I've finally made the switch away from using DotNetNuke for my blog. DotNetNuke is a great CMS, but the blog module left a lot to be desired and I regretted using it from the start. The number one reason why I switched is I hated posting to my blog using the FreeTextBox control and wanted to find a blogging engine that allowed me to post text and images direct to it from Word 2007 which DasBlog does. Blogging with DNN was a royal pain sometimes and kept me from keeping my blog up to date, so hopefully now I have no excuse to not post regularly. DasBlog also has a lot more extras that I plan to take advantage of in the future. I still plan to run my main site off of DotNetNuke and the original blog in still there as well, but the last posting to it was today informing any readers that may happen to be subscribed to the direct rss feed to update their subscription to my Feedburner address.

    I was able to get all my old posts and comments migrated over. It took a few tries, but in the end I only had to update two links manually. I didn't migrate the images over to DasBlog, but left them stored on the original site so as to ease the migration pains. They still show up in line in the blog post, but if you look the link it is actually to the original site. All future images will be posted directly to DasBlog though.

    The migration was made easier by a C# application that Scott Hanselman had posted to his blog in 2005. I had to make modifications to it to have it read from DNN and to get it to create files in the proper format for the latest version of DasBlog. I also made some adjustments so that it would properly correct most of my links. You can download the modified C# Application from here. You'll need to update the connection string and the url, but then it should generate the proper xml fields for you.

    I still have a few more tweaks to make to the new blog, but things seem to be working well so far. This post was definitely a lot faster to put together and publish.

I just wanted to give everyone a quick heads up about the IADNUG meeting tomorrow night at the DMACC West campus.  Nick Parker will be doing a presentation on  dependency inversion in .NET.  I hope to see you there.

This week I hit the 250 mile running mark on my Nike + iPod and I love it.  I definitely hate running though, it’s rather boring and tends to be a lot of work, but adding a bit of technology to it that allows me to monitor my progress makes it bearable and keeps me in better shape.  The Nike + iPod consists of a wireless sensor that attaches to your shoe, a wireless receiver that plugs into your iPod, and the nikeplus.com website.  This wireless sensor is designed to slip under the sole of certain Nike shoes which now appear to be down to as cheap as $40, but when I got the device the cheapest shoes that supported it were $100 so I opted for the RunAway which cost me about $10.  I read a few comments on the Internet saying these adapters don’t work  because the sense works by pressure which you don’t get by strapping the sensor to your laces, but I haven’t had any problems.   Now that the Nike shoes have come down in price though, I may get a pair and test out the difference.  The sensor and receiver combo runs around $25.

Basically the entire add-on is a glorified pedometer, but it has some great features that allow you to monitor your running.  First off you are able to monitor your running, while you’re running.  With one push of the center iPod button, you get informed of your distance, time, and pace.  You’re also able to monitor your overall running by syncing your runs up to the Nike+ website and tracking how well you’re doing over time.  You can also set target goals on the website and track if you are meeting them.

Another nice feature is the ability to set up a power song.  Mine is The Eye of the Tiger and it plays whenever I need a little extra motivation by holding down the center iPod button for a few seconds.

I love this add-on and the ability to track my running motives me to run more, but one thing I don’t like is the fact that I can’t change the song very easily while running since the iPod is strapped to my arm and I can’t see the screen.  Hopefully this problem with be resolved if the Nike Amp+ ever comes out.  It is a wristwatch like remote that allows you to control the iPod while running.

Check it out and I’ll let you know when I hit 500 miles.