Comment on Open Source development at NASA

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A comment on: http://open.nasa.gov/blog/2011/09/08/open-source-development-at-nasa/

I am all for OpenData and Open.NASA. But how does NASA being a government entity relate to how it “licenses” it’s data and software? What I mean is that, shouldn’t the things being “open sourced” be public domain, rather than licensed content? I agree that creating a license which is not widely recognized is not useful, that is the whole point behind Creative Commons. But are there cases where NASA is “over licensing” content that it shouldn’t because it is the content should be released into the public domain? Reference CC Salon in Jan 2011, Time segment 1:05:00 where Joi Ito talks about the issue. http://blip.tv/creative-commons/creative-commons-salon-mountain-view-what-does-it-mean-to-be-open-in-a-data-driven-world-4725230

What prevents, or what reasons are there for not putting NASA’s data and software, which it releases, in the public domain? Is that not more open?

Pulling text messages off of iPhones

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I had an interesting situation where I wanted to pull off some text messages from my iPhone. I started Googling around and found a few solutions for jailbroken iPhones. But being a good citizen I have not jail broken my iPhone. I did find a solution. It might be the only one… but none the less I found one.

DiskAid

DiskAid is a really nifty little program which grants access to the files and file structure on iPhones, iPod touch and iPads. Additionally, if one has a student email address they can get a free (gratis) educational license.

From a forensics perspective, the iPhone is full of data. The DiskAid guys also had a note on how to disable geo-logging.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9x_KzBMMfjk

Open Scholar

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Last year I wrote about Selected Works™ & BePress because I was looking at how SIL International might best display the professional abilities of their personnel. This means putting their CV’s and past project activity in an accessible portfolio. I have also been looking at apps like Bibapp, which pulls info from DSpace. Since sil.org is looking at Drupal as a CMS I recently ran across Open Scholar, with an example by harvard.

Finding your inner Zachman

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The last couple of weeks I have been working on applying the Zachman's framework for enterprise architecture to two projects. I have been struggling through the first row and then skipped around a bit. I think I have found the part of the project (any project) I am most passionate about.... Working with Human Interface Architecture and explaining it as a designer to the builder of the Presentation Architecture. In my mind this level needs to be closely related to the Business Process Model and to the List of Business Goals/Strategies. [1] John Zachman. 2008. Diagram of: A framework for enterprise architecture. http://zachmaninternational.com/2/Zachman_Framework.asp. [Accessed: 2 December 2011] [PDF] [Link]

Where do I see myself most helpful in the large project...

References

References
↑1 John Zachman. 2008. Diagram of: A framework for enterprise architecture. http://zachmaninternational.com/2/Zachman_Framework.asp. [Accessed: 2 December 2011] [PDF] [Link]

Prime Suspect v.s. Aunt Carol

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Whoever is doing the background research for the Lead character in Prime Suspect is doing a great job.... at least when one compares her to my aunt Carol... It is like my aunt wrote the book. I just started a few episodes with my wife, Becky, and not only are there phrases, intonations, but also discourse features which I have heard my aunt use. I was particularly impressed with episode 108, Underwater. (Especially the dialogue where Detective Timmoney is saying good-by to the little girl.) (Perhaps this is just the time of year that I start to watch NY/NJ police shows to hear the familiar pronunciation of the words.)

DSpace and the Presentation Layer

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Drupal

Because I have been on the team doing the SIL.org redesign, I have been looking at the Open Source landscape looking at what is available to connect Drupal with DSpace data stores. We are planning on making DSpace the back-end repository, with another CMS running the presentation and interactive layers. I found a module which parses DSpace's XML feeds in development. However, this is not the only thing that I am looking at. I am also looking at how we might deploy Omeka. Presenting the entire contents of a Digital Language and Culture Archive, and citations for their physical contents is no small task. In addition to past content there is also future content. That is to say archiving is also not devoid of publishing - so there is also the PKP project [sic redundant]. (SIL also currently has a publishing house, whose content need CSV or version control and editorial workflows, which interact with archiving and presentation functions.)

Omeaka

Wally Grotophorst has a really good reflection on Omeaka and DSpace, I am not sure that it is current but it does present the problem space quite well. [1]Wally Grotophorst. 4 March 2008. DSpace And Omeka. iNODE: The weblog of Digital Programs and Systems at George Mason University Libraries. http://timesync.gmu.edu/wordpress/?p=485 . [Accessed: 26 … Continue reading Tom Scheinfeldt at Omeka also has a nice write up on why Omeka exists, titled "Omeka and It's peers". It is really important to understand Omeka's place in the eco system of content delivery to content consumers by qualified site administrators. [2] Tom Scheinfeldt. 21 September 2010. Omeka and It's peers. http://omeka.org/blog/2010/09/21/omeka-and-peers/ [Accessed: 26 November 2011] [Link] [Also Posted on Tom's Blog]

@Mire talks about What DSpace could learn from Omeka. [3] @Mire. 20 May 2010. What DSpace could learn from Omeka. http://www.facebook.com/notes/mire/what-dspace-could-learn-from-omeka/393758568767 . [Accessed: 26 November 2011] [Link]

Dspace Mailing list discussion discussing some DSpace technologies for mixing with OAI-ORE and Fedora, Omeka, and Drupal.

http://omeka.org/forums/topic/omeka-and-harvesting-from-dspace
http://omeka.org/forums/topic/import-to-dspace

References

References
↑1 Wally Grotophorst. 4 March 2008. DSpace And Omeka. iNODE: The weblog of Digital Programs and Systems at George Mason University Libraries. http://timesync.gmu.edu/wordpress/?p=485 . [Accessed: 26 November 2011] [Link]
↑2 Tom Scheinfeldt. 21 September 2010. Omeka and It's peers. http://omeka.org/blog/2010/09/21/omeka-and-peers/ [Accessed: 26 November 2011] [Link] [Also Posted on Tom's Blog]
↑3 @Mire. 20 May 2010. What DSpace could learn from Omeka. http://www.facebook.com/notes/mire/what-dspace-could-learn-from-omeka/393758568767 . [Accessed: 26 November 2011] [Link]

TM in the URL for WordPress

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I like my URLs to be semantic, it helps with SEO and it helps users to know what a page is about based on the URL. Today I was looking over one of my old posts and found that the TM is added to the URL. In the admin UI the title looks like this:

Title

Title in the Admin UI

Notice that I have used the & in html in the tiled. This is stripped out by the automatic URL generating engine of WordPress. However the ™ as a unicode character is not removed. Some languages with non-roman scripts need Unicode in the titles, so not all unicode characters should be disallowed in the titles. In fact, all Unicode characters should be allowed in the title field. Sometimes unicode in the URL is allowed, however it is not always best practice (unicode above the ASCII range). I in this case it should not be allowed by WordPress. I have my permalink settings set to custom. I do /%year%/%postname%/.

permalink settings

permalink settings

However, when a unicode character is put into the postname, it is not necessarily striped out. My contention is that some characters should be, or that more characters should be. The problem for users is that the unicode character gets processed to the browser’s URL bar and looks like the following:
https://hugh.thejourneyler.org/2010/selected-works™-bepress/ .
However, when the user selects the url to copy it they do not get a URL which is paste able the same as when they saw it in the URL bar, they get something like the following:
https://hugh.thejourneyler.org/2010/selected-works%E2%84%A2-bepress/ .

One solution might be for authors to use the following HTML markup in the title:

  • ™
  • ™

But this is not user intuitive or presenting a “thoughtless process for end users/authors”.