Michael Daum Consulting Blog (combined)

Classification in Plain English

MichaelDaum — 2008-06-18T13:13:00Z

You probably already know the famous "... in plain english" videos by <a href="http://www.commoncraft.com/blog" target="_top">Lee LeFever</a> like <a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/Blog/BlogEntry67" class="twikiLink">Wikis in Plain English</a>. Okay, here's one other, this time not by Lee. That's an original by Ernie and Bert on the Sesame Street. Ernie is trying to group toys to decide who is going to clear the mess. Well, just see how he fails to come up with a classification to make it a fair job.<div id="" class="imageFloat imageFloat_center " ><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch%3fv%3ddvTFv5xJUQc" class="imageHref" title="SesameStreetSnap1.png"><img border="0" src="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/pub/Blog/BlogImages/SesameStreetSnap1.png" alt="SesameStreetSnap1.png" width="437" height="330" longdesc="SesameStreetSnap1.png" /></a></div> Tags: <a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/Blog/BlogArchive?mode=tag&search=classification" rel="tag">classification</a>, <a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/Blog/BlogArchive?mode=tag&search=collaboration" rel="tag">collaboration</a>, <a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/Blog/BlogArchive?mode=tag&search=knowledgemanagement" rel="tag">knowledgemanagement</a>

MichaelDaum replies on "Feedback"

MichaelDaum — 2007-12-12T15:30:11Z

TWiki for Bloggers That's exactly what I am currently working on. The blog plugin is being rewritten using the new TWikiWorkbench approach and the ClassificationPlugin to provide hierarchical categories. SubjectCategories in BlogPlugin will be renamed to "Channels" as this is more reflecting what to use the categories for in a blog.There are some more applications that will go into that TWikiBundle. No promisses, but it will speed up ROI a lot, so to say.

Andrew Shmelev replies on "Feedback"

Andrew Shmelev — 2007-12-12T15:10:56Z

How to make the same TWiki application you have ? May be you can share preconfigured bundle of your Wiki-blog application, just the same you use at this site ? Or may be a short instruction about composing an application.

Bye bye JojoWiki - Hello MD Consulting

MichaelDaum — 2007-10-12T09:45:00Z

Once again this site has been redesigned. Well, for 1 year, 4 months we had the ``black water'' theme, dark and quite special. This wasn't quite appropriate anymore as business expanded from that of a free lancing TWiki consultant to a real company. So enjoy the much improved current design.This is much more corporate designing, although with a touch of irony and fun, much brighter. I first went to <a href="http://www.4templates.com" target="_top">4templates</a>, a great site for html, flash, logos and business cards, as I did not want to come up with a design all by myself. So I bought this one for a couple of bucks and finished it in TWiki/NatSkin. Infact, I had to rewrite it mostly, leaving only the basic idea and colorset in place. The package I downloaded from 4templates was coded too badly and surely was not fit to cover a CMS. In addition its imagery was targeted at a medical site, not an internet consultancy. However, I really liked the original design and its potential to be quite appropriate. Well, and then I went out and bought the michaeldaumconsulting.com domain to get away with using the wikiring.de domain for my own business. While the primary brand of this site is MD Consulting, the WikiRing will only be used as a secondary branding, as required by the Terms of Business for WikiRing partners. I moved over all the content and user accounts from the old JojoWiki blog in here as I didn't want to cut that off and all blogging happening here from now on will be in direct continuation of what was there, a mix of business related and personal news and opinions. So while the old JojoWiki site was a blog foremost, the MD Consulting site is much more of an corporate site, which happens to integrate a blog as well. I am not sure what I will do with the old JojoWiki theme. Maybe I am going to open source it as part of the NatSkin package. Ok, so this all is quite fresh and the MD theme for this site is not quite finished with some rough edges here and there. For those of you that use the <a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/TWiki/NatSkinStyleBrowser" class="twikiLink">NatSkinStyleBrowser</a> to explore available designs you will experience that the markup of the current site does not fit 100% the standard css of NatSkin. That's mostly due to the reworked header art and logos for the MD theme. I will find a way around this soon. Last not least a message to all you rss feed readers: come along and visit this site ... and drop me a line of what you think. Tags: <a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/Blog/BlogArchive?mode=tag&search=lookandfeel" rel="tag">lookandfeel</a>, <a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/Blog/BlogArchive?mode=tag&search=natskin" rel="tag">natskin</a>, <a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/Blog/BlogArchive?mode=tag&search=twiki" rel="tag">twiki</a>, <a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/Blog/BlogArchive?mode=tag&search=webdesign" rel="tag">webdesign</a>

The Brand new Heavies made me switch from Konqueror to Firefox

MichaelDaum — 2007-10-02T16:00:00Z

Here's one of my favorite bands, sharing videos on <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/The+Brand+New+Heavies/+videos/Stay+This+Way" target="_top">last.fm</a> recently. Too bad my Konqueror is having problems with gtk based browser plugins, such as flash, that are badly programmed and don't call gtk_init (or what was it) before using the toolkit. So right now, any non-gtk applications using flash, e.g. Konqueror, freeze solid on ``flashed'' websites. Firefox, being a native gtk application, is ok however ... waiting for Debian. <center> <object width="340" height="289" id="player" classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=9,0,0,0" align="middle"> <param name="movie" value="http://cdn.last.fm/videoplayer/33/VideoPlayer.swf" /> <param name="menu" value="false" /> <param name="quality" value="high" /> <param name="bgcolor" value="#000000" /> <param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /> <param name="flashvars" value="embed=true&creator=The+Brand+New+Heavies&title=Stay+This+Way&uniqueName=Stay+This+Way&albumArt=http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00005A09M.01.MZZZZZZZ.jpg&album=The+Brand+New+Heavies&duration=246&image=http://panther3.last.fm/storable/videocap/24929/0/original.jpg&FSSupport=true" /> <embed src="http://cdn.last.fm/videoplayer/33/VideoPlayer.swf" menu="false" quality="high" bgcolor="#000000" width="340" height="289" name="player" align="middle" allowFullScreen="true" flashvars="embed=true&creator=The+Brand+New+Heavies&title=Stay+This+Way&uniqueName=Stay+This+Way&albumArt=http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00005A09M.01.MZZZZZZZ.jpg&album=The+Brand+New+Heavies&duration=246&image=http://panther3.last.fm/storable/videocap/24929/0/original.jpg&FSSupport=true" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" /> </object> <object width="340" height="289" id="player" classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=9,0,0,0" align="middle"> <param name="movie" value="http://cdn.last.fm/videoplayer/33/VideoPlayer.swf" /> <param name="menu" value="false" /> <param name="quality" value="high" /> <param name="bgcolor" value="#000000" /> <param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /> <param name="flashvars" value="embed=true&creator=The+Brand+New+Heavies&title=Never+Stop&uniqueName=Never+Stop&albumArt=http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/P/B00005B0E3.01._SCMZZZZZZZ_.jpg&album=The+Acid+Jazz+Years&duration=254&image=http://panther3.last.fm/storable/videocap/24914/0/original.jpg&FSSupport=true" /> <embed src="http://cdn.last.fm/videoplayer/33/VideoPlayer.swf" menu="false" quality="high" bgcolor="#000000" width="340" height="289" name="player" align="middle" allowFullScreen="true" flashvars="embed=true&creator=The+Brand+New+Heavies&title=Never+Stop&uniqueName=Never+Stop&albumArt=http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/P/B00005B0E3.01._SCMZZZZZZZ_.jpg&album=The+Acid+Jazz+Years&duration=254&image=http://panther3.last.fm/storable/videocap/24914/0/original.jpg&FSSupport=true" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" /> </object> <object width="340" height="289" id="player" classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=9,0,0,0" align="middle"> <param name="movie" value="http://cdn.last.fm/videoplayer/33/VideoPlayer.swf" /> <param name="menu" value="false" /> <param name="quality" value="high" /> <param name="bgcolor" value="#000000" /> <param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /> <param name="flashvars" value="embed=true&creator=The+Brand+New+Heavies&title=I+Don%27t+Know+Why+%28I+Love+You%29&uniqueName=I+Don%27t+Know+Why+%28I+Love+You%29&albumArt=http://cdn.last.fm/coverart/130x130/2473767.jpg&album=Get+Used+to+It&duration=215&image=http://panther3.last.fm/storable/videocap/24906/0/original.jpg&FSSupport=true" /> <embed src="http://cdn.last.fm/videoplayer/33/VideoPlayer.swf" menu="false" quality="high" bgcolor="#000000" width="340" height="289" name="player" align="middle" allowFullScreen="true" flashvars="embed=true&creator=The+Brand+New+Heavies&title=I+Don%27t+Know+Why+%28I+Love+You%29&uniqueName=I+Don%27t+Know+Why+%28I+Love+You%29&albumArt=http://cdn.last.fm/coverart/130x130/2473767.jpg&album=Get+Used+to+It&duration=215&image=http://panther3.last.fm/storable/videocap/24906/0/original.jpg&FSSupport=true" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" /> </object> </center> Last.fm is doing a great service! They've sent me an email notification that these videos are available on the base of my listening habits. All of the site is based on profiling their users, collecting data which song you played when etc. Maybe some day I will discover iTunes but it seems I am not ready for that hype. And did you know last.fm has got a wiki too? Here's what they <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/The+Brand+New+Heavies" target="_top">write about The Brand New Heavies</a>. <cite> The Brand New Heavies are an acid jazz and alternative hip hop group formed in 1985 in Ealing, a suburb of London, England. Originally an instrumental rare groove group, the Brand New Heavies gained a cult following in the London club scene and soon signed to Cooltempo as acid house replaced rare groove in clubs. </cite> Lots of their content is carried over from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brand_New_Heavies" target="_top">WikiPedia</a>. Let me guess, they don't sync their wikis if users write in one or the other places. Tags: <a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/Blog/BlogArchive?mode=tag&search=browser" rel="tag">browser</a>, <a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/Blog/BlogArchive?mode=tag&search=debian" rel="tag">debian</a>, <a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/Blog/BlogArchive?mode=tag&search=firefox" rel="tag">firefox</a>, <a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/Blog/BlogArchive?mode=tag&search=funk" rel="tag">funk</a>, <a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/Blog/BlogArchive?mode=tag&search=gtk" rel="tag">gtk</a>, <a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/Blog/BlogArchive?mode=tag&search=jazz" rel="tag">jazz</a>, <a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/Blog/BlogArchive?mode=tag&search=konqueror" rel="tag">konqueror</a>, <a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/Blog/BlogArchive?mode=tag&search=music" rel="tag">music</a>

Wikis in Plain English

MichaelDaum — 2007-09-13T10:26:00Z

Just came across this nice <a href="http://www.commoncraft.com/video-wikis-plain-english" target="_top">posting</a> on <a href="http://www.commoncraft.com/blog" target="_top">Lee LeFever's blog</a> This is a 3:52 minutes video explaining how to manage project coordination using wikis instead of emails.<div id="" class="imageFloat imageFloat_center " ><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch%3fv%3d-dnL00TdmLY" class="imageHref" title="YouTubeSnap2.png"><img border="0" src="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/pub/Blog/BlogImages/YouTubeSnap2.png" alt="YouTubeSnap2.png" width="426" height="342" longdesc="YouTubeSnap2.png" /></a></div> True, you could just meet in a nice pub nearby and talk everything through. But most of the time you are located in different areas, not having time to meet face 2 face. Other options are telephone conferences or web conferences. Still, wikis are simpler and more sustainable. Wikis are helpful for a wide range of applications for yourself only, a group of friends or for project management in a corporate environment. Tags: <a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/Blog/BlogArchive?mode=tag&search=wikis" rel="tag">wikis</a>

MichaelDaum replies on "Feedback"

MichaelDaum — 2007-08-23T16:44:46Z

Have a look at your Blog.WebPreferences. Maybe you've put the BlogAuthorGroup into some access control list there. That's wrong then. BlogEntries are write-restricted on a per topic base. Anything else should be open. Check your global settings in Main.TWikiPreferences also.

RyanBoyles replies on "Feedback"

RyanBoyles — 2007-08-23T16:21:56Z

Blog Comments I have an issue where I restrict the BlogAuthor group to a set of authors, but the result is that other registered users can't create comments. How can I fix this? Thanks!

Scopitones, succumb to your addition to trash

MichaelDaum — 2007-02-12T14:27:00Z

This is one of my long-time favorite sites, that I really enjoy to visit from time to time: a site full of music videos, old music videos.<div id="" class="imageFloat imageFloat_left " ><a href="http://scopitones.com" class="imageHref" title="scopitones.com"><img border="0" src="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/pub/Blog/BlogImages/scopitones-header.gif" alt="scopitones-header.gif" width="160" height="50" longdesc="scopitones.com" /></a></div> This site, is dedicated to the origins of music videos presented in a kind of jukebox. The Scopitone Machine was invented in the early 1960ies in France using surplus World War II airplane parts. There was some forerunner of those ``color sound film viewers'' invented in Italy shortly before that. You can still buy a scopitones machine at ebay for ca. $1,200.00 ... <div id="" class="imageFloat imageFloat_right " ><a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/pub/Blog/BlogImages/scopitone-inc.jpeg" class="imageHref" title="scopitone-inc.jpeg"><img border="0" src="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/pub/Blog/BlogImages/_230___scopitone-inc.jpeg" alt="scopitone-inc.jpeg" width="230" height="303" longdesc="scopitone-inc.jpeg" /></a></div> Or download some of the clips from scopitones.com (is this legal?) and play them back using your laptop and a beamer on your next 60ies party. The funny thing about this video jukebox is that the players in those movies had to act in a rather restrained way because of the very narrow visual boundary of the video format. They are obviously not supported by nowadays professional choreographers ... even though those are also funny from a certain perspective. In the end, the machine was arranged in a corner of a bar with a little display on the top, not comparable with today's MTV productions (multiple cuts per seconds, fast moving cameras). After all, this is exactly the appeal of those old clips fanning your addiction to trash. I don't want to say that those clips are really trash. They are, but in a charming way. There's good trash and bad trash. Bad trash is one that you can't stand because it is so trashy. Good trash is cult. Maybe today's MTV trash will be cult in 40 years from now on. I don't know. Well, go ahead and give it a try and see for how long you can stand it. Tags: <a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/Blog/BlogArchive?mode=tag&search=jazz" rel="tag">jazz</a>, <a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/Blog/BlogArchive?mode=tag&search=music" rel="tag">music</a>, <a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/Blog/BlogArchive?mode=tag&search=retro" rel="tag">retro</a>, <a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/Blog/BlogArchive?mode=tag&search=trash" rel="tag">trash</a>, <a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/Blog/BlogArchive?mode=tag&search=video" rel="tag">video</a>

MichaelDaum replies on "Fighting back Wiki and Blog spam"

MichaelDaum — 2007-01-14T18:49:49Z

Shrug That was a bad idea ... disabling anonymous commenting again.

Fighting back Wiki and Blog spam

MichaelDaum — 2007-01-12T17:53:00Z

There are lots of good blogs&wikis out there that suffer from steady attacks of the spammers. Simply set up a page that says ``Guestbook'' and you get loads of it. They buzz around the net like blowflies sh**. Anyway, I opened up this blog for anonymous commenting again in the hope that the newly installed <a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/TWiki/AntiWikiSpamPlugin" class="twikiLink">AntiWikiSpamPlugin</a> will keep them away. Tags: <a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/Blog/BlogArchive?mode=tag&search=blogs" rel="tag">blogs</a>, <a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/Blog/BlogArchive?mode=tag&search=plugin" rel="tag">plugin</a>, <a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/Blog/BlogArchive?mode=tag&search=spam" rel="tag">spam</a>, <a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/Blog/BlogArchive?mode=tag&search=wikis" rel="tag">wikis</a>

James Brown died today

MichaelDaum — 2006-12-25T22:45:00Z

Our <a href="http://www.funky-stuff.com/" target="_top">Godfather of Soul</a> just died today in a hospital in Atlanta where he has been treated for a sever pneumonia.This man and his music is one of the most important puzzle pieces in modern history of music. We love you. We thank you. Tags: <a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/Blog/BlogArchive?mode=tag&search=funk" rel="tag">funk</a>, <a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/Blog/BlogArchive?mode=tag&search=jazz" rel="tag">jazz</a>, <a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/Blog/BlogArchive?mode=tag&search=music" rel="tag">music</a>, <a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/Blog/BlogArchive?mode=tag&search=obituary" rel="tag">obituary</a>

Doubts about the size of the blogsphere

MichaelDaum — 2006-12-08T17:56:00Z

Simple question: when is a blog gone?There are obvious signs for a blog to have closed doors: the domain is gone, the site isn't hosting the blog anymore, there might be technical reasons like it being broken and not fixed for a longer time. There are also not so obvious signs, for example that there's no new posting for quite some time. This may be just because the owner is on a longer vacation trip ... away for new material to blog about. People stop blogging for very personal reasons. An old blog may have silently been superseeded by another one, where the writer is publishing now, forgetting about the former. Admitting that this blog is dead is not that easy as announcing a new one. So blogs die silently, and this is hard to find out automatically, e.g. by using a web crawler. You might know the proud stats by technorati about the number of new blogs that are claimed and the pings they receive per second, showing how the blogsphere is growing faster and faster, doubling in size every 5 months. But who is counting down? For instance, I quit jojowiki.dyndns.org and relaunched as micha.wikiring.de taking over the old content. I simply have no means to remove the record from technorati or even google. I can delete a blog claim, but it remains in the database of technorati. What about all those blogs that haven't updated for more than, let's say, one year. This is incredibly long, for me an obvious sign that those blogs are abandoned. Frankly, I'd kick out a blog if there've been no postings for 1/2 a year. Bottom line: most probably there are no 55 million blogs, active and maintained. As fine as it is that people start blogging, I am more interested to know when they stop and why. Will you still be blogging tomorrow? Tags: <a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/Blog/BlogArchive?mode=tag&search=blogsphere" rel="tag">blogsphere</a>, <a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/Blog/BlogArchive?mode=tag&search=statistics" rel="tag">statistics</a>, <a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/Blog/BlogArchive?mode=tag&search=technorati" rel="tag">technorati</a>

The discovery of Nullity, a new number

MichaelDaum — 2006-12-07T09:41:00Z

<a href="http://www.cs.reading.ac.uk/people/J.Anderson.htm" target="_top">Dr. James Anderson</a>, from the University of Reading's computer science department solved the 1200 year old problem of dividing by zero, which results in a new number called ``nullity''.So now if I divide something by nothing, nothing will happen anymore, as it is all nullity. Here's the full ``explanation'': Definition: <div id="" class="imageFloat imageFloat_none " ><a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/pub/Blog/BlogImages/NullityDef.png" class="imageHref" title="NullityDef.png"><img border="0" src="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/pub/Blog/BlogImages/NullityDef.png" alt="NullityDef.png" width="181" height="113" longdesc="NullityDef.png" /></a></div> Usage: <div id="" class="imageFloat imageFloat_none " ><a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/pub/Blog/BlogImages/NullityUsage.png" class="imageHref" title="NullityUsage.png"><img border="0" src="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/pub/Blog/BlogImages/NullityUsage.png" alt="NullityUsage.png" width="452" height="48" longdesc="NullityUsage.png" /></a></div> Nullity was first introduced in ``Representing Geometrical Knowledge'' <a href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1997RSPTB.352.1129A" target="_top">(Anderson 1997)</a>. See also ``Exact Numerical Computation of the Rational General Linear Transformations'' <a href="http://www.bookofparagon.com/Mathematics/SPIE.2002.Exact.pdf" target="_top">(Anderson 2002)</a> available in full text online. Or simply watch the a <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/berkshire/features/divide_zero_sum.ram" target="_top">video</a> of Mr. Anderson (nichname Neo) explaining it in short on a whiteboard. So the original publication was in 1997, already 9 years ago. Nevertheless, the new number is still a newcomer compared to all the others. And it will possibly take some time till nullity will be integrated into everyday's electronic devices. A good start would be to translate the ``division by zero'' error message into something like ``can't handle nullity'' in all kind of languages. <h3><a name="Update_08_Dec_2006"></a><a name="Update_08_Dec_2006_"></a> Update (08 Dec 2006) </h3> From <a href="http://www.bookofparagon.com/News/News_00012.htm" target="_top">Book of Paragon: Transreal Arithmetic and Analysis</a>: <cite> Two papers have been released. The first paper, <a href="http://www.bookofparagon.com/Mathematics/PerspexMachineVIII.pdf" target="_top">Perspex Machine VIII: Axioms of Transreal Arithmetic</a> describes how to divide by zero consistently in a non-trivial way. This shows that division by zero is no longer an error. Amongst other things, the paper explains why the standard model of arithmetic is not valid. The second paper, <a href="http://www.bookofparagon.com/Mathematics/PerspexMachineIX.pdf" target="_top">Perspex Machine IX: Transreal Analysis</a> explains how to extend calculus so that it works with transreal numbers. This paper disposes of various counter "proofs" that attempt to show that division by zero is impossible. The paper ends with a very simple equation demonstrating the possibility of division by zero and challenges the reader to accept it. </cite> Tags: <a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/Blog/BlogArchive?mode=tag&search=maths" rel="tag">maths</a>, <a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/Blog/BlogArchive?mode=tag&search=nullity" rel="tag">nullity</a>

Spacelets from outer Netherlands

MichaelDaum — 2006-11-23T11:40:00Z

<a href="http://o3spaces.org" target="_top">O3Spaces</a> is a young company from the Netherlands that puts forth a document collaboration and management solution for OpenOffice rivaling Microsoft's SharePoint.You may either work completely from within the office suite that will take care of basic workflows as well as versioning of documents you work on during a session. It also comes with an AJAX base web client. In the background there's a J2EE based server built on top of Apache Tomcat and the PostgreSQL that takes care of the document store. They've got a time restricted demo VMware appliance that you can download <a href="http://o3spaces.org/Page/sp19/nctrue/index.html" target="_top">here</a>. They've got a short <a href="http://o3spaces.org/Page/nctrue/popup/vt=1/index.html" target="_top">presentation video</a> that shows the basics of the web client. <div id="" class="imageFrame imageFrame_left " ><a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/pub/Blog/BlogImages/O3SpacesSnap1.png" class="imageHref" title="O3SpacesSnap1.png"><img border="0" src="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/pub/Blog/BlogImages/_200___O3SpacesSnap1.png" alt="O3SpacesSnap1.png" width="200" height="135" longdesc="O3SpacesSnap1.png" /></a></div> A nice idea is to deliberately open a workspace and get a tab at the bottom for it. A workspace in a way maps on TWiki's webs. But instead of having to deal with all webs at the same time every user can just open ``his'' workspaces in O3Spaces and concentrate on them. Despite all the technical merits that come with O3Spaces I like those little usability improvements that make a big difference. The portal page of a workspace is build up from little areas where specific information is listed (latest changes, recent comments, etc). But why do they have to create yet another <code>XXXlet</code> name for it: ``Spacelets'' from the outer regions of Ursa Minor. So spacelets are in a way <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portlets" target="_top">portlets</a>. Besides other conceptual parallels, they share the same potential for gooseflesh. The screenshot shows three pulldown menus to select a workspace, files and discussions in it ... which makes me wonder how this interface scales when the number of documents and discussions in it grows. Unfortunately the presentation does not show how documents can be organized, e.g. classifying and tagging them. The spacelets only show latest changes but don't provide a path to find ``relevant'' information whatever that is. So as good as O3Spaces might be in collaborative document creation it may lack components essential to manage long-term knowledge. Anyway, go ahead download the test version and make up your own mind. Tags: <a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/Blog/BlogArchive?mode=tag&search=collaboration" rel="tag">collaboration</a>, <a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/Blog/BlogArchive?mode=tag&search=office" rel="tag">office</a>, <a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/Blog/BlogArchive?mode=tag&search=othreespaces" rel="tag">othreespaces</a>, <a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/Blog/BlogArchive?mode=tag&search=vmware" rel="tag">vmware</a>, <a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/Blog/BlogArchive?mode=tag&search=webapp" rel="tag">webapp</a>

A-Team technology for Sale

MichaelDaum — 2006-11-15T09:28:00Z

There's lots of robot research to make them more autonomous, that is implement devices that not only classify sensory input accurately but also get active, e.g. shoot you. Unfortunately these devices are not yet available for a reasonable price: 200.000 US-Dollar for the latest Armed Security Guard Robot made in Korea. Maybe I just wait and see when they show up on ebay.<div id="" class="imageFrame imageFrame_none " ><a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/pub/Blog/BlogImages/SGR-A1.gif" class="imageHref" title="SGR-A1.gif"><img border="0" src="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/pub/Blog/BlogImages/SGR-A1.gif" alt="SGR-A1.gif" width="214" height="259" longdesc="SGR-A1.gif" /></a></div> I especially like the SGR-A1 model made by Samsung. It moves it's head 180� including its sensors and the weapons. It can be armed with different kinds of machine guns, it can recognize humans, animals or vehicles within a range of 2km at daytimes and 1k radius at night. It can then distinguish between friend and foe and will shoot autonomously after warning you first. For security reasons it has a password that it will understand up to a distance of 10 meters, given you make it so far. This is newest technology from Korea and I am not sure if non-korean passwords will work too. They didn't mention that detail. I also hope that the loudspeakers to blast out the warning (a nice femail voice btw) are capable enough before these robots enter combat mode. I can imagine that when they finished equipping the Korean border with a line of SGR-A1s that things will be quite noisy. So a femail voice warning you first before shooting might be missed, right? I just try to picture these things in real life. Oh, yea these robots can be driven using a joystick and/or a touch screen. But you don't have to. That's the whole point. Well, it seems so as if lots of other things might not follow the same plot as being faced with a human guard. There might be an interesting market for silly counter actions against autonomous robots as there are no rules like in robo-cup. Are you interested in getting one to protect your front garden? Maybe you'd like to <a href="http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xg078_robot-sentinella" target="_top">watch a movie first</a> and then decide. The soundtrack is available separately. And yes, some computer games need to catch up. Some links: <ul> <li> <a href="http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/23/23972/1.html" target="_top">Kampfroboter zum Schutz von Grenzen, Flugh�fen oder Pipelines</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.samsungtechwin.com/product/features/dep/SSsystem_e/SSsystem.html" target="_top">Samsung SGR-A1 Security System</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xg078_robot-sentinella" target="_top">Video</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200609/200609280023.html" target="_top">Biz/Tech: Korea Develops Armed Security Guard Robot </a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.korea.edu/academics/01co_14.php" target="_top">College of Science and Technology, Korea University: Brining theory to life</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.korea.edu/academics/01co_07.php" target="_top">College of Engineering, Korea University: Building a better world</a> Tags: <a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/Blog/BlogArchive?mode=tag&search=intelligence" rel="tag">intelligence</a>, <a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/Blog/BlogArchive?mode=tag&search=research" rel="tag">research</a>, <a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/Blog/BlogArchive?mode=tag&search=robots" rel="tag">robots</a>, <a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/Blog/BlogArchive?mode=tag&search=science" rel="tag">science</a>, <a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/Blog/BlogArchive?mode=tag&search=war" rel="tag">war</a> </li></ul>

Professional vs Passionate

MichaelDaum — 2006-11-14T21:24:00Z

Found it on the <a href="http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/" target="_top">Creating Passionate Users</a> blog. Just want to share this one with you. <div id="" class="imageFrame imageFrame_center " ><a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/pub/Blog/BlogImages/thatiscool.jpg" class="imageHref" title="thatiscool.jpg"><img border="0" src="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/pub/Blog/BlogImages/thatiscool.jpg" alt="thatiscool.jpg" width="418" height="524" longdesc="thatiscool.jpg" /></a></div> Read the full posting <a href="http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2006/11/two_simple_word.html" target="_top">here</a>. Tags: <a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/Blog/BlogArchive?mode=tag&search=design" rel="tag">design</a>, <a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/Blog/BlogArchive?mode=tag&search=passion" rel="tag">passion</a>, <a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/Blog/BlogArchive?mode=tag&search=usability" rel="tag">usability</a>

Who cares Java became OpenSource finally?

MichaelDaum — 2006-11-14T08:27:00Z

Tell me, who cares. I don't as there are better platforms to develop software with and have been in the hands of fossies for quite some time now. Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols asks <a href="http://www.linux-watch.com/news/NS4045253737.html" target="_top">whether Java's move to GPL is too late?</a> and my answer is a firm ``Yes, Sir.'' I don't care what took them so long to make that step. They f***ed all those people for nearly a decade that tried to cooperate with them to get Java running on different platforms than Windows. If you followed the history of <a href="http://www.blackdown.org" target="_top">Blackdown Java 2</a> you know how stingy Sun has always been to answer technical questions that these guys asked again and again without getting a sufficient answer. Blackdown tried hard to cooperate with Sun to bring Java to Linux but their stack was never a vital alternative to using the original distribution downloadable by Sun for free (as in free beer). And programmers that first of all want to get their own problems solved don't care as you simply risk to get fired for using non-standard tools if things go belly up due to incompatibilities between different Java engines. For a long long time there was a pressure to get a free Java implementation. Just count the lines of code other people where willing to write just to get around using Sun's Java. Good code, that will probably never flow back into an open sourced Java. Yes, Java and all its APIs still runs best on Windows, Microsoft not being a particular friend of Sun and vice versa as you know. Nevertheless, Sun developed Java for Windows first as this is the biggest market. They always had to catch up with the underlying operating system and its moving APIs trying to lock out competitors. That surely was not cheap. One of Java's key selling point has always been platform independence: ``write once -- run everywhere''. So far the theory but things are always different in real life. <a href="http://www.trolltech.com" target="_top">Trolltech</a> had a nice twist on that meme rephrasing it ``with write once -- compile everywhere''. The differences between both approaches to platform independence are compelling. Java plain fails to run on multiple platforms for technical reasons or just because Sun did not deliver the equivalent software stack for other platforms than Windows; Java is slow as its byte code is still to be interpreted by a virtual engine even though you need a separate compile step. Qt, Trolltech's key product, on the other hand, is simply yet another library you link your programs against the result of which is a highly optimized executable. And you can do so on whatever platform you decide to support. Plus the code is more efficient. I could go on comparing Java's APIs with Qt for quite some time where Qt wins hands down, e.g. library design. But let's stop here. In some respects Java on servers has to be judged differently than in browsers or on the desktop. Let me make it short: it is OK on servers but sucks everywhere else. Applets are dead. Swing sucks. It is too complicated. It looks bad. It is ugly, out of the box. It does not integrate with the rest of your desktop. If it does then it only integrates with a Windows desktop. Fonts are a nightmare. Themability and skinnability of its widgets is voodoo -- at least to me. Next point: who is interested not only going to looking at the masses of source code but also understand and fix it? The anonymous Open Source masses? This project is much too large now to. It was locked away for too long. Things are fine if a community is given a chance to mature and grow as the software does it is grouped around. This is obviously not the case for Java. Just have a look at Open Office or Firefox. These projects have big big problems to get more coders involved, people that not only work around symptoms but understand and fix the underlying issues besides envision sensible enhancements. How many coders work on Firefox? Who is currently investigating <a href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=154892" target="_top">buggy printing</a>? How long does that bug persist? Is this issue being a key feature for browsers really 5 years, 11 months, 4 weeks, 11 hours, 29 minutes old with a long thread of comments circling around it. To be fair, we all have such bugs buried in you bug tracker too. But hey printing is so essential ... gosh. One comment from a guy called Wells dating back to 2006-10-13 reads like this: <cite> While I wish I had the skills necessary to fix a bug like this I don't, but I have hung around now a year and a half to see what would happen and I find this bug an excellent case study in the Cathedral and Bazaar model of software development. It seems to defy traditional claims that the bazaar model is a superior development model when it comes to fixing top100 rated bugs. The wider community has not hunkered down and come up with a fix to this critical printing problem. Now the bug fix is slated for Firefox 3, if we should be so lucky. Keep up the good work! </cite> Not quite encouraging, eh? Don't forget that this browser has its own knotty history and this particular bug may be a good indicator of what the situation currently is for the Firefox project. As I trust in history I expect things to be even worse for Java. The community already moved on to different techniques. Will it come back to Java? Let's place a bet on ``no''. Tags: <a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/Blog/BlogArchive?mode=tag&search=community" rel="tag">community</a>, <a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/Blog/BlogArchive?mode=tag&search=firefox" rel="tag">firefox</a>, <a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/Blog/BlogArchive?mode=tag&search=java" rel="tag">java</a>, <a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/Blog/BlogArchive?mode=tag&search=linux" rel="tag">linux</a>, <a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/Blog/BlogArchive?mode=tag&search=microsoft" rel="tag">microsoft</a>, <a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/Blog/BlogArchive?mode=tag&search=qt" rel="tag">qt</a>, <a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/Blog/BlogArchive?mode=tag&search=trolltech" rel="tag">trolltech</a>

New WikiRing Blog

MichaelDaum — 2006-11-13T11:51:00Z

The <a href="http://blog.wikiring.com" target="_top">WikiRing</a> has entered the blog sphere finally. Are we too late?Well, it depends. Everybody has a blog. So at least it seems so. And now it is our turn to start <strike>babbling</strike> blogging. But we will not be talking about our personal daily struggle to survive life. Moreover, we -- the WikiRing partners -- are all working on very exciting stuff right now and want to keep you informed about it. We will not or even can not talk about every project that we are on right now but give you pieces of sugar from time to time even before we finally release things making it downloadable. We will also talk about things interesting for our clients as well as feature projects once they are finished. The first posting is by Sven <a href="http://blog.wikiring.com/Blog/BlogEntry3" target="_top">"TWiki skin demo using Css Zen Garden"</a> showing a new approach to customize TWiki easily using pre-existing art work. More to come. Stay tuned. (Could not resist those memes). Tags: <a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/Blog/BlogArchive?mode=tag&search=lookandfeel" rel="tag">lookandfeel</a>, <a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/Blog/BlogArchive?mode=tag&search=twiki" rel="tag">twiki</a>, <a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/Blog/BlogArchive?mode=tag&search=webdesign" rel="tag">webdesign</a>, <a href="http://michaeldaumconsulting.com/Blog/BlogArchive?mode=tag&search=wikiring" rel="tag">wikiring</a>

Peter Thoeny replies on "JotSpot is not TWiki but TWiki could be JotSpot"

Peter Thoeny — 2006-11-04T02:24:47Z

Brilliant idea! Micha, this is a brilliant idea! Now, lets get the press notice your site! <a href="http://www.structuredwikis.com/peter_2006-10-31.html" target="_top">My notes on the aqcuisition</a> are updated with a link to your site. -- Peter