Sitecore Tech Digest #6 2013-12-10

So this post is a little bit liter than the last couple have been, maybe its because everyone is switching to holiday mode, or maybe just because I have been switching to holiday mode. Any way, here is the good stuff:

CMS

• Introducing Sitecore SPEAK Components - A blog running through the process of creating components using the new UI model SPEAK.
• Optimizing Sitecore For Content Editors - A list of thing that you can/should do on every Sitecore solution to make the lives of your biggest users easier.
• Sitecore Responsive Device Resolver - This is an interesting module that has just been released to the marketplace that allows you to combine adaptive and responsive design approaches to a page at once. It implements a set of rules that allow you to personalise a page based on screen-size.
• Sitecore Media Library and Azure blob storage - An approach to separating out the storage of blobs(images) from you Sitecore databases and sending them up to Azure to take advantage of their storage.

DMS / Personalisation

• Sitecore DMS Quick Win #2 - Personalization - Another post in a series of easy to achieve optimisations that can be made to your site to improve the experiences of users on your sites. This time its a tip about how to set up simple content variations for users based on where they are browsing from.
• Creating an HTTP Referrer Condition - Want to personalise your site based on what site people came from? This is post is for you.

Sitecore Tech Digest #5 - 2013-12-03

Another week another post and to be honest I can't believe it is week 5 already. As always if you have any comments, please let me know I want to make sure this blog is useful to people. Anyway, here is this weeks reading:

CMS

• 3 Considerations When Building Multilingual Sites with Sitecore - Some good things to keep in mind when trying to build a site catering for different languages/cultures.
• Using EnclosingTag in Page Editor - A little known feature of a the field renderer controls in Sitecore. Want to render a text field with formatting(enclosed in a tag), but only if there is a value? This post is for you.
• Sitecore 7.1 Released - A bunch of new features including SPEAK and MVC 4 support.
• Sitecore Rocks Reaches Version 1 and is Available on the SDN - That's right, Sitecore Rocks has finally reached official release and is available for download from the SDN.
• Instantiating Your First Sitecore Azure Site - A post running through how to get you first Sitecore Azure site up and running.
• Beware of multiple item buckets in a hierarchy - Something to keep an eye out for when using the auto bucket feature of Sitecore 7. Definitely worth reading and being aware of before your next project.
• Sitecore Profiling an Tracing - Highlights a few of the lesser used classes in the Sitecore.Diagnostics namespace that can be used to help you debug/profile a site built in Sitecore without having to resort to crawling the log files.
• Sitecore Module Version Compatibility Matrix - So I never knew this one existed, but I wish I had, it would have saved me grief on many a project. Thanks @VargaT (on twitter) for bringing it to my attention. So its a simple concept, what versions of what modules are compatible with what versions of the CMS.
• HTML Cache Lifetime - An approach to implementing a time out based cache for your sub-layouts.

DMS / Personalisation

• Experience Explorer Released to the Marketplace - This module is cool. I was lucky enough to see an early release of this module at the Sitecore offices. It allows you to preview your site as any user with any combination of personalisation.
• Register local search terms in Sitecore DMS - A good post on showing how to track search events within you own search implementations. It also goes into how to make sure the executive insight dashboard is showing meaningful information about the searches you track.

Community

• Ask a Sitecore MVP - I think the title says it all. The MVP's over at Non Linear Creations are offering up their expertise, so if you have a question ask them.