Kingsley Idehen's Blog Data Spacehttp://www.openlinksw.com/weblog/public/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=hello%20data%20web&type=text&output=htmlFri, 29 Mar 2024 06:33:35 GMTKingsley Uyi Idehen<kidehen@openlinksw.com>About hello data web7 1 10 While I continue to wrestle with screencast production etc.. Here is are some screenshots that guide you through the process of providing Data Web URIs to the SPARQL Query Builder (first cut of an MS Query or MS ACCESS type tool for the Data Web).

  1. Step 1 - Enter a Data Source URI
  2. Step 2 - Click on the Run Control (">" video control icon)
  3. Step 3 - Interact with Custom Grid hosted results (comprised of Resource Identifiers (S), Properties (P), and Property Values (O).

Once you grasp the concept of entering values into the "Default Data Source URI field", take a look at: http://programmableweb.com and other URIs (hint: scroll through the results grid to the QEDWiki demo item)

]]>
Hello Data Web (Take 2 - with Screenshots)http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1137Sun, 18 Feb 2007 15:23:42 GMT32007-02-18T10:23:42-05:00Kingsley Uyi Idehen <kidehen@openlinksw.com>
The simple demo use our Ajax based Visual Query Builder for the SPARQL Query Language (this isn't Grandma's Data Web UI, but not to worry, that is on it's way also). Here goes:

  1. go to http://demo.openlinksw.com/isparql
  2. Enter any of the following values into the "Default Data URI"; field:
    • - http://www.mkbergman.com/?p=336
      - http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/02/pipes_and_filte.html
      - http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/008513.html
      - Other URIs

What I am demonstrating is how existing Web Content hooks transperently into the "Data Web". Zero RDF Tax :-) Everything is good!

Note: Please look to the bottom of the screen for the "Run Query" Button. Remember, it not quite Grandma's UI but should do for Infonauts etc.. A screencast will follow.

]]>
Hello Data Web!http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1134Tue, 05 Feb 2008 04:22:04 GMT112008-02-04T23:22:04.000001-05:00Kingsley Uyi Idehen <kidehen@openlinksw.com>
As I have stated, and implied, in various posts about the Data Web and burgeoning Semantic Web in general; the value of RDF is felt rather than seen (driven by presence as opposed to web sites). That said, it is always possible to use the visual Interactive-Web dimension (Web 1.0) as a conduit to the Data-Web dimension.

In this third take on my introduction to the Data Web I would like to share a link with you (a Dynamic Start Page in Web 2.0 parlance) with a Data Web twist: You do not have to preset the Start Page Data Sources (this is a small-big thing, if you get my drift, hopefully!).

Here are some Data Web based Dynamic Start Pages that I have built for some key play ers from the Semantic Web realm (in random order):

  1. Dan Brickley
  2. Tim Berners-Lee
  3. Dan Connolly
  4. Danny Ayers
  5. Planet RDF

"These are RDF prepped Data Sources....", you might be thinking, right? Well here is the reminder: The Data Web is a Global Data Generation and Integration Effort. Participation may be active (Semantic Web & Microformats Community), or passive (web sites, weblogs, wikis, shared bookmarks, feed subscription, discussion forums, mailing lists etc..). Irrespective of participation mode, RDF instance can be generated from close to anything (I say this because I plan to add binary files holding metadata to this mix shortly). Here are examples of Dynamic Start Pages for non RDF Data Sources:

  1. del.icio.us Web 2.0 Events Bookmarks
  2. Vecosys
  3. Techcrunch
  4. Jon Udell's Blog
  5. Dave Winer's Scripting News
  6. Robert Scoble's Blog

what about Microformats you may be wondering? Here goes:

  1. Microformats Wiki (click on the Brian Suda link for instance)
  2. Microformats Planet
  3. Del.icio.us Microformats Bookmarks
  4. Ben Adida's home page (RDFa)

Let's carry on.

How about some traditional Web Sites? Here goes:

  1. OpenLink Software's Home Page
  2. Oracle's Home Page
  3. Apple's Home Page
  4. Microsoft's Home Page
  5. IBM's Home Page

And before I forget, here is My Data Web Start Page .

Due to the use of Ajax in the Data Web Start Pages, IE6 and Safari will not work. For Mac OS X users, Webkit works fine. Ditto re. IE7 on Windows.

]]>
Hello Data Web (Take 3 - Feel The "RDF" Force)http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1144Sat, 24 Feb 2007 22:01:28 GMT22007-02-24T17:01:28-05:00Kingsley Uyi Idehen <kidehen@openlinksw.com>
Last week we officially released Virtuoso 5.0.1 (in Commercial and Open Source Editions). The press release provided us with an official mechanism and timestamp for the current Virtuoso feature set.

A vital component of the new Virtuoso release is the finalization of our SQL to RDF mapping functionality -- enabling the declarative mapping of SQL Data to RDF. Additional technical insight covering other new features (delivered and pending) is provided by Orri Erling, as part of a series of post-Banff posts.

Why is SQL to RDF Mapping a Big Deal?

A majority of the world's data (especially in the enterprise realm) resides in SQL Databases. In addition, Open Access to the data residing in said databases remains the biggest challenge to enterprises for the following reasons:

  1. SQL Data Sources are inherently heterogeneous because they are acquired with business applications that are in many cases inextricably bound to a particular DBMS engine
  2. Data is predictably dirty
  3. DBMS vendors ultimately hold the data captive and have traditionally resisted data access standards such as ODBC (*trust me they have, just look at the unprecedented bad press associated with ODBC the only truly platform independent data access API. Then look at how this bad press arose..*)

Enterprises have known from the beginning of modern corporate times that data access, discovery, and manipulation capabilities are inextricably linked to the "Real-time Enterprise" nirvana (hence my use of 0.0 before this becomes 3.0).

In my experience, as someone whose operated in the data access and data integration realms since the late '80s, I've painfully observed enterprises pursue, but unsuccessfully attain, full control over enterprise data (the prized asset of any organization) such that data-, information-, knowledge-workers are just a click away from commencing coherent platform and database independent data drill-downs and/or discovery that transcend intranet, internet, and extranet boundaries -- serendipitous interaction with relevant data, without compromise!

Okay, situation analysis done, we move on..

At our most recent (12th June) monthly Semantic Web Gathering, I unveiled to TimBL and a host of other attendees a simple, but powerful, demonstration of how Linked Data, as an aspect of the Semantic Data Web, can be applied to enterprise data integration challenges.

Actual SQL to RDF Mapping Demo / Experiment

Hypothesis

A SQL Schema can be effectively mapped declaratively to RDF such that SQL Rows morph into RDF Instance Data (Entity Sets) based on the Concepts & Properties defined in a Concrete Conceptual Data Model oriented Data Dictionary (RDF Schema and/or OWL Ontology). In addition, the solution must demonstrate how "Linked Data in the Web" is completely different from "Data on the Web" or "Linked Data on the Web" (btw - Tom Heath eloquently unleashed this point in his recent podcast interview with Talis).

Apparatus

An Ontology - in this case we simply derived the Northwind Ontology from the XML Schema based CSDL (Conceptual Schema Definition Language) used by Microsoft's public Astoria demo (specifically the Northwind Data Services demo). SQL Database Schema - Northwind (comes bundled with ACCESS, SQL Server, and Virtuoso) comprised of tables such as: Customer, Employee, Product, Category, Supplier, Shipper etc. OpenLink Virtuoso - SQL DBMS Engine (although this could have been any ODBC or JDBC accessible Database), SQL-RDF Metaschema Language, HTTP URL-rewriter, WebDAV Engine, and DBMS hosted XSLT processor Client Tools - iSPARQL Query Builder, RDF Browser (which could also have been Tabulator or DISCO or a standard Web Browser)

Experiment / Demo

  1. Declaratively map the Northwind SQL Schema to RDF using the Virtuoso Meta Schema Language (see: Virtuoso PL based Northwind_SQL_RDF script)
  2. Start browsing the data by clicking on the URIs that represent the RDF Data Model Entities resulting from the SQL to RDF Mapping

Observations

  1. Via a single Data Link click I was able to obtain specific information about the Customer represented by the URI "ALFKI" (act of URI Dereferencing as you would an Object ID in an Object or Object-Relational Database)
  2. Via a Dynamic Data Page I was able to explore all the entity relationships or specific entity data (i.e Exploratory or Entity specific dereferencing) in the Northwind Data Space
  3. I was able to perform similar exploration (as per item 2) using our OpenLink Browser.

Conclusions

The vision of data, information, or knowledge at your fingertips is nigh! Thanks to the infrastructure provided by the Semantic Data Web (URIs, RDF Data Model, variety of RDF Serialization Formats[1][2][3], and Shared Data Dictionaries / Schemas / Ontologies [1][2][3][4][5]) it's now possible to Virtualize enterprise data from the Physical Storage Level, through the Logical Data Management Levels (Relational), up to a Concrete Conceptual Model (Graph) without operating system, development environment or framework, or database engine lock-in.

Next Steps

We produce a shared ontology for the CRM and Business Reporting Domains. I hope this experiment clarifies how this is quite achievable by converting XML Schemas to RDF Data Dictionaries (RDF Schemas or Ontologies). Stay tuned :-)

Also watch TimBL amplify and articulate Linked Data value in a recent interview.

Other Related Matters

To deliver a mechanism that facilitates the crystallization of this reality is a contribution of boundless magnitude (as we shall all see in due course). Thus, it is easy to understand why even "her majesty", the queen of England, simply had to get in on the act and appoint TimBL to the "British Order of Merit" :-)

Note: All of the demos above now work with IE & Safari (a "remember what Virtuoso is epiphany") by simply putting Virtuoso's DBMS hosted XSLT engine to use :-) This also applies to my earlier collection of demos from the Hello Data Web and other Data Web & Linked Data related demo style posts.

]]>
Enterprise 0.0, Linked Data, and Semantic Data Webhttp://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1224Tue, 05 Feb 2008 04:19:26 GMT42008-02-04T23:19:26.000001-05:00Kingsley Uyi Idehen <kidehen@openlinksw.com>
Frederick Giasson has put out a number of interesting posts (via his blog) about a conceptual Music Data Space (one of many Data Spaces that will ultimately permeate the Semantic Data Web). Anyway, While reading his initial post covering Music Domain URIs and Linked Data, it occurred to me that by only exposing the raw RDF instance data (RDF/XML format in this case) via URIs for: Diana Ross, Paul McCartney, The Beatles, and Madonna, the essence of the post may not be revealed to all, so I've knocked up a few demos to illustrate the core message:

Note: the enhanced hyperlink (typed data link) lookup presents options to perform an Explore (all data about subject across Domains in the data space i.e. data links to and from Subject), Dereference (specific data in the Subject's Domain i.e. data links originating from subject).

  1. Diana Ross
  2. Paul McCartney
  3. The Beatles
  4. Madonna

I built these Linked Data Pages by simply doing the following:

  1. Open up our OAT based iSPARQL (Interactive SPARQL Query By Example) Tool
  2. Paste a URI of Interest into the Data Source URI input field
  3. Execute the Query (hitting the ">" button)
  4. Saving the Query to WebDAV as a Linked Data Page (or what I initial called Dynamic Data Web pages in my Hello Data Web series of posts).
  5. Share your Data, Information, Knowledge with others via URIs (as shown in the section above).
]]>
Exploring a Music Data Space via Linked Data http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1204Tue, 05 Feb 2008 04:20:47 GMT22008-02-04T23:20:47.000003-05:00Kingsley Uyi Idehen <kidehen@openlinksw.com>
Scobleizer's had a Semantic Web Epiphany but can't quite nail down what his discovered in laymans prose :-)

Well, I'll have a crack at helping him out i.e. defining the Semantic Data Web in simple terms with linked examples :-)

Tip: Watch the recent TimBL video interview re. the Semantic Data Web before, during, or after reading this post.

Here goes!

The popular Web is a "Web of Documents". The Semantic Data Web is a "Web of Data". Going down a level, the popular web connects documents across the web via hyperlinks. The Semantic Data Web connects data on the web via hyperlinks. Next level, hyperlinks on the popular web have no inherent meaning (lack context beyond: "there is another document"). Hyperlinks on the Semantic Data Web have inherent meaning (they possess context: "there is a Book" or "there is a Person" or "this is a piece of Music" etc..).

Very simple example:

Click the traditional web document URLs for Dan Connolly and Tim Berners-Lee. Then attempt to discern how they are connected. Of course you will see some obvious connections by reading the text, but you won't easily discern other data driven connections. Basically, this is no different to reading about either individual in a print journal, bar the ability to click on hyperlinks that open up other pages. The Data Extraction process remains labour intensive :-(

Repeat the exercise using the traditional web document URLs as Data Web URIs, this time around, paste the hyperlinks above into an RDF aware Browser (in this case the OpenLink RDF Browser). Note, we are making a subtle but critical change i.e. the URLs are now being used as Semantic Data Web URIs (a small-big-deal kind of thing).

If you're impatient or simply strapped for time (aren't we all these days), simply take a look at these links:

  1. Dan Connolly (DanC) RDF Browser Session permalink
  2. Tim Berners-Lee (TimBL) RDF Browser Session permalink
  3. TimBL and DanC combined RDF Browser Session permalink

Note: There are other RDF Browsers out there such as:

  1. Tabulator
  2. DISCO
  3. Objectviewer

All of these RDF Browsers (or User Agents) demonstrate the same core concepts in subtly different ways.

If I haven't lost you, proceed to a post I wrote a few weeks ago titled: Hello Data Web (Take 3 - Feel the "RDF" Force).

If you've made it this far, simply head over to DBpedia for a lot of fun :-)

Note Re. my demos: we make use of SVG in our RDF Browser which makes them incompatible with IE (6 or 7) and Safari. That said, Firefox (1.5+), Opera 9.x, WebKit (Open Source Safari), and Camino work fine.

Note to Scoble:

All the Blogs, Wikis, Shared Bookmarks, Image Galleries, Discussion Forums and the like are Semantic Web Data Spaces. The great thing about all of this is that through RSS 2.0's wild popularity, Blogosphere has done what I postulated about a while back: The Semantic Web would be self-annotating, and so it has come to be :-)

To prove the point above: paste your blog's URL into the OpenLink RDF Browser and see it morph into a Semantic Data Web URI (a pointer to Web Data that's you've created) once you click the "Query" button (click on the TimeLine tab for full effect). The same applies to del.icio.us, Flickr, Googlebase, and basically any REST style Web Service as per my RDF Middleware post.

Lazy Semantic Web Callout:

If you're a good animator (pro or hobbyist), please produce an animation of a document going through a shredder. The strips that emerge from the shredder represent the granular data that was once the whole document. The same thing is happening on the Web right now, we are putting photocopies of (X)HTML documents through the shredder (in a good way) en route to producing granular items of data that remain connected to the original copy while developing new and valuable connections to other items of Web Data.

That's it!

]]>
Describing the Semantic Data Web (Take 3)http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1180Fri, 13 Apr 2007 21:15:42 GMT32007-04-13T17:15:42-04:00Kingsley Uyi Idehen <kidehen@openlinksw.com>

XMP and microformats revisited: "

Yesterday I exercised poetic license when I suggested that Adobe’s Extensible metadata platform (XMP) was not only the spiritual cousin of microformats like hCalendar but also, perhaps, more likely to see widespread use in the near term. My poetic license was revoked, though, in a couple of comments:

Mike Linksvayer: How someone as massively clued-in as Jon Udell could be so misled as to describe XMP as a microformat is beyond me.

Danny Ayers: Like Mike I don’t really understand Jon’s references to microformats - I first assumed he meant XMP could be replaced with a uF.

Actually, I’m serious about this. If I step back and ask myself what are the essential qualities of a microformat, it’s a short list:

  1. A small chunk of machine-readable metadata,
  2. embedded in a document.

Mike notes:

XMP is embedded in a binary file, completely opaque to nearly all users; microformats put a premium on (practically require) colocation of metadata with human-visible HTML.

Yes, I understand. And as someone who is composing this blog entry as XHTML, in emacs, using a semantic CSS tag that will enable me to search for quotes by Mike Linksvayer and find the above fragment, I’m obviously all about metadata coexisting with human-readable HTML. And I’ve been applying this technique since long before I ever heard the term microformats — my own term was originally microcontent.

(Via Jon Udell.)

I believe Jon is acknowledging the fact that the propagation of metadata in "Binary based" Web data sources is no different to the microformats based propagation that is currently underway in full swing across the "Text based" Web data sources realm. He is reiterating the fact that the Web is self-annotating (exponentially) by way of Metadata Embedding. And yes, what he describes is a similar to Microformats in substance and propagation style :-)

Here is what I believe Jon is hoping to see:

  1. Binary files become valid data sources for Metadata oriented query processing. Technically I mean a binary file becomes a valid data source from which RDF Instance could be generated on the fly.
  2. Enhanement or unveiling of the Data Web by way of meshups that combine metadata from an array or data sources (not just the XML, (X)HTML, or RDF variety)
  3. The ability to use an array of query languages and techniques to construct these meshups

My little "Hello Data Web!" meme was about demonstrating a view that Danny has sought for a while: unobtrusive meshing of microformats and RDF via GRDDL and SPARQL binding that simply eliminates the often perceived "RDF Tax". Danny, Jon, myself, and many others have always understood that making the Data Web (Web of RDF Instance Data) more of a Force (Star Wars style) is the key to unravelling the power of the "Web as a Database". Of course, we also tend the describe our nirvana in different ways that sometimes obscures the fundamental commonality of vision that we all share.

Personally, I believe everyone should simply "feel the force" or observe "the bright and dark sides of the force" that is RDF. When this occurs en masse there will be a global epiphany (similar to what happened around the time of the initial unveiling of the Web of Hypertext). Jon's meme brings the often overlooked realm of binary based metadata sources into the general discourse.

JBinary Files as bona fide Data Web URIs (i.e. Metadata Sources) is much closer than you think :-) I should have my "Hello Data Web of Binary Data Sources" unveiled very soon!

]]>
XMP and microformats revisitedhttp://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1140Sat, 17 Feb 2007 17:43:05 GMT12007-02-17T12:43:05.000001-05:00Kingsley Uyi Idehen <kidehen@openlinksw.com>