Welcome to skyBuilders newsletter.
January 2, 2003
We have begun the port of 350 server pages from ASP to PHP. We now hope to have our first preliminary release in late January. We need it for the MuseumsIn.TheSky.com project, and to build really low-cost skyBoxes for Jamaican schools.
We are also preparing the launch of CMSReview.com, a resource site for content management systems. skyBuilders will be studying various CMS products to find an open-source package for integration into timeLines.
We will present CMSReview.com officially at the third OSCOM conference, in March at Harvard University Berkman Center for Internet and Society.
December 15, 2002
skyBuilders is going international. We shipped our first skyServer out of the country this week. It is in Kingston, Jamaica where it will be part of the renovated Rockfort Community Training Center operated by CyberU Jamaica and Reverence For Life.
David Pearson, our leading skyBuilders tester and operator of several timeLines websites (including Shawmut Education and Boston Homeless) will be in Jamaica until December 23, training the trainers at Rockfort, and meeting with Jamaican Ministers of Technology and Education. He will bring equipment to outfit a new Training Center at Rockfort in Kingston.
Harvard University Berkman Center for Internet and Society and skyBuilders.com are supporting production of a documentary film on the introduction of skyBuilders tools into Jamaica. The film will be made by noted Jamaican filmmaker Barbara Blake Hannah. Barbara and her son Makonnen Blake-Hannah are founders of Tech School Jamaica, another sponsor of the Rockfort CTC.
November 30, 2002
The Holiday season finds us with several new tools, and some exciting developmental sites launched.
New tools include:
New websites include:
Bob Doyle spoke on Content Management Systems at the Boston Regional Conference of N-TEN (Nonprofits - Technology Enterprise Network). The presentation is available as a skyTalk. We are designing templates and page content elements for skyWriter to make our skyPages a true Content Management System.
November 15, 2002The Summer and Fall of 2002 has been a very busy development period. We completed several important milestones, including:
skyBuilders hardware developments now include firewalls (skyWalls) and ISP Internet connection ("pipe") aggregators that allow two or more ISP pipes to be arranged in a fault-tolerant, high-availability configuration. We had to patch the Linux kernel to achieve this performance. Now small organizations can use multiple low-cost, high-speed DSL connections to achieve mission-critical Internet connectivity.
We can now supply complete skyBox turnkey systems for small ASPs with skyWalls and skyPipes aggregation. They are well-suited for small organizations with multiple servers and workstations on an internal LAN behind a second firewall (see diagram above) See www.skypipes.com.
We have launched several new timeLines beta sites:
July 20, 2002
Please take a look at our new web site design, which we hope to launch before the end of the year. Your comments and criticisms most welcome.
May 30, 2002
skyBuilders has released the 1.0 version of the timeLines interface. Some 250 server pages have been posted to our servers for download. Two new modules, skyTalks and skyForms, are components of our skyLearning technology. Another new module, skyForums, supports threaded discussion groups.
On April 22 (Earth Day), the Environmental Careers Organization launched a new web site based on skyBuilders timeLines technology.
ECO site navigation uses our new Nav Panels generation tool, which automates the production of Javascript rollover links. The navigation scheme can accommodate an increasing number of small ECO programs.
The major programs have distinct "microsites," each with its own graphics, colors, etc., with consistent navigation and ECO look and feel throughout.
Occasional microsites can be easily built for seasonal events like the Diversity Initiative National Roundtable and the National Environmental Career Conference.
Major ECO documents are now online, like their Guide to Environmental Careers, the DI Roundtable Report, and program newsletters - Connections, Exchanges, etc. and Project Advisor Handbooks.
The ECO Online Shop offers Online Registration for their many conferences and online sales of publications.
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The 2001 Boston Cyberarts Festival is still online with an interactive database of over 1000 events. Cyberarts entered the events in their skyBuilders Events module, using the standard timeLines user interface. But the presentation of the events is through a custom HTML/Javascript user interface called a "skyLight" or "skin."
Behind the scenes, skyBuilders timeLines is running normally. But the look of the festival events schedule is the work of a Boston University web design team led by Agnes Borszeki. Check it out here.
Click on Locations = Back Bay and April 27 to see that day's listing in the skyLight.
Then compare the same information as it looks in the timeLine listings interface.
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openInternetLexicon.com is now an ambitious portal site with dozens of resource pages for web developers looking to build multilingual web sites. It has new pages on Machine Translation, Translation Memory, Translators, and a new Glossary.
The skyFinder interface for browsing remote files (skyPages and skyForms Publishing and the new skyFiles web storage system) has been further redesigned. The new book icon indicates a series of timeLined skyPages.
The new Master Archive interface includes two levels of password protection for skyPages, and access to Localization functions. Localized files in other languages are now indicated and selectable by their locale codes.
Developer News.
We now have ftp sites on servers outside skyBuilders (at Galaxy and Primus) with zipped copies of all our files (serverPages, database, installer). After a preliminary test showed that only two percent of site visitors were registering, the new Downloads page makes everything freely downloadable by any visitor. On the main site, we also allow anyone to download the source code for individual serverPages. See, for example, Events serverPages.
News on our other Open-Source sites.
openServerPages.com is up and running and registered with some important developer web sites. We will submit it to the search engines soon, when developer registration is functioning.
openDataBaseModel.com is now offering the ODBM rationale and access to all the ODBM tables. You can download data and SQL scripts for each table. You can even download the entire ODBM database.
We want all our Open-Source sites to be operational at the commercial launch and expect them to play an important part in our campaign to reach qualified developers.
