Posts tagged with: semsol

The code bundles on the ARC website are generated in an inefficient manual process, and each patch has to wait for the next to-be-generated zip file. The developer community is growing (there are now 600 ARC downloads each month), I'm increasingly receiving patches and requests for a proper repository, and the Trice framework is about to get online as well. So I spent last week on building a dedicated source code site for all semsol projects at code.semsol.org.

So far, it's not much more than a directory browser with source preview and a little method navigator. But it will simplify code sharing and frequent updates for me, and hopefully also for ARC and Trice developers. You can checkout various Bazaar code branches and generate a bundle from any directory. The app can't display repository messages yet (the server doesn't have bzr installed, I'm just deploying branches using the handy FTP option), but I'll try to come up with a work-around or an alternative when time permits.

Running an R&D-heavy agency in the current economical climate is pretty tough, but there are also a couple of new opportunities for these semantic solutions that help reduce costs and do things more efficiently. I'm finally starting to get project requests that include some form of compensation. Not much yet (all budgets seem to be very tight these days), but it's a start, and together with support from Susanne, I could now continue working on Paggr, semsol's Netvibes-like dashboard system for the growing web of Linked Data.

An article about Paggr will be in the next Nodalities Magazine, and the ESWC2009 technologies team is considering a custom system for attendees which is a great chance to maybe get other conference organizers interested. (I see much potential in a white-label offering, but a more mainstream-ish version for Web 2.0 data is still on my mind. Just have to focus on getting self-sustained first.)

Below is a short screencast that demonstrates a first version of the sparqlet (= semantic widget) builder. I've de-coupled sparqlet-serving from the dashboard system, so that I'll be able to open-source the infrastructure parts of Paggr more easily. Another change from the October prototype is the theme-ability of both dashboards and widget servers. Lots of sun, sky, and sea for ESWC ;-)



HQ version (quicktime, 120MB)

I've been semi-silently working on something new. A combination of many semwebby things I came across and played with during the last 3 years or so:

• semantic markup
• smart data
• an rdf clipboard
• ajax
• sparql sparql sparql
• sparql + scripting
• sparql + templates
• sparql + widgets
• lightweight, federated semweb services and bots
• UIs for open data
• semwikis
• agile and collaborative web development

So, what happens when you put this all together? At least something interesting, and perhaps semsol's first commercial service. (Or product, this is all just LAMP stuff and can easily be run in an intranet or on a hosted server). Anyway, still some way to go. It's called paggr, the landing page is up, and today I created a first teaser/intro video.

I'll demo the beta (launch planned for November) at upcoming ISWC during the poster session (my poster is about SPARQL+ and SPARQLScript, the two SPARQL extensions that paggr is based on). I may have early invites by then.

As a preparation for the hopefully busy fall and winter months, though, I'll be on vacation for the next two weeks. No Email, no Web, no Phone. Yay!



HQ version (quicktime, 130MB)

I'm still working on the new website for ARC, but I managed to set up a group mailing list yesterday. It's a little (*cough*) experimental, based on ARC2 and Trice (another forthcoming semsol product). So, this is a shout-out to ARC users and developers with an invitation to subscribe and help me test that "DIY SPARQL Mailman" before I do a proper announcement for the new site and community tools (hopefully later this week).

Thanks in advance,
Benji

Ha, I haven't even fully made the move to my new (self-)employer yet, and Web Monday is already coming to Düsseldorf (joining about 20 other cities in Germany). The first event was yesterday and happened in the cool (style-wise) and hot (summer is back!) Lounge of the Mediadesign University.

I took the opportunity to introduce semsol to the local Web crowd, but also put on my SWEO hat and signed up for a short presentation. For better marketing, I've been thinking a bit about distributing a set of single-page tech flyers recently (called "SemWeb on a Slide", inspired by the classical "Semantic Web Illustrated" series, although I'm not there yet). So, I tried a first version , and given the feedback I think this sort of scoped material has a lot of potential. Someone already asked for a version covering semantic markup. Anyway, the other talks were way cooler than mine (at least for me ;), I especially liked Siggi Becker's "Utopia is not a Trend", and the presentation of MIXXT, which seems to be People Aggregator done right.

Just in case you're waiting for email replies: I'm moving to the new office for my semweb startup this/next week and probably won't be online again before Mon 14th. Well, I'm sort-of online now, but this ~0K dial-up can't really be called online...

This is going to change everything. Well, almost. I will continue to work on my Semantic Web solutions, but there will be a major re-branding and finally a focused roadmap. My code experiments and projects are going to be critically reviewed and consolidated. (I can't tell yet what stuff is going to be continued, but I'll keep my SWEO commitments, esp. the knowee community project which is going to start in April).
Quite some orga action coming up, but I'm looking forward to a clean bengee.reboot()

• I'll move from Essen to Düsseldorf, which is closer to Cologne, the DUS airport, and also a little away from the Web periphery here, with the Ruhr Valley still in reach, though.
• The appmosphere wordplay is going to be discontinued. No German really managed to pronounce or remember it correctly, and the *-osphere naming is rather overused these days anyway.
• The new brand will most probably be semsol.com which is going to be transformed to a Semantic Web Agency. (I've always been a frontend developer, combing this with an in-house RDF system will hopefully form a nice USP for the anticipated move towards info-driven Web apps.)
• The open source RDF framework currently named semsol will get a new name (perhaps just "semsol suite", we'll see), and there will be more product-style solutions (a browser, an editor, a schema manager, etc.).
• ARC will keep its name, but is going to be re-coded as ARC2 based on the experience and feedback obtained so far.
• Less research-y slippery slopes.
• More Germany-targeted activities.

Yeah, I know, these predictions get inflationary, but when they mention the core ingredients I try to integrate in a product, it may be worth a post.

So, Richard MacManus' Read/WriteWeb team predicts for 2007:
"structured data will be a big trend next year"
"Widgets exploded in 2006 but will continue rising in 2007"
"Semantic Web products will come of age in 2007"
"social networks will probably also become more open - and data portability will start to occur"
Would be cool if they are right ;)

I've put up a little preview site for the SemSol framework today. Not much yet, just a basic description and some screenshots. A first public release is planned for Q1/2007, I'd like to test it with some other projects first.

Speaking of projects: you may have noticed that my 10/2006 re-re-launch version of the SemanticWeb.org site has been removed (if you noticed the relaunch at all), DERI is going to put more internal resources on the portal from now on. Although it would have been a great stress-test project, I have to admit that using already mature tools like Wordpress, Mediawiki, and Drupal reduces risks on their side and also frees a lot of resources here. The new site is going to get a conceptual change, but I'll try to make the already aggregated and manually created data available via some other community project. The new site I plan to test SemSol with is going to be a Semantic Social Networking Service which will also provide some editorial content (my personal little non-W3C SWEO initiative). The SNS will of course be RDF-based, so there is still a back-integration option for semanticweb.org, should it get a SPARQL upgrade at some later stage.

The great thing about creating apps with the SemSol framework is that I'll never have to worry about database tables and multi-table SQL queries again. One of the few "taxes" that come with such an RDF-everywhere approach, though, is the need for proper terms for each type of data structure (users, permissions, pages, posts, comments, events, etc).

Luckily, there are a lot of vocabularies available already, and today I noticed that usable namespace URIs were added to the HTTP Vocabulary in RDF Editor's Draft a couple of days ago. Now it was only a 30 minute routine to add request tracking to SemSol, and with SPARQL being so easy to use it should be simple to create basic usage reports as well.

If you can read this, my server move and blogging platform upgrade was successful.
Welcome to the new bnode, now powered by an entirely SPARQL-based CMS.

Just a reminder: The call for the SemWeb Challenge 2006 ends this week (Friday, 14th). If you are working on an RDF app, consider participating. It's a lot of fun, you'll get incredibly useful feedback, and the organizers clearly deserve loads of submissions for running this community event!

Unfortunately, I'm not going to participate this year as I have to focus on coding during the next months in order to push my SPARQL CMS thingy to version 1.0. And maybe I should stop listening to StarWars tunes while I'm working on layout stuff..