Shane has started a weblog covering how to customize a SharePoint web site to create a site that provides some form of content management, etc. The first few posts are up, and it looks like it will be a detailed, step-by-step tutorial for people who want to learn something about SharePoint customization.

From his weblog: 

"This entry will likely span into a 4-5 part tutorial on creating a SharePoint site that looks like a 'real' website.

"I'll try and take things step-by-step in creating a "real website" and then converting it into a SharePoint site. I will keep it as simple as possible so that it's relatively easy to follow.

"For anyone that just wants to follow along and get their feet wet I will include everything I've used for the site creation, HTML/Graphics/CSS etc.

"This will be a fairly long post(s) but hopefully if there are a few people out there experiencing the SharePoint (Learning Pains) this should help you.

"I'm going to be fairly in-depth about the entire process of the site creation, covering everything from; brainstorming, what make's sense/what doesn't, sketching, creating the graphics, creating the site, styling the site and finally converting everything to a fully content-managed and dynamically driven SharePoint Site."

Sounds great to me - I've implemented a large number of SharePoint sites, and have done some amount of customization, but I am interested in reading Shane's guide and learning some more. He's also posted a list of what to expect from the tutorial:

Overview:

Step-by-Step guide on creating a SharePoint website that looks like a "real website".

Things to Cover:

• Why SharePoint? - Benefits of creating a site based on SharePoint
• Brainstorming - What's the purpose of the site
• Planning - Creating a site that works for both the end-user, and the owner
• Sketches - Laying the groundwork
• Graphical UI - Bring your sketches to life
• Initial Site Creation - Setting the stage w/ SharePoint in mind
• Creating a WSS "SharePoint Site" - The "basic" SharePoint site
• Setting up the dynamic elements - Lists, Libraries and all that fun stuff!
• SharePoint Conversion - Turning your site into a SharePoint Site
• Programming (without a) a Programmer! - Let's bring in those dynamic elements and create some nifty data-views
• Styling the site (CSS) - Styling the data-views and other elements to be visually appealing
• Styling the admin pages using "themes" - Step-by-Step on theme setup and customization
• Backing up your work - Using FrontPage 2003 to backup your work
• The Final Result! - See, that wasn't so hard now was it!