A NOSQL Summer is a network of local reading groups, that will decipher & discuss NOSQL-related articles, from late June to early September 2010. Each group sets its own meeting pace (usually once a week or once every two weeks) and select which papers are up for discussion.

At every cycle, members read the selected paper at home and then meet up for an hour or so to discuss, debate and answer their own questions.

The paper then gets annotated and is published again on the NOSQL Summer website.

Four of our in the meantime already 12 local swimmers decided to join the first meeting and dived into interesting topics regarding NOSQL and distributed computing with fellow geeks. We were reading and discussing the article called “On Designing and Deploying Internet-Scale Services” (PDF) written by James Hamilton. Our discussion was first driven this article but soon also covered other topics:

• Cloud computing and setups
• Privacy issues regarding cloud storage
• Social networks and privacy concerns
• Complexity in hardware setups regarding cloud services
• Hadoop and HBASE
• Philosophical discussions on how current and past society deals with privacy specially in cloud contexts

There were a lot of different opinions and views on using internet-services and the cloud for storing and processing one’s own data. Do you prefer to keep your data in a cloud or do you prefer to host all of your data by your own? We did not find one common answer to these questions and I guess you either won’t find one. It was an interesting meeting with friends and I am already looking forward to the next one.

The next NOSQL Summer Meeting will be announced through the NOSQL Summer Website but I can already give you the date. It will take place on the 4th of August 2010, hosted at the campus of Graz University of Technology again.

If you are interested in NOSQL or distributed computing and distributed storage then just subscribe to the NOSQL Summer Group of Graz and we will keep you informed on the next paper to read and on the next interesting dates.

Articles you may find interesting too

• Paper: On Designing and Deploying Internet-Scale Services (highscalability.com)
• Cassandra: Predicting the Future of NoSQL (readwriteweb.com)
• Structure 2010: The Future of SQL in the Cloud (gigaom.com)
• Weekly Wrap-up: Old Spice Videos, TED Talks for Startups, the New Digg, And More… (readwriteweb.com)
• NoSQL, Heroku, and You (heroku.com)
• Disruptive Cloud Computing Startups At Under The Radar – NoSQL – Aspirin, Vicodin, and Vitamin (cloudave.com)
• NoSQL Database CouchDB Turns 1.0 (readwriteweb.com)

We are pleased to inform you that your paper
Title: Will Personal Learning Environments become ubiquitous through the use of Widgets?
has been accepted for publication as short paper (max. 6 pages) in the conference proceedings on condition of integrating the recommendations of the reviewers.

The conference is located in Graz (Austria) from the 2nd – 4th of September 2009. By the way, it is my first publication which I very happy about! For everybody who is interested in the field of Knowledge Management and Knowledge Technologies should register for the conference as registration has just been opened.

Check out my colleagues on e-Learning Blog as well)

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• Keynotes @ I-SEMANTICS / I-KNOW 2009 (semantic-web.at)
• Personal Learning Networks – The Beginning (downes.ca)
• 7 Things You Should Know About Personal Learning Environments (downes.ca)

It stands to reason that people who are “starting to come down with something” often take the opportunity to search for information on what ails them, even before they discuss their symptoms with a healthcare professional. Who gets more of those searches than anyone? Google, of course. [ReadWriteWeb]

Google offers a new service called Google Flu Trends. The service uses an analysis of Google’s millions of search queries every day to calculate flu trends.

The New York Times writes in an article called: “Google Uses Searches to Track Flu’s Spread“:

Tests of the new Web tool from Google.org, the company’s philanthropic unit, suggest that it may be able to detect regional outbreaks of the flu a week to 10 days before they are reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. [New York Times]

Interesting is the fact that trends can be observed a lot earlier than by traditional institutions. Google’s users search for symptoms on internet and through these searches Google generates reports and can inform health institutions to react on these trends.

By now Google Flu Trends is just available in the United States but I am looking forward on using these service in Austria too.

The seminars of the European Forum Alpbach have started today. One Seminar that I am attennding is called “Europe Old and New?” held by Fraser Cameron, Senior Adviser, European Policy Centre, Brussels and Gregor Woschnagg, Retired Ambassador, Republic of Austria, Vienna. Today we are briefly discussing the past 50 years of the European Union as well as some present issues for example the Reform Treaty.

I will post fotos regularly on my Mobile Blog, please have a look at it!

One book that I would like to recommend you is “An Introduction to European Foreign Policy” written by Fraser Cameron. It gives you a very good introduction to the European Foreign Policy, please have a look at it.