[okfn-labs] Labs newsletter: 16 January, 2014

[Neil Ashton]

Welcome back from the holidays! A new year of Labs activities is well
underway, with long-discussed improvements to the Labs projects page, many
new PyBossa developments, a forthcoming community hangout, and more.

*## Labs projects page*

Getting the Labs project page organized
better<https://github.com/okfn/okfn.github.com/issues/46>has been high
on the agenda for some time now. In the past little while,
significant progress has been made. New improvements to the project page
include:

   - a custom filter menu <https://github.com/okfn/okfn.github.com/pull/168>
   - individual project
lightbox<https://github.com/okfn/okfn.github.com/pull/165>
   - attributes for projects<https://github.com/okfn/okfn.github.com/pull/159>

Oleg Lavrosky <http://okfnlabs.org/members/loleg/>, Daniel Lombraña
González<http://okfnlabs.org/members/teleyinex/>,
and Andy Lulham <http://okfnlabs.org/members/andylolz/> have all
contributed to this development—and work is still ongoing, with further
enhancements to
attributes<https://github.com/okfn/okfn.github.com/issues/161>and more
work on the UI <https://github.com/okfn/okfn.github.com/issues/160> still
to come.

*## Lots of PyBossa milestones*

PyBossa has achieved so many milestones since the last newsletter that it's
hard to know where to begin.

PyBossa v0.2.1 was released by Daniel Lombraña
González<http://okfnlabs.org/members/teleyinex/>,
becoming a more robust service through the inclusion of a new rate-limiting
feature for API calls. Alongside rate limits, the new PyBossa has improved
security through the addition of a secure cookie-based solution for posting
task runs. Full details can be found in the
documentation<http://docs.pybossa.com/en/latest/api.html#rate-limiting>
.

Daniel also released a new PyBossa
template<http://daniellombrana.es/taggingpictures.html>for annotating
pictures. The template, which incorporates the
Annotorious.JS <http://annotorious.github.io/> JavaScript library,
"allow[s] anyone to extract structured information from pictures or photos
in a very simple way".

The Enki <https://github.com/PyBossa/enki> package for analyzing PyBossa
applications was also released over the break. Enki makes it possible to
download completed PyBossa tasks and associated task runs, analyze them
with Pandas <http://pandas.pydata.org/>, and share the result as an IPython
Notebook <http://ipython.org/notebook.html>. Check out Daniel's blog
post<http://daniellombrana.es/blog/2013/12/16/pybossa-enki.html>on
Enki to see what it's about.

*## New on the blog*

We've had a couple of great new contributions on the Labs
blog<http://okfnlabs.org/blog/>since the last newsletter.

Thomas Levine <http://okfnlabs.org/members/tlevine/> has written about how
he parses PDF files <http://okfnlabs.org/blog/2013/12/25/parsing-pdfs.html>,
lovingly exploring a problem that all data wranglers will encounter and
gnash their teeth over at least a few times in their lives.

Stefan Urbanek <http://okfnlabs.org/members/Stiivi/>, meanwhile, has
written an introduction to
OLAP<http://okfnlabs.org/blog/2014/01/10/olap-introduction.html>,
"an approach to answering multi-dimensional analytical queries swiftly",
explaining what that means and why we should take notice.

*## Dānabox*

Labs friend Darwin Peltan <http://okfn.org/members/darwin/> reached out to
the list to point out that his friend's project
Dānabox<http://danabox.io/>is looking for testers and general
feedback. Labs members are invited to
pitch in by finding bugs and breaking it.

Dānabox is "Heroku but with public payment pages", crowdsourcing the
payment for an app's hosting costs. Dānabox is open
source<https://github.com/danabox>and built on the Deis
platform <http://deis.io/>.

*## Community hangout*

It's almost time for the Labs community hangout. The Labs hangout is the
regular event where Labs members meet up online to discuss their work, find
ways to collaborate, and set the agenda for the weeks to come.

When will the hangout take place? Rufus <http://okfnlabs.org/members/rgrp>
 proposes moving the hangout from the 21st to the
23rd<https://github.com/okfn/okfn.github.com/issues/167>.
If you want to participate, leave a comment on the thread to let Labs know
what time would work for you.

*## Get involved*

Labs is the Labs community, no more and no less, and you're invited to
become a part of it! Join the community <http://okfnlabs.org/join/> by
coding, writing for the blog, kicking around ideas on the Ideas
Page<http://okfnlabs.org/ideas/>,
or joining the conversation on the Labs mailing
list<http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/okfn-labs>
.

-- 
Neil Ashton

Technical Writer and Analyst  | skype: nmashton

The Open Knowledge Foundation <http://okfn.org/>
*Empowering through Open Knowledge*
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