[Ldsoss] Blog + Family History + Books
Hi folks, The idea struck me today that it would be nice to be able to sit down on a weekly basis and write up a short history of what happened in our family, easliy including photos and such (essentially a blog post), and then be able to share that with family and friends in a secure manner (that's easy for them to access) and then at the end of the year to bundle up all the year's entries into a (acid-free/archival-quality) hardbound book to give each of the kids and to preserve for posterity. I'm certain there are tools that can get me pieces of this whole picture (Blogger + Picasa + Lulu/Blurb, for example). Is there anything out there that can get me the whole thing end-to-end? My time is excruciatingly limited but I feel keenly the need to document our little family's history, so anything that can get me to the above in the least amount of time each week is what I'm looking for. Thanks for any pointers, -- Dan ___ Ldsoss mailing list Ldsoss@lists.ldsoss.org http://lists.ldsoss.org/mailman/listinfo/ldsoss
[Ldsoss] Conference music
Hi folks, Just curious as to whether any one knows of a way to listen to the music of General Conference without having to download the MP3 for the entire session. I can do that, or listen to it via the conference DVDs, but it would be nice if high-quality MP3s of the conference music were available (in case folks from the lds.org site are lurking within earshot :-). There are some breathtakingly beautiful arrangements that show up at conference. Also curious if anybody knows about the availability of conference audio/video for Conferences prior to when the Church started posting online? Thanks for any pointers, -- Dan ___ Ldsoss mailing list Ldsoss@lists.ldsoss.org http://lists.ldsoss.org/mailman/listinfo/ldsoss
Re: [Ldsoss] Survey Results
On Fri, 7 Jul 2006, Justin R Findlay wrote: On Thu, Jul 06, 2006 at 08:55:13PM -0600, Dan Hanks wrote: Perhaps we in the community just need to organize an un-conference the day before. Gather together a bunch of geeks interested in genealogy for a bunch of hours with free wireless and see what comes out of it. That's an awesome idea. Name the time and place and I'm there. Phil Burns (Provo Labs/DevUtah guy--Hi Phil!) is interested in helping to set up a bar-camp (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BarCamp) in the very near future (in conjunction with WorldBarCamp (Aug 26th-28th)). See his blog post about this: http://www.devutah.com/2006/06/24/time-for-barcamp-utah/ And the wiki page he set up for it also: http://www.phil801.com/devutah/index.php?title=Pre-planning_thoughts_for_doing_BarCampUtah_in_conjuction_with_BarCampEarth. This would be an ideal venue for this sort of thing. I have family commitments on Aug 25-26, religious commitments on the 27th :-), but might be open during the day on the 28th. Anybody else interested? I'd also love to see something like this set up in conjunction with the FHT as well each year. Just need to find a good venue. Anybody at BYU have connections to get us a room with Wifi the day before FHT? We could make a page on WeRelate.org (wiki) to coordinate. Maybe we need to start a Family History Technology user group that meets on a regular basis. That would be fun. I'm sure we could find a steady stream of presenters who are doing cool things in the area. Thoughts? -- Dan ___ Ldsoss mailing list Ldsoss@lists.ldsoss.org http://lists.ldsoss.org/mailman/listinfo/ldsoss
RE: [Ldsoss] Survey Results
On Wed, 5 Jul 2006, Dallan Quass wrote: Overall it's a good workshop. A few people come in from out of town, but I estimate that 80-90% of the attendees this year came from BYU, the Church, or Ancestry. I think it would be _much_ better if there were an effort driving people to work together on shared efforts. I've only attended a few of the workshops, but I'm not aware of a single presentation that has had a broad impact outside the workshop - that has made the jump from workshop presentation to website/software feature available to the general public (except of course presentations from organizations about what they're already doing). I've attended the workshop for the last couple of years and for the geek that's interested in genealogy work, im my opinion, it's the event of the year. I look forward to it eagerly each year. But I'll agree with Dallan, in that I'd like to see the scope broadened a bit. Most of the presenters seem to come from the Church or MyFamily.com (that's not a bad thing, there's plenty of cool stuff happening in those organizations, but I'd like to see things opened up a bit) As I understand it the original purpose of the workshop was to provide a forum for BYU students doing research in Family History technologies to present their research. I think that's a good goal to continue with, but again, it would be nice to see the workshop expanded a bit (perhaps to two days?) Perhaps we in the community just need to organize an un-conference the day before. Gather together a bunch of geeks interested in genealogy for a bunch of hours with free wireless and see what comes out of it. Just rambling now... -- Dan ___ Ldsoss mailing list Ldsoss@lists.ldsoss.org http://lists.ldsoss.org/mailman/listinfo/ldsoss
Re: [Ldsoss] OSCon
On Tue, 4 Jul 2006, pat eyler wrote: It came up in a different thread, but it's probably deserving of thread of its own. Who is going to OSCon? (I am.) Me. Anyone planning on going to FOSCon? What about OSCamp? Of the people who will be there for one or more of these events, who'd like to get together for a BoF or other gathering? It would be fun to have an LDS-oriented BoF. -- Dan ___ Ldsoss mailing list Ldsoss@lists.ldsoss.org http://lists.ldsoss.org/mailman/listinfo/ldsoss
Re: [Ldsoss] Mailing list topics
On Thu, 22 Jun 2006, Shane Hathaway wrote: P.P.S. Python is terrestrial. We don't have a celestial language, no, not even Lisp. I'm pretty sure Java is OD... Nothing celestial yet, but Perl 6 is just around the corner, and from what I've seen so far, promises to be heavenly :-). ;-P ___ Ldsoss mailing list Ldsoss@lists.ldsoss.org http://lists.ldsoss.org/mailman/listinfo/ldsoss
Re: [Ldsoss] Open source or free diary/journal software recommendation
On Fri, 16 Jun 2006, Justin R Findlay wrote: On Fri, Jun 16, 2006 at 11:43:23AM -0600, Dan Hanks wrote: On Fri, 16 Jun 2006, John M wrote: Any suggestions? Apache + PHP + Mediawiki + MySQL (I believe all those should work on Windows), and you can keep your journal in a wiki. Different users/profiles might be a challenge, but I believe it would be possible. I'd have to delve more into the Mediawiki guts to know for sure. Mediawiki might be too heavy, but there are a lot of FLOSS blogging packages that are pretty much the same as a journal. It is heavy, but in my experience, it's really quite easy to install (once you've got the Apache/PHP/MySQL stuff intact, it's unpack, submit a form, and move a file), and IMO, it has the nicest 'feel' out of all the wiki engines I've used (or at least it's the most feature-full, despite being written in PHP ;-P) Bloxsom is very lightweight, but require that you have Perl + some webserver installed. FWIW, -- Dan ___ Ldsoss mailing list Ldsoss@lists.ldsoss.org http://lists.ldsoss.org/mailman/listinfo/ldsoss
Re: [Ldsoss] Linux and Windows--How wide the divide
On Fri, 16 Jun 2006, Thomas Haws wrote: The recent discussion about Troop/Youth advancement tracking and this question about journal writing software for Windows have startlingly refreshed my appreciation that the Linux masses and the Windows masses are truly on different planets. Ok, ok, so I threw out an idea that I have been thinking of using. Granted it's a little geek-heavy. I like MediaWiki cause it makes it easy to organize my ideas in a web-centric fashion (so it doesn't matter if I'm at home/work/wherever and want to do a journal entry) If someone's looking for a drop-dead simple multi-user-compatible journal system, then notepad + Windows Explorer (to make year/month directories) should fit the bill nicely. If you want pretty formatting and pictures for your journal entries, then substitute MS Word / wordPerfect / OpenOffice for Notepad. As for multi-user, well, each user account on a Windows box has ownership over its own files, so there ya go :-). Problem solved, no? What more is needed from a journal? :-) I understand where you're coming from though. One shouldn't have to install Web server + Database + scripting language for an app as simple as a journal. One should be able to install a 150k .exe to handle the same task. As I show above, you almost don't even need to install anything except common office software to accomplish the task, really. -- Dan ___ Ldsoss mailing list Ldsoss@lists.ldsoss.org http://lists.ldsoss.org/mailman/listinfo/ldsoss
Re: [Ldsoss] Scout Tracking
On Wed, 14 Jun 2006, Shane Hathaway wrote: Thomas Haws wrote: This is very intriguing. Can you point to an example we might install and try? I hope someone else knows of an example. Conceptually, it's simple, and I can see the solution from start to finish. But I'm surprised it hasn't been done very often. Maybe we need a proof of concept. There's a Perl module called Net::Server (http://search.cpan.org/~rhandom/Net-Server-0.93/lib/Net/Server.pm) that could be used to easily implment a simple HTTP server for use with something like this. Another such module would be HTTP::Daemon (http://search.cpan.org/~gaas/libwww-perl-5.805/lib/HTTP/Daemon.pm). The installer could be smart enough to ask if this is a desktop/standalone install (and use the Perl module or whatever other lightweight httpd is included with the package) or a server install (in which case it would use the Apache or whatever is running on the server. -- Dan ___ Ldsoss mailing list Ldsoss@lists.ldsoss.org http://lists.ldsoss.org/mailman/listinfo/ldsoss
RE: [Ldsoss] Scout Tracking
On Tue, 13 Jun 2006, Steven H. McCown wrote: The other issue is what value would a centralized database really offer? For day-to-day usage, it would offer zero value. If a scout moved wards, it would allow his records to be transferred. However, much of that is maintained by BSA, anyway. If local databases were used, then 'transferrable data objects' could be used to transfer information between databases from the old ward to the new. I have to respectfully disagree. I think the value of a centralized database is much greater than zero. A centralized database would allow parents to enter updated data about what their kids have done. The leaders would be able to see this and add their ok to that. Scout leaders can enter information about what requirements are passed off at weekly meetings and the parents can be on the same page. Bishops can see in one spot the progress of each of the youth over which he has stewardship. The key benefit I see from all this is a central data store making it possible for everyone involved, parents, leaders, and youth, to be on the same page in a much more efficient fashion. Yes there will be some who may choose to 'opt-out', but I think that will be a small minority. I understand there are risks and dangers involved here. But I would contend that there is risk in much of what we do in life. We can't let that paralyze us from moving forward, however. I respectfully disagree with you in that I believe the rewards from a centralized data store are very great, and worth the potential risk involved (which I believe can be mitigated sufficiently with some careful thought and attention). To bring this home, I have 4 children, all minors, so I understand the issues from a parent's point of view. I'm very aware of the risks of putting information on the Internet, and very cautious as to what I let my kids do on the Internet. That said, however, I'm confident that the church can design a system (hopefully with the communitiy's input and help) that will allow this tracking to occur and in a fashion that I would feel comfortable in having information about my own children to be stored in it. I don't see building a web app as just something to do because it's 'cool', but more as something that will provide a very large benefit. The biggest problem with any tracking process is that the Scoutmasters are usually quite lax about record keeping, in the first place. If one or That's a pretty broad generalization that I don't think is valid. There are scoutmasters that are very good at record-keeping. Perhaps the reason many are 'lax' is because they have to deal with all the paper and pencil ;-). A centralized system would alleviate much of that, I think. At any rate, to sum up: I recognize there are risks involved, and I understand those risks, but I believe they can be addressed sufficiently such that the potential rewards will outweigh those risks. FWIW, -- Dan :-) ___ Ldsoss mailing list Ldsoss@lists.ldsoss.org http://lists.ldsoss.org/mailman/listinfo/ldsoss
Re: [Ldsoss] Scout Tracking
On Tue, 6 Jun 2006, Tom Welch wrote: My thoughts were to create a central repository (whether hosted by the church or individually would be up for debate) and then we could provide several ways to access that data. 1. We (the community) could provide a SOAP or other interface to the data so that people could write thick client applications and synchronize their data with the central repository. I've actually done this quite successfully with some other applications and it works VERY well. So you can run independent of the server but when you go back online you can sync your data. If a person chose to never work online that would work fine as well. Oh yeah, this has my vote! Follow the CVS/SVN model. I 'checkout' a snapshot of the latest data with my local client. I take my laptop to the committee meeting, informal meetup with the boy/girl and their parents, or whatever, and input any updates I find. Once I'm back online I login and 'commit' any local changes I've made. If a central web-app were provided by the church, who hosted the data repository, and provided an API into the data, then parents and leaders can use the web-app to see everyone's progress. The community could then build various means of downloading/updating/etc that data. The Palm/handheld crowd could have their clients, the Perl folks (woohoo!) could make Net::LDS::ScoutTrack, and build whatever apps on top of that, the Java folks could do their thing, as could the Python folks. And Bishop, bless his heart, just has to login to the church's web-app to see where everyone is at. Sounds good to me :-). ___ Ldsoss mailing list Ldsoss@lists.ldsoss.org http://lists.ldsoss.org/mailman/listinfo/ldsoss
Re: [Ldsoss] Archiving Our Electronic Lives
On Thu, 6 Apr 2006, Ashley Oviatt wrote: I think a meeting is in order to learn how you do this newfangled technology first hand. I'd love to learn how to bind a hard bound book. There's a great article in the most recent edition of O'Reilly's Make magazine (issue 05, I think) on hand-binding books. They show how to hand-bind an issue of Make. I'd imagine there's also a slew of online resources on how to do it as well. My wife for a family Christmas gift bound up a short storybook she had written about her ancestors. The process isn't too difficult, but does take a fair amount of time (depending on how many you're making). But I'm sure there would be plenty of interest in seeing a live demonstration. -- Dan ___ Ldsoss mailing list Ldsoss@lists.ldsoss.org http://lists.ldsoss.org/mailman/listinfo/ldsoss
Re: [Ldsoss] Stake/Ward Web Site Utilities
Sorry for top-posting here, but my comment is a general response to the interaction I'm seeing here. I'm encouraged to see this openness between the development efforts of the church and the LDS tech community here. My feeling is that the perception earlier of many was that trying to get any feedback or suggestions into church software development was a big black box. It seems that is changing, which is very refreshing. I've thought to myself that the church unlike other business entities doesn't really have any trade secrets it needs to be hiding so I would hope that development processes could be a bit more transparent, and open to the community. It seems like that is happening. Woohoo! As a suggestion to those developing the stake and ward websites, I would love to see a system integrated into those websites that would allow for the tracking of YM Duty to God and YW Personal Progress tracking. Such a system would allow YM and YW and their parents to login and update which requirements they have completed. It would allow stake and ward youth leaders to login and see progress being made. When the Deacons quorum advisor would login he would be able to see the young men under his stewardship and their progress. Bishoprics would be able to see all the information for thier wards, and likewise stake presidencies for their stakes. On a larger scale, such a system could potentially provide the General Authorities with a lot of useful information on how these programs are funtioning church-wide. -- Dan On Tue, 7 Feb 2006, Peter Whiting wrote: On Mon, Feb 06, 2006 at 02:36:25PM -0600, Stacey wrote: Given that an almost working calendar export feature is available from the ldschurch guys I am planning to replace my script with an instruction page on how to export calendars directly. We pushed a change to production that should make the calendars usable in ical (needed a carriage return on the last line of the file.) I've been told there are some issues with import into koffice (apparently with commas in the body of the text) but I don't think it makes sense for us to start mangling the content of the description to accommodate the idiosyncrasies of different calendar applications - rather we'll leave those for filters executed by the end-user. Please provide feedback, especially if you see areas where the ical and/or vcal outputs don't adhere to their specs. pete ___ Ldsoss mailing list Ldsoss@lists.ldsoss.org http://lists.ldsoss.org/mailman/listinfo/ldsoss ___ Ldsoss mailing list Ldsoss@lists.ldsoss.org http://lists.ldsoss.org/mailman/listinfo/ldsoss
[Ldsoss] More info on the Church's new Family Tree system
I was sent another blog post by an individual who is a beta tester in the first beta of the Church's new Family Tree system. You can read it here: http://rzamor1.livejournal.com/17244.html Some interesting points from this entry: Give it time but GEDCOM I predict will be gone. So will all the problems that now go with it such as sharing information correctly between different software programs. You see Family Tree will work even if you are using a Mac or a PC. The church is developing a web services interface to this and are going to be open sourcing this project. They will be soliciting the world to write their own interfaces to this thing. There will be other websites using this information. You see different cultures use different ways to show their family trees and they couldn't hope to write them all. Instead they are writing a way for everyone to interact with this system so they can write it. Maybe someone will write a lite PDA version without pictures to get text to your PDA. The heavens are open and the sky is the limit. The happy day will be when you have to stop teaching people how to make a GEDCOM. Web services interface and open source. Wahoo!!! I hope that's correct information. As I responded to this individual, I think we have only seen the tip of the iceberg of possibilities in genealogical research. Another quote: The final version is 2.0 to the general public. The focus will be Finding my Ancestors through Records. This release will connect everything together. Right now they have people working on various portions of this. You have the Family Tree project. Then there is a group working on a research model that will assist in doing research. Another group is digitizing the records of the earth (Internet Indexing) and getting them all in one place, so they can be accessed from anywhere. All these efforts are going on simultaneously. In the 2.0 time frame they come together. I want to be around to see that. Unfortunately I don't have any time frame when these releases will happen - neither do they! I get shivers when I think of what will be possible when we combine a collaborative tool like the Family Tree system, digitized versions of 2 million + (and growing) microfilms and open interfaces to it all. I'm reminded of Isaiah 9:2, The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined. As these microfilms are digitized and made available, it's as if the data about those who were once in darkness (of dusty library shelves and cabinets) are now being brought into a great light of easier availability. It's an exciting time to be part of this Work! -- Dan ___ Ldsoss mailing list Ldsoss@lists.ldsoss.org http://lists.ldsoss.org/mailman/listinfo/ldsoss
Re: Re: [Ldsoss] Stake/Ward Web Site Utilities
On Tue, 7 Feb 2006, TJ Hunter wrote: The church might also get into legal trouble with creating the software. The BSA is pretty strict with their copyrights and I would imagine they have their own software available to leaders for a price. I don't think this would be too much of an issue. There are a large number of software programs out there already that allow you to track scouting progress. -- Dan ___ Ldsoss mailing list Ldsoss@lists.ldsoss.org http://lists.ldsoss.org/mailman/listinfo/ldsoss
Re: [Ldsoss] the kingdom
No, I don't think it's so much a Provo term as it is an LDS theme. Our work in the church can be considered part of building the Kingdom of God on the earth. Any work we do that furthers the mission and purposes of the Lord can be said to be building the kingdom, in preparation of His second coming when He will assume his rightful reign as King of kings and Lord of lords. For one example of outside-Provo usage, if you've seen the movie The Other Side of Heaven about the missionary labors of Elder John H. Groberg, you might remember when Elder Groberg arrives in the mission his mission president tells him he has a two part assignment, learn the language, and build the kingdom. -- Dan On Wed, 25 Jan 2006, Kyle Waters wrote: Ed Hammond wrote: and maintaining code that can help build the kingdom. My $.02 :-) I've seen this statement on this list several times and I've rarely heard it anywhere else. Is this a Provo term? Kyle ___ Ldsoss mailing list Ldsoss@lists.ldsoss.org http://lists.ldsoss.org/mailman/listinfo/ldsoss ___ Ldsoss mailing list Ldsoss@lists.ldsoss.org http://lists.ldsoss.org/mailman/listinfo/ldsoss
[Ldsoss] More on the Church's new Family Tree program
Another interesting blog post from the same author as my last post: http://www.livejournal.com/users/rzamor1/15202.html#cutid1 I attended the same UVPAFUG meeting where this presentation was given. I haven't had time to blog about it myself, but it looks very interesting and has all sorts of possibilities. Some interesting points from the above blog entry: 3. What programs will be compatible with Family Tree? Answer: We are talking about the ability to sync your genealogy software to Family Tree in the future. They are working with all vendors of genealogy software even the very little obscure ones. So the answer would be all of them. You can use any genealogy software program now to submit a GEDCOM to Family Tree. I hope GRAMPS is included in that list. If an API for the Family Tree system is made available, then indeed, any piece of genealogical software could interface with the system. Along those lines: They will be opening sourcing the project so people can write all kinds of programs to have different interfaces to it. I'm not sure if the blog author here means the church will be making the source code itself open source, or if simply there will be APIs anybody can use to interface with it. I'll try and scramble up some notes I can blog about to give my impressions. The Church should have this rolled out to temple districts worldwide by the end of the year. The Mt Timpanogos temple district is one of the last ones on the list, however. Cool stuff, I'm looking forward to using it. -- Dan ___ Ldsoss mailing list Ldsoss@lists.ldsoss.org http://lists.ldsoss.org/mailman/listinfo/ldsoss
[Ldsoss] New Family History System preview
A blog I've been following offers lots of nice details about the new Family Tree system the church is working on. I thought folks here would be interested: http://www.livejournal.com/users/rzamor1/14953.html One interesting paragraph from the entry: But one of the best things about the program is that you can now correct and add information on an individual. It is now possible for you and your second cousin to have multiple opinions show up on an individual. You have the ability to dispute each others information and note the reason for the dispute. But you cannot change each others information contributed. There is an icon that will show if information is disputed. All information added will be maintained. You also have the ability to cite your sources. I guess the only draw back so far is the inability to add multimedia to a record. I hope the inability to add multimedia to any given record is a feature slated for a future release. It would be nice to be able to upload images of vital records and such and then tie those images to any person, marriage, or event, as evidence for the information in the database. Looks very nice. Lets hope open APIs also become available at some point. -- Dan ___ Ldsoss mailing list Ldsoss@lists.ldsoss.org http://lists.ldsoss.org/mailman/listinfo/ldsoss
[Ldsoss] Google Base + genealogy
Google Base (base.google.com) 'launched' yesterday it appears. I'm dying to try and see how this could be used for genealogical information. Google Base allows you to do bulk uploads in tab-delimeted, rss, and atom XML formats. For starters, perhaps a gedcom2xml converter to marshal gedcom data into an XML format that google supports. Just some thoughts. -- Dan ___ Ldsoss mailing list Ldsoss@lists.ldsoss.org http://lists.ldsoss.org/mailman/listinfo/ldsoss
Re: [Ldsoss] Church Sponsored OSS
On Thu, 27 Oct 2005, Dan Lawyer wrote: I'm curious in the groups feedback on a couple of questions. 1) Should the Church host/sponsor OSS projects for Church related initiatives? Something like forge.lds.org. That would be nice. 2) If the Church were to host such a site, what is the basic feature set required to make it successful? Code / file repository Mailing lists (web-based forums optional) project homepage hosting 3) What are the most interesting OSS projects the Church might sponsor or facilitate? PAF for Linux/MAC, APIs to the new family history system and related add-ons, etc. I like the concept that Pat Eyler brought up, small projects that would be nice to have done, but which the church isn't able to devote time/resources to, such as tying Nagios in with the ticketing system. I'm mainly interested in APIs for things like ldsindexing, the new family history system, and an API for the gospel library section of lds.org would be very nice as well. I'm not too interested in apps for Windows/Linux/MAC/etc, as more and more the web is the platform. -- Dan ___ Ldsoss mailing list Ldsoss@lists.ldsoss.org http://lists.ldsoss.org/mailman/listinfo/ldsoss
Re: [Ldsoss] Web page graphic
Think honeybee, deseret, etc. On Wed, 26 Oct 2005, Shane Hathaway wrote: Forgive me, but I just can't figure out what is depicted by the graphic in the top left corner of http://ldsoss.org . Is it a wig with wings? ;-) Shane ___ Ldsoss mailing list Ldsoss@lists.ldsoss.org http://lists.ldsoss.org/mailman/listinfo/ldsoss ___ Ldsoss mailing list Ldsoss@lists.ldsoss.org http://lists.ldsoss.org/mailman/listinfo/ldsoss
Re: [Ldsoss] new members
On Thu, 20 Oct 2005, Dan Hanks wrote: As an example, consider the church's digitization efforts for its microfilm. Imagine every image generated by this digitization had a unique id, and could be displayed/retrieved by a certain web service call, or simply by a unique url. Web service calls could also then be available which would provide metadata about this image, which document did it come from, when was it created, what geographical areas did it come from, what surnames are mentioned in the image, etc. Sorry to respond to my own post, but my ideas are flowing. Some of you may be familiar with del.icio.us, a web-based bookmark manager. Users can post urls and associate any number of 'tags' with these urls. A tag is simply a single word associated with the url in question. Imagine then a service like del.icio.us that tied into this hypothetical system the church could develop around its digitized microfilm images in which users could associate any number of tags with a particular image. Although the church through its extraction efforts will be indexing the actual text of each image, such a service (which wouldn't have to be developed or maintained by the church) could allow people to add useful metadata to each image. Essentialy a folksonomy[1] centered around the digitized images. Taking this a step further, one could build a service around this hypothetical API such that users could create RDF semantic-web[2] data associated with each image, such as John Doe was born in Sussex, England in 1815, which would then be machine-readable, and much in the same way proofs can be deduced in a relational database based on the basic information stored in relations. Imagine being able to query show me all images for a John Doe born in Sussex, England within 5 years of 1815. The same semantic annotation (via RDF) could be done for family tree information as well. It's my firm belief that there are applications that will surface which we can't even imagine at this time that will be possible with open APIs such as these. Just some (more) thoughts. -- Dan [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folksonomy [2] http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/ With that interface exposed I could tie it up with, say, google maps, so that I could browse a map and show pinpoints of any microfilm images that originated in a certain area. What if family tree navigation (think Ancestral File) were opened up via API? I could tie it up with Google maps to show migration routes of my ancestors with each suceeding generation. I imagine somewhere there's a web service that offers timelines of historical events. I could tie this family tree navigation with that and get a nice timeline of events in my ancestors lives contrasted with world events. Let's say I go on a crusade to snap photos of all the tombstones of my ancestors that I can find. I store these images on my server, and write an app that allows a visitors to browse my family trees that I've submitted to the church, and with each individual able to display the mages I've taken of their tombstone. These ideas are only the tip of the iceberg, so to speak, of what could be possible with open APIs exposing this data. I'm sure there are hundreds and thousands of tools that could be created to enhance genealogical research, if the data were exposed via some form of API. In this way, the church could develop their own basic interface around the service, and not have to spend development time implementing every last little obsucre feature in a desktop application. Let those who really want it write an app or extension to provide that feature. At any rate, that's what I'm interested in. :-) -- Dan On Thu, 20 Oct 2005, Charles Fry wrote: Hey, I don't mean to disrupt the mailing list peace, but I've noticed a recent influx of new members. I, for one, would be quite interested in learning who you are, how you found LDSOSS, what motivated you to join the list, and what you hope to get from the group. In any case, welcome, and we hope you enjoy it here! Charles -- If our road signs Catch your eye Smile But don't forget To buy Burma-Shave http://burma-shave.org/jingles/1963/if_our_road ___ Ldsoss mailing list Ldsoss@lists.ldsoss.org http://lists.ldsoss.org/mailman/listinfo/ldsoss ___ Ldsoss mailing list Ldsoss@lists.ldsoss.org http://lists.ldsoss.org/mailman/listinfo/ldsoss ___ Ldsoss mailing list Ldsoss@lists.ldsoss.org http://lists.ldsoss.org/mailman/listinfo/ldsoss
Re: [Ldsoss] new members
On Thu, 20 Oct 2005, Richard K. Miller wrote: On a similar note, I have been thinking how nice it would be to have a tagging system like del.icio.us for rating website content -- from true, accurate, uplifting to disingenuous, misleading, pornographic. And one might build a Firefox extension/toolbar that would check the rating before showing the website (if it's available) and not display sites below the user's desired threshold. If I happen to find a pornographic or obscene site, I can tag it and save everyone else the trouble of ever finding it. Add to that a 'trust metric', such that you have a circle of close associates whose ratings you trust more than others. One man's art is another man's pornography. Make it flexible, allow each user to give a 1 to 10 score of how comfortable they feel with another user's ratings. del.icio.us has a simple API[1]. It probably wouldn't be too difficult to create a service which wraps del.icio.us, allowing you to give weighted trust levels to each user. Chances are, someone has probably already built such a thing :-D That's the beauty of the web these days, with APIs like there are available, the sky's the limit as to what can be created. On a separate note, a Firefox extension could also filter obscene language from web pages. Check out greasemonkey[2], you can do this without too much effort. Look at some of the sample scripts available for it and you'll get the idea. -- Dan [1] http://del.icio.us/doc/api [2] http://greasemonkey.mozdev.org/ ___ Ldsoss mailing list Ldsoss@lists.ldsoss.org http://lists.ldsoss.org/mailman/listinfo/ldsoss
Re: [Ldsoss] Content filtering proxy
On Tue, 17 May 2005, Steve Dibb wrote: Jesse Stay wrote: One idea I have wanted to pursue is to write a distro for the Linksys WRT54G (this router is based on Linux and is open-source) that focuses on content filtering. Now *that* would be a cool idea. I'm still trying to find a hackable router, though. All the ones in the stores are the newer ones. Go to buy.com, search for wrt54g. After rebate = $44.95. Enjoy :-). ___ Ldsoss mailing list Ldsoss@lists.ldsoss.org http://lists.ldsoss.org/mailman/listinfo/ldsoss
