Very interesting article about how to leverage free and open-source tools to create a low-cost yet functional DITA based XML authoring and publishing system.
I've been thinking about setting something up along these lines for a while, but have just never gotten the ambition.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Inexpensive Entry to DITA authoring and publishing
Interesting Articles
I've been using Google Reader on my BlackBerry. Whenever I come across a particularly interesting article, I click "Share" in the reader. This will place the shared links onto my Interesting Articles link. This way I can point out interesting articles without the overhead of typing up a blog post. Laziness wins yet again.
Posted by inthewoods at 2:39 PM 0 comments
Friday, July 25, 2008
Blog Templates
Finally found a non-ugly fluid template... I liked the previous template better, but I hate fixed width layouts, so I guess this will have to do until I get the ambition to roll-my own design.
Posted by inthewoods at 2:52 AM 0 comments
Recent Rides
In the last 2 weeks since I got my Garmin 705, I've ridden the following:
7/24: Centennial Cone: 12.33 miles / 1700 ft / 1h55m
7/23: Heil Ranch out Wild Turkey, back on the main trail: 9.48 miles / 1277 ft / 1h25m
7/21: Chimney Gulch with a trip back to the car for a new rear wheel: 7.27 miles / 1700 ft / 1h54m
7/17: Walker Ranch (missing about 1.5 miles): 6.64 miles / 1523 ft / 1h46m
7/16: Blue Dot / Red & Yellow Dots: 12.52 miles / 1650 ft / 2h27m
7/14: Jamestown Forest Exploration: 14.1 miles / 2100 ft / 2h37m
7/13: Tour de Bike Paths: 22.8 miles / 762 ft / 1h53m
7/12: Triple Bypass: 120.7 miles / 10200 ft / 10h59m
All rides are total elapsed time. On the Triple I had auto-stop enabled, so I also know my total moving time which was 8h53m.
I can't decide whether I like autostop or not. Ultimately, I guess I want to know the total time as that is more important for future planning. It also makes an annoying beep every time it auto stops or starts, so I guess I'll leave it off for now.
Posted by inthewoods at 2:23 AM 0 comments
Labels: cycling
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Documentum 6.5 New Features
I attended some of the Interactive Content Management webinar today. D6.5 is still scheduled for July 31st.
CTS
- Real-time (synchronous) invocation
- New transformations included
- DOES NOT include any new Adobe capabilities yet (Version 7 will include updates)
- In the future, EMC intends to supply a transform that will convert many vector formats into a Flash-based lightweight vector format so the typical web user can view vector graphics without a special plug-in.
XTS
- Bundles new DITA targets out-of-the-box using DITA OT 1.4.1 (1.4.2 coming with D6.5SP1)
- DITA bookmap, etc.
Site Caching / Delivery Services
- SDS is end-of-life due to Marimba licensing issues
- In D6.5 major change is that SCS can publish to a standalone XHive store (no plugin for MarkLogic)
- Web Service enhancement allows two-way interaction, i.e., user-supplied content can be sucked into the repository. Optionally a workflow may be launched based on this "repatriated" content to control ingestion.
- EMC will rewrite the SDS functionality for D7
Digital Asset Management
- DAM client has bugfixes, not much new functionality, still based on WDK
- Storyboard enhancements / video sub-clips can be manually extracted
- Loupe tool can run through firewall
- Launch MediaSpace directly from DAM targeting a specific folder
MediaSpace (Media Workspace)
- Moving towards a DAM Replacement
- Not all functionality will be available in D6.5 vs. DAM (new product)
- No additional license required beyond DAM 6.5
- Adobe Flex rich interface
- Target the Everyday consumer / contributor
- Visually Appealing and low learning curve
- Componentized "Flex Miniapp" is the architectural model
- Interacts with repository via DFS (Unclear if DFC is still in the mix from the client-side)
- Built in Digital Asset approval process (workflow), not sure if this is fully configurable/customizable yet.
- Launch DAM directly from MediaSpace targeting a specific folder
- Launch OS Explorer / Finder into a File-Share-Services exposed repository folder
Media WorkSpace Pro
- Additional Cost, advanced tool for viewing, annotating and modifying content
- Integrated with WCM so can target Wiki and Blogs
Media WorkSpace Marketing Edition
- Built on top of Media WorkSpace Pro
- Solution to provide a leg-up for building a Marketing campaign
- Quick publish to various channels
- Analytics
- Offer composer
- Dashboard (maybe based on workflow?)
AIS: Authoring Integration Services
- FSS: File Share Services
- FTP: FTP Services
- WebDAV services
- Feature set of FTP and WebDAV are similar to prior releases
- Focus on FSS
- OS Level Access to Explorer / Finder as a network file share
- Plugins for InDesign and Quark to support compound documents
- Scalability, WAN and Firewall enhancements
- Better integration and user-adoption by being more hidden
- Can prompt the user for synchronous / asynchronous interaction
- D7 intends to support triggers so the files can be immediately committed back ALA eRoom plugin.
- AutoUpdate can upgrade FSS clients on login to simplify deployment
- Certified to work with RPS / Records Manager
- Macintosh OSX 10.5
- Expose Repository services such as version history and renditions
- Custom context menus in Explorer/Finder
- Replace dialogs to customize Import / Checkin / Properties dialogs
- System Tray menu customizations
- Scheduled Commit
- Leverage the client-side cache
- 6.5sp1: My Documentum (FSS+offline+appConnectors)
- Center Stage Integration (triggers, etc.)
- Silent Login / SSO
- Clustering / HA
- Tighter Windows Integration, .net client, etc. (no Java runtime needed)
In the future other clients such as Knowledge Worker and Center Stage will be able to embed the various WorkSpace clients.
For D7, the Task/Media/Work/Space products will interoperate and transparently hand-off to each other. E.g., you won't have to logon to TaskSpace to perform workflows and then go back to MediaSpace to view Videos. Sounds like in D6.5 the products are not all that integrated.
Posted by inthewoods at 11:29 AM 0 comments
Labels: documentum, emc
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Very interesting development in aging research
Hat tip to Instapundit for the link.
Posted by inthewoods at 11:28 AM 0 comments
Twos Complement Worksheet
I recently was doing some testing on some UTF8 character conversion code and since Java does not have any unsigned byte datatypes, it was quite a pain to get UTF8 expansions recoded as signed bytes for the test. I couldn't find anything online that would take a signed byte and return the decimal value of the same bit-pattern as an unsigned. So I wrote this really hacky Google Docs spreadsheet to help myself. Probably there are 1000 better ways to do it, but this is at least a very explicit implementation that shows exactly how the process works.
Posted by inthewoods at 10:26 AM 0 comments
Labels: development, java
Monday, July 21, 2008
Broken XT Cassette
Today I rode Chimney Gulch and after taking it easy for 3 days, I was feeling really good. Sadly, about 1/4 of the way up while powering (or slogging) up a particularly tricky rock section, my cassette failed. The whole affair got twisted partially into the spokes and so I couldn't coast or pedal. My riding companion, Kevin, had the idea to take the chain off so I could coast back to the car. Great idea! I had a fairly uneventful ride back to the car, where I had luckily stashed a spare wheel. So I mounted that wheel up and headed back up the hill.
The reason that I had a second wheel in the car was that this morning I was running late, as usual, but I wanted to ride my All Mountain-ish wheelset instead of the XC-ish ones. I'll digress into an explanation of my 2 current wheelsets on my Ventana El Rey.
The XC wheelset consists of 32 hole Stan's Flow rims laced to a Chris King ISO rear and a Hope Pro II front hub. My 2nd wheelset is 36 hole Sun Rhyno Lites laced 3X to Hope Pro II hubs front and rear. The Rhyno Lites are noticeably stiffer, but also nearly 200 grams heavier per wheel than the Flows, so I tend to put lighter tires on the Flows. Anyway, I'd worn out my heavier duty tires last year and so this year I've been running lightish tires. Recently I've been getting lots of flats and I'm not happy about it. For a while I was running a Saguro in the front and a Kenda Small Block 8 in the back, but the SB8 was just way too light and I could never get any confidence in it. So I put a Rampage on the front and the Saguaro on the back. I have been disappointed by the Saguaro. Running it in the "Speed" direction it spins out easily, pinch flats easily, and has some really annoying tread squirm to it that does not inspire confidence. I will switch it to "Traction" direction and hope for the best.
Anyway, I was fed up with the XC wheels and as I've been getting stronger lately, I've been feeling the limitations of the lighter wheels both climbing and descending. Today was going to be the day for the heavy duty tires (not that any 29er tires are truly heavy duty. Yet.) So as I ran out of the house this morning, I put the Rhyno Lite on the front, but just threw the rear in the back of the Forester and headed to work.
Due to generalized laziness, the rear AM wheel was not 100% setup correctly. Basically, since I'm 225+ lbs and I like to climb up steep hills, I break stuff. The most recent destruction was in the form of a blown-up Hope freehub. I have 2 warranty replacements, one aluminum and one stainless-steel, but the (weaker) aluminium was installed since I got it first. And since I know that the aluminum freehubs will not survive long under max torque, I purposely had installed an old 11-32 cassette instead of my preferred 11-34. My original plan had been to install the stainless steel freehub and an 11-34 cassette at lunch or at the trailhead before the rest of the crew showed up. Unfortunately, my brain was not fully engaged this morning, and I forgot to bring the stainless freehub.
Thus, I ended up riding Chimney Gulch with an old cassette, and I payed the price. It was a previous generation Shimano XT 11-32 cassette with 4 arms. It looks like one of the aluminum arms failed and then the rest of the cog folded and cracked 2 of the other arms.
Anyway, the ride was pretty entertaining overall and I got a rare chance to compare two tires back-to-back with most of the other variables being constant. I started the ride on a Kenda Nevegal 2.2 @ 40psi and I was loving that tire all the way up Chimney Gulch. Very planted feel, good grip, rewards aggressive efforts without spinning out, I can just dig push as hard as possible and trust that the tire will transmit all the power into the dust and loose rocks.
In contrast, the second climb was on a Saguaro pumped up to about 35. Gawd it was painful after riding the Nevegal. It spun out on every water bar, the tire folded and slid out on every rut and the sidewall collapsed over every rock making the ride seem like a constant threat of pinch flatting or just spinning out the entire way up. Finally I stopped for a few minutes and added 100 pump-strokes from my topeak minipump which improved the feel, but not the traction. I gotta remember that the Saguaro is good for fast, technically easy rides only.
On the front, I had a brand new WTB Stout. It was a promising inagural ride. So far it is a very confidence inspiring tire. Seems very sticky, no tread squirm and no feeling that it will fall-away when leaned over. The tread compound feels very soft and sticky and I noticed some noticible tread abrasion on the corners already (todays ride was only 7 miles!) so the internet reports of short lifespan seem likely to come true for me as well.
I made it most of the way up Chimney Gulch even after all this messing around, but I didn't quite make it to the top... about 10 minutes past the second road crossing, I met Kevin and Jeanne coming back down. I turned around then with them and we had a great ride back to the parking lot. At the end of the ride, Kevin and I compared odometers, both of us had exactly 7.27 miles indicated... pretty funny.
I need to get my act together and get the stainless steel freehub on my Hope Hub so I can put an 11-34 on it and start riding the Nevegal again. So I guess the moral of the story is that I should always bring an extra wheelset with me. Either that or I should actually work on my bike sometimes other than at the trail head. Nah.
On a slightly different subject, I'm liking the 22-36-bash front gearing a lot. I did screw up and shorten my chain too much, so I need to add 2 links back on, always a risky proposition, but I'll probably risk it. I had figured out that the standard gearing of 22-32-44 gave me a 30mph top speed at 90rpm, while a 22-36 resulted in about 26mph. Since I can barely maintain 30mph for 1 minute on a level dirt road, I figured that losing 4mph of max speed on the flats would be a good trade for extra ground clearance and a tighter chain. I doubt that I'll have any loss of speed on the vast majority of the terrain I ride. Makes the bike look a little tougher too.
Stats for the ride (from my Garmin 705):
Distance: 7.27 miles
Average: 3.8 mph (including time spent replacing the wheel)
Total Ascent: 1772 feet, yes it is flippin steep
Posted by inthewoods at 11:37 PM 0 comments
Labels: cycling
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Save the Pacific Tree Octopus
I recently found out about this fascinating creature. Sadly its range is shrinking but even so it is not listed as a threatened species. Write your Congresscritter about it!
Posted by inthewoods at 5:24 PM 0 comments
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
Motorcycle Weekend
The rangers told us both days to stay off of Trail Ridge due to freezing rain on Sunday and snow falling from the cuts up high. We stayed very low both days, just in Moraine Park and along the paved section of Fall River Road. Still nice, but not very fun for me.
On Monday, we went into the park and did a hike at Deer Mountain. It was an easy 6 mile round-trip. The views were very nice and the weather was perfect for hiking.
On the way home, we took 36 through Lyons and got into a squall as we came south on 36. We got kinda wet, but it was warm and since we were almost home, I didn't stop to put on rain gear. By the time we got home, we were almost dry.
I would want to have some more luggage space if we were to try for a 2 or 3 day trip, but the combo of the Nelson-Rigg tailpack and my tank bag worked OK for a 1 day trip.
Posted by inthewoods at 12:18 PM 0 comments
Labels: 2up, motorcycle, rmnp
Friday, July 04, 2008
Vail Pass
Last weekend, Karen and I rode Vail Pass from Frisco to Vail and back. We took 5.5 hours riding time and just under 7 hours total, including 45minutes or so stopped eating lunch in Vail at the farmers' market. On the way back, Karen saw a fawn and a black bear! I rode right by but didn't notice anything. Duh.
We rode pretty slowly, but constant pace. I would get a few minutes ahead and then turn around and come back. By the end I had 5 extra miles.
Posted by inthewoods at 8:34 PM 0 comments
Labels: cycling
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
My ZX-14 is OK
Just got the call from Colorado Powersports and my ZX-14 passed the frame collar torque test so I'm good to go!
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
Posted by inthewoods at 9:05 AM 0 comments
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Linden / Olde Stage / Lee Hill Loop
Rode a 30 mile loop this morning. Took me 2:21 riding time. About 2:30 total time. Man I really suffer on Linden!
View Larger Map
Posted by inthewoods at 12:04 PM 0 comments
Labels: cycling
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Geax Saguaro
Well, my tubeless conversion experiment has come to an end. I've punctured two tires in the last two rides. The first was a Rampage on the front, sliced the sidewall at White Ranch. The second was a Geax Saguaro, punctured the tread on a tiny rock at Centennial Cone. This one was on the rear.
I think that I ride too "heavy" or something for tubeless on XC tires. Right now I guess I'll ride out the life of these tires using tubes and then maybe give some of the upcoming 2ply tires a try.
I do like the way tubeless tires ride, but the flats are a real PITA with goop spraying everywhere and then dirt getting glued to stuff while fixing the tire.
Posted by inthewoods at 8:10 AM 0 comments
Labels: cycling
Thursday, June 19, 2008
DQL and Folder Paths
I came across this blog entry on dm_notes. While what Rajendra posts will work, it is not the best choice for production use.
The problem with his query is that the _r tables are not automatically accessible to non-superuser accounts unless they are explicitly registered. And the problem with registering the repeating tables is that then users can see things that the Documentum ACL security would not normally allow them to see. This is a Bad Thing in production.
In Documentum 5, EMC introduced a DQL hint called ROW_BASED that allows us to circumvent the DM_QUERY2_E_REPEAT_TYPE_JOIN error. Essentially the ROW_BASED hint disables Documentum's normal repeating property validation and post-processing and allows all the query results to be returned by the RDBMS through the Documentum server. The following DQL does the same thing as Rajendra's query, but is subject to normal Docbase security and doesn't require any special setup:
SELECT doc.r_object_id, doc.object_name, fld.r_folder_pathThe RETURN_TOP hint is only there so the example query completes quickly. Note that both queries will return all locations where each document is linked. If you only want to know the first folder into which each document is linked, then add the following to the WHERE clause:
FROM dm_document doc, dm_folder fld
WHERE
doc.i_folder_id = fld.r_object_id AND
fld.r_folder_path like '/System/%'
ENABLE(ROW_BASED, RETURN_TOP 10)
AND doc.i_position=-1 AND fld.i_position=-1The i_position column can be used for other interesting queries, but that is a subject for a different post.
UPDATE: As long as I'm talking about "production ready" queries, I should point out that using r_folder_path LIKE '/System/%' is very slow since it forces a full-table-scan by the underlying database of the dm_folder_r table. It is better to use FOLDER('/System', descend) instead.
Posted by inthewoods at 10:58 PM 1 comments
Labels: documentum, dql, emc
Recent Rides
Yesterday I rode the "Longest Wednesday of the Year" ride with Charlie et al at Golden Gate State Park. We parked at the Bridger (?) lot and rode Mountain Lion clockwise. Really fun ride, but super gnarly on the way down the switchbacks on the back side. I wimped out on 4 or 5 of the drops on the upper portion, but rode just about everything on the lower portion through the creek crossings. At about the 3rd from the end crossing, I went OTB and slammed the bike (and my body) pretty hard. The body will recover just fine, only bruises, but my El Rey has a tweaked derailleur hanger and a busted chain. We went to the Spot afterward, so I didn't get home until midnight. I was psyched to do that ride though it is a good mix of fear and exhilaration.
Single Speed ride at Betasso
Today I rode 2 laps of Betasso clockwise. It was pretty fun, but since I wrecked my El Rey yesterday I was on the singlespeed tank. I was starting to think I'm halfway in shape, but I am still a weakling when it comes to singlespeeding. I really struggled getting up the hills and feel like I might've slightly pulled my right hip flexor muscle. Somebody call the waaaambulance. Still debating what to do with the singlespeed. I guess I need to make it into a more versatile hardtail MTB since I don't have a working 2nd bike these days.
Posted by inthewoods at 10:44 PM 0 comments
Labels: cycling, singlespeed mtb
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
La Cruz Impressions
Well, I've had my Salsa La Cruz now for about 2 months and I've put a few hundred miles on it. I was responding to a thread on MTBR about the La Cruz and my response made a good start as a blog post.
I bought the 2008 La Cruz Complete, size 53. I've made the following changes:
- Shimano R700 Compact Crank 172.5 length 34/50 rings
- SRAM OG1070 11-28 cassette -- yes, I'm fat and weak. Actually, I have mixed feelings about this cassette. I find that I use the 12-25 cogs FAR more frequently than I actually use the 11 or the 28. 34/28 is too low to climb while standing, and I only use the 50/11 when descending and typically I'll spin out of that anyway above 35mph or so.
- Panaracer Pasela 700x35c Tires -- these are great tires. I am really impressed with their grip on gravel as well as pavement. When I'm riding dirt I inflate them to about 75-80psi and if I'm going to be onroad only, I pump them up to 95psi.
I don't think the La Cruz slows me down any until 22+ mph at which time the aero aspects of the relatively high bars and wide tires start to affect me. It is 3 or 4 lbs heavier than most of my buddies' bikes, but most of them are on Ultegra, so when you compare it to other 105-class bikes, it is really only about 2lbs heavier. Figure about a pound for the frame and a pound for the brakes, tires, saddle and stem. I'm 30-90 lbs heavier than the guys I ride with, so unless I sneak a motor onboard, they are going to be beat me uphill on any bike.
I ride mine all over the place, but my hands can't take the pounding on rough trails, so I pretty much stick to easy trails, fire roads and pavement. The bike rides great on everything, and I've even done a couple of (very) small drops and jumps just to see how it handles, and it was fine in that environment as well. With narrow handlebars and weight-forward positioning I won't be flying into any rock gardens, but I find that it has a very wide range of applicability for general riding.
It is a sweet riding frame, but not overly stiff. When I first got it, I found it a little bit flexy when climbing standing (I weigh 235), but I've gotten a bit smoother and have made my peace with it.
Posted by inthewoods at 2:28 AM 0 comments
Labels: cycling, cyclocross, lacruz, review, salsa
Monday, June 16, 2008
Scott Genius Tres Cher
Scott's new full-carbon 150mm travel bike costs $11,500!
Seems pretty insane, although that is for a 23.4 lb build.
Posted by inthewoods at 3:48 PM 0 comments
Labels: cycling
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Running
I am reminded why I don't run (or why I should run more often). Yesterday I ran for 35 minutes from the hotel down to the embarcadaro and back. I guess about 3 miles. Not only am I slow, today my quads and calves are sore. Biking is a lot easier.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
Posted by inthewoods at 2:36 PM 0 comments
MS Office 2007 and marklogic 4
"Dynamic Enterprise Publishing"
ML4 has a Plugin for word that understands ooxml and supports apis.
Content enrichment
CPF pipeline automatically ingests ooxml as native XML
Interoperation with CMS tools
ML4 integrated with SharePoint
Mirroring+ DLL
One way mirror with SP master
Workflow DLL
ML activity library CRUD.
Early Access Program exists now.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
Posted by inthewoods at 2:29 PM 0 comments
Labels: MLUC08