Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter #202

By boredandblogging | Published: 2010-07-19

Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter. This is Issue #202 for the week July 11th – July 17th and is available here.

In this issue we cover:

  • Ubuntu Free Culture Showcase calls all artists to contribute to next version of Ubuntu
  • Operation Cleansweep: We Need You!
  • Ubuntu Accessibility Team Personas Survey
  • ISO testers for the Hall of Fame
  • Ubuntu User Days Wrap-Up
  • Ubuntu Stats
  • Rocking The LoCo Council
  • Ubuntu: a computer operating system built around community
  • Ubuntu Chicago Bike Tour
  • The Early-Summer LoCo BBQ at hutchnate’s house was a tasty success!
  • Ubuntu Honduras LoCo Team Wakes up
  • Launchpad News
  • Launchpad EPIC 2010 photo
  • Showing first/last 40 comments in Launchpad
  • Three tips for faster launchpadlib api clients
  • Ahmed Kamal Joins the Horsemen
  • Reviewers Team and Operation Cleansweep
  • Ubuntu Manual Project core philosophy
  • Man Your Browser
  • Android SDK on Ubuntu
  • KDE SC 4.5 RC 2 Packages Available
  • KOffice 2.2.1 is out
  • Updating the Ubuntu Packaging Guide
  • Building a Ubuntu website on Stackexchange
  • In The Press
  • In The Blogosphere
  • Mozilla Ramps Up Vulnerability Reward Program
  • Firefox joins Microsoft in uncool kids class – Chrome hangs out, looks good
  • Linux to eclipse Microsoft’s ‘all-in’ tablet enthusiasm
  • TurnKey Appliance Development Contest: An Open Source Summer Bonanza!
  • The GIMP 2.6.10 Ubuntu Karmic And Lucid PPA
  • Google App Inventor: Make Your Own Android Apps
  • Spotify music streaming service comes to Linux
  • The End of Shot of JAQ
  • Introducing HTML5: a book review
  • Keeping things simple: the Linux kernel
  • sudo apt-get install sl is Fun!
  • Featured Podcasts
  • Weekly Ubuntu Development Team Meetings
  • Upcoming Meetings & Events
  • Updates and Security
  • and much much more!

    • This issue of The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter is brought to you by:

    • Amber Graner
    • Liraz Siri
    • J Scott Gwin
    • Penelope Stowe
    • Nigel Babu
    • Mike Holstein
    • Daniel Calab
    • And many others

      • If you have a story idea for the Weekly Newsletter, join the Ubuntu News Team mailing list and submit it. Ideas can also be added to the wiki!

      Except where otherwise noted, content in this issue is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License BY SA Creative Commons License

Ubuntu Accessibility Team Personas Survey

By boredandblogging | Published: 2010-07-16

One of the goals identified for the Ubuntu Accessibility Team for this cycle is to create personas that can be used by designers and developers to get them thinking about accessibility. Personas are fictional people created to give designers and developers a face and personality to consider when working. Personas just make it a little more personal rather than just concepts.

To help researching all the various accessibility needs of users, we’ve created a survey about how people with disabilities of all types use their computers. Now we need as many people as possible to fill it out. We really want to get feedback from as many different types of disabilities so we can figure out what best suits users as far as needs and where the major problems may lie. We don’t just want to hear from Ubuntu users, but everyone.

The survey can be found at two places:

  1. On a wordpress blog with text boxes. This can be filled out completely anonymously (no e-mail required or anything): access.libertus.co.uk
  2. On a wiki page that can be e-mailed to the e-mail address provided. This version also has some more background information on what we’re doing: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Accessibility/Personas/Survey

If anyone has any questions or anything, please feel free to leave them here or you can e-mail ubuntu.accessibility.survey@gmail.com if you don’t want to ask publicly.

Also, please let me [Penelope Stowe] know if you have an access problem with both versions of the survey as I really don’t want anyone barred from taking it due to not being able to access it. We were able to test with a screen reader, but I know we don’t have things like variable text sizes or the ability to play with the colours of the sites.

We’re hoping to gather the responses we need by August 8th.

[Discuss the Ubuntu Accessibility Team Personas Survey on the Forums]

Originally posted here by Penelope Stowe on July 14th, 2010

Vote now for a more supportive future!

By boredandblogging | Published: 2010-07-15

Evan promotes his pet project to get more people using stackexchange for Ubuntu support questions and answers!

Evan, seen lurking here in the background, has a favour to ask. Stackoverflow is a website that allows professional and enthusiast developers to ask questions of one another in order to share ideas, solutions and make the life of developers better. It’s an extremely high quality resource but those clever folks over at Stack Overflow aren’t content to stop there!

They have another site they call Area 51. This is where groups of people can propose custom sites based around Stack Overflow for their own projects. This is where Evan’s favour comes in as he, like many of us working on Ubuntu, would like to have a really great place to send people with questions about Ubuntu. Not only that but one that’s already got an army of intelligent helpful people helping one another – with a healthy collection of Ubuntu users in there too I’ll wager.

A stackexchange powered solution would be nothing short of amazing and YOU can help!

But how do I help, Iain?

I’m thrilled you asked!

1. Visit the Ubuntu proposal page on stackexchange.

2. Register and vote for this proposal.

Then while you enjoy a celebratory cup of tea and a biscuit think of ways to spread this as far and wide as you can.

Let’s tweet www.tinyurl.com/stackexchange using #ubuntu and put up signs in our offices, and send each other pictures of these signs in our offices!

Tell your brothers, sisters, friends, lovers, mothers, ex-lovers, ex-mothers … wait that doesn’t work … get a tattoo!*

If you can think of any other ways of getting this out there tell us in the comments! Thanks for listening and good luck. We’ll follow up with progress ':)' At time of writing we have 76 people committed!

*Seriously, really don’t get a tattoo

[Discuss Vote now for a more supportive future! on the Forums]

Originally posted here by Iain Farrell on July 14th, 2010

Announcing this week's Bug Day target – Pidgin – Thursday, July 15th, 2010!

By boredandblogging | Published: 2010-07-13

This week’s Bug Day target is *drum roll please* Pidgin!

The task is to assign to the right package and triage those as well:

  • 100 New bugs need a hug
  • 78 Incompletes bugs need a status check
  • 100 Confirmed bugs need a review

Bookmark it, add it to your calendars, turn over those egg-timers!

Are you looking for a way to start giving some love back to your adorable Ubuntu Project?

Did you ever wonder what Triage is? Want to learn about that?

This is a perfect time!, Everybody can help in a Bug Day! Open your IRC Client and go to #ubuntu-bugs (freenode) the BugSquad will be happy to help you to start contributing!

Wanna be famous? Is easy! remember to use 5-A-day so if you do a good work your name could be listed at the top 5-A-Day Contributors in the Ubuntu Hall of Fame page!

We are always looking for new tasks or ideas for the Bug Days, if you have one add it to the Planning page https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuBugDay/Planning

If you’re new to all this, head to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs

[Discuss Announcing this week’s Bug Day target – Pidgin – Thursday, July 15th, 2010! on the Forums]

Originally sent to the Ubuntu Devel Announce Mailing List by Kamus on Tue Jul 13 19:32:18 BST 2010

Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter #201

By boredandblogging | Published: 2010-07-12

Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter. This is Issue #201 for the week July 4th – July 10th and is available here.

In this issue we cover:

  • Welcome New Ubuntu Members
  • Kubuntu developer wins KDE Akademy 2010 Award
  • The Ubuntu Font
  • Ubuntu Developer Week
  • Indicator Panel Menu Rocks the House
  • Ubuntu Translations Interviews: Milo Casagrande (Italian Team)
  • Ubuntu Closes Root Hole
  • Ubuntu Stats
  • LoCos, Leaders, and Lessons Learned: Massachusetts Team
  • June LoCo Health Check Follow-up
  • New Launchpad Bugs Status: Opinion
  • Cleansweep Progress Report
  • Accessing files made easy – Exploring vs Finding
  • Dear Canonical
  • We’ve packaged all of the free software…what now?
  • In The Press
  • In The Blogosphere
  • How to Install Ubuntu on Your Nexus One/Android!
  • GNOME Amazon Referral Fees June 2010
  • Ailurus – A Useful Ubuntu Tweak Alternative For Beginners
  • Using Bazaar on Subversion Repositories
  • GIMP Plugin Registry 3.5.1 Gets ~129 New Plugins
  • Getting Amarok running in Ubuntu 10.04
  • Featured Podcasts
  • Weekly Ubuntu Development Team Meetings
  • Upcoming Meetings and Events
  • Updates and Security
  • UWN A Sneak Peek
  • and much much more!

    • This issue of The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter is brought to you by:

    • Amber Graner
    • Liraz Siri
    • Penelope Stowe
    • Daniel Caleb
    • Mike Holstein
    • And many others

      • If you have a story idea for the Weekly Newsletter, join the Ubuntu News Team mailing list and submit it. Ideas can also be added to the wiki!

      Except where otherwise noted, content in this issue is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License BY SA Creative Commons License