Berners-Lee excited about data.gov and the rise of the Semantic Web
Posted by Trond on October 16, 2009
http://www.topicobserver.com/blog/semantic-web/2009/berners-lee-excited-about-data-gov-and-the-rise-of-the-semantic-web/
Canoo WebTest: Get Request URL & Refresh Page
The other day I needed to “re-invoke”/refresh the current page – i.e. the response HTML – during a <webtest />.
Since neither the manual nor a couple of quick Google searches gave me what I needed, here’s how I solved the problem using a simple <scriptStep> followed by an <invoke>:
<scriptStep description="Get the current HTTP Request URL." language="groovy">
def url = step.getContext()
.getCurrentResponse()
.getWebResponse()
.getRequestSettings()
.getUrl()
.toExternalForm();
step.setWebtestProperty('tmp.currentRequestUrl', url, step.PROPERTY_TYPE_DYNAMIC);
</scriptStep>
<!-- now you can use it like this or pass it to a definition -->
<invoke url="#{tmp.currentRequestUrl}" />
In case it might be of use to you…
Posted by Trond on September 30, 2009
http://www.topicobserver.com/blog/web-development/2009/getting-the-current-request-url-and-refreshing-the-page-inside-a-canoo-webtest/
DC-X
Google Alerts recently notified me of Digital Collection, a German supplier of software for managing and research of digital information
, which has created a topic maps based tool for news monitoring, research, archiving, workflows and now content creation
called DC-X.
From the company’s blog entry:
The benefits of treating thesaurus and list terms as topics in a topic map:
- Built-in support for multiple names, which we’re using to store translations for terms: All lists and thesauri can now be multi-lingual.
- Class/instance relationship between terms; the “City” list is itself a topic, “Hamburg” and “Oslo” are instances of the “City” topic. This way an unlimited number of lists or thesauri can co-exist. Terms can even belong to multiple lists.
- Arbitrary relations between terms: A thesaurus hierarchy is modeled using associations like “broader/narrower” or “synonym/preferred term”. Geographic hierarchies can use “part/whole” associations.
- External identifier URIs can be specified for any term, so metadata can be mapped to metadata of other software using RDF, or anything else that points to the same URI.
- Custom metadata can be attached to any term. We’ll use this for thesaurus “scope notes”, geo coordinates for cities etc.
They also mention that it is implemented based on XTM, why they chose not to use RDF, how the tool can be used, as well as plans for implementing a topic map browser and editor.
Alexander Johannesen’s Event Model Ontology
While blogging I might as well be the first one (?) to link to Alexander Johannesen’s “Missing ontological serinity in the world of software systems architecture” and “What event model ontology?” 
Posted by Trond on September 14, 2009
http://www.topicobserver.com/blog/semantic-web/tm/2009/dc-x/
Shakespeare Topic Map
Back when I was in the university I took an undergraduate subject called Web programming. As part of that class, each student had to build a web site presenting the Shakespeare plays in a given format. The source was a bunch of XML documents.
Building the site using PHP and SAX parsing was fun enough at the time, but even though the XTM 1.0 specification mentions #play, #shakespeare and #written-by, I can’t recall ever seeing a topic map enabled site of the Shakespeare plays.
I therefore thought that it’d be fun to transform the Shakespeare XMLs into a topic map and publish it through a web site built on top of Ontopia.
I’m just putting the front end together piece by piece (15 mins here and 15 mins there :/ – currently not very usable).
The current (draft) version of the topic map is available for export (~23 MB LTM, ~133 MB XTM 2.0). This can also be browsed with Omnigator. If you observe any major flaws, feel free to leave a comment below
Posted by Trond on September 2, 2009
http://www.topicobserver.com/blog/semantic-web/tm/2009/shakespeare-topic-map/
As Good As It Gets
It’s been quite quiet around here lately, but I just had to post this gem.
Talisman Energy’s web site welcomes you with the words:
Conditions for Viewing this Site.
Say no more … or perhaps maybe just the note:
NOTE: Clicking on “Accept” will enable you to view the rest of this website without having to “Accept” again within 30 days.
These people must have understood something that I missed.
Posted by Trond on August 28, 2009
http://www.topicobserver.com/blog/usability/2009/as-good-as-it-gets/
Topic Maps in May: Ontopia & Subj3ct
Ontopia
The Ontopia project has had it’s “kick-off” meeting, which I unfortunately could not attend, and set up a blog at http://ontopia.wordpress.com/, with mailing list at http://groups.google.com/group/ontopia. Awesome.
Subj3ct
Back in May, NetworkedPlanet launched Subj3ct.com. I quote: Subj3ct provides the technology and services to enable Web 3.0 applications to define and exchange subject definitions
.
Posted by Trond on June 3, 2009
http://www.topicobserver.com/blog/semantic-web/tm/2009/topic-maps-in-may-ontopia-subj3ct/
Setting Up Zope Topic Maps (ZTM3)
I originally intended to post this as a follow up to the Topic Maps 2009: Conference Day entry, but as our little baby girl wanted out 1 month prior to the ETA, I all of a sudden got my hands full — and so I didn’t get to finish it until recently. Anyways, here goes…
The newest version of the open source CMS (SMS (?)) based on Zope and Topic Maps – ZTM3 reached beta stage earlier this year.
While its predecessor — ZTM2, running on Zope 2.x — has been empowering a multitude of web portals for years (examples: Arctic-Council.org, Forbrukerportalen.no, Hoyre.no), ZTM3 is a new and completely re-written ZTM implementation built on the Zope 3 eco system
.
It initially started with the new University of Bergen (UiB) web site, which is the only publicly available ZTM3 empowered site to date (presented at Topic Maps 2009), and is (as far as I know) currently used by the UiB and one additional organization.
Released under the LGPL/GPL license and fully open source, there is, however, no reason why it should end there.
I’m just starting to get familiar with ZTM3 myself, and this blog post is both a result of my own initial testing & previewing of ZTM3, as well as an attempt to raise awareness about ZTM3′s existence amongst my fellow web developers.
Lets start by having a look at how you can set up and get started with ZTM3, and then move on to more “advanced” stuff in subsequent postings (I only hope that those can follow in not too long).
No prior knowledge of Zope or Topic Maps is required… Read the full post »
Posted by Trond on May 2, 2009
http://www.topicobserver.com/blog/semantic-web/tm/2009/setting-up-zope-topic-maps-ztm3/