If you are an instructor, or would like to be, and want to test out ClassBot, you can contact Nathan or myself and we can set you up with a demonstration session. Also, don’t forget to check out the Using ClassBot wiki page.

Also, don’t forget to follow the Ubuntu Classroom on identi.ca and twitter!

Beginning this weekend, at the start of a session in #ubuntu-classroom on irc.freenode.net, ClassBot will make a dent and tweet to announce the session. The Classroom Management Team will also dent/tweet other announcements for the Ubuntu Classroom.

Please use the hashtag #ubuntuclassroom when denting or tweeting about the Ubuntu Classroom or any classes/events that are happening.

What is the Global Jam?

The Ubuntu Global Jam is an online and in person event that takes place all across the world. People get together with the interest of making Ubuntu better, while having a good time socializing with other people near you who have the same interest and passion about Ubuntu as you do.

What can your LoCo do?

The Ubuntu Global Jam has many different events that for users to participate in, just pick what you and your members like, and make it happen. You can pick from one or more of the following events:

Bug Jam – During a bug jam users would work on finding, triaging and fixing bugs.
Testing Jam – Lucid is due out the end of April and we need help testing it out prior to its release.
Upgrade Jam – Upgrade systems that are currently running older versions of Ubuntu and report your experience.
Documentation Jam – Write documentation about using Ubuntu, or joining the Ubuntu community, or work on making the existing documentation better.
Translations Jam – Help to make Ubuntu available to everyone. Help translate Ubuntu into your language.
Packaging Jam – Help out with improving packages in Ubuntu.
Other – If your team has some other aspect of helping out the Ubuntu Community, feel free to participate in that for the Global Jam.

You can find out more information about the different types of Jams on the Ubuntu Global Jams wiki page.

How do we run a Jam?

If you have never run a Global Jam event before, or if you have, but would like some fresh ideas, we have three training sessions scheduled between now and the Global Jam event. The training sessions will be held by JorgeCastro and will be held in #ubuntu-locoteams on freenode. The training sessions will take place on:

17 February 2010 at 18:00 UTC
26 February 2010 at 21:00 UTC
10 March 2010 at 21:00 UTC

All three training sessions will contain tips, tricks, pointers and advice on how to run a Jam. You can also find out more information at the Running An Event page on the Ubuntu Wiki.

What is needed to run a Jam?

In order to effectively run a Jam, each event will need a place to meet that has a decent internet connection, as well as some computers, and an area that users can work in. Suggested places are Universities, schools, and neighborhood centers.

Don’t forget after you find a place to run your Jam and have decided what your LoCo wants to do during the Jam, you need to get the word out about your Jam! Blog about it, post it on Twitter and Identi.ca, place it on the Ubuntu Global Jam Events page, send emails to your LoCo’s mailing lists, and anything else that you can think of. The more people that participate, the more fun that you will have, and the more help that can be provided to improve Ubuntu.

Need more help?

Read about what other LoCo’s have done at their Global Jam events for more thoughts and ideas and if you are still in need of more help, or have questions that aren’t covered anywhere, feel free to contact myself via email or on IRC, or attend one of the training sessions listed above.

Reference links:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuGlobalJam
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Jams
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuGlobalJam/Events
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuGlobalJam/Stories

The thing about my new email address is that I can only receive mail using it. Ubuntu doesn’t have a way for me to send mail using it. Luckily Google’s Gmail has a way for me to set up my account to where I can send mail from either my regular email address or from my @ubuntu.com email address. This is great, except.. I have an iPhone, and I quite frequently will check my email on my iPhone, which creates an issue when I want to reply to something from my @ubuntu.com email address, because the iPhone doesn’t know that Gmail is setup to allow me to send email from both my regular email address and my @ubuntu.com email address, so I either can’t respond until I get to a computer, or I have to respond using my personal email address.

Joeb454 from the Ubuntu Beginners Team and myself were discussing using our @ubuntu.com email address on mailing lists and the lack of being able to respond the the mailing list with our @ubuntu.com addresses from our iPhones. After a little bit of searching on the internet, I was able to come up with a working solution on how to send email from an @ubuntu.com email address. To do this, you are going to create a dummy POP account on your iPhone with your @ubuntu.com email address, which will login and send the email through your personal gmail account.

Here are the instructions:

Go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Add Account

Click Other

Add Mail Account

Fill out the appropriate information and click save. (Note: Put your @ubuntu.com email address in the Address field)

Select POP for the type of server.

Incoming Mail Server:
Host Name: pop.gmail.com
User Name: your @ubuntu.com email
Password: doesn’t matter.. Make something up

Outgoing Mail Server:
Host Name: smtp.gmail.com
User Name: your Gmail address (NOT your @ubuntu.com email address)
Password: Your Gmail password

Click Save

It will display an error saying POP account verification failed.

Click OK

Click Save again

Now it says This account may not be able to send or receive emails. Are you sure you want to save?

Click Save

That’s it as far as setup. Now when you open the Mail App, you will see your personal email address and your @ubuntu.com email address. The @ubuntu.com is a dummy address, and opening it will do nothing for you. Plus you will get an error.

To send mail from your @ubuntu.com email address, start a new email.

Click on your email address in the “Cc/Bcc, From:” line to expand the different fields.

Now click on your email address in the “From:” line.

Select your @ubuntu.com email address

Now fill out the rest of the email like normal and hit send. You can see that your @ubuntu.com email address is in the From line.

I hope this works well for you. Any comments or questions please feel free to post on my blog!

adv_windowlist.pl – Advanced window list will show you the name of the channel next to the number that Irssi has given it. This script is nice because you no longer have to remember which number corresponds with which channel.

auto_whois.pl – Auto whois is a neat little script that performs a whois function on any user who sends you a private message. I have my PMs set to each open in their own window, so the whois for each user is printed in the PM window and not in the status window.

nickcolor.pl – Nick color is a simple script that assigns each nick a different color. This is nice when looking at the window because you can easily tell when different users are talking.

nicklist.pl – By default, Irssi doesn’t have a way of listing all of the users in a channel other than by using the /names command. Nicklist creates a list of users in each channel and puts it either to the left or to the right (user defined) of the chat window. There is a scrolling feature to this also, which allows you to scroll the nick list up and down. There is a way to make a key combination scroll the list for you, but I have not been able to get that to work. If you have luck with it, please get with me and show me how to do it!

prowlnotify.pl – This script is cool for those who have an iPhone. When your connection is set to away, either by /away or by disconnecting from screen (using the next script), Prowl Notify will use APIs to send your message to your iPhone. It is quite cool if you have an iPhone like I do.

screen_away.pl – If you run Irssi in Screen or Byobu (which you should!), this script will set you away when you disconnect from the screen session and set you back when you reconnect to the screen session. Quite a neat little script.

scriptassist.pl – Script assist does just what it sounds like.. Ok, maybe not, because it sounds confusing to me. Script assist checks your scripts to see if there is a new version available. It also has the ability to fetch the updated scripts for you. I haven’t had the chance to update a script with this yet, but I have checked to see if there are any updates with it, and it’s pretty cool.

trackbar.pl – I have multiple windows open in Irssi all the time. I auto join more than 40 channels, and normally have greater than 50 windows open between PMs and channels. This script is nice because it places a bar across the screen that tells you where you last were when you switched channels. This makes it much easier to keep up with conversations because you no longer have to “figure out where you left off.”

window_switcher.pl – The last script I am going to list is Window Switcher. As I said, I auto join more than 40 channels. When you have that many windows open, it isn’t as easy to switch between them. You have 1-0 which is as easy as just Alt+#, and then Q-O (most of the top row of letters on your keyboard), which is as easy as Alt+Letter. But when you get to window #20, it looses its easiness. You now have to type /window 20 to switch to window number 20.. Not as easy is it? A whole lot more keys to push. Enter Window Switcher. Window switcher takes the /window and converts it to /ws.. That removes 4 keys from what you have to type.. Here is one better.. It allows you to bind a key combination (Ctrl + G) and then you just type the window number. So Ctrl+G 20 will now switch you to window 20. Quite a nice script which has saved me a lot of time changing windows!

I hope you have found some of these scripts useful, and I look forward to reading any comments you may have. Also, if you have a favorite Irssi script that I didn’t list here (or if you use one of the ones I list here differently) please post a comment and let me know!

The second change is that the search bar on the default Firefox home page will now be the same as the search engine default for Firefox. This means that if you have Yahoo as your default search engine, the start page will be a Yahoo search bar. If you have Bing as your default search engine, then Bing would be your start page search bar.

You will of course be able to change your default search engine just as easily as you can change it now. The changes in the default search engine should be made within the next few weeks. If you are running Lucid like I am, you will notice these changes as soon as they are made. If you wait until Lucid is released to upgrade, then as soon as you upgrade, the new changes will be present.