Another great summary!
Thanks again.
Eugene Eric Kim wrote:
>
> On Tue, 23 Jan 2001, Eric Armstrong wrote:
>
> > As I recall, "we" (as a group) disliked that notion, at
> > the time, because we wanted people to use a "vanilla
> > browser", without having to do anything special to the
> > client.
> >
> > I take it that our collective opinion is now more
> > in favor of a smarter client?
> >
> > How much effort is it to install that proxy, anyway?
> > Or is it pretty transparent? (Or does a remote server
> > actually serve as the "proxy", so that you have to visit
> > that server and, from there, go to other points on the
> > Web?
>
> As Jack pointed out, using the term "proxy server" in his original
> description was misleading, although there's no reason why the system
> couldn't be implemented that way. At the risk of repeating what
> others
> have already stated, here's my summary, along with some brief
> commentary.
>
> BrowseUp allows you to create links from any HTML page to any other
> HTML
> page. It consists of:
>
> - a link server, which stores these links.
> - an Internet Explorer plug-in, which downloads links from the link
> server, and overlays those links on top of the currently displayed
> web
> page. The plug-in also allows you to create links by dragging and
> dropping.
>
> The links are granular, and optionally bidirectional. You can also
> annotate the links. The link server stores all of this information,
> as
> well as thumbnails of the information being linked, and the "quality"
> of
> the links. Link quality is an attribute used for displaying available
> links, that is based on the frequency a link is viewed and presumably
> other information as well.
>
> The link server is written in Java, and apparently communicates on top
> of
> HTTP. They were apparently designed to be widely distributed, so that
> these link servers could be found all over the Net. BrowseUp has some
> solution for problems such as link integrity and modified documents,
> although I think I may have missed that part of the discussion.
>
> There was some discussion about social consequences of unrestricted
> linking that was interesting and important, but I won't rehash them
> here.
>
> Some thoughts:
>
> 1. The link server is, in my opinion, of greatest immediate interest
> to
> the project. Many of its requirements seem to overlap with ours, with
> some limitations and quirks. For example, the thumbnails are an
> interesting feature, but I wonder if the bandwidth and storage
> overhead
> is worth it.
>
> 2. The plug-in is a win, but it's not necessarily the short-term
> direction
> that the core project should move in. The link server would enable us
> to
> move in a number of directions, from browser plug-ins to proxy servers
> to
> custom clients. There's a lot of room for evolution here. At the
> meeting, Lee said that he would like to see a Nelson-style
> transclusion
> view of links and documents (where documents are displayed side by
> side,
> with lines showing the interconnected links). I see no reason why
> such a
> view is not possible using BrowseUp's underlying system; they just
> haven't
> built it yet.
>
> 3. I think collaboration is highly desirable, and a reasonable
> possibility. Alon seemed genuinely interested in seeing link
> databases
> pop up all over the world, and seemed open to the possibility of open
> sourcing parts or all of their system in order to enable this (and
> collaborate with us).
>
> What are the next steps? I know Doug is pursuing the collaboration
> angle,
> but there are certainly things that we can do in the meantime. The
> best
> is to just try using the tool. I think there are many things we can
> learn
> about some of its fundamental linking features and about BrowseUp's
> own
> implementation of these features, which could lead to:
>
> - a refinement of requirements for the OHS
> - formal usability studies, which could also help refine
> requirements
> (part of the coevolution strategy) as well as serve as a
> marketing
> vehicle for some of the OHS's features. (i.e. "Studies showed
> that
> link typing improved productivity by 512%.")
>
> The plug-in is available from http://www.browseup.com/, and I'm sure
> Alon
> and company would welcome feedback.
>
> -Eugene
>
> --
> +=== Eugene Eric Kim ===== eekim@eekim.com ===== http://www.eekim.com/
> ===+
> | "Writer's block is a fancy term made up by whiners so
> they |
> +===== can have an excuse to drink alcohol." --Steve Martin
> ===========+
>
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