If you aren’t happy with the small presentation area for articles on the listing.item.html template that shows the display for the main NA module.  Look for this code and change the [DETAILS:150] object to read the number of characters you want to display.  The default is 150.

<td class="articleTextCell">
     <span class="Normal">
                 [HASSUMMARY][SUMMARY][/HASSUMMARY][HASNOSUMMARY][DETAILS:150][/HASNOSUMMARY]
     </span>
</td>

1. Create a page outside of the main website and install the News Article module.  For the purposes of this explanation the page is named “News Articles Main.”  Also install the Latest News, and Archive modules if you are using those.
2. Create categories that correspond to the pages where you want News Article capability, for instance “News”,  “Features”, etc.  Do this under Admin Options.  See 2nd screen shot below.
3. Create pages, “News”,  “Features”, etc.,  corresponding to the categories you’ve set up.
4. On each of these pages, add modules via the Use Existing Module radio buttons at the top of the Module area in the control panel.
   

   DNN Add Existing Module

5. Select the page “News Articles Main” from the Page: dropdown.
6. Choose the News Article Module from the Module: dropdown.
7. Click the Admin Options hyperlink on the second line last item of the text menu at the top of the module.
   

   Ventrian News Articles Admin Options

8. Click the Main Options button and go to the Filters section.  Set the filter for the page / category that you are working with.  For instance if you are setting up the “Features” page, set the filter to the “Features” category.  Only the articles created using the category “Features” will show up on this page after this step.
9. Repeat step 8  for the filters on Latest Articles, and Archives if you are using those modules as well.
10. Repeat steps 2 through 10 for each page / category you have created.
11. All articles will be created on the page “News Articles Main” which was created outside the site and will show up on the proper pages within the site based on the category they are assigned to.

See DNN – Custom CSS Stylesheet for FCK Editor for how to set up a customized style sheet. To avoid having to maintain redundant style sheets between your skin.css and your FCK Editor style sheet, place a reference to your FCK Editor style sheets at the top of the portal.css file stored at the root of your portal.

@import url("fckeditor.css");

Write all the styles that are relevant to your html/text module areas into the FCK Editor style sheet not your skin.css. Your customized stylesheet will be available to FCK Editor as well as your document and you’ll only have to maintain your styles in one file.

Use of the formatting tools in FCK Editor isn’t recommended since it loads documents down with unwanted tags. One alternative: preparing your data with a style sheet in a program like Dreamweaver, can quickly grow old. Switching back and forth between several applications repeatedly while editing, along with the lack of WYSIWYG in the editor makes this method cumbersome.

The good news is you can synch stylesheets between your skin and/or container .css and the .css used in FCK Editor. With a little setup, you’ll have the same display in and out of the editor window and your style dropdown list will be populated with your styles, not the generic FCK Editor styles.

The FCK Editor requires the creation of a .css and a .xml file to properly display styles. To reproduce your skin and/or container styles in FCK Editor:

1. Create a.css file with the styles you need and give it the name of your choice.
2. Create a .xml file describing the styles you want to show in the dropdown list.
   • Here’s an example of a simple .xml that would show styles for H1, H2, H3, H4 and pagetitle in FCK Editor’s style dropdown list. The element= is the HTML tag to be used, the Style name is the label appearing in the drop down list, for <span> or <div> the attributes name=”class” value=”#your style name#” must be included.<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”utf-8″ ?>
     <Styles>
     <Style name=”Heading H1″ element=“H1″ />
     <Style name=”Heading H2″ element=”H2″ />
     <Style name=”Heading H3″ element=”H3″ />
     <Style name=”Heading H4″ element=”H4″ />
     <Style name=”pagetitle” element=”span”>
     <Attribute name=”class” value=”pagetitle” />
     </Style>
     </Styles>
3. Once these files are created drop them in the root of your portal.
4. In your DNN environment – open the FCK Editor by clicking to edit a text area you have setup.
5. Click on the link below the text entry area called show custom editor options.
6. Set the type to “Portal”
7. Click open the “List of available styles for the editor” area and use these settings:

   Style list generation mode: URL

   Custom xml file: Root, your xml file

   

   List of available styles for the editor

8. Click open the “Editor area CSS” area and use these settings:

   Style list generation mode: URL

   Custom css file: Root, your css file

   

   Editor area CSS

9. At the bottom of the screen, make sure the dropdown is set to Portal and Apply the custom settings.
10. You should now have WYSIWYG display in your FCK Editing area and your own styles should be populating the style dropdown list in FCK Editor there.

Path:  Start | All Programs | Accessories | System Tools | System Restore

If you’re trying to find help for setting up a restore point for Windows XP through their help system – don’t bother with logic.  Most search terms you try will not yield helpful results.  Here’s an illogical but effective way to find help for how to set or activate restore points.  (Just remember the magic word WIZARD)

Go to the Window’s Help and Support under the Start Menu and type "Restore Wizard" and you’ll get the instructions and location for setting a restore point.

Often, setting a system restore point  means you’re already in the middle of some nerve racking situation so don’t type "System Restore", "Set Restore Point" or any other logical phrase that occurs to you.  If you try this obvious approach to the answer, MS will reward your search with lists and more lists of jumps to long winded and unhelpful articles about what a restore point is or why one would want a restore point but not a link or jump to anything that will even remotely help you SET A RESTORE POINT.

Never mind that Microsoft’s help file should help . . go to Google – type in the nature of your problem and quickly find a painless solution.

To raise an entire vertical Spry menu up go to the style sheet and find the ul.MenuBarVertical css rule.  Change the margin from 0 to margin -9px,0,0,0 or whatever distance works to position your Spry menu in the correct vertical postion.

Some help files appear in super tiny, small fonts that are hardly legible.  This appears to be caused by the help file’s use of Internet Explorer’s (IE) style settings. 

To fix the problem, go to IE’s Tools menu and select the bottom option, Internet Options, go to the General tab and then to the Accessiblity button at the bottom of the tab.  A dialog box opens and at the bottom is a space for a user style sheet.  Click the check box and use a style sheet you’ve defined with font-sizes set at least to medium.  Mine is called Ichoosetosee.css (name it anything you want) and looks like this:

/* CSS Document */
li {
    font-size: medium;
}

body {
    color: #000000;
    background-color: #FFFFFF;
    margin: 5px;
    font-family: sans-serif;
    font-size: medium;
}

p {
    font-size: medium;
    color: #000000;
    font-style: normal;
}
table {
    font-size: medium;
    color: #000000;
}

h1 {
    font-size: 18px;
    font-weight: bold;
    text-align: center;
}

h2 {
    font-size: large;
    color: #000000;
    font-weight: normal;
}

h3 {
    font-size: 12px;
}

hr {
    height: 3px;
    width: 704px;
}
hr.short {

    height: 1px;
    width: 675px;
}

a:link {
    color: #006666;
    font-weight: normal;
    text-decoration: none;
}
a:visited {
    color: #2B0055;
    text-decoration: none;
    font-weight: normal;
}
a:hover {
    font-weight: normal;
    color: #6635A8;
    text-decoration: none;

}
a:active {
    font-weight: normal;
    text-decoration: none;
    color: #CC99FF;
}

I’m getting hits on a regular basis on a blog about my art, videography and music experiments from Performance Systems International Inc. (PSI).  They don’t come in on a search but are direct traffic with identical stats on each visit.  Who are they and what do they want?

Speculation on various blogs states PSI may be associated with MediaDefender "a notorious anti piracy gang who have worked for the MPAA, RIAA and several independent media production companies." (Ref)  This particular post goes on to say that they "just launched their very own video upload service called ‘miivi.com’. The sole purpose of the site is to trap people into uploading copyrighted material, and bust them for doing so."  Ugly.

If it is in fact these snoopers visiting my blog my guess is that it’s because I have my own, self created, me as artist MP3s with  metadata on my blog. 

Chasing down MP3 users by scanning websites for MP3s seems futile and like a stupid waste of time.  I resent that by merely using MP3 technology, my site’s been targeted for snooping.

Some of the best WordPress plug-ins I’ve checked out are from Lester Chan or GamerZ.

You can visit his website here or check out his plugins at WordPress’s site here.

His installation and usage instructions are always clear, easy to follow and thourough. I’ve never had a problem installing or using one of his plugins. The concepts behind the plugins are well thought out and GamerZ usually includes many ways to tweak the plugins to look the way you want them to. I’ve installed and checked out wp-print, wp-postratings, wp-polls, and wp-email.

Make sure you’ve gone to Permalinks under options and done step 4 of the installation:  You Need To Re-Generate The Permalink (WP-Admin -> Options -> Permalinks -> Update Permalink Structure)

I had installed wp-print (which by the way works really well) on another blog and forgot the step above.  After wasting alot of time I re-read the instructions   and there it was!