So I’ve spent a great deal of time over this 4th of July holiday working on Cabernet and I have to say, it’s beginning to look presentable.

A big props to everyone at Dynamic Drive from where I’m happy to admit I stole CSS styles for the main and sub-menus. I’ve also made a number of tweaks to try to have a sensible color theme which should help with how the pages show on the eyes. Considering I’m well known for making the most ugliest web UI’s known to man (yes, I wrote the OneSecure/NetScreen IDP ACM), I consider this a big win.

I’ve also added a lot of code behind the scenes for user/group/permission administration- I’m still trying to figure out what exactly I’m going to do with the whole multi-user thing, but it’s good to allow users to be able to create accounts, login and be a part of groups and assign permissions.

Anyways, I still need to decide what nitch in the market Cabernet should try to fill. Being a RoR application, means it’s very portable, but also harder for most people to deploy. I could also go the more centralized hosting route, but I’m not sure I want to run a website for a bunch of strangers in my free time… not to mention the cost associated with doing so would be out of pocket. I guess I need to find some online wine forums and see what kind of interest there is.