Scotty's Engineering Log

Our first ONVIF compliant product!

2011-04-15T14:33:00.002-06:00

I've been representing Pelco by Schneider-Electric on the ONVIF standard since last July. Not only have we been involved in several key Working Groups, but also hosted the December Face-2-Face meetings at our corporate headquarters in Clovis, CA. We just achieved another big milestone this week: Pelco has just validated our first ONVIF-compliant product: DigitalSentry NVS! Details about the

When Hudson went to China

2011-04-05T21:35:00.001-06:00

I recently went on a business trip to Hangzhou, China. Following is a log of my trip. You can view the pictures here. First, I made the mistake of staying awake the entire flight to get on “China time”. Should have slept the whole trip to be rested and recover more easily. BTW, Hangzhou is correctly pronounced “Haw-ng-Joe” Monday: Got to tour the Lingyan Temple (4 different temples, 1 giant

Best in Show!

2010-09-28T09:42:00.001-06:00

This past Friday I was honored by the Colorado State University Department of Technical Journalism as part of the 2nd annual Alumni Media Festival. Out of about 150 entries, about 25 "Cammy Award of Excellence", 10 "Cammy Grande" awards, and 4 Best of Festival awards were given out. Entries spanned Broadcast, Newswriting, Public Relations an Technical Writing. Each entry was judged on a 0 to 100

Another beginning's end

2010-05-12T14:45:00.003-06:00

"Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end." Seneca After 5+ years in content management consulting at Flatirons Solutions, I've decided to move on to new opportunities. I've had a great experience with colleagues and clients and had some very cool travel opportunities! In fact, I've achieved a few of my life goals and grown professionally and personally as a result. It has

DocBook for eLearning

2009-10-21T14:16:00.000-06:00

I'm very happy to announce the formation of the DocBook Subcommittee for eLearning! The DocBook Technical Committee approved the subcommittee and following charter on 21 Oct 2009: Background For more than a decade, DocBook has provided a structured markup vocabulary for hardware and software documentation. DocBook is now widely used in both commercial and Open Source environments. DocBook has

Incredible India!

2009-09-02T09:10:00.004-06:00

I had the incredible opportunity to travel to India last week on business. It was hectic, so I didn't keep a regular blog for each day. Instead, I kept a brief log of my travels which I'm posting below. I also posted pictures to: http://picasaweb.google.com/shudson310/India2009. 4:30a local time, 23 Aug 2009 I'm in India! As I've only seen the airport and darkened roads at night to the hotel, I

FLL 2009 begins!

2009-08-01T22:16:00.000-06:00

We held our FIRST Lego League team kickoff tonight! We have more than doubled the size of our team this year, and have maxed out the team size allowance. Our team this year will be the "Jumping Jelly Beans". We look forward to a wonderful season of fun and learning. Below are a few pics, trying out our Robot Mats General Training Mat. Our new bot was tasked with following the big curvy black

Presenting at XML-in-Practice 2009!

2009-07-07T12:44:00.003-06:00

I've just been accepted to present at XML-in-Practice 2009, September 30 - October 1, 2009 at the Arlington Hilton near Washington DC! My presentation entitled, Professional Publishing on a Shoestring Budget, will discuss how to optimize your multi-channel publishing processes using the latest approved DocBook v5.0 schema and the DocBook Publishers schema. Details on the conference are available

DocBook Publishers Schema Version 1.0 now available for public review

2009-07-06T09:47:00.004-06:00

Well, we finally got all the i's dotted and the t's crossed! The DocBook Publishers schema is available for public review. This is an effort I chaired to support the needs we've seen in the publishing industry. Many publishers spend considerable amounts of time and money developing and maintaining their own custom schemas and output rendering. This standard tries to address the unique needs of

The End of the Bloodline

2009-06-23T23:27:00.007-06:00

It is with a heavy heart that I blog tonight. I had to put my faithful friend, Duncan, to sleep today. He had cancer and was beginning to suffer. I couldn't let him suffer any longer. It hurts because I had his grandfather and father as well. We weren't able to continue the bloodline, so this is the end of an era. His grandfather, Laddie, saved me from a rattlesnake bite as a boy. He barked and

Star Trek Easter Egg sweepstakes winner!

2009-06-09T15:34:00.004-06:00

Woohoo! I won the STAR TREK Easter Egg Sweepstakes, and they are sending me an official Phaser prop from the film! I guess seeing it 3 times opening week (twice in IMAX) helped! It is the best Star Trek film yet, so I'm very excited to win! It's also fun that this "ties" together my two favorite Sci-Fi universes... Here are some photos!

Vote DocBook!

2009-05-15T15:23:00.003-06:00

Attention all DocBook fans!SourceForge is accepting nominations for its annual Community Choice Awards, so this is a great opportunity to Vote DocBook! Nominations are open until May 29th. Please vote for DocBook in the Best Project for the Enterprise category. If you want to do the same, click here! Get the word out using your social network and vote!

DocBook: A Successful Open Source Project?

2009-05-11T10:44:00.002-06:00

A few weeks ago, I found an interesting article on gauging the success of Open Source projects. Since I contribute to several open source and standards initiatives, I thought I'd put the article to the test with the most prominent of these: DocBook. To give a little history, DocBook has been around since 1991. It is a very robust content model and considered the "de facto" standard for technical

Star Trek: Boldly goes where no [Trek film] has gone before!

2009-05-09T08:23:00.004-06:00

I saw the premiere of Star Trek last night. In short, absolutely stunning - especially in IMAX format! The special effects, sound effects, and soundtrack were awe-inducing. Fellow Trekker Bill Petro has an excellent review here. SPOILER ALERT: There were quite a few nods to the original series and the movies that I loved, including the creature from Ceti Alpha (ST:II), the Orion girl, Captain

Agent Carmichael uses XSLT

2009-04-01T15:54:00.003-06:00

As I was watching the "Chuck Versus the Broken Heart" episode of Chuck, I was excited to see Michael Kay's XSLT book in the background! It appears that Agent Carmichael also uses XSLT... I also noticed Programming Perl, and a few Java books, but was most excited to see the familiar red book laying in the background!

Trying Live Writer

2009-02-11T12:08:00.000-07:00

My colleague, Jim Earley, recommended trying Windows Live Writer. This is a test. Technorati Tags: web,tools,software Here’s where I work: Ideally, I’d like to find an editor that makes great use of div and span and lets me easily assign class attributes to them. Seems pretty easy so far. I'm going to post and see how it looks, since I use a custom template on my blog.

DocBook Publishers schema approved to Committee Working Draft

2009-01-22T11:34:00.004-07:00

I'm proud to announce that the DocBook Publishers SubCommittee presented the specification for the DocBook Publishers schema to the DocBook Technical Committee. In the meeting, the motion to approve the specification to DocBook TC Working Draft was carried! So what does this mean? Prior to this, the specification was "locked up" in the subcommittee as it was being developed. Now that it is an

Highlight of the Inauguration Speech

2009-01-20T10:29:00.003-07:00

I found President Obama's closing statement to be the most interesting and impactful: So let us mark this day with remembrance, of who we are and how far we have traveled. In the year of America's birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shores of an icy river. The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood.

DITA Learning in the new Adobe Technical Communications Suite!

2009-01-20T10:17:00.003-07:00

Adobe just announced a new Technical Communications Suite, and has included support for DITA Learning! Full support for DITA standards Take advantage of DITA 1.1, including support for Bookmap, Indexing, and Glossary specifications, and use the DITA 1.2 Learning and Training Content Specialization (beta) to develop compelling training content. I'll definitely have to give this a try. The DITA

2009-01-20T10:16:00.001-07:00

Enjoyed the John Williams composition for the inauguration

More Obamination

2009-01-16T10:10:00.004-07:00

Unbelievable. I happened to be perusing iTunes and noticed a custom album that is on the "hot list". It's an album called "Songs about Obama". I have no idea if any of it is any good (looks like a lot of rap to me), but here's the list of songs: It's a New Day 3:39 will.i.am It's a New Day - Single $0.99 Obama Song 4:09 Michael Franti & Spearhead Obama Song - Single $0.99 Vote for Hope (

2008 In Review

2008-12-22T22:10:00.003-07:00

Merry Christmas from the Hudson Family! From 2008 in Review From 2008 in Review We have had a great year! We spent a week in Washington DC in May learning more about our country. It was great to see all the things that we had been reading about in school. We went back to Juarez, Mexico for the week of Thanksgiving serving, playing, feeding and witnessing to the people there. God showed up

Back from Juarez, MX

2008-11-30T23:31:00.005-07:00

We're back, despite over half the team coming down with stomach flu at the end of the trip. Here are some pictures from this amazing trip: http://picasaweb.google.com/shudson310/Mexico2008# Details to follow later, but we fed almost 1,000 people who might not have had a meal otherwise. There's been a lot of scary news about Juarez lately, too, so it's easy to see that these people really needed

Thanksgiving for Mexico

2008-11-19T13:19:00.006-07:00

Some of you may think we're headed to Cabo or some exotic location, from the title of my post. Quite the contrary, we are headed to Juarez, Mexico for Thanksgiving this year. "Change" has been a big theme in the media and political spectrum this year, but we've been planning to return to help the poor in Mexico since we last helped out 2 years ago. We are working to Change peoples lives as best

FLL Rising Stars!

2008-11-16T16:26:00.003-07:00

This was our first year in First Lego League, so we had no idea what to expect when we started the season. The plan was to learn how to build a robot, program it, learn about climate and have fun! The season started on September 5, and our team was able to meet once a week for about 2 hours. We tried to split the work up during each meeting, with some focused on research and some on building

2008-11-12T09:46:00.001-07:00

Converting content to DocBook via XQuery. It's fun!

New versions of Jing and Trang!

2008-10-28T08:57:00.005-06:00

Woohoo! after almost 5 years, James Clark has released a new version of Jing and Trang. They are available at: http://code.google.com/p/jing-trang/. I've run into a few issues with trang and XSD in the past. Hopefully this addresses some of those issues? Will run a few tests and post my results... UPDATE:Sigh. Trang still won't convert XSD to RNG. XSD continues to be the biggest thorn in my side

Vote Fett '08

2008-10-26T22:08:00.003-06:00

I just had to carve a campaign slogan for my favorite political character...

2008-10-24T11:59:00.001-06:00

Scott voted by mail. You can't complain, if you don't exercise your right!

Meteorologists Predict Intensely Brisk Autumn

2008-10-14T09:30:00.001-06:00

Let's be careful out there! Thanks to the Onion News Network for this important bulletin. Extreme Weather Alert: Meteorologists Predict Intensely Brisk Autumn

2008-10-02T15:39:00.001-06:00

Trying to find a decent PDF to XML conversion tool

High School Musical fun

2008-09-18T10:18:00.001-06:00

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

2008-09-15T09:10:00.001-06:00

Scott is no longer KC0BAX. I am now Whiskey-Zero-Xray-Mike-Lima (W0XML)!

2008-08-21T10:45:00.001-06:00

Applied for a new call sign. Hopefully will be W0XML soon!

If you're not RelaxNG, you're working too hard!

2008-07-15T12:42:00.007-06:00

This has been my favorite catch phrase, now it's my bumper sticker. The beauty, is that it can be yours too! http://www.cafepress.com/RelaxNG. Everything is sold at cost, so I'm not in this to make a profit, just to spread the word!

Save Colorado ranch lands!

2008-07-10T12:06:00.005-06:00

I grew up on a ranch in southeastern Colorado. While I don't want to be a rancher, it's an important part of my heritage, and I'm proud to support those who try to make a living in a tough economic climate with hard work and determination. Unfortunately, the US Army is trying to make it even harder! If you aren't familiar with the Pinon Canyon site and proposed expansion, I encourage you to

Proud papa

2008-07-06T22:59:00.001-06:00

My oldest son sang his first solo today! I'm so proud!

Firefox World Record Download Day

2008-06-17T00:00:00.001-06:00

Get Firefox 3 for free, and help set a world record! http://www.spreadfirefox.com/en-US/worldrecord Check it out! UPDATE:Firefox 3 will be available today at 17:00 UTC (11am MDT)

DocBook groups on Plaxo and LinkedIn

2008-06-16T14:09:00.003-06:00

For those of you interested, I've set up a DocBook group on Plaxo (http://docbook.plaxogroups.com/) and LinkedIn. Please join if you are interested in DocBook or in networking with DocBook professionals!

Successful, but non-restful vacation

2008-05-14T11:30:00.003-06:00

Whew! We just got back from a whirlwind tour of Washington, D.C. Since the kids will be studying American History next year (Exploration to 1850), we thought we would have a little hands-on field trip to help secure a tangible picture of where some of these events took place! Here's what we saw: Union StationMount VernonGeorge Washington's Grist Mill and DistilleryUS Capitol Tour with Sen.

Metadata and Interoperability

2008-04-30T15:18:00.002-06:00

Jim Earley has a very thoughtful post on metadata interoperability: http://jims-thoughtspot.blogspot.com/2008/04/metadata-interoperability.html As part of DocBook v5, we added the ability to include content from other namespaces in the block to support adding Dublin Core directly in your content. The element's purpose is to house metadata that is not intended for display, so it's a

more on DocBook vs. DITA

2008-04-30T15:05:00.003-06:00

Teresa Mulvihill has written an article on DocBook vs. DITA at: http://www.dclab.com/dita_docbook.asp. It's a well thought-out article, but I'd like to make a few clarifications: As you may know, Jim Earley and I have presented on this topic and our Doc Standards Interoperability Framework at several conferences, and still hope to form an OASIS TC on document standards interoperability. In the

DocBook vs. DITA: revisited

2008-04-14T19:10:00.003-06:00

The Content Wrangler has published a very interesting article by Dick Hamilton on choosing an XML schema. I get asked very similar questions all the time! I think I'll start sending folks to this article as recommended reading...

Farewell, Young Arius

2008-04-09T13:05:00.004-06:00

One of the greatest, Oscar-winning actors of our times has passed away. Godspeed, Mr. Heston! Charlton Heston starred in many of my favorite movies, chief among them: "Ben Hur", "The Ten Commandments" and "Planet of the Apes". He was in over 125 movie and TV productions, so he was very active. My wife had the honor of meeting him at a CBA convention. You'll have to ask her about it! I also

First tank of gas!

2008-03-25T08:53:00.003-06:00

I had to get my first tank of gas in my bike today. The main ran out at about 135 miles, and I had at least a 5 mile reserve (before I found a gas station). So, at 140 miles, I put in 2.865 gallons of gas, giving me 48.8 MPG. I'm sure I'm not the most efficient at shifting yet, so I think I can get that to 55 with more experience. Still, much better than the 13 MPG my truck is getting!

Problems in the air with a new Airbus 320

2008-03-21T09:57:00.003-06:00

My flight home last night from DC was on one of Frontier's brand new Airbus 320s. While they didn't have any onboard TV this week, that was not the problem I'm talking about! We had to make an emergency landing in St. Louis because of cabin pressurization problems. We were wondering if the oxygen masks were going to deploy, or if our eardrums were going to burst! Apparently, the cabin pressure

Go n-eírí an bóthar leat.

2008-03-17T09:37:00.007-06:00

May the road rise with you. Happy St. Patrick's Day! I found several wonderful Irish blessings here today: http://islandireland.com/Pages/folk/sets/bless.html. We watched Patriot Games on Saturday (sans kids), and watched Riverdance this morning. We tried in vain to find a copy of The Quiet Man, but nobody carries it anymore! What's the deal with that? It's one of the most classic Irish movies

OpEd: Orwellian practices in California

2008-03-07T11:40:00.005-07:00

A friend sent me the following, and I totally agree. The recent decision by Orwellian, er, California judges frightens the living daylights out of me. An extremely dangerous precedence to be setting: A California Court of Appeal recently decided that homeschooling is illegal in California unless the parent is a certified teacher. This was a decision made in secrecy under the guise of juvenile

DocBook v5.0 now an official Committee Draft!

2008-02-07T09:44:00.001-07:00

I'm pleased to announce that DocBook v5.0 is now an official Committee Draft! The schema can be downloaded here: http://docbook.org/xml/5.0/. This is the result of several years work. Special thanks to all of the Committee members involved: * Steve Cogorno, Sun Microsystems * Gary Cornelius, Individual * Adam Di Carlo, Debian * Paul Grosso, Arbortext * Dick Hamilton,

Super Tuesday, indeed!

2008-02-07T09:35:00.000-07:00

I went to my first party caucus on Tuesday. Apparently many others also attended for the first time! The chair of the caucus was stunned, saying that on average, attendance is about 2 people per precinct. This year, that number was about 40 per precinct! At this caucus, we had about 1000 people in attendance, though I don't know for sure how many precincts were represented. They even ran out of

Trapped!

2008-02-05T09:54:00.000-07:00

So, Sunday afternoon, my wife and I were enjoying a movie in our room before going to a Superbowl party at a friends house. The kids were having quiet reading time in their rooms. All of a sudden, we heard a very loud BANG somewhere downstairs. We raced downstairs to figure out what had happened and couldn't find anything! Then when it was time to hop in the van and head out to the Superbowl

First ride

2008-01-15T20:21:00.000-07:00

The roads still aren't in that great of condition to be fully out and about, so my first ride was just around the neighborhood to get used to my new bike. Of course, as soon as I got home and attempted the first ride, I found out the battery was drained, despite taking it for a test ride earlier at the dealer. After a night of battery charging, the bike was finally ready for my first ride!

My new ride!

2008-01-13T21:22:00.000-07:00

You may remember that I took the Motorcycle Safety Foundation basic rider course back in September. Slowly I've been gathering equipment for the last few months, but have been lacking my set of wheels! I've done a ton of research and had my heart set on a liquid-cooled, shaft drive bike with low miles. I had also grown quite sweet on the Honda Shadow Aero, though I also considered the Honda

VISAGE, Air Traffic Control and Google Earth!

2007-12-07T14:33:00.000-07:00

Flatirons is doing some VERY cool work with the FAA. One result of this work is a tool called VISAGE, a geospatial visualization and analysis tool that processes data into files that are loaded into Google Earth. These faces of VISAGE provide aeronautical viewing for the FAA legacy En Route system adaptation (ACES) and the modernization effort (ERAM). You can check out the solution brief here:

Move to ROA

2007-12-05T11:06:00.000-07:00

Saw an interesting post on the O'Reilly blog from XML 2007: Instead of SOA (SOAP, XML Schema, WSDL, UDDI, WS-*) move to ROA: RelaxNG, REST, Atom, AtomPub, and OpenSearch.) [I’ve never heard “Resource oriented architecture”/ROA before.] Sounds right to me! Of course, you know my famous quote: If you're not RelaxNG, you're working too hard! Sounds like the industry is finally catching on! I'll

Missing XML 2007

2007-12-03T11:04:00.000-07:00

Once again, I'm left disappointed because I couldn't get travel authorization from my company. This happened when I was at Sun, and now at Flatirons. It's frustrating because the big XML conference is one of the best opportunities to learn about cutting edge developments in the industry and to network with industry leaders. It's about the best form of training I can get anymore. Once you are at

Following the Star...

2007-12-03T09:43:00.000-07:00

As yesterday was the first Sunday of Advent, we studied Prophecies concerning the coming of the Messiah. The Star of Bethlehem also plays a significant part in foretelling the coming of the King. We watched an extremely interesting video concerning the Star and research that was done matching the Scriptures and celestial positions using the Starry Night software. More information can be found at

Merry Christmas 2007

2007-11-30T20:54:00.000-07:00

Dear Family and Friends, This year we're trying something a little different. We're sending out Christmas Cards without the traditional letter and directing people here to do our part in "being green". We've had a great year! Here's an update from each of the family members:Dawn - I'm still busy with homeschooling the kids, which I enjoy more and more as the kids get older and we start talking

DITA Learning Content accepted for DITA 1.2

2007-11-13T10:04:00.000-07:00

More big news in the standards world today! The DITA 1.2 feature proposal #12058, "Design and language specification for DITA learning and training content," submitted by the DITA Learning and Training Content sub-committee was approved at today's DITA TC meeting. Congratulations to John Hunt and all the members of the DITA Learning Content SC! The specification and sample plugins are all

DocBook v5.0 now an official Committee Draft!

2007-11-13T09:14:00.000-07:00

I was on the road last week and didn't have a chance to post the GREAT news! At the DocBook TC meeting on November 7, 2007, DocBook V5.0 was approved as a Committee Draft! This draft was a result of several years of hard design work, especially by Norm Walsh, who created 9 Beta Releases and 7 Candidate Releases since October of 2005. The most exciting feature, IMO, that this standard is based on

Spacecraft Spotting

2007-11-06T18:07:00.000-07:00

Thanks to http://www.heavens-above.com/, I was able to figure out when to wake up this morning to see BOTH the International Space Station and the STS-120 Space Shuttle Discovery! I wish I had a digital camera or video camera with me, because it was really very cool! They passed right over Colorado moving from Southwest to Northeast. The whole thing was over in about 5 minutes, so I really

I'm an Uncle, again!

2007-11-05T17:43:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to my sister, Heather, and my brother-in-law JC on the birth of their 3rd! Baby boy, Garrin, was born around 2:30pm. His name means "Guardian". Glad everything went well, and look forward to meeting my new nephew soon!

13949712720901ForOSX

2007-11-05T11:59:00.000-07:00

What does the title of this post mean? APPLE, GIVE US JAVA 6 IN LEOPARD OS X! For more details, see: http://weblogs.goshaky.com/weblogs/lars/entry/apple_give_us_java_6 http://blogs.sun.com/bblfish/entry/vote_for_java6_on_leopard http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2007/10/30/No-Leopard

DITA Learning Content specialization open for review!

2007-10-30T10:37:00.000-06:00

The OASIS DITA Learning and Training Content Specialization Subcommittee is proud to announce the availability of our specification for DITA Learning Content for public review. The design and language specification for the DITA learning and training content is available here, and the DITA Open Toolkit plugin with working DTD, XSD, DITA content samples, and documentation is available here. The

Hometown Heroes and the World Series

2007-10-30T10:03:00.000-06:00

I just wanted to provide an update to the World Series ticket fiasco and issue a few public Thank Yous. As you may have read in my previous post, the ticket system hung when I was about to submit my credit card info to complete the purchase. This is not a unique situation, and affected hundreds of other native Colorado Rockies fans. I just wanted to take my son to the World Series - a once in a

Major League Fiasco!

2007-10-23T14:47:00.000-06:00

Unbelievable. The Rocks and the Sox are going to be playing in Denver! I was one of the frustrated fans to experience the Monday ticket fiasco (supposedly a Denial of Service attack), to then run into the SAME problem on Tuesday! I actually got in about 12:15, selected 2 tickets for my son and I, and then have the site crash when I went to register and put in my credit card info! My son and I

Got R done!

2007-10-16T11:40:00.000-06:00

Way to go Rockies! The Colorado Rockies have now won the last 21 of 22 games, and swept BOTH the Phillies and the Diamondbacks! Next stop, World Series! The Rockies have come a long way since I saw them lose to the KC Royals earlier this season. Tulo should get Rookie of the Year for sure. Big kudos to the entire team, though! There are enough divas in baseball, so it has been very refreshing to

Doc Standards Interoperability Framework whitepaper now available!

2007-10-08T09:00:00.000-06:00

Jim Earley and I have presented about the Doc Standards Interoperability Framework at XML 2006, DITA West 2007, Open Publish 2007, OASIS Symposium 2007 and DITA West 2007. The whitepaper is now available at: http://www.flatironssolutions.com/downloads/Interoperability_Framework.pdf. This whitepaper contains greater detail on the business case for interoperability, as well as specifics on the

Motorcycle safety: Star Wars style!

2007-10-07T22:55:00.000-06:00

One of the key aspects of motorcycle safety is VISIBILITY. If you've been reading my blog, you know I recently completed the Basic Rider Course (certified by the Motorcycle Safety Foundation) from Thunder Mountain Harley in Loveland, CO. After taking this course, I have a keen understanding of the need for safe riding skills and proper riding attire. After I got my motorcycle endorsement on my

A powerful ally, this Padawan...

2007-10-07T22:14:00.000-06:00

Impressive. Most impressive. Connor faced Darth Maul in The Trials and successfully completed his training at the Jedi Training Academy!

Red Bull Air Race in San Diego!

2007-10-07T21:50:00.000-06:00

We happened to be on vacation in California the week of the Red Bull Air Race in San Diego. Thankfully, our itinerary already included 2 days in San Diego, and the entire family was interested in seeing the race instead of going to the Wild Animal Park. We even got to see it for free! You could buy tickets to watch it from the Embarcadero, but we went to Seaport Village and found a spot near a

Ready to RIDE!

2007-09-09T22:27:00.000-06:00

I have never ridden a motorcycle before this weekend, but thanks to high gas prices and a gas-guzzling V8 Dodge Dakota, I was highly motivated and even got the nod from my wife to go ahead! This weekend I took the Basic Rider Course (certified by the Motorcycle Safety Foundation) from Thunder Mountain Harley in Loveland, CO. It was an AWESOME experience! The instructors, Jeff, Tom and Betty were

David Megginson's cool new Airport website

2007-08-29T09:51:00.000-06:00

David blogged about an issue with Google maps and their use of a mercator projection (a problem if you want to use Google maps in aviation). His post, which was very interesting, also pointed me to a new website he has created: http://www.ourairports.com/. This is a very cool website for many reasons: You can plot where you have been in the world (via aircraft) and get a KML file of it quickly

Legacy

2007-08-27T16:25:00.001-06:00

Legacy, originally uploaded by shudson310.I wanted to be able to create a calendar of all my Star Wars motivators, and had 11 completed. I needed one more, and realized I had not created any entries for my favorite character, Jango Fett. Although this is the most sad part of the film for me, I thought this was a very poignant statement and tribute. It's also a little humorous, in that what

Now I'm Lijit!

2007-08-14T16:55:00.000-06:00

Saw an interesting news item from Bloglines that referred to wanderingstan and Lijit. I went to high school with Stan, but had sort of been out of touch with him. Looks like when he wasn't wandering, he kept pretty busy! I checked out the company he founded, Lijit, and it's a very cool web service! Check it out and you can be Lijit, too!

Plaxo now uses OpenID

2007-08-14T16:42:00.000-06:00

The folks at Plaxo (http://www.plaxo.com) have done a really nice job with their 3.0 beta. I like the new calendar sync features, and the ability to sync across multiple services (Yahoo, Outlook, Gmail, etc.) I also like the fact that they are now using OpenID! Life is starting to get easier, now that all of these cool services are coming together!

Flatirons Solutions presenting at DITA East

2007-08-13T16:44:00.000-06:00

Flatirons Solutions will be presenting at the DITA East conference on October 5-6. Publishing Technical Documentation with Bookmap and DITA 1.1 An overview of the new Bookmap specialization standardized as part of the OASIS DITA 1.1 release. Details about what is contained in the Bookmap DTD, and ways to think about structuring your data for maximum benefit when producing “printed” (PDF) format

DITA 1.1 Officially Released!

2007-08-13T16:26:00.001-06:00

It's been a lot of work, but we've finally released version 1.1 of DITA! I've been involved heavily in DITA 1.1, as well as the Learning Content specialization subcommittee. The full press release is available here: http://www.oasis-open.org/news/oasis-news-2007-08-13.php Key features of this release include: Enhanced print publishing capabilities with the new DITA Bookmap specialization,

Wikispaces uses OpenID!

2007-08-03T10:49:00.000-06:00

This is cool. From my previous blog entry, I had set up an OpenID. Now, it turns out that wikispaces.com can use OpenID for single sign on! Woohoo! I've been waiting for this technology to finally hit mainstream, and now I have a practical use. I'm not at liberty to share a link to the wikispace I've been working on feverishly for the summer, but hopefully you'll see a post on that soon, too.

Czech Comments for Office Open XML (in English!)

2007-08-02T11:23:00.000-06:00

Jirka Kosek has graciously provided an English translation of the Czech Standards Institute's comments on the Microsoft-created Office Open XML standard. The English version is here: http://xmlguru.cz/2007/08/czech-ooxml-comments-in-english I also thought it was interesting to visually see the size of this monster spec. See the photos here: http://xmlguru.cz/2007/07/czech-comments-ooxml

New DocBook XSL 1.73.0 released!

2007-07-22T16:04:00.000-06:00

The latest version of the DocBook XSL stylesheets, v1.73.0, has been released! The .0 designator means this is the beta version, and should be tested. If no bugs are found with the new distribution, a .1 release will be issued shortly!. Hopefully a new version of the namespace-aware stylesheets for processing DocBook v5.0 documents will be following soon. UPDATE: The 1.73.0 namespace-aware

New DITA information resources

2007-07-19T11:10:00.000-06:00

Bob Doyle has created several new DITA information resources: DITA News is a resource website and industry newsletter. DITA Blog - blogs about DITA DITA Wiki DITA infocenter - a searchable knowledgebase for DITA users DITA Users - helping authors get started with topic-oriented structured writing DITA Tutor - self paced and instructor led DITA tutorials and workshops DITA News will also

Publishing Word docs direct to blog via Google Docs

2007-07-18T15:32:00.000-06:00

Here's the first test: OASIS DocBook SubCommittee for Publishers Background For more than a decade, DocBook has provided a structured markup vocabulary for hardware and software documentation. DocBook is now widely used in both commercial and Open Source environments. DocBook has a very broad element set, and applies to much more than just technical documentation. The DocBook TC is engaged in

What I did on my summer vacation

2007-07-16T09:24:00.000-06:00

This year has been a big home improvement year, and summer vacation was no different! Over the 4th of July week I built a dog run (with about 4" of pea gravel at the base): And we converted the boys' Train theme (complete with working train set around the top of the room) to a NASA theme. We did have to buy the 4'x6' Shuttle for one wall, but the rest came out of my Lego/NASA/space

The last candidate release?

2007-07-13T10:40:00.000-06:00

Norm Walsh has released DocBook v5.0CR5, which will (hopefully) be the last candidate release so we can get the official v5.0 ball rolling! Please test this release thoroughly! This release also incorporates recommendations on schema modularizations from the DocBook SubCommittee for Publishers. Much of the schema was already modularized, thanks to Norm's forward thinking and best practices.

Dealing with tokenize, atomic values and a for-each

2007-07-12T09:36:00.000-06:00

I've been working on a little identity transform issue, where I needed to resolve some transclusions in an XML document. Some of the ref attributes in the doc also contained multiple space-separated values that needed to be processed separately. After a few Googles and a great deal of hacking, I was able to process refs with a single attribute value. I Googled a bit more and found some help (

Staking my Claim

2007-07-11T11:18:00.001-06:00

Thanks to a post from Jeni Tennison, I found out about claimID and openID. I've created a claimID page here: http://claimid.com/shudson310. It's also cool that it sets up an hCard for you on the same page!

4.. 3.. 2.. 1.. Coming Home

2007-06-22T13:01:00.000-06:00

Just watching the Live NASA TV broadcast of the shuttle landing at Edwards AFB while listening to "Major Tom" by Peter Shilling. The two media work well together! (This version with Apollo 13 is cool, too) Earth below us Drifting falling Floating weightless Coming home... Come home safely, Atlantis! UPDATE:Touchdown! Welcome home, Atlantis!

My new favorite Martini

2007-06-12T19:28:00.000-06:00

I had the BEST martini ever at the Trinity (http://www.hobokentrinity.com/index.html) tonight. It's called the Key Lime Martini, and contained: Stoli Vanil vodka, Malibu rum and lime juice. It tastes just like a slice of key lime pie! I really liked the Celtic theme of the restaurant, which was also on Sinatra Drive, and had a great view of the Hudson... inside and outside ;-)

Hurricane-force winds and a new record low

2007-06-08T08:53:00.000-06:00

Hurricane-force winds hit Colorado on Wednesday, though thankfully our house did not incur any damage. Denver 7 news reported: Just above the surface, winds were equivalent to a Category 4 hurricane. The National Weather Service Doppler radar measured a 142 mph wind gust 2,000 feet above the town of Louisville at 10:20 p.m. Wednesday. We've always joked about the Superior Wind Tunnel (since we

Walking with Tollers and Jack

2007-05-14T17:01:00.000-06:00

One of the highlights of my day today was Addison's Walk at Magdalen College in Oxford. It was incredibly beautiful and filled with the scent of spring blossoms. The small stream flowing along the path was mesmerizing. It was inspiring to walk on the same path that Tollers (J.R.R. Tolkien) and Jack (C.S. Lewis) discussed spiritual matters. I could just imagine my personal "Inklings" (Don and Cam

C.S. Lewis Tour in Oxford

2007-05-14T16:55:00.000-06:00

I had a personalized 4+ hour tour with Ron Brind, founder of the C.S. Lewis Tour in Oxford today. In a word: Spectacular! Ron is a wealth of information, and provided the best opportunities for photos and even took a few for me so I could be in them! If you get a chance to come to Oxford, this is a MUST SEE tour! Information on the tour can be found at: www.cslewistours.com or

Evensong Highlight!

2007-05-13T14:08:00.000-06:00

I was absolutely right about my previous post. It's all uphill from here! I spent some time trying to orient myself in Oxford this afternoon. While taking in some of the breathtaking architecture, including the Radcliffe Camera and St. Mary the Virgin Church across from my hotel, I decided to try to find the location to meet my tourguide for my C.S. Lewis tour for tomorrow. I turned the wrong

The BA Vomit Comet

2007-05-13T13:55:00.000-06:00

Well, traveling to London has to be one of the lowlights of my trip. When Dawn and I traveled to Scotland last summer, we had issues with security (2 days after the big liquid scare) and got to go on board with only our wallets, and everything else checked. This time, there was a guy in the centre section (I had the far window, thank God!) who got sick pulling away from the Denver terminal. I

Oxford bound!

2007-05-13T13:52:00.000-06:00

I'm headed to Oxford Saturday night to work on a Content Architecture for Wiley Blackwell! I'm very excited, though I will be gone on Mother's Day. Happy Mother's Day, Dawn! I'll bring back something nice to make up for it. I promise! I'll be posting pictures, as I'll have about a day and a half to work through the jetlag before my meetings

What my son wanted to do for his 9th birthday

2007-05-08T17:51:00.000-06:00

Pinky: " Gee Brain, what do you want to do tonight?" The Brain: "The same thing we do every night, Pinky - Try to take over the world!" In case you missed the obscure Animaniacs reference, you might need to read about it on Wikipedia and then catch the episodes on DVD! Connor wanted to go to the Apple Store for his birthday, so he could play with the new iBooks and his new favorite app:

Godspeed, Mr. Schirra

2007-05-04T10:25:00.000-06:00

The world has lost another of the original Mercury seven. Walter "Wally" M. Schirra passed away at age 84. More details are here: http://www.space.com/news/cs_070503_schirra_obit.html I never had the opportunity to meet "Wally" but have had the opportunity to tour the launch site, and have seen many of his space suits and flight suits at the Astronaut Hall of Fame, Kennedy Space Center Visitor

Talisman Rome expansion!

2007-05-02T12:25:00.000-06:00

Every year my friends and I gather for an annual Talisman tournament. Talisman is an adventure board game published by Games Workshop. As part of the fun, we have created multiple expansions that are allowed in the tournament. My labor of love has been a Rome expansion, since I'm a huge Ancient Rome buff. It's now available for non-commercial use at Talisman Island, a fan site. Here's a link to

Struck by Lightning!

2007-05-02T12:02:00.000-06:00

In a good way! I just found this extension to Thunderbird (my preferred mail client): http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/lightning/. From the project home: Lightning brings the Sunbird calendar to the popular email client, Mozilla Thunderbird. Since it's an extension, Lightning is tightly integrated with Thunderbird, allowing it to easily perform email-related calendaring tasks. I haven't

Welcome, Jeni!

2007-04-24T07:04:00.000-06:00

Jeni Tennison has entered the blogosphere! Welcome, Jeni! Jeni and Michael Kay are my primary sources of XSLT wisdom, so I look forward to reading her posts!