of web traffic.  What's more, $1.99 for domain name.  What more can you ask for?

Be sure to check out the promo codes that can save you another $5 ;)

Tips & Tricks to get it up & running on GoDaddy

1. Upload the entire BlogEngine files to your web site at GoDaddy using any FTP software

2. Open up GoDaddy and the Site Configuration manager

3. Go to File Manager

4. Check Mark the App_Data folder and then click the permissions button

5. Set the access to Read, Write and Reset all children to inherit.  This will allow all files under it to inherit the above settings.  This allows you to move files in and out of App_Data folder and not having to keep updating the permissions in GoDaddy.

6. That's it.  Happy blogging!