Planet Free Software

GNOME: James Sharpe: Workspace wallpaper backend patches and video

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 14:59:16 +0000

I’ve pretty much completed implementing the mechanisms in nautilus and gnome-settings-daemon to implement per workspace wallpapers. I’ve created a short video that shows the current state of the functionality:

As you can see the wallpaper is currently set for whichever workspace the appearance capplet is on.

I’ve put most of the patches (except the gnome-control-center one) into bugzilla:

gnome-desktop: http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=543596

http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=544241

gnome-settings-daemon: http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=544178

eel: http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=544223

nautilus: http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=544242

gnome-control-center patch is available here: http://git.jsharpe.net/ but is still a work in progress.

I’d appreciate feedback on the patches.

Ubuntu: Sebastian Kügler

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 14:50:56 +0000

Eclipse: Doug Schaefer: Who's leading anyway?

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 14:40:14 +0000

The LinuxHater linked off to Christopher Blizzard's (from OLPC fame and now at Mozilla) blog on the current state of affairs with the GNOME project. He gives some very eye opening insight into what's happening there and the potential future directions for GNOME, GTK, and friends. It's not pretty, literally.

GNOME is getting big in the mobile space, or at least the number of contributors from that space is starting to dominate the GNOME project. And as we all know in the open source world, the contributors are the leaders and get to make the decisions. What this likely means and what blizzard is afraid of is that the GNOME desktop is not going to get the attention it needs to compete with the modern interfaces it competes with. The commercial interest just isn't there to make it happen like it is with GNOME mobile.

He explicitly spells out Qt and Apple as leaders in making good user experiences and developer friendly APIs. My favorite quote of his: "If in a platform-driven market and a platform-driven world you’re not the #1 or #2 player it’s going to be very difficult to make a dent in the market. (This is especially true if Nokia decides to fix the Qt licensing.)" I agree on both fronts. I can't see how GNOME is going to grow without serious innovation. And I hope that Nokia fixes the Qt licensing (wink, wink, nudge, nudge).

Being CDTDoug and focused on embedded and mobile at Wind River and on the success of CDT for Windows development with Wascana, why do I care so much about the Linux desktop? Well I think it's the missing piece in the open source success story. We have Linux as an overwhelming favorite in the server market and it's growing in great strides in the embedded space. But without success on the desktop, my Mom isn't going to care. Which means Microsoft and Apple and closed source technologies as still seen as the right path to innovation by the general public. And until "I am a Mac" dukes it out with "I am a Linux PC", there will always be doubts on whether open source can compete with the big boys.

ExtJS: Preview: Ext GWT Grid, Grid Plugins, and EditableGrid

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 14:38:03 +0000

Ext GWT 1.1 development is moving along nicely and includes a new Grid component. Grid is based on the Ext JS Grid and will support the same features including grid plugins, grouping, totaling, and inline editing.

FreeDesktop: Adam Jackson: Words, words, words

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 14:34:49 +0000

The Fedora 10 name elections are open. My totally awesome name suggestion for F9 (Bathysphere) lost by a slim margin, so now I'm lobbying harder for decent names. So here's what you should vote for:

Whiskey Run, because whiskey is awesome, and the potential for a whiskeyrunner theme in the artwork is excellent.

Saltpetre, because it's a double-whammy connection with Sulphur (British variant spelling, and component of gunpowder), and gunpowder -> steampunk art -> awesome.

Farnsworth, because Futurama.

Cambridge, because Red Hat Linux 10 would have been Cambridge, and we finally made it to version 10 of something.

Every time you vote for something else, God detonates a kitten.

Ubuntu: Jorge Castro: Put your head down and skate!

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 14:31:28 +0000

Enough of this noise. Next time someone on planet offends you, go work on something:

Ubuntu-QA
Leonov
5-a-day
Harvest

BlenderNation: Review: Modeling a Female Body

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 14:16:49 +0000

This post is a review of the Body modeling DVD created by Jonathan Williamson of Montage Studio. If you don't know about Jonathan Williamson or Montage Studio I recommend browsing our past posts...

[read the full article on blendernation.com]

Trolltech Labs: A sturdier bridge (still troubled water underneath)

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 14:11:46 +0000

A while back we announced the research project Qt Jambi AWT Bridge which allows you to mix AWT/Swing components and Qt widgets in the same window on Windows and Linux. There were a few issues with the original version. The main problems were the fact that your window would be deactivated by the window manager [...]

Mozilla: Mitchell Baker: Data Relating to People

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 14:07:35 +0000

In my last couple of posts I’ve described why I believe Mozilla must pay attention to data in order to help individual people deal with data about them.

There’s a lot of data about people being created. I’ve listed below some of the basic kinds of this data that I think we need to be able to distinguish in order to speak meaningfully the effects. I’m calling all of these categories “Associated Data” for the reasons described at the end of the post.

Is there a type of data about people that’s of interest or concern to you? If so, take a look and see if it fits into one of the sections below.

“Personal and potential personal data.” These terms are already in reasonably wide usage to mean specific information that identifies an individual, such as name, address, email address, credit card number, government-issued identification number, etc. In some cases it’s used to include other information that can be combined to create personal information, such as an IP (Internet Protocol) address.
“Intentional Content.” Data intentionally created by people to be seen by people. When we post to social networking pages, blogs, photo sites, product review sites, create wishlists, send gifts and other online markers we intentionally create content about ourselves or associated with us. Sometimes this information is in big chunks, like a blog post or photostream; other times the information is in small bits like a recommendations, “pokes,” etc. Sometimes we want this data to be public and sometimes we may not.
“Harvested Data.” Information gathered or created about an individual through the logging, tracking, aggregating and correlating of his or her online activities. It’s possible today to record just many of the actions someone takes online (the “clickstream”) and then to harvest patterns and other useful facts from that data. For example, an e-commerce website you visit regularly will know a great deal about your shopping patterns, what kinds of items and what price ranges you look, how many times you look before you buy, the average purchase amount, the average time between purchases, etc. They’ll know which ads you respond to and which you ignore.
Relationship Data. Our relationships with other people, such as our “friends” or followers at various sites. This can be either Intentional Content or Harvested Information. I call this out specifically because a relationship always involves at least two people. And so the treatment of this information — is it public or private, how is it used — always affects at least two people. I’m not yet positive this is a useful topic, but (obviously) I think it likely enough to include it here.

“Associated Data.” It will be helpful to have a term that describes all these types of data. In a vacuum “Personal” would seem the best because this is all information that somehow identifies, is related to or associated with a specific person. But I think “personal” is understood as item 1 already. I’m using the term “associated data” to mean all of the types of data listed above.

Are there other broad categories of information about people that would help us think clearly? Are there different categories altogether that would be more helpful? And are there examples of this kind of data you’d like to make sure we think about? If so, note them in the comments or somewhere where we can find them.

SuSE: SUSE Linux Enterprise in the Americas: Non-Xen virtualization and SUSE Linux?

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:57:49 +0000

If virtualization is in your vocabulary these days, and who in IT doesn’t finish the day without saying it at least a dozen times… (at least that’s what it feels like) — you should understand including SUSE Linux Enterprise is not about “either/or” but rather “and”.

What the heck am I talking about??

While Xen is included in our distribution, our solutions go way beyond the inclusion of a hypervisor. SUSE Linux Enterprise will actually work with whatever major virtualization technology you want to use, and we can probably even help you manage them all. We’ve posted several articles on the topic and discussed it many times, but I wanted to share a couple of additional examples with you…

For starters, here’s a recent win over Red Hat (mentioned over at SearchEnterpriseLinux.com) where the customer fully recognized the value that Novell’s solution brings to the table in virtualization solutions other than Novell’’s — Microsoft Hyper-V, Virtual Iron, Citrix XenSource, etc. — or as in this case VMware.

Virtualization restrictions increased Novell’s fiscal advantage since a Red Hat license limits the number of VMware virtualized machines to four for every physical machine, while SUSE allows unlimited virtualization, either on Citrix Systems Inc.’s Xen or VMware Inc., he said. This became an important differentiator for Novell, because Invitrogen is committed to VMware, which it rolled out last fall, he said. (full article and the related Novell press release)

The point here is that regardless of the virtualization technology you adopt, we’ll enhance that solution… we’re all about giving customers a choice.

For those that would rather use a more open solution or perhaps a much lower-cost alternative to VMware (see my cost comparison post), check this article out…

Before choosing SUSE Linux Enterprise with built-in Xen virtualization, VIST also considered VMware Inc.’s and Citrix Systems Inc.’s offerings but decided on Novell as the best virtualization fit for VIST’s environment, McLaine said. VMware was “substantially more expensive” and would have required more hardware and additional labor to operate, he said. While Citrix was comparable to Novell in functionality, it didn’t have Novell support and integration, he said.

“SUSE offers virtualization at substantial cost savings, so the switch is a no-brainer,” he said. “It makes my job that much easier.”

(full article)

And while you might say to yourself that you need some management tools too (not just a hypervisor), were you aware of ZENworks Orchestrator and similarly the PlateSpin family of products we offer? …but that’ll have to wait for another post.

SuSE: Michal Zugec: AutoYaST, network device names

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:32:24 +0000

Everybody probably knows YaST. You should use it, at least for installation. And what about AutoYaST? AutoYaST is a great tool for automatic installation and configuration. I did some work regarding automatic installation & network setup during installation. Documented here
I did 4 tests:

1 - When installation starts, udev will create configuration file for persistent naming (based on MAC address). At the end of 1st stage (before first reboot) YaST will copy this file into installed system, so after reboot all network devices will have same device names.

2 - Same as 1, but during AutoYaST installation. That means when no rule in AutoYaST profile about this file, keep it, not replace by empty file.

3 - Use AutoYaST profile. When there is defined some rule about this file, use it and replace the original one. This example from networking section creates corresponded udev rule to keep eth0 name for interface with 08:00:27:07:a2:2d MAC address (and replaces udev rule file from 1):

part of AY.xml


<networking>
...
 <net-udev type=list>
  <rule>
   <rule>ATTR{address}</rule>
   <value>08:00:27:07:a2:2d</value>
   <name>eth0</name>
  </rule>
 </net-udev>
...
</networking>

/etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules file as a result:


# Generated by autoyast
# program run by the persistent-net-generator.rules rules file.
#
# You can modify it, as long as you keep each rule on a single line.
SUBSYSTEM=="net", ACTION=="add", DRIVERS=="?*", ATTR{address}=="08:00:27:07:a2:2d", NAME="eth0"

4 - Migration from SLES10-style syntax. When you use your old profile (from =SLES10x), it's something like:


<networking>
...
 <interfaces config:type=list>
   <interface>
     <bootproto>dhcp</bootproto>
     <device>eth-id-08:00:27:07:a2:2d</device>
     <name>79c970 [PCnet32 LANCE]</name>
     <startmode>auto</startmode>
     <usercontrol>no</usercontrol>
   </interface>
 </interfaces>
...
</networking>

YaST will convert device name eth-id-08:00:27:07:a2:2d into rule for udev:


# Generated by autoyast
# program run by the persistent-net-generator.rules rules file.
#
# You can modify it, as long as you keep each rule on a single line.
SUBSYSTEM=="net", ACTION=="add", DRIVERS=="?*", ATTR{address}=="08:00:27:07:a2:2d", NAME="eth0"

and rename configuration name into eth0

And that's all for now ...
... have a lot of fun
Bye,
Michal

XMLhack: What You Can Learn from the Facebook Redesign

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:29:20 +0000

I've been using the redesigned Facebook profile and homepage for the past few days and thought it would be useful to write up my impressions on the changes. Facebook is now the the world's most popular social networking site and one of the ways they've gotten there is by being very focused on listening to their users and improving their user experienced based on this feedback. Below are screenshots of the old and new versions of the pages and a discussion of which elements are changed and the user scenarios the changes are meant to improve.

Homepage Redesign

OLD HOME PAGE:

NEW HOME PAGE:

The key changes and their likely justifications are as follows

Entry points for creating content are now at the top of the news feed. One of the key features driving user engagement on Facebook is the News Feed. This lets a user know what is going on with their social network as soon as they logon to the site. In a typical example of network effects at work, one person creates some content by uploading a photo or sharing a link and hundreds of people on their friend list benefit by having content to view in their News Feed. If any of the friends responds to the content this again benefits hundreds of people and so on. The problem with the old home page was that a user sees their friends uploading photos and sharing links and may want to do so as well but there is no easy way for her to figure out how to do the same thing without having to go two or three clicks away from the home page. The entry points at the top of the feed will encourage more "impulse" content creation.
Left sidebar is gone. There were three groups of items in the left nav; a search box, the list of a user's most frequently accessed applications and an advertisement. The key problem is that the ad is in a bottom corner of the feed. This makes it easy for users to mentally segregate that part of the screen from their vision and either never look there or completely ignore it. Removing that visual ghetto and moving ads to being inline with the feed makes it more likely that users will look at the ad. Ah, but now you need more room to show the ad (all the space isn't needed for news feed stories). So the other elements of the left nave are moved, the search box to the header and the list of most accessed applications to the sidebar on the right. Now you have enough room to stretch out the News Feed's visible area and advertisers can reuse their horizontal banner ads on Facebook even though this makes the existing feed content now look awkward. This is one place where monetization trumped usability.
Comments now shown inline for News Feed items with comments (not visible in screen shot). This may be the feature that made Mike Arrington decide to call the new redesign the FriendFeedization of Facebook. Sites like FriendFeed have proven that showing the comments on an item in the feed inline gives users more content to view in their feeds and increases the likelihood of engagement since the user may want to join the conversation.

Profile Redesign

OLD PROFILE:

NEW PROFILE:

The key changes and their likely justifications are as follows

The profile now has tabbed model for navigation. This is a massive improvement for a number of reasons. The most important one is that in the old profile, there is a lot of content below the fold. My old profile page is EIGHT pages when printed as opposed to TWO pages when the new profile page is printed. Moving to a tabbed model (i) improves page load times and (ii) increases number of page views and hence ad impressions.
The Mini-Feed and the Wall have been merged. The intent here is to give more visibility to the Wall which in the old model was below the fold. The "guest book" or wall is an important part of the interaction model in social networking sites (see danah boyd's Friendster lost steam. Is MySpace just a fad? essay) and Facebook was de-emphasizing theirs in the old model.
Entry points for creating content are at the top of the profile page. Done for the same reason as on the Home page. You want to give users lots of entry points for adding content to the site so that they can kick off network effects by generating content which in turn generates tasty page views.
Left sidebar is gone. Again the left sidebar is gone and the advertisement is moved closer to the content, and away from the visual ghetto that is the bottom left of the screen. Search box and most accessed applications are now in the header as well. The intent here is also to improve the likelihood that users will view and react to the ads.

Now Playing: Da Back Wudz - I Don't Like The Look Of It (Oompa)

GNOME: Ken VanDine: Cool feature I bet many people haven’t used

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:16:42 +0000

Conary packaging is easy, but there are times where you hit some harder things and you really need to hit the docs. There are plenty of docs now on conary, and a few clicks in a web browser generally can get you what you need. However, there is a very cool command line interface to the packaging docs call “cvc explain”. I keep running into people that haven’t seen it, so lets get the word out!

You can run “cvc explain [method]” to get the documentation for that method. Here is an example:

$ cvc explain DanglingSymlinks Conary API Documentation: PackageRecipe.DanglingSymlinks

NAME
====

r.DanglingSymlinks() - Disallow dangling symbolic links

SYNOPSIS
========

r.DanglingSymlinks([filterexp] || [exceptions=filterexp)

DESCRIPTION
===========

The r.DanglingSymlinks() policy enforces the absence of dangling
symbolic links; that is, symbolic links pointing to targets which no
longer exist.

If you know that a dangling symbolic link created by your package
is fulfilled by another package on which your package depends,
you may set up an exception for that file.

EXAMPLES
========

r.DanglingSymlinks(exceptions=’%(htconfdir)s/run’)

The %(htconfdir)s/run file is a symlink that is intentionally
left dangling within this package, because we know that it will
be satisfied by runtime dependencies at installation time.

Ajaxian: Embedded OpenType and the W3C

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:15:15 +0000

PLAIN TEXT CSS: @font-face { font-family: Cambria; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; src: url(CAMBRIA2.eot); } We discussed the new font-face / EOT work yesterday. Ben loves typography, hence him wanting to give Tahoma a rest. Then we see Microsoft weighing in on the topic, and it made me ponder the politics going on. Bill Hill has a new post on the IEBlog [...]

Ajaxian: Combining JavaScript and CSS for Performance

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:14:38 +0000

Tenni Theurer of Yahoo! has a new performance post, this time focused on serving files faster by combining them: One performance technique without having to simplify the page design is to combine multiple scripts into a single script, and similarly combine multiple stylesheets into a single stylesheet. Combining multiple files reduces the extra bytes from HTTP headers [...]

KernelPlanet: James Morris: Notes from the SELinux Developer Summit 2008

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:13:50 +0000

The SELinux Developer Summit went pretty well yesterday. It was a long day: 10 hours of talks and discussions with about forty developers attending.

I've just uploaded slides from the talks, which may be found next to their respective entries in the schedule.

Some of the talks I found particularly useful/interesting:

Josh Brindle on SELinux in Ubuntu. They're making good progress, although the idea of SELinux is to introduce ubiquitous, generalized MAC security, so he is advocating they enable SELinux by default as it is in Fedora, and as you typically do with other OS security layers.

John Weeks from Sun, talking about the OpenSolaris FMAC (the project introducing Flask/TE to their OS). It was interesting to see a dtrace graph of the AVC operating—a kernel mechanism for which I've developed an abstract mental model but never "seen".

Dan Walsh Talking about his ongoing work in utilizing SELinux to create practical security features for everyday users.

The above is from a demonstration where nsplugin (the framework for Firefox plugins, i.e. where flash etc. is run) is being sandboxed by SELinux, so that a flawed or malicious plugin cannot be used to snoop your keystrokes. In this case, a simulated (and trivial) exploit was blocked from capturing internet banking passwords by SELinux.

Btw, Dan will be demonstrating this today during his OLS talk on Confining the User. There's a lot of really cool stuff coming in this area & the talk should be well worth attending.

Karl MacMillan on alternatives to comprehensive least-privilege, where he described some ideas and plans for simplifying the way SELinux policy is deployed for general purpose use. He has some really promising ideas on reducing the granularity of the policy while still maintaining strong security. This can lead to simpler and smaller policy, which is important for all kinds of users.

Peter White talked about two higher-level languages being developed to express SELinux policy, Lobster and Shrimp, which will introduce features such as type checking and object orientation to the policy language area. Peter is a Haskell guy, and it all looks very promising.

***

Yuichi Nakamura talking about embedded systems and SELinux.
The format worked reasonably well—a series of short talks and discussions—although it would have been nicer to have a more relaxed schedule and more time for deep discussions on specific issues. There's already been discussion of what to do next year, and we may move it to a two-day event. Certainly, I think we'll want to have it again in conjunction with a major developer conference, which makes it a good environment for collaboration with the wider FOSS community.

For those that couldn't make it this year, I believe notes were taken and will be sent out to the mailing list. There are more photos here.

Debian: Adrian von Bidder: Mediawiki

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 12:43:56 +0000

PostgreSQL upgrade from 8.2 to 8.3. This really should be automated (... but I guess I understand why it's not.) At least it does work as advertised, thanks a lot to Julien Danjou. And thanks to Martin Pitt and the PostgreSQL developers for making it so painless to run several PostgreSQL versions side by side. Now there's a serious database.

Smalltalk: [Smalltalk Tidbits, Industry Rants] Questions Enterprisey Types Never Ask

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 12:31:20 +0000

Here's something Giles Bowkett brings up that the enterprisey sorts never ponder (their heads might explode):

We talk about some ideas (like mapping and folding) as if they are intrinsically harder to grasp and learn than other ideas (like iteration). But maybe it doesnâ€™t require more bits to learn? Maybe map is one point and iteration is one point, even though we want to think that map is twelve points and iteration is two points?

If that's the case, could a language with fewer ideas that can be combined in succinct ways be easier to learn than a language with lots of different weak ideas?

The thing is, for a lot of people C style syntax is what they know, so "of course" Java is simpler. Never mind that it has tons of reserved words, baroque syntax, and a generics implementation that only an architecture astronaut could love - it must be simpler, right?

But what if it's not?

Technorati Tags: smalltalk, java, enterprisey

Ubuntu: Andre Noel: Repurposing Planet

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 12:21:34 +0000

I agree with “repurposing Planet” post of Jordan Mantha. I saw once a post suggesting to create the Universe Ubuntu, where all topics would be placed.

I’m not writing too much on my English blog, but I’ll follow what Jordan said. I’ll correct the tags of my posts and keep on Planet Ubuntu only the posts tagged as ubuntu.

Smalltalk: Closures

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 12:12:05 +0000

Some news from Elliot about his work on a new Closure scheme for Squeak/Croquet.

He also made the first bootstrap code available at: http://www.mirandabanda.org/files/Cog/Closures0808/Bootstrap/

SuSE: Andrew Wafaa: Help To Hack

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 12:09:32 +0000

I've been thinking about an itch that I'm sure not only I have, and it's an itch I'm really surprised exists. It is with this itch that I need help with hacking from all you programming and hacking supremos out there. Why don’t I start hacking? Well simple, I can barely hack “Hello world”! So please help me.

As anyone that has filed a bug with openSUSE/Novell knows, it is done in Bugzilla. The problem is it is a web only interface with no easy way of dealing with bugs apart from through a web browser. This is not a failing of the software as it was designed this way to ensure global reach, if you have a browser (not many desktops don't, and even mobile devices have them) you can file a bug. Almost all bugtracking services are web only, for that exact reason - Launchpad, Mantis, Trac, JIRA etc. Bugzilla is by far the most common, as not only do openSUSE/Novell use it but so do RedHat, Mozilla (funny that), the upstream Kernel, GNOME, KDE, Apache, Eclipse, OpenOffice.org and many others.

My itch is for a desktop client to Bugzilla and the other bugtrackers. Ideally the other bug trackers could be enabled/disabled via a plugin system. If you think about it the Bugbot in IRC can interface with all of these so why can’t we from one app? I first started thinking about it when Lamby created his Debian BTS applet. I spoke to him again about this and my itch at LRL on Saturday. By the way, shame on you Ubuntu for taking his applet modifying it and not feeding back the changes! This provides some of the function I would like to see, as in the main app would minimise to the tray and only show the applet. From this you could access a subset of functions and also get notifications. On the topic of notifications, one item I would like to see this client – which I’ll call bugthra (a play on Godzilla’s foe Mothra) but not set in stone – deal with is not having to have your inbox battered with bug notification e-mails, yes I know I can set up filters but that’s not the point! Instead you get a notification bubble notifying you and possibly also some form of icon change.

So what features would I like to see? In no specific order my thoughts are the following:

• Search - I think this is kind of crucial. It’s always good practise to search for similar bugs before filing a new one Being able to save searches etc would be handy.
• Modifiable views – I’m kind of thinking along the lines of being able to have a window/tab for “Bugs I’ve filed” and any other custom view a user wishes, removing selected fields from view etc.
• Creating/Modifying/Following bugs – Duh, one of the main reasons for the app. Hopefully an intuitive interface to facilitate simple filing/modifying of bugs. Following bugs is also pretty key, as there are times when a specific bug perks one’s interest and curiosity. Also you may experience the issue but have no further info to provide.
• Offline facility – not sure how feasible this would be, but certainly falls into the “would be nice” category. Having something similar to a DVCS would be handy and enable bug work whilst offline. User connects to the bugzilla server, and on initial connection does a sort of check out of bugs that the user already is dealing with and stores it locally (SQLite/embedded MySQL/etc). Any additional changes are stored locally and checked back in periodically (connection permitting).
• Ideally cross platform – Again not vital, but to enable maximum uptake being desktop agnostic would be ideal. If I had to choose one, I would possibly say Gtk because I spend most of my time in a GNOME desktop. I will admit I have limited knowledge as to how a Qt works on GNOME and other desktops.

I have no real knowledge about the APIs available, but I believe they’re all there waiting to be used. There is currently a proprietry application called Deskzilla that does do a fair amount of what I’m talking about which Open Source project contributors can obtain a free license providing they meet specific requirements. I would like to see a FOSS competitor, which can beat it So please chip in a scratch this itch if you can, would be great if it could be taken up as part of the next HackWeek. As a reward I will donate some of my acquired openSUSE goodies, either a geeko or usb stick, to the first two major contributions. I am also willing to create an official project with associated bits and bobs if people think it plausible. Either leave a comment, mail me or catch me on IRC (I normally go by the nick of FunkyPenguin)

Ajaxian: window.name meet dojox.io.windowName

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 12:08:56 +0000

We have written about using window.name as a transport and Kris Zyp has just posted about how Dojo has created a new dojox.io.windowName module. The window.name transport is a new technique for secure cross-domain browser based data transfer, and can be utilized for creating secure mashups with untrusted sources. window.name is implemented in Dojo in the [...]

Smalltalk: [Smalltalk Tidbits, Industry Rants] Seaside at OSCon

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 12:01:13 +0000

Sounds like people liked Randal's Seaside tutorial, but wanted more. I understand the "didn't get to the cool stuff" problem - when I gave a Seaside tutorial at SPA 2008, I tried to limit the "intro Smalltalk" side, and it slowed down the rest of the day. I'm not sure what the right balance is yet...

Python: Andrew Dalke: Teaching Python programming for cheminformatics

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 12:00:00 +0000

I'm announcing two short training classes in Python programming for chemical informatics. I will teach the first in Leipzig, Germany on 6-7 October. It will be hosted by the Python Academy. I'm still working on the details of the second. It will be in the San Francisco Bay Area in early December.

For details about the price, topics and other information, see http://dalkescientific.com/training/ or send me an email.

I work with and develop software tools for computational chemists, mostly in small-molecule chemistry. These are scientists, not programmers, but they use computers every day as part of their research. Most need to do some programming, pehaps to implement a new algorithm, or more likely to handle something that's too tedious or error prone to do manually, like automating analysis of 10,000 compounds.

Most chemists have some training in programming, usually a semester or two of introductory programming classes in college and a lot of training from the school of experience. The latter usually means informal training from labmates, who are also not programming experts.

I've seen many of my chemists friends work hard at getting software to do what they want it to do. Chemists, like most other people who had to spend years of mostly isolated work to get a PhD, know how to perservere. But they would rather do science, not spend time figuring out how to use software.

My training classes are meant for them. I'll cover different aspects of how to be better at Python programming using examples that are directly relevant to doing small molecule in silico research.

Ajaxian: Getting to know GWT JSNI; Including talking to GWT code from JavaScript

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 11:43:19 +0000

Bruce Johnson has written an expansive post on understanding the GWT JavaScript Native Interface (JSNI). It starts out with the piece that some people know about, namely inlining native JavaScript such as this: PLAIN TEXT JAVA: // Java method declaration... native String flipName(String name) /*-{ // ...implemented with JavaScript var re = /(\w+)\s(\w+)/; return name.replace(re, '$2, $1'); }-*/; But what about [...]

FreeDesktop: Lennart Poettering: Linux Plumbers Conference CFP Extended!

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 11:39:00 +0000

The Call for Papers for the Linux Plumbers Conference in September in Portland, Oregon has been extended until July 31st 2008. It's a conference about the core infrastructure of Linux systems: the part of the system where userspace and the kernel interface. It's the first conference where the focus is specifically on getting together the kernel people who work on the userspace interfaces and the userspace people who have to deal with kernel interfaces. It's supposed to be a place where all the people doing infrastructure work sit down and talk, so that each other understands better what the requirements and needs of the other are, and where we can work towards fixing the major problems we currently have with our lower-level APIs.

I am running the Audio microconf of the Plumbers Conference. Audio infrastructure on Linux is still heavily fragmented. Pro, desktop and embedded worlds are almost completely seperate worlds. While we have quite good driver support the user experience is far from perfect, mostly due because our infrastructure is so balkanized. Join us at the Plumbers Conference and help to fix this! If you are doing audio infrastructure work on Linux, make sure to attend and submit a paper!

See you in Portland!

GNOME: Sankarshan Mukhopadhyay: Radio stations on the phone

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 11:11:15 +0000

Since I’d promised a certain gentleman that given the phone I’ll try out Mundu Radio, I went ahead and downloaded it yesterday. Without wasting too many words - it is a cool application to have. The UI was a little bit klunky for me, but got used to it pretty fast. Now if only they had one for the n810 that’d be nice

If you want to listen to nice music on your phone, go ahead and get your account now.

Mozilla: Mark Banner: Comm-central Status

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 10:53:37 +0000

After a good (and quick) bit of work by KaiRo yesterday the code for SeaMonkey and Thunderbird is now in comm-central. As far as I know the code is now working for building SeaMonkey and Thunderbird with comm-central.

I think the main thing to note is that:

The object directory for a build must be different to the source directory.

Source directory builds (as they are frequently known) have been on the not-recommended list for the Mozilla code base for a while. The move to comm-central, and the structures have to use mean that we can no longer support them.

If you’re getting problems, drop by #maildev on irc.mozilla.org and we’ll try and help you out.

Whilst I remember, there’s a good FAQ for Mercurial on devmo, including how to push changes.

Tinderboxes

As you’ll see from the wiki page, we are still working on these, and hence the comm-central tree is still CLOSED.

SeaMonkey has build (inc nightlies) and unit test boxes up and running, Thunderbird has its unit test boxes running, but the build/nightlies are still being set up.

One of the obvious problems you may notice when looking at the tinderbox trees is that whenever mozilla-central makes a change, our buildbots detect it, start a build and break, I expect this just needs a tweak of a configuration file somewhere - just waiting on our build guys to wake up.

With unit tests, we are seeing some problems that are a mixture of picking up the 1.9.1 gecko code base, and problems with the new build system. I have already checked in a couple of changes for some of these, we are currently awaiting the results.

Keep an eye on the wiki page if you want to track status, we’ll keep that updated as we progress, but we’ll do an announcement in the normal places once we’ve got everything running cleanly again.

KDE: Sebastian Trueg: Strigi Reloaded - The Answer to all our Problems? Hopefully to a few of them.

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 10:40:16 +0000

It took me one and a half day and Jos will not be happy about it. That is because I have to start this blog entry with apologizing to him:

"Jos, I am sorry, you will probably not like what I am about to present here. But this makes it so much easier for me and all the KDE people. And strigidaemon simply does not provide the needed features, which I can understand since you are doing this in your spare time. But I cannot wait any longer and in the end really want to reuse all the nice KDE features instead of reimplementing it all just to keep away from QT/KDE dependencies. I hope you understand."

Now that the tension is built up. What did this guy do? Well, essentially I reimplemented strigidaemon as a KDE Nepomuk service. Why would I do that? Why would I reimplement an existing working application? Simple. For the following reasons:

The parts that I copied from strigidaemon are rather small since all the work is done in the streamanalyser library. So "reimplementing" is maybe a bit overstating it.
Managing strigidaemon is not that easy as there is no proper method to suspend/resume indexing. You will see below why that is important.
strigidaemon does not inform about what it is doing. Thus, having an information GUI is impossible.
The new service is of course a Nepomuk service and as such, can make use of all our nice Qt/KDE features:
- It uses KDirWatch to watch all indexed directories for change. In comparision the inotify/fam support in strigi was never completed and also meant to maintain 2 dirwatch implementation: one in KDE and one in Strigi.
- It uses Solid to get notified about power state changes - indexing is suspended when your laptop is running on batteries.
- It regularly checks the available space on the home partition and suspends indexing if the space runs low (also very simple via KDiskFreeSpace. Using Qt/KDE is so damn great! You really can focus on the important stuff!)
- It shows info messages about its status via KPassivePopup. Very KDEish and smoothly integrated with the desktop.
- It shows a GUI to inform the user that the initial indexing can take a while and gives the possibility to configure/disable/suspend/resume strigi (see below for a screenshot of the widget for which I'd like your input.)

For me these are more than enough reasons to commit the new service in the next days. It will solve the Strigi situation for many of our users that always disable/kill strigi because they don't get any information about it from KDE.

As I said above I wanted your input for the GUI. The idea was to make it non-intrusive but have it staying in a corner of the desktop until indexing is done or the user closes it. Here it is in all its uglyness:

Please help me to make this widget useful.

Jos, I hope you can understand why I did it. It was rather simple and gives us all the features we need. Without reimplementing all the nice things KDE has to offer.

Maemo: OpenMoko UI "train wreck" (Jaffa@maemopeople)

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 10:39:56 +0000

Picked up from Internet Tablet Talk, there're a couple of videos showing how bad the OpenMoko UI is on basic usability challenges.

What's interesting is that the small comparison with the iPhone shows how poor hardware (pressure-based touchscreen, bezel around the screen) combines with poor software implementation (separate apps => slow start-up times, little thought to the size of a usable target area) to emphasise the poor user experience. And, frustratingly, how many of the issues raised cut quite close to the bone for Maemo devices too :-(

Hopefully the UI changes in Fremantle (for example, #2564) will be a big help; and a concentration on finger usage may allow a more sensitive, different, touchscreen technology to be used in the N900. Will be very interesting to see the UI talks at the summit - see you there!

2 0

Smalltalk: Week 8 of GSOC - FreeCAD/Croquet

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 10:37:08 +0000

1) What did you do in the past week?
-Fixed drawing movement with mouse. Drag and move properly enabled now. Drag and rotate is also fixed.
-Experimenting with camera movements. Tilt, forward, back, rotate are some of the motions enabled on keyboard.
-Added a pop up info board that shows the position of the mouse on the drawing board to enable better and more accurate drawing. Pop up also added to drawing when dragged and moved to show the position of the drawing.

2) What do plan to do this week?
-Finalize camera movement and try to integrate some of it with the mouse.
-Implement a grid plan on the drawing board to act as a ruler and guide when drawing.

3) What can possibly stand in the way of your work?
-No feedback and no one trying out the things I have done puts me in the dark about how user friendly the controls are.

GNOME: Davyd Madeley: ch-ch-ch-choices

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 10:24:15 +0000

Every day we make choices. Often they are made without a moment's thought.
Sometimes those choices shape our lives, even if only for a few years.

You just hope you make the right ones.

Maemo: Interview with qwerty12

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 10:21:00 +0000

Mobile Tablets! is pleased to present this exclusive Q&A session with Internet Tablet Talk member, qwerty12.

qwerty12 is one of the newest members of itT. In the short time that he has been involved with the tablets, he has made a real impact on the community. His range of contributions includes several software ports, assisting Penguinbait and b-man with porting Android (in a usable form) to the N810/N800, and of course, for finding the back door to a pre-release of Diablo!

I'm sure that everyone reading this would love to have a few minutes of qwerty12's time. I consider myself fortunate to have him agree to do the following Q&A:

1. How long have you been a Maemo user, and what lead you to purchase a tablet?

I've been a Maemo user for about 7 months now, and I was registered on Internet Tablet Talk for about 3 months before that. I remember going on Internet Tablet Talk and seeing penguinbait unveiling KDE for the tablets, fanoush with his page of maemo hacks and the effects of Canola.

But I had no money to get an N800 then so I went onto other things (Modifying my phone and my router). Then the N810 had been announced and the price of the N800 dropped sharply. This was my chance to get one and I went for it.

2. From what I've read, you are one of the youngest members of Internet Tablet Talk. Do you think that is an oddity, or are the tablets well suited for people within your age group?

I would have to say that is an oddity. Everyone in my school is under the impression it is an phone and no one had heard of it before they had seen my tablet. The only other person that I know has access to one, is my friend's uncle with an N810.

3. You appear humble with respect to your contributions within the internet tablet community. You're obviously fairly talented. Did you pick up your skills on your own, or do have any formal training?

Well, there have been times where I have been not so modest... Before experimenting with the tablets, I used to mess around with my phone and I just started picking up things. I have read a lot of Linux books years ago and I guess bits of those books come back to me from time to time. But I mostly taught myself, I like to look around in the filesystem and see what I can change etc.

4. Your recent involvement with penguinbait in porting Android over to the tablet made internet news. Has this made any impact on you at all, or is it par for the course, so-to-speak?

Well, I was quite surprised by how much attention it recieved. Android had been available for tablets before, just not in a easily usable form. It was b-man who introduced me to the android on N810 page and he asked me for some help mounting the android and to keep it quiet.

Later, on the maemo irc channel, I get a PM from penguinbait saying that b-man said I had gotten android working and I was confused because I never had said that, but penguinbait said he had an installer working, it was just the kernel that was messing up.

I offered to take a look at the kernel and I went onto the site and I spent a good few hours getting the android kernel patch (from android-on-n8xx) ported to the diablo kernel sources. This allowed me to have an working android - minus the touchscreen. Penguinbait reported the touchscreen worked for him on an N810 and he released it. I remembered the N800 touchscreen was different to the N810 and I started porting the N810 touchscreen fix to the N800.

5. Speaking of Android, I know that there is a pretty lengthy thread on itT which gives the installation instructions. Can you give us a quick summary of the status right now? For instance, is the N800 touchscreen now working?

The SDK used is an older version. This means quite a bit of newer android applications will not run on the version that is in the installer. With some knowledge, it is possible to run the current version but we chose to use the older version because the current one runs much slower due to Android now using page-flipping which the LCD controller in the N8*0's do not support. The workaround for that makes it run quite slow.

6. Are you planning any further projects with penguinbait?

No, although I'm available if he needs a tester :P.

7. Do you see yourself staying the course with the tablets, or are you eyeing any other platforms right now?

I'm staying on course with the tablets. I don't find any other portable Linux platform is as good as maemo. And with developers making new and brilliant applications everyday, I'd be hard pushed to change.

8. You have obviously caught the attention of Nokia, as evidenced by your recent invitation to attend the upcoming Maemo Summit. If approached by Nokia, would you have anything to suggest to them in terms of improving the tablets?

All I can suggest is that the N900 isn't as backward as the N810. The N810 has some good improvements over the N800 (GPS, Keyboard, Transreflective screen) but the odd usb connector, no fmradio as in the N800 and the soldered 2GB internal card were definitely a step back for me. Combine the two properly, add proper 3d hardware acceleration, a2dp and a GPS that doesn't need A-GPS to support it; rather compliment it, will be a winner for me.

9. Do you have any unique uses of your tablet that you'd iike to share?

Not really, I just use it for going on the internet and playing Duke Nukem 3d and playing GBA games on it (now I don't have to carry my old gameboy and the N800).

10. What are your future plans? Do you have any idea what you want to do in the future?

Can't really say anything on this one, I just plan on going College after finishing school.

Thanks for taking the time to participate in this session, qwerty12.

EIPI4 0

SuSE: openSUSE News: openSUSE 11.0 PromoDVD

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 10:17:41 +0000

Again we have some nice, new and shiny PromoDVDs, now with openSUSE 11.0. The main goal is to spread them. Some examples:

- you organize or take part of an event
- you want good software in your school/university
- you have a local LUG meeting

To make the process easier Andreas Bauer created an order tool for it, just head over to

http://software.opensuse.org/promodvd

and enter your request there. The old order process, sending mails to me or marketing@whatever is now obsolete.

Everything you need to know is explained on that page. If you want information about the PromoDVD in general:

http://en.opensuse.org/PromoDVD

GNOME: Sven Pfaller: libsoylent v0.2.0 “management qualities”

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 10:13:27 +0000

The second release features the basic functionality one would expect from a people-library. Create addressbooks and add some people to it. And then remove them again. People management at its basic level.

Changes

creating, opening and deleting addressbooks implemented
added tests for addressbook functionality
creating people implemented
people can be added and removed to / from addressbooks
added tests for people functionality

Download

libsoylent is available for download at:

http://live.gnome.org/Soylent/libsoylent

Contact

Bugs, feature requests, questions and related discussion go to the Soylent mailinglist. You can join at:

http://lists.codethink.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/soylent-devel

More

More information on libsoylent is available at:

http://live.gnome.org/Soylent/libsoylent

FreeDesktop: Bastien Nocera: Better late than never

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 10:01:00 +0000

Back in the day, I used my paycheck to buy the top-notch MP3 player that was the Rio500. Unfortunately, I forgot it in the back pocket on my plane seat when flying over to Raleigh for my Red Hat induction. And then I used one of my first new job paycheck to buy a second generation (and very very expensive) iPod.

You could say that hacking on Walk500, a front-end to that great player is the reason why I'm hacking on GNOME these days.

I couldn't bear the thought anymore, and bought a Rio500 on eBay for $5. Hacking on it half-an-hour at a time, I cleaned up the code. The latest release of the modern era is available on SourceForge.

SuSE: Matthias Hopf: Finger(s) Crossed

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 09:57:47 +0000

If the doctor is content with the situation the metal in my finger is removed today. Then I'll be able to type normally again, yippee! Ok, after some painful weeks stretching and strengthening the muscles... ;-)

Wish me luck.

FreeDesktop: Matthias Hopf: Finger(s) Crossed

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 09:57:47 +0000

Ubuntu: Ubuntu Screencasts: Mixing A Podcast In Ardour - Part 2

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 09:48:23 +0000

The second of a 13-part series created by Tony Whitmore detailing how to mix a podcast in Ardour on Ubuntu. It was created initially so that members of the Ubuntu UK LoCo team could take part in the Ubuntu UK Podcast. However it was decided to release them because they may be useful to other podcasters, or those wishing to learn more about mixing in Ardour.

In part 2

Some tips regarding jack and realtime kernels
Sessions in Ardour
Adding tracks
Add audio files to tracks

Note: This screencast was originally recorded at a resolution of 2560 by 1024, so is in a very wide screen format. If you have a small screen we recommend you view the lower resolution versions of the video.

Duration 8m20s.

Stream (requires flash player)
2560x1024 Flash
1280x512 Flash
640x256 Flash
(Video will play in a pop-up window)

Download
2560x1024 Ogg/Vorbis/Theora

Download
2560x1024 Flash Video
1280x512 Flash Video
640x256 Flash Video

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.

LWN: Drizzle: a lighter MySQL

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 09:46:23 +0000

MySQL founder Michael Widenius announces the launch of the Drizzle project. "Drizzle is a smaller, slimmer and (hopefully) faster version of MySQL; Features that the broad Drizzle community does not want or need are now removed or in the process of being removed (This includes stored procedures, views, triggers, grants, some non-pluggable storage engines and more)." It also, apparently, is intended to be developed in a more community-oriented manner, "A bit like Fedora does to RedHat."

LWN: Fedora Talk launches

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 09:39:15 +0000

The Fedora Project has announced the launch of Fedora Talk, an Asterisk-based telephony system. "Fedora contributors can set up ad hoc conferences, further deepening social connections and creating a more efficient method for communication when working on certain projects. In the future, we hope to add web conference capabilites for anyone with VoIP access. There are other possibilities to explore with Fedora Talk as well. What if, in the future, a Fedora volunteer could claim an hour of time to run a VoIP phone and answer user or contributor questions?"

Mozilla: Jesse Ruderman: The bikeshedding continues

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 09:34:04 +0000

In 2006, Mike Beltzner filed a bug saying that Firefox's about:config should have a warning. Chris Thomas wrote a patch adding a warning page, and it was checked in with a playful title suggested by the same Mike Beltzner: "Be careful, this gun is loaded!".

Some people thought the reference to guns made Firefox too violent. After much discussion, Beltzner changed the title to "This might void your warranty!", which was a suggestion from Phil Ringnalda.

Today, Christopher Aillon of Red Hat filed a bug about the "warranty" string. He says it has caused several users to contact legal departments or IT departments with questions that should have been unnecessary.

My suggestion is "Caution: Firefox internals may be hot". As a bonus, it fails to make sense in IceWeasel-branded versions.

Additional suggestions may be hidden in the Firefox source tree. When Beltzner made the change from "gun" to "warranty", he also added a note to localizers, suggesting that the title need not be a direct translation from English but "should be attention grabbing and playful". At least three localizers substituted their own phrases. I'm curious what the strings say when translated back into English.

GNOME: Mathias Hasselmann: 29 years and still immature...

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 09:31:37 +0000

g++ just gave me this error message right now:

./JavaScriptCore/kjs/ArgList.h:133: error: extra qualification 'KJS::ArgList::' on member 'operator new'

Would be nice if this language (or its compilers) would have matured that much, that you don't always need exactly the same C++ compiler as the guy writing the code you try to compile. It was just 29 years ago, that C++ was invented...

OpenJDK: Gary Benson: Shark’s framewalker interface

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 09:16:22 +0000

Yesterday I finished my zero bugs, so now I’m back on Shark. Until a couple of weeks ago I’d been implementing bytecodes one by one as they came up, but during some team meetings I had the idea to cause unimplemented bytecodes to abort only that particular compilation. Previously this would abort the [...]

Jabber: Peter Saint-Andre: Over the Summit

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 09:10:47 +0000

Whew! The fifth XMPP Summit wrapped up earlier today (well, actually yesterday as I write this). It’s always difficult for me to tell if folks find these events worthwhile, because they are a bit of a whirlwind for me, as the person who’s “in charge” (hah!). But I’ve received positive feedback from everyone I’ve talked with — at least the core Jabber geeks and a few other folks I polled. In particular, I think we made good progress on two fronts:

Jingle. Rob McQueen of Collabora and Diana Cionoiu of Yate reached consensus on a number of issues, with input from me, Justin Uberti of the Google Talk team, and a few interested others. Rob has started posting emails to the jingle@xmpp.org discussion list, and we’ll be updating various specs and publishing one or two new ones in the near future.
OAuth. We’ve been talking for a while about ways to build hybrid HTTP+XMPP technologies, and use of OAuth is a big part of that. During a collaborative brainstorming session between Blaine Cook, Kellan Elliott-McCrea, Evan Henshaw-Plath (rabble), Joe Hildebrand, and Ralph Meijer, we worked out some details for how we can send OAuth tokens and signatures over XMPP and therefore authorize access to resources on the Jabber network. I’ll be updating and renaming XEP-0235 real soon now (maybe even tomorrow) to reflect that consensus.

There are other actions as well, but I see those two as the big ones.

Anyway it’s past 2 AM here and my brain is fried from all my work on the Summit these past days and weeks, so I think I’ll sign off now and post more soon about all the interesting stuff happening in the wonderful world of XMPP.

Until then, Jabber on!

Mono: Chris Howie: ?Erroring off??

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 08:59:12 +0000

Has anyone told you that a program is “erroring off” or that some system “errored off?” Occasionally I have the pleasure of receiving such notices and every time it makes me cringe. Let me explain something. “Error” is not a verb. You can’t error. It’s not possible. When you type “erroring” [...]

LWN: The Death of Google's Patents (Patently-O)

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 08:46:24 +0000

The Patently-O weblog has a detailed look at a couple of US Patent and Trade Office rulings which could change the software patent game significantly. "If the PTO's test is followed, the crucial question for the vitality of patents on computer implemented inventions is whether a general purpose computer qualifies as a 'particular' machine within the meaning of the agency's test. In two recent decisions announced after the oral arguments in the Bilski case, Ex parte Langemyr (May 28, 2008) and Ex parte Wasynczuk (June 2, 2008), the PTO Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences has now supplied an answer to that question: A general purpose computer is not a particular machine, and thus innovative software processes are unpatentable if they are tied only to a general purpose computer." (Thanks to Duncan).

Movable Type: Movable Type 4.2 RC4 and some of our latest hacks

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 08:41:30 +0000

We have had some amazing feedback from the community since we started the public beta of Movable Type 4.2 - a release we consider to be one of the most important upgrades to Movable Type ever. Users of 4.2 can attest as well: Movable Type 4.2 is fast -- never before have we seen performance increases of 100x for common tasks like search. Of course, improvements like that are only possible, I believe, when a team of people come together to stop using band-aids and focus intently on actually solving a problem in a fundamental way.

Naturally with improvements like that in store for our users, the most common question we hear is, "when will Movable Type 4.2 be released?" With bug reports starting to wane and feedback slowing to a trickle, we think we are getting really close to a final release, and it is our belief that the latest, Release Candidate 4, will be the last release candidate prior to release.

In the meantime, for those of you aching for something new, something cool, or something useful, here are some things coming out of our weekly hackathons that you might be check out:

Template Set Exporter Tool

Designers should like this handy tool: "export-ts" is a command line tool that one can run to convert a blog's templates to a template set that can easily be zipped up and sent to a friend, client or to your web site for distribution.

» Download from code.sixapart.com

Mid-Century Template Set

The Mid-Century Template Set is the latest theme for Movable Type by Jim Ramsey, the lead designer for Movable Type and the same designer who brought you the Universal Template Set (soon to be renamed "Professional Website"). Mid-Century is a new template set that takes special advantage of some of Movable Type 4.2's features like comment threading. It is not done yet, but it is a good hint of some things to come.

» MidCenturyTS-0.9.zip (MT 4.2 required)

Forum Utils

We are still working on the name, but the idea behind this plugin is to provide editors and designers with more tools to help promote useful and insightful comments more prominently on your web site by allowing editors to feature comments and promote comments to full-fledged entries.

» Download a beta of Forum Utils

Fluid Plugin

Users who dug the post promoting the amazing work by Jesse to turn Movable Type into a desktop application on Mac OS X, will also like the hacks we are working on to enhance that experience: dock badges, growls and more are coming.

OpenOffice: Malte Timmermann: Sun Java Communications Suite 6 - now with Convergence AJAX client

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 08:36:36 +0000

Jim Parkinson has just blogged about the availability of the new release from the Java Communications Suite.

Our messaging server is already well known for being rock solid and for it's great scalability.

The new release offers interesting new features for mobile messaging (LEMONADE support).

For me, as an end user in this case, the most interesting new feature is the web based mail and calendering client - Convergence.

If you are interested, you can find many more details in Jim's blog.

Mozilla: Tristan Nitot: The Firefox computer different shapes and sizes

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 08:01:00 +0000

The recent Firefox tablet post over at TechCrunch has caused quite some stir in the blogosphere. Truth is I have with me several "Firefox computers". I'll skip the obvious: my laptop (a MacBook Pro) is a Firefox computer! Firefox is the most important app for me and many of my friends. But there are many other computers that qualify as "Firefox computers", but with a different form factor than the usual laptop. Here is a short list:

N810, Linutop 2, eeePC, MacBook

Nokia Internet Tablet

The closest to what TechCrunch describes is the Nokia N810, here running Fennec. This is a very early stage version of what will be Firefox Mobile, but the Nokia 810 stock version already ships with a Mozilla-based browser called MicroB.

Fennec in French running on a Nokia N810

eeePC and its competitors

A whole new range of low-cost laptops have been made possible by not running Windows. The eeePC is leading the movement. Here in France, it's sold with a 3G US+B key that enables it to get connected from pretty much everywhere. A aount of mine, which definitely does nto fall in the nerd category, has one, and she loves the ability to use Firefox and Thunderbird from her apartment in Paris and her house on the seaside without having to pay two DSL subscriptions. In this case, my aunt is a Linux user, without even knowing it!

Linutop: the always-on desktop

Linutop 2, now with Firefox 3

Another approach to the Firefox computer is to attach it to your TV to use it as a computer screen. The recently released Linutop 2.2 (press release, PDF format). One of the cool things about the Linutop is its very low power consumption (8W only) and lack of fan, which makes it totally quiet. The CPU of the Linutop 2 is an AMD Geode (x86) with 512MB of RAM, making it run Firefox 3 quite decently.

In a similar way, I already use a Mac Mini attached to my TV, and it rocks! I mostly run FrontRow (Media Center user interface) and Firefox on it, but it's not silent, uses a lot more energy, and because it has moving parts, is probably less reliable on the long term...

N810, eeePC, Linutop 2, MacBook, all running Mozilla-based browsers

Mono: Torello Querci: Mono on OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) device update

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 07:37:00 +0000

Hi guys,

several months went by without any post, but I didn't remain idle.
During this time I made a lots of things but now I'm glad to post an update to sugar-sharp.

This update will let you to use the datastore service that Sugar makes available to store your data.
The datastore data are used by the Journal and can be integrated with the school server.
This version is a very low-level API because it's a one-to-one mapping with the DBUS services. In the next version I will create a new class to allow you an easier way to access to the data on the datastore.

Any suggestions are welcomed.

You can find the instruction about compilation of mono here, and here you can find the source code.

Happy hacking to all

Debian: MJ Ray: LugRadio Live Event Review, Part Web2.0

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 07:18:59 +0000

LUGRadioLive 2008 by sheilaellen (cc-by-2.0)

One aspect I didn’t mention in the LugRadio Live Event Review was how old-fashioned it seemed in some ways.

I guess I’ve got used to seeing conferences experimenting with various web2.0 toys like live-blogging, feedback walls and so on, or the excellent live video streaming of DebConfs, but it was a bit of a surprise to find myself the only person in the audience who connected to the IRC channel from the event.

One possible reason for that was that the wireless network was a bit difficult, or at least that was what I was told. I felt quite smug with my 3G smartphone IRC client (which I’ll blog about later) until Rufus Pollock mentioned the 800+ patents involved in 3G. Damn - I guess I hate freedom.

In one way, I guess it’s appropriate if the network wasn’t up to the task. Broken networks were a regular feature of early ALUG meetings, as the end of this email hints.

Web2.0 was there a little bit. There was a facebook page (which I accidentally spammed while travelling to the event), flickr:lugradiolive and ~~a twitter link of #lugradiolive - but how does that work? There’s no user called lugradiolive and you can’t have usernames containing #~~ Update: twitter:#lugradiolive (thanks to Dave Briggs for the explanation in a comment).

Anyway, seeing as there will be another LUG Radio Live, maybe we can arrange something more interactive but free-software-friendly for 2009?

More reviews I’ve read: davee: Lugradio-in’ makes me feel good…, Peter Cannon: The party’s over for LugRadio Live and No’: Lugradio Undead - but why aren’t more people writing about this event? There seemed to be enough there. Or are they out there but I’m just not seeing them?

Smalltalk: Plopp featured in MacWorld

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 07:14:38 +0000

MacWorld magazine is running a series of reviews of their favourite free and low-cost applications for the Mac, and one of their picks is Plopp, a painting tool from Impara for easily creating cartoon-like 3D scenes. Although their review doesn’t mention this (did they even know it?), Plopp was developed and runs totally in Squeak!, which of course means that it’s also available on Windows and (for free!) on Linux.

Plopp seems to be getting a lot of attention at the moment, perhaps because you can also use it to create models for use in Second Life, so congratulations to all at Impara for the recognition their work is getting!