Archive - Apr 18, 2008

Date

Drupal and Graphviz – Working notes

Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 04/18/2008 - 14:20

The other day, I got a phone call from a person interested in creating some social network graphs similar to those that I did with MyBlogLog. Those graphs were created with Graphviz, a very graph visualization package.

For the images I created, I did them all from command line prompts. I gathered the data and then ran a program that created images from the data. I then uploaded the images to Flickr.

However, there are supposed to be packages to create the graphs on the fly. One is Webdot, which is based on TCL and a simplified version that is supposed to work in perl. Unfortunately, the webdot code comes in an RPM installer, which I haven’t figured out how to use on my Ubuntu machine and the perl looks like it probably needs a little bit of hacking to set up.

So, I was pleased to find that there is a Graphviz filter for Drupal. Currently, it is set for Drupal 5, but by adding a couple lines to the info files, you can get it to work in Drupal 6, or so it seems.

I installed the Graphviz filter on one of my machines. By poking around a little, I found that I needed to install the Graphviz PEAR package as well. The way the Drupal Filter is set up, it seems like the best approach is to install the Image directory as a subdirectory of the Drupal filter’s directory. With all this in place, I the filter started working, with one minor exception. It gave me the error message:
“There was an error rendering the Graphviz file using format svg.”

Well, it turns out that the host I was working on doesn’t have Graphviz setup. So, the filter and the PEAR package appear to work, but the call to Graphviz itself didn’t generate any images. Oh well. Next step, install Drupal 6 on a machine I have that does have Graphviz running and/or get Graphviz installed on the machine where I’ve setup Drupal 6, the filter and the PEAR package.

Meanwhile, I’m still spending time upgrading various sites to Drupal 6.2. Beyond that, it is a beautiful spring day. Kim’s brother and his family are in town visiting, so I’ll probably leave the rest of this for a bit later.

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Updates

Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 04/18/2008 - 10:46

As I go through my emails, there are all kinds of different things I want to highlight. I’ve attempted to sort them and put them into context.

Connecticut Political News

John Hartwell, who is running for State Senate reports that he has picked up the last few donations he needed to qualify for public financing and is now spending his time communicating with voters about the important issues facing the state. You can get more information at John Hartwell’s campaign website.

Connecticut Teach Against Genocide reports that the genocide education bill, House Bill 5595, has passed the Education and Appropriations Committees and is moving on to the full house.

Sheila at Woodbridge Dems reports having been called by Mountain West Research, a firm that has been accused in the past of doing push polling for Lieberman. I’m curious, has anyone else been recently called by Mountain West here in Connecticut?

She also mentioned a great report by the League of Women Voters about Emerging Media and Internet Issues: E-Democracy for Connecticut. It is a great report worth reading.

One Connecticut has sent out an email about a bill, 5618, in the Connecticut General Assembly regarding the Husky program. They are encouraging people to contact the Insurance and Real Estate Committee and urge them to pass it as well, and without any amendments!

Beyond Connecticut

Project Laundry List is reporting that Colorado passed a Right to Dry law. HB 1270 would prohibit Homeowners Associations from restricting energy efficiency measures. They also announce that April 19th is National Hanging Out Day.

Jubilee USA reports that the Jubilee Act, (HR 2634) has passed the House and is now headed on to the Senate. Jubilee USA is seeking third world debt cancellation.

Global Kids and the International Human Rights Law Institute are holding ICC101, Learn the Basics about the International Criminal Court on Thursday April 24, 7-9:30PM EDT. For more information, check out the Justice Center online.

Protests

On April 25th, President Bush will attend a fundraiser at Henry Kissinger’s house in Kent. CT Opposes the War is organizing a protest. 9 AM to 1 PM at 50 Henderson Road, Kent.

Dream for Darfur is organizing a Protest at Coke Headquarters on Sunday April 27th from 2:30- 3:30 pm at 711 5th Ave on the northeast corner of 55th St in New York City.

The spoke and sung word

There will be a production of Hair at the Palace Theatre in Waterbury on May 9th. Details can be found here.

I got an email that Vienna Teng will be performing at the Green Apple Festival at Central Park, Rumsey Playfield, in New York City Sunday, 20 April 2008 at 12:00 pm. I heard Vienna last year at Falcon Ridge Folk Festival. If you’re in New York, you should stop by and hear her.

Lauren Doninger wrote about The Moth, a not-for-profit storytelling organization. I pointed out LibriVox as well. Both are great sites for picking up stories to listen to.

Digital Social Media

digitialmediawire has two interesting articles up right now about YouTube. The first is that YouTube Says User Partners Have So Far Earned $1 Million. Then, there is the article that Egal, the company that created Lonelygirl15, has raised $5 million in its first round of financing. I’ve been a fan of Lonelygirl15 for quite a while, and I’m pleased to see them get funding.

Shelly Palmer at JackMyers.com has another interesting article up. This time she’s writing about why she doesn’t think it’s
an even remotely credible prediction that you could have 345 million digital television ready (able to interpret and receive signals from local broadcast television signals) handsets in the market by 2012. As a person that shoots video with my cellphone and sends them to friends and to the web, I think she’s on the right track, even though I would have liked to hear her talk more about the disruptive nature of people shooting their own videos and sharing them online.