Daniel John Ayers ...

Current Activities

• Programming, R&D, Semantic Web Outreach

I currently work part-time for Talis, around applications and evangelism of their hosted Semantic Web Platform.

R&D activities include experimenting with an agile approach to Semantic Web application development using an agent-oriented paradigm.

• Technical Writing

For several years I worked as a freelance writer, co-authoring 10 technical books mostly on Web technologies. Nowadays I generally only write short pieces, including a regular column ("Webscience") for IEEE Internet Computing.

• Community Work, Conferences

@@TODO

occasional speaking, standards work, programme committees etc : SWIG, SWEO, GRDDL,

EC reviewer

• Weblogs

I've had a personal blog for many years. I tend to post a lot on Semantic Web-related matters.

@@TODO add Talis stuff

I'm a very occasional contributor to Lambda the Ultimate the programming languages weblog (usually when a new RDF serialization appears).

Personal Stuff

I live in rural northern Italy. I moved here around 2001 with my wife Caroline, sadly she died suddenly in July 2008. I'm originally from the Peak District in northern England, (Caroline was from Bakewell, me from Tidza ). We lived in Sri Lanka for a while before settling here. I've got two dogs and three cats.

You'll have gathered I'm a developer, tech author and consultant, on forward-looking Web technologies. I enjoy this stuff.

I also enjoy making music - I was a founder member of Nocturnal Emissions, way back, but didn't do anything for many years. I'm hoping to release a CD of work by myself and Caroline sometime soon. I very much like carving wood, and since being near the Carrera marble quarries (as in the photo left) I've started trying stone. I'll have another crack at oil painting when time permits, it seems you need practice to get beyond blobby trees. I'm not remotely athletic but did try skiing once, a lot of fun despite the bruises. I've spent a lot of time plodding up hills on foot, being dragged by the dogs.

• Some History

My first computer was one of these:

I've been interested in knowledge representation and machine learning for many years and have worked for several years on network technologies. I'm delighted to see these fields are now converging before my very eyes, in the form of the Web, soon to be formerly known as the Semantic Web. I got interested in these particular technologies while trying to build a smarter search engine, quite a while ago now.

I'm active on the Web. The earliest material of mine still live I believe is this from around 1996. Most things pass through the blog these days (my earliest bloglike post is probably this postcard from around 1999/2000).

I haven't really got any paper qualifications, though I had 2 years studying electronics for the music industry (HND level) and a one-year degree course at Sheffield Hallam University on Engineering Information Technology, really enjoying the digital signals material but flunking the finals on analogue circuit theory. I've also done some of a part-time MSc in Computing for Commerce and Industry with the Open University, although that's become totally redundant with the work I've been doing since.

I got into distributed computing while working at the University of Derby's Buxton Campus (High Peak College), where for around 4 years my primary responsibility was looking after a network (Netware, NT and the obligatory Linux box) serving several hundred staff and several thousand students. The IT department was a very small team, so I was also on call for end-user support (I still cringe when the phone rings). At one point I had the pleasure of redesigning the whole server configuration essentially single-handedly, I also put together the College's first Intranet and was behind their initial presence on the Web. Around the same period I was an invited speaker at the MumJava Conference in Mumbai (Bombay), India. I also did a little teaching at the College, basic Web stuff and Java.

@@TODO mention IdeaGraph

Published Work

I write an irregular column for IEEE Internet Computing called Webscience

I wrote significant chunks of these books :

• Beginning RSS and Atom Programming (lead author, Spring 2005)
• Beginning XML
• SVG Unleashed
• XML Application Development with MSXML 4.0
• Professional XML Meta Data
• Professional Java Mobile Programming
• Professional Java Data
• Professional JSP
• Professional Java Server Programming (Spring 1999)

I've tech reviewed a lot more.

I've done a couple of short pieces for O'Reilly's xml.com : Extending RSS and Creating an SVG Wiki

In the days before the Web I had several articles published in the magazine "Electronics World & Wireless World" - on or roundabout non-linear circuitry. These included a write-up on how easy it was for circuits to get chaotic, and a bat detector. Two of these articles appeared as the cover feature of the magazine.

For totally up-to-date info, check the weblog.

@@TODO hCard, vCard? GRDDLable FOAF/XFN, RDFa?

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1999-2005 Danny Ayers