Only my second blog post and I need to apologize. Great way to start.

For starters, I reinstalled my main computer and finally made the move to Windows 7 x64. Wow. Much better that Vista and Windows XP. I have had it running on my laptop for a long time now just never had the time or resources together to commit it to my main box. My biggest challenge was getting the data all shifted around. After a few computer transfers and OS installs there was lots of it and it was everywhere (thank you portable hard drives).  I have also finally committed to not installing things like IIS and SQL on my main box and to use Virtual PC to hold those. It will make my life easier and more difficult at the same time, as long as I stay true to it. Most likely, I will be installing Visual Studio 2010 on the main box alone with the Silverlight development tools. 

Secondly, BlogEngine.NET has been working out pretty well for me. I had to download, compile and update BlogEngine.NET to build 1.6.0.5 to correct an issue I was experiencing and it was rectified in that code. [EDIT: I know that 1.6.1 was released - the upgrade to 1.6.05 took place before April 21, 2010] I have been trying to determine how to correct the URL issue on GoDaddy. After numerous attempts, it looks like I will have to modify the source code of BlogEngine.NET to rectify the situation. It looks like it will be an easy change as the code is designed pretty good (common functions) when it come to creating URLS. I also have to take a look at the comment system. I have seen some spam being posted and want to limit them as much as possible. And finally, I am still having some issues with posting code. I have actually tried a few times using different ways and programs, but the results were always horrible and as such the post was removed.

Earlier in the week, I had decided it was time to start a blog. I have used a number of programs over the years to create websites and was looking for something that was easy to use and work with. The other concern I had was being able to use the software on GoDaddy's Medium Trust Minus configuration. GoDaddy Hosting Connection has an amazing selection of applications that can be automatically installed on site, and it took some time to analyze each of their merits. Of the blog software that is available, BlogEngine.NET was one I felt I would be happy to use and hopefully contribute to.

On that note, installing BlogEngine.NET using an SQL Data Provider was fairly easy. I did a manual installation as opposed to an automatic installation by GoDaddy. I followed a number of various tidbits of information I gathered from around the Internet and was able to slowly overcome some of the issues, but not all.

One huge factor I came across was that GoDaddy was insistent on running BlogEngine.NET in Classic pipeline mode instead of Integrated pipeline mode. In fact, the main reason I was not allowed to do an automatic installation was due to my hosting account being setup for Integrated pipeline mode (which the GoDaddy installation wizard was not able to tell me). With some proper tweaking of the web.config, I am now running in Integrated pipeline mode.

There are only a few issues left. One is with GoDaddy's Medium Trust Minus configuration as they do not allow runtime modifications to the web.config. Another is with their hosting and URL rewriting and how it affects some .NET code functionality such as VirtualPathUtility.ToAbsolute(). Hopefully, I will be able to work around some of these as time progresses.