Technoetic » Other

XPlanner on Rails Download

Steve — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 12:42:05 +0000

As I described in a previous post, I created a very experimental version of XPlanner using Ruby on Rails. A few people have expressed interest in the code so it’s available for download. Remember, this was created about a year ago with an older version of Rails (0.10 or 0.11, if I remember correctly). I might be a good idea for somebody to create a RubyForge project for this code, but I personally don’t have time to manage (I might contribute, though).

Category Feeds

Steve — Mon, 06 Feb 2006 11:23:52 +0000

I write about a variety of topics so I’ve added links to each category in the sidebar if you’d prefer to subscribe to a subset of the information posted here.

Experience Report: MindRaider Semantic Outlining Tool

Steve — Wed, 11 Jan 2006 05:00:58 +0000

I’m always looking for efficient ways to manage my personal information and activities. I invested a little time during this last weekend to try the MindRaider semantic outlining tool. This isn’t a complete review. It’s only an short experience report based on my initial impressions.

MindRaider is a Semantic Web outliner. I’m interested in Semantic Web technology and I was interested in seeing if it would be more useful for my purposes that the wiki-based tool I’ve been using.

First the good news. MindRaider installs easily on Windows and it’s not difficult to begin doing some basic outlining with the tool. It also contains an interesting visual representation of the semantic “concepts” and conceptual relationships.

The bad news is that the documentation is very minimal. I created a few concepts and wanted to attach a web hyperlink to both of them. It seemed that I had to create two instances of the web link with each copy related to it’s own concept (a strict hierarchical tree structure). I’ve read in the forums that there is an experimental way to create knowledge networks rather than trees but apparently this feature is currently not well supported.

A wiki tool can represent some complex knowledge structures although that knowledge is not represented in a structured form like RDF. MindRaider includes a TWiki compatible wiki editor and that’s nice, but if I’m going to use the tool primarily as a desktop wiki, there are more streamlined tools available for that purpose. I’ve found WikiPad is proving to be very useful and easy to use.

This is not a criticism of MindRaider. It’s a very interesting experiment even if it a great match for my current needs. I’ll definitely be watching the MindRaider project to see how it progresses.

I’ve moved to France

Steve — Tue, 10 Jan 2006 20:04:12 +0000

I’ve been very busy for the last several months. I decided to join a French software development company and move to Aix en Provence, France (near Marseille) although I don’t speak the language. It’s been quite an adventure and great practice on exploring agility in the context of everyday life.

The team I work with here is great although they aren’t an XP or an “official” agile team. They have the right attitude although there is room for improvement (isn’t there always?). One of the team activities I really enjoy (and that I’ve heard is relatively common in France) is that everyone greets the other team members, typically with a handshake, in the morning and when leaving for the night. It’s a wonderful way for the team to have human contact with each other at least twice a day. Most of the team is collocated in a common work area so it’s easy to communicate, but the additional ritual is very nice.

Before I arrived in France I had the impression that the French don’t like Americans very much. I haven’t found this to be true, at least here in southern France. I’ve met the rare person who criticizes the USA more than we do, but most of the people I meet feel Americans are generally very friendly and positive people. I’ll admit, I like France and the people I’ve met here but I do miss the US sometimes (especially when I need to find a parking space ). In any case, it’s good to know that us Americans don’t have as bad a reputation here as we sometimes think we do.

Free Google Earth Released

Steve — Tue, 28 Jun 2005 19:30:24 +0000

A Google Earth product has been release and will replace the Keyhole application. My initial impressions are mixed. The Google Earth animations didn’t seem as smooth as Keyhole’s. However there are a few additional features. For example, there are 3D representations of buildings for some major cities. Before you get too excited, these are plain gray boxes, not images of the actual buildings. I doubt I’ll use that feature very much. Google Earth can give driving directions with a route plotted on it’s maps. I’m looking forward to using this more. The directions feature is basically like Google Maps with 3D terrain and the ability to control viewer perspective.

Some of the navigation and view controls are a bit more polished than with Keyhole but overall it feels like the same application with a slightly different look. One of the best features is that Google Earth is free. There’s also a subscriber version called Google Plus that provides additional features like the ability to download data from GPS receivers and plot it on a map.

The Wisdom of Crowds

Steve — Sat, 02 Apr 2005 17:47:53 +0000

The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations

My rating: 5 out of 5

We all have had experience with crowds that weren’t very smart. Mobs are carried away in irrational behavior. Committees often generate little or no useful results. However, modern research has found that, given the right conditions, crowds can be very intelligent. They can actually be more intelligent than the smartest members of the crowd. This book describes the conditions necessary to tap into the wisdom of the crowd and describe many fascinating case studies and research findings. I believe it’s important that our society learns how to increasingly tap the mind of the many and lessen our reliance on so-called expert opinion and commentary.

Resources: