Apr 27
Apparently this site (open.bbc.co.uk) contains 75 years worth of information about every program that the BBC has aired over the years in a searchable format using semantic web technologies under the covers.
I wanted to try this out and write about it a bit, but apparently the site is not responding. Is this a server problem or a Ruby problem? Either way it probably has to due with enormous demand at the rollout of this new tool. I guess we will find out later…
technorati tags: bbc, rdf, semanticweb, webtools, ruby
Apr 27
A new version of FlickrExport, a superb plugin for iPhoto that makes it incredibly easy to upload and tag photos on Flickr. Of all the Flickr upload tools out there, this is absolutely my favorite.
Oddly enough, this version was released as beta yesterday, but it’s good to go today.
I did find one significant bug — if you don’t have any photos selected and you click on File->Export, iPhoto will hang (apparently due to flickrExport hanging). If you let it sit for a minute or two it will select your entire photo library to export — probably not what you intended. I am confident that this will be quickly and proficiently fixed. I stand corrected — this is a ‘feature‘ of iPhoto: if you have no photos selected when you Export, it assumes that you want all of them exported.
technorati tags: flickrexport, flickr, iphoto, photography, tools
Apr 27
Over on Alphaworks, IBM has released a Web Ontology Manager:
IBM Web Ontology Manager is a lightweight, Web-based tool for managing ontologies expressed in Web Ontology Language (OWL). With this technology, users can browse, search, and submit ontologies to an ontology repository. Developers can discover new ontologies without having to develop the ontology themselves; reusability is thereby promoted and development time and effort is reduced. This technology includes a Web interface for easy uploading of ontologies in an .owl format by any user of the system. It also includes an interface for generating (using Jastor) Java APIs from uploaded ontology files.
technorati tags: alphaworks, semanticweb, ontology, ibm, tools
Apr 27
Today Google has released Sketchup, a 3D drawing desktop application. From the little demo animation that they have on the linked page, this looks like the rare combination of a very powerful, yet easy to use tool for creating 3D renderings. Renderings can also be used in conjunction with Google Earth, presumably as some sort of a layer or overlay.
Unfortunately, the Mac version of it is ‘coming soon’ even though the pre-Google acquisition product already ran on OS X. I’ll have to wait for the Mac release to get into this any further. I hope that the delay is something a simple as switching over the branding and a few other minor tasks it truly will be available RSN.
technorati tags: google, sketchup, googlemaps, desktop, 3d
