MSFT CEO Ballmer Oct 2009
Project: www.serrapreschool.org
MSFT and the .net platfom are a great development platform for projects with lots of energy & enthusiasm, but not so much by way of resources. A living, breathing, i.e. dynamic, portal was up for the school with 4 nights worth of work. Yes, it does need to get cleaned up a bit. Part of the charm is that the school participants can clean up the page while learning how to interact with the portal, thus allowing a more granular experience for the user.
One thing I wanted to share was a cool host with a cool program for organizations new to DNN. www.dnn4less.com has a great starter program for newbies who can receive 6 months free hosting with a full access subscription. One note is that the db is limited to 150MB. Fair enough, free for 150MB, this a great option for those looking to quickly get a site up for a new organization. I did end up upgrading within the 4 days because I exceeded the 150MB limit. Even so, $9.99, 1GB, with no contract, nor portal, subportal or bandwith limitations is a great start.
So far I’ve chatted with support many times and they’ve been very quick, 1 min average, in responding. They’ve taken care of my requests quickly and efficiently. www.dnn4less.com.
One other note, be careful to specificy which version of DNN you want installed. I didn’t clarify and ended up with a 5.1.x install. I’ve planned on moving up as the platform appears stable but hadn’t quite made the commitment. Well, let’s just say, part of the reason it took 4 nights was the small upgrade learning curve involved. I’m glad I made the change and will start upgrading my other projects soon. Love the Google Analytics tracking and can’t wait to start playing with JQuery which was still a tad futzy in 4.9.
