diario de berrueta

(Just in case somebody reads my blog...) My blog has a new home. Please update your bookmarks and point to http://www.berrueta.net/blog/. The RSS feed has also moved to http://www.berrueta.net/rss/?section=blog, so update your feed aggregator and planets.

Thanks to La Comunidad de AsturLinux for hosting my blog during more than three years!

This has been the first weekend in a long time without any close deadline, so I spent the time doing, well, nothing. But that's not completely true. I made a long-awaited (and much-needed) complete redesign of my personal home page. I moved to a CMS (TextPattern), and a new hosting. There are still some corners to cut, but the "beta" version is already online. Don't hesitate to send your comments!

I expect to move my blog to the new home page in the near future, so stay tuned and be ready to change your feed reader.

By the way, special thanks to Wikier for his support with my new web.

I've just discovered the work of Julian Beever. Wow, call me impressed! Don't miss the opportunity to check his masterpieces in his homepage. Some of my favourites: one, two, three, four.

Last week was a busy one. I attended to the Assembly of the Spanish Initiative for Software and Services at Gijón. Then, I presented a short dissertation and got a new title called "Suficiencia Investigadora" (the most accurate translation is "Research Proficiency"). I don't know if there is an equivalent title in other countries. Moreover, I think this title has little or no value outside of the Spanish Universities, but it is nice to have, anyway.

Today I successfully presented my PhD research project (remember: this is not PhD thesis, it is just a previous step). It was very well received by the board, and it achieved the highest marks. I'm very grateful for their help to my project advisor (Labra), to my colleagues at CTIC for their insightful comments and to the reviewers who contributed to the quality of the final result.

When will my dissertation be disclosed? Really soon, I promise. I still want to finish some details before making it public. Please be patient!

And when will I get my PhD? Good question. I'll do my best to start working on my thesis right now, and to keep working until it is finished. However, it might be take some time (years). So please, be very patient! Fortunately, I've completed all the previous steps, although I still have to make another simple presentation next month, just a formality.

Last week, I taught a lesson in the Master on Web Engineering at University of Oviedo. The topic was "Applications of the Semantic Web", but I took the opportunity to talk about a wide range of vocabularies and applications, including RDFa, GRDDL, SKOS, FOAF, Dublin Core, Tabulator, D2R Server, SIOC, SWAML, etc. (sorry, I'm too lazy to link all these words. Google them yourself). The slides are available for download. Thank you Labra for inviting me to participate in the Master.

I'm sure nobody has noticed, but in the last month I've posted just once. In fact, I've been very busy completing the report of my PhD research project (warning: this is not my PhD dissertation, that will be the next -and last- step). Finally I made it, and I submitted the report to the University last Tuesday. I even moved forward my holidays in order to have more time to finish the writing. As usual, I retired to the isolation of the mountains for two weeks, and when I returned, the job was done! Now I'm struggling to make some fine slides, because next week I'll defend my work after a board.

So, what is the topic of my research project? Well, I'll make it public soon, but at the moment I can advance that it is related with the Semantic Web (although this will hardly surprise anyone). Stay tuned!

Hace unos días escribí acerca de la presentación del nuevo libro de mi amigo Miguel. Ahora que lo he leído, puedo decir que me ha gustado mucho. Ojalá muchos vecinos de Oviedo se lanzaran a leer el libro. De hecho, lo tienen muy fácil para conseguir el libro, puesto que se distribuye con una licencia CreativeCommons. Si lo hicieran, podrían conocer otra visión de la ciudad en la que viven, de cómo ha crecido la ciudad y de cuál es el estado de su ayuntamiento. Miguel ha hecho un trabajo formidable para condensar toda esa información y transmitirla con mucha claridad en su libro. Definitivamente, una lectura muy recomendable, incluso para los que no vivimos en la ciudad, pero la sentimos como parte de nuestra vida.

Yet another book review. Yesterday I completed another reading, in this case, of Turabian's "Manual for Writers". I bought the book to improve the quality of a dissertation that I'm due to deliver by next month (more details will probably follow in next posts). It's not that I'm ashamed of the quality of my previous works (for instance, Zinc was acknowledged as a fine piece of research and writing), but everything can be improved, and everyone should try to do their best.

This book, however, hasn't been as useful as I thought it would be. Many of the advices weren't new for me, or have little use in my case. Anyway, some chapters are really funny to read, because they were written more than 20 years ago, when computers weren't as popular and powerful as they are now, and typewriters were much more common. Word-processing software was at its infancy; screens and printers were pretty limited in their features. So all pieces of advice on how to use a computer and a word-processor to prepare the dissertation are deliciously old-fashioned. In spite of my age, I can recognize myself using those applications and old computer hardware twenty years ago. Maybe I'll post on this in the future.

Hardcore readers of this column will probably know that I like to post reviews of some of the books I read. However, today I'm going to talk about a book I've not read (yet).

Yesterday, my friend Miguel presented his new book, "Oviedo, detrás de la fachada". Actually, they're two books, one of photographs (by Maria Arce) and other of research and opinion (by Miguel). I'm eager to read them, because I'm sure Miguel has done a superb work. However, I doubt the City Mayor would like the book.

Update: Oh, I forgot to point that the book is published under a CreativeCommons license.