Forgotten your admin password? - Part 2

 In my previous blog with the same Title we discussed ways to reset the password for Admin user in-case we forgot them for Sitecore version 6.0 and above when Sitecore integrated ASP.NET Membership.

But with the launch of Sitecore 6.4 and above when Sitecore introduced PasswordSalt there's a change to the update query we discussed earlier. Below is the updated  query -

UPDATE [Sitecore_core].[dbo].[aspnet_Membership]
SET Password='qOvF8m8F2IcWMvfOBjJYHmfLABc=',
PasswordSalt='OM5gu45RQuJ76itRvkSPFw=='
WHERE UserId IN (SELECT UserId FROM [Sitecore_core].[dbo].[aspnet_Users] WHERE UserName = 'sitecore\Admin')

Thanks Patrick for bringing this up... :-)

Sitecore 7 is round the corner

Hi folks-

The web world is now buzzing with the entry of Sitecore7. Though still not very aware of what the new product is going to be but MVP's across the globe have plunged in to deliver a gem of a product.

Following some of the most admired names in the industry I can clearly make out that Sitecore 7 is going to have a host of new features that's going to largely enhance performance, scalability and usability.

Sitecore 7 brings along the concept of item buckets, which abstract the descendants of an item through search interfaces rather than a content tree. Item buckets allow Sitecore solutions that manage extremely large volumes of data with high performance. The revamped item buckets would possibly allow us in having our items at the same level.

Also probably the Lucene has been upgraded to allow for higher scalability. The old Sitecore 6 versions probably could make up to 1,000,000 items but its being said that Sitecore 7 have almost no limitations. Another high for Sitecore 7 is going to be its ability to implement the optional SOLR search for indexing and querying Sitecore solutions.

Another great feature that could possible be part of Sitecore 7 is that Authors and Marketers could have powerful features embedded in the Content Editor and Page Editor  modes possibly the Ribbon.

Friends feel free to post in your like/dislikes also you can post your wish list for the upcoming Sitecore 7 to your regional contact or product marketer.

To conclude with we should be looking forward to a cleaner, efficient and amazing performance oriented product.....

How to Render Image Extension

Hello Friends,

While working with Sitecore we all would by now been familiar with the extension '.ashx'. This is the extension by which Sitecore normally renders all its media items.

Now I came across  query wherein I was asked as to is it possible to render images or other media items in their original extension (e.g. '.jpg', '.png', etc)

Well this query made me to search those options from this is being managed and my search landed me on the web.config file. Within web.config you would find the below mentioned snippet -

  MEDIA - REQUEST EXTENSION
The extension to use in media request URLs.
If the value is not set, the Extension field of the individual media items will be used (ie. JPG, GIF, etc.)
Default value: "ashx"

< setting name="Media.RequestExtension" value="" /> 

If the 'Media.RequestExtension' value is left as blank in that case the the extension of the media item would be used but if we have set its value to Default value then the Default value would show up.

I did test it with latest Sitecore version but need to see if lower versions too support it. 

Basic checklists While Designing Sitecore Solution

Many of us landing on this post would have at some point worked on Sitecore. Sitecore as a Content Management System provides us a really flexible interface to design and develop our solution. It is also probably the most flexible one when it comes to configuring and deploying websites.

However on a personal level I have experienced that at most times we fail to make full use of the systems capabilities because of really small things that we miss out. 

A good system is one that is designed keeping in mind that it provides a simplified user experience, has minimum performance lag, could be easily scaled to the next level in the future and is easy to maintain and support.

Some basic points that we need to rather check for before going BANG ON with deployment of the websites are - 


 Templates-

• To minimize confusion arising due to large number of templates - Templates should be segregated on the basis of say, Page Level Templates (Page items) and Component Level Templates (Non-Page items)
• Leverage the concept of Inheritance within Templates to minimize duplicate fields
• Understanding the concept of Standard Values within Sitecore
• Presentation Component settings should be managed at standard value level and not on individual items

Content Tree Structure - 

• When designing the Content Tree care needs to the taken so that we don't have more than 100 items at any give point of time within the Content Tree. Hence we need to study the design of the solution and segregate the structure accordingly.

Security Settings-

• System users access needs to be driven from Roles and not assigned for individual users
• Access permissions needs to be through checked for all items, workflows, etc and within all the databases accordingly.

Apart from the above points before deployment Sitecore provides for tools for checking for any broken links and care needs to be taken that we remove the Admin folder from the website.


Please feel free to add any more points or options in case I missed them....