It's been a while since I posted last, and my usual excuse is I've been very busy.
My new technology focus of the month (well past four) has been Sitecore a .NET based content management system. When I first started using Sitecore I was gobsmacked and impressed all at once. Sitecore has one of the coolest user interfaces I have ever seen created for a web interface. Its actually a desktop which runs inside your browser!
Hitting F11 while in your browser it gives you the feeling you are actually using a new operating system from your PC. All the tools available from the app are in this interface. In addition to this interface Sitecore also comes with an in context editing feature which is a lot easier for non technical users to pickup allowing them to see content as it would appear on the live site and then clicking on little "content markers" to change the content.
What impressed me the most about the content management system was how it was where MS Content Management Server should have been before it became part of Sharepoint. They seem to have addressed just about everything in this application that was missing from MS Content Management Server from better multi lingual support down to the workflow and fully integrated .NET 2.0 API's.
Another cool feature about Sitecore is its ability to consume external data sources and treat them as its own. Sitecore also gives you the ability to wirte your own adaptors for external datasources providing you with the tools out of the box for users to manipulate this content.
More on Sitecore later..