Out of the Woodwork

Uncle Sam ... and Great Uncle Kitchener?

You've heard of Uncle Sam. But what about his dad, Lord Kitchener?

Okay, I'm exaggerating. They aren't really related. But apparently this poster from the British Army's recruiting campaign for World War I:

...served as the model for America's most famous World War I recruiting poster (which was later adapted to World War II):

Kind of interesting, isn't it? And no, I'm not an expert on the history of recruiting posters. I just happened to stumble upon this when I was seeking an image that Vijay could use to highlight our own recruiting campaign for Project SocialSite.

Tags: history nationalism patriotism posters recruiting trivia

Posted at 12:35PM Sep 29, 2008 by Jamey Wood in Potpourri  |  Comments[0]

Wordling SocialSite

I happened to be looking at an entry in Alexis' blog yesterday and this caught my eye:

He made it with Wordle, an online tool which describes itself as "a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide." I agree that the results are beautiful (especially when they prominently feature my favorite project).

Wordle is able to grab text from a URL to generate a word cloud. Alexis fed it the URL for The Aquarium when he generated the one above. And, much to my happiness, he must have done it on a day when there happened to be a lot of SocialSite-related material on The Aquarium's front page.

So I was inspired to try it out myself. And, of course, I used our SocialSite blog as the source URL. I like the results:

Looking at it, you'll probably get the feeling that SocialSite has OpenSocial at its core and then builds a set of extensions and complimentary functionality around it. I'd say that's a pretty good description of what we do. Maybe a picture really is worth a thousand words.

Tags: socialsite tagclouds visualization wordclouds wordle

Posted at 09:24AM Sep 26, 2008 by Jamey Wood in Potpourri  |  Comments[0]

Want to Feel Like Royalty? Join an Open Source Project.

Every open source project talks about how much they want your contributions. But do they really mean it? If you submit a patch, will they puke all over your work because they would have written it differently? Or because you indented your code with three spaces instead of four? Or just because you don't work for the right company? Maybe. But not in most projects. I can guarantee that it won't happen in the area where I work (Project SocialSite). And I honestly think the same is true for most of Sun's other open source projects.

Why? Because these things shouldn't be Sun's open source projects. They should be open source projects in which Sun happens to be a very active participant. I think that most people at Sun understand and agree with that sentiment. So we'll bend over backwards to support outside contributions. Again, using SocialSite as an example, we would love to see any of the following coming from people who don't work for Sun:

• Bug and RFE Reports
  • You just need a java.net ID to submit a bug or RFE in our Issue Tracker
• Code Submissions
  • For SocialSite, you could fix an existing bug (again, see our Issue Tracker)
  • Or if you want to start something new, we have a list of SocialSite project ideas
• Wiki Updates
  • Anyone with a java.net ID can create and edit content on the SocialSite Wiki
• Outreach
  • Mention us in a blog or a discussion forum--anywhere our project might be of interest

And when I say we'll bend over backwards to support you, I mean it. If your contribution could benefit from some changes, we'll work with you to make them. If you need more information before you can contribute, just ask and we'll provide it. Or if your goal is to become a commiter, we'll help you through the process.

One thing we can't do is suspend the rules. But the rules are simple and they serve a purpose. To become a committer, you first need to sign a Sun Contributor Agreement (SCA) and then submit a patch or two. That's pretty standard stuff in the world of open source. The SCA ensures that Sun has the legal rights to protect the project and its source code in court if necessary. And the patches don't have to be huge. They just need to be a positive change and demonstrate that you have a basic understanding of the project's code.

So please, put me to the test. Find something in SocialSite that you think could be better, and submit a patch. Or edit the Wiki. Or open a bug. And if we don't give you the support you need, let me know. It'll be my personal mission to find out why we failed and make sure it never happens again.

Tags: opensource socialsite web2.0

Posted at 02:13PM Sep 25, 2008 by Jamey Wood in Web 2.0  |  Comments[0]