FAQs in Launchpad and more new features

By boredandblogging | Published: 2007-07-20

Every project has frequently asked questions. Now, with the release of Launchpad 1.1.7, the Answer Tracker makes it easy to create and find answers to Ubuntu’s most common questions.

There are two ways to use FAQ in the Answer Tracker:

You’re looking for help: you can search and browse FAQ answers to find help with your problem.
You’re an Ubuntu answer contact: you can mark an answer as an FAQ and then create an answer that will be available to anyone else using the Answer Tracker.

The idea behind the FAQ feature is pretty simple: knowledge about Ubuntu is spread across the wiki, forums, third-party websites and the Answer Tracker. FAQ can draw on all that knowledge to offer Ubuntu users a canonical answer, at the same time as making life a little easier for answer contacts.

FAQ are available to all projects who use the Answer Tracker, not just Ubuntu. Find more about FAQ in the Answer Tracker in our FAQ quick-start guide!

Also in Launchpad 1.1.7

  • Larger font size: visit launchpad.net and you’ll see that we’ve increased the size of the text used on the site, making it easier to read Launchpad’s default text size.
  • New remote bug tracker support: Launchpad can now track bugs in the Mantis bug tracker. (Find out more)
  • Improved duplicate bug handling: if someone has already reported the bug you’ve encountered it’s now much easier to select that report rather than create a duplicate.
  • Teams can now set their default language: teams can become an answer contact for a specific language.
  • Branch associations: you can now see all bugs, blueprints and subscribers associated with a branch on its branch associations page.

For full details of Launchpad 1.1.7, take a look at the release notes. And keep an eye on the Launchpad News blog to stay up to date with Launchpad!

Starting the Ubuntu Training Community

By boredandblogging | Published: 2007-07-20

At the end of November 2007, Canonical will launch the first official Ubuntu desktop training courses.

There will be two courses – one instructor led, two days in a classroom and the other will be a web based e-learning format, following the same contents as the instructor led. The material for the instructor led course will be freely available on the Ubuntu wiki for all to use, share, improve and translate.

The e-learning format will be a paid-for service. The focus of both courses will be very much to comfort and reassure people (new users) that moving from MS to Ubuntu is no big deal; this will be a ‘comfort blanket’ course.

We really really want community involvement to make this course as fantastic as can be. As such, we are setting up a new Ubuntu training community team. What we were thinking of is basically a working model whereby:

  1. We have a training content company write the content.
  2. Community and Canonical provide input at various stages of development.
  3. Content people implement changes.
  4. Once courses are finished, they’re loaded onto the wiki for general use and abuse.
  5. Three months before next Ubuntu release, we review the content and decide which elements need to be included in the next version etc.

We will be using DocBook to design and write the content. One word of caution is that this project will be deadline driven – cut off points for feedback will be absolute in order for us to be able to meet the November target date.

How does that sound? If you are interested in being a member of this team, as the first kick off point, please head over to http://wiki.ubuntu.com/Training/DesktopCourseFeedback and follow the instructions to offer your feedback on the proposed Table Of Contents.

See you there!

Weekly News: Issue #48

By boredandblogging | Published: 2007-07-16

Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue #48 for the week July 8th – July 14th, 2007 is now available. In this issue we cover the imminent release of the next Gutsy Gibbon alpha release, Tribe 3. Mark Shuttleworth also brings us some some fresh open alternatives with Gobuntu and a proposal for a pure free-software-only laptop, the Launchpad people have released and open sources their first component, Scribes Team is highlighted for the hard work, and much much more.

  • Gutsy Tribe 3 expected this week
  • Gobuntu, free-flavored version launched
  • Willing to buy a free-software-only laptop?
  • Launchpad unleashes a Storm
  • Interview of the Week with Jerome Gotangco
  • In The Press and In the Blogosphere
  • Team of the week: Scribes Team
  • New weekly Translation stats!
  • Bug Stats

If you have a story idea for the Weekly News please submit it via email or on the wiki !

UWN is brought to you by the Marketing Team.

Weekly News: Issue #47

By boredandblogging | Published: 2007-07-09

Issue #47 for the week June 24th – July 7th, 2007 is now available. This issue features two weeks of news packed into one great issue. Gutsy Gibbon 7.10 has passed the second alpha release, and is starting to look like we’re going to have another amazing release. We have quiet some new members and LoCo teams joining us, an ambitious set of features announced for the next Launchpad milestones, and the security updates and bug stats you all have learned to love.

  • New MOTUs
  • Welcome our newly approved members
  • Gutsy Gibbon Tribe 2 Released
  • Newly Approved LoCos
  • New Launchpad Features in development
  • Ubuntu in the News and Blogs
  • Meetings and Events
  • Security Updates

If you have a story idea for the Weekly News please submit it via email or on the wiki !

UWN is brought to you by the Marketing Team.

Edubuntu in the news!

By boredandblogging | Published: 2007-07-05

Edubuntu at Technology In Education Conference
The Colorado Local Community Team manned a Canonical/Ubuntu booth at the Technology in Education Conference in Copper Mountain. The general consensus was that the Ubuntu session turned out to be “the cool session” amongst all of the conference attendees for that day, nearly one thousand classroom teachers, administrators and technology enthusiasts from around Colorado and surrounding states. Edubuntu was the main focus and was run on an HP server in a thin-client configuration.
Read more…

Do You Edubuntu?
Jeff Hastings test drives the open source suite
School Library Journal, 7/1/2007

Edubuntu, the Linux-based operating system and open-source educational software suite, is so startlingly good in so many ways that it’s difficult to know where to begin. So let’s start here: it’s free. That’s right, you can download Edubuntu from the Web site or request a copy or two on CD and they’ll ship it. All the way from Belgium. Free!

Full article.