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September 2, 2010
Google Summer of Code ended a while back. Me (and most on #gsoc) agreed on one thing - WHERE DID THOSE 3 MONTHS GO? Amazing time it was - thanks to _ke (Who is frolicking somewhere in Thailand right now), fargiolas and the rest of the GNOME guys (#clutter, #gstreamer and #gtk+ yay!) for making it awesome. #hackers-india was a great venting place too :)
Cheese's master needs quite a bit of work before it can be included in GNOME 3.0 - and I plan on doing most of that. It's fun - demoing it at college is a huge hit. Looks like eventually, my original goal for Cheese might be met ;)
Right now, I'm decompressing, and basically not doing anything at all - except getting a bike, and sorting out some personal issues. Should be back coding (and blogging) soon. Have a huge post on GSoC experience coming up.
Microsoft has just created a new commercial for its Windows Live Photo Gallery software that plays on the "Double Rainbow!" stoner guy. I have to give them props for trying to be hip and cool, but I'm too busy laughing my butt off right now. You've got to see this:
What I want to know is what kind of camera is that guy using? Never seen anything like it. A friend suggested it was this antique digital camera, but I'm not convinced. If you have any idea what that camera is, let me know in the comments - it is gonna bug me for days until I know what that was!
Hi,
version 0.4.4.1 of the lightspark player has been just released. It’s mainly a bug fix release, the most relevant news are:
- Fixed a crash when using flashblock
- Restore support for YouTube
Moreover, from this release large downloads are cached to disk to reduce memory pressure.
As you may have noticed lightspark is now on Flattr and the last few posts about lightspark included the “Flattr this” button. Moreover, the Flattr-foss project (that suggest free software to be supported using flattr) has recommended Lightspark for september. Thanks a lot to the Flattr-foss team for their interest and support! Many people flattered lightspark the last month and that is really appreciated. I’m not of course talking about the (little) money, what is awesome is the large support received from the community and even the smallest donation is greatly motivating. Thanks to everyone
Here we have gbrainy 1.51, a minor bug fixing release. gbrainy is a game that challenges your logic, verbal, calculation and memory abilities.
What is new in version 1.51 from the NEWS file:
* Updated and new translations
The new translations include Vietnamese, Korean and Traditional Chinese translation (Hong Kong and Taiwan).
gbrainy 1.51 is available for download in source code from:
* http://gent.softcatala.org/jmas/gbrainy/gbrainy-1.51.tar.gz
(md5sum 09762be168973e6157263ebbc0256a26)
Additionally, gbrainy is available for all major Linux distributions.
Updated Windows version
I have also updated gbrainy for Windows installer to 1.51. I did not this for more than 10 months, I think that I had to do it since the Windows version is downloaded by an average of 100 people per day. I have used Monodevelop 2.4 to build the Windows version and it worked very well making really easy now to build gbrainy cross platform.
Jos Poortvliet did an interview with me for dot KDE in this summer's aKademy and it has been online for a while now. In it we discuss things like Midgard as a storage engine for desktop applications, and Maemo's open QA process for Downloads applications. Some excepts:
At maemo.org we have an appstore for FOSS applications on the Maemo platform. This appstore is enabled by default on all Nokia N900s so we wanted to have some quality control. We had to create our own appstore approval process, compatible with the FOSS philosophy. Now any developer can submit an app, and anyone can test and vote. The whole process is completely transparent, auditable and visible. And it also provides a feedback channel from testers and users to the developers!...
Midgard is a data storage service. Whether you write desktop or web applications, instead of coming up with your own file format, you just use Midgard. You can work more easily and object-based. Users have many different devices these days, so Midgard has strong replication features to synchronize between different systems. Midgard is built on top of GObject; we provide bindings to a bunch of different languages so developers can choose the tools they like - PHP, Python, Javascript. Currently (as in now, while we're talking) Qt bindings are being developed here at Akademy.Hi all,
For all those who kept bugging me on IRC about “what’s your status” and “when will you release it”, etc.. I’d like to give you a quick status update on my project :
First, this is NOT and I repeat, it’s NOT a port of PSGroove for the N900.. I started my project long before PSGroove was released, and my code has absolutely nothing to do with theirs and we don’t share any code in common. It is NOT a port, it’s a different implementation of the same exploit!
Secondly, it’s going pretty well so far, I finished writing it, all the code is there, and I’m testing it but I’m still getting some issues, for some reason the PS3 isn’t accepting the JIG, I hope I can get this fixed soon, so please, everyone just be patient, I will release it when it’s ready! But the good news is that it’s doable apparently!
For those who read my previous post, here’s an update :
- The kernel OOPS I was getting on linux was because my ‘hub’ was a high speed one, and when a device gets connected, the reply to GetPortStatus ommitted the ‘high speed’ flag in the response.. apparently, a high speed hub can only have high speed devices plugged into it, you can’t plug full speed or low speed devices in a hub, otherwise, your linux kernel crashes! It’s a use case the kernel developers didn’t think of (or didn’t find a way to test it). I will also soon release the code to reproduce that oops so people can look into it.
- I was able to get and set the address on the controller, but I had to add two new functions to the usb-gadget API. This means that you will eventually need to flash your device’s kernel to get advantage of the new functions.
- I figured out how to send a NAK in response to a IN interrupt.. you simply don’t queue anything, the controller apparently takes care of that automatically for you! and I had to read almost all of the controller’s code to figure that one out!
By writing this exploit as a standard linux driver, this means that my module can be used on any other linux-enabled devices.. this means not only the N900, but also the 770, N800, N810, Android phones and future Meego devices. It might need a little porting for some devices though, but it should still work…
That’s it, I’ll keep you informed on how it goes. Hopefully, we’ll soon be able to run homebrew on our PS3 simply by plugging our N900 to it, what a wonderful device it is
KaKaRoTo
With Meego for Notebooks 1.0 users of Google and MSN can now monitor and open their online e-mails account with a single mouse click in the MyZone panel. Thanks to Intel for hiring Collabora to implement this feature. The GUI shows the number of unread messages for each of your accounts in real-time. Clicking the button will open the online mailbox in your favourite browser. Have a look at the bottom left of the following screen:
The feature is as been made possible by Telepathy draft API for mail notification. Meego provides the premiere integration of this API in a user interface. It fills a long standing gap in the Telepathy framework.
GLib 2.26, coming on September 10th, will finally gain proxy support. This contribution to GLib was made possible by Collabora Ltd. and reviewing efforts by Dan Winship. After three months of head scratching and rewriting, we finally came-up with a solution that blends into the GIO architecture and requires no code change for users of the GIO library.
Notable features are:
- GLib friendly API for proxy configuration (GProxyResolver)
- Configuration powered by LibProxy (requires installation of glib-networking)
- Transparent support for SOCKS version 5, 4a and 4
- Support for application side proxy such as HTTP (using g_socket_client_add_application_proxy(…))
- Proxy information available inside the GSocket’s remote address
- Plug-in based configuration and protocol support
Today I wanted to locate an HSBC branch in London, close to either the office or my home. Thanks to HSBC I got upset before 8.
That starts fine, they have an "interactive map" or allow you to enter your postcode. Unfortunately they use only the beginning of the postcode (SW in my case) and then list you many towns in this area. Using the map stops at the same level. Then you click one of them (I should do all of them as I don't know some which may be close) and get No branch exists in ...
Is it so hard to list the closest ones from the given postcode or place them on a map? And what about just removing from the list the places without a branch?
September 1, 2010
Remember Caroline Casual-User? After speaking with some of you after the last blog post, I think I may have misrepresented her in terms of Fedora’s target user. (The LUNIX joke was really bad, serving only to confound.) Hopefully folks from the Fedora Board who were involved in the creation of the target user base definition could also clarify what their original intention was in case I’m not understanding the intent or not communicating it as effectively as I could again. In either case, I would like to explore who Caroline is, and who she isn’t, in the hopes of at least bringing a bit more awareness that we’re probably not all talking about the same woman, if not to go so far as make it fairly clear who she actually is .
Caroline’s OriginsFirst, let’s look at the target user of the the default Fedora desktop:
This type of consumer is someone we think can immediately benefit from the usefulness and elegance of free software. This type of consumer is also someone who can be persuaded to participate or contribute to Fedora. Consumers who don’t fit this minimum profile, though, might very well be pleased with what we provide. We tend to favor consumers who are interested in taking a step toward collaboration. [...]
- Voluntary Linux consumer
- Computer-friendly
- Likely collaborator
- General productivity user
A slightly-different version of this statement from a mailing list announcement has also been widely-quoted, so let’s take a look at that too:
We found four defining characteristics that we believe best describe the Fedora distribution’s target audience: Someone who
- is voluntarily switching to Linux,
- is familiar with computers, but is not necessarily a hacker or developer,
- is likely to collaborate in some fashion when something’s wrong with Fedora, and
- wants to use Fedora for general productivity, either using desktop applications or a Web browser.
Okay. So we’ve reviewed the source material and it’s fresh in our heads. Now let’s walk through what I believe are some misconceptions about Caroline based on comments to my last blog post, and read them while referencing this source material.
Myths about Caroline Caroline doesn’t care about technologyCaroline is supposed to be a “computer-friendly” person who is “voluntarily switching to Linux.” It may well be a flawed assumption, but I’m not sure folks who aren’t interested in technology even really understand what Linux is, nevermind would voluntarily switch to using it or describe themselves as computer-friendly.
Caroline isn’t willing to give back.The Board’s definition and communications about it were pretty careful to point out this isn’t the case. Actually, one of the four key attributes of the target user is “likely collaborator.” The the user base definition says, “We tend to favor consumers who are interested in taking a step toward collaboration.”
“We found four defining characteristics that we believe best describe the Fedora distribution’s target audience,” states the the mailing list announcement, “Someone who [..] is likely to collaborate in some fashion when something’s wrong with Fedora.”
As Deb pointed out, “Today’s Carolines could become tomorrow’s Connies.”
Caroline only asks for mp3 and Flash support.Well. I think do Caroline probably cares a lot more about her music collection and being able to be Rick-rolled and watch the latest Autotune the News rather than mp3 and flash technology specifically. (Although from my own guesses about Caroline, she may well be the type to write her own songs and share them or post video tutorials and video blogs – she doesn’t strike me as a straight-out consumer.) The Board-written, detailed description of her computer usage does include “locating and viewing/playing media.”
That being said, yes, Caroline has an issue if she can’t listen to her 50 gigs of music albums or see the new Snoop Dogg cameo in Katy Perry’s latest music video. The problem isn’t insurmountable, and Caroline is comfortable with computers and interested in technology, so I think she will probably find a (admittedly PITA) work-around to do these things before technologies like webm make this silliness unnecessary.
So just who is Caroline? Let’s play a game!I think it might be helpful if we think through specific examples of places we may or may not be likely to find Caroline. So, are you ready to play……
Is Caroline someone you could easily meet……- While attending LinuxCon?
- In between sessions in the hallway at GUADEC or Akademy?
- While eating lunch at FOSDEM?
- Waiting in line to pick up your badge at USENIX LISA conference?
- Sitting next to you at your local LUG meeting?
I think that the folks above are most likely to be in Pamela’s camp, and in some cases Connie or Nancy’s camp. Linux is a big enough part of these folks’ lives that they’ve taken the trouble to pay or find funding for a flight and lodging, they’ve taken time away from their family and perhaps even vacation time from work in order to spend at least a day if not a whole week at a conference revolving around it. (Or in the case of LUG attendees, an evening away from home missing dinner with the family once a month or weekly.) I just don’t think it is possible for these folks to be Carolines.
Is Caroline someone you could easily meet……- Standing in line behind you at your local farmers’ market?
- At the Otakon anime conference?
- At the community center studio art class you take on the weekends?
- Shopping at the Sunday church flea market?
- At a Blue Hills Hiking Group meetup?
- At your local pub?
- Sitting next in the row behind you at the movie theater waiting for the latest movie blockbuster to start?
“Farmer’s Market” by Emily Prachthauser. Used under a CC-BY 2.0 license.
Isn’t it kind of a crap shoot? I know folks I would consider to be Carolines who each individually might go to one or two of these types of events, but I think I would be very lucky to have the chance to meet a Caroline just by going to any of these events. Unfortunately, I think maybe a lot of you came away from my last blog post thinking I meant to say that a Caroline could easily be picked out at any of these types of events.
Is Caroline someone you could easily meet……- At the SXSW conference?
- Hanging around at PAX?
- Sitting next to you at a TED technology talk?
- Attending an ACM CHI conference?
- Building cool things at a MakerFaire?
- Chilling out at a hackfest at RailsConf?
- Through her awesome Vimeo channel, where she posts weekly Gimp tutorials?
- Browing the aisles of your local electronics store?
- Working as a technology coordinator at a local school?
“pre-panel get together” by Ed Schipul, taken at SXSW’08. Used under a CC-BY-SA 2.0 license.
Outcome likely, yes, IMHO. These are folks who are comfortable with computers, clearly love technology, but whose lives do not center around Fedora and/or Linux. (Instead, their lives and/or passions center around MakerBots or RepRaps, Adobe products (or Gimp!), Playstations or Nintendos, technology-related research, user interface design, blogging, building awesome web applications, maintaining computers for their students, etc. etc. ….) These are not folks who would identify themselves as Linux contributors, but whom are probably a far cry from needing instruction in how to use a computer mouse or what an MP3 is, and whom are very likely to value the freedoms using free software affords them. (They may already use free software!)
If you’ll humor me the effort, keep these folks in mind and then re-read Caroline’s yellow speech bubble at the top of this blog post. Maybe it makes more sense what I was trying to do… if you replace the “coffeeshops and parties” with Makerbots, Playstations, or building kick-ass web applications.
Who is getting left out?So, at least in this blog post, we’re probably not talking about your grandparents’ friend Etna who stands behind you in line at your local supermarket, has three cats, and always confuses you with your younger sibling. We’re likely not talking about elementary school age children in a third-world country who struggle just to find clean water to drink. We’re probably not talking about the person who drives the subway car or bus that helps get you to work in the morning, or the woman who owns and operates your favorite neighborhood restaurant.
These folks are probably not Carolines. They’ll need a different persona. Whether or not we’re meant to or should consider targeting them, I’ll leave as an exercise for the reader.
What do you think?
Filed under: Fedora
When my friends and I started in our careers as software programmers, we noticed a trend. All the women who were good in their programming jobs got promoted to management, either project management or program management. We wondered why women never seemed to become architects and CTOs or even stay programmers for very long.
When I was offered a promotion into management, I took it. However, one of my friends did not. She said their were no women role models on the technical track. If we all got promoted out, then how were young women supposed to know that women could succeed as programmers and architects? She stayed a programmer.
So I’ve been really excited this year to see several women I know personally, prominent women in the free and open source software world, get high level, very technical jobs.
Congratulations to Danese Cooper who is now CTO of the Wikimedia Foundation and Allison Randal who is now the Technical Architect of Ubuntu.
I’m sure they will be great role models and mentors for both genders, but I hope young girls in particular will be influenced by seeing women in successful technical leadership roles.
(And I do see my role as technical. I don’t think someone without a programming or technical background would do as well. But I haven’t written any code or made any technical decisions other than for my own home network in a very long time, so I don’t feel like I’m showing young women that women can succeed in technical jobs, rather that they can succeed in leadership roles in technology related organizations.)
Related posts:
Last Thursday we announced the release of Grilo (and its plugins set) 0.1.6.
Almost 4 months went on, and as expected, lot of things were done in Grilo. In the announcement email, you can see a summary of the changes done. Of course, a more detailed list can be obtained from Git (here and here).
What would I stress here?
- Lot of fixes and improvements
- A new metadata-key system
- A command line tool to inspect plugins
- A new XML-based system to define plugins
- Synchronous functions for the asynchronous partners
- Improved GObject introspection support
We would like to thanks all people that were contributing to bring this release. And stay tuned for new releases!
- improved core API (GdaSqlBuilder, GdaServerOperation, GdaThreadWrapper, GdaConnection)
- core corrections and optimization, mainly in the SQLite and MySQL providers, connection (locking
and thread safe usage)
- use Gnome Keryring if available to store username and passwords to be used for data sources (DSN)
- configuration file monitoring: only use GIO (removed GnomeVFS, gamin or FAM)
- many improvements to the UI extension
- many improvements and corrections to the GdaBrowser tool
- embedd SQLite 3.6.22
- translations:
- es (Jorge González)
- sl (Matej Urbančič)
- da (Joe Hansen)
- pt (Nicolau Gonçalves)
- cs (Petr Kovar, Marek Cernocky)
- de (Mario Blättermann, Christian Kirbach)
- nb (Kjartan Maraas)
- id (Andika Triwidada)
The GNOME Journal team has released the latest issue, featuring five brand new articles.
We have three articles based on talks and experiences at GUADEC 2010 in The Hague and two interviews.
- Writing simple, real-time games by Chris Lord
- Should I get involved? by William Carlson (aka Williamfromtexas)
- Behind the Scenes with Joanmarie Diggs
- Grilo: Integrating multimedia content in your application by Iago Toral
- GNOME Advisory Board interview with Bradley Kuhn by Stormy Peters
What are you waiting for? Go read it!
GNOME Journal is licensed under a CC-BY-SA 3.0 license. Translate it, podcast it, share it!
As of the Firefox 4 beta 5, the child windows associated with browser tabs have been removed thereby breaking the expectations of most windows screen readers. Regretfully, the timing of this change and the substantial impact it has on AT caught the Mozilla accessibility team by surprise. Unfortunately this change is a critical step in our browser's technical roadmap. The good news is that this issue was quickly discovered during our a recent beta cycle and now we can work together on a fix!
Let's fix this the right way. We probably shouldn't have AT relying on window classes to indicate where browser tabs are, however convenient it might have been years ago. I think, depending on how this per browser tab separation has been used in your code, we can provide an even better solution perhaps even allowing some hack removal on your side. We've very recently been in contact with most of the main AT vendors, and some have what sounds like a fix already in hand. We want to make sure we protect all our users from potential bustage, so we want to hear from all accessibility technology developers that use Windows accessibility API and have been relying on per browser tab window classes.
Something to look for... anywhere you have code checking for a specific window class "MozillaContentWindowClass" your code will almost certainly now be broken for FF4 beta5+. Note this class used to correspond to the HWND of the child content window that received focus whenever the top level window gained focus. To see how things look now I recommend Microsoft's UISpy tool. Be sure to run this against the most recent FF 4 beta or nightly.
We have time but must move swiftly. Please contact us directly or on our accessibility community mailing list.
Thanks for reading.
Sending to Twitter/Twitpic
Sending to Flickr
The interface will see a "folks" based sending item called "Contacts" at the top of the sidebar, and we should see some more services and devices appear as well, as libsocialweb gains support for them, and old nautilus-sendto plugins are ported.
More when those pesky upstream bugs are fixed.
About me:
- Fix enrolling with Upek Eikon II fingerprint reader (Bastien Nocera) (#627249)
Shell:
- Update libslab from master (Bastien Nocera) (#612417)
Translations:
- ar (Khaled Hosny )
- bg (Alexander Shopov)
- da (Ask H. Larsen)
- el (Michael Kotsarinis, Simos Xenitellis)
- en_GB (Bruce Cowan, Philip Withnall)
- es (Jorge González)
- et (Ivar Smolin)
- fr (Bruno Brouard)
- gl (Fran Diéguez)
- he (Yaron Shahrabani)
- hu (Gabor Kelemen)
- id (Andika Triwidada)
- sr (Милош Поповић)
- zh_HK (Chao-Hsiung Liao)
- zh_TW (Chao-Hsiung Liao)
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Sigi is now in her fifth month of our second pregnancy. During our last scan we learned that it will be a sister for Liam. He’s already looking forward to her arrival. We feel lucky that we will have both a boy and a girl.
Her due date is almost exactly the same as last time – at the start of January. I’ll then be generally unavailable to the world for a few weeks, gradually reappearing as our routine settles down.
