Gnizr 2.4.0 Milestone 3 Release

Gnizr 2.4.0 Milestone 3 is now available for download.

• Download: gnizr-2.4.0-M3.zip
• How to install or upgrade
• Configure gnizr-config.xml for 2.4.0
  
• What has changed
  

Note: This release is intended for evaluation and testing, and it's not suitable for any serious deployment.

See also: Gnizr 2.4.0 Milestone 1 and Gnizr 2.4.0 Milestone 2

I Forgot My Password

People often forget their login passwords. We have implemented a function that allows gnizr users to reset their login password. In the login page, users can follow a "I forgot my password" link to reset their password.

Users must have valid email addresses defined in their respective profiles in order to use this function. Users can change their email address by going to the "settings" page. Administrators (i.e., gnizr) can also change user email address under the User Management function.

When a password reset request is submitted, an email message is sent to the user. To enable this function, when installing or upgrading to 2.4.0-M3, the administrator must configure mail server setting in the gnizr-config.xml.

Here are some typical SMTP configurations.

Policy-Driven User Registration

In the previous releases, gnizr administrators can implement one of two user registration policy -- (1) anyone can register, and (2) only the admin can create new accounts. Starting in 2.4.0-M3, a third option is available.

The new option allows anyone with a valid email address to register, but in order for their accounts to be activated, they require explicitly approval from the administrator (i.e., gnizr).

Here is a detail description of gnizr's User Registration policy.

This feature requires the administrator to configure mail server setting in the gnizr-config.xml.

New Bookmarklet for the Internet Explorer 6

Some enterprise users having trouble using the bookmarklet that comes with gnizr in the IE6 browser. David Hochman kindly sent us a fix to this issue. Part of his fix has been included in 2.4.0-M3.

In the "help" page, users can find this experimental bookmarklet. We have tested in IE6, and it worked much better than ours in the previous releases.

Gnizr 2.4.0 Milestone 1 Release

Gnizr 2.4.0 Milestone 1 is now available for download.

• Download: gnizr-2.4.0-M1.zip
• How to install or upgrade
• What has changed

Note: This release is intended for evaluation and testing, and it's not suitable for any serious deployment.

New Features

Super Faster Bookmark Search. We've added Lucene search engine to power gnizr bookmark search. The result is an significant performance gain in bookmark search.

Improved OpenSearch logic. We've simplified the search interface by collapsing all search functions into a single OpenSearch function. A single search box is displayed on the top of the page. A user can search his/her bookmarks, bookmarks saved by other users, and one or more third-party OpenSearch engines on the Web.

Firefox Browser Search Plugin. Users can add a search plugin to the Firefox or IE 7 browser. They can quickly search bookmarks in gnizr without needing to go to the gnizr main page.

New 'icon' Machine Tag. Users can label bookmarks with colorful icons using a new machine tag called 'gn:icon'. Users can use this machine tag to express their personal opinions about the bookmarks or explicitly describe the kind of media content that is described in the bookmarks. On the "add bookmark" page, we've implemented a Machine Tag Helper UI for adding these 'icon' machine tags.

Upgrading from Gnizr 2.3.0

If you want to try out gnizr 2.4 on the top of your existing gnizr 2.3.0 database, follow these instructions:

1. Backup your existing database.
   
2. Follow the standard upgrade procedures, except that you don't need to upgrade your database. Skip all steps described in the section "Upgrade database tables and stored procedures". Gnizr 2.4.0 M1 runs on the same database schema and store procedure as gnizr 2.3.0.
3. After copying the gnizr webapp into your Tomcat, edit gnizr-config.xml using these instructions. Note that new configuration parameters have been added in 2.4.0.
   
4. Start Tomcat.
5. Go to you gnizr web application and login as 'gnizr' the super user.
6. Manually create a search index database for bookmark search. Go to "settings". Under "Administration", click on "Rebuild search index". Follow instructions on the page.
7. Done.
   

Questions. Send them to the gnizr discussion group.

Use SKOS for Search Term Suggestion

We have added a new feature in gnizr 2.3.0 that suggests search terms based on user-defined SKOS tag relation hierarchy. Search is an important feature in gnizr, which provides a means for the users to find bookmarks that are created by others in the community. To help users to find information, we must solve two problems: 1) allow users to find information beyond resources that exist within a gnizr community, 2) provide search assistance to users when navigating through a massive amount of information.

We attempt to solve the first problem by embracing OpenSearch technology, which is a powerful way to mashup search results from multiple search engines. To solve the second problem, we are experimenting a Semantic Web approach that exploits relationships between tags.

This approach works as the follows. When a gnizr web application is deployed for a specific community, the system administrator defines a domain ontology for the community in terms of tags and tag relations. In gnizr this is achieved by editing tag relations. When a user conducts search, the search system analyzes the input search term (treating it as a list of tags) and recommends new search terms (i.e., tags) that are either related-to, is narrower than or is broader than the input search term.

Here is a set of screenshots of an actual use case.

NOTE: when you're at the flickr pages, click on the "All Sizes" icon to see a high-resolution image of the screenshot.

Domain Ontology for 2008 US President Election

Let's assume that we are deploying a gnizr web application for sharing bookmarks related to the 2008 US President Election. The system administrator 'gnizr' defines a simple domain ontology in terms of tags and tag relations.

democratic
related to: republican, government, liberal
narrower: clinton, edwards
broader: politics

republican
related to: conservative, moderate
narrower: anti:clinton, pro:Giuliani, pro:Romney

clinton:
related to: anti:cliton, edwards, election
broader: person

Screenshots:

• Create/Edit tag relations
• Defining the narrower relations for tag 'democratic'
• Defining the related-to relations for tag 'democratic'

User searches bookmarks on 'democratic'

Gnizr user "Harry Chen" does a search on the term 'democratic'. Using the OpenSerach interface, results from multiple search engines are mashed-up in a single page. On the top of search result, he finds a set of system suggested search terms -- i.e., terms related-to, is narrower than and is broader than 'democratic'.



Screenshots:

• Following the suggestion, Harry finds bookmarks related to 'republican'
• Looks up other resources on the Yahoo! Web Search
• All 'republican' -- OpenSearch result mashup
  

What's Next?

The described feature is still in its early stage of development. It will be available for evaluation in our next milestone release gnizr-2.3.0-M2. Let's us know what you think.

Gnizr 2.3.0 Milestone 1

Gnizr 2.3.0 Milestone 1 is now available for download. This release is intended for feature evaluation, and users are not encouraged to use this release for production deployment.

New features

• Edit tag relations page gets a clickable tag cloud
• Edit bookmark tags features tag suggestion with auto-complete
• Edit machine tags via clickable icons (see this post)
  
• Provides OpenSearch support
  

See Changelog for a complete list of bug fixes and feature description.

OpenSearch Support

OpenSearch is a standard for building mashups of web search results. Gnizr supports the OpenSearch standard in two different ways: (1) allows third-party OpenSearch services to be plugged into a gnizr installation, (2) exposes gnizr's search services as OpenSearch services.

Search mashups are powerful. For example, A9.com allows search results to be returned from multiple search engines, and users can view them in a single unified page. Gnizr's OpenSearch page is designed with a similar philosophy. Through (1), gnizr administrators will be able to add/remove new OpenSearch services by editing a simple configuration. Here is a screenshot.

Sometimes it's desirable to expose gnizr searches in other application's mashup -- e.g., publishing the search services of your gnizr installation in A9.com. In (2), gnizr's bookmark search comes with built-in OpenSearch descriptions.

We like to hear you. Please post your questions and feedbacks to our user group.

Adding Machine Tags Made Easy

Gnizr supports Machine Tag. When you edit the description of a saved bookmark, you can use "gn:geoname=[place_name]" to add geo-location property, use "gn:for=[user]" to suggest the bookmark to another user, use "gn:folder=" to save the bookmark into a specific folder, and use "gn:subscribe=this" to import RSS feed items as new bookmarks.

Sometimes entering those Machine Tag strings can be a bit of pain, especially, when you have to enter the preceding Machine Tag string, e.g., "gn:geonames=" multiple times. While you can use the shorthand syntax -- [predicate]:[value] for predicates that don't have conflicting namespace values, but it still requires some keyboard exercises.

In gnizr 2.3, we are introducing a new feature for adding well-known Machine Tags. In the "Edit Bookmark" page, above the "Tags" input area on the right, you see a row of icons. Click on one of these icons will invoke a Machine Tag Helper tool.



An Example: add location property

To add location property (i.e., add "gn:geonames="), you click on the "globe" icon (see above). You then enter a place name in the pop-up dialog box.



Click on "Okay". The desired Machine Tag is automatically added to the tag description.



What's that '_' (underscore) I saw?

Tags in gnizr are separated by white-spaces. In order to represent a whitespace in a tag, '_' (underscore) is used.