Posting your pictures online

May 7th, 2008

Sharing your pictures on the web seems like a very trivial matter, right? well I can tell you it is not that trivial. Here is my story.

Back in 2004 when I first created Chichipanguanorrea I chose Fotopic as the solution for sharing my pictures. The interface was ugly but uploading the pictures was very easy with a Java-based plugin. Unfortunately the free version of Fotopic has a limit of 250 MB which I reached a couple of years ago. Today if you ask me to rate Fotopic, I would give them a 4 out of 10.

flickr
Later in 2005 I created a flickr account and started uploading pictures. Since the free version of flickr has a limit on the amount of data you can upload each month and it only shows the last 200 pictures (the rest of the pictures can still be accessed through perma-links), I decided to use flickr as the place to upload ONLY my best pictures. I really like many of the features flickr offers: tags, a huge community, nice interface, geo-tagging, but the limitations prevents it from being the best option for uploading tons of pictures.

In 2006 I decided to try some options I could easily integrate with my WordPress blog: I tried FAlbum and Gallery but it was zenphoto who won my heart. I installed zenphoto in my blog and have been using it since then. It is really easy to upload the pictures and the galleries are created automatically. My only complain would be that including a picture inside a post is not so straight forward.

Today I decided to revamp my picture gallery after updating my blog with the latest WordPress distribution available last night. I’m between upgrading my zenphoto installation to the latest version which has some new features or trying NextGen gallery, a WordPress plugin that seems to be very popular among WordPress users. The good news is that I can try NextGen without removing my current zenphoto installation nor I have to duplicate my picture galleries.

Here are some examples of how NextGen works:

Test 1: adding a picture with the reflection effect

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Test 2: adding a picture with a watermark

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Test 3: adding a gallery

At this point I’m liking NextGen a lot, but I’m having trouble getting the pictures to show up. I think this is because I’m pointing to the pictures from zenphoto and the permissions might not be properly set up. I noticed that even in zenphoto I cannot open a picture file directly

Wordpress 2.5 upgrade

May 6th, 2008

Wordpress
I’m not going to give you all the nasty details, but I just updated Chichipanguanorrea 3.0 to use Wordpress 2.5 and it wasn’t a smooth upgrade.

Anyway finally I got everything back in order so you (and the other 4 readers) can continue enjoying the Chichipanguanorrea sensation.

nine inch nails is the best band ever

May 5th, 2008

Trent Reznor rocks! I said once. NIN fuckin’ rocks! I said later. I even was crazy enough to play along with them. But now I have to say: nine inch nails is the best band in the world. I’m really sorry Pink Floyd, U2 or Soda Stereo.

The Slip - Nine Inch Nails

“thank you for your continued and loyal support over the years - this one’s on me” - trent reznor

Austin hidden treasures

April 20th, 2008



Rocks path

Originally uploaded by Daniel Jaramillo



Today I decided to drive around Capital of Texas Highway / 360 and find neat places to take pictures of. That is how I discovered the Bull Creek District Park.

Learning to pic

April 18th, 2008

Still learning how to take good pictures. Check my latest pictures on flickr and leave some comments if you love/hate what you see.

Learning to fly is one of my favorite Pink Floyd songs.

Life in Austin: Update (not worth reading)

April 11th, 2008

There is a time in every blogger’s life when you simply don’t have much interesting material to post about, so you decide to create a post about the last few things that have been going on. Unfortunately this is not the first time I do this, so feel free to drop some hate comments and show me your love and appreciation.

Last week I was recognized in my company with the ‘Engineering Excellence’ award which is given to about 8-15 engineers every year. I was pretty happy with the award because it motivates me to keep working hard and doing a good job at work. (Note to self: update resumé)

Last weekend it was Claudia Lorente’s 30th birthday which she celebrated at her place with a fabulous cricket game. A lot of friends were there and I had a great time. The day after was Gabriel’s bday and we celebrated it in my house. I hadn’t had a party in my house in a while and I figured I could have one. The party was really fun, lots of friends, alcohol and dancing until 5am. The next morning I had to play soccer with the NI Eagles and we beated team Black Star 2-0. There are only two games left this season and it looks like we have a chance to finish 4th or 5th place if we win the last two games. Right now we are in 7th place.

I already did my taxes which I still need to send, including a big fat check that I wish I didn’t have to pay. I was surprised how quickly I did my taxes. Either after 6 years doing taxes you get better at it, or TurboTax has became much better, or I just don’t care much about them anymore that I don’t triple check everything. I think it is the combination of those three.

I’m jealous of two friends (Eva Noyola and Natalia Uribe) who are going to Portishead concerts in London and Munich. So far I haven’t seen anything about them coming to the US.

Life is good…

La Liga de la Leche

March 20th, 2008

La Leche League

English version below

La Leche League (LLL) o Liga de la Leche es una organización sin ánimo de lucro que ofrece información, apoyo y respaldo a las madres que desean amamantar a sus bebes.

Dos meses antes de yo nacer, mi mamá conoció y se unió a la Liga de la Leche y desde entonces por muchos años ha recomendado amamantar al bebe, a cuanta mujer embarazada ha conocido. Recientemente mi familia estuvo de visita en Austin, y mi madre se enteró que dos amigas (Daniela y Pilar) estaban embarazadas, así que me envió un paquete con diversos arículos relacionados con el tema de la lactancia. Como los articulos estaban impresos, le pedí el favor de que tambien me los enviara en formato digital y con la ayuda de mi hermana los escaneé y compilé en un pdf que anexo a continuación:

Arículos La Liga de la Leche

English version
La Leche League (LLL) is a non-profit organization dedicated to promote breastfeeding as the most natural and effective way of understanding and satisfying the needs of the baby.

Two months before I was born my mother heard and joined this group and for many years she has been promoting breastfeeding to every pregnant woman she meets. Recently my family came to Austin and my mother found out that two close friends of mine were pregnant (Daniela and Pilar) so she sent me a package with different breastfeeding articles in spanish but I also asked her to send me the articles in digital form.

If you can’t read spanish I highly recommend you check the official LLL site.

Remebering Don Filemón

March 19th, 2008

A tribute to the Greatest Corona Man Ever…

Have you signed the online petition yet?

Molotov: YoFo NoFo ZaFa FoFo

February 15th, 2008
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I have seen better Molotov concerts in Austin, but none the less this one at ‘La Zona Rosa’ was really good too. They played many songs from the first album specially the ones with XXX lyrics. They also did some jamming and played snippets from a few covers like Eye of the tiger (survivor), Smells like teen spirit (nirvana), Enter Sadman (metallica) and Higher ground (rhcp stevie wonder).

The salt and the condiments: a true story

February 9th, 2008

Salt loves to play with its favorite orange ball, not because it reminds it of its ING bank account or its previous job at Arthur Andersen. Salt simply loves the orange ball. So when I saw those stupid condiments taking the orange ball from salt, I felt really sad.

Things will never be the same for salt.

imNotCrazy, iStopMotion.