Tech Tools

From Open NZ Wiki

This page contains a list of resources for individuals intending to develop tools.

[edit] Getting Started

[edit] Where to ask questions

http://getthedata.org/ is a global resource that deals with data issues. The Open Government Ninjas list is also a pretty good resource if you want to talk to kiwis. One caveat though, while there are quite a few technical people watching, try to too ask many developer-orientated questions. We don't want to scare anyone off.

[edit] Getting data

One of the best places to start is Quora's Open Data section. One of the best questions to follow is http://www.quora.com/Data/Where-can-I-get-large-datasets-open-to-the-public, which has a huge list of freely available data sources.

For New Zealand data, try data.govt.nz. Also, you'll be surprised what you'll find by doing a Google search for "site:.nz ext:.xls".

[edit] Cleaning data

Google Refine is a fantastic, easy-to-use tool.

[edit] Visualising data

Protoviz is one of the leading JavaScript libraries in this space

[edit] Learning More

[edit] Programming

If you would like to learn how to programme, here's a list of hundreds of freely available programming books.

[edit] Semantic Web

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/155601/what-is-the-best-way-to-learn-about-rdf-owl
LESS - template engine for accessing RDF & Linked Data - http://less.aksw.org/browse
Sesame - an open source framework for storage, inferencing and querying of RDF data. - http://openrdf.org/

[edit] Linked Data

Linked Data is an effort to share data across the web. http://linkeddatabook.com/ is a good, published resource that goes into some depth about what the potential of this area is.