I have not yet released a DNN 3.x-compatible version of my SkinWidgets suite. This is because my vision for this suite exceeds my current ability to do it justice. Ultimately, I want to merge SkinWidgets, Skinergy and a few other skin-related goodies I have as the ultimate skinning toolbox for DotNetNuke along with a large number of high-end skins created by professional graphic designers.

My idea of skins is a little different from most skins found in the DNN realm, so I want to clarify. For me, a skin should be more than just a visual layer for a DNN portal. I think skins should have a personality and the necessary bits to fully support that personality. For instance, if the skin is for a teen portal, it should not only have graphics that appeal to such an audience, but also widgets, doodads, etc. that instantly give the portal U.I. elements that fit the usability requirements of that audience.

Since it will take some time to work on this, I have prepared a DNN3 compatibility release of SkinWidgets. Existing customers can obtain it by emailing support at speerio dot net. It's the same as the DNN2 package except that it works on DNN3.

It seems like there are widgets everywhere. Apple added widgets to Tiger through the cool Dashboard feature. Yahoo has a whole section of its site devoted to widgets.

I greet widgets with a mixture of emotions. In 1999, when I created my venture-funded startup, my world-changing idea was to bring the web to people in the form of mini-applications that provided identical functionality with a web browser, a mobile device or a telephone. Not only that, the mini-apps had collaboration built-in so you could decide who could view/edit your data etc.

Yes, the mini-applications were called "widgets" and my startup was iWidgets, Inc. Unfortunately, the world wasn't ready for widgets at the time and I didn't know as much about running a startup then as I do today, and so iWidgets joined thousands of other dot bombs when I turned the lights out in early 2001.

But seeing all the buzz about widgets today gives me a good feeling -- I had the right world-changing idea, just at the wrong time and perhaps a little flawed in the execution. I felt nostalgic enough to go digging through the archive DVD's to pull up some promos we had created. Here are four of them, each focused a specific target market.

Janet  |  Hannah  |  Johnsons  |  Rob

A thought-provoking piece worth sharing:

http://www.intuitive.com/blog/no_one_every_buys_a_product_the_innovators_edge.html

As some of you may know, I collaborated closely with Shaun Walker and others on the DotNetNuke® Core Team to develop the DotNetNuke brand identity. It's not quite done and is still evolving, but I am quite proud of my role in the team effort that brought the new DotNetNuke logo to life in a relatively short period of time. I had promised Shaun that I would document the process we went through, and I have started doing that, complete with scans of sketches/doodles etc. that showed how the logo evolved. I will publish the document very soon.

Recently, the official DotNetNuke Trademark Policy and Logo Guidelines were published. Even though we took care to ensure that the policies are sufficiently detailed to cover most situations, and we even provided visual examples, I am baffled by the types of questions that people post or email. It seems as if some people are just plain lazy. They don't want to take the time to read and would prefer to waste your time by asking questions that are already very clearly answered. It sounds a bit harsh, but I cannot think of a better explanation.

Even more perplexing to me is the sheer number of people who just don't get the concept of branding. For whatever reason, these people believe that taking someone else's brand (in this case DotNetNuke) and somehow adding to it their company name or some other graphic element results in a "cool" brand for their use. Again, I am being harsh, but seriously, how can you categorize this behavior as anything else but "clueless?" Don't people realize that this simply demonstrates their unoriginality and their inability to give their company or business its own unique identity? 

Any self-respecting artist prides her/his work, and I am no different. Although legally the DotNetNuke brand belongs to Perpetual Motion Interactive Systems, I am still bothered to see my work bastardized by people. Additionally, it sucks to see the DotNetNuke brand diluted by such leeches. I think the people who do this are quite aware of what they are doing. They are just missing this thing called a conscience.

After seeing someone post "here, here" in the ASP.Net forums for the umpteenth time, I had to find a way to vent my feelings about this annoyance. So I have decided to add a new category to my blog called "Annoyances" where I can discuss some of the things that annoy me.

The correct spelling of the phrase is "Hear, hear!" Quite different from calling someone to come to you, which is exactly what "here, here" is all about.

"Hear, hear" originated in the British parliament in the 18th century as a contraction of "hear him, hear him."

I will save another annoyance -- "their" versus "there" -- for another day.