Brain Tags

Manifiesto «En defensa de los derechos fundamentales en internet»

2009-12-03T14:50:19Z

Ante la inclusión en el Anteproyecto de Ley de Economía sostenible de modificaciones legislativas que afectan al libre ejercicio de las libertades de expresión, información y el derecho de acceso a la cultura a través de Internet, los periodistas, bloggers, usuarios, profesionales y creadores de internet manifestamos nuestra firme oposición al proyecto, y declaramos que...

Los derechos de autor no pueden situarse por encima de los derechos fundamentales de los ciudadanos, como el derecho a la privacidad, a la seguridad, a la presunción de inocencia, a la tutela judicial efectiva y a la libertad de expresión.
La suspensión de derechos fundamentales es y debe seguir siendo competencia exclusiva del poder judicial. Ni un cierre sin sentencia. Este anteproyecto, en contra de lo establecido en el artículo 20.5 de la Constitución, pone en manos de un órgano no judicial -un organismo dependiente del ministerio de Cultura-, la potestad de impedir a los ciudadanos españoles el acceso a cualquier página web.
La nueva legislación creará inseguridad jurídica en todo el sector tecnológico español, perjudicando uno de los pocos campos de desarrollo y futuro de nuestra economía, entorpeciendo la creación de empresas, introduciendo trabas a la libre competencia y ralentizando su proyección internacional.
La nueva legislación propuesta amenaza a los nuevos creadores y entorpece la creación cultural. Con Internet y los sucesivos avances tecnológicos se ha democratizado extraordinariamente la creación y emisión de contenidos de todo tipo, que ya no provienen prevalentemente de las industrias culturales tradicionales, sino de multitud de fuentes diferentes.
Los autores, como todos los trabajadores, tienen derecho a vivir de su trabajo con nuevas ideas creativas, modelos de negocio y actividades asociadas a sus creaciones. Intentar sostener con cambios legislativos a una industria obsoleta que no sabe adaptarse a este nuevo entorno no es ni justo ni realista. Si su modelo de negocio se basaba en el control de las copias de las obras y en Internet no es posible sin vulnerar derechos fundamentales, deberían buscar otro modelo.
Consideramos que las industrias culturales necesitan para sobrevivir alternativas modernas, eficaces, creíbles y asequibles y que se adecuen a los nuevos usos sociales, en lugar de limitaciones tan desproporcionadas como ineficaces para el fin que dicen perseguir.
Internet debe funcionar de forma libre y sin interferencias políticas auspiciadas por sectores que pretenden perpetuar obsoletos modelos de negocio e imposibilitar que el saber humano siga siendo libre.
Exigimos que el Gobierno garantice por ley la neutralidad de la Red en España, ante cualquier presión que pueda producirse, como marco para el desarrollo de una economía sostenible y realista de cara al futuro.
Proponemos una verdadera reforma del derecho de propiedad intelectual orientada a su fin: devolver a la sociedad el conocimiento, promover el dominio público y limitar los abusos de las entidades gestoras.
En democracia las leyes y sus modificaciones deben aprobarse tras el oportuno debate público y habiendo consultado previamente a todas las partes implicadas. No es de recibo que se realicen cambios legislativos que afectan a derechos fundamentales en una ley no orgánica y que versa sobre otra materia.

NOTA: Este manifiesto fue redactado conjuntamente por periodistas, bloggers e internautas. Si estás de acuerdo, copialo, publícalo en tu blog, leelo en tu podcast, imprímelo y difúndelo por todas las vías que puedas.

Commenting not possible

2009-03-13T10:56:10Z

I just discovered that it currently is not possible to comment on this blog. At first sight it looks like the problem is caused by the AJAX part that tries to publish the data to another domain.

However, it has been a while since I last touched the templates, and the commenting feature worked fine in January, when I received the last comment.

When I have time I will try to fix it or I will simply remove the fancy AJAX part. I`ll keep you informed.

[Update 2009.03.16] I have removed all AJAx stuff from the templates, so commenting should be possible again. I still have to remove some rough edges though.

Back from the CeBIT

2009-03-13T08:15:45Z

I am back from the CeBIT show. Actually, I came back on Monday, but have been too busy to post. This year has been been a huge success for our company, mainly because we had a better place for our booth and because we presented right in the middle of this crisis a revolutionary low cost product on which we have been working for three years (sometimes you need a little bit of luck),

The show has been such a success that this year I haven`t been able to visit the other halls of the show to see what is happening in the IT sector. Anyway, nowaday we don`t depend on big trade shows anymore to inform us about the latest new products.

Downloading viruses?

2009-02-24T09:44:02Z

I just saw the screen above, which is the ClamWin antivirus software uploading its virus database. On the left hand side they have an animation trying to show that the virus definition files are being downloaded from the internet onto my PC, but in my eyes it looks more like virus infected files arrive from the internet to my PC.

Designing good and clear icons is an art!

New: Google Notebook

2009-02-03T16:40:17Z

I know that Spain usually lags behind the rest of the world, but Google Spain really doesn't know what is going on. While all over the internet you can read stories about the dismantling of the Google Notebook team - a sign that this product is about to disappear, Google Spain still presents Google Notebook on my Google Account page. And not as a regular tool, but together with Google Chrome as new option!

Please Google Spain, wake up!

Google Analytics Event tracking

2009-01-22T11:21:09Z

One of the most interesting parts for web site owners are the access statistics, and Google Analytics offers one of the most complete statistics solutions, which I use on a weekely basis for my most succesful blog El Canasto.

Besides being a typical blog with pages, I offer calendars for downloading, and of course I also want to track those downloads. When two years ago I started with the downloads I search Google`s help files for a solution to track them, and found a small javascript sniplet that when a visitor clicks on a download link registers the download as a pageview. This trick allowed me to analyse the downloads.

The disadvantage of this trick is that it inflates the pageviews, and I never have been completely satisfied about this solution. You can imagine my happiness when last week I discovered the Event Tracking feature, designed specifically to track downloads, videoplays, etc.

I quickly changed my code to use a javascript sniplet like the following:

onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackEvent('Downloads', 'XLSX', '/calendario-compacto/calendario-compacto-2009'); "

This sniplet registers the download under the category Downloads, the action XLS and the label /calendario-compacto/calendario-compacto-2009. Google Analytics has Event reports by category, action and lavel, so now I know for example which of the four file file formats are more popular:

My new social e-mail signature

2009-01-12T09:59:34Z

Until now I always had a very simple e-mail signature, with just my name and usually one of my web sites. But now that more and more people are active on several social networks, I have created a new signature with links to my profile on several social networks and even a link to download my vCard. What do you think of it?

Jeroen Sangers • www.jeroensangers.com

El Canasto: Productividad Personal
Brain Tags: Themeless blog

Mobile: +34-619204630

IM/VOIP: jeroensangers jeroen.sangers

Contact me:

Christmas

2008-12-25T19:21:01Z

I already posted this a few yaers ago, but it is still valid (or even more).

In defence of e-mail

2008-11-19T12:34:21Z

Image taken from Luis Suárez

Last weekend I attended the Evento Blog España conference in Seville, and one of the more attractive talks on the schedule was called 2.0 services and technology in business by Luis Suárez, technology evangelist at IBM.

Luis explained how he stopped using e-mail completely and replaced the functionality by a variety of web 2.0 tools, each specialized for a specific task. When he started talking, I remembered how Tim Ferriss also 'attacked' e-mail in his book.

In The 4-Hour Workweek, Tim explains how he only reads his e-mail a few times per day while an autoresponder tells the senders to use the phone instead for more urgent messages. I have read it several times, but I still can't see where the productivity increase comes from. I'd rather check my e-mail twice a day to reduce phone calls. In my opinion, phone calls are a bigger time waster that e-mail. When someone phones you, that person decides for you that the issue he is phoning about is at that moment more important than all other issues you are working on. A phone call is almost always an interruption in your workflow, while e-mail is part of the workflow. Of course, there are times when a phone call is justified, for example when a customer is having technical problems that stopped his business. The idea is to use the right tool for the job, and in the past years I have spend quite some time explaining that the phone usually is not the right tool and that e-mail or IM for more time-dependant questions are more adequate.

Using the right tool for the job is exactly why Luis Suárez stopped using e-mail and changed it for instant messaging, wikis, blogs, rss, bookmark services, quickr, etc. In principle I agree with Luis that e-mail is not always the best tool to use, but at this moment there is a scattering problem when using web 2.0 tools. I already noticed this when I try to convince people to stop phoning me and use IM instead. There is a myriad of IM tools and protocols available, and to be able to communicate with all my customers I need ICQ, AOL, Yahoo!, Messenger, Skype and GTalk. All of them! I am a tech savvy guy, so I can handle this (all accounts are nicely accessible from one client: Digsby), but this surely is no option for many other people, who already find it very difficult to install one IM client.

Now imagine the same thing happening with all other functions of e-mail. To collaborate on a document there are dozens of services available. Of course I will choose one of them, but will me customer also use that? Of course not, they use Google Docs instead of a wiki. And as I cooperate with more people, my shared work will be shattered across the internet. I remember a customer send me a link to an interesting article, but where is it? I need to maintain a database to know that this particular customer uses Delicious to share bookmarks.

You can say a lot about e-mail. It is not the perfect tool for collaboration or status reporting. But it is a standard. Everybody has e-mail, and everybody knows how to use it. And if you work together with many customers, using web 2.0 solutions will not be an option in the majority of cases, until there will be a common protocol or tool such as Digsby for IM that allows people using different services for a functionality to cooperate.

Apple on your car

2008-11-14T10:51:35Z

Lately I notice more and more cards driving around in Lleida with the Apple logo, and each time I see one I think by myself "why on earth would somebody stick that onto his car?" I also have that sticker at home, but it never occurred to me to stick it on my car.

Of course, Apple is a cool brand, is different and has a very nice logo. But whichever way I look at it, I see it as a profitable company, and sticking that logo on your car is free publicity for this company.

I guess it is the same people buying Bikkembergs shoes (if you remove the logo nothing is left) and certain Nike sportswear (a manufacturer logo on clothes should never be bigger than 2cm and preferably not visible at all) without asking any payment from the manufacturer in return.

In fact, the only logo I wear on my clothes is the logo of my employer, and only because they pay me to do so!

In my opinion, driving around with an Apple logo does not make you look cool, but rather stupid for making free publicity for a company.

Eleven

2008-11-11T11:00:58Z

This is just a short post to commemorate the eleventh birthday of this blog. Eleven years ago I decided to post short notices on my personal site, not realizing that this habit would become very popular eleven years later. I still like it, and probably will continue blogging for a long time.

El Canasto nominated for Spanish Bloggies

2008-11-10T16:45:43Z

Since I started writing on my Spanish productivity blog El Canasto, I had less time to write on Brain Tags. But it looks like it was worth any minute of my time, as today I received the good news that El Canasto has been nominated for one of the Premios Bitacoras.com, the Spanish Bloggies.

The past month, Spanish blog readers could vote for their favourite blogs in several categories. El Canasto quickly took the lead in the Best Business Blog category, and maintained the first position until the end of the voting period. Tomorrow the jury will be announced, and they have until Friday to choose among the top three of each category, which means that I have about 33% chance of winning the price.

What makes me even more proud is that El Canasto ended at the 10th position on the list of most voted blogs, which in my opinion is really good for a blog in a not so mainstream niche.

The final winners will be announced this Saturday in Seville, and of course I am going to be there to see whether I won the price and to meet a lot of other bloggers. The winner will take a statue and a Toshiba NB100 home.

Lights on

2008-10-29T17:53:04Z

Sometimes you have to let go some good habits to adapt yourself. When I came to live in Spain, I was used to drive all day with the lights of my car turned on for better visibility.

However, the people over here do not have that custom, and friendly as they are, they tried to warn me to tell that I forgot to turn of my lights. That is nice if it happens a few times, but actually it happened several times a day, and after a week I was getting quite fed-up with it. So I stopped driving with the lights turned on during daytime.

This week, the Spanish governement started a campaign to tell people about the enhanced security when driving with the car lights turned on. Guess who is happily driving around with the lights on again?

Evento Blog España

2008-10-24T06:31:02Z

The EBE is Europe's second largest blogging event (after Les Blogs in France) and will take place in November in Sevilla. And yes, on November 14 I will take the airplane to Sevilla to be present at this event.

When the event was first announced I doubted whether I should participate due to the high costs (plane ticket and accomodation; the EBE itself is free) and decided not to go.

What made me change my mind? Well, part of the program is the election of the best Spanish blogs, and my blog El Canasto makes a very good chance of being elected as the Best Business Blog! In the last partial rankings I held the first position, while previously I was number two.

Of course, the EBE is also a great place to meet some people in real life, people I have been working with for quite some time. I am also looking forward to meeting tons of new people, making new connections and new plans...

I am looking forward to participate at the Evento Blog España.

Poverty

2008-10-15T06:23:18Z

Today is Blog Action Day, a day on which thousands of bloggers write about the same topic to raise awareness, and this year's theme is Poverty.

Just like last year, I signed up to participate without thinking. But now that I start writing I realize that I am by far the right person for writing on this topic. Right now I am sitting in my own house behind my €1400 Macbook with a high speed broadband internet connection. What am I supposed to know about poverty? I (and all my readers as well) probably belong to the richest 1% of the world.

For me poverty is something they show on TV. Only once in a while I see poor people begging for money on the street, and I know that I can ignore them because I happen to live in a country with excellent social services that will take care of these people. For my own conscience, I make my contributions to some NGO's to pay of my guilt debt. When I read back these lines, it sounds very cold, which is not how I am, but there is a great deal of truth in it.

Only twice in my life I actually saw poverty with my own eyes, when I visited Lesotho and Thailand, and it greatly affected me. More than that, it made me realize how lucky I am. We dedicate about 2% of our income to charity, which is an amount we won't even miss, but which makes a great difference for the people depending on it.

I encourage everybody reading this to do the same: realize how lucky and incredibly rich you are, and donate 1-2% of your income. Together we can stop poverty.