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The process of certainty. And mojitos.

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You know that feeling when you know someone very well and you buy them a present? You know they will love it and you are excited at the very thought of their delight? Part of you is a little scared though. A few butterflies in the stomach. What if I have misread? What if they don’t like it? I listened to someone speak recently who said that one thing he had learnt in his IT career was that...

The Digital Economy Bill: Bananas!

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Over at Confused of Calcutta, JP Rangaswami has written a crystal clear article on why we should be concerned about the content and treatment of the Digital Economy Bill. Wherever you live, whatever your interests I urge you to read it. If you live in the UK, whatever your position I urge you to write to your MP and tell them you want this bill properly debated. Mr Lepper, you have not had time...

Reasons to celebrate: 24th March 2010

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Today is Ada Lovelace day. Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace was born on 10th December 1815, the only child of Lord Byron and his wife, Annabella. Born Augusta Ada Byron, but now known simply as Ada Lovelace, she wrote the world’s first computer programmes for the Analytical Engine, a general-purpose machine that Charles Babbage had invented. Saying it in Ada: while women /= men loop Ada...

Those pesky buttons

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Many of you have been asking for some correspondence regarding the button position in the window manager. Here it is. At Ubuntu we have a golden opportunity not only to make our OS as good as the competition but to make it better. The button position discussion and analysis started with: – Why do Mac OS and Windows have the buttons where they do? – What was the functional reason...

Reasons to celebrate: 4th March 2010

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My first year working for Canonical draws to a close with my team delivering a new identity for Ubuntu. I am very proud of the result and would like to thank them for all their hard work. I also want to thank Mark Shuttleworth and Jane Silber for setting out the challenge and for being part of the team. Ubuntu has a great engineering heritage. It is fast and efficient. Ubuntu gives the world an...

Ending Poverty with Open Hardware

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The Hexayurt is a new kind of sheltering solution. To make the simplest hexayurt, make a wall by putting six sheets of plywood on their sides in a hexagon. Cut six more sheets in half diagonally, and screw them together into a shallow cone. Lift the roof on to the wall with a large group of people, then fasten it down with more screws. Seal and paint it for durability. Your basic hexayurt is...

A bug in two parts

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I finally got round to going through the photos on my camera this morning – I still haven’t got round to putting my holiday (August holiday!) photos on Flickr so I thought this could be the way to spend a chilly Saturday morning. As is obvious from the image, something went wrong. In fact two things went wrong: 1) The error message itself: an f-spot bug? 2) The dialog box is too wide...

The most beautiful blog post ever*

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Ladies and Gentlemen, I would like to share with you the short-list for the Ubuntu Karmic Koala Wallpaper’s Competition. We had so many fantastic entries and so little space on the final CD. At last count, 19 fabulous wallpapers made it onto the final image! I can’t thank everyone enough for their fantastic contributions. I wish there had been space for more and maybe, with a little...

About Author

Ivanka

Ivanka Majic works in technology. She was Head of Design for Ubuntu, service managed Digital Marketplace through to beta, was acting director of digital for the Labour Party. She lives and works in Brighton where she works with the council’s digital first team, does a bit of teaching at Sussex University, and works with her husband on projects like restaurantsbrighton.co.uk and the BRAVOs. She has also started a podcast with her friend Michael which you can listen to at grandpodcast.com.

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