Personal Knowledge Management
Personal Semantic Knowledge Management
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The computer programmer is a creator of universes for which he alone is responsible. Universes of virtually unlimited complexity can be created in the form of computer programs. ― Joseph Weizenbaum, Computer Power and Human Reason
QueSucede.com is a personal semantic knowledge management application, soon to be integrated with the Tin Can API based on the concept of topic maps.
My name is Brett Kromkamp and I developed the back-end, the topic map engine, and front-end web application myself, scratching the proverbial itch and also providing an example of eating one's own dog food... I used to have a blog, but I prefer a topic map-based approach for organizing my principles, ideas, current research topics, projects, and learning experiences instead of the simple chronological methodology that blogs force upon you.
QueSucede.com is hosted on a 256 slice over at Slicehost running Ubuntu. Furthermore, the application is built on top of a typical LAMP-stack in conjunction with the PHP Zend Framework. On the client-side, the JavaScript library of choice is jQuery.
The QueSucede.com web application is still under active development and a lot of functionality is still pending implementation.
Design: the role of finding the best way to serve a purpose while respecting some constraints. You have to be creative to deal with the constraints while keeping the purpose.
Experiments
Vector Graphics Scripting
- Java and HTML5 <canvas> tag / SVG libraries
- Tutorial
Projects
Web and Mobile
- ContextNote (contextnote.com) is a multi-platform (web, Android, and iOS), topic map-based, note taking application. As of July 2012, ContextNote has superseded the development of the original version of NotesMapper. NotesMapper version 2.0 (NotesMapper Redux) is planned to become part of the suite of mobile apps under the Homework Partner brand.
You can’t have strategy without tactics… if you do it’s called dreaming. You can’t have tactics without strategy… if you do it’s called chaos.
Educational Technology (EdTech)
- Homework Partner (homeworkpartner.com) is a learning platform that provides assistance to the pupil while doing homework to help the pupil learn better than ever before. Homework Partner will include a suite of mobile apps (initally, for Android) to make the self-learning experience more fun and efficient.
- NotesTagger (notestagger.com) is an intuitive, tags-oriented note taking app for students and teachers with sensible semantic web integration.
- NotesMapper (notesmapper.com) is a semantic note taking app specifically aimed at students and teachers with Tin Can API integration:
- The user can establish meaningful relationships between notes and subsequently navigate between notes (by means of the beforementioned relationships) in a very straightforward manner.
- The app uses the semantic web to automatically search for articles, videos, and photos related to the user's notes.
App Experience = (Brand + Channels + Service + Devices + Functionality + Content) / Time.
Mobile (Android)
- NotesMappr (soon to be renamed NotesMapper for Android) is PolishedCode's semantic note taking app for Google’s Android platform. In other words, NotesMappr (see screen shot, below) is note taking that fits your brain.
Main benefits
- NotesMappr can be thought of as the textual equivalent of mind maps and/or concept maps. In a nutshell, NotesMappr's powerful underlying data structure, topic maps, makes it possible to link your notes in any way imaginable.
- Furthermore, NotesMappr's integration with Freebase makes it very easy to complement and enhance your own notes with comprehensive and reliable external articles and (associated) images.
- Finally, a set of notes in and of itself is a valuable thing. However, said set of notes becomes more valuable if the notes themselves are related in an appropriate manner. In addition, context enables both easy and quick discovery of information saving you time. Furthermore, context enables you to expand your knowledge without the risk of your knowledge becoming disjointed or fragmented.
Main features
- NotesMappr provides you with both the ability to establish meaningful relationships between notes and subsequently navigate said notes in a very straightforward manner.
- NotesMappr enables you to complement and enhance your own notes with articles and images from Freebase, an open Creative Commons licensed repository of structured data of almost 22 million entities.
- In addition to (formal) associations, NotesMappr also features "WikiWords" (words with multiple capital letters in the body of a note) to create and link notes within their context. NotesMappr automatically turns said WikiWords into links to other notes - just tap a link to create the new note.
Now, imagine studying with this app at your disposal. Or researching. Or generally just compiling notes on whatever topic that interests you. Just think for a moment how useful this app would be. What are you waiting for? Get NotesMappr for your Android device, now. It’s free.
Check-out NotesMappr's Google+ page.
Miscellaneous programming projects (with source code)
- Eight-puzzle Java implementation - Classical Artificial Intelligence (AI); representing the search space of problem-solving tasks as networks.
- Python implementation of a virtual (stack-based) machine (VM) with CPU, I/O and memory, including a 'compiler'.
- Python 2 layered [3D] tree implementation and Python 3 tree implementation.
- Agile software development models written in Python 3.
- Conway's Game of Life implemented as a Java applet.
- Java tree implementation with depth-first and breadth-first iterators.
- Topic map-based Universal Design Pattern implementation.
Web
- QueSucede.com (the site you're currently browsing, built on top of the CrystalMind topic map engine).
Rich Internet Applications (RIA)
- Adobe AIR application called Topics and accompanying web site PolishedCode.com. Check-out how things are progressing at polishedcode on Twitter.
Tutorials
Google Android
iOS
Interests
Concepts
- Topic maps
- Domain Specific Languages (DSLs)
- Information Architecture (IA)
- Adaptive Learning
Data visualization
Knowledge management
- Creating and discovering
- Sharing and learning
- Organizing and managing
Conceptual frameworks and patterns
Marketing / Business
- Internet marketing
- Lean Startup
- Demographics
- Segmentation
- Cluster analysis
- Product development
3D graphics
Personal
Interesting links
Languages, frameworks, and miscellaneous bookmarks
Legacy applications and web sites
del.icio.us
GitHub repository
Programming languages
Frameworks and platforms
Operating systems
Comments
I'm just starting to fill in the blanks... Be patient!
My current interests include:
Over the next couple of days/weeks I'll be adding content related to the above.
Created a topic to keep track of some of my projects.
I believe that Google's Android platform will take off in 2010 based on the number and quality of new devices that are being launched or will be launched shortly. Within the next couple of weeks I will start developing an application for the Android platform.
I've added a new page to capture the set of topics that I am currently researching: Current research topics.