For when turning the volume up to 10 isn’t enough…

Veromix plasmoid for KDE offers many features, including per-app volume control, configurable equaliser and global hot-keys, but it also allows you to increase system volume past the default 100% point, thus making it handy when encountering a barely audible movie or audio file.

Reader Ovidiu-Florin sent in a step-by-step guide for us to share with you on installing and configuring Veromix for this purpose.

• Right Click on your Desktop and choose Add Widgets > Get New Widgets… > Download New Plasma Widgets 
• In the search box enter ”Veromix” (without quote marks)
• Click the ‘Install‘ button on the one result returned

• Close the window, Right click on your desktop again and select “Add widgets“
• Find the “Veromix” widget and drag it to your desktop
• Right click on the widget and select “Veromix Settings”
• Now, on the left, select “Pulseaudio”
• Now on the right you have the field “Max volume value”, enter here the maximum value you wish. I don’t recommend going over 200 as you may destroy your speakers (in the case of notebooks)

• Click “OK” to apply the changes
• Now you can scroll your volume through the Veromix widget up to your selected value or, if you prefer, you can drag your widget in your panel

If you prefer to keep your desktop clear of clutter you can drag the Veromix plasmoid to your panel. Once added it will look like the standard volume icon only a little larger. Use the mouse wheel (scroll) to increase / decrease the volume while the pointer is on top of the widget. The standard volume of your computer will still go up to 100% but Veromix will make it louder.

[How To] Increase Volume Past 100% in KDE OMG! Ubuntu! - Everything Ubuntu. Daily.

Do you like to keep an eye on system resource usage in Ubuntu?

Like many people I only tend to do so when my desktop is grinding to a halt because of a misbehaving app. Because of this I’m sometimes too impatient late to gracefully rectify the situation; my desktop becomes so unresponsive that nothing short of a hard reboot is required inorder to solve the screw up in a timely fashion.

But maybe if I kept a cautious eye on hardware usage I would spot rogue apps before they got out of hand. Perhaps by using something like Indicator Multiload: -

Features

By default only one graph - Processor - is displayed. If you’re using a multi-core CPU do note that it graphs usage on an ‘overall’ basis rather than per-core. Clicking on this graph displays a menu with more detailed data on other aspects of your system, such as memory, swap, network usage, etc.

The Preferences pane lets you fully configure what parts of your hardware are monitored, how often, and which graphs are displayed on the panel. If you’re a stickler for detail you can also adjust the colours used on the graphs themselves, though I find the default settings to be more than adequate.

Install

Indicator Multiload is available to install in Ubuntu 11.04, 11.10 and 12.04 via the following PPA: -

• sudo add-apt-repository ppa:indicator-multiload/stable-daily 
• sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install indicator-multiload

Easily Monitor System Resources in Ubuntu With Indicator-Multiload OMG! Ubuntu! - Everything Ubuntu. Daily.

The tiny bit of developing I do means Gedit, Ubuntu’s default text editor, is more than adequate for my (very basic) needs.

But for proficient programmers a good text editor is as important to productivity as a finely tuned car is to a professional race driver.

Okay, slightly exaggerated comparison, but the point is still valid; we all work best when using tools that help us and not hinder us.

Sublime Text 2, a proprietary IDE currently in beta, is often described as being better than the popular Mac client ‘TextMate‘. A developer ecosystem surrounds the application, crafting ever-new plugins and add-ons to extend the functionality.

Other features include:-

• Cross platform
• Instant project switching
• Fast
• ‘Go to anything’ search feature (CTRL+P)
• Dark colour scheme that’s easier on the eyes
• Auto-complete feature
• Distraction-free mode
• Plug-ins

Packages can be downloaded from the Sublime Text 2 site linked by the button below. Whilst Sublime Text 2 is not free, a per-user license costs $59, it is free to use for evaluation purposes with no time limit.

The folks at tutsplus have put together a handy list of Sublime Text 2 tips and tricks, so be sure to head there after installing.

Sublime Text 2 Site

Sublime Text 2 – A Fast & Fancy Text Editor OMG! Ubuntu! - Everything Ubuntu. Daily.

With Ubuntu 12.04 edging closer to its developmental deadlines many of the more visual features and changes are beginning to land in updates.

Many of the latest changes, highlighted below, were expected, having previously been highlighted in a series of mock-ups by the Canonical design team.

What’s New/Changed

Category headers and dividers have been added to the System Settings overview. The ‘User Interface’ tile has been renamed ‘Appearance’.

The ‘Appearance’ tab within has been renamed ‘Look‘, sports a tighter wallpaper display box, and shows a contextual notch under the ‘Launcher Icon Size’ slider to denote the default setting.

A slider for adjusting the launcher reveal sensitivity - a feature introduced in Unity 5.2 – has been added to the ‘Behaviour‘ tab:

Privacy

A new set of ‘Privacy’ options are accessible from the System Settings pane. Options available include time-based deletion of files activity:

Support for blacklisting of specific types of files and folders:

And the ability to block tracking on a per-app basis:

Elsewhere on the desktop the Ubuntu One Music Store plugin is once again available and working in Rhythmbox: -

Nautilus has been updated to include undo support: 

As with everything of a developmental nature keep in mind that the features and changes below are not complete or final.

Privacy Controls & Minor UI Tweaks Land in Ubuntu 12.04 OMG! Ubuntu! - Everything Ubuntu. Daily.

Canonical will no longer provide financial support to the development of Kubuntu after the April release of Kubuntu 12.04.

Jonathan Riddell, who has been working on the Kubuntu for the last 7 years as its sole paid developer, announced the news in a post to the Kubuntu mailing list.

The decision, Riddell says, boils down to business. ‘Kubuntu has not been a business success after 7 years of trying‘ he says, arguing that on this basis “it is unrealistic to expect [Kubuntu] to continue to have financial resources put into it.”

This shake up does not spell the end of Kubuntu however, simply a shift in the way it is supported.

Canonical will, from Kubuntu 12.10 onwards, provide backing for the KDE flavour in the same way as it does Xubuntu, Edbuntu, and Lubuntu – with infrastructure and resources rather than money.

Riddell is optimistic about the future, saying that he ‘…hope[s] and expect[s that] Kubuntu can continue’.

For an historical example of just how well Kubuntu will survive being ‘community supported’ we only need to look back to Kubuntu 11.10. This was an entirely community-supported effort that managed to shape up in time for release day.

There’s no reason to expect any seismic shift in the availability or quality of Kubuntu post-Precise.

Community Control

Many voices within the KDE/Kubuntu community have long charged that Kubuntu has been a ‘second class citizen’ to Ubuntu, an accusation that has always been at odds with Canonical’s financial support of the project.

However with this change the onus on whether or not it feels second class will now fall firmly to the wider Kubuntu community itself; to ensure Kubuntu retains a strong presence in the Linux community its supporters will need to adjust to take on the tasks and jobs left over as a result of the change.

Canonical Drop Funding for Kubuntu OMG! Ubuntu! - Everything Ubuntu. Daily.

Readers of the online edition of German magazine Der Spiegel are being treated to a new series on ‘Switching to Linux’.

The guide, whose first part went online yesterday, will talk readers though the benefits of installing and using Ubuntu 11.10.

The first part - ’Nie wieder Viren‘ (No more Viruses) - looks at the usefulness of Linux in the context of Windows malware, describing how it can be used to repair infected PCs.Later instalments will follow up this hot-potato intro to Linux with details on installing and using Ubuntu.

If you know a German speaking trojan-prone PC user be sure to send them a link.

• spiegel.de/netzwelt/gadgets/0,1518,812304,00.html

Tip via Johannes B – thanks!

‘Der Spiegel’ Helping German Readers ‘Switch to Linux’ OMG! Ubuntu! - Everything Ubuntu. Daily.

Ubuntu TV captured the attention and imaginations of the technology press after its reveal at CES 2012.

And rightly so. The demo of Ubuntu TV shown off at the event proved that not only are Canonical serious about a multi-device future for Ubuntu and its Unity interface, but also have the engineering and design expertise to pull it off. 

Talking of Engineers, were fortunate enough to land some talk time late last week with Will Cooke, the Engineering Manager in Canonical’s Product Strategy team.

In the interview below Will tells us about how he came to be working on (arguably) the hottest project in open-source; his own TV viewing habits, what needs to happen before we can expect to see Ubuntu TVs on the shelves of our local walmart, and just how you can get off the couch and get involved in shaping ‘the ultimate simple TV experience.’

Who are you and what do you do at Canonical?

I’m Will and I’m an Engineering Manager in the Product Strategy team. I’m a relatively new addition to the team, having joined just before UDS ‘P’ last October.

I came to Canonical with a pretty varied history in IT and Linux. Like a lot of British geeks my age, I first got interested in computers when the BBC started their Computer Literacy Project while I was at school (yes, I am very excited about Raspberry Pi). I was lucky enough to get my very own Electron and spent far too much time writing programs. At university I finally traded in my RISC PC for a no-name beige box where I installed Red Hat and then progressed through Slackware, SUSE and Debian before finding Ubuntu, which seemed to like me as much as I liked it.

‘Ubuntu seemed to like me as much as I liked it’

In 2002 Freeview launched in the UK. The digital terrestrial TV broadcast system (DVB-T) promised more channels and, more importantly, a chance to play with some new toys. I bought a DVB-T card on spec and plugged it in. Unsurprisingly it didn’t work, and so began my love affair with Linux TV. At this time Linux TV and MythTV’s DVB support was in its infancy so I spent a lot of time running trunk code and trying to help find bugs. Now my MythTV system runs four tuners on DVB-T & DVB-S2 over two backends, feeding three frontends and a couple of UPnP clients on phones. It’s rock solid and I don’t know how my family would cope without it.

It’s this love of ‘smart’ TVs which made me really want to get involved in the Ubuntu TV project.

The idea and discussion of Ubuntu across different devices and form factors was introduced by Mark Shuttleworth at UDS in Orlando. What excites you about the idea of Ubuntu on a TV?

I love watching the telly.

For me flopping down in front of the box at the end of the day is like a reward. I discharge all my responsibilities for a few hours and let it just wash over me. I don’t have to think unless I want to. In TV land things happen to other people and all I have to do is observe, and in some case, judge.

In order to achieve my nirvana of relaxation I have to put in considerable effort. First I have to find something to watch amongst the 500 or so channels available to me. I need to plan my evening’s viewing by plotting a careful course through the icebergs of repeats, things I plain don’t like, and horror of horrors, two things that I want to watch on at the same time. Then, there’s always that niggling little feeling in the back of my mind, “There must be something better than this on…” which compels me to start looking at the TV guide, just in case. And even then, after meticulously planning my evening’s viewing I still get bored and look at Twitter on my phone.

I don’t think that this is an annoyance that is unique to me. I believe that, to a certain extent, this affects everyone, and isn’t necessarily a new problem. On the 25th March 1925 John Logie Baird began a three week public demonstration of Television at Selfridges department store in London. On the 26th March 1925 the shop staff complained that they’d already seen it, and “wasn’t there anything else to watch?” *This probably didn’t happen.

I also think that as things move on, this problem is getting worse – not better. We’ve seen commercial products such as Tivo and Sky+ and Open Source projects like MythTV and XBMC change the TV landscape, but I’m confident that we can bring Ubuntu’s values of Freedom, Precision, Reliability and Collaboration to make a real impact and bring us the ultimate simple TV experience.

We’ve already seen some great insights in to these problems on the Ubuntu TV mailing list and I’m certain that as the project progresses we will see some really revolutionary ideas coming through.

But what really excites me is knowing that it will be built on an Open Source platform, allowing anybody to adapt and extend Ubuntu to create new ways of interacting with the TV and extending the functionality in ways that suits them.

What progress has been made so far in the community around Ubuntu on a TV?

The community response has been amazing. I think people really “get” the idea of Ubuntu on different devices and are eager to get stuck in to making it a reality.

We’ve seen a lot of design ideas which we reviewed with great interest while we were polishing the Unity interface for Ubuntu TV. The IRC channel and mailing list have also seen a lot of work being done with feature lists and potential problems already being highlighted. We’re very lucky to have such an organised and knowledgeable group forming.

“people really “get” the idea of Ubuntu on different devices and are eager to get stuck in to making it a reality”

I think the next couple of months will see more ideas coming through as we can provide a bit more direction. We’ve been concentrating our efforts on the LTS release of course, and community feedback has suffered as a result. We’re aware of the problem and are doing what we can do suggest some areas for focus a clear route forward.

What kind of things can the community do to participate in this?

There are some aspects of Ubuntu TV that are going to be more difficult for community participation than others. This is not because we’re being deliberately secretive. There are commercial decisions that need to be made at a business level which could affect the ways in which we partner with manufacturers. Aspects of the Design & hardware specification are good examples of the sort of decisions we will need to make in-house.

But, there are more ways in which the community can get involved and build on top of the Ubuntu TV. Now we have a better idea of what it will look like and the underlying technologies involved we can start to give some direction to guide community participation.

I think that Jono’s “Experience Teams” idea is a very smart way to quickly identify common goals and form a structured team. I would suggest that people form experience teams around, in the first instance, some specific Lenses and Apps.

TV lenses have special UI design requirements which will need some careful consideration but people can build and test them in Unity on the desktop without having to install the full Ubuntu TV experience.

Once we have done more investigation on the functional specifications we will identify more experiences for the community to get involved with if they wish. Of course, that isn’t going to happen over night.

You mention that the community could build an Ubuntu on TV project, but are Canonical investing in bringing Ubuntu to TVs?

During CES we demonstrated what we have been working on recently.

At UDS in October 2011 we explored if the Unity interface can work on the TV form factor, and as far as I’m concerned we’ve proven that. Not only does it work it also looks beautiful. Where we go from here is still under investigation. There will be commercial agreements and business decisions to arrange first, but Canonical have demonstrated a clear commitment to new form factors.

‘As far as I’m concerned we’ve proven that the Unity interface can work on the TV form factor’

We’ve been recruiting the best developers and designers to expand our teams, we’ve got some incredible ideas, and we’re going to be building awesome things. There will always be room for community contribution in everything Canonical does.

From a technology perspective, there are already many TV solutions out there such as MythTV and XBMC – is Ubuntu on TV re-inventing the wheel?

MythTV and XBMC, amongst others, are very mature projects which have had untold hours of work put in to them, and we’d be daft to try and replicate what they already do so well. The designs behind the Ubuntu TV experience are all about simplicity. The Ubuntu TV is for human beings, and we need to be mindful of that.

MythTV have a different audience than we do; a community of hackers working on a technically advanced and feature rich system for other hackers. XBMC have a different approach again and a slightly different goal.

What we’re aiming for is the ultimate in usable interfaces, making the TV simple again and bringing back the lean-back experience.

We’re going to need, for example, a robust UPnP library amongst a myriad of other features, so I’m sure we will find plenty of opportunities to collaborate with other Open Source projects.

Have you talked to the MythTV project about this?

We spoke to MythTV very early on in the project to make sure that there were no misunderstandings, and to explain that we’re not out to eat anyone’s lunch. MythTV understand that we’re working in different arenas, but I hope there will be a chance to work with them for mutual benefit.

If all of this bears fruit, when will we be able to buy a TV with Ubuntu pre-installed?

Canonical have a great relationship with OEMs and our teams have prodigious experience in working with equipment and device manufactures throughout the world to build very successful Ubuntu based products. I hope we’ll be seeing an Ubuntu TV soon.

I’ll be sure to keep you updated. In the meantime though I would urge interested community members to join the Ubuntu TV mailing list and the IRC channel #ubuntu-tv on Freenode. There you’ll be able to keep up to date with all the goings on and contribute your thoughts and ideas.

Thanks to Will Cooke and Jono Bacon

“We’re Going to be Building Awesome Things” – Ubuntu TV Interview with Canonical’s Will Cooke OMG! Ubuntu! - Everything Ubuntu. Daily.

The ‘notes’ feature of the Ubuntu One web interface is to be removed.

From February 28th Ubuntu One users will no longer be able to read, edit or create notes online via the Ubuntu One web interface.

“We have looked at the improvements required and the resources needed to raise the overall quality of the notes web interface,” writes the Ubuntu One development team on the decision. “However, with everything that we have to work on in 2012, plus continuing to improve our core services, we just won’t be able to give it the attention it needs.”

The feature removal will only impact on the Ubuntu One website itself. Notes sync to Ubuntu One through Tomboy or similar applications will not be affected.

Not Ending on a Bum Note

From my seat in the peanut gallery I don’t think this ‘loss’ is too great; it’s better to have no feature than one that doesn’t work as well as it could, this sapping attention from potentially more productive endeavours by the development team.

That’s not to say I didn’t like (or use) it, but the notes feature was always a bonus feature of the online dashboard in my eyes; a handy extra that ‘might’ come in useful one day, but certainly not an integral part of why I use the Ubuntu One online dashboard.

Ardent ‘note heads‘ who require access to their notes from different locations/platforms are likely already using a dedicated solution such as Wunderlist, and casual users will be able to carry on using Tomboy with Ubuntu One sync as if nothing has happened.

Ubuntu One Online ‘Notes’ Feature To Be Removed in Feb OMG! Ubuntu! - Everything Ubuntu. Daily.

In need of a ‘rugged, military-grade tablet’ running Ubuntu? Well you’re not the only one apparently… 

SDG Systems, a self-described reseller of ‘value-added reseller of rugged computing products, have launched an Ubuntu 10.04 Netbook Edition version of their (somewhat aged) Trimble Yuma tough tablet.

“Our customers have told us that they need a rugged, military-grade, tablet computer running Linux. We are pleased to provide that option for them,” said the company’s President Todd Blumer.

How ‘rugged‘ is rugged?

The Trimble Yuma is both water and dust proof, is tested to MIL-STD-810F standards (just in-case you we’re tempted to take one into a warzone/throw one out of a plane) and shields its internals in a magnesium alloy shell capable of withstanding extreme cold (-22°F) to searing heat (140°F).

Specification wise the Yuma packs mediocre-sounding but seriously-sensible innards: -

• Intel Atom Z530 @ 1.60ghz
• 1GB DDR2 RAM
• 7″ Sunlight readable resistive touchscreen display (1024×600)
• 32GB SSD
• WiFi
• Bluetooth
• Outward facing 2MP camera (with geotagging)
• Inward facing 1.3MP camera (with geotagging)
• GPS
• SDIO Card slot
• 34 pin Expresscard Slot
• headphone/microphone jacks
• 8 hour battery (4 hour dual batteries)

Price

Devices such as the Yuma won’t be popping up on the shelves of your local PCWorld. They are primarily aimed at military, scientific, and business/governmental organisations who require ‘on the go’ computing for data collection, research, and various other purposes.

But if you’re in the middle of renovating an underground bunker or your volcano-side getaway then you’ll need to have a spare $3695 to hand inorder to bag a piece of this bad-ass kit.

More information on the Yuma can be found online @ sdgsystems.com

Image Credits: SDG Systems LLC; ruggedpcreview.com

SDG Launch ‘Military Grade’ Tough Tablet Running Ubuntu 10.04 OMG! Ubuntu! - Everything Ubuntu. Daily.

The Unity launcher is a shelf for managing and launching our favourite applications.

But on smaller screens, such as those on netbooks, it’s easy for it to become so stacked full of pinned and running apps that things become slightly unmanageable.

If you find that that’s the case for you then give one of these ‘themed’ category quick-lists by Joel Horrell a go. They group popular applications together in a handy right-click quick-list.

• Nautilus (default folders)
• Web (browser IM client, etc)
• Media (music and video players, disc burner, etc)
• Office (various LibreOffice apps)
• Software Center (Update Manager, Software Sources, etc)

Download

The five quick-lists can be downloaded by hitting the button below.

Download App Quicklists

To ‘install‘ you simply need to drag and drop the one(s) you want from the ‘Quicklists’ folder in the .zip archive on to the Unity Launcher.

To ‘uninstall‘ either unpin the quick-list or delete the folder containing the quick-lists

Because these quick-lists are tailored to Ubuntu’s default applications you may wish to edit them to suit your own tastes.

For example, the media quicklist launches Totem by default but if you have VLC as your default media player chances are you’ll want that to open instead. In this case you would open the ‘Media Apps.desktop’ file in Gedit/Text editor and change the name and ‘exec’ command to that of VLC.

Clean Up the Unity Launcher with Category Quick-lists OMG! Ubuntu! - Everything Ubuntu. Daily.

Orta was one of the most popular GTK2 themes created for GNOME-based desktop.

But when Ubuntu upgraded to Gnome 3 (and respectively GTK 3) in 11.10 users were no longer able to use GTK 2 themes like Orta.

Luckily for us, talented theme developers have started creating new gorgeous looking GTK 3 themes as well as porting some of the older GTK 2 themes over to GTK 3.

And one such GTK2 theme which has just been ported is – if you hadn’t already guessed - Orta.

However this is just the first version and, as such, there is some way to go before it’s as pixel-perfect as the GTK2 version of Orta.

For example there is a major inconsistency between the menus in GTK 2 and QT apps (which are dark) and those in GTK 3 apps (which match the theme):

The theme lacks Chrome/ium integration:

Installation

The theme can be download from the artists’ DeviantArt page by clicking on the green button below:

Download

However to make your lives easier we’ve packaged it in the OMG! Ubuntu! PPA! for easy installation under Ubuntu 11.10 and 12.04.

Open a new Terminal window and enter the following two commands separately:

• sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kokoto-java/omgubuntu-stuff && sudo apt-get update
• sudo apt-get install orta-gtk-theme

To ‘apply’ the theme you will need to use a tool like GNOME-Tweak or GNOME-Tweak Tool.

Orta Theme Ported to GTK 3; Here’s How to Install It OMG! Ubuntu! - Everything Ubuntu. Daily.

A new retro-styled puzzle game that can be played using the mind is on its way to the Ubuntu Software Center.

The 52-level strong puzzle game ‘Mind Labyrinth‘ is the first game on Linux to make use of the wireless Mindwave EEG headset from Neurosky.

With the headset connected and the game open, you will need to put your mind to work inorder to move obstacles, make gears work, and recover health points.

Although the makers of Mindwave don’t provide any ‘official’ support for Linux (or any software demos) the developers of MindLabyrinth, indie game studio ThinkSlow, tell me that the headset does work ‘out of the box’ in Ubuntu.

The Mindwave retails for $99/£99.

Playing Without Headset

If you don’t have a brain-powered controller (and there’s only a slim chance that you do) you don’t have to miss out as Mind Labyrinth can be played using a bog-standard mouse.

In this mode the game feels a little too simplistic; you simply walk a character to a ‘goal’ point by clicking. Admittedly as you progress through levels this becomes a tad tricker, but overall it presents nothing that would tax – or entertain – ardent gamers.

Download a Demo

Although I’ve no word on price the game has already been submitted to the Ubuntu Software Center, so expect to see it  available to buy/install shortly.

A demo version of the game can be downloaded by hitting the link below, and further information on the game and the team behind it can be found on the ThinkSlow website.

Download Mind Labyrinth Demo

Mind Labyrinth – Ubuntu’s First Mind-Controlled Game OMG! Ubuntu! - Everything Ubuntu. Daily.

Unity 5.2 has arrived in Ubuntu 12.04, a day after the release of alpha 2. 

Unity 5.2 has under gone rigorously testing over the past weeks or so ahead of its deposit in Ubuntu 12.04. Along with much improved multi-monitor support come a handful of other notable changes.

Holding down the ‘Super’ key displays a Keyboard shortcut overlay on the desktop:

The ‘Home Lens’ no longer displays 8 giant icons; the default view now provides you with an overview of recently used apps, documents and downloads. A rather smart implementation means applications already locked to the Unity launcher do not appear in the recently used list.

All of the stock lenses have benefitted from a visual tidy-up. In particular the Music Lens whose filter list is now displayed over a more spacious 3-columns:

Hide ‘Apps for Download’

A new filter option in the Application Lens will please those who don’t care much for the ‘Apps Available to Download’ pane. Checking ‘Local Apps’ under ‘Sources‘ will remove software suggestions.

Elsewhere the Unity Launcher has gained ”push to reveal” launcher behaviour to avoid accidental revealing it when using applications, support for middle-click pasting in Alt+F2 has been added, and  the Alt+Tab switcher now only cycles through applications open on the present workspace.

A full list of what’s new and improved can be read in this changelog.

Unity 5.2 Lands in Precise, Brings Numerous Changes OMG! Ubuntu! - Everything Ubuntu. Daily.

It’s sad news, yes – Ubuntu Developer Week for the 12.04 cycle is over. It’s been three fantastic days full of action-packed sessions. If you couldn’t attend, check out the logs of the sessions, all of them are posted on the UDW page.

Here’s what happened on day 3, yesterday:

1. Fixing Desktop bugs — seb128Sébastien Bacher kicked off our last day. At first he took some time to explain how the Desktop team works and how they go about fixing bugs, then he took a quite recent example and explained how to work all the individual packaging bits to fix a Desktop bug in Ubuntu. For bonus points he explained how to get Wanda the Fish working in Ubuntu.
2. Triaging Desktop bugs — om26erNext up was Omer Akram, who first gave us an update about his personal life, then quickly dived into triaging bugs. He explained all the actors involved, what to bear in mind and general things to make sure when you are reviewing bug reports. Omer, who started out by triaging bugs himself, did a great job explaining how to get involved and why it’s so important.
3. Simple Lenses with Singlet — mhall119Michael Hall, an unstoppable force throughout UDW, provided a great session about how to write lenses for Unity using Singlet. For developers who have used Python in the past, this might be an even easier (and more pythonic way) to interact with Unity and Desktop bits.
4. Building locally with pbuilder — tumbleweed
   Those of you venturing into the land of Ubuntu development will have to deal with packaging and it’s good to do it in a safe, clean and reproducible manner. Stefano Rivera explained a lot of options for doing that including some advanced features useful if you want to debug builds. Great work.
5. Writing Crisp Changelogs — coolbhavi
   Again for those of you interested in package maintenance: it’s important to document your work properly. You don’t want anybody (including yourself) having to go back in a few months or years and dive into the archaelogy of a package to understand what exactly was changed and why. Bhavani Shankar shared his experience in writing crisp changelog entries.
6. Getting started with contributing to Ubuntu Documentation — jbicha
   The Ubuntu Documentation project is of vital importance to everyone who is new to Ubuntu. Also is it a great way to get involved with Ubuntu, as Jeremy Bicha showed. He explained how to the team works generally and how to actually go and contribute improvements.
7. Adding Ubuntu One to your applications — aquarius
   If you want to allow you application to sync data to the internet, it never was easier. Stuart Langridge showed and explained some easy examples which demoed how to tie in Ubuntu One services into your app.
8. Pair Programming and Code Review in the Cloud! — kirkland
   Dustin Kirkland did an impressive live demo of how to use EC2 to do pair programming, review of code and builds. He used tmux and byobu and explained in detail how to drive the infrastructure. Unfortunately the log is a bit colourless without the live demo right next to it.
9. Syncing your app data everywhere with U1DB — aquarius
   Nothing stops Stuart Langridge when he’s on a roll. He delivered his second session all about the new Ubuntu One Database. For those of you new to the initiative: “U1DB is for syncing data — that is, something structured — to every device you want”. The session is short, has lots of good information in it and a nice example of how to work with it.
10. Automated packaging with pkgme — james_w
    James Westby gave a great introduction to the pkgme project he has been working on and it’s fantastic to see that a lot of repetitive tasks are done by a tool. It was nice to see pkgme package itself. Give it a whirl and let James know how it works out for you.
11. Fixing internationalisation bugs — kelemengabor
    Gábor Kelemen is one of the heroes of Ubuntu’s internationalisation. Keeping all packages translatable and translations in shape matters deeply to him and he gave a nice overview over how common problems can easily be resolved. Köszönöm Gábor!
12. How to fix small bugs in Ubuntu — warp10
    Andrea Colangelo took over and quickly ran us through a couple of examples of fixed bugs and explained how exactly they were fixed. By the end of the session it was clear that in a lot of cases it’s no rocket science to go and fix a bug. Grazie mille, Andrea – I hope many will find your session as encouraging as we did.
13. Problem Lifecycle in Ubuntu — cprofitt
    Charles Profitt delivered the last session of the event and explained how all teams in Ubuntu work together to go from problem to solution, involving the lifecycle of a bug report, which was a big enough topic on its own already. Throughout the session he showed how you can join each of the teams and make a difference. Awesome!

What a fantastic day. Thanks a lot to all the speakers who made this Ubuntu Developer Week possible. Thanks a lot to everyone who attended as well. It was great to see a lot of interaction, questions and interest. Until next time! :-)

Developer Week: Summary Day 3 OMG! Ubuntu! - Everything Ubuntu. Daily.

Further details on the recently-announced KDE Plasma Active tablet ‘Spark’ have been made available by the project’s lead Aaron Seigos.

Online pre-orders for the €200 device will be open ‘early next week’ with a view to shipping the device in May 2012. The tablet will only be available to order online but will ship worldwide.

The onboard ‘app store’ will allow users to ‘…easily download and install books, applications, desktop widgets and services.’ Developers will be able to create and sell apps, services and widgets through the store.

Full specs of the re-branded Zenithink C71: 

•  1GHz AMLogic ARM processor (Cortex-A9)
• Mali-400 GPU
• 512 MB RAM
• 4GB internal storage
• SD card slot
• 7″ capacitive multi-touch screen (800×400 resolution)
• Wifi (802.11 b/g)
• 1x mini-HDMI Out
• 2x mini-USB ports
• 1.3MP webcam
• 3.5mm audio jack
• Weight: 360g

Although support for GPS or 3G is not provided on this initial model the Spark team are evaluating ‘higher-end hardware options’ for any future expansion of the product line. But they note that the potential for additional models ‘will be driven by market demand for Spark’.

€200 KDE Tablet to Ship May; Pre-Orders Open Next Week OMG! Ubuntu! - Everything Ubuntu. Daily.

The second alpha of Ubuntu 12.04 has been made available for download. 

As Ubuntu 12.04 is a ‘Long Term Support’ release development is focused on creating a dependable stable experience. As such this latest Alpha features only a handful of modest user-visible changes to the desktop.

New in Alpha 2

New Unity Configuration options have been added to the User Interface (formerly called ‘Appearance‘) pane in System Settings.

The leaner, faster Unity 5.0 is included. This brings a handful of minor new features to the desktop including Lens Quicklists:

Home folder Quicklists: -

Additional options in CCSM for adding a ‘Show Desktop’ item, changing Dash colour, etc.

The Unity Greeter – Ubuntu’s login screen – has been updated to display the wallpaper of the user selected.

Unity’s Overlay Scrollbars sport a slightly chunkier look: -

One new function you might be expecting to find in the Alpha is Ubuntu’s much-heralded ‘HUD’. This is not included in the Alpha build but it can be installed in Ubuntu 12.04 by adding the HUD testing PPA.

General Stuff

Alpha 2 specifics aside there are a number of other general changes testers should be aware of:

• Rhythmbox is the default music player
• There is no Ubuntu One Music Store plugin at present
• Tomboy and gBrainy are no longer installed by default
• LibreOffice 3.5 beta 2 is installed
• ‘Apport’ Crash reporting is enabled by default

Download Ubuntu 12.04 Alpha 2

Ubuntu 12.04 can be downloaded in a variety of disc images by hitting the blue button below.

Download Ubuntu 12.04 Alpha 2

Ubuntu 12.04 Alpha 2 Released OMG! Ubuntu! - Everything Ubuntu. Daily.

(Brought to you by the Ubuntu Development News team and first posted here.)

Development Update

It is the week of Ubuntu 12.04 Alpha 2 which is to be released in just a few hours. Everybody has been getting their good work into Ubuntu, so it is a great opportunity for everyone to go check it out and test it. If you are excited by 12.04, just check out our testing pages and report back your results. The earlier we get them, the better!

Currently there is also a test rebuild of the whole archive going on, which will hopefully identify all the build errors early enough. In two weeks time Feature Freeze will be reached, at which point we stop introducing new features, packages, and APIs, and concentrate on fixing bugs in the development release.

Jeremy Bicha, a great contributor to the Desktop team, wrote up a nice explanation of how the components of the Ubuntu Desktop were chosen this cycle. It shows how much consideration goes into putting the release together and how coordination between Ubuntu and its upstreams is important.

Events

It is Ubuntu Developer Week, the event for getting involved, learning more, peeking behind the scences, and learning more from experience developers. Day 1 and Day 2 have already passed, but if you couldn’t make it to the sessions, read the following summaries to find out what happened. They contain links to the logs of the sessions.

• Summary day 1.
• Summary day 2.

Ubuntu Developer Week will only still be today, Thursday 2nd February 2012.

Things which need to get done

If you want to get involved in packaging and bug fixing, there’s still a lot of bugs that need to get fixed:

• There’s Merges that need to be done (main, restricted, universe, multiverse).
• Also is the Ubuntu Mozilla team looking for help, so if you’re excited about Mozilla and what’s happening there, join IRC, talk to the guys on #ubuntu-mozillateam on irc.freenode.net.
• And then there’s Security bugs you can take a look at, the team is a friendly bunch and they’re incredibly helpful in getting your patch reviewed.
• There are bitesize bugs.

<if teams ask us to add more stuff to this list, we’re of course happy to do it>

First timers!

We had two new contributors to Ubuntu who got their first upload in: Jean-Michel Vourgere and Sébastien Ramage. Great work! Both helped keeping Debian and Ubuntu in sync and good fixes into Ubuntu.

New contributor: Simon Steinbeiß

Benjamin Kerensa talked to Simon Steinbeiß, here’s what he has to say:

How did you get involved?
I got involved in Ubuntu by starting to use Xubuntu and then hanging out in its IRC channels. I engaged in discussions about Xubuntu’s artwork and default application set. After a while I started bringing in proposals and my own ideas. The developer team was really helpful and that’s how I got involved in the Xubuntu artwork team.

What was your experience like?
Well generally positive. Obviously there are always compromises to be made. When doing a gtk-theme for yourself or a panel-layout you apply different criteria then when doing it for an unkown amount of anonymous users. But I’d say it’s a rewarding job and the reviews of Xubuntu’s artwork have been pretty good since I’ve been involved (*brag* )

What did you like most about it?
The fact that there was a good community and everyone wanted to make Xubuntu better. I have “converted” quite a few friends of mine who formerly used Windows, so I got personally interested in making Xubuntu better. It seemed easier to improve things in Xubuntu itself than going around after each release and fixing things for my all my friends I also liked the fact that my artwork could be seen and used by so many people, it’s always great for an artist to have such a wide audience.

Is there anything that should have been easier? What do you recommend to other contributors who think about starting to get involved?
That is difficult to tell. I have the feeling that with many open-source or community-driven projects it’s about building relationships to people initially and that depends on the structure of the team you want to be a part of. If it’s a good team with good leadership it obviously might be easier to get involved. But it also depends on other factors like your personal motivation – no-one should be trusted with important tasks right from the start, so hanging in there for a bit is a necessary step to build trust.

What do you do in your other spare time?
I’m currently doing a PhD in the humanities. I finished my MAs in Philosophy and Religious Studies (no, not Theology!) and I’m currently conducting research projects in both fields at my university.

Get Involved

1. Read the Introduction to Ubuntu Development. It’s a short article which will help you understand how Ubuntu is put together, how the infrastructure is used and how we interact with other projects.
2. Follow the instructions in the Getting Set Up article. A few simple commands, a registration at Launchpad and you should have all the tools you need, and you’re ready to go.
3. Check out our instructions for how to fix a bug in Ubuntu, they come with small examples that make it easier to visualise what exactly you need to do.

Find something to work on

Pick a bitesize bug. These are the bugs we think should be easy to fix. Another option is to help out in one of our initiatives.

• Help out with fixing packages that don’t build anymore.
• Help out with security bugs.

In addition to that there are loads more opportunities over at Harvest.

Getting in touch

There are many different ways to contact Ubuntu developers and get your questions answered.

• Be interactive and reach us most immediately: talk to us in #ubuntu-motu on irc.freenode.net.
• Follow mailing lists and get involved in the discussions: ubuntu-devel-announce (announce only, low traffic), ubuntu-devel (high-level discussions), ubuntu-devel-discuss (fairly general developer discussions).
• Stay up to date and follow the ubuntudev account on Facebook, Google+, Identi.ca or Twitter.

Ubuntu 12.04 Development Update 12 OMG! Ubuntu! - Everything Ubuntu. Daily.

Day 2 of Ubuntu Developer Week is over and it was awesome! Logs up are up at the UDW page, so go and check them out if you couldn’t make it yesterday.

Let’s take a look at what happened yesterday:

1. Bringing your app to Ubuntu — dpm
   David Planella kicked of day 2 and gave a well-structured session about how to get your app into Ubuntu and managed to answer heaps and heaps of questions. If you missed the session, make sure you go back and read the log.
2. How to update a package to the latest upstream version in the repositories — coolbhavi
   Bhavani Shankar gave an excellent session about how to take an actual source package from Ubuntu and update it to a newer upstream release. He placed great importance on all the pitfalls and explained how to make sure it gets reviewed by our Ubuntu sponsors.
3. Ubuntu Technology overview — mhall119
   Indicators, lenses, scopes, APIs, Michael Hall got the best out of half an hour by explaining everything to tightly integrate your app or code in general with Ubuntu technologies. Great work.
4. Charming Juju — m_3
   Mark Mims was up next and talked about juju, a great way to deploy services in all kinds of scenarios. Unfortunately he struggled with his internet connection towards the beginning, but quickly found back into the session and explained the basics and how it works. Server admins: go and check it out.
5. Running the development release — Effenberg0x0 & Cariboo907If you always wanted to take a peek at the new development release but were afraid to do it, check out this great session by our dynamic duo Alvaro Leal and Jim Kielman. They quickly went through all the available options to do this in a safe manner, answered questions and mentioned this as a great way to play around with the new development release, to test it or to develop on it.
6. Working with Debian — tumbleweedUbuntu is based on Debian and has a great relationship with it. Stefano Rivera took great care to explain why it is important we work closely, how to work with Debian maintainers and also where differences in the chosen infrastructure are. I was very pleased to see how much interest was in the session.
7. Ubuntu Distributed Development — barryBazaar and Ubuntu Distributed Development have come a very way and nowadays make many many packaging and package maintenance tasks a lot easier. Barry Warsaw has been working closely with the Launchpad and Bazaar team, so he did a great job explaining how it all works and demo with a few examples how you can make use of it and how it can make your life easier.
8. Working in Debian — LaneyIain Lane basically started where Stefano Rivera’s session stopped earlier and talked about how to get things done in Debian. He showed how Debian’s instrastructure is used and who to talk to if you might ever get stuck. Awesome!
9. Starting with HTML/CSS — benonsoftware
   We mentioned it earlier already: Ben Donald-Wilson not only gave the session at 7:30 in the morning, but also on his birthday! We couldn’t find out if he had a long party before the session, but in any case it was an excellent session. With a small example he explained basics of HTML and CSS use. A great introduction who are new to the topic. Thanks again and happy birthday Ben!
10. Fixing small bugs in Unity — Trevinho and andyrockItaly took over the last session of the day and it was Marco Trevisan and Andrea Azzarone who brought a great introduction into making Unity even more awesome. Everything was covered here: what’s what, where to find simple tasks to work on, how to build it, how to debug it and much much more. Grazie mille guys!

What a lot of excellent content. What a huge amount of great people and great questions.

The good thing is, there’s more. Here’s what our last day has for you:

• 15:00 UTC: Fixing Desktop bugs — seb128
  You love the Ubuntu Desktop? Right you are. If you always wanted to be part of the Desktop team and help out, Sébastien Bacher has good news for you: it’s very easy to fix small bugs and be part of very diverse and fnu team.
• 15:30 UTC: Triaging Desktop bugs — om26er
  Omer Akram is up next and will make sure you find Desktop bugs to work on most easily. When looking at Desktop bugs there’s common things to look out for, there’s other projects to interact with and many more things to bear in mind. After this session it will be all clear to you.
• 16:00 UTC: Simple Lenses with Singlet — mhall119
  Do you like Unity Lenses? Learn how to use Singlet to create simple lenses to further enhance Unity. Michael Hall has been playing around with and can give you all the details.
• 16:30 UTC: Building locally with pbuilder — tumbleweed
  You have been compiling software before? Excellent. Watch Stefano Rivera’s session and see how you can build packages in a clean and safe environment very easily.
• 17:00 UTC: Writing Crisp Changelogs — coolbhavi
  In a software world with thousands of other developers, it’s important that you document your changes carefully. Bhavani Shankar will share his Dos and Don’ts with you.
• 17:30 UTC: Getting started with contributing to Ubuntu Documentation — jbicha
  Jeremy Bicha will introduce you to the Ubuntu Documentation project. A team full of unsung heroes who bring clean and crisp documentation to every single release. Join in for the fun and find out how to contribute.
• 18:00 UTC: Automated packaging with pkgme — james_w
  So you wrote an app and are afraid of packaging? Don’t worry, James Westby will be here to talk about pkgme and all the goodness it can do for you.
• 18:30 UTC: Pair Programming and Code Review in the Cloud! — kirkland
  Dustin Kirkland is up next and will show you ways in which you can collaborate most easily and directly. Stay tuned for a great session about pair programming and doing code review, in the cloud!
• 19:30 UTC: Adding Ubuntu One to your applications — aquarius
  Stuart Langridge doesn’t stop at the database side of things, he will also show you how to integrate this great service tightly into your app. Stop worrying about data storage, just do it.
• 20:00 UTC: Syncing your app data everywhere with U1DB — aquarius
  The Ubuntu One team has lots of experience with syncing terrabytes of data across devices. U1DB is here to make data syncing for app easier. Stuart Langridge will show you how.
• 20:30 UTC: Fixing internationalisation bugs — kelemengabor
  Gábor Kelemen is an expert, when it comes to internationalisation or short i18n. Sometimes problems in the code prevent the software to be translatable. He Gábor will go through a list of common mistakes and show you how to fix them.
• 21:00 UTC: How to fix small bugs in Ubuntu — warp10
  Andrea Colangelo and his friends from the Italian Ubuntu developer team will be here to pick a few examples of fixed bugs and give you the blow-by-blow analysis about how it was done. Join in to start your bug fixing story today.
• 21:30 UTC: Problem Lifecycle in Ubuntu — cprofitt
  We have to face the reality. Software comes with problems, call them bugs or defects, they are still there. Charles Profitt will be here to explain the common lifecycle of a bug report in Ubuntu and how they are dealt with.

Have a great time! :-)

(Originally posted here.)

Developer Week: Summary Day 2, Outlook Day 3 OMG! Ubuntu! - Everything Ubuntu. Daily.

A new Ubuntu tablet is on the market – but it comes with company.

The Ekoore Python S tablet ships with three operating systems installed. Only one OS can be used at a time on the device.

• Ubuntu 11.10 
• Windows 7
• Android 4.0 (Ice-Cream Sandwich)

On to the hardware.

Specification wise the Python sports a notable difference from most tablets already on the market: it uses an Intel Atom CPU rather than an ARM processor. It’s this which allows the Python S to run Windows 7.

Full specs:

• Intel Atom N455 1.60Ghz CPU (Single Core)
• Integrated Graphics (website states clocked at 200Mhz)
• Up to 2GB RAM
• Up to 64GB SSD
• 10.1 inch capacitive touch screen
• Wifi, Bluetooth, 3G, Accelerometer
• 5 Hour Battery

• Mini VGA
• 2xUSB
• Microphone/headphone jack
• MicroSD card slot
• SIM Card Slot

The case of the tablet does, from the handful of press shots available, look okay. It’s chunkier (14.5mm) than the svelte slates most of us are used to seeing (the ASUS Transformer Prime is 8.3mm thick), but given the Intel NM10 chipset (and fan!) its housing this is to be expected.

The blue-backlit buttons on the front of the device are pretty nice touch (pun intended).

Ubuntu on the Ekoore

Ekoore ship the Python S with a custom version of Ubuntu 11.10 using GNOME Shell.

Why Shell? Likely because GNOME-Shell is generally more ‘touch friendly’ than Unity. It has big chunky window controls; managing and opening apps via the Activities Overlay is easier, and, perhaps importantly, it sports an elegant pop-up on-screen keyboard in the form of ‘Caribou‘.

Ubuntu on the other hand is a fiddle to use; Overlay-scrollbars are difficult to reveal/drag using a finger, as is un-hiding the Unity launcher; window controls are tiny; the ‘onboard’ screen keyboard is functional but not touch-orientated; switching between full-screen applications is difficult, etc.

Accessories

Additional purchases to compliment the device include a ‘folio’ case with built-in keyboard, capacitive stylus, and car mount.

Summary

The Ekoore Python S is no dream Ubuntu tablet. The antiquated CPU and Chipset doesn’t support HD, and the trade off in weight and thickness inorder to support Windows 7 means it’s more of a slab than a slate.

But options are nice to have and the Ekoore is seemingly nice enough. Nice enough for a duck under €500? Not in my eyes.

Visit Ekoore Python S Website

Thanks to Jason S

Ekoore Python S Tablet Triple Boots Ubuntu, Android & Windows 7 OMG! Ubuntu! - Everything Ubuntu. Daily.

Day 1 of Ubuntu Developer Week is over and what a fantastic day it was. Logs up are up at the UDW page, so go and check them out if you couldn’t make it yesterday.

Let’s take a look at what happened yesterday:

1. Introduction to Ubuntu development — dholbach
   Around 340 people showed up for the session and we had a great time together. Lots of very sharp questions were asked and lots of excitement about Ubuntu in general, but also development in particular. Check it out if you are interested in the topic as well.
2. Getting set up for Ubuntu development — dholbach
   Daniel explained how to install all the necessary tools, how to set them up and how to connect yourself with Launchpad. We got through all of the instructions in a breeze and still had time for heaps of questions. Excellent!
3. Ubuntu Technology overview — mhall119
   Indicators, lenses, scopes, APIs, Michael Hall got the best out of half an hour by explaining everything to tightly integrate your app or code in general with Ubuntu technologies. Great work.
4. What’s new in Edubuntu — highvoltage
   Jonathan Carter gave a fun session about Edubuntu, the Ubuntu flavour for schools. Its history, where it’s different from standard Desktop Ubuntu, what’s new and what makes it a fun project to work on.
5. Ubuntu TV – what’s what — Saviq & mhall119
   As expected this session got lots and lots of questions. Read the log for yourself, if you are interested in Ubuntu on TVs – Michał Sawicz and Michael Hall gave a great overview over how it works and answers almost all the questions you might have yourself. :-)
6. Testability and Qt – Intro to automated UX testing for Qt apps — greyback
   Do you like the feeling of having your code covered and a good feeling about how well it works? You do UI development and use Qt? Check out this session because Gerry Bolland went into great detail about how to even test User Experience aspects through automated tests.
7. Unity Lenses! — davidcalle & mhr3
   You could see that David Callé and Michal Hruby put quite a bit of effort into this session. They put together a bunch of examples together on how you can add great content to Unity’s Lenses with little amount of work. Go check it out, you’re going to love it.
8. QA: Automated Testing and Jenkins — hggdh
   Carlos de Avillez was up next and talked us through Ubuntu’s automated testing infrastructure. The session was well done and explained everything in great detail. As Ubuntu is putting more and more energy into testing and general QA, this was a great session to get started with testing and making use of the infrastructure.
9. Packaging Do’s and Don’ts — SpamapS
   Clint Byrum shared his wealth of experience in a nicely condensed session with lots of good information and at the same time answered lots of questions. Great work!
10. Incorporating upstream changes in Ubuntu — cyphermox
    The last session of the day was all about cooperation between Ubuntu and upstreams and how and when to import fixes from Upstream. Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre presented a lot of excellent examples to fix bugs, which should be a great starting point for everyone who wants to improve Ubuntu and work well with other projects.

What a lot of excellent content. What a huge amount of great people and great questions.

The good thing is, there’s more. Here’s what day 2 has for us:

• 15:00 UTC: Bringing your app to Ubuntu — dpm
  To bring your software into Ubuntu, you historically had to work very closely with the Ubuntu developers to make it part of the platform. With the new Ubuntu App Developer Programme this has gotten easier and David Planella has all the details for you.
• 16:00 UTC: How to update a package to the latest upstream version in the repositories — coolbhavi
  Ubuntu is interested in representing the great work which other projects have done. As part of this effort, we update to new versions of their software regularly. Bhavani Shankar will demonstrate how this is done in the easiest fashion.
• 17:00 UTC: Charming Juju — m_3
  Deploying services is hard, right? Mark Mims will show you the opposite. As part of his work on Juju he has solved many of the common problems and deploying services into whatever scenario you have has become a breeze. This session will show you how to write charms for Juju.
• 18:00 UTC: Running the development release — Effenberg0x0 & Cariboo907
  Afraid of running the development release and running into problems all the time? There’s no reason for this: Alvaro Leal and Jim Kielman will show you the alternatives for trying out the latest development release in a safe environment. This is a great way to experience the newest Ubuntu, test it and develop on it.
• 18:30 UTC: Working with Debian — tumbleweed
  Debian is the most important upstream project we work with. Stefano Rivera has long been involved in both Debian and Ubuntu. This means that he can easily show you how you can most easily work on Ubuntu and make sure that both projects benefit.
• 19:00 UTC: Ubuntu Distributed Development — barry
  The Open Source world is complicated. There’s thousands of projects with lots of contributors. There’s different development focuses, different timelines and goals. To not get confused and still get our work done, we use Ubuntu Distributed Development, which makes merging changes very easy. Barry Warsaw will take you on a ride.
• 20:00 UTC: Working in Debian — Laney
  To make Ubuntu benefit from your code, it is sometimes the best to get your contribution into Debian first. Iain Lane has worked in both Debian and Ubuntu and give you the details on how it all works.
• 20:30 UTC: Starting with HTML/CSS — benonsoftware
  Ben Donald-Wilson is a hero. For this session he will not only get up very early, but it’s also his birthday. Talk about dedication! Attend this session for sharing your birthday wishes and also get an introduction on using HTML and CSS. Awesome!
• 21:00 UTC: Fixing small bugs in Unity — Trevinho and andyrock
  The last session of the day will be held by two Italian guys who worked on Unity a lot, Andrea Azzarone and Marco Trevisan. If you always wanted to get involved in making Unity even better, attend this session and learn how to fix small bugs.

Everyone: enjoy it! :-)

(Original post here.)

Developer Week: Summary Day 1, Outlook Day 2 OMG! Ubuntu! - Everything Ubuntu. Daily.