Latest articles

  • TDS “the package builder failed” after project rename

    TDS “the package builder failed” after project rename

    This is a quickie for anybody using Team Development for Sitecore (TDS) and encountering the mysterious “The package builder failed” error. In my scenario, the builder fails and informs you to check the build output log, but there are no build output log details. This makes debugging the issue rather difficult… The only resource I could… Read more

  • Creating interactive wireframes using Keystone

    This past week I was onsite with a client to review their site requirements and visual designs that had been created. My biggest focus was to try to determine how much additional effort would be required beyond what we could accomplish by implementing Keystone out of the box. Having talked through the wireframes and designs, we… Read more

  • Making it Work: Specialists on an Agile Team

    Making it Work: Specialists on an Agile Team

    In some lines of business, such as consulting, the organizational business goals require a certain amount of specialization in order to deliver to clients efficiently and with high quality. These organizations also typically bill by the hour, meaning downtime is a serious cost to the business. This can be difficult in an agile development model… Read more

  • Visual Studio Online: Project Renames and Fields on Cards

    Visual Studio Online: Project Renames and Fields on Cards

    I was not surprised that a lot of news came out from Microsoft this past week during their Build event, but some of the changes announced specifically for Visual Studio Online (VSO) were very nice. The first announcement brought us the much sought-after team project renames. The second announcement was the news that there are new… Read more

  • Previewing as a selected user in Sitecore

    Previewing as a selected user in Sitecore

    Following up on the initial module release of the Sitecore Authenticated Preview module, I have now released version 1.1 for download. In this new version, authors can preview what a page would look like to a specific user by selecting an account on the Experience ribbon. No more guessing as to whether your security settings… Read more

  • Sitecore 8 Upgrades: ‘Cannot read configuration file because it exceeds the maximum file size’

    Sitecore 8 Upgrades: ‘Cannot read configuration file because it exceeds the maximum file size’

    A warning to others upgrading to Sitecore 8: you may run out of Web.config space! Recently, I’ve been spending my time working on upgrading a site to Sitecore 8 and I encountered the dreaded 250KB limitation for the Web.config file. For security reasons, IIS will throw the “Cannot read configuration file because it exceeds the maximum file size” error… Read more