2003

January

10^th January 2003 Some redesign has been done for better viewing with a text/console browser, specifically w3m.  ³¹¹  w3m works so well (with our "table" html output) that all plans to make a module to produce output for lynx viewing, (which does not present our current html output formats well) have been abandoned. Came upon elinks  ³¹²  which works as well for console viewing in August 2003.

18^th January 2003 Images of special characters embedded into html and pdf output where necessary, eg

20^th January 2003 WordMaps now skinnable along with the rest of the site and/or individual documents to which they pertain.

February

2^nd February 2003 Introduced alternative markup for headings, headers and endnotes, using the opening curly bracket. Influenced by use of vim with folds, (also thlnk & textlink though particularly evident in this modification)  ³¹³ 

9-14^th February 2003 Revisited & polished pre-processing for creation of documents from a term-sheet which specifies which set of standard forms should be used. Has been in place since 1998.

March

Business Week cover, March 2003

16^th March 2003 Revisited & polished mailer, integrated to work with mutt... sends mail with content appended as a pdf.

April

4^th April 2003 Started work on Ratchet, a backup and version control widget/utility, as an exercise in getting to know gtk2, and getting around the multitude of new/unfamiliar commands in arch, which I thought I preferred to subversion. Ratchet quickly became the snap-in backup and version control utility for SiSU, sharing the same configure/environment file, once SiSU is set up, ratchet has the information it needs as to program and data sources. SiSU is a frontend for arch, cvs, rdiff, rsync, and afio, ... and anything else that is particularly useful for use with SiSU, including control (ascii hyperlink), and description files. In its March 2004 incarnation it looked like so (if you go for the screenshot, it may be necessary to scroll right to see ratchet):  ³¹⁵ 

ratchet, in the right corner of the screen, and some help output from SiSU

22^th April 2003 Lout module added as an alternative way of producing pdf (or postscript) files.  ³¹⁶ 

25^th April 2003 Minor alterations to output/presentation of LaTeX module.

June

04^th June 2003 Modifications to way in which metadata is presented in html documents, now using Dublin Core with Resource Description Framework. (The tech is in place, whether the tagging is done or suitable taxonomies are developed, helpful or used consistently is another matter.)

04^th June 2003 Dual LICENSE is to be /GPL/ for non-commercial use, with a commercial license required for all other use.

For dual licensing three licenses are currently being looked at, as possibilities for the final form:

MySQL's ‹http://www.mysql.com/products/licensing.html›

QT's ‹http://www.trolltech.com/products/qt/freelicense.html› ‹http://doc.trolltech.com/3.0/license.html› and

Nokia's ‹http://www.opensource.org/licenses/nokia.php› (Nokos - which is an open source license, rather than free as in /GPL/ license)

28^th June 2003 Changes in names for endnotes and endnote references which now are eg. for endnote 51 (instead of #endnote-51) and the endnote pointer #-51 (instead of #note-51) respectively.

A visual change for paragraph (text-object) numbers from the table-html document versions, took away the curly brackets around paragraph (text-object) numbers, and replaced them with a leading hash # (this to serve as a reminder that to access a given text-object number eg 43 you add #43 to the documents url). The css-html document versions like the pdf output have the object citation number in the margins without any marker.

Some "visual cue", simple curly bracket additions, to markup alternatives.  ³¹⁷ 

30^th June 2003 Re-did text markup vim syntax high-lighter (lost my original attempt, but this works better anyway).

July

29^th July 2003 texinfo: my first look at any other multi-document producing format, I had thought that that would be Docbook, but it ends up being texinfo ... and I was not even aware that texinfo was a multi-document format.

I finally start to look at texinfo format, after re-setting up w3m with bookmarks, and pinfo to startup in "screen". The question for me being how practical it would be to generate texinfo files, from SiSU files, and how "good" could those texinfo files be made to be. (If you wanted to make texinfo files you would not use SiSU, but if you were to use SiSU you would have available as one set of output formats those provided by texinfo as formatted by SiSU) No conclusion as yet, would start very simply at first with a subset of features, building upon those and deciding whether it becomes worthwhile.  ³¹⁸ 

This quotation is promising, in relation to auto-structuring texinfo files from SiSU:

"You can use node pointers and menus to structure an Info file any way you want; and you can write a texinfo file so that its Info output has a different structure than its printed output. However, virtually all texinfo files are written such that the structure for the Info output corresponds to the structure for the printed output. It is neither convenient nor understandable to the reader to do otherwise."

August

4^th August 2003 Redid endnotes in metaverse. Now utilize the inline entry (endnote within paragraph at location where it occurs) instead of endnote marker and endnote following paragraph, to represent endnotes in metaverse. Either inline, or "binary" remain input/markup options.

6^th August 2003 All downstream program changes resulting in change in metaverse (endnote representation), in place.

9^th August 2003 Texinfo output files generated by SiSU (with -i flag). Now while if your primary intention is to create a texinfo file you probably would not use SiSU, but being able also to produce texinfo files at a whim is wonderful. Detail with headers and Dublin Core to be worked out (DC detail should also be incorporated into pdf output)...

screenshot of info file

screenshot of info file

12^th August 2003  ³¹⁹ 

Jazz favourites long tailish some of this ... :-)

Myra Melford and Mary Ehrlich "Yet Can Spring", 2001

Piano trios I enjoy, not particularly avant garde at all

Bobo Stenson p. "Serenity", 2000

Bobo Stenson p. "Reflections", 1996

Myra Melford "Dance Beyond the Color", 2000

Brad Mehldau p. "Places", 2000

Brad Mehldau p. "Art of the Trio volume 5: Progression", 2001

Keith Jarrett p. "Changeless", 1987/1989

Piano Trios avant garde

Marilyn Crispell p. "Spring Tour", 1995

Marilyn Crispell p. "Nothing ever was, anyway" (music of Annette Peacock), 1997

Myra Mellford p. "Alive in the House of Saints", 1993

Paul Bley p. "Not Two, Not One", 1999

Paul Bley p. (Franz Koglmann t.) "Annette", 1992

Joe McPhee Sweet Freedom - Now What?, 1994

Quartets

John Surman s. (Paul Bley p.) "Adventure Playground", 1992

Anthony Braxton s. (Mal Waldron p.) "Six Monk's Compositions", 1987

Tomasz Stanko t. (John Surman s.) "From The Green Hill", 1999

Dave Douglas "Leap of Faith", 2000

Larger groups

Sun Ra p. "Jazz in Silhouette", 1958

George Lewis s. t. "Homage to Charlie Parker", 1979

Carla Bley "Heavy Heart", 1984

Edward Vesala (Sound & Fury) "Lumi", 1987

Art Ensemble of Chicago "Alternative Express", 1989

Franz Koglmann t. "L'Heure Bleue", 1991

Edward Vesala (Sound & Fury) "Invisible Storm", 1992

Myra Melford p. "Even the Sounds Shine", 1994/1995

Tomasz Stanko t. (Bobo Stenson p.) "Leosia", 1997

Myra Melford p. "Above Blue - Same River Twice", 1999

Reggie Workman "Summit Conference", 2000

Dave Douglas "Witness", 2001

Larger groups with rhythm

Rodney Kendrick p. "Last Chance for Common Sense", 1995

Lounge Lizards (John Lurie s.), "Live in Berlin, Volume 1"  ³²⁰  1991

Steve Coleman s. "Def Trance Beat" (Modalities of Rhythm), 1995

Abdullah Ibrahim, "Ekaya" 1983

Various Artists (Barney Rachabane, Abudllah Ibrahim and others), "African Horns" 1989 (rec. much earlier)

Sun Ra, "Other Planes Of There", 1964/1992

John Surman s. and Jack DeJohnette d. and London Brass "Free and Equal", 2003

Live Improvised

Keith Jarrett p., "The Köln Concert", 1975

John Surman s. and Jack DeJohnette d. "Invisible Nature" (live in Tampere and Berlin, duet), 2002

Piano Classical

Tatiana Nikolaieva, Schostakovich 24 Preludes and Fugues for piano, 1987, 1994

Yefim Bronfman, Prokofiev Piano Sonatas Nos. 1, 4 and 6, 1991, 1994

Martha Argerich, Rachmanifoff Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30 and Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 in B flat mionr, Op. 23, 1982, 1995

Alfred Brendel, Schubert Piano Works

There are many more favourites, I may add a few more over time. This is a list of more recent material, a Sun Ra apart, adding Mingus, Monk, Miles, Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy, etc. would have made it too long, and I did come to appreciate jazz late, weaned by Kieth Jarrett's "Köln Concert" well after the fact. For veering towards the avant garde dating is fairly straightforward, in 1988/1989 I heard and enjoyed a new at the time Ornette Coleman "Virgin Beauty". A short time after this I found Anthony Braxton's "Six Monk Compositions" ... and that was it.

Additions to pop favourites date back longer, a few that spring to mind:

Supertramp "Crime of the Century", 1974

Supertramp "Crisis What Crises", 1975

Fleetwood Mac "Tusk", 1979

Mamas & Papas "All The Leaves Are Brown" (compilation), 2001

Bob Dylan "The Essential" (compilation), 2001

Bobby Womack "The Poet", 1981

Womack & Womack "Love Wars", 1983

Genesis "Duke", 1983

Prince and the Revolution "Purple Rain", 1984

There are of course many others, and World Music will have to wait another time.

Movies

But my movie list is also fixed by this time, so I will indulge with that as well:

Brazil, 1985

Twelve Monkeys, 1995

The Usual Suspects, 1995

The Matrix I, 1999

Being John Malkovich, 2000

Animatrix, 2003 first watched 7^th February 2004

I am certainly missing a few but these readily come to mind.

14^th August 2003 SiSU installer using stow... Stow is convenient though not necessary.

26^th August 2003 Playing with Webrick. A convenient way of serving the site locally after its generation (sisu -W flag).

September

2^nd September 2003 Ruby expect is useful to have.

15^th September 2003 Generation of /PHP/ using information stored in yaml, in this case books and journals, and country information. An elegant solution, though questionable that I should use /PHP/ at all.

29^th September 2003 Javascript (from knoppix.org) added to lexmercatoria's skin for a week, and then removed, trivial to add again.

November

15-16^th November 2003 Here are few screenshots included of my work environment, for the heck of it, (requested by a friend).  ³²¹ 

SiSU is a command line batch processor, and as such works independently of your selection of environment, ... you would choose your own window manager and editor, (and as SiSU's input syntax is easily modified, you could choose to make your own). My selection of work environment does not affect the way anyone else would work with SiSU. But ... for me it integrates well with Ion and gVim, together with my favourite vim plugins thlnk, textlink and project.

Why vim? (well gVim)  ³²² 

It suits me best. That is gVim together with folds  ³²³  and the plugins: project.vim,  ³²⁴  thlnk,  ³²⁵  and textlink:  ³²⁶ 

screenshot of Ion, gVim and ratchet (a frontend for version control and backup)

screenshot of Ion gVim (dotfiles, with project, thlnk, and textlink plugins) and ratchet

screenshot of Ion gVim (sisu project control, with project, thlnk, and textlink plugins) and ratchet

screenshot of Ion, gVim (fold search on 'award') and ratchet

Why Ion?  ³²⁷ 

... it suits me best, I need tabs, multiple desktops, and the keybindings (need is the right word). Like vim using it becomes second nature, and nothing else will do... for the foreseeable future.  ³²⁸ 

You create spaces for programs that are the size/shape of which you are most comfortable viewing them ... and they are available, that size, no more fiddling, and a key stroke away. It is easy, if necessary, to move a program to a new window (a feature I seldom have need for).

screenshot of ion with messengers, irssi for irc and imcom for jabber

Use of Ion and helper program permutations are endless, for example in the remote update of servers, could use screen for aptitude and shorewall, or Ion tabs, instead of the visually all present Ion split screen approach ... what a "joy" to work with.

screenshot of ion remote admin of debian servers with aptitude and shorewall

screenshot of ion and screen with ratchet

screenshot of ion and screen and gkrellm

screenshot of ion, moz and gkrellm

screenshot of ion with xpdf

screenshot of sisu -mhwp

The tools I find most valuable or am most attached to have remained static for over a year now, Debian (Gnu/Linux) with /aptitude/ and: Ruby, gVim (with projects plugin, and using vimfolds, gVim for almost all text, along with SiSU which is not tied to a particular editor); /screen/, /zsh/, /mutt/, /ion/, /hnb/, /shorewall/, PostgreSQL, /ssh/, /keychain/, /apache/, ... and then the icing, /slrn/, /irssi/, /imcom/, /raggle/, /imagemagick/, /xmms-shell/ ... on X the (graphical) programs that are opened daily gVim apart: /gkrellm/, /epiphany/ and /mozilla-firefox/ and /mozilla-thunderbird/ ... beyond this Open Office, /Abiword/, /Gnumeric/, /Gucash/, /Gthumb/, /Gimp/ ... far too many to list.

A more recent example 200411:

Ion3 - window 7 of 10

20^th November 2003 Ratchet (SiSU's graphical utility for backup and version control and other oft repeated tasks) made functionally prettier. Work on ratchet started 2003/04/04 and in it now looks like so:  ³²⁹ 

Ratchet, SiSU's backup and version control utility

23-24^th November 2003 Made Dublin Core metadata available as human readable data attached to end of document.  ³³⁰ 

Also provide document version control information, (site specific), extracted from the expanded CVS ID tag:

$Id: sisu_chronology.sst,v 1.3 2008/12/29 19:34:44 ralph Exp $   ³³¹ 

Dublin Core and Version Control information where available are placed near the end of a document, for example in the segmented html text at: ‹http://www.jus.uio.no/sisu/SiSU/metadata.html›

24^th November 2003 The comments made in response to an article on Slashdot today, lead to the testing of URIs without file name suffixes.  ³³²  Very tidy, and interesting because SiSU plays with html and /PHP/ for example, and may use some Ruby (text output) variant in future. It does have disadvantages for offline work. It was nice that html and pdfs once prepared could be viewed offline or burnt on a disk and used. Will have to consider whether to retain this, but the software, and this document have (for now) been modified accordingly.

25^th November 2003 See comments of yesterday, have made many changes, and will retain them, the issue is more down the line to ensure that SiSU has a flag, by which old style full suffix html and pdf at least can be generated, to escape the need for a sophisticated web server, and allow easy offline file (manager) based browsing.

27^th November 2003 OT - music wifi hifi: finally implemented my plan dreamed up sometime in October (when I got wifi), to connect my hifi to old pc containing hi quality OggVorbis files of part of my music collection, and control that pc (and the hifi) remotely over wifi using xmms-shell in a console with screen. The OggVorbis files sound superb on my old Audiolab (so much so that it is unlikely that I will be replacing my cd player when it finally packs in). To recap there is no streaming, the data/music/ogg files reside on a pc connected to the hifi, you can then just instruct that pc remotely what should play. The encoded collection is available to the "couch potato", without cd changing, with playlist possibilities, volume control etc.

December

5^th December 2003 A slashdot review recommendation  ³³³  resulted in my purchase of "Effective XML"  ³³⁴  by Elliotte Rusty Harold. Read over the following weekend, and yes, I give it a strong recommendation. Reading Effective XML lead amongst other things to my looking at Dave Raggett's html tidy  ³³⁵  ... and that was the cue for a long overdue look at the html generated.

14^th December 2003 First results of html tidy, have so far looked only at the segmented text version (not at navigation pages).

Will "tidy" as a matter of routine, but in a slow and hopefully steady manner.

Will only deviate from recommendations (or ignore warnings) when there is good reason to do so. For example, it appears that id attributes may not be numeric, (possibly that they must start with an a alphabetic character), rather than being alpha-numeric. Am satisfied with the current citation system solution, and it is difficult to see why citation system should have to introduce an arbitrary letter prefix for the identifying object citation number (although this is trivial to implement, and is the way it was some time back). The Google search string also throws warnings. Removed RDF section that made use of the Dublin Core, leaving only meta tags, as that was not recognised and threw errors. Otherwise cleanup so far has been mostly routine, html checking. Documents are recognised as looking like xhtml transitional, I do not expect to go all the way, and make it so. The appearance of documents, would be unchanged, except for the fact that I have made changes to the display font.

Started using tables for placing text-object numbers for css version as well, as this makes the css useable.

29^th December 2003 Help info updated.

LaTeX to pdf text strike-through in place finally, using package ulem. Investigate workings of alternative package soul. LaTeX was sorted long ago, in a very short time, and has been pretty stable ever since. Figuring out which package implements strike-through though has been a bit of a rite of passage... something I have returned to with Google web and group searches periodically... well after fairly long intervals. Today I found it.