What are picons?
"picons" is short for "personal icons". They're small, constrained
images used to represent users and domains on the net, organized into
databases so that the appropriate image for a given e-mail address can
be found. Besides users and domains, there are picons databases for
Usenet newsgroups and weather forecasts. The picons are in either
monochrome XBM format or color XPM and GIF formats.
These databases have been compiled in hopes of helping make cyberspace
a more personable place. With them, software and services can be
developed to identify persons on the net by face (or, at least, by
institution logo) instead of by a cryptic e-mail address. Although
this software is still more potential than actual, much already exists
(see 6.). The picons databases themselves, of course, are only a first
step toward this goal.
The picons databases have been built from the submissions of hundreds
of contributors across the net, and, as such, their accuracy and
appropriateness has not been extensively verified. Contributions and
corrections are welcome and encouraged (see 8.).
The picons databases that currently are available are:
* domains, logos for Internet domains
* misc, picons for common accounts and miscellany
* news, icons for Usenet newsgroups
* unknown, default picons for very high-level Internet domains
* usenix, face images of Usenix conference attendees
* users, picons for individual accounts (often face images)
* weather, icons for displaying weather forecasts
The picons databases have previously been referred to as "faces"
collections or databases, because they were originally compiled for
use with the "faces" software. Since they're now used for more than
this and include more than actual face images, they're referred to as
the picons databases to make the distinction and to avoid overloading
the term "faces".Each database is structured as a directory tree. Each directory deeper
into a database more specifically references a picon. The databases
for users and domains are organized by reversed Internet domainname
components followed by the username. For example, my XPM picon is
located in the "users" database under my most general e-mail address,
kinzler@indiana.edu, in the file
users/edu/indiana/kinzler/face.xpm
The picon files themselves are always named face.xbm, face.xpm or
face.gif. If a face.xpm file exists, then an equivalent face.gif file
will also exist, and vice versa. If the picon applies to the domain as
a whole and no user in particular, the username "unknown" is used.
These picons are typically in the "domains" or "unknown" databases,
for example
domains/edu/indiana/cs/unknown/face.xpm
If the picon applies to a specific user in any domain (usually
standard system accounts), the domain "MISC" is used. These picons are
typically in the "misc" or "unknown" databases, for example
misc/MISC/postmaster/face.xpm
Note that, with the exception of the special MISC domain, all parts of
the path are in lower-case.
The "news" database is organized by Usenet newsgroup name components
with an "unknown" username. For example, the XPM picon for
rec.humor.oracle is in
news/rec/humor/oracle/unknown/face.xpm
Download:picon-domains Picon (Personal Images) database of for Internet domain logos. (picon-domains_2001.04.30-1_all.deb, 2.42 MB)
picon-domains Picon (Personal Images) database of for Internet domain logos. (picon-domains_2004.08.05-1_all.deb, 2.90 MB)
picon-misc Picon (Personal Images) database of common accounts and misc. (picon-misc_2001.01.02-2_all.deb, 42.97 KB)
picon-misc Picon (Personal Images) database of common accounts and misc. (picon-misc_2004.01.02-1_all.deb, 42.78 KB)
picon-news Picon (Personal Images) db of Usenet newsgroups and hierarchies (picon-news_2001.01.02-1_all.deb, 219.36 KB)
picon-news Picon (Personal Images) db of Usenet newsgroups and hierarchies (picon-news_2004.06.02-1_all.deb, 431.77 KB)
picon-usenix Picon (Personal Images) db of Usenix conference attendees. (picon-usenix_1995.04.13-6_all.deb, 12.99 MB)
picon-usenix Picon (Personal Images) db of Usenix conference attendees (picon-usenix_1995.04.13-7_all.deb, 12.99 MB)
picon-users Picon (Personal Images) database of individual Internet accounts (picon-users_2001.05.16-1_all.deb, 3.87 MB)
picon-users Picon (Personal Images) database of individual Internet accounts (picon-users_2004.07.12-1_all.deb, 4.17 MB)
picon-weather Picon (Personal Images) database for displaying weather forecasts. (picon-weather_2001.01.02-2_all.deb, 75.53 KB)
picon-weather Picon (Personal Images) database for displaying weather forecasts. (picon-weather_2004.01.02-1_all.deb, 75.40 KB)There's a number of programs available that use picons to monitor
incoming e-mail or represent an e-mail message. Applications are also
available to monitor print queues, unread news, system mail queues,
weather forecasts, given addresses and newsgroups, and so on.
All such software can be found in the Faces Archive available via WWW
at <URL:http://www.cs.indiana.edu/ftp/faces/index.html> or via FTP in
ftp://ftp.cs.indiana.edu/pub/faces/.
The Faces Archive is also mirrored in the UUNET archives in
ftp.uu.net:/published/usenix/faces/bundled/, where they're available
via FTP or UUCP.
The Picons Search engine at
<URL:http://www.cs.indiana.edu/picons/search.html> searches the picons
databases for requested picon sets and displays the found picons. As
such, it can serve as an icon lookup service for Internet users and
domains and Usenet newsgroups.
The Picons Card Game at
<URL:http://www.cs.indiana.edu/cgi-bin/picons-cardgame> lets you play
a card game in JavaScript with any number of players, any number of
cards, and any set of Web images, including many pre-defined subsets
of picons to randomly select from. It's a fun and challenging game for
all ages.
The Picons Sonification page at
<URL:http://www.cs.indiana.edu/picons/javoice/index.html> uses the
vOICe Java applet to compute and play auditory representations of
images, including GIF picons, intended as a step towards a vision
substitution device for the blind.
The WWW-Finger Gateway with Faces at
<URL:http://www.cs.indiana.edu/finger/gateway> displays picon
sequences for the users and hosts it fingers.
Anthony's Icon Library (AIcons) at
<URL:http://www.sct.gu.edu.au/~anthony/icons/> includes some picons
among its various icon sections, which are organized for programming,
application and Web usage. In particular, the library highlights the
country flag domain picons and the Olympic event logo picons.
The Indiana University Computer Science Personnel Directory at
<URL:http://www.cs.indiana.edu/people/index.html> uses picons of users
in indices of its personnel information pages.
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