Preface

Web 2.0 Ajax portals are among the most successful web applications of the Web 2.0 generation. iGoogle and Pageflakes are the pioneers in this market and were among the first to show Ajax's potential. Portal sites give users a personal homepage with one-stop access to information and entertainment from all over the Web, as well as dashboards that deliver powerful content aggregation for enterprises. A Web 2.0 portal can be used as a content repository just like a SharePoint or DotNetNuke site. Because they draw on Ajax to deliver rich, client-side interactivity, Web 2.0 portals improve usability and provide faster performance compared to non-Ajax web sites. Also, because portals are commonly composed of widgets (small plug-and-play type applications), there's no limit to how much functionality you can provide, simply by adding more and more widgets. Their use also keeps the core architecture of the portal clean and simple because widgets are developed and maintained independently. DotNetNuke is a great example of a widget-powered portal concept that has created a new era in highly decoupled enterprise web applications.

This book takes a fresh new look at portal solutions using the latest cutting-edge technologies from Microsoft. In developing personal, educational, community, and enterprise portals, I have had to deal with many interesting design, development, scalability, performance, and production challenges. In this book, I have tried to show solutions to some of these challenges by building an open source Web 2.0 Portal prototype, and then walk you through through the design and architectural challenges, advanced Ajax concepts, performance optimization techniques, and server-side scalability challenges involved. The prototype also shows you practical implementation of the cutting-edge .NET 3.0 and 3.5 frameworks, including LINQ and the Windows Workflow Foundation. Moreover, it explores Ajax web site details, browser performance and compatibility challenges, security challenges, and ASP.NET AJAX framework advantages and shortcomings.

The project is available at Dropthings.OmarALZabir.com. Dropthings is an open source example of what can be done with the new technologies from Microsoft. It is intended for educational purposes only. Although it does come close to real web portal (like Page-flakes) in terms of its feature set, performance, security, and scalability, it does a good job of showing you how to put together several new technologies in a working web application.