triple|scape

Danny Ayers put out a call for volunteers to help with his weekly This Week’s Semantic Web posting. Lots going on out there in semantic web land (or linked data land if you prefer) and, having a job, he’s feeling a bit overwhelmed. So I said I’d take a shot at pitching in.

In that effort, I’m starting my own weekly post which I hope Danny will include in TWSW as much as he likes. I’ll post my first article on Sunday, and with any luck, every Sunday thereafter.

See you Sunday!

Rather that sit around making incremental tweaks to the web site and waiting for that elusive first sale, I thought I’d go ahead and start working on v1.2. With the feedback I’ve gotten from the BoS forum, my earlier beta-testers (thank you all!) and my own ideas, I have more than enough changes to constitute a new release.

What changes, dare you ask? Well, here’ the rundown:

• Files. You will be able to store a file as a clip (up to 3MB)
• Drag and Drop. Drag a file, image or text selection into the copy2web window.
• Drag text and image clips out of copy2web and into another application.
• Drag files to the Finder or Explorer to save them to the local filesystem.
• Compression. Clips are now GZIP compressed for faster upload/download.
• Windows Task Tray. On Windows, minimize copy2web to the task tray.
• Progress indicator. For big clips, an infinite progress indicator will appear to mesmerize you whilst you wait.
• Full Linux support

Happily, I was able to do most of this over the weekend!

Someone mentioned selling the server component. This will happen, but probably not until June or so. Please be patient. I have a day job, a lot of travel planned and a seven-year-old.

The only other big request that I’m not prepared to do yet is clip sharing. I’m not sure how I want something like that to work yet. Does the recipient have to have copy2web? Can we just email a URL for non-users to get the clip? Or IM or something?

So, what do you think? Did I miss any must haves? Send and email or tweet me on twitter (bmanley) and let me know…

Google Health is going into trials with The Cleveland Clinic, according to ZDNet and others. While I applaud the idea of personal health records that patients can actually have access to, I’m a bit wary of how that information might be used.

“Wait!”, you say. “HIPAA was created to protect patient privacy, right? So what’s to worry about?” Well, it turns out the HIPAA only applies to health care providers. If you voluntarily give your information to a third party (ie. Google Health), HIPAA no longer applies. Great.

Get ready for targeted pharmaceutical advertising, and the eventual abuse of your personal information for (someone else’s) financial gain.