Quick and Dirty Hacks Hacks, code, etc…

Matthew,

I am well aware of problems caused by using national flags. If you could take the time to look at the UI designs further you’ll see that it is specified that “All layouts and input methods have an icon which is written in the respective native character set. In essence whatever is in the icon, is the same kind of glyph that will be drawn to screen”.

The term “flags” is used because it is the terminology used to describe icons for layouts in both the code and the gconf key. I specified this here to remove confusion over the term flags. ”Flag – An icon representing the current keyboard layout” in the terminology section was intended to remove confusion regarding this.

Even looking at the UI designs should have been informative enough that you wouldn’t assume we were using actual national flags.

I’m here at UDS and I must say it’s a great atmosphere. I’m very much enjoying my time here and getting a chance to talk to some great minds about where ayatana is going and how it’ll be getting there. I’d really like to thank Mark, Jorge, David Barth and anyone else I haven’t mentioned who were involved in getting me here as it’s a great experience to meet people you’ve been working with face to face.

People ask, what are you doing for canonical?

?My current work involves improving the keyboard preferences and keyboard indicator, as well as getting involved in many of the other indicator bugs. Effectively, what we’re working on with keyboard is a merging of the current mess of preferences capplets. These include;

• Keyboard preferences
• Input Method Switcher
• Keyboard Input Methods
• Keyboard Shortcuts

Having 4 separate capplets is confusing, and it makes it difficult for users to figure out what they need to do just so they can type in their own language. The current path is based on the idea of having Keyboard Input Profiles, each profile consists of a Keyboard Layout, an optional Keyboard Input Method (using ibus) and the Input Method options. What we’re looking to do here is to provide a single place which is sensibly designed, has improvements to usability and utility, as well as reducing the number of capplets and the removal the separate ibus indicator which happens as a result of the merging of the preferences UI’s and the introduction of the Input Profiles.

There’s information on a wiki page detailing this work here. Including some mockups and a full explanation of what needs to be done. Feedback welcome.

We have a Keyboard Menu session tomorrow at 9am, and I’d like to appeal to any ibus users here to come, discuss, rant and rave so I can get a better understanding of what it is they want. Even if you’re not here, we’ve got IRC in each of the rooms so we can see your questions, and streaming audio so you can hear the discussion.

The elephant in the room

Ok, so unity as the default on the desktop? People have a problem with this? Why? For heavens sake, isn’t it time we stopped fighting amongst ourselves on items which can become religious issues? Really, it’s time this community got a grip and accepted competition rather than denouncing it.

In-fighting never helped any disruptive social group, for instance, ever wonder why animal rights protesters don’t really get much done? It’s simple, it’s because some of them think it’s OK to dig up human corpses, and others that it’s just not cool to wear fur. More extremist people try and force the less extremist people to follow their views (See numerous debates on GNU/Linux or, well, a hell of a lot of other subjects, but I’m sure you get the point).

There’s much much more I could say about the subject of extremism and how it works in society and how it becomes a force for bad rather than a force for good, if you’re religious about free software, you’ve already missed the point about disruptive technology. If you think you can change things by criticising a free software user because e.g. they own a Mac, then you’ve got the wrong idea entirely.

Something that’s really really hard to do

Building a free software desktop is something that is really really hard to do, this is something that lefty pointed out recently. He’s most certainly right in his overall analysis. However, to agree with him in one sense but disagree in another is to say, that what it takes to build a free software desktop is dedication, continuity and direction.

Ubuntu has all three of these things going for them, unity isn’t being created purely so they can compete with the GNOME shell, it’s being created so they can direct themselves without waiting any longer. So they can direct themselves toward a product not a simply linux distribution. So they can put Linux and GNOME in the hands of millions more people than is possible when you’re religious about software freedom, and won’t ship drivers, codecs and other bits and pieces that users actually NEED in order to do their work.

If you think it’s OK to substitute user satisfaction with a moral code then you’ll never be able to penetrate the market of the desktop operating system. If you realise that you have to make compromises on your own moral code in order to improve everyone’s experience with computing, then you’re on the right track.

The sum up

• Extremism = BAD, if you think digging up a dead person to prove a point about guinea pigs is OK, get your head looked at!
• Moral High Ground - Doesn’t convince ANYBODY, everybody lives in a glass house, stop throwing stones!
• Competition = GOOD, if you don’t like unity, make something better, get involved in competing projects and push things forward rather than back.
• If you want to change peoples perception about software, and show them a better way, don’t fight with the people who share the same views, fight with those who oppose you. I know it’s easy to avoid this because enemies are scary things when you only see them from afar, and it’s much easier to create enemies closer to home.

Recently me and my girlfriend purchased a Car from the Gateshead Motor Company (aka; Team Valley Cars LTD) the car was a nice model, BMW 520i from 1999, and at the price of £999, who could say no? I was assured by the salesman that the car was in perfect condition, no known faults and hadn’t been used for nefarious purposes (it is the kind of car a bank robber would use after all). Seemed ideal for the purposes we wanted it for, that is, y’know the usual stuff… Driving around, going places, and transporting things, standard vehicular usage. We’re not likely to be using it much, public transport suits her commuting needs and I work from home.

Exchange of money took place after we’d had a very short test drive (the car was almost empty of fuel) when we were both satisfied and then we began to drive home. About 10-20 minutes into the journey, the engine overheated. After a few quick checks we’d determined it was probably a burst radiator. We filled the radiator with some water and drove the rest of the way home, and yes, we added boiling water to the radiator, I’ve since been told this is unnecessary in modern cars. A few further inspections and one good mechanic later our assumptions were confirmed, the radiator is duff and needs replacing.

Now this isn’t the kind of part which breaks within 10 minutes of driving, it is the kind of part that a used car salesman can get away with not mentioning.

Needless to say, we’re not very happy about what has transpired. We’re pursuing this as the sale is in contravention of the Sale of goods act (specifically that the car was not suitable for the purpose specified), we’re perfectly aware of our statutory rights and we’re entitled to a refund, repair or refund of the cost of repair. Letters have been sent, the correct authorities informed, the dealer has failed to respond and in the near future I will be filing a claim in the small claims court to recover the cost of repair and the costs of filing a case against them…

The repair is in progress and soon everything will be in working order but I just wanted to warn all those nice internet people about this company in the hope that it prevents them being stung as we have. Coincidentally the BBC has a story regarding the rise in sales of broken cars on their website today. So at least we know we’re not alone in this.

To bring attention to a legal problem a friend of mine is having I decided to blog in order for those of you out there with some legal-understanding to remark on the following email conversation and letter.

http://alpha.memetic.org/~adama/observer-tm.txt

http://alpha.memetic.org/~adama/observer-tm.pdf

I’m asking mostly for clarification and advice here, as we see it; as the company didn’t own a registered trademark in the EU and they then decided to pursue that AFTER they’d already threatened Adam. I believe all their complaints to be invalid as they’re pursuing trademarks after threats have already been made. I also believe this makes their trademark invalid as it was pursued purely for the purposes of litigation.

Thoughts, advice and all comments welcome

Human interaction is important with user interfaces but it’s also important in other areas. Feeling that the actions you take have a real effect is very important. This is very true of musical instruments, the last thing you want from a musical instrument is something like a kazoo which is so far away from producing actual music.

Enter the Posc, this device, invented by a friend of mine is genius. Using a couple of pins to measure skin resistance and a light dependent resistor the oscillations created by the timer ICs are modified. The device is like something built specifically for the purposes of circuit bending, when playing with it you feel how the slightest movement of your fingers over the light sensor  and how your fingers moving across the pins change the sound. It truly is a human experience, I love it, so simple to build and so easy to play.

I was lucky enough to get one of the kits for the device from Jim and Kat last night and I assembled it in less than half an hour. Rather than showing you my awful soldering skills I’ve included an image of the kit instead.

The Posc Kit

The other great thing about posc is that it’s all Creative Commons and LGPL which means the idea can spread wildly, just like GNOME You can build one of these devices yourself using the circuit diagrams and tutorials the PCB artwork is even available for those of you who like to etch. Alternatively, you can purchase the kit, including all of the parts you need directly from the sonodrome shop or the makers market.

My history teacher in school taught me some things which weren’t exactly part of the class but were key to understanding history and current affairs without bias. One of these teachings is something I’ll share with you here “If you look at the past you may lose an eye, if you don’t you may lose two”.

I’ve always interpreted this to mean not only that if you ignore the past you’re doomed to repeat it, but also that the past might give you insights over and above what the present time conciousness realises. I truly believe that an understanding of the forces which shaped the present will help individuals understand and effect the present and future.

Following is a verbatim duplicate of the opening paragraph of (sub) chapter 1.1 in the book “Manufacturing Consent”, I want to reproduce this here to help encourage people not simply to look at the dirt that has floated to the surface of things like the DMCA and the Digital Economy bill but to see the reasoning behind these laws from the perspective of organisations who have lobbied for them to come into being, and the governments which ratified them.

In their analysis of the evolution of the media in Great Britain, James Curran and Jean Seaton describe how, in the first half of the nineteenth century, a radical press emerged that reached a national working-class audience. This alternative press was effective in reinforcing class conciousness: it unified the workers because it fostered an alternative value system and framework for looking at the world, and because it “promoted a greater collective confidence by repeatedly emphasizing the potential power of working people to effect social change through the force of ‘combination’ and organized action.” This was deemed a major threat by the ruling elites. One MP asserted that the working class newspapers “inflame passions and awaken their selfishness, contrasting their current condition with what they contend to be their future condition – a condition incompatible with human nature, and those immutable laws in which Providence has established for the regulation of civil society.” The result was an attempt to squelch the working-class media by libel laws and prosecutions, by requiring an expensive security bond as a condition of publication and by imposing various taxes designed to drive out radical media by raising their costs. [my emphasis]

Does this sound at all familiar? Yeah, thought so… These are the tactics used by mainstream media, government and “special interest groups” to manipulate the little guy into following the rules the way that the “ruling elites” have chosen to set out these rules – but remember this isn’t commentary of today’s new copyright laws this is about the laws established in the early nineteenth century. One of these laws was recently used in an attempt to prosecute Simon Sighn, his blog post about it is here. Also take note that the book was written in 1988, long before the DE Bill or DMCA were dreamed up by some corporate fat cats.

I often get criticised as a conspiracy theorist for challenging the way people are told the way the world is. Never delude yourself that the mass media isn’t under fine control by the ruling elite and in most cases actually part of the same system. This isn’t a conspiracy theory, this is the truth of the media, the corporations that control it, the governments which manipulate it and the overall control that the illusion of freedom-of-the-press has on the common man.

So before you attack someone for wanting socially responsible healthcare, or someone who contradicts the assumed certainty of anthropogenic climate change, or the justifications for the Afghan and Iraq conflicts, or their liberal views on immigration policy or any of the myriad of things I personally have been attacked for commenting on, or any other contradictory-to-mainstream view that anyone expresses. I hope you stop, think, and read the book Manufacturing Consent, because understanding the propaganda model which is currently in use by the power structure of the western world, is more important than maintaining your allegiance to that system.

Finally, this isn’t a call to arms blog post trying to urge people to protest against the bill with silly twitterings and useless black-placard protests that no-one understands. Its merely a commentary on the situation, and highlighting that this isn’t the first time the common people have had their freedom tempered to suit the people with power.

Just as a matter of interest I asked Juergbi of a way to write a singleton in vala. He proposed the following not-intended to be thread safe method of writing a simple singleton in vala.


class Foo {
Foo () {
}

public Foo get () {
if (instance == null) {
instance = new Foo ();
}
return instance;
}
}


I’d be interested to hear comments on the c-code this produces, advantages and disadvantages as well as suggestions for improving singleton support in vala or improving the vala code here in some way.

Here’s some more information on the Singleton design pattern from wikipedia

Please could you fix it for me, to have sound working on my MacBook 5,2 when lucid is released. I don’t know if it works yet but I sure hope it does, manual installs get me down

kthanksbye