Posted
2 days
ago
Up, builders returned (finally) to get the side-way roof
affixed; good stuff. Poked at mail, drifted to sleep and - somehow
stumbled on a really nice set of n900 videos
(NB. viewer caution advised: there -may- be (some)
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non-free
software on the N900 [ next to the ton of great Free software ],
and you -might- need to use a non-free player to view the videos;
Death to the pragmatists !) - woke up in a cold-sweat, to
discover the world is still sane.
Talked with the MariaDB guys a little, some similarities and
differences to the OO.o world; we are optimistic that Oracle would find
it hard to do a worse job than Sun of stewardship, whereas they are
less so.
Prodded Clarity. Quote for the day, from Eben Moglen's
EC
submission, (point 35. - considering unlikely negative scenarios):
Experience shows that the trademark attack is
likely to fail. Popular free software programs with large personal as
well as enterprise install bases have been denied use of their
"brands" in the past. GAIM was denied use of its name by AOL and
became Pidgin; Phoenix became Firebird became Firefox, which in turn
denied use of its name to the Debian browser version now known as
Iceweasel. Lawyers for free software projects have learned that name
changes are of minor concern to projects substantially based around
commons production, and that trademark forms a poor way to restrict
commons development.
Eben's latest Update
is also interesting, in particular the suggestion that an eclectically
owned GPLv3'd MySQL would be a good thing, which understandably concerned Monty.
What a tangled web of pragmatic business and Freedom interests; most
interesting. [Less]
Posted
2 days
ago
One of the things that I’d really like to see is desktopcouch on Windows and the Mac, so that your data can be everywhere, on all your machines. Now, I don’t know enough about those platforms to actually do it, but I’d be happy to help anyone
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who was interested in making it happen; here are some thoughts on what’d be required, and do please chip in here with questions, or ask me or others on the #ubuntuone IRC channel on irc.freenode.net.
Desktop Couch, for those of you who aren’t sure, is a personal CouchDB that your apps can store their data in. It’s secured for you alone, and it comes with a built-in replication setup, so two desktopcouches on the same network can exchange data. This means that if your applications store their data in desktopcouch — for example, Bindwood, our Firefox extension to store your bookmarks there — then all the machines on your network can exchange that data, meaning that adding a bookmark on one of your machines will automatically add it on the others, without you having to do anything, and without you having to sign up to some third-party service to make that happen. It’ll all work on your local network. (It can also work via a third-party service — Ubuntu One is such a service, and there could be others, as long as they deploy CouchDB in the cloud — so that machines on different networks can also exchange data.)
CouchDB
The first thing you need to have, to get a personal CouchDB, is CouchDB. I know the Mozilla Raindrop team have done some work getting CouchDB nice and robust and working on Windows, and I believe they have an installer. Working with that would be very cool indeed. (Indeed, it’s possible for Raindrop to use desktopcouch if you have it, so that might be an interesting test!)
On-demand startup and port numbers (or, what’s your D-Bus?)
Desktopcouch is started on demand, when the first application requires it, rather than running all the time even when you don’t need it. Because it is a personal CouchDB, and because there might be more than one user on the machine that you’re on, it can’t run on a specific port number; instead, you ask desktopcouch for its port number when you want it, and asking that question starts it up on a randomly-chosen port if it’s not already running. The way this is done on Ubuntu (and other Linuxes) is with D-Bus, which is a Linux-specific IPC mechanism. It’s possible to use D-Bus on other platforms, but a much better way would be to use your platform’s specific way of passing messages to a service and starting a service if it’s not already running. (This is one of the things I don’t know how to do on other platforms. Would Macs use launchd or something? Should a Windows service be running on startup? I don’t know.) Desktopcouch only uses D-Bus for these two things (”what’s your port number” and “start this service if it’s not already running”), so replacing those sections with a native way of doing that on Windows/Mac would be reasonably easy and make it fit in much better with the Right Way of doing things on that platform; these changes would need to be made both in desktopcouch itself, and in APIs (desktopcouch.records) that connect to desktopcouch.
Where are the keys? (or, no gnome-keyring on Windows)
Because desktopcouch is a personal CouchDB, access to it is secured by OAuth. When desktopcouch is first set up, it randomly generates a set of OAuth tokens, and these are stored in the Gnome keyring on Ubuntu. Obviously, it would be better to use the platform’s own way of storing authentication data; I believe the Mac has a “keychain”, and Windows surely has something similar. Again, this would need changing in desktopcouch itself (to store the keys in the right place), and in desktopcouch.records (to retrieve the keys from that place to use them).
And that’s it
With those changes in place, desktopcouch should run on another platform, meaning that you can exchange data between all your apps on all your machines. We’re already getting some sterling work done to see desktopcouch on other Linux distributions and on phones like the Nokia N900 (hooray for Thomas, among others!). I’d really like to see this happen on Windows and Mac too; are you interested in helping make it happen? Let me know, and I’ll give you all the help you need! [Less]
Posted
2 days
ago
by
nor...@blogger.com (Kenneth Rohde Christiansen)
So last week Nokia ASF hosted a Qt WebKit Code Camp in Wiesbaden, Germany. It was the first time most of the people working on - or using WebKit inside Nokia, got together and met face-to-face. It is obvious that we have a great bunch of clever
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people, but also that we still have a lot of work to do before out Qt port is up to the level of the Google and Apple ports, but don'tworry, we are definitely getting there!
Before the event, I had a look at adding tiling support to see if it would actually bring noticable performance improvements. I did a small presentation about it, which you can find below.
Considering Tiling for a better User Interface<object height="355" style="margin: 0px;" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://static.slidesharecdn.com/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=asf-webkit-summit-final-091215074559-phpapp02&stripped_title=considering-tiling-for-a-better-user-interface"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><embed allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" height="355" src="http://static.slidesharecdn.com/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=asf-webkit-summit-final-091215074559-phpapp02&stripped_title=considering-tiling-for-a-better-user-interface" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425"></embed></object>View more documents from kchristi.
Having working on NPAPI plugin support before, I can tell you it is not a very beautiful part of a browser. Some time ago, we were so lucky that Girish joined us and implemented support for windowless plugins. Now he has even gone one step further and written a huge blog post about it, something that is definately worth checking out. You can find it here:
http://blog.forwardbias.in/2009/12/flash-in-qgraphicsview.html
Also, join me in congratulating him in becoming an official WebKit committer!
At the office we are starting to get into Christmas mood! and friday I'm heading off to Europe to celebrate the Christmas holidays with my family and girlfriend.
Anselmo just took this nice picture from our office:
Merry Christmas to you all! [Less]
Posted
3 days
ago
The astute may have noticed that the default browser installed in Moblin 2.1 is not Moblin Web Browser. There are various reasons for this, but if you're interested in trying out the Moblin Web Browser (and how it would have been had it been
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included with 2.1), you still can by following the instructions here: How to install Moblin Web Browser in Moblin 2.1.
Note that development has already moved on quite a lot since the snapshot in the 2.1 repositories, and performance has been massively improved (to the point where it is almost indistinguishable, performance-wise, from Firefox, as long as you don't suffer from this bug). If anyone's interested in seeing the latest browser bits, do comment or drop me a mail and I'll see if I can get more up-to-date packages available somewhere. [Less]
Posted
3 days
ago
Please, black out your website and online profile images in protest against the Australian Government’s Internet Filtering policy.
Why?
It may seem cheesy to turn your website or avatar black for an online protest, but it can
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form a part of a good online and offline campaign, particularly for Internet-related protests.
Many of my friends in New Zealand turned their websites and online profile images black to protest a proposed “guilt upon accusation” copyright law (Section 92A), providing massive online “Internet Blackout” support to the Creative Freedom campaign. I, and plenty of others around the world, also participated.
The most important bit: New Zealand media took notice, bringing a level of awareness to an Internet / copyright / online rights issue that would otherwise never have materialised. Ultimately, the new government chose to review the entire bill, and while the issue is still being fought, at least one battle was won… and now, there are more people informed about the issue to fight ACTA.
Now it’s Australia’s turn. Our current (otherwise pretty bloody sensible) government has adopted a terrible policy of mandatory Internet filtering, which Australians have been fighting against for many, many months. A technical report about the feasibility of the filter has just been released, which (on first glance) appears to validate the policy against technical challenges, and the government has announced that it is pursuing the policy to legislation.
Now, I’m not suggesting that turning stuff black will have a direct impact on government policy… However, I am suggesting that we can use broad-based online protest to increase awareness of the problem, and help those attempting to fight the good fight offline.
If Sunrise (a breakfast news show in Australia) or other news outlets note that “Australians are turning out the lights in protest against the government’s Internet filter”, that’s awareness value we’d never be able to raise by, say, marching in the streets. If it causes Tony Jones or Leigh Sales to ask a government minister why Australians are so upset about this policy, that’s incredibly worthy opinion-leader influence… and very likely cringe-worthy interview fodder.
So yes, blacking out your websites and online profile images alone would be tilting at windmills. But as an online component of a complete No Clean Feed campaign… very useful.
For my readers who are not in Australia… consider how this western, English-speaking democratic country might be the thin end of the wedge — that’s why I supported my New Zealand friends against S92A. Please participate, and support Australians in their embarrassment about this terrible Internet policy!
Remember: This is only useful as part of a broader campaign to raise awareness of the issue and pressure politicians to put a stop to this filter. Go to the EFA’s No Clean Feed site for all kinds of other things you can do. The best thing? Write in your own words by snail mail, call by telephone or meet with your local MP.
#nocleanfeed
How?
The easy Twitter option:
Use Twibbon to put a #nocleanfeed blackout layer on your avatar.
More creative options… You could start with some handy templates I have made:
With layers: PSD for Photoshop · XCF for GIMP
Modifying your avatar, if you’re au fait with Photoshop or The GIMP:
Download the PSD for Photoshop or XCF for The GIMP
Copy your existing avatar into a new layer
Move that layer between the #nocleanfeed and Background layers
Desaturate the coloured avatar layer (so it’s just black and white)
Set that layer to between 30% and 50% transparent
Flatten the image (combine all the layers)
Save it as a PNG or JPEG, ready to use on Twitter, Facebook, or… wherever
On Twitter:
Download the blank image or modify one of the templates above
Make sure you’re logged in at twitter.com
Click “Settings” in the menu at the top right of the page
Click “Picture” in the links under your current avatar
Click “Choose File” and select your blacked out avatar
Click “Save” and you’re done.
On Facebook:
Download the blank image or modify one of the templates above
Make sure you’re logged in at www.facebook.com
Click your name, next to “Settings” in the menu at the top right of the page
Move your mouse over your current avatar and click “Change Picture”
Click “Upload a Picture” in the drop-down menu
Click “Choose File” and select your blacked out avatar
Wait for your photo to upload, and you’re done
On Gravatar (for blogs and lots of other websites):
Download the blank image or modify one of the templates above
Make sure you’re logged in at gravatar.com
Click on “add a new image” beneath your list of registered emails
Choose “My computer’s hard drive”
Click “Choose File” and select your blacked out avatar
Click “Next”
If your image is already square (like the templates), just click “Crop and Finish!”
Add a rating… probably G
Now select the email addresses you want to use this avatar with
Click “Use for selected addresses” and you’re done [Less]
Posted
3 days
ago
Tonight I had an idea I wanted to run past Ubuntu community folks. I think it could be fun to have an Ubuntu Community Hackfest. In it we would pick two days and devote them to hacking on software projects that are community-related. This could
... [More]
include existing project such as:
LoCo Directory
Harvest
Quickly
Hall Of Fame
The Fridge
Lernid
Brainstorm
Improvements to the Ubuntu Forums
It could also include ideas for other projects we have discussed at UDS such as the Governance Tracking System. This could also be a great time to build that new website your LoCo needs, work on a new Quickly application that can help the community or some other kind of project.
I would recommend that those who get involved would share their work as they do it on blogs, post screenshots, share snippets, and of course twitter and dent all the while.
So, would anyone be interested in getting involved with this? [Less]
Posted
3 days
ago
So in case you have not tried it yet here is a video of me fiddling with Docky … I am adding a Journal for every app YAY … (still alpha)
<object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie"
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value="http://www.youtube.com/v/O3FYKph-kxU&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" height="344" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/O3FYKph-kxU&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425"></embed></object>
The Docky team is rocking and are open to all kinds of discussions. They are my second favorite team behind the Zeitgeist team. We started sharing devs which is a big plus. Their devs started doing some python stuff for the Zeitgeist extensions. I will be heading back to more Zeitgeist work though since we have Teamgeist about to come out. [Less]
Posted
3 days
ago
by
nor...@blogger.com (Bob)
I recently upgrade to a new Dell Studio 15 and retired my old Inspiron. One thing I've noticed is the function keys are now secondary - these keys are now multimedia/system functions by default and you need to use the blue Fn key to activate the old
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F1-12 behaviour. Other Dell and Apple laptops (at least) seem to be doing the same thing.
Is this the end of the function key? The Litl keyboard got rid of them entirely. The key combination to use them on my laptop is sufficiently difficult that they might as well not exist for me.
So this leads me to the conclusion:
- I can never rely on function key shortcuts in any software I write.
- The existing window management shortcuts (e.g. alt-F4 to close window) don't work anymore. Now I understand when people complain how applications don't consistently bind the same key to close window (Ctrl+Q or Ctrl+W or something else or nothing?).
- At the Lucid UDS we discussed Compiz keybindings - often these were bound to function keys. I notice the macbook uses the old F3 key for "show all windows". I hope some standard could emerge for these functions on PC keyboards.
I can't say I'm going to miss them overly. [Less]
Posted
3 days
ago
Arrived yesterday night to Coruña for the WebKitGTK+ hackfest, a couple of hours before Gustavo did. Today he and I kicked off the day zero of the hackfest, before everybody arrives starting tomorrow.
We spent the whole day hacking on form
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login/password saving, and despite some issues with GNOME keyring being unhappy and dying on us, I can say we made good progress for one day of work:
This is epiphany/webkit master auto-filling my twitter.com login/password after launch, which as some people know is one of our last nasty regressions. There’s still a few things to do, but I’m confident about landing this before we leave Spain. Also, for those of you not following our development closely, the screenshot also shows the twitter favicon, since Gustavo recently fixed our favicon support in master.
Later today, Álex and Philippe joined us. Álex continued working in a tough accessibility bug in WebKitGTK+ he’s been fighting with, and Philippe arrived just in time for a nice dinner downtown. Not bad for one day, considering we were even not supposed to be here today! [Less]
Posted
3 days
ago
I would like to dedicate this moment to this version of Metallica’s Nothing Else Matters.
Jono, our Metal fan, probably agrees with me that even the toughest person in the world of Metal can be brought to his knees
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, crying.
It’s a moment of reconciliation. What is it that we want?
I think more than ever, we do understand each other.
I don’t know. [Less]
