The Return to My Blog

Since yesterday, I have been anxious to return to this blog of mine, which I have not posted to since June 26, 2010. My new passion is Twitter, and here I will record my musings and discoveries as I learn more about this revolutionary technology that has demonstrated its impact on the world--not the least example being as a mode of communication for the phenomenon we now call the "Arab Spring" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Spring).

My goal is to not only write down my thoughts and experiences going forward, but also to go back to how the seeds of this pursuit were sown. Here, I just wanted to resume my blogging at long last! Finding in Twitter an extension of my Semantic Web studies when I first created this blog.

The Semantic Web

I must blog about what the "Semantic Web" is. Thanks to Dr. C's YouTube video, "Rollo Uncovers Mysteries of the Semantic Web", I got some information on that.

Semantics means "the study of meaning". It comes from the Greek word semantikos.

Semantic Web comprises technologies and methods that facilitate the understanding by machines of the meaning ("semantics") of information on the Web. These technologies include:

RDF: Resource Description Framework

RDFS: RDF Schema

OWL: Web Ontology Language

N3: a simple syntax for creating ontologies

SPARQL: a query language for RDF

I find that blogging stuff like this is helping to reinforce my learning in my current Semantic Web class.

My Second Post on June 21, 2010 - Dublin Core

I started Dr. Coyle's interesting Semantic Web Applications course for the Summer of 2010 on June 2. He had asked that we create a blog to make weekly posts describing our "explorations in semantic web space - hurdles and insights that help overcome those hurdles." I am now catching up with this request, now that I have a chance...

Last evening, 6 hours before the midnight deadline, I submitted my final version of Assignment 2. In Part B, Dr. Coyle had asked for the following:

• Download and review the Dublin Core (dc:) specification at: http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/

• Use applicable dc: properties to say something about the ontology you created in part A. Note: when you publish your ontology as a URL you will be able to talk about it directly, where the subject will be the URL.

For me, the "Rose Bush" example at the following link was most helpful!

http://www.dublincore.org/documents/usageguide/ ("Using Dublin Core")

In the assignment, we were to do this in N3 (versus RDF) format. So I used the dc properties as follows:

dc:creator "Raymond Sison" .

dc:title "My A2 N3 File" .

dc:description "This is my A2 homework N3 file for Dr. Coyle's Semantic Web class, Summer 2010." .

dc:date: "2010-06-20" .

My Very First Blog Ever!

Today is June 21, 2010, Monday. It is now 9:11 PM. On this very first day of the Summer of 2010, I have created my very first blog ever! It was easy, thanks to already having a Google account!