Moved in to the new Flatirons Solutions office today! The move went very smoothly, thanks to Alex, our IT guy, and all of the planning and coordination by Judy and others. I really like my new office/cube. It's got a great view, and near a fairly quiet group of folks.
Categories: General, moblog, consulting
The Semantic Web Best Practices and Deployment Working Group has published:
"A Survey of RDF/Topic Maps Interoperability Proposals"
Editors include giants from the Topic Map world, such as Steve Pepper and Lars Marius Garshol.
I still think Topic Maps have tremendous potential, and I wish there was more adoption of them. I tried to set up a Topic Map for the Sun System Handbook, while I was at Sun, but couldn't get approval to publish and set it up as a navigation mechanism for the Handbook.
It's definitely an interesting read, especially section 4.3 on Semantic mapping issues. Lars Marius Garshol has done tremendous work in this area, and the Ontopia Knowledge Suite has some incredible features for viewing/interacting with Topic Maps.
Categories: General
The sequel to the incredible Lego Star Wars game is still in development, but they've finally released some details: http://pc.ign.com/articles/687/687344p1.html
My kids and I absolutely loved the first game, so we are eagerly anticipating the sequel release this fall!
Categories: Lego
Found a pretty interesting podcast called Stuck in the 80s a few weeks ago. It's not necessarily family friendly, but is fun to reminisce about different subjects in the 80s.
A few memories that stick out from the 80s for me:
Flatirons Solutions is growing! We are moving into our new offices this weekend. We were able to go check out the new facilities last night. Here's a sneak preview of my office.
This is also my first venture into moblogging, since I upgraded my phone to the Motorola V360 last weekend. Not a bad pic!
Categories: General, moblog, consulting
I've been a T-Mobile subscriber for several years now. This weekend, I upgraded our phones, and wanted to re-use the several ringtones and wallpaper I had downloaded during those years. The guy at the store said, "Just call Customer Service, I'm sure they can give you a credit or something". Unfortunately, I got the "or something" part, which was an apology. Turns out, you have to re-download the ringtones and they won't issue any credit. What a ripoff. I can't use something I already paid for!
If you own a cell, DO NOT buy ringtones! The companies are already making a killing for their services, and ringtones are their cash cow.
Instead, check with your phone manufacturer to see if they sell software to let you create your own ringtones and wallpaper. Since I got the V360, they have a package that does just that. This software also works for RAZRs and other models, too! Check it out at: http://www.bvrp.com/customers/motorola/upgrade/US/
Categories: General
Norm Walsh has just releasedDocBook V5.0b3
The schema is available at: http://docbook.org/xml/5.0b3/. Testing would be greatly appreciated.
Norm has also updated The Definitive Guide, as well! Thanks Norm!
Categories: DocBook
After reading Bob's blog entry (bobdc.blog: Putting semantics on the web), I looked at the source for his page. I noticed that metadata is applied using:
<!--
<rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"
xmlns:trackback="http://madskills.com/public/xml/rss/module/trackback/"
xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/">
<rdf:Description
rdf:about="http://www.snee.com/bobdc.blog/2006/01/putting_semantics_on_the_web.html"
trackback:ping="http://www.snee.com/cgi-sys/cgiwrap/bobd/managed-mt/mt-tb.cgi/93"
dc:title="Putting semantics on the web"
dc:identifier="http://www.snee.com/bobdc.blog/2006/01/putting_semantics_on_the_web.html"
dc:subject="semantic web"
dc:description="Painlessly adding RDF-compatible semantics to XHTML."
dc:creator="Bob"
dc:date="2006-01-31T09:17:35-05:00" />
</rdf:RDF>
-->
I have been using the Dublin Core recommendation (http://dublincore.org/documents/dcq-html/):
Also, with the recommendation in the RDF / A Primer, a different approach is used.
Is there a single, best practice for embedding the metadata for the Semantic Web? Are the above approaches compatible?
I have since found out that Bob is using Movable Type, and that's how the metadata is generated. I'm using macros in my blogger.com template. Another approach to consider is/are Microformats.
It would be nice [HINT, HINT to all you folks creating new standards] if there was a standard, easy to use approach for adding metadata for the Semantic Web. RDF and OWL by hand is painful, just like XML Schema. I want something easier like RNC is to Schema -- just as powerful, if not more, but easier to use!
I've used oXygen for quite a while now, and I completely agree with Kurt Cagel (On XMLish Things: Oxygen).
The app is quite robust, and even better, multi-platform! It is definitely the tool of choice for XML hacks. I first chose oXygen because of its support for RelaxNG and easy transformation features.
The only problem, is that it's not the easiest tool for basic authors who just need to write documents in XML. It's not quite WYSIWYG, so I still often recommend Arbortext Epic or BlastRadius XMetal for those folks.
I think the split tabs could work a little bit better (jEdit is fantastic in this regard), but otherwise very useful. I didn't know about dragging an element from the XML and having the template and XPath already created in the XSL. I think this will be a huge timesaver!
Citizens of Heaven : Show your true nationality!
I had a brainstorm last week, and came up with some bumper sticker designs. Thanks to Cafe Press, I expanded that idea to shirts and hats!
Check these out:
Categories: General, God, christianity, shopping
We saw the new IMAX, Roving Mars, today!
It is absolutely incredible. Since I've been working with the Boeing Delta folks, it was especially impactful seeing the Delta II launch! I think that entire segment leading all the way to the rover bouncing and unfolding on Mars was my favorite part.
All of our kids really liked it, especially Connor (my Space Camp buddy!). I would highly recommend seeing it. If you get a chance, Magnificent Desolation is also a great IMAX to see. We waited too long, and we missed seeing it in Denver. I did get a chance to see it at the Smithsonian Air & Space, though.
If you haven't noticed, not only am I a space nut, but I'm also a huge Mars nut! I've always dreamt about what it would be like to walk on the Red Planet. We did an activity back when they launched the rovers, where we went on a rock hunt and sent in the rock to the Univ. of Arizona.They analyzed it with the same mass spectrometers that they used on Spirit and Opportunity and sent us the report and a certificate!
It's amazing how long those rovers have been able to continue operating. You can see more of Spirit and Opportunity at the JPL website.
Categories: Space
I've recently started reading "The Purpose Driven Life" by Rick Warren. In chapter 5, he asks the question: What's your view of life [your life metaphor]?
He goes on to say that some people describe their life as a carousel, circus, minefield, roller coaster, puzzle, card game (you have to play the hand you are dealt), etc.
It's your description of how life works and what you expect from it. ... It determines your expectations, your values, your relationships, your goals, and your priorities.
I'd have to say my life metaphor is a Rocket. I think life, specifically my life but also applies to others, is a very complex piece of machinery that requires the expertise and advisement of specialists from many different people.
I think my soul is the astronaut sitting in the capsule at the top of that rocket, and the rocket itself is all of my life experiences. Some of those experiences are from the specialists from a variety of disciplines that become a part of the rocket. In rocketry, those disciplines would include electrical, mechanical, propulsion, guidance, etc. In life, I'd say those disciplines would be work, home, friends, church, etc.
I have confidence because I believe God is over at Mission Control for my particular mission. For others, they may have transferred that Mission Control over to someone or something else. I also believe that because I'm in such good hands, my journey to the Heavens, as I slip the surly bonds of this Earth, will be a complete success.
Now, as with real rocketry, each component must go through very stringent tests during design, manufacture, assembly and launch preparation before the countdown can go down to T minus 0 and go for launch. Many times there are built in Holds during the countdown for final checks. Life can also be a series of tests, but they are all meant for a reason -- a successful mission.
Even though tests can be difficult, it is always better to endure. I don't know about you, but I don't want to end up as a fireball on the pad or in flight!
So what's your life metaphor? Are you on a sound path? These are questions I think everyone should ask themselves. Let me know what your metaphor is! I'm sure it will be an interesting read, as I hope mine has been.
Norm has an interesting post about DITASpecialization and Extensibility. I think he brings up some great points.
First of all, DocBook is very customizable in it's very design. What may be missing is a "fallback" mechanism. One thing to consider, though: if you are going to do any useful exchange of content with a partner or between organizations, generalizing that content through a specialization will not preserve the semantic value provided in your customization. In other words, you've invested a lot of analysis and design in creating your customization for a reason; if that customization gets generalized, then your partner/department won't be able to take advantage of that semantic markup.
In order to do any valuable exchange of information, both parties should take a look at the customization and develop appropriate processing expectations. This is where I question the DITA approach. Sure, you will be able to present or process specialized content in a generic manner, but if you want to do useful interchange, then both sides should really meet and develop the processing expectations. If you are going to do that anyways, what else does moving to DITA buy you over DocBook?
Categories: DITA
This is pretty cool! I'm going to have to try to listen for this with my mobile Ham rig:
Astronauts turn spacesuit into satellite | The Register: "all you need is 'an antenna (the bigger the better) and a radio receiver that you can tune to 145.990 MHz FM' to catch the 5-10 minute flyby as SuitSat passes over (you can calculate your next scheduled visit here).
What you'll hear is a 30-second transmission, followed by a 30 second pause followed by the message: 'This is SuitSat-1, RS0RS' and a prerecorded greeting in five languages. The transmission ends with an English-language report on 'telemetry: temperature, battery power and mission elapsed time'."
For more info, please visit: http://www.suitsat.org/ and http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/articles/SuitSat/. Thanks to Joshua for the extra links!
Thanks to Calum, I will hopefully be better prepared for Burns Night next year! As I have no Haggis, nor Scotch, I'll have to settle for some quiet reading of the great bard's works and maybe a wee bit o' Drambuie that I do have on hand!
A prince can mak a belted knight, A marquis, duke, an' a' that; But an honest man's abon his might, Gude faith, he maunna fa' that! For a' that, an' a' that, Their dignities an' a' that; The pith o' sense, an' pride o' worth, Are higher rank than a' that.
I was hoping that Stardust would not suffer the same fate as the Genesis torpedo. Thankfully, it looks like everything went according to plan: Space.COM coverage and spaceflightnow.com coverage
Now comes your part: If you'd like to help look for grains of cosmic dust captured by the Stardust mission, check out the Stardust@home program: http://stardustathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/
I'm already signed up!
Categories: Space
This is too cool. A tornado in space! Okay, if it's not on the ground, technically it should be called a funnel. Of course, since this Herbig-Haro object is almost 2 trillion miles long, maybe it should be classified as an F5 to the 10th power on the Fujita scale! :-)
For details and a picture, check out: SPACE.com -- Space Tornado! Cosmic Front Packs a Punch
The team that made the discovery was headed by John Bally of Colorado State University. Way to go, John! Go Rams!
This year has been a fulfillment of several of my life's dreams. I finally got to go to Space Camp with Connor. I have wanted to go since I was his age. With my new job at Flatirons Solutions, I've also been able to work at Cape Canaveral two different times this year on Boeing's Delta rocket program. It was hard leaving Sun after 9 years, and the extensive travel schedule, but I have grown tremendously both personally and professionally. I also spent quite a bit of time in New York City, Kansas City and Washington, D.C. As a family, we also traveled on several trains in Colorado, including the Georgetown Loop and Cumbres & Toltec; we hope to ride more trains next year, and see more of our magnificent state. We also enjoyed our trip for the 50th Anniversary of Disneyland, and spending time with family and friends.
To all my family, friends and blog readers:
Happy New Year To One And All Long Life, Happiness, Peace and Prosperity to You Lang May Yer Lum Lou (may there always be the warmth of a fire in the home and so employment and prosperity)
Categories: General
I heard a very interesting rendition of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" on the radio this morning by a group called "Los Straightjackets". After Googling for their home page (http://www.straitjackets.com), I found I really like the music style! I asked my friend, Cam, if he'd heard of them and other Space-Age Bachelor Pad music. Here's his great recommendation:
If you're asking what I'm into lately or what is a good recommendation for S-ABM, I'd answer differently. To be honest, Esquivel is still the king and always will be in that genre.
Lately I've been into a couple of websites that post public domain records. Most of these are of that genre. There's also a lot that are more 'modern big-band' more along the style of Jackie Gleason or Herb Albert. Oh, and a LOT of Sergio Mendes. He's been hitting the spot just right.
If you're interested, check out:
For the top ten S-ABM picks:
1. Esquivel - He IS space-age. In fact, I think the whole genre name was invented because of him. No other artist will do in the space age bachelor pad. I imagine Esquivel lounging back with a martini while chatty it up with a girl in a go-go suit and classic Sean Connery while Jetson style space-cars fly by his window outside. I repeat, he IS space-age.
2. Sergio Mendes - He put 'Girl From Ipenema' on the map. What more can be said? While Esquivel introduced the genre, Sergio introduced the must have songs of the genre.
3. Roger Williams - Now this is a strange pick, and some may argue, but every good bachelor, space-aged or not, needs a moment of relaxation. Williams brought about 'Born Free' and the concept of waves and seagulls in the background of most of his tracks. If you must relax, either to his piano or guitar, Roger will lull you to another world.
4. Dean Martin - Just as Esquivel is to Space-Age, Dino is to Lounge. Lounge is the close twin brother to Space-Age, so it couldn't be overlooked in this list. The amazing thing is that Dino was the man that THE MAN, Frank, chose to listen to. It's said that Dean was actually one of the greatest singers as far as vocal skill and longevity, but because of life circumstances and the venues that the two men chose, Sinatra will be remembered as the easy listening king. But that's why Dean is the Lounge king.
5. Julie London - Sultry. That's the word. I can't explain her voice. She's equally sexy and maternal. You want her to sing you to sleep and you want her leading the latest red-hot band. She's incredible and her voice stood up over time taking her well into the 70's.
6. Nelson Riddle - Nelson's style is amazing. He is what you hear when you watch stylized action/adventure films from the '60's. That sound of swanky saxophone and what sounds like jungle music blends into something that fits only with Film Noir. It's part exotica mixed with part grungy New York. You can picture island girls dancing to it as well as imagining a lonely gumshoe lighting up a cig under Brooklyn bridge.
7. Les Baxter - Les and his orchestra INJECTED ultra-cool into the bachelor pad. I mean, this is the man that orchestrated Route '66. He is synonymous with muscle cars and the wind blowing through your hair as the Beach Boys are with surfing. He uses that jazzy trumpet mixed with a persistent cymbal rhythm that makes you want to don shades and talk like a hep-cat.
8. Billy May - Another close brother to Space Age is the Tiki. Tiki is the lounge scene of Las Vegas, only transplanted to a far away island. Tiki is about escapism. You listen to Tiki while drinking exotic sounding drinks with umbrellas in them. Now a lot of the men already discussed on this list dabbled in Tiki but one of the band leaders excelled at it. I dare say that the concept of Muzak came from Billy who took famous songs of the time and transplanted them in a cool samba version. He loved multiple trumpets and bizare rhythm instruments like sticks and bongos. He also had a strange love affair with the organ. If you can imagine a Polynesian native playing his people's music on an electric organ... that's Billy May.
9. Jackie Gleason - While better known for his acting and his 'Honeymooners' series, Jackie LOVED music and would have preferred to live his life in a night club. And it shows. His music is the stuff of champagne. And even more, his album covers are the artwork that inspired the exotica art that is classically associated with the music. You see, Jackie was also known for his women...
10. Ann Margaret - The thing about Ann Margaret is that she just had to pose and there was music. Her singing is the epitome of the seductive she-kitten motif. She's talented, but not the MOST talented. But you put her in a pink sweater and skin tight pants... FEVER! She was the perfect mascot of the genre and the first choice of any self respecting bachelor to share his pad with. Many of her songs have taken on mythic proportions over the years and I have seen few mixes where she isn't included.
The wonderful thing about this music is that at the time, everyone was doing it. It was the Rock'N'Roll of that time. And there wasn't mass marketing of bands either, so there are a LOT of people out there, a LOT of big bands, a LOT of singers... that are just waiting to be discovered again by the modern recording. If you read through the commentaries of most of the albums discussed on bellybongo you'll find that there were many recordings that were done in very small quantity and then only handed out to the area that the band's nightclub was in. So now with the Internet, there's a lot of artists that are starting to become big only because they're being heard for the first time in 60 some odd years. And they say that the electronic era is bringing about the death of music. :)
On top of this list is the 'ethnics'. In fact, I was hard pressed to include Tiki music into this list, but Tiki is so much a part of Space-Age. But aside from this, there was a huge Latin movement (Herb Albert), Hawaiian music, Polynesian music (that launched into the Tiki movement), and film scores (this was lead by Henry Mancini and the birth of a little ditty known as 'The Pink Panther')
Even though I'm not a bachelor, I think I'm hooked on this music style. I've been a fan of Herb Alpert since I started learning the trumpet back in 6th grade. Now I've got some additional choices to start listening to!
Categories: Music
Want to give that special someone a personalized movivational poster? Magazine cover? Movie poster? If so, you should check out the cool tools at http://flagrantdisregard.com/flickr/. You can also add conversation bubbles to photos, or make trading cards!
Here's a sample of what you can do:
Categories: General
Steve Ball has announced the release of a set of XSL stylesheets to transform DocBook to WordML and back with minimal structure loss. This is indeed a welcome development, as I've faced many painful migrations from Word or Frame to DocBook. Some solutions work better than others, but they ALL require cleanup. I'm very curious to try this method, and see if it is truly painless yet...
More details are available at: http://www.explain.com.au/oss/docbook/. These stylesheets will also be added to the DocBook XSL project in SourceForge in the wordml subdir.
There have been some concerns raised by Jens Stavnstrup, such as a lack of support for Chapter/Appendix, and some issues with Saxon.
Categories: DocBook
By now you have probably noticed my new Topic links on the right side of my blog. This is all thanks to my friend Jason (for pointing it out to me!) and Freshblog!
Prior to this, I had only bookmarked my links (on the left side of my blog) in del.icio.us. It was a bit of a pain to go back through all 242 of my blog entries and tag them in del.icio.us, but I think having the Topic categories for my blog entries is definitely worth it, and improves some of the user experience on my blog.
I also quickly realized that I have a lot of tags, so I had to adjust the del.icio.us tagroll to only display my top 25 tags. The other benefit of this approach, is that Techorati will also pick up my tags.
Since I've also switched to Firefox 1.5, I used the new del.icio.us Firefox extension. It makes tagging a breeze!
There is also a cool foxylicious extension for adding your del.icio.us tags to your Firefox bookmarks. Hopefully Dietrich will add support for del.icio.us tag bundles in the near future.
Looks like I have something to save my frequent flier miles for! Too bad it's only on Virgin Airlines... Check it out: http://www.space.com/news/051206_virgin_galactic.html. Only 2 million domestic miles needed for me to get my Astronaut wings! :-)
Categories: Space
Norm Walsh has been gracious enough to post his DocBook Tutorial slides from the XML 2005 conference. Norm's most excellent tutorial is available at: http://nwalsh.com/docs/tutorials/xml2005/.
Check it out!
Categories: DocBook, xmlconf2005
The latest issue of Wired magazine brought Star Trek: The New Voyages (http://www.newvoyages.com/) to my attention. I used to be quite in touch with Trek, even through Star Trek: Enterprise, but since Paramount cancelled what I considered to be a quality show, my interest has waned.
I grew up on ST:TOS (Star Trek: The Original Series to the uninitiated...). My mom and I used to watch all of the classic episodes after I got home from school. Mr. Spock was actually my favorite, followed closely by Scotty (hence my blogname). I have tons of the novels, engineering guides, and various props. Sure, the effects are limited, but the best science fiction encourages the imagination, and is not merely about futuristic special effects.
Along with ST:TOS, I've loved The Time Machine, The Day The Earth Stood Still, The Forbidden Planet, War of the Worlds and other classic sci-fi shows and movies because of the science and imagination involved. In fact, I'm rather disappointed with the remakes because the focus is more on CGI effects, than story.
The New Voyages brings back that focus on story. It's a labor of love, and not a greedy $$-generator that Paramount has turned into. The producers are pouring their personal money into the project, and because they are using the characters and designs with permission, they are not allowed to make a red-cent on it. The episodes are freely distributed on the internet, as zip or torrent files, too!
I was able to get at least one episode downloaded, and am quite pleased with the production. Most fan films are parodies (like the one my friends and I made in high school, entitled "Star Wrek: The Home Video" or the popular "In the Pirkhinning"), but the New Voyages is earnestly finishing the 5-year voyage of the Enterprise, which was cancelled by NBC after its third season.
Check it out!
Categories: Sci-Fi
Well, another great XML conference has come to a close. It's always a pleasure to interact with the industry experts, and meet all the first-timers! My favorite sessions were David Megginson's closing keynote, Bob DuCharme's schema and XSLT sessions, Ken Holman's XSL case study, and Norm Walsh's XSL unit testing, and Bob Stayton's "Linking outside the box". Thursday had a heavy emphasis on XSLT, but all of the sessions were quite informative.
I learned a fair amount of new things this year. Here are just a few of my take-aways:
Cool things to follow up on:
Did you know?
DocBook XSL stylesheets consist of:
Subversion will allow you to set up pre-commit tests, to make sure all tests pass before checking the code in.
End to end XML processing performance estimates:
Security and Identity Standards in the land of XML are complementary, not overlapping!
MS Linq is over my head...
Limitations of DITA: current stylesheets for FO are very limited, and not production quality. DITA is more complicated to produce output than DocBook.
Targeted search using XQuery in MarkLogic is lightning fast, and enables the creation of a variety of new outputs!
Not enough XML authoring tools provide validation against RelaxNG schemas! Good job, oXygen. Now, how 'bout the rest of you editors? Arbortext?! DocBook v5.0 is here!
I hope to see you all at XML 2006 in Seattle!
Categories: XML, xmlconf2005
It's amazing the way our minds can associate objects in reality with fantasy. For example, look at the proof of Imperial invasion in our solar system:
Tie Fighter?
Death Star?
So, who's going to build a wedge-shaped spacecraft that looks amazingly like a Star Destroyer to complete this little Imperial fantasy? :-)
For the real stories, please see: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/multimedia/pia05423.html
and
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap051116.html
Categories: Space
Today has been a big day for DocBook! Norm Walsh and Michael Kay both received the XML Cup award at XML 2005. Where would DocBook (and XML) be without these giants in the field?! I am biased, but Michael Kay's Saxon parser is THE preferred method for processing DocBook. Okay, my preferred method at a minimum. :-)
And speaking of processing DocBook, the great Bob Stayton gave an excellent presentation on "Linking Outside the Box" that explained olink in DocBook.
We also had the traditional DocBook Dinner this evening, with DocBook TC members Norm Walsh, Bob Stayton, Dick Hamilton, Gary Cornelius and myself. Since we are in Atlanta, we dined at Pitty Pats Porch - a Southern Dining experience. Good food and discussion all around.
Norm also submitted a poster announcing the release of DocBook v5.0b1. Norm, Eric Severson and myself also have posters detailing some perspectives on the DocBook vs. Dita debate, so check them out at the conference!
Categories: XML, DocBook, xmlconf2005
Be sure to check out my entry in the XML Artwork exhibit at the XML 2005 conference in Atlanta. The piece is entitled, "<Self_Contained/>".
There are many other great entries, so check them all out in the exhibit hall!
Categories: XML, xmlconf2005
The XML 2005 conference is finally here!I flew in to Atlanta yesterday, and am really looking forward to all of the great speakers and fellow XML'ers. The conference wiki is available at: http://2005wiki.xmlconference.org/wiki.
There is also a news page and Technorati tag:xmlconf2005.My interests, as you can tell by many of the posts on this blog, are: DocBook, XSLT, RelaxNG, Topic Maps, and Content Management. Some of the sessions I'm planning to attend include:
Categories: XML, xmlconf2005
I've been in D.C. for the past few weeks, and finally had a chance to take in a few of the sites I haven't seen before. My favorite, by far, was the World War II Memorial. I also got to see the FDR memorial and the Jefferson memorial.
The World War II memorial was especially stunning at night! Since my grandfather, Frank E. Mason, served in the Pacific theater during the war, it was especially meaningful. His brothers also served in the war, though in the Atlantic theater.
To all the Veterans: thank you for your years of service defending this wonderful country! I appreciate all of the training and hardships you have endured for our sake.
Michael Kay has released Saxon 8.6. This is a complete and conformant implementation of the XSLT 2.0, XQuery 1.0, and XPath 2.0 Candidate Recommendations from the W3C! The saxon8.jar looks to be about twice the size of 8.5, so there should be lot's of good stuff in there.
If you're like me and want to use the latest and greatest right away with oXygen, remember to put it in the Oxygen/lib dir... Thank you Michael! A nice gift before XML 2005 and Christmas. :-)
Categories: XSLT
Announcing DocBook 5.0! The DocBook Technical Committee has released an official Beta 1 of DocBook 5.0, also known as DocBook:NG
The schema is maintained in RelaxNG, which is transformed into W3C schema and DTD versions. RelaxNG is much easier to work with than W3C schema, IMO.
Norm Walsh has also blogged on the 5.0 release here: http://norman.walsh.name/2005/10/28/docbook50b1
Please give 5.0 a try! The stylesheets also support DocBook 5.0, so it's almost ready for prime time! As a member of the TC, I'm very proud of the work we've accomplished here. Also, special recognition goes to Norm and Jirka for the extra efforts on this release!
See also: DocBook
Norm Walsh has blogged a very extensive analysis of how to implement some of the features of DITA in DocBook.
I've not blogged on this topic as much as I would like, simply due to workload and time constraints. I have been looking at DITA quite a bit. At Flatirons Solutions, we have implemented very DITA-like solutions for customers using a combination of DocBook and a content management system (Documentum and IBM Document Manager). Simplified DocBook, IMO, is more compatible with the basic elements of DITA. In fact, I wish they had re-used more of the element names from DocBook, instead of introducing slightly different tag names with the same basic semantics...
DocBook sections are very much akin to DITA topics. That is the typical chunk level we have recommended in our implementations. Then, you have a "master document" that is an assembly of chunks and very much akin to DITA maps. Different master documents can use the same chunks in a variety of orders, in the same way that you can have different DITA maps. The master documents can be at the book, chapter or article level, depending on your business needs.
The biggest advantage of this approach, is that you can leverage existing DocBook tagged content (just chunked at the section level) and take advantage of the wide variety of tools for converting, editing and publishing DocBook. DITA is still relatively new, and has limited support compared to the tried and true DocBook model. You can even assign DITA topic types (reference, concept, task) in the role attribute, or add a DITA topic type attribute through a DocBook customization layer!
FYI, for those attending XML 2005, there will be several presentations and tutorials on DocBook, and Flatirons' CTO, Eric Severson, will be presenting on a DITA implementation we have done with BYU.
Follow-up: See also Eve Maler's interesting post on this subject at:
http://www.xmlgrrl.com/blog/archives/2005/11/02/topic-oriented-architecture/
See also: DocBook
Connor and I both got a new pair of ears recently. While his are from the special 50th Anniversary of Disneyland and help him make a great Steamboat Willie impersonation, mine are helping me at work.
My new ears are the Bose QuietComfort 2 headphones. They are noise cancelling, and I've tested them in my noisy work environment and on a noisy airplane. They are MARVELOUS! Since I bought them before October 16, I also got a free Samsung YP-T6 mp3 player! It's got an FM tuner and will convert from FM or line in to MP3.
If you work in any kind of noisy environment, but need to be able to concentrate above the din and roar of your co-workers, I highly recommend these headphones. Also, if you like Disney at all, I highly recommend getting to Disneyland, and check out the incredible 50th Anniversary fireworks show!
See also: General
Benoit Guillon has released the 0.1.7 version of dblatex, a DocBook to PDF transform tool. This does require an existing Tex/LaTeX setup on your system. Why use this tool?
- The project is end-user oriented, that is it tries to hide as much as possible the latex compiling stuff by providing a single clean script to produce directly DVI, PostScript and PDF output.
- The actual output rendering is done not only by the XSL stylesheets transformation, but also by a dedicated LaTeX package. The purpose is to allow a deep LaTeX customisation without changing the XSL stylesheets.
- Post-processing is done by Perl, to make publication faster, and to parse things not so easily done by the XSL stylesheets like tables.
Here are the details on this release:
The dblatex 0.1.7 release is now available from http://dblatex.sf.net. It can be directly downloaded from this URL: http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/dblatex/dblatex-0.1.7.tar.bz2?download This release mainly includes the callout support for both verbatim and graphic elements, some other improvements, and bug fixes. The release is synchronized with the SF CVS repository, with the tag v0_1_7. More precisely the changes included in this release are: * Callout support: -and supported, even for external files. - supported. * Better or support: - External files (eg, in ) are handled. - literal.lines.showall parameter added, to remove the empty last lines, when set to 0. Set by default to 1. * Legalnotices are printed in the native docbook style. * An abstract in an article is printed. * Better support: - to a list with a title is possible. - to a refentry is possible. * Other improvements: - term.breakline parameter added to have the on a new line below the . - Hyphenation forced for text using a typewriter font. Moreover the font is smaller. - doc.publisher.show parameter added, to print the dblatex logo on the cover page. - doc.pdfcreator.show parameter added, to have DBLaTeX filled in the Creator field of the PDF information section. - Running dblatex on a root element different from article or book does not fail anymore, except for . * Bug fixes: - dbk_table.sty: make \@xmultirow long. - sgml2xml.pl: empty textdata element handled.
See also: DocBook
I've been banging my head on my desk for several weeks trying to figure out how to run Arbortext Interchange in batch mode. For those unfamiliar with Interchange, it is an application that can convert Word, FrameMaker, Interleaf and other formats to XML.
I have successfully built a map file, mapping Word styles to DocBook XML tags, and run the map file successfully in the standalone application. My client, however, purchased the E3 content engine and has a large volume of Word documents that needed to be converted. Doing this manually was going to be a time-consuming manual task. I knew Interchange had a batch mode, but kept getting errors, or no output.
For those interested, here is the proper syntax (all on one line for each entry in the batch file):
C:\progra~1\Arbortext\E3\bin\epic.exe -E3w -b -c
"import_doc('C:/temp/docs/infile.doc', 0, 'C:/temp/docs/outfile.xml',
'C:/progra~1/Arbortext/E3/custom/doctypes/client/word-docbook-map.xml',
'C:/progra~1/Arbortext/E3/custom/doctypes/client/import-template.xml',
1,'C:/temp/docs/infile.log' ,1);quit"
I was missing the -E3w parameter in my script...
Categories: XML, ArbortextI usually use the quick bookmarks (see my earlier blog entry) to take me to the element reference in Norm Walsh's "DocBook:The Definitive Guide". Thanks to Michael Smith and techntonik, there is a new way to look up DocBook elements in TDG. Go to http://farplugins.sourceforge.net/test/docbook/index.php to try it out. They are looking for a permanent home for this script. Any takers?
I really like the suggested elements, when you first start typing your search. Try typing "ref" and it will give you a list of all the DocBook elements starting with "ref" (refclass, refdescriptor, refentry, refentryinfo, refentrytitle, reference, referenceinfo, refmeta, refmiscinfo, refname). Try it, you'll like it!
Update: Michael Smith has copied the code to http://docbook.sourceforge.net/element/, which should be a more permanent home than the farplugins page...
See also: DocBook
For those who have tried converting OpenOffice/StarOffice documents to DocBook or vice-versa, you probably experienced the pain of trying to get the built in stylesheets to work. I worked on some of the earlier versions of those stylesheets, and the stylesheets still have some obvious problems. There also was no way to limit the styles a user could apply to the document.
A new and promising add-on hopes to make the DocBook/OpenOffice integration easier! Enter ooo2dbk from Indesko. This package supports output to article or book documents that are DocBook 4.3 compliant, using a python script.
I'll provide a review when I get a chance to try it out. I'm also eager to test out the latest OpenOffice 2.0 beta 2, which provides support for XForms!
Update: Thanks to Laurent at Indesko, I was able to get this running on the latest Open Office 2.0 beta 2. You can install the ooo2dbk package by going to Tools > Package Manager. I restarted OpenOffice (to be safe), and the Indesko menu appears with the other menus. I opened the included template, and the ooo2dbk program is available to run from the Indesko menu. After saving the file to a .sxw file, from the command line (I used Cygwin), I ran the following command:
ooo2dbk --article --zipfile=document.zip document.sxw
which created a zip file with images and the DocBook XML file. I validated it in oXygen 6.2, and it worked just fine! I'll try linking to the XSLT directly from Open Office next, so I don't have to use the command line. Give it a try!
See also: DocBook
The folks at SyncRO Soft have released the 6.2 version of oXygen, my personal favorite XML/XSL/Schema editor! Details on the new features are available at: http://www.oxygenxml.com/index.html#new-version.
What I like about oXygen is it's standards support (especially RelaxNG!) and it's highly configurable parsing features. It has Xerces, Xalan, Saxon, FOP , Jing, Trang and xsltproc built in.
It's extremely powerful, including support for XML 1.0, namespaces, DTD, XML Schema 1.0, Relax NG, XSLT 1.0 and 2.0, XPath 1.0, XSL-FO, XQuery 1.0, SVG 1.1, WSDL, CSS, Unicode 3.2, DocBook 4.3, TEI and Schematron!
My other favorite feature: it's multi-platform. I have personally run it in Solaris, Mac OS X, and Windoze.
This editor isn't as user-friendly for the common author as Arbortext Epic, but for XML hacks, I'd say oXygen has all the other editors beat - hands down.
Try it for yourself. There's a free 30-day trial available on the site. I'd be interested in your comments on oXygen and other editors, too.
See also: XML
The Abbey Workshop has posted an excellent tutorial on learning XQuery basics using the Saxon parser. Check it out at: http://www.abbeyworkshop.com/howto/xml/xql-saxon-basics/index.html.
I've tried to standardize on Saxon for all of my XSL parsing needs, as it has had the best performance and fewest problems of all the parsers I've tried. Michael Kay has done an excellent job adding support for the latest XML standards. I also use his book on a frequent basis - if you don't have his XSLT Programmer's Reference, you need it!
See also: XML
On this, the fourth anniversary of the September 11 attack on the United States, I have the song "We Live" by Superchic[k] running in my head. The lyrics are particularly poignant and appropriate:
There's a cross on the side of the road Where a mother lost a son How could she know that the morning he left Would be their last time she'd trade with him for a little more time So she could say she loved him one more time And hold him tight But with life we never know When we're coming up to the end of the road So what do we do then With tragedy around the bend? Chorus: We live we love We forgive and never give up Cuz the days we are given are gifts from above Today we remember to live and to love We live we love We forgive and never give up Cuz the days we are given are gifts from above Today we remember to live and to love There is a man who waits for the tests To see if the cancer has spread yet And now he asks, "So why did I wait to live till it was time to die?" If I could have the time back how I'd live Life is such a gift So how does the story end? Well this is your story and it all depends So don't let it become true Get out and do what we are meant to do Chorus Waking up to another dark morning People are mourning The weather in life outside is storming But what would it take for the clouds to break For us to realize each day is a gift somehow, someway So get our heads up out of the darkness And spark this new mindset and start to live life cuz it ain't gone yet And tragedy is a reminder to take off the blinders And wake up and live the life we're supposed to take up Moving forward with all our heads up cuz life is worth living Chorus (to fade)
We will never forget what happened that tragic day, nor even the recent events of Hurricane Katrina. We must live, love, forgive and never give up!
See also: Music
Hi there, loyal readers! I bit the bullet and reserved an easier to remember URL for this blog: http://scottysengineeringlog.net! It's not any shorter to type, but hopefully easier to remember. Also, I don't have a great way to track hit stats on the blog, but if you enjoy reading the blog, please post a comment or send mail to scottys.log AT gmail.com I would enjoy hearing from you!
What's really funny, is that my old blog on blogs.sun.com still gets over 600 hits per day, and I left in February! So, now might be a good time to update those bookmarks :-)
See also: General
The Delta II Space Launch Complex (pads SLC-17A and SLC-17B) in the background. These pads were visible from the museum. We actually got an official tour the Delta IV HIF and drive right up to the Delta IV (SLC-37B) with the GOES-N rocket ready to launch, but I didn't dare take pictures. Those guards pack heat! Same reason I don't have any pics of Vandenberg AFB SLC-6...
See also: Space
Scotty fulfilling a life goal: to work at NASA! I've wanted to be an astronaut since I was a boy. Even if that won't happen, working at NASA still fulfills that dream. The Boeing Delta LPD project has been extremely interesting. Even though I missed the Mars Recon Orbiter launch by a day, touring the Cape and VAFB has still been a highlight of my career!
Speaking of astronauts, check this out: Apollo Lunar Surface Journal and go see the new IMAX!
See also: Space
Boeing: Home of the "Can Do Team". I've been priviledged to work with the folks from the Boeing Delta Launch Preparation Documents team for the last several weeks, both at Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg AFB!
See also: Space
Complex 14, launch site of the Free World's first man in orbit. We weren't sure how much access our badges allowed us, so we didn't get much closer. I also did not want to park in the bug guys parking spaces...
See also: Space
The most beautiful sunset I've ever seen, complete with palm tree and Mercury Redstone!
See also: Space
I'm often asked for good resources on writing modular documentation for single-sourcing, chunking, and reuse. It's a learned skill, and a task that takes planning and effort, but can be immensely valuable.
This is by no means an exhaustive list, and has some Information Architecture and Schema development resources thrown in for good measure...
If you want an exhaustive list, visit: http://www.xmlbooks.com
There is also a course/book called Information Mapping that is good for getting authors to think about writing self-contained information objects, too.
For DocBook newbies, I'd recommend: Norm Walsh's Tutorials and, of course, DocBook: The Definitive Guide.
For those of you in the industry, what do you recommend?
See also: XML
This release was actually made available on Aug. 11 by Michael Smith, but I was working down at Cape Canaveral, and didn't get a chance to post on it.
The 1.69.1 release is production-quality, and fixes a minor bug-fix to the 1.69.0 test release, after a performance issue was identified with annotation support in xsltproc. The annotation.support parameter is now off by default.
I've been testing the 1.69.0 release on Saxon 6.5.4, and did not notice any performance issues.
The latest stylesheets are available at: http://sourceforge.net/projects/docbook/
Thanks Michael!
See also: DocBook
Timing. That's really what most of life is about. And only God knows the best timing for each of us.
For me, this year I wondered when was the right time to leave Sun. It turns out, the timing was perfect. Since working at Flatirons Solutions, not only have I been able to go to Space Camp with my son, but now I'll be working on a project for Boeing at Cape Canaveral!
So for bad timing, I didn't know when the Shuttle Discovery was scheduled to return when I bought my tickets, and it looks like I'll miss seeing the landing by about 12 hours (Godspeed and safe return, STS-114!). Then I scheduled my return home in time for the Perseid meteor shower peak (camping trip), but I'll miss the launch of Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite N, or GOES N, for NASA and NOAA aboard a Boeing Delta 4 on Friday!
Oh well, for good timing, I've always wanted to be an astronaut on Mars, so I'm hoping to catch the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter launch on Wed, Aug. 10 at SLC-41, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.
See also: Space
See also: General
Just found a link with info on listening to audio from the Space Shuttle on your ham radio: http://www.amsat.org/amsat/sarex/shutfreq.html (145.460 MHz in Boulder). I'll have to try it out. I've been a little lax on turning on the radio lately.
My primary reason for getting my ham license was for storm chasing. I wanted to be able to report in and warn people of dangerous weather. I've been a member of SKYWARN for a number of years, but seem to be under deadline at work when the best storms come up!
I've always wanted to talk to the Shuttle or ISS, so I'll have to try it some time.
In other space-related news, check out this cool blog: http://damarisbsarria.blogspot.com/. Good luck, Damaris!
See also: Space
After much prompting, my wife has entered the blogosphere!
She's been thinking about writing a book for a while, and I've been encouraging her to start with a blog, and see how it goes first. We've taken and taught Growing Kids God's Way classes together, which she's taken a few ideas from.
She's also come up with a lot of her own great ideas on raising children. A lot of the techniques are tried and tested, on our kids as well as the Little Lambs (preschool) class at our church. The techniques are extremely effective, with the goal of raising children to be a blessing to everyone around them.
When we read Seth's advice for authors, she decided to take the plunge.
So, make way and please visit Shining Examples!
See also: General
Michael Kay has just released the Saxon 8.5 parser, in time for eXtreme Markup, too! (wish I could be there...)
Saxon is by far the most powerful, and speedy XSLT parser I've ever used. Sure, I started with Xalan, but after working a lot with the DocBook stylesheets, Saxon is the best way to go. To be fair, I have also used xsltproc, but Saxon is usually my first "go to" parser.
Oleg Tkachenko's blog has a much deeper explanation of new features, but basically Saxon 8.5 provides:
You can download the latest version of Saxon at: http://saxon.sourceforge.net/
See also: XSLT
AirWolf. I've been waiting for it for a long time. I finally picked up Season One on DVD a week or so ago, and it's awesome! This was one of my favorite shows back in junior high, and I remember my friend Don and I making blueprints and chopper drawings constantly due, in no small part, to this great show.
My dad also picked up the Ertl model for me on a business trip to New Mexico, and I was ecstatic when he brought it home as a surprise. Too bad I later chopped it in two, trying to make a custom spaceship or something.
Now you can build your own AirWolf in Lego! Check out http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=36689 for the instructions.
See also: General
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
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
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
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
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 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
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
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
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
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
