In the beginning there was the swamp, the hoe, – and Jussi!

So today I am in a writing mood. (for some strange reason – these don’t come often).

This is a bit of a grumble post, but also a call for help. I’ve used Libre office and before that Open office in Kubuntu for a long time, including a fair amount of work for my job (I run Kubuntu at work).

There’s a lot of things that make me grumble about it, including hard to find options, bad formatting of MS office docs etc, but the one thing where I find a massive problem with that could so easily be fixed – especially with Ubuntu/Canonicals current focus on design is the situation with templates and defaults within the Office (and other creativity) programs shipped.

Have you ever tried creating a document in open office using the default styles (headings etc)? What about the default styles for drawing (horrible light blue boxes anyone?) And the default included templates? not much there… (a few OSS geared ones and some that look like they were made sometime last century – no disrespect meant to any of the creators).

So this is a call for all those who have a sense of style – make a template this week, and either email it to templates at jussi01.com or grab our BZR branch (bzr branch lp:ubuntutemplates) and  create a merge request. Templates should be licensed Creative Commons with no restrictions.

Also, if someone has the expertise to make the defaults better ore any constructive thoughts how to fix the default styles within our office and other applications (including colour palates for drawing apps etc) please feel free to grab me (jussi) or AlanBell on freenode or drop us an email to the above address.

Hey all!

As many of you know, there is a little Jussi fork coming soon – I’m really excited about it, but under no delusions of the time it will take. As well as that, I have received a slightly different role at work which will somewhat increase my responsibilities.

So, with all this in mind, I will be resigning from my post on the Ubuntu IRC Council on the same date as 3 other members of the team’s terms expire. (21/12/2011) – The Ubuntu Community Council should hopefully get an announcement about the election out soon.

I also will be around in an operator capacity a lot less than I had been prior to the IRCC appointment, but hopefully will still have time to jump online sometimes. (perhaps in the middle of the night while burping the baby? )

I’d like to say thanks to all those who supported, helped and gave time to the Ubuntu IRC effort while I have been around – its been a blast.

Jussi

Hello All,

One of these rare blog posts again

So, I noticed m4v has filed a stack load bugs for things he needs to do for stormyfacts – the replacement for the encyclopedia plugin for ubottu. (that the factoid plugin that gives you answers when you call !test or so, for those of you who aren’t aware).

You can see the bug list here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-bots/+bugs

I’d love to see a few more contributors willing to help out on this..

So how do I contribute I hear you say?

First get your supybot setup and running – make it join a private channel, please don’t let it join our channels without asking. (its in the repos, sudo apt-get install supybot).

Then install the custom ubottu plugins from: https://code.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-bots/ubuntu-bots/devel – you can find some help on this from: http://ubottu.com/devel/wiki/Main_Page

Finally, look at the bugs, and come join us in #ubuntu-bots-devel for questions and discussions.

We look forward to seeing you there!

So you thought Amarok was the “only thing worth considering”? Think again.

Enter Tomahawk.

I recently came across Leo Franchi’s blog post and discovered a brilliant new music player. Its not yet packaged for Ubuntu, as some of the libraries still need packaging – hopefully we can have it sorted in time for Oneiric.

I’m not going to repeat his blog post – you can go read it yourself or take a look at the tomahawk website. However, in the short time I have had to play with this, its impressed me immensely. It allows sharing of music and playlists with friends through twitter and jabber, as well as music discovery through the same means. You can scrobble to last.fm, and loads more – I’m still finding the features out

In anycase, its cross platform, available for Linux, Windows and Mac and a Android player is “being worked on” (So Ive been told).

If you want to help out with development or just have a question, feel free to join us on IRC – #tomahawk on freenode

See you there!

Oh, almost forgot – the obligatory screenshot – stolen from Leos blog :=)

This is a little post that takes its title from a line in a waifs song that I was listening to today.

I recently had an chat with a friend of mine from America about his view on healthcare reform and “socialism”. He was adamant that it was wrong, and because there were those who abuse the system, then the system is flawed and broken, and so shouldn’t be implemented. He tried to give his point of view which was very “liberal” – “I am me and I should be able to decide how I use my money that I earn” and “my taxes shouldn’t be used to pay for $person to abuse the system”.

Now this is where the title of this post comes from – it is my belief in this that “When you water the garden, you also water the weeds” – there will always be people who abuse the system, but this does not mean the system shouldn’t exist. Its similar to the line “Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater”.

While we need to “weed out the weeds” or do things about those who abuse the system, we still have to have systems which work, which give everyone a fair go, which favor the people over the corporation, which build a better world.

So thats my little point today, hope it makes sense :=)

Hi All!!

I don’t write often, but this time I wanted to give a little shout out to someone who is doing a great job in the background that nobody is seeing yet, but will make a lot of things easier for using and improving the bots in #k/x/ubuntu-* channels.

That person is Elián Hanisch, otherwise known as “m4v” on IRC. He has been working on the new encyclopedia plugin for ubottu, as the old one was in desperate need of improvement. I’ve been seeing a steady stream of commits coming in (mostly through the CIA bot in #ubuntu-bots-devel) and I’m really pleased with the progress thats going on! The new plugin uses Storm to improve the back end for encyclopedia, which will lead to a faster bot and less strain on the system.

If you see m4v about, say a big thank you for working on this

Cheers

Jussi.

In Orlando, Florida.

I’m hoping to get a load of stuff planned for the IRC council, bots and the default IRC Client as well as participate in some other bits and pieces like Kubuntu and possibly Ubuntu Studio.

Is there something _you_ want to see talked about?

So I came up with an idea yesterday, and after a quick chat to Alan Bell, I think we will implement it.

We plan to put up a Planet site, similar to planet ubuntu, however with businesses who use/contribute to Ubuntu. This may be huge businesses like Dell, or tiny startups. (or anything in between).

The content will be information about what those companies do with Ubuntu. We want to avoid pricelists and offers, and focus more on progression of ubuntu and how it would be used.

The entry barrier could be quite low to begin with, adjustable if need be.

Im interested to hear what you all think, so comment away!

I’m moving to a house with no internet coverage except mobile internet. (3G). While 3G coverage is pretty good in the area, and we have very good speed on 3G here (up to 10.2Mbit/s), I’m wondering if there are products out there that are a better option for home use than the little 3G “mokkula” (stick) that comes with a subscription?

It’s for home use only, so are there any good 3G router/modems? How about signal boosters? Is there anything else I should know?

If you have experience in these areas I’d love to hear from you.

(and no, no chance of wired internet, sadly).

Well its been a pretty crazy week at UDS, with so many sessions to go to and people to have meetings with. Ive been feeling very enthusiastic about a few things that have happened, namely my work with the Ubuntu IRC Council, Ubuntu Bots and of course my beloved Kubuntu.

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We had a great session about the ubuntu bots today, including talking a bit about the future, and how to rewrite some of the plugins, as well as moving mootbot to be a supybot plugin. It went really well and I’m feeling very positive about th future of Ubuntu bots.

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Special thanks go to Alan Bell, Gord Allot, James Tatum and of course our ever presents tsimpson and m4v.

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The Ubuntu IRC Council has been getting some positive feedback recently, which is really encouraging. Thank you to everyone for that. However, I cannot just accept all that positiveness and thank you’s, the team has put so much in, done so much work that it continues to amaze me. I want to just acknowledge the contributions by the rest of the IRC Council and than them for l their work in the last cycle. if you don’t know them or haven’t met them yet, they are:

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Topyli (Juha Siltala)

Pici (Benjamin Rubin)

Tsimpson (Terence Simpson)

Nhandler (Nathan Handler)

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If you see them around or just on IRC, feel free to say hi, give feedback or whatever.

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With that I’ll sign off, try get some sleep before a hectic final day of UDS.
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Jussi
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(As you may have noticed, wordpress is evil and its late/I’m tired. Maybe Ill fix it tomorrow)