Way to go, Discovery!

I'm so thankful Discovery had a safe launch this morning, and the US Manned Space program is back in action! NASA TV had great coverage, and thanks to the DVR, I can watch it later!

My son, Connor, wore his flight suit for the occasion. He's seen the Shuttle Enterprise at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center near Washington Dulles, and been to Space Camp in Huntsville, AL. Watching the STS-114 coverage helped tie it all together for him. I've also been to Kennedy Space Center twice! Now we just need to see a launch in person, or get a ticket for the BIG trip!

You can get all the latest information at:
http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts114/status.html and at
http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/missions/sts-114/sts-114-info.html and
http://www.space.com/returntoflight/.

Also, thanks to Jason for the link to track the shuttle: http://science.nasa.gov/temp/ShuttleLoc.html

See also: Space

DocBook NG: The "PTO" Release

Norm Walsh has just issued DocBook NG: The “PTO” Release.

Changes are primarily around XInclude support and the section content models.

This may very well be the final NG release prior to the DocBook V5.0 alpha release we are planning for August.

Please try this out, and report any problems ASAP! Norm has been gracious enough to also produce a Simplified NG version of "PTO", available at: http://docbook.org/docbook-ng/simple/pto/index.html :-)

See also: DocBook

Google Moon

This is TOO COOL! Check out moon.google.com, based on Google Earth/Maps technology.

From this site, you can locate the landing sites of the Apollo missions. Today also happens to be the anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing (and my cousin, Brandon's birthday).

See also: Space

Farewell, Scotty

Today we mourn the loss of another member of the Original Crew of the Starship Enterprise. James "Scotty" Doohan lost his battle with Alzheimers at the age of 85. It would be quite appropriate to accompany this blog entry with the playing/listening of Amazing Grace on the bagpipes.

Thankfully, James Doohan was awarded his Hollywood star last year in his final public appearance.

I always liked the episodes and scenes where Scotty wears his kilt. ("Is There No Truth in Beauty?", "The Savage Curtain"). I also liked his crossover to Star Trek:The Next Generation in "Relics".

Scotty's ashes will be launched into space via the same private launch service that carried Roddenberry's remains into orbit after his 1991 death. That's the way I want to go, too(or in a Photon torpedo casing like Mr. Spock)!

Scotty's Engineering Log will continue to bring you the latest news in Space and Sci-Fi in James Doohan's honor. Farewell, Mr. Scott.

See also: Sci-Fi

New DocBook Stylesheets!

It's been a few months since the last stylesheet update, but I think it's been worth the wait! Michael Smith has announced the release of version 1.69.0 of the DocBook XSL stylesheets. This is not the production release, but the public experimental release. If no bugs are found, a 1.69.1 version should be released in short order.

The stylesheets can be found at: http://sourceforge.net/projects/docbook/

Changes in this release include:

* This release adds localizations for the following languages: Albanian,
    Amharic, Azerbaijani, Hindi, Irish (Gaelic), Gujarati, Kannada, Mongolian,
    Oriya, Punjabi, Tagalog, Tamil, and Welsh.

  * Added support for specifying number format for auto labels for chapter,
    appendix, part, and preface. Contolled with the appendix.autolabel,
    chapter.autolabel, part.autolabel, and preface.autolabel parameters.

  * Added basic support for biblioref cross referencing.

  * Added support for align on caption in mediaobject.

  * Added support for processing documents that use the DocBook V5 namespace.

  * Added support for termdef and mathphrase.

  * EXPERIMENTAL: Incorporated the Slides and Website stylesheets into the
    DocBook XSL stylesheets package. So, for example, Website documents can
    now be processed using the following URI for the driver Website
    tabular.xsl file:

    http://docbook.sourceforge.net/release/xsl/current/website/tabular.xsl

  * A procedure without a title is now treated as an "informal" procedure
    (meaning that it is not added to any generated "list of procedures" and
    has no affect on numbering of generated labels for other procedures).

  * docname is no longer added to olink when pointing to a root element.

  * Added support for generation of choice separator in inline simplelist.
    This enables auto-generation of an appropriate localized "choice
    separator" (for example, "and" or "or") before the final item in an inline
    simplelist.

    As a temporary workaround for the fact that most of the DocBook
    non-English locale files don't have a localization for the word "or", you
    can put in a literal string to be used; example for French:
    <?dbchoice choice="ou">. That is, use "ou" instead of "or".

FO

  * Added content-type property to external-graphic element, based on
    imagedata format attribute.

  * Added support for generating <rx:meta-field creator="$VERSION"/> field for
    XEP output. This makes the DocBook XSL stylesheet version information
    available through the Document Properties menu in Acrobat Reader and other
    PDF viewers.

  * Trademark symbol handling made consistent with handling of same in HTML
    stylesheets. Prior to this change, if you processed a document that
    contained no value for the class attribute on the trademark element, the
    HTML stylesheets would default to rendering a superscript TM symbol after
    the trademark contents, but the FO stylesheets would render nothing.

  * Added support for generating XEP bookmarks for refentry.

  * Added support for HTML markup table border attribute, applied to each
    table cell.

  * The table.width template can now sum column specs if none use % or *.

  * Added fox:destination extension inside fox:outline to support linking to
    internal destinations.

  * Added support for customizing abstract with property sets. Controlled with
    the abstract.properties and abstract.title.properties parameters.

  * Add footnotes in table title to table footnote set, and add support for
    table footnotes to HTML table markup.

  * Added support for title in glosslist.

  * Added support for itemizedlist symbol none.

  * Implemented the new graphical.admonition.properties and
    nongraphical.admonition.properties attribute sets.

  * Added id to formalpara and some other blocks that were missing it.

  * Changed the anchor template to output fo:inline instead of fo:wrapper.

  * Added support for toc.max.depth parameter.

Help

  * Eclipse Help: Added support for generating olink database.

HTML

  * Added a first cut at support in HTML output for DocBook 5 style
    annotations. Controlled using the annotation.support parameter, and
    implemented using JavaScript and CSS styling. For more details, see the
    documentation for the annotation.js, annotation.css,
    annotation.graphic.open, and annotation.graphic.close parameters.

  * Generate client-side image map for imageobjectco with areas using calspair
    units

  * Added support for <?img.src.path?> PI.

  * Added support for passing img.src.path to DocBook Java XSLT image
    extensions when appropriate. Controlled using the
    graphicsize.use.img.src.path parameter.

  * Added support for (not valid for DocBook 4) xlink:href on area and (not
    valid for DocBook 4) alt in area.

  * Added new parameter default.table.frame to control table framing if there
    is no frame attribute on a table.

  * Added initial, experimental support for generating content for the HTML
    title attribute from content of the alt element. This change adds support
    for the following inline elements only (none of them are block elements):
    abbrev, accel, acronym, action, application, authorinitials, beginpage,
    citation, citerefentry, citetitle, city, classname, code, command,
    computeroutput, constant, country, database, email, envar, errorcode,
    errorname, errortext, errortype, exceptionname, fax, filename, firstname,
    firstterm, foreignphrase, function, glossterm, guibutton, guiicon,
    guilabel, guimenu, guimenuitem, guisubmenu, hardware, honorific, interface
    , interfacename, keycap, keycode, keysym, lineage, lineannotation, literal
    , markup, medialabel, methodname, mousebutton, option, optional, otheraddr
    , othername, package, parameter, personname, phone, pob, postcode,
    productname, productnumber, prompt, property, quote, refentrytitle, remark
    , replaceable, returnvalue, sgmltag, shortcut, state, street, structfield,
    structname, subscript, superscript, surname, symbol, systemitem, tag,
    termdef, token, trademark, type, uri, userinput, varname, and wordasword

  * Added support for chunking revhistory into separate file (similar to the
    support for doing same with legalnotice). Patch from Thomas Schraitle.
    Controlled through new generate.revhistory.link parameter.

  * l10n.xsl: Made language codes RFC compliant. Added a new boolean config
    parameter, l10n.lang.value.rfc.compliant. If it is non-zero (the default),
    any underscore in a language code will be converted to a hyphen in HTML
    output. If it is zero, the language code will be left as-is.

Thank you to all who have contributed to the bug fixes, stylesheet coding, and testing! Thank you as well to everyone in the DocBook user community for your feedback and continued support of DocBook!

See also: DocBook

Lars' DocBook Cheat Sheet

Lars Trieloff has created a DocBook Cheat Sheet based on Jeff Beal's DocBook Quick Reference Card. Very handy! Thanks, Lars. Details are available at: Software Documentation Weblog

See also: DocBook

Citation processing and DocBook

Bruce D'Arcus has just announced the CiteProc project.

This project uses DocBook NG, MODS from the Library of Congress, and formatted with his citation style language (CSL).

Bruce is also working on the OpenOffice bibliographic project, which may incorporate some of this technology.

Check it out at: http://xbiblio.sourceforge.net/citeproc.html. Thanks, Bruce!

See also: DocBook

Riding the rails

We had a very special 4th of July weekend treat: riding the Cumbres & Toltec Railroad.

So, now we've done two of the trains in Colorado this year. We still need to ride the Durango/Silverton, Pikes Peak Cog, Cripple Creek, Royal Gorge, Leadville, and others. We are probably done for this year, though. Some of them can get pricey with a family of 5! There's a complete list at: http://www.coloradolinks.net/Colorado_Railroads.htm.

See also: General

DocBook 4.5CR1 now available.

Norm Walsh has uploaded DocBook V4.5CR1 to the OASIS mirror on http://docbook.org/ (it will appear on the official OASIS site asap).

There are no technical changes in the 4.5CR1 release (from 4.5b1), but a formal motion to make a 4.5 Committee Specification followed by ratification as an OASIS Standard. This will be made official if no errors are reported before the next TC meeting.

Changes from the 4.4 Spec include:

• RFE 1055480: Allow revnumber to be optional in revision per the November, 2004 meeting.

• RFE 1070458: Allow colophon in article per the November, 2004 meeting.

• RFE 1070770: Allow procedure in example per the November, 2004 meeting.

• RFE 1071686: Add isrn as a value of class attribute on biblioid, citebiblioid, bibliosource, and bibliorelation per the December, 2004 meeting.

• Added mathphrase per the February, 2005 meeting.

• Added termdef per the March, 2005 meeting.

• Allow common attributes on HTML table elements (tr, td, etc.) per the April, 2005 meeting.

Please try this version out, and report any problems or concerns ASAP to docbook@lists.oasis-open.org

See also: DocBook

My new favorite app

Google has really done it now. Not only is Blogger extremely easy to use for blogging, but they've come out with Picasa and Hello to make it even easier!

I really don't want my blog to turn into a photo blog, but as busy as I've been, I'm finding less and less time available to blog. I have many emails in my gmail box reminding me of cool things I've found that "I should really blog someday..."

Picasa is my new favorite app. I've been managing all my photos on the iMac with iPhoto, but Picasa (even though it doesn't run on Mac, yet. GRRR. HINT, HINT Google dev guys...) goes a step further. Not only can you assign Keywords for metadata, create slideshows, organize, touch up, burn CDs, backup, create posters and collages, and more, but with Hello, can also publish straight to your blog!

This feature alone makes it worth moving all my pics to Picasa. If I get too busy to do updates, but actually have had a semblance of a life and take pictures, I can slap on a caption and post!

I wish there were some blog templating things I could do around the photos (like adding my XML wrappers), but it posts the captions, and that's usually enough. I'd like to auto-assign or templatize the addition of technorati tags, though.

I also found another cool tool called Google Earth, but I haven't had time to play with it yet...

See also: General

Another Father's Day treat: The Georgetown Loop Rail Road! This is Engine #12.

The best singing cowboys around: The Flying W Wranglers! Truly a Father's Day treat. If you are ever in Colorado Springs, you have to plan a dinner at the Flying W.

Connor and I during our EVA as Mission Specialists during our first shuttle mission (in 5DF chairs to simulate weightlessness).

Scott in the Multi-Axis Trainer (MAT), simulating a spacecraft tumbling out of control.

Connor spins in every direction in the Multi-Axis Trainer (MAT).

Connor experiences weightlessness in the 5DF (5 Degrees of Freedom) trainer.

Space Camp at night

Our view of Space Camp from the Marriott.

Connor and I in front of the Pathfinder Shuttle.

Flight Engineer 1 and 2 performing experiments aboard the International Space Station sim.

Connor and I outside the mission simulator!

Scotty at the entrance to Space Camp and Habitat 1.

Connor at the entrance to Space Camp and Habitat 1

First Glimpse of Space Camp

Connor and I would have to say that Space Camp has been one of the best experiences of our lives!

We travelled on Thursday, attended Space Camp 1/2 day Friday, full day Saturday, 1/2 day Sunday, and then travelled back on Monday. They had us going from about 7am to 10pm, so it felt like a longer camp. We got to ride 6 different training simulators, performed 2 full shuttle missions aboard a life-size replica, built and launched rockets, watched 2 IMAX movies, took several museum tours and attended several history and information briefings.

See also: Space

First Flight

Connor took one step closer to being an astronaut this weekend. He flew a Cessna 172N during his introductory flight!

Erie was having an Air Fair at Tri-County Airport and promised "free introductory" flights. Unfortunately, when we went in the morning, the line was terribly long so they said "come back in the afternoon". When we came back at 3pm, they said "oh, we stopped the free flights at 2:00". Connor was so looking forward to it, that he was near tears. Of course, they were more than happy to take us up for $50! ;-)

I am very proud of him. He did such a good job, and the instructor said he had just the right touch on the controls. He did need some booster cushions to see over the instrument panel, though!

We flew over our house, and Mom waved to us from the patio. I took my camcorder and captured the flight for posterity.

He's got a half hour in his log book, and is on his way to get his pilot license. Actually, I think we have the same hours now in our log books, so I'll have to try to keep up with him! I've taken ground school, so I've pointed him to my books so he can start studying too.

Only 2 more days to Space Camp! This was a good prep for Space Camp, too. We are both really excited to go!

See also: General

Review of the Sith

The circle is now complete. I saw Episode III last night with my best friends, Cam and Don, my lovely bride at THE place to see Star Wars in Colorado: The Continental Theater.

We got there at about 3pm, and were 40th or so in line (by 6pm, the line for our 7pm show stretched from the front door all the way to the end of the parking lot!). I brought my laptop, with the latest IMPS: Relentless chapter and a podcast from theforce.net. Cam brought Star Wars: Trivial Pursuit, with companion DVDs. Thankfully, since my laptop has a DVD drive, we were able to play the full version while waiting in line! It was very fun, with Cam playing Obi-Wan, Don playing Yoda, and myself as Vader. In the end, Yoda triumphed.

I was disappointed to not see very many people dressed in costume, but I chickened out of wearing a Vader costume, myself... Actually, my friends and I went to Star Trek V in costume as Klingons back in high school, and it was a painful experience (more from itchy makeup than anything), and hard to enjoy the movie. OK, Star Trek V in itself is a painful experience to watch itself, so you can imagine our pain...

So, what did I think of Episode III? Perhaps it's best to give you my preference list:

1. Episode IV: A New Hope
2. Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
3. Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
4. Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
5. Episode II: Attack of the Clones
6. Episode I: The Phantom Menace

My biggest disappointment: I can't take my boys, who also love Star Wars. The majority of the film, though dark, I think they could handle. There are two scenes, however, that are extended far longer than a simple "cover your eyes" can handle. These scenes include the Windu vs. Palpatine battle, and the immolation (burning)of Vader, which are both 5 to 10 minute scenes.

The opening sequence, and actually the whole first half of the film is in a word: AWESOME!

I don't want to give away too many spoilers, but my favorite characters are the clone pilots, the Kashykk troopers, and Commander Cody. I was so glad to see Temuera Morrison get so much screen time!

The Star Destroyers are incredible, too. The opening sequence is by far my favorite part of the movie.

So what do we have to look forward to, now that Star Wars is complete? We had prepped by watching Episodes I and II last week, and now I plan to watch Episodes IV-VI!

I am also looking forward to the new Star Wars: Battlefront II game coming out this fall, which will feature many Episode III locations as well as X-wing vs. Tie Fighters!

There is also rumor of a TV show that will be going into production soon, though I think it will be computer animated, not live action. Perhaps it will be a mix, but we will see...

See also: Sci-Fi

A Day Long Remembered...

Today is the day. The official opening day of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.

My best friend Jason got to see it last night in Arizona, but I haven't heard his review yet. From everything else I've read, it will be awesome. And I'm seeing it today!

I do NOT encourage Wookie Hooky (or space opera-related sick day). Instead, do what I did: work extra hours during the week, and make arrangements with your manager!

This has been a big month of closure for Sci-Fi fans: the last of the Star Wars movies, and the last episode of Star Trek:Enterprise

I love them both, so I find these articles very interesting:

• Star Trek and Star Wars: The end of two eras
• Star Trek vs. Star Wars
• The Case for The Empire
• Star Wars vs. Star Trek technology

Live long and prosper, and may the force be with you!

See also: Sci-Fi

How Lightsabers Work (theoretically)

I passed the How Lightsabers Work link around to some friends of mine, and a lively discussion ensued.

For your entertainment and/or edification, here is the discussion...

[G] That's always puzzled me. If the energy shaft were round, it would have to vaporize a one or two-centimeter swath through anything it cuts, resulting it potentially violent explosions as so much solid matter is converted directly to superheated gas.

[P] True, I suppose.

[G] Which leads to the obvious next question, how does the blade orient itself to the cut? I.e. how do you keep from spanking the target with the flat part of the blade? Is this part of the "gyroscopic" action mentioned in the article? Is the wielder not free to swing willy-nilly in an omnidirectional manner? Or is the perceived width of the blade merely the result of a glowing energy field around what is really a molecule-thin cutting beam? So many questions...

[P] Ummm... I'm guessing you've never used a sword. Or, more particularly, a saber. I don't know how to explain it other than to say that it's easy to tell by feel if the hilt is right-way-up in your hand, and the rest is all in your wrist action. The blade feels like an extension of your arm, and the blade is on the same plane as the back of your hand - the motions are instinctive, whether you're chopping, blocking with the flat of the blade, or stabbing.

[G] But the lightsaber *hilt* is round, with radial symmetry if you ignore the occasional knob or odd protruberance. The thing doesn't even have a contoured handgrip! In any case you're comparing ancient Earth battle gear to highly-advanced technological weaponry from (let's face it) an alien civilization. It's apples and oranges. Furthermore, it's apparant from the movies' historical documents that there's no planar orientation required for a lightsaber swing. It's just willy-nilly wherever.

[P] I don't know what that 'gyroscopic' stuff is supposed to be about, unless it means that the thing resists twisting (rotation about the long axis of the blade). That feature would help you make nice straight cuts, but I'd hate to have to fight the 'gyroscope' to twist the blade every time I reached the end of an arc and had to turn the edge back on target. Metal sabers have their own quirks, though - at the end of a stroke, you "fly" the blade around in a tight turn like an airplane wing before swinging hard back the way you came.

[P] As to why the lightsaber blade looks like a round column from any viewing angle, my guess is that the blade is unraveling the air molecules next to its surface and making them glow. Across the width of the blade, there are a lot of particles-formerly-known-as-air doing their best to radiate heat and get the hell away from the blade, so you'd expect a bulge of high-energy glowing crap to be at its thickest against the center of the blade. Off the 'edges', though, the superheated plasma has more room to escape and dissipate into the surrounding medium.

[P] Apart from being able to deliver obscene amounts of energy on target, though, lightsabers are 'teh ghey.' They make noise, and they light up the whole d@#n area. The beauty of a real cavalry saber is that you can pop out from behind a tree and take someone's arm off - QUIETLY.

As for me, "ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid"!

See also: Sci-Fi

Weather on Bloglines

I immediately subscribed to Mike Nelson's weather blog from thedenverchannel.com when he started it earlier this month for cool and interesting weather facts.

Today, Bloglines has made available a feed to get your local forecast, with preferences for US or Metric!

I also use the WeatherFox, er sorry, ForecastFox extension in the Firefox browser, as well as the WeatherChannel.com Desktop Weather application. You can never get too much weather information! :-)

See also: Weather

T-Minus 3 days...

A countdown of another kind today. Three days until Episode III!

I got tickets online over a month ago, and I'm going to see it with my lovely bride, and my two best friends that I've known and played Star Wars with since Third Grade!

We didn't see the original Star Wars together, but have seen quite a few of the others, and traded Topps movie cards in school, collected and played with the ships and figures, later played Star Wars roleplaying, and then the Star Wars CCG (Collectible Card Game).

We also went to all of the Special Edition re-releases of the films at the old Cinema 70 in the Springs.

I relish those childhood days, and am proud to call them my closest friends.

They were even quoted in the Gazette Telegraph:

Don Morgan’s parents recorded “Star Wars” on their VCR the first time it aired on television. Morgan and his brother watched the tape so often, they wore it out.

“Not only did we have the movie memorized, we knew all the funny commercials in between,” he says.

Cameron Crawford went to kindergarten with Morgan in Colorado Springs. They’re still friends and they still love to talk “Star Wars.”

“It’s happy season for us right now,” Crawford says.

As he grew up, Crawford says, “Star Wars” grew up with him.

“By the time I reached my teenage years, there was the romantic element to it,” he says. “There’s a little bit to it that appeals from the darker side, the blacker side of it.”

Now that he’s all grown up, “Star Wars” is still there for him. His latest toys are tabletop statues that are almost artistic.

“It’s something you can put on a nice table and not feel so geeky,” Crawford says.

Don has always been a huge fan of the Jedi and rebel forces, and more recently, the clone troopers.

Cam has always been closest to Han, Chewie and Lando.

Myself? I'm shamelessly a fan of Jango Fett, Boba Fett, Clone Troopers and Storm Troopers. The Imperial theme gives me chills. I know, there's one in every crowd...

My wife? She likes Leia, and is amazingly understanding of my sci-fi sickness. :-)

My earliest memory of Star Wars, though, was of Luke and Leia swinging across the Death Star. I was five years old.

See also: Sci-Fi

T-Minus 19 days...

Happy 7th Birthday, Connor!

This means that Connor is old enough now for his birthday present.

Connor and I are going to Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama! This has been a long-time dream for both of us.

We had a space-themed party with about 20 friends, complete with alka-seltzer rocket launches, and balloon-ar transfers, music from The Right Stuff, 2001, and more...

Watch this space for more of our experiences preparing for and attending Space Camp!

See also: Space

Happy 05-05-05!

Feliz Cinco de Mayo! Today is significant in many ways. And, you won't get to see 05-05-05 very often!

Here are a few other significant events on May 5 in history:

• 1494 - Christopher Columbus sighted Jamaica on his second trip to the Western Hemisphere. He named the island Santa Gloria.
• 1862 - The Battle of Puebla took place. It is celebrated as Cinco de Mayo Day.
• 1865 - The Thirteenth Amendment was ratified, abolishing slavery in the U.S.
• 1904 - The third perfect game of the major leagues was thrown by Cy Young (Boston Red Sox) against the Philadelphia Athletics. It was the first perfect game under modern rules.
• 1917 - Eugene Jacques Bullard becomes the first African-American aviator when he earned his flying certificate with the French Air Service.
• 1961 - Alan Shepard became the first American in space when he made a 15 minute suborbital flight.
• 1966 - Willie Mays broke the National League record for home runs when he hit his 512th.

Today is also the National Day of Prayer.

From the Presidential Proclamation:

The Congress by Public Law 100-307, as amended, has called on our citizens to reaffirm the role of prayer in our society and to honor the freedom of religion by recognizing annually a "National Day of Prayer."

NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim May 5, 2005, as a National Day of Prayer. I ask the citizens of our Nation to give thanks, each according to his or her own faith, for the liberty and blessings we have received and for God's continued guidance and protection. I also urge all Americans to join in observing this day with appropriate programs, ceremonies, and activities.

Amen.

See also: General

A Pleasant Apertif -- DocBook NG: Lillet

DocBook NG is really more of an appetizer for the main DocBook 5.0 course to come later, but Norm Walsh has released the DocBook NG: "Lillet" release.

As of the April DocBook TC meeting, we've also adopted an official namespace for DocBook NG and 5.0: http://docbook.org/ns/docbook

Norm has Lillet releases for full DocBook NG, Simplified NG (Thanks, Norm!), Slides NG and Website NG! From Norm's post, changes in this release include:

• Support <annotation>s as per the 20 Apr 2005 DocBook TC meeting.

• Allow <alt> in more places

• Allow <area> to have either linkends or xlink:href.

• Allow floatstyle on <table> and <informaltable>. Remove float.

• Restore <caption> to <mediaobject>; add it to <figure>, <example>, <table>, <informalfigure>, <informalexample>, and <informaltable>.

• Change method attribute values to lowercase; make action an xsd:anyURI on <html:form>. Add enctype and accept attributes to <html:form>; support <fieldset>.

  Move the HTML form elements to a separate extended schema.

• Allow common attributes on HTML table elements; allow orient, pgwide, tabstyle, and floatstyle on HTML table element.

• Allow <title> to be optional on <equation>.

• Restored <olink>.

The files for this release can be downloaded at: http://docbook.org/docbook-ng/lillet/index.html or Simplified NG at: http://docbook.org/docbook-ng/simple/lillet/index.html.

Bon Appétit!

See also: DocBook

DocBook vs. DITA

I was planning a post discussing this topic, but it looks like Lars Trieloff beat me to it with his post on DocBook vs. DITA.

Now that the DITA TC has approved the 1.0 version, it seems to be gaining quite a lot of momentum. Our (Flatirons Solutions) CTO, Eric Severson, spoke at the Content Management Strategies Conference, where they had 14 presentations on DITA related subjects! See http://www.cm-strategies.com for details.

I plan to get a lot more involvement in DITA in the near future. Perhaps you will see a new "DITA" category on the blog.

I will continue my involvement with DocBook, as I'm extremely interested in DocBook NG and Simplified DocBook!

See also: DocBook

Where in the World?

I just subscribed to Norm Walsh's WITW web service: http://norman.walsh.name/2005/02/16/witw-part-1.

I'm sure it was a bit of a challenge to set up, but now that he's done all the hard work, using it is very easy!

So, just where is Scotty?

Try it and see!

Thanks Norm, for yet another useful tool!

See also: General

Congratulations, Katy!

I work with Katy, and just found out she is a Denver Broncos cheerleader outside of her day job! Katy successfully secured a spot on the squad for her third season!

She definitely breaks the typical cheerleader stereotype, and is a very talented software engineer.

You can read her bio at: http://www.denverbroncos.com/page.php?id=117&contentID=480

See also: General

XForms in Star Office

I was fortunate enough to attend Lars Oppermann's presentation on XForms in Star Office 8 at XML 2004. I was stunned at the power of this new feature and have been "chomping at the bit" for the Open Office equivalent to be released. Looks like OpenOffice 2.0 has this feature, and is now available as a snapshot build, though not a stable release yet.

Today, Erwin Tenhumberg posted a tutorial for getting started with XForms. You can check it out here: http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/dancer/20050413#just_switch_xml_form_documents

Thanks to all the folks at Sun working on Star Office and Open Office, and thanks to Lars and Erwin!

See also: General

Simplified DocBook NG in Kahlúa!

WOOHOO!

As promised, here is the announcement for the next release of Simplified DocBook NG!

Norm Walsh fixed an element name problem from the "Jägermeister" release of full DocBook NG, and at the same time has released an update to Simplified DocBook NG, which hasn't been officially updated since the "Bourbon" release.

This is a customization layer of DocBook NG that implements, as closely as possible, Simplified DocBook V1.1. The only differences are:

• The <articleinfo>, <objectinfo>, and <sectioninfo> elements have bee replaced by <info>.

• The <authorblurb> element has been replaced by <personblurb>.

• The <corpauthor> element has been removed. The DocBook NG equivalent is <orgname> inside <author>.

• The <personname> element has been added as it's now required for personal names (for example, inside <author>).

• The <ulink> element has been removed. The equivalent is xlink:href on <link>.

The files are available at: http://docbook.org/docbook-ng/simple/kahlua/

Enjoy! and THANKS NORM!

See also: DocBook

Theology and robots

I came across a very interesting article about Anne Foerst's new book "God in the Machine: What Robots Teach Us About God and Humanity". Sounds like a very interesting read, if I ever finish my current reading list.

I'm almost finished with "Walking with Bilbo" by Sarah Arthur, using it in my morning reading time. Aside from that, it seems that I only have time to read Popular Science, and catch up on my Bloglines blogs...

The article mentions the Aibo, and I just happen to know a major hobbyist in the Aibo community, Richard Walkus! You can check out his site at: http://www.aibo-life.org

I'm curious to see if anyone has read Anne Foerst's book. Post your thoughts!

See also: General

Star Wars boy

My wife sent me this email when I was in New York a few weeks ago, and I just have to share:

The boys were downstairs playing with star wars ships and their voices started to rise...

Connor - “Star Wars ships aren’t real!”
Collin - “ Yes, they are! Luke Skywalker flies them!”
Connor - “ No, they are just in the movie!”
Collin - “No, they ARE real – I’ve seen them!”
Connor - “ The movies just make them look real!”
Collin - “They are real!”

At this point they were getting heated so I stopped them but just thought it would make you smile to know that your youngest son may be more of a fanatic than you!

After being snowed in by a spring blizzard (16"!) yesterday, we watched the snow scenes from "The Empire Strikes Back". Wonder if that reinforced Collin's position or not? :-)

"Commander, tear this ship apart until you've found those plans!"

Sleep well, and keep your blaster handy!

See also: Sci-Fi

Latest DocBook NG, "Jägermeister" now available!

The latest version of DocBook NG, based on the Relax NG grammar, has been released by Norm Walsh at: http://docbook.org/docbook-ng/jagermeister/index.html

Changes in this release include:

• Added for simple equations.
• Added for inline term definitions.
• The constraints on spanname, colname, namest, and nameend where tightened.

Norm will also be creating a Simplified DocBook NG release, also based on Jägermeister! I'll follow up with a post when it is available.

Good work, Norm!

See also: DocBook

Good things come to those who wait/blog!

I'm glad my wife reads my blog, too.

When I got home from New York, my wife and sons surprised me with a copy of Star Wars Lego: The Video Game! Not only that, but the game comes with a free ticket to Episode III!

We played the game together Saturday morning, and I was very pleasantly surprised. I'd read some good reviews, but for my 6 and 3 year olds to be able to play the game, and for it to have all the Star Wars and Lego quality I wanted, this will be my favorite PS2 game of all.

The game has a lot of extra features to replay with different characters and build custom lego models in the game! It has a high Star Wars and Lego nerd quotient. If you are either type of these nerds, you must get this game!

The other cool thing to come out on Saturday, was the Episode III collection of Lego sets. I was quite restrained, limiting myself to only 4 of the coolest sets:

More than anything, I'm out of room in my office, and I don't know where to put the new models... I'm going to have to get some of those expandable shelves from Home Depot or Organized Living!

I also let the boys pick out 1 toy of their choice. My oldest chose the Darth Vader Voice Changer Helmet, and my youngest the Clone Trooper Blaster Rifle. I had suggested the Anakin and Obi-Wan starfighters, but they wanted something with cool sound effects.

All I could say was, "Impressive, most impressive." My wife just rolled her eyes...

See also: Lego

I want to be a part of it, New York, New York!

I've spent another great week in the Big Apple. Our flight was delayed several hours inbound because of the rain on Monday, but the weather was just great for the rest of the week.

I was pretty beat, since we were supposed to arrive at 8pm, got in at 12am, and then had to unpack and crash by 1am.

On Tuesday, I had to hit up the Greek place near Madison Square Garden. The Gyro platter was awesome! For dinner, we went to Nick and Stef's Steakhouse at the Garden. I had so much for lunch though, that I had to settle for a light Caesar Salad w/ steak tips.

On Wednesday, I had a return visit to Guy and Gallard for a wonderful Cuban panini and the best Beef and Barley soup I've ever had! For dinner, we went back to the Tir na Nog Irish Pub near the Garden, though I opted for a burger this time.

Thursday was my favorite day of all. I worked from the hotel in the morning, doing updates to our documentation and preparing for our afternoon meeting. Around 11:30, I finished up and decided to make a "quick" run to the World of Disney store. Unfortunately, I didn't quite realize the hike from 9th and 36th to 5th and 55th! I made it around 12:15, and had a 1pm meeting at Two Penn Plaza near the Garden. I had about ten minutes to shop, and then run for a cab. The cabbie tore through the streets, giving me a true cab experience, and getting me to the meeting on time. He got a really good tip, too!

Our meetings finished up at a reasonable hour, so we walked to the Empire State Building. Unfortunately, the line was still really long, and I didn't want to stand around all night. So, we walked up to Rockefeller Center. They had a ton of Easter lillies out front, and they smelled heavenly. The ice rink was very cool.

The highlight of the night was going to the Rainbow Room at the top of Rockefeller center. In honor of New York, I had a Manhattan (a little strong, but the cherry finish was great). From the Rainbow Room, I think we had one of the best views of the city, without having to wait in line for hours!

Since it was nearing 9pm, we left for some lower cost dinner, and came across Via Brazil, a nice atmosphere with live music off Little Brazil. I had a mixed grill, and a terrific banana tiramisu for dessert.

Friday had another trip to Guy and Gallard this time for a Sicilian panini and some terrific clam chowder. After that, it was good bye to the great folks at McGraw-Hill Education, and back to my family in Colorado!

See also: General

Simplified DocBook 1.1 Official Release!

It is my pleasure to announce the release of the official Committee Specification for Simplified DocBook 1.1!

The second candidate release has been out for several months, with no major problems reported.

The major features of Simplified DocBook include:

• The imageobjectco tag has been removed; it should never have been present.
• The spacing attribute has been removed from variablelist.
• The package element has been removed.
• The biblioref element has been removed.
• The content model of subscript and superscript have been adjusted so that they no longer contain references to elements not present in Simplified DocBook.
• adds the subscript and superscript elements.
• adds the anchor element to a few more parameter entities.
• adds the anchor element and the remap attribute.
• introduces HTML tables but no other additional markup.

These enhancements should also make it much easier to convert HTML documentation to DocBook.

I've always been a very strong proponent of Simplified DocBook, and will continue to do so on the DocBook TC. I think these are very positive changes.

Special thanks to Norm Walsh for handling the builds and release of Simplified 1.1, and for putting up with all of my quesions and promptings...

See also: DocBook

A Great Loss

My sincerest, heartfelt condolences go out to all members of the Catholic Faith this evening at the loss of Pope John Paul II.

My thoughts and prayers are with you all during this time of sadness.

Though I am not Catholic, I personally know quite a few who are, and are feeling the loss of such a great man.

Though we are of different faiths, there are some core beliefs which we share, and I think that Pope John Paul II had a personal belief and relationship with Jesus Christ, and is therefore with Him in heaven tonight.

Even though many in this world do not share those core beliefs, I'm sure everyone would agree that John Paul II made a major positive impact on this world.

It is my great hope that the next Pope will carry forward this great humanitarian, and spiritual work, bringing many to faith in Jesus.

See also: General

Giving Chance A Chance

I needed to get a USB hard drive for transferring files to/from clients. I priced them out at the local Best Buy, and found most 512MB versions around $79. I was curious to see how much an equivalent USB drive with MP3 features would cost, and was pleasantly surprised to find the iPod Shuffle for only $20 more! For that alone, the extra cost for the functionality was worth it.

My hotel in NYC happened to overlook the Lincoln tunnel (I think?), so I was getting quite a bit of street noise in the room. Even with the heater blowing and a pillow over my head, I could still hear it. So, I picked out a soothing blend of Jazz and New Age instrumentals, loaded them in the shuffle, and was good until morning!

The Apple billboard I saw in Times Square "Give chance a chance." was very appropriate. As far as the Shuffle is concerned, I like chance!

My son saw my Shuffle, and wants to save up for one of his own, too! He's quite the artist using Garage Band, and wants to jam to his own creations.

See also: General

The Dark Side of New York

I'm in New York again this week, and I can't believe I missed this: http://www.starwars.com/episode-iii/release/promo/news20050329.html

The event was at 11am, and I was in meetings from 9am-6pm. Doh. Oh well, if New York was going to have a Dark Side, I'm glad this was it!

For more Dark Side fun, check out: http://www.mms.com/us/mpire/ The Boba Fett M&M figure is cool, too.

In other Star Wars news, it looks like the Star Wars Lego game is out! It's gotten pretty good reviews, too: http://ps2.ign.com/articles/599/599286p1.html?fromint=1

I was going to ask for it as an Easter present, but it wasn't out yet. Instead, I got the Buck Rogers series on DVD!

I'll have to ask for the Star Wars game for some other occasion (for me or my boys!)

See also: Sci-Fi

New York Newbie

This week was my first client engagement in my new job at Flatirons Solutions. Our client: McGraw-Hill Education in New York City!

I flew out on Sunday with our Chief Technical Officer, Eric Severson. He’s an amazing guy with years of experience dating back to the SGML days. He started his own company, Avalanche, was a VP at Interleaf, then at IBM, and now a founder of Flatirons Solutions. He worked on the CALS Table Model, and was a President of SGML Open and OASIS. I’m trying to learn as much as I can from him.

We cabbed in from La Guardia, and got to our hotel which was in the middle of Manhattan, and I mean in the middle! In one direction, I could walk to Times Square, in another to Madison Square Garden and the Empire State Building, and in another, Grand Central Station.

Here's the view from the hotel room:

I’m only disappointed that I didn’t get a chance to visit the Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty, see a show on Broadway, visit Trump Tower or visit the site of the 9/11 terror attack.

I also didn’t get to see the Hudson River, but did have meetings in the Hudson conference room! :-)

I tried to get as good of a taste of New York City as possible, and our host Ed was a splendid guide! Our first day for lunch was at a terrific sandwich shop. I had an Italian muffaletta and a cup of gumbo. For dinner, we met with our Documentum rep, Gary, at City Crab. I’m not a big seafood eater, but the jumbo fried shrimp and chopped salad was just great!

The next day started out rainy (gotta remember an umbrella next time), then was a blizzard of snow at lunch (gotta remember my USAF trench coat next time), and howling freezing wind by dinner (gotta remember a hat and gloves next time)!

For lunch, we went to The Stage Door deli and had an awesome hot pastrami and some of the best pickles I’ve ever had. For dinner, I was able to meet up with my college roomie and good friend Danny.

I was supposed to meet Danny at Grand Central Station, but couldn’t get a cab outside of Madison Square Garden (where our client meetings were), so I thought I’d start walking toward Times Square and hail one on the way. Because of the bitter cold and driving wind, it was next to impossible. I got all the way to Times Square, took a few pictures, and finally got a cab. I told him Grand Central Station, and he said I was headed the wrong direction. Well, I’m a noob. What can I say? :-)

When I finally met up with Danny, he had made reservations at Becco over near the theater district. So, we walked basically all the way back to Times Square and Broadway, and had to resort to buying some knit caps in the Fashion District on the way.

At Becco, we had a great 3 pasta continuous serving, and a very interesting black currant martini, and a delicious dessert sampler, including New York Cheesecake, gelato, custard, and chocolate mousse.

We hailed a cab back to my hotel, and Danny went on to Grand Central to catch a train home. What a fun time!

For lunch the next day, we went to a great little Greek place with the best Gyro I’ve had in a long time. It was huge, with lots of lamb and sauce. I should’ve gotten the Greek salad version though; it would’ve been a lot less messy, especially eating in the conference room.

We had a really long day, from 9 to 9, and then Eric and I went to Tir na Nog, a really neat Irish pub across from the Garden. I decided to order a New York strip steak, and it was great. Our hostess was from Northern Ireland and I had a Harp lager, so we really experienced Ireland!

For lunch the next day we went to Gray’s Papaya – home of the best hot dogs in NYC. The price is right, and the papaya drink was marvelous to wash down the three dogs…

After the meetings, it was off to La Guardia again. We may have left a little too late, because I got to experience the New York traffic jam. We still made it to the plane with plenty of time to spare, even with a really long line at security.

I’m definitely glad to be home again. While we had some very interesting meetings with a great group of folks, I missed my wife and kids terribly. And besides that, I got to spend about 2 hours with my wife for our 9th anniversary! (Happy Anniversary, babe!)

Thanks, New York!

See also: General

See DC-Dot run. Run DC-Dot Run!

While researching some information on IMS LOM (Learning Object Metadata), I came across this incredible metadata editor: DC-dot developed by Andy Powell, UKOLN, University of Bath.

You can access it at: http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/dcdot/

Point it to my blog, and you can see the metadata I've been incorporating into all of my pages! I've been using the Dublin Core recommendation for expressing metadata in html.

The other cool feature, is that it can express the metadata in RDF, as well as convert it to IMS LOM and more!

Thanks, Andy!

See also: XML

Irish eyes are smiling!

Congratulations to my friend, Cam and his wife Becca on the birth of their firstborn daughter, Erin Grace on March 1st!

I'd bet anything that little Erin will have Irish red hair like her mother, and Cam's love of all things Scottish and Irish!

Welcome to the world of parenting, with all of it's hardships and joys.

See also: General

Bounty Hunter art!

Finally, I can learn to sketch my favorite character in the Star Wars Universe:

http://www.starwars.com/kids/activity/draw/f20050228/index.html

I had to give up collecting All Things Star Wars a long time ago. Now, I collect All Things Bounty Hunters.

Here are a few of my other favorite links:

• http://www.bobafettfanclub.com/index.shtml
• http://www.jedi-academy.com/fett_tips.html

See also: Sci-Fi

Pilgrim's Progress: quick links to TDG references

This tip has been out there for a while, but I just stumbled across it:

Mark Pilgrim posted a tip for Firefox users to link to the DocBook:TDG reference pages!

In Firefox, create a new bookmark for http://docbook.org/tdg/en/html/%s.html, and then give it a keyword (I used the letter d). Then you can type things like d xref into your address bar to go to the xref reference page. Go go gadget hyperlink.

Too cool. I used "db" for my keyword to match the namespace prefix Norm has been using for DocBook NG, but it works just the same. I type "db article" now, instead of having to navigating from my blog links. Thanks Mark!

See also: DocBook