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2004-03-06The Shifted Librarian. A great blog by a librarian who has definitely gone for the new communications technology. The Future of Computing Part 5: Evolution and the Bump - OSNews.com. This is an interesting article posted by Nicholas Blachford on 2004-02-26. I am not going to tell you about the ACM Technews blurb for it because it is so awful and so over-generalized that I almost didn't come here. Blachford is more balanced, though he has full confidence in the arrival of AI as something that will change everything and create a revolution in the world. Information Processing SystemsCollaborative and Cooperative ComputingWiki ResourcesI am very interested in Wiki and Wiki/Blog combinations in support of collaborative activities. My Associate, AnderBill, is keen to to this too. I want to find a lightweight way to accomplish what I want while using a typical hosted web site (e.g., with FrontPage extensions and ASP). My search for resources is promising enough that I should simply try something by bringing up a play-pen and then evolving it into a Wiki using an appropriate spiraling technique for bootstrapping to a wiki site that I can make part of the nfoWare toolcraft.OpenJade Distribution Page. The work on James Clark's Jade tools and DSSSL processor has been preserved in the OpenJade project on SourceForge. There are cool links to Clark's work generally and also to Relax NG (through his Thai Open Source Software Center). I love Clark's work, and the connection with Wiki (and blogness) is overpowering. I am starting to become anxious to start developing a wiki section on nfoWare. XML.com: From Wiki to XML, through SGML [Mar. 03, 2004]. Here's a great article recommended by Gary Johnson on the Blue Oxen Tools list. I have been looking at light-weight wikis and realize that I want to keep the items in XML so that they can be easily repurposed and formatted for browsers and also so that OHS techniques (including purple numbers) can be applied to them. So, while I am musing about that, here comes a way to build parsers that go from typical wiki-text (a source form for contributing wiki content) to XML. Huzzah. 2004-03-05FrontPage - MoinMoin. I just learned that Ward Cunningham likes Moin Moin for its clean design and nice modularity (the page parser is a plug-in). This is reason to be interested, though I still don't want to use python. Good code to look at, though. MoniWiki: Moni Wiki. This one may work too, except the features list is in Korean. This might be more work than I can handle. It is based on MoinMoin and a lot of the rules are the same. SourceForge.net: Project Info - Chiq_Chaq - wiki for regular people. This is a simple one written in Perl and JavaScript that purports to be minimalist. It is considered production stable, and that is useful too. SourceForge.net: Project Info - QwikiWiki. Here's another minimalist PHP Wiki using a BSD License, and brought to version 1.4 in about a year. I think I looked at this before. It is used for its own home page, and it looks to handle minimum features. If it had a plug-in model, that would be sweet too. Worth looking at. SourceForge.net: Project Info - Very Quick Wiki. This is in Java and JSP, so we will have to see if there are good ideas here. It is GPL and LGPL. It is all in a very large WAR file, so I will pass for now. SourceForge.net: Project eWiki Filelist. I can't find a stable release, and a lot has beem changing.&nbps; There are 840 bugs total. Not sure about this puppy. SourceForge.net: Project Info - ErfurtWiki. It turns out that MediaWiki uses a DBMS (as one would expect, for something on the scale of Wikipedia). Here is eWiki, which is also minimalist, in Public Domain, and PHP. One advantage is there is one script for the whole thing and it is proposed to be a quick way to bring up a Wiki on an existing web site. The only thing I noticed was that it was terribly slow and I stopped trying to see its home page. Maybe the code will show me why! Main Page - Wikimedia's Meta wiki. This is the Wiki about Wikimedia. It demonstrates the support for languages and characters, and is a benchmark. Wikimedia is refered to as a super project, and MediaWiki is the sofware that runs it. This is interesting enough to want to look at the lastest version of all this too. SourceForge.net: Project Info - MediaWiki. Here's the GPL'd PHP Wicki that the Wikipedia is built with. Its home page is a sort of version of itself. SourceForge.net: Project Wiki! Filelist. The last release was one year ago. The thing is tiny (7k). Still, probably a great starter. SourceForge.net: Project Info - Wiki!. This is a pure, basic GPL'd Wiki in PHP. Two developers have brought it to version 1.1.3. Seems like a basic way to start. (I have the wiki urge and am collecting sources.) Talk:Main Page - LinuxQuestions.org Wiki. This is the discuss thread to a page that shows a coherence problem with wiki-text entries. Such as what "#" means depending on where it is typed. This is an interesting problem to work on. Main Page - LinuxQuestions.org Wiki. Here's another Wiki, using the same software as Wikipedia, apparently, and set up to serve as a forum for Linux Questions, tips for newbies, and so on. I want to benchmark this and also look at ways to abstract what I want, along with Kwiki and other Wiki's that have modest server demands. Earlier notes on Wiki Resources Information TechnologyDistributed ComputingGrid ComputingThe grid is coming up in conjunction with P2P and multicast use of networks in our computer-networking course. I noticed the prospects for convergence earlier. Here is a careful look in terms of technology readiness and applicability in commercial settings.Network Magazine | Technology Architecture for the 21st Century. This is Andrew Conry-Murray's (undated) Network Magazine article on Grid Computing. Nice diagrams, useful links, and an assessment of technology readiness. ACM News Service -- Grid Computing's Promises and Perils. Well, I really wanted to do more about Wikis, but if I blog this one last news blurb, I can check off the reminder to look at Wednesday's technews and then look at Friday's (on Saturday). This article talks about appropriateness for a grid application, the concern about sharing ones resources with others, and the security and privacy issues. There is also mention of the standards and the expectation that Web Services will emerge as standard interfaces for grid computing. Information Processing SystemsCollaborative and Cooperative ComputingWiki ResourcesHere's what got me started looking for Wiki Resources again. I have since collected some other resources that are my inspiration for starting an nfoWare spiral.perl.com: CGI::Kwiki [May. 13, 2003]. Here's Brian Ingerson's (Ingy's) article on Kwiki. I like the minimalist part. Now I just have to make it work in ASP on an ISS hosted service. The Official Kwiki Web Site: KwikiKwiki. The official site for Kwiki. Nice home page. What I like is the Kwiki link, the Blog link, and a Search button at the very top. It is all done in Perl and works in CGI, apparently. That means it should work in ASP just fine and I must take a closer look. Socialtext -- Enterprise Social Software. Here's the Socialtext site. I don't like their pricing model (about $200 per seat per year, at the low end). They do have an open-source version, Socialtext Kwiki, based on the Kwiki engine. OK, well then ... Read Darwin -Wicked (Good) Wikis - SOCIAL COMMENTARY - Magazine - Darwin Magazine. This is Stowe Boyd's February 2004 article in Darwin. It provides a nice run-through of the basic appeal. The Wiki experience that Boyd encountered was with Socialtext, a Wiki with blogs included. It would appear that group chat and IM connection is not far behind. ACM News Service - Wicked (Good) Wikis. This article looks at the appeal of Wikis for development of collaborative efforts. It also looks at the social culture in which a Wiki can thrive. More-recent notes on Wiki Resources Computing MilieuxHuman - Technology InteractionsBeing responsible for evoking emotional responsesBoston.com / News / Local / Artificial emotion. This is the Sam Allis 2004-02-29 Boston Globe article with the interview of Sherry Turkle. Her own experience is fascinating:"We are very vulnerable to technology that knows how to push our buttons in a human way," she says. "We're a cheap date. Something makes eye contact with us and we cave hard. We'd better accept that about ourselves." Turkle, who has worked closely with the wizards at MIT's Artificial Intelligence lab, remembers vividly the first time she saw Cog, a robot developed there. "It made eye contact with me and traced my movement across the room," she recalls. "It moved its face and torso and paid attention to me and gestured toward me with an outstretched arm. It takes your breath away how you react to a robot looking at you." For us to appreciate this capacity in ourselves is important. It is also important to be choosy about what we allow in terms of our willingness to invest emotionally in objects. ACM News Service -- Artificial Emotion. This is an interesting article, because it deals with how we become emotionally invested in machines that provide attractions for human emotional connection. This is like the Eliza demonstration now being used to build appealing artifacts, like AIBO. Sherry Turkle is quoted as saying this is something we need to understand about human nature. Information TechnologyDistributed ComputingObject distributionPARC has reported a breakthrough in support for the easy, dynamic integration of distributed objects. It is a little daunting because it would be great for the technology to be public, and it appears that PARC is looking to license it. I am concerned because I want to see legal open-source approaches in this area.PARC eases communications between devices | CNET News.com. This does not show more on the two technologies, other than to emphasize that PARC is looking people to license the technologies and commercialize them. For the wireless security scheme, it would appear that one gets a key from a key server of some sort, at least in one approach. Hmm. ACM News Service - PARC Eases Communications Between Devices. Here's a blurb on the Obje announcement from PARC. It says that the technology is not yet ready to be commercialized and that a virtual machine is required. Hmm, will Parrot or Miser do? There is a related announcement concerning wireless technology and having the request for network-access keys work automatically. I would like to understand that one better too. Computing MilieuxMalwareThe great spam debateTechnology News: Security: IETF Conference Debates Antispam Proposals. This is John P. Mello's 2004-03-02 TechNewsWorld article on the debate at the IETF about email Spam and phishing. I should review this to consider what is a proper recipient and sender policy to manage at my edge. I have promised to do that, and it is time that I did.ACM News Service - IETF Conference Debates Antispam Proposals. This blurb covers the techniques for dealing with spam and making it easier to authenticate the source of e-mails. There are different edge behaviors and some concerns that filtering at intermediaries could be used to impinge on freedom of speech. 2004-03-02Information TechnologyComputer NetworkingBroadband over Power LinesCinergy plugs in as Web provider. This is Mike Boyer's 2004-03-02 Cincinnati Enquirer article on the announcement that Broadband over Power Lines (BPL) is being offered by the local utility. The BPL service is cheaper than cable TV or ADSL in the area and provides 1 Mbps both up and down. And away we go ... .Information Processing SystemsSyntax versus Semanticsapplication/wordperfect5.1. This is the IANA registration document (an e-mail) for the specified MIME (media-)type. This is an interesting registration, because it restricts features -- no OLE components or external references. This is an interesting issue with regard to nfoWare and I am noting it here as a reminder. What comes up is the tacit knowledge behind MIME types and also the level of ambiguity or generosity (depending on your point of view) allowed by tolerated by current receivers.Computing MilieuxHumans and TechnologyQwerksAmerican Scientist Online - Qwerks of History. This is the Brian Hayes, January 2004 American Scientist article. The spelling of Qwerks is related to the Qwerty keyboard, and the fact that it doesn't have to be the best -- it is established and works well enough so that replacing it is not economical.This is a great read. The mention of TeX as another Qwerk, and the problems of installers that people can't understand come up as well. The punch line of the article is great: "As for my own predictions, I'm going to paraphrase an old joke that used to be told about the Fortran programming language. I don't know what the operating system of the future will look like. All I know is that it will be called Unix." There's a bibliography and also some links to other neat columns by Brian Hayes. ACM News Service -- Qwerks of History. I and my classmates have been looking at the trauma of IPv6 introduction and the disruptive impact on IPv4. We notice that this is a lot like when IBM abandoned their different product families for the System/360 architecture and it points out the risks of changing the instruction set (in this case, the network layer of the Internet). There is 25-years of legacy code (!) running on the Intel instruction set, and the Unix file system model is now everywhere, including the corner web site. These are cases where no one is about to throw a switch, and technology is more durable than we sometimes think. Some important lessons. Information Processing SystemsCoherenceIntegration and Model EncouragementIBM heeds message to integrate IM, e-mail | CNET News.com. Here's the full Michael Kanellos 2004-03-01 C|net News.Com article on the subject.ACM News Service - IBM Heeds Message to Integrate IM, E-Mail. This news blurb includes some interesting background on the user requirements that led to IBM's NotesBuddy taking the form that it does. One has to do with use of a single address book and being able to capture, archive, and search IM dialogs. This is a good area for abstracting up a couple of levels. I wonder how PARC's Obje would fit into this picture? The general idea that people want to communicate, and to manage and organize their communications seems to be at the heart of this. It seems ripe for SOA and component architectures at the end-points, yes? Computing MilieuxComputing EducationCareers and CS EducationMicrosoft, Amid Dwindling Interest, Talks Up Computing as a Career. Here's the Steve Lohr, March 1, 2004, New York Times Technology article on Bill Gates visiting Urbana, Carnegie-Mellon, Cornell, MIT, and Harvard and talking up software and computer science.MIT enrollments have declined 33% over two years. Here is the part that concerns me: "Enrollments are down at the best computer science schools, where the potential stars of technology's future are groomed. Professors say there is less enthusiasm for the discipline among students, and they worry it may be more than a lingering disenchantment after the dot-com bubble burst." ACM News Service -- Microsoft, Amid Dwindling Interest, Talks Up Computing as a Career. The 23% decline in enrollments of computer-science majors in North America has people concerned. Bill Gates is on the road talking to students and pointing out the attractions of the field and the value of a CS education in almost anything one chooses to do later. This reminds me of the importance of initiatives like CP4E (Computer Programming 4 Everyone) and SE4E (Software Engineering, ditto) and also finding ways to motivate people around the great principles of computing [Peter Denning] and what is exciting and challenging about how computing is applied in support of the worthy work of our companies, industries, organizations, institutions, and society itself. I think the dread of mathematics that I am encountering in IT is also an issue. Meanwhile, getting off of my soap box, this is something to keep an eye on. After all, I am getting my M.Sc in IT specifically to equip myself for teaching at this level and also undergraduate CS topics not-to-mention "computer appreciation." Trustworthy ComputingDesigning correct programs?ACM: Ubiquity - Correct by Design. Ubiquity 5, 2 (March 3, 2004) has this interview with Jesse Poore where correctness and use of formal methods are conflated, collapsed, and confused. It is one of those "right church, wrong pew" things for me. There's good discussion of David Parnas and Harlan Mills, so I must look at this more closely soon.2004-03-01Iterative vs. waterfall software development: Why don't companies get it? - Computerworld. Bill Walton's 2004-02-24 Opinion piece in ComputerWorld: Wow. This is an easy-to-read, easy-to-follow rationale about the nature of software development -- it is almost exclusively design -- and where that matches up with what hardware developers do. The argument for interative development and solid customer participation is very compelling and I am eager to see the next articles in this promised series.
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