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RSS Feeds

Ever wondered what does this icon, that appear on almost every website, mean? Today, I will be talking about RSS feeds, acronym for: Really Simple Syndication!

Some fact first!
Today Billions of websites are interconnected and this number is growing every day. Among these, thousands are really interesting and I bet you are interested in more than one hundred!

This is what I first do when I am online: check my gmail (that gathers all my email addresses into one single account, I will be talking about this later on), check some news pages, mainly tayyar.org, annahar, BBC, Reuters.. Get to know the latest sports scores, the latest scores and sports updates (mainly how many interceptions did Joe Flacco throw on Sunday), read some very interesting Tech new at Ars Technica, Digg, Slashdot, Gizmodo and many others. I would also take a look at my "Astronomy picture of the day" and check what's new at Scientific American. Finally, I would check "too", Sergey Brin's personal blog (which, btw, was not updated since it was launched on September 18)!


The problem:
mmm, you are wondering now.. How long will this take, especially with the slow connection. What if most of these pages that I usually visit were not updated at all? That means that I would be wasting my time checking them out! To make things worse, sometimes I visit a pages, wait for it to load and find out that only 1 subject interests me in that page. More time was wasted here.


A better way!
Today we are going to talk about a new and efficient way to keep up with all the stuff that's happening on the internet.

2 ways that you can keep up with whats happening on the net:

1- Old way: You login to your PC and start checking if there are any updates on your favorites pages. You will check every page by itself, some might have been updated, but others. Every time you look for something time that its not there, you have wasted some valuable times.

2- New way: Have your favorite parts of the Web come to you, not the other way! No need to go out and check for updates all the time. No need for bookmarks! So, in other words, you can keep up with all the updates to your favorite pages without having to check the site every day to see "what's new." New pages and updates to old ones are sent to you through RSS.


How do you get started with RSS Feeds?
Easy! Get yourself an RSS reader! This is special software that reads the RSS feeds... You can go with a Desktop-based or Web-based RSS reader.


Desktop-based RSS readers
This is an application that needs to be installed on your PC. You can add RSS Feeds addresses into this program, and updates will be delivered to you as soon as they are published. Some desktop-based RSS readers include:

Windows:
NewGator FeedDemon
FeedReader
RssReader




FeedDemon is the most advanced one of these 3. You can easily add feeds, change the view, customize the fonts, hit the "Panic Button" when the unread articles reach a huge number...etc. The most important feature of FeedDemon is the ability to synchronize 2 or more : for example, I have FeedDemon installed on my office laptop and on my home desktop and I am synching these 2. So, the same feeds appear on both machines, I don't have to re-subscribe to the same feeds again on the desktop PC. Moreover, if I read an article in a feed on one machine, it will be marked as read on the other. Same if I delete articles. NewGator also offers a web-based RSS reader (next section), which means that you can also read your feeds online if you cannot access your machine where FedDemon is installed: just login to NewsGator and there you go, you have a web-based reader. This tool is really useful!

FeedReader and RssReader are lighter, more basic readers without many features. On Mac, you can use NetNewsWire.


Web-based Feed readers:
An alternative to desktop-based RSS readers is web-based readers. You can easily sign-up for one of these web-based readers and start adding your favorite feeds to it. The advantage of this is that you don't need to install any tool on your PC and it's accessible anywhere, anytime. Another advantage is the social experience. Many of the web-based RSS readers allow users to rate a particular news post or tag a post so that it is more meaningful to other users. As a result, users of online feed readers can benefit from their peers and have a sense of the most relevant items.

Now, to the other side of these web-based readers! The main disadvantage is its slowness and lack of customization and its . I find it more appealing to get my RSS feeds in a dedicated application on my computer, rather to check them on the web.

Some web-based Feed readers:
Bloglines
Google Reader


To conclude on RSS Readers, well, it all depends on your preference. If you are more into social networking and find it better to use the web to get your RSS feeds, then web-based readers are yours. On the other hand, if you want to customize your RSS reading experience and make it faster, go with the desktop-based readers. NewsGator FeedDemon combines these 2, therefore it's highly recommended.


Subscribing to your favorite websites offering RSS Feeds
Here are most of the RSS Feeds icons that you can find on the web. If a webpage supports RSS Feeds, then you will probably encounter one of these icons. To get the RSS Feed address, click the icon in use.




You cal also find a small orange RSS Feed icon on the address bar. Similar to the regular RSS icon, to get the RSS Feed address, click on that icon.:


You will then get the address of the RSS Feed in question:



Copy this address, open your RSS reader (I am using FeedDemon), and click on "Subscribe":




Enter the address of your RSS Feed:




Voila, you're done!


Partial Versus Full RSS Feeds
I think that RSS is one of greatest tools that facilitates the way you browse the net. With so many sites in your bookmarks, it would take quite a bit of time to go through and check whether or not our favorite sites have been updated. RSS allows the site to tell us when it’s changed, which in my opinion is the ideal solution. What’s even greater is that the content is also provided with this notification.

Content? mmmm, some RSS Feeds display the FULL content of the update in question, and some other only display partial content, or a small summary of the update in question.

In the case of FULL content, you can read the FULL article in the RSS reader and you don't need to click on a link and open that article in your browser.




In the case of partial RSS Feed, you will need to click on the link provided in the update in order to read the full article.



Each of these 2 approaches has its positive and negative points. You will surely encounter both.

That's it for now! Yalla, get your favorite RSS reader and start collecting your most interesting RSS Feeds.

Enjoy!

No Comment | Posted in » Tech  

The Machine is Us/ing Us

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLlGopyXT_g

Brilliant. This is absolute brilliance!

Made me think about this for awhile.
This video and concept is truly inspiring!

This video was made by Dr. Michael Wesch from Kansas State University. Visit his Digital Ethnography Kansas State University page. Worth reading, believe me.

These are higher quality versions available for download:

Windows Media File (55 MB):
http://www.mediafire.com/?2wnmpy2ibz1

Quicktime File (96 MB):
http://www.mediafire.com/?axhbjnmw4yn

Mojiti Version (for comments, translations, etc.):
http://mojiti.com/kan/2743/5984


Enjoy!

No Comment | Posted in » Tech  

Web 2.0

Many of us heard the term Web 2.0. What is Web 1.0? and what about Web 2.0?

"Web 1.0 is a retronym which refers to the state of the World Wide Web, and website design style before the Web 2.0 phenomenon, and included most websites in the period between 1994 and 2004." -Wikipedia

There is a vast difference between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0. With Web 1.0, the webmaster is responsible of the burden of updating his website to keep his visitots informed and engaged.

Today internet users are looking for more than information, they're searching for an experience. New technology is transforming the way people use the World Wide Web.

Web 2.0 is a marketing term. It's a different way of building applications. The applications are relatively small they can run on any device, PC or mobile phone. They are very fast and customizable.

With Web 2.0, the webmaster shares the responsibility with his internet audience for keeping the website informative and engaging. The website is transforming from a simple static HTML place to store information to a dynamic place where people regularly gather and interact.

This concept have led to the development and evolution of web-based communities and hosted services, such as web forum, social-networking sites, social-bookmarking sites, wikis, blogs, podcasts.. etc.

Here's a list of some Web 2.0 applications:


Start Pages


Get your daily fix of the web with iGoogle. Customizable with a variety of widgets, Google's start page can include regular features such as weather reports as well as fun stuff like Beer of the Day.


Customize your Netvibes start page with the RSS feeds and widgets of your choice. Keep up with the weather, your favorite blogs, what's going on with your social networks and the latest news stories.


With a neat interface, Pageflakes lets you check your email, the weather, upcoming evnts, news and more on both its standard and customizable start pages.


Social Communities


Facebook attempts to bring all the features of social networking - messaging, photos, chat, groups, events and games - together into one web service. Find old friends, colleagues and new acquaintances and never lose touch again.


With Twitter, you can microblog your day, keep up with your friends and track the happenings at big events. Send and receive messages from your mobile phone, IM client or desktop application and never again be out of the loop!


Linkedin is like Facebook for business professionals: Build yourself a business network to give you credibility in job searches and hiring, or use LinkedIn to reconnect or keep in touch with important business connections.


Social Bookmarking Sites


Digg is all about user powered content. Everything is submitted and voted on by the digg community. Share, discover, bookmark, and promote stuff that's important to you!


del.icio.us is a social bookmarks manager. Using bookmarklets, you can add bookmarks to your list and categorize them


StumbleUpon uses thumbs up and down ratings to form collaborative opinions on website quality. When you stumble, you will only see pages which friends and like–minded stumblers have liked


Reddit is a source for what's new and popular online. reddit learns what you like as you vote on existing links or submit your own!


Furl lets you store your favorite online finds and let others discover the cool stuff you've bookmarked. Comment on the content you find and read what other users are saying about your bookmarks.


Photos and Digital Images


Flickr is both a great place to store your photographs and to search for high-quality images.


Picassa is Google's photo sharing service. It comes with excellent software for editing your pictures. Easy, fast uploads make Picasa fun and simple to use.


Collaborative Writing and Word Processing


Google Docs and Spreadsheets lets you create, store and share documents within your Google accountwith Google's free online document management feature.


Writeboard lets users edit documents while still being able to access earlier versions of the same text. Subscribe to RSS feeds of documents' changes and share documents with as many people as you like.


Thinkfree brings the functionality and features of a desktop office application to the Internet, from content creation to storage and collaboration.


Food and Cooking


Imcooked is an entire site dedicated to food, Im Cooked lets members share recipes, make friends, watch cooking videos and learn more about culinary arts without the frills that often come with gourmet food television shows and websites.


With ifoods, you can connect with fellow cooks from across the world, or just browse iFoods' collection of recipes, food-related discussions and blog posts. Enter competitions and prove yourself to be a superior chef!


In the future, I will be talking about Web 2.0 applications.

Cheers!

No Comment | Posted in » Tech  

Ankh: Everlsating Life

Possibly one of the most widely recognized symbols, sacred to the ancient Egyptians. In Egyptian hieroglyphics this symbol stands for life or living, and forms part of the Egyptian words such as 'health' and 'happiness'.

The Ankh is held by most Egyptian Gods. It is associated with Isis (eternal mother and High Priestess) and Osiris in the Early Dynastic Period. The loop of the ankh is considered to be the feminine, while the T shape is considered to be the masculine.. These two sacred units then come together and form life. Because of its powerful appeal, the Ankh was used in various religious and cultural rituals involving royalty. In the Treasures of Tutankhumun, the Ankh was a major artifact found in the tomb. The circle symbolizes eternal life and the cross below it represents the material plane. The Ankh is called the "Crux Ansata," it is of Egyptian origin and can be traced to the Early Dynastic Period, appearing frequently in artwork of various material and in relief, depicting the Gods.

It is usually held to the nose of the deceased king by the Gods to represent the breath of life given in the after-world. The Ankh also resembles a key and is considered the key to eternal life after death. Its influence was felt in every dynastic period and survives as an icon possessing mystical power throughout the Coptic Christian era. The Ankh possessed by each God had power associated with that God. The Ankh of the God Anubis (shown in the picture to the right) is related to the protection of the dead, that of Sekmet, War, Hapi related to the living waters of the Nile and Amen, the spirit God, the breath of life.

No Comment | Posted in » Ancient Egypt  

Stargazing

Astronomy geeks, this post is for you!

Stargazing is a hobby whose participants enjoy studying celestial objects. It is usually associated with viewing the night sky when most celestial objects and events are visible.

"In January, Venus, the “evening star,” is beginning to emerge low in the southwest after sunset. Each week it’s getting a bit easier to see in the twilight. After darkness falls, the winter constellation Orion strides high in the southeast. Orange Aldebaran, the eye of Taurus, the bull, shines above him. Far below Orion (and perhaps a bit to the left) sparkles brilliant Sirius, the Dog Star. Later in the evening, yellow Saturn rises in the east, with dimmer Regulus beneath it."

Check out this site for your guide of Stargazing!



There is also this great page: http://www.fourmilab.ch/yoursky/
It contains:

• The Sky Map that shows the entire sky as viewed from a given location at a specified time and date. A stereographic projection is used, as is the convention for printed star maps.
  
• Horizon Views, showing the stars above the horizon as seen from a specified observing site at a given date and time. The viewing direction (azimuth) may be set to cardinal points on the compass or arbitrarily by entering a value in degrees.
  
• The Virtual Telescope which is a sample virtual telescope image Your Sky's Virtual Telescope is your Humble Soft Telescope of the Web. Controls allow you to set time and date, aiming point, orbital elements to track an asteroid or comet, and a variety of viewing options. You can compose a request with custom settings and save the results in your browser's hotlist or bookmark table, allowing direct access to the virtual telescope with all the controls preset to your own preferences.

No Comment | Posted in » Astronomy  

Electronic Music Guide

Electronic music is music created using electronic devices. These devices are low-power systems and use components such as transistors and integrated circuits. Examples of an electronic instrument are samplers, theremins, synthesizers, and a computers.

Electronic Instruments:

• Synthesizer is an "electronic musical instrument designed to produce electronically generated sound, using techniques such as additive, subtractive, FM, physical modeling synthesis, phase distortion, or Scanned synthesis. Synthesizers create sounds through direct manipulation of electrical voltages (as in analog synthesizers), mathematical manipulation of discrete values using computers (as in software synthesizers), or by a combination of both methods. In the final stage of the synthesizer, electrical voltages generated by the synthesizer cause vibrations in the diaphragms of loudspeakers, headphones, etc. This synthesized sound is contrasted with recording of natural sound, where the mechanical energy of a sound wave is transformed into a signal which will then be converted back to mechanical energy on playback (though sampling synthesizers significantly blur this distinction). Synthesizers typically have a keyboard which provides the human interface to the instrument and are often thought of as keyboard instruments. However, a synthesizer's human interface does not necessarily have to be a keyboard, nor does a synthesizer strictly need to be playable by a human. Different fingerboard synthesizer or ribbon controlled synthesizers have also been developed."
  
• Sampler is an "electronic music instrument closely related to a synthesizer. Instead of generating sounds from scratch, however, a sampler starts with multiple recordings (or “samples”) of different sounds, and then plays each back based on how the instrument is configured. Because these samples are usually stored in RAM, the information can be quickly accessed. Unlike traditional digital audio playback, each sample is associated with a set of synthesis parameters, and can thus be modified in many different ways. Most samplers have polyphonic capabilities: they are able to play more than one note at the same time. Many are also multitimbral: they can play back different sounds at the same time."

1. Trance: Trance is the most emotional genre. It can make you cry, make you shout, make you cheer, and make you celebrate absolutely nothing of substance except pure, ecstatic bliss. This is interesting, when at one time it was very repetitive and hypnotic (hence its label 'trance').
   
   • Progressive: The term "progressive" typically refers to the structure of a track which occur incrementally. An exception is progressive trance. The term Progressive trance usually refers to a type of trance music that features a less prominent lead melody and focuses more on the atmosphere.
     Sasha - Xpander
     Lost Tribe - Gamemaster
     Marc Norman - Touchdown
     
   • Dark: Darker, more "evil-sounding" Trance.
     Fascinated - Totally Fascinated
     De Niro - Mind of man
     
   • Melodic: Less loops, very melodic.
     BT - Flaming June
     
   • Uplifting (Anthem): A combination of Progressive and Melodic Trance. It's the most popular dance music in the world, it's euphoric and the most emotional Trance.
     Rank1 - Airwave
     Paul Van Dyk - For an Angel
     Vincent de Moor - Fly Away
     Tiesto - Adagio for Strings
     
   • Tech: More techy, less melodic, more loops, very similar to House music.
     Timo Maas - Riding on a Storm
     Breeder - The Chain
     
   • Vocal: Trance music accompanied with some vocals.
     Tiesto - Silence (Tiesto's In Search of sunrise remix)
     Planet Perfecto - Bullet in the Gun
     
   • Psychedelic or Goa: Psychedelic Trance removes the hindu/middle-eastern influences and melodies and full-on blasts you with great sounds...teleport zappers, star trek tweeps, nintendo twerps, theremin squeels, feedback hums and radio antennae frequency squelches. This is the futuristic sci-fi Trance.
     Infected Mushroom - Acid Killer
     Hallucinogen - Twisted (Album)
     
2. Techno: Techno is a form of electronic dance music that became prominent in Detroit, Michigan during the mid-1980s with influences from Chicago House, electro, New Wave, Funk and futuristic fiction themes that were prevalent and relative to modern culture during the end of the Cold War in industrial America at that time. Following the initial success of Detroit Techno as a musical culture — at the very least on a regional level — an expanded and related subset of genres in the 1990s emerged globally. The term "techno", which derives from "technology", is often used (many would say misused) to refer to all forms of electronic music. Music journalists and fans of the genre, however, are generally more selective in their use of the term, being careful not to conflate it with related but distinct genres (i.e. house, trance)
   
   
   • Detroit Techno: Detroit techno is an early style of techno music originating from Detroit, Michigan, USA in the mid-1980s. A distinguishing trait of Detroit techno is the use of analog synthesizers and early drum machines, notably the roland TR-909 for its production or, in later releases, the use of digital emulation to create the characteristic sounds of those machines.
     Jeff Mills - The bells
     Carl Craig - Dreamland
3. House: House is the most soulful genre. It's also the simplest, the oldest, the warmest, and where electronic music is concerned, easily the most human-sounding, making it one of the most popular, commanding the most producers, artists, labels, DJs, fans, and subgenres.
   
   • Progressive: In the case of progressive house, the term "progressive" can also refer to the style's open mindedness to bring in new elements to the genre. These elements can be a variety of sounds, such as a guitar loop, computer generated noises, or other elements typical of other genres.
     
   • Tribal: Just like its name, it's the Loop-based House.
     Kao - Pressure
     Papacha - Sentossa
4. Drum n Bass: Drum and bass (commonly abbreviated to DnB or drum n bass) is a type of electronic dance music also known as jungle. Emerging in the early 1990s, the genre is characterised by fast tempo broken beat drums (generally between 160 & 180 beats per minute) with heavy, often intricate basslines. Today, drum and bass is still considered an underground musical style, but its currents of influence run throughout popular music and culture.
   
5. Experimental Experimental music is any music that challenges the commonly accepted notions of what music is!! This type of music uses "extended techniques" which are methods of performing on a musical instrument that are unique, innovative, and sometimes regarded as improper. For example, ordinary instruments modified in their tuning or sound-producing characteristics. For example, guitar strings can have a weight attached at a certain point, changing their harmonic characteristics! Strings on a piano can be manipulated directly instead of being played the orthodox, keyboard-based way (an innovation of Henry Cowell's known as "string piano"), a dozen or more piano keys may be depressed simultaneously with the forearm to produce a tone cluster (another technique popularized by Cowell), or the tuning pegs on a guitar can be rotated while a note sounds (called a "tuner glissando"). It also uses an incorporation of instruments, tunings, rhythms or scales from non-Western musical traditions, sound sources other than conventional musical instruments such as trash cans, telephone ringers, and doors slamming.
   Aphex Twin - I care because you do (Album)
   Aphex Twin - Richard D. James Album (Album)
   Autechre - Confield (Album)
   
6. Chill out:Chill out (sometimes chillout), a term derived from a slang injunction to relax, emerged in the early and mid-1990s as a catch-all term for various styles of relatively mellow, slow-tempo music made by contemporary producers in the electronic music scene. A number of compilations with "Chill Out" in their titles were released in the mid-1990s and beyond, helping to establish the genre as being very closely related to downtempo and trip hop but also incorporating, especially in the early 2000s, slower varieties of house music, nu-jazz, and lounge music.
   The Buddha Bar series of albums.
   

1. Trance
   • Tiesto
   • Armin van Buuren
   • Paul Van Dyk
   • Paul Oakenfold
   • Above and Beyond
   • Ferry Corsten
   • Signum
   • Ronski Speed
2. House
   • Sasha
   • John Digweed
   • Steve Lawler (Tribal)
   • Deep Dish
   • Saeed & Palash (Tribal)
   • Deep Dish
   • Danny Howells
   • Nick Warren
   • Dani Tenaglia
   • Satoshi Tomiie
3. Chill out
   • Claude Challe
   • Aria
   • La Roca
   • Gotan Project
   • David Visan
   • Dies Irae

No Comment | Posted in » Music