Words | Michele Pasin

2012

blog DJFacet 0.9.7: MPTT hierarchical facets now supported!

May 2012

DJFacet is a pluggable module for the Django web application framework that allows you to navigate the data in your web app using an approach based on 'facets'. I've already written about DJFacet in the past; now the good news is that I've released a major update to the software with complete support for hierarchical facets.

2010

blog Gmail labels sorting order

Oct 2010

Gmail's labels are great for they let you organize your constantly growing mailbox in a non-final way. That is, using the 'tagging' concept, you can assign the same tag to multiple items, or different tags to the same items, add/remove tags etc etc. All of this is well known and documented. One thing though still surprises me. Why the heck can't we set the labels' order arbitrarily? (now they are automatically sorted alphabetically).

blog NoDictionaries.com :: innovative way to read latin classics

Sep 2010

NoDictionaries is a web app that makes it very easy to look up the meaning of words while reading a latin text. It uses a freely available latin dictionary (Whitaker's Words) and what it does is essentially to enrich each line of a latin text with the explanations of the words appearing in it.

2009

blog Opening UIF files on Mac

Apr 2009

The UIF file extension stands for Universal Image Format. An UIF file contains a compressed disk image – basically it is an exact copy of a CD or a DVD. Just like the more common ISO filetype, the UIF format is typically used to create CD/DVD backups.

blog Faceted Browsing: a conceptual map

Mar 2009

UPDATE 8/6/11: I uploaded an improved version of the map Faceted search (navigation, or browsing) is a technique for accessing a collection of information represented using a faceted classification, allowing users to explore by filtering available information. A faceted classification system allows the assignment of multiple classifications to an object, enabling the classifications to be ordered in multiple ways, rather than in a single, pre-determined, taxonomic order.

2007

blog Turning the pages of literature

Jan 2007

It's a new service offered by the British Library, consisting on a Shockwave app that lets you flick through the scanned pages of various authors' works. Not particularly exciting from the technology point of view, but quite amazing if you think that you're looking at William Blake's notebook, directly from your home computer...

2006

blog Navigating the Rijksmuseum

Oct 2006

The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam is a very nice venue, and its paintings even better. You can have a detailed look at them, thanks to the beautiful website that also features an interesting navigation facility. Just click on "explore the collection ":