This Sunday, May 20th, the western half of the US will be treated to an annular solar eclipse.

Annular means that the moon is a bit farther away than usual, so it won't completely cover the sun even if you travel to the eclipse centerline. Why? Well, the moon's orbit around the earth isn't perfectly circular, so sometimes it's farther away, sometimes nearer. Remember all the hype two weeks ago about the "supermoon", where it was unusually close at full moon? The other side of that is that during this eclipse, at new moon, the moon is unusually far away, and therefore a little smaller, not quite big enough to cover the sun.

Since the sun will never be totally covered, make sure you have a safe solar filter for this one -- don't look with your naked eyes! You want a solar filter anyway, if you have any kind of telescope or even binoculars, because of next month's once-in-a-lifetime Venus transit (I'll write about that separately). But if you don't have a solar filter and absolutely can't get one in time, read on -- I'll have some suggestions later even for people without any sort of optical aid.

But first, the path of the eclipse. Here in the bay area, we're just a bit south of the southern limit of the annular path, which passes just south of the town of Redway, through Covelo, just south of Willows, then just misses Yuba City and Auburn. If you want to be closer to the centerline, go camping at Lassen National Park or Lake Shasta, or head to Reno or Tahoe If you're inclined to travel, NASA has a great interactive 2012 eclipse map you can use to check out possible locations.

Even back in the bay area, we still get a darn good dinner show. The partial eclipse starts at 5:17 pm PDT, with maximum eclipse at 6:33. The sun will be 18 degrees above the horizon at that point, and 89% eclipsed. Compare that with 97% for a site right on the centerline -- remember, since this is an annular eclipse, no place sees 100% coverage. The partial eclipse ends at 7:40 -- still well before sunset, which isn't until 8:11.

Photographers, if you want a shot of an annular eclipse as the sun sets, you'll need to head east, to Albuquerque, NM or Lubbock, TX. A little before sunset, the centerline also crosses near a lot of great vacation spots like Bryce, Zion and Canyon de Chelly.

I mentioned that even without a solar filter, there are ways of watching the eclipse. The simplest is with a pinhole. You don't need to use an actual pin -- the size and shape of the hole isn't critical, as you can see in this image of the sun through the leaves of a tree during a 2005 eclipse in Malta. If you don't have a leafy tree handy, you can even lace your fingers together and look at the shadow of your hands. This eclipse will be very low in the sky, continuing through sunset, so you may need to project its shadow onto a wall rather than the ground.

If you have some time to prepare, take a piece of cardboard and punch a few holes through it. Try different sizes -- an actual pinhole, a BBQ skewer, a 3-hole punch, maybe even bigger holes up to the size of a penny. You might also try using aluminum foil -- you can get very clean circular holes that way, which might give a crisper image. Here's a good page on eclipse pinhole projection. What works best? I don't remember! It's been a very long time since the last eclipse here! Do the experiment! I know I will be.

If you do have a telescope or binoculars but couldn't get a solar filter in time, don't despair. Instead of looking through the eyepiece, you can project the sun's image onto a white screen or even the ground or a wall. Use a cheap, low-power eyepiece -- any eyepiece you use for solar projection will get very hot, and you don't want to risk ruining a fancy one.

Point the telescope at the sun -- it's easy to tell when it's lined up by watching the shadow of the telescope -- and rotate the eyepiece so that it's aimed at your screen, which can be as simple as a sheet of paper. Be careful where that eyepiece is aimed -- make sure no one can walk through the path or put their hand in the way, and if you have a finderscope, make sure it's covered. This solar projection method works with binoculars too, but you'll want to mount them on a tripod so you don't have to hold them the whole time.

Of course, another great way to watch the eclipse is with your local astronomy club. I expect every club in the bay area -- and there are a lot of them -- will have telescopes out to share the eclipse with the public. So check with your local club -- San Jose Astronomical Association, Peninsula Astronomical Society, San Francisco Sidewalk Astronomers, San Francisco Amateur Astronomers, or any of the others on the AANC's list of Amateur Astronomy Clubs in Northern California or the SF Chronicle's list of astronomy clubs.

This eclipse should be pretty cool -- and a great chance to test out your solar equipment before next month's Venus transit.

When I went to put the event on my wall calendar last month, I discovered the calendar already had an entry for May 20: it's the start of Bear Awareness Week. So if you head up to Lassen or Shasta to watch the eclipse, be sure to be aware of the bears! (Also, maybe I should get a calendar that's a little more in tune with the sky.)

The last big update Adobe did for Flash on Ubuntu resulted in a screwed up looking Youtube videos for many users. Those of us running nVidia video cards are the block of people reporting the "blue people".

There are a few ways to go about fixing this and we will walk you through the easy method #1 and the #2 method which is just as easy but using the terminal.

#1 - remove hardware acceleration on youtube videos

#2 - uninstall a package called "libvdpau1"

#3 - regress to a previous version of adobe flash which we arent going to cover.

So the first method is to right click anywhere in a Youtube video that you have playing and pull up a menu with the option to uncheck and disable "hardware acceleration". This may take a few times to do and if you still cant uncheck the box try logging out of your Ubuntu and log in using Unity 2D mode.

The second method is to uninstall "libvdpau1" with the terminal command of:

sudo apt-get remove libvdpau1

Either method works great. I will note that the second method also removes a couple other packages: mplayer and mencoder. Usually you dont need those, but some programs like devede will make use of them.

In case the second method doesnt help you and you want to go back, type this in the terminal:

sudo apt-get install libvdpau

and this will put you back the way your system was with the blue aluminum koolaid people :)

Recently I have been talking a little about building quality and precision into Ubuntu Accomplishments. Tonight I put one of the final missing pieces in place and I thought I would share in a little more detail about some of this work. Some of you might find this useful in your own projects.

Before I get started though, I just wanted to encourage you to start playing our software and for those of you that had a crash when using certain languages with the Accomplishments Information viewer, I released a 0.1.2 update earlier that fixes this.

Automated Testing

As we continue to grow the Ubuntu Community Accomplishments collection it is going to be more and more complex to ensure all of the accomplishments are working effectively every day; we are already at 28 accomplishments and growing! What’s more, the community accomplishments scripts work by checking third-party services for data (e.g. Launchpad) to assess if you have accomplished something. These external services may change their APIs, adjust how they work, add/reduce services etc, so we need to know right away when one of our accomplishments no longer works and needs updating.

To do this I wrote a tool called battery. It works by reading in a test that is available for each accomplishment that feeds the accomplishment validation data that should succeed and also data that should not validate. As an example, for the Ubuntu Member accomplishment the data that succeeds is an existing member’s email address (such as my own) and the test for failure is an email address on Launchpad that is not a member. The original script requires the user’s email address to assess this accomplishment, so battery tests simply require the same types of information, with data that can trigger success and failure.

This approach allows us to test for three outcomes:

• That the valid email address returns exit code 0 (the script ran successfully and the user is verified as being an Ubuntu Member).
• That the invalid email address returns exit code 1 (the script ran successfully but the user is not an Ubuntu Member).
• If the script has an internal issues and returns exit code 2.

The way this works is that battery includes a customized version of the general accomplishments.daemon module that we use for the backend service. In the code I override the back-end module and load a custom module. This way the original accomplishment script does not need to be modified; instead of get_extra_information() calling the back-end daemon and gathering the user’s details, the custom module that comes with battery instead has it’s own get_extra_information() that gets returns the test data so battery can run the tests.

Originally battery only output textual results, but this would require us manually running it. As such, last night I added HTML output support. I then enabled battery to run once a day and automatically update the HTML results. You can see the output here.

There are a few important features in this report other than a list of all the accomplishment test results:

• It shows the failures: this provides a simple way for us to dive into the accomplishments and fix issues where they occur.
• It shows which tests, if any, are missing. This gives us a TODO lists for tests that we need to write.

While this was useful, it still required that we would remember to visit the web page to see the results. This could result in days passing without us noticing a failure.

Tonight I fixed this by adding email output support to battery. With it I can pass an email address as a command-line switch and battery will generate an email report of the test run. I also added battery‘s default behavior to only generate an email when there are failures or tests are missing. This prevents it generating results that don’t need action.

With this feature I have set battery to send a daily “Weather Report” to the Ubuntu Accomplishments mailing list; this means that whenever we see a weather report, something needs fixing.

One final, rather nice feature, that I also added was the ability to run battery on one specific accomplishment. This is useful for when we are reviewing contributions of new accomplishments; we ask every contributor to add one of these simple tests, and using battery we can test that the script works for validation success, validation failure, and script failure with a single command. This makes reviewing contributions much easier and faster and improves our test coverage.

Graphing

Something Mark Shuttleworth discussed at UDS was the idea of us building instrumentation into projects to help us identify ways in which we can make better decisions around how we build software. This is something I have also been thinking of for a while, and to kick the tyres on this I wanted to first track popularity and usage of Ubuntu Accomplishments before exploring other ways of learning how people contribute to communities to help us build a better community.

Just before we released version 0.1 of Ubuntu Accomplishments, I created a little script that does a scan of the validation server to generate some statistics about the number of daily new users, the daily number of new trophies issued, and the totals. Importantly, I only count users and trophies, and I am only interest in publishing anonymized data, not exposing someone’s own activity.

To do this my script scans the data and generates a CSV file with the information I am interested in. I then used the rather awesome Google Charts API to take my CSV and generate the Javascript need to display the graph. Here are some examples:

While this is not exactly instrumentation, it got me thinking about the kind of data that could be interesting to explore. As an example, we could arguably explore which types of contributions in our community are of most interest in our users, how effective our documentation and resources are, which processes are working better than others, and also some client side instrumentation that explores how people use Ubuntu Accomplishments and how they find it rewarding and empowering.

Importantly, none of this instrumentation will happen without anyone’s consent; privacy always has to be key, but I think the idea of exploring patterns and interesting views of data could be a fantastic means of building better software and communities.

How about it. Do you have a favorite way to comment on any website? Which is it? Facebook, Discus, or native commenting?

Which comment feature do you like best?
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Ubuntu Hour is a chance to meet up for an hour and chat with other Ubuntu users. The meeting is open to anyone interested whether they use Ubuntu or not, and everyone's welcome with no commitments or RSVPs. It's definitely a good opportunity to bring along friends who are curious about Ubuntu.

Not only is it fun to meet local Ubuntu fans, but we can also be a valuable introduction to Ubuntu for others. Wear that cool Ubuntu or Linux shirt or bring your laptop with the Ubuntu stickers, if you have them. We'll also follow the Ubuntu Code of Conduct while we're there. Easily summarized as "be excellent to each other," it means that we'll be good examples of the wonderful Ubuntu community.

The latest information, including locations and times, is always available at http://www.nhaines.com/ubuntu/hour/

Upcoming dates

• Thursday, May 17, 2012, 6pm - 7pm
• Thursday, May 31, 2012, 6pm - 7pm

Location

Panera Bread (Yelp) (Google Maps) 23592 Rockfield Blvd. Lake Forest, CA 92618

Panera Bread is a casual restaurant that has fresh bread, soups, and sandwiches and free wi-fi access. We're the group with a laptop or two and some Ubuntu logos, so please feel free to come up and say hi.

In case you missed it, unable to attend UDS, or plain forgot... watch the keynote speech Mark Shuttleworth gave last week at Ubuntu UDS in Oakland, CA.

With the release of Diablo 3, many Ubuntu users want to know... will it even work on Ubuntu? The answer in short is - YES!

The easiest way to install Diablo III on Ubuntu is to use PlayOnLinux and use the download option from Blizzard. More info here:

http://www.playonlinux.com/en/commentaires-1043.html

If you dont yet have PlayOnLinux installed on your Ubuntu computer, install it via the instructions here for your version of Ubuntu: http://www.playonlinux.com/en/download.html

That is the easy way to install Diablo 3 on Ubuntu.

There is another way, and that is to directly use the disc and install via WINE. The Beta of Diablo 3 worked great on Ubuntu and so does the official release. More info here on tips to install Diablo 3 on Ubuntu with WINE...

http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=13484

If you dont have WINE installed on Ubuntu you can install it via the terminal by inputing these commands...

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-wine/ppa

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install wine1.3

We will be testing this out in the next day and will update the site with new info.

Addendum: Before spending the time installing Diablo III on Ubuntu, check out the System Requirements first:

Minimum:

Processor: Dual Core with 2.1 GHz
Memory: 2 GB System RAM
Hard Disk Space: 10 GB
Video Card: 512 MB Radeon 3870 / GeForce 8800 GTX
Additional: Keyboard/mouse or gamepad required Internet Connection required for online activation

Recommended:

Processor: Dual Core with 3 GHz
Memory: 4 GB System RAM
Hard Disk Space: 12 GB
Video Card: 1024 MB Radeon 4890 / GeForce GTX 260

At the Ubuntu Developer Summit last week I delivered a plenary on the Tuesday called Accomplishing An Awesome App Developer Platform that tells the story of how the Ubuntu app developer platform enabled me to build the Ubuntu Accomplishments system that I designed with Aq. The presentation walks through the story of how we designed the system, and how everything was available in Ubuntu to create the client, back-end daemon, validation server, and desktop integration. I think it is a good example of how Ubuntu can help app devs to create interesting ideas and apps.

I thought this might be handy to have on YouTube, so I re-recorded it today, and you can see the video below:

Can’t see it? Watch it here!

If you want to create your own application for Ubuntu, be sure to visit developer.ubuntu.com.

I just released a new update for the Ubuntu Community Accomplishments collection. This new release (0.1.1) includes the following new community accomplishments:

• Accomplishments Contributor
• Attend LoCo Team Event
• Bug Squad Member
• Ubuntu Forums Council Member
• Ubuntu Forums Staff Member
• Imported an SSH Key
• Ubuntu Beginners Team Council Member
• Ubuntu Beginners Team Member
• Bug Control Member
• Ubuntu Forums Ubuntu Member
• Launchpad Profile Mugshot is now fixed too.

Thanks to Silver Fox, Michael Hall, Matt Fischer, Rafal Cieslek, Angelo Compagnucci for contributing these additions! It is wonderful to see our community growing!

If you want to contribute accomplishments, be sure to see our guidelines, some suggestions, and how to get started!

If you are already running Ubuntu Accomplishments 0.1, you just need to do the following to get the new set:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

If you are running the daemon, kill it first with killall -9 twistd and then load Accomplishments Information from the dash.

If you are new to Ubuntu Accomplishments, be sure you have your Ubuntu One set up and running on your computer, and then follow these installation instructions.

In the Ubuntu world we have some common values that are not just focused on freedom, but also in how we build Ubuntu. Values such as cadence, design, quality and precision help guide us in building the best Ubuntu that we can.

These values continued to be common themes at the recent Ubuntu Developer Summit in California. Today our culture continues to involve important integration work that is a rich and interesting challenge, but this work has also been augmented by us building assurances around Ubuntu too; assurances such as regular releases (cadence), the reliability and quality of the experience (quality), and attention to detail in both design and engineering (precision) are all examples of the strong balance of predictability and innovation that we want to bring.

These values are not limited to Ubuntu though: we want Ubuntu to be a platform where you can get the very best software experience, whether you are using Open Source or commercial applications. In a nutshell, we want to take the lessons we have been learning regarding cadence, design, quality and precision and share them with our upstreams. This is going to be a big chunk of what Michael Hall will be focusing on in the coming months.

One upstream project though that I am actively involved in in my spare time is Ubuntu Accomplishments and I wanted to share some of our plans surrounding our next 0.2 release and how these values are forming an important core of this work. Before I continue though, I just want to say a huge thank-you to everyone who has been participating in Ubuntu Accomplishments. Ever since our 0.1 release a few weeks ago we have had over 180 people start using this very early PPA and a number of people have started contributing accomplishments. Thanks to all of you!

Quality

With the expanded number of accomplishments being contributed, I started thinking last week about how we could perform better testing around these contributions as well as daily testing reports; I wanted to ensure that our project, even though we are very young and small, demonstrates a level of quality that we can be proud of. To kick this off, this weekend I wrote a small tool called battery that helps us assure quality. I created a validation test for every accomplishment and battery runs all the accomplishments and feeds them this data that will cause an accomplishment to succeed as well as fail. This serves a few valuable purposes:

• We now have better testing for new contributions and we can test both success and failure more effectively.
• We can build testing into the accomplishment submission process so that when someone contributes an accomplishment we will ask them to also submit a test file (the test file is extremely simple and just specifies data used for success and data used for failure). This should take a contributor ten seconds to put together.
• Finally, we can now run battery in an automated environment every day and have it alert us when one of the tests fails. This gives us better visibility on our accomplishments collections to ensure that we can assure quality and resolve issues quickly.

As an important part of building good design into the system, battery was designed to not require any changes to the existing accomplishments sets and require a bare minimum from our contributors who should be spending more time having fun writing accomplishments than caring about tests. I am delighted with the results.

The Road To 0.2

In addition to helping to ensure the accomplishment contribution process is simple (see our list of ideas for accomplishments and how to create them), we have been planning the 0.2 release. This will continue to focus on refinements and building a strong, reliable platform for both community and local accomplishments.

We will be focusing on the following in the 0.2 cycle:

• Local Accomplishment Support – in 0.1 we focused our efforts primarily on community accomplishments (that is, accomplishments that need to be verified). Although we have always supported local accomplishments (these are accomplishments on your computer such as installing a package for the first time or sending your first email), this local support was a little broken in 0.1. I have already landed a branch from Rafal that fixes these bugs, using GNOME Mines as the test application. We will continue to refine this support.
• Daemon and API Refinements – this won’t be visible to the user but we are planning a raft of API improvements to ensure that the back-end daemon is precise and high quality. This requires some functional changes, API naming conventions, standardizing on accomplishment IDs and other improvements.
• Growing Ubuntu Community Accomplishments – we plan on continuing to grow and expand the Ubuntu Community Accomplishments collection. We need help though, and that help could come from you! If you know a little Python and want to help our community, be sure to let me know! You can also join our IRC channel at #ubuntu-accomplishments.
• Introducing Ubuntu Desktop Accomplishments – we plan on introducing our first set of desktop accomplishments that can be used with the local accomplishments feature in the system. This will help us to start mapping out an awesome journey for how ours users use the desktop, discover things to do, and more!

It was wonderful to see the excitement and interest around Ubuntu Accomplishments at UDS, and I am excited to see where the project can take us. If you want to join us, be sure to join the mailing list and/or join us on IRC on freenode in #ubuntu-accomplishments.

Last day of the Ubuntu Developer Summit for Quantal! It’s always a bittersweet day, we’re all so terribly exhausted from the week but it’s also the last day for many of us to see people we only see once or twice a year. Like other days, my day started off with the Community Roundtable.

– Community Roundtable -

Started asking about UDS for first timers and what changes we can make to make it easier for them, clearer instructions about reimbursements, travel arrangements and scheduling. Then there was some discussion about using Etherpad Lite next time with chat integration rather than IRC. Quickly touched upon what kind of statistics are available for determining how many systems are out there using Ubuntu, there were several types of statistics discussed (iso downloads, updates, support resource usage) and wrapped up by taking a look at the Wikimedia Traffic Analysis Report – Operating Systems.

- Expanding the isotracker testcase management capabilities -

The session started off with a review of the current capabilities of the Ubuntu Testing Tracker, it’s used for ISO testing and links to a wiki for test cases. Reviewed some of the technical details of changes (database schema updates, where to allow modifications, test case ids). There was also some discussion about permissions, who can add test cases (including representatives from other flavors) and do other limited tasks.

I’ve uploaded the notes from the session here.

- IRC Workshops -

We have one of these during each UDS to plan out Ubuntu Open Week, Ubuntu App Developer Week and more IRC workshops. This session was a bit different as we discussed ways to expand this beyond the medium of IRC into other formats. There have been some experiments in the past with ustream and the like for a class on Inkscape, but now with the launch of Google Hangouts On Air for everyone we’re really excited about the possibility for making one of the workshop days into one where we use that instead. I still prefer IRC myself as it’s low-bandwidth, has searchable logs (rather than just an archived youtube video) and can be glanced at while at work, but it’s certainly not for everyone. It should be an interesting experiment this cycle.

I’ve uploaded the notes from the session here.

Lightning talks, including Partimus and Accessibility installer.

- Accessibility Community Team Plans -

Reviewed some of the successes of the Precise release, including accessible strings on the indicators, ability to determine wifi signal strength and installer improvements. In this next cycle they would like to focus on improvements to Unity 3D since development of Unity 2D is very likely to be discontinued. They are seeking new contributors throughout the Accessibility project, including in testing and bug triage. I volunteered to help via Ubuntu Women and there was some brainstorming about how to get other people without disabilities can become attracted to contributing.

I’ve uploaded the notes from the session here.

- Etherpad Lite Summit integration -

In this session the proposal to use Etherpad Lite was put forward and there was a test instance running for us to to try. This new etherpad has built in chat, so it could potentially be what is projected by default in each room rather than a full screen IRC window, so you would be able to see chat in the etherpad and the etherpad too. Much of the session focused on logistics of replacement of the current Etherpad and access controls (log in to summit?). The demonstration showed that the mobile access was event quite usable on Android. We also had someone from IRC come on via Google hangout on the second screen in the room to show off what we could do since we’re not using a screen for IRC and a screen for the etherpad.

I’ve uploaded the notes from the session here.

Sessions wrapped up at 5PM and we all headed to the final wrap-up talks for the summit by the track leads. Then it was off to the “California Dreamin’ Beach Party” themed end party. In a change of pace, instead of having attendees handle entertainment they ended up bringing in an outside band to do it, The Spazmatics. It was a lot of fun, and MJ came out so I was able to introduce him to a bunch of people.

And with that, UDS was over for another 6 months! I had a really great time being a local, talked to lots of people I wouldn’t otherwise talk to. Thanks everyone!

I’ve uploaded my photos from the week here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pleia2/sets/72157629702430040/

I’m back from from the Ubuntu Developer’s Summit for Quantal Quetzal (12.10)! This was my first UDS, and it was really cool to see so many developers from everywhere come together to make the next version of Ubuntu something amazing. I saw a lot of cool presentations, sessions, and talks. I also got a bit of sightseeing in in Oakland, San Francisco, and Berkeley on the weekend and at night.

Although I mostly went for planning the next version of the Ubuntu desktop interface, there were a lot of cool things going on with cloud computing as well. I learned a fair amount about MAAS (rapidly deploying thousands of servers) as well as other cloud services like Juju. We saw Mark and the founder of an ARM server company debut a new high density servercluster that runs Ubuntu, and were given some details about just how pervasive Ubuntu is in the cloud computing market. Open source remains ahead of the curve on the server!

The next desktop for Quantal Quetzal is shaping up well too. The best summary was during the Desktop roundtable on friday, where all the topics related to the desktop were discussed and summarized. You can see the notes from this session here. Hopefully will continue to improve how beautiful Ubuntu is, and make the desktop experience even more cutting edge and smooth.

        Another cool thing I was able to see and learn more about was Ubuntu running on ARM devices. This project is ran by the Linaro Foundation, which is a nonprofit dedicated to bringing open source platforms (Android and Ubuntu) to ARM devices. They’re doing great work, and I even have a PandaBoard to experiment with! The powered all the HD televisions (probably about 20 setups) in the hotel, which displayed the UDS schedule. There’s a picture down below. Its awesome that Ubuntu is running so well on ARM!

From seeing all the bright people working on open source at UDS, it looks like Quantal Quetzal is shaping up to be a great release!

University of Chicago Press has a Carl Zimmer book, A Planet of Viruses, as their free monthly e-book.

I know Zimmer is a good writer. but the ebook, despite being free, is encumbered with Adobe's version of DRM, which unlocks via a Windows or Mac program. I use Linux, and wanted to read the book on a Nook. Was I out of luck?

Happily, the instruction page they sent when I signed up for the book helpfully included a section for Linux users. Hooray, U. Chicago! It said Adobe Digital Editions will run under Wine, the Windows emulator. I'd been meaning to try that anyway, and a Carl Zimmer book seemed like the perfect excuse.

And overall, it worked pretty well, with only a few snags. Here are the steps I had to follow:

Authorizing a book using Adobe Digital Editions in Linux on Wine

Install wine (on Ubuntu, I used apt-get install wine).

Download the Adobe Digital Editions setup.exe

Run: wine setup.exe (this should install ADE inside your .wine directory)

Copy the file, e.g. URLLink.acsm, into .wine/drive_c/My\ Documents/ Don't bother trying to open it with ADE -- the program won't open anything except PDF and epub. Curiously, the only ways to open the file from ADE are to drag the file onto the ADE window or to pass it as a commandline argument:
wine start .wine/drive_c/My\ Documents/URLLink.acsm

Now ADE should download your book and display it. You can read it there, if you want. But you won't want to -- it's not a good reading interface.

Authorizing a device with Adobe Digital Editions under Wine

Now how do you get it into your ebook reader? ADE running under Wine doesn't recognize devices such as ebook readers. so nothing will be copied automatically. But you can copy it manually.

• Plug in your ebook reader.
• Mount the device wherever you like -- /media/nook, /nook or whatever.
• With ADE not running (quit it if it's running), map a drive letter to the mount point:
  • Run winecfg
  • Click the Drives tab
  • Click Add...
  • Choose a drive letter (I chose D:)
  • Under Path: type in the mount point, like /nook
  • Click Show Advanced
  • Set the Type: to Floppy disk
  • Click OK to save it
• Now the drive is mapped. Re-run ADE:
  wine .wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/Adobe/Adobe\ Digital\ Editions/digitaleditions.exe
  ADE should now see the device and ask you if you want to authorize it.
• In ADE, drag the chosen book onto the left sidebar entry for the device.
• umount the reader ... and now your new book should show up in the library.

In theory, the drive letter should stay mapped, so you should be able to use it for opening future books. Just remember to mount your device to the same location before running ADE under wine.

I recently came into possession of a TI pandaboard for ARM development. Its a pretty cool little package, but if you want to build from source, you run into all sorts of old outdated wiki’s from Linaro that have you chasing your tail trying to build the android tree from source. Here’s how you do it as of May 2012

You have to get a ARM cross-compile toolchain and an android source tree that are in sync with each other. This is the tricky part, because its not exactly well tagged on the internet which version of the toolchain will work with what version of the source tree! When I was trying to match the versions myself, I kept running into all sorts of compile errors because the toolchain tools and the makefiles weren’t based around the same version of the toolchain.

After asking around on IRC, I figured out that linaro makes a build script for each daily/release version that has the URL’s for the proper versions of the source tree and the toolchain. This script is called linaro_android_build_cmds.sh. You can find these scripts on https://android-build.linaro.org/ Just find the build you want to replicate, and find linaro_android_build_cmds.sh in the download section, and download the script. For instance, you can find this script for the 12.04 release is here under the downloads section.

If you want, you can just chmod +x the script and run it. It should download the right files and build on your system. However, if you’re like me and would rather take care of these steps manually, the prebuilt toolchain URL is in avariable in $TOOLCHAIN_URL, and the repo commands and URL to init the android tree are plainly available in the file.

Happy ARM hacking!

Here is the text of my lightning talk.

Good afternoon! My name is Grant Bowman.

First, I want to thank Ubuntu for choosing this UDS location. It’s very exciting to have you all here. I’m a local. I would like to plug all the hard working San Francisco Bay Area groups I am privileged to be involved with but I need to highlight just one right now.

I would like to pause for a moment with you to zoom out quite a bit just for a second. Schools around the world are literally the place where the minds of our next generation are shaped. As social networking and new research confirms, the human condition is predicated on what Edward O Wilson calls eusociality or, more simply, “fitting in.” My colleagues and I have seen the need to “fit in” manifest itself time and again here in California and through travels to places like August Town, Jamaica and Nairobi, Kenya. Highly social school administrators are not immune. Luckily this eusociality is a double edged sword. It can work in both directions. Let me “take you to school.”

Even in these times of financial challenges, school district administrators, principals, teachers, parents and students still clamour to allocate a very significant amount of their overall resources to the purchase of poorly made computing products. This is directly due to public misconceptions. With a foundation of education these misconceptions can be changed.

As far as design & usability, Ubuntu is now leading the state of the art rather than following. We are experiencing a innovative, disruptive computing transition as described by Clayton Christianson in his book The Innovator’s Dilemma.

Poorly made computing products guarantee vendors upgrade sales. This contrasts with how we do things. As Eric Raymond describes, we are able to scratch our own itches and share our improvements for mutual benefit. We operate in the open in a bazaar style.

Closed source vendor lock-in creates a cycle of dependency in hearts and minds of all ages just at a time when students are looking to authority figures to show them how best to move forward. *We* know that free and open source specifically and Creative Commons more generally are game changers. Tim O’Reilly calls us alpha geeks. The public is slowly becoming more aware.

The significant resources closed source vendors direct at our common future are shaping the computing platform choices we and our neighbors use both publicly and privately. The longer we wait the worse this problem becomes. As we know, now is always the best time for engaging.

We would like to contribute back our hard won lessons, build our capacity and replicate our best practices in similar environments. In the 1970s Dr. Douglas C Engelbart called this structure a set of improvement communities. His papers are well worth reading to this day.

Partimus means “we share” in Latin. For those that haven’t heard yet, we are a locally operating 501(c)(3). We bring repurposed hardware, our favorite GNU/Linux distribution, free and open source applications and free culture content to San Francisco and Oakland schools. We are deeply involved in community building efforts. We need your support to continue to provide and grow our program as we have done for the past eight years. If you are able to help us, please contact me, Elizabeth Krumbach or the email address contact@partimus.org. Lyz and I are happy to speak with you. Lyz also has Ubuntu earrings for sale, a fundraiser we are conducting on our website, partimus.org

Oh, wear sunscreen. Thank you very, very much.

Phew, Thursday! I was moving a bit slower today due to not getting a whole lot of sleep last night, but it was quite the busy day for me.

– Community Roundtable -

We picked up discussion from the day before about announcements from Canonical, it was generally agreed that the community is less bothered by announcements which don’t impact them or require them to do a considerable amount of work, or makes work completed feel useless or ignored. It also seems like there may be missed opportunities to get the community involved in improvements. We then discussed the Unity Distilled list proposal, and compared it to the value that separating ubuntu-devel and ubuntu-devel-discuss has brought to the development community. With regard to UDS, I suggested that Canonical reach out to LoCo teams when planning so we can be more engaged. The session wrapped up by discussing UDS sponsorship and timing of announcements for venue and sponsorship, at this point timing-wise the contact for the next UDS hasn’t been signed. They’ll be working to open sponsorship earlier.

– IRC team meeting and IRCC review -

Generally good feedback about the status of the IRC Team and IRC Council. Quickly went through the process for operator recruitment, it has gone well and they’ve started syncing up calls for operators with the release cycle. They are seeking to clean up some of the access lists to better sync up with the launchpad lists, but won’t make changes where there aren’t problems. The IRCC only has 4 members, they’d like to fill their remaining seat so have added an agenda item to the next Community Council meeting and we’ll get that process started at that time. Reviewed no idling policy of -ops channel and agreed to explore some options moving forward. Wrapped up the session by discussing how IRC is used at UDS, newer versions of etherpad support a chat option which may improve interactions being noticed in the session, tomorrow there is a separate session about exploring this further in summit.ubuntu.com.

I’ve uploaded the notes from the session here.

– Community Council – Code of Conduct Review -

The message of the Code of Conduct has changed with the merging of the Leadership Code of Conduct. The main reason we wanted to do this is that we’d rather not like to persist the separation between community members and “Leaders” since we want to encourage all of our community members to strive for and be empowered to take leadership positions as their roles grow. We also wanted to integrate a diversity statement, which is now in this 2.0 version. The session clarified some of the reason for the changes, including protecting leaders (and potential leaders) from non-constructive and sometimes abusive backlash from other contributors when they have to make a tough decision, instead encourages more healthy engagement. We also discussed that we may want to make it simpler to sign, rather than using a PGP key, but still make it some kind of process so it doesn’t become a “Terms and Conditions” type document that people just click through. We also had a lot of great participation in the room to point out some changes we’ll need to make before we send out a more final revision for review, so thanks to everyone who came out and spoke up during the session. My fellow Community Council member Charles Profitt wrote a blog post about the session here.

– Ubuntu Women UDS-Q Goals -

I started off this session by reviewing some of the work we’ve done in the past cycle and will continue to do like Career Days and Full Circle Magazine columns and we brainstormed some about how to keep these going and who we can contact to encourage to participate. An action item was taken to take some of our older Full Circle Magazine posts and start posting them on our blog (with “originally appeared in FCM Issue # in $year…” etc notes). There were also some ideas about how visible the project was on some of the more core Ubuntu resources and within about an hour of our session a note about the project was up on edubuntu.org (thanks Jonathan!). We’ll also be reaching out to projects like OpenHatch and other groups that do very targeted mentoring. Finally, we’ll be taking a look at our leadership structure and electing new leader(s) this cycle.

I’ve uploaded the notes from the session here.

I was sorry to miss the Edubuntu plans for 12.10 and Ubuntu LoCo Council Items for the Quantal cycle sessions due to conflicts, so I’ll have to catch up with notes and participants later.

The first plenary session after lunch was on QA and focused on a series of FAQ around Ubuntu Automated Test Harness (UATH) and then a demonstration. Calexeda presentation about some of the facts and challenges of massive scale datacenter deployments, including power, space and cluster management and then noted that hardware hasn’t kept up with the demands of software and data. On the Ubuntu side Calexeda began getting involved at UDS-L in Dallas in 2009 and then Linaro was founded in 2010 to accelerate ARM and Open Source work. In the 11.10 release Ubuntu shipped with ARM support, and in 2012 they are seeking to deliver a complete solution and they anticipate an aggressive adoption of ARM servers and the rate and pace of innovation. The next plenary was on the current state of OpenStack. I saw a talk of the same name at SCALE in January and it was great to see how different this one was post release of Ubuntu 12.04 which shipped with Essex and will have an option to update OpenStack throughout its supported life. A list of known deployments was also shared, which includes HP Cloud, NASA Nebula, Rackspace and private clouds at Sony and Disney. Also reviewed some specific states and goals of the separate pieces of OpenStack. Wrapped up with note that all major Linux distributions have signed up to be founding members of the OpenStack Foundation. The last plenary was about MAAS (Metal as a Service), where there was a quick review of the history of the project and then did a live demonstration.

- Leadership Summit -

Started off with a couple lightning talks by some of the community leaders. Charles Profitt spoke about Tuckman’s stages of group development. Jorge Castro talked about AskUbuntu governance and conflict handling, since it’s a StackExchange site they go by their “A Theory of Moderation” and they use the Questions and upvotes mechanisms for site policy and even electing new moderators.

Then shifted into Q&A with the Canonical Community team. Led to a discussion about some of the collaborative meetings the team has, including regular one on ones, a public IRC meeting and some private casual meetings. Then moved into a discussion about the relationship between community and Canonical which led into a discussion about perceptions outside the project about the relationship. We then discussed some of the challenges as the LoCo communities grow and we expand beyond traditional contributors to companies and users with very different needs, motivations and interests. We also asked what other innovations could be made in the community moving forward.

After the break we picked up the Leadership Summit by discussing whether there are some core details that community members can focus upon. A proposal was made to get together some “more official” slide decks for some of the generic presentations (new features in $release, introduction to Ubuntu, introduction to getting involved). Leadership handbook was mentioned, the resources are available if someone wants to pick it up. We then continued the community lightning talks. Jono Bacon spoke about team planning and organization strategies. Then discussed some about getting through rough or lonely portions of projects, then on to the Learning team example – good to be clear about goals and expectations and being concise about making decisions.

- Drafting testcases for ubuntu flavors -

I ended up leaving the leadership summit to attend this session as the Xubuntu representative. We reviewed what the different flavors were already doing application QA-wise and discussed what the flavors teams need QA-wise. The Xubuntu team will be moving our Short and Long tests over to the QA wiki and there is a session Friday I’ll attend on Friday about expanding the isotracker’s test case capabilities.

I’ve uploaded the notes from the session here.

After all the sessions I sat down with Jose Antonio Rey to talk about the somewhat defunct Ubuntu Learning Materials and make plans to move forward so he can get some materials to a teacher of his who wants to teach about Ubuntu in his classroom.

I then met up with some folks from the Ubuntu Women Project to head over to my place in San Francisco for an Ubuntu Women Project dinner.

We had food!

And fired up a laptop with a Google+ Hangout so we could bring in some remote attendees as we sat around my livingroom and talked.

Ended up being a really fun night, 7 people came over, 3 participated remotely, and we wrapped up around 10:30. Thanks to everyone who came out! And for putting up with my over-friendly, chair-stealing cats :)

Day 3! The plenaries from Tuesday are up now, see here. The flavors talks start at about 30 minutes into it with Kubuntu, then my Xubuntu bit and on from there.

– Community Roundtable -

We talked some about Ubuntu Membership with regard to expectations, members not being siloed in their communities, and better documenting expectations for members as they cross into new communities within Ubuntu. There was also some discussion about some of the hardware (and other) reveals with Canonical partners that the community is not involved with, how to improve culture on both sides so that Canonical can protect relationships with clients and the community won’t be so troubled by Canonical not disclosing everything.

– Multi-Monitor Improvements -

Reviewed some of the improvements in multi-monitor support in precise, bug fixing (some of which are xorg and kernel fixes that all window managers benefit from, not just Unity), and features like the option of having launchers available on both screens. The Unity Multi-Monitor interactions toolkit is available here, including the Multiple Monitors UX Specification, Phase 1, which was used during the session. Went through sections on booting up, a proposed “presentation mode” where notify-osd does not activate (embarrassing or distracting notifications!) and power-saving isn’t enabled (display going blank during inactivity), laptop docking behavior, face lift of System Settings-Display Preferences, improvements to proper display focus, and more.

I’ve uploaded the notes from the session here.

– Ubuntu Desktop in an Enterprise Setup -

Premise of the session: “We want to be able to use Ubuntu in an environment where it’s currently a small player and we believe a relatively small effort could grease the wheels significantly.” Currently there is not much Exchange calendaring support in Mozilla Lightning, there is some more in Evolution but it’s not all that reliable and doesn’t work in all instances (requires Exchange webmail option to be enabled). Simplifying authenticating against various types of LDAP-based implementations with different security profiles. Discussed management of keys for encrypted filesystems (so IT staff can hold encryption keys for systems they deploy so they can recover user systems in cases of password losses, diagnostics and such). Actual management of systems can be done with CFEngine or Puppet, but no great tools for machine inventory: packages installed, hardware details, users logged in (Landscape offers some of these, but it’s proprietary and Canonical-managed). Touched upon the issue of Windows or Mac-specific applications, but it’s not a problem that can easily be solved in the short term. Wrapped up by talking about Office formats integration, LibreOffice is fine for some users, but many are very closely tied to Microsoft Office specifically.

I’ve uploaded the notes from the session here.

– Upstream App Developer Outreach -

The idea of this session is ways to more proactively reach out to application developers to get their applications into Ubuntu. One group is collecting a list of interesting applications and contacting the authors to see about getting them to package and submit it to Ubuntu. It was pointed out that personal contact is key for getting responses, automated emails or form mails don’t typically illicit replies. Also might want to go to gaming and programming conferences with fliers that have been proposed, which probably should point developers to developer.ubuntu.com/publish. The session wrapped up with brainstorming of suggestions of where else to look for potential applications.

I’ve uploaded the notes from the session here.

First up for the plenaries was Rich Hilleman from Electronic Arts. He opened by discussing how the gaming environment has changed over the past 5 years, focusing on being more mobile, social and free apps that people pay for “on the way out” rather than “on the way in.” They are platform agnostic by developing for various platforms and have been discussing with Canonical how to release on specific hardware configurations on Ubuntu. Noted that they have open sourced some of their older codebases like Sim City back in 2008 (released as Micropolis). Next up was Vin Sharma of the Open Source Technology Center at Intel. Intel contributes both code and money on upstream upstream projects. Sharma’s work is also focused on downstreams like Ubuntu. Discussed some of the interests and requirements of Cloud vendors and customers and are seeking to fulfill some of those resource implementations with OpenStack.

– Review of the ARB process using MyApps -

MyApps is the webapp the Application Review Board uses to track application submissions and this session is reviewing how that’s working and what improvements could be made. There was discussion about teams with review permissions and allowing flexibility of sources on the PPA upload user interface. Reviewed some existing bugs in the developer registration portal to assess priority.

I’ve uploaded the notes from the session here.

– LoCo Portal Design Iteration -

We want to keep the concrete plans somewhat simple due to low number of developers for the portal this cycle. Discussed possible redirection of users using GeoIP, but there have been very mixed results in accuracy. Proposed creating a “planet like” feed of blog posts by LoCo members which can be managed by team admins. We quickly reviewed the front page and decided to put out a survey to LoCo teams to see what they may find useful. Wrapped up by finding a few more volunteers in the room who may be able to help with development.

I’ve uploaded the notes from the session here.

– QA Team Organization -

There are a lot of QA teams (see here), so the discussion centered around how they could best collaborate, it was generally felt that administrators of the QA teams may find value in all project meetings a couple times a cycle, rather than seeking to create more teams or consolidate diverse teams. There was also the topic of giving feedback and recognizing contributions and avoiding burnout. There was an item to see about collecting data from trackers about who is doing what to give to team leads so they can handle recognition of their team members. The session wrapped up by talking about non-desktop testing, with focus on servers and hardware.

I’ve uploaded the notes from the session here.

That wrapped things up for the day, and it was on to the evening activities!

I planned an evening of San Francisco Tourism and met about 30 people in the hotel lobby at 6:30PM and passed out handouts detailing the plans for the night. James Tatum was kind enough to offer help for the evening as another local and so together we managed to get tickets for everyone and on to BART and over to San Francisco.

The tour started at Ferry Building where we were able to walk around the pier and get photos of the Bay Bridge and check out the ferries.

From there it was on to a street car which we all managed to fit in and head up to Pier 39 where about half the group went their own way to explore and get dinner. We took the other half of the group down the pier to see Alcatraz Island, the very distant Golden Gate Bridge and the sea lions. We then walked up to Fisherman’s Wharf for dinner at Boudin. Our dinner ran a bit late so I skipped down to the Fisherman’s Wharf sign at 9:30 to tell those gathered there that we would be running a bit late and encouraged them to head up to Ghirardelli Square for some ice cream while we finished up.

We all managed to finally meet up at the cable car turnaround across the street from the Buena Vista Cafe for a ride to Powell station.

James ended up taking most of the group on one cable car as the 6 or so of us remaining caught the next one. We all met at Powell station and hopped on BART, I got off at Montgomery station while everyone else headed back to the hotel. In all, quite a fun evening, it was great to have so many people come out!

Day 2 of UDS! Mark’s keynote from yesterday is now up on youtube, you can view it here.

- Community Roundtable -

The session started off with some discussion around the use of Trello.com boards. Several teams have found them to be useful and we’ll likely continue use, we do want to be mindful that we’re not duplicating the work of other methods for work item tracking (ie blueprints). There was also some discussion about community documentation which was picked up in a session later in the day. Finally, Jono let us in on EA’s announcement that was supposed to be big news tomorrow but had already leaked to several sources: Electronic Arts now have two games in the Ubuntu Software Center: Command & Conquer Tiberium Alliances and Lord of Ultima (he blogs about it here). For now these are just links to web applications, but it is very cool that a company like EA is showing interest in Ubuntu as a gaming platform.

- Continuing Packaging Guide Improvements -

The two biggest take-aways from this session was that they need more user testing and there is a fair amount of work to be done to consolidate and complete packaging documentation. There are several open bugs (here), so there is some feedback coming in, but to continue testing and feedback there was a proposal for user testing at packaging jams. On the consolidation side, there is still an Ubuntu packaging guide on the Ubuntu wiki, so the one on the wiki will be merged into the formal one here. The formal packaging guide is written in Sphinx and they are looking for volunteers to help with the transition. It was also noted that there is a translation infrastructure is available, but there will need to be milestones for when we can do calls from translations, so they began developing some milestones.

I’ve uploaded the notes from the session here.

- Keybindings Health Check -

This session went through reviewing default keybindings in Unity and discussing what worked, what people where having trouble with and how changes can be made to alter how accessible it was. Representatives from the Accessibility team were available to chime in on changes. Throughout reviewed portions of the keyboard shortcut overly to see about whether additions/subtractions need to be made.

I’ve uploaded the notes from the session here.

- Transition help.ubuntu.com to SUMO -

In this session we did an analysis of SUMO to replace the help.ubuntu.com/community/ moin wiki. There are a lot of complaints about the current infrastructure, including that wikis are difficult to maintain and aren’t really built for the dynamic support documents that organizations like Mozilla have, plus there is no real support for translations. I did have some concerns about who can edit it, particularly surrounding whether moderator approval would be required for edits, unlike the wiki, and who would be responsible for handling the additional moderator burden that such an infrastructure may bring (the docs team is already spread pretty thin!). A test instance will be deployed so we can explore some of this.

I’ve uploaded the notes from the session here.

After lunch it was off to the plenaries! They started out with an Ubuntu at Google presentation with Thomas Bushnell, Tech Lead for Google’s Goobuntu team. He began by hinting at the size of their Ubuntu deployments at Google, saying “tens of thousands of employees” including graphic designers, managers, software engineers, systems engineers, translators and more. They push workstations to their limits, have very high costs for reboots and re-logins. Goobuntu is a light skin over standard Ubuntu in most cases, they don’t customize the UI, use centralized administration with Puppet and apt, LDAP-based user database and automated release testing. He went over some of the special demands based on security, including purging packages which may be dangerous and more secure network authentication, internal apt repository framework and very diverse developers they support. They use the Ubuntu LTS and make extensive use of multiple testing methods and automation.

Someone took notes from the plenary which I’ve uploaded here.

We then had the official flavors planery, where representatives from Kubuntu (David Wonderly), Xubuntu (me!), Lubuntu (Julien Lavergne), Studio (Scott Lavender) and Edubuntu (Jonathan Carter) gave quick updates on the status of their respective flavors.

Thanks to Benjamin Kerensa for taking a photo during my Xubuntu section!

The plenaries wrapped up with Jono Bacon discussing his journey creating the new Ubuntu Accomplishments system.

- Leadership Summit -

The rest of the afternoon was spent at the leadership summit. It was a small group and some of the topics we covered were nurturing leaders, handling conflict, best practices for leadership. The final hour ended up being quite a valuable time, with some of the core community contributors sharing personal stories about their rise into leadership within the project and some of the challenges they faced and lessons learned. I think one of the key take-aways is that some of our core struggles around recruiting and retaining great volunteers are very similar, and for every time we cast our net out for contributors there will be only a tiny percentage of that group who will be retained, whether due to changing interest, time constraints or other factors which prevent prolonged involvement.

I had some great “hallway discussions” before heading down to the Google-sponsored “Circus” themed party. All I want to say about the party itself right now is that it made me uncomfortable, I left pretty quickly. Instead I went with Michael Hall, Penelope Stowe, Alan Bell and Jamesha Fisher over to a sports bar down the street where we enjoyed beers and some sandwiches, which was quite enjoyable!

An interesting new game called Cube Trains is in development and it works on Ubuntu. The game uses the Frogatto engine.

The tutorials are fun and easy, but the game is challenging. Your task is to build train tracks linking the train depots with their appropriately colored destinations.

 This game is still in early development, but if it interests you, give it a try.

Learn more about the game here:

http://ddr0.github.com/

To install, you will need to download the DEB file and install it. Go ahead, dont be shy... give it a try!

Although various organizations have tried to create standard test types, it's still the case that when you start with a new QA team, you need to understand what functional, smoke, sanity, and acceptance tests mean. It seems that there are three schools of thought for categorizing a test case:

1. Time based - This is sometimes defined as how long each test takes to run, or how long all tests of a given type take to run. A post on the excellent Google Testing Blog by Simon Stewart says that Google uses the amount of time a test takes to run, along with complexity metrics like threading and network access to categorize each test. The full article is here.
2. Functionality/coverage based - A lot of organizations will use tiers or buckets to define tests. An example might be that sanity is the bare minimum functionality the product needs to exhibit to be considered worthy of further testing. Smoke is exploring the common options/use cases customers will use "by default". Functional is everything else. This article at softwaretestinghelp.com differentiates sanity and smoke in terms of what the test cases cover.
3. Triage based - Writing and executing test cases is great, but we have to factor in the cost of analyzing the results. Even if you have sophisticated links to your bug tracking database from automation, test execution creates work. Organizations often set targets like "sanity test failures must be analyzed within two hours" or "we work through functional test results at least once a week." In this way, the triage behavior defines the test type.

Electronic Arts are delivering two games into Ubuntu, Command & Conquer Tiberium Alliances and Lord of Ultima. They are now available in the Ubuntu Software Center.

These games load up as web apps, meaning... when you start the game it will open up in your web browser. Regardless, this is major news and it shows that the big gaming companies are now looking towards Ubuntu as a viable operating system.

Give these games a try and add your reviews in the Ubuntu Software Center.

original announcement courtesy of Jono Bacon http://www.jonobacon.org/2012/05/08/ea-games-and-ubuntu/

Electronic Arts are delivering two games into Ubuntu, Command & Conquer Tiberium Alliances and Lord of Ultima. They are currently available in the Ubuntu Software Center.

While some may focus on the fact that these are loading web apps, the really exciting opportunity here is that EA have identified Ubuntu as an exciting channel to deliver their content. I would like to encourage our community to welcome EA to Ubuntu, and download and enjoy the games.

Let’s not get side-tracked by the fact that these are web games and not native to Ubuntu: EA are dipping their toes in Ubuntu as a channel of opportunity, and let’s welcome them with open arms.

Being local to the Ubuntu Developer Summit this time I had the pleasure of meeting up with several friends prior to the summit. Enjoying dinner in Oakland on Saturday evening, picking up a first time UDS attendee at the airport Saturday night after BART stopped running. Then on Sunday a lovely brunch at EPIC Roadhouse with a couple of friends who were staying in San Francisco Sunday and then heading over with them to Oakland with their luggage.

Having a UDS that’s local to me is actually quite a surreal experience. The excitement of visiting a new place and all the travel that goes along with it has been part of the whole experience every time I’ve attended a UDS until now. This morning between walking to the station, waiting for the BART train and then walking to the hotel I spent less than 30 minutes getting there!

It has also meant that I’ve traded the exhaustion of travel for that of being a helpful local. This morning I quickly ran out of my 15 “I’m a local” pins I bought for Ubuntu California attendees and was giving out blank Clipper transit cards throughout the day (I still have some if you’re reading this and need one). There was also plenty of helping folks with maps and quick questions (“where is chinatown?” and the like). I really love the bay area and have enjoyed sharing that with my fellow UDS attendees.

The day kicked off with an introduction by Canonical’s Community Team lead Jono Bacon and a keynote by Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth. Quality and having a usable release throughout development were a major part of Mark’s keynote. As he mentions here the exciting part of the keynote was the unveiling of the first rack-ready 48-node 192-core ARM server from Calxeda. Some day I’ll get my sysadmin paws on such hardware!

From there, it was off to sessions.

- Community Roundtable -

We started off with introductions around the room and discussed some of our take-aways from Mark’s keynote. We also touched upon some documentation discussions that are scheduled or should happen during this UDS, including the proposed move to SUMO. Tomorrow we’ll be brainstorming a bit more for the Leadership Summit happening in the afternoon.

I’ve uploaded notes from the session here.

- OpenStack HA -

Having not kept completely up to date with OpenStack, but working with many of the technologies at work (HA clusters on Debian with pacemaker and corosync, drbd and application-level replication strategies), this was an interesting session for me. The discussion centered around what kinds of things should be handled by the OpenStack infrastructure and what should obviously be handled application-side, for several technologies in the stack, including MySQL, RabbitMQ, Nova, and with an eye out for what to do when Quantum comes out.

I’ve uploaded notes from the session here.

- LoCo Portal Content Review -

This session covered a lot of ground, but at the core it was a review of static text content itself on the LoCo Team Portal. Some action items were made for gathering photos for About Local Community (LoCo) Teams to make it more lively. I agreed to do some “wiki archaeological work” once a defined list of documents we want included directly on LTP is put together, as I’m quite sure all the text has been written at some point, it’s just hard to find on the wiki. There was also a fair amount of discussion about the severe lack of developers for the platform, which runs on Django, so a few folks will be reaching out to the community with some “getting involved” documents and blog posts to spark more interest – perhaps next UDS we can even add more features!

I’ve uploaded notes from the session here.

After lunch it was on to the plenaries.

First off was “How Ubuntu and Canonical work with OEMs” with Chris Kenyon. It was a very interesting talk that quickly dove into the adventure it’s been over the past 4 years to work with OEMs to learn the steps they need to take to get Ubuntu pre-installed at scale. A lot of the OEMs are exclusively geared toward Windows, so all their testing and automation is built around Windows. As a result, the Canonical OEM team has spent a considerable amount of time working with the professionals at the OEMs to develop these same tools to work on the rapid installation and testing required in this area.

The next talk was on “HP & Ubuntu” by Bdale Garbee. Garbee, always an excellent speaker, explained that HP is world’s largest IT company, and they have the opportunity to interact with hugely diverse market and get feedback. He discussed the Moonshot, Odyssey and Voyager programs and how they relate to Linux and Ubuntu. Then discussed Ubuntu on ProLiant story: 2006: support for Debian, 2009: broader support for “Community” distributions, 2012: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS to be Certified and Supported. He also mentioned that they are doing a significant amount of work with OpenStack (not only technical content, but also hosting the build farm). The latest Ubuntu LTS is the core for HP Cloud offering, public beta begins May 10th.

The last plenary was about the juju Charm Store by community member Marco Ceppi. He quickly explained what juju is “apt-get for the cloud” and what Charms are (deployment scripts, or the “packages” in the “apt-get” analogy). Charms are submitted to the Charm Store, charms are reviewed for security, best practices and completeness. It’s a living archive, not frozen like you’d find with Ubuntu itself. And he gave demo of a juju deployment he just deployed a few minutes before the presentation. There is a charm browser at jujucharms.com

- Test Drive Different Tablet UIs – User Experiences -

I ended up in this testing room after some sessions got shuffled around, and I’m glad I did! There were several Exopcs on display running various operating systems and environments, including Gnome3, Windows 8 and Unity on 12.04. ZaReason also brought one of their soon-to-be-released Zatabs running Android. It was a popular room, but the traffic was flowing enough that it wasn’t too hard to get to see everything.

- QA community structuring and needs -

Aside from testing I did when I was maintaining packages in Debian, I’ve never actually done a whole lot of software testing until just this past release when I started to help test ISOs for the Xubuntu team. The session centered around analysis and proposals of changes which may need to be made to the QA community to raise effectiveness, recruit more volunteers (and not burn them out!) and in general leverage the resources they have to get the best results.

I’ve uploaded notes from the session here.

- App Developer Events -

Last session of the day! Ubuntu is seeking to get more developers to port (or simply write) applications to Ubuntu. I think the most interesting thing for me in this session was discussion related to some proposed “app contests” and how the discussion went from monetary and goods-based prizes to a more thorough analysis of what motivates people and is a compelling reward. It was generally agreed that something like recognition (ability to add to your resume “Winner of top app in Ubuntu for the month of July”) or prominent placement in the Software Center is going to be more valuable to a potential developer than a $100 gift certificate or goods (like a netbook) that may not be very useful to the developer who won it. There was also more general discussion about how we can better publicize app development for Ubuntu in general so potential app developers know it exists and have a clear path laid out to begin submitting apps.

I’ve uploaded notes from the session here.

After sessions I had several great hallway conversations before heading to the night’s meet and greet welcome event. I only stayed for about an hour, as I needed to head home to do some more preparation for the days ahead.

The Ubuntu Developer Summit begins today. Check out the daily events by clicking the "UDS Schedule" and follow along with live IRC chats...

http://uds.ubuntu.com/event/

Ideas

UDS is a hotbed of ideas. It's where we get together to find creative solutions to common problems. The result? A better Ubuntu.

Discussion

The bulk of UDS is discussion sessions. We explore problems and develop solutions together, pooling our experience.

Planning

Solutions are documented, specifications are written, and work items are assigned across all those participating in solutions.

Collaboration

UDS brings together a diverse range of participants and provides the perfect environment for collaboration and best practice.

Just over a week ago my girlfriend, her family and I spent a beautiful lunch in the sun under large, white, cool umbrellas with fantastic food, drinks and service. I was meeting many of them for the first time. I think we all enjoyed ourselves and I heard I made a solid first impression. While I was not particularly apprehensive I did wear nice clothes for the occasion.

As we were leaving the area her parents were driving and we were in the back seat. We were involved in a two car accident. My girlfriend had a forehead laceration that required twelve stitches, severe concussion, a ride in an ambulance and an overnight stay at the local hospital. The rest of us had some bumps and bruises which are now healing. We are all still recovering from the shock and are all incredibly grateful for walking away from this accident.

Since I wouldn’t hear of leaving my girlfriend in the hospital alone I stayed despite the official visitor policy. Some rules can thankfully be finessed to accommodate unusual circumstances. Hospitals are not my favorite place in the world but this and other experiences have shown me that caring, dedicated doctors and staff are quite common, helping others through difficult health situations. In the case of hospice when nothing else can be done the staff can help people end their life with dignity and help the families with such a difficult event. So I have had enough experience to accept the pace of all the interruptions of peaceful rest for tests, beeping machines and “doctor’s orders” carried out by the male nurses that were so helpful and kind to my girlfriend during her time there.

The automobile we were riding in and the other automobile will both likely be deemed “totaled” by the insurance companies. I won’t be posting the pictures I took but no picture can adequately capture what it was like. It could have been a whole lot worse. Our tow truck driver confirmed this after he has been working for two days straight towing cars after similar (and worse) accidents in the area. Whatever financial impact and inconvenience may follow, the real lesson to keep in mind is that we all are walking away from this accident.

At times like these our choices are most telling. Sometimes sad people feel sad. Sometimes angry people feel angry. A wake up call like this is a rare opportunity to examine our choices and review the life affirming choices we have already made in new light. We are a product of our choices and it feels most real and evident when faced with life threatening events. If this writing helps remind anyone of the wonder and fragility of life then I walked away from that accident for a reason. I look forward to doing all I can to capitalize on this renewed opportunity to touch people’s lives in some small way.

I've mostly been enormously happy with my upgrade from my old Archos 5 to the Samsung Galaxy Player 5.0. The Galaxy does everything I always wanted the Archos to do, all those things the Archos should have done but couldn't because of its buggy and unsupported Android 1.6.

That is, I've been happy with everything except one thing: my birdsong app no longer worked.

I have a little HTML app based on my "tweet" python script which lets you choose from a list of birdsong MP3 files. (The actual MP3 files are ripped from the excellent 4-CD Stokes Field Guide to Western Bird Songs set.) The HTML app matches bird names as you type in characters. (If you're curious, an earlier test version is at tweet.html.)

On the Archos, I ran that under my WebClient Android app (I had to modify the HTML to add a keyboard, since in Android 1.6 the soft keyboard doesn't work in WebView text fields). I chose a bird, and WebView passed off the MP3 file to the Archos' built-in audio player. Worked great.

On the Samsung Galaxy, no such luck. Apparently Samsung's built-in media player can only play files it has indexed itself. If you try to use it to play an arbitrary file, say, "Song_Sparrow.mp3", it will say: unknown file type. No matter that the file ends in .mp3 ... and no matter that I've called intent.setDataAndType(Uri.parse(url), "audio/mpeg"); ... and no matter that the file is sitting on the SD cad and has in fact been indexed already by the media player. You didn't navigate to it via the media player's UI, so it refuses to play it.

I haven't been able to come up with an answer to how to make Samsung's media player more flexible, and I was just starting a search for alternate Android MP3 player apps, when I ran across Play mp3 in SD Card, using Android's MediaPlayer and Error creating MediaPlayer with Uri or file in assets which gave me the solution. Instead of using an intent and letting WebView call up a music application, you can use an Android MediaPlayer to play your file directly.

Here's what the code looks like, inside setWebViewClient() which is itself inside onCreate():

            @Override
            public boolean shouldOverrideUrlLoading(WebView view, String url) {
                if (url.endsWith(".mp3")) {
                    MediaPlayer mediaPlayer = new MediaPlayer();
                    try {
                        mediaPlayer.setDataSource(getApplicationContext(), Uri.parse(url));
                        mediaPlayer.prepare();
                        mediaPlayer.start();
                    }
                    catch (IllegalArgumentException e) { showMessage("Illegal argument exception on " + url); }
                    catch (IllegalStateException e) { showMessage("Illegal State exception on " + url); }
                    catch (IOException e) { showMessage("I/O exception on " + url); }
                }
            }

showMessage() is my little wrapper that pops up an error message dialog. Of course, you can handle other types, not just files ending in .mp3.

And now I can take the Galaxy out on a birdwalk and use it to help me identify bird songs.

Just a quick reminded that my band Severed Fifth will be playing tonight at:

Roosters Roadhouse, 1700 Clement Avenue, Alameda, CA 94501

This is about a 5 – 10min cab ride from the Oakland Marriot hotel.

Get down there for about 7.30pm to ensure you get your tickets as the show has sold out of pre-sold tickets. We go on stage at 8pm. Hope to see you there!

On Wednesday May 2nd 2012 I instructed a lesson about "Gaming On Ubuntu" which gave some great ideas where to look for Ubuntu game news and where to find Ubuntu games. This was part of Ubuntu Open Week. Enjoy!

PDF Lesson Doc - http://ubuntuone.com/4MBDAYiMv70oQz8EBfBzDU









This PDF Doc - http://ubuntuone.com/4MBDAYiMv70oQz8EBfBzDU

Ubuntu Open Week Lesson Transcript with further insight
http://irclogs.ubuntu.com/2012/05/02/%23ubuntu-classroom.html#t16:00

Ubuntu Open Week Class Schedule: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOpenWeek

On Thursday May 3rd 2012 I instructed a lesson about Starting, Maintaining and Expanding Ubuntu Hours. Learn how to get one up and running and some of the benefits. Thanks!

Lesson PDF Document: http://ubuntuone.com/0XMCTRVPFeAU9tiQOFah2C






While the lesson is now finished, you can access some key files from it here:

This PDF Document - http://ubuntuone.com/0XMCTRVPFeAU9tiQOFah2C

Example Flyer PDF - http://ubuntuone.com/1mxbprkt4AC6NQA0u18bag

Example Flyer SVG - http://ubuntuone.com/0nDqRXf5yokPQRuvXZTdh9

Ubuntu Open Week Lesson Transcript with further insight
http://irclogs.ubuntu.com/2012/05/03/%23ubuntu-classroom.html#t16:00

Ubuntu Open Week Class Schedule: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOpenWeek

If you have recently upgraded to the new Ubuntu 12.04 and using the new Unity launcher, you'll notice it dosnt have a "Show Desktop" button to click, like the old versions of Ubuntu used to have down on the lower panel. You can bring this nifty little feature back quite easily.

The easiest way to get the Show Desktop on your Unity launcher is to install a program called MyUnity which allows you to make some simple changes.

To install open a terminal window and type in:

sudo apt-get install myunity

After installation open up the MyUnity program and click the "desktop" tab and turn on the active "show desktop" icon.

On Friday, May 4th, we hosted our third (and final!) day of Ubuntu Open Week sessions where we had the following sessions (click topic for link to full sessions logs):

• How to use Ask Ubuntu by jrgifford amithkk and jokerdino


• How to contribute translating Ubuntu by dpm


• Ubuntu 12.04 LTS for Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Users by jbicha


• Ubuntu Women Project by pleia2

Ubuntu Open Week went by fast and a lot of great info was covered. To look for more Ubuntu classroom events go here:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Classroom

On April 28th we took Simcoe in for her quarterly checkup, the last one was on January 26th (I wrote about it here).

In general we felt she was responding well to the CRF treatment, activity level has been great and it seemed like she was even putting on weight.

The physical exam went great. She indeed has put on a whole pound in the past 3 months, going from 7.1 to 8.1 lbs. This is up a significant amount from when she was just 6.06 lbs, but still a bit off her healthy weight of 9.1 lbs.

On Tuesday we got the blood work back:

BUN: 55 (normal range: 14-36)
CRE: 2.3 (normal range: .6-2.4)

So the BUN has increased a little (last time was 46) and CRE is down a little from 2.4. The vet suggested that we keep her on her treatment plan and check back again in 3 months.

She also again recommended that we start brushing her teeth regularly. We’ve since done it once… with marginal success. I’ll try again tonight. If anyone has some tips I’d be happy to hear them! We have been giving them treats that claim to help with dental health.

It’s also become increasingly difficult to give her pills, she is very sneaky. I’ll go through the whole pilling process, believe she’s swallowed it and then she’ll walk off and spit out the pill a minute later. On the recommendation of the petsitter we decided to try out Greenie’s Pill Pockets. It worked very well for the first few days, but now she’s trying to eat around the pills, the past two nights it took two tries.

We’re still working to handle different food for each cat. Caligula’s food sometimes makes her sick and we suspect Caligula has put on a little weight by sneaking her food. She’s also very picky about her soft food and I’ve had to sneak in the prescription food with the low-phosphorous over the counter food that she likes. On the bright side she hasn’t lost her appetite! She just walks around and meows when I don’t give her the food she wants.

I’m very happy that she’s responding so well to treatment, quite a change from the devastation we felt when she was diagnosed in December when we learned it was incurable and thought her prognosis was on the order of just a few months. From day to day she acts like normal pre-illness Simcoe!

Ive got to say... I LOVE this app. Lernid is a tool that makes connecting to online learning events such as UbuntuOpenWeek and UbuntuDeveloperWeek simple, easy and fun. Lernid gets you immersed in the content quickly and hassle free. I had the pleasure of using it a couple of years ago when it first debuted and again today. It has come a long way and is very much refined now.

Above is an example of what the Lernid app can do. When you are in a class session and an instructor posts a website link, the top area of Lernid will update and show the weblink right in the program so you dont need to open a separate web browser. If the instructor of the class has a slideshow, his slides will appear in the top right of Lernid and as the session progresses new slides will appear at appropriate times making your learning experience more visual and enjoyable. The bottom half of Lernid shows the classroom where the instructor talks and adds commentary, while the right half shows the classroom chat going on.

If at any time you want to ask a question, you would tick or select the QUESTION box and type in your question. If the question is valid, it will be posted to the instructor to answer.

You can go into the Lernid app anytime, even if there is no class taking place. It will show you what events are coming up soon.

Using Lernid is very enjoyable compared to just the text of an IRC chatroom. Give it a try with tomorrows Ubuntu Open Week sessions.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOpenWeek

You can find Lernid in the Ubuntu Software Center. Search for it by name and install.

For more class schedules please visit: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Classroom/

On Wednesday, May 2nd, Ubuntu Open Week had the following sessions (click topic for link to full sessions logs):

• Configuring your network using NetworkManager by cyphermox

• Scaling wordpress with juju, the OMG!Ubuntu! story by marcoceppi and imbrandon

• Gaming on Ubuntu by iheartubuntu

• How to help with IRC issues when you’re not an operator by topyli

There are some great sessions going on. Dont forget to check out our Gaming on Ubuntu session :)

I bought a Miata yesterday! My new baby. It's a 2000, in a lovely color Mazda calls "twilight blue mica". (You can see Miata pictures here, if you're so inclined.)

I'd forgotten how much nicer sports cars are to drive. I retired my last X1/9 more than a year ago, and have been driving mushy street vehicles since then. The Miata surprises me every time I get into it with its immediacy -- throttle, brake, steering, everything happens now.

It does have some used-car glitches that I need to sort out (some of them maybe even severe), but in general it's a great car: in stock trim it handles a lot like the street-prepared X1/9, even on crappy Kumho tires. Of course, that could be new owner infatuation talking. Ask me again in a few months. :-)

But really what I wanted to write about was the extremely strange warning sticker that came plastered to the driver's side window. I didn't really look at the sticker until the second day after I drove the car home, and then did a double-take. It says:

While use of all seat belts reduce the chance of ejection, failure to install and use shoulder harnesses with lap belts can result in serious or fatal injuries in some crashes. Lap-only belts increase the chance of head and neck injury by allowing the upper torso to move unrestrained in a crash and increase the chance of spinal column and abdominal injuries by concentrating excessive force on the lower torso. Because children carry a disproportionate amount of body weight above the waist, they are more likely to sustain those injuries. Shoulder harnesses may be available that can be retrofitted in this vehicle. For more information call the Auto Safety Hotline at 1-800-424-9393.

If you look at the photo I took of the sticker, note the shoulder belt anchor at the right edge of the frame. It's a normal stock shoulder belt, just like you'll find in any car -- this is a 2000 model, for crying out loud, not a 1970.

A web search on the error message led me to Section 27314.5 of the California Vehicle Code, which states that

27314.5. (a) (1) Subject to paragraph (3), no dealer shall sell or offer for sale any used passenger vehicle of a model year of 1972 to 1990, inclusive, unless there is affixed to the window of the left front door or, if there is no window, to another suitable location so that it may be seen and read by a person standing outside the vehicle at that location, a notice, printed in 14-point type, which reads as follows:

... followed by the text on my sticker. It goes on:

(2) The notice shall remain affixed to the vehicle pursuant to paragraph (1) at all times that the vehicle is for sale.

So the dealer must have put this sticker on. But why? Reading on:

(3) The notice is not required to be affixed to any vehicle equipped with both a lap belt and a shoulder harness for the driver and one passenger in the front seat of the vehicle and for at least two passengers in the rear seat of the vehicle.

The dealer must not have read as far as paragraph (3).

I also found that, despite the fact that the DMV's website still links to the page I linked above, that statute was in the process of being repealed by CA Assembly Bill 2679. Except that if you click on "Read latest draft", apparently they changed their minds again in the latest version of AB 2679 and are now going to keep the warning in.

Maybe instead of leaving it unchanged or striking it, they should change it to make it clearer that it only applies to cars without shoulder harnesses installed ... if there are any such cars. Haven't shoulder harnesses been mandatory in US cars since the early 1970s? Wikipedia says they've been mandatory in the front seat since 1968 ... but the citation they give for that goes to a page that no longer exists, so that may be off by a few years.

In any case, anyone buying a car so old it doesn't have a shoulder harness and only "may" be able to have one retrofitted to it probably understands there may be some safety issues in a 40-year-old car, and doesn't need a warning sticker.

Some of you may have seen the news of our very first Ubuntu Accomplishments release. Thank-you to everyone for testing the system; the feedback has been wonderful so far.

The power of the Ubuntu Accomplishments system is dependant on the range of accomplishments available to our users; a comprehensive range of accomplishments that span the full Ubuntu community will make the system an exciting and empowering resource. As such, I would like to put out a call to encourage you lovely people to contribute some accomplishments

Fortunately all you need to know is a little Python to contribute here.

How to Participate

This is how you can help:

1. First, ensure you are running the new release. Find out how to install it by clicking here.
2. Now familiarise yourself with our guidelines for what makes a great accomplishment (we are looking to avoid the ‘X number of SOMETHING achieved‘ accomplishments as they can be gamed and abused easily. We are instead looking for accomplishments for new experiences and skills such as ‘First Translation Made‘ or ‘First Contribution to the Ubuntu Sponsorship Queue‘. We have lots of ideas available on this page for inspiration!
3. Now read the tutorial and create your accomplishment (thanks to Rafal Cieslak for his excellent work on the tutorial).
4. With your accomplishment ready, submit it to the project and we will review it: details of how to do this are in the tutorial.

Thanks!

Importantly, while this blog post is seeking contributions for the Ubuntu Community collection of accomplishments, if you want to create a collection of accomplishments for your community or project (e.g. your software project, distro, local user group etc), you can use the same tutorial and resources to get started! Let us know if you have any questions!

Getting Help

If you have questions, you can get help in a few places:

• Join the mailing list – we have an active email discussion list and you are welcome to join and post questions.
• IRC Channel – we have the #ubuntu-accomplishments channel on the freenode IRC network.

Thanks so much for your contributions!

Yesterday I announced the first Ubuntu Accomplishments release. It is wonderful to see so many of you trying the system; many thanks!

As part of the 0.1 release, we have added David Callé‘s Ubuntu Accomplishments Unity lens to the 0.1 PPA. It looks like this:

The lens neatly integrates into your desktop your trophies and available opportunities. Clicking on an opportunity will show information about how to accomplish it.

Installing

To install the lens first, add the PPA to your system with:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-accomplishments/releases

Now update your package list:

sudo apt-get update

Ensure you have the full Ubuntu Accomplishments system (including the accomplishments-lens package):

sudo apt-get install accomplishments-daemon accomplishments-viewer
ubuntu-community-accomplishments accomplishments-lens

You will need to re-login to see the lens.

Please note: you will need to have the accomplishments back-end process running to use the lens. This is simple: just load Accomplishments Information from the dash and this will start the back-end process. You can now view the lens.

As ever, you can report bugs here.

Thanks, David, for your efforts in creating the lens!

Ask Mark on May 1st

and

Ubuntu Open Week from May 2-4

In just seven years, Ubuntu has become one of the most popular Linux distributions in the world with millions of users and a thriving community. Ever wondered what all the fuss is about? How have we achieved such a great feat in such a short space of time? Here’s where you can find out. Ubuntu Open Week is a week of IRC tuition and Q+A sessions all about getting involved in the rock-and-roll world that is the Ubuntu community. We organize this week for the beginning of a new release cycle to help new contributors get involved.

Ubuntu Open Week takes place in #ubuntu-classroom on irc.freenode.net (#ubuntu-classroom-chat for questions).

This cycle we’ve condensed it to 3 days, from May 2nd through 4th and have a special “Ask Mark” session on May 1st at 21:00 UTC.

During the “Ask Mark” session, community members are invited to ask Mark Shuttleworth (sabdfl) questions about the Ubuntu project. You will ask your questions in #ubuntu-classroom-chat with the prefix QUESTION: and DJones will be selecting specific questions to pass along to Mark in the main #ubuntu-classroom channel.
Then, from May 2-4 from 13:00 through 18:00 UTC, we will be hosting several sessions including:

• Scaling wordpress with juju, the OMG!Ubuntu! story
• Gaming on Ubuntu
• Submitting your apps to the Ubuntu Software Centre
• Ubuntu Development – how it all works
• Starting, Maintaining & Expanding Ubuntu Hours
• How to contribute translating Ubuntu
• Ubuntu 12.04 LTS for Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Users

And much more! To check out the full schedule and learn more about the event, visit the Ubuntu Open Week page on the Ubuntu wiki: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOpenWeek

We hope to see you there! But if not, as always, logs will be available after each session.

Four months ago Jono Bacon, the intrepid Ubuntu Community Manager, laid out plans for an Ubuntu Accomplishments application that would award users for accomplishing activities that would potentially forward the Ubuntu movement.

Accomplishments range from the basic tasks of registering with Launchpad, signing the Ubuntu code of conduct to more prestigious triumphs like becoming a community council member or an Ubuntu core developer. This app has now been realized.

A ton of work has gone into this project. The Ubuntu community is alive and well and continues the momentum of innovation other linux distributions rarely see. The first release of this app showcases some features but is no where near complete. Its worth installing and "checking" off items you have accomplished and it will give you goals to work for as well.

You can only install this on the new recently released version of Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin and its easy to do. You will need to install the PPA so updates for this app will be automatic for you.

Open up a terminal window and type this (and press enter):

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-accomplishments/releases

Now update your package list:

sudo apt-get update

Now install the packages:

sudo apt-get install accomplishments-daemon accomplishments-viewer ubuntu-community-accomplishments

That should do it. Now go up to your Unity dash (top left) and type in "accomplishments" and you should find the newly installed app. Click to run it. If you already have a Launchpad account, click that trophy and type in your Launchpad email. This clever app will extrapolate your data from your account and award you trophies accordingly.

Great job Jono and to all who worked on this!

Read Jono's original post here for more info: http://www.jonobacon.org/2012/05/01/first-ubuntu-accomplishments-release/

Wow ohhh wow! Another month has passed just like that and the newest edition of Full Circle Magazine has hit the "shelves". Issue number 60 of FCM is the fifth anniversary issue and its worth checking out.

This new issue includes some great reads...

* A great new graphics series has emerged! A nice intro into Inkscape and the SVG file format, and the impressive beginnings of the GIMP walkthrough of "Beanstalk". A definite must read for aspiring artists!

* A detailed review of Desura, the linux/windows game distribution platform similar to Steam.

* A game review of Trine 2 and another Nintendo emulator called BSNES.

* Plus a whole lot more packed into 58 pages of reading!


http://fullcirclemagazine.org/issue-60/

As always you can download the PDF version, but there is now an EPUB version and Google Currents version available.

Back in January I first posted about initial progress on the Ubuntu Accomplishments project; an effort to present our users with fantastic documentation and guidance for a range of different community activities and automatically award our users with trophies when they accomplish those activities. The end-goal is to make opportunities on your computer and in your community more discoverable and satisfying when accomplished.

Importantly, Ubuntu Accomplishments is not about meaningless awards such as 1000 posts to a forum or 500 bug comments (the like of such can be easily gamed and generate too much noise to signal), but we are instead focusing on awards for new experiences and skills acquisition (e.g. learning how to file a bug, becoming an Ubuntu Member etc). You can see our guidelines for how we decide on what makes a great accomplishment here.

Well, after a furious period of development, I am delighted to announce our very first release: Ubuntu Accomplishments 0.1. This first release is a huge milestone in the project: this isn’t just a small GUI app…to build this first milestone involved creating a back-end service (featuring a DBUS API), a Python API to ease writing accomplishments, a server validation service, a graphical front-end, and a collection of community accomplishments to get people started. In addition to this everyone’s favorite Callé…David Callé…has created a Unity lens for the system which we plan on releasing over the next few days too.

Currently the 0.1 release does the following:

• Browse a range of different Ubuntu Community opportunities and filter them based on different categories.
• Click on different opportunities to discover more about them, what is involved, how to get started, as well as tips and tricks for success.
• Some opportunities require others to be completed before you can progress: this provides a logical on-ramp for participation.
• Accomplishments are automatically checked to see if you have achieved them. If you have they are verified to ensure they can’t be faked.
• The GUI client shows your collection of accomplished trophies as well as the available opportunities.
• Comprehensive Unity integration featuring Launcher numbering, notification bubbles, and hi-resolution icons.
• Full translated and available in a range of languages (language support varies due to the early nature of this release…but you you can help translate it!).
• We also provide a collection of community accomplishments covering Development, LoCo Teams, Juju, Governance and more. We need more accomplishments contributing and I will be talking more over the next few days about how you can contribute.

The goal of the 0.1 release was to demonstrate the core system working and I am delighted to share this first release with you.

Installing

Please note, there is a reason why this is version 0.1 – this is a very early version, so use with caution. There are bound to be some bugs, but we welcome all testing so we can resolve bugs and problems. Thanks!

The 0.1 release is only available for Ubuntu 12.04 and is available in a PPA. You will need to have an Ubuntu One account set up and working (you don’t need a paid account, just the free account).

You can install the PPA by following these instructions.

First, add the PPA to your system with:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-accomplishments/releases

Now update your package list:

sudo apt-get update

Now install the packages:

sudo apt-get install accomplishments-daemon accomplishments-viewer
ubuntu-community-accomplishments

To use the system simple click on the Accomplishments Information app in the Unity dash. The graphical app will load and if you wait a few minutes you should start seeing notification bubbles arriving that tell you which trophies you have achieved.

You can browse the Opportunities by double-clicking on them to read more about them. You can view your collection of trophies by clicking on My Trophies.

Known Issues

A few known issues with this first release:

• Unicode decode crash – we have had a report of a translation causing a crash when clicking on an opportunity to view it.
• You have to start the GUI to start the back-end process. This will be started on login in the future.

Reporting Bugs

If you find a bug you can report it here. We are keen to know about all bugs you find!

Thanks

I just want to offer thanks to the following people who helped get this 0.1 release out:

• Rafal Cieslak
• Stuart Langridge
• Matt Fischer
• Duncan McGreggor
• David Callé
• Simon Watson

Thanks!

Next Steps

Moving forward we want to focus on these areas:

• Growing our range of accomplishments in the community to have an expansive collection that covers all parts of the community.
• Fix up support for local accomplishments so that you can browse opportunities for things on your computer (e.g. sending your first email in Thunderbird) and be awardd trophies for these.
• Fix bugs reported by you good people to get things rock solid.
• Expand our translation coverage.

If you would like to get involved and participate, please join our mailing list. Thanks!

I will be attending the Ubuntu Developer Summit (UDS) next week in Oakland, CA.  This event brings people from around the world together in one place every six months to discuss and plan for the next release of Ubuntu.  The May 2012 UDS is for Ubuntu-Q which will eventually be named and become Ubuntu 12.10 when it is released in October (2012-10).

I’ve attended two UDS in person prior to this, one held at Google (Mountain View) for Ubuntu Jaunty (9.04) and one in Dallas for Ubuntu Lucid (10.04). UDS wanders around the world to mix it up and get input from a wide variety of contributors. I’m not a fan of flying long distances, so I tend to wait until UDS comes to within a couple hours of my home in Los Angeles.

My primary involvement at UDS is to contribute my perspectives to the plans for Ubuntu as it relates to running on Amazon EC2 and interacting with other features of AWS, though I also have interest in general Ubuntu server functionality.  I’ve been running Ubuntu on servers since 2005, and Ubuntu servers on EC2 since 2007.

I am grateful to Canonical for sponsoring my trip to and stay at UDS as they do for many community members.  I continue to be impressed by how Ubuntu is developed in such an open fashion with Canonical’s support.

All community members interested in learning about how Ubuntu is developed and/or interested in helping give input to the future of Ubuntu are welcome to participate in UDS. You can either attend in person as I will be, or you can participate online.  Be sure to register (free) at the UDS site.

Taking a full week off for UDS is a little much for me, so I’ll be attending three full days (Wed-Fri). Will I see you there or online? What feedback and suggestions would you have for running Ubuntu on EC2?

Original article: http://alestic.com/2012/04/ubuntu-uds

Many of you will be familiar with the Ubuntu Accomplishments project I have been working on recently. Well, we are gearing up to release our very first 0.1 release in the next week in a PPA, but we have one area where I would like to reach out to you folks for help.

Translations!

We want to ensure that Ubuntu Accomplishments is available in as many languages possible; not just the application, but also the fantastic documentation that is part of the application.

As such, can I please ask you wonderful people to help contribute your translations by following the instructions below.

Translating the Application Software

We want to ensure the backend process (which displays the accomplishments achieved and opportunities unlocked bubbles) as well as the graphical client is fully translated. To translate just follow these steps:

1. Go to the daemon translations page and the viewer translations page.
2. Ensure you have the language you want to selected (you can change this by clicking the Change your preferred languages… link at the bottom of the page.
3. You should see a row for each language you have selected. Click on the number under Untranslated and go and add your translation.
4. Sit back and bask in your wonderful contribution to Ubuntu Accomplishments!

Oh, and if there are no translations for your chosen language, please do go and add translations!

Translating the Accomplishment Information

For each of the different opportunities (things you can achieve in the system) we provide comprehensive documentation for how to achieve that particular accomplishment.

Translating these is very similar. To do this just follow these instructions:

1. Go to the Ubuntu Community Accomplishments translations page.
2. Ensure you have the language you want to selected (you can change this by clicking the Change your preferred languages… link at the bottom of the page.
3. The translation of Ubuntu Accomplishments works a little differently. You should IGNORE the English line at the top and instead look at the documentation just below. There it tells you which accomplishment you are editing and what the original English translation is.
4. You can now type your own language’s documentation into the New translation box. For the larger chunks of text you can use the grey button at the end of the New translation box to make the text entry bigger. If there is already a translation there and you want to edit and improve it, click the Current <language> translation button and the text will be copied to the edit box where you can edit it.
5. Now click the Save button at the bottom of the page to save your contributions. Sometimes you have to scroll to the right to see the Save button due to some of the long chunks of the text on the page.

Thanks in advance to every one of you who helps to translate Ubuntu Accomplishments!

I have been to four Ubuntu Developer Summits (UDS), and at all of them I found the advice of local Ubuntu contributors to be very valuable to my visit, the shining example of which was the culmination of being downtown in a city and having the support of the Hungarian LoCo team while we were in Budapest.

This UDS it’s my turn to be a local, and it’s once again being held downtown in a city!

From May 7-11th UDS will be held in Oakland, which is across the bay from me here in San Francisco. With the cities being so close I make frequent trips to Oakland for baseball games, to fly out of the Oakland airport, to visit their museums and zoo or to see shows. In the “Bay Area” of which Oakland is part of, there are many similarities in transit and other key things that make most anyone within the area a useful local at an event in Oakland.

The Ubuntu California team has been pretty excited about this, and we’ve been brainstorming some things to do on our wiki:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/CaliforniaTeam/Projects/UDS-Q

And we have been moving confirmed evening events to the UDS wiki:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UDS-Q/OtherEvents

We’ve also put together a public transit page for UDS attendees:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UDS-Q/PublicTransit

Huge thanks to Eric P. Scott and Chris Peeples who have offered invaluable suggestions for this transit page, it was much smaller when I began!

We’ve also gone ahead and created “I’m a local” buttons which friendly members of the Ubuntu California team will be wearing throughout the week of UDS to help out with public transit directions, finding places to eat and more.

We welcome any UDS attendees to join us in our channel #ubuntu-us-ca on freenode or the ubuntu-us-ca mailing list with any questions about the area as you make your preparations to visit.

Several of us on the team have also cleared our schedules on the weekends surrounding UDS to spend time with visitors and are happy to help with details on bay cruises, museums and other “tourist stuff” which may be of interest in the area. On the Sunday before UDS I’ll be in downtown San Francisco (where I live) and would be happy to spend time with folks looking to do some shopping around Union Square. The Saturday following UDS I am thinking about taking interested folks over to the San Francisco Zoo and to see the Pacific ocean (too cold to swim, but it is pretty!), both accessible via light rail public transit. For both of these things people are welcome to drop suitcases and other items at my home downtown if it makes the logistics easier. If you’re interested, please drop me an email at lyz@ubuntu.com or grab me (pleia2) on IRC or track me down at UDS :)

Hope to see you there!

Disclaimer: I don’t work for Canonical and the work of the Ubuntu California team is not in any way a sponsored or included as part of the Ubuntu Developer Summit itself. If you have more general questions about UDS, your sponsorship or travel arrangements please follow-up with the contact at Canonical you’ve been working with.

On Thursday night I hosted the typical Ubuntu California release party at Thirsty Bear Brewing Company in downtown San Francisco.

We had…

A thirsty pangolin!

A hungry penguin!

A guy in a Fedora shirt (hi Jeff!)!

And lots of people having fun!

All told we probably had 20 people who came and went throughout the night. As is tradition, we stayed until past closing and there were plenty of friendly “I haven’t seen you in a while!” to go around. It was really great to see so many amazing people together for this event, thanks again to everyone who made it out!

Venus has been a beautiful sight in the evening sky for months, but at the end of April it's reaching a brightness peak, magnitude -4.7.

By then, if you look at it in a telescope or even good binoculars, you'll see it has waned to a crescent. That's a bit non-obvious: when the moon is a crescent, it's a lot fainter than a full moon. So why is Venus brightest in its crescent phase?

It has to do with their orbits. The moon is always about the same distance away, about 385,000 km or 239,000 miles (I've owned cars with more miles than that!), though it varies a little, from 362,600 km at perigee to 405,400 km at apogee.

When we look at the full moon, not only are we seeing the whole Earth-facing surface illuminated, but the central part of that light is reflecting straight up off the moon's surface. When we look at a crescent moon, we're seeing light that's near the moon's sunrise or sunset point -- dimmer and more spread out than the concentrated light of noon -- and in addition we're seeing less of it.

Venus, in contrast, varies its distance from us immensely. We can't see Venus when it's "full", because it's on the other side of the sun from us and lost in the sun's glow. It'll next be there a year from now, in April of 2013. But if we could see it when it's full, Venus would be a distant 1.7 AU from us. An AU is an Astronomical Unit, the average distance of the earth from the sun or about 89 million miles, so Venus when it's full is about 170 million miles away. Its disk is a tiny 9.9 arcseconds (an arcsecond is 1/3600 of a degree) -- about the size of Mars this month.

In contrast, when we look at the crescent Venus around the end of this month, although we're only seeing about 28% of its surface illuminated, and that only with glancing twilight rays, it's much closer to us -- less than half an AU, or about 45 million miles -- and its disk extends a huge 37 arcseconds, bigger than Jupiter this month.

Of course, eventually, as Venus pulls between us and the sun, its crescent gets so slim that even its huge size can't compensate. So its peak brightness happens when those two curves cross, when the disk is somewhere around 27% illuminated, as happens at the end of this month and the beginning of May.

Exactly when? Good question. The RASC Handbook says Venus' "greatest illuminated extent" is on April 30, but PyEphem and XEphem say Venus is actually brighter from May 3-8 ... and when it emerges from the sun's glare and moves into the morning sky in June, it'll be slightly brighter still, peaking at magnitude -4.8 in the first week of July.)

Tracking Venus with PyEphem

When I started my Shallow Sky column this month, I saw the notice of Venus's maximum brightness and greatest illuminated extent in the RASC Handbook. But I wanted more details -- how much did its distance and size really change, when would the brightness peak again as it emerged from the sun's glare, when would it next be "full"?

PyEphem made it easy to calculate all this. Just create an ephem.Venus() object, calculate its values for any date of interest, then print out parameters like phase, mag, earth_distance and size. In just a few minutes of programming, I had a nice table of Venus data.

import ephem

venus = ephem.Venus()

print '%10s   %6s %6s %6s %6s' % ('date', '%', 'mag', 'dist', 'size')
def print_venus(when) :
    venus.compute(when)
    fmt = '%02d-%02d-%02d   %6.2f %6.2f %6.2f %6.2f'
    trip = when.triple()
    print fmt % (trip[0], trip[1], trip[2],
                 venus.phase, venus.mag, venus.earth_distance, venus.size)

# Loop from the beginning of 2012 through the middle of 2013:
d = ephem.date('2012')
end_date = ephem.date('2013/6/1')
while d < end_date :
    print_venus(d)
    # Add a week:
    d = ephem.date(d + ephem.hour * 24)

I've found PyEphem very handy for calculations like this -- and it's great to be able to double-check listings in other publications.

Today we released the highly-anticipated Ubuntu 12.04 LTS release after a busy six month development cycle. The release is available in Desktop (see OMG! Ubuntu!’s great summary), Server, and Cloud Infrastructure form. You can also install the desktop easily from Windows by clicking here.

I am hugely proud of Ubuntu 12.04 LTS; I believe it is the best and bravest release we have ever shipped, and I am delighted to see Ubuntu’s continued progress in delivering a simple, elegant, and powerful Free Software platform for the Desktop, Server, and Cloud.

Aside from the release, the Ubuntu 12.04 cycle was in my mind an evolutionary cycle for us as a project. The focus on quality was firm and unrelenting; initiatives such as gated trunks, acceptance criteria, automated testing, and a strong focus on growing a testing community and widening our manual tests, all contributed to delivering a solid release. Canonical as a company continued to see a lot of growth, as did our community with initiatives such as the Developer Advisory team, application developer focused outreach, and our continued growth of the Juju charming community. I am not only proud of the 12.04 LTS release, but also of these workflow and growth improvements we also made as a community that are not immediately visible in the release. Thank-you to everyone who helped drive this important work.

Thank-you also to everyone of you who has participated in this release, whether you have worked on packages, provided testing, documentation, translations, support, advocacy, or anything else. Ubuntu really is a community effort, and without our wonderful community of contributors and supporters we would be nothing. Thank-you for all of your hard work and fantastic efforts.

After a busy six months let’s all take a few minutes to take a step back and be proud of what we accomplished. Rock and roll.

Why?

View larger.

…that’s why.

Back in January I started working on the Ubuntu Accomplishments system, and since then the project has been making some solid progress. Thanks to everyone who has joined to help, and a particular thanks to Rafal Cieslak for his wonderful contributions to the core system.

Over the last few weeks we have locked down the features in Ubuntu Accomplishments and have been working towards our very first 0.1 release. We have defined our 0.1 bug list across the daemon and viewer components and we have been steadily getting the bugs fixed.

For a quick video demo of how the system is looking, see the video below:

Can’t see the video? Click here to see it.

As we work to stabilize the system ready for a first taster release, there has been some wonderful work going on with the translations of the system. If you can help translate the system, please see this post and this one.

Testing

If you would like to play with Ubuntu Accomplishments, you can install the testing PPA. Before you do so, please remember this software is very young and if it blows up you will get to keep both pieces; you are on your own.

To install the PPA simply run the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-accomplishments-admins/daily
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-community-accomplishments accomplishments-daemon accomplishments-viewer

Please note, you will need to be running Ubuntu 12.04 to run Ubuntu Accomplishments.

You can then start the daemon with:

twistd -noy /usr/bin/accomplishments-daemon

…and the GUI with:

accomplishments-viewer

You can file bugs in the daemon here and the viewer here. If you get stuck with which one to use, just file it and we will move the bug if needed.

If you have got any questions, be sure to join the mailing lists!

When I upgraded to Firefox 11 a month or so ago, I got a surprise: I couldn't invoke firefox from other applications any more. Clicking on a link in an app such as xchat just gave me the Firefox Profile Manager dialog, instead of opening the link in the browser I was already running.

I couldn't find anything written about it, so I've been putting up with it, copying each link then switching to the desktop where Firefox is running and middleclick-pasting it into the browser. But this morning, I did a new round of searching, and finally found the answer, in bug 716110. and its duplicate, 716361.

Quoting from bug 716110::

[The developers] changed the -no-remote flag's behavior in a
surprising, backward incompatible way. Before, it just meant "start a
new instance." Now, it also means "don't listen for remote commands."

Apparently the change went in for Firefox 9, because of bug 650078.

Indeed, that was the problem. I have multiple Firefox profiles, so I use -no-remote -P profilename when I start Firefox, so each profile doesn't conflict with one that might already be running.

But with Firefox 9 or later, you can't do that. Instead, run your first, primary profile without -no-remote; then if you start up other profiles later, run them with -no-remote so they don't conflict with the first one. That works okay for my typical usage, fortunately: I have a main Firefox window I run all day, and only start up other profiles for short periods.

But since not everyone uses this model, fortunately, some upcoming Firefox version will fix the problem by adding a new runtime flag, -new-instance, to do what -no-remote used to do: start up a window for a new profile, rather than talking to the running Firefox. Here's the new --help text:

-no-remote	Do not accept or send remote commands; implies -new-instance.\n
-new-instance	Open new instance, not a new window in running instance.\n

The web Command Line Options page doesn't seem to have been updated yet, but perhaps it will when the Firefox with the fix is released.

Of course, it would have been much simpler if Firefox just honored the -P flag and used whatever profile it was given, as suggested by a commenter in bug 650078. But bsmedberg replies that the complexity of the code makes that difficult.

The new arguments look more sensible than the old -no-remote, though it's frustrating that it was so hard to find information about changes like this. All three bugs are filled with comments from people who, like me, lost a lot of time trying to figure out what broke and how to launch URLs remotely after the change. Thanks to Ryan for clarifying the issue and filing the bug to fix the problem, and to Jed, who added the new flag with his first Mozilla patch. Hooray for open source!

I’ve been tinkering around a bit more and more with Google’s Go language, and I’m finding that I like it more and more.

I think its a great good evolution of compiled languages. A few quick thoughts on what I like so far:

Novel way to handle concurrency

With C or C++, you have to write a pretty big chunk of code to spawn a new thread. With Go, you just have to write
go function(), and its as easy as that!

Furthermore, in C/C++ you’re constantly dealing with locks to ensure data is protected. As you know, this can get pretty hairy. In go, you can set up a system based on locks as well, but you can also use Go “channels”. Talking about Go channels really deserves its own series of articles, but pretty much, a channel is a way that you can instruct independent processes to wait for data to become available, or to signal that data is available. This lets you ensure concurrency without ever having to think in terms of locks and unlocks. Furthermore, you can send arbitrary data types on these channels, allowing you to process data in one thread, and then send the finished result to a waiting thread very easily. Its a novel shake-up to the way concurrency has been thought of in a lot of other languages that I’ve seen.

Garbage Collection

Garbage collection is a nice feature to have in a language. You can make a strong academic case for manual garbage collection, but at the end of the day, its easier to allocate and forget it. I’ve heard that Go’s garbage collector still needs some work (as all collectors do), but I’m sure as the language evolves it will have less and less overhead…

Compiled language

I mostly live in the OS level, and interpreted languages just don’t do in a lot of situations I come across. Having a language that is directly compiled to the architecture’s assembly, and directly executable without any runtimes is something that is great.

Moderately easy C bindings

Go’s authors provide a moderately simple interface to use C code. As with a lot of bindings, its a bit funny at times, but I’ve been using it to great effect to add C functionality to go code.

A Functional Language that’s learned from Object Orientation

You can go back and forth over whether its better to use a functional language or an object orientated language, but I think it just comes down to what you need to use it for. It is indeed nice to be able to tie a set of data to a set of useful functions on them, but at the same time, but at the same time, I find its easy to get bogged down in semantics and formalities of very strict object oriented languages.

Go is a functional language, but it works around with this with some very simple ideas:
1) There are no classes, but there are packages that group similar code together. You don’t have to deal with header files and book-keeping either.
2) In a struct, a data member is accessible globally if its a capitalized, its accessible only within its package if its lowercase. So for instance, foo.bar would be only visible within its package (aka, private), but foo.Bar would be accessible from any code that imports the package (aka, public). Its a simple idea, and I have to say it works great.
3) A struct type may be associated with a function. This lets you designate a function, say Sort, and then tie it to struct. Anyone using the struct can say Foo.Sort(), and the Sort function will get all the data in Foo as a parameter of the function. This too is simple, and works really well.

Real native interface types

Its a compiled functional language, but it gives you access to slices, a powerful way to manage arrays that has native support for a lot of the things C++’s vector library can do (without a lot of the strangeness of that library…)

Really, whether you love functional or object oriented, you should give Go a try!

This morning I dropped MJ off at the airport. To cheer myself up and enjoy the beautiful weather I decided to take a detour on my way home to visit the San Francisco Zoo.

If you read my blog you know that as a member I visit frequently. Took lots of pictures (set here) and was generally enjoying the visit. Slash the cassowary was out! One of the polar bears was posing for pictures! The grizzly bears were running around in anticipation for their breakfast!

Then I got to Orkney’s pool.

Orkney’s pool was empty. All his signs were gone. A zoo staff member was nearby so I quickly asked her about it and she conveyed the bad news, Orkney had passed away the previous month. There were some tears and she admitted that she had cried too when she learned.

From the San
 Francisco
 Zoo
 Mourns
 the
 Death
 of
 “Orkney” the 
Beloved
 Grey 
Seal press release on March 2nd:

SAN
 FRANCISCO 
– 
Today, 
San 
Francisco 
Zoo 
is 
sad 
to 
announce 
the 
loss 
of 
Orkney, 
an
 Atlantic
 grey 
seal 
that 
arrived 
at 
the 
Zoo 
in
 1970.
 He
 was 
42
 years
 old 
and 
considered
 the 
oldest 
grey
 seal 
living
 in 
any 
North 
American 
Association 
of 
Zoos 
and 
Aquariums’
 (AZA) 
captive
 populations. 
He
 was
 born
 in
 the
 wild
 at 
Prince
 Edward
 Island
 in 
Eastern
 Canada
 and
 was 
a
 favorite
 among
 staff
 and 
visitors. He
 shared 
his 
exhibit 
with other
 grey
 seals 
over the
 years
 and
 sired
 multiple 
offspring
 between
 1979
 and 
1983.




For
 the
 past 
several 
months,
 Orkney
 had 
been
 undergoing 
medical 
treatments
 as 
well 
as
 regular
 training
 sessions
 that 
allowed 
staff 
to 
monitor 
his 
weight 
and 
conduct 
visual
 exams. 
Yesterday, 
his 
keepers 
noticed
 that 
he 
was 
extremely 
lethargic 
and 
weak. 
They
 kept 
a 
close 
eye 
on 
him 
in 
hopes 
his condition 
would
 improve. 
On Friday
 morning,
 his
 breathing
 was 
deep
 and 
labored,
 and 
he 
showed 
no 
signs 
of 
engagement 
or 
interaction.
 After 
careful 
consultation 
with 
the 
Zoo’s 
Animal 
Care 
staff 
and 
the 
Chief 
of 
Veterinary
 Services, 
the 
decision 
to 
euthanize 
him 
was 
made.




“Unfortunately, 
we 
had 
to 
make 
the 
decision 
to 
say 
goodbye 
to 
Orkney,” 
Tanya 
M.
 Peterson, 
San 
Francisco
 Zoological
 Society
 Executive 
Director 
and 
President 
said. “He
 had
 been 
our 
own 
Lance
 Armstrong
 by 
beating
 the 
odds 
for 
so 
long. 
He’ll 
be 
greatly
 missed
 by 
staff 
and 
visitors 
alike.”

I love animals and it would be impossible for me to say what is my favorite, or even what general type is my favorite, but I do adore pinnipeds. I go up to Pier 39 to visit the sea lions regularly, I was delighted by the seal-covered beaches in Monterey and I’m a member of the Marine Mammal Center and have said “if I ever give up this open source stuff, I’ll go volunteer there.” When I joined the zoo in 2010 Orkney was the only pinniped (they now also have two sea lions, the blind rescues Silent Knight and Henry) and so I made a point to visit him every time to say hello. On my birthday I joked that I went to see him “to see someone older than me.”

The last time I saw Orkney was when I was last at the zoo on February 4th, soaking up the sun near his pool.

I am glad he was able to live such a long life with the care he had, but I will miss him.

I've been fighting a bug in Android's WebView class for ages: on some pages, clicking FeedViewer's back arrow (which calls WebView::goBack()) doesn't go back to the previous page. Instead, it jumps to some random position in the current page. If you repeat it, eventually, after five or so tries (depending on the page), eventually goBack() will finally work and you'll be back at the previous page.

It was especially frustrating in that it didn't happen everywhere -- only in pages from certain sites. I saw it all the time in pages from the Los Angeles Times and from Make Magazine, but only rarely on other sites.

But I finally tracked it down: it's because those pages include the HTML <iframe> tag. Apparently, if a WebView is on a page (at least if it's a local page) that contains N iframes, the first N calls to goBack will jump somewhere in the document -- probably the location of the associated iframe, though I haven't verified that -- and only on the N+1st call will the WebView actually go back to the previous page.

The oddest thing is, this doesn't seem to be reported anywhere. Android's bug tracker finds nothing for webview iframe goback, and web searching hasn't found a hint of it, even though I see this in Android versions from 1.6 through 2.3.5. How is it possible that other people haven't noticed this? I wonder if it only happens on local file:// URLs, and not many people use those.

In any case, I'm very happy to have found the answer at last. It was easy enough to modify FeedMe to omit iframes (and who wants iframes in simplified HTML anyway?), and it's great to have a Back button that works on any page.

Back in August I wrote a post “News is hard, but we’re making it easier” regarding improvements to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter.

At the time I defined some todo list items, which I now have updates on:

• UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter wiki
  • Make sure workflow is properly documented DONE
  • Confirm team contact information has been updated DONE
  • Review instructions for how to get involved DONE
  • General clean-up for clarity DONE
• Train additional releasers INPROGRESS
• Redefine team structure and leadership DONE

I think one of the most exciting things about this reorganization is the formal decentralization of a single editor in chief running the whole thing. Unfortunately this is largely in name only, as there are still only 2 people who can complete the full publishing routine and if I’m unavailable I need to plan accordingly to make sure we have volunteers available to coordinate the preparation. I’d really like to move past this because it’s not sustainable.

We need more volunteers doing summary writing and editing so we can complete the newsletter in a timely manner each week (and can actually complete it to our highest standards, last week we had to forgo summaries on two full sections of the newsletter because we didn’t have enough people to write them). We also wish to have a wider pool to draw from when it comes to experienced folks to train on the release process as most of our volunteers have very limited time to contribute.

See this page for details of each and how you can help out: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/Join

Email me at lyz@ubuntu.com if you have any questions, comments, suggestions or anything. Feel free to drop by #ubuntu-news on chat.freenode.net if you want to get a feel for the team or ask other questions (as always with IRC, please be patient when waiting for replies, we’re a small team and not always around to reply!).

Finally, huge thanks to everyone who is currently involved with the team and recently joined. We recently had Matt Rudge join us as a wonderfully thorough editor, Charles Profitt stepped up while I was traveling to collect links and has been working on summaries, Amber Graner is reliably available for releasing when I’m not, Chris Druif has been maintaining our Ubuntu Flavors meetings section, Jose Antonio Rey recently started maintaining a Spanish translation and Benjamin Kerensa (who also works on Dev news) has stepped up to be trained on releasing. And of course our hard-working summary writers (and sometimes editors!) Nathan Dyer, Neil Oosthuizen, Emma Marshall, Unit193 and others who don’t explicitly put their name in the credits.

For many years now we have been building a comprehensive Ubuntu contributor community. Across our many different sub-communities such as Packagers, Translators, LoCo Teams, Forums, AskUbuntu, Documentation Writers, Ubuntu Women, QA, Accessability, and elsewhere, we have worked hard to help everyone put their brick in the wall to help Ubuntu be the best it can for everyone and within our core values of the platform being Free Software, in your language, and available for everyone irrespective of disability.

I am proud of this work and the many people who have contributed to it. Importantly, I think Ubuntu has made great inroads in fostering a community that empowers all contributors, whether you are technical or not, wherever you may live, and welcoming everyone to the Ubuntu family.

There is however a new type of community that we need to build and this is quite different to what we have done before; a community of application developers.

In recent months various teams have been working to make the Ubuntu application developer experience smooth and effective. This has included the creation of developer.ubuntu.com, creating the MyApps submission process that enables an app developer to submit their app for review, improvements to the Ubuntu Software Center, application reviews from the App Review Board, and various outreach campaigns.

Some of you may be wondering why this community is so different; surely it is just another collection of mailing lists, blog posts, excitable tweets, and infrastructure? Well it is different in one very distinctive way.

Traditionally each of the different sub-communities I mentioned at the beginning of this post have contributed to Ubuntu itself as a platform. This defines a simple relationship between Ubuntu and our contributors: if there is a problem in Ubuntu, we encourage these contributors to help resolve the issue in whatever way they can. This includes reporting bugs, testing PPAs with fixes, running the development release of Ubuntu etc. The relationship presumes that our contributors are interested in the internals of the platform and community, how they fit together, and how they can be improved. With such a presumption we make a set of determinations: you are familiar with Launchpad, you read Planet Ubuntu, you know how to file a bug, you read some of the mailing lists etc.

With this app developer community we should not make those assumptions: we need to assume that application developers are only interested in Ubuntu as a platform. They don’t care how it is built or the politics involved, they just want to deliver their apps quickly and easily on Ubuntu. We need to view these folks as true consumers of our platform: they want to use our platform to do interesting things and not get embroiled in how the platform was created. More specifically, we should not presume an interest or intention to improve the platform, but to merely consume it and deliver their value…their apps.

With this in mind we need to adjust our focus and thinking a little bit in how we grow this community. We can’t presume application developers have the skills or interest that would be commonplace to our existing contributor community. As an example, I don’t believe it would be reasonable to recommend an application developer runs a development version of Ubuntu, or recommend he or she becomes a member of MOTU or core-dev. These functions are valuable in our contributor community, but we need to work from an assumption that an application developer is uninterested in those functions and just wants to consume our platform and deliver their app.

Of course, our existing contributor community is still as critically important as it was before; we would be nothing without our community. The difference is in setting expectations for this new community; we need to not assume the same experience, knowledge, interests, or values.

I want to build an incredible community of application developers who feel truly empowered by Ubuntu. We have an awesome Free Software platform, wonderful collaboration tools in Launchpad, an enthusiastic community of users, and bags of potential.

With these goals in mind, David Planella and Michael Hall on my team will be performing a lot of work in the next Ubuntu cycle to actively grow and build this new community. We will be reaching out to find application developers in new places, identifying the holes in our application developer processes, and seeking to ensure that not only is Ubuntu a fantastic platform for application authors, but the fruits of their work are available to Ubuntu users around the world in the Ubuntu Software Center.

You can expect to read more and more about this over the coming months and your ideas, thoughts, and suggestions are most welcome.

My new toy: a Samsung Galaxy Player 5.0!

So far I love it. It's everything my old Archos 5 wanted to be when it grew up, except the Archos never grew up. It's the same size, a little lighter weight, reliable hardware (no random reboots), great battery life, fast GPS, modern Android 2.3, and the camera is even not too bad (though it certainly wouldn't tempt me away from my Canon).

For the record, Dave got a Galaxy Player 4.0, and it's very nifty too, and choosing between them was a tough choice -- the 4-inch is light and so easy to hold, and it uses replaceable batteries, while the 5-inch's screen is better for reading and maps.

USB-storage devices don't register

I love the Galaxy ... but there's one thing that bugs me about it. When I plug it in to Linux, dmesg reports two new storage devices, one for main storage and one for the SD card. Just like most Android devices, so far.

The difference is that these Samsung devices aren't fully there. They don't show up in /proc/partitions or in /dev/disk/by-uuid, dmesg doesn't show sizes for them, and, most important, they can't be mounted by UUID from an fstab entry, like

UUID=62B0-C667   /droidsd    vfat   user,noauto,exec,fmask=111,shortname=lower 0 0

That meant I couldn't mount it as myself -- I had to become root, figure out where it happened to show up this time (/dev/sdf or wherever, depending on what else might be plugged in), mount it, then do all my file transfers as root.

I found that if I mounted it explicitly using the device pathname -- mount /dev/sdf /mnt -- then subsequently the device shows up normally, even after I unmount it. So I could check dmesg to find the device name, mount it as root, unmount as root, then mount it again as myself using my fstab entry. What a pain!

A kernel expert I asked thought it looked like the Samsung is pretending to be a removable device, but only "plugging in" when the system actually tries to access it. Annoying. So how do you get Linux to "access" it?

Udev: still an exercise in frustration

The obvious solution is a udev rule. Some scrutiny of /lib/udev/rules.d/60-persistent-storage.rules found some rules that did this intriguing thing: IMPORT{program}="ata_id --export $tempnode".

Naturally, this mysterious ata_id is undocumented. It's hidden in /lib/udev/ata_id, and I found this tiny ata_id man page online since there's none available in Ubuntu. Running ata_id /dev/sdf seemed to do what I needed: it made the device show up in /proc/partitions and /dev/disk/by-uuid, and after that, I could mount it without being root.

I created a file named /etc/udev/rules.d/59-galaxy.rules, with the rule:

KERNEL=="sd[b-g]", SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="04e8", SYMLINK+="galaxy-%k-%n", IMPORT{program}="ata_id --export $tempnode"

When I tested it with udevadm test /block/sdf, not only did the rule trigger correctly, but it actually ran ata_id and the device became visible -- even though udevadm test states clearly no programs will be run. How do I love udev -- let me count the ways.

But a reboot revealed that udev was not actually running the rule when I actually plugged the Galaxy in -- the devices did not become visible. Did I mention how much I love udev?

Much simpler: a shell alias

But one thing I'd noticed in all this: side by side with /dev/disk/by-uuid is a directory called /dev/disk/by-id. And the Samsung devices did show up there, with names like usb-Android_UMS_Composite_c197022a2b41c1ae-0:0.

Faced with the prospect of spending the rest of the day trying random udev rules, rebooting each time since that's the only way to test udev, I decided to cheat and find another way. I made a shell alias:

alias galaxy='sudo sh -c "for d in /dev/disk/by-id/usb-Android*; do /lib/udev/ata_id --export \$d; done"'

Typing galaxy will now cause the Samsung to register both devices; and from then on I can mount and unmount them without needing root, using my normal fstab entries.

Update: This works for the Nook's main storage, too -- just add x/dev/disk/by-id/usb-B_N_Ebook_Disk* to the list -- but it doesn't work reliably for the Nook's SD card. The SD card does show up in /dev/disk/by-id along with main storage; but running ata_id on it doesn't make its UUID appear. I may just change my fstab entry to refer to the /dev/disk/by-id device directly.

Last night, as announced here and mentioned here, Grant Bowman and I did a presentation for the Bay Area Linux Users Group (BALUG) on Ubuntu 12.04 (Precise Pangolin).

When I arrived a gentleman I’d been corresponding with over email had his netbook set up for me to look at. He couldn’t remember his password and I had a USB stick with Ubuntu ISOs on it, so resetting the password just took a few minutes. We then headed into the dining room for the typical BALUG family-style Chinese offering.

The presentation followed dinner and was very casual, meeting in the bar area of the restaurant rather than the upstairs room (there was another event going on). Michael Paoli graciously printed out handouts that I put together in lieu of projector+slides. People asked questions throughout and we had very engaging discussions about virtualization technologies on Ubuntu these days (KVM, Xen, VirtualBox), kernel changes (PAE, the 64-bit as default discussion), OpenStack and more. The improvements in Unity to keyboard navigation where a huge hit, as was the new shortcuts menu you get by holding down the Super key, there were a few people who mentioned they would “give Unity another shot in 12.04″ after the demonstrations.

We wrapped up the evening by answering a few final questions and passing around our identical Lenovo G575 systems running 12.04 so people could play with Unity and gnome-panel versions.

Much of the content from the handouts came from the Alpha and Beta release announcements. The handouts themselves are available, licensed CC BY-SA, so you’re welcome to borrow for your own presentations:

• PDF: http://people.ubuntu.com/~lyz/handouts/12.04BALUGHandout.pdf
• ODT Source: http://people.ubuntu.com/~lyz/handouts/12.04BALUGHandout.odt

In other 12.04 news, next week the Ubuntu California team will be hosting a release party in San Francisco!

Date: Thu, 26 April 2012
Time: 7:00 – 9:30PM PDT
Where: Thirsty Bear Brewing Company, 661 Howard Street, San Francisco, 94105 (Map)
RSVP: http://loco.ubuntu.com/events/ubuntu-california/1615/detail/

This will be a pretty informal get-together where we enjoy tapas, optional craft brews and chat about Ubuntu. This is a restaurant so all ages are welcome and there are non-alcoholic beverage offerings. On and off-street parking is available and the venue is just a couple blocks from the Montgomery BART and MUNI station.

We’re going to try and meet around the high tables opposite the bar, but in case we’re not there just look for the people with the Ubuntu shirts. Please note that this is not a sponsored event, so it’s pay-for-what you eat/drink and we’ll be closing the tab throughout the evening so we don’t end up with a big bill at the end.

Ubuntu Hour is a chance to meet up for an hour and chat with other Ubuntu users. The meeting is open to anyone interested whether they use Ubuntu or not, and everyone's welcome with no commitments or RSVPs. It's definitely a good opportunity to bring along friends who are curious about Ubuntu.

Not only is it fun to meet local Ubuntu fans, but we can also be a valuable introduction to Ubuntu for others. Wear that cool Ubuntu or Linux shirt or bring your laptop with the Ubuntu stickers, if you have them. We'll also follow the Ubuntu Code of Conduct while we're there. Easily summarized as "be excellent to each other," it means that we'll be good examples of the wonderful Ubuntu community.

The latest information, including locations and times, is always available at http://www.nhaines.com/ubuntu/hour/

Upcoming dates

• Thursday, April 19, 2012, 6pm - 7pm
• Thursday, May 3, 2012, 6pm - 7pm

Location

Panera Bread (Yelp) (Google Maps) 23592 Rockfield Blvd. Lake Forest, CA 92618

Panera Bread is a casual restaurant that has fresh bread, soups, and sandwiches and free wi-fi access. We're the group with a laptop or two and some Ubuntu logos, so please feel free to come up and say hi.

Ubuntu is ramping up to the release of Ubuntu 12.04 and new and cool apps keep being added to the Software Centre. Check out last month’s most downloaded free and paid apps.

Top 10 paid apps

1. Steel Storm: Burning Retribution

Steel Storm: Burning Retribution marks the return of top-down shooters with new twists. The game has score oriented competitive gameplay, and is designed for people who like fast paced action, hordes of smart enemies, destructible worlds and ground shaking explosions.

2. Uplink

You play an Uplink Agent who makes a living by performing jobs for major corporations. Your tasks involve hacking into rival computer systems, stealing research data, sabotaging other companies, laundering money, erasing evidence, or framing innocent people. You use the money you earn to upgrade your computer systems, and to buy new software and tools. As your experience level increases you find more dangerous and profitable missions become available.

3. Oil Rush

Oil Rush is a real-time naval strategy game based on group control. It combines the strategic challenge of a classical RTS with the sheer fun of Tower Defence. Fight the naval war between furious armies across the boundless waters of the post-apocalyptic world.

4. Fluendo DVD Player

Fluendo DVD Player is a software application specially designed to reproduce DVD on Linux/Unix platforms, which provides end users with high quality standards.

5. Braid

Braid is a platform game in painterly style where you manipulate the flow of time to solve puzzles. Every puzzle in Braid is unique; there is no filler. Braid treats your time and attention as precious, and it does everything it can to give you a mind-expanding experience.

6. Ubuntu User

Ubuntu User is a smart, accessible journal of the Ubuntu user environment. Each issue offers a real-world glimpse at how the experts use Ubuntu in the wild. You’ll learn about Ubuntu tools for practical tasks such as working in the cloud, managing mobile devices, processing images, and making music.

7. World of Goo

Drag and drop living, squirming, talking globs of goo to build structures, bridges, cannonballs, zeppelins, and giant tongues. The millions of innocent goo balls that live in the beautiful World of Goo are curious to explore. But they don’t know that they are in a game, or that they are extremely delicious. The most addicting and awe-inspiring puzzle game will set you on an adventure that you’ll never forget!

8. DEFCON

A stunning multiplayer simulation of global thermonuclear war. Take on the role of a General hidden deep within an Underground bunker. Compete against the computer or online against your friends for total world domination.

9. Family Farm

Work the farm in this game of 19th century farmsteading and build a home for your families. Clicking cows won’t earn you any cash. This is a simulation of a farmstead experienced in stories which span a generation. Keep them fed, develop their skills, and grow their land in to a Family Farm!

 10. Linux Format Magazine

Issue 156 (April) of Linux Format magazine – now on the Ubuntu Software Centre. We’re wildly excited about the Raspberry Pi, and you should be too. It’s a full, working PC, it runs Linux and it costs just $25. It’s not Windows 8-certified, but it’s going to change the way the world thinks about computing.

Top 10 free apps

1. Ryzom

Ryzom, one of the best role playing Massively Multiplayer Online Game of the moment (MMORPG), is set more than 2000 years in the future, on a living, evolving world: beautiful Atys!

2. Full Circle Magazine

Full Circle is a free, independent, monthly magazine dedicated to the Ubuntu family of Linux operating systems. Each month, it contains helpful how-to articles and reader submitted stories. Full Circle also features a companion podcast, the Full Circle Podcast, which covers the magazine along with other news of interest.

3. Crossover Games

Play Windows games like World of Warcraft on Ubuntu! CrossOver Games (Ubuntu Edition) makes it possible to play Windows games such as World of Warcraft and many others. CrossOver Games is built on the latest versions of Wine, based on contributions from both CodeWeavers and the open-source Wine community. CrossOver Games aims to bring you the latest, greatest, bleeding edge improvements in Wine technology.

4. CrossOver Pro (Trial)

CrossOver Linux allows you to install many popular Windows productivity applications, plugins and games in Linux. You can think of it as an emulator, but it’s different, because there’s no Windows OS license required. Your applications integrate seamlessly with your GNOME or KDE environment. It’s like running Windows on your Linux machine, but without Windows.

5. Vendetta Online

Vendetta Online is a 3D space combat MMORPG. This MMO permits thousands of players to interact as the pilots of spaceships in a vast universe. Users may build their characters in any direction they desire, becoming rich captains of industry, military heroes, or outlaws.

6. Marble Arena 2

Free, physics based, 3D marble game, featuring vibrant HD graphics, fun and addictive star zapping gameplay, and an easy to use built-in editor for creating custom levels.

7. CoreBreach Demo

CoreBreach is an anti-gravity racing game with combat-based gameplay. Its unique graphic style, with a cell-shaded look, sets up a very futuristic atmosphere with a wide range of choices for ships, race tracks and powerful weapons.

8. PDF Studio 7 Demo

Demo version of PDF Editor to evaluate both PDF Studio 7 Standard and PDF Studio 7 Pro and will add a watermark to the documents saved.

9. Tribal Trouble 2

Tribal Trouble 2 is a browser-based RTS game that takes place in the zany age of the Vikings. You are the Chief of a Viking tribe and are responsible for making a name for yourself by conquest and skill.

10. Manager

Manager is free accounting software for Ubuntu. It features an intuitive and innovative user interface with modules such as cashbook, invoicing, receivables, payables, taxes and comprehensive financial reports.

Your app in Ubuntu

Would you like to see your app featured in this list and on millions of user’s computers? It’s a lot easier than you think:

• If you’re just getting your feet wet, check out how to get started with your first app in Ubuntu ›
• If you’ve got an existing app you’d like deliver to the world, submit it to the Ubuntu Software Centre ›

Notes:

• The lists of top 10 app downloads includes only those applications submitted through My Apps on the Ubuntu App Developer Site. For more information about of usage of other applications in the Ubuntu archive, check out the Ubuntu Popularity Contest statistics.
• The top 10 free apps list contains gratis applications that are distributed under different types of licence, some of which might not be open source. For detailed licence information, please check each application’s description in the Ubuntu Software Centre.