MacResearch

As we move towards the world of Web 2.0 the need to consume and analyze web-based computational and data resources will increase dramatically. Importing data from web-based resources in an automated or large-scale fashion traditionally entails the technical ability to write code that interfaces with the various complex SOAP, REST, and other web-based Application Programming Interfaces (API) that sit atop these resources. Those lacking such technical abilities are currently restricted to manual, browser-based interactions with these data resources. When a Mac user finds himself/herself in need of a simple interface to complex technologies they can often turn to the innovative Mac development community, and in this case a small company called Metafy answers the call in the form of a software packaged named Anthracite. Anthracite is "Web Mining Desktop toolkit gives you the tools you need to build powerful data processing systems with an easy-to-use visual interface that makes complex manipulations quickly possible". Using a simple point-and-click interface, Anthracite allows you to develop complex web mining workflows that can export the resulting data to a variety of formats including XML, Excel (CSV), and MySQL. Metafy provides a large number of Anthracite usage examples, and although none of these examples are explicitly scientific in nature, the principles demonstrated could easily be adapted to almost any scientific web mining application. Although Anthracite isn't free, it's really the only application of its kind on the Mac platform, and if the $99 price tag is too high, it may be possible to inquire Metafy about academic or volume purchase discounts.