For those of you who don't know what Ole [oh-la] is, it is a chat bot for use within the backend of Sitecore. Some of the key features:
If that's not enough of a reason for you to try it, then just consider it's using cutting edge Microsoft machine learning technology!
Are you ready to add cloud based machine learning APIs to your Sitecore solution? Then save yourself some time and use Sitecore Cognitive Services.
What is it, you ask? It's a series of .NET API connectors (the core) and new features built on that core. It's open source and available on GitHub or Nuget. You can use what's there, improve on them or even build your own using the existing ones a model.
I'm excited to announce the release of the cognitive services I've been working on for the last year as marketplace modules. I present to you the Cognitive Core, the Image Search and Ole Chat. Of all the ideas it generated, being able to polish up two into pretty practical modules was really satisftying.
It's been a while since I've updated the Caching Manager, which is a module on the Sitecore Marketplace, so during a recent upgrade it was about that time. I'm using the design from Sitecore 8. It's backwards compatible through Sitecore 6 (SIM makes this possible) so there's no excuse for not getting it. Unless, you're on 5? Was caching on 5? I honestly don't remember or probably never knew.
Not a very long time ago,
in a repository not particularly far away....
It is a period of automation and obsolescence.
Sitecore developers committing
code, day and night, globally.
Spiraling like the arms of a galaxy
sharing tasks, techniques and trade-craft.
During the past few months
I've been developing my
ultimate tool, the TestStar
A sitecore module with enough
power to test an entire platform.
In pursuit of stability whose breadth
and depth I've not yet known.
To restore freedom for productivity to all.
I'm quite literally, so furiously, thinking of ways to explain the funky stuff inside my brain. I couldn't explain! You might understand though. In fact, I'd wager you will.
Friends, romans, countrymen... et al, the Setting Up a Sitecore Extranet article I wrote in 2011 is one of my most trafficked. It occurred that many of you could benefit from the additional changes that I've made since then, so that those who are setting up your own system by hand could now benefit from a module that manages most of the process for you. For visual reference, I've made a video for a quick intro to the module.
There already exists an extranet module on the Sitecore Marketplace but I'm not the developer of it. Sitecore is. The documentation says it was created in 2007 for Sitecore 5.3. I've never used it so I can't speak to its efficacy. I'm presenting my own solution and you're free to choose which will work best for you.
For those of you unfamiliar with it, the Data Importer is a Sitecore module on the Sitecore Marketplace. It's a tool that allows you to import data into Sitecore. It was originally built to import sites from existing websites by pulling from databases and into content items. It allows you the flexibility to handle each individual field in a row of data using a number of built-in conversion types but also allows you to extend the system by creating your own providers for data sources and adding your own field conversion types.
I recently spent some good quality time working to update the Data Importer Module. It's an incredibly useful tool and I wanted to address some feedback about it so that users can better understand what it can do and how you use it.
I've recently updated the Caching Manager module on the Sitecore Marketplace. The improvements were focused on the UI which I've made to mimic the native design of the content editor. It's a lot more compressed and easy to use. The different cache regions are broken into separate tabs and parts of the form are broken into sections. You can collapse the sections by double clicking on the title bar like you can in the content editor. There's use of Sitecore's icons and the buttons are better defined and the font size is smaller so that more fits on a screen.