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I’m playing around with XStreamDB, and am really impressed with it so far. Relatively fast queries, doing stuff that would bring our current metadata database to its knees.

One thing I’m realizing is that I’m a complete dumb newbie when it comes to XQuery. Sure, I understand some of the concepts, but implementing the queries and the syntax etc… is a bit much right now. I’m working on that, to be sure, but there seems to be a big gaping hole on the ‘net (and the bookstore) on decent, usable XQuery documentation.

Sure, there’s the W3C language spec. but who really reads that (or, if you read it, do you really understand it?)

Has anyone come across some comprehensive, well-thought-out, and practical XQuery guide/documentation?

Here’s all I’ve come across:

We’ve been talking about this quite a bit in pod land here at the LC. Basically, the conversation goes something like this:

person 1: So, I’m thinking we should share our knowledge about topic X with group Y.

person 2: Share knowledge? How do you plan on doing that?

person 1: You know, by documenting, writing, presenting, etc…

person 2: But that’s just informationdata. Not knowledge. You can’t share knowledge.

person 1: Of course I can share knowledge…

person 2: But, knowledge is the internalized understanding of a concept, and is unique to an individual (and perhaps a specific context and point in time). How do you share that? Neuron transplant?

person 1: but… oh, right… OK… We need to share our informationdata about what we’re doing on topic X with group Y…

The whole Knowledge Management field cracks me up. How can any expert claim they can manage my (or any person’s) knowledge? They may help me manage informationdata, provide a context, but knowledge is mine and mine alone. They can’t manage that any more than they can manage my learning (don’t get me started on that!) It might seem like a minor semantic difference, but it really changes the whole nature of the endeavor.

UPDATE: Stephen Downes posted a comment that actually clarifies this further… I incorrectly suggested that information could be managed or shared. Really, the only thing that can be managed/shared/etc… is data – all else requires some level of cognitive process that can’t be externally stored or managed. Note to self: invent something that can do this, then take over the world…

UPDATE 2: An anonymous Spanish visitor pointed out this article: “The Nonsense of Knowledge Management” by T.D. Wilson in the comments.

Thanks to Apple, the Learning Commons was seeded with a shiney new TiBook for CAREO development. I’ve adopted it, replacing the older PB G4/400 that I had been using. What a difference. Wow. Really.

This thing has a speedy 1GHz G4, half a gig of RAM, 60GB hard drive, and a built in Superdrive (CD-R, DVD-R combo drive). Holy crap, that’s just plain nice. Before, I’d have to lug out a big, bulky external firewire CD-R drive to do my weekly backups (I use .Mac Backup every Friday morning to back up ~/Documents, Mail, Preferences, and a few other things). Now, I just insert the blank disk into the slot on the front of the machine… Nice. I just did a quick backup of some other stuff, and it struck me how elegant that really is.

Oh, and having access to a 64MB Radeon-class video card means Quarts Extreme works GREAT on the TiBook! YAY! The entire UI is so much zippier.

Anyway, thanks again, Apple. Of course, when you want it back, you’re going to have to pry it from my cold, dead hands…

I’ve just posted a document with instructions for installing your own instance of CAREO (including the ALOHA Metadata Server and CAREO Web Application).

This is a first shot, but the document has been around in some form for a while now (actually, it used to be several separate documents).

Anyway, if you’re looking to install your own copy of CAREO, take a look at these instructions.

Please let me know if there are any gaping holes, errors, omissions, etc…

Wow. Just checked on CAREO, and there are about a bajillion simultaneous users (hello Ohio State, and Wytheville, and LOTS of others…)

There isn’t smoke coming out of the CAREO server, but I can’t be long now… It’s running pretty much flat out at the moment (it’s only a lowly single 500MHz server – be gentle!)

We’re working on getting a shiny new box to move CAREO to, but in the meantime, please bear with any slowness… It’s just taking more hits than expected.

I’ve just hand rolled an RSS 2.0 feed for my presentations and publications. There is currently a whopping ONE entry, but that will hopefully be growing as I get a chance to write more about our work.

Here’s a link to the RSS feed, and one to an index page.

UPDATE: I’ve added the RSS feed for the presentations and publications to the sidebar of this weblog. Loving the rss2js processor (thanks, Alan!)

I’ve updated the presentation (again). I haven’t updated the QuickTime version yet, but the PDF is up to date.

I’ll likely update again after the presentation is over.

Here’s the PDF link.

I'm giving a presentation on Learning Object Repositories tomorrow as part of Faculty Technology Days. I've been madly whipping up a whiz bang Keynote presentation for it, and it's pretty much done. It's written in a newbie "what is a learning object" perspective, and builds from there.

I've posted it online here (pdf) and here (mov). The PDF version needs some tweaking (lines are white on a white background. It looks awesome on screen, but I switched the background to white for PDF and print, and lines don't show up. Use your imagination for now…)

Wow. I’ve been saying that a LOT lately. King just posted a teaser of his latest piece of CAREO wizardry. One of the major problems with setting up a repository is in the difficult process of configuring it after the install. (The install is pretty painless, and could largely be automated, but the config and management can be a pain).

He’s come up with a way to integrate repository management into an interface based on the MacOSX System Preferences application, so it can be managed like any other part of the system software. Except that it’s web based, so it can run from any machine!

That’s just plain cool stuff. If it works, it means repository admin will no longer involve hand-editing .plist and config files, feeding stuff to WOMonitor, etc…

The server that was providing DNS for www.sciq.ca is apparently sitting in a moving van somewhere. The company that was providing the service decided to move offices, without providing a backup DNS server offsite first (like, say, the U of C, or any affiliated company).

As a result, SciQ is currently offline. It IS hosted on the same box as CAREO, so it is technically still running, but the www.sciq.ca address goes into the void at the moment. I’m working on tweaking the SciQ theme so that it doesn’t look for stuff on that domain (server-relative links are better, instead of the current absolute links).

I’ll post an address when it’s working properly.

UPDATE: I’ve finished modifying the SciQ theme to work without relying on the www.sciq.ca domain. It’s available here.

UPDATE 2: DNS is back up for SciQ.

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