Older blog entries for Burgundavia (starting at number 83)

The world needs yet another set of system configuration tools. Yes, it really does. To prove it to you, I give you: Umbrella!. I can hear Baby Jesus crying already.

Sarcasm aside, this is a serious. Yes gnome-system-tools suck, but lets come at this a different way then every other distro on the planet. Rather than write our own, why don't we sit down with the Fedora people and Carlos (who maintains g-s-t) and merge our various efforts into one. Fedora have already produced their system-config stuff, written in the lovely Python. Lets get those into GNOME and start working on this in a collaborative space, not our own little silos. Please?

Due to some inspired work by Brian Burger (Madpilot), Ubuntu Canada now has a logo:

It appears that the Globe and Mail (one of two of Canada's national newpapers), has an article on Ubuntu 6.06.

This is exactly the kind of article the Marketing Team needs to help produce more of. Ubuntu already has great traction in the national and international tech press, now we need to get the non-tech press and local tech press.

And as a final note, thanks to everybody for a great release. It has been a real pleasure working alongside everybody. Special kudos to Matthew East for piloting the ubuntu-doc ship through these last few months. It has and will be a great ride. If you live in Victoria, BC, Canada and want to come hang out with us, we are having a party. Details for all the Dapper parties on the Dapper Release Parties wiki page.

Ubuntu Canada

After much downtime, we now have web presence again! And a new logo! Check us out at ubuntu-ca.org. The DNS for ubuntu.ca should also happen sometime soon.

After reading Paul Graham's excellent essay on How to start a Silicon Valley and the website of the Project for Public Spaces, I have realized that the Free Software and Open Source communities can do more to bridge the divide between us and those who advocate a more human world such as librarians, teachers, philosphers, scientists, environmentalists, and social activists. They help the poor, the weak, the ignorant and the forgotten. To them computers are ivory towers with flashing lights. To be feared and respected. And they cost a bundle, money and time sorely needed elsewhere.

So how do we engage our allies? Talk to them about copyleft, Creative Commons and freedom of information. Tell them about them about the wonders of Free and Open Source software. So what if business people think Linux is not ready for the desktop? These are not business people! We can give them high quality software at a price they cannot beat, backed with a philosophy they can agree with.

Where do you start? Go volunteer at a local NGO. Better yet, organize a technology night for a bunch of them. Get your local LUG involved. There are a million myriad ways, limited merely by your imagination.

According this ZDNet article, the European Commission has decided that "computer programs will be excluded from patentability in the upcoming Community Patent legislation, and that the European Patent Office (EPO) will be bound by this law." Here is the original question, by a Polish MEP. Once again, the Poles have a deciding role in this. Assuming this is true, it is stunning news.

Without much sadness I have bid Firefox goodbye on the last place I was using it, my desktop machine. Memory and CPU usage simply became too much to handle. I truly love the Mozilla people for producing such an awesome browser for Windows, but those of us who use different platforms, Firefox is not the way to go. Go Epiphany!

Dear Application Developers,

I have noticed a worrying trend recently. Too many application developers and packagers seem to think that putting core functionality into a plugin or extension is a good idea. It is not. The next time some user asks me how to open ODT in Abiword (you need the abiword-plugins package, which is NOT installed by default when you install Abiword) or how to do session saving in Firefox (you need an extension), I think I am going to scream.

So if you develop an application, please remember that plugins and extensions are for whizbang features not many use, not for core pieces, like opening a file format or recovering from a crash.

Yours,
Corey Burger
Department of Good Defaults

With Flight 5, XChat-Gnome was removed, leaving only gaim able to do IRC. However, this made getting onto #ubuntu now very difficult, due to needing to setup gaim with multiple arcane dialogs.

Into this breach has stepped JoelBryan. He has written a tool called Ubuntu Live Chat Support, designed to make the process of getting onto #ubuntu a mere wizard dialog away. Rock!

Update: Apparently, the man is not done. How about an easy way to handle irc links?

Why this sudden facination with Mono apps? Mono is a great technology, but it is not the only game in town.

• Think Diva is cool? Pitivi is a more mature women.
• Beagle-ing your way to the your docs? What about Tracker?
• Your heart screaming for Banshee? Rhythmbox might beat to a better tune for you

Then there are cool Python apps like Jokosher, Serpentine, gramps and the Gourmet Recipe Manager.

Don't get me wrong, Mono is great. But lets focus on what really matters, great apps, not what they are built with.

When I first used f-spot, I thought the history slider was crack. I thought, this is a totally non-standard and useless. Nuke it. That was then...

This is now. Now I think the history slider is one of greatest "new ideas" in computing (It is probably an old idea, just resurrected). As such, one of the greatest things someone could write would be a giant history slider program, for everything on your computer that you use: programs, documents, coversations, people, webpages, everything. To see what I had done, I would just click on a button labelled "History" and slide back to the day, then zoom into the hour or even the minute.

I have created a mockup and put it on the Ubuntu wiki at Computer History Browser. Please excuse my 10 minute Inkscape job, but I think it gets the point across. It also uses the same colours as Gimmie, to reinforce which is which.