I mentioned before how BlogEngine.Net was easy to install. Well, I take it back… somewhat. I mean installation is easy, but only if you’re deploying the project without precompilation, which sucks in my case. As you might already know, precompiling a website protects your source code because it no longer needs to be stored on the server. It also reduces application response time and improves performance.

One thing that’s been irking me is how slow my website takes to load, especially on the first visit. I’ve come to the conclusion that the problem is attributed to two things, DiscountASP’s uber hosting, and the fact that code is being dynamically compiled at runtime. So, I figured it shouldn’t be that hard to fix the second issue. I just need to publish the BlogEngine.Net web project so that the code is precompiled. Boy was I wrong.

I published the web project without any issues. But as soon as it put it on the server, and visited the site, all hell broke loose. I fixed one issue, and another arose. It was one problem after another. Eventually I got it to the point where the site rendered, but the administration portion was non-functional. In short, everything in App_GlobalResources was precompiled but the administration section didn’t know how to access the necessary information. I tried a few things, but never got it to work. Taking time to fix the issue didn’t seem worth it. Besides, if I managed to find a way to fix it, there was a good chance that something else would be broken.

So I ended up reverting back to the original un-compiled BlogEngine.Net project. I’ll deal with the performance issues for now. Protecting the source code is not a big deal for me anyways, after all BlogEngine.Net is open source. I did search online to see if anyone was successful in precompiling the project, but it doesn’t seem like it. I’m surprised because BlogEngine.Net has been available for some time, you would think they would have a precompiled version of the project available.

So after 3+ years of “Coming soon to your face!”, I've decided to spend some time on getting my website together. My initial plan was to fully develop a site that would have been comprised of a series of controls which would be available to download for anyone’s use. Sort of like an interactive portfolio of sorts. Great idea right? Eh, not anymore. Besides, the web has matured greatly and doing this would be like reinventing the wheel. Plus, I didn't have the time or energy to take on such a tedious task. So I've decided to take a different approach. Instead, I will have a blog with a strong focus on development. Hopefully it will provide solutions to problems that will help my peers. I will also express my opinions on technical topics, and have code and/or projects available for download. That’ll pretty much be the meat and potatoes of the site. I’ll also have some non-development rants here and there too.

Anyways, I just wanted to introduce the site, and pretty much get the first blog post out of the way. I’m using BlogEngine.Net as my blog engine, and my first impressions are that it’s pretty cool and easy to use. Set-up was not that difficult either. Since I’m using ASP.NET, I wasn’t sure which blog engine would be best, but I think I've made the right choice. For now, I’ll be using one of the “out of the box” themes until I find time to make my own. That's all I've got for now, l8r g8r.