Coevolving Innovations

Coevolving Innovations

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A federated wiki site on cPanel

January 1, 2019
4 Comments

Since my cPanel shared hosting provider supports node.js hosting, installing a federated wiki site beside the usual Softaculous packages is an option. The app requires node.js, and there is a variety of ways to deploy that.

In 2014, I had installed a federated wiki site on Openshift, but then didn’t maintain it as other priorities surfaced.  The site is now available at http://wiki.coevolving.com, and the prior content has been restored.

The installation isn’t a one-button procedure.  However, an administator comfortable with opening an SSH terminal onto your shared hosting account should be able to follow the steps below.  (If you have problems, the federated wiki community hangs out in a room on matrix.org).

A. Creating a Subdomain

(1) Through your browser, from cPanel … Domains … , create a Subdomain.

  • As an example, I can create a Subdomain wiki in the Domain coevolving.com, that will actually be stored in my Home (Document Root) as a wiki.coevolving.com directory.

Subdomain_CreateASubdomain

B. Installing Federated Wiki

(2) From cPanel … Software … Setup Node.js App.

  • In the Web Applications list, Create Application.  As an example, set:
      • Node.js version: 10.11.0
      • Application mode: Production
      • Application root: wiki.coevolving.com
      • Application URL: wiki.coevolving.com
      • Application startup: app.js
  • (If you leave the Application startup field blank, app.js automatically fills in as the default)

NodeJs_CreateApplication

  • At this point, the node.js environment is not yet activated, as the package.json has not yet been downloaded, and the Run NPM Install button is greyed out.
… Read more (in a new tab)

Since my cPanel shared hosting provider supports node.js hosting, installing a federated wiki site beside the usual Softaculous packages is an option. The app requires node.js, and there is a variety of ways to deploy that.

In 2014, I had installed a federated wiki site on Openshift, but then didn’t maintain it as other priorities surfaced.  The site is now available at http://wiki.coevolving.com, and the prior content has been restored.

The installation isn’t a one-button procedure.  However, an administator comfortable with opening an SSH terminal onto your shared hosting account should be able to follow the steps below.  (If you have problems, the federated wiki community hangs out in a room on matrix.org).

A. Creating a Subdomain

(1) Through your browser, from cPanel … Domains … , create a Subdomain.

  • As an example, I can create a Subdomain wiki in the Domain coevolving.com, that will actually be stored in my Home (Document Root) as a wiki.coevolving.com directory.

Subdomain_CreateASubdomain

B. Installing Federated Wiki

(2) From cPanel … Software … Setup Node.js App.

  • In the Web Applications list, Create Application.  As an example, set:
      • Node.js version: 10.11.0
      • Application mode: Production
      • Application root: wiki.coevolving.com
      • Application URL: wiki.coevolving.com
      • Application startup: app.js
  • (If you leave the Application startup field blank, app.js automatically fills in as the default)

NodeJs_CreateApplication

  • At this point, the node.js environment is not yet activated, as the package.json has not yet been downloaded, and the Run NPM Install button is greyed out.
… Read more (in a new tab)

From Flickr to Piwigo

November 4, 2018
3 Comments

As an alternative to relying on Flickr as my photo-sharing site, a migration to self-hosting Piwigo took less than 2 hours.  With the web-sharing functions of Flickr having remained stable for the past few years, I’ve discovered that Piwigo has all of the features that I need for Creative Commons sharing of my one-photo-per-day habit.

For some years, my larger private photo archives have been on self-hosted Zenphoto sites.  In 2013, the quality improvement on my smartphone cameras led me to change my practice of large-batch photographic essays, in favour of sharing more frequent (i.e. daily) images.  I had admired Flickr for their progressive licensing whereby community members could easily declare Creative Commons.  Further, even at the level of free accounts up to 1TB, their FAQ said (as memorialized from August 2013 on the Internet Archive):

Are my photos every deleted? No, your photos will not be deleted, unless you do it yourself, or fail to play by our Community Guidelines.

Are my photos ever deleted?

Not, your photos will not be deleted, unless you do it yourself, or fail to play by our Community Guidelines.

If I started with the a free account on Flickr, and reached the limit where a Pro Account was needed, I wouldn’t begrudge paying for the service.  My understanding was that if I stepped back down to an free account, not all photos would be directly accessible, but the images wouldn’t be deleted (as described in “Your photos and data on Flickr” | Zach Sheppard | May 26, 2011:

* If your Pro account expires nothing is deleted: If your Pro account expires or you forget to renew, don’t worry!

… Read more (in a new tab)

As an alternative to relying on Flickr as my photo-sharing site, a migration to self-hosting Piwigo took less than 2 hours.  With the web-sharing functions of Flickr having remained stable for the past few years, I’ve discovered that Piwigo has all of the features that I need for Creative Commons sharing of my one-photo-per-day habit.

For some years, my larger private photo archives have been on self-hosted Zenphoto sites.  In 2013, the quality improvement on my smartphone cameras led me to change my practice of large-batch photographic essays, in favour of sharing more frequent (i.e. daily) images.  I had admired Flickr for their progressive licensing whereby community members could easily declare Creative Commons.  Further, even at the level of free accounts up to 1TB, their FAQ said (as memorialized from August 2013 on the Internet Archive):

Are my photos every deleted? No, your photos will not be deleted, unless you do it yourself, or fail to play by our Community Guidelines.

Are my photos ever deleted?

Not, your photos will not be deleted, unless you do it yourself, or fail to play by our Community Guidelines.

If I started with the a free account on Flickr, and reached the limit where a Pro Account was needed, I wouldn’t begrudge paying for the service.  My understanding was that if I stepped back down to an free account, not all photos would be directly accessible, but the images wouldn’t be deleted (as described in “Your photos and data on Flickr” | Zach Sheppard | May 26, 2011:

* If your Pro account expires nothing is deleted: If your Pro account expires or you forget to renew, don’t worry!

… Read more (in a new tab)

Evolution of open source IBIS software

March 6, 2014
0 Comments

As a way to enable conversations about wicked problems, IBIS (Issue-Based Information Systems) software seems to have evolved over the past few years.  While the academic support of IBIS software has carried an open source license, part of the community has become independent of the university.

For those unfamiliar with how an IBIS might work, Jeff Conklin (at the Cognexus Institute) had done a lot of work on Issues-Based Information Systems (IBIS) based on Rittel and Webber‘s “wicked problems”. The open source software supporting this is Compendium.   See the “Limits of Conversational Structure” | Jeff Conklin | April 10, 2008 at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxS5wUljfjE .

Simon Buckingham Shum, from the Knowledge Media Institute at The Open University UK, mapped the first UK election Tv debate in 2010 (or at least the few first minutes before his connection was interrupted).  “Dialogue Mapping election debate video” | Simon Buckingham Shum | April 23, 2010 at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPF64UXFER0.

Paul Culmsee, an issue and dialogue mapper in Australia, shares some of his experience in facilitation based in three videos.

As a way to enable conversations about wicked problems, IBIS (Issue-Based Information Systems) software seems to have evolved over the past few years.  While the academic support of IBIS software has carried an open source license, part of the community has become independent of the university.

For those unfamiliar with how an IBIS might work, Jeff Conklin (at the Cognexus Institute) had done a lot of work on Issues-Based Information Systems (IBIS) based on Rittel and Webber‘s “wicked problems”. The open source software supporting this is Compendium.   See the “Limits of Conversational Structure” | Jeff Conklin | April 10, 2008 at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxS5wUljfjE .

Simon Buckingham Shum, from the Knowledge Media Institute at The Open University UK, mapped the first UK election Tv debate in 2010 (or at least the few first minutes before his connection was interrupted).  “Dialogue Mapping election debate video” | Simon Buckingham Shum | April 23, 2010 at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPF64UXFER0.

Paul Culmsee, an issue and dialogue mapper in Australia, shares some of his experience in facilitation based in three videos.

Want your eyes and hands free? Have this blog read to you!

January 8, 2010
3 Comments

As much as I read content from the web — either through a feed reader (I’m currently favouring RssOwl) or a browser (I read with Firefox, and post comments with Flock and Cocomment) — there are times when I want my eyes and hands to be free.  I maintain a queue of MP3 audio recordings on a Creative Zen V for listening when walking or driving, and subsequently report on lectures and interview worth noting on the Media Input Queue blog.

The content on this Coevolving Innovations blog is text intensive — people who prefer photos are better to follow the Distractions, Reflections blog — so I have sympathies for readers who find the length tedious.

I was following through on some dialogue on mentoring from Sacha Chua (@sachac) to a blog post by Brian O’Donovan on social software (@bodonovan).  I noticed he had a “Listen” button on the entry, so I pressed it … triggering an automated reading of the content in a woman’s voice. This experiment gave me a close-to-perfect reproduction of the text content (and I could guess the meaning of the mispronunciations).

Following through the links, I discovered ReadSpeaker webReader, which originated as a service for the visually impaired.  For personal web sites, webSpeaker Free is an ad-supported service (with pre and/or post audio, and banners in the player).  It took me less than ten minutes to install on this WordPress blog (as one of the benefits of self-hosting on my own domain).… Read more (in a new tab)

As much as I read content from the web — either through a feed reader (I’m currently favouring RssOwl) or a browser (I read with Firefox, and post comments with Flock and Cocomment) — there are times when I want my eyes and hands to be free.  I maintain a queue of MP3 audio recordings on a Creative Zen V for listening when walking or driving, and subsequently report on lectures and interview worth noting on the Media Input Queue blog.

The content on this Coevolving Innovations blog is text intensive — people who prefer photos are better to follow the Distractions, Reflections blog — so I have sympathies for readers who find the length tedious.

I was following through on some dialogue on mentoring from Sacha Chua (@sachac) to a blog post by Brian O’Donovan on social software (@bodonovan).  I noticed he had a “Listen” button on the entry, so I pressed it … triggering an automated reading of the content in a woman’s voice. This experiment gave me a close-to-perfect reproduction of the text content (and I could guess the meaning of the mispronunciations).

Following through the links, I discovered ReadSpeaker webReader, which originated as a service for the visually impaired.  For personal web sites, webSpeaker Free is an ad-supported service (with pre and/or post audio, and banners in the player).  It took me less than ten minutes to install on this WordPress blog (as one of the benefits of self-hosting on my own domain).… Read more (in a new tab)

Digital photos: capturing, archiving, printing, web sharing, photoblogging

December 22, 2009
2 Comments

Digital cameras have become so common that they’re often now a feature in mobile phones and audio players.  Pressing a button to capture a snapshot of time is so easy.  The workflow of storing, printing and sharing those images is complicated.  Many would like to return to the days when we would just take the film cartridge out of the camera, and drop it to a photo lab for processing (often in about an hour).

People take more photographs digitally than they did with film cameras.  In a six-month study in 2000, when digital cameras were relatively uncommon, subjects (aged 24 to 38) took 200 to 1000 (with an average about 500) photographs, compared to their prior non-digital accumulated collection of 300 to 3000 (with an average of about 1000) pictures (Rodden & Wood 2003).  This means that when digital cameras were relatively expensive — and camera phones didn’t yet exist — people were averaging about 1 to 5 photos per day!

People presumably use cameras because they want to be able to retrieve the images later.  In a study of 18 parents, the value of long-retrieval of family pictures was high (i.e. around 4.7 on a scale of 5).  On experiments of 71 retrieval tasks — finding birthdays, family trips, first pictures of a child, etc. — 61% were successful, taking about 2.5 minutes each.  On the 39% of unsuccessful retrievals, subjects gave up after about 4 minutes  (Whittaker et al.… Read more (in a new tab)

Digital cameras have become so common that they’re often now a feature in mobile phones and audio players.  Pressing a button to capture a snapshot of time is so easy.  The workflow of storing, printing and sharing those images is complicated.  Many would like to return to the days when we would just take the film cartridge out of the camera, and drop it to a photo lab for processing (often in about an hour).

People take more photographs digitally than they did with film cameras.  In a six-month study in 2000, when digital cameras were relatively uncommon, subjects (aged 24 to 38) took 200 to 1000 (with an average about 500) photographs, compared to their prior non-digital accumulated collection of 300 to 3000 (with an average of about 1000) pictures (Rodden & Wood 2003).  This means that when digital cameras were relatively expensive — and camera phones didn’t yet exist — people were averaging about 1 to 5 photos per day!

People presumably use cameras because they want to be able to retrieve the images later.  In a study of 18 parents, the value of long-retrieval of family pictures was high (i.e. around 4.7 on a scale of 5).  On experiments of 71 retrieval tasks — finding birthdays, family trips, first pictures of a child, etc. — 61% were successful, taking about 2.5 minutes each.  On the 39% of unsuccessful retrievals, subjects gave up after about 4 minutes  (Whittaker et al.… Read more (in a new tab)

Blogging, microblogging, webstreaming

November 26, 2009
3 Comments

While some of my activity on the Internet is recreational, I continue to play with web tools to learn about the ever-evolving technology.  While the average person has become comfortable with e-mail, web feeds are still pretty much a mystery to many.  The RSS and Atom specifications first used by newswires has become the principal form of web syndication for blogs and social media.

I’ve recently rearranged my pattern of web use (again).  To encourage readers to think about how they use the Internet, let me pose four questions.

  • 1. Which principles on web content do I have in mind?
  • 2. How do I post content, and flow it?
  • 3. Why have I recently changed my use?
  • 4. What consideration should web users have for their content?

With the way that technology continues to evolve, the specific web applications may change … but the pattern should remain the same.

1. Which principles on web content do I have in mind?

My attitude is reflected in two ideas:  (a) open content with attribution, and (b) open platforms with interoperability.

(a) Open content with attribution reflects that I like to share my learning with other people.   Posting the content on the Internet improves access and distribution.  I understand the workings of copyright — there’s a Creative Commons license on this blog — which means that I retain ownership of my words, on the condition that if someone wants to formally cite the work, he or she should cite me as the source. … Read more (in a new tab)

While some of my activity on the Internet is recreational, I continue to play with web tools to learn about the ever-evolving technology.  While the average person has become comfortable with e-mail, web feeds are still pretty much a mystery to many.  The RSS and Atom specifications first used by newswires has become the principal form of web syndication for blogs and social media.

I’ve recently rearranged my pattern of web use (again).  To encourage readers to think about how they use the Internet, let me pose four questions.

  • 1. Which principles on web content do I have in mind?
  • 2. How do I post content, and flow it?
  • 3. Why have I recently changed my use?
  • 4. What consideration should web users have for their content?

With the way that technology continues to evolve, the specific web applications may change … but the pattern should remain the same.

1. Which principles on web content do I have in mind?

My attitude is reflected in two ideas:  (a) open content with attribution, and (b) open platforms with interoperability.

(a) Open content with attribution reflects that I like to share my learning with other people.   Posting the content on the Internet improves access and distribution.  I understand the workings of copyright — there’s a Creative Commons license on this blog — which means that I retain ownership of my words, on the condition that if someone wants to formally cite the work, he or she should cite me as the source. … Read more (in a new tab)

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