Slug: Alpha-2

A while ago I released a simple Scutter called Slug. Prompted by the fact that a couple of people have actually found it useful, and a need for an improved and more configurable scutter for one of my own projects, I've packaged up a new release of the code. There's more documentation, although still a … Continue reading Slug: Alpha-2 →

SPARQLing Services at XTech

I'm very pleased to announce that I've had a paper accepted at XTech, I believe the schedule is still being compiled, but I've had confirmation that my paper "SPARQLing Services" has been accepted. Here's the abstract: Backed by the flexibility of the RDF data model, and consisting of both a query language and data access … Continue reading SPARQLing Services at XTech →

Out and About

From the way it's shaping up, 2006 looks set to be my busiest year ever with respect to travel and conference attendance. A few weeks ago I was at the ALA MidWinter conference in San Antonio, Texas. Ingenta has regularly had a stand at the conference, but this was my first time. A good chance … Continue reading Out and About →

Personal Annual Report

A nice visualisation of someone's activities over the course of a year: a personal annual report. It looks like at least some of the data (e.g. the list of most listened to artists) is already being taken from websites collating data about a users habits and activities. It'd be nice to see something this eye-catching … Continue reading Personal Annual Report →

SPARQLing

I've been enjoying a bit of SPARQLing recently and you can now begin to see some of the results: XML.com has published the first part of my SPARQL tutorial. The tutorial is backed with a SPARQL query service that I whipped up using Jena. As the documentation explains there are several output options supported by … Continue reading SPARQLing →

Writing an ARQ Extension Function

The core SPARQL specification provides some hooks for extension in the form of Extensible Value Testing. This allows an application to provide custom functions for testing variables in a SPARQL query, where the built-in tests don't cover a particular need. The specification notes that: SPARQL queries using extension functions are likely to have limited interoperability, … Continue reading Writing an ARQ Extension Function →

Parameterised Queries with SPARQL and ARQ

When writing queries for an application, whether for an SQL or an RDF data source, its common to end up with a core set of queries that are used time and again. Typically these queries vary only in the values of a few variables. For example, you might have a query to lookup details of … Continue reading Parameterised Queries with SPARQL and ARQ →

First Jena User Conference

HP Labs have announced the first Jena User Conference to be held at the labs in Bristol on 10th-11th May 2006. As the website notes, the conference will include presentations on: applications and tools developed by Jena usersdemosin-depth explorations of Jena featurestutorialsdiscussions about the future development of Jena See the call for submissions for details … Continue reading First Jena User Conference →

iSpecies and taxonomy (no, not that kind)

For the last few years I've been lurking on a mailing list run by the Taxonomic Databases Working Group. It's a low volume list used by scientists interested in capturing and marking up taxonomies. That's taxonomy in the Linnaean sense not the semantic web sense. I've been lurking there since I wrote this paper a … Continue reading iSpecies and taxonomy (no, not that kind) →

Problems with Uber-Databases

Interesting posting on potential problems with the "uber-database" approaches embodied by Ning and Google Base from Nova Spivak: Systems such as Google Base and Ning present an N-squared integration challenge to developers. Every app has to be potentially continually re-integrated with up to every other app in the worst case. But even in the best … Continue reading Problems with Uber-Databases →