Introduction
The idea of Web portals is nothing new. In fact, SharePoint is not even a totally new idea, with SharePoint Portal Server (and Windows SharePoint Services version 2) being first introduced in 2003 (or even SharePoint Team Services first released in 2001). But with the introduction of Microsoft Offices SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS) and Windows SharePoint Services version 3 (WSS), Web portal development took a huge leap forward. Many new technologies were introduced, and since they were built on the .NET 2.0 Framework, MOSS and WSS were able to capitalize on many of the new and cool features that made that framework release so amazing.
But if you look at any bookstore or online book retailer for books on SharePoint, there is a woeful lack of releases that deal specifically with design. Sure, there are several books out on MOSS and WSS, but mostly they focus on the nuts and bolts of making SharePoint work. There might be a chapter here and there that deals with things that are important to the design of your SharePoint portal, but the chapter is included in a larger scope that, frankly, doesn't overly concern itself with the way your SharePoint site looks.
The consequence to this unfortunate gap in available manuscripts is that many SharePoint sites out there look pretty much the same as any other SharePoint site. In fact, it's not uncommon for anyone familiar with SharePoint to be able to look at a site built on SharePoint technologies and be able to immediately determine ...
