In his recent blog post, Piotr Pokora showed how the the D-Bus API will work in Midgard 2. D-Bus is an interprocess communications system that is used heavily in modern Linux desktops like GNOME and KDE. With Midgard, the same system now becomes available for PHP and web applications:
midgard_python "service":
import dbus.mainloop.glib
import _midgard as midgard
A List Apart 256 has a very interesting article on Taking Control of Your Maps, explaining how to provide richer and more customized web map solutions using tools like OpenLayers and Mapnik, and the free data provided by OpenStreetMap: For the practical developer who wants to add geospatial information to a site or application, the Google Maps API has been...
Sampo Pankki, the bank that was formerly known as Postipankki, Leonia and just Sampo was recently bought by the Danish Danske Bank. As part of the merger they switched their IT systems to Danske Bank infrastructure in a huge EUR 200 million operation over the Easter. The switch had a lot of issues, causing website downtime, faulty account data and...
I sat down with GeoClue maintainer (and my former SoC student) Jussi Kukkonen to discuss how the project has been moving forward, and the situation is looking quite good. To those unfamiliar with GeoClue, here is a quick intro: GeoClue is a modular geoinformation service built on top of the D-Bus messaging system. The goal of the GeoClue project is...
This document has been written as a quick Midgardized version of the nice “Django at a glance” tutorial, in order to explain how the new and upcoming MidCOM 3 framework works. In addition publishing this as a blog post, this document will be maintained in the MidCOM 3 version control tree. MidCOM 3 has been designed to be an extensible...
Semantic web, the platform that could enable new businesses to rival the likes of Google has for a long time been a distant promise. Much of this has been because the standardization bodies have focused on too difficult and impractical technologies instead of building it on top of existing web implementations. Microformats are a more pragmatic approach: by using simple...
There has been some discussion on how the different items in the Midgard roadmap fit together. Here is my company's view on how we see ourselves proceeding. Baseline: Midgard 1.8, MidCOM 2.8 and PHP 5.2 At least in our company we're trying to consolidate all customers to these version numbers. MidCOM 2.8 is a very capable (if heavy) platform that...
Grand Master Kim Jeong Seong of the United World Haedong Kumdo Federation visited Helsinki last weekend to hold a seminar on Korean traditional swordmanship. The weekend was a very interesting combination of various sword forms, two sword sparring and cutting and control exercises. We also held examinations for various belt levels, where I attained 1st keub (red-black). Our instructors Jose...
I've been a happy user of the Jaiku S60 client for a while now. It not only allows me to coordinate things with my friends on the move, but also positions my phone using cell IDs. So far I've used the WiFi positioning based Plazes client for updating location on my site, but the thought of also using Jaiku has...
Since late 2006 Finland has been quietly enacting its own form of Internet censorship, a practice more typically connected with various oppressive regimes, and not with a democratic country. The Finnish variation is a DNS blocking system ostensibly targeted at child porn. The system is however very dubiously implemented using secret block lists maintained by the police, and it blocks...