My father-in-law, who is in his 80’s started reading the recently released biography on Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson [1] Walter Isaacson. 2011. Steve Jobs. Simon & Schuster. 656 pages. .
Steve Jobs - by Walter Isaacson - Image used from BigScreenAnimation
References
| ↑1 | Walter Isaacson. 2011. Steve Jobs. Simon & Schuster. 656 pages. |
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I have been trying to find out what is the best way to present audio on the web. This led me to look at how to present video too. I do not have any conclusions on the matter. But I have been looking at HTML5 and not using javascript or Flash. Because my platform (CMS) is WordPress, Continue reading
Roadmap for development for the Advanced Custom Fields plugin for WordPress.
As I work with a particular NGO, one of the interesting questions which has come up in discussions is whither or not the NGO should put their logo on their web page with instructions for proper use. There were two main questions asked:
I am listing a few use cases here to show some of the variety and breadth of the kinds of people who are sharing their logos and providing display and license guidelines to potential users of their logos.
I think there are two primary reasons for organizations to provide access to branding information in a public venue:
I go through some of the use cases in the video below. The blog post in that video about teaching in Malaysia can be read here.
The use cases very with respect to the terms of use. For instance ManPower, a Human Resources company, completely restricts the use of its corporate logo from its website.
Manpower logo terms from section 10 on 26 October 2012
However, the IBM logo is text based and does not meet the threshold for copyright originalityThis information is what is provided on Wikipedia about the IBM icon used here.. However it is still a logo and covered under registered trade mark rules.
IBM Logo accessed through wikipedia.
Rules for the display of the IBM logo for IBM Business Partners from the IBM website.
Another organization with a rather popular logo among internal and external users is U.S. military. This would include logos like that of the U.S. Air Force. They also have specific guidelines posted for different uses of their logo. As well as a page explaining the symbology of the logo.
Apple is another popular company with several programs and logos specifically designed for use by business partners. One of the things which is required in these kinds of relationships is for the organization granting the logo’s use to be firm in their organizational identity. This means: defining the relationship – who is the NGO and who is not the NGO. For some organizations it means defining what items are trademarks, products and logos.
The next three brands have a particularly visual representation and presentation of their branding guidelines.
WordPress logos are made freely available under their about section. http://wordpress.org/about/logos While WordPress is an opensource product, it is also a community. About a year and a half ago one there was quite a stir made by Automatic about proper logo usage. The community had some who were less than thrilled with the emphasis Automatic brought on branding an open source project, but in the end even the controversy made the brand stronger. The consistent iconization of the product also made the brand more recognizable. Today the WordPress project has a lot of logo options which conform to established branding guidelines. This gives the community flexibility and continuity at the same time.
WordPress logo page visually displays good and bad logos for designers and fans to understand how to display the product’s brand.
Adobe is a company whose name is almost synonymous with the term digital art. It is well known for products like Photoshop and for files like PDFs. When we think of PDFs we often think of the Acrobat Logo on the image of a file.
Adobe Acrobat Reader Logo
Perhaps my favorite logo explanation is the simple (yet detailed) approach that Twitter has taken on its page Twitter.com/logo. Here are some screen shots.
Twitter Page on Logo use
“dos” and “don’ts” of using the Twitter logo
Proper positioning of Twitter logo
httpvh://youtu.be/SP2xeawLDhM
This post is a open draft! It might be updated at any time... But was last updated on at .
Metadata is very important - Everyone agrees. However, there is some discussion when it comes to how to develop metadata and also how to ensure that the metadata is accurate. Taxonomies are limited vocabularies (a set number of items) where each term has a predefined definition. A folksonomy is a vocabulary where people, usually users of data, assign their own useful words or metadata to an item. Folksonomies are like taxonomies in that they are both sets but are unlike taxonomies in the sense that they are an open set where taxonomies are closed sets.
An example of a taxonomy might be the colors of a traffic light: Red, Yellow, and Green. If this were a folksonomy people might suggest also the colors of Amber, Orange, Blue-Green and Blue. These additional terms may be accurate to some viewers of traffic lights or in some cases but they do not fit the stereo-typical model for what are the colors of traffic lights.
Continue reading
A couple of years ago I had a chance meeting with a cartographer in North Dakota. It was interesting because he asked us (a group of linguists) What is a language or linguistic map? So, I grabbed a few examples and put them into a brief for him. This past January at the LSA meeting in Portland, Oregon, I had several interesting conversations with the folks at the LL-Map Project under Linguists’ List. It occurred to me that such a presentation of various kinds of language maps might be useful to a larger audience. So this will be a bit unpolished but should show a wide selection of language and linguistic based maps, and in the last section I will also talk a bit about interactive maps. Continue reading
Over the last few weeks I have been contemplating how multi-lingual content could work on sil.org. (I have had several helpful conversations to direct my thinking.)
As I understand the situation there is basically three ways which multi-lingual content could work.
First let me say that there is a difference between, multi-lingual content, multi-lingual taxonomies, and multi-lingual menu structures. We are talking about content here, not menu and navigation structures or taxonimies. Facebook has probably presented the best framework to date for utilizing on the power crowds to translate navigation structures. [1] Nico Vera. 11 February 2008. ¡Bienvenidos a Facebook en Español!. The Facebook Blog. https://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=10005792130 [Accessed: 5 March 2012] In just under two years they added over 70 languages to Facebook. However, Facebook has had some bumps along the way as DropBox points out in their post talking about their experience in translating their products and services. [2] Dan Wheeler. 18 April 2011. Translating Dropbox. http://tech.dropbox.com/?p=1 [Accessed: 5 March 2011]
Zotero language options
SIL International in English
Other Pages in other languages may not show the same content.
It would also be good to understand the concepts used in Drupal 7 (and Drupal 8) for multi-lingual content. There are several resources which I have found helpful:
It would appear that from this list of resources that Drupal’s default behavior is more in line with part two of the three examples given above.
References
| ↑1 | Nico Vera. 11 February 2008. ¡Bienvenidos a Facebook en Español!. The Facebook Blog. https://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=10005792130 [Accessed: 5 March 2012] |
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| ↑2 | Dan Wheeler. 18 April 2011. Translating Dropbox. http://tech.dropbox.com/?p=1 [Accessed: 5 March 2011] |
| ↑3 | Karen Stevenson. 17 November 2011. Localized and Multi-Lingual Content in Drupal 7. Lullabot Ideas. http://www.lullabot.com/articles/localized-and-multi-lingual-content-drupal-7 [Accessed: 5 March 2011] |
| ↑4 | Gábor Hojtsy. 31 January 2011. Drupal 7’s new multilingual systems (part 4) – Node translation. http://hojtsy.hu/blog/2011-jan-31/drupal-7039s-new-multilingual-systems-part-4-node-translation [Accessed: 5 March 2011] |
| ↑5 | Gábor Hojtsy. 5 May 2011. Drupal 7’s new multilingual systems compilation. http://hojtsy.hu/multilingual-drupal7 [Accessed: 5 March 2011] |
| ↑6 | Gábor Hojtsy. 26 January 2012. Drupal 8 Multilingual Initiative. http://hojtsy.hu/d8mi [Accessed: 5 March 2011] |
I have recently been introduced to Linked Data and to RDF. In my investigation, I have noticed that some have said that Linked Data and RDF is much like a solution without a problem (Defense against the claim).
However, the relationships between datasets and the data created by those data sets have been growing over the past few years.
Linking Open Data cloud diagram, by Richard Cyganiak and Anja Jentzsch. http://lod-cloud.net/ CC-BY-SA
I am being convinced that at some point there will be enough open data out there that there will be a tipping point where if your data is not shared in this method that app producers will not process your data (without significant extra charge in home-grown apps, or at all for externally produced data consuming apps). This means that the social significance of open and Linked Data in RDF will be more important than, more labor intensive proprietary data sets.
I was watching this video, where several web app and several mobile apps were developed and competed for a prize. What one can do with this data is incredible.
httpv://vimeo.com/25163082
I particularly like the app which tells you how long it takes someone in London to travel from point A to point B.
So where does this come into play with SIL International? Well, SIL is an NGO. NGO’s need engagement strategies. That is, Non-profits and NGOs operate to affect change. They have a compelling story, they tell the story and the hearers of the story are motivated to do some sort of action.
An engaged employee population is a strategic asset that enables organizations to inspire and mobilize their people to achieve specific business objectives. – http://engagementstrategies.com/
This has been the very nature of the Kony 2012 video and story. Their web presence is not about marketing, it is not about messaging, it is not about branding or color palettes. It is about engaging people to commit a certain set of activities. The Kony campaign’s entire web presence from the scripting of the youtube film to the design of their website is about getting people to commit to do and to carry out those suggested activities.
But how does this relate back to RDF and Linked Data? Well, if web apps and mobile apps are going to present data to users and work thought the presentation challenges of User Experience and User Interface in multiple locations and contexts. Then it becomes in the interest of NGOs as data providers to provide data which will affect users for their cause. Some NGO’s like SIL are very involved in content production. Consider the 40,000 plus items in the SIL bibliography of academic and vernacular works produced over their 75+ year history. These bits of content or resources are describable in RDF for data consumers. The obvious question is “Why”? That answer is simple: so that when others use Linked Data your resources are found and thereby promote awareness of your cause.
Let’s say that the organization, Invisible Children released 100,000 images of children who were carrying AK-47s and shooting their parents and were maimed or raped. Let’s also say that these images were also geo-tagged for the locations they were taken in. And that this metadata and these images were made available as Linked Data. Then, when global leaders in internet mapping technologies like Google, Wikipedia, and Yahoo! create web based applications which display Geo-Spacial content from Linked Data sources who’s content do you think is going to be displayed when someone is looking for pictures of Africa?
Image from BBC article about Kony. The BBC caption reads: "Some South Sudanese have already taken up arms against Kony and the LRA"
For one of the web projects I am working in we have been throwing around the idea of having a world map as a navigation element. Each country would then be clickable. This kind of navigation has been done with hyperlinked bitmaps like the LL-Map project.
LL-Map Bitmap
Joshua Project Front page with World Map
I am not sure that I have any answers but this is my thought towards the problem space.
There is one map of languages I have found which deserves to be mentioned. I am not sure of the technology used but it seems it would be either of these methods. It is the map of the Languages of California hosted at Berkeley.
California Languages Map
References
| ↑1 | Boris Smus. 19 January 2009. Performance of Canvas versus SVG. http://smus.com/canvas-vs-svg-performance [Link] [Accessed: 4 March 2012] |
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| ↑2 | Patrick Dengler. 28 September 2011. How to Choose Between Canvas and SVG. http://www.sitepoint.com/how-to-choose-between-canvas-and-svg/#fbid=6CJz-eeIXxl [Link] [Accessed: 4 March 2012] |
| ↑3 | Mihai Sucan. 4 February 2010. SVG or Canvas? Сhoosing between the two. http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/svg-or-canvas-choosing-between-the-two/. [Link] [Accessed: 4 March 2012] |
| ↑4 | 29 March 2010. CanVG: Using Canvas to render SVG files. http://ajaxian.com/archives/canvg-using-canvas-to-render-svg-files [Link] [Accessed: 4 March 2012] |
Finished the new office. – and put some new photos up in the living room just in time to move.
Today I put my router in so that the Gigabit LAN network could fly...
Becky and I in the new office in November of 2011
We also set up a bunch of pictures on our wall… Just in time to move. Not exactly strait but close enough.
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