Overview:

Here’s a new hallmark for geekiness here in the 21st Century - a “family extranet” (which means a website that is available via the public internet but is only accessible through a log-in).

A number of factors led to building the “Boyink Family Extranet”.  My wife had outgrown her Blogger blog.  In order to maintain a long-standing and much-loved tradition, I needed to make my kids a gift for Christmas.  As homeschoolers we saw a number of ways that blogs could be used for schoolwork. 

Starting with a fresh copy of ExpressionEngine and one of the default templates I went to work, and created 3 individual blogs plus installed the EE photo gallery module.  After a bit of development and some member-access configuration, the Boyink Family Extranet was born and has been a success.

Note that the same copy of ExpressionEngine powers both the public and private side of Boyink.com - a great example of how it could do the same for a small business website and extranet/intranet.