ApacheMap: https://code.google.com/p/apachegeomap/source/checkout

Mono-backup: https://code.google.com/p/m0n0-backup/source/checkout

wp-rdfa and wp-dephorm are hosted by wordpress:

wp-rdfa: http://svn.wp-plugins.org/wp-rdfa/

wp-dephorm: http://svn.wp-plugins.org/wp-dephorm/

Feel free to download alter and suggest changes again.

If you spot any problems just drop me a mail via the contact form and I’ll look into it.

Why open data?

Why should you use open data on your site? Data is what drives commerce on the internet, its also what helps us all search and find what we are looking for. Finding relevant data presented to in a useful way to your needs is however becoming harder due to the shear volume of data on the internet. This is why open data and open standards are gathering support from such organisations as w3c. Open data has the potential to solve many problems of finding and sharing information on the web for both humans and machines.

Linked and Open Data!

Open Data is a philosophy and practice requiring that certain data is freely available to everyone, without restrictions from copyrights, patents or other mechanisms of control. It has a similar ethos to a number of other “Open” movements and communities such as open source. However open data on its own needs a framework to make that data useful. This is know as the semantic web, or as Tim Berners-Lee puts it “next web”. Linked data and the semantic is a way of using data in which the semantics of information and services on the web is defined, making it possible for the web to understand and satisfy the requests of humans and machines to use the web content. In layman’s terms its a way using the web as a universal medium for data, information and knowledge exchange.

The Purpose of Semantic Data.

Humans are capable of using the Web to carry out tasks such as finding the Finnish word for “monkey”, reserving a library book, and searching for a low price for a DVD. However, a computer cannot accomplish the same tasks without human direction because web pages are designed to be read by people, not machines. The semantic web is a vision of information that is understandable by computers, so that they can perform more of the tedious work involved in finding, sharing, and combining information on the web.

Gains from Linked and Open Data.

Opening your data and using standards can bring significant gains to usefulness of the data you are already publishing on your web site. The data is already there but in human form, using mark-up designed to be interpreted by computers frees that data for use in other applications or mash-ups. The main concern of most organisations will be “Why should I give this data away? Isn’t it worth money?”. The main answer is your already giving this data away but only for humans! Allowing computers and programs to analyse this data can open up your data to new concepts and ideas and ultimately new revenue streams. For example you product data may get included in a new application for a mobile phone platform, or the data on your website could be used to plot events happening in the local area on Google maps. There are of course thousands more examples and potentially millions of people who could use your data in new and exciting ways. The possibilities are endless, and open data allows development of the way your business works without huge investments in R&D teams. Your data could be used in ways you’ve never imagined. Because this data is linked it will also allow people to find out further information about the data set, because it can all be analysed by machines, this could lead to new markets finding your products via other data sets and that can mean new customers!

How to share your data?

There are multiple ways to share your data and depending upon your data set this can influence your choice. The wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_Web provides more in depth technical information should you wish to learn more. Using RDF and N-Triples is an incredibly powerful way of parsing your data however if your looking for details on humans the FOAF vocabulary may be the correct method for you. The data can either be embedded in the HTML of your site or accessed via RESTful API using SPARQL or XML. Of course you can use a multitude of methods and link the data sets together making the data you already own far more useful on the “next web”. At the very least I recommend that people start to look at this technology and keep an eye on developments.

Further Reading.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_Web

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linked_Data

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/tim_berners_lee_on_the_next_web.html

http://4store.org

4store was designed by Steve Harris and developed at Garlik to underpin their Semantic Web applications. It has been providing the base platform for around 3 years. At times holding and running queries over databases of 15GT, supporting a Web application used by thousands of people.

I’m looking at this product to build the core of system that will help create a scalable, repeatable, easy to use data store system. The idea behind this is to help organisations achieve the goal of opening their data. @johnlsheridan stated that open source is the perfect system for promoting and achieving the goal of open data and open standards, all three go hand in hand. My aim is to remove the “black magic” currently involved in setting up some of these systems and help people free their data easily, which should benefit us all in the long run.

4store has some very interesting features such as the ability of nodes to clustering database nodes for scalability. It also has a SPARQL http server which provides a RESTful API. The fact that all the data can be accessed by a URI means this data is cacheable, which in turn means you can scale this system very easily with proxies and load balancers. The beauty of the system though is that none of these extra features are a requirement, so if your a small organisation with a moderate amount of data you don’t need to break the bank to do it.

Why free your data?

Well data is key for communication and the traditional business model is to guard your data and protect it. However the internet generation is here, and they’re changing the world! As soon as you put your data in a open standard anyone can use it. Using linked data means that someone looking for information about a certain item can find your data easier and more importantly can be interpreted by machines easily which improves search algorithms. If this item searched for is a product it may get you a sale. If the item is data about health it might even save a life. Data is diverse and so is its uses, when you open your data people may find a new way of using it and progress is made. Opening your data allows people create mashups and pull in data from a multitude of sources, giving a accurate and informative view on the requested subject matter. Open source, open data and open standards if embraced by enough people will help everyone move forward. I’ve only skimmed the surface of what these systems can be used for and trying to describe the importance of open data is incredibly difficult because data can be anything! If you want to know more I’d suggest looking at these TED speaches:

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/tim_berners_lee_on_the_next_web.html

and an excellent example of open data in use:

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen.html

Ric

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  <dc:date xml:lang="en">2009-04-06 16:54:39</dc:date>
  <dc:creator xml:lang="en">Ric_</dc:creator>
  <dc:title xml:lang="en">Cracked it! inline RDFa….</dc:title>
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You can download from the WordPress site http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-rdfa/

Please test and send any feed back in via the contact form.

If you use WordPress please download and give it a go, and if you like it please rate it on wordpress.org.

You can get it here: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-rdfa/

My project page for the plugin is here: http://dev.squarecows.com/projects/wp-rdfa/

Ric_