What is SitePower3G?
Simply put, SitePower3G is a Content Management System (CMS) that is used to build and maintain web systems.
We use the term "web systems" instead of web sites because most of our applications provide far more than just a web site. Our web systems for organizations provide the web site visible to the public but also provide member/contact info management, communication capability, and other features as well as the ability to remotely manage web site content.
We call it "3G" because it is the third generation in our system development.
SitePower1G:
Our first system, now referred to as "1G", was written using Cold Fusion 1.0, a tag-based language that allows incorporating information from database records into an HTML stream; we now refer to that as "1G" and we started it in 1996. The basic pages were written in raw HTML in the beginning but Dave switched to Microsoft FrontPage 1.0 when it became available and incorporated the Cold Fusion content into those pages.
SitePower2G:
Our "2G" system was created when the price of upgrading Cold Fusion, then in version 3.0, became prohibitive for a small part-time development business. So in 2002 we converted all our programming to ASP.NET 1.0 and continued with ASP.NET 1.1. This was done by converting the older Cold Fusion functions into ASP.NET functions, but the main structural concepts were mostly retained.
SitePower3G:
But as ASPNET matured into ASP.NET 2.0 and beyond (now in version ASP.NET 4.0), with new technologies and capabilties, Dave rewrote his whole engine into the "3G" version in use today. SitePower3G makes use of masterpages and involves a complete structural change from the earlier versions.
SitePower4G next?
Dave has started moving on to some new concepts that will probably result in a SitePower4G version. All previous versions used Microsoft Access as the database but the newer version will use SQL Server. SitePower3G started using a membership and role system developed independently by Dave but some of the later SitePower3G sites had adopted an Access version of ASP.NET's membership and role system. SitePower4G will continue that process but using the native SQL Server methods instead of Access. SitePower3G had started using some AJAX techniques but SitePower4G will start with more AJAX right from the start.