http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/
Kingsley Idehen's Blog Data Space
I have seen the future and it's full of Linked Data! :-)
kidehen@openlinksw.com
kidehen@openlinksw.com
2024-03-29T16:31:20Z
Virtuoso Universal Server 08.03.3327
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Simple Virtuoso Installation & Utilization Guide for SPARQL Users (Update 5)
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2011-01-16#1647
2011-01-16T07:06:21Z
2011-01-19T10:43:35-05:00
<h3>What is <a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SPARQL" id="link-id0x1ab60ac0">SPARQL</a>?</h3> <p>A declarative query language from the W3C for querying structured propositional <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data">data</a> (in the form of 3-<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuple" id="link-id0x1b1e0010">tuple</a> [triples] or 4-tuple [quads] records) stored in a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deductive_database" id="link-id0x1cf8af98">deductive database</a> (colloquially referred to as triple or quad stores in <a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Semantic_Web" id="link-id0x1caf5050">Semantic Web</a> and <a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id0x19d781b8">Linked Data</a> parlance).</p> <p>SPARQL is inherently platform independent. Like <a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SQL" id="link-id0x1b879140">SQL</a>, the query language and the backend database engine are distinct. Database clients capture SPARQL queries which are then passed on to compliant backend databases.</p> <h3>Why is it important?</h3> <p>Like SQL for relational databases, it provides a powerful mechanism for accessing and joining data across one or more data partitions (named graphs identified by IRIs). The aforementioned capability also enables the construction of sophisticated Views, Reports (HTML or those produced in native form by desktop productivity tools), and data streams for other services.</p> <p>Unlike SQL, SPARQL includes result serialization formats and an HTTP based wire protocol. Thus, the ubiquity and sophistication of HTTP is integral to SPARQL i.e., client side applications (user agents) only need to be able to perform an HTTP GET against a <a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Locator" id="link-id0x1ba287e8">URL</a> en route to exploiting the power of SPARQL.</p> <h3>How do I use it, generally?</h3> <ol> <li>Locate a SPARQL endpoint (<a href="http://dbpedia.org/sparql" id="link-id0x1d7436b0">DBpedia</a>, <a href="http://lod.openlinksw.com/sparql" id="link-id0x1bf20690">LOD Cloud Cache</a>, <a href="http://semantic.data.gov" id="link-id0x1a8ebc28">Data.Gov</a>, <a href="http://linkeddata.uriburner.com/sparql" id="link-id0x1be93070">URIBurner</a>, <a href="http://www.delicious.com/kidehen/sparql_endpoint" id="link-id0x1cce9b40">others</a>), or;</li> <li>Install a SPARQL compliant database server (quad or triple store) on your desktop, workgroup server, data center, or cloud (e.g., <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/Main/VirtuosoEC2AMI" id="link-id0x1cd697a0">Amazon EC2 AMI</a>)</li> <li>Start the database server</li> <li>Execute SPARQL Queries via the <a href="http://lod.openlinksw.com/sparql" id="link-id0x1b99d790">SPARQL endpoint.</a> </li> </ol> <h3>How do I use SPARQL with <a class="auto-href" href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com" id="link-id0x1c9adc80">Virtuoso</a>?</h3> <p>What follows is a very simple guide for using SPARQL against your own instance of Virtuoso:</p> <ol> <li>Software Download and Installation</li> <li>Data Loading from Data Sources exposed at Network Addresses (e.g. HTTP URLs) using very simple methods</li> <li>Actual SPARQL query execution via SPARQL endpoint.</li> </ol> <h3>Installation Steps</h3> <ol> <li> Download <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/Main/VOSDownload" id="link-id0x1b795100">Virtuoso Open Source</a> or <a href="http://download.openlinksw.com/virtwiz/virtuoso.php" id="link-id0x1cce46f0">Virtuoso Commercial</a> Editions </li> <li> Run installer (if using Commercial edition of Windows Open Source Edition, otherwise follow build guide) </li> <li> Follow post-installation guide and verify installation by typing in the command: virtuoso -? (if this fails check you've followed installation and setup steps, then verify environment variables have been set) </li> <li> Start the Virtuoso server using the command: virtuoso-start.sh </li> <li> Verify you have a connection to the Virtuoso Server via the command: isql localhost (assuming you're using default DB settings) or the command: isql localhost:1112 (assuming demo database) or goto your browser and type in: http://<virtuoso-server-host-name>:[port]/conductor (e.g. http://localhost:8889/conductor for default DB or http://localhost:8890/conductor if using Demo DB) </li> <li> Go to SPARQL endpoint which is typically -- http://<virtuoso-server-host-name>:[port]/sparql </li> <li> Run a quick sample query (since the database always has system data in place): select distinct * where {?s ?p ?o} limit 50 .</li> </ol> <h3>Troubleshooting</h3> <ol> <li>Ensure environment settings are set and functional -- if using Mac OS X or Windows, so you don't have to worry about this, just start and stop your Virtuoso server using native OS services applets</li> <li>If using the Open Source Edition, follow the <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/Main/VOSMake#Getting%20Started" id="link-id0x1bfa7548">getting started guide</a> -- it covers PATH and startup directory location re. starting and stopping Virtuoso servers.</li> <li>Sponging (HTTP GETs against external Data Sources) within SPARQL queries is disabled by default. You can enable this feature by assigning "<a href="http://docs.openlinksw.com/virtuoso/rdfsparql.html#rdfsupportedprotocolendpointuri" id="link-id0x1d566270">SPARQL_SPONGE</a>" privileges to user "SPARQL". Note, more sophisticated security exists via <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/Main/VirtAuthPolicyFOAFSSL" id="link-id0x1a3c9eb8">WebID based ACLs</a>. </li> </ol> <h3>Data Loading Steps</h3> <ol> <li> Identify an RDF based structured data source of interest -- a file that contains 3-tuple / triples available at an address on a public or private HTTP based network </li> <li>Determine the Address (URL) of the RDF data source</li> <li>Go to your Virtuoso SPARQL endpoint and type in the following SPARQL query: DEFINE GET:SOFT "replace" SELECT DISTINCT * FROM <RDFDataSourceURL> WHERE {?s ?p ?o} </li> <li> All the triples in the RDF resource (data source accessed via URL) will be loaded into the Virtuoso Quad Store (using RDF Data Source URL as the internal quad store Named Graph IRI) as part of the SPARQL query processing pipeline. </li> </ol> <p> Note: the data source URL doesn't even have to be RDF based -- which is where the Virtuoso <a class="auto-href" href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/Whitepapers/html/VirtSpongerWhitePaper.html" id="link-id0x1d1a0978">Sponger</a> Middleware comes into play (download and install the <a href="http://s3.amazonaws.com/opldownload/uda/vad-packages/6.1/virtuoso/rdf_mappers_dav.vad" id="link-id0x1d0e1530">VAD installer package</a> first) since it delivers the following features to Virtuoso's SPARQL engine: </p> <ol> <li> Transformation of data from non RDF data sources (file content, hypermedia resources, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web">web</a> services output etc..) into RDF based 3-tuples (triples)</li> <li> Cache Invalidation Scheme Construction -- thus, subsequent queries (without the define get:soft "replace" pragma will not be required bar when you forcefully want to override cache).</li> <li> If you have very large data sources like DBpedia etc. from CKAN, simply use our <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/Main/VirtBulkRDFLoader" id="link-id0x1d19b4b0">bulk loader</a> . </li> </ol> <h3>SPARQL Endpoint Discovery</h3> <p>Public SPARQL endpoints are emerging at an ever increasing rate. Thus, we've setup up a DNS lookup service that provides access to a large number of SPARQL endpoints. Of course, this doesn't cover all existing endpoints, so if our endpoint is missing please ping <a class="auto-href" href="http://myopenlink.net/dataspace/person/kidehen#this" id="link-id0x1d634848">me</a>.</p> <p>Here are a collection of commands for using DNS-SD to discover SPARQL endpoints:</p> <ol> <li>dns-sd -B _sparql._tcp sparql.openlinksw.com -- browse for services instances</li> <li>dns-sd -Z _sparql._tcp sparql.openlinksw.com -- output results in Zone File format</li> <li></li> </ol> <h3>Related</h3> <ol> <li> <a href="http://www.ensta.fr/~diam/ruby/online/ruby-doc-stdlib/libdoc/net/http/rdoc/index.html" id="link-id0x1b156610">Using HTTP from Ruby</a> -- you can just make <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/Main/VOSSparqlProtocol" id="link-id0x1d024d60">SPARQL Protocol URLs</a> re. SPARQL</li> <li> <a href="http://sparql.rubyforge.org/client/" id="link-id0x1cd43a48">Using SPARQL Endpoints via Ruby</a> -- Ruby example using DBpedia endpoint</li> <li> <a href="http://wikis.openlinksw.com/dataspace/owiki/wiki/OATWikiWeb/InteractiveSparqlQueryBuilder" id="link-id0x1b9d2190">Interactive SPARQL Query By Example (QBE) tool</a> -- provides a graphical user interface (as is common in SQL realm re. query building against <a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Relational_database_management_system" id="link-id0x1bfffb70">RDBMS</a> engines) that works with any SPARQL endpoint </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/Main/VirtRDFInsert" id="link-id0x1ab63de0">Other methods of loading RDF data into Virtuoso</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/Main/VirtSponger" id="link-id0x1ca248e0">Virtuoso Sponger</a> -- architecture and how it turns a wide variety of non RDF data sources into SPARQL accessible data </li> <li> <a href="http://ode.openlinksw.com/example.html" id="link-id0x1be34758">Using OpenLink Data Explorer</a> (ODE) to populate Virtuoso -- locate a resource of interest; click on a bookmarklet or use <a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Context_%28language_use%29" id="link-id0x1ca84af0">context</a> menus (if using ODE extensions for Firefox, Safari, or Chrome); and you'll have SPARQL accessible data automatically inserted into your Virtuoso instance. </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1295" id="link-id0x1c9060f0">W3C's SPARQLing Data Access Ingenuity</a> -- an older generic SPARQL introduction post </li> <li> <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/Main/VirtSPARQLRef" id="link-id0x1cf1e298">Collection of SPARQL Query Examples </a>-- GoodRelations (Product Offers), <a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Friend_of_a_friend" id="link-id0x1c0445d0">FOAF</a> (Profiles), <a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SIOC" id="link-id0x1b785e48">SIOC</a> (Data Spaces -- <a href="http://ods.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/ODS/ODSAtomOWLRefExampleBlog" id="link-id0x1b6c9f78">Blogs</a>, <a href="http://ods.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/ODS/ODSAtomOWLRefExampleWiki" id="link-id0x1c188280">Wikis</a>, <a href="http://ods.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/ODS/ODSAtomOWLRefExampleBookmarks" id="link-id0x1a9a8f98">Bookmarks</a>, <a href="http://ods.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/ODS/ODSAtomOWLRefExampleFeeds" id="link-id0x1720c658">Feed Collections</a>, <a href="http://ods.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/ODS/ODSAtomOWLRefExampleGallery" id="link-id0x1cdba348">Photo Galleries</a>, <a href="http://ods.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/ODS/ODSAtomOWLRefExampleBriefcase" id="link-id0x1c8f1148">Briefcase/DropBox</a>, <a href="http://ods.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/ODS/ODSAtomOWLRefExampleAddressbook" id="link-id0x1b5eb7e0">AddressBook</a>, <a href="http://ods.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/ODS/ODSAtomOWLRefExampleCalendar" id="link-id0x1c575120">Calendars</a>, <a href="http://ods.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/ODS/ODSAtomOWLRefExampleDiscussions" id="link-id0x1c73be98">Discussion Forums</a>) </li> <li> <a href="http://lod.openlinksw.com/demo_queries/" id="link-id0x1b08aa00">Collection of Live SPARQL Queries against LOD Cloud Cache</a> -- simple and advanced queries. </li> </ol>
5 Very Important Things to Note about HTTP based Linked Data
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2010-01-31#1591
2010-01-31T22:31:35Z
2010-02-01T09:00:56-05:00
<ol> <li> It isn't <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web" id="link-id115dfd68">World Wide Web</a> Specific (HTTP != World Wide Web)</li> <li> It isn't Open <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data">Data</a> Specific </li> <li> It isn't about "Free" (Beer or Speech) </li> <li> It isn't about Markup (so don't expect to grok it via "markup first" approach) </li> <li>It's about <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id13a6aa98">Hyperdata</a> - the use of HTTP and REST to deliver a powerful platform agnostic mechanism for Data Reference, Access, and Integration.</li> </ol> <p> When trying to understand HTTP based <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id18aa1490">Linked Data</a>, especially if you're well versed in DBMS technology use (User, Power User, Architect, Analyst, DBA, or Programmer) think: <br /> </p> <ul> <li> Open Database Connectivity (<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Open_Database_Connectivity" id="link-id1428fba0">ODBC</a>) without operating system, data model, or wire-protocol specificity or lock-in potential </li> <li> Java Database Connectivity (<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Java_Database_Connectivity" id="link-id18d3c2a8">JDBC</a>) without programming language specificity </li> <li> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/ADO.NET" id="link-id125725b8">ADO</a>.NET without .NET runtime specificity and .NET bound language specificity </li> <li> OLE-DB without Windows operating system & programming language specificity </li> <li> XMLA without XML format specificity - with Tabular and Multidimensional results formats expressible in a variety of data representation formats. </li> <li>All of the above scoped to the Record rather than Container level, with Generic HTTP scheme URIs associated with each Record, Field, and Field value (optionally) </li> </ul> <p>Remember the need for Data Access & Integration technology is the by product of the following realities:</p> <ol> <li> Human curated data is ultimately dirty, because: <ul> <li>our thick thumbs, inattention, distractions, and general discomfort with typing, make typos prevalent</li> <li>database engines exist for a variety of data models - Graph, Relational, Hierarchical;</li> <li>within databases you have different record container/partition names e.g. Table Names;</li> <li>within a database record container you have records that are really aspects of the same thing (different keys exist in a plethora of operational / line of business systems that expose aspects of the same <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity" id="link-id13378338">entity</a> e.g., customer data that spans Accounts, CRM, ERP application databases);</li> <li>different field names (one database has "EMP" while another has "Employee") for the same record</li>.</ul> </li> <li>Units of measurement is driven by locale, the UK office wants to see sales in Pounds Sterling while the French office prefers Euros etc.</li> <li>All of the above is subject to <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Context_%28language_use%29" id="link-id17e46398">context</a> halos which can be quite granular re. sensitivity e.g. staff travel between locations that alter locales and their roles; basically, profiles matters a lot.</li> </ol> <h3>Related</h3> <ul> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1364" id="link-id128f0fe8">ODBC and WODBC (Web Open Database Connectivity) Comparison</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1364" id="link-id1367cd18">Creating, Deploying, and Exploiting Linked Data Presentation</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.odata.org/" id="link-id122ab708">Open Data Protocol Project</a> </li> </ul>
Live Virtuoso instance hosting Linked Open Data (LOD) Cloud
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2009-03-30#1539
2009-03-30T16:27:26Z
2009-04-01T14:26:22.000002-04:00
<p>We have reached a beachead re. the <a href="http://lod.openlinksw.com" id="link-id11a035e0">Virtuoso instance hosting the Linked Open Data (LOD) Cloud</a>; meaning, we are not going to be performing any major updates and deletions short-term, bar incorporation of fresh data sets from the Freebase and <a href="http://www.bio2rdf.org/" id="link-id121d7278">Bio2RDF</a> projects (both communities a prepping new RDF data sets).</p> <p>At the current time we have loaded 100% of all the very large data sets from the <a href="http://www4.wiwiss.fu-berlin.de/bizer/pub/lod-datasets_2009-03-05.html" id="link-id1441f7e0">LOD Cloud</a>. As result, we can start the process of exposing <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id16c53de8">Linked Data</a> virtues in a manner that's palatable to users, developers, and database professionals across the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web" id="link-id0x20165290">Web</a> 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0 spectrums.</p> <h3>What does this mean?</h3> <p>You can use the "Search & Find" or"<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Identifier" id="link-id119c6878">URI</a> Lookup" or <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SPARQL" id="link-id157acde8">SPARQL</a> endpoint associated with the LOD cloud hosting instance to perform the following tasks:</p> <p> </p> <ol> <li>Find entities associated with <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Full_text_search" id="link-id11a82f28">full text search</a> patterns -- Google Style, but with <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity" id="link-id131b6380">Entity</a> & Text proximity Rank instead of Page Rank, since we are dealing with Entities rather than documents about entities</li> <li>Find and Lookup entities by Identifier (URI) -- which is helpful when locating URIs to use for identify entities in your own linked data spaces on the Web</li> <li>View entity descriptions via a variety of representation formats (HTML, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/RDFa" id="link-id11e323b0">RDFa</a>, RDF/XML, N3, Turtle etc.)</li> <li>Determine uses of entity identifiers across the LOD cloud -- which helps you select preferred URIs based on usage statistics.</li> </ol> <h3>What does it offer Web 1.0 and 2.0 developers?</h3> <p> If you don't want to use the <a href="http://lod.openlinksw.com/sparql" id="link-id15c1ec30">SPARQL based Web Service</a>, or other Linked Data <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Giant_Global_Graph" id="link-id15ebd3b0">Web</a> oriented APIs for interacting with the LOD cloud programmatically, you can simply use the powerful <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/Main/VirtuosoFacetsWebService" id="link-id12e556a8">REST style Web Service</a> that provides <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Locator" id="link-id12138090">URL</a> parameters for performing full text oriented "Search", entity oriented "Find" queries, and faceted navigation over the huge data corpus with results data returned in JSON and XML formats.</p> <h3>Next Steps:</h3> <p> Amazon have agreed to add all the LOD Cloud data sets to their existing <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/publicdatasets" id="link-id11989aa8">public data sets collective</a>. Thus, the data sets we are loading will be available in "raw data" (RDF) format on the public data sets page via Named Elastic Block Storage (EBS) Snapshots); meaning, you can make an EC2 AMI (e.g. a Linux, Windows, Solaris) and install an RDF quad or triple store of choice into your AMI, then simply load data from the LOD cloud based on your needs.</p> <p> In addition to the above, we are also going to offer a <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/Main/VirtInstallationEC2" id="link-id13982a88">Virtuoso 6.0 Cluster Edition based LOD Cloud AMI</a> (as we've already done with <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/Main/VirtEC2AMIDBpediaInstall" id="link-id12cba108">DBpedia</a>, <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/Main/VirtEC2AMIMusicBrainzInstall" id="link-id1390d338">MusicBrainz</a>, <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/Main/VirtEC2AMINeuroCommonsInstall" id="link-id15801668">NeuroCommons</a>, and <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/Main/VirtEC2AMIBio2rdfInstall" id="link-id133e0840">Bio2Rdf</a>) that will enable you to simply instantiate a personal and service specific edition of Virtuoso with all the LOD data in place and fully tuned for performance and scalability; basically, you will simply press "Instantiate AMI" and a LOD cloud <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Spaces" id="link-id15ccbf80">data space</a>, in true Linked Data from, will be at your disposal within minutes (i.e. the time it takes the DB to start).</p> <p>Work on the migration of the LOD data to EC2 starts this week. Thus, if you are interested in contributing an RDF based data set to the LOD cloud now is the time to get your archive links in place on the (see: <a href="http://esw.w3.org/topic/DataSetRDFDumps" id="link-id154d6f88">ESW Wiki page for LOD Data Sets</a>).</p>
New ADO.NET 3.x Provider for Virtuoso Released (Update 2)
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2009-01-08#1514
2009-01-08T04:36:47Z
2009-01-08T09:12:50.000006-05:00
<p>I am pleased to announce the immediate availability of the <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/Main/VirtAdoNet35Provider" id="link-id142e7390">Virtuoso ADO.NET 3.5 data provider</a> for Microsoft's .NET platform.</p> <h3>What is it?</h3> <p>A data access driver/provider that provides conceptual <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity" id="link-id11c36c00">entity</a> oriented access to <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Relational_database_management_system" id="link-id12fb8618">RDBMS</a> data managed by Virtuoso. Naturally, it also uses Virtuoso's in-built virtual / <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/federated_database_system" id="link-id115bedc8">federated database</a> layer to provide access to <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Open_Database_Connectivity" id="link-id15153c08">ODBC</a> and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Java_Database_Connectivity" id="link-id13418908">JDBC</a> accessible RDBMS engines such as: <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Oracle_Database" id="link-id134d72f0">Oracle</a> (7.x to latest), <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SQL" id="link-id15757b88">SQL</a> Server (4.2 to latest), <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Sybase" id="link-id15ef8d48">Sybase</a>, IBM <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/IBM_Informix" id="link-id12f56aa0">Informix</a> (5.x to latest), IBM <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/IBM_DB2" id="link-id119feb38">DB2</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Ingres" id="link-id14e3d6c8">Ingres</a> (6.x to latest), Progress (7.x to OpenEdge), <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/MySQL" id="link-id11295630">MySQL</a>, PostgreSQL, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Firebird_database_server" id="link-id12f40448">Firebird</a>, and others using our ODBC or JDBC bridge drivers.</p> <h3>Benefits?</h3> <h4>Technical:</h4> <p>It delivers an <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity-attribute-value_model" id="link-id14012040">Entity-Attribute-Value + Classes & Relationships model</a> over disparate data sources that are materialized as .NET Entity Framework Objects, which are then consumable via ADO.NET Data Object Services, LINQ for Entities, and other ADO.NET data consumers.</p> <p>The provider is fully integrated into Visual Studio 2008 and delivers the same "ease of use" offered by Microsoft's own SQL Server provider, but across Virtuoso, Oracle, Sybase, DB2, Informix, Ingres, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Progress_4GL" id="link-id158d1fe8">Progress (OpenEdge</a>), MySQL, PostgreSQL, Firebird, and others. The same benefits also apply uniformly to Entity Frameworks compatibility.</p> <p> Bearing in mind that Virtuoso is a multi-model (hybrid) data manager, this also implies that you can use .NET Entity Frameworks against all data managed by Virtuoso. Remember, Virtuoso's SQL channel is a conduit to Virtuoso's core; thus, RDF (courtesy of <a href="http://esw.w3.org/topic/SPASQL" id="link-id133c9b70">SPASQL</a> as already implemented re. <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/Main/VirtJenaProvider" id="link-id11380b80">Jena</a>/<a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/Main/VirtSesame2Provider" id="link-id10fc0c88">Sesame</a>/<a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/Main/VirtRDFDriverRedland" id="link-id1390f730">Redland</a> providers), XML, and other data forms stored in Virtuoso also become accessible via .NET's Entity Frameworks.</p> <br /> <h4>Strategic:</h4> <p>You can choose which entity oriented data access model works best for you: RDF <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id151354f0">Linked Data</a> & <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SPARQL" id="link-id15dc5eb0">SPARQL</a> or .NET Entity Frameworks & <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADO.NET_Entity_Framework#Entity_SQL" id="link-id14404e80">Entity SQL</a>. Either way, Virtuoso delivers a commercial grade, high-performance, secure, and scalable solution.</p> <br /> <h3>How do I use it?</h3> Simply follow one of guides below: <ul> <li> <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/Main/VirtEntityFrameworkSchoolDbWinFormApp" id="link-id15e5c580">Using Visual Studio 2008 & Virtuoso to build an Entity Frameworks based Windows forms application</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/Main/VirtUsingMsAdoNetDataServicesWithVirtuoso" id="link-id157912b0">Using Visual Studio 2008 & Virtuoso to build an ADO.NET Data Services based application</a> </li> </ul> <p> <b>Note:</b> When working with external or 3rd party databases, simply use the Virtuoso Conductor to link the external data source into Virtuoso. Once linked, the remote tables will simply be treated as though they are native Virtuoso tables leaving the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Virtual_Database" id="link-id15b04b18">virtual database</a> engine to handle the rest. This is similar to the role the Microsoft JET engine played in the early days of ODBC, so if you've ever linked an ODBC data source into Microsoft Access, you are ready to do the same using Virtuoso.</p> <h3>Related</h3> <ul> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1420" id="link-id160afdd0">Entity Oriented Data Access</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1474" id="link-id113eeb50">Yoda & the Data FORCE.</a> </li> </ul>
Virtuoso Installation Screencasts
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2008-11-02#1469
2008-11-02T01:44:27Z
2008-11-02T16:20:21-05:00
<p>As promised in an earlier post titled: <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1461" id="link-id1c412298">Virtuoso, PHP 3.5 Runtime Hosting, phpBB3, and Linked Data</a>, here are direct links to the "silent movies" mentioned in the past:</p> <ul> <li> <a href="http://my-movies.s3.amazonaws.com/Virtuoso_PHPBB3_Vista_Linked_Data_Demo.mov" id="link-id13ea5790">Installing Virtuoso on Vista with PHP Hosting</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://my-movies.s3.amazonaws.com/Virtuoso_PHPBB3_MacOSX_Linked_Data_Demo.mov" id="link-id135299d8">Installing Virtuoso on Mac OS X (Leopard) with PHP Hosting</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://my-movies.s3.amazonaws.com/Virtuoso_PHPBB3_MacOSX_Linked_Data_Demo.mov" id="link-id1275fd88">EC2 Installation Part 1</a> (*AMIs take about 5 minutes to get assembled*)</li> <li> <a href="http://my-movies.s3.amazonaws.com/Virtuoso_PHPBB3_MacOSX_Linked_Data_Demo.mov" id="link-id10f78ae8">EC2 Installation Part 2</a> (*post AMI creation part*)</li> </ul> <p>Virtuoso is an extremely compact product that is very easy to install. The ease of installation carries over to the PHP runtime when bound to Virtuoso.</p>
Welcoming Freebase to the Linked Data Web
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2008-10-31#1468
2008-10-31T15:02:00Z
2008-10-31T11:23:35.000002-04:00
Finally! That's all I can say re. Freebase :-) They've now plugged their database and their community driven <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data">data</a> curation efforts into the burgeoning <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id111fe3b0">Linked Data</a> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Giant_Global_Graph" id="link-id1cd46860">Web</a>. <p>Here are some examples of how we distill Entities (People, Places, Music, and other things) from Freebase (X)HTML pages (meaning: we don't have to start from RDF <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Information" id="link-id1115cfe8">information</a> resources as data sources for the eventual RDF Linked Data we generate):</p> <ul> <li> <a href="http://linkeddata.uriburner.com/about/html/http://www.freebase.com/view/en/barack_obama" id="link-id1957da00">Barack Obama</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://linkeddata.uriburner.com/about/html/http://www.freebase.com/view/en/hillary_rodham_clinton" id="link-id175786d8">Hillary Rodham Clinton</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://linkeddata.uriburner.com/about/html/http://www.freebase.com/view/en/john_mccain" id="link-id1c7ada58">Johan McCain</a> </li> </ul> <p>Tip: Install our <a href="http://ode.openlinksw.com" id="link-id17a69a20">OpenLink Data Explorer</a> extension for Firefox. Once installed, simply browse through Freebase, and whenever you encounter a page about something of interest, simply use the following sequences to distill (via the Page Description feature) the entities from the page you are reading:</p> <ul> <li> CTRL-Click (Mac OS X) </li> <li> Right+Click (Windows & Linux) </li> </ul> <h3>Related</h3> <ul> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1455" id="link-id17758840">State of the Linked Data Web</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1454" id="link-idea627e8">Dynamic Linked Data Web Constellation</a> </li> </ul>
Dog-fooding: Linked Data and OpenLink Product Portfolio
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2008-10-24#1463
2008-10-24T22:05:42Z
2008-10-24T18:13:50-04:00
<p>Thanks to RDF and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id1cf5c700">Linked Data</a>, it's becoming a lot easier for us to explain and reveal the depth of the OpenLink technology portfolio.</p> <p>Here is a look at our offerings by product family:</p> <ul> <li> <a href="http://data.openlinksw.com/about/html/http://data.openlinksw.com/oplweb/product_family/uda" id="link-id1161c6d0">Universal Data Access Drivers</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://data.openlinksw.com/about/html/http://data.openlinksw.com/oplweb/product_family/virtuoso" id="link-id17945fc8">Virtuoso</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://data.openlinksw.com/about/html/http://data.openlinksw.com/oplweb/product_family/dca" id="link-id10f899c0">Distributed Collaborative Applications</a> (DCA)</li> <li> <a href="http://data.openlinksw.com/oplweb/product_family/development" id="link-id1c55ac70">Developer Kits & Frameworks</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://data.openlinksw.com/oplweb/product_family/utilities" id="link-id1a735e50">Benchamark & Diagnostic Utilities</a> </li> </ul> <p>As you explore the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Resource_Description_Framework" id="link-id10fc4af8">Linked Data graph</a> exposed via our product portfolio, I expect you to experience, or at least spot, the virtuous potential of high SDQ (<a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1442" id="link-id13847698">Serendipitous Discovery Quotient</a>) courtesy of Linked Data, which is <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web">Web</a> 3.0's answer to <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Search_engine_optimization" id="link-id115ad4f0">SEO</a>. For instance, how <a href="http://linkeddata.uriburner.com/about/html/http://data.openlinksw.com/oplweb/dbms_family/Oracle" id="link-id1cda63c8">Database</a>, <a href="http://data.openlinksw.com/oplweb/opsys_family/Windows" id="link-id1a803f18">Operating System</a>, and <a href="http://data.openlinksw.com/oplweb/processor/universal_1" id="link-id19cbaba0">Processor</a> family paths in the product portfolio graph (data network) unveil a lot more about <a href="http://linkeddata.uriburner.com/about/html/http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/organization/openlink%23this" id="link-ide9b7070">OpenLink Software</a> than meets the proverbial "eye" :-)</p>
Virtuoso, PHP Runtime Hosting: phpBB, Wordpress, Drupal, MediaWiki, and Linked Data
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2008-10-24#1461
2008-10-24T19:55:00Z
2010-03-25T21:19:59-04:00
<p> Runtime hosting is functionality realm of <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com" id="link-id1189fee8">Virtuoso</a> that is sometimes easily overlooked. In this post I want to provide a simple no-hassles HOWTO guide for installing Virtuoso on Windows (32 or 64 Bit), Mac OS X (Universal or Native 64 Bit), and Linux (32 or 64 Bit). The installation guide also covers the instantiation of <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/PhpBB" id="link-id118af3a8">phpBB3</a> as verification of the Virtuoso hosted <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/PHP" id="link-id12736b88">PHP</a> 3.5 runtime.</p> <h3> What are the benefits of PHP Runtime Hosting?</h3> <p> Like <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Apache" id="link-id111ca408">Apache</a>, Virtuoso is a bona-fide <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web">Web</a> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Application_server" id="link-id110d2aa8">Application Server</a> for PHP based applications. Unlike Apache, Virtuoso is also the following:</p> <ul> <li> a Hybrid Native DBMS Engine (Relational, RDF-Graph, and Document models) that is accessible via industry standard interfaces (solely)</li> <li> a Virtual DBMS or Master <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data">Data</a> Manager (MDM) that virtualizes heterogeneous data sources (<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Open_Database_Connectivity" id="link-id0x22b6f0c8">ODBC</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Java_Database_Connectivity" id="link-id0x23af98c8">JDBC</a>, Web Services, Hypermedia Resources, Non Hypermedia Resources)</li> <li> an <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblog/public/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=rdf%20middleware&type=text&output=html" id="link-id1116aad8">RDF Middleware</a> solution for RDF-zation of non RDF resources across the Web and enterprise Intranets and/or Extranets (in the form of Cartridges for data exposed via REST or SOA oriented SOAP interfaces)</li> <li> an RDF <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id10fbe088">Linked Data</a> Server (meaning it can deploy RDF Linked Data based on its native and/or virtualized data)</li> </ul> <p> As result of the above, when you deploy a PHP application using Virtuoso, you inherit the following benefits:</p> <ol> <li> Use of PHP-<a href="http://www.iodbc.org" id="link-id1159e070">iODBC</a> for in-process communication with Virtuoso</li> <li> Easy generation of RDF Linked Data Views atop the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SQL" id="link-id0x24f44c98">SQL</a> schemas of PHP applications</li> <li> Easy deployment of RDF Linked Data from virtualized data sources</li> <li> Less <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/LAMP_stack" id="link-id1179dff0">LAMP</a> monoculture (*there is no such thing as virtuous monoculture*) when dealing with PHP based Web applications.</li> </ol> <p> As indicated in prior posts, producing RDF Linked Data from the existing Web, where a lot of content is deployed by PHP based content managers, should simply come down to RDF Views over the SQL Schemas and deployment / publishing of the RDF Views in RDF Linked data form. In a nutshell, this is what Virtuoso delivers via its PHP runtime hosting and pre packaged VADs (Virtuoso Application Distribution packages), for popular PHP based applications such as: <a href="http://blogs.usnet.private:8893/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/127/dbpedia.org/resource/PhpBB" id="link-id120cc6368">phpBB3</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Drupal" id="link-id111ff1c0">Drupal</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/WordPress" id="link-id111e26f8">WordPress</a>, and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/MediaWiki" id="link-id10ea0258">MediaWiki</a>.</p> <p> In addition, to the RDF Linked Data deployment, we've also taken the traditional LAMP installation tedium out of the typical PHP application deployment process. For instance, you don't have to rebuild PHP 3.5 (32 or 64 Bit) on Windows, Mac OS X, or Linux to get going, simply install Virtuoso, and then select a VAD package for the relevant application and you're set. If the application of choice isn't pre packaged by us, simply install as you would when using Apache, which comes dow to situating the PHP files in your Web structure under the Web Application's root directory.</p> <h3> Installation Guide</h3> <ol> <li> Download the Virtuoso installer for Windows (<a href="http://download.openlinksw.com/downwiz/login.vsp?pfam=2&pform=26&pcat=47&prod=virtuoso-uim-unisvr-ent&os=i686-generic-win-32&os2=i686-generic-win-32&xpfam=virtuoso&xpform=personal&xpcat=unisvr&xos=i686-generic-win-32&release-dbms=6.1-virt61" id="link-id11d084578">32 Bit msi file</a> or <a href="http://download.openlinksw.com/downwiz/login.vsp?pfam=2&pform=26&pcat=47&prod=virtuoso-uim-unisvr-ent&os=x86_64-generic-win-64&os2=x86_64-generic-win-64&xpfam=virtuoso&xpform=personal&xpcat=unisvr&xos=x86_64-generic-win-64&release-dbms=6.1-virt61" id="link-id11aea67a8">64 Bit msi file</a>), Mac OS X (<a href="http://download.openlinksw.com/downwiz/login.vsp?pfam=2&pform=26&pcat=47&prod=virtuoso-uim-unisvr-ent&os=universal-apple-macosx10.6-32&os2=universal-apple-macosx10.6-32&xpfam=virtuoso&xpform=personal&xpcat=unisvr&xos=universal-apple-macosx10.6-32&release-dbms=6.1-virt61" id="link-id11a93bef8">Universal Binary dmg file</a>), or instantiate the <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/oat/wiki/main/Main/ODSInstallationEC2" id="link-id111fe248">Virtuoso EC2 AMI</a> (*search for pattern: "Virtuoso when using the Firefox extension for EC2 as the AMI ID is currently: ami-7c31d515 and name: virtuoso-test/virtuoso-cloud-beta-9-i386.manifest.xml, for latest cut*)</li> <li> Run the installer (or download the movies using the links in the related section below)</li> <li> Go to the Virtuoso Conductor (*which will show up at the end of the installation process* or go to http://localhost:8890/conductor)</li> <li> Go to the "Admin" tab within the (X)HTML based UI and select the "Packages" sub-menu item (a Tab)</li> <li> Pick phpBB3 (or any other pre-packaged PHP app) and then click on "Install/Upgrase"</li> <li> The watch one of my silent movies or read the initial startup guides for Virtuoso hosted phpBB3, Drupal, Wordpress, MediaWiki.</li> </ol> <h3> Related</h3> <p> At the current time, I've only provided links to ZIP files containing the Virtuoso installation "silent movies". This approach is a short-term solution to some of my current movie publishing challenges re. YouTube and Vimeo -- where the compressed output hasn't been of acceptable visual quality. Once resolved, I will publish much more "Multimedia Web" friendly movies :-)</p> <ul> <li> <a href="http://my-movies.s3.amazonaws.com/Virtuoso_PHPBB3_Vista_Linked_Data_Demo.mov.zip" id="link-id11642450">Windows Vista (x64) Installation Movie</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://my-movies.s3.amazonaws.com/Virtuoso_PHPBB3_MacOSX_Linked_Data_Demo.mov.zip" id="link-id11210498">Mac OS X (x64 & Universal binary) Installation Movie</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://my-movies.s3.amazonaws.com/Virtuoso_PHPBB3_EC2_AMI_Linked_Data_Demo.zip" id="link-id111ff268">Virtuoso EC2 Cloud Edition Installation Movie</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/Main/VirtuosoPHP" id="link-id12038b6c8">Guide for PHP based Application Deployment using Virtuoso</a> </li> </ul>
Linked Data, Ubiquity Commands, and Resource Descriptions (Update 3)
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2008-09-05#1430
2008-09-05T05:43:00Z
2008-09-08T09:00:51-04:00
<div><p><a href="http://labs.mozilla.com/2008/08/introducing-ubiquity/" id="link-id11258ea0">Ubiquity</a> from <a href="http://labs.mozilla.com/" id="link-id112ebe28">Mozilla Labs</a>, provides an alternative entry point for experiencing the "Controller" aspect of the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web" id="link-id0xa0d2ccd0">Web</a>'s natural compatibility with the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Model-view-controller" id="link-id10ec1a08">MVC</a> development pattern. As I've noted (in <a href="http://myopenlink.net/weblog/public/search.vspx?blogid=kidehen-blog-0&q=mvc&type=text&output=html" id="link-id15390f28">various posts</a>) <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web">Web</a> Services, as practiced by the REST oriented Web 2.0 community or SOAP oriented SOA community within the enterprise, is fundamentally about the ("Controller" aspect of <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Model-view-controller" id="link-id13c0d758">MVC</a>. </p><p>Ubiquity provides a commandline interface for direct invocation of Web Services. For instance, in our case, we can expose the <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com" id="link-id10b04708">Virtuoso</a>'s in-built <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblog/public/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=rdf%20middleware&type=text&output=html" id="link-id1113ae38">RDF Middleware</a> ("Sponger") and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id1457b3b8">Linked Data</a> deployment services via a single command of the form: describe-resource <url> </p><p>To experience this neat addition to Firefox you need to do the following:</p><ol><li><a href="https://people.mozilla.com/%7Eavarma/ubiquity-0.1.1.xpi" id="link-id13b15e88">Download</a> and install the Ubiquity Extension for Firefox</li><li><a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/ubiq" id="link-id10e85880">Subscribe</a> to the OpenLink Command for Resource Description</li><li>Click on CTRL+Space (Windows / Linux) or Option+Space (Mac OS X)</li><li>Type in: describe-resource <a-web-resource-url> </li></ol><h3>How to unsubscribe</h3> At the current time, you need to do this if you've installed commands using ubiquity 0.1.0 and seek to use newer versions of the same commands after upgrading to ubiquity 0.1.1. <ol><li>To unsubscribe use type "about:ubiquity" into browser</li><li>Click on unsubscribe links associated with you command subscription list</li></ol> <p>Enjoy!</p></div>
.NET, LINQ, and RDF based Linked Data (Update 2)
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2008-08-03#1408
2008-08-03T16:07:09Z
2008-08-08T08:54:01.000002-04:00
<p>At OpenLink, we've been investigating <a href="http://code.google.com/p/linqtordf/" id="link-id1296eb18">LinqToRdf</a>, an exciting project from <a href="http://aabs.wordpress.com/" id="link-id13e860a8">Andrew Matthews</a> that seeks to expose the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Semantic_Web" id="link-id105d84f8">Semantic Web</a> technology space to the large community of .NET developers. </p> <p>The LinqToRdf project is about binding LINQ to RDF. It sits atop <a href="http://razor.occams.info/" id="link-id102e3b10">Joshua Tauberer</a>'s <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/C_(programming_language)" id="link-id1471b0d0">C</a># based <a href="http://razor.occams.info/code/semweb/" id="link-id14cb9030">Semantic Web/RDF library</a> which has been out there for a while and works across Microsoft .NET and it's open source variant "Mono".</p> <p>Historically, the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Semantic_Web" id="link-id13ee9f40">Semantic Web</a> realm has been dominated by RDF frameworks such as <a href="http://www.openrdf.org/" id="link-id109f8a68">Sesame</a>, <a href="http://jena.sourceforge.net/" id="link-id144c3210">Jena</a> and <a href="http://librdf.org/" id="link-id10600228">Redland</a>; which by their Open Source orientation, predominantly favor non-Windows platforms (Java and Linux). Conversely, Microsoft's .NET frameworks have sought to offer Conceptualization technology for heterogeneous Logical <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data">Data</a> Sources via .NET's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADO.NET_Entity_Framework" id="link-id10726628">Entity Frameworks</a> and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/ADO.NET" id="link-id13e7edd8">ADO.NET</a>, but without any actual bindings to RDF. </p> <p>Interestingly, believe it or not, .NET already has a data query language that shares a number of similarities with <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SPARQL" id="link-id1042f480">SPARQL</a>, called <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity" id="link-id105a46b0">Entity</a>-<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SQL" id="link-id1041d2e8">SQL</a>, and a very innovative programming language called LINQ; that offers a blend of constructs for natural data access and manipulation across relational (<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SQL" id="link-id139f5848">SQL</a>), hierarchical (XML), and graph (Object) models without the traditional object language->database impedance tensions of the past.</p> <p>With regards to all of the above, we've just released a mini white paper that covers the exploitation of <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/Whitepapers/html/linqtordf/linqtordf1.htm" id="link-id14b2f138">RDF-based Linked Data using .NET via LINQ</a>. The paper offers a an overview of LinqToRdf, plus enhancements we've contributed to the project (available in <a href="http://aabs.wordpress.com/2008/08/01/announcing-linqtordf-v08/" id="link-id101defa8">LinqToRdf v0.8</a>.). The paper includes real-world examples that tap into a MusicBrainz powered <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id101ffd18">Linked Data</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Spaces" id="link-id105cb858">Space</a>, the Music Ontology, the <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com" id="link-id13f55860">Virtuoso</a> RDF Quad Store, <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com" id="link-id12826718">Virtuoso</a> <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/Whitepapers/html/VirtSpongerWhitePaper.html" id="link-id1030cb60">Sponger</a> Middleware, and our RDfization Cartridges for Musicbrainz. </p> Enjoy!
ODBC & WODBC Comparison
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2008-05-20#1364
2008-05-20T19:37:53Z
2008-05-20T15:46:11-04:00
<p> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Open_Database_Connectivity" id="link-id100eb550">ODBC</a> delivers open <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data" id="link-idffd2338">data</a> access (by reference) to a broad range of enterprise databases via a '<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/C_(programming_language)" id="link-id104fd1d8">C</a>' based API. Thanks to the <a href="http://www.iodbc.org" id="link-id104721b0">iODBC</a> and <a href="http://www.unixodbc.org" id="link-id10954990">unixODBC</a> projects, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Open_Database_Connectivity" id="link-id10494670">ODBC</a> is available across broad range of platforms beyond Windows.</p> <p> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Open_Database_Connectivity" id="link-id0xc900928">ODBC</a> identifies <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data" id="link-id10f82200">data</a> sources using <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data" id="link-id0xcaad080">Data</a> Source Names (DSNs). </p> <p> WODBC (<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web">Web</a> Open Database Connectivity) delivers open <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data">data</a> access to Web Databases / Data Spaces. The Data Source Naming scheme: <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Identifier" id="link-id1009ce40">URI</a> or IRI, is <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Hypertext_Transfer_Protocol" id="link-id101fc1b0">HTTP</a> based thereby enabling data access by reference via the Web. </p> <p><a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Open_Database_Connectivity">ODBC</a> DSNs bind ODBC client applications to Tables, Views, Stored Procedures. </p> <p>WODBC DSNs bind you to a Data <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Spaces" id="link-id10182a88">Space</a> (e.g. my <a href="http://myopenlink.net/dataspace/person/kidehen" id="link-id105a7858">FOAF based Profile Page</a> where you can use the "Explore Data Tab" to look around if you are a human visitor) or a specific <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity" id="link-id10bd8578">Entity</a> within a Data <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Spaces" id="link-id10780dc0">Space</a> (i.e <a href="http://myopenlink.net/dataspace/person/kidehen#this" id="link-id10848e08">Person Entity Me</a>).</p> <p>ODBC Drivers are built using APIs (DBMS Call Level Interfaces) provided by DBMS vendors. Thus, a DBMS vendor can chose not to release an API, or do so selectivity, for competitive advantage or market disruption purposes (it's happened!).</p> <p>WODBC Drivers are also built using APIs (Web Services associated with a Web Data <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Spaces" id="link-id0xcbe6348">Space</a>). These drivers are also referred to as <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblog/public/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=rdf%20middleware&type=text&output=html" id="link-id16564058">RDF Middleware</a> or RDFizers. The "Web" component of WODBC ensures openness, you publish Data with URIs from your <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id1064a768">Linked Data</a> Server and that's it; your data <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Spaces">space</a> or specific data entities are live and accessible (by reference) over the Web!</p> <p>So we have come full circle (or cycle), the Web is becoming more of a structured database everyday! What's new is old, and what's old is new! </p> <p>Data Access is everything, without "Data" there is no <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Information" id="link-id100a9de8">information</a> or <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Knowledge" id="link-id10bb67e8">knowledge</a>. Without "Data" there's not notion of vitality, purpose, or value.</p> <p>URIs make or break everything in the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id10a71638">Linked Data</a> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Giant_Global_Graph" id="link-id10494400">Web</a> just as ODBC DSNs do within the enterprise. </p> <p>I've deliberately left <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Java_Database_Connectivity" id="link-id10a05280">JDBC</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/ADO.NET" id="link-id104e4a70">ADO</a>.<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/ADO.NET" id="link-id10215668">NET</a>, and OLE-DB out of this piece due to their respective programming languages and frameworks specificity. None of these mechanisms match the platform availability breadth of ODBC.</p> <p>The Web as a true <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Model-view-controller" id="link-id108ee598">M</a>-<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Model-view-controller" id="link-id0xcda5e90">V</a>-C pattern is now crystalizing. The "M" (Model) component of M-V-C is finally rising to the realm of broad attention courtesy of the "<a href="http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/LinkedData.html" id="link-id1024ff08">Linked Data" meme</a> and "<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Semantic_Web" id="link-id1831b418">Semantic Web</a>" vision.</p> <p>By the way, M-V-C lines up nicely with Web 1.0 (Web Forms / Pages), Web 2.0 (Web Services based APIs), and Web 3.0 (Data Web, Web of Data, or <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id0xb6d0e90">Linked Data</a> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Giant_Global_Graph" id="link-id0xb22a158">Web</a>) :-)</p>
Hello Data Web (Take 3 - Feel The "RDF" Force)
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2007-02-24#1144
2007-02-24T21:43:39Z
2007-02-24T17:01:28-05:00
<p>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.</p> <p>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!).</p> <p>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):</p> <ol> <li> <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/DAV/home/demo/Public/Queries/danbri_dataspace.isparql.xml">Dan Brickley</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/DAV/home/demo/Public/Queries/timbl_dataspace.isparql.xml">Tim Berners-Lee</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/DAV/home/demo/Public/Queries/danc_dataspace.isparql.xml">Dan Connolly</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/DAV/home/demo/Public/Queries/danja_dataspace.isparql.xml">Danny Ayers</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/DAV/home/demo/Public/Queries/planet_rdf_dataspace.isparql.xml">Planet RDF</a> </li> </ol> <p>"These are RDF prepped Data Sources....", you might be thinking, right? Well here is the reminder: <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen/?id=1122">The Data Web is a Global Data Generation and Integration Effort</a>. 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:</p> <ol> <li> <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/DAV/home/demo/Public/Queries/delicious_web20_events_dataspace.isparql.xml">del.icio.us Web 2.0 Events Bookmarks</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/DAV/home/demo/Public/Queries/vecosys_dataspace.isparql.xml">Vecosys</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/DAV/home/demo/Public/Queries/techcrunch_dataspace.isparql.xml">Techcrunch</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/DAV/home/demo/Public/Queries/jonudell_dataspace.isparql.xml">Jon Udell's Blog</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/DAV/home/demo/Public/Queries/davewiner_dataspace.isparql.xml">Dave Winer's Scripting News</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/DAV/home/demo/Public/Queries/scobelizer_dataspace.isparql.xml">Robert Scoble's Blog</a> </li> </ol> <p>what about Microformats you may be wondering? Here goes:</p> <ol> <li> <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/DAV/home/demo/Public/Queries/microformats_dataspace.isparql.xml">Microformats Wiki</a> (click on the Brian Suda link for instance) </li> <li> <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/DAV/home/demo/Public/Queries/planet_microformats_dataspace.isparql.xml">Microformats Planet</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/DAV/home/demo/Public/Queries/delicious_microformats_dataspace.isparql.xml">Del.icio.us Microformats Bookmarks</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/DAV/home/demo/Public/Queries/ben_adida_dataspace.isparql.xml">Ben Adida's home page</a> (RDFa)</li> </ol> <p>Let's carry on.</p> <p>How about some traditional Web Sites? Here goes:</p> <ol> <li> <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/DAV/home/demo/Public/Queries/openlink_dataspace.isparql.xml">OpenLink Software's Home Page</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/DAV/home/demo/Public/Queries/oracle_dataspace.isparql.xml">Oracle's Home Page</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/DAV/home/demo/Public/Queries/apple_dataspace.isparql.xml">Apple's Home Page</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/DAV/home/demo/Public/Queries/microsoft_dataspace.isparql.xml">Microsoft's Home Page</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/DAV/home/demo/Public/Queries/ibm_dataspace.isparql.xml">IBM's Home Page</a> </li> </ol> <p>And before I forget, here is <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/DAV/home/demo/Public/Queries/kidehen_dataspace.isparql.xml">My Data Web Start Page </a>.</p> <p>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.</p>
XMP and microformats revisited
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2007-02-17#1140
2007-02-17T17:43:05Z
2007-02-17T12:43:05.000001-05:00
<blockquote> <p> <a href="http://blog.jonudell.net/2007/02/15/xmp-and-microformats-revisited/#comments">XMP and microformats revisited</a>: "</p> <div class="snap_preview"> <p> Yesterday I exercised poetic license when I suggested that Adobeâs <a href="http://www.adobe.com/products/xmp/overview.html">Extensible metadata platform (XMP)</a> was not only the spiritual cousin of microformats like <a href="http://microformats.org/wiki/hcalendar">hCalendar</a> but also, perhaps, more likely to see widespread use in the near term. My poetic license was revoked, though, in a couple of comments: </p> <blockquote> <p> <a href="http://gondwanaland.com/mlog/2007/02/14/xmp-microformat/">Mike Linksvayer</a>: How someone as massively clued-in as Jon Udell could be so misled as to describe XMP as a microformat is beyond me. </p> </blockquote> <blockquote> <p> <a href="http://dannyayers.com/2007/02/15/microsoft-vista-slipup">Danny Ayers</a>: Like Mike I donât really understand Jonâs references to microformats - I first assumed he meant XMP could be replaced with a uF. </p> </blockquote> <p> Actually, Iâm serious about this. If I step back and ask myself what are the essential qualities of a microformat, itâs a short list: </p> <ol> <li>A small chunk of machine-readable metadata,</li> <li>embedded in a document.</li> </ol> <p> Mike notes: </p> <blockquote> <p> 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. </p> </blockquote> <p> 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, Iâm obviously all about metadata coexisting with human-readable HTML. And Iâve been applying this technique since <a href="http://webservices.xml.com/lpt/a/1223">long before</a> I ever heard the term microformats â my own term was originally microcontent. </p> <p>(Via <a href="http://blog.jonudell.net">Jon Udell</a>.)</p> <p>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 :-)</p> <p>Here is what I believe Jon is hoping to see:</p> <ol> <li> 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. </li> <li>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)</li> <li>The ability to use an array of query languages and techniques to construct these meshups</li> </ol> <p>My little "<a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/%7Ekidehen/index.vspx?page=&id=1137">Hello Data Web!</a>" meme was about demonstrating a view that Danny has sought for a while: unobtrusive <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/grddl-scenarios/">meshing of microformats and RDF via GRDDL and SPARQL</a> 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.</p> <p> Personally, I believe everyone should simply "feel the force" or observe "the bright and dark sides of the force" that is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_Description_Framework">RDF</a>. 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.</p> <p>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!</p> </div> </blockquote>
DBMS Hosted Filesystems & WinFS
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2006-06-26#990
2006-06-26T21:41:33Z
2006-06-26T21:28:44-04:00
<p> The return of WinFS back into SQL Server has re-ignited interest in the somewhat forgotten “DBMS Engine hosted Unified Storage System” vision. The WinFS project struggles have more to do with the futility of “Windows Platform Monoculture” than the actual vision itself. In today's reality you simply cannot seek to deliver a “Unified Storage” solution that's inherently operating system specific, and even worse, ignores existing complimentary industry standards and the loosely coupled nature of the emerging Web Operating System. </p> <p> A quick FYI: <br />Virtuoso has offered a DBMS hosted Filesystem via WebDAV for a number of years, but the implications of this functionality have remained unclear for just as long. Thus, we developed (a few years ago) and released (recently) an application layer above <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/wiki/main/Main/VOSDAV">Virtuoso's WebDAV storage</a> realm called: “<a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/wiki/main/Main/OdsBriefcase">The OpenLink Briefcase</a>” (nee. oDrive). This application allows you to view items uploaded by content type and/or kind (People, Business Cards, Calendars, Business Reports, Office Documents, Photos, Blog Posts, Feed Channels/Subscriptions, Bookmarks etc..). it also includes automatic metadata extraction (where feasible) and indexing. Naturally, as an integral part of our “OpenLink Data Spaces” (ODS) product offering, it supports GData, URIQA, SPARQL (note: WebDAV metadata is sync'ed with <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/wiki/main/Main/VOSRDF">Virtuoso's RDF Triplestore</a>), SQL, and WebDAV itself. </p> <p> You can explore the power of this product via the following routes: </p> <ol> <li>Download the <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/wiki/main/">Virtuoso Open Source Edition</a> and the <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/wiki/main/Main/OdsIndex">ODS add-ons </a>or</li> <li>Visit <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com">our live demo server</a> (note: this is strictly a demo server with full functionality available) and simply register and then create a “Briefcase” application instance</li> <li>Digest this <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/~kidehen/blog/public/graphics/briefcase_home_page.png">Briefcase Home Page Screenshot</a> </li> </ol>
Great Product: Parallels Desktop Release Candidate 2 released
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2006-05-31#987
2006-05-31T21:15:21Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<p>I am thoroughly impressed with this product. I have been using Solaris (in its many incarnations since the mid 80's SunOS days), Windows (since Windows 2.0), Linux (since inception), FreeBSD (since inception), and Mac OS X (since its NexT days).</p> <p>With the above in mind (years of getting into trouble during OS installation and usage etc.. I expected the very worst when attempting to get Solaris 10, Linux (Debian), FreeBSD 6.x, and Windows XP installed on a Mac Mini such that I could have all of these operating systems at my disposal without quad-booting. To my utter disbelief (I am still trying to recover from the immense euphoria..) Parallels delivered to me the absolute simplest installation and usage experience across all said operating systems that I have ever experienced.</p> <p>I now have a MacIntel Mac Mini (one of several that I will be stocking up on while I wait the Microsoft Universal Binary port of Office) that delivers me the long sought nirvana of having Solaris, FreeBSD, Linux, Windows XP, and Mac OS X on a single desktop!</p> <p>If you want to enjoy one of the genuine innovations of our time, simply make parallels an integral part of your Mac OS X experience (whether you are an end-user, developer, administrator, or systems integrator).</p> <blockquote> <p> <a href="http://www.tuaw.com/2006/05/31/parallels-desktop-release-candidate-2-uh-released/#comments">Parallels Desktop Release Candidate 2, uh, released</a>: "</p> <p>Filed under: <a href="http://www.tuaw.com/category/os/" rel="tag">OS</a>, <a href="http://www.tuaw.com/category/software/" rel="tag">Software</a> </p> <div id="pc623643"> <img vspace="5" hspace="5" border="1" alt="" src="http://www.tuaw.com/media/2006/04/parrellsvirtualization.jpg" /> <br />Get your mice clicking ladies and gentlemen, as Parallels has offered up the final test version of Parallels Desktop for Mac, their virtualization software that allows you to run almost any OS right within Mac OS X. With this version, however, Parallels has increased the app's final price to $79.99, as they have incorporated their Compressor Server tool (due to user feedback) into the software package for streamlining and optimizing your virtual machines and the amount of disk space they occupy. The beta testing pre-order price of $39.99 is still in place, and probably more appetizing than ever. Other new features and improvements in the Release Candidate 2 include:<br /> <ul> <li>Significantly improved performance</li> <li>Improved USB performance and broader device support</li> <li>Improved Host-guest networking</li> <li>Automatic network adapters now switch on-the-fly</li> <li>Guest OS no longer steals host IP address in some DHCP servers</li> <li>Fullscreen mode is now customizable</li> <li>Integration with Virtue is now bug-free</li> <li>Customizable Ctrl + Click mapping</li> <li>Guest 32bit color is supported when Parallels Tools is installed</li> <li>Improved Shared folders performance</li> <li>Resolved shared folders/MS Office incompatibility issues</li> <li>Windows 98 no longer consumes 99% host CPU even when idle (in VT-x mode)</li> </ul> Also note that if you <a href="http://www.parallels.com/en/download/desktop/">download this newest release</a>, you must re-install the Parallels Tools for guest Windows installations (NT/2000/XP/2003). As with previous beta releases, this download is free before the software package goes official.</div> <h6 style="clear: both; padding: 8px 0 0 0; height: 2px; font-size: 1px; border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"></h6> <a href="http://www.parallels.com/en/download/desktop/">Read</a>'|'<a href="http://www.tuaw.com/2006/05/31/parallels-desktop-release-candidate-2-uh-released/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent link to this entry">Permalink</a>'|'<a href="http://www.tuaw.com/forward/623643/" title="Send this entry to a friend via email">Email this</a>'|'<a href="http://www.technorati.com/cosmos/search.html?rank=&fc=1&url=http://www.tuaw.com/2006/05/31/parallels-desktop-release-candidate-2-uh-released/" title="Linking Blogs">Linking'Blogs</a>'|'<a href="http://www.tuaw.com/2006/05/31/parallels-desktop-release-candidate-2-uh-released/#comments" title="View reader comments on this entry">Comments</a> <br /> <br /> <img src="http://feeds.tuaw.com/weblogsinc/tuaw?g=317" />" <p>(Via <a href="http://www.tuaw.com">The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)</a>.)</p> </blockquote>
"Free" Databases: Express vs. Open-Source RDBMSs
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2006-05-05#968
2006-05-05T16:02:17Z
2006-07-21T07:21:57.000006-04:00
<p>Very detailed and insightful peek into the state of affairs re. database engines (Open & Closed Source).</p> <p>I added the missing piece regarding the "Virtuoso Conductor" (the Web based Admin UI for Virtuoso) to the original post below. I also added a link to our live SPARQL Demo so that anyone interested can start playing around with SPARQL and SPARQL integrated into SQL right away.</p> <p>Another good thing about this post is the vast amount of valuable links that it contains. To really appreciate this point simply visit my Linkblog (excuse the current layout :-) - a Tab if you come in via the front door of this <a href="http://www.infoworld.com/opinions/index.html">Data Space</a> (what I used to call <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/%7Ekidehen/">My Weblog Home Page</a>).</p> <blockquote> <p> <a href="http://oakleafblog.blogspot.com/2006/05/free-databases-express-vs-open-source.html">"Free" Databases: Express vs. Open-Source RDBMSs</a>: "<span style="font-family: verdana;">Open-source relational database management systems (RDBMSs) are gaining IT mindshare at a rapid pace. As an example, <em>BusinessWeek</em>'s February 6, 2006 '</span> <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/feb2006/tc20060206_918648.htm"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Taking On the Database Giants</span> </a><span style="font-family: verdana;">' article asks 'Can open-source upstarts compete with Oracle, IBM, and Microsoft?' and then provides the answer: 'It's an uphill battle, but customers are starting to look at the alternatives.'</span> <br /> <span style="font-family: Verdana;"></span> <br /> <span style="font-family: Verdana;">There's no shortage of open-source alternatives to look at. The <em>BusinessWeek</em> article concentrates on <a href="http://www.mysql.com/">MySQL</a>, which <em>BW</em> says 'is trying to be the Ikea of the database world: cheap, needs some assembly, but has a sleek, modern design and does the job.' The article also discusses <a href="http://www.postgresql.org/">Postgre[SQL]</a> and <a href="http://www.ingres.com/products/Prod_Ingres_2006.html">Ingres</a>, as well as <a href="http://www.enterprisedb.com/">EnterpriseDB</a>, an Oracle clone created from PostgreSQL code*. Sun includes <a href="http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/postgres.jsp">PostgreSQL with Solaris 10</a> and, as of April 6, 2006, with <a href="http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/819-2183/6n4g726uc?a=view">Solaris Express</a>.**</span> <br /> <span style="font-family: Verdana;"></span> <br /> <span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span style="font-size: 85%;">*Frank Batten, Jr., the investor who originally funded Red Hat, invested a reported </span> <a href="http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=28201"><span style="font-size: 85%;">$16 million into Great Bridge</span> </a><span style="font-size: 85%;"> with the hope of making a business out of providing paid support to PostgreSQL users. </span> <a href="http://news.com.com/2100-1001-272715.html"><span style="font-size: 85%;">Great Bridge stayed in business only 18 months</span> </a><span style="font-size: 85%;">, having </span> <a href="http://news.com.com/2100-1001-268915.html"><span style="font-size: 85%;">missed an opportunity to sell the business to Red Hat</span> </a><span style="font-size: 85%;"> and finding that selling </span> <a href="http://news.com.com/2100-1001-269729.html"><span style="font-size: 85%;">$50,000-per-year support packages</span> </a><span style="font-size: 85%;"> for an open-source database wasn't easy. As Batten concluded, 'We could not get customers to pay us big dollars for support contracts.' Perhaps EnterpriseDB will be more successful with a choice of </span> <a href="http://www.enterprisedb.com/shop.do?cID=10000&pID=10001"><span style="font-size: 85%;">$5,000, $3,000, or $1,000 annual support subscriptions</span> </a><span style="font-size: 85%;">.</span> </span> <br /> <span style="font-family: Verdana;"></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"></span> <br /> <span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 85%;">**Interestingly, <a href="http://www.sun.com/smi/Press/sunflash/2005-11/sunflash.20051115.4.xml">Oracle announced in November 2005</a> that Solaris 10 is 'its preferred development and deployment platform for most x64 architectures, including x64 (x86, 64-bit) AMD Opteron and Intel Xeon processor-based systems and Sun's UltraSPARC(R)-based systems.'</span> <br /> <br /> <span style="font-family: Verdana;">There is a surfeit of reviews of current MySQL, PostgreSQL andâto a lesser extentâIngres implementations. These three open-source RDBMSs come with their own or third-party management tools. These systems compete against free versions of commercial (proprietary) databases: <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/sql/">SQL Server 2005 Express Edition</a> (and its MSDE 2000 and 1.0 predecessors), <a href="http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/database/xe/index.html" target="_blank">Oracle Database 10g Express Edition</a>, <a href="http://www-306.ibm.com/software/data/db2/udb/db2express/download.html" target="_blank">IBM DB2 Express-C</a>, and <a href="http://www.sybase.com/linux_promo" target="_blank">Sybase ASE Express Edition for Linux</a> where database size and processor count limitations aren't important. Click <a href="http://www.ftponline.com/special/sqlserver/rjennings-overview/table4.aspx">here</a> for a summary of recent <em>InfoWorld</em> reviews of the full versions of these four databases plus MySQL, which should be valid for Express editions also. The <a href="http://www.ftponline.com/special/sqlserver/">FTPOnline Special Report</a> article, 'Microsoft SQL Server Turns 17,' that contains the preceding table is <a href="http://www.ftponline.com/special/sqlserver/rjennings-overview/">here</a> (requires registration.)</span> <br /> <br /> </p> <p> <strong><span style="font-family: verdana;">SQL Server 2005 Express Edition SP-1 Advanced Features</span> </strong> </p> <p> <span style="font-family: Verdana;"><a href="http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=4C6BA9FD-319A-4887-BC75-3B02B5E48A40&displaylang=en">SQL Server 2005 Express Edition with Advanced Features</a> enhances SQL Server 2005 Express Edition (SQL Express or SSX) dramatically, so it deserves special treatment here. SQL Express gains full text indexing and now supports SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) on the local SSX instance. The SP-1 with Advanced Features setup package, which Microsoft released on April 18, 2006, installs the release version of SQL Server Management Studio Express (SSMSE) and the full version of Business Intelligence Development Studio (BIDS) for designing and editing SSRS reports. My '<a href="http://www.ftponline.com/special/sqlserver/rjennings-sp1/">Install SP-1 for SQL Server 2005 and Express</a>' article for FTPOnline's <a href="http://www.ftponline.com/special/sqlserver/">SQL Server Special Report</a> provides detailed, illustrated installation instructions for and related information about the release version of SP-1. SP-1 makes SSX the most capable of all currently available Express editions of commercial RDBMSs for Windows.</span> </p> <p> <strong><span style="font-family: verdana;">OpenLink Software's Virtuoso Open-Source Edition</span> </strong> <br /> <span style="font-family: verdana;"></span> <br /> <span style="font-family: verdana;"><a href="http://openlinksw.com/">OpenLink Software</a> announced an <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/wiki/main/Main/">open-source version</a> of it's <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/">Virtuoso Universal Server</a> commercial DBMS on April 11, 2006. On the initial date of this post, May 2, 2006, Virtuoso Open-Source Edition (VOS) was virtually under the radar as an open-source product. According to <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/press/VOSPressRelease.htm">this press release</a>, the new edition includes:</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana;"></span> </p> <blockquote> <span style="font-family: Verdana;"></span> </blockquote> <blockquote></blockquote> <blockquote></blockquote> <ul> <li> <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/sparql_demo/">SPARQL compliant RDF Triple Store</a> </li> <li>SQL-200n Object-Relational Database Engine (SQL, XML, and Free Text) </li> <li>Integrated BPEL Server and Enterprise Service Bus</li> <li>WebDAV and Native File Server </li> <li>Web Application Server that supports PHP, Perl, Python, ASP.NET, JSP, etc. </li> <li>Runtime Hosting for Microsoft .NET, Mono, and Java </li> </ul>VOS only lacks the virtual server and replication features that are offered by the commercial edition. VOS includes a Web-based administration tool called the "Virtuoso Conductor" According to <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/%7Ekidehen/index.vspx?page=&id=951&sid=&realm=">Kingsley Idehen's Weblog</a>, 'The Virtuoso build scripts have been successfully tested on Mac OS X (Universal Binary Target), Linux, FreeBSD, and Solaris (AIX, HP-UX, and True64 UNIX will follow soon). A Windows Visual Studio project file is also in the works (ETA some time this week).'<br /> <br /> <em>InfoWorld</em>'s Jon Udell has tracked Virtuoso's progress since <a href="http://www.infoworld.com/article/02/04/12/020415plvirtuoso_1.html">2002</a>, with an <a href="http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/03/21/12virtuoso_1.html">additional article in 2003</a> and a <a href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/2006/04/28.html#a1437">one-hour podcast with Kingsley Idehen</a> on April 26, 2006. A major talking point for Virtuoso is its support for Atom 0.3 syndication and publication, Atom 1.0 syndication and (forthcoming) publication, and future support for Google's <a href="http://code.google.com/apis/gdata/overview.html">GData protocol</a>, as mentioned in <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/%7Ekidehen/index.vspx?page=&id=965">this Idehen post</a>. Yahoo!'s <a href="http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/006687.html">Jeremy Zawodny</a> points out that the 'fingerprints' of <a href="http://oakleafblog.blogspot.com/2005/11/adam-bosworth-learning-from-web-and.html">Adam Bosworth</a>, Google's VP of Engineering and the primary force behind the development of Microsoft Access, 'are all over GData.' Click <a href="http://search.blogger.com/?as_q=bosworth&ie=UTF-8&ui=blg&bl_url=oakleafblog.blogspot.com&x=50&y=10">here</a> to display a list of all OakLeaf posts that mention Adam Bosworth.<br /> <br />One application for the GData protocol is querying and updating the Google Base database independently of the Google Web client, as mentioned by Jeremy: 'It's not about building an easier onramp to Google Base. ... Well, it is. But, again, that's the small stuff.' Click <a href="http://search.blogger.com/?as_q=%22google+base%22&ie=UTF-8&x=50&y=9&q=%22google+base%22+blogurl:oakleafblog.blogspot.com&filter=0&ui=blg&sa=N&start=0">here</a> for a list of posts about my experiences with Google Base. Watch for a future OakLeaf post on the subject as the GData APIs gain ground.<br /> <span style="font-family: Verdana;"></span> <br /> <span style="font-family: Verdana;"><strong>Open-Source and Free Embedded Database Contenders</strong> </span> <br /> <span style="font-family: Verdana;"></span> <br /> <span style="font-family: Verdana;">Open-source and free embedded SQL databases are gaining importance as the number and types of mobile devices and OSs proliferate. Embedded databases usually consist of Java classes or Windows DLLs that are designed to minimize file size and memory consumption. Embedded databases avoid the installation hassles, heavy resource usage and maintenance cost associated with client/server RDBMSs that run as an operating system service.</span> <br /> <br /> <span style="font-family: Verdana;">Andrew Hudson's December 2005 '<a href="http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=28201">Open Source databases rounded up and rodeoed</a>' review for The Enquirer provides brief descriptions of one commercial and eight open source database purveyors/products: Sleepycat, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Ingres, InnoBase, Firebird, IBM Cloudscape (a.k.a, Derby), Genezzo, and Oracle. Oracle <a href="http://www.sleepycat.com/">Sleepycat</a>* isn't an SQL Database, Oracle <a href="http://www.innodb.com/index.php">InnoDB</a>* is an OEM database engine that's used by MySQL, and <a href="http://www.genezzo.com/">Genezzo</a> is a multi-user, multi-server distributed database engine written in Perl. These special-purpose databases are beyond the scope of this post.</span> <br /> <br /> <span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span style="font-size: 85%;">* Oracle <a href="http://www.oracle.com/sleepycat/index.html">purchased Sleepycat Software, Inc. in February 2006</a> and </span> <a href="http://www.oracle.com/innodb/index.html"><span style="font-size: 85%;">purchased Innobase OY in October 2005</span> </a><span style="font-size: 85%;">. The press release states: 'Oracle intends to continue developing the InnoDB technology and expand our commitment to open source software.' </span> </span> <br /> <span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 85%;"></span> <br /> <span style="font-family: Verdana;"> <a href="http://db.apache.org/derby/"><strong>Derby</strong> </a> is an open-source release by the <a href="http://www.apache.org/">Apache Software Foundation</a> of the <a href="http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/08/03/HNcloudscape_1.html">Cloudscape Java-based database that IBM acquired</a> when it bought Informix in 2001. IBM offers a commercial release of Derby as <a href="http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/db2/library/techarticle/dm-0408cline/">IBM Cloudscape 10.1</a>. Derby is a Java class library that has a relatively light footprint (2 MB), which make it suitable for <a href="http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/db2/library/techarticle/dm-0503stumpf/">client/server synchronization</a> with the IBM DB2 Everyplace Sync Server in <a href="http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/library/wi-cloud/">mobile applications</a>. The IBM DB2 Everyplace Express Edition isn't open source or free*, so it doesn't qualify for this post. The same is true for the corresponding Sybase SQL Anywhere components.**</span> <br /> <br /> <br /> <p> <span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: 85%;">* IBM DB2 Everyplace Express Edition with synchronization costs $379 per server (up to two processors) and $79 per user. DB2 Everyplace Database Edition (without DB2 synchronization) is $49 per user. (Prices are based on those when </span> <a href="http://news.earthweb.com/wireless/article.php/3107101"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: 85%;">IBM announced version 8</span> </a><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: 85%;"> in November 2003.)</span> </p> <p> <span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: 85%;">** Sybase's iAnywhere subsidiary calls SQL Anywhere 'the industry's leading mobile database.' A Sybase SQL Anywhere Personal DB seat license with synchronization to SQL Anywhere Server is $119; the cost without synchronization wasn't available from the Sybase Web site. Sybase SQL Anywhere and IBM DB2 Everyplace perform similar replication functions.</span> </p> <p> <span style="font-family: Verdana;">Sun's <a href="http://developers.sun.com/prodtech/javadb/"><strong>Java DB</strong></a>, another commercial version of Derby, comes with the <a href="http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/">Solaris Enterprise Edition</a>, which bundles Solaris 10, the Java Enterprise System, developer tools, desktop infrastructure and N1 management software. A recent Between the Lines blog entry by ZDNet's David Berlind waxes enthusiastic over the use of <a href="http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=2298">Java DB embedded in a browser</a> to provide offline persistence. RedMonk analyst <a href="http://www.redmonk.com/jgovernor/archives/001151.html">James Governor</a> and <em>eWeek</em>'s <a href="http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1902407,00.asp">Lisa Vaas</a> wrote about the use of Java DB as a local data store when <a href="http://www.sauria.com/blog/2005/12/13#1440">Tim Bray announced Sun's Derby derivative</a> and <a href="http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/FrancoisOrsini?entry=derby_apachecon_demo">Francois Orsini</a> demonstrated Java DB embedded in the Firefox browser at the ApacheCon 2005 conference.</span> <br /> <span style="font-family: Verdana;"></span> <br /> <span style="font-family: Verdana;"> <a href="http://www.firebirdsql.org/"><strong>Firebird</strong> </a> is derived from Borland's InterBase 6.0 code, the first commercial relational database management system (RDBMS) to be released as open source. Firebird has excellent support for SQL-92 and comes in three versions: Classic, SuperServer and Embedded for Windows, Linux, Solaris, HP-UX, FreeBSD and MacOS X. The embedded version has a 1.4-MB footprint. Release Candidate 1 for Firebird 2.0 became available on March 30, 2006 and is a major improvement over earlier versions. <a href="http://www.borland.com/us/products/interbase/index.html">Borland continues to promote InterBase</a>, now at version 7.5, as a small-footprint, embedded database with commercial Server and Client licenses.</span> <br /> <span style="font-family: Verdana;"></span> <br /> <span style="font-family: Verdana;"> <a href="http://www.sqlite.org/index.html"><strong>SQLite</strong> </a> is a featherweight C library for an embedded database that implements most SQL-92 entry- and transitional-level requirements (some through the JDBC driver) and supports transactions within a tiny 250-KB code footprint. <a href="http://www.sqlite.org/cvstrac/wiki?p=SqliteWrappers">Wrappers</a> support a multitude of languages and operating systems, including Windows CE, SmartPhone, Windows Mobile, and Win32. SQLite's primary <a href="http://www.sqlite.org/omitted.html">SQL-92 limitations</a> are lack of nested transactions, inability to alter a table design once committed (other than with RENAME TABLE and ADD COLUMN operations), and foreign-key constraints. SQLite provides read-only views, triggers, and 256-bit encryption of database files. A downside is the the entire database file is <a href="http://weblogs.asp.net/jgalloway/archive/2006/04/12/442615.aspx">locked when while a transaction is in progress</a>. SQLite uses file access permissions in lieu of GRANT and REVOKE commands. Using SQLite involves no license; its code is entirely in the public domain.</span> </p> <p> <span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 85%;">The Mozilla Foundation's <a href="http://wiki.mozilla.org/Mozilla2:Unified_Storage">Unified Storage wiki</a> says this about SQLite: 'SQLite will be the back end for the unified store [for Firefox]. Because it implements a SQL engine, we get querying 'for free', without having to invent our own query language or query execution system. Its code-size footprint is moderate (250k), but it will hopefully simplify much existing code so that the net code-size change should be smaller. It has exceptional performance, and supports concurrent access to the database. Finally, it is released into the public domain, meaning that we will have no licensing issues.'</span> </p> <p> <span style="font-family: verdana;">Vieka Technology, Inc.'s <a href="http://vieka.com/esql.htm"><strong>eSQL 2.11</strong></a> is a port of SQLite to Windows Mobile (Pocket PC and Smartphone) and Win32, and includes development tools for Windows devices and PCs, as well as a .NET native data provider. A conventional ODBC driver also is available. eSQL for Windows (Win32) is free for personal and commercial use; eSQL for Windows Mobile requires a license for commercial (for-profit or business) use.</span> </p> <p> <span style="font-family: verdana;"> <a href="http://hsqldb.org/"><strong>HSQLDB</strong> </a> isn't on most reviewers' radar, which is surprising because it's the default database for <a href="http://www.openoffice.org/">OpenOffice.org</a> (OOo) 2.0's <a href="http://www.openoffice.org/product/base.html">Base</a> suite member. HSQLDB 1.8.0.1 is an open-source (BSD license) Java dembedded database engine based on Thomas Mueller's original Hypersonic SQL Project. Using OOo's Base feature requires installing the Java 2.0 Runtime Engine (which is not open-source) or the presence of an alternative open-source engine, such as Kaffe. My prior posts about OOo Base and HSQLDB are <a href="http://oakleafblog.blogspot.com/2005/10/openoffice-base-20-vs-microsoft-access.html">here</a>, <a href="http://oakleafblog.blogspot.com/2005/10/openoffice-base-20-vs-microsoft-access_22.html">here</a> and <a href="http://oakleafblog.blogspot.com/2005/10/openoffice-20-base-matches-microsoft.html">here</a>.</span> </p> <p> <span style="font-family: verdana;">The <a href="http://hsqldb.sourceforge.net/web/hsqlDocsFrame.html">HSQLDB 1.8.0 documentation</a> on SourceForge states the following regarding SQL-92 and later conformance:</span> </p> <span style="font-family: verdana;"> <blockquote> <p> <span style="font-family: verdana;">HSQLDB 1.8.0 supports the dialect of SQL defined by SQL standards 92, 99 and 2003. This means where a feature of the standard is supported, e.g. left outer join, the syntax is that specified by the standard text. Many features of SQL92 and 99 up to Advanced Level are supported and here is support for most of SQL 2003 Foundation and several optional features of this standard. However, certain features of the Standards are not supported so no claim is made for full support of any level of the standards. </span> </p> </blockquote> <span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: 85%;">Other less well-known embedded databases designed for or suited to mobile deployment are </span> <a href="http://www.mimer.com/leftright.asp?secId=172"><span style="font-size: 85%;">Mimer SQL Mobile</span> </a><span style="font-size: 85%;"> and </span> <a href="http://www.vistadb.net/"><span style="font-size: 85%;">VistaDB 2.1</span> </a><span style="font-size: 85%;">. Neither product is open-source and require paid licensing; VistaDB requires a small up-front payment by developers but offers royalty-free distribution.</span> </span> <br /> <br /> <span style="font-family: Verdana;">Java DB, Firebird embedded, SQLite and eSQL 2.11 are contenders for lightweight PC and mobile device database projects that aren't Windows-only.</span> <br /> <br /> <strong> <span style="font-family: verdana;">SQL Server 2005 Everywhere<br /> </span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"></span> </strong> <br /> <span style="font-family: verdana;">If you're a Windows developer, SQL Server Mobile is the logical embedded database choice for mobile applications for Pocket PCs and Smartphones. Microsoft's April 19, 2006 press release delivered the news that SQL Server 2005 Mobile Editon (SQL Mobile or SSM) would gain a big brotherâSQL Server 2005 Everywhere Edition. </span> <br /> <span style="font-family: verdana;"></span> <br /> <span style="font-family: verdana;">Currently, the SSM client is licensed (at no charge) to run in production on devices with Windows CE 5.0, Windows Mobile 2003 for Pocket PC or Windows Mobile 5.0, or on PCs with Windows XP Tablet Edition only. SSM also is licensed for development purposes on PCs running Visual Studio 2005.</span> <span style="font-family: verdana;"> Smart Device replication with SQL Server 2000 SP3 and later databases has been the most common application so far for SSM.<br /> <br /> </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">By the end of 2006, Microsoft will license SSE for use on <em>all</em> PCs running any Win32 version or the preceding device OSs. A version of SQL Server Management Studio Express (SSMSE)âupdated to support SSEâis expected to release by the end of the year. These features will qualify SSE as <em>the universal embedded database</em> for Windows client and smart-device applications. </span> <br /> <br /> <span style="font-family: verdana;">For more details on SSE, read <a href="http://weblogs.asp.net/jgalloway/archive/2006/04/11/442451.aspx">John Galloway's April 11, 2006 blog post</a> and my '<a href="http://www.ftponline.com/special/sqlserver/rjennings-mobile/">SQL Server 2005 Mobile Goes Everywhere</a>' article for the <a href="http://www.ftponline.com/special/sqlserver/">FTPOnline Special Report on SQL Server</a>.</span><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span>" <p>(Via <a href="http://oakleafblog.blogspot.com">OakLeaf Systems</a>.)</p> </span> </blockquote>
Samba creator echoes common Microsoft ISV gripe
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2006-05-01#966
2006-05-01T13:14:44Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<p>Excerpted from:<a href="http://c.moreover.com/click/here.pl?r518324049">"InfoWorld piece covering"</a> last week's EU testimony by <a href="http://samba.org/~tridge/">Andrew Tridgell</a>.</p> <blockquote> <cite><p>The engineers bring computers and the software programs they are working on and literally plug them together to see how their programs interoperate. “We work around the clock for a week. We torture our machines in the pursuit of interoperability,” he told a rapt courtroom.</p> <p>“Can you do this test with Microsoft?” Judge Cooke asked.</p> <p>“Yes, but they don’t turn up,” Tridgell said.</p> <p>In an interview after the court had adjourned for the day, Tridgell explained that for the past six years Microsoft has boycotted the event.</p> <p>“They used to come. It used to be held in Seattle, close to Microsoft’s headquarters,” he said.</p> <p>But the software giant turned its back on the rest of the software community in the late 1990s once it had developed a server operating system it believed it could corner the market with. This marked a turning point for the software industry, Tridgell said. He spoke nostalgically about the days before Microsoft went its separate way. “It’s not like it used to be. I’d like it to get back to that,” he said.</p> <p>The market for workgroup server operating systems lies at the heart of the European Commission’s antitrust decision against Microsoft. Sun Microsystems Inc., a player in this market, complained to the European competition regulator in 1998 that Microsoft was competing unfairly. That complaint sparked the five year-long antitrust investigation.</p> <p>To remedy the situation, the Commission ordered Microsoft to divulge interoperability protocols within its own Windows workgroup server operating system. With this information, rival server systems should be able to communicate as fluently with Windows on PCs as Microsoft’s own server system.</p> <p>Two years on from the historic antitrust ruling, the Commission contends that Microsoft still hasn’t provided the necessary information, and the Commission is poised to issue a new antitrust ruling against the company for failing to comply with its 2004 decision.</p> <p>Even if Microsoft does comply, it isn’t certain that Tridgell and others from the free and open source sides of the software community will be granted access to the information.</p> <p>At the time of the antitrust ruling, Microsoft said the remedy proposed by the then competition commissioner, Mario Monti, would result in its valuable intellectual property being given away if it fell into the hands of open source developers.</p> </cite> </blockquote> <p>Andrew's testimony reflects an experience familiar to many ISV's that worked closely with Microsoft in the "early to mid 90's". In our case, the technology was ODBC (Open Database Connectivity). The cost of achieving ODBC compliance and interoperability grew exponentially as Microsoft veered towards a platform and database specific monoculture.</p>
Virtuoso is Officially Open Source!
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2006-04-11#951
2006-04-11T18:01:44Z
2006-07-21T07:22:20.000001-04:00
<p>I am pleased to unveil (officially) the fact that <a href="http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/04-11-2006/0004338324&EDATE=">Virtuoso is now available in Open Source form</a>.</p> <p></p> <h4>What Is Virtuoso?</h4> <p>A powerful next generation server product that implements otherwise distinct server functionality within a single server product. Think of Virtuoso as the server software analog of a dual core processor where each core represents a traditional server functionality realm.</p> <p></p> <h4>Where did it come from?</h4> <p>The <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/wiki/main/Main/VOSHistory">Virtuoso History page</a> tells the whole story.</p> <p></p> <h4>What Functionality Does It Provide?</h4> The following: <ul> 1. Object-Relational DBMS Engine (ORDBMS like PostgreSQL and DBMS engine like MySQL) </ul> <ul> 2. XML Data Management (with support for XQuery, XPath, XSLT, and XML Schema) </ul> <ul> 3. RDF Triple Store (or Database) that supports SPARQL (Query Language, Transport Protocol, and XML Results Serialization format) </ul> <ul> 4. Service Oriented Architecture (it combines a BPEL Engine with an ESB) </ul> <ul> 5. Web Application Server (supports HTTP/WebDAV) </ul> <ul> 6. NNTP compliant Discussion Server </ul> And more. (see: <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com">Virtuoso Web Site</a>) <p> 90% of the aforementioned functionality has been available in Virtuoso since 2000 with the RDF Triple Store being the only 2006 item.</p> <p></p> <h4>What Platforms are Supported</h4> <p> The Virtuoso build scripts have been successfully tested on Mac OS X (Universal Binary Target), Linux, FreeBSD, and Solaris (AIX, HP-UX, and True64 UNIX will follow soon). A Windows Visual Studio project file is also in the works (ETA some time this week).</p> <p></p> <h4>Why Open Source?</h4> <p>Simple, there is no value in a product of this magnitude remaining the "best kept secret". That status works well for our competitors, but absolutely works against the legions of new generation developers, systems integrators, and knowledge workers that need to be aware of what is actually achievable today with the right server architecture.</p> <p></p> <h4>What Open Source License is it under?</h4> <p>GPL version 2.</p> <p></p> <h4>What's the business model?</h4> <p>Dual licensing.</p> <p>The Open Source version of Virtuoso includes all of the functionality listed above. While the Virtual Database (distributed heterogeneous join engine) and Replication Engine (across heterogeneous data sources) functionality will only be available in the commercial version. </p> <p></p> <h4>Where is the Project Hosted?</h4> <p>On <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/virtuoso">SourceForge.</a> </p> <p></p> <h4>Is there a product Blog?</h4> <p>Of course! </p> <p>Up until this point, the <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/blog/">Virtuoso Product Blog</a> has been a covert live demonstration of some aspects of Virtuoso (Content Management). My Personal Blog and the Virtuoso Product Blog are actual Virtuoso instances, and have been so since I started blogging in 2003.</p> <p>Is There a product Wiki?</p> <p>Sure! <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/wiki/main/">The Virtuoso Product Wiki</a> is also an instance of Virtuoso demonstrating another aspect of the Content Management prowess of Virtuoso.</p> <p></p> <h4>What About Online Documentation?</h4> <p>Yep! <a href="http://docs.openlinksw.com/virtuoso/">Virtuoso Online Documentation</a> is hosted via yet another Virtuoso instance. This particular instance also attempts to demonstrate Free Text search combined with the ability to repurpose well formed content in a myriad of forms (Atom, RSS, RDF, OPML, and OCS).</p> <p></p> <h4>What about Tutorials and Demos?</h4> <p>The <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/tutorial/">Virtuoso Online Tutorial</a> Site has operated as a live demonstration and tutorial portal for a numbers of years. During the same timeframe (circa. 2001) we also assembled a few Screencast style demos (their look feel certainly show their age; updates are in the works).</p> <p>BTW - We have also updated the <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/FAQ/">Virtuoso FAQ</a> and also released a number of missing <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/Whitepapers/">Virtuoso White Papers</a> (amongst many long overdue action items).</p>
Apple's Boot Camp lets Mactels run Windows XP
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2006-04-05#945
2006-04-05T13:10:52Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<p> <a href="http://www.macsimumnews.com/index.php/archive/apples_boot_camp_lets_mactels_run_windows_xp/">Apple's Boot Camp lets Mactels run Windows XP</a>: "</p> <p> <img src="http://www.macsimumnews.com/images/uploads/Boot_Camp.gif" border="0" alt="image" name="image" align="right" width="310" height="231" />Apple has today introduced Boot Camp, public beta software that enables Intel-based Macs to run Windows XP. It will be a part of Mac OS X 10.5 (‘Leopard’) whenever the next major update of Mac OS X arrives (probably in early 2007). Leopard will be previewed this August at the... [ <a href="http://www.macsimumnews.com/index.php/archive/11933/"> read more</a> ]</p>" <p>(Via <a href="http://www.macsimumnews.com/index.php/main/index/">Macsimum News</a>.)</p>
Getting Closer (Booting solved): WinXP and OSX dual boot in MacBook Pro
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2006-03-19#941
2006-03-19T22:40:55Z
2006-07-21T07:23:10.000001-04:00
<p>(Directly From <a href="http://nirlog.com">Nirlog.com</a>:)</p> <p> <a href="http://nirlog.com/2006/03/18/winxp-and-osx-dual-boot-in-macbook-pro/#comments">WinXP and OSX dual boot in MacBook Pro</a>: "</p> <p> <img height="332" width="484" style="margin:5px;" alt="" src="http://nirlog.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/03/xponmac-start2.gif" /> </p> <p>Finally Iâve succeeded in installing Windows XP in MacBook Pro. Now it can dual boot between Windows XP and MacOS X. Thereâre few issues with windows xp but being able to boot smoothly between these 2 OSes are really amazing. Iâve followed this <a href="http://wiki.onmac.net/index.php/HOWTO">HOWTO</a> where more and more information is being added every few hours. I think most of the minor problems will be solved soon. If you want to install it for your self or want more information <a href="http://wiki.onmac.net/index.php/Main_Page">this wiki</a> is the best place to go. Here Iâm posting the photos of major installation sequence and some problems I encountered.</p> <p> <a id="more-96"></a> </p> <p> <strong>Installation</strong> </p> <p> 1. Downloaded <a href="http://download.onmac.net/Winxponmac_0.1.zip">winxponmac0.1.zip</a> </p> <p>Windows XP Pro CD that came with my Samsung Notebook is SP1 but the patch works only with SP2. So this is what I did:</p> <p> 2. Downloaded <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=049C9DBE-3B8E-4F30-8245-9E368D3CDB5A&displaylang=en">WinXP SP2</a> separately.</p> <p> 3. Used the free tool <a href="http://www.nliteos.com/nlite.html">nLite</a> to integrate the WinXP SP2 with the XP Pro CD (SP1) and created the WinXP SP2 CD source.</p> <p> 4. Then followed <a href="http://wiki.onmac.net/index.php/HOWTO#Step-by-step_Instructions">Step-by-step-instruction</a> </p> <ul> <li> Burned the customized WinXP CD.</li> <li> Partitioned the disk using OSX CD.</li> <li> Installed OSX.</li> </ul> <p> <img height="282" width="484" style="margin:5px;" alt="" src="http://nirlog.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/03/xponmac-burn-cd.gif" /> </p> <p> 5. Started Windows XP installation.</p> <p> <img height="356" width="484" style="margin:5px;" alt="" src="http://nirlog.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/03/xponmac-xpinstall.gif" /> </p> <p> 6. I encountered a problem with the partition listing. I was presented with following options.</p> <ul> <li> C: Partition 1 (EFI) [FAT32]</li> <li> unpartitioned space</li> <li> E: Partition 2 [unknown]</li> <li> unpartitioned space</li> </ul> <p> <img height="341" width="484" style="margin:5px;" alt="" src="http://nirlog.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/03/xponmac-partition-problem.gif" /> </p> <p>According to the guide the correct option should be as following:</p> <ul> <li>E: Partition1 (EFI) [FAT32]</li> <li>C: Partition2 [Unknown]</li> <li>F: Partition3 [Unknown]</li> </ul> <p>If you choose the Partition2 then youâll get follwing error:</p> <p> <img height="344" width="484" style="margin:5px;" alt="" src="http://nirlog.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/03/xponmac-partition-problem1.gif" /> </p> <p> 7. To solve the above problem I selected the first 'unpartitioned space,' then pressed 'C' to create a new partition. As described in <a href="http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20060317100333451">this solution</a>. After this things went smoothly.</p> <p> <img height="360" width="484" style="margin:5px;" alt="" src="http://nirlog.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/03/xponmac-partition-ok.gif" /> </p> <p> 8. Finally itâs installed</p> <p> <img height="332" width="484" style="margin:5px;" alt="" src="http://nirlog.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/03/xponmac-start1.gif" /> </p> <p>9. System Properties</p> <p> <img height="531" width="484" style="margin:5px;" alt="" src="http://nirlog.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/03/xponmac-sys-prop.gif" /> </p> <p>10. Device Manager with unrecognized devices.</p> <p> <img height="399" width="484" style="margin:5px;" alt="" src="http://nirlog.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/03/xponmac-device.gif" /> </p> <p>11. Downloaded the drivers from <a href="http://wiki.onmac.net/index.php/Drivers">here</a>. Ethernet works fine. Wireless doesnât work. If I press restart it will shutdown.</p> <p>12. Browsing my blog.</p> <p> <img height="363" width="484" style="margin:5px;" alt="" src="http://nirlog.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/03/xponmac-firefox.gif" /> </p> <p>13. Boot Choice: Mac OSX</p> <p> <img height="360" width="484" style="margin:5px;" alt="" src="http://nirlog.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/03/xponmac-apple.gif" /> </p> <p>14. Boot Choice: Windows XP</p> <p> <img height="360" width="484" style="margin:5px;" alt="" src="http://nirlog.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/03/xponmac-12.gif" /> </p> <p>Now thereâre few driver issues Iâm quite sure theyâll be solved soon.</p>"
WINE Arrives for Intel Macs
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2006-02-09#932
2006-02-09T14:29:16Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<p><a href="http://www.osx86project.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=112&Itemid=2">WINE Arrives for Intel Macs</a>: " Though the precious dream of dual-booting our Intel Macs has not descended, a convenient alternative has arrived. Although fully functional on developers releases of OS X for Intel, the WINE compatibility layer, which allows Windows programs to run on *nix systems including OS X, was not available for the public release of 10.4.4. However, thanks to the hard work of the folks at Darwine (http://darwine.opendarwin.org/) and their contributors, it appears this barrier has been broken! Find out how to compile WINE and view screenshots in our forum (http://forum.osx86project.org/index.php?showtopic=8699). "</p> <p>(Via <a href="http://www.osx86project.org">The OSx86 Project</a>.)</p>
It's a different world today
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2006-02-03#930
2006-02-03T13:26:36Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<p>Here is an accurate articulation of why "Size Doesn't Matter" anymore when it comes to market influence and fundamental business bootstrapping and development.</p> <blockquote> <cite></cite> <p>It's possible, even likely that Microsoft's RSS technology will be the most-installed, and their influence on the future of the format will be considerable, and it concerns me that at some point they may throw their weight around like Apple is (I think it's pretty likely they will, if not this year, then next year, or the year after that). </p> <p>But none of that means that I can't find enough users for my aggregator, and you for yours, to be able to continue development and influence the market, because we don't have to convince the editors of PC Mag and PC Week that our products matter. When the big dinosaurs, Microsoft, Lotus and Ashton-Tate, and later Borland, wanted our market, the publications had little choice but to give it to them. Now I am a publication myself. I can communicate directly with users. That changes <i>everything.</i> </p> <p>But even back then, if their product wasn't up to the job, their attempts to take the market often failed. I remember when the CEO of a very large software company came to me as a friend (hah) and said I should get out of his way because he was going to take my market. His product was inadequate, and it didn't work. He tried again, and again it didn't work. And again, and again. And my product was still standing. So even in the 80s, size wasn't enough to get you a market. </p> <p>Microsoft took spreadsheets by being much better than Lotus on the Mac. Word emerged from the flock of word processors by being the first to make it to Windows in a usable fashion. Adam, I don't have to tell you how dBASE fell to Fox. I don't think they would have overcome any of their competitors back in the 80s, if their product had been as weak as their aggregator product is today. Same thing is true, by the way, in their competition with Netscape. Microsoft's browser probably would have won on its merits, they didn't need to use anti-competitive tactics, their product was better enough, and their development methodology strong, they would would have won anyway, imho. (And so I argued, even pleaded, at the time.)</p> <p>On the other hand, the aggregator developers could sure use some competition! In the last four years there really hasn't been very much improvement, in fact I think in many ways we've <i>lost</i> capabilities that we once had. Maybe a little pressure from a BigCo will separate the winners from the losers in this space, and we can start thinking about a market that is, instead of a market that will be."</p> <p>(Via <a href="http://www.scripting.com/">Scripting News</a>.)</p> </blockquote> <p>The points made by Dave extend across all industries. The Internet and resultant "network effects" (exemplified by the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blogosphere">Blogosphere</a> amongst others) collectively close the door on size as the key determinant of commercial success. "Size" is an artifact of the "Industrial Age". We are now well in the throws of the "Information Age". </p>
Booting Windows on MacIntel Step-By Guide
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2006-01-30#928
2006-01-30T19:04:00Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
Here is yet another "<a href="http://neosmart.net/blog/dual-booting-windows-xp-on-a-macbook/">Booting Windows on MacIntel</a>" Guide (courtesy of the <a href="http://neosmart.net/blog/">"Ramblings of a Computer Guru" blog</a>).
Windows/Linux on MacIntel Race is on!
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2006-01-18#924
2006-01-18T22:54:57Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
As indicated in an <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/%7Ekidehen/index.vspx?page=&id=922">earlier post</a>, the real sweet spot for the recently announced MacIntels is going to be delivery of Mac OS X (which covers BSD), Linux, Solaris, and Windows running "side by side" nirvana (no dual booting). <a href="http://www.openosx.com/wintel/index.html">OpenOSX</a> is first off the mark (at least publicly) from the emulator camp, but there many others to come! Anyway, I need to go test this for myself before I comment any further (I hate speculating without hands on experience).
As We Get Closer to Mac/Linux/Windows/Solaris MacIntels :-)
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2006-01-11#922
2006-01-11T22:37:35Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<p>Quick note to self and others interested in this inevitable nirvana: The new <a href="http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/">MacBook Pro</a>'s from <a href="http://www.apple.com">Apple</a> include support for <a href="http://www.intel.com">Intel</a>'s <a href="http://www.intel.com/technology/efi/">EFI Bios</a>.</p><p>(Spotter: <a href="http://digg.com/apple">Digg</a>) .</p> <p>Related Commentary: The emerging view is that EFI is a subtle mechanism for locking out Windows (since it doesn't support EFI in its x86 versions. And when it does, it only applies to the IA64 variants). Well, Linux handles EFI, and I assume that VMWare and others more than likely grok this already. Thus, we can hope that OS Virtualization players are getting revved up to provide even clearer justification for their existence by opening the gates to this Nirvana!</p>
Why Do Pros Use Macs?
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2005-11-30#914
2005-11-30T15:10:22Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
I am still planning to write a log about my transition from Windows to Mac OS X as my main working machine. In the meantime enjoy this post titled: <a href="http://www.kenrockwell.com/apple/why-pros-use-mac.htm">Why Do Pros Use Macs?</a> It is very much in line with my personal experience.
Will Web 2.0 kill Windows?
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2005-11-10#896
2005-11-10T02:54:56Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<p>Michael Gartenberg poses the question: <a href="http://weblogs.jupiterresearch.com/analysts/gartenberg/archives/011791.html">Will Web 2.0 kill Windows?</a>: " </p><p>Answer: NO.</p> <p>Comparing Web 2.0 to Windows is like comparing Apples and Oranges!</p> <p>The Internet displaced Windows (long time ago!). The effect of this reality is simply working its way through Geoffrey Moore's Bell Curve - in "left to right" fashion. By the way, there isn't a single thing Microsoft can do about this beyond accepting this reality and gearing itself up to compete as best it can in this new reality.</p> <p><a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/127/index.vspx?page=&id=885">The Internet is the Operating System for the New Computer</a> - aptly coined: "The Network" by Sun years ago (unfortunately a blind preoccupation with Java has completely obscured Sun's fundamental vision regarding this matter).</p> <p>Web 2.0 provides the Windows API equivalent for the InternetOS.</p> The real message in today's well publicized memos from Bill and Ray is a realization on the part of Microsoft that they can no longer bet the house on Windows; Integrated Innovation will no longer imply: covert ways of locking unsuspecting customers and partners into Windows. In short, Microsoft is wrestling with its <a href="http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2005/11/understanding_l.html">Local Max</a>.
Clone the Google APIs: Kill That Noise
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2005-11-03#892
2005-11-03T22:44:04Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<p>I am kinda scratching my head a little re. the "Clone Google APIs" call; especially as Amazon's <a href="http://opensearch.a9.com/">A9</a> already provides <a href="http://opensearch.a9.com/docs/howto.jsp">infrastructure for generic search</a>. A9 is open at both ends; you can consume search services via a RESTian API or plug your search engine into A9 (playing the role of A9 search service provider). </p><p>Quick Example using my blog: </p><ul>1. <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblog/public/search.vspx?blogid=127">My Blog's Search Page</a> (note it support Full Text and XPath/XQuery)</ul><ul>2. <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblog/public/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=#39web%202.0#39&type=text&output=html">Search on pattern 'Web 2.0'</a> via my Blog's Search Engine</ul><ul>3. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacktivism" xmlns:n0="http" n0:="http:" a9.com="a9.com" search="search" morecolumns.jsp="morecolumns.jsp" a="a">Hactivism</a>" regarding this matter. Certainly worth a full-post-scrape for my ongoing content annotation efforts (see <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen/index.vspx?page=linkblog">Linkblog</a> and <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen/index.vspx?page=summary">BlogSummary</a>). <p>Digest the rest of Dare's post:</p><blockquote><p><a href="http://www.25hoursaday.com/weblog/PermaLink.aspx?guid=3faf48bb-cf43-4fad-9145-cd749bd0288e">Clone the Google APIs: Kill That Noise</a>: "</p><p> Yesterday Dave Winer wrote in a post about <a href="http://www.scripting.com/2005/11/02.html#When:2:31:38PM">cloning the Google API</a> Dave Winer wrote </p><blockquote><i>Let's make the <a href="http://www.clonethegoogleapi.com/">Google API an open standard</a>. Back in 2002, Google took a bold first step to enable open architecture search engines, by creating an API that allowed developers to build applications on top of their search engine. However, there were severe limits on the capacity of these applications. So we got a good demo of what might be, now three years later, it's time for the real thing.<br /><br /></i></blockquote>and earlier that <br /><blockquote><i>If you didn't get a chance to hear <a href="http://www.scripting.com/2005/11/01.html#When:12:26:58AM">yesterday's podcast</a>, it recommends that Microsoft clone the <a href="http://davenet.scripting.com/2002/04/13/whatsNextAfterTheGoogleApi">Google API</a> for search, without the keys, and without the limits. When a developer's application generates a lot of traffic, buy him a plane ticket and dinner, and ask how you both can make some money off their excellent booming application of search. This is something Google can't do, because search is their cash cow. That's why Microsoft should do it. And so should Yahoo. Also, there's no doubt Google will be competing with Apple soon, so they should be also thinking about ways to devalue Google's advantage.</i></blockquote><blockquote></blockquote><p> This doesn't seem like a great idea to me for a wide variety of reasons but first, let's start with a history lesson before I tackle this specific issue </p><p><b>A Trip Down Memory Lane</b><br /> This history lesson <strike>used to be in</strike> is in a post entitled <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20041011135623/http://www.evhead.com/archives/2003_05_10_archive_default.asp">The Tragedy of the API</a> by <a href="http://www.evhead.com/">Evan Williams</a> <strike>but seems to be gone now</strike>. Anyway, back in the early days of blogging the folks at Pyra [which eventually got bought by Google] created the <a href="http://www.blogger.com/developers/api/1_docs/">Blogger API</a> for their service. Since Blogspot/Blogger was a popular service, a the number of applications that used the API quickly grew. At this point Dave Winer decided that since the Blogger API was so popular he should implement it in his weblogging tools but then he decided that he didn't like some aspects of it such as application keys (sound familiar?) and did without them in his version of the API. Dave Winer's version of the Blogger API became the <a href="http://www.xmlrpc.com/metaWeblogApi">MetaWeblog API</a>. These APIs became de facto standards and a number of other weblogging applications implemented them. </p><p> After a while, the folks at Pyra decided that their API needed to evolve due to various flaws in its design. As Diego Doval put it in his post <a href="http://www.dynamicobjects.com/d2r/archives/001921.html">a review of blogging APIs</a>, <i>The Blogger API is a joke, and a bad one at that</i>. This lead to the creation of the <a href="http://www.blogger.com/developers/api/documentation20.html">Blogger API 2.0</a>. At this point a heated debate erupted online where Dave Winer berated the Blogger folks for deviating from an industry standard. The irony of flaming a company for coming up with a v2 of their own API seemed to be lost on many of the people who participated in the debate. Eventually the Blogger API 2.0 went nowhere. </p><p> Today the blogging API world is a few de facto standards based on a hacky API created by a startup a few years ago, a number of site specific APIs (<a href="http://www.livejournal.com/doc/server/ljp.csp.xml-rpc.protocol.html">LiveJournal API</a>, <a href="http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/docs/mtmanual_programmatic.html">MovableType API</a>, etc) and a number of inconsistently implemented versions of the <a href="http://bitworking.org/projects/atom/">Atom API</a>.<br /></p><p><b>On Cloning the Google Search API</b><br /> To me the most salient point in the hijacking of the Blogger API from Pyra is that it didn't change the popularity of their service or even make Radio Userland (Dave Winer's product) catch up to them in popularity. This is important to note since this is Dave Winer's key argument for Microsoft cloning the Google API. </p><p> Off the top of my head, here are my top three technical reasons for Microsoft to ignore the calls to clone the Google Search APIs<br /></p><ol><li><p><u>Difference in Feature Set:</u> The features exposed by the API do not run the entire gamut of features that other search engines may want to expose. Thus even if you implement something that looks a lot like the Google API, you'd have to extend it to add the functionality that it doesn't provide. For example, compare the <a href="http://www.google.com/apis/reference.html">features provided by the Google API</a> to the <a href="http://developer.yahoo.net/search/">features provided by the Yahoo! search API</a>. I can count about half a dozen features in the Yahoo! API that aren't in the Google API. </p></li><li><p><u>Difference in Technology Choice:</u> The Google API uses SOAP. This to me is a phenomenally bad technical decision because it raises the bar to performing a basic operation (data retrieval) by using a complex technology. I much prefer Yahoo!'s approach of providing a RESTful API and <strike>MSN</strike> Windows Live Search's approach of providing RSS search feeds and a SOAP API for the folks who need such overkill. <br /></p></li><li><u>Unreasonable Demands:</u> A number of Dave Winer's demands seem contradictory. He asks companies to not require application keys but then advises them to contact application developers who've built high traffic applications about revenue sharing. Exactly how are these applications to be identified without some sort of application ID? As for removing the limits on the services? I guess Dave is ignoring the fact that providing services costs money, which I seem to remember is why <a href="http://www.kottke.org/05/10/weblogscom-sold-to-verisign">he sold weblogs.com to Verisign for a few million dollars</a>. I do agree that some of the limits on existing search APIs aren't terribly useful. The Google API limit of 1000 queries a day seems to guarantee that you won't be able to power a popular application with the service. <br /></li><li><p><u>Lack of Innovation:</u> Copying Google sucks. <br /></p></li></ol><p>(Via <a href="http://www.25hoursaday.com/weblog/">Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life</a>.)</p></blockquote></ul>
You want disruptive? Here's disruptive...
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2005-10-27#885
2005-10-27T23:34:25Z
2010-05-16T15:04:54-04:00
<blockquote><p>"...Also today I came across the latest project of a man who wants to tear down <a href="http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/">Tim Berners-Lee</a>'s World Wide Web and replace it with his own vision. It used to be known as Xanadu, but has since morphed into <a href="http://transliterature.org/">Transliterature, A Humanist Design</a>. I am of course referring to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Nelson">Ted Nelson</a>, who invented the term 'hypertext' in 1965 and is generally regarded as a computing pioneer.</p><p>Ted Nelson recently <a href="http://hyperland.com/trollout.txt">wrote an essay</a> about 'Indirect Documents', which got <a href="http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/10/24/1054214&tid=230&tid=218">Slashdotted</a> today. In the essay Nelson outlines why (in his opinion) the Xanadu project failed and he explains his new vision for Transliterature. He takes a number of potshots at Tim Berners-Lee's WWW on the way, e.g.:</p><blockquote><p>'Why don't I like the web? I hate its flapping and screeching and emphasis on appearance; its paper-simulation rectangles of Valuable Real Estate, artifically created by the NCSA browser, now hired out to advertisers; its hierarchies exposed and imposed; its untyped one-way links only from inside the document. (The one-way links hidden under text were a regrettable simplification of hypertext which I assented to in '68 on the HES project. But that's another story.) Only trivial links are possible; there is nothing to support careful annotation and study; and, of course, there is no transclusion.'</p></blockquote><p>Ted Nelson is certainly an original and I'm glad he's still around to throw spanners in the works. <a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/001721.php">I've written about him before</a> and I'm sure I will again, Web 2.0 or not.</p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/readwriteweb?g=272" />" <p>(Excerpted From: <a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/">Read/Write Web</a>.)</p></blockquote><p>My thoughts on the commentary above:</p><p>There is nothing fundamentally incompatible between Ted Nelson's pursuits and future incarnation's of the Web. None whatsoever -- we are simply working our way through an process. The process in question is what I call "standards driven ubiquity" (becoming de facto at Internet Speed). Remember Sun's "The Network is the Computer" vision? Well, without a "Computer" in mind-space you can't think in terms of "Operating Systems". Thats all changing, because today we are gradually beginning to accept the imminent reality that "The Internet is the Operating System" and not Windows/UNIX/Mac OS X/Others. Ahem! And after the Operating System what comes next? I think a set of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), and I think we know what that is (in all of its <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0">controversial glory</a>), the very thing we refer to as <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblog/public/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=#39web%202.0#39&type=text&output=html">Web 2.0</a> (the APIs for the Internet Operating System).</p><p> Note: In addition to the Computer, Operating System, and Application Programming Interfaces, we also have those frequently misunderstood and under-appreciated workhorses called "Databases" in place (but we still call them Web Sites for now). And by the way, "Internet Filesystem" has been there forever, but for some reason we can't see <a href="http://www.webdav.org/">WebDAV</a> in all its current and future glory (that will change very soon also!).</p><p>Ted and TBL are cool with each (whether they know it or not)! I see no mutual exclusivity in their collective visions (IMHO) :-) </p>
Breaking the Web Wide Open!
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2005-10-26#882
2005-10-26T19:28:47Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<p><a href="http://marc.blogs.it/">Marc Canter</a>'s <a href="http://marc.blogs.it/archives/2005/10/breaking_the_we.html">Breaking the Web Wide Open! </a> article is something I found pretty late (by my normal discovery standards). This was partly due to the pre- and post- Web 2.0 event noise levels that have dumped the description of an important industry inflection into the "Bozo Bin" of many. Personally, I think we shouldn't confuse the Web 2.0 traditional-pitch-fest conference with an attempt to identify an important industry inflection).</p><p> Anyway, Marc's article is a very refreshing read because it provides a really good insight into the general landscape of a rapidly evolving Web alongside genuine appreciation of our broader timeless pursuit of "Openness". </p><p>To really help this document provide additional value have scrapped the content of the original post and dumped it below so that we can appreciate the value of the links embedded within the article (note: thanks to Virtuoso I only had to paste the content into my blog, the extraction to my <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen/index.vspx?page=linkblog">Linkblog</a> and <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen/index.vspx?page=summary">Blog Summary</a> Pages are simply features of my <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/virtuos">Virtuoso </a>based Blog Engine):</p><blockquote><h3 class="hed2" style="padding-bottom: 10px">Breaking the Web Wide Open! (complete story)</h3><p>Even the web giants like AOL, Google, MSN, and Yahoo need to observe these open standards, or they'll risk becoming the "walled gardens" of the new web and be coolio no more.</p><p class="byline"><b><a href="http://community.alwayson-network.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/AlwaysOn.woa/wa/display?id=9254:Person">Marc Canter</a></b> [<a href="http://community.alwayson-network.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/AlwaysOn.woa/wa/display?id=9254:Person"><b>Broadband Mechanics, Inc.</b></a>] | POSTED: 09.26.05 @12:00</p><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tr><td valign="TOP" class="copy1"><img src="http://community.alwayson-network.com/ao/images/thumb/19433429363e7cd6b1ecfb7.jpg" align="LEFT" border="0" width="80" style="margin: 0px 10px 5px 0px" alt="" /><i><b>Editorial Note:</b> Several months ago, AlwaysOn got a personal invitation from Yahoo founder Jerry Yang "to see and give us feedback on our new social media product, y!360." We were happy to oblige and dutifully showed up, joining a conference room full of hard-core bloggers and new, new media types. The geeks gave Yahoo 360 an overwhelming thumbs down, with comments like, "So the only services I can use within this new network are Yahoo services? What if I don't use Yahoo IM?" In essence, the Yahoo team was booed for being "closed web," and we heartily agreed. With Yahoo 360, Yahoo continues building its own "walled garden" to control its 135 million customersÂan accusation also hurled at AOL in the early 1990s, before AOL migrated its private network service onto the web. As the</i> <a href="http://bernardmoon.blogspot.com/2005/08/yahoos-personality-crisis.html" target="_blank">Economist<i> recently noted</i></a>, "Yahoo, in short, has old media plans for the new-media era."<br /><br />The irony to our view here is, of course, that today's AO Network is also a "closed web." In the end, Mr. Yang's thoughtful invitation and our ensuing disappointment in his new service led to the assignment of this article. It also confirmed our existing plan to completely revamp the AO Network around open standards. To tie it all together, we recruited the chief architect of our new site, <a href="http://www.corante.com/amateur/articles/20030211-3564.html" target="_blank">the notorious Marc Canter</a>, to pen this piece. We look forward to our reader feedback.<br /><br /><b>Breaking the Web Wide Open!</b><br />By Marc Canter<br /><br />For decades, "walled gardens" of proprietary standards and content have been the strategy of dominant players in mainframe computer software, wireless telecommunications services, and the World Wide WebÂit was their successful lock-in strategy of keeping their customers theirs. But like it or not, those walls are tumbling down. Open web standards are being adopted so widely, with such value and impact, that the web giantsÂAmazon, AOL, eBay, Google, Microsoft, and YahooÂare facing the difficult decision of opening up to what they don't control.<br /><br />The online world is evolving into a new open web (sometimes called the Web 2.0), which is all about being personalized and customized for each user. Not only open source software, but <i>open standards</i> are becoming an essential component. <br /><br />Many of the web giants have been using open source software for years. Most of them use at least parts of the <a href="http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2001/01/25/lamp.html" target="_blank">LAMP</a> (Linux, Apache, MySQL, Perl/Python/PHP) stack, even if they aren't well-known for giving back to the open source community. For these incumbents that grew big on proprietary web services, the methods, practices, and applications of open source software development are difficult to fully adopt. And the next open source movementsÂwhich will be as much about open standards as about codeÂwill be a lot harder for the incumbents to exploit.<br /><br />While the incumbents use cheap open source software to run their back-ends systems, their business models largely depend on proprietary software and algorithms. But our view a new slew of open software, open protocols, and open standards will confront the incumbents with the classic <i><a href="http://www.businessweek.com/chapter/christensen.htm" target="_blank">Innovator's Dilemma</a></i>. Should they adopt these tools and standards, painfully cannibalizing their existing revenue for a new unproven concept, or should they stick with their currently lucrative model with the risk that eventually a bunch of upstarts eat their lunch? <br /><br />Credit should go to several of the web giants who have been making efforts to "open up." Google, Yahoo, eBay, and Amazon all have Open APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) built into their data and systems. Any software developer can access and use them for whatever creative purposes they wish. This means that the API provider becomes an open platform for everyone to use and build on top of. This notion has expanded like wildfire throughout the blogosphere, so nowadays, Open APIs are pretty much required.<br /><br />Other incumbents also have open strategies. AOL has got the RSS religion, <a href="http://www.siliconbeat.com/entries/2005/07/27/aol_gets_rss_religion_with_my_aoland_feedsters_help.html" target="_blank">providing a feedreader and RSS search</a> in order to escape the "walled garden of content" stigma. <a href="http://www.apple.com/podcasting/" target="_blank">Apple now incorporates podcasts</a>, the "personal radio shows" that are latest rage in audio narrowcasting, into iTunes. Even Microsoft is supporting open standards, for example <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/plan/rtcprot.mspx#EKAA" target="_blank">by endorsing SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) for internet telephony and conferencing</a> over Skype's proprietary format or one of its own devising.<br /><br />But new open standards and protocols are in use, under construction, or being proposed every day, pushing the envelope of where we are right now. Many of these standards are coming from startup companies and small groups of developers, not from the giants. Together with the Open APIs, those new standards will contribute to a new, open infrastructure. Tens of thousands of developers will use and improve this open infrastructure to create new kinds of web-based applications and services, to offer web users a highly personalized online experience.<br /><br /><b>A Brief History of Openness</b><br /><br />At this point, I have to admit that I am not just a passive observer, full-time journalist or "just some blogger"Âbut an active evangelist and developer of these standards. It's the vision of "open infrastructure" that's driving <a href="http://www.broadbandmechanics.com/bbm2005.htm" target="_blank">my company </a> and the reason why I'm writing this article. This article will give you some of the background behind on these standards, and what the evolution of the next generation of open standards will look like.<br /><br />Starting back in the 1980s, establishing a software standard was a key strategy for any software company. My former company, MacroMind (which became Macromedia), achieved this goal early on with Director. As <a href="http://webmonkey.wired.com/webmonkey/99/27/index3a_page6.html?tw=multimedia" target="_blank">Director evolved into Flash</a>, the world saw that other companies besides Microsoft, Adobe, and Apple could establish true cross-platform, independent media standards.<br /><br />Then <a href="http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/" target="_blank">Tim Berners-Lee</a> and <a href="http://www.ibiblio.org/pioneers/andreesen.html" target="_blank">Marc Andreessen</a> came along, and changed the rules of the software business and of entrepreneurialism. No matter how entrenched and "standardized" software was, the rug could still get pulled out from under it. <a href="http://geekphilosopher.com/MainPage/WebBrowserWars.htm?q=Stocks" target="_blank">Netscape did it to Microsoft, and then Microsoft did it <i>back</i> to Netscape</a>. The web evolved, and lots of standards evolved with it. The leading open source standards (such as the LAMP stack) became widely used alternatives to proprietary closed-source offerings. <br /><br />Open standards are more than just technology. Open standards mean sharing, empowering, and community support. Someone floats a new idea (or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme" target="_blank">meme</a>) and the community runs with it â with each person making their own contributions to the standard â evolving it without a moment's hesitation about "giving away their intellectual property."<br /><br />One good example of this was <a href="http://www.sifry.com/alerts/" target="_blank">Dave Sifry</a>, who built the Technorati blog-tracking technology inspired by the <a href="http://www.myelin.co.nz/ecosystem/" target="_blank">Blogging Ecosystem</a>, a weekend project by young hacker <a href="http://marc.blogs.it/archives/2005/07/phil_pearson_jo.html" target="_blank">Phil Pearson</a>. Dave liked what he saw and he ran with itÂturning Technorati into what it is today.<br /><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Winer" target="_blank">Dave Winer</a> has contributed enormously to this area of open standards. He defined and personally created several open standards and protocolsÂsuch as RSS, OPML, and XML-RPC. Dave has also <a href="http://newhome.weblogs.com/historyOfWeblogs" target="_blank">helped build</a> the blogosphere through his enthusiasm and passion.<br /><br />By 2003, hundreds of programmers were working on creating and establishing new standards for almost everything. The best of these new standards have evolved into compelling web services platforms â such as <a href="http://del.icio.us/" target="_blank">del.icio.us</a>, <a href="http://webjay.org/about" target="_blank">Webjay</a>, or <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/ao2005/" target="_blank">Flickr</a>. Some have even spun off formal standards â like XSPF (a standard for playlists) or instant messaging standard XMPP (also known as Jabber).<br /><br />Today's Open APIs are complemented by standardized SchemasÂthe structure of the data itself and its associated meta-data. Take for example a <a href="http://www.ipodder.org/whatIsPodcasting" target="_blank">podcasting feed</a>. It consists of: a) the radio show itself, b) information on who is on the show, what the show is about and how long the show is (the meta-data) and also c) API calls to retrieve a show (a single feed item) and play it from a specified server. <br /><br />The combination of Open APIs, standardized schemas for handling meta-data, and an industry which agrees on these standards are breaking the web wide open right now. So what new open standards should the web incumbentsÂand youÂbe watching? Keep an eye on the following developments:<br /><br /><b>Identity<br />Attention<br />Open Media<br />Microcontent Publishing<br />Open Social Networks<br />Tags<br />Pinging <br />Routing<br />Open Communications<br />Device Management and Control</b><br /><br /><br /><b>1. Identity</b><br /><br />Right now, you don't really control your own online identity. At the core of just about every online piece of software is a membership system. Some systems allow you to browse a site anonymouslyÂbut unless you register with the site you can't do things like search for an article, post a comment, buy something, or review it. The problem is that each and every site has its own membership system. So you constantly have to register with new systems, which cannot share dataÂeven you'd want them to. By establishing a <a href="http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,68329-2,00.html?tw=wn_story_page_next1" target="_blank">"single sign-on" standard</a>, disparate sites can allow users to freely move from site to site, and let them control the movement of their personal profile data, as well as any other data they've created. <br /><br />With <a href="http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2005/01/03/stories/2005010301440200.htm" target="_blank">Passport, Microsoft unsuccessfully attempted</a> to force its proprietary standard on the industry. Instead, a world is evolving where most people assume that users want to control their own data, whether that data is their profile, their blog posts and photos, or some collection of their past interactions, purchases, and recommendations. As long as users can control their digital identity, any kind of service or interaction can be layered on top of it.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.identity20.com/media/OSCON2005/" target="_blank">Identity 2.0</a> is all about users controlling their own profile data and becoming their own agents. This way the users themselves, rather than other intermediaries, will profit from their ID info. Once developers start offering single sign-on to their users, and users have trusted places to store their dataÂwhich respect the limits and provide access controls over that data, users will be able to access personalized services which will understand and use their personal data.<br /><br />Identity 2.0 may seem like some geeky, visionary future standard that isn't defined yet, but by putting each user's digital identity at the core of all their online experiences, Identity 2.0 is becoming the cornerstone of the new open web. <br /><br /><b>The Initiatives:</b><br />Right now, Identity 2.0 is under construction through various efforts from Microsoft (the <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/webservices/webservices/understanding/advancedwebservices/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnwebsrv/html/identitymetasystem.asp" target="_blank">"InfoCard" component built into the Vista operating system</a> and its "<a href="http://garage.docsearls.com/node/605" target="_blank">Identity Metasystem</a>"), <a href="http://sxip.com" target="_blank">Sxip Identity</a>, <a href="http://www.identtycommons.net" target="_blank">Identity Commons</a>, <a href="http://www.projectliberty.org/" target="_blank">Liberty Alliance</a>, <a href="http://lid.netmesh.org/" target="_blank">LID</a> (NetMesh's Lightweight ID), and SixApart's <a href="http://openid.net/" target="_blank">OpenID</a>.<br /><br /><b>More Movers and Shakers:</b><br />Identity Commons and <a href="http://www.identitywoman.net" target="_blank">Kaliya Hamlin</a>, Sxip Identity and <a href="http://blame.ca/dick/" target="_blank">Dick Hardt</a>, the <a href="http://www.identitygang.org/" target="_blank"> Identity Gang</a> and <a href="http://www.searls.com/dochome.html#Bio" target="_blank">Doc Searls</a>, Microsoft's <a href="http://www.identityblog.com/" target="_blank">Kim Cameron</a>, <a href="http://www.craigburton.com/" target="_blank">Craig Burton</a>, <a href="http://phil.windley.org/" target="_blank">Phil Windley</a>, and <a href="http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/07/05/2020221&from=rss" target="_blank">Brad Fitzpatrick</a>, to name a few.<br /><br /><br /><b>2. Attention</b><br /><br />How many readers know what their online attention is worth? If you don't, Google and Yahoo doÂthey make their living off our attention. They know what we're searching for, happily turn it into a keyword, and sell that keyword to advertisers. They make money off our attention. We don't. <br /><br />Technorati and friends proposed <a href="http://blogs.zdnet.com/Gillmor/index.php?p=74" target="_blank">an attention standard, Attention.xml</a>, designed to "help you keep track of what you've read, what you're spending time on, and what you should be paying attention to." <a href="http://attentiontrust.org/" target="_blank">AttentionTrust</a> is an effort by <a href="http://blogs.zdnet.com/Gillmor/?p=132" target="_blank">Steve Gillmor</a> and <a href="http://majestic.typepad.com/seth/2005/07/attentiontrusto.html" target="_blank">Seth Goldstein </a>to standardize on how captured end-user performance, browsing, and interest data are used. <br /><br />Blogger <a href="http://worcester.typepad.com/pc4media/2005/07/attentiontrusto_1.html" target="_blank">Peter Caputa gives a good summary</a> of AttentionTrust: <blockquote>"As we use the web, we reveal lots of information about ourselves by what we pay attention to. Imagine if all of that information could be stored in a nice neat little xml file. And when we travel around the web, we can optionally share it with websites or other people. We can make them pay for it, lease it ... we get to decide who has access to it, how long they have access to it, and what we want in return. And they have to tell us what they are going to do with our Attention data."</blockquote><br />So when you give your attention to sites that adhere to the AttentionTrust, your attention rights (<i>you own your attention, you can move your attention, you can pay attention and be paid for it</i>, and <i>you can see how your attention is used</i>) are guaranteed. Attention data is crucial to the future of the open web, and Steve and Seth are making sure that no one entity or oligopoly controls it. <br /><br /><b>Movers and Shakers:</b><br /><a href="http://blogs.zdnet.com/Gillmor/" target="_blank">Steve Gillmor</a>, <a href="http://majestic.typepad.com/about.html" target="_blank">Seth Goldstein</a>, <a href="http://www.sifry.com/alerts/" target="_blank">Dave Sifry</a> and the <a href="http://developers.technorati.com/wiki/attentionxml" target="_blank">other Attention.xml folks</a>. <br /><br /><br /><b>3. Open Media</b><br /><br />Proprietary media standardsÂFlash, Windows Media, and QuickTime, to name a few Âhelped liven up the web. But they are proprietary standards that try to keep us locked in, and they weren't created from scratch to handle today's online content. That's why, for many of us, an Open Media standard has been a holy grail. Yahoo's new Media RSS standard brings us one step closer to achieving open media, as do <a href="http://www.vorbis.com/faq/#what" target="_blank">Ogg Vorbis</a> audio codecs, <a href="http://webjay.org/" target="_blank">XSPF playlists</a>, or <a href="http://musicbrainz.org/" target="_blank">MusicBrainz</a>. And several sites offer digital creators not only a place to store their content, but also to sell it. <br /><br /><a href="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss" target="_blank">Media RSS </a>(being developed by Yahoo with help from the community) extends RSS and combines it with "RSS enclosures" Âadds metadata to any media itemÂto create a comprehensive solution for media "narrowcasters." To gain acceptance for Media RSS, Yahoo knows it has to work with the community. As an active member of this community, I can tell you that we'll create Media RSS equivalents for <a href="http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2001/01/24/rdf.html" target="_blank">rdf</a> (an alternative subscription format) and <a href="http://www.atomenabled.org/" target="_blank">Atom</a> (yet <i>another</i> subscription format), so no one will be able to complain that Yahoo is picking sides in format wars.<br /><br />When Yahoo announced the purchase of Flickr, Yahoo founder Jerry Yang insinuated that Yahoo is acquiring "open DNA" to turn Yahoo into <a href="http://www.flickr.com/services/api/" target="_blank">an open standards player</a>. Yahoo is showing what happens when you take a multi-billion dollar company and make openness one of its core valuesÂso Google, beware, even if Google does have more research fellows and Ph.D.s. <br /><br />The open media landscape is far and wide, reaching from game machine hacks and mobile phone downloads to PC-driven bookmarklets, players, and editors, and it includes many other standardization efforts. <a href="http://www.xspf.org/" target="_blank">XSPF</a> is an open standard for playlists, and MusicBrainz is an alternative to the proprietary (and originally effectively stolen) database that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gracenote" target="_blank">Gracenote</a> licenses. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.ourmedia.org/" target="_blank">Ourmedia.org</a> is a community front-end to Brewster Kahle's <a href="http://www.archive.org" target="_blank">Internet Archive</a>. Brewster has promised free bandwidth and free storage forever to any content creators who choose to share their content via the Internet Archive. Ourmedia.org is providing an easy-to-use interface and community to get content in and out of the Internet Archive, giving ourmedia.org users the ability to share their media anywhere they wish, without being locked into a particular service or tool. Ourmedia plans to offer open APIs and an open media registry that interconnects other open media repositories into a DNS-like registry (just like the www domain system), so folks can browse and discover open content across many open media services. Systems like <a href="http://www.brightcove.com/" target="_blank">Brightcove</a> and <a href="http://www.evhead.com/2005/02/how-odeo-happened.asp" target="_blank">Odeo</a> support the concept of an open registry, and hope to work with digital creators to sell their work to fulfill the financial aspect of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Tail" target="_blank">the "Long Tail."</a><br /><br /><b>More Movers and Shakers:</b><br /><a href="http://creativecommons.org/about/people" target="_blank">Creative Commons</a>, the <a href="http://www.omn.org/" target="_blank">Open Media Network</a>, <a href="http://www.momentshowing.net/about.html" target="_blank">Jay Dedman</a>, <a href="http://ryanedit.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Ryanne Hodson</a>, <a href="http://michaelverdi.com/index.php" target="_blank">Michael Verdi</a>, <a href="http://www.chapmanlogic.com/blog/aboutEli.html" target="_blank">Eli Chapman</a>, <a href="http://www.unmediated.org/" target="_blank">Kenyatta Cheese</a>, <a href="http://www.itconversations.com/about.html" target="_blank">Doug Kaye</a>, <a href="http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.09/yahoo.html" target="_blank">Brad Horowitz</a>, <a href="http://webjay.org/about#colophon" target="_blank">Lucas Gonze</a>, <a href="http://musicbrainz.org/wd/MusicBrainzBio" target="_blank">Robert Kaye</a>, <a href="http://www.lifewithalacrity.com/" target="_blank">Christopher Allen</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brewster_Kahle" target="_blank">Brewster Kahle</a>, <a href="http://www.newmediamusings.com/" target="_blank">JD Lasica</a>, and indeed, <a href="http://www.corante.com/amateur/articles/20030211-3564.html" target="_blank">Marc Canter</a>, among others.<br /><br /><br /><b>4. Microcontent Publishing</b><br /><br />Unstructured content is cheap to create, but hard to search through. Structured content is expensive to create, but easy to search. <a href="http://developers.technorati.com/wiki/MicroFormats" target="_blank">Microformats</a> resolve the dilemma with simple structures that are cheap to use and easy to search.<br /><br />The first kind of widely adopted microcontent is blogging. Every post is an encapsulated idea, addressable via a URL called a permalink. You can syndicate or subscribe to this microcontent using RSS or an RSS equivalent, and news or blog aggregators can then display these feeds in a convenient readable fashion. But a blog post is just a block of unstructured textânot a bad thing, but just a first step for microcontent. When it comes to<i>structured</i> data, such as personal identity profiles, product reviews, or calendar-type event data, RSS was not designed to maintain the integrity of the structures. <br /><br />Right now, blogging doesn't have the underlying structure necessary for full-fledged microcontent publishing. But that will change. Think of local information services (such as movie listings, event guides, or restaurant reviews) that any college kid can access and use in her weekend programming project to create new services and tools.<br /><br />Today's blogging tools will evolve into microcontent publishing systems, and will help spread the notion of structured data across the blogosphere. New ways to store, represent and produce microcontent will create new standards, such as <a href="http://structuredblogging.org/" target="_blank">Structured Blogging</a> and <a href="http://microformats.org/" target="_blank">Microformats</a>. Microformats differ from RSS feeds in that you can't subscribe to them. Instead, Microformats are embedded into webpages and discovered by search engines like Google or Technorati. Microformats are creating common definitions for "What is a review or event? What are the specific fields in the data structure?" They can also specify what we can do with all this information.<a href="http://www.opml.org/spec" target="_blank">OPML (Outline Processor Markup Language)</a> is a hierarchical file format for storing microcontent and structured data. It was developed by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Winer" target="_blank">Dave Winer</a> of RSS and podcast fame.<br /><br />Events are one popular type of microcontent. <a href="http://www.openevents.com" target="_blank">OpenEvents</a> is already working to create shared databases of standardized events, which would get used by a new generation of event portalsâsuch as <a href="http://eventful.com/gotevents/" target="_blank">Eventful/EVDB</a>, <a href="http://upcoming.org/" target="_blank">Upcoming.org</a>, and <a href="http://www.whizspark.com/" target="_blank">WhizSpark</a>. The idea of OpenEvents is that event-oriented systems and services can work together to establish shared events databases (and associated APIs) that any developer could then use to create and offer their own new service or application. <a href="http://marc.blogs.it/archives/2005/04/rvw_redux_openr.html" target="_blank">OpenReviews</a> is still in the conceptual stage, but it would make it possible to provide open alternatives to closed systems like Epinions, and establish a shared database of local and global reviews. Its shared open servers would be filled with all sorts of reviews for anyone to access. <br /><br />Why is this important? Because I predict that in the future, 10 times more people will be writing reviews than maintaining their own blog. The list of possible microcontent standards goes on: OpenJobpostings, OpenRecipes, and even OpenLists. Microsoft <a href="http://www.reallysimplesyndication.com/2005/06/22" target="_blank">recently revealed</a> that it has been working on an important new kind of microcontent: Listsâso OpenLists will attempt to establish standards for the <i>kind</i> of lists we all use, such as lists of Links, lists of To Do Items, lists of People, Wish Lists, etc.<br /><br /><b>Movers and Shakers:</b><br /><a href="http://tantek.com/log/2005/09.html" target="_blank">Tantek Ãelik</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Marks" target="_blank">Kevin Marks</a> of <a href="http://developers.technorati.com/wiki/MicroFormats" target="_blank">Technorati</a>, <a href="http://dannyayers.com/" target="_blank">Danny Ayers</a>, <a href="http://www.meyerweb.com/" target="_blank">Eric Meyer</a>, <a href="http://photomatt.net/" target="_blank">Matt Mullenweg</a>, <a href="http://zlab.commerce.net/" target="_blank">Rohit Khare</a>, <a href="http://ifindkarma.typepad.com/relax/" target="_blank">Adam Rifkin</a>, <a href="http://www.sivas.com/aleene/" target="_blank">Arnaud Leene</a>, <a href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0110772/" target="_blank">Seb Paquet</a>, <a href="http://hublog.hubmed.org/" target="_blank">Alf Eaton</a>, <a href="http://www.myelin.co.nz/post/" target="_blank">Phil Pearson</a>, <a href="http://www.joereger.com/" target="_blank">Joe Reger</a>, <a href="http://bobwyman.pubsub.com/" target="_blank">Bob Wyman</a> among others.<br /><br /><br /><b>5. Open Social Networks</b><br /><br />I'll never forget the first time I met <a href="http://www.jabrams.com/" target="_blank">Jonathan Abrams</a>, the founder of Friendster. He was arrogant and brash and he claimed he "<i>owned</i>" all his users, and that he was going to monetize them and make a fortune off them. This attitude robbed Friendster of its momentum, letting MySpace, Facebook, and other social networks take Friendster's place.<br /><br />Jonathan's notion of social networks as a way to control users is typical of the Web 1.0 business model and its attitude towards users in general. Social networks have become one of the battlegrounds between old and new ways of thinking. Open standards for Social Networking will define those sides very clearly. Since meeting Jonathan, I have been working towards finding and establishing open standards for social networks. Instead of closed, centralized social networks with 10 million people in them, the goal is making it possible to have 10 million social networks that each have 10 people in them.<br /><br />FOAF (which stands for Friend Of A Friend, and describes people and relationships in a way that computers can parse) is a schema to represent not only your personal profile's meta-data, but your social network as well. Thousands of researchers use the <a href="http://www.foaf-project.org/" target="_blank">FOAF schema</a> in their "Semantic Web" projects to connect people in all sorts of new ways. <a href="http://gmpg.org/xfn/" target="_blank">XFN</a> is a microformat standard for representing your social network, while <a href="http://www.imc.org/pdi/" target="_blank">vCard</a> (long familiar to users of contact manager programs like Outlook) is a microformat that contains your profile information. Microformats are baked into any xHTML webpage, which means that<i>any</i> blog, social network page, or any webpage in general can "contain" your social network in itÂand be used by<i>any</i> compatible tool, service or application. <br /><br />PeopleAggregator is an earlier project now being integrated into <a href="http://drupal.org/" target="_blank">open content management framework Drupal</a>. The <a href="http://www.broadbandmechanics.com/PeopleAggregator/" target="_blank">PeopleAggregator APIs</a> will make it possible to establish relationships, send messages, create or join groups, and post between different social networks. (Sneak preview: this technology will be available in the upcoming GoingOn Network.) <br /><br />All of these open social networking standards mean that inter-connected social networks will form a mesh that will parallel the blogosphere. This vibrant, distributed, decentralized world will be driven by open standards: personalized online experiences are what the new open web will be all aboutÂand what could be more personalized than people's networks?<br /><br /><b>Movers and Shakers:</b><br /><a href="http://esigler.2nw.net/" target="_blank">Eric Sigler</a>, <a href="http://lucifer.intercosmos.net/index.php?view=about" target="_blank">Joel De Gan</a>, <a href="http://crschmidt.net/" target="_blank">Chris Schmidt</a>, <a href="http://voidstar.com/" target="_blank">Julian Bond</a>, <a href="http://people.tribe.net/paul?_click_path=Application%5Btribe%5D.Person%5Bf2232c95-e123-43a3-b48d-24a5f11f09dc%5D&r=10535" target="_blank">Paul Martino</a>, <a href="http://napsterization.org/stories/archives/000513.html" target="_blank">Mary Hodder</a>, <a href="http://public.2idi.com/=Drummond.Reed" target="_blank">Drummond Reed</a>, <a href="http://danbri.org/" target="_blank">Dan Brickley</a>, <a href="http://360.yahoo.com/profile-9lciejI3aafX1stHPoIRNmkmv4EowQ--" target="_blank">Randy Farmer</a>, and <a href="http://www.kaliyasblogs.net/Iwoman/" target="_blank">Kaliya Hamlin</a>, to name a few.<br /><br /><br /><b>6. Tags</b><br /><br />Nowadays, no self-respecting tool or service can ship without <a href="http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2005/02/08/tagging/index_np.html" target="_blank">tags</a>. Tags are keywords or phrases attached to photos, blog posts, URLs, or even video clips. These user- and creator-generated tags are an open alternative to what used to be the domain of librarians and information scientists: categorizing information and content using taxonomies. Tags are instead creating <a href="http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.04/view.html?pg=4" target="_blank">"folksonomies."</a><br /><br />The recently proposed OpenTags concept would be an open, community-owned version of the popular <a href="http://www.technorati.com/tag/" target="_blank">Technorati Tags service</a>. It would aggregate the usage of tags across a wide range of services, sites, and content tools. In addition to Technorati's current tag features, OpenTags would let groups of people share their tags in "<a href="http://www.zeldman.com/daily/0405d.shtml/" target="_blank">TagClouds</a>." Open tagging is likely to include some of the open identity features discussed above, to create a tag system that is resilient to spam, and yet trustable across sites all over the web.<br /><br />OpenTags owes a debt to earlier versions of shared tagging systems, which include <a href="http://www.topicexchange.com/" target="_blank">Topic Exchange</a> and something called the <a href="http://www.evectors.com/itkcollector/" target="_blank">k-collector</a>Âa knowledge management tag aggregatorÂfrom Italian company eVectors. <br /><br /><b>Movers & Shakers:</b><br /><a href="http://www.myelin.co.nz/notes/" target="_blank">Phil Pearson</a>, <a href="http://matt.blogs.it/" target="_blank">Matt Mower </a>, <a href="http://paolo.evectors.it/" target="_blank">Paolo Valdemarin</a>, and <a href="http://marc.blogs.it/archives/2005/03/opentopics.html" target="_blank">Mary Hodder</a> and <a href="http://www.equalsdrummond.name/index.php?p=39" target="_blank"> Drummond Reed</a> again, among others.<br /><br /><br /><b>7. Pinging</b><br /><br />Websites used to be mostly static. Search engines that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_crawler" target="_blank">crawled</a> (or "spidered") them every so often did a good enough job to show reasonably current versions of your cousin's homepage or even <i>Time</i> magazine's weekly headlines. But when blogging took off, it became hard for search engines to keep up. (Google has only <a href="http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3548411" target="_blank">just managed</a> to offer <a href="http://www.google.com/help/about_blogsearch.html" target="_blank">blog-search functionality</a>, despite <a href="http://www.alwayson-network.com/comments.php?id=325_0_2_0_C" target="_blank">buying Blogger</a> back in early 2003.)<br /><br />To know what was new in the blogosphere, users couldn't depend on services that spidered webpages once in a while. The solution: a way for blogs themselves to automatically notify blog-tracking sites that they'd been updated. <a href="http://weblogs.com/" target="_blank">Weblogs.com</a> was the first blog "ping service": it displayed the name of a blog whenever that blog was updated. Pinging sites helped the blogosphere grow, and <a href="http://blo.gs/" target="_blank">more tools</a>, services, and portals started using pinging in new and different ways. Dozens of pinging services and sitesÂmost of which can't talk to each otherÂsprang up. <br /><br />Matt Mullenweg (the creator of open source blogging software WordPress) decided that a one-stop service for pinging was needed. He created <a href="http://pingomatic.com/" target="_blank">Ping-o-Matic</a>Âwhich aggregates ping services and simplifies the pinging process for bloggers and tool developers. With Ping-o-Matic, any developer can alert all of the industry's blogging tools and tracking sites at once. This new kind of open standard, with shared infrastructure, is a critical to the scalability of Web 2.0 services.<br /><br />As <a href="http://pingomatic.com/about/" target="_blank">Matt said</a>:<br /><blockquote>There are a number of services designed specifically for tracking and connecting blogs. However it would be expensive for all the services to crawl all the blogs in the world all the time. By sending a small ping to each service you let them know you've updated so they can come check you out. They get the freshest data possible, you don't get a thousand robots spidering your site all the time. Everybody wins.</blockquote><br /><b>Movers and Shakers:</b><br /><a href="http://photomatt.net/about/" target="_blank">Matt Mullenweg</a>, <a href="http://trainedmonkey.com/entry/2251" target="_blank">Jim Winstead</a>, <a href="http://newhome.weblogs.com/faq" target="_blank">Dave Winer</a><br /><br /><br /><b>8. Routing</b><br /><br />Bloggers used to have to manually enter the links and content snippets of blog posts or news items they wanted to blog. Today, some RSS aggregators can send a specified post directly into an associated blogging tool: as bloggers browse through the feeds they subscribe to, they can easily specify and send any post they wish to "<a href="http://www.microsoftmonitor.com/archives/010209.html" target="_blank">reblog</a>" from their news aggregator or feed reader into their blogging tool. (This is usually referred to as "<a href="http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=152&topic=17" target="_blank">BlogThis</a>.") As structured blogging comes into its own (see the section on Microcontent Publishing), it will be increasingly important to maintain the structural integrity of these pieces of microcontent when reblogging them. <br /><br />Promising standard <a href="http://redirectthis.com/" target="_blank">RedirectThis</a> will combine a "BlogThis"-like capability while maintaining the integrity of the microcontent. RedirectThis will let bloggers and content developers attach a simple "PostThis" button to their posts. Clicking on that button will send that post to the reader/blogger's favorite <a href="http://ecto.kung-foo.tv/archives/000990.php" target="_blank">blogging tool</a>. This favorite tool is specified at the RedirectThis web service, where users register their blogging tool of choice. RedirectThis also helps maintain the integrity and structure of microcontentÂthen it's just up to the user to prefer a blogging tool that also attains that lofty goal of microcontent integrity. <br /><br />OutputThis is another nascent web services standard, to let bloggers specify what "destinations" they'd like to have as options in their blogging tool. As new destinations are added to the service, more checkboxes would get added to their blogging toolÂallowing them to route their published microcontent to additional destinations.<br /><br /><b>Movers and Shakers:</b><br /><a href="http://reblog.org/" target="_blank">Michael Migurski</a>, <a href="http://www.gonze.com/about" target="_blank">Lucas Gonze</a><br /><br /><br /><b>9. Open Communications</b><br /><br />Likely, you've experienced the joys of finding friends on AIM or Yahoo Messenger, or the convenience of Skyping with someone overseas. Not that you're about to throw away your mobile phone or BlackBerry, but for many, also having access to Instant Messaging (IM) and Voice over IP (VoIP) is crucial. <br /><br />IM and VoIP are mainstream technologies that already enjoy the benefits of open standards. Entire industries are bornÂright this secondÂbased around these open standards. <a href="http://www.jabber.org/" target="_blank">Jabber</a> has been an open IM technology for yearsÂin fact, <a href="http://www.xmpp.org/history.html" target="_blank">as XMPP</a>, it was officially dubbed a standard by <a href="http://www.ietf.org/overview.html" target="_blank">the IETF</a>. Although becoming an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IETF" target="_blank">official IETF standard</a> is usually the kiss of death, Jabber looks like it'll be around for a while, as entire generations of collaborative, work-group applications and services have been built on top of its messaging protocol. For VoIP, <a href="http://skype.com/helloagain.html" target="_blank">Skype</a> is clearly the leading standard todayÂthough one could <a href="http://socialsoftware.weblogsinc.com/entry/1234000923058521/" target="_blank">argue just how "open" it is</a> (and defenders of the IETF's <a href="http://www.cs.columbia.edu/sip/" target="_blank">SIP standard</a> often do). But it is free and user-friendly, so there won't be much argument from <i>users</i> about it being insufficiently open. Yet there may be a cloud on Skype's horizon: web behemoth Google recently released a beta of <a href="http://www.google.com/talk/developer.html" target="_blank">Google Talk, an IM client committed to open standards</a>. It currently <a href="http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2005/08/google_talk_rel.html" target="_blank">supports XMPP, and will support SIP</a> for VoIP calls.<br /><br /><b>Movers and Shakers:</b><br /><a href="http://www.jabber.org/people/jer.shtml" target="_blank">Jeremie Miller</a>, <a href="http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~hgs/" target="_blank">Henning Schulzrinne</a>, <a href="http://www.von.com/schedule_eos11114704148.html" target="_blank">Jon Peterson</a>, <a href="http://www.pulver.com/jeff/" target="_blank">Jeff Pulver</a><br /><br /><br /><b>10. Device Management and Control</b><br /><br />To access online content, we're using more and more devices. BlackBerrys, iPods, Treos, you name it. As the web evolves, more and more different devices will have to communicate with each other to give us the content we want when and where we want it. No-one wants to be dependent on one vendor anymoreÂlike, <a href="http://www.alwayson-network.com/comments.php?id=P9409_0_6_0_C" target="_blank">say, Sony</a>Âfor their laptop, phone, MP3 player, PDA, and digital camera, so that it all works together. We need fully interoperable devices, and the standards to make that work. And to fully make use of how content is moving online content and innovative web services, those standards need to be open.<br /><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midi" target="_blank">MIDI (musical instrument digital interface)</a>, one of the very first open standards in music, connected disparate vendors' instruments, post-production equipment, and recording devices. But MIDI is limited, and <a href="http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/8015" target="_blank">MIDI II has been very slow to arrive</a>. Now a new standard for controlling musical devices has emerged: <a href="http://www.cnmat.berkeley.edu/OpenSoundControl/" target="_blank">OSC (Open SoundControl)</a>. This protocol is optimized for modern networking technology and inter-connects music, video and controller devices with "other multimedia devices." OSC is used by a wide range of developers, and is being taken up in the mainstream MIDI marketplace.<br /><br />Another open-standards-based device management technology is <a href="http://www.zigbee.org" target="_blank">ZigBee</a>, for building wireless intelligence and network monitoring into all kinds of devices. ZigBee is supported by many networking, consumer electronics, and mobile device companies.<br /><br /><br />   · · · · · ·   <br /><br /><b>The Change to Openness</b><br /><br />The rise of open source software and its "<a href="http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/articles/architecture_of_participation.html" target="_blank">architecture of participation</a>" are completely shaking up the old proprietary-web-services-and-standards approach. Sun MicrosystemsÂwhose proprietary Java standard helped define the Web 1.0Âis opening its Solaris OS and has even announced the apparent paradox of an <a href="http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=418" target="_blank">open-source Digital Rights Management</a> system.<br /><br />Today's incumbents will have to adapt to the new openness of the Web 2.0. If they stick to their <a href="http://www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?doc_cd=131038" target="_blank">proprietary standards</a>, code, and content, they'll become the new walled gardensÂplaces users visit briefly to retrieve data and content from enclosed data silos, but not where users "live." The incumbents' revenue models will have to change. Instead of "owning" their users, users will know they own themselves, and will expect a return on their valuable identity and attention. Instead of being locked into incompatible media formats, users will expect easy access to digital content across many platforms. <br /><br />Yesterday's web giants and tomorrow's users will need to find a mutually beneficial new balanceÂbetween open and proprietary, developer and user, hierarchical and horizontal, owned and shared, and compatible and closed. <br /><br /><br /><i>Marc Canter is an active evangelist and developer of open standards. Early in his career, Marc founded MacroMind, which became Macromedia. These days, he is CEO of Broadband Mechanics, a founding member of the Identity Gang and of ourmedia.org. Broadband Mechanics is currently developing the <a href="http://www.alwayson-network.com/comments.php?id=11262_0_1_0_C" target="_blank">GoingOn Network</a> (with the AlwaysOn Network), as well as an open platform for social networking called the PeopleAggregator.</i><br /><br />A version of the above post appears in the Fall 2005 issue of AlwaysOn's quarterly print blogozine, and ran as <a href="http://www.alwayson-network.com/comments.php?id=12063_0_1_0_C" target="_blank">a four-part series</a> on the AlwaysOn Network website.</td></tr></table><br /><p>(Via <a href="http://marc.blogs.it/">Marc's Voice</a>.)</p></blockquote>
Microsoft Gadgets, Start.com and Innovation
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2005-09-16#868
2005-09-16T17:54:52Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<blockquote><p><a href="http://www.25hoursaday.com/weblog/PermaLink.aspx?guid=88270766-b9e1-407b-937f-ab41edce97de">Microsoft Gadgets, Start.com and Innovation</a>: "</p><p> A lot of <a href="http://microsoftgadgets.com/blogs/gadgetnews/archive/2005/09/13/3.aspx#comments">the comments in the initial post on the Microsoft Gadgets blog</a> are complaints that the Microsoft is copying ideas from <a href="http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/dashboard/">Apple's dashboard</a>. First of all, people should give credit where it is due and acknowledge that <a href="http://www.konfabulator.com/">Konfabulator</a> is the real pioneer when it comes to desktop widgets. More importantly, the core ideas in Microsoft Gadgets were pioneered by Microsoft not Apple or Konfabulator. </p><p> From the post <a href="http://microsoftgadgets.com/blogs/gadgetnews/archive/2005/09/15/181.aspx">A Brief History of Windows Sidebar</a> by Sean Alexander </p><blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"><p class="MsoNormal"><b><span><?XML:NAMESPACE PREFIX = O ?>Microsoft 'Sideshow*' Research Project (2000-2001)</span></b></p><p xmlns="o"></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span>While work started prior, in September 2001, a team of Microsoft researchers <a href="http://research.microsoft.com/research/pubs/view.aspx?tr_id=488">published a paper</a> entitled, 'Sideshow: Providing peripheral awareness of important information' including findings of their project. </span><br /> ...<br /><span>The research paper provides screenshots that bear a striking resemblance to the Windows Sidebar. The paper is a good read for anyone thinking about Gadget development. For folks who have visited Microsoft campuses, you may recall the posters in elevator hallways and Sidebar running on many employees desktops. Technically one of the first teams to implement this concept </span></p><span><p class="MsoNormal"><i><span>*Internal code-name, not directly related to the official, âÂÂWindows SideShowâ¢â auxiliary display feature in Windows Vista.</span></i>></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b><span>Microsoft âÂÂLonghornâ Alpha Release (2003) </span></b></p><p xmlns="o"></p></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span>In 2003, Microsoft unveiled a new feature called, 'Sidebar' at the Microsoft Professional DeveloperâÂÂs Conference. This feature took the best concepts from Microsoft Research and applied them to a new platform code-named, 'Avalon', now formally known as Windows Presentation Foundation... </span></p><p xmlns="o"></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span></span></p><p xmlns="o"> </p><b><span>Microsoft Windows Vista PDC Release (2005)<p xmlns="o"></p></span></b><p class="MsoNormal"><span>While removed from public eye during the Longhorn plan change in 2004, a small team was formed to continue to incubate Windows Sidebar as a concept, dating back to its roots in 2000/2001 as a research exercise. Now Windows Sidebar will be a feature of Windows Vista. Feedback from customers and hardware industry dynamics are being taken into account, particularly adding support for DHTML-based Gadgets to support a broader range of developer and designer, enhanced security infrastructure, and better support for Widescreen (16:10, 16:9) displays. Additionally a new feature in Windows Sidebar is support for hosting of Web Gadgets which can be hosted on sites such as Start.com or run locally. Gadgets that run on the Windows desktop will also be available for Windows XP customers â more details to be shared here in the future.</span></p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" dir="ltr"><span>So the desktop version of 'Microsoft Gadgets' is the shipping version of Microsoft Research's 'Sideshow' project. Since the research paper was published a number of parties have shipped products inspired by that research including <a href="http://www.activewin.com/reviews/software/apps/msn/msn8/interface.shtml">MSN Dashboard</a>, <a href="http://desktop.google.com/features.html#sidebar">Google Desktop</a> and <a href="http://www.desktopsidebar.com/">Desktop Sidebar</a> but this doesn't change the fact that the Microsoft is the pioneer in this space. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" dir="ltr"><span>From the post <a href="http://microsoftgadgets.com/blogs/gadgetnews/archive/2005/09/15/177.aspx">Gadgets and Start.com</a> by Sanaz Ahari </span></p><blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"><span><p><a href="http://start.com/">Start.com </a>was initially released on February 2005, on <a href="http://start.com/1">start.com/1</a> â since then weâÂÂve been innovating regularly (<a href="http://start.com/2">start.com/2</a>, <a href="http://start.com/3">start.com/3</a>, <a href="http://start.com/">start.com </a>and <a href="http://start.com/pdc">start.com/pdc</a>) working towards accomplishing our goals: </p><ul><li> To bring the webâÂÂs content to users through: <ul><li> Rich DHTML components (Gadgets) </li><li> RSS and behaviors associated with RSS </li><li> High customizability and personalization</li></ul></li><li> To enable developers to extend their start experience by building their own Gadgets</li></ul><p> Yesterday marked a humble yet significant milestone for us â we opened our 'Atlas' framework enabling developers to extend their start.com experience. You can read more it here: <a href="http://start.com/developer">http://start.com/developer</a>. The key differentiators about our Gadgets are: </p><ul><li> Most web applications were designed as closed systems rather than as a web platform. For example, most customizable 'aggregator' web-sites consume feeds and provide a fair amount of layout customization. However, the systems were not extensible by developers. With start.com, the experience is now an integrated and extensible application platform. </li><li> We will be enriching the gadgets experience even further, enabling these gadgets to seamlessly work on Windows Sidebar</li></ul></span></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" dir="ltr"><span>The Start.com stuff is really cool. Currently with traditional portal sites like <a href="http://my.msn.com/">MyMSN</a> or <a href="http://my.yahoo.com/">MyYahoo</a>, I can customize my data sources by subscribing to RSS feeds but not how they look. Instead all my RSS feeds always look like a list of headlines. These portal sites usually use different widgets for display richer data like stock quotes or weather reports but there is no way for me to subscribe to a stock quote or weather report feed and have it look the same as the one provided by the site. <a href="http://www.start.com/developer">Start.com</a> fundamentally changes this model by turning it on its head. I can create a custom RSS feed and specify how it should render in <a href="http://www.start.com/">Start.com</a> using JavaScript which basically makes it a <a href="http://www.start.com/">Start.com</a> gadget, no different from the default ones provided by the site. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" dir="ltr"><span>From my perspective, we're shipping really innovative stuff but because of branding that has attempted to cash in on the 'widgets' hype, we end up looking like followers and copycats. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" dir="ltr"><span>Marketing sucks. </span></p>" <p>(Via <a href="http://www.25hoursaday.com/weblog/">Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life</a>.)</p></blockquote> Posted for historic annotation purposes (re. Widgets as Microsoft didn't copy Apple here at all; Apple just packaged this better at the expense of Konfabulator as already noted above). And yes, Marketing sucks big time!!
End of Line for Microsoft?
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2005-07-26#856
2005-07-26T22:15:51Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<p><a href="http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1840479,00.asp">John C. Dvorak pens an interesting piece about the "deafening silence" accorded Windows Vista</a> thus far. <br /> </p><p> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/127/?id=793">In the past I have expressed views that echo the essence</a> of John's piece. It has been pretty darn clear to me that Microsoft is struggling as a result of its inability to handle challenges associated with the metaphoric "computing vase" which it sought to own solely as a result of its proclivity for crushing and/or alienating erstwhile technology partners as part of this quest (a process that commenced a long time ago culminating the <a href="http://www.betanews.com/article/Microsoft_No_IE7_for_Windows_2000/1117464807">contradiction and ultimate paradox called IE7</a>; remember not too long ago it was impossible to separate IE from Windows! It could only exist as an OS extension etc.).</p> <p>Windows in its current incarnation fails to provide a productive working environment, you either have a plethora of viruses and spyware contending for you computing resources, or you have all the software in place to protect against these assaults rendering the computing resources equally busy. The computing power lag is simply too much when using windows, and this is its achilles heel! </p> <p> I have been using Windows since version 2.0, and although I have always found the Mac OS variations to be superior on the UI front, I never found any of the historic versions viable alternatives. In my case, this is all about providing a productive work environment across the following usage modes, in descending order of priority:</p> <blockquote>1. Power User (OutLook, Excel, WORD, and other desktop productivity tools)<br /> 2. Product Testing and QA<br /> 3. Programmer Buddy (a Microsoft term)<br /> 4. Programming (for the most part prototyping)<br /> </blockquote> <p>The release of Mac OS X Tiger lead me down an evaluation path that I have repeated many times in the past: test the viability of moving wholesale from Windows to Mac OS X and remain functional (if really lucky, exceed existing productivity levels). This time around I found that I could actually migrate over 6 years worth of emails, contacts, presentations, documents, spreadsheets from Windows to Mac OS X. I also discovered that success extended all the way to my data linked documents that are transparently bound to back-end databases (in my case the norm rather the exception via ODBC). </p> <p>I now use Mac OS X as my prime working platform (I still have to use Windows as the platform remains strategic for all our product offerings), and I am absolutely loving it! The joint feelings of euphoria and confusion that I experienced post migration were similar to how I felt after making the transition from "stick shift" to "automatic" geared cars (as I transitioned my residence from the UK to the U.S). At the time I couldn't understand why anyone (other than a grand prix driver) would ever drive a "stick shift" by choice. </p> <p>Today, I can't understand why I stuck with Windows for so long at the expense of my daily working productivity. The biggest bonus from this transition is that Mac OS X has made it easier for me to engage less technical individuals (family & friends) in the sheer joy and potential of Information Technology across a variety of realms as opposed to being confined to the "business computing" realm solely. I can demonstrate the power and potential of the Internet, Web, Web Services, Blogosphere, Wikispehere, with much more sanity and coherence now that my machine responds in a timely fashion during these demos amongst other benefits. </p> <p>Some may deem this windows bashing, but if they take the time to look a little deeper, this is simply about "straight shooting" from a real computer user (I like my computers to do deliver on their hugh potential promised; I don't compromise this basic expectation; my computer and associate software should save me time and ramp up my productivity!) . If Microsoft is the company that it once was, then it would simply use this kind of commentary to rally its troops and get its act together! That's what I would do if a customer felt so badly about our technology (<a href="http://uda.openlinksw.com">UDA </a>or <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com">Virtuoso</a>).</p>
Bill Gates: Cell Phones Will Overtake MP3 Players, Calls iPod 'Unsustainable'
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2005-05-13#837
2005-05-13T03:53:20Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <p><a href="http://www.macobserver.com/article/2005/05/12.12.shtml">Bill Gates: Cell Phones Will Overtake MP3 Players, Calls iPod 'Unsustainable'</a> Microsoft's chairman draws on computing history to make his proclamation that the iPod phenomenon won't... </p></blockquote> <div align="right">[via <a href="http://www.macobserver.com/">The Mac Observer</a>]</div> <div align="left">Hmm..!</div> <div align="left"> </div> <div align="left">I think this one speaks for itself! Kind of reminds me of the ominous round during the <a href="http://www.eastsideboxing.com/news.php?p=2100&more=1">rumble in the jungle</a> when Ali asked Foreman: "Is that all you got George!".</div> <div align="left"> </div> <div align="left">Again, Mac OS X vs Windows is a rendition of Ali vs Foreman (circa 1974) as stated in an earlier <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/index.vspx?id=793">post</a>; very much in line with the essence of the post fight analysis expressed below:</div> <blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <div align="left">"Why did Foreman lose to Ali? The fact is Ali beat Foreman because he was tougher and stronger than he's ever given credit for. Ali didn't box Foreman! He went to the ropes and allowed Foreman to hit on him, is that boxing? What if Foreman had knocked him out while he was stationary against the ropes. It would've been said for the rest of time, why did Ali remain stationary letting Foreman get off on him? How come he didn't use the ring and box? Which is exactly what those watching the fight were thinking and saying during rounds two through eight. That's not boxing, that's being forced to fight because your opponent will not allow you to box."</div> <div align="left"> </div></blockquote> <div align="left" dir="ltr">The point I am trying to make here is simple: Bill's comments are more about hope than facts. The iPod does not define Apple, the company's future isn't inextricably linked to the iPod. The company's future (as I see it) isn't solely about Desktop Computing (the battle Microsoft won many years ago) or the use of the iPod to ramp up its future growth in this realm. Apple is clearly focused on "Digital Life Style", a broader incarnation of what Bill <a href="http://alia.org.au/advocacy/alw/1998/gates.response.html">described</a> as "Web Life Style" in the late 90's.</div> <div align="left" dir="ltr"> </div> <div align="left" dir="ltr">Apple clearly understands that the Internet is the new Operating System (OS). It also understands that this OS isn't solely about personal Desktop Computing. Most important of all, it understands that it cannot own this OS (so it won't repeat the fatal mistake of not licensing it to potential partners :-) ). In a sense, the new OS protects Apple from itself (I see certainly understand Bill's <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=apple+ipod%0D%0A%0D%0A&type=text&output=html">point</a> if Apple was just about the iPod).</div> <div align="left" dir="ltr"> </div> <div align="left" dir="ltr">Apple is using its significant prowess in technology, aesthetics and user experience innovation to provide great solutions (hardware and software) that empower users of this new OS. Tiger (nee. <a href="http://binarybonsai.com/archives/2005/01/29/jobs-nextstep-os/">OpenStep / NeXTSTEP OS</a>; the platform on which the first Web Browser was <a href="http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/WorldWideWeb.html">created</a>) is a great example, what a <a href="http://mlagazine.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=142">journey</a>! </div> <div align="left" dir="ltr"> </div>
Ajax, Hard Facts, Brass Tacks ... and Bad Slacks
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2005-04-29#825
2005-04-29T20:11:22Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<p>By <a href="http://internet-apps.blogspot.com/">Mark Bierbeck</a>:</p> <p><a href="http://internet-apps.blogspot.com/2005/04/ajax-hard-facts-brass-tacks-and-bad.html">Ajax, Hard Facts, Brass Tacks ... and Bad Slacks</a> </p> <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">A number of people have contacted me recently about Ajax [<a href="about:blank#20050426-1">1</a>] -- a catchy name -- coined to provide an umbrella term for a particular group of technologies used to build web applications. The use of the word comes from Jesse James Garrett in a recent blog [<a href="about:blank#20050426-2">2</a>], and describes a class of internet applications written using JavaScript in a browser. By using JavaScript these apps have full access to the DOM, and as a consequence are able to make all sorts of changes to the page that the user is interacting with, without having to go back to the server.<br><br>When the application <em>does</em> need to go back to the server -- to deliver some data and get a response -- the idea is to keep the DOM intact so that the user has a smooth experience. This means that all communication with the server needs to take place outside of the normal HTML form mechanism, since this would obviously replace the current page.<br><br>Ajax addressed this, with what it calls 'asynchronous-JavaScript' -- retrieve only the data you need, and then directly manipulate the DOM to get the effect you want. 'Asynchronous-JavaScript' accounts for the first few letters of the name, with the remainder being the obligatory 'X' for XML (although XML is not really key to this technology, and many of the applications that are often cited as Ajax-apps don't use XML as the data medium).<br><br> <h2>Buzzing</h2>The response to Ajax has been pretty positive. In fact the only negatives have been either to suggest a change of name or to moan a little that "I've been doing this for years, why hasn't anyone noticed me?" (I won't put any links to those sort of articles, since they are a little embarassing -- after all, <em>everyone</em> has been doing this for years!)<br><br>Anyway, despite a couple of sour-pusses, the software community is almost universally excited, and the blog wires have glowed over the last few months with descriptions of Google Maps, GMail, and so on.<br><br>Just about everyone who has asked me about Ajax has expected me to be disappointed. Surely, they say, this makes the case for XForms weaker? But my answer is the exact opposite -- XForms and standards-based web applications are in every way superior to the techniques described as Ajax, since the whole <em>raison d'être</em> of XForms and XHTML 2 is to address the very problems that Ajax-like techniques suffer from.<br><br>That may come across as a little bold...so perhaps I should explain.<br><br> <h2>From Workaround to Feature</h2>We've all been using HTML mark-up for years now, and the language hasn't changed much in that time. As a consequence, the increasing demand for more complex web-pages has meant that the balance in our documents has shifted increasingly from vanilla mark-up to 'the workaround'. <br><br>Whether it's providing tooltips, dynamic/repeating data sections, or small portions of our page that change without having to request a new document, we've generally had to dive into script. But the shift from mark-up to script has meant that the mark-up language itself has been relegated to a mere carrier for programs.<br><br>Unfortunately this means that no-one gains -- it's annoying for the programmer to have to produce ever more convoluted spaghetti JavaScript to meet the demands of their audience, but it's also annoying for the non-programmer, who probably only wants a tooltip. And its particularly annoying for those who want to use documents on the web for more ambitious applications to find that most of the important stuff in a document is hidden away in script.<br><br>All is not lost, however, since this collection of 'workarounds' provides a rich source of real-life patterns that appear for authors and programmers, time and again. They may be workarounds, but they are much-needed ones.<br><br>The aim of the new generation of languages like XForms and XHTML 2 is to take these 'common patterns' and turn them into mark-up. Just like the HTML elements <code><a></code> and <code><form></code> pack an enormous amount of functionality into deceptively simple tags, so too can new declarative mark-up capture patterns that have emerged 'in the wild'.<br><br>(Note that this is the opposite of so-called folksonomies, where popular practice that occurs in the wild is left it the wild, and codification is regarded as a dirty word.)<br><br> <h2>The XML HTTP Request Object</h2>Let's take the much talked about XML HTTP Request Object (XMLHttpRequest). If you are not familiar with it, it was originally part of Microsoft's XML parser, and allows you to send and receive data outside of the normal HTML form processing. Since it's a handy feature to have in a client, other browsers have followed suit and it's now becoming the 'standard' way to communicate with servers without messing up your page. It's a corner-stone of Ajax. (A good summary with examples is on Jim Ley's jibbering.com site [<a href="about:blank#20050426-3">3</a>].)<br><br>But...we need to be clear that we're using XMLHttpRequest to get round a weakness in HTML forms. The problem we have is that even if you know that a server is about to give you some data, and the <em>server</em> knows it's about to give you some data, there's no way to tell your <em>form</em> that -- instead your page will be wiped out and replaced with whatever the server sends back.<br><br>Of course, constant round-tripping doesn't make it completely impossible to produce applications, and a lot of books and airline tickets are bought every day without the facility to get 'just the data'. But we all know it would reduce network traffic and create a smoother user experience if we could just send a list of books or seats, rather than a whole new page.<br><br>Over the years applications such as Microsoft's <em>Outlook Web Access</em> (OWA), have had to step around the HTML form to get just the data they need. But, whilst OWA considerably predates GMail, until the advent of XMLHttpRequest, the techniques used were quite difficult to manage. (Google Suggest is often cited as a good example of an Ajax-app, but interestingly merges old and new techniques; XMLHttpRequest is used to obtain a piece of JavaScript from a server, and this script contains a call to a client-side function, but using server-provided parameters. It's one of the techniques you might have used in the past with a hidden frame.)<br><br>So as many have said on their blogs, XMLHttpRequest is not a newly devised technique, but rather a generally accepted replacement for a very old technique. But ultimately that technique is a workaround since the <em>real</em> problem is that HTML forms will always replace the current page.<br><br><br> <h2>Beyond HTML Forms</h2>Whilst XMLHttpRequest gives us a way to get data to and from the server without losing our document, we've unfortunately thrown the baby out with the bath-water; whatever the weaknesses of HTML forms, you have to acknowledge that they are pretty simple to use. Here's an abbreviated version of Google's search form (note that the mark-up is HTML, not XML):<br><code><pre><br><form action=/search name=f><br> <input type=hidden name=hl value=en><br> <input maxLength=256 size=55 name=q value=""><br> <input type=submit value="Google Search" name=btnG><br></form><br> </pre></code><br>As you can see, the simple problem with HTML forms is that we don't say anything about where the data should go when we've received it from the server. The assumption in HTML of old is that we are just doing a kind of 'super-navigation', and no matter what we send to the server, it will only ever give us back a new web-page. (To put it a different way, you could say that <code><a></code> and <code><form></code> are pretty much the same thing.)<br><br>To see how this problem is resolved, let's code the same Google search in XForms:<br><code><pre><br><xf:submission id="sub-search"<br> action="http://www.google.com/complete/search?hl=en"<br> method="get" separator="&"<br> replace="all"<br>/><br> <br><xf:input ref="q"><br> <xf:label>Query:</xf:label><br></xf:input><br> <br><xf:submit submission="sub-search"><br> <xf:label>Google Search</xf:label><br></xf:submit><br> </pre></code><br>Although it will do exactly the same -- right down to replacing the current page -- it's a little different to the HTML mark-up. But the changes in structure have given us some major benefits, from accessible labels on our form controls, to the possibility of many different submissions for the same data.<br><br>But what it has also given us is the possibility of solving our data update problem. The <code>replace</code> attribute is actually optional in XForms, but I showed it in the previous mark-up so that you can compare it to this:<br><code><pre><br><xf:submission id="sub-search"<br> action="http://www.google.com/complete/search?hl=en"<br> method="get" separator="&"<br> replace="<span style="COLOR: red">instance</span>"<br>/><br> </pre></code><br>In this example the data returned from the server will just replace the instance that was sent, and our page will remain completely intact. (The <code>replace</code> attribute can take the values <code>all</code>, <code>instance</code>, or <code>none</code>.)<br><br>I won't show the full equivalent using XMLHttpRequest since it's pretty large, but I'll give a flavour of it. (Jim Ley's page -- referenced earlier -- shows how to search Google with XMLHttpRequest.)<br><br> <h3>The Script Version</h3>First we need to create an XMLHttpRequest object, but we need to do it in such a way that it will work on both Mozilla and IE:<br><code><pre><br>var req;<br> <br>function loadXMLDoc(url) {<br> // native XMLHttpRequest object<br> if (window.XMLHttpRequest) {<br> req = new XMLHttpRequest();<br> req.onreadystatechange = readyStateChange;<br> req.open("GET", url, true);<br> req.send(null);<br> // IE/Windows ActiveX version<br> } else if (window.ActiveXObject) {<br> req = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");<br> if (req) {<br> req.onreadystatechange = readyStateChange;<br> req.open("GET", url, true);<br> req.send();<br> }<br> }<br>}<br> </pre></code><br>When a document is loaded via this function, the <code>readyStateChange()</code> method is invoked:<br><code><pre><br>function readyStateChange() {<br> // '4' means document "loaded"<br> if (req.readyState == 4) {<br> // 200 means "OK"<br> if (req.status == 200) {<br> // do something here<br> } else {<br> // error processing here<br> }<br> }<br>}<br> </pre></code><br>From a <em>programming</em> point of view, I guess you could say that there isn't a lot wrong with this, but then from a programming point of view there wasn't a lot wrong with Z80 or 6502 assembly languages -- I just wouldn't want to go back to them!<br><br>But the most important issue is that we have lost the very thing that was responsible for HTML's success -- the use of simple, clear, declarative mark-up, in which we simply state our intent, without having to write a program to do it for us. After all, the web took off because authors only had to master <code><a></code> in order to enter the exciting new world of 'hypertext' -- but XMLHttpRequest raises the bar again, and takes us right back into the heart of geek-world.<br><br> <h2>Beyond XMLHttpRequest</h2>But in keeping with the principle that I outlined above -- that XForms and XHTML 2 try to provide mark-up for commonly existing design patterns -- let's see if there are any other patterns that XMLHttpRequest has thrown up.<br><br>You will have noticed in the earlier script that we had tests for success and failure:<br><code><pre><br>if (req.status == 200) {<br> // do something here<br>} else {<br> // error processing here<br>}<br> </pre></code><br>XForms provides the same functionality through the use of events -- on success do this, on failure do that. This is far more powerful, since it hides the protocol-specific aspects of this code ("200" may be 'success' for HTTP, but it isn't 'success' when saving data to the hard-drive or sending an email).<br><br>XForms uses declarative mark-up to express those events, which again dramatically reduces coding:<br><code><pre><br><xf:action ev:observer="sub-search" ev:event="xforms-submit-error"><br> <xf:message level="modal"><br> Submission failed<br> </xf:message><br></xf:action><br> </pre></code><br>But there's lots, lots more in the <code>submission</code> part of XForms:<br> <ul><br> <li>it can provide full XML Schema validation before submitting the data;</li><br> <li>there is built in support for numerous types of serialisation, such as <code>multipart/related</code>;</li><br> <li>abstract methods are used so the code is independent of protocol. For example, since <code>put</code> means the same thing whether the target URL begins <code>http:</code> or <code>file:</code>, a form with relative paths will run unchanged on a local machine or a web server;</li><br> <li>it's extensible -- in formsPlayer 2.0 we have used the <code>submission</code> element to read and write from an ADO database, allowing programmers to convert forms from using the web to using a local database by doing nothing more than changing a single target URL. (Try doing that with XMLHttpRequest!)</li><br></ul><br><br>The <code>submission</code> part of XForms is in fact so powerful that it will eventually form a separate specification, for use in other languages.<br><br> <h2>From Patterns to Mark-up</h2>And there are plenty more patterns out there that were crying out to be turned into mark-up, and which are now incorporated into XForms and XHTML 2. Do you remember the days when if we wanted a tooltip that contained mark-up -- perhaps an image, or bold text -- we had to use a carefully placed <code><div></code>, a CSS <code>display: none;</code>, a <code>mouseover</code> event handler and a timer? Nowadays the programmer with better things to do than work with spaghetti-JavaScript just uses the XForms <code><hint></code> element, and for free they get platform independence (and therefore accessibility), as well as the ability to insert any mark-up.<br><br>And what about the days when we had to write code to open up a text-to-speech engine, and then invoke the various methods on the object to get it to speak its mind? Nowadays who wouldn't just use a CSS property on their XForms' <code>message</code>s?<br><br> <h3>Bad Slacks</h3>And do you remember...I'm sorry, this one always makes me laugh...do you remember how we used to write lots of JavaScript to recalculate the shopping-cart when a new item was added? I know it's hard to believe -- it's like looking at old photos of us all wearing flares. Anyway, thank God for straight trousers and the XForms dependency-engine.<br><br><img border="1" src="http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/2004/sep/fashion_week/satfever_nano140.jpg"> <br>But enough of the good old days, the days of assembly language, C and JavaScript...let's stick with the new.<br><br> <h2>Do Try This at Home</h2><br>To round all of this off, we'll take a look at Google Suggest, and we'll use XForms to implement it. I'll walk through the demo in a separate blog [<a href="about:blank#20050426-4">4</a>] so that this one doesn't get too cluttered -- and hopefully by disecting this simple but useful application, we can show how declarative mark-up scores over scripting.<br><br><br><a name="20050426-1">[1] Will AJAX help Google clean up?, c|net, <a href="http://news.com.com/Will+AJAX+help+Google+clean+up/2100-1032_3-5621010.html">http://news.com.com/Will+AJAX+help+Google+clean+up/2100-1032_3-5621010.html</a> <br><br><a name="20050426-2">[2] Ajax: A New Approach to Web Applications, Jesse James Garrett, Adaptive Path blog, <a href="http://www.adaptivepath.com/publications/essays/archives/000385.php">http://www.adaptivepath.com/publications/essays/archives/000385.php</a> <br><br><a name="20050426-3">[3] Using the XML HTTP Request object, <a href="http://jibbering.com/2002/4/httprequest.html">http://jibbering.com/2002/4/httprequest.html</a> <br><br><a name="20050426-4">[4] "Google Suggest" Using XForms, <a href="http://internet-apps.blogspot.com/2005/04/google-suggest-using-xforms.html">http://internet-apps.blogspot.com/2005/04/google-suggest-using-xforms.html</a> <br><br>Tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/xforms" rel="tag">xforms</a> | <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/xbl" rel="tag">xbl</a> | <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/webapps" rel="tag">webapps</a> | <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/ajax" rel="tag">ajax</a> | <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/javascript" rel="tag">javascript</a> </div> <div align="right">[via <a href="http://internet-apps.blogspot.com/">Internet Applications</a>]</div>
Microsoft: Longhorn Is Great, XP Is Lame
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2005-04-29#822
2005-04-29T16:11:01Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<a href="http://techdirt.com/articles/20050428/1051254_F.shtml">Microsoft: Longhorn Is Great, XP Is Lame</a> Software vendors walk a fine line when pushing upgrades -- tout the new version without slamming the old one. Microsoft threw that strategy aside in pumping Longhorn to the WinHEC faithful, as execs <a href="http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/index.cfm?RSS&moreover&go=news.view&news=4701">belittled Windows XP in the process</a>. One VP said that XP hadn't been thought through and at times "failed to deliver." The surprising part is not that XP has major shortcomings -- early on its enhancements were recognized as little more than <a href="http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20010824/0856205_F.shtml">improved stability</a> and <a href="http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20011008/0111217_F.shtml">a bunch of bug fixes</a>. Rather, the interesting part is Microsoft actually admitting to drawbacks at all, even several years late. But Longhorn, now there's a <i>real</i> operating system! <div align="right">[via <a href="http://www.techdirt.com/">Techdirt</a>]</div>
WebDAV, SQLX, and my Weblog
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2005-04-26#810
2005-04-26T03:54:43Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<p>Uche Ogbuji <a href="http://copia.ogbuji.net/blog/2005/04/24#Posting_to">comments</a> in his <a href="http://copia.ogbuji.net/blog">blog</a> about the use of WebDAV and <a href="http://www.tbradford.org/2005/02/xml-with-virtuoso-and-sqlx_02.html">SQLX </a>in my blog as part of his commentary about <a href="http://egaumer.pagecache.org/PyBlosxom/pyblosxom-webdav.html">Pyblosxom & WebDAV</a>. To provide some clarity about Virtuoso and Blogging I have decided to put out this quick step by guide to the workings of my blog (there is a long overdue technical white paper nearing completion that address this subject in more detail).</p> <p>Here goes:</p> <p><u><strong>Blog Editing</strong></u></p> <p>I can use any editor that supports the following Blog Post APIs:</p> <p>- Moveable Type</p> <p>- Meta Weblog</p> <p>- Blogger</p> <p>Typically I use Virtuoso (which has an unreleased WYSIWYG blog post editor), <a href="http://www.newzcrawler.com/">Newzcrawler</a>, <a href="http://ecto.kung-foo.tv/">ecto</a>, <a href="http://zempt.com/">Zempt</a>, or <a href="http://www.wbloggar.com/">w.bloggar</a> for my posts. If a post is of interest to me, or relevant to our company or customers I tend to perform one of the following tasks:</p> <p>- Generate a post using the "Blog This" feature of my blog editor</p> <p>- Write a new post that was triggered by a previously read post etc.</p> <p>Either way, the posts end up in our company wide blog server that is Virtuoso based (more about this below). The internal blog server automatically categorizes my blog posts, and automagically determines which posts to upstream to other public blogs that I author (e.g <a href="http://kidehen.typepad.com/">http://kidehen.typepad.com</a> ) or co-author (e.g <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblogs/uda">http://www.openlinksw.com/weblogs/uda</a> and <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblogs/virtuoso">http://www.openlinksw.com/weblogs/virtuoso</a> ). I write once and my posts are dispatched conditionally to multiple outlets.</p> <p><strong><u>RSS/Atom/RDF Aggregation & Reading</u></strong></p> <p>I discover, subscribe to, and view blog feeds using <a href="http://www.newzcrawler.com/">Newzcrawler</a> (primarily), and from time to time for experimentation and evaluation purposes I use <a href="http://www.rssbandit.org/">RSS Bandit</a>, <a href="http://www.bradsoft.com/feeddemon/">FeedDemon</a>, and <a href="http://www.bloglines.com/">Bloglines</a>. I am in the process of moving this activity over to Virtuoso completely due to the large number of feeds that I consume on a daily basis (scalability is a bit of a problem with current aggregators).</p> <p><u><strong>Blog Publishing</strong></u></p> <p>When you visit my blog you are experiencing the soon to be released Virtuoso Blog Publishing engine first hand, which is how WebDAV, SQLX, XQuery/XPath, and Free Text etc. come into the mix.</p> <p>Each time I create a post internally, or subscribe to an external feed, the data ends up in Virtuoso's SQL Engine (this is how we handle some of the obvious scalability challenges associated with large subscription counts). This engine is SQL2000N based, which implies that it can transform SQL to XML on the fly using recent extensions to SQL in the form of SQLX (prior to the emergence of this standard we used the FOR XML SQL syntax extensions for the same result). It also has its own in-built XSLT processor (DB Engine resident), and validating XML parser (with support for XML Schema). Thus, my <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen/gems/">RSS/RDF/Atom archives, FOAF, BlogRoll, OPML, and OCS</a> blog syndication gems are all live examples of SQLX documents that leverage Virtuoso's WebDAV engine for exposure to Blog Clients.</p> <p><strong><u>Blog Search</u></strong></p> <p>When you search for blog posts using the basic or <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/search.vspx?blogid=127">advanced search</a> features of my blog, you end up interacting with one of the following methods of querying data hosted in Virtuoso: Free Text Search, XPath, or XQuery. The <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=virtuoso&type=text&output=html">result sets</a> produced by the search feature uses SQLX to produce subscription gems (<a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=virtuoso&type=text&output=xml">RSS</a>/<a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=virtuoso&type=text&output=atom">Atom</a>/<a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=virtuoso&type=text&output=rdf">RDF</a>/<a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/search.vspx?blogid=127&type=text&kwds=virtuoso&OpenSearch">OpenSearch</a>) and <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=virtuoso&type=text&output=html">URIs</a> that enable dynamic tracking of my posts using your search keywords.</p> <p>BTW - the <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen">http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen</a> blog home page exists as a result of Virtuoso's Virtual Domain / Multi-Homing Web Server functionality. The entire site resides in an Object Relational DBMS, and I can take my DB file across Windows, Solaris, Linux, Mac OS X, FreeBSD, AIX, HP-UX, IRIX, and SCO UnixWare without missing a single beat! All I have to do is instantiate my Virtuoso server and my weblog is live.</p>
A Cynical View of PR and Blogging
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2005-04-23#804
2005-04-23T13:36:24Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<a href="http://www.25hoursaday.com/weblog/PermaLink.aspx?guid=6558cbaa-d7d6-41b1-8e1d-68fd61a44cfd">A Cynical View of PR and Blogging</a> <p align="left"><strong>Exhibit A:</strong> From <a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html">The Submarine</a> by Paul Graham </p> <blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <p align="left">PR people fear bloggers for the same reason readers like them. And that means there may be a struggle ahead. As this new kind of writing draws readers away from traditional media, we should be prepared for whatever PR mutates into to compensate. When I think how hard PR firms work to score press hits in the traditional media, I can't imagine they'll work any less hard to feed stories to bloggers, if they can figure out how. </p></blockquote> <p align="left" dir="ltr"><strong>Exhibit B:</strong> From <a href="http://thomashawk.com/2005/04/my-dinner-with-microsofts-jim-allchin.html">My Dinner With Microsoft's Jim Allchin</a> in Thomas Hawk's weblog </p> <blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <p align="left" dir="ltr">Last night I had a unique opportunity to sit down with Jim Allchin, Microsoftâs Group Vice President for Platforms, for dinner along with a group of other bloggers and technologists and discuss the future development of Longhorn as well as see an early demo of the Longhorn technology firsthand. </p></blockquote> <p align="left" dir="ltr"><strong>Exhibit C:</strong> From <a href="http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=146241&threshold=-1&commentsort=1&tid=109&mode=nested&cid=12260661">A comment on Slashdot</a> by Thomas Hawk about the dinner </p> <blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <p align="left" dir="ltr">I do feel that there is room in the world of journalism for hard news, op/ed and yes, openly biased writing where the blogger places him or her self as a participant in the news itself. <br><br>Was I thrilled to be having dinner with Allchin? Of course. I'm a huge Microsoft enthusiast. I have been an advocate of the digital home for many years and I think that Microsoft may represent our best chance possible of making the digital home of the future a reality. <br><br>Was I really enthused about Longhorn? Absolutely. From what I saw it was really was amazing. I spend hundreds of hours every year organizing digital media in front of all five of my Windows PCs. The technology that I saw will save me hundreds of hours of work going forward. This is really exciting to me at a personal level. <br><br></p></blockquote> <div align="right">[via <a href="http://www.25hoursaday.com/weblog/">Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life</a>]</div>
Microsoft's New Mantra: 'It Just Works'
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2005-04-21#794
2005-04-21T21:44:04Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<p>So doesn't Windows work right now? Not quite so (until next year sometime) according to <a href="http://www.fortune.com/fortune/fastforward/0,15704,1052600,00.htm">this</a> <a href="http://www.fortune.com/">Fortune Magazine</a> article. Ironically, Apple have always assumed "It should just work", and when it comes to their technology (software or hardware) at the very least they assume "it does work". </p> <p>I think this marketing message for the next release of Windows is broken, especially for someone whose been using what appears to be a not "just working" operating systems since Windows 2.0 :-(</p> <p> </p>
Mac OS X and its potential impact on Windows
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2005-04-21#793
2005-04-21T20:25:16Z
2006-07-21T07:24:28.000001-04:00
<p dir="ltr">We are at an interesting crossroads in the computer industry (IMHO) . Apple is about to unleash <a href="http://www.apple.com/macosx/">Tiger</a> (ETA: one week from now), and this operating system release could end up being the crucial round of the titanic battle between Apple and Microsoft. The battle which starts at the Operating System level reminds me of the "<a href="http://home.sandiego.edu/~murphy2/jungle.html">Rumble In The Jungle</a>" (circa. 1974, <a href="http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery?s=Kinshasa&method=2&gwp=13">Kinshasa</a>, <a href="http://www.answers.com/topic/congo-country-zaire&method=6">Zaire</a>); Apple in the role of <a href="http://www.answers.com/topic/muhammad-ali-boxer&method=6">Ali</a> (aka "The Greatest" who was the overwhelming underdog at time) and Microsoft in the role of <a href="http://www.answers.com/topic/george-foreman&method=6">George Foreman</a> (who at the time was logically invincible). </p> <p dir="ltr">The shakesperian tale of Macbeth also comes to mind as depicted in the excerpt below:</p> <blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <p dir="ltr">".... Macbeth goes to visit the witches in their cavern. There, they show him a sequence of demons and spirits who present him with further prophecies: he must beware of Macduff, a Scottish nobleman who opposed Macbeth's accession to the throne; he is incapable of being harmed by any man born of woman; and he will be safe until Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane Castle. "</p></blockquote> <p dir="ltr">Having used all the major operating systems on a serious basis for a number of years in a variety of modes; user, developer, and administrator. I have always felt that a RISC based UNIX operating system (of BSD genealogical branch extraction), if somehow combined with a user interface that is superior to Windows, would ultimately unravel the Windows Desktop Monopoly. That operating system exists today in the form of Mac OS X (its lastest Tiger release simply <a href="http://www.apple.com/macosx/newfeatures/">kicks the differential up a notch</a>). </p> <p dir="ltr">Back to the Macbeth correlation:</p> <blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <p dir="ltr"><u>"Birnam Woods coming to Dunsinane"</u> is the metaphoric equivalent of desktop users and first time computer users being forced (by the scourge of virus and spyware) to revaluate Windows as the only choice for productive desktop computing. What would you recommend to "Aunt Milly" when she tells you she wants to get on the Internet? Especially if "Aunt Milly" isn't living with you?</p> <p dir="ltr">"<u>Man not born of a woman"</u> is no different to saying: UNIX with a superior user interface to Windows!</p> <p dir="ltr">I don't think you need me to tell who play the characters of Macbeth and Macduff in this drama :-)</p></blockquote> <p dir="ltr">The Windows security vulnerabilities quagmire (<a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=Windows+security+vulnerabilities+quagmire&sourceid=mozilla-search&start=0&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official">google juice</a> on this phrase is currently 6,620 pages) has basically created an inflection of monumental proportions adversely affecting Windows and creating great visibility and evaluation building opportunities for Mac OS X ("once users experience a Mac they don't come back to Windows!").</p> <p dir="ltr">Paul Murphy of <a href="http://www.cio-today.com/">cio-today.com</a> has also written a great article sheds light on the often overlooked hardware aspect to the security problem for Windows Here is a poignant excerpt:</p> <blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <p><font face="arial" size="-1"><b>Software and Hardware Vulnerabilities</b> </font></p> <p><font face="arial" size="-1"></font></p> <p><font face="arial" size="-1">At present, attacks on Microsoft's Windows products are generally drawn from a different population of possible attacks than those on <span class="keyword"><a href="http://us.rd.yahoo.com/DailyNews/manual/nf/bs_nf/33272/14945921/*http://news.search.yahoo.com/search/news?fr=news-storylinks&p=%22Unix%22&c=&n=20&yn=c&c=news&cs=nw">Unix</a></span> variants such as BSD, Linux and Solaris. From a practical perspective, the key difference is that attacks on Wintel tend to have two parts: A software vulnerability is exploited to give a remote attacker access to the x86 hardware and that access is then used to gain control of the machine. </font></p> <p><font face="arial" size="-1"></font></p> <p><font face="arial" size="-1">In contrast, attacks on Unix generally require some form of initial legal access to the machine and focus on finding software ways to upgrade priveleges illegally. </font></p> <p><font face="arial" size="-1"></font></p> <p><font face="arial" size="-1">Consider, for example, CAN-2004-1134 in the NIST vulnerabilities database: </font></p> <p><font face="arial" size="-1"></font></p> <p><font face="arial" size="-1">Summary: Buffer overflow in the Microsoft W3Who ISAPI (w3who.dll) allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service and possibly execute arbitrary code via a long query string. </font></p> <p><font face="arial" size="-1"></font></p> <p><font face="arial" size="-1">Published Before: 1/10/2005 </font></p> <p><font face="arial" size="-1"></font></p> <p><font face="arial" size="-1">Severity: High </font></p> <p><font face="arial" size="-1"></font></p> <p><font face="arial" size="-1">The vulnerability exists in Microsoft's code, but the exploit depends on the rigid stack-order execution and limited page protection inherent in the x86 architecture. If Windows ran on Risc, that vulnerability would still exist, but it would be a non-issue because the exploit opportunity would be more theoretical than practical. </font></p> <p><font face="arial" size="-1"></font></p> <p><font face="arial" size="-1">Linux and open-source applications are thought to have far fewer software vulnerabilities than Microsoft's products, but Linux on Intel (<a href="http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/finance/nf/bs_nf/storytext/33272/14945921/*http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=intc&d=t">Nasdaq: INTC</a> - <a href="http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/biz/nf/bs_nf/storytext/33272/14945921/*http://biz.yahoo.com/n/i/intc.html">news</a>) is susceptible to the same kind of attacks as those now predominantly affecting Wintel users. For real long-term security improvements, therefore, the right answer is to look at Linux, or any other Unix, on non x86 hardware. </font></p> <p><font face="arial" size="-1"></font></p> <p><font face="arial" size="-1">One such option is provided by Apple's (<a href="http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/finance/nf/bs_nf/storytext/33272/14945921/*http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=aapl&d=t">Nasdaq: AAPL</a> - <a href="http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/biz/nf/bs_nf/storytext/33272/14945921/*http://biz.yahoo.com/n/a/aapl.html">news</a>) BSD-based products on the PowerPC-derived G4 and G5 CPUs. <span class="keyword"><a href="http://us.rd.yahoo.com/DailyNews/manual/nf/bs_nf/33272/14945921/*http://news.search.yahoo.com/search/news?fr=news-storylinks&p=%22Linus%20Torvalds%22&c=&n=20&yn=c&c=news&cs=nw">Linus Torvalds</a></span>, for example, apparently now runs Linux on a Mac G5 and there are several Linux distributions for this hardware -- all of which are immune to the typical x86-oriented exploit. </font></p></blockquote> <p dir="ltr">This may even been the nullifier of that age old argument about porting Mac OS X to the x86 in order to broaden its adoption potential?</p> <p dir="ltr">Mac OS X is certainly a breath of fresh air for anyone who needs to simply get stuff done with their desktops and notebooks. </p>
Back To The Future: Hypermedia
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2005-03-26#766
2005-03-26T20:24:30Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<p>If a picture speaks a thousand words, I sometimes wonder how many words we attribute to a multimedia clip? Especially one that is now openly accessible to many who don't quite understand the high degree of: "Back To The Future" quotient of most of what we see today.</p> <p>The Internet Archive initiative is building up an amazing collection of content that includes this <a href="http://www.archive.org/movies/details-db.php?collection=computerchronicles&collectionid=CC501_hypercard">"must watch" movie</a> about the somewhat forgotten <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypercard">hypercard</a> development environment.</p> <p>As I watched the hypercard movie I obtained clear reassurance that my vision of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0">Web 2.0</a> as critical infrastructure for a future Semantic Web isn't unfounded. The solution building methodology espoused by hypercard is exactly how Semantic Web applications will be built, and this will be done by orchestrating the componentary of Web 2.0.</p> <p>When watching this clip make the following mental adjustments:</p> <ol> <li>Swap hypercard stacks for discrete and/or composite services that have published endpoints exposed by Web 2.0 points of presence<br><br></li> <li>Think of information taking the form of XML based content e.g. RSS, Atom, RDF, FOAF, XFN, and other future XML based data contextualization formats; all accessible via URIs<br><br></li> <li>When the Apple Mac operating system is mentioned (or infered) think of the Internet (you don't need Windows, Mac OS, Linux, UNIX etc. to realize the vision, the network provided by the Internet is the Operating System)<br><br></li> <li>When the Apple computer is mentioned simply think about a plethora of function specific devices (computers, mobile phones, PDAs etc.) that overtly or covertly provide conduits to the new operating environment (the Internet)<br><br></li> <li>As you hear term "whole new body of people that are non programmers contributing there ideas" think about yourself and the increasing ease of participation that's beginning to take shape in this emerging frontier!<br><br></li> <li>As for "<a href="http://www.wholeearthmag.com/about.html">Whole Earth Catalog", </a>think <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org">Wikipedia</a> or more recent efforts such as <a href="http://www.answers.com">Answers.com</a>.</li></ol> <p>Web 2.0 is a reflection of the web taking its first major step out of the technology stone age (certainly the case relative to the hypercard movie and "pre web" application development in general). </p> <p> </p>
Longhorn: Fixing Your Own Mess?
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2005-03-08#745
2005-03-08T17:42:00Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<p>Via the <a href="http://www.alwayson-network.com/">always-on</a> network I stumbled across a great <a href="http://www.alwayson-network.com/comments.php?id=9035_0_11_0_C">article</a> by Pip Coburn that posed the following question: "should Microsoft benefit from the mess it helped create?".</p> <p>The article discusses most of the key issues, but it should also have included and discussed he following question: "should Microsoft benefit from the mess that we let them create?". By "we" I mean the extensive pool of Microsoft product consumers, developers, and partners etc.</p> <blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <p><em>I have worked with Microsoft products (as a developer and user) for more years than I would like to remember; I have personally experienced the journey from Windows 2.0 to Windows XP (and played around with Longhorn).</em> </p></blockquote> <p>I added my question to this dialog as without it's resultant perspective, history will simply repeat itself. If IT technology decision makers don't change their product selection and acquisition habits, then why should Microsoft or any other vendor change their ways? Especially when a perpetual promise-under deliver-repromise cycle works absolutely fine. This isn't rocket science, it basic common sense (but we know that common sense ain't that common).</p> <p>Microsoft like most software companies seek significant portions of their revenue growth from product upgrades. In a sense, it inherently implies that these products will always be millions of miles away from the "silver bullet" promises espoused in the pre product release marketing and PR hype. Sadly, there was a time when Marketing and PR hype used to be about new features; a time when there was a clear line between a new feature and a fundamental product bug. </p> <p>Buying products from any company simply because they have the largest market share is dumb! All it does is encourage other vendors to focus on product market share rather than product quality, which ultimately results in the following:</p> <ol> <li>You basically end up paying (rather than at least being credited) for opportunity costs arising from all the time lost now your PC now works slower than you do. <br></li> <li>You pay for bug fixes and architectural flaws instead of new features</li></ol> <p>Microsoft isn't a unique source of this problem, but hey! They are the largest Software Company (the one with the vital market share), and their software products are on some 80-90% of desktops on this planet, and the planet isn't at its most productive at the current time, and no matter how you look at it, this loss of productivity has something to do with the increased nuisance of desktop computing. </p> <p>If Microsoft could just focus on its core competence (BTW - I can't quite pint point this anymore since they are in every software market that exists today), it would have at least have an iota of a chance in hell of cleaning up this mess.</p> <p> </p>
Speaking of the Mac
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2005-03-08#740
2005-03-08T13:14:13Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <p><a href="http://www.booch.com/architecture/blog.jsp">Speaking of the Mac</a> A <a href="http://www.wickedlysmart.com/skyler/SkylerSwticherQT2.mov">little humor</a> for the day, from one of my <a href="http://www.screenhead.com/">fav sites</a>.<br></p></blockquote> <div align="right">[via <a href="http://www.booch.com/architecture/">Handbook of Software Architecture</a>]</div> <div align="left"> </div> <div align="left">Windows is a character buidling operating system for our youth :-) </div> <div align="right"> </div>
Bill Gates Memo: Building Software That Is Interoperable By Design
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2005-02-04#678
2005-02-04T23:58:28Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<font size="2"> <blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <p>By Bill Gates, Microsoft Executive Mail</p> <p>Microsoft's product interoperability strategy: "First, we continue to support customers' needs for software that works well with what they have today. Second, we are working with the industry to define a new generation of software and Web services based on eXtensible Markup Language (XML), which enables software to efficiently share information and opens the door to a greater degree of 'interoperability by design' across many different kinds of software. Our goal is to harness all the power inherent in modern (and not so modern) business software, and enable them to work together so that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. We want to further eliminate friction among heterogeneous architectures and applications without compromising their distinctive underlying capabilities... The XML-based architecture for Web services, known as WS-* ('WS-Star'), is being developed in close collaboration with dozens of other companies in the industry including IBM, Sun, Oracle and BEA. This standard set of protocols significantly reduces the cost and complexity of connecting disparate systems, and it enables interoperability not just within the four walls of an organization, but also across the globe."</p> <p></font><a href="http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/execmail/2005/02-03interoperability.asp"><u><font color="#0000ff" size="2">http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/execmail/2005/02-03interoperability.asp</u></font></a></p></blockquote> <p align="left" dir="ltr">Amen Bill! As long as this doesn't covertly imply "Windows Specificity" by way of "Interoperability" becoming a "Windows Unique Selling Point"! </p> <p align="left" dir="ltr">As per usual, the devil will be in the implementation details of your company's products. </p>
The Microsoft Memo
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2005-01-26#667
2005-01-26T22:16:27Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <p><a href="http://www.wired.com/news/wiredmag/1,2167,66388,00.html?tw=rss.TOP">The Microsoft Memo</a> Bill Gates hires open-source icon Linus Torvalds? That was just the beginning of Redmond's hybrid strategy to face the free software age. Fanciful prognostication by Gary Wolf from Wired magazine. </p></blockquote> <div align="right">[via <a href="http://www.wired.com/">Wired News: Top Stories</a>]</div> <div align="left">Funny and insightful. Could WinX represent a journey for Windows that emulates the one taken from Mac OS Classic to Mac OS X? </div>
MacSOS Releases SyBrowser 6.2
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2004-11-19#642
2004-11-19T17:40:38Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/rbgarage?m=93">MacSOS Releases SyBrowser 6.2</a> <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Dr. Gerard Hammond of MacSOS announced the release of SyBrowser 6.2, a Macintosh application that can query Sybase, FrontBase, PostgreSQL, Oracle, ODBC and MS SQL databases hosted on OSX, UNIX, Linux, and Windows servers. <br><br>SyBrowser v6.2 features include: <br><br>- Added FrontBase database support. <br>- Added "Bachman" style ERD features (Tridents for 'Many' arms of a relationship, open circles for optional entities) <br>- The arms of a relationship now track their entities correctly in all directions. <br>- The arm of the selected relationship can be moved using the mouse or the keyboard <br>- Fixed bug with SQL auto-completion popup with multiple monitors. <br>- Enhanced the "Edit Relationships Info..." dialog. This dialog allows the properties of the selected relationship to be edited. <br>- The mouse cursor changes to reflect the draggable direction when resizing ERD tables, or dragging the various arms of a relationship. The selected arm of the selected relationship now has a circle for a handle. <br>- Documentation added. <br>- Printing the ERD panel has been improved. <br>- The Find dialog allows searching the returned datasets on the SQL panel and Results windows as well as the code in Sybase stored procedures. <br><br>SyBrowser Overview <br>SyBrowser is a table browser and alternative "isql" client for Sybase databases. It facilitates SQL generation thorough a point and click interface. SyBrowser also provides an overview of the tables in ODBC, MySQL, Oracle, FrontBase, PostgreSQL and MS SQL databases. Complex queries can be saved to disk for reuse. An ERD module allows the creation of visual representations of data models. <br><br>$89 Shareware from MacSOS, Australia <br>$49 upgrade from any previous version <br><br><a href="http://www.macsos.com.au/">http://www.macsos.com.au</a> </div> <div align="right">[via <a href="http://rbgarage.blogspot.com/">RB Garage News Feed</a>]</div>
Mouth Wide Shut: Underpromise and Overdeliver
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2004-10-01#623
2004-10-01T19:39:25Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<p dir="ltr">Another great piece from Dare. I really have nothing to add to this, it speaks volumes and covers a myriad of frontiers (hopefully you will spot them all).</p> <p dir="ltr">Enjoy!</p> <blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <p>In a post entitled <a href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0001011/2004/09/23.html#a8295">When will Scoble earn his Longhorn pay?</a></p></blockquote>
Continued: What is an ESB?
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2004-09-22#622
2004-09-22T15:24:11Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<html> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=windows-1252" /> <title>New Page 1</title> <style> <!-- p.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin-bottom:.0001pt; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; margin-left:0in; margin-right:0in; margin-top:0in} li.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin-bottom:.0001pt; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; margin-left:0in; margin-right:0in; margin-top:0in} --> </style> </head> <body> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Arial"> Buzzword decibels are rising on the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB), and as per usual in our industry there is a shortage of concise and unadulterated descriptions of ESB the product moniker and its value proposition.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Arial"></span></p></body></html>
Contd: IE and Browser Level Security Problems
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2004-07-09#660
2004-07-09T17:50:04Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
eWeek provides a <a href="http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1621578,00.asp?kc=ewnws070904dtx1k0200599">summary</a> the recent <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/WindowsXP/expertzone/chats/default.mspx">online discussion </a>about IE hosted by Microsoft. The piece also highlights <a href="http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1621438,00.asp">security vulnerabilities</a> recently found in the Windows version of Mozilla (and here is a <a href="http://update.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?id=154">link</a> to the fix; now that's agility!).
History leading up to today's IE Security and Backwardness Debacle
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2004-07-07#584
2004-07-07T19:30:28Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<p>Another <a href="http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-3513_7-5142439-1.html">insightful piece</a> on the same painful subject of IE and the costs of vendor monoculture. The IE debacle is an important forebearer of what's to come for those who hope this is simply a storm in a tea cup. It isn't inconceivable that a Longhorn upgrade wouldn't be pitched as the way out of this deepening dysfunctional-web quagmire. Unfortunately many will bite if history and current mindset is a barometer :-(</p>
Patch and Pray: Microsoft's Patchwork Mess
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2004-07-05#583
2004-07-05T23:05:25Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<font size="2"> <p>By David Berlind, CNET News.com</p> <p>In this article ZDNet's David Berlind explains the flaws in Microsoft's patch process. After the Download.Ject attack, Microsoft on Friday released a "configuration change" it wants people to apply to installations of the Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 and Windows 2000 operating systems. The software behemoth announced the move in a bid to shut down any additional exploitation of a vulnerability that affects Windows-based desktop and notebook PCs. Microsoft says that users who have beta versions of its forthcoming Service Pack 2 for Windows XP installed are already protected. But the latest episode also points at the time constraints of dealing with malicious code. Crucial days -- if not hours -- can elapse between the moment vulnerabilities surface on the Internet and the time vendors get around to releasing patches and configuration changes.</p> <p><a href="http://news.com.com/2010-1009-5256301.html"><u><font color="#0000ff" size="2">http://news.com.com/2010-1009-5256301.html</font></u></a></p><font size="2"> <p>See also the MS partial patch: <a href="http://news.com.com/2100-1002_3-5256297.html"><u><font color="#0000ff" size="2">http://news.com.com/2100-1002_3-5256297.html</font></u></a></p></font></font>
Experts Debate Security Through Diversity
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2004-07-02#581
2004-07-02T22:33:26Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<font size="2"> <p dir="ltr">Interesting <a href="http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/07/01/HNsecuritydebate_1.html">piece</a> by Tom Krazit of InfoWorld. This sheds another perspective on the concerns in my earlier <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen/index.vspx?id=576">post.</a></p> <blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <p>The sheer number of worms and viruses directed at Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system and Internet Explorer browser have many in the computer industry wondering whether we would all be more secure if more users relied on alternatives to Microsoft's products. Most experts in attendance at the Usenix 2004 conference commented that they would prefer a diverse group of operating system and Web browser software. A monoculture, whether it be in biological terms or in computing terms, has been shown to be inherently dangerous to members of that group, said Dan Geer, currently the chief scientist at Verdasys Inc. Geer was formerly chief technical officer at security company @stake Inc. until he was fired last year for authoring a report critical of Microsoft's dominance of the computing industry and the insecurity of its products that stems from that position; Microsoft is an @stake client. Geer called the vulnerabilities in Microsoft's products "a national-security issue," claiming the issue is far too important to the health of the Internet to leave up to the software vendors themselves.</p> <p></font><a href="http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/07/01/HNsecuritydebate_1.html"><u><font color="#0000ff" size="2">http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/07/01/HNsecuritydebate_1.html</u></font></a></p><font size="2"> <p>See also CERT: </font><a href="http://www.internetweek.com/breakingNews/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=22103407"><u><font color="#0000ff" size="2">http://www.internetweek.com/breakingNews/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=22103407</u></font></a></p></blockquote>
Experts Debate Security Through Diversity
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2004-07-02#580
2004-07-02T22:24:51Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<font size="2"> <p>By Tom Krazit, InfoWorld</p> <p>The sheer number of worms and viruses directed at Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system and Internet Explorer browser have many in the computer industry wondering whether we would all be more secure if more users relied on alternatives to Microsoft's products. Most experts in attendance at the Usenix 2004 conference commented that they would prefer a diverse group of operating system and Web browser software. A monoculture, whether it be in biological terms or in computing terms, has been shown to be inherently dangerous to members of that group, said Dan Geer, currently the chief scientist at Verdasys Inc. Geer was formerly chief technical officer at security company @stake Inc. until he was fired last year for authoring a report critical of Microsoft's dominance of the computing industry and the insecurity of its products that stems from that position; Microsoft is an @stake client. Geer called the vulnerabilities in Microsoft's products "a national-security issue," claiming the issue is far too important to the health of the Internet to leave up to the software vendors themselves.</p> <p><a href="http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/07/01/HNsecuritydebate_1.html"><u><font color="#0000ff" size="2">http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/07/01/HNsecuritydebate_1.html</font></u></a></p><font size="2"> <p>See also CERT: <a href="http://www.internetweek.com/breakingNews/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=22103407"><u><font color="#0000ff" size="2">http://www.internetweek.com/breakingNews/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=22103407</font></u></a></p></font></font>
ListGarden 1.0 released
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2004-07-02#579
2004-07-02T22:06:02Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <p><a href="http://danbricklin.com/log/2004_06_29.htm#listgarden1">ListGarden 1.0 released</a> I've just posted the 1.0 version of my ListGarden™ RSS Generator Program. The source code has been released under the GNU GPL license, and it is available for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, generic Perl, and server-CGI use. A new feature has been added since the beta release: In addition to creating the XML RSS file, it can also produce an HTML file with the same information as the XML. I discuss RSS feeds in general in this weblog post, as well as the issue of private RSS feeds. </p></blockquote> <div align="right">[via <a href="http://danbricklin.com/log">Dan Bricklin's Log</a>]</div> <div align="left">Here's how it works:</div> <div align="left"></div>
Internet Explorer Frame Injection Vulnerability
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2004-07-02#576
2004-07-02T16:54:24Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<p dir="ltr">All I want to know is why we have to get this far in order to understand the incoherence of technology vendor monoculture? I still don't even understand why any productivity seeking web user would have IE as their desktop browser (at all, bar the littany of ill served IE only sites, Yuck!).</p> <p dir="ltr"><a href="http://www.mozilla.org">Mozilla,</a> <a href="http://www.mozilla.org">FireFox</a>, <a href="http://www.opera.com">Opera</a> et al. are all viable alternatives. Even better, get with the Web 2.0 program using the emerging pool of <a href="http://www.lights.com/weblogs/rss.html">RSS Readers / Web Browser hybrids </a>(note: unfortunately many sill use IE for browsing by default).</p> <p dir="ltr">What really gets to me is that the fact that once the ill perceived destruction of Netscape was achieved, Microsoft went into predictable mode mode with IE (nothing to kill so why innovate, I mean we only innovate to kill products that potentially re-route users away from the Windows Lock-in / technology cul-de-sac etc..).</p> <blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <p><a href="http://channels.lockergnome.com/news/archives/20040702_internet_explorer_frame_injection_vulnerability.phtml">Internet Explorer Frame Injection Vulnerability</a> âMark Laurence has discovered a 6 year old vulnerability in Microsoft Internet Explorer, allowing malicious people to spoof the content of websites. The problem is that Internet Explorer doesnât check if a target frame belongs to a website containing a malicious link, which therefore doesnât prevent one browser window from loading content in a named frame in another window. Successful exploitation allows a malicious website to load arbitrary content in an arbitrary frame in another browser window owned by e.g. a trusted site. Secunia has constructed a test, which can be used to check if your browser is affected by this issue. This vulnerability is similar to an old vulnerability fixed by MS98-020 in Internet Explorer version 3 and 4. The vulnerability has been confirmed in a fully patched Internet Explorer 6 running on Microsoft Windows XP. Other versions of Internet Explorer may also be affected. Solution: Disable the following security setting: âNavigate sub-frames across different domainsâ. [Tools/Internet Options/Security tab in an Internet Explorer windows or Internet Options/Security tab from Control Panel.] Do not visit or follow links from untrusted websites.â </p></blockquote> <div align="right">[via <a href="http://channels.lockergnome.com/news/">Lockergnome's Tech News Watch</a>]</div>
Mozilla and Opera Renew the Browser Battle
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2004-06-17#562
2004-06-17T22:04:41Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<font size="2"> <p>By Kendall Grant Clark, <a href="http://www.xml.com">XML.com</a></p> <p>I now find myself with a wealth of choices, not only on OS X -- where I use a freewheeling mixture of Mozilla, Safari, and Firefox daily -- but also on Linux. Windows users who continue to use Internet Explorer fall into one of several camps: they either don't know or don't care about web standards and compliance thereto; or they can't tell the difference between a bloated piece of software and a quality piece of software; or they can tell, but that difference is of no importance to them. If they don't know or care about IE's many defects, why should I? Because there are so many of them! In the ideal world technology standards would unify, rationalize, and perhaps create new markets. While this kind of positive benefit is sometimes achieved by bodies like ISO, W3C, and OASIS, in the real world, given Microsoft's total domination of desktop computing, that its browser does not excel ends up being not only a pain for users but also a pain for developers and publishers.</p> <p><a href="http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2004/06/16/deviant.html"><u><font color="#0000ff" size="2">http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2004/06/16/deviant.html</font></u></a></p></font>
Questions about Longhorn, part 3: Avalon's enterprise mission
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2004-06-09#559
2004-06-09T21:48:25Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<p>A Blog post for the ages, from <a href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell">Jon Udell</a>. I expect to refer back to this post a number of times in the future, as I have the same concerns across related realms; for instance data access API usage and evolution.</p> <p>Enjoy!</p> <blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <p><a href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/2004/06/09.html#a1019">Questions about Longhorn, part 3: Avalon's enterprise mission</a> </p> <p><a href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/gems/WinformsVsAvalon.jpg"><img align="right" hspace="6" src="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/gems/WinformsVsAvalon_s.jpg" vspace="6" /></a> The slide shown at the right comes from a presentation entitled <a href="http://www.ineta.org/DesktopDefault.aspx?tabindex=2&tabid=41&FileID=125">Windows client roadmap</a>, given last month to the International .NET Association (<a href="http://www.ineta.org/DesktopDefault.aspx">INETA</a>). When I see slides like this, I always want to change the word "How" to "Why" -- so, in this case, the question would become "Why do I have to pick between Windows Forms and Avalon?" Similarly, MSDN's Channel 9 ran a video clip of Joe Beda, from the Avalon team, entitled <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/winme/0404/22606/Joe_Beda_prepare_300k.asx">How should developers prepare for Longhorn/Avalon?</a> that, at least for me, begs the question "Why should developers prepare for Longhorn/Avalon?" </p> <p>I've been looking at decision trees like the one shown in this slide for more than a decade. It's always the same yellow-on-blue PowerPoint template, and always the same message: here's how to manage your investment in current Windows technologies while preparing to assimilate the new stuff. For platform junkies, the internal logic can be compelling. The INETA presentation shows, for example, how it'll be possible to use XAML to write WinForms apps that host combinations of WinForms and Avalon components, or to write Avalon apps that host either or both style of component. Cool! But...huh? Listen to how Joe Beda frames the "rich vs. reach" debate: </p> <blockquote class="personQuote JoeBeda">Avalon will be supplanting WinForms, but WinForms is more reach than it is rich. It's the reach versus rich thing, and in some ways there's a spectrum. If you write an ASP.NET thing and deploy via the browser, that's really reach. If you write a WinForms app, you can go down to Win98, I believe. Avalon's going to be Longhorn only. </blockquote> <p>So developers are invited to classify degrees of reach -- not only with respect to the Web, but even within Windows -- and to code accordingly. What's more, they're invited to consider WinForms, the post-MFC (Microsoft Foundation Classes) GUI framework in the .NET Framework, as "reachier" than Avalon. That's true by definition since Avalon's not here yet, but bizarre given that mainstream Windows developers can't yet regard .NET as a ubiquitous foundation, even though many would like to. </p> <p>Beda recommends that developers isolate business logic and data-intensive stuff from the visual stuff -- which is always smart, of course -- and goes on to sketch an incremental plan for retrofitting Avalon goodness into existing apps. He concludes: </p><blockquote class="personQuote JoeBeda">Avalon, and Longhorn in general, is Microsoft's stake in the ground, saying that we believe power on your desktop, locally sitting there doing cool stuff, is here to stay. We're investing on the desktop, we think it's a good place to be, and we hope we're going to start a wave of excitement leveraging all these new technologies that we're building. </blockquote> <p></p> <p>It's not every decade that the Windows presentation subsystem gets a complete overhaul. As a matter of fact, it's never happened before. Avalon will retire the hodge-podge of DLLs that began with 16-bit Windows, and were carried forward (with accretion) to XP and Server 2003. It will replace this whole edifice with a new one that aims to unify three formerly distinct modes: the document, the user interface, and audio-visual media. This is a great idea, and it's a big deal. If you're a developer writing a Windows application that needs to deliver maximum consumer appeal three or four years from now, this is a wave you won't want to miss. But if you're an enterprise that will have to buy or build such applications, deploy them, and manage them, you'll want to know things like: </p><ul> <li> <p>How much fragmentation can my developers and users tolerate <i>within</i> the Windows platform, never mind across platforms?</p></li> <li> <p>Will I be able to remote the Avalon GUI using Terminal Services and Citrix?</p></li> <li> <p>Is there any way to invest in Avalon without stealing resources from the Web and mobile stuff that I still have to support?</p></li></ul> <p></p> <p>Then again, why even bother to ask these questions? It's not enough to believe that the return of rich-client technology will deliver compelling business benefits. (Which, by the way, I think it will.) You'd also have to be shown that Microsoft's brand of rich-client technology will trump all the platform-neutral variations. Perhaps such a case can be made, but the concept demos shown so far don't do so convincingly. The Amazon demo at the Longhorn PDC (Professional Developers Conference) was indeed cool, but you can see similar stuff happening in <a href="http://www.ultrasaurus.com/sarahblog/archives/000140.html">Laszlo</a>, Flex, and other RIA (rich Internet application) environments today. Not, admittedly, with the same 3D effects. But if enterprises are going to head down a path that entails more Windows lock-in, Microsoft will have to combat the perception that the 3D stuff is gratuitous eye candy, and show order-of-magnitude improvements in users' ability to absorb and interact with information-rich services. </p></blockquote> <div align="right">[via <a href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/">Jon's Radio</a>]</div>
Collaboration Software
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2004-05-14#543
2004-05-14T23:39:35Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<p dir="ltr"><a href="http://www.25hoursaday.com/weblog/PermaLink.aspx?guid=d2312299-0c0d-497b-9268-4b124f61f801">Dare Obasanjo</a> points out that Microsoft Sharepoint offers "by reference" as opposed to "by value" mail attachment capability that <a href="http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/02/27/09TCxythos_1.html">Jon Udell reviewed </a>in a recent blog post, true! So does Virtuoso in a number of ways (most importantly independent of client or server operating system).</p> <p dir="ltr">This issue really brings WebDAV into scope as this is the protocol that enables this capability (as covered by Jon's piece), and it is one of the many client and server side protocols implemented by <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/virtuoso/whatis.htm">OpenLink Virtuoso</a> (the key to how Virtuoso delivers URI based SQL-XML, XQuery, XPath services). </p> <p dir="ltr">When you install Virtuoso you simply have to start the Virtuoso server instance to the get WebDAV functionality going. All of Virtuoso's services are advertised at ports, and in the case of WebDAV you will find this at port 8890 if you start the demo database. </p> <p dir="ltr">To exploit the Virtuoso/WebDAV server from any WebDAV client (or point urls at WebDAV hosted resources) simply do the following:</p> <ol dir="ltr"> <li> <div>Install Virtuoso and depending on your OS do the following:</div></li> <ul> <li> <div>Windows - create a <a href="http://support.openlinksw.com/support/tutorials.vsp?c=Web+Server">Web Folder </a>that points to a WebDAV server</div></li> <li> <div>Mac OS X - <a href="http://developer.apple.com/technotes/tn/tn2043.html">mount a WebDAV</a> folder</div></li> <li> <div>Linux - mount a <a href="http://www.sfu.ca/acs/linux/webdav-linux.html">WebDAV directory</a> (also see the <a href="http://dav.sourceforge.net/">Davfs2</a> Open Source project)</div></li> <li> <div>You can also make WebDAV client calls from Virtuoso's Stored Procedure Language (Virtuoso PL) or use WebDAV implementations in any development environment of your choice (<a href="http://www.independentsoft.de/webdav/">.NET</a>, <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/skunkdav/">Java</a>, .<br /></div></li></ul> <li> <div>Place content that you want to reference in your mails in your WebDAV repository via any of the client side mechanisms described in step 1. You can see the results of this in my earlier <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblogs/virtuoso/index.vspx?id=505">blog post</a>, even better pass the <a href="http://kingsleydemo.openlinksw.com:8890/rtmhosting/99bottles.php">url </a>on in an email! Or browse the <a href="http://kingsleydemo.openlinksw.com:8890/rtmhosting/">WebDAV folder </a>(there are some nuggets deliberately left in place :-) )<br /></div></li> <ul> <li> <div>You could simply save an Office Doc (<a href="http://kingsleydemo.openlinksw.com:8890/rtmhosting/webDADWWW2004.ppt">powerpoint</a>, excel, word etc) to this location and the circulate urls in your mails (this has been standard practice at OpenLink for many years; we even have a full blown portal server that would soon be available as a public service to sharing anything via DAV and as usual some more... stay tuned)<br /></div></li></ul> <li> <div>That's it for any platform (Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, FreeBSD, Solaris, AIX, HP-UX etc.) once you install Virtuoso!</div></li></ol> <p>BTW - This blog is WebDAV based (it's a live instance of Virtuoso doing many things; WebDAV, HTTP, SQL-XML based feed generation for ATOM, RSS, Blog Post APIs support (Moveable Type, Metaweblog, Blogger, ATOM), Free Text, XPath, XQuery, and more). </p>
621 variations of The "99 Bottles of Beer" programming puzzle
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2004-04-07#504
2004-04-07T23:48:39Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<p><a href="http://www.99-bottles-of-beer.net//">621 variations of the "99 Bottles of Beer" programming puzzle</a> implemented across a plethora of programming languages. Cool!</p> <p>As I completed this post a bell went off! Why not use this for a quick live demo of <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/virtuoso/whatis.htm">Virtuoso's hosting capabilities</a>? Starting off with something simple like PHP for instance?</p> <p>So, I quickly did the following:</p> <ol> <li>Cut and pasted the PHP version of this programming puzzle into a text file (using notepad) </li> <li>Copy and pasted from my Windows Directory to my Virtuoso WebDAV directories on our Windows and Linux Virtuoso Demo Servers. I achieved this by creating Web Folders (Windows OS level</li></ol>
Macromedia Brings Flash to the Enterprise
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2004-04-01#498
2004-04-01T19:45:16Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<font size="2"> <p dir="ltr">XML based generation of Rich and Native UI's is gathering momentum, it might also be a point to understand the complimentary relationship that exists between <a href="http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/Forms/">XForms</a> and these XML based GUI generators.</p> <p dir="ltr">BTW - <a href="http://dubinko.info/events/XTech2003/img0.html">Here</a> is a great XForms presentation that helps aids in the contextualization of my prior comments.</p> <p dir="ltr">The actual Macromedia MXML (Flex) review by Jon Udell follows:</p> <blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <p>After a decade of web-style development, I'm sold on the idea of using markup languages to describe the layouts of user interfaces and to coordinate the event-driven code that interconnects widgets and binds them to data. The original expression of that model was HTML and JavaScript, but variations have flourished. Mozilla-based applications have been using <a href="http://www.xulplanet.com/">XUL (XML User Interface Language)</a> for years. <a href="http://www.laszlosystems.com/">The Laszlo Presentation Server </a>uses a description language called LZX. Microsoft has previewed <a href="http://longhorn.msdn.microsoft.com/lhsdk/core/overviews/about%20xaml.aspx">XAML (Extensible Application Markup Language)</a> for Longhorn.</p> <p>Now comes <a href="http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/flex/articles/paradigm.html">MXML (Macromedia Flex Markup Language)</a>, the latest development in Macromedia's ongoing quest to reposition the near-ubiquitous Flash player as a general-purpose presentation engine for rich Internet applications. With XML markup at its core, Flex is inherently IDE- friendly, and Macromedia has two IDE initiatives underway. One, code-named Brady, builds on Dreamweaver MX. The other, code-named Partridge, leverages Eclipse.</p> <p dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">Full Review: <a href="http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/03/29/13TCflex_1.html"><u><font color="#0000ff" size="2">http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/03/29/13TCflex_1.html</font></u></a></p><font size="2"> <p dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">Also see XML for UI Languages: <a href="http://xml.coverpages.org/userInterfaceXML.html"><u><font color="#0000ff" size="2">http://xml.coverpages.org/userInterfaceXML.html</font></u></a></p></font></blockquote> <p dir="ltr">Nothing stops any of the engines mentioned above (proprietary user interfaces as per the diagram below)</p></font>
Microsoft Ship Dates Falling Like Dominoes (Yukon & Whidbey)
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2004-03-10#474
2004-03-10T23:15:56Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <p><a href="http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,4248,1546542,00.asp?kc=MWRSS02129TX1K0000535">Microsoft Ship Dates Falling Like Dominoes</a> </p> <p>ANALYSIS: It's not just Longhorn that's a long way off. Now the 'Yukon wave' is receding into 2005. [via <a href="http://www.microsoft-watch.com/">Microsoft Watch from Mary Jo Foley</a>]</p></blockquote> <div align="left">As indicated in my <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/index.vspx?id=138">post at the height of the PDC Yukon hoopla</a>, you can</div>
Screen Capture Demos (aka animated howtos and tutorials)
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2004-03-05#470
2004-03-05T17:54:39Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <p><a href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/2004/03/04.html#a933">Screen video tips</a> </p> <p>Several folks wrote with questions and comments about the OS X screen video I posted the other day. I mentioned that Media Encoder was the capture tool, but didn't specify how I got from Windows Media to Flash. For that, I used <a href="http://www.techsmith.com/products/studio/default.asp">Camtasia Studio</a>. I've heard good things about <a href="http://www.qarbon.com/">Qarbon</a> but haven't had a chance to try it yet. Chris Ryland, from Em Software, wrote to recommend <a href="http://www.ambrosiasw.com/utilities/snapzprox/">SnapzPro X 2</a> specifically for OS X (and QuickTime). </p> <p><a href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/2004/03/04.html#a933">See complete article</a>.</p></blockquote>
Contd: Open Source Lock-in
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2004-02-20#467
2004-02-20T20:59:00Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<html> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Language" content="en-us" /> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=windows-1252" /> <title>New Page 1</title> </head> <body> <p>I can't believe that a <a href="http://www.knowprose.com/mtentries/000918.html">response</a> to <a href="http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/01/16/03OPstrategic_1.html">Jon Udell's reference </a>to <a href="http://www.knowprose.com/mtentries/000918.html">my comments </a>re. the MySQL GPL stunt lay unanswered since the 20th of January! </p> <p>I took a closer look at the blog post/response by <a href="http://www.technorati.com/profile/Taran/426803/7f468ffa9f8809bd1746ea86e8d98a23"> Taran</a>, and</p></body></html>
Microsoft and Google: Nasty tactics reported
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2004-02-05#463
2004-02-05T17:51:00Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<p><a href="http://susanmernit.blogspot.com/archives/2004_02_01_susanmernit_archive.html#107598350398465355">Microsoft and Google: Nasty tactics reported</a> A story that Microsoft is behaving like a bully and threatening Google. <span class="text"></p> <p><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">The search engine war between Google and MSN is generating some nasty tactics reminiscent of the Microsoft vs. Netscape battle of the mid '90's. Those who remember that battle will recall the almost surgical methods used by Microsoft to all but destroy Netscape. Today, Netscape is a shell of its former self, kept in a dull corner of the Time Warner empire and denied the attention or funding it needs to reemerge as a viable entity in the browser market. Many will also remember the tactics used by Microsoft to destroy Netscape generated years of anti-trust litigation and almost led to the break-up of the world's richest corporation and largest software maker. At the end of the day of course, Microsoft got off with a wrist slap and the knowledge that the US Government will not kill a goose that lays golden eggs (and whose products run much of the national infrastructure). Microsoft is obviously feeling free to resort to some its old tricks and the search engine wars are about to go mainstream, possibly becoming public entertainment. Remember the film, Pirates of Silicone Valley? This script promises to be even more interesting.</font></p> <p><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Search is the fastest growing sector of the Internet and the advertising industry. Currently considered a $2 - 2.5Billion industry, industry experts expect search and search technology to generate over $8Billion per annum by 2007. As a yardstick to measure by, the logging industry in British Columbia is valued at approximately $5Billion per year. Search, in other words, is a serious global business that is projected to generate staggering revenues and growth over the next half-decade. That much money tends to generate a great deal of motivation.</font></p> <p><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">According to yesterday's New York Times, Microsoft has officially turned its great eye on Google and is specifically targeting Google and its employees. Microsoft recruiters are said to be calling Google staff at home, telling them that MSN's new search tool will bury Google and that they had better defect north to Redmond Washington as soon as possible before their jobs and soon to be stock options are worthless. Executives from both companies were seen watching each other like hawks at last week's World Economic Forum in Davos Switzerland. Wherever a Google representative went, a MSN exec was steps behind, and vica versa. Meanwhile, back in the United States, Microsoft employees are examining Google patents looking for potential weaknesses to exploit. Microsoft is obviously playing for keeps and appears to be preparing to head off the inevitable legal battles that will stem from the introduction of Microsoft's new operating system, Longhorn, currently in development and scheduled for release early next year.</font></p> <p><a href="http://www.isedb.com/news/index.php?t=reviews&id=675">Read on..</a></p></span> <div align="right">[via <a href="http://susanmernit.blogspot.com/">Susan Mernit's Blog: Navigating the Info Jungle</a>]</div>
Officially introducing Mono.Security
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2003-12-03#436
2003-12-03T20:39:24Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<A href="http://pages.infinit.net/ctech/20031202-1004.html">Officially introducing Mono.Security</A> <P>I've been talking a lot about Mono.Security but until today I didn't realize that it was never <I>officially</I> introduced - at least in my blog.</P> <P>The only existing introduction is the <A href="http://www.go-mono.com/crypto.html" target=_blank>Mono's Crypto status page</A> - which BTW is a great place to learn what's in and/or out Mono's cryptography.</P> <P><lazy-geek:copy-n-paste><BR><B>Rational</B>: This assembly provides the missing pieces to .NET security. On Windows CryptoAPI is often used to provide much needed functionalities (like some cryptographic algorithms, code signing, X.509 certificates). Mono, for platform independence, implements these functionalities in 100% managed code.<BR></ lazy-geek:copy-n-paste> <P> <P>The most important piece of information is <I>100% managed code</I>. This means that Mono.Security isn't tied to the Mono runtime and/or specific class library - you're free (really it's <A href="http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php" target=_blank>MIT X11</A> licensed) to use it on any runtime you choose.</P><B>Structures</B> <UL> <LI>ASN1 decoding, encoding and type conversions;</LI> <LI><A href="http://www.rsasecurity.com/rsalabs/pkcs/pkcs-7/index.html" target=_blank>PKCS #7</A> structures - used for Authenticode and SPC support and currently being updated for implementing <CODE>System.Security.Cryptography.Pkcs</CODE> in .NET 1.2;</LI></UL><B>Many security file formats including little known / undocumented formats</B> <UL> <LI>PVK - Private Key files. Files that contains the private part of a public key. The format is mostly used by makecert.exe. Keys can be encrypted with RC4<SUP>tm</SUP> using a user supplied password. Not very secure;</LI> <LI>SPC - Software Publisher Certificates. Files that contains a collection of X.509 certificates and/or CRLs. This is the format required by signcode.exe to append an Authenticode® signature to a PE file.</LI> <LI><FONT color=#ff0000>[recent]</FONT> <A href="http://www.rsasecurity.com/rsalabs/pkcs/pkcs-8/index.html" target=_blank>PKCS #8</A> class to protect private keys (for the soon included <A href="http://www.rsasecurity.com/rsalabs/pkcs/pkcs-12/index.html" target=_blank>PKCS #12</A> support);</LI></UL><B>Cryptography</B> <UL> <LI>ARCFOUR - A managed implementation of the <I>alleged RC4</I> compatible stream cipher from RSA. Required for PVK file format and for SSL/TLS;</LI> <LI>MD2 - A managed implementation of the <A href="http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1319.txt" target=_blank>RFC1319 MD2</A> hash algorithm. Note: MD2 is deprecated and shouldn't be used in new designs. It is included into Mono.Security because many old, but still valid, X.509 certificates (mostly roots) have signatures based on MD2.</LI> <LI>MD4 - A managed implementation of the <A href="http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1320.txt" target=_blank>RFC1320 MD4</A> hash algorithm. Note: MD4 is BROKEN and shouldn't be used. It is included into Mono.Security because NTLM challenges require MD4. However this doesn't mean that NTLM is broken.</LI> <LI>MD5SHA1 - The concatenation of a MD5 and SHA1 hash required to implement TLS.</LI></UL><B>Code signing</B> <UL> <LI>StrongName support - AFAIK the only open source implementation capable of signing/verifying strongnames on assemblies;</LI> <LI>Authenticode® support for both signing, countersigning (timestamps) and verifying PE files (including .NET assemblies);</LI></UL><B>Protocols</B> <UL> <LI>TLS - Carlos Guzmán Álvarez has given his TLS (successor of SSL3) implementation to Mono! He's currently working on server side support and SSL compatibility - with an eye on the new <A href="http://longhorn.msdn.microsoft.com/" target=_blank>.NET 1.2 API</A>;</LI> <LI><FONT color=#ff0000>[recent]</FONT> NTLM authentication. Now used for SQL Server authentication, soon to be used for HTTP.</LI></UL><B>X.509 certificates</B> <UL> <LI>X.501 names decoding/encoding;</LI> <LI>X.509 certificate decoder with full support for X.509v3 extensions;</LI> <LI>X.509 certificate builder to create your own certificates!</LI> <LI>Very basic (planned to improve) chaining and validation.</LI></UL> <P>So the big, anticipated, questions were: <UL> <LI><I>"is Mono.Security complete?"</I> - No, but does it need to be to be useful ? Not to me ;-)</LI> <LI><I>"is Mono.Security mature?"</I> - No, it's not <I>old</I> enough to have been well tested.</LI> <LI><I>"is Mono.Security totally safe?"</I> - No, supporting undocumented features is never safe - but it's almost as convenient as an AC in hell.</LI></UL> <P></P> <P>but <A href="http://primates.ximian.com/~miguel/activity-log.php" target=_blank>Miguel</A>'s question was subtler <I>"How mature are Mono Security classes?"</I> There's no quick answer to that one.</P> <UL> <LI>Most of the APIs will continue evolve to match new challenges like newer frameworks, WSE... - at least until the <A href="http://www.go-mono.com/mono-roadmap.html" target=_blank>Mono 1.0 release</A>. Interface stability is not yet a big priority at this stage (but I won't break it just for fun - at least not more than twice ;-)</LI> <LI>ASN.1 support has been very stable for the last year - but it's clearly not designed for everyone. PKCS7 is more recent and still incomplete (wrt to 1.2); <LI>File formats are stable (as they don't change often ;-) and well tested because it's generally easy to find/generate test cases;</LI> <LI>Cryptography is very stable because the interfaces are normalized and test vectors are available for testing. Most of them could easily be optimized without too much effort - maybe I'll do another optimizathon for Christmas vacations;</LI> <LI>Code signing is still <I>experimental</I>. It works but it's difficult to test and heavily undocumented. More independent tests would be welcomed! <LI>Protocols, both TLS and NTLM, are recent and still incomplete wrt to the specifications (when available). But they do the work that is currently required of them;</LI> <LI>X.509 classes, has been somewhat <I>on hold</I> before the preview release of .NET 1.2. This is because the current framework uses the features but do not expose them (like certificate stores, chaining...). In this case waiting for the (preview) release made more sense that starting a complete implementation from scratch.</LI></UL> <P>So there's still a lots of stuff to do! Luckily I expect most of it to be pure fun :-).</P> <P>Please report to me if you're using the classes in your own projects - I know may do ;-). I'd like <A href="http://www.go-mono.com/bugs.html" target=_blank>bug reports</A> and/or comments about your experience with Mono.Security. <A href="http://www.jacksonh.net/jackson/blog/archive/2003/Nov-30.html" target=_blank>Kittens would also appreciate for sure...</P> <DIV align=right>[via <A href="http://monologue.go-mono.com/">Monologue</A>]</DIV>
Deploying .NET on Mac OS X Inches closer
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2003-12-02#433
2003-12-03T03:49:43Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <P><A href="http://primates.ximian.com/~miguel/all.html#12%2F02%2F2003+12%3A00%3A00">02 Dec 2003: Mono 0.29 has been released</A> </P> <P>This release took us a long time to go out, but it is pretty exciting, with PPC supported. The best Mono release ever! [via <A href="http://monologue.go-mono.com/">Monologue</A>]</P></BLOCKQUOTE> <P dir=ltr>This time <A href="http://www.ximian.com/about_us/press_center/press_releases/index.html?pr=openlink_mono">last year </A>Mono enabled us to deliver a release of<A href="http://www.openlinksw.com/virtuoso"> Virtuoso </A>that unveiled the power of .NET integration as a database extension mechanism on Windows and Linux along the following lines; <A href="http://demo.openlinksw.com:8890/tutorial">User Defined Types, User Defined Functions, and Stored Procedures using any .NET bound language</A>. It also enabled the deployment of ASP.NET applications on Linux, and on Windows without IIS. One item missing from my check list at the time was a Virtuoso release for Mac OS X with identical functionality. <P dir=ltr>This announcement implies we are within striking distance of a Virtuoso 3.2 release that enables .NET classes and frameworks utilization (along the lines described above) on Mac OS X.</P>
Look Out, Outlook: RSS Ahead in 2004
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2003-12-02#432
2003-12-02T23:10:02Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<p dir="ltr">An <a href="http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,1399365,00.asp?kc=EWRSS03119TX1K0000594">interesting piece by Steve Gillmor</a>, especially as we entering the 2004 prediction season. Here are some of his predictions (Web 2.0 content related details in my parlance):</p> <blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <p>RSS information routers will emerge in 2004 with the following characteristics: </p> <p>? Persistent storage of XHTML full-text/graphics/audio/video of RSS feeds <br />? XPATH search across local and Net stores <br />? Self-forming and reordering subscriptions lists based on the aggregated priorities of user-chosen domain experts <br />? Use of IM notification for post notification to aggregate affinity groups and active conversations <br />? Integration of Hydra-like collaborative tools for multi-author conference transcripts <br />? Videoconferencing routing and broadcast/recording tools <br />? Integration of speech recognition and real-time indexing to allow quoting of linear audio and video streams <br />? Mesh networked peer-to-peer synchronization engine for item propagation across shared spaces on multiple clients, including phones; iPods; and eventually Longhorn PDAs (circa 2006). </p> <p>Armed with these tools, new industries will emerge in rapid succession: </p> <p>? Metadata-driven directories that dynamically create RSS feeds based on affinity <br />? Virtual conferences <br />? IM/RSS presence networks for rich collaboration and e-mail replacement <br />? Content-generation tools based on small, routable XHTML objects <br />? A DRM network with enough creative and hardware support to blunt the Microsoft/RIAA DRM threat to peer-to-peer port hijacking. </p></blockquote> <div align="right">[via <a href="http://www.eweek.com/">eWeek.com - Steve Gillmor's Collaboration and Messaging Topic Center</a>]</div>
Microsoft Killing the Web ?
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2003-11-13#431
2003-11-13T21:26:34Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<P><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">This is a really interesting collection of </SPAN><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><EM>Blogobillia</EM></FONT><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">!</SPAN></P> <P><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">It starts here with one of many excerpts from <A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0001011/">Scoble's blog</A>:<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P> <P style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><A href="http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/scriptingArchive/2003/11/12#When:9:47:09AM">Dave Winer</A>, <A href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/2003/11/11.html#a844">Jon Udell</A>, and now <A href="http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/200311/msg00500.html">Gerald Bauer </A>says that Microsoft is killing the Web. Or trying to.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P> <P><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">The guys above are pretty seasoned individuals (they save me a lot of writing too amongst other things).<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P> <P><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Now here is a response from Microsoft?s Blog evangelist supremo Scoble to their comments and genuine concerns.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P> <P style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">OK, let's assume that's true.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P> <P style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Microsoft has 55,000 employees. $50 billion or so in the bank.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P> <P style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Yet what has gotten me to use the Web less and less lately? RSS 2.0.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P> <P style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Seriously. I rarely use the browser anymore (except to post my weblog since I use Radio UserLand).<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P> <P style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">See the irony there? Dave Winer (who at minimum popularized RSS 2.0) has done more to get me to move away from the Web than a huge international corporation that's supposedly focused on killing the Web.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P> <P style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Now, let's look at what's really going on here. We're going back to being a great platform company. We're trying to provide a platform that lets developers build new applications that are impossible to build on other platforms. At the PDC you saw some of that. New kinds of forms. New kinds of games. New kinds of business apps. New kinds of experiences.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P> <P style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">But, we also are looking for ways to make the Web better too. Now, we haven't talked about what we're doing with the browser. I hear that'll come later. Astute Longhorn testers have already seen that we snuck a pop-up ad blocker into the browser without telling anyone about it. Whoa. That means we're gonna turn off MSN's capabilities of selling popup ads.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P> <P style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">I hear there's more coming too. But, why should we do it all? Wasn't the point of the past four years to get Microsoft to stop trying to do it all? The DOJ and now the European Union are still after us cause we tried to do it all. Instead, let's just go back and be a great platform company.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P> <P style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">We just gave you a great foundation for a killer new kind of application. One that goes FAR beyond HTML. And, even if you stick with Mozilla, your experiences on Longhorn will get better. For instance, fonts are being rendered in the GPU now on Longhorn. Your Web pages will look better and behave better on Longhorn than they will on any other platform. Period.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P> <P style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">And wait until Mozilla's and other developers start exploiting things like WinFS to give you new features that display Internet-based information in whole new ways.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P> <P><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">If Microsoft really wants to create a better platform shouldn?t this be truly futuristic? If so, then it should issue the first major salvo by dropping the restrictions on <A href="http://research.microsoft.com/Collaboration/University/Europe/RFP/Rotor/">Rotor</A>? <o:p></o:p></SPAN></P> <P><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">We are moving into the distributed component based computing age where runtime environments (.NET CLR, Mono, J2EE, and others) act a Component Execution Junction boxes (instead of the Monolithic Operating Systems of today) in a continuum of services orchestrated by messages in response to events emanating from value consumption requests (what we call application behviour today) from a myriad of value consumers (application users). <o:p></o:p></SPAN></P> <P><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">There is no need for covert and protracted protection of an obsolete Windows Operating System (the underlying fear that keeps Rotor shackled in my opinion), since its obsolescence is in full motion as Longhorn clearly demonstrates. <o:p></o:p></SPAN></P> <P><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Imagine a <U>fusion of sorts across Microsoft .NET, Mono, and Rotor</U>, with a single portable runtime as the end product (slotting nicely into its place in the imminent distributed component and services era). All the benefits of programming language independence in true glory - the ECMA-CLI is all about programming language independence. Now that would be unequivocally revolutionary, and Microsoft would actually be doing what I think it has been desperately trying to achieve for a long time; the delivery of really cool technology that seriously impact us all in a positive way without the usual World Domination Concerns. <o:p></o:p></SPAN></P> <P><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Anyway, back to the current reality where we have covert attempts to lock us all into Windows getting more and more transparent per technology release cycle. The very antithesis of what I espoused in the last paragraph (or dream). I believe that Scoble's instincts lie in this realm too, and you never know this evangelist may turn Messiah :-) </SPAN></P> <P><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Here's the final excerpt from Scoble?s post:<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P> <P style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">There's a whole lot of more useful stuff coming. Both for the Web and for newer Internet-centric rich-client approaches. Personally, it's about time. I'm already using the Web less and less thanks to things like RSS 2.0.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P> <P style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">I'm watching 636 sites every day. Try to do THAT in your Web browser.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P> <P style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">So, yes, blame it on me. I'm trying to kill the Web. Isn't it time to move on? Didn't we move on from the Apple II? Didn't we move on from DOS? Didn't we move on from Windows 3.11? Can't you see a day when we move on from the Web and get something even more fantastic? I can. Dave Winer can. Why not you? [via <A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0001011/">The Scobleizer Weblog</A>]<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P> <P><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">If you kill the Web en route to getting us a Portable Execution Junction box from Microsoft, I think you would have served mankind pretty damned well. We won't have to gripe about Web 1.0 (Browser Driven Web) because we would be well into Web 2.0 and beyond (which doesn?t define the Web experience predominantly via browsing).<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P> <P> </P>
Replace and defend -- Contd
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2003-10-31#410
2003-10-31T20:58:52Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <P dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">Reading the Longhorn SDK docs is a disorienting experience. Everything's familiar but different. Consider these three examples: </P> <P dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">[Full story: <A href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/2003/10/31.html#a836">Replace and defend</A> via <A href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/">Jon's Radio</A>]</P></BLOCKQUOTE> <P dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">"Replace & Defend" is certainly a strategy that would have awakened the entire non Microsoft Developer world during the recent PDC event. I know these events are all about preaching to the choir (Windows only developers), but as someone who has worked with Microsoft technologies as an ISV since the late 80's there is something about this events announcements that leave me concerned. </P> <P dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">Ironically these concerns aren't about the competitive aspects of their technology disruptions, but more along the lines of how Microsoft (I hope inadvertently) generates the kinds of sentiments echoed in the <A href="http://longhornblogs.com/scobleizer/posts/345.aspx#FeedBack">comments thread </A>from <A href="http://longhornblogs.com/">Scobles</A> recent <A href="http://longhornblogs.com/scobleizer/posts/345.aspx">"How to hate Microsoft"</A> post. As indicated in my response to this post, I don't believe Microsoft is as bad or evil as is instinctively assumed in many quarters, but I can certainly understand why they are hated by others which is really unfortunate, especially bearing in mind that they have done more good than harm to date (in my humble opinion) . </P> <P dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">Anyway, back to my concerns post PDC which I break down as follows:</P> <OL dir=ltr> <LI> <DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">Disruptive assaults on existing standards with the only benefit being Microsoft platform centricity. <A href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/2003/10/31.html#a836">Jon Udell addressed this in his "Replace and Defend" post </A>(which kicked of this post), and I see exactly what he sees here, and I don't see any reason for this approach whatsoever. Even if one of these standards was deficient what stops the Microsoft from addressing these deficiencies, and then should the W3C's standards acceptance and ratification process bogs things down at least let the industry know you gave it openness a chance but have to move on etc.. <BR><BR></DIV></LI> <LI> <DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">Gradual obsolescence of existing Microsoft standards which used to provide interfaces for 3rd party ISV partners, and replacing these with totally closed infrastructure implementations that bind to Microsoft products only. A good example is <A href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/longhorn/default.aspx?pull=/msdnmag/issues/04/01/WinFS/default.aspx">WinFS</A>, I believe in the unified data storage concept, <A href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen/index.vspx?id=406">it's a vision that I've believed in for many years</A>, but there is no notion from any PDC presentation or Blog that I have read so far (I aggregate a serious number of feeds) that Microsoft is committed to an architectural strategy that enables 3rd party ISVs to hook their data stores and data sources into this storage infrastructure - it's simply about <A href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen/index.vspx?id=407">Yukon (SQL Server)</A> and that's basically it.</DIV></LI></OL> <P style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">WinFS needs to architecturally separate the <STRONG>System Provider</STRONG> from the <STRONG>Data Provider</STRONG> (pretty much the OLE-DB architecture) with Microsoft naturally providing reference System Provider (pretty much what was demonstrated at PDC) and Data Provider (ADO.NET, OLE DB, and ODBC) implementations. Third parties can choose to produce custom WinFS Service or Data Providers which serve their data access needs. It's impractical to want to force every non SQL Server customer over to SQL Server in order them to exploit WinFS, and I certainly hope this isn't the definitive strategy at Microsoft.</P>
A Virtuoso of a Server
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2003-10-23#395
2003-10-23T21:57:48Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<font size="2"> <p><a href="http://www.nwfusion.com/index.html">NETWORK WORLD</a> NEWSLETTER: MARK GIBBS ON WEB APPLICATIONS </p> <p><font size="2">Today's focus: A Virtuoso of a server</font></p> <p>By <a href="http://www.nwfusion.com/columnists/gibbs.html">Mark Gibbs</a></p> <p>One of the bigger drags of Web applications development is that building a system of even modest complexity is a lot like herding cats - you need a database, an applications server, an XML engine, etc., etc. And as they all come from different vendors you are faced with solving the constellation of integration issues that inevitably arise.</p> <p>If you are lucky, your integration results in a smoothly functioning system. If not, you have a lot of spare parts flying in loose formation with the risk of a crash and burn at any moment.</p> <p>An alternative is to look for all of these features and services in a single package but you'll find few choices in this arena.</p> <p>One that is available and looks very promising is OpenLink's Virtuoso (see links below).</p> <p>Virtuoso is described as a cross platform (runs on Windows, all Unix flavors, Linux, and Mac OS X) universal server that provides databases, XML services, a Web application server and supporting services all in a single package.</p> <p>OpenLink's list of supported standards is impressive and includes .Net, Mono, J2EE, XML Web Services (Simple Object Application Protocol, Web Services Description Language, WS-Security, Universal Description, Discovery and Integration), XML, XPath, XQuery, XSL-T, WebDav, HTTP, SMTP, LDAP, POP3, SQL-92, ODBC, JDBC and OLE-DB.</p> <p>Virtuoso provides an HTTP-compliant Web Server; native XML document creation, storage and management; a Web services platform for creation, hosting and consumption of Web services; content replication and synchronization services; free text index server, mail delivery and storage and an NNTP server.</p> <p>Another interesting feature is that with Virtuoso you can create Web services from existing SQL Stored Procedures, Java classes,</p> <p>C++ classes, and 'C' functions as well as create dynamic XML</p> <p>documents from ODBC and JDBC data sources.</p> <p>This is an enormous product and implies a serious commitment on the part of adopters due to its scope and range of services.</p> <blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <p><em>Virtuoso is enormous by virtue of its architectural ambitions, but actual disk requirements are</em></p></blockquote></font>
ODBC : The UNIX Story
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2003-08-15#239
2003-08-15T15:05:49Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<p>ODBC (Open DataBase Connectivity) remains an enigma technology to those who would potentially benefit the most from it. Unfortunately the common line of thought in the non Windows world is that <u>LAMPifying</u> applications is simply good enough -- LAMP</p>
Howl is Rendezvous for Windows and Linux
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2003-08-05#232
2003-08-05T19:18:55Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<p dir="ltr">Very interesting, we have basically ported Zeroconfig as released by Apple (in Open Source) too, and used it in both our <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/virtuoso/whatis.htm">Virtuoso</a> 3.x and <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/product.htm">UDA</a> 5.x products.</p> <blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <p><a href="http://www.swampwolf.com/products/">Howl</a> is Rendezvous for Windows and Linux. [via <a href="http://www.scripting.com/">Scripting News</a>]</p></blockquote> <p dir="ltr">In the case of UDA you can configure ODBC and JDBC consumable data source names that are hosted on the server. Users can nownbspsimply picknbspDSNs from anbspcombo box and they are ready to make connections to remote databases from any ODBC, JDBC, OLE DB, or ADO.NET application.nbspAnother benefit ofnbspZeroconfignbspis that it facilitates centralized server side configuration which further enhances our server side session rules book;nbspwhich serves all our Multi-Tier data access drivers.</p> <p dir="ltr">In the case of Virtuoso you are able to bind to pre-configured Virtuoso instances in exactly the same way.</p> <p dir="ltr">Our Zeroconfig support has beennbspimplemented across Solaris, AIX, Digital UNIX, IRIX, HP-UX amongst others, but this is a project of interest all the same, and we may end up contributing to this effort.</p>
VSIP program free of charge
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2003-07-30#209
2003-07-30T21:46:48Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<p dir="ltr">Microsoft just made the <a href="http://www.vsipdev.com/">VSIP program free of charge</a>. Awesome.</p> <blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <p dir="ltr">[via <a href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0001011/">The Scobleizer Weblog</a>]</p></blockquote> <p>Now this is good news from Microsoft! This means that products like <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/virtuoso/whatis.htm">Virtuoso</a> can now compete head-on with Yukon (on a level playing field when it arrives) as far as Visual Studio.NET integration goes. Hopefully I will no longer have to rant about any of the following:</p> <ol> <li>Missing Data Access Controls and Wizards for ODBC (we already have annbsp interesting Generic ADO.NET Provider en route to GA release)</li> <li>Tightly bound integration between Visual Studio.NET <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2003/Jul03/07-29InnovationListPR.asp">("Whidbey" or "Orcas")</a>nbspand Yukon (next release of SQL Server), it's up to us (OpenLink) to get the same degree of integration re. Virtuoso (via VSIP), but most importantly Visual Studio's future will not be inextricably linked to Yukon's (let's hope the same applies to IE and Longhorn)</li></ol> <p>I wonder if the same degree of openness could extend to Web Matrix? That would be something indeed!</p>
What's So Great About .NET?
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2003-07-01#194
2003-07-01T17:07:11Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
0
OpenLink Software Announces Virtuoso 3.2
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2003-06-25#187
2003-06-25T21:35:54Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<P><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><A href="http://www.openlinksw.com/press/virt32_wwdc1.htm">OpenLink Software Announces Virtuoso 3.2 </a></span></p> <P><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">This <A href="http://wwdc2003.openlinksw.com/"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'"><FONT face=Arial size=2>Blog Site</font></span></a> is actually powered by <A href="http://www.openlinksw.com/virtuoso">Virtuoso</a> 3.2 (has been doing so prior to the announcement). Hmm. product utilization preceding press release? Why not?</span><B><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><FONT size=3></font></span></b></p> <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <P><B><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">OpenLink adds Weblog client and server functionality to <BR>Virtual Database Engine for SQL, XML, and Web Services</span></b><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"> <BR><BR><B>Burlington, MA. June 25, 2003</b> - OpenLink Software, Inc., a leading provider of universal data access and enterprise information integration middleware, announces Virtuoso 3.2 the latest edition of its cross platform Virtual Database for SQL, XML, and Web Services for Mac® OS X. <BR><BR>The new release incorporates full client and server support for the Blogger, Moveable Type, and MetaWeblog APIs, providing users with choice over location, format, data storage, development environment, and host operating system, for personal, community, and corporate Weblogs. The new release also facilitates the transparent integration of Weblog data with other enterprise data sources. </span></p> <P><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><A href="http://www.openlinksw.com/press/virt32_wwdc1.htm"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'"><FONT face=Arial size=2>Full Press Release</font></span></a></span></p></blockquote> <P dir=ltr><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Putting together the community site took 5 minutes and it basically involved the following steps:</span></p> <P dir=ltr><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">1. Standard installation from installer program (Mac OS X in this case, but Windows, Linux, and UNIX supported)</span></p> <P dir=ltr><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">2. Creation of WebDAV user account for WebDAV repository (where all the gems reside)</span></p> <P dir=ltr><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">3. Clicking on the "Generate Web Site" button situated in the Weblog menu tree with the Virtuoso HTML based Admin UI</span></p> <P dir=ltr><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">4. Filled up my channel and blogrolls by asking Virtuoso to use its <U>very old web</u> content aggregation functionality </span></p> <P dir=ltr><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">5. Setup my upstreams (so that I post once and propagate to my numerous blog sites on a conditional basis)</span></p> <P dir=ltr><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">6. Create a Virtuoso HTTP Virtual Domain for the community/personal Blog </span></p> <P dir=ltr><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">7. Start blogging using any Blog Client that supports; Blogger API, MetaWeblog, or Moveable Type</span></p> <P dir=ltr><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">No more no less. Most importantly I have a choice of programming languages (VSP, VSX, PHP, ASP.NET, JSP, Perl, Python), operating systems, and databases that constitute the shape and form of my blog home. </span></p> <P dir=ltr><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">See the<A href="http://www.openlinksw.com/virtuoso/faqs.htm"> Virtuoso FAQ </a>for how this all comes together.</span></p>
Windows migration brings down shipping
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2003-06-11#275
2003-06-11T18:01:03Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<A href="http://www.lockergnome.com/update/archives/week_2003_06_08.html#005840">Windows migration brings down shipping</A> "UK ports have been in chaos over the past week because they tried to migrate from their mainframe to a Windows-based system and ended up reverting to manual processing" - <I>Although the gut reaction for some people will be "serves 'em right for trying to switch to Windows", I suspect this is a simple case of poor migration strategy.</I> (Peter) [via <A href="http://update.lockergnome.com/">Lockergnome's Bits and Bytes</A>] <DIV><EM></EM> </DIV> <DIV><EM>One day a shipping yard, and another day it could be an entire nation!</EM></DIV>
RSS Behind the Firewall
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2003-06-10#274
2003-06-11T03:49:21Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<A href="http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/000782.html">RSS Behind the Firewall</A> <P>I knew this day would come, but I've been trying to avoid it. For roughly a year now, I've been happily reading various news source by using RSS aggregators of various form and function. Some were desktop apps and others were server-side. Some for Windows, some for Linux, and some for OS X.</P> <P>In recent months, there's been growing <A href="http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/000421.html">talk</A> about RSS at work. And I don't mean things like the <A href="http://jeremy.zawodny.com/mt/mt-search.cgi?search=finance+rss&IncludeBlogs=1">Finance</A>, <A href="http://ask.yahoo.com/ask/index.xml">Ask</A>, or <A href="http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/000774.html">Buzz RSS</A> stuff. There's been talk of using it <EM>internally</EM>. We have a growing number of internal weblogs (or people looking to experiment with them) and some in-house tools that now generate RSS.</P> <P>This is great.</P> <P>But it's going to suck too.</P> <P>The honeymoon is over. Now I need to have <EM>two</EM> aggregators: one at home and one at work.</P> <P>I'm used to doing this for e-mail, but that doesn't mean I like it. I suppose I could start taking my laptop to work every day, but then I'd have to take my laptop to work everyday.</P> <P>I've been thinking about this for a while and haven't come up with any good solution. I suppose that someone could work on synchronizing aggregators. Then I could sync up my home and work aggregators somehow. Maybe that'll happen?</P> <P>I wonder if is going to become a more common problem as RSS picks up steam in various companies.[via <A href="http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/">Jeremy Zawodny's blog</A>]</P> <DIV></DIV>
<p>When Mono is completed, Linux is the option for the desktop.</p>
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2003-06-08#108
2003-06-08T18:51:20Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<P>When Mono is completed, Linux is the option for the desktop.</P> <P>[From <A href="http://weblogs.asp.net/fbouma/">Frans Bouma's blog</A> in Boldface, <EM>My comments in italics</EM>]</P> <P>Randy Holloway <A href="http://weblogs.asp.net/rholloway/posts/8369.aspx">wrote</A> about his <A href="http://weblogs.asp.net/rholloway/posts/8370.aspx">vision on Linux</A> and then especially about Linux on the desktop. I disagree with his vision, I think Linux is definitely an option for the desktop at the moment and thus also in the foreseably future. It will become <EM>the</EM> option for the desktop when Mono is completed. The reason for this is simple: a lot of Windows programs will be written using .NET. If you can run these programs on Linux too, using Mono, what's keeping you on Windows? Perhaps the games. But definitely not the business applications, since the Linux version for spreadsheets, browsers, wordprocessors, emailprograms and other every-day software are solid <EM>today</EM>, even when compared to Microsoft Office XP. </P> <P><EM>Linux desktop office applications do not rival those of Windows, in particular Office 2003. We have to be careful when we make generic statements such as this becuase the end result is disappointment and frustation for corporate Linux neophyte.</EM></P> <P><EM>Imagine a corporate power user that has used Excel to produce Pivot tables (like I do) that provide me with a critical success factors dashboard for my enterprise. If I was to move to any of the incarnations of open office this would be lost. Now, for the corporate user -knowledge, information worker- that I believe Randy has in mind this remains a problem re. Linux as a desktop offering today.</EM></P> <P><EM>On the other hand, how true is the position that I presented above? By this I mean, how many knowledge workers actually make use of Pivot Tables in Excel? Something tells me I am the exception rather than the norm. Thus, moving away from Desktop productivity tools of type "Office 200x", and looking at email, and web browsing etc. Linux certainly matches Windows pound for pound, but is this enough? What is the current "activation threshold" for Windows vs. Linux for a Desktop user (who just wants email and web browsing)? I think this is Linux distribution dependent, now the last time I attempted this experiment (at least over a year ago) Windows won flat out becuase I had to wrestle with X Configuration en route to getting a graphical desktop (I believe this has improved vastly of late, but I need to perform this experiment using current 8.x and higher Linux distros.).</EM></P> <P>I've hated Linux and especially its most hardcore supporters, for years. However, you can't have an unbiased vision on what is best for a given company to use as the OS of choice if you are biased yourself. Mono changed me, I really think Mono is the best Linux has ever experienced: it makes transitions of software written for the Windows platform to a free (as in beer, I don't believe in the GPL-philosophy) OS possible.</P> <P><EM>Mono is going to be the most significant Linux <--> Windows harmonization effort over the long term. This is because parity will no longer be about getting the likes of Open Office to reach functional parity with "Office 200x" as future Windows applications will be "managed code" in nature (a strategic Microsoft goal over the long term), and Mono's goal is to run "managed code" outside the Windows platform (this applies to Linux, UNIX, and other platforms).</EM></P> <P>Besides Mono, I do think Linux is a good platform to use for everyday business applications today, because the office tools can use Exchange, they can read/write MS Office documents, so why bother investing in MS software when you can save that money and choose the alternative? The only problem is: when you have a lot of desktops to admin as a sysadmin, and you want to do that with the easy tools in Windows server 2003, you're out of luck. </P> <P><EM>Linux is a good platform for everday business applications, but not quite good enough in the area of unravelling it's value proposition to the point of obvious simplification for corporate decision makers. This is the current hump in the road to this critical destination in my humble opinion.</EM></P> <P><EM>Randy and Frans are making very good points that shed light on some of the less covered aspects of the Linux vs. Windows debate.</EM></P>
<p>When Mono is completed, Linux is the option for the desktop.</p>
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2003-06-08#261
2003-06-08T18:51:20Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<P>When Mono is completed, Linux is the option for the desktop.</P> <P>[From <A href="http://weblogs.asp.net/fbouma/">Frans Bouma's blog</A> in Boldface, <EM>My comments in italics</EM>]</P> <P>Randy Holloway <A href="http://weblogs.asp.net/rholloway/posts/8369.aspx">wrote</A> about his <A href="http://weblogs.asp.net/rholloway/posts/8370.aspx">vision on Linux</A> and then especially about Linux on the desktop. I disagree with his vision, I think Linux is definitely an option for the desktop at the moment and thus also in the foreseably future. It will become <EM>the</EM> option for the desktop when Mono is completed. The reason for this is simple: a lot of Windows programs will be written using .NET. If you can run these programs on Linux too, using Mono, what's keeping you on Windows? Perhaps the games. But definitely not the business applications, since the Linux version for spreadsheets, browsers, wordprocessors, emailprograms and other every-day software are solid <EM>today</EM>, even when compared to Microsoft Office XP. </P> <P><EM>Linux desktop office applications do not rival those of Windows, in particular Office 2003. We have to be careful when we make generic statements such as this becuase the end result is disappointment and frustation for corporate Linux neophyte.</EM></P> <P><EM>Imagine a corporate power user that has used Excel to produce Pivot tables (like I do) that provide me with a critical success factors dashboard for my enterprise. If I was to move to any of the incarnations of open office this would be lost. Now, for the corporate user -knowledge, information worker- that I believe Randy has in mind this remains a problem re. Linux as a desktop offering today.</EM></P> <P><EM>On the other hand, how true is the position that I presented above? By this I mean, how many knowledge workers actually make use of Pivot Tables in Excel? Something tells me I am the exception rather than the norm. Thus, moving away from Desktop productivity tools of type "Office 200x", and looking at email, and web browsing etc. Linux certainly matches Windows pound for pound, but is this enough? What is the current "activation threshold" for Windows vs. Linux for a Desktop user (who just wants email and web browsing)? I think this is Linux distribution dependent, now the last time I attempted this experiment (at least over a year ago) Windows won flat out becuase I had to wrestle with X Configuration en route to getting a graphical desktop (I believe this has improved vastly of late, but I need to perform this experiment using current 8.x and higher Linux distros.).</EM></P> <P>I've hated Linux and especially its most hardcore supporters, for years. However, you can't have an unbiased vision on what is best for a given company to use as the OS of choice if you are biased yourself. Mono changed me, I really think Mono is the best Linux has ever experienced: it makes transitions of software written for the Windows platform to a free (as in beer, I don't believe in the GPL-philosophy) OS possible.</P> <P><EM>Mono is going to be the most significant Linux <--> Windows harmonization effort over the long term. This is because parity will no longer be about getting the likes of Open Office to reach functional parity with "Office 200x" as future Windows applications will be "managed code" in nature (a strategic Microsoft goal over the long term), and Mono's goal is to run "managed code" outside the Windows platform (this applies to Linux, UNIX, and other platforms).</EM></P> <P>Besides Mono, I do think Linux is a good platform to use for everyday business applications today, because the office tools can use Exchange, they can read/write MS Office documents, so why bother investing in MS software when you can save that money and choose the alternative? The only problem is: when you have a lot of desktops to admin as a sysadmin, and you want to do that with the easy tools in Windows server 2003, you're out of luck. </P> <P><EM>Linux is a good platform for everday business applications, but not quite good enough in the area of unravelling it's value proposition to the point of obvious simplification for corporate decision makers. This is the current hump in the road to this critical destination in my humble opinion.</EM></P> <P><EM>Randy and Frans are making very good points that shed light on some of the less covered aspects of the Linux vs. Windows debate.</EM></P>
UK councils dump Windows for Linux
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2003-06-06#255
2003-06-06T13:58:46Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<A href="http://c.moreover.com/click/here.pl?r74774733">UK councils dump Windows for Linux</A> ZDNet Jun 6 2003 9:09AM ET <DIV align=right>[via <A href="http://www.moreover.com/">Moreover - ZDNet</A>]</DIV> <P class=a2 align=left>The move has particular significance since the council last year completed a successful e-government 'pathfinder' project involving a group of neighbouring councils: Barking and Dagenham, Hackney, Havering, Redbridge, Thanet, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest. </P> <P class=a2 align=left>"If this is seen to work in Newham, it has the potential to be a significant project, changing the perceptions of other councils," said Tim Dawes, director of local government technology consultants Nineveh. </P> <P class=a2 align=left>Nottingham is set to decide on new software for its 6,500 desktop PCs by the end of 2003 and confirmed to E-Government Bulletin this week that open source solutions are being considered. The news follows the council's successful migration to a Linux-based email system last year, after suffering numerous problems with its proprietary system. </P> <P class=a2 align=left>According to technology manager Richard Heggs, shifting to open source messaging has cut costs by at least a third, a saving that would be repeated for desktops. </P> <P class=a2 align=left><EM>Looks like the municipalities figured out the cost-benefits of Linux vs. Windows much quicker than the corporates.</EM></P>
The Future of Internet Explorer
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2003-05-27#334
2003-05-27T18:50:13Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<p><a href="http://www.slightlybent.com/200305archive001.asp#1053867954001">The Future of Internet Explorer</a> I Just said something to <a title="Sam Ruby" href="http://www.intertwingly.net/blog/1432.html" target="_blank">Sam Ruby</a> in a comment that has caused me to stop and think. We are currently seeing all kinds of supposedly leaked information and screenshots of MS's next operating system, Longhorn. This is not due out till the end of 2004 or the beginning of 2005. A full 1 1/2 to 2 years away. Where are all the leaked screenshots and Information on the next version of Internet Explorer? Is there a next version? I read somewhere the other day that the IE team was actually smaller than the MS Works team. given that IE owns 95% of the browser market and MS Works owns, what?, of the office suite market, this seems a little more strange. </p> <p><em>Not strange at all, that's how Monopolies operate. They do not have any embracing to do right now (in other words there is nothing to kill in this market place). </em></p> <p>I have over 150 weblogs I monitor through my new reader and a good portion of them are MS employees (becuase I work in a MS enviroment). To the best of my knowledge, not one of them is from the IE team. All this has lead me to ask if IE is dead. If so, is it because MS doesn't see any point in developing it further or could they be worried that any further development would be viewed as anti-competitive? </p> <p><em>The problem here is no direction, many of the larger companies live of the innovation of smaller companies. The like to say, "Ah"! "We'll have one of those in the future sometime...", and then crush smaller company if the FUD (Fear Uncertainty Doubt) doesn't bury the perceived threat (anything that is generating revenue that they aren't taxing; bottom-line). </em></p> <p><em>Well while the cat's away the mice will play, Mozilla is getting stronger and better by the minute. So there may just be a reason for IE to come back to its <u>destructive life</u>.</em></p> <p>[via <a href="http://www.slightlybent.com/default.asp">Slightly Bent</a>]</p> <p><em></em></p>
The Future of Internet Explorer
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2003-05-27#62
2003-05-27T18:50:13Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<P><A href="http://www.slightlybent.com/200305archive001.asp#1053867954001">The Future of Internet Explorer</A> I Just said something to <A title="Sam Ruby" href="http://www.intertwingly.net/blog/1432.html" target=_blank>Sam Ruby</A> in a comment that has caused me to stop and think. We are currently seeing all kinds of supposedly leaked information and screenshots of MS's next operating system, Longhorn. This is not due out till the end of 2004 or the beginning of 2005. A full 1 1/2 to 2 years away. Where are all the leaked screenshots and Information on the next version of Internet Explorer? Is there a next version? I read somewhere the other day that the IE team was actually smaller than the MS Works team. given that IE owns 95% of the browser market and MS Works owns, what?, of the office suite market, this seems a little more strange. </P> <P><EM>Not strange at all, that's how Monopolies operate. They do not have any embracing to do right now (in other words there is nothing to kill in this market place). </EM></P> <P>I have over 150 weblogs I monitor through my new reader and a good portion of them are MS employees (becuase I work in a MS enviroment). To the best of my knowledge, not one of them is from the IE team. All this has lead me to ask if IE is dead. If so, is it because MS doesn't see any point in developing it further or could they be worried that any further development would be viewed as anti-competitive? </P> <P><EM>The problem here is no direction, many of the larger companies live of the innovation of smaller companies. The like to say, "Ah"! "We'll have one of those in the future sometime...", and then crush smaller company if the FUD (Fear Uncertainty Doubt) doesn't bury the perceived threat (anything that is generating revenue that they aren't taxing; bottom-line). </EM></P> <P><EM>Well while the cat's away the mice will play, Mozilla is getting stronger and better by the minute. So there may just be a reason for IE to come back to its <U>destructive life</U>.</EM></P> <P>[via <A href="http://www.slightlybent.com/default.asp">Slightly Bent</A>]</P> <P><EM></EM> </P> <DIV></DIV>
<a href="http://www.xulplanet.com/cgi-bin/ndeakin/homeN.cgi?ai=133">Data Structures and RDF</a>
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2003-05-23#330
2003-05-24T02:27:45Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<a href="http://www.xulplanet.com/cgi-bin/ndeakin/homeN.cgi?ai=133">Data Structures and RDF</a> Time to chime in on the RDF debate. There are four general ways of storing information: A list, in which one has a number of items, which may or not be related to one another. A table, in which one has a number of items (records), each with a distinct set of properties or columns. A tree, in which one has a hierarchy of items. A graph, in which one has a number of items (nodes), with the nodes connected to each other in some way. There are others, but they are more or less just variations of the same. There are examples all over of each type. Arrays are examples of lists. Of course, they are used all over the place. Relational databases typically store all of their data in tables. So do spreadsheets. Trees are used for mail or news messages and your bookmarks. XML is a syntax for specifying trees of information. The Windows and Classic Macintosh file systems are presented and/or stored as a tree. The Unix file system however isn't a tree. It's a graph. RDF is a graph. The Web is also a graph -- it's a bunch of pages connected via links. Each of the four storage methods, lists, tables, trees, and graphs, increase in complexity as you go up. Lists are simple to store. Graphs are the most difficult. Actually, that doesn't need to be the case. But, very few programming languages come with any kind of Graph structure ready to use. Due to the complexity, you should probably store data in the lowest type possible, depending on the kind of data you have. You can always use one of the structures higher than what is necessary. A list could be stored in a table with only one column, a table can be stored in a tree, where a root node has a set of records, each with a set of properties, and a tree is really a specialized form of graph. However, the reverse is not true. You can't store a graph in a tree, you can't store a tree in a table, and you can't store a table in a list. Any place where you see someone trying to is a hack. Many people don't know this though. So they just store everything in a tabular database or in XML, regardless of what it is. This has two problems. First, you get data that can be stored in a simpler format, stored in some more complex format. So you get people passing lists of things around using XML. Or, configuration files stored in XML. Second, you get people trying to coerce more complex data into a simpler format, so you might see people trying to shove trees of data into a database. Or you get serialized RDF written as XML. Many people think that XML is the ultimate format for storing data. It isn't. It can represent trees nicely, and it can do tables and lists if you really wanted it to, but it can't represent graphs, not cleanly anyway. Perhaps what is needed is an eXtensible Graph Language, which represents graphs of data. There is RDF-XML, and XGMML but both use a language for describing trees. Actually, it shouldn't be called the eXtensible Graph Language, because then people will get confused thinking it's like XML. Because a tree can be represented as a graph, all data could be represented in the Graph Language (not that it should be, of course), unlike XML which can't. Of course, this assumes there isn't some higher level structure above the graph. Long, long ago, people stored data in lists, because that was all that was available. Then, someone came up with the idea of storing data in tables. So relational databases came along and people moved up the ladder to tables. A few years ago, XML came along so data moved up again to trees. Can you guess what will happen next? The Semantic Web folks want us to move to using graphs. Should we move to graphs? Seems to be the next logical step in information evolution. What's holding us back? Well, it's probably too soon. The world is still in the tree phase. One day, graphs will start to become more popular -- it will just take time. In 30 years, someone might come up with something beyond graphs, and we'll all slowly switch to it as well. There's also the RSS in RDF debate. Many people don't see the value in storing RSS data in RDF. This is because the information stored in a single RSS file isn't a graph -- it's a tree, so plain-old XML actually makes more sense. Of course, the Semantic Web folks don't agree. Why? Because they aren't thinking in terms of a single RSS file - they are thinking of building giant collections of RSS data, all linked together so that it forms one giant - hey, it's not a tree - it's a graph. Then, you can search and navigate it like you can with the existing Web. But of course, the Semantic Web lets the servers and the software you're using, know more about what you're talking about. This is unlike current popular search engines like Google which are pretty much just guessing. You can make it better, sure, but the best way to acheive accuracy is if someone tells it the answer to begin with.
<a href="http://www.xulplanet.com/cgi-bin/ndeakin/homeN.cgi?ai=133">Data Structures and RDF</a>
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2003-05-23#59
2003-05-24T02:27:45Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<a href="http://www.xulplanet.com/cgi-bin/ndeakin/homeN.cgi?ai=133">Data Structures and RDF</a> Time to chime in on the RDF debate. There are four general ways of storing information: A list, in which one has a number of items, which may or not be related to one another. A table, in which one has a number of items (records), each with a distinct set of properties or columns. A tree, in which one has a hierarchy of items. A graph, in which one has a number of items (nodes), with the nodes connected to each other in some way. There are others, but they are more or less just variations of the same. There are examples all over of each type. Arrays are examples of lists. Of course, they are used all over the place. Relational databases typically store all of their data in tables. So do spreadsheets. Trees are used for mail or news messages and your bookmarks. XML is a syntax for specifying trees of information. The Windows and Classic Macintosh file systems are presented and/or stored as a tree. The Unix file system however isn't a tree. It's a graph. RDF is a graph. The Web is also a graph -- it's a bunch of pages connected via links. Each of the four storage methods, lists, tables, trees, and graphs, increase in complexity as you go up. Lists are simple to store. Graphs are the most difficult. Actually, that doesn't need to be the case. But, very few programming languages come with any kind of Graph structure ready to use. Due to the complexity, you should probably store data in the lowest type possible, depending on the kind of data you have. You can always use one of the structures higher than what is necessary. A list could be stored in a table with only one column, a table can be stored in a tree, where a root node has a set of records, each with a set of properties, and a tree is really a specialized form of graph. However, the reverse is not true. You can't store a graph in a tree, you can't store a tree in a table, and you can't store a table in a list. Any place where you see someone trying to is a hack. Many people don't know this though. So they just store everything in a tabular database or in XML, regardless of what it is. This has two problems. First, you get data that can be stored in a simpler format, stored in some more complex format. So you get people passing lists of things around using XML. Or, configuration files stored in XML. Second, you get people trying to coerce more complex data into a simpler format, so you might see people trying to shove trees of data into a database. Or you get serialized RDF written as XML. Many people think that XML is the ultimate format for storing data. It isn't. It can represent trees nicely, and it can do tables and lists if you really wanted it to, but it can't represent graphs, not cleanly anyway. Perhaps what is needed is an eXtensible Graph Language, which represents graphs of data. There is RDF-XML, and XGMML but both use a language for describing trees. Actually, it shouldn't be called the eXtensible Graph Language, because then people will get confused thinking it's like XML. Because a tree can be represented as a graph, all data could be represented in the Graph Language (not that it should be, of course), unlike XML which can't. Of course, this assumes there isn't some higher level structure above the graph. Long, long ago, people stored data in lists, because that was all that was available. Then, someone came up with the idea of storing data in tables. So relational databases came along and people moved up the ladder to tables. A few years ago, XML came along so data moved up again to trees. Can you guess what will happen next? The Semantic Web folks want us to move to using graphs. Should we move to graphs? Seems to be the next logical step in information evolution. What's holding us back? Well, it's probably too soon. The world is still in the tree phase. One day, graphs will start to become more popular -- it will just take time. In 30 years, someone might come up with something beyond graphs, and we'll all slowly switch to it as well. There's also the RSS in RDF debate. Many people don't see the value in storing RSS data in RDF. This is because the information stored in a single RSS file isn't a graph -- it's a tree, so plain-old XML actually makes more sense. Of course, the Semantic Web folks don't agree. Why? Because they aren't thinking in terms of a single RSS file - they are thinking of building giant collections of RSS data, all linked together so that it forms one giant - hey, it's not a tree - it's a graph. Then, you can search and navigate it like you can with the existing Web. But of course, the Semantic Web lets the servers and the software you're using, know more about what you're talking about. This is unlike current popular search engines like Google which are pretty much just guessing. You can make it better, sure, but the best way to acheive accuracy is if someone tells it the answer to begin with.
By Harry Fuecks
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2003-05-21#997
2003-05-21T20:49:29Z
2006-07-07T08:29:38-04:00
<h2> <font size="3">By Harry Fuecks</font> <br /> <font size="2">Here's a question: what if I was to tell you that you can write your own version of Word using something like HTML and JavaScript? What if I added that you could run on your hard disk or launch it directly from your Web server and use it to update your site's content? It sounds a little far fetched, I know, but it's right here, right now -- and it calls itself "Zool". </font> </h2> <p>Here?s what this three-part series will cover:</p> <p></p> <ul> <li>The XUL Revolution: just who is Zool? </li> <li>Back to School: time to dust of that JavaScript... </li> <li>Zoolology: getting read to fire up your first XUL application </li> <li>3D Browsing with XUL: straight in at the deep end. </li> <li>Desperately Seeking: the search is over. </li> <li>Takeaway Menu: with fries please! </li> <li>But no one uses Mozilla: back to browser detection. </li> <li>The Rise of the Rich Client: the future is XUL. </li> </ul> <p> <strong><a href="http://www.sitepoint.com/article/1140/1">Part 1</a> </strong> </p> <p> <em><u>My Comments</u>:<br /> </em><em>I am a firm believer in the possibilities presented by XUL. It will enable the bundling of UI, Data, Data Manipulation logic (Application or Module ) as part of a payload hosted on report server Like Virtuoso. Basically, I anticipate the emergence of an IDE that is able to persist is UI components (widgets) and UI behaviour as XML using the XUL grammer. Then along comes a XUL Processor that is able to emit a XUL based UI payloads ( via user agent aware transformation) as:<br />.NET/Mono Windows Forms assemblies<br />Javascript<br />Flash MX<br />XUL (If we know the client is Mozilla or Firebird for instance)<br />.....<br />I think this is a Virtuoso demo in the making :-)</em> </p> <p> <br /> <br /> <br /> </p> <p> <font face="Verdana"></font> </p>
<a href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/2003/05/20.html#a695">Testing for Windows rot</a>
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2003-05-20#307
2003-05-20T14:34:00Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<A href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/2003/05/20.html#a695">Testing for Windows rot</A> It's nice to see the New York Times <A href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/19/technology/19NECO.html">mentioning</A> Ward Cunningham as the father of <A href="http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?WelcomeVisitors">Wiki</A>. I wonder, though, whether another of Ward's efforts -- Extreme Programming, and in particular his advocacy of test-driven software development -- might not ultimately affect more people's lives. <B>...</B> <DIV align=right>[via <A href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/">Jon's Radio</A>] <DIV></DIV></DIV>
<a href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/2003/05/20.html#a695">Testing for Windows rot</a>
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2003-05-20#34
2003-05-20T14:34:00Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<A href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/2003/05/20.html#a695">Testing for Windows rot</A> It's nice to see the New York Times <A href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/19/technology/19NECO.html">mentioning</A> Ward Cunningham as the father of <A href="http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?WelcomeVisitors">Wiki</A>. I wonder, though, whether another of Ward's efforts -- Extreme Programming, and in particular his advocacy of test-driven software development -- might not ultimately affect more people's lives. <B>...</B> <DIV align=right>[via <A href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/">Jon's Radio</A>] <DIV></DIV></DIV>
<a href="http://chkpt.zdnet.com/chkpt/emailvideonews/www.cnet.com/video/synd/mail_redir2.html?page=http://www.news.com/,vid_win=http://news.com.com/1601-2-1000672.html">Video</a>
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2003-05-15#298
2003-05-16T03:57:33Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<p>Enjoy the <a href="http://chkpt.zdnet.com/chkpt/emailvideonews/www.cnet.com/video/synd/mail_redir2.html?page=http://www.news.com/,vid_win=http://news.com.com/1601-2-1000672.html">Video</a> .</p> <p>Virtuoso 64-Bit is becoming a priority, larger addressable memory space (we are talking about 512GB memory re. 64-Bit systems). </p> <p>You can now do on Windows what you could have done many years ago on IRIX and Digital UNIX :-)</p> <p></p>
<span class="authorsource">Mary Jo Foley</span>
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2003-05-15#18
2003-05-15T15:21:06Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0> <TBODY> <TR> <TD align=left><SPAN class=authorsource>By <A class=authorsource href="http://www.microsoft-watch.com/author_bio/0,4308,a=2274,00.asp"><SPAN class=authorsource>Mary Jo Foley</SPAN></A></SPAN> </TD></TR> <TR> <TD><IMG height=10 src="http://www.microsoft-watch.com/images/ms_spacer.gif" wifth="1"></TD></TR> <TR> <TD><IMG height=10 src="http://www.microsoft-watch.com/images/ms_spacer.gif" wifth="1"></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE> <TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0> <TBODY> <TR> <TD class=ArticleBody vAlign=top align=left>It was <A href="http://www.microsoft.com/billgates/speeches/2003/04-29naa.asp">just a passing mention.</A> But Chairman Bill noted at yesterday's Newspaper Association of America Annual Convention that Microsoft is very interested in making sure blogging tools are there to support folks doing "bottom-up publishing." Microsoft has been sticking its toes in the blogging tools waters, as of late, with everything from a <A id=40735 title="Blogging Plug-In Debuts in Media Fun Pack" href="http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,4248,1039374,00.asp">Windows Media 9 blogging plug-in,</A> to <A id=37282 title="Microsoft Tests the Blogging Tool Waters" href="http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,4248,894021,00.asp">its Community Starter Kit,</A> to other goodies under development by some of <A id=36437 title="Microsoft Bloggers" href="http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,4248,933657,00.asp">Microsoft's best bloggers.</A></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<span class="authorsource">Mary Jo Foley</span>
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2003-05-15#289
2003-05-15T15:21:06Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0> <TBODY> <TR> <TD align=left><SPAN class=authorsource>By <A class=authorsource href="http://www.microsoft-watch.com/author_bio/0,4308,a=2274,00.asp"><SPAN class=authorsource>Mary Jo Foley</SPAN></A></SPAN> </TD></TR> <TR> <TD><IMG height=10 src="http://www.microsoft-watch.com/images/ms_spacer.gif" wifth="1"></TD></TR> <TR> <TD><IMG height=10 src="http://www.microsoft-watch.com/images/ms_spacer.gif" wifth="1"></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE> <TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0> <TBODY> <TR> <TD class=ArticleBody vAlign=top align=left>It was <A href="http://www.microsoft.com/billgates/speeches/2003/04-29naa.asp">just a passing mention.</A> But Chairman Bill noted at yesterday's Newspaper Association of America Annual Convention that Microsoft is very interested in making sure blogging tools are there to support folks doing "bottom-up publishing." Microsoft has been sticking its toes in the blogging tools waters, as of late, with everything from a <A id=40735 title="Blogging Plug-In Debuts in Media Fun Pack" href="http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,4248,1039374,00.asp">Windows Media 9 blogging plug-in,</A> to <A id=37282 title="Microsoft Tests the Blogging Tool Waters" href="http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,4248,894021,00.asp">its Community Starter Kit,</A> to other goodies under development by some of <A id=36437 title="Microsoft Bloggers" href="http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,4248,933657,00.asp">Microsoft's best bloggers.</A></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<a href="http://www.dotnetweblogs.com/yassers/posts/5558.aspx">VM Ware vs Virtual PC</a>
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2003-05-15#285
2003-05-15T13:36:44Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<A href="http://www.dotnetweblogs.com/yassers/posts/5558.aspx">VM Ware vs Virtual PC</A> <P><FONT face="Trebuchet MS" size=2>I've installed and used both VMWare and Virtual PC on my tablet. VPC has one key advantage: It lets the guest OS use the right drivers for your hardware. VMWare installs its own drivers for things like display and network. In my case, VMWare's virtualized drivers caused two problems: The guest OS could not connect to the network using the host's wireless connection. This is meant I always had to be plugged in to an ethernet for the guest to be connected - an inconvenience more than a real problem. The second, more serious, issue was going into full screen. VMWare let me choose 640x480 or 1024x768. Going into full screen with the latter resolution caused my tablet's display to go into vertical (portrait) mode. I tried everything I could think of to put it back to landscape but had no success. This is a real issue since, needless to say, using VS .NET in 640x480 is a real challenge. VPC has none of these problems. I can use my wireless network from the guest OS and I can choose from 640x480, 800x600, and 1024x768 all in full screen mode. Although there's one slight problem in VPC: When using the wireless network, the guest OS cannot ping the host OS. I can live with that.<BR>Next I want to install Longhorn in a VPC on my tablet. I don't even know if VPC supports Longhorn, stay tuned.</FONT>[via <A href="http://www.dotnetweblogs.com/yassers/">Yasser Shohoud</A>]</P> <P><EM>This is what blogs are supposed to be all about; unadulterated dissemination of knowledge. We have got to share knowledge as opposed to hoarding it!</EM></P> <P> </P> <DIV></DIV>
eCRM Evaluation and Comparison (of sorts)
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2003-05-14#277
2003-05-14T19:38:01Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<p><span class="DropCap">T</span>he next release of Microsoft SQL Server, code-named "Yukon," will reshape the Windows relational database management system (RDBMS) landscape. Yukon promises to incorporate the benefits of native XML and object-oriented databases within a fully programmable relational database framework. A new Reporting Service, support for InfoPath (formerly XDocs) data-entry forms, and Transact-SQL (T-SQL) enhancements round out Yukon's new feature set. David Campbell, Microsoft's product unit manager for the SQL Server engine, gave .NET developers a Yukon preview at VSLive! San Francisco this past February. In this article, I'll analyze Campbell's "Database of the Future: A Preview of Yukon and Other Technical Advancements" keynote address from an IT management and SQL Server DBA perspective. </p> <p>For more see full <a href="http://www.fawcette.com/dotnetmag/2003_06/magazine/columns/sqlconnection/default.asp">article</a></p>
<a href="http://chkpt.zdnet.com/chkpt/emailvideonews/www.cnet.com/video/synd/mail_redir2.html?page=http://www.news.com/,vid_win=http://news.com.com/1601-2-1000672.html">Video</a>
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2003-05-14#360
2003-05-14T16:55:05Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<P>Enjoy the <A href="http://chkpt.zdnet.com/chkpt/emailvideonews/www.cnet.com/video/synd/mail_redir2.html?page=http://www.news.com/,vid_win=http://news.com.com/1601-2-1000672.html">Video</A> .</P> <P>Virtuoso 64-Bit is becoming a priority, larger addressable memory space (we are talking about 512GB memory re. 64-Bit systems). </P> <P>You can now do on Windows what you could have done many years ago on IRIX and Digital UNIX :-)</P> <P> </P>