SpaceOWL / Devblog: Recent posts

I've addressed this item in an entry at my G+ profile. In the interest of brevity, I'll simply duplicate the text of my response, here.

This response is in reference to an item of recent news, published by CNN, wherein it was denoted that Chinese citizens will be unable to fly on Virgin Galactic, due to a matter of US counterespionage laws. It raises a number of concerns, I think. Pragmatically, I with to take the news "With a grain of salt." I respond to that news item, thusly:... read more

Recently, I started using Mendeley, in its web, desktop, and mobile applications, for purpose of collecting bibliographical materials for academic study. More recently, I've developed an interest in sharing bibliographic citations. (Sidebar: I might be an undergrad, but if I can work in some ways at a graduate student's pace - without outdistancing my own limits of knowledge, granted - my own hope is that maybe I can "Get more done," at least in a little bit, academically, in maybe even starting to catch up with same-age peers.)... read more

Earlier this year, I purchased a book published by Wiley - one of their nice self-studies books, specifically about geology - the book, Geology: A Self-Teaching Guide. I'd picked up the Kindle edition, specifically. It seemed to make for a nice keynote towards understanding the surface features, then, of the Ozark Highlands, and how substantially the area differs from the terrain of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, the San Joaquin Valley, the Great Basin, and other surface features on Earth. Geologic features on Earth, I observe, are still actively influenced with the systems and processes of the Earth's Biosphere - to which, I would cite the book, The Blue Planet: An Introduction to Earth System Science, which also is available in Kindle edition. Of course, in the long history of alternate climatological processes on Mars, sculpting the Martian surface for countless aeons, there may exist a distinct terrain to the Red Planet - in so many ways, the surface of Mars appearing "alien," perhaps, when compared to so many ecologically rich landscapes on Earth. Even so, there may be similarities between processes that have sculpted the Martian terrain and those that have sculpted the diverse expanses of the Earth's landscape.... read more

In considering possible directions for the development of the SpaceOWL Web Site, there is a question that occurs to mind: How to represent the contents of an OWL ontology, online, visually (though, in no doubt, mindful of accessibility guidelines such as WAI-ARIA)? Moreover, in such a way as that the underlying ontology can be updated, interactively, via the visualized/interactive ontology model? It's a broad question, but it can be addressed in some simple, modular steps. One module of the solution may entail using the Protege 4 Database Backend, in developing a central data storage location for ontology data, such that can be interactively updated via SQL. This web log entry will focus on that database backend or "driver" and its usage onto an SQL database.... read more

In starting to read some more, today, about formal concepts in BPMN modeling - in going by the book, Real-Life BPMN (now available in modern English) - and in considering Camunda as a possible BPMN framework for web and desktop (such that could probably be integrated with Semture's own Cubetto mobile applications, for BPM modeling on the mobile platform, in an in-shop and on-the-go sense) and in considering those components for possible application in managing the SpaceOWL project, as well as a few additional items that I've found recently, I thought it would be appropriate to make something of a simple outline. Of course, a simple outline might not serve to provide sufficient detail as far as "How it fits together" ... read more

• Completed the first revision for the SpaceOWL Web Site, today. It features a convenient "Splash page", and a simple "Landing page".
  • CSS layout semantics may not have seemd all too straightforward, at first, but after a couple of iterations, it's worked out, simply in using position:absolute (and no fixed 'top' position on those blocks) for the layout of the main page areas, in the landing page. That landing page, of course, likewise serves as a template for later pages in the site.
  • I've started reading about WAI-ARIA, today. I think it bears some further study and consideration, before rushing along to overdo it, in the SpaceOWL Project site design. It seems that a key phrase of the matter would be, assistive technologies - will read more about it, in the WAI-ARIA Authoring Practices recommendation.
  • As far as integrating my (starting a shameless plug) my favorite tablet-based word processing and likewise HTML editing application, UX Write within the SpaceOWL Project documentation workflow, that should need some work with regards to Apache Ant and XSLT, I think.
    • Of course, at that point, it would also serve to introduce a concept of dependency management into the SpaceOWL Project codebase.
    • So, then, that would also be a good focal point - dependency management, namely - in regards to web site template mechanisms. (I don't suppose the project needs to use Maven and Ivy, both, so I think I'll just pick one or the other, to start with)
    • Updated: See also, Workflow : UXWrite to Web... read more

I've started working on the initial web pages for the SpaceOwL Project Web Site, today. So, far, I've got got a basic layout put together, using Bluefish as a basic HTML editing tool. The site's content will need some more work, namely in the layout of the pages, before I could say it's ready to publish to the site - to use shared CSS specifiers, at the least - and I'd also like to to begin developing the Ant rules for driving the site's publication process. For the layout work, I think I'll give a try to a certain closed-source web development platform developed by the Adobe company, though for that, I'll have to reboot from Linux into Windows.... read more

I'm afraid that my updates, in this 'blog, may typically be brief. The SpaceOWL Project is not currently in a press release phase.

This blog entry is basically to denote that I've uploaded the SpaceOWL Project Executive Overview (as drafted 21 April 2013) to the SpaceOWL project web site, at SourceForge.net. ... read more