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2003-03-01Document ProcessingOpen document-management and groupware developmentsThis is all coming together. Something to be rationalized and organized for a DMware or NuovoDoc appraisal.HotScripts.com: PHP/Scripts and Programs/Groupware Tools. A list of groupware tools, including MyDMS and phpGroupWare. worth looking over more closely, and also cross-linking from DMware. Savannah: Project Info - phpGroupWare. The official home of phpGroupWare development is now on the GNU counter-part to SorceForge. So funny ... SourceForge.net: Project Info - phpGroupWare. This is a GPL'd groupware project. It is related to the AxisGroup effort, which is designed to provide a professional level packaging and distribution for phpGroupWare. My DMS - AxisProjectWiki. A short summary that describes the key weakness of MyDMS. With its web client, users must directly check files in and out. This is a known barrier to adoption for desktop operation. MyDMS - About. This is an open-source (GPL) document management system based on PHP and MySQL. It all appears to work through a web interface (so there is a web server in there too). Version 1.3.1 supports other databases and also supports multiple international languages. Web services are about documentsI am just reading, in the premiere issue of ACM Queue magazine, that Web Services, at least in the .NET model, are about documents. It is all about viewing objects as documents, an old theme of mine. Now I have to pay attention to this development in terms of content and document processing. Hmm, I wonder if one can successfully deliver active web site content on a CD-ROM? Methinks that java is the likely way to do that, but it would be cool if it could work with portable components having a public VM.Web Service Tools. Some useful tools for testing .NET Web Services. OutlinersA pet topic of Eric Armstrong, outliners have an important role in groupware and various kinds of authoring and thought-organization activities, something I obviously am challenged with!Outliners.Com: Welcome to Outliners.Com!. A site devoted to outlining, an important element in XML editing (which is hierarchical, generally) and in collaborative tools. Computer MilieuComputer IndustrySoftware-development business modelsWell, folks, it appears we have reduced ourselves to a craft, and welcome to it.InternetWeek.com: Lack Of A Viable Business Model Is Stifling Software Innovation. An interview with Dave Winer on the need for a new business model that promotes software entrepreneurs. Becoming a programmerAnalogX: So you want to be a Programmer.... Interesting article on what is involved in being a computer programmer, what it is like to work as a programmer, and other aspects, such as education, great books, choice of languages, how to get your feet wet, etc.Computer NetworkingSecurity instrumentationAnalogX Downloads : PacketMon 1.0. A Packet Monitor tool that works with Windows 2000 and XP. Something I am looking for to understand all of the traffic that goes in and out of my XP configurations, and make demonstrations/examples of HTTP and WebDAV exchanges.Open-Source DevelopmentOpen integration?Based on the current licensing approaches, it is not clear to me how well one can apply an open extension and integration methodology that includes proprietary software. The problem is the need to do reverse engineering as part of various integration approaches. And there is always the basic question: "Why?"O'Reilly Open Source Software Convention 2003. This year's conference theme is "Embracing and Extending Proprietary Software." Hmph. More details in April. The conference is July 7-11 in Portland, Oregon. Open Access to Scientific and Scholarly MaterialsOpen-access initiativesAlthough still institution-centered, the effort to archive and make accessible the work of scholars is moving along.Open Archives Initiative. An initiative, blogged before, that provides a decentralized mechanism for open archives. Open archives can be employed as part of providing open access. An OAI archive provides specific support for (metadata) harvesting so that material can be indexed, catalogued, and made visible to communities of interest. Harnad: Research access, impact and assessment. An article by Stevan Harnad, with links to other material, on open access. Nicely hyperlinked, this article reviews research access. It also provides a link to the Research Assessment Exercise that UK institutions of higher-education are engaged in. (I examined this in looking at the University of Liverpool on-line M.Sc in IT program, and I refer people in the US to it when they want to understand the differences between accreditation in the US and at institutions "overseas.") Budapest Open Access Initiative. One of the initiatives toward having scientific and scholarly works openly available thanks to the Internet. The idea is that the literature that scholars give to the world without expectation of payment should be openly accessible: freely available "on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself." "The only constraint on reproduction and distribution, and the only role for copyright in this domain, should be to give authors control over the integrity of their work and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited." There are many useful links and ideas for maintaining the integrity of the scholarly literature, including peer-review, without impeding open access. 2003-02-28Computer SystemsEvolutionary Development of ITGenetic IT and other fads?I just finished reading Michael Crichton's Prey. Considering the difficulty that IT has in asssuring the reliable development and deployment of inter-working application systems, and the degree to which emergent behavior is already a problem in terms of unanticipated situations, I wonder what this gee-wiz stuff is really all about.Genetic IT: Systems With Evolving Value. Identifies the stages of IT evolutions as (1) automation, (2) standardization and (3) evolutionary, although the article may be over-focused on genetic algorithms, the idea of Genetic IT fits with the idea of autonomous computing, I would say, though I don't think that anybody gets what it will be like to actually operate with such systems. 2003-02-27Systems Architecture and DevelopmentDevelopment MethodologiesHere are some goodies that I have been bumping into that will make great resources for the Software Engineering course that I am starting on March 20.Open-Source developmentDaily Yomiuri On-Line: Gates aims to beat out rival Linux. Well, this is better than the picture of Gates and his bad hair among a group of Japanese school children that was featured on MSN. It is more interesting for the background on the e-Japan initiative and the continuing focus on empowering small and medium businesses, the recognized heart of the Japanese domestic economy. I wonder how trustworthy computing (as opposed to the specific initiative) is figuring in here. More to learn about.Agile methodsAgileAlliance. An advocacy page promoting the mission "To satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software."Deep in the Hearts of Learners: Insights into the Nature of Online Community. An interesting article in the on-line Journal of Distance Education. I am looking at this from my own experience in having completed the first course in my on-line M.Sc in IT. Builder.com: Hands-on Guide Demonstrates XP. A book review of A Practical Guide to eXtreme Programming. Recommended as an easy introduction and as a good source of additional information. The book is well-priced, too. EXIN Examinations and Certification in IT. A global IT examination provider that includes DSDM, CMM, and other qualification standards. DSDM Consortium - North America. There is emphasis on certification and licensing. There is also participation in the Agile Alliance, which is intended to include elements and techniques from Extreme Programming. Digging deeper, I see that there are actually few members in North American and this is a relatively small organization, but with a rather strict membership, certification, and licensing posture. DSDM Consortium, Membership Benefits. What strikes me about this is the observation that there is work in extending the project lifecycle to include a system lifecycle. DSDM Consortium - Helping you deliver on time. The notion that this framework starts with identification of what really benefits the customer is very appealing to me. There are a number of organizations invested in promoting this framework for "delivering agile business solutions on time." Builder.com: Consider DSDM as XP Alternative. This August 13, 2002 article by Scott Robinson promotes the Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM). It sounds like Extreme Programming in terms of the motivation and principles, but it is tuned more to Rapid Application Development and a cycle that is always faced towards business purposes and benefit to the business. One of the key factors that strikes me is that all changes made during development be reversible. One can see these as principles that would apply in many situations without being labeled a methodology. I wonder what actually sets it apart. It is easy to sympathize with the level described here. Builder.com: 8 Reasons why Extreme Programming won't work in your shop. July 3, 2002 article by Bob Weinstein. While it is important to be aware of the down side, it is not clear that these are XP-specific ailments. On the other hand, the non-loading of the project does create difficulties around getting what is wanted when it is wanted, though this may be as much a problem of our picture of how that is supposed to happen as the way XP is couched. 2003-02-26Trustworthy ComputingSecurity SystemsOpenPGPThe DSA Flaw in OpenPGP, by J. Orlin Grabbe. A problem with cracking OpenPGP keys when certain parameters are known.Information on Public Keys and the OpenPGP Standard. A nice overview. It talks about how certification is done, and levels of confidence in public keys using the OpenPGP decentralized certificate mechanism. Welcome to KEYSERVER . NET (PGP Public Keys Server). Here's a public key server. Under their Crypto Info, there is information on how the arrangement works, especially being certified by people adding their certifications to your public key. SourceForge.net: Project Info - Synchronizing Key Server. The SKS project has a release 0.1.3 and it is focused on synchronizing with other key servers. How trust is handled via these servers is not apparent. CryptNET Keyserver.&nsp; Here is the CKS project at CryptNet. Releases are signed. The idea is to operate a key-server network. SourceForge.net: CKS Project Info - CryptNET Key Server. A pretty active key-server project for OpenPGP. There is a pretty inactive one that was going to be written in Perl. CKS does have activity, it is not adequately reflected here. OpenPGP.org - Why OpenPGP is better. A Phil ZImmerman article on the advantages of the distributed/decentralized "CA" model and is use of a community of trust. Network analysis and access inspectionWS_Ping Pro Pack - The Ultimate Network Information Tool for Windows. The security arrangement on my Windows XP Pro is giving me the shudders. One problem is that I have to keep opening up privileges for lots of software to get it to run. I cannot be sure just what these puppies (like svchost.exe) are up to, and I want to find out. It seemed like a good idea to see what happens once I allow these programs to access the internet, not just my local LAN. This product was recommended in an article I was reading. Unfortunately, I already have two licensed copies of WS_FTP Pro, so I can't get the savings for WS_Ping ProPack.More Loose EndsMaterial yet to be properly organized, piling uo as usual. Once I get my web development system fully upgraded, I can figure out what I want to do about organizing material gleaned from the Internet and initially captured in this blog.SMC: The State Machine Compiler. Related to various development methodologies, here's a state-machine compiler that builds a state-machine framework in Java, C++ or Tcl [Tcl?] Advogato. A free-software developer's advocate. This site is also a research testbed for work on group trust metrics. Security in Plan 9. Cox, Russ., Grosse, Eric., Pike, Rob., Presotto, Dave., Quinlan, Sean. Security in Plan 9. pp. 3-15 in Proceedings of Security 2002. 11th Annual USENIX Security Symposium, August 2002. Published on-line here and also available in PDF. "Secure computing systems face two challenges: first, they must employ sophisticated technology that is difficult to design and prove correct; and second, they must be easy for regular people to use. The question of ease of use is sometimes neglected, but it is essential: weak but easy-to-use security can be more effective than strong but difficult-to-use security if it is more likely to be used. People lock their front doors when they leave the house, knowing full well that a burglar is capable of picking the lock (or avoiding the door altogether); yet few would accept the cost and awkwardness of a bank vault door on the house even though that might reduce the probability of a robbery. A related point is that users need a clear model of how the security operates (if not how it actually provides security) in order to use it well; for example, the clarity of a lock icon on a web browser is offset by the confusing and typically insecure steps for installing X.509 certificates." From the introduction. Emphasis added. Security '02 Technical Program - Abstract. About Factotem, the security agent of Plan 9, and how security management is factored to provide greater secure-usage convenience. It is suggested that the approach is more secure as well as easier to use. I did not have any difficulty accessing the paper. USENIX - Security '02 - 11th USENIX Security Symposium. The proceeedings of this conference are on-line, with invited talks and papers. Cryptography Research, Inc.. This site provides some key links and general information on cryptographic applications. The company theme is "Advancing academic research and providing industry-leading commerical services in cryptography and data security. This site is linked from a Builder.com newsletter article on the security exposures of feature-rich applications, where it is suggested that doubling the lines of code in an application quadruples the cost of securing the project. I want to get to the bottom of that and understand why there is any relationship between cost of securing and complexity of the application. 2003-02-25Group for User Interface Research - Projects. Work at the University of California, Berkeley. It would be nice to know the license that applies to all this software before downloading it. H2O - Rotisserie: Blue Oxen Collaboration Collaboratory: Tools Comparison Criterion. A collaboration tool that operates discussions in set rounds. eXchaNGeR - The XML browser (and XML Editor). An open-source development of XML editor and browser. I am still looking for an XML authoring tool, and this link from Jack Park is woth exploring. Collab: Start Up Scenario. An Eric Armstrong essay on Distributed Persistent Collaboration, and how one might acquire resources for acquiring resources for this purpose. Computer Made from DNA and Enzymes. Well, ok. A link from Vlad on theory-edge. I'm not sure I'd want one of these puppies in my drinking water, but this is clearly an area that will be explored furthe. 2003-02-24IBM-IKO: Trust and knowledge sharing. From Gerrit on CoWorking, an IBM study of expanding knowledge-sharing by promotion of trust. There is a PDF with some action-oriented recommendations.
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