This is a real example of what can be done to get your sites running faster before upgrading the hardware.
Starting point - this blog mattjura.com with following specification: Server: Microsoft Windows NT 6.1.7601 Service Pack 1, IIS/7.5, .Net 4.0 and SQL Server 2008 R2 Express edition, 2GB RAM, 1GHZ CPU – running multiple sites. DotNetNuke: version 6.1.5 running 10 sub portals

Stats before optimisation

WebPageTest.org results:
Load time: 5.546s, First byte 1.491s, Start render 3.675s, Requests 66,

YSlow results:
Overall performance score 70 Grade C
The page has a total of 46 components and a total weight of 558.8K bytes
Primed cache: HTTP Requests - 4, Total Weight - 56.2K

Google Page Speed results:
Page Speed Score of 54 (out of 100)

Not a good set of results but here are the steps to get the site running faster.

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Continuing from my previous HTML5 boilerplate skinning file set I have decided to update the files and create a new reset HTML5 dnn skin.

The "DNN 1.0 skin" - available for download here, gives you a quick leg up in the skiining process. The file includes reset css, modernizr script, basic panes and controls. This will make your skin creation process easier and faster, additionally it will give you a helping hand in the process of making sure that your skin displays correctly across different browsers.
The reset skin has been developed and tested on DotNetNuke 6.2.

View the DNN 1.0 skin here >>

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Very often we come across the requests to set larger file uploads for the editor in DotNetNuke.
The default setting allows you to upload 4mb which if you want to upload media files is not enough.

Here are the changes required to upload larger files via editor and file manager in DotnetNuke.
The example is based on using the TelerikEditorProvider set as the default html editor for the site and is based on DNN 6.01+

1. Setting the TelerikEditorProvider as the default editor for the site.

Under host HTML Editor Manager you can see the current provider and change it if required to TelerikEditorProvider

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With the current growth of smart mobile and tablet market you can not ignore the fact that your site should be mobile ready. Any business or organisation has to take into consideration how their website will look on mobile devices. When developing in DotNetNuke there are few different approaches you can take.

Apart from creating mobile specific site located on its own url (for example mobile.mysite.com or mysite.com/mobile) maybe you should consider using the same portal and content for mobile devices as for desktops, just change method of delivery depending on the device used to access the site. The advantage of this approach is that you only have to maintain one site / portal.

Here are available options and their advantages.

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To quickly add a meta tag or verification code to the page just place the code within Page Header Tags in the Page Settings >> Advanced Settings

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When renaming, moving or deleting pages in your live DNN Portal it is important that you take into account the effect this has on SEO and your site users. If the page has been indexed by search engines you should always implement 301 redirects, this way you will avoid page not found errors and will transfer potential traffic and ranking to a new (or another) page.

DotNetNuke allows you to achieve this by changing the page settings. Here are the steps I follow on all of our production sites.

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If you are developing in HTML5 or if you have researched the subject you have probably come across the HTML5 Boilerplate template. This is a robust HTML/CSS/JS file base for developing websites in HTML5 and was created by Paul Irish, Divya Manian and others - thanks guys for sharing your efforts. Please visit www.html5boilerplate.com to find out more about the project.

Looking at the boilerplate file set I thought it would be worthwhile to rework the code so it can be applied in the DotNetNuke skinning process. As a result I came up with the file set that that I now use as standard as a starting point for all of my skins,click here to download all in a zip format.

The idea behind it is that the files include all the necessary code to make your skinning job easier and faster, making sure that your skin will display correctly across different browsers and enables you to target those browsers via CSS. It is not a finished skin, just a collection of code that you can pick up or delete as required. As I said before this is a rework of the code published by HTML5 boilerplate crew and all the credit for the hard work should go to them.

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There are few posts on the topic already (see Mitchel Sellers' blog and DNN Forum), however I wanted to add  a little gem for those of you who use JavaScript  "document.domain =" to set the default domain for the site.

The best way of implementing Google analytics code depends on the version of DNN you are using and your sites requirements, here are few of the options available:

1. Paste the tracking code (the UA-6435435 number only) into Google Analytics module located on the page with the same name under Admin.

This method is available for DNN 5.01+ and can be used on multiple portal sites.
DNN 5.01 - 5.05 the code is injected at the end of the page
DNN 5.06+ the code is injected at the beginning of the page

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The new release of DotNetNuke 5.05 includes full localization support, this long overdue functionality is a big enhancement for those requiring multi language support as it makes content management much easier.

“Content localization in DotNetNuke 5.5 will allow you to easily manage your web pages in a primary language and then utilize translators to keep the content synchronized in multiple secondary languages.  Whether you are maintaining your site in a single language or dozens of languages, the content localization system will help guide your content editors and translators through the process.” – by Joe Brinkman.

We have tested this functionality on couple of sites so far and are very impressed, there is no need to create separate portals for each language or use third party modules to localise the content.

More...

Cross posted from WSI Internet Marketing UK

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