When a child wants to build, he reaches for the nearest set of blocks and has at it.  For the semantic Web Developer or Information Architect, finding that perfect block proves a bit more difficult, as there many more Web tools available than letters in the alphabet.  If what you’re looking for is a resource that places database information in a semantic form, then one small block you might want to investigate is Triplify.  Triplify ‘semantifies’ Web Applications, bringing to light the semantic structures embedded in relational databases, and makes the Web mashable.

So What Does Triplify Do?

In short, Expose Semantics! Triplify provides for a knowledge representation of relational data and makes the content available in RDF, JSON or Linked Data form.  Furthermore, Triplify leverages its lightweight structure, a few files totaling less than 500 lines of code, to insure rapid deployment, reuse, and ease of implementation.

How Does Triplify Work?

Triplify capitalizes on the connections inherent in relational database queries, to retrieve data according to the queries of your choice and convert them to:

• RDF
• JSON
• Linked Data.

Generally, a minor 3 to 7 queries generates the majority of valuable information. After extracting database data, Triplify software constructs a shareable RDF, JSON or Linked Data semantic representation.

How Can Triplify Help Me?

Beyond simply preparing a semantic representation of your database on the Web, Triplify turns your Web Application into a data source for use in conjunction with other sources of data across the Web.

Notable uses include:

Semantic Search

• Sindice – A Semantic Web document index

Mashups

• Yahoo! Pipes – Pipe designer can utilize instances of Triplify as a data source.
• Simile Potluck – Mash Triplify data sources [No Programming Required!]
• Programmableweb – DB of API’s for use in conjunction with Triplify

Data Browsing

• OpenLink RDF Browser
• Tabulator
• Exhibit
• JSON Output – Access Triplify data without a parser
  • append ?t-output=json to any Triplify URI

Publishing Update Logs

• Publish a hierarchically structured update log as linked data.

Application Advantages:

• Search engines can better evaluate the content and more easily find content.
• Different application instances can easily syndicate dynamic content without the needing interfaces, content representations.
• Ability to create custom-tailored niche search engines. Easy searching for a product with certain characteristics.

How Do I use Triplify?

• Download and extract the Triplify script to your Web application.
• Create a Triplify configuration file according to your application.
  • Customizing the SQL queries to select information you wish to extract.
• Ensure the script registers your application instance with the Triplify registry so that it can be found by other Web applications.
• Enjoy your contribution to the Semantic Web initiative!

Check out the RDF data source for DavidKuhta.com at the Triplify Registry!

- Modeled after the WordPress configuration file below

Community contributed configuration files for some major Web applications:

• WordPress 2.7+ : by Andrei Mihăilă
• OpenConf 2.0 : by Sören
• Drupal 5.x : by David
• WackoWiki 4.2 : by Sören
• OpenJournalSystems 2.0 : by Sören
• Joomla! :  by Le Phuoc
• osCommerce : by Elias
• OMDB : by Sören
• phpBB : by Elias
• Gallery : by Elias

Important Considerations:

• Privacy – Triplify is accessing your database! Be judicious in your queries, insuring that only the data that is accessible to the web is accessible to Triplify.
  • Triplify recommends creating a separate “Triplify” database user for whom only read access is granted.
• Beta – As of this writing, Triplify v0.7 is still in beta and as any beta software still has some kinks to work through.
• Performance – Triplify currently caters to small to medium size apps, but retains the ability to cache for more extensive applications

Developers:

Triplify strongly encourages developers to become a part of the Triplify Community, and welcomes contributions of any kind. So, if you’re looking for an opportunity to contribute to a Semantic Web initiative, here’s your opportunity.

In A Nutshell

Triplify ‘semantifies’ the web, providing developers with a resource to semantically extract relational database information and make it available to the Semantic Web.  With its lightweight code, robust structuring, and ease of use, Triplify proves to be a valuable Semantic blocks for Web Applications. Likewise, Triplify’s approach in bypassing the chicken-and-egg dilemma of “simultaneously lacking of semantic representations and semantics-conscious Web search facilities” makes a push for the Semantic Web, today!

Simplify Semantics with Triplify!

So today I wanted to take a look into a Semantic Web Technology that is invading the blogosphere, Apture.  Apture is a free web service that allows for the integration of multimedia and links within published content, such as to dynamically create a new layer of user experience and interaction.  But what does that really mean? Apture essentially provides another method of communication.

So what can you integrate with Apture?

Well some things are better left done than said (click on the links):

• Documents
• Images
• Video
• Maps
• Audio
• References
• People
• News Articles
• Links to Websites
• All of The Above

Apture even assists in embedding content directly into the content:

How does Apture work?

Apture does all this by dynamically aggregating information from 50+ sources including:

• Documents: SlideShare, Google Books, and Scribd
• Images: Flickr, Yahoo Image Search, Wikimedia Commons, and Bing Image Search
• Video: YouTube, Reuters, Truveo, Dailymotion, Hulu, Comedy Central, ESPN, and Metavid
• Maps: Google Maps
• Audio: National Public Radio
• References: Wikipedia, Amazon, CrunchBase, U.S. Congress, and IMDB
• People: Twitter, LinkedIn, and U.S. Congress
• News: Daylife, Reuters, Guardian, NYTimes, Washington Post, and BBC News

How Can Apture Help My Site?

For the publisher, Apture elimates much of the fieldwork in searching for relevant content and media, and reduces it to a concise search for a relevant term. Furthermore, Apture works not only on WordPress but on other blogging platforms as well, notably: Typeface, Ning, Drupal, Blogger, and Movable Type.

How Do I Use Apture?

The first step is to goto the Apture site and download the plugin (WordPress users can also install the plugin directly from the backend of their blog after a quick search for ‘Apture’).  For your first use, after installing and activating the plugin, you’ll be prompted to create an account with Apture.  After logging in and linking your domain to your site, the dynamic fun begins.  Two new buttons will appear in the “upload/insert” section of the visual editor for your posts:

• Add Apture Link 
• Add Apture Embed

Clicking on either of these (While having text selected for ‘Add Apture Link’) brings up the Apture editing  hub allowing you to search for a term and adding your content accordingly :

After selecting the relevant content, click “Create Embed” and bam! your done.  Check out your post on the frontend and enjoy the fact that users aren’t being led away from your site every time you want to provide them with external content

In A NutShell

A free service with the capabilities of a premium plugin, Apture offers rapid integration of content and creates another layer of user experience that can be rivaled.  Coupled with the large array of contents feeding the apture search, you’ll be sure to find that perfect media complement to your own content.

Looking forward to hearing how Apture is enriching the way you post!

The first cut is the deepest, and it’s time for DavidKuhta.com to break ground by looking at WordPress, the puppet-master behind the scenes. With over 18 million WordPress installations web wide, chances are you’ve probably encountered a Blog run on the WordPress platform at least once in your life. So what’s different about WordPress anyhow? In one word, Simplicity…oh and Intuitive Functionality…and Highly Extensible as well. horse

Simplicity: WordPress removes numerous complications of Blogging

• Hosting – Don’t have a web host? WordPress will set you up with a free blog on their own servers.
• Installation – A 5 minute install…yeah you have to see it to believe it.
• Content Generation – A quick links drop-down for new “post, page, comment, draft, and upload” make creation of new content right at your fingertips.WYSIWYG – Post editing is done in a WYSIWYG environment with easy access to buttons for embedding images, text, or music.

Intuitive Functionality: No round pegs shoved in square holes!

• User Interface – WordPress gives publishers the freedom to determine how content should be organized and structured for their viewers.  Is the page content static? Create a page. Dynamic? Create a post.
• Administrative Structure – WordPress provides an impressive dashboard on the backend of the site.  It’s modular structure allows you to dictate what you want displayed and where you want to see it.
• Content Organization – The Post Visual Editor provides a basic a multitude of basic text editing function at first glance but the ‘kitchen sink’ is only a click away providing an array of more complex text and media formatting options.
  
  For the more programming saavy developer, WordPress offers the ability to hardcode html for a post only a tab away.
• User Experience – WordPress blogs are easy to surf. Period. WordPress worked hard to ensure that tagging, post categorization, media galleries, search bars, and themeing capabilities are all available to blog publishers so that they can determine how they wish to showcase their content to the world.

Highly Extensible: Communal Collaboration

• Themeing – Don’t like the way the default WordPress theme looks, change it in the backend. Custom-built, Free, or premium there is definitely a theme that meets your blogging needs and can be easily tweaked for that added element of personalization.
• Plugins – An elegant connection to the WordPress interface, plugins offer blog publishers the ability to add features to WordPress that aren’t necessarily built in.  What’s that translate into…if you can think it, there’s probably already a plugin.  SEO, Web Development, News Tracking, Social Media, and Graphical Design are just a few niche areas which plugins are being created for.  Don’t expect to have to reach in your pocket either, although there are premium plugins available, there are thousands of free ones as well.
• Widgets – A similar idea to plugins, Widgets enable blog publishers to display custom sidebar content and determine their arrangement on the page, without having to delve into all the nitty gritty coding.
• Everything Else -WordPress is Open Source and that means accessible.  Assuming your hosting your own WordPress Blog and not on WordPress.com, you have the ability to edit any and all the WordPress files which construct your blog.  This freedom allows you to change WordPress to meet your needs, conform to your ideas, and remain dynamic.  In addition, the WordPress community collaborates extensively to provide support and ideas, so if you do generate your own WordPress extension see if it’s possible to share some part of the that with the community.

So that’s WordPress, simple, intuitive, and extensible.  Good Luck in your own blogging endeavors and thanks for reading!