Eric Blue's Blog

Background

Earlier in the year, I posted about the need for a common mind map file format. With the proliferation of the next-generation mind mapping applications (e.g. MindMeister, Mindomo, etc.), the need to import/export in a standard way and to share mindmaps easily is becoming critical.

As I discussed in my earlier post, I'm a huge fan of commercial mind mapping applications (in particular MindManager). And, I love to share my mind maps with friends and colleagues, however there is a bit of a barrier if those people don't have my specific mind mapping application of choice.

One of the greatest things that the newer web-based mind mapping sites have done is to allow people to easily share their maps, and embed them directly onto their personal sites, wikis, and blogs. Yesterday while researching some sites on knowledge management, I discovered some wikis that support embedding of FreeMind maps using either a Java applet or flash player.

I thought to myself, wow....... I feel really left out. I would *love* to be able to do this myself using my existing MindManager maps. So, I decided to put on my "hacking cap" and wrote an application that allows you to easily convert, embed/share, and view your mind maps. The ultimate goal is have this service become some sort of Universal MindMap Viewer: multiple mind map input types, and multiple outputs (java applet, flash, and other forthcoming visualization frameworks/toolkits). Until the day that we do have a common mindmap format, this type of application will do the trick.

MindMap Viewer

Website: http://eric-blue.com/projects/mindmapviewer/

Screenshot:

* Downloads the mindmap at the provided URL (previously converted maps will be cached for a short time)
* Extract/convert the .mmap file to XML
* Translate to the FreeMind .mm format using XSL
* Embed or launch using the FreeMind Java Applet or Flash Viewer

Source: http://eric-blue.com/blog/download/Goals%20Mind%20Map%20Template.mmap
Website: http://eric-blue.com/blog/2007/03/use_mind_maps_to_achieve_your_goals.html
Type: Flash

Roadmap

This is obviously a work in progress, but definitely a great start. The Flash viewer is certainly promising since it's quite a bit faster than the applet, however there are currently some rendering problems with certain nodes. All in all though, this gets the job done. In the next few weeks I plan on adding some enhancements and would greatly appreciate some feedback!

Thanks!

Posted by EricB at 03:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (1)

For readers that know me, it's not a stretch to say that I *love* learning new things. I've always been a bit of a self learner (autodidactic if you want to get technical), and a few years ago I started a search (a quest actually) for finding tools to help streamline the learning process. Over time I discovered that the realm of knowledge management is vast and, quite honestly, fairly nebulous at times. In the next few months, I'm going to shift the focus of the blog for a little bit and write some more in depth posts on discoveries I've made with respect to personal knowledge management and highlight software that facilitates organization, collaboration, and learning.

Personal Knowledge Management

First of all, what exactly is "Personal Knowledge Management", or PKM? I think the following collection of quotes from the KnowledgeBoard (Technologies for Personal Knowledge Management) summarizes best:

"PKM involves a range of relatively simple and inexpensive techniques and tools that anyone can use to acquire, create and share knowledge, extend personal networks and collaborate with colleagues without having to rely on the technical or financial resources of the employer."

AND

"PKM is a conceptual framework to organize and integrate information that we, as individuals, feel is important so that it becomes part of our personal knowledge base. It provides a strategy for transforming what might be random pieces of information into something that can be systematically applied and that expands our personal knowledge."

In my personal experience, I've used a range of tools to help organize my information. These have included traditional PIMs (Personal Information Managers), outliners and note taking applications, and mind maps. I highlighted a number of these tools in my recent post on Mind Maps as Personal Dashboards. What I find intriguing is the potential to enhance PKM by leveraging newer technologies and applications(semantic and "web 2.0"). This recent breed of applications and technologies can help people discover, collect, aggregate, and share knowledge in new and interesting ways.

Personal Learning Environments

Organizing information and sharing knowledge is critical, but it helps to have a strategy and framework for approaching your learning endeavors. Personal Learning Environments, or PLEs, are defined as follows:

Personal Learning Environments are systems that help learners take control of and manage their own learning. This includes providing support for learners to

* set their own learning goals
* manage their learning; managing both content and process
* communicate with others in the process of learning

and thereby achieve learning goals.

The following diagram is courtesy of Jeremy Hiebert:

Again, I think there is *huge* potential in this area. Advances in social networking and further development of the "Social Graph" will help accelerate learning and the development of communities geared towards specialized learning goals.

Posted by EricB at 07:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

Wow, now that's a tall order to fill! And, it appears that gnizr has delivered that order. Gnizr (short for organizer) is one of the latest additions to the Google code repository, and this code-base has been donated from Image Matters LLC.

I haven't had a chance to install yet, but from looking over the website and screenshots it looks pretty amazing!

gnizr™ (gə-nīzər) is an open source application for social bookmarking and web mashup. It is easy to use gnizr to create a personalized del.icio.us-like portal for a group of friends and colleagues to store, classify, and share information, and mash-it-up with information about location.

* Archive saved bookmarks and organize bookmarks using tags and folders.
* Edit notes using WYSIWYG bookmark editor.
* Assign geographical location values to bookmarks and view bookmarks on a map.
* Define relationships between bookmark tags -- broader, narrower and member-of.
* Tag bookmarks using Machine Tags.
* View bookmarks in Clustermap and Timeline.
* Import new bookmarks from user-defined RSS subscriptions -- RSS, Atom and GeoRSS.
* Create new application behaviors using gnizr API. For example:
o Add modules to support custom Machine Tags;
o Add listeners to handle bookmark change events;
o Develop custom RSS crawlers to perform automated bookmark imports; and
o Create third-party mashups from data published by gnizr (RDF, RSS and JSON).

Screenshots (Click here for more)

Thanks to James at Semantic Wave for bringing this to my attention via del.icio.us!

Posted by EricB at 07:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It's obviously hard these days to ignore the Web2.0 phenomenon (although the term still causes me to cringe), and the labels given to the forthcoming Semantic Web (the "real" semantic web or web<put your version number here>). See Mike Bergman's post Please, Squash that Web3.0 Cockroach if you want to gauge a common reaction to the latest buzz word o' the day attached to new technologies. Nonetheless, it's interesting to see the memes that sometimes burst onto the collective web consciousness, and take on lives of their own.

I've used Google Trends in the past and thought it would be interesting to see how some of these hot topics fare against each other in popularity: Web2.0, Web3.0, Web4.0, The Semantic Web, and Social Networking. Here are a few observations:

Social Networking virtually popped out of nowhere starting early Sept '05. And apparently it's more popular in India, Singapore, and New Zealand than the United States.

Web2.0 was born on Sept 30th 2005 when Tim O'Reilly published What is Web 2.0: Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software. Since then, there's been a plethora of "Web 2.0" applications and sites. And, there's been no shortage of controversy of what "Web 2.0" actually is. Lack of definition or not, Web 2.0 doesn't appear to be going anywhere anytime soon.

Web 3.0, Web 4.0, and the Semantic Web seem to be fairly close in popularity. Although, Web 3.0 is beginning to gain in search popularity over the Semantic Web. I honestly can't tell you what Web 3.0 or Web 4.0 is, so please don't ask ;)

Posted by EricB at 07:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Designer Aaron Koblin composited a day's worth of FAA data to make some pretty fascinating (and deeply beautiful) animations.

Source credit to NPR.

Posted by EricB at 07:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)