Tips for taking panorama pictures

There's some tricks to taking panorama pictures that I've learned here and there and from trial and error:

Trick #1: Same Exposure. Either put the camera into manual exposure mode or in panorama mode (if it has it). You don't want each picture to be a different exposure.
Trick #2: Medium Exposure. Fix the exposure on something that's not the brightest nor the darkest. Outside, this usually means halfway between looking at the sun and looking away from the sun.
Trick #3: Think big. Before taking the first picture imaging where you want the center to be, and figure out where you need to start to make it in the center. I have to remind myself on every pan shot, otherwise the important bit is in the first frame, usually way over on the left.
Trick #4: Lean back. You want to rotate the camera, not your body. I don't normally use a tripod for these pictures, but if I rotate my body, the foreground gets messed up and doesn't stitch right. If you lean back a bit, then when you rotate your body, the axis is on the camera!
Trick #5: Keep it Level. Try and line up the center of the picture (s) with the horizon.
Trick #6: Crop it. After I stitch the pieces together, the edge is ragged -- I just crop it to make it look very smooth and help hide stitch boundaries.
Trick #7: Trash it. Some don't turn out... so you can throw them away if they don't work out. That's the beauty of digital cameras!