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26th May 2010 @ 12:12
Jisc Tags: technicalDevelopment;rapidInnovation;VRERI;JISC;BlogMyData
Progress Post Type: techStandards
BlogMyData is all about linking the Godiva2 data visualization website with a blogging engine, so that users can record comments and collaborate on what they see in Godiva2. This post briefly describes the main components of the system and how they fit together.

Here is an overview diagram of the system:
BlogMyData overview diagram


Godiva2 has two extra features: the ability for a user to log in (using OpenID), and the addition of a "Create blog post" link. Upon clicking this, the user is presented with a pop-up window allowing them to add the text and title of their post. This is then sent to the blog engine (in Southampton), along with other automatically-included metadata such as the username, the dataset under investigation and the geographic coordinates of the current viewing window.

The geographic information is stored in a geospatial database (we are using the popular PostGIS system). Actually, for reasons of current convenience, this database is located in Reading, and entries are sent to it from the blog engine over the web using FeatureServer.

The information can then be displayed on the blog's website, or syndicated to other clients using RSS (for Outlook, Google Reader and other feed readers) and GeoRSS (geo-tagged RSS, for geo-enabled feed readers such as Google Maps).