From The Desk Of... What Desk?

...is worth a pound of cure.

Benjamin Franklin first uttered these words over 200 years ago, but they still apply today. Most businesses (myself included) apply that philosophy in many aspects of running our operations when it comes to accounting, legal issues and insurance. But do we really think that way about our computer systems and networks?

Think for a moment - when was the last time you REALLY checked all the computers to ensure that current, up-to-date Anti-Virus software was installed on all your systems? What about checking the status of the maintenance kit on that old laser printer that has served you well over the past few years? These seem like time-consuming activities, but they offer us a chance to look at our equipment and perform some basic maintenance on them to prevent major problems from occurring in the future - at a much higher cost.

Did you know that replacing a maintenance kit on an average laser printer can prolong the life of that device well beyond its warranty and useful life? I have one client that has an HP LaserJet 4000 that was installed over ten years and five million pages ago that still runs in near-peak condition - all because maintenance was performed on a regular basis. This printer, originally costing about $800 has yet to be replaced because it continues to perform - quite a worthwhile investment! Of course that same printer, if not properly maintained, would have resulted in three or four new printers to replace that one over the same timeframe. That's almost $2500 in new equipment and three printers lost to the local landfill (I hope not) or electronics recycling facility.

We are excited to announce that we are now offering a new suite of hosted accounting services for small business. Our hosted accounting solutions based on Microsoft Office Accounting 2009 Professional provides a secure, worry-free solution for your small business accounting needs with no software to install - ever!

The basic plan designed for service-based businesses runs $5/month per user and includes a complete accounting package including time tracking, invoicing and all the financial reports a small business might need. The complete plan for service-based businesses runs $20/month per user�and includes all of the basic features plus Microsoft Office Standard, hosted Exchange email accounts (three accounts for the first user, one additional account per additional user) and an optional, customizable�web site for your business.

For companies that carry inventory, plans cost an additional $10/month.

Umbraco versions 4.x currently ship with the AjaxControlToolkit version 1.x targeted at the .NET 2.0 platform. As a result, developers wishing to take advantage of the newer AjaxControlToolkit version 3.x will find that the admin section of Umbraco 4.x will no longer function properly after building a control that relies on the older version of the AjaxControlToolkit. This document explains how to install and configure your Visual Studio 2008 environment and project to work with the newest AjaxControlToolkit library and maintain the existing version required for umbraco to function properly.

Installation Pre-requisites:

This package currently works with Visual Studio 2008. It is not compatible with prior versions of Visual Studio and has not yet been tested in Visual Studio 2010.

Download The Source Package

To get started quickly, download the "AjaxControlToolkit v3x for Umbraco" package located at http://our.umbraco.org/projects/ajaxcontroltoolkit-v3x-for-umbraco. This package contains the DLL and PDB debugging symbols necessary to get started right away. Alternatively, you can download the source code for this project and build the project yourself. The source code can be found on the same page as the binary download.

Configure Visual Studio 2008

The fastest way to get started is to integrate the AjaxControlToolkit directly in the toolbox of Visual Studio 2008 allowing you to quickly add controls and extenders into your Umbraco user control projects.

Note: If you have a current version of the AjaxControlToolkit referenced in Visual Studio 2008, there can be compatibility or usability conflicts. It is recommended that you remove references to the version available from Codeplex before installing the Umbraco version. This is not the most convenient method of handling this integration, but minimizes referencing extenders incorrectly in your Umbraco projects.

Follow these steps to add the AjaxControlToolkit to your Visual Studio Toolbox:

• 1) Unzip the files from the download above to your local directory.
• 2) Start Visual Studio 2008
• 3) Create a new ASP.NET Website by selecting the menu option File -> New Website. Double-click the Default.aspx in the Solution Explorer window to open the file editor.
• 4) Right-click the Toolbox beneath the "General" tab and select the menu option "Add Tab"
• 5) Enter a new tab names "AJAX Control Toolkit for Umbraco"
• 6) Right-click beneath the "AJAX Control Toolkit for Umbraco" tab and select the menu option "Choose Items"
• 7) Browse to the location where you unzipped the AJAX Control Toolkit for Umbraco and select the AjaxControlToolkit25.dll assembly.

Looking for a powerful Content Management System that gives you maximum flexibility and reduces your IT�costs to both implement and maintain? Look no further than Umbraco - a .NET based solution for running your website. Whether it be static content or you need customized functionality, the entire package can be installed at virtually no cost, run for little cost, and maintained with minimal effort while maintaining control over your web presence! Put control of the content into your marketing and advertising department rather than the hands of IT, reduce the time and cost�to deploy new content and free IT to deliver solutions rather than maintain your website.

Not only can this platform be a huge cost savings, but it is search-engine friendly, powerful, and�allows you to add�new content with a just a few mouse clicks. We are so confident in this as a solution for your corporate presence that we use it for our own site.

Want to know more about Umbraco? Take a look at their website for details. Still have questions or want someone to convert your existing website to this new and exciting platform, tailored to meet your needs? Contact us here at WICA Technologies and we can provide you a quote on converting your existing site or even giving it a complete makeover!

WICA Extensions has reached a final testing phase and has a planned release date of July 1st, 2009. A complete Umbraco package and source code will be made available on Codeplex as of that date, however, documentation will likely be lagging behind a few weeks as other development projects will slow the ability to support this free package.

Check out the full list of features here.

The new extensions are progressing nicely with membership controls ready for CSS skinning and integration into the blog software originally developed by Tim Geyssens to automatically fill contact information for registered users and provide a "must register before posting comments" option to the blog to reduce spam. Integration of the blog feature created by Tim Geyssens provides additional "out-of-the-box" functionality to Umbraco by putting a blog in your hands at the time your site is brought on line.

We are also working on the mailing list tool and PayPal integration - the final two pieces that will be included in Version 1.0 of the WICA Extensions for Umbraco.

Support for Twitter, Facebook and MySpace will be coming in WICA Extensions 1.1 that will allow things like blog posts to be sent to these sites automatically when they are published, and provide live Twitter feeds within the Umbraco installation. A custom RSS component is also in the works.

WICA Extensions for Umbraco are still in development with four controls now complete and a fifth being wrapped up.

In addition to the Ad Rotator, Meta Tag Manager and Contact Form, we have added a skinnable Navigation component and are working on a complete Membership Provider Interface for use with the native Umbraco Membership Provider. This interface supports features such as login, logout, registration, lost password recovery and user login status. User profiles are coming in the next week as well.

Also coming up over the next week or two is a complete blog application that can plug directly in to Umbraco. This blog will allow for anonymous or registered user comments, guest blogging, multi-user blogging and more!

Interested in a custom component for your Umbraco CMS implementation? Send me an email at www.wicatech.com containing an outline of what you are looking for.

Development of the new WICA Extensions for Umbraco CMS is under way. We currently have extensions for banner ad rotation, contact forms and dynamic meta-tag generation with more on the way!

Banner ad rotation supports true Umbraco integration by storing all banner ads as Umbraco documents and provides weighted rotation so that the ads more valuable to you are displayed more frequently. This control allows you to select a root node for all of your banner content and even supports nested folders to give you maximum flexibility.

Our contact form supports adding users to a mailing list using the Umbraco Membership provider. This customizable form is made for end-user integration: just enter the email address you want to receive the emails, enter the reply content for post-submission and select whether you want to allow users to join the mailing list. Integration is quick and easy!

Dynamic meta-tag generation supports any number of meta-tags that can be managed directly through your pages in Umbraco.

Welcome to my new blog! I have recently moved the WICA Technologies blog from Blogger over to our own systems and am running it on the Umbraco Content Management System- the framework behind our entire web platform!

Speaking of Umbraco CMS - sign up for a 12 Month Shared Umbraco CMS Hosting Plan in May or June of 2009 for only $60! That's a savings of $90 off our regular price! Spring cleaning shouldn't be limited to the breakroom refrigerator! Be sure to mention this blog to get the reduced rate!