By Paul Rony on 8/22/2007 10:05 PM

By Paul Rony on 8/10/2007 2:46 AM

The day started with the goal of posting a new VHD that includes Visual Studio 2005 Pro configured to compile and debug the latest SplendidCRM build.  The day ended with migration to Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service). 

 

http://www.amazon.com/S3-AWS-home-page-Money/b/ref=sc_fe_l_2/105-7259275-4637243?ie=UTF8&node=16427261&no=3435361&me=A36L942TSJ2AJA

 

We were compelled to move our downloads from TimeWarner to Amazon because the new VHD was 4G and we were already bumping into the 3G limit on our existing file server.  TimeWarner has served us well, but they quoted an additional $100 per month to add the 4G.  By moving to Amazon S3, not only do we save the $100, but we expect to save an additional $50 per month.

 

If you are going to check out Amazon S3, you will also want to check out Sissle http://sissle.s3.amazonaws.com/index.htm. ...

Read More »

By Paul Rony on 6/27/2007 1:38 AM

We had a customer that was having trouble with the prerequisites to load and debug the SplendidCRM project.  First you start with Visual Studio 2005 Professional, then you add the Web Application Projects add-in, which incidentally requires a patch before it will install.  It seems simple enough but this person was still unable to load the project without the pesky Convert dialog appearing.  If configured properly, the SplendidCRM project should load with just a warning about being unable to attach to our version control system, so the presence of the Convert dialog suggests that the Web Application Projects add-in was not functioning.

 

Instead of wasting countless hours trying to get VS 2005 Pro to work, we though we would research what it would take to migrate SplendidCRM to the Web Site style of projects.  The big advantage to being a Web Site Project is that our customers can use the free Visual Studio Express Editions http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/downloads/....

Read More »

By Paul Rony on 6/12/2007 1:43 PM

eWeek just posted a podcast between Mike Vizard and myself.  Straight from the horse's mouth, you might say.

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2144741,00.asp

By Paul Rony on 5/1/2007 12:41 AM

In honor of the SplendidCRM 1.4 release, I’m going to post an email that I sent to John Roberts, CEO of SugarCRM.

-----Original Message-----From: Paul Rony Sent: Thursday, November 04, 2004 1:26 PMTo: john@sugar.comSubject: Introduction to SplendidCRM

John Roberts,

I'm working on a project that might interest you.  As a personal challenge, I've decided to port your SugarCRM application from a LAMP implementation to a Microsoft .NET 2.0 implementation.  My original goal was to learn the new features of .NET 2.0 and, in most cases, the only way to learn is to create a real and complete application.  It then occurred to me that the results could be a showcase on how to convert a LAMP project to .NET and how much better, in my opinion, the application would be because of it. 

I simply don't agree with your SourceForge.net statement that LAMP is "the least complex, most portable, and most cost-efficient platform to run a CRM application on".  Although...

Read More »

By Paul Rony on 3/19/2007 12:55 AM

We are finally ready to show version 1.4.  We have been taking our time to release it simply to gain confidence in all the technologies we have integrated. 

Converting to MasterPages required us to edit every ASPX file.  We should be able to duplicate all the existing SugarCRM themes, but we have been more focused on stability.

WebParts required that we write a Personalization Provider.  It was surprisingly easy to integrate ASP.NET 2.0 personalization into our existing user and role management. 

AJAX was a last-minute inclusion.  Microsoft recently released ASP.NET AJAX 1.0 and we could not resist taking advantage of the technology.  The beauty of ASP.NET AJAX is that it takes very little code in order to implement.  Actually, with version 1.4, we are just testing the waters, so we have only sprinkled a little AJAX on the home page and the dashboard.  In the near future, we expect to take advantage of the hover control and auto-complete.

 

...

Read More »

By Paul Rony on 1/21/2007 3:54 PM

We've been busy the last couple of months integrating SplendidCRM with Great Plains Accounting, but we took some time out to update the Web1.4 tree. 

 

We started the Web1.4 node many months ago to take advantage of some of the major advances in .NET 2.0, such as MasterPages, Themes, WebParts and AJAX.  Most of the MasterPages and Themes work was completed a few months ago and needed just a little more work to get the menus to function properly. 

 

Using the new ASP.NET AJAX framework, formerly Atlas, was a breeze.  I just a couple of days, we were able to add AJAX features to the charts on the Dashboard and to the Report editor.  Feel free to make suggestions in our Features Forum as to areas that you would like to see AJAXified.

 

We are also making progress with WebParts.  We have migrated all pages to use WebParts to manage the left Sidebar, and we have migrated the entire home page to WebParts.  This will give SplendidCRM the same kind of functionality as SugarCRM's...

Read More »

By Paul Rony on 11/10/2006 4:08 AM

We have been planning this migration for more than a month.  In that time we have been upgrading our servers with bigger hard disks and more RAM. 

The migration did not go as smoothly as we had hoped, but at least we can breath now that the migration is complete.  The main problem we ran into was with one particular node in our project tree that was not accessible from the COM interface that SourceSafe provides.  After several failed migration attempts, we finally followed a tip on the SourceGear forum to backup and restore the SourceSafe database using SourceSafe utilities.

Sadly, the import utility was not able to migrate all of the labels. 

 

By Paul Rony on 11/8/2006 9:11 AM

The focus on 1.3 has been on Import and Export. You now have the ability to import or export from the core modules using the most popular data formats, including XML Spreadsheet, XML and Comma Delimited. You can also import an entire SugarCRM database, so migration is painless.

We also have added some Team management code in the Admin area, but we do not currently support assigning items to teams or filtering by teams.  Team management will be in our next release.

Speaking of our next release, we are expecting to have full support for .NET 2.0 MasterPages and Themes.  Ideally we would also support WebParts, but there still are a few unknowns to resolve.

 

By Paul Rony on 10/27/2006 1:13 AM

I just got back from the Mono Meeting with a renewed vigor to create a self-contained SplendidCRM distribution on the Linux platform.  I must say that it was a great pleasure to be in a room filled with similarly passionate folks.  You can check out some of the slides from the meeting at http://www.go-mono.com/monologue/.

 

For those of you who are looking forward to our next release, the best I can tell you is that it will happen soon.  We are code complete and we are now testing the Import / Export features.  In addition to your basic CSV support, we are also going to permit the use of XML.  If you are a current SugarCRM customer, you will be pleased to know that we will allow you to import an SugarCRM database that has been saved to XML.

...

Read More »