NetworkedPlanet News

We are looking for an experienced C# .NET developer to join our UK-based development team. The full job details are posted here.

03/03/2008, NetworkedPlanet are pleased to annouce the release of the much anticipated TMCore SharePoint Module 3.0.

This release sees a number of bug fixes and performance improvements, but more significantly it includes a large number of features that greatly improve the way information is organised, classified and located with Microsoft SharePoint solutions.

The new key features can be grouped into several different areas:

Ontology Design

Creating a well-designed ontology is the most important first step in designing a complete information architecture that can integrate SharePoint and non-SharePoint content into a cohesive and logical whole.

• Use the new NetworkedPlanet NPCL Editor plugin for Visual Studio to visually define an ontology for a complete SharePoint solution. Use the integration with SharePoint web services to create SharePoint content types and fields.
• The NPCL Editor plugin can also generate a SharePoint feature to allow the topic map ontology, any additional taxonomy and the SharePoint content types and field definitions to be reliably deployed in multiple server environments such as Development, QA, and Production.

Content Classification and Organisation

The new release makes it very easy to organise and classify content against taxonomies, controlled vocabularies and in terms of other SharePoint items regardless of which site or list they are in. The TMCore SharePoint Module 3.0 is designed to normalise the information space so that items can be more logically connected.

• New ways to find and select related topics; Hierarchy Selectors, Query Selectors, and Creators
• Hierarchy Selectors, allow users to choose related topics from tree structures defined in the topic map. These may be fixed taxonomy trees or user-generated trees that result from the creation of other item to item relationships.
• Query Selectors, allow developers to define specific, contextual queries that return a candidate list for the user to select from. Query Selectors allow almost any specific business logic about the most appropriate related topics for a given context to be defined.
• Creators provide a unique way to create a new SharePoint item (even one in another list or on another site) while editing an existing item. This feature removes the need for the user to constantly navigate from one list to another creating items before they can be hooked together.


• Simple tagging support. Optional support for ad-hoc "tagging" of content is now supported across all SharePoint list and content types. This feature allows users to get started easily tagging and organising content using their own terms and allows a community of users to collaborate on building a folksonomy for the classification of their content.
• Social Networking Features. A user's ad-hoc tags can be automatically shared with her colleagues and with other trusted users.

Searching and Navigating in SharePoint

Also new with version 3.0 of the TMCore SharePoint Module is the introduction of the Topic Map Index Service. This near-real time, in-memory index of Topic Map information means that complex information queries can be executed with a high throughput to deliver up-to-the-second information from across the portal.

The Topic Map Index Service is used to power a number of search and navigation web parts that make it possible to effectively find your way around a SharePoint portal.

• One Hop and Two Hop navigtaion controls can be used to show relevant contextual information about any SharePoint item.
• Advanced Faceted Search. Utilising a combination of hieararchy and topic type pickers this web part can be used to slice and dice through SharePoint content to allow users to find what they are really looking for.
• Advanced Faceted Search integrated with text search. The Advanced Faceted Search web parts can be used to slice and dice the results of a SharePoint portal text search.

For more information about this or any other NetworkedPlanet product please email contact@networkedplanet.com

TMCore EPiServer Module v2.2 and v3.2 Released

NetworkedPlanet launches the latest version of the EPiServer Topic Map module, now supporting EPiServer CMS 5. The TMCore EPiServer Module provides seamless integration with one of the premier web content management solutions on the Microsoft .NET platform.

The TMCore EPiServer Module delivers a simple, powerful model for EPiServer editors and administrators to exploit the flexibility of topic maps within their web site, providing concept based navigation and search as well as improved link management.

NetworkedPlanet has been working closely with our business partners in order to deliver exciting new features and an improved user experience in this latest release.

The EPiServer Module highlights:

• All new AJAX based topic association editing environment.
• Full exploitation of the new features of TMCore07.
• Configuration and data consistency checking and automatic repair utilities, integrated in with EPiServer's administrator tools.
• Powerful topic map navigation data controls that provide a simple mechanism for querying the topic map and rendering the results using the standard template-based data-bound ASP.NET controls.

The Topic Map advantage enables organisations to organise and find their information in a non-hierarchical, multi-dimensional way. The TMCore engine can be used as an integration platform with content from multiple system aggregated and delivered through the power of the EPiServer platform.

The TMCore EPiServer Module is compatible with ASP.NET 1.1 & 2.0 and EPiServer 4.62 and later.

If you would like to request an evaluation license for the EPiServer Module and TMCore, please complete the evaluation form at: http://www.networkedplanet.com/products/evalreq.aspx.

We are pleased to announce the release of the latest update for our TMCore07 Enterprise Information Server.

Service Pack 3 (SP3) is primarily a performance and bug-fix release. There are no changes to existing APIs and this upgrade is recommended for all customers currently using TMCore07 SP2.

All licensed users of TMCore07 (Full or Lite edition) can download the SP3 installation package from here.

If you would like to evaluate the TMCore07 Enterpise Information Server, please visit our evaluation request page to request an evaluation license.

TMCore EPiServer Module v2.1 Released

NetworkedPlanet launches the latest version of the EPiServer Topic Map module. The TMCore EPiServer Module v2.1 provides seamless integration with one of the premier web content management solutions on the Microsoft .NET 2.0 platform.

The TMCore EPiServer Module delivers a simple, powerful model for EPiServer editors and administrators to exploit the flexibility of topic maps within their web site, providing concept based navigation and search as well as improved link management.

NetworkedPlanet has been working closely with our business partners in order to deliver exciting new features and an improved user experience in this latest release.

The EPiServer Module highlights:

• Improvements to AJAX interface to support:
  • hierarchical taxonomy navigation.
  • Direct EPiServer page selection.
• Automated upgrade for users of v1.x and v2.0.x of the module.
• Occurrence mapping, allowing EPiServer fields to be replicated in to the topic map as occurrences.
• Support for scheduled consistency checking.

The Topic Map advantage enables organisations to organise and find their information in a non-hierarchical, multi-dimensional way. The TMCore engine can be used as an integration platform with content from multiple system aggregated and delivered through the power of the EPiServer platform.

The TMCore EPiServer Module is compatible with ASP.NET 2.0 and EPiServer 4.61. A release for EPiServer CMS will be available in Q4 2007.

If you would like to request an evaluation license for the EPiServer Module and TMCore, please complete the evaluation form at: http://www.networkedplanet.com/products/evalreq.aspx.

Indiepix launches world’s largest collection of downloadable independent films

• Powered by state-of-the-art topic maps software from NetworkedPlanet
• Offers unique film exploration and navigation capability

Indiepix, a world leading online service created for the independent film community,
has launched one of the most comprehensive independent film resource on the Internet, powered by state of the art navigation software from NetworkedPlanet, the leading vendor of information management tools. Visitors to www.indiepix.net will now, for the first time, be able to discover, explore and purchase more than 3,000 independent films, as well as learn about new films, all classified by Indiepix’s movie experts. Indiepix will give 60 per cent of the profit/revenue from purchase straight to the film-maker, to help support the independent film industry and encourage the production of more movies.

Indiepix is a rapidly expanding organisation – it plans to grow its film library to over 10,000 within the first 18 months of the launch. The service is powered by NetworkedPlanet’s TMCore information management system which provides the state-of-the-art interactive services for customers. NetworkedPlanet’s powerful topic mapping navigation system will enable an increasing number of independent film enthusiasts to find out more about their favourite genres or directors, as well as access rare or hard-to-find films. The new Indiepix service will support independent film-makers by giving 60 per cent of the profits/revenue from every sale through the site back to the film-makers, which will help encourage the development of future projects as well as maintain existing ones.

“This project is designed to open up new opportunities for exploring the world of independent film,” commented Bob Alexander, President of Indiepix. “The new Indiepix site will provide an avenue for independent films to get greater recognition and we will contribute a majority of profits back to the film-makers themselves. It is important that the site is easy to navigate, and that it can recommend new films, directors and actors that visitors may not have heard of – this is by far the best way to encourage greater participation in the independent film industry. NetworkedPlanet understood our objectives from the outset, which is a major factor in why we are now able to launch the most comprehensive resource for independent film on the Internet.”

Each film on the site will contain metadata attachments that allow IndiePix’s in-house team of film experts to insert all sorts of information – who directed it, which country it was filmed in, the reviews it had at release – based on their expertise and evaluation of it. The system will then use TMCore to create relevant links between them, so that when someone is browsing any one film online, it will suggest other links based on relevance and similarities. Once all of the films have this data attached to them, the resulting knowledge base can be easily and intelligently navigated by anyone using the website.

“This project is a great example of how topic maps can be used to enhance online navigation,” commented Kal Ahmed, Founder of NetworkedPlanet. “The system functions in a similar way to a shopkeeper in a clothes store – a customer might have selected a blue shirt, so the shopkeeper suggests they look at similar shirts, as well as cuff-links and ties that match it. IndiePix.net now does the same thing for people who are shopping for independent films.”

TMCore is NetworkedPlanet’s server platform for developing enterprise knowledge and information management applications. The TMCore server will store and manage topic maps of the entire content of a website. Each topic contains metadata which holds information about the file, links to related documents and links to other topics, creating a map of knowledge. This map can be browsed or searched by end-users to find information via key concepts. The result is a detailed index of the resources across a number of systems via a single unified information portal.

About IndiePix
Founded in 2004 in New York, IndiePix is a world leading shop and online service created for the independent film community. It is a group of movie experts, information professionals, media arts specialists, and most importantly, committed supporters of independent film. Born out of the desire to cultivate connections between emerging filmmakers and their potential audiences in a non-traditional, non-exclusive manner, IndiePix offers tailored packages for filmmakers who wish to make their works available for purchase on DVD.

For more information, please visit www.indiepix.net

About NetworkedPlanet
NetworkedPlanet was formed in 2004 to develop topic map processing tools and applications specifically for the Microsoft .NET framework. The company’s first product, TMCore05, was released in January 2005. NetworkedPlanet provides a suite of tools and products to organise and structure the access to information to make it easier to locate and more relevant to end-users. It provides a range of tools scaling up from work-group information management to full-scale commercial websites and enterprise content management systems.

For more information, visit: www.networkedplanet.com

NetworkedPlanet have today released the first version of the NPCL Schema Editor for Visual Studio 2005. This freely-downloadable add-in for Microsoft's Visual Studio product provides developers and information architects with a graphical tool for defining a topic map schema (often also referred to as an ontology) using the Networked Planet Constraint Language (NPCL).

The tool enables the schema developer to create a new schema using simple drag-and-drop operations and to visualise schemas graphically. The output of the tool is an XML file which can then be directly imported into the TMCore Information Management Server where it can be used to generate ontology-driven interfaces for topic map editing.

The schema language NPCL is now used in all of NetworkedPlanet's information integration products including the integrations with EPiServer and Microsoft SharePoint. By making it easier to develop a schema language it is our hope that developers and architects will be able to make better use of the power that lies behind ontology-driven development.

Future extensions to the editor are planned to support direct generation of SharePoint and EPiServer-based solutions from an annotated ontology.

For the developer's low-down on the NPCL Schema Editor please see the postings on our OnTopic blog.

Update

Thanks to bug reports from a couple of early adopters of the NPCL Schema Editor. There is now an updated version available for download. If you have a previous version of the schema editor installed you must first uninstall it using Add/Remove Programs before installing the new version.

The NPCL Schema Editor version 1.0.0.2 is now available for free download from here.

If you do find any issues with installing or using the software, please contact us at contact@networkedplanet.com.

We are pleased to announce the availaility of TMCore EPiServer Module 3.0 Alpha, compatible with EPiServer CMS v5 RC3.

Networked Planet are committed to ongoing support of new 3rd party product versions, exploiting new features to enable more powerful solutions.

The release can be download from http://www.networkedplanet.com/download/EPiServerModule/EPiServerModule-3.0.zip.

There is some further technical information in the OnTopic blog.

New features

This alpha has enhancements to the topic pickers, improved schema performance and Firefox 2.x support. However, we are currently considering new value added features to add to the product before the final release. Here are some of the things we are considering:

• Topic auto-suggest feature - using analysis of the text to suggest topics to connect to.
• Treating documents in EPiServer CMS as topics and allowing them to be associated with page topics.
• Social book marking extension - allowing end users to create their own topics / tags and use them to organise episerver content
• Faceted Search interface - a powerful control for slicing and dicing through content.
• Forms based query builder - a web control for building topic map queries.

If there are other things you would like us to consider please email contact@networkedplanet.com.

Release plan

We will develop and test a set of features inline with the EPiServer RC's and intend to release TMCore EPiServer Module 3.0 shortly after EPiServer CMS 5.0 final is released

NetworkedPlanet are proud to be sponsoring this year's International Conference on Topic Maps Research and Applications, TMRA 2007.

TMRA 2007 is a scientific and industrial forum whose main object is connecting the key players in the Topic Maps community. It is also a great opportunity to hear leading researchers and developers talk about what is happening and what will be happening in the realm of Topic Maps.

For more information on the conference please visit the TMRA conference website .

NetworkedPlanet, a leading vendor of information management tools and products, has announced an order for its TMCore information management solution from the Royal Academy of Music to power its new online multi-dimensional music index - the RAMline. The platform will provide an intelligent navigation system for what has the potential to become the largest and most comprehensive online music resource on the internet, linking profiles, discographies, performances and musical compositions of any artist or genre. The TMCore topic map engine will make it easy for users - initially academics and Academy students and in the future, music enthusiasts worldwide - to locate and browse over 100,000 individual in-house and external resources, such as sound clips, images, websites, and details of live performances.

Among the in-house resources that will be drawn together to form the site will be the Academy's existing music libraries, collections, and teaching materials, as well as new content created by its students as part of their research assignments. External resources such as online dictionaries and record company databases will also be integrated into the system. As each new resource is added, the system attaches topic, theme and relationship metadata to each one, enabling it to be categorised as part of a larger grid of files - all connected semantically.

Antony Pitts, Senior Lecturer in Creative Technology at the Royal Academy of Music, commented: "The RAMline project is hugely ambitious - it aims to bring together all of the Academy's internal and external resources, and will offer a completely new way of looking at music history. It has the potential to become the largest and most comprehensive online music resource on the internet, which will serve as a learning and research tool for our students and, in the future, a knowledge portal for the public. Using topic maps allows us to create, locate and access each resource rapidly and easily."

"The scale and nature of this project are ideal to demonstrate fully the benefits of topic maps," added Kal Ahmed, Founder of NetworkedPlanet. "As the index grows, navigation becomes more and more problematic, especially considering much of the content is stored in different locations. Adding topic maps to each resource - either when it is created or when its details are imported into the system - allows extra metadata properties to be attached to it, such as genre, date or city. A detailed 'map' can then be created between this metadata, allowing rapid navigation according to keywords, relationships and themes."

The user interface to the index will have an innovative design, with each musician, composer and work given a dynamically-generated timeline - allowing deep and powerful navigation. The TMCore server will store and manage 'topic maps' of the entire content of the RAMline. Each topic contains metadata which holds information about the file, links to related documents and links to other topics, creating a map of knowledge. This map can be browsed or searched by end-users to find information resources via key concepts. The result is a detailed index of the information resources across a number of systems via a single unified information portal.

About The RAMline
In 2006, the Academy began building a unique index of digitised archives and online resources, together with a specialised tool that allows this index to be browsed and searched intuitively by students, staff and visitors. As well as an ever-expanding catalogue of musicians and of musical works, the RAMline links to manuscript sources and published editions, live performances and recordings, musical criticism and comment. The RAMline simultaneously displays a timeline of musical history and the life-cycle of any piece of music, from antiquity to the present, and will be used to chart each student’s musical profile at the Academy and beyond. The RAMline is the focus of a Teaching and Research Award from the University of London's Centre for Distance Education.

About the Royal Academy of Music
The Royal Academy of Music is Britain's senior conservatoire, and since 1822 has prepared students for successful careers in music according to the constantly evolving demands of the profession. Academy musicians study for University of London degrees in varied programmes including instrumental performance, composition, jazz, musical theatre and opera. The Academy's student community is truly international, with over 50 countries represented. The Academy has recently invested substantially in creative technology and collaborates closely with the Media Lab at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT.
For more information, please visit www.ram.ac.uk