joseflapka.co.uk

Why is my server dragging its feet?

2011-10-12T08:23:00.000+01:00

Last week I had major issues with two business critical applications. Both applications experienced serious time-out issues and sometimes did not even load for our users.

Monitoring the server I could not see any issues. CPU was below 40% at all times with the occasional spikes, and memory was also not running out. There was a large allocation of memory to the SQL server instance, but with two large databases running that was expected.

So the investigation continued, checking the local disks for fragmentation. Fragmentation was at up to 70%, which seemed to be the issue.

Next check was SQL fragmentation, checking the indexes, most of which were up to 95% fragmented, which also could have contributed to the issue.

After performing a series of defragmentation on the local disk and SQL indexes, the server was still performing very slowly although it finally was at least usable.

Next check which I completely forgot about is to check perfmon for memory, CPU and disk queue length. Disk queue length was running at 100% constantly, which obviously was not right. From this I checked the SQL log files and discovered that these were written to the same disk so decided to change the location of the SQL logs to a separate disk.

This seemed to have resolved the issue, with the disk queue running at a much lower level.

But then I restarted an integration service between two 3rd party applications and immediately the disk queue length jumped up dramatically. So even though all of the points above were important in terms of server maintenance and best practices, it was a 3rd party integration service that seems to be causing the issues.

nickedit.co.uk is about to launch

2011-10-12T08:10:00.000+01:00

After working for over 6 months on a new site it is finally all coming together and nickedit.co.uk is about to launch in the next 2 weeks.

nickedit.co.uk is a voucher discount site and has been built using .NET 3.5 and Entity framework. Initially, the idea was to write the whole application in .NET 4.0 using MVC and Entity Framework, but due to large scale restrictions imposed by the hosting provider (fasthosts.com) I ended up coding it in classic ASP.NET forms.

nickedit.co.uk not only has a user friendly front end design but also a fully functional backend admin interface allowing the client to add new products, audit sales and create new offers.

The site has also been build with a complete set of code documentation and multi tier separation for easy support, by anyone who knows how to write in C#.NET

Sometimes even the simplest stuff catches you out

2011-08-18T09:36:00.000+01:00

I was playing around with using web services in a classic ASP.NET form web application, so that I could easily use jquery ajax calls to modify data. All was working fine until I deployed onto my hosting provider's web space, where I got the following error:

System.InvalidOperationException: Request format is unrecognized for URL unexpectedly ending in '/MethodName'

It turns out it's another web.config setting (which makes sense) where you have to specify the required protocols. Here is the code:

<webServices>
<protocols>
<add name="HttpGet"/>
<add name="HttpPost"/>
</protocols>
</webServices>

If you want to use MVC - don't host with Fasthosts because they do not support it.

2011-08-01T14:34:00.002+01:00

The title says it all.

Using System.Web.Profile in MVC web app project

2011-07-29T09:18:00.001+01:00

I wanted to use the System.Web.Profile class in my MVC project to store user information that is used to retrieve data. This information included user id and the current user settings. While finding plenty of examples of how to use the System.Web.Profile class, almost none of the examples mentioned that

Web Application Project (unlike Wet Site Project) doesn't support generating strongly typed ProfileCommon classes from settings in web.config

So without further ado, here is what I had to do - as detailed on the always extremely useful stackoverflow.com.
Create a new MVC model class and make it inherit from ProfileBase:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.Profile;
using System.Web.Security;
namespace YourNamespace
{
    public class AccountProfile : ProfileBase
    {
        static public AccountProfile CurrentUser
        {
            get { return (AccountProfile)
                         (ProfileBase.Create(Membership.GetUser().UserName)); }
        }

        public string FullName
        {
            get { return ((string)(base["FullName"])); }
            set { base["FullName"] = value; Save(); }
        }

        // add additional properties here
    }
}

Now I still had problems with the Membership.GetUser() method because even though I have authenticated the user, the membership was null. So all I needed to do is to pass the username into the CurrentUser method.

static public AccountProfile CurrentUser(string username)
        {
            get { return (AccountProfile)
                         (ProfileBase.Create(username)); }
        }

You may ask why membership was null even though I authenticated the user. This was because I am using FormsAuthentication to set the token (i.e.FormsAuthentication.SetAuthCookie()). Membership was not set at this point. It was merely used to Validate the user (i.e. Membership.ValidateUser()).

So, this article actually overcomes a combination of issues.

Linq to Entity outer joins

2011-07-28T15:49:00.000+01:00

Just spend a large amount of time trying to do a simple Linq to entity statement which in SQL would have taken me 5 minutes. What I tried to do, is left outer joins on entities that could not be placed on the left hand side of the equals and I got the following error:

the name '' is not in scope on the left hand side of equals

What you need to do is the following:

join users in entities.Users on new { ID = userroles.fkUserId } equals new { ID = users.ID } into users_join from users in users_join.DefaultIfEmpty()

To place the entity on the left you need to declare "on new { ID = userroles.fkUserId } equals new { ID = users.ID }", so basically swapping the values around!

Hope it helps.

An unsecured or incorrectly secured fault was received from the other party. See the inner FaultException for the fault code and detail.

2011-07-12T07:57:00.001+01:00

I am currently working on a new reservation website that requires to make connections to a third party data provider to get the latest rates and availabilities. I am using a web service to get the data in real time, and the web service itself uses basic authentication.

Now, I have tried connecting using the traditional C#.NET web service wrapper, which from my experience is less strict and very easy to use. For some reason, though it would not pass through the basic authentication in the header, and after a few hours of failed Google searches I decided to try an use the newer service reference model wrapper.

This now seemed to work better establishing a secure connection between myself and the third party web service. After solving some initial security issues, I have come across the above mentioned error:

An unsecured or incorrectly secured fault was received from the other party. See the inner FaultException for the fault code and detail.

And again after several Google searches, what seems to be causing it is a clock difference between my PC and the third party server.

SURELY NOT!!!

I need to do more investigation into this, but most articles that cover this subject mention the clock difference as the likely cause.

Finally, I found it in MSDN forum – it was due to system clock not sync between the web server and the web service server!!! According to Microsoft the 2 servers can only have certain time difference for security reason. (http://www.mythos-rini.com/blog/archives/2536)

What now.....?

HTML 5 compatibility

2011-07-06T18:49:00.000+01:00

Being a Visual Studio environment programmer, I have been using MVC for about 5 months now. Every time I create a new MVC project, I am given the following two options which I normally default to:

View engine: ASPX
Use HTML5 semantic markup: leave unticked

Now, I am no way ready for changing the view engine to Razor. I am still getting my head round the MVC concept and at times struggling to remember simple HTML markup after being .NET lazy for several years and primarily using the .NET standard controls to generate the HTML markup.

But what about HTML5? Last year I attended IWMW10 which held a session on HTML5, and to be honest, it sounded awesome! Even though I did not like its lack of control and standards, I very much looked forward to the added features and gadgets that would be out of the box, rather than having to code lines and lines of javascript. So this feature within Visual Studio is always very tempting.

Before running ahead a enabling this option, I decided to do a quick compatibility test on the three standard browsers (Windows only):

IE 9
Firefox 5
Chrome 12

I found the following website: http://html5test.com/ and here are the results.

Internet Explorer 9

Firefox

Chrome

Spot the difference!!

So I wonder, why does Microsoft offer the ability in its coding software to write web apps using HTML5 if their browser does not support it?

Come on catch up!!

Tame that bad ass mother of a jscript file

2011-07-01T07:48:00.000+01:00

When writing huge amounts of javascript to make your site more dynamic and slick, as a developer you find your self scrolling all over the place and trying to figure out how many curly brackets you are missing.
You also constantly referring to the jquery site for syntax prompts.
Here are a few handy tools that you can use when using Visual Studio as your chosen development platform:

Firebug - nothing new here, but it is awesome for helping you find that bug in your js file, and gives you an overview of what values you are passing from one function to the other
Utilise VS2010 intellisense by placing jquery references at the top of your files.

EG. /// <reference path="jquery-1.5.1.js"> in your javascript file
or something like this in your user control:

<%if(false){%> <script src="/scripts/jquery-1.5.1.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <%} %>

Install a rather clever extension from codeplex http://jsoutlining.codeplex.com/. This will allow you to use #regions in javascript and also create outlines around curly brackets. But beware it can be quite heavy and may slow down VS2010's performance if your javascript file is humongous.

Happy coding.

Linq to Entity outer joins

2011-06-17T10:14:00.000+01:00

Here is an example of a outer join using a linq to entity query:

public List GetList(string code, string name, int? groupID)
{
using (Entities entities = new Entities())
{
var query = from group in entities.Groups
join team in entities.Teams on group.ID equals team.fkGroupID into team_outer from team in team_outer.DefaultIfEmpty()
where (group.ID == groupID || groupID == null)
&& (team.name.ToLower().Contains(name.ToLower()) || string.IsNullOrEmpty(name))
&& (team.Code.ToLower().Contains(code.ToLower()) || string.IsNullOrEmpty(code))
select group;

return query.ToList();
}
}

Search Amazon.com for Linq to Entity

Triggers in SQL

2011-06-17T09:43:00.000+01:00

Just a note for all of you that are banging their heads against the laptop in front of you, there is no there is no Updated dummy table in SQL Server triggers. For an AFTER UPDATE trigger, you need to use either the Deleted dummy table that contains the old values or the Inserted table that contains the new values.

It does make perfect sense once you know that this is the case, but considering SQL is trying to be a 'friendly' language, once again it has not gone far enough and created (short-lived) confusion on my part.

Search Amazon.com for triggers in sql

Entity framework and JSON - A circular reference was detected while serializing an object

2011-04-11T16:41:00.000+01:00

I have an MVC application in which I am calling a controller method
from JavaScript and return the result to JavaScript callback in JSON
format.

I got this error when trying to serialise an entity object into JSON

"A circular reference was detected while serializing an object [...]"

I took me about half an hour to find out what was causing the error by
using my trusted reference book Google. If you want to jump ahead to
the solution, please feel free to do so. It's clearly marked at the
end of this article. The error was caused by the entity object having
a reference to a related object. In my case it was subcategory to
category. For some reason, that I have not looked into yet, JSON
serialisation has an issue when trying to deal with these related
entities.

Now one of the solutions is to remove the related entity by not using
the "include" method when retrieving the object and hence losing the
relationship between subcategory and category in the controller and
subsequently in the view. This was not an option for me as I needed
the relationship.

Finally after another hour trying to find different solutions to this
problem, I managed to get the following code to work.

   var results = from x in MyEntityObject()
   select new
   {
   Id = x.Id,
   Name = x.Name,
   Description = x.Description,
   CategoryId = x.TreatmentType.Id,
   CategoryName = x.TreatmentType.Name
   };

   return Json(results);

The trick is to take the related objects and create a new JSON results
object which is then returned by the controller to the JavaScript
callback function.

$.post("/Category/EditSubCategory/" + id,
   { "name": name, "description": description, "categoryId": categoryid },
   (function (result) {
   //bind the properties
   $.each(result, function () {
   if (this.Id == id) {
   $('#tmtsrvtxt_name_' + id).html(this.Name);
   $('#tmtsrvitem_name_' + id).val(this.Name);
   $('#tmtsrvtxt_desc_' + id).html(this.Description);
   $('#tmtsrvitem_desc_' + id).val(this.Description);
   $('#tmtsrvtxt_ctgr_' + id).html(this.CategoryName);
   $('#tmtsrvitem_ctgr_' + id).val(this.CategoryId);
   }
   });
   }),
   "json");
Hope this saves you a couple of hours and helps you along the way.

MVC - I take it back....

2011-03-24T16:43:00.003Z

As you can see, my last post was quite ill-informed. Armed with more research and a renewed sense of freedom since I handed in my resignation, I need to rectify the blurb about MVC that I published back in January.

Although I have still not had time to fully explore Microsoft's MVC framework, I have been able to do some research about its background and its high level architecture. I still do not think that MVC is the answer to everything in .NET web development, I now recognise that it does have a rightful place among the other development practices and has to be considered when developing a new project or making major improvements to existing web applications.

Over the next few weeks I will immerse myself into "PRO ASP.NET MVC 2 FRAMEWORK" and hope to be publishing helpful tips and tricks as well as theoretical background to MVC as I discover it.

Microsoft MVC is just a buzz-word

2011-01-14T09:21:00.007Z

Although not a new technology, MVC is starting to hit the mainstream development circle so hard that it has even squeezed through into the public sector. Hearing whispers from behind closed doors of management meetings, MVC development seems to be on the agenda. But do people understand what it actually does and what the pros and cons are of MVC development.

First of all let me confess: I am not a MVC guru!

So far I have developed two "applications" using MVC.

Build your First ASP.NET MVC 3 Application
Simple login application using Microsoft Forms Authentication with an SQL Membership Provider

Both times the actual development was easy, fast and efficient, but both times I tried to deploy the application onto my shared hosting platform I got trust level exceptions flying all over the place! Now this could be an issue with my hosting provider combined with my frugal outlook on hosting; not wanting to pay out for a dedicated hosting solution that I can fully control.

One of the other problems is that MVC frameworks can be incredibly bulky. They require a lot of files for everything to work properly. In the examples that I have worked on I had at least double the amount of files than web pages. If you are not careful, MVC projects can get out of hand pretty quickly. This can also end up affecting performance.

I have also found that migrating existing web sites and web applications into a MVC design is not straight forward. A lot of the times you cannot just copy and paste the desired functionality. You will have to re-create your whole application ... and who has got time to do that?

Also, the MVC framework is not efficient unless you’re willing to roll up your sleeves and build your own project specific infrastructure. At this point you really need to know your stuff! And, you need to be surrounded by people that have the expertise to support your creations, just in case you allow yourself a week away from the PC screen.

As you can tell, I am not a MVC fan at the moment. It seems like Microsoft has rushed onto the MVC bandwagon - just like with the buggy AJAX.NET.

New account activation for new students

2010-09-14T11:36:00.000+01:00

We have just completed the development of the newly improved activation process for our new students. This application allows students to activate their computing account and set their chosen password. Since its launch last Thursday, it has attracted over 900 users and resulted in a much improved account activation service for our new students.

Following the activation of their computing account, students are able to access all online IT services that the university provides as well as log onto any of the university's desktops.

We feel that this improvement has helped new students in completing their pre-registration tasks which will greatly improve their first experience with Canterbury Christ Church University.

StudentNET extends to our accepted students

2010-08-16T08:57:00.000+01:00

We have extended the student portal to include students that have been accepted on a course of study and are required to pre-register online before arriving at the registration event in September time.

The new 'stage' of the portal has several new widgets including 'Key things to know', 'Top questions' and 'Essential first steps' as well as drawing on the functionality of previously developed widgets including the 'WebNote' and 'i-zone search and browse'.

This portal will allow students to confirm their place of study with us, get their arrival instructions, upload their photo, and apply for and accept University accommodation places, as well as being introduced to the student portal with which they will interact for the next 3 years or more.

StudentNET Presentation at IWMW10 with Twitter feedback

2010-08-01T08:10:00.000+01:00

Yeay! I managed to do my mini talk at this year's IWMW in Sheffield, and considering I was stressing about it so much ... the audience was very nice.

The slides are available on http://www.slideshare.net/czechman/student-net-iwmw-2010-presentation-upload

Some of the Twitter live feedback

liwazi any library related studentNet widgets exist ? such as reading lists, exampapers, amazon-like recommendation borrow system #iwmw10 #p8

spellerlive #iwmw10 #p8 CCCU - very nice job!

ostephens #iwmw10 #p8 think the UI of StudentNET looks nice - strength of building on something from outside the sector, non-corporate ?

PlanetClaire Brilliant talk there from Josef. Time to revisit the student portal project methinks. #iwmw10 #p8

mancypino Loving the Student Portal demo! #iwmw10 #p8

spellerlive #iwmw10 #p8 Contextural help for each widget - all works very smoothly.

webpackets #iwmw10 #p8 I like the studentnet portal - seems really well thought out, designed and most importantly usable for the students

spellerlive #iwmw10 #p8 Use of the campusM API to pull data in as future development - interesting - I'm looking at that too...

ostephens #iwmw10 #p8 the problem with this stuff is almost always getting access to the data - not building the code/widgets

PlanetClaire StudentNET looks fab! MIght have to pay a visit to Canterbury! #iwmw10 #p8

NIMRweb RT @liwazi studentNet - Canterbury Christ Church Univ is like CAMSIS in Cambridge Univ, but better #iwmw10 #p8

spellerlive #iwmw10 #p8 Comms widget to send personalised alerts - nicely done - even if it is all .NET :(

webpackets #iwmw10 #p8 Good to catch up on this project, attended the barcamp last year on the early stages of it.

PlanetClaire Who owns the student portal? Internal comms, web team, student services? #iwmw10 #p8

liwazi studentNet - student portal from Canterbury Christ Church Univ is like CAMSIS in Cambridge Univ, but better, much better #iwmw10 #p8

I was there ... honest

2010-07-31T19:13:00.000+01:00

Here is some more proof that I attended the IWMW2010 in Sheffield.

Josef Lapka at IWMW10 from UKOLN on Vimeo.

Thumbs up for StudentNET portal at IWMW10

2010-07-16T16:34:00.000+01:00

This year I signed up to do a presentation about the Canterbury Christ Church University student portal, StudentNET, in front of my peers and colleagues at the IWMW 2010. Although it was quite nerve-wracking, and it included a live demo, the nightmare of any presenter, it went very well.

My 20 minute talk was well received on Twitter and in subsequent interviews. Here is some of the feedback that our portal received ... (ego boost!)

Some feedback
"What has been the best bit this year so far?
All of it has been brilliant. By far the highlights were Sid and Paul Boag’s p5/p6 talks, however the StudentNet portal was a great technological demo. If pushed to select just a single highlight, I would go with Josef Lapkas StudentNet – to save me having to decide between Sid & Paul! The project management parallel session also deserves a mention."

Twitter feeback

liwazi any library related studentNet widgets exist ? such as reading lists, exampapers, amazon-like recommendation borrow system #iwmw10 #p8

spellerlive #iwmw10 #p8 CCCU - very nice job!

ostephens #iwmw10 #p8 think the UI of StudentNET looks nice - strength of building on something from outside the sector, non-corporate ?

PlanetClaire Brilliant talk there from Josef. Time to revisit the student portal project methinks. #iwmw10 #p8

mancypino Loving the Student Portal demo! #iwmw10 #p8

spellerlive #iwmw10 #p8 Contextural help for each widget - all works very smoothly.

webpackets #iwmw10 #p8 I like the studentnet portal - seems really well thought out, designed and most importantly usable for the students

spellerlive #iwmw10 #p8 Use of the campusM API to pull data in as future development - interesting - I'm looking at that too...

ostephens #iwmw10 #p8 the problem with this stuff is almost always getting access to the data - not building the code/widgets

PlanetClaire StudentNET looks fab! MIght have to pay a visit to Canterbury! #iwmw10 #p8

NIMRweb RT @liwazi studentNet - Canterbury Christ Church Univ is like CAMSIS in Cambridge Univ, but better #iwmw10 #p8

spellerlive #iwmw10 #p8 Comms widget to send personalised alerts - nicely done - even if it is all .NET :(

webpackets #iwmw10 #p8 Good to catch up on this project, attended the barcamp last year on the early stages of it.

PlanetClaire Who owns the student portal? Internal comms, web team, student services? #iwmw10 #p8

liwazi studentNet - student portal from Canterbury Christ Church Univ is like CAMSIS in Cambridge Univ, but better, much better #iwmw10 #p8

Useful links

View the presentation

Watch part of the presentation

Fitting development methodologies

2010-06-24T22:03:00.000+01:00

It seems to me that with cutting resources the need for structured methodologies is more and more important. The use of the waterfall methodology seems the obvious choice, because it is designed to cut down on feature creap and allows for easy management, but others have a place too.

What have I learned about WCF?

2010-06-14T21:35:00.000+01:00

WebNote's just around the corner

2010-06-14T21:34:00.000+01:00

The. NET development team has completed the second phase of StudentNET WebNote. The WebNote is an area within the University's student portal that displays important messages to students, including reminders to do certain admin tasks.

We wanted to make this tool as flexible as possible so that massages could be sent to all students if necessary or just one individual, and anything in between.

So we have devised an admin tool that allows our staff to do just that. We have also de-coupled the different parts of the system. In the middle of it sits the messaging interface which has been deployed as a webservice and can be called by any application. This means that we can send automated messages as well.

The whole system will be handed over into production by the end of this month.

StudentNET V2 at IWMW2010

2010-05-14T21:28:00.000+01:00

CCCU's student portal will be showcased at this years Institutional Web Management Workshop in Sheffield. Presenting to delegates from all over the UK I'll be giving a 20 mins presentation as part of 'Doing the day job'. For more information visit IWMW2010.

Park and Ride Application for staff

2010-05-14T21:24:00.000+01:00

The web app development team have released a Park and Ride application for staff today. It's a simple but great new addition to CCCU's new Staff Services portal.

StudentNET Content

2010-03-15T08:56:00.000Z

This paper describes how student content could be treated once removed from the external web. Its purpose is to start a discussion.

Option 1 - Full content integration into StudentNET V2

Similar to content administered by the i-zone content would be surfaced using the 'app area' in StudentNET V2.

i-zone content surfaced through StudentNET V2

The advantage of this approach is that it is in keeping with existing design and functionality.

Option 2 - Layered content integration into StudentNET V2

Following the original StudentNET vision, content would be surfaced using a conventional, layered web structure.

This layered content would be accessed through an 'A-Z app widget' from StudentNET V2. It could also be accessible through direct URLs.

E.G.: https://secure.canterbury.ac.uk/student/subject1/

The advantage with this approach is that it appears to be more scalable. It allows for more flexibility when having to cater for all CCCU's departments' needs.

Content structure

With either option the content structure needs to be carefully designed to allow for content to be reused in different areas of the web and in different media.

Content would be packaged up in logical subject sections. These subject sections may be informed by the more detailed content audit.

Content administration

With either option Contensis CMS would be used to administer content and support workflow rules.

Content rules will be important because content will be edited from staff across departments.

Change password online - Manage My Account

2010-02-09T21:31:00.000Z

CCCU staff and students are now able to change their passwords online using a new application built by CIS with assistance from CS.

This is the first step in delivering a complete computing account self service online to all current staff and accepted and enrolled students. This will include the ability to unlock the account if it was locked and reset your password if it has been forgotten as well as keeping your secret questions and answers up to date.

So, if you have ever forgotten your password or locked your account, no need to worry. Soon you will be able to reset and change your University password and unlock your computing account online.

StudentNET V2 at UCISA

2010-01-29T13:49:00.000Z

StudentNET V2 development has been chosen to be showcased at this year's UCISA 2010 Conference.

"UCISA represents the whole of higher education, and increasingly further education, in the provision and development of academic, management and administrative information systems."

UCISA Conference Programme

StudentNET V2 is Canterbury Christ Church University's new student portal, currently being rolled out gradually to its students, with a final release on March 1st 2010.

Three new apps for StudentNET

2009-09-24T14:54:00.000+01:00

We have developed three new apps for StudentNET.

Photo Uploader

This application lets our students upload photos online. It validates the type of photo and allows the student to crop, rotate and resize the image. Once it has been uploaded, the file is saved to a University network drive for manual checks. A fairly simple application that helped us deliver on producing University ID cards (smartcards) for our students.

Status letter

To prove that students are studying with us they may need to ask our Registry Department to print status letters. This application is currently pending sign off and will replace manual processes. Students will be able to produce status letters in their own home.

Park and ride application

With restricted parking in the center of Canterbury, the University is offering park and ride schemes to students and staff. This application will calculate the distance between the user's home address and allow them to apply for a park and ride ticket according to that distance. Applications can be reviewed by issuing staff and approved.

StudentNET stress testing - it's not just about running the scripts ...

2009-09-17T19:40:00.000+01:00

We have done some preliminary stress tests to see how StudentNET responds to high levels of usage. To start us off we created very simple test scripts that simulated a user logging on, loading the framework and logging off.

Creating test scripts using Visual Studio Team Foundation is a piece of cake, so at first we didn't stumble upon any problems. Within a few minutes of launching the wizard, the script was created in C# and we were ready to set up the first load test.

For an adequate load test we needed to have at least 4 agents that would be sending requests to our web servers; a controller that would be distributing the test load among the agents; a test client that executes the script. Now, considering we do not have a testing environment, let alone a testing lab, we had to make do with PCs of colleagues that were on holiday. So getting together 6 PCs was difficult enough.

Set up

Setting up the testing grid with staff PCs proved to be quite tricky. At first we had problems connecting the client (runs the scripts) to the controller (distributes the load). A few IPCONFIGS later we discovered that the two machines were on completely different IP ranges and were unable to resolve the machine name. Even though we were able to connect via IP, Visual Studio Team Foundation did not work, seemingly because the controller tried to contact the client with its name, which again did not resolve.

Secondly, running Virtual PC 2007 on our staff PCs meant that all 6 machines were too weak to generate a load that we would have wanted to test. It created a bottle neck of 300 requests to our web servers at any one time before the agents started to fail.

So we reduced the load of concurrent users to be able to run a few 5 hour tests to see whether the application was deteriorating in any way. Although this significantly reduced the load on our webfarm and resulted in minimal load balancing, we were able to fetch a few results that helped us improve the application.

Next steps

We're going back to the framework to improve its load and also to fix fundamental errors that cropped up during stress tests.

We are also going to look at the possibility of using a Virtual Environment to run 10-12 agents to increase the stress on our web servers.

StudentNET Pre-registration Portal launches

2009-08-19T20:54:00.000+01:00

We have today launched Canterbury Christ Church University's StudentNET Pre-registration portal. It was launched to support the registration event for our students-to-be. Although it is a simple concept of collecting information about our students prior to their arrival, the developments required input from several departments from across the University.

Students are given the opportunity to complete various tasks within this portal, which include

Confirm your place
Upload your photo
Submit your email address
Activate your computing account
Get your arrival instructions

The role of the portal was to bring seamlessly together several different systems which are used by our users to complete the tasks above, with a view to further integration next year.

The portal also utilises the University's knowledgebase system by presenting the students with top questions and answers that have been asked by others and also giving them an opportunity to query the knowledgebase should they have other questions about the registration event.

All in-house built applications within this portal, such as the photo upload facility, have web service driven context help fed by our Content Management System on each page to guide students through step-by-step. After several years experience of building online applications, we have found that it does not matter how intuitive you think your pages are, it is always better to guide your users with appropriate help.

All we can do now it has been launched, is to monitor the use of it and if necessary amend the help content and faqs.

StudentNET gets a facelift

2009-08-03T10:07:00.000+01:00

From August 12th, StudentNET will receive a facelift. This development will bring all StudentNET applications one step closer towards the final product that will be launched in the late Autumn term.

Our designer has widened the layout to 960px to provide space for a flexible yet structural 12 column grid on the page. We have also freshened up the header by intensifying the StudentNET orange colour while matching it closely to our corporate colour palette. The footer has also seen some attention. It has been tidied up into clear, categorised columns with scope to add a large number of links.

From a development point of view, we have introduced forms authentication to fall in line with external IT products that our students use, such as WebMail and BlackBoard. We introduced context help for each page which is fed by our Content Management System and centralised common error pages which also allow for student feedback should an error occur.

We would love to hear any feedback you might have. So please leave a comment!

First mini barcamp experience

2009-06-29T20:47:00.000+01:00

I held a barcamp session today. After 3 years of attending the IWMW, I finally plucked up the courrage to speak in front of my peers at this years IWMW at the University of Essex.

My session was about our development efforts towards delivering a new student portal at Canterbury Christ Church. The session, I think, was well received a few delegates have contacted me since wanting to be kept informed about our progress and student feedback.

You never know, we might be able to share the portal and collaborate on future widget developments.

StudentNET Pre-registration Portal is coming

2009-06-11T19:24:00.000+01:00

We have just completed the first stage of the new Canterbury Christ Church University pre-registration portal. It currently lets prospective students log in and supply us with a working email address, so that we are able to guide them through pre-registration. This means that when they arrive at Christ Church, their induction and formal registration will run more smoothly than before.

The next steps of this development are crucial. We will expand our newly built FAQ system to this area and re-purpose and re-fresh most of our tired web content that is spread across our currently unmanaged website. It will also see the creation of packaged up content to support most if not all pre-registration steps that they need to take to successfully register at CCCU.

There will be a 'Uplod your photo' application so that students can provide us with their photo to get their uni cards, and just before they arrive at Christ Church, they will be able to activate their computing account from the comfort of their homes.

Google analytics is our choice

2009-05-26T20:36:00.000+01:00

The webteam have written a discussion paper about the use of Google Analytics versus our current analytics software. Following research, consultation with our users and 'trial and error', we have come to the conclusion that it would be beneficial to the University to use Google Analytics as our primary analytics tool. The main reasons for this were, no cost and better usability.

We deemed the risk of the service from Google being unavailable minor enough to be acceptable and would varify its accuracy by comparing the results to our own server logs on a regular basis.

We were pleased when our 'Web Steering Group', the overarching group that makes decisions about the University's online development, accepted the paper.

Yes, like many, we too are selling our soul to the Google empire.

Another year, another IWMW

2009-05-25T12:16:00.000+01:00

Not sure where the last year went, but it's here again. Only a few weeks until the IWMW2009 this time hosted by the University of Essex.

i-zone Online Service launches

2009-05-15T22:42:00.000+01:00

No posts for a while...

The reason is that the entire team has been working very hard to provide our web users with new and highly advanced online FAQ service. This service complements the university's move to provide a unified help desk - i-zone - which will front all the university's support departments.

"Ask the i-zone" online has been a two months project that saw CIS collect and collate requirements, assist in the choice of software product to drive the search, install and deploy the knowledgebase in the university's environment, structure and input FAQ content, set up the university's CMS, and build a web front for the knowledgebase product.

Currently the i-zone online comprises of about 100 articles all relating to student support services. We anticipate a rapid but controlled growth of the number of articles over the next few months.

So, what next?

The provision of i-zone online content will be expanded to give targeted answers to our students though StudentNET and our staff through StaffNET.

In the mean time, the software will learn from its users' questions and their feedback to refine results. We will also be providing a way for our users to ask an expert should they be unable to find the appropriate answer to their question.

So once again, watch this space because a lot will be happening in this area of development. If you have any questions or comments about the i-zone just write them at the end of this post. We'll definitely get back to you.

New student homepage launched

2009-04-07T11:50:00.000+01:00

After several weeks of development the webteam has delivered the new Canterbury Christ Church University student homepage. This new page has less links and an increased focus on important and actual messages.

Messages are administered by the university's communication team and combined with current university events listings.

It is another technological success for CIS as it moves forward with the implementation of the CMS (Content Management System). It also aims to standardise the design across CCCU's web presence.

Looking towards future developments the team have also integrated the jQuery library to provide an enhanced user experience. This way all main messages can be viewed in their entirety on the same page.

We are currently working on a poll control to provide our users other an interactive and friendly way of leaving feedback about new developments and general events.

StudentNET Development Update

2009-03-20T16:32:00.000Z

The current student home page is being replaced by a totally new portal., StudentNET. The portal will present the student with an extended range of facilities as well as easy to use customisation tools.

The technology underpinning the portal is also new. The current StudentNET is effectively a web page that brings together a variety of student related applications and services. The new version of StudentNET will be a true portal that will give the student seamless, authenticated access to relevant services and applications. One advantage of an authenticated portal is that the system will be aware of who the user is and will be able to tailor the facilities presented to match the user’s profile. For example a final year student will not normally be presented with the option to re-enrol for the following session.

The development of the portal is being shared between CIS within the University and an external software supplier. The external company, Ballard Chalmers, has been contracted to provide the portal framework using a product known as ‘Drop Things’. The final version of the work from Ballard Chalmers is due to be delivered at the end of April and will be delivered complete with the university’s styling already incorporated into the framework. The University will develop the content (known as widgets) and this will include a variety of university applications, RSS feeds and some of the more popular social sites (in the first instance Flickr, an image sharing site). Once the framework is delivered CIS will progressively develop and introduce the widgets so that the functionality is incrementally increased. In the case of the student administration functionality, it will be introduced to coordinate with the student calendar. CIS are currently developing a detailed project plan and deliverables map but the mock-up included in this report is a reasonable approximation of the content and appearance of the intended phase 1 deliverables.

The portal will include the concept of an ‘application area’ where those widgets that require a work area will ‘open’ an area of the portal to present the user with additional facilities they need (e.g. the fields to enter if they are changing their address). The portal has a single application area which is shared by those applications that need it. The area is managed, such that if a user tries to use the area for a new application before saving their current work they are warned and given the opportunity to save or continue.

The portal will have a default colour scheme and layout but students who wish to do so will be able to easily modify the appearance of their portal. CIS has consulted extensively with the Marketing Department in order to agree a set of applications and default layout but each widget can easily be dragged into a new position within the framework and the colour scheme will be replaceable by selecting another from a set of available schemes.

CIS are working with selected student focus groups to obtain their perspective on the new development and to obtain the maximum ‘buy-in’ from the users. Once the framework is delivered and stable the focus groups will be invited to use and comment on the new StudentNet. It is planned that as development progresses the number of users will be increased in order to get the maximum input and to stress test the environment with a view to a full release at the end of July.

Want to be part of StudentNET usability testing and be one of the first to be grated access to the new portal? Just let us know.

IE 8 ready for download

2009-03-20T16:18:00.000Z

Microsoft have released their latest version of Internet Explorer, IE8. It's not as much of a jump as version 6 to version 7 but nevertheless it comes with significant enhancements. This improved web browser is now faster and easier to use. Pages load quicker and its script engine has been improved to minimise the load time for webpages based on JavaScript or Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX). Great news for our own in-house developments!

A cool tool for web developers is the Compatibility View toolbar button which displays the website as viewed in Internet Explorer 7. This will correct display problems like misaligned text, images, or text boxes. This option is on a per site basis and all other sites will continue to display with Internet Explorer 8 functionality. In the past it has been problematic upgrading Internet Explorer because we lost the previous version, which made supporting it impossible.

An amazing new tool for the ordinary web user is the Web Slices feature. It lets you keep up with frequently updated sites directly from the new Favorites Bar. If a Web Slice is available on a page, a green Web Slices icon will appear in the upper-right hand corner of the browser. Click on this icon to easily subscribe and add the Web Slices to the Favorites Bar so you can keep track of that "slice" of the web.

We'll update you on our latest experiences with this new browser. If you want to send us some feedback, just leave a comment.

New "Staff Applications" web on the way

2009-03-02T21:05:00.000Z

A new "Staff Applications" website is being developed by CIS. This new site will host he University's important web applications for all staff.

It will include the crucial Error Logger application which logs all out in-house-built applications so that we can track problems that our users might be experiencing. It will also host several administrative interfaces ranging from the University's client management to posting notices on the student portal.

More soon.

Getting it right...write now

2009-02-12T10:02:00.000Z

There are some big changes ahead for the University website, as you will have seen from Jo’s earlier posts. At the heart of these plans is the desire to improve the experience for our website users – whether students, potential students, staff or members of the public.

But putting the technical developments to one side, there are lots of simple things we could all start doing right now to make our website more user friendly.

Here are a few tips for anyone who contributes to our web content...

Putting the user first
It can be tempting to create our content according to how we work, or how we are structured, but this rarely reflects how our users might need to find information. Try to imagine you have no prior knowledge of the University and its workings – what would you need to know? And how would you want that information to be delivered?

The devil’s in the detail
What details are really needed by our users? Sometime the kind of information we use to ‘set up’ our page may be more meaningful to us than to them. For example:

“The Department was established in 1995 and we moved to our new offices earlier this year”.

This may be central to our experience as a member of staff but does the user really need to know?

Hearing us loud and clear
We pride ourselves on being a friendly University and how we communicate is vital part of expressing our character.

Very formal, densely written or complex language can be really off-putting, particularly online. It can give the impression that we are a stuffy, unapproachable place to study or work. For example, which of these sounds friendlier? :

“Our support services are available to you whilst you are a student here, and we trust that you will make use of them should you need to.”

OR

“We are on hand to provide support throughout your time here – don’t hesitate to contact us for more information”

Finally, if in doubt, try reading your web copy out loud - imagine you are talking to a to a friend or colleague. If it sounds or feels 'unnatural' then head back to the drawing board!

Hope that helps. If you are interested in more web writing tips then leave a comment.

IIS Training in London

2009-02-05T20:00:00.000Z

The CIS development team has expanded its skill sets by sending one of its members, me, to attend a Learning Tree IIS Course in London.

The week's course covered all aspects of IIS including application management, website set up, stress testing, and creating server clusters. The CIS development team is now in a good position to understand and positively contribute to the University's Infrastructure developments.

IIS stands for Internet Information Services and is a set of internet based services for servers created by Microsoft. It is the world's second most popular web server in terms of overall websites behind the industry leader APACHE HTTP Server.

I spy ...

2009-01-22T12:23:00.000Z

Ever wondered what your visitors are doing on your web page? Ever wanted to record visitors' behaviour? Ever wanted to find out whether users follow your carefully designed and constructed navigation? Well, now you can! And it's as easy as adding a line of javascript to the header fo your page.

There’s a new (currently free) service called userfly that enables you to watch actual movies of users’ browsing sessions on your web site. How cool is that! All you have to do to run these instant usability studies for your web site is add a line of javascsript to the header in your source code. Watching these movies makes you feel like a fly on the wall.

Somethimes it's best to watch a clip so here it is:

userfly.com from Chris Estreich on Vimeo.

Quite amazing what javascript can do.

BUT there are drawbacks.

Currently, when running Firebug on the page that has the line of code, it's taking over 6-9 seconds to load. I still need to find out how and where the data is stored. So for the time being we might use it for testing minor pages, but I would not deploy it on any of the main pages just yet.

New .Net Developer

2009-01-19T09:30:00.000Z

Today we welcomed a new addition to CIS. Femi Ojemuyiwa joined us as our new .Net Developer.

We are pleased to welcome Femi on board and look forward to working with him on our exciting new developments.

StudentNET design and security

2009-01-12T12:50:00.000Z

Another milestone has been passed on the journey towards the new StudentNET. Two major developments are complete.

StudentNET framework design

A revised, final design has been completed by our in-house designer. Drawing on the latest design techniques and online trends, Chris has produced a highly usable, friendly and customisable StudentNET homepage. As well as the layout of the page, Chris has produced custom buttons, panels and icons of every aspect of StudentNET, which, as you can imagine, is a mammoth task in itself. Here is a sneak preview of his design.

StudentNET Security Model

We take security of your data and access to our web servers very seriously and have therefore spent a lot of time planning out and testing appropriate security models to allow us to publish StudentNET pages. External specialists have thus been employed to help CIS proof that it can overcome several security issues.

From our meetings with the company last week, we are now confident that StudentNET will allow us to protect ourselves appropriately while remaining a flexible and extendable application.

If you have any questions about any StudentNET developments or would like to find out how you could be part of it, just leave a comment on this blog post.

Happy new year!

2009-01-06T09:57:00.000Z

Here's a slightly delayed Happy New Year to everyone. Hope you all had a great Christmas break.

Building relationships ... between your webpages

2008-12-16T10:41:00.000Z

From Tuesday 16th December you will notice slight changes to your generic templates. When you edit a generic page you will see that we have included a section for related links and documents. This means that you can present your visitors with additional pages and documents you feel are relevant to the page.

There is nothing you need to do. If you have already used the existing user templates to create links to other Canterbury Christ Church University pages and documents, we will transfer these for you into the new format.

The Web Team has created a training manual to explain how to use this new facility, and this is available on the CMSAuthors share.

The reason why we have implemented this change is that we want to improve the way content is managed and connected on the web. By using this new feature it will be easier for you to manage links across your sites. Just by adding a link onto PAGE 1, pointing at PAGE 2 it will automatically create a return link on PAGE 2. It will also automatically remove links to pages and documents that have been deleted from the CMS.

We hope that you will find this new addition helpful and easy to use.

If you have any questions, or comments, please do not hesitate to contact the Web Team or leave a comment.

RSS what?

2008-12-12T08:46:00.000Z

You may or may not have heard the abbreviation RSS. I am going to try and explain to you in a non technical way what RSS is and how you can use it.

What does RSS stand for?

It stands for 'Really Simple Syndication' or 'Rich Site Summary' as some people/sites call it. I think the first is more meaningfull in the way that we use it on the University website.

What is it?

RSS is a format, which allows sites which have content that updates regularly to almost instantly notify RSS subscribers that new content has been added to the site. Most of the time the content will be something like news, vacancies, events, blog entries, flickr photos.

How do I know if a site has an RSS feed?

Most blogs will have a link, which says something like ‘Subscribe to ….’ or you will see an orange button like the one on this blog . Internet Explorer 7 (see image below) and Firefox (and other browsers) will display a very similar orange button in one of their toolbars at the top the window.

How do I use RSS? (How do I subscribe to a RSS feed?)

Firstly, you will need a RSS reader. There are many different types of readers. Some are desktop applications and other web based applications.

Modern internet browsers like Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) and Firefox will both have their own readers built in.

Microsoft Outlook 2007 has a built-in RSS reader, which is very easy to use. Here is a simple tutorial on how to use Outlook 2007 as a RSS reader.

The two best web based RSS readers in my opinion and I use both is Google Reader and Netvibes. You will need to signup to those two sites to be able to use them, but that is a very simple process.

Next you will need to get a RSS feed from a site and tell your reader that you would like to subscribe to that specific feed. You can just copy the RSS url (e.g. http://cccuwebteam.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default or http://newsrss.bbc.co.uk/rss/newsonline_uk_edition/technology/rss.xml) and paste it into your reader.

There are many different ways for subscribing to feeds and I am not going to explain them all in detail, but if you need some assistance please leave a comment below and I will get back to you.

Current and future use of RSS feeds on the University’s website

Currently the only University site that allows users to subscribe to content is the News site. We’ve got plans to make feeds available for events, staff vacancies and sales & wants in the near future. I will publish a message here on the blog when they become available and if you subscribe to this blog’s RSS feed you will be notified as soon as they are available.

Please leave a comment if you can think of any other possible uses.

Additional information

BBC’s explanation on what RSS news feeds is - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/help/3223484.stm
Introduction to RSS - http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HA012304631033.aspx
What Is RSS? RSS Explained - http://www.whatisrss.com/

Now we're talking.

2008-12-08T16:27:00.000Z

The Web Team blog is now available in audio. Just click on listen now or subscribe to our podcast!

If you want to find out how it's done, or have any questions, please leave a comment.

Brilliant new image galleries for your webpages!

2008-12-08T14:30:00.000Z

CIS and the Web Team have now completed the development and testing of a new, exciting Contensis CMS web control. The Image Gallery.

Although the control was out-of-the-box, meaning already built by Contensis for all its users, the Web Team have done substantial work on turning it into a CCCU branded image gallery that fits into the current look and feel of the web site.

The way it works, is that the web author creates the image gallery control on his/her chosen page and "points" it at a specific image folder. The control then looks at that folder and automatically creates thumbnails, which are smaller versions of the images. When you then click on the thumbnail, it displays a bigger version of the image.

Not only have the Web Team implemented this control, but they also provide you with a choice of two gallery types. The Advanced Gallery and the Simple Gallery. And you will be able to simply switch in between them with a few easy clicks in the CMS. This new template will be released to you before the Christmas break.

There is a user manual available upon request from the Web Team. Just leave a comment or email us at cis[dot]support[at]canterbury[dot]ac[dot]uk.

Personalise your search with SearchWiki

2008-11-28T17:09:00.000Z

If you are a Google user, and let's face it, most of us are, and you have a Google Account, you will be able to take advantage of Google's newest invention, the SearchWiki which was released on 11th November.

SearchWiki is a cool new feature that lets you customise your Google search results. You can add, remove and rearrange your search results as well as comment on them. Every time you do a search when you are logged into your Google account, you'll see your customised search results.

So how does it work?
Let's say you search for a holiday home in Spain, and you get "Results 1 - 10 of about 726,000 for holiday home in spain. (0.31 seconds)". Well the next step is to browse your search results. Inevitably, you will stumble upon pages that through clever techniques have received top rankings in major search engines, but are pretty much useless, or so cluttered and unusable that you immediately press the browser back button to get back to your search results. So you do not have to come across these pages again, you can delete them from your search results.

Similarly, if you really like the web page and think that you might find it useful in any future searches, you can promote the search result to the top of the page. You may also leave a note on individual search results. Every time you are logged into Google using your Google account, you can refer back to those comments and promoted and deleted search results.

Remember, your alterations and comments are not visible to anyone else. Only you, when you are logged on, can see the alterations that you have made.

Why would I do it?
You do have to ask yourself, "what's the point". Normally people use Google to find pages that they have not come across before. It is very unlikely that I'd need to search for the same thing again and again. I'd normally save important pages in my Internet Explorer bookmarks or del.icio.us for that matter. And if I'm searching for something different, for example another product, I'd go back to web sites that have proven to focus on products and product searches such as Amazon, eBay and the like.

What is the purpose of showing how other people have voted on a search result and their comments after you have voted and commented? By setting it up this way, Google doesn’t bias your own decision, but does Google provide the information after you have voted simply as a point of interest? Or to get you to possibly reconsider your decision?

Web development questions.
The real question for us web developers is: "How does that affect my daily efforts to optimise the site for search engines?" How can we guarantee that your department pages, your courses, and the University still receive high ranking positions on Google? Well, it would only affect the user that has deleted the canterbury.ac.uk search results from their list. So, would this affect accidental hits to our site and therefore improve the bounce rate?

Google's SearchWiki must be an interim step towards something else. Something bigger. It is gathering your valuable information of your search preferences and behaviours. Google would not just waste these data.

Has Google found the answer to providing an intelligent way of searching?

Changes to CMS folder permissions

2008-11-28T14:48:00.000Z

From Wednesday 3rd December we will be giving you access to view all CMS pages for the Canterbury website in your navigation tree. When you log on to the CMS you will see your navigation tree now contains more folders and files.

The reason we have done this is to help improve the way you create web links to other Canterbury web pages. It also means that those web links are less likely to get broken, as they will be managed by the CMS. The CMS will remove the link automatically if the page it links to is removed.

Currently if you want to link to a CMS web page on the Canterbury site, which is outside of your own website, then you need to create this as an external link. By giving you access to view all pages in the CMS you can now “Insert CMS WebPage” as a link.

You will not be able to edit these additional pages in any way, they are just visible so that you can link to them if you need to.

If you have any questions regarding this change, please let the web team know and we will answer them for you.

Microformats are coming to CCCU web

2008-11-19T09:12:00.000Z

The WebTeam are currently working on including simple Microformats into key areas of the CCCU corporate web. These areas include the CCCU Home page, the Contact Us page, and the Events page in the first phase. Expansion onto faculty and department news and contact pages will be the second phase.

Micro-what?

Microformats are a way of adding simple markup to human-readable data items such as events, contact details or locations, on web pages, so that the information in them can be extracted by software and indexed, searched for, saved, cross-referenced or combined.

More technically, they are items of semantic markup, using just standard "plain old semantic (X)HTML" (i.e. "POSH") with a set of common class-names and "rel" values. They are open and available, freely, for anyone to use.

How can I see them?

There are several different Microformat readers available for different browsers. First of all, let's cover Internet Explorer 7. IE7 has currently one available extension called Oomph. This Add-on detects and processes microformats in web pages.

In the above example the "tagged" content is displayed in the list view over the page displaying events and contact details. Both of these can be exported directly into your Outlook, Google, Windows Life, Yahoo and/or Apple Mac calendar.

Below, the "tagged" location content is displayed on a map.

There are other solutions for Firefox and Safari including tools like TailsExport and Operator. These again convert the "tagged" content into structured information with the ability to export to various programmes including Outlook.

If you have any questions regarding Microformats or the WebTeam's implementation of these please leave a comment and we'll respond.

Is this the future ... hmm ... not quite

2008-11-13T16:46:00.000Z

A small article in the most recent .NET magazine grabbed my attention and after reading the first paragraph and seeing the images on screen, I immediately came to the conclusion that an amazing technological future is upon us.

"The reason was the Sekai Camera, an iPhone application that takes the view from the phone's camera and augments it with data overlays including user-generated content. Could this be the future of social apps?" (.NET Magazine December 2008, page 52)

So, my first thought was, this application connects to the video of the iPhone, and recognises the shapes of buildings, and along with geolocation GPS gives you the right content. This would be a killer application, especially if it was to connect to existing XML datasources to provide the content that you see on the screen.

However, it is much simpler than that. It only uses the geolocation. Where you are and in which direction you point the iPhone draws the appropriate data from a demo database.

Although, still an amazing piece of social app for your iPhone it is somewhat misleading in lending too much emphasis on the video aspect of the application.

But nevertheless a step in the right direction!

View the presentation and get more information about the company.

Development of StudentNET Portal in full swing

2008-11-03T17:01:00.000Z

The development of the new StudentNET portal is now truly under way. CIS has completed a collection of comprehensive specification documents and along with the help of external developers has set its sights for a rapid creation of a first prototype to be released within the next 3 months.

At the same time the web team's graphic designer is pushing forward original design ideas to enrich the students' experience of the new StudentNET portal.

Although still over 8 month off from completion, the StudentNET portal is taking shape as a well founded concept and is supported by state of the art web 2.0 technologies. The StudentNET framework within which students will be able to create their own homepages, is based on DropThings.com, a web 2.0 portal product that has revolutionised the way users view and collect information on the web. Students will have the opportunity to view their modules, timetable, external RSS feeds and much much more, all on one page hosted by the University.

Thoughts on developing access to facebook and external mail clients such as GoogleMail, HotMail and the like are also under way to try and enhance the students' online experience at CCCU.

All these cool services will be underpinned by online content tailored to each student. This means that students see what they want to see online as well as what they need to see to support their studies and life at CCCU.

There will be many more news about features and services, and ideas coming from this in the next few months, so watch this space!

New CMS templates available!

2008-10-30T08:35:00.000Z

We've created new templates for your sites!

You may now use a full width template, which means the page without the right-hand column to display wide tables. This new templates is called Generic - NoImageFullWidth

There is also a new flash template, Generic - Flash, which allows you to drag and drop flash media onto the page. Due to a few small "quirks" within the CMS, you might need to resize the file once it is on the page. We will be distributing some quick instructions soon. Watch this space!

And last, but certainly not least, we developed a new user template that can be dropped into the right - hand column of the generic pages. This user template, which is called AssociatedLogos and can be found within the SiteElements/userTemplates/ImageTemplate folder in the CMS folder tree. As the name suggests, this templates is to be used when you have partner logos that you would like to display on the page. You may add logo images and include a caption underneath it.

We hope you find these new templates useful! ENJOY!