1 September 2010
Help with Launchpad Bug Import Script
I and my fellow Launchpad bugs hackers have always helped people migrate to Launchpad by doing bug imports for people running other bug trackers. This has increasingly taken more and more of our time, and we've gotten worse at doing it in a timely manner for people. This is mostly because we really want to get fixes and improvements to the bug tracker itself landed. And really there's no need for us to do all this. Anyone can import their bugs into Launchpad using a Launchpad API script. So here's where I come to you, dear reader, asking for help....
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GitHub -- Pull Requests 2.0
GitHub has launched their version of code review. Pretty standard stuff, though there are touches to that seem very GitHub appropriate.
20 August 2010
Speaking UNIX: Bazaar
This is a nice IBM developer works article on Bazaar. While it's largely a bzr basics tutorial, I do appreciate that the author presents some of the power and flexibility of bzr, too.
9 August 2010
Confessions of an Aca/Fan: Archives: No, You Do Not Have to Be A Gamer to Like Inception!
Inception has gotten a lot of attention lately, and I'm sad I haven't seen it yet. This post from Henry Jenkins makes me all the more sad. There are no spoilers here, rather a look at why the narrative style is confusing to some, as he argues that it's showing a generational divide about how people process narratives. He speaks of the story being appealing to gamers, and without having seen the movie, I get where he's coming from. But I don't think this is a gamer film, or else it would be less popular. I do think there is a general shift in the world toward how we want to talk about existence and such, which this post gets at. That shift is driven by a number of things -- games, the web, smart phones, and more. Jenkins is saying the same, I think, and this is worth a read for those thinking about the web, games, always-connected lives, and similar topics.
5 August 2010
Playing Champions Online on Ubuntu
I've been playing Champions Online for a little over a month now, and I've been playing it on Linux, running on Ubuntu 10.04. I searched online for help and had to piece a few things together to get the game running smoothly under wine in Ubuntu, so I thought I would do a quick post here detailing the steps I took.
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2 August 2010
Watching Graphs Flap
I love watching this graph lately. It's the percentage of bugs that status flap marked opinion (green) and marked invalid (red). By status flap, I mean that the bug was set to the opinion or invalid status once, and has had any number of status changes since then. [...]
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31 July 2010
Master Planner: Fred Brooks Shows How to Design Anything | Magazine
I was struck by the opening question in this interview with Fred Brooks: "How does a guy who grew up in the 1940s among North Carolina tobacco farmers get into computers?" Brooks has an interesting story of how he came to be where he is today. He is the person he is because of where he came from, and I think that those of us living in rural parts of the U.S. sometimes consider this a liability when in fact it can be a great source of inspiration, motivation, and driver of success.
29 July 2010
YouTube - Project: MyWorld Teaser HD
This looks interesting, but it's just a teaser trailer. It's an avatar-less world, I think, but the concept and ideas teased here are interesting. Via a Miguel de Icaza tweet.
20 July 2010
the dude abides: Gwibber Concept - Part 1
I really like the designs here. I have no idea of the chances of this being brought into Gwibber, but the ideas here are really nice. Impressive work indeed.
7 July 2010
Resetting Gnome's Settings in Ubuntu | Linux Journal
I mess with my desktop too much and make use of this rm command often. I do make a backup of the directories in case I shouldn't have done the rm. It's nice to see these little tips linked up in posts. (Via Lifehacker.)
11 June 2010
New World Notes: Linden Lab Confirms: We're Developing a Second Life Viewer Accessible FROM the Web
I'm fascinated that Linden Lab has decided to restructure their entire business around making Second Life run in a web browser. There's always been this noise that virtual worlds need to run on the web to be accessible to the mainstream, and clearly Linden thinks this or there would not have been this restructuring. I'm not sure I'm convinced. World of Warcraft requires a download. iPhone apps confirm that you can build a business around requiring people to install software. So let's assume Linden gets Second Life running in a web browser and nothing really changes for usage and retention rates -- what then? I suspect the SL-in-browser work is solving the wrong problem, and I can't believe how boldly the company is restructuring to go off and fight the wrong battle. I seriously hope I'm wrong.
Ubuntu Lucid Lynx: free OS that Just Works - Boing Boing
Cory Doctorow has high praise for using Ubuntu in this review on Boing Boing. I like his analogy for getting used to a new OS. He's even a Python user.
10 June 2010
Second Life Blogs: Features: A Restructuring For Linden Lab
There's no secret to the fact that I love Second Life. Prior to applying at Canonical, I applied at Linden Lab and was offered a job conditional on relocation. I turned it down, applied at Canonical, and now I have the best job in the world leading the team working on the bug tracker in Launchpad. Seriously, I'm extremely happy about the job I have, for a lot of different reasons. When I read this -- that 30% of the people at Linden Lab were laid off, many of whom I interviewed with -- I can add one more reason to why I'm glad I work at Canonical and not Linden Lab. Canonical is hiring, btw, if any ex-Lindens are looking for work. :-)
8 June 2010
Android and iPhone, and Then Everyone Else | Linux Magazine
Linux articles love a good fight. kde vs. gnome. vim vs. emacs. And now, iPhone vs. Android. I own both, so I win either way.
3 June 2010
"Likejacking" Takes Off on Facebook
I was actually like-jacked on Facebook yesterday. It's a particularly bad problem, and it's also proof that the social plugin system needs to be opt-in only. I'm being patient with Facebook on this mainly because I have hard to reach friends and family on there I enjoy connecting with, but I'm given a few more weeks to see if there's action to harden against this. If not, I'm done and deleting my account.
dhrb tagged bugs in Malone, by heat
This is my nice little cheat-sheet way of using tagging to keep up with bugs we need to fix in the short term. I sort on heat to give me an idea of which bugs to take on first.
28 May 2010
YouTube - RSA Animate - Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us
From now on, when people ask me, why do open source developers work on software for free and give it away for free, I will point them at this video.
26 May 2010
How Bazaar: Wikkid Wiki
Ah, to be able to code as much as Tim Penhey. He wants a wiki for Launchpad and off he goes and starts working on one.
25 May 2010
Why Launchpad Rocks: Great Bug Tracking | jonobacon@home
Jono Bacon continues his series on "Why Launchpad Rocks" with a post on the bug tracker, which is the part of Launchpad I work on. I really appreciate Jono doing these posts. There's a lot written among Ubuntu and Debian developers on the web about Launchpad's shortcomings, and as a Launchpad dev I'm honest about the areas we could improve, but Launchpad does offer a lot that no other hosting platform offers. Not to mention, Launchpad is more than a hosting platform. It a platform for cross-project collaboration, and the bug tracker is unique because it was designed with this in mind.
20 May 2010
A hungrier, more aggressive Mozilla | The Open Road - CNET News
Matt Asay comments here on what Mozilla could do to be more competitive as Chrome gains popularity. Matt's views here are particularly interesting concerning the importance of Chrome to Google's business versus the importance of Firefox to Mozilla.
Sinzui » Speeding up page loads
sinzui explains how he used memcached to speed up pages on Launchpad. I can't wait to make use of this myself.
19 May 2010
Beware of "Facebook Social Plugins"
I discovered today that Facebook allows third party sites to make use of something called "Facebook Social Plugins" which can make it appear as if you are logged into other sites through Facebook. You are not able to opt out of this.
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Is Firefox Headed Towards A Massive Decline? Its Co-Founder Thinks So
I hope the rumors of Firefox's demise are a bit exaggerated at this point, especially because it's bad for everyone if any one browser wins out. I can't say, despite how much I like Google generally speaking, that I want to live in a world where Google is the only mediator to web access either. Chrome is impressive, and I use it myself regularly, though I continue to use Firefox as my main browser. Mozilla may be sitting back, as Ross suggests, but I hope articles like this will light a fire in that camp and get Firefox moving aggressively against Chrome. This kind of competition would be good for everyone.
18 May 2010
Saying information wants to be free does more harm than good
How much better can you get than changing "information wants to be free" to "people want to be free?" Cory Doctorow also lays out some nice principals that are held by many of us who support the digital rights movement. The digital rights movement is about making "better science, better knowledge, and better culture," not about just getting free movies or music from the Internet, despite what many in old media business will argue loudly at every opportunity.
14 May 2010
Back Home After UDS-M
It's Friday of UDS-M. I'm writing this from home, waiting on my electricity to be restored. I'm anxious to get to work today, to put in place plans to act on some of the ideas for Launchpad Bugs that came out of UDS-M.
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