RDFa On Rails uses now SCOT for tag events

SCOT (Social Semantic Cloud of Tags) was just announced on the tagsonomy mailing list, I decided to use it to represent tags in RDFa on Rails. So using :

<% rdfa_tag tag_uri do %>
<%= link_to term, tag_uri%>
<%end%>


will now produce a “scot:Tag” class, we are also provided with a new property, “hasTag” which we use in the <%= rdfa_link_to_tag term, tag_uri %> partial…

RDFa on Rails goes version 0.0.4

RDFa On Rails, the Semantic Web made simple

I just released the first version (well already 0.0.3, after small fixes) of RDFa On rails. It is a quite early release so don’t expect too much . For those urged to try it just do :

sudo gem install rdfa

You can find the API documentation and the project website for more info. Basically it is a library which provides some abstractions to developers by means of helper methods to publish RDFa data.

The package comes with a theme for typo, the blogging system built on top of rails. To install it just go in the themes folder or your typo installation and type:

rdfa-typo

Then activate the theme and that’s it, your blog articles are published embedding RDFa.

In your rails apps try the following, for instance to publish a resource :

<% rdfa_resource url_for(resource) do %>

   <h3><%= rdfa_label resource.name %></h3>

   <%= rdfa_description resource.text %>

   <h4>Created by : <%= rdfa_creator url_for(resource.author)%></h4>

<% end %>

There is still much work do be done, help and comment is welcome.

dpolls doesn’t work on WordPress

I just discovered a web2.0 app I didn’t know of… dpolls.com

dPolls.com is a website dedicated to providing the best online polling experience available. Make your opinion heard by voting to any poll you’d like.Let other people know what you think, and find out if people think the same as you.

Then, I thought, well let’s try it and create a poll… Here it is, you have 6 months to answer it…:

ahah, doesn’t work, the HTML code you have to copy/paste (as any other widget, like google ads, del.icio.us or youtube videos…) is just horrible, they could definitely make it better by embedding the whole thing in a javascript script for instance… it seems wordpress doesn’t like it at all as it uses an iframe it removes it from the post, stupid restrictions… here is my last try, otherwise you can always go to the poll by following this link :

Too bad it doesn’t work, the idea is good…

Fresh install on a macbook pro

I got a new macbook pro at work, how wonderful is that? Typical users would use the migration assistant to “migrate” their user data and applications from a computer to another. This seems great, but, first when you are a developer or simply you use some open source tools, the migration won’t move your latex or rails install, so you’ll have to do it yourself, by re-installing, also because some of these things are compiled, and between the powerbook and the macbook the biggest difference besides the integrated webcam is the processor… Then I used the migration assistant to migrate my account in the last 4 mac I had, this means that I cary lots of unuseful stuff such as old applications I don’t use, Libraries for applications I don’t even have anymore and crap data. This is time to put an end to this and re-organize.

First thing, mount your old computer using firewire or through the network (I use both firewire for the first big thing, then the wireless Lan). Then copy some libraries from the Library folder of your old user, I moved there the Mail folder, Journler, Firefox, well shortly support for the applications I use the most. Then move also your preferences (Library/preferences) again for the apps you use the most. Move the iTunes folder to your music and the applciations you want to keep (Textmate, Journler, omnigraffle, mplayer, vlc…). We are done with what the Migration assistant would have done.

Then for open source software I use macport, which is a package manager. It first needs you to install the developer tools (needs the gcc compiler and header files) so you do install this (I downloaded it from the web, but you also have it on your osx cds). Then download and install macport. So what do we want to install with this? Use the terminal to type the following commands. oh and don’t forget to add “/opt/local/bin” to your path in /etc/profile.

Latex:

sudo port install tetex

Versionning systems:

sudo port install subversion

sudo port install bazaar-ng

Ruby and Rubygems:

sudo port install ruby

sudo port install rb-rubygems

I don’t like mysql for development I simply use sqlite:

sudo port install sqlite3

Then the gems install for rails:

sudo gem install -y rails

sudo gem install -y sqlite3-ruby

Everything is set, I tested rails, svn and latex compiling with pdflatex… all works fine. Now I need to re-organize my data and that’s another story…

Mnemosyne

Connecting and Sharing Memories and Cultural Experiences

Two days ago, we submitted an EU project proposal for a project named “Mnemosyne”, I though I would not speak of it before the feedback, but as thomas, our project coordinator, already blogged about it, I thought I could do it as well.

You can find the abstract on thomas’ blog, so I won’t copy paste it here… So what’s the idea? well here is Mnemosyne recipe:

1. Take the web2.0 ideas of simplicity, interoperability and social amplitude
2. Add some semantic web/computing power
3. Choose the best possible case study, Cultural Heritage
4. Connect the right people together
5. Shake it
6. Shake it again

Here it is you’ve got the idea. So some resources now:

1. the post here about the talk I gave last year in Peter Samis’ class which kind of originated all this.
2. The steve.museum project, which I blogged about too. Steve experiments with social tagging in the context of museums.
3. Then the people, our university of lugano, its faculty of informatics, the tec-lab, the usability lab of KTH, the semantic web researchers of DFKI, the PRC group.
4. The museums involved, Centre Georges Pompidou, Istituto Beni Culturali per la Regione Emilia Romagna, the thessaloniki Museum of photography.

The web, science and all that…

I just read about tim’s talk in WWW2007 about web science. I do not believe web science is a good thing or a good name, but still it seems quite interesting and important to do more scientific work around the web. It is indeed very true that the web is full of phenomena that you can track measure, simulate etc.. But what are these phenomena essentially? Human activity and I would say there is already a science studying humans, social sciences in the english speaking world. So why the need of a new science, I don’t know except it might be the next thing in the “I want everything on and about the web” phenomenon…

Anyway, this is not what interest me here. Tim presented the process, the scientific process that web science followed and follows. And what a great coincidence, it is graphically so similar to the process we have been developing in Nepomuk and described already in this blog that I can’t resist to look at both here. So here they are:

So here they are, tim’s cycle on the left, cédric’s cycle on the right. Similarities, well they both are cycles (there is always something more to do…next iteration) then they don’t describe exactly the same thing, one interesting thing are the terms “complexity/creativity” which maps in the other diagram to bubbles “usages/abstractions”(well now it’s abstract architecture as the diagram is more engineering oriented, but if you dig in earlier posts, you’ll find “abstractions” emerging from “creation”), so although we use different terminology, these are similar. Difference, well the main one is tim’s cycle goes only one way (forward engineering/inductive methodology) when the other one spins both ways(inductive/deductive , forward engineering/reverse engineering). Anyway, there could be much more said about this, both are great, we are going somewhere.