How Microformats Relate to the Semantic Web

Oct 312007
 

Interesting article about the Semantic Web written by James Simmons about RDF VS Microformats.

Before some quotes from the article, some really basic information about Microformats:
Microformats Diagram

Designed for humans first and machines second, microformats are a set of simple, open data formats built upon existing and widely adopted standards. Instead of throwing away what works today, microformats intend to solve simpler problems first by adapting to current behaviors and usage patterns

Here we understand that Microformats are to be an evolution of the web and not a revolution.

[...]The primary advantage Microformats offer over RDF (including its embedded serializations) is that you can embed metadata directly in the XHTML, reducing the amount of markup you need to write[...]

[...]What Microformats were not intended to be:

  • A new language
  • Infinitely extensible and open-ended
  • An attempt to get everyone to change their behavior and rewrite their tools
  • A whole new approach that throws away what already works today
  • A panacea for all taxonomies, ontologies, and other such abstractions
  • Defining the whole world, or even just boiling the ocean

What RDF allows (and Microformats lacks):

  • Resources are represented as URIs, allowing you to access metadata remotely
  • Infinitely extensible and open-ended design
  • A powerful Ontology language (OWL) that is built upon it
  • The ability to utilize, share, and extend any number of vocabularies
  • No reliance on pre-defined “formats” (i.e. not limited by the types of data that can be encoded)

[...]

[...]Microformats are to RDF as HTML 5 is to XHTML; on the surface they both appear to be a solution to the same problem, but the former misses the point as to why the latter was created.[...]

Who use Microformats on his website? An old Firefox extension allows you to handle Microformats tag on a web page and perform customizable actions on the microformats via Tails Scripts.
I guess it is time that I insert Microformats on my website… Do you use it? Why? How?

Ahmet

Web 3.0 and beyond: the next 20 years of the internet

Oct 302007
 
Web 3.0

I’ve just come across a very interesting article from the Times Online about the next 20 years of the Internet, they seem to do a little confusion of the WEB and the Internet but still it is interesting:

[...]the web will be able to connect every aspect of our digital lives – be it a website, an e-mail, or a file on our PC – to every other aspect. It will know, for instance, when you are typing an e-mail, what the subject of the e-mail is, and be able to suggest websites and books as well as documents, photos and videos you have saved that may be relevant to that topic.

[...]If Web 2.0 was all about harnessing the collective intelligence of crowds to give information a value – lots of people liked this story so you might too (Digg.com), people who like Madonna also like this artist (last.fm), lots of people linked to this site so that makes it the most relevant (Google’s basic PageRank algorithm) – then Web 3.0 is about giving the internet itself a brain.

[...]A prime example of a Web 3.0 technology is ‘natural-language search’, which refers to the ability of search engines to answer full questions such as ‘Which US Presidents died of disease?’. In some cases, the sites that appear in the results do not reference the original search terms, reflecting the fact that the web knows, for instance, that Reagan was a US President, and that Alzheimer’s is a disease.

Read the full article.

IMHO, if the Internet is like this in 20 years, I’ll really be deceived… Can’t we think about something more extraordinary?
Seriously who want to send email in 20 years? I would love to have a chip in my brain connected via satellites to my personal servers having countless memory. Just thinking and voila, my email is sent with all the details I had think about.

I dream of a computer driven by my mind, not a computer driving my mind…
For the smart semantic queries, I my point of view it’s a dream of scientist, try to Googlise “Which US Presidents died of disease” and you will have the answer. Semantic can be very interesting in large network of knowledge not for such ridiculous queries, do we really need a semantic web?

Ok I’m a bit provocative but let’s debate…

Ahmet

Making Life Easier: World Usability Day: November 8

Oct 302007
 

World Usability Day was founded to ensure that the services and products
important to life are easier to access and simpler to use.

Even if this year the theme is health, it is a good time to check our website for usability issues, more and more visitors expect to have an usable website (also in terms of accessibility). One year ago I had set up a usability resources list so if you need to refresh your knowledge about usability you know where to go ;)

Also don’t forget why you want your website to be accessible:

  • There are 8.6 million registered disabled people in the UK
  • One in 12 men and one in 200 women have some form of color blindness
  • Two million UK residents have a sight problem
  • There are 12 million people aged 60 or over

Ahmet

Knowledge Representation and the Semantic Web

Oct 262007
 

Peter Patel-Schneider – Explanation of the right way of creating the Semantic Web during a Google TechTalks.
It’s a fairly old (thigs aren’t going so fast in that field anyway) but the main idea are still very interesting: “why building Semantic languages (RDF , RDFs, OML, …) is broken?”.

Ahmet

Adobe 2007 European User Group Tour

Oct 222007
 

Adobe European User Group Tour
It’s with a lot of pleasure that I’m working on the organization of the Adobe European User Group Tour that will make a stop at our local User Group. Our meeting will take place on November 16th and will focus on Adobe AIR and the future of the Adobe Flash Platform.

I’ve you live in the nearby of Geneva it’s a must seen (even more if like me you couldn’t go to MAX), it’s a great opportunities to meet Mike Chambers, Lee Brimelow and the members from the AUGG.

The subscription to the event are open until November 9th for User Group Members of Switzerland. If you are not members of any Adobe User Group, please write me an email at “HELLO [@] AUGG [.] CH”.
If you are not in Switzerland, your are still warmly welcome!!

Ahmet

Ahmet

AIR Code Samples

Oct 102007
 

Adobe Integrate RuntimeDaniel Dura has posted on his blog two presentations (introduction to AIR & Flex 3) he made during some events (AIR tour & MAX).
Along with his presentations is an archive of Flex Builder project, that contain most of the code he showed.
Here is the list of sources you’ll find in the archive:

  • Application Icons
  • File Icons
  • HTML Display
  • Local Store
  • Native Drag
  • Native File Dialogue
  • Native Windows
  • Object Serialization
  • Service Monitor
  • SQL Insert Performance
  • Transparent Windows

    • Still here? Go ahead and download this archive from Daniel’s blog.

    Ahmet

    MAX 2007 Chicago: Notes and Videos

    Oct 092007
     

    MAX 2007
    First link by Mark Coppock, he wrote notes about most of the sessions that took place during MAX. His note are full of links and really worth the read!

    If you are more a vizual guys than a reader then head to Peter Elest’s blog where you can find a lot of Sneak Peeks videos:

  • Flash “Next”
  • Flash on C/C++
  • Flex Applications on Linux
  • Seam Carving
  • Photoshop Express
  • Flash Home for Mobile
  • PDF Packaging

    • For even more videos youTube is your friends ;)

    Ahmet

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