As part of my skin bundle (fingers crossed due to be officially released in a couple weeks) I will be including this easter egg :). That’s right a Stark Industries WebCenter Spaces Skin!!

It’s still in its early conceptual design phase, so don`t expect this to be the final result..
But for you interested - click to see the larger design.. When your bored of your current skin flip over to this one

Before anyone comments - this may be just an image but from my experience of customising Spaces everything in this crazy over the top design can be converted to a Spaces skin..

I hope you guys enjoy this latest skin - as you can see its based on the original white design - I did back in December with a few slight alterations.

No I didn’t reskin firefox aswell, before anyone comments
Search for NASA Night Launch to download the firefox skin if you really like it..

Yes I know you are all asking for the extended trinidad css skin files for the design - in a couple of weeks fingers crossed I`ll have them complete and you`ll all be able to get them install them and alter them as you wish.

I’ll also be working on a complete new interface for Spaces approaching it from a Social networking view rather than a portal widget styled design that Spaces currently implements!!
So think facebook, linkedIn, MySpace’d version of Spaces for connecting and collaborating… I have my work cut out for me - but its going to be great fun….

##Update ##

I have thrown together a few widgets.. This is just a quick mockup and not a final representation..
And yes for all you designers obsessed with following the box model guidelines - I`m sorry.. But I prefer randomness than conforming to the rule..
And with this design it seems to actually work

Last month I was over at the Oracle offices in Reading; redeveloping the Avitek Sample Portal working to achieve a design that would be more appealing to future  clients and help show the potential of what could be done with WebCenter.

We all know that Oracle always provide powerful functionality over aesthetics and a  good interface design.
Those sales guys must have a pretty hard job selling Webcenter over Sharepoint - I mean if you weren’t technically minded and Microsoft first came in and did a demo of sharepoint and then Oracle came in and demo`d Webcenter - I know who I`d choose purely on looks.

Unfortunately, I don’t have any screens of the Avitek development, but here are a few of a reskin of spaces which I used as a bases for the Avitek development.

So whats next for me and Webcenter.. Well, I have been fortunate to be given a copy of  Webcenter 11g Handbook - so its been used for weekend and bed time reading; there’s alot of good guides in it. A full review on this will be coming soon, but it’s definitely got to be a book on your shelf.  During February, I’ve been taken on to assist migration of a Sharepoint project to Webcenter - this is going to be my first client project with Webcenter - its going to be good and cant wait to see the challenges that lie ahead of me.. Keep an eye out and I`ll let you know how it goes.

Another site begins its transformation..
This time RoadTrackRace.com

After spending 4 days playing with WebCenter 11g - 3 of which were spent at the Oracle Office in Reading - it was about time to start doing some actual development!
BTW - Thanks goes out to the trainers - Angelo Santagata & Flavius Sana - great job with reducing course down from 5 to 3 days last minute

So the first task - I have on my agenda will be to try to create a skin - Above you can see the quick concept I threw together.. The content page you can see will be a mashup of the BBC site - which I plan to try and use Ensemble to grab elements of the BBC and link in with my own little twitter custom concept design…

What do you guys think
I need to get some more icons sorted for the personal sidebar but its enough to get started with.

Read on if you want to see the Original skins supplied with 11g

(more…)