Directory Opus – A Must Have Tool for Hosting Junkies

Last Updated on Sunday, 13 November 2011 11:12 Written by Rick Hubka Saturday, 18 December 2010 12:43

If you host multiple Web Sites like me, you spend a lot of time using FTP, Windows Explorer, zipping, unzipping, finding/viewing images, etc.  I have been using an Advanced Windows File Manager tool from a company in Australia for 7 years now. It has saved me 100′s of hours work in that time.

No.  I do not work there and I am not an affiliate.  I am just sharing a little known secret that will help Power Users. See my NOTE at the end of this blog.

When installed, Directory Opus becomes your new windows file Explorer, only ten times better.

Your favorite features in Opus will be:

1) Dual Display File Tree View
2) FTP – very good Secure SSL/SSH FTP
3) Synchronize – Yes. Synchronize desktop and FTP folders instantly.
4) Picture Viewer with Slideshows
5) right click menu Zip and unzip
6) lots more…

PC Magazine in this article said…
“Directory Opus 8 makes Windows Explorer obsolete.”

mojoPortal Skins – 40 stock + Artisteer = unlimited

Last Updated on Sunday, 12 December 2010 10:20 Written by Rick Hubka Sunday, 12 December 2010 10:16

MojoPortal CMS works great.  It also looks great.  It comes with over 40 stock skins to change the style, theme, look, feel, color and more of your Web Site.  In Administrator > Site Setting, it not only allows you to change your Web Site skin,  it also as has a skin Preview/Browse feature which allows you to see all the skins without changing your Web Site.  See below.

The Secret is out.
This year (March 2010) MojoPortal made it possible for people to have unlimited skins.

That’s right.  Unlimited.  In March 2010, Joe Audette from mojoPortal created a simple process for mojoPortal CMS to be compatible with all skins produced by Artisteer.  Visit the Artisteer Web Site here.

Instructions for converting any Artisteer skin and installing it for use in mojoPortal is here.

Using EMS SQL Server Manager to manage your Arvixe databases

Last Updated on Saturday, 11 December 2010 07:03 Written by Rick Hubka Saturday, 11 December 2010 06:54

If you CRUD your SQL Server database, this may interest you.

BTW,  CRUD stands for Create / Read / Update / Delete

What I really mean is: For those who need full access to their database to view and edit data, tables, views, stored procedures, export data, export database objects, import data and more, There are database tools available that allow you to access your remote SQL Server databases on your Arvixe hosting.  As a developer of Custom mojoPortal modules, I use tools like this daily and the tool I use most is EMS SQL Server Manager which available here.  I also use it to manage all the local SQL Server databases on my PC, laptop and the company Network Servers.

EMS have commercial and non-commercial licenses available.  For personal home use I have a non-commercial license which has all the same features as the commercial product.  More on pricing here.  There is also a Lite version which is free and somewhat restricted, but maybe that’s all you need.  Compare Full and Lite versions here.

After installing EMS SQL Manager it can’t do anything much for you until you register a local or remote Host and then you must register databases for that Host.  Lets register a  Host account to your Arvixe server.  My Arvixe server name is  violet.arvixe.com.  Check your initial Arvixe emails for one titled “Hosting  Account Information”.  Just a few lines from the top it says “Server Name: “.  That’s the name you use.

Let’s do that.  From the top database menu select “Register Host”.

mojoPortal install using MS SQL Server

Last Updated on Friday, 10 December 2010 08:42 Written by Rick Hubka Friday, 10 December 2010 08:33

has excellent installation documentation available here.  However that documentation is not specific to installing your mojoPortal CMS  on Arvixe into your own ASP Hosting package.
Lets get started.

Download the latest mojoPortal deployment files here.
Once there, simply click on a Download image button like this
and the latest version of mojoPortal (about 20 Meg) will start downloading.

On your PC copy the downloaded file into a new empty folder and extract it’s zipped content.
The contents of the folder will look like this.

To install mojoportal we need all the folder and files inside the this wwwroot folder to be copied to the server.  That’s almost 8,000 files and we are only concerned with editing one.  Before we do that lets first Login to your Arvixe Control Panel and create your mojoPortal MS SQL database and User, because we need that database information to edit the file.

Securing mojoPortal with a Custom Machine Key

Last Updated on Sunday, 13 November 2011 11:03 Written by Rick Hubka Monday, 6 December 2010 01:51

September 17, 2010 Microsoft issued a Security Advisory
Vulnerability in ASP.NET

This not the first time, nor will it be the last time.
Who is responsible for the security of your Web Site?
You are!

MojoPortal has a lot of documentation on Securing MojoPortal.  They also have documentation on How and Why You Should Generate a Custom Machine Key.

However, in this blog post I am going to walk you through making a Custom machine key in crystal clear detail with all the pictures included.

First make sure you are logged in as administrator and go to the Administration Menu.  If your screen looks like this and Security Advisor says “Needs Attention!” click Learn More.  If it does not, stop reading for now and you are done.