Excuse me!?
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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...
Open Source Matters
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This week’s edition of the IET magazine is The Open Source Issue. The arrival of my weekly magazine seemed to coincide beautifully with @leisa tweeting the question: “Why does open source matter?” In the magazine we have: open source biotechnology, open source cars, open source phones and the story of how AQA (a UK examination board) went open source. “Open source biotech...
Seriously though, why would anyone do this?
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I tweeted (twittered? Will I never know?) a link to this article on how to run Ubuntu on a mac. Within moments I got a direct tweet back from a former colleague who is a UX/Design person: Seriously with OSx as good as it is… Why would anyone do this? I don’t get it. Why run Ubuntu on a mac? The article I linked to provides some suggestions but here are a few of my own: Because a basic...
My new job
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I have the most exciting job in design right now! What’s my job? I lead a team of designers who follow user-centred design methodologies to help inform the design of Ubuntu; we lend our skills to a huge range of Open Source applications. It is our job to add our skills, knowledge of user behaviour and user data we gather to the ‘re-use and improve’ ethos of Free and Open Source Software. Of...
Moderating in a virtual world
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I was lucky enough to be invited to moderate a Drupal 7 Online Summit last Sunday evening. Background: I have never used Drupal. I know approximately what it is. I have experience of IRC meetings and moderating offline discussions with members of the Open Source community. I have run many offline workshops with different audiences. Preparation: This Virtual Summit was planned for 2 hours and was...
Mother and Ubuntu
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I have a new job at Canonical. Before I started, rather than inflicting a new way to interact with a computer on my own life I thought I should test Ubuntu out on my mother. In her own words: “I can be your lab rat” – very nice of her I am sure you will agree. Thank you mother! Now, all my memories of ever building or re-building any machine are always connected to a very late...
Brrr
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I was in an M&S food shop the other day and there – more than any other shop I go into – it’s freezing! At the risk of sounding like my late father: “We are not here to keep the whole of London cold” Ok, I paraphrased, he would have said heat and it wouldn’t have been London but my point remains. I cannot believe that the best way to keep the food fresh is...
Reuse, Recycle and Relax
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Now you all know what you are getting for Christmas.
Actually, now that I have got my sewing machine out, maybe I will send you the ready made ones. Nice idea, no?
