Category: Technology

Categories
Internet

Still wired

I did not cancel my internet connection on Monday, after all. I needed to keep it up for some work I’m doing this week, but planned on canceling it at month end. However, I had a nice conversation with a person from Charter Communications today and we worked out an equitable solution to our existing contract dispute.

I am canceling the television portion of the cable, but keeping the internet at discounted price (which is a good price). In return I agree to keep the connection until December, the remaining time on the contract according to their records.

Note that I expect the SciFi fans among you to keep me updated on the Stargates and Battlestar Galactica storylines.

Categories
Technology

Need software

Though the research and work on the post “When we are needed” has put me behind schedule on several tasks I need to finish, the effort was worthwhile in that it gave me a chance to think through my plans going forward in regards to technology.

I really enjoy working with technology, and this isn’t going to change because of the turtles (find definition for ‘turtles’ in “When we are needed” a couple of posts back). I would like to continue working with technology but, unfortunately, turtles can impact on this. However, the more significant impact is the fact that I’ve focused on working with open source technology in a town that works, almost exclusively, with either Java or .NET.

I’ve worked with Java for years, but am burned out on it and frankly, I think it’s a pig now. What’s more important, though, is that Java in St. Louis also means experience with WebSphere, which I don’t have. I’ve also worked with Microsoft development technologies for years, and though .NET is also a pig, it is a more interesting pig, and a technology I can see myself working in again. Especially with VB or C# or ASP, of which I’ve always been fond.

I also want to get some experience in developing for the Mac, but frankly, there is no employment for Mac development in St. Louis. As for AJAX and the new scripting, I’m experienced with DHTML and don’t need to refresh my skills in this area. I just need to tweak my resumé to reflect the new terminology.

Still, the employment opportunities are in .NET. The challenge is that I don’t have any of the .NET software to update and refresh my skills. This includes WindowsXP, and Visual Studio .NET 2003, though I notice there is a beta release of VS 2005 I might be able to get for a ‘nominal fee’ the page says. However, I imagine this won’t work on Windows 2000, which is what I’m running on my dual boot (Ubuntu Linux being the other half of the dual). I also imagine that employers will want VS 2003 experience.

Does anyone have an extra copy of Windows XP and/or Visual Studio .NET 2003 they’d be willing to give me, perhaps in exchange for autographed RDF or Unix books and/or photographs? I’d be ever so grateful, and you could consider it your contribution to the Kick the Turtles in the Butt campaign.

Categories
Technology

Frustrating

Leigh Dobb’s wrote:

RDF is essentially a relational model, although not in the classic RDBMS sense. This means its much easier, IMO, to clearly express a model in RDF.

Much of the functionality that the library community is seeking: the ability to move data between formats and identify authorities, is already present in RDF. It’s there in the ability to create local schemas and/or inferencing rules that massage data into the model required for a particular application; RDF allows late binding of your application schema to your data. The functionality is also present in the means to derive variations on existing vocabularies, and annotate existing metadata with new properties. Authorities like the Library of Congress can publish their own schemas.

But the message isn’t getting across. I think the failing is that there’s too much emphasis on the big vision of the semantic web, and the more immediate, more pragmatic, benefits of RDF (with a sprinkling of OWL) are being lost. There’s some tasty morsels at the bottom of that semantic web layer cake. The only way to demonstrate that is to come up with more convincing demonstrations, e.g. a recast of MODS as RDF, backed by some useful code.

From a post written November 8th, 2003:

Clay also mentions that the Semantic Web has two goals: to get people to use meta-data and the other is to build a global ontology that pulls all this data together. He applauds the first while stating that the second is …audacious but doomed.

Michelangelo was recorded as having said: My work is simple. I cut away layer after layer of marble until I uncover the figure encased within.

To the Semantic Web people there is no issue about building a global ontology — it already exists on the web today. Bit by bit of it is uncovered every time we implement yet another component of the model using a common, shared semantic model and language. There never was a suggestion that all metadata work cease and desist as we sit down on some mountaintop somewhere and fully derive the model before allowing the world to proceed.

FOAF, RSS, PostCon, Creative Commons — each of these is part of the global ontology. We just have many more bits yet to discover.

And later:

Tim, man, you got to get down, son. Scrabble in the hard pack with the rest of us plain folk. Yank off that tie, and put on some Bermudas and hang with the hometown gang for a bit. You been with the Big Bad Business Asses too much — you forgot your roots.

What I do agree with in Clay’s paper is that the semantic web is going to come from the bottom up. It is going to come from RSS, and from FOAF, and from all the other efforts currently on the web (I need to start putting a list of these together). It’s going to start when we take an extra one minute when we post to choose a category or add a few keywords to better identify the subject of our posts. It will flourish when more people start taking a little bit of extra time to add a little bit more information because someone has demonstrated that the time will be worth it.

It will come about when people see the benefits of smarter data. Small pieces, intelligently joined.
…
’ll let you in on a little secret: my semantic web is not The Semantic Web. They won’t give nobel prizes for it, and it won’t be a deafening flash or a blinding roar. It will just make my life a bit easier than what what it is now. Some folks who like the Semantic Web won’t necessarily like or agree with my simple, little small ’s’, semantic, small ‘w’ web. But I don’t care, and neither does it.

In this semantic web, people like Danny Ayers with his good humored patience persistence supporting RDF and the ’semantic web, will have just as much an impact as any Tim, Dave, or Clay.

To quote Tonto: Who is ‘we’, white man.

(Archive of this page, with comments, at Wayback Machine)

Categories
Internet

Charter continued

Last post this this morning and afternoon. I don’t know why I’m in such a chatty mood.

The Charter Communications issue updated: In preparation for filing a complaint with the BBB and the State Attorney General, I call Charter to get a copy of this contract I supposedly signed. The billing office refers me to another office where the person does not identify themselves, and is in the process of eating a late morning snack, if the sounds into the phone are anything to go by.

I put in my request for a copy of the contract and the person tells me that there wasn’t a ‘real’ contract–I had signed up for the internet service on the internet, and therefore that agreement was binding.

Now I did try to get the internet service through the internet last November because it would be 10.00 cheaper to ’sign up online’. However, there was nothing in the online form that said the agreement would be for a year, and that there would be a penalty if I quit early. More than that, though, Charter never followed through on the Internet order, and I had to go down to the local store and place the reconnect order.

According to the gentleman today, I was misinformed on Tuesday about not being able to disconnect the television portion of the service, and that I could continue with the internet for 29.95. He also tried to resell me the television service for 39.95, leaving me silenced with trying to understand how he got there from here.

I don’t want the television service. I’m calling about the internet service.

I returned to this so-called agreement I had. I said I wanted a copy, a digital imprint, of the page that I had supposedly signed with agreement. A page that contains the information about the year contract and the early leaving penalty. I said since he was telling me this information, they must have a copy of it. That’s when it gets interesting.

They don’t necessarily have the information about what I signed up for. They just assumed that since I signed up on the internet, this was something I had agreed to. Because, as he said all people who signed up on the internet sign up for a year.

So then I tell him about going online yesterday and how the site advertised internet service for 26.95 a month, no contract required. At that point in time he said, well, there really is a three month contract with this offer–but that was besides the point. I would have to maintain my internet service with them through December of 2005, or pay 150.00 just to not do business with the company.

The BBB person I talked to said that Charter Communications in the St. Louis area has had 768 complaints — serious complaints — in the last three years. Well, now they’ve had 769 complaints. And I’m also filing a complaint with the State Attorney General. As for Charter’s ‘offer’ to let me keep the internet connection for the 29.95 a month until December–mighty big of the company, but I’ll pass.

Categories
Technology

Google Maps API

I am in the process of converting my metadata extensions for photos into simple drop in pages. There is no interest in the larger application, but some in the smaller uses. Not a lot — folks really are not interested in the whole ‘metadata’ thing. But I’d like to salvage some of the work I did.

My biggest problem I’m having with the change is Google’s Map API requires a key that is really limited. It only works within a specific directory. Worse, it doesn’t allow you to add a URL as a parameter in a query. Right now I’m working around this by passing in the post ID for the post. However, for a one page drop in application, a person needs to pass in a full URL.

I’m trying to figure out how to get the URL to the application without passing it in through a GET parameter, but still have it accessible via one click from a web page.

I don’t want to take long on this as I am finishing up documentation for JournURL, a hosted community/weblog system. I’ve been enjoying the effort and working with Roger Benningfield, mad scientist and leading developer.

And I would love to take another road trip. Somewhere. Anywhere.