I am starting to investigate several interesting issues with the Mozilla Thunderbird email client.  I use it for both email and RSS newsfeed aggregation.  I also use it to pre-sort new items for my Internet Archive Tonight playlists over on WebJay.org (Matt May at staccatomusic.org says "audition").

The first issue is to investigate some possible bugs related to duplicate channels in the newsfeed tree (you can see them if you use the t-bird OPML import/export add-in for the manage subscriptions dialog).

The second issue is to see if we can further automate the "audition" process.  I can well attest that building playlists from archive.org postings can be a very labor intensive process and Matt mentioned this too.

To this end, I have been over at MozDev studying how T-bird plug-ins work.  More on all this later; this is just a status report.

Is anyone else doing these sorts of things?  Any good tips on creating t-bird plug-ins?

As part of what I wrote in the earlier post, I decided to look into what is required to "go open-source".  There are several issues:

• Where is the source to be located?
• How does one form a project "team" around the software?
• What is the license agreement?

Of course, there is no reason why one can’t just set up their own website or weblog around a project and let people download the code or content from there.

I obtained memberships for both Source Forge, MozDev and Fresh Meat, three major open-source repositories.  I took snapshots of the SourceForge project setup process and intend to write up a separate post on that.  Mainly I wanted to see what the policies and features were at each one. 

This, in turn, led to a whole tangent on open-source licensing and that deserves it’s own post as well.

For the time being, I think I will set up a separate webllog for our open-source projects with links for downloading the installs and the source.  Later, we will decide how to put a community around it, either using a tool like Droupal or the services of one of these repositories.

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Can you guess why this fountain is so special?

Apperception is the process
by which we connect what we perceive with what we have already
experienced. 

Today, we record our experiences as digital content that we connect and
weave into stories about ourselves, our families, our work and our
dreams

The content we produce stands in for us when we are not present and
serves to build a connection with others over space and time.  Whether
it be a simple note, weblog, photographic image or a music video, the content we
create summarizes our experiences and cognitions for others.

At Apperceive, we strive to apply new technologies and ideas to making
these connections between our knowledge and vision, as well as with
each other.  This is the motivation for the open-source applications,
content and services that we build.

It is not easy to lay out a development plan for how to best integrate
new, and rapidly changing, technologies into existing products.
Apperceive, does this by utilizing agile and extreme development
techniques for rapid adoption of new and existing open architecture and
open source products and services.

Like all explorers before us, we cannot always predict what lies ahead;
but we are experienced at sailing into uncharted waters and
establishing a beach-head for those who follow.  We bravely go where no
app has gone before.

With apperception, comes expression and art. 

Apperceive, Inc. is not a private service provider and does not seek or
commit to specific development projects and deadlines.  Instead, we are
more like a think tank or studio with regular publications, events and
presentations of results.  All of our work artifacts are open-sourced
and licensed under the Creative Commons as "Attribution-ShareAlike".  Our sponsors, as well as others, are free to utilize or derive from our
work.  This includes code, media and web content.

Of course, our sponsors are typically the first to leverage the fruit
of our labors as they have both participated in the work, as well as
the presentation of the results.

We collaborate with other organizations to set up environments for
mutual growth.  By funding and participating in Apperceive project
activities, sponsors can foster development of the specific web related
services and content that is useful to them.  While we do not wish to
become an advertising forum, we proudly display the logos of our
sponsors on appropriate websites and feature them prominently in our
weblog postings and articles.  We work with sponsors to establish
project related memes and to create buzz around our collaborative
efforts.

We measure our work by the number of people who utilize the content,
applications and services that we produce.  Sponsors measure us by the
ROI they get from utilizing our results and participating in our
projects.

These are some of the things Apperceive is interested in doing:

• producing weblogs
• developing web services
• participating in
  open-source projects
• working with online
  communities
• creating digital media
  research centers
• architecting online
  events
• writing articles and
  reports
• creating digital media
  content
• participating at
  conferences

We are considering spinning
off or creating several new weblogs and enhancing the existing ones:

• apperceptions
• mobile applications
  (new)
• aggregation/filtering
  (app.etitio.us)
• ia tonight  (with
  ourmedia tonight?)
• web 2.0 (new or
  existing)
• ojai sights &
  sounds (new)
• comedy (we are
  currently making a mash/mix of marc cantor)

We wish to publish several
blog article series:

• moving digital media
  (Spin, FTP, etc)
• tutorials for web 2.0
  (flickr, DLA, Spin, etc)
• the well dressed net
  socialite (social networking, digital presence, buzz)
• profile "unsung heroes"
  of the web (example: webjay cromegat)
• blog reviews (audio,
  video, other)
• digital urban planning
  with web 2.0

We are considering the
creation of several web-based directories:

• media playlists
• audio blogs
• video blogs
• web 2.0
• events

We wish to pursue the development of open source
services and applications in the following areas:

• digital aggregation -
  content and digest aggregation for use in personal publishing,
  integration and interoperability of digital services and applications
• content filtering -
  newsfeed and data stream filtering of digests and content into
  pre-defined and dynamic contexts
• distributed media -
  newsfeeds and podcasting to F&F or business
• searching tagged data -
  applying social tagging to business, automatic contextual tagging
• secure communities -
  private and business blogging and wikis, portfolios, digital
  marketplaces and supply chains