Re: call to arms

2010/3/30 Paola Di Maio <paola.dimaio@gmail.com>

> Melvin
>
> you provide a nice list, but I have the impression most people find it
> ..... not fun?
>
> I think you can achieve most of what you say below with less complexity
> using more intuitive systems (say open ID)
>

Dont get me wrong I'm a big fan of OpenID, but it was the complexity of
OpenID that lead me to FOAF+SSL.  With openid you need a server that can
provide and verify your identity.  With FOAF+SSL you just need one click to
make your browser into your own identity provider.  FOAF also has the
wonderful side-effect that once you've got the ID, you've got all the
friends and other information there, for free.


>
> if there were  intefaces to wrap around the components without me having to
> handle the complexity, and
> provide what you say below as a web service, I ll be the first to have a go
>
> Do not expect non geeks, non experts, to actually work tru the complexity
> below to achive what is
> from the 'operational logic' a very marginal utility that can be achieved
> using other means with less effort
>

It's not necesarily that hard, and I cut corners where necessary, in improve
iteratively, as necessary.

curl -d " insert { <#x> <#y> <#z> } " URI

Is enough to insert a datapoint into a datawiki.  That's a pretty good
start, which gives you awesome power.


>
> As I emailed Danny and Sandro offlist, user centric design starts
> developing a system from the users viewpoint
> (the interfaces).
>
> from where I stand, the main thing the SW needs is interfaces that
> simplyfy/enable/support/facilitate the navigation thru the sw functions
> (for example a comprehensive dumbproof website with an interface that
> guides me thru all the things I can do with the zillion triples already in
> the wild)
> try this, try that, enter some data here to transform it into RDF, then
> enter some data here to see the relation of this object with another object
> etc)
>
> task model orientation kind of thing
>
>
> give me an interface that does all that for me I ll test drive it any day
>

Agree 100% that non-geeks are missing out on semantic web goodness, but it's
a fact that good UI's take time to build and/or capital investment.

But how about this one, though?

http://linkedgeodata.org/browser/?lat=51.512596339703&lon=-0.11626397668084&zoom=16&prop=amenity&val=pub

Here's one I built, it's a work in progress, that's not really much by
modern standards, but at least you can click on various tabs.

http://foaf.me/index.php?webid=http://danbri.org/foaf.rdf#danbri

Hopefully we can build out better UI's over time.


>
>
>
> PDM
>
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, Mar 29, 2010 at 9:58 PM, Melvin Carvalho <melvincarvalho@gmail.com
> > wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> 2010/3/29 Danny Ayers <danny.ayers@gmail.com>
>>
>>> Good news Melvin. Now how do I get something like you've got?
>>>
>>
>> Work out what you do, then build it piece by piece.  I think when more
>> people start using sparql update we'll have a lot more interesting
>> situations on our hands, so sparql 1.1 is going to be great in that respect.
>>
>> Some Components I Use (probably in order of usefulness):
>>
>> Desktop -- I use Ubuntu with all the excellent command line tooling
>> SPARQL Update / Datawiki -- I use
>> http://bnode.org/blog/2008/01/15/arc-data-wiki-plugin
>> Certificates -- Probably right now the best place is xwiki
>> http://webid.myxwiki.org/
>> FOAF+SSL Login -- I use henry's delegated server to become a login
>> https://foafssl.org/srv/idp?authreqissuer=<SITE_URI>
>> WebDAV -- I use a the PEAR server
>> http://pear.php.net/package/HTTP_WebDAV_Server/redirected
>>
>> I'm generally inspired by the discussions on the foaf-protocols list,
>> which is where I've shared most of the things I've looked at (
>> http://lists.foaf-project.org/mailman/listinfo/foaf-protocols ).  I tend
>> to share my code on github etc. some is still quite basic and in progress,
>> but it tends to get cleaned up according to interest.
>>
>>
>>>
>>> On 29 March 2010 23:38, Melvin Carvalho <melvincarvalho@gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > 2010/3/29 Danny Ayers <danny.ayers@gmail.com>
>>> >>
>>> >> Right now, despite the promise, things seem mired in the mud. People
>>> >> aren't seeing the things that the Web of Data has proposed.
>>> >>
>>> >> How do we get over this?
>>> >>
>>> >> Face to face maybe - the bits the interwebs can't provide.
>>> >>
>>> >> I suggest the leading lights of this sturm sit down in a room
>>> >> somewhere in northern Europe, and hammer the damn thing down. It is so
>>> >> stupid for it to take so long.
>>> >>
>>> >> The Internet, and the Web is excellent at providing miraculous stuff,
>>> >> but the humans that tie the things together seem to be disappearing
>>> >> into different worlds.
>>> >>
>>> >> The Semantic Web should be useful by now, by anyone's predictions.
>>> >
>>> > The Semantic Web IS useful, at least I find it so.
>>> >
>>> > For years and years I looked for a way to login to a website without me
>>> > having to run a server or have lots of passwords, my search lead me to
>>> > FOAF+SSL, I now run half a dozen little websites, each part of my
>>> linked
>>> > data footprint, and use my certificate to login.  I can also log in to
>>> any
>>> > openid site with my own FOAF certificate.  Before apple broke it, I was
>>> able
>>> > to log into my sites using an ipod touch with one press, which I dont
>>> think
>>> > anyone has done before.
>>> >
>>> > For a long time I wanted to create a task list and notifications
>>> system.  I
>>> > now use sparql update to upload my tasks to my own personal data wiki
>>> (I
>>> > sometimes use webdav), use roqet and sparql to get some values back,
>>> process
>>> > them a bit (one day I'll learn RIF or N3 rules), and then it hooks into
>>> my
>>> > kalarm clock and notifies me when I have to do stuff.
>>> >
>>> > My tasks are stored in my personal 'nano' blog which scores me an
>>> integer
>>> > between 0-255 for the various things I do during the day.  I can track
>>> how
>>> > productive I've been on a given day, week or month, and compare that to
>>> my
>>> > historical and moving averages for that day, or in other contexts.  I
>>> can
>>> > update my nanoblog with the press of a key, or, just for fun I made a
>>> little
>>> > device I can hang round my neck, when I press a button, it sends a
>>> keystroke
>>> > to my machine, and relays that off to the cloud.
>>> >
>>> > I run a small open source project, and wanted to reward people with
>>> some
>>> > karma every time I fixed a bug.  I can do that by hooking my ticket
>>> system
>>> > into another site which stores karma for people for the things they've
>>> done
>>> > and it's marked up in RDFa.  Indeed they can transfer that karma to
>>> someone
>>> > else, if that other person has contributed, and use FOAF+SSL.  I can
>>> get
>>> > notified when someone has fixed a bug in my project, or made an
>>> improvement
>>> > to the wiki.  In effect my project has done a virtual IPO and is
>>> issuing
>>> > it's own virtual currency, karma.  One day it might offer to buy the
>>> karma
>>> > back.
>>> >
>>> > One other thing I do is that I can aggregate all the accounts in my
>>> FOAF and
>>> > my blog, and can see all the activities that they have done recently,
>>> > delicious bookmarks, twitter, flickr etc.  I can jump to a someone in
>>> my
>>> > foaf:knows list and see what they've done.  With smob I host my own
>>> > microblog on my homepage, and my posts get relayed out to my followers,
>>> > twitter, and sindice.
>>> >
>>> > I haven't even mentioned linked data yet.  With linked geo data I can
>>> look
>>> > at all the amenites on my street, in my town, and link them to other
>>> > resources.  It wont be long before my friends with smartphones will be
>>> able
>>> > to check in to places, and I'll be able to meet them for a coffee.
>>> >
>>> > I've only been really following the Semantic Web closely for about 2
>>> years,
>>> > and most of that time has been learning, but if there's one thing I
>>> would
>>> > describe it as, it would be USEFUL.  Some of this stuff can only really
>>> be
>>> > done on the semantic web.  I cant describe to you how happy this makes
>>> me.
>>> > And there's so much more to come, it's only going to get better and
>>> better.
>>> > I build this stuff primarily for myself to use, but it's usable by
>>> anyone.
>>> > Once other people start using global data, using authorization, making
>>> > things read write, and linking it together, the usefulness will expand
>>> > exponentially.
>>> >
>>> > I'm LOVING the Semantic Web.  We have this incredible playground, this
>>> > universe, and it's all ours!   They say that all good innovation comes
>>> from
>>> > scratching an itch.  What's your itch?  Why not use the web of data to
>>> give
>>> > it a scratch?  And maybe we can all become a bit richer from it ... :)
>>> >
>>> >>
>>> >> something better change
>>> >>
>>> >> (I'm a scaredy pacifist, so don't take that to heart)
>>> >>
>>> >> --
>>> >> http://danny.ayers.name
>>> >>
>>> >
>>> >
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> http://danny.ayers.name
>>>
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Paola Di Maio
> **************************************************
> “Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.”
> Albert Einstein
> **************************************************
>
>