Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter #182

By boredandblogging | Published: 2010-02-28

Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter. This is Issue #182 for the week February 21st – February 27th, 2010 and is available here.

In this issue we cover:

* Lucid Alpha 3 Released
* Rocking The Opportunistic Desktop
* Can you hear the Music?
* New Ubuntu Members: Americas Board Meeting
* Ubuntu Stats
* Ubuntu Libya LoCo at the Technology & Science Fair
* Help localization testing with the ISO tracker
* Translating software descriptions with Nightmonkey
* Attention Encrypted Home Users
* Server Bug Zapping – Call for Participation
* Ubuntu Women has a new IRC Channel
* In the Press & Blogosphere
* Full Circle Magazine #34
* Meetings & Events
* Updates & Security
* And much, much more!

This issue of The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter is brought to you by:

* John Crawford
* Craig A. Eddy
* Dave Bush
* Amber Graner
* Liraz Siri
* Scott Gwin
* And many others

If you have a story idea for the Weekly News, join the Ubuntu News Team mailing list and submit it. Ideas can also be added to the wiki!

Except where otherwise noted, content in this issue is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License BY SA Creative Commons License

Ubuntu Translations Meeting Minutes 2010-02-25

By boredandblogging | Published: 2010-02-26

Here are the notes on yesterday’s Ubuntu Translations meeting. These minutes, along with the full log, are available here.

Agenda

  • Review of the Ubuntu Translations policies and best practices

Attendees

Summary

Review of the Ubuntu Translations policies and best practices

The meeting focused on discussing the new set of policies, as the Guidelines section still requires some work.

The idea behind these policies is to provide more structure to Ubuntu Translations as a project as outlined in the spec, and the aim is to keep the policies short and concise to cover the basic requirements, but at the same time to keep the entry barrier low and not to make the translations process more difficult.

Feedback:

  • Adi expressed the concern about having too much documentation, which might put new teams off. We agreed on using the existing StartingTeam page as the resource to point out to new teams. This document should be visible in the main Translations page, and the policies used as a reference in the Knowledge Base, which should be a source of reference for existing teams
  • David agreed to rework the front page at Translations to address these concerns
  • On the point of team communication, we all agreed on the requirement for all teams to have a communication channel, regardless of type.
  • We also agreed to add a section on each team’s page in Launchpad listing their resources for communication, and eventually deleting Tems contact page when all teams have added that information.

The general consensus was that the documented policies are useful in their current form, with the additional feedback given at the meeting.

The rest of the agenda items were postponed for the next meeting or for discussion at the mailing list.

The Grand App Writing Challenge

By boredandblogging | Published: 2010-02-25

From Jono Bacon’s blog :

Yesterday I gave my talk on opportunistic developers on ustream.tv (which I plan on repeating next week). In that session I floated the idea of having a fun challenge next week when Ubuntu Opportunistic Developer Week happens. The idea was pretty popular, so I wanted to share it here.

The idea is simple:

Think of a fun program to write, and see how much you can get completed by the end of the week, Fri 5th March 2010. On Friday I will write a blog entry that showcases screenshots of your progress and (if possible) a PPA where people can download a package to try.

Getting Started

Getting started with this is simple. First think of something that would be fun to write. This could be a GUI front-end to a command line tool, a simple app that does something useful for you that will improve your life, a game or anything else. Pick something that isn’t too hard: something that is a good first step to dip your feet into development. Folks, do share ideas for apps in the comments here so those people who can’t think of something have a pool of ideas available. 🙂

When you have idea you can create your app really easily with Quickly. You can first install Quickly from the Ubuntu Software Center by clicking Applications -> Ubuntu Software Center and search for quickly.

When it is installed, just run:

quickly create ubuntu-project

As an example:

quickly create ubuntu-project mycoolapp

Now run:

quickly tutorial

This will explain how to get started working on your application. If you have questions related to using quickly, you can join #quickly on freenode. If you have general software development questions, you can join #ubuntu-app-devel on freenode.

Sharing Your Progress

When you have something you would like me to blog, send an email no later than the end of the day Pacific time on Thu 4th March 2010 to me at jono AT ubuntu DOT com and include:

  • The name of your program and a brief description of what it does.
  • A link to a screenshot online that shows your new app running.
  • If available, tell me the name of the Launchpad project where it is hosted and the PPA with the package. This is a great way for people to try your program and possibly join the project and contribute to it!

I will send a t-shirt out to the three app authors who made the most interesting apps with the most progress. 🙂

Start your engines folks, let’s see what we can do! I can’t wait to see how you folks get on! 🙂

LoCo Stories: the Ubuntu Libya LoCo at the Technology & Science Fair

By boredandblogging | Published: 2010-02-24

Starting a new local comunity group requires a mixture of dedication, enthusiastic people and the will to make things happen. And having fun at it. The folks at the Ubuntu Libyan LoCo seem to have all the ingredients for the recipe to success and are showing them off on their way to becoming an approved LoCo team.

Ubuntu is the most used distro in Libya, and the team was born with the lofty goal of supporting the Ubuntu users in the country. Since they first joined the Ubuntu family in Karmic, a lot new members have joined in. They've participated in a great deal of workshops, meetings and discussions, which allowed them to shape the team's plans and goals.

While doing that, they've also participated in educational events organized by local universities and private educational institutes, and we're going to focus in one of them.

As part of its activities and ongoing strive to increase the knowledge of GNU/Linux and Open Source Software, the Ubuntu Libya LoCoTeam participated in the Technology & Science Fair, organized by The Libyan Information Technology Group during the week of Dec 6th-12th 2009 and hosted by the Al-Fateh University in Tripoli, Libya.

The Libyan Information Technology Group kindly provided a dedicated booth for the Ubuntu Libya LoCoTeam, with an elegant and attractive black and orange Ubuntu theme that clearly stood out in the Fair.

During the period of the Fair, the Libya LoCoTeam distributed 500 ubuntu Karmic CDs to visiting students, IT specialists, Instructors and IT consultants. An Ubuntu installation workshop was also organized by the team after an introductory presentation about Ubuntu.

Many visitors were interested to know more about Ubuntu and Open Source Software and this event was a great opportunity for the Ubuntu Libya LoCoTeam to spread their knowledge and enthusiasm.

Their next event is going to be Libya's first installfest, for which they've set themselves a target of 1000 attendees.

Amazing.

Links

With special thanks to Mohamed Ayad for providing and translating the content from Arabic

Do you have an interesting LoCo story to tell? If you have organized an event, performed some work/advocacy in your local community, have built some resources, performed meetings or installfests, please email David (david.planella AT ubuntu DOT com) or check out https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LoCoStories. Do remember to send a picture to accompany the story!

Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter #181

By boredandblogging | Published: 2010-02-21

Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter. This is Issue #181 for the week February 14th – February 20th, 2010 and is available here.

In this issue we cover:

* Debian Import Freeze in effect
* Feature Freeze in place – Alpha 3 freeze ahead
* New MOTU
* Ubuntu single sign on service launched
* Ubuntu Stats
* Meet Jelmer Vernooij
* Sikuli — scripting your use of GUIs
* The Planet: Daniel, Dustin, Jono, Alan, David, & Robert
* In the Press & Blogosphere
* Mark Shuttleworth to give keynote at PyCon 2010
* Ubuntu UK podcast returns
* Ubuntu torrents are now IPv6 enabled
* Upcoming Meetings & Events
* Updates & Security
* And much, much more!

This issue of The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter is brought to you by:

* John Crawford
* Dave Bush
* Craig A. Eddy
* And many others

If you have a story idea for the Weekly News, join the Ubuntu News Team mailing list and submit it. Ideas can also be added to the wiki!

Except where otherwise noted, content in this issue is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License BY SA Creative Commons License