Miguel Sánchez

And thank you for a movie that I will always love.

Most of the Internet users have a group of favourite websites that they visit frecuently. Before 2004, to get updated of their latest content, it was necesary to visit each site one by one on your web browser.

Fortunately, some of them such as Opera or Firefox, started to include a tabbed browsing system, so you can open all of your favourites at the same time on different tabs. Still it was a help at the time, it wasn’t a solution.

In 2005 a new family of buttons and links started to appear on a growing number of websites representing RSS formats. They let us to automatically get the latest content from our favourite sites. And it’s possible to group all those feeds on a RSS reader to gather all the information on a single place, a feed aggregator. No more browsing and time wasting.

The process is really simple as RSS means now Really Simple Syndication ;) But first, you need a feed aggregator (also known as RSS reader, feed reader or news reader). You’ll find a bunch of client software that can be installed on your computer, although there are a lot of Web based applications that work great and don’t need any installation or maintenance. I’ll use Netvibes for the example.

How to add a feed to your aggregator on three easy steps:

1. Go to one of your favourite sites and look for a RSS icon/link. Right click over it and select “Copy link location”.
2. Open your feed aggregator, click on any “Add feed” option and paste the URL that you have copied before.
3. The aggregator will check the feed and, if validated, it will be added to the rest of your feeds.

Now you can create your own newspaper by adding as RSS feeds as information sources you usually read.

There are also media aggregators (i.e.: Miro, Amarok, iTunes, Songbird, etc.) and I’ll talk about them soon.

More information on history of web syndication technology .

Obviously, traditional photography has conquered the Internet and sites like Flickr or Picasa Web Albums are known by everybody. But what about other specific formats? Panorama images are one of the most awesomest. A few years ago, uploading this kind of (huge size) photos to a website was almost a sin. But today with a better global bandwidth and widescreen monitors, is pure fun.

There are also tons of software solutions to create your panoramas and a growing market of cool 360º cameras to get your shots. Once you get your panoramic photos, you can share them on the following sites:

1. Gigapan .
   As they say "GigaPan allows users to upload, share, and explore brilliant gigapixel+ panoramas from around the globe". Also available on Google Earth .
2. ViewAt .
   Another great site to share your panoramas. Map interface. Also available on Google Earth .
3. Fullscreen QTVR .
   Panorama images of the Grand Canyon, Paris, Rome, Barcelona…even Mars and the Moon. You can submit your panoramics following some simple guidelines .
4. 360 Cities .
   This site features panoramic photos of city scenes from around the world. Map interface. Also available on Google Earth . No sharing options, but you can apply to be a 360 Cities Featured Traveller .
5. Panoguide .
   A complete site about panoramic images. You can share your photos at the gallery or learn about shooting one at the how-to section .
6. Panoye .
   Map interface, sharing options, tags and other Web 2.0 look& feel elements.
7. Wikimedia Commons Panoramas .
   I know is not a panoramas site itself but they offer a gallery of amazing shots under GNU Free Documentation license .

There are such a lot of interesting people out there. Stephen Hawking, Matthieu Ricard, Ken Robinson and many other of the brightest minds of our era. The world’s leading thinkers talking about the big ideas. Universe, happiness, science, education, arts, etc. It would be great to enjoy and spread their ideas.

So does TED Talks in Monterey (California) every year since 1984. The bad news is the annual membership fee is up to $6.000. And the best news is they select the most interesting talks and made them avaliable on video…for free on the Internet! Such a cultural treasure on your computer screen. You can find all the talks organized by categories (most inspiring, most beautiful, etc.) on:

TED website.

So what’s your favourite TED Talk?

If you’re using Wordpress 2.5, the latest version released just a week ago, you’ll find a very useful toolbar when writing a new post. The Add media lets you insert/upload images, videos and sounds to your post easily.

But you might encounter some problems when trying to upload an image for the first time. The Choose File tabs will show you error messages:

• HTTP error.
• An error occurred in the upload. Please try again later.

Don’t try again later! :) Just add the following lines to the .htaccess file located in the root directory of your web server.

<IfModule mod_security.c>
<Files async-upload.php>
SecFilterEngine Off
SecFilterScanPOST Off
</Files>
</IfModule>

Add these lines below the existing code.

I’d like to share the best references and resources that I’ve found since 2005. All the bookmarks are organized by tags using a Delicious account. I try to get them updated as I discover new useful references. Of course, suggestions are welcome :)

Delicious - WebDesign

I’ll add this link to the Teaching area as I always share these bookmarks with the students.

I’ve never had a great concept about personal blogs. I’ve even considered them as a narcissism tool. But recently I thought that I could get a fresh perspective on it.
What I know and what I learn daily, I owe to other people. So my intention is to try to give back the favour, sharing here the knowledge that I could acquire in the areas where I use to get my nose in (or blunder). I’ll also use this blog as a channel to receive references and suggestions that I’ll sincerely appreciate.