I generally dislike weblog introductions so I won't make you suffer through this one. I think that blogs should not be personal but informative. I am just a geek, though, so who knows. If I post personal stuff, it will definitely be in a different category.
With that said, I am currently involved with two interesting products. The first is an IBuySpy clone that extends the object model to the point that it actually useful in nearly every scenario. Unfortuantely, I don't have a demo up to this point. The infrastructure in about 65-70% complete and should have a variety of improvements and enhancements over IBuySpy, DotNetNuke, and Rainbow.
For instance, the portal itself is an object so it can be programmed against and the system supports any number of portals. I see this being useful within a company that wishes to utilize the same content through different departments but allows each department to maintain their own portal with a look and feel that meets their needs and contains different security systems. So far, I can administer each portal individually and together.
Another nice feature is the skins implementation. I know that DotNetNuke 2.0 supports skins out of the box but I have not looked at their implementation so I can't compare mine with theirs but TRIAD (which is what I am calling the portal at this point) has a mechanism that allows users to create the own skins. They are not really skins, so to speak, they are really color schemes, that can be changed, saved, and shared. This should take personalization to a new level.
The most significant improvement is the application object, which allows entire applications to be hosted within the portal's architecture. Existing applications would need to be converted to a standard formtat but the functionality is there. It is geared towards new applications which have multiple interfaces for manipulating data but are not so singular in their functionality that all the features of the application can be contained within a single module. The application, however, can contain multiple modules and navigation scheme.
Also, the entire portal is built on personalization. Out of the box, authenticated users can create new tabs, add modules from different applications to tabs, control their layout and position, etc. Administrators, however, can apply security to allow/disallow this at any time.
Modules within applicaitons can also be marked as mandatory which basically means that all users must have this module's tab visible. Applications can also be mandatory.
I haven't settled on a pricing scheme for the app yet and if anyone has a similar product they are currently marketing, please let me know.
The second project is RamSafe. I will discuss this at a later point but as an overview, it is an app dealing with homeland defense and emergency response.