Cody Somerville

I’m really impressed with the Xubuntu karmic boot experience. I just took this with my android phone:

Certainly not as good as some folks. I’m hoping to join the 50mb group soon though.

Hi Charlie,

On Wed, Aug 19, 2009 at 10:28 AM, Charlie Kravetz <cjk@teamcharliesangels.com> wrote:

Due to medical issues, I have not been able to participate much in
the Karmic cycle. Unfortunately, multiple sclerosis is once again
complicating my life for some time. Tests have indicated other
issues, also, which will prevent me from participating in Ubuntu
Developers Week this cycle

–
Charlie Kravetz

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I can’t say it enough. Your hard work on improving our QA processes, doing bug triage, and burning ISO after ISO to test is something probably many of us have taken for granted and not recognized enough. QA is often a thankless job but yet so critical. So Charlie, please take pride because without you we would have not been able to pull off Xubuntu 9.04 like we did. Your consistent dedication is truly admirable. You’re a true Ubuntu rockstar.

I’m sorry to hear that you’re unwell and hope you get better soon. On behalf of Xubuntu and in your honour, I’m pledging to donate $10.00 each month along with a one time donation today of $50.00 to the MS Society of Canada and a one time donation today of $50.00 to the National MS Society to do my part to help find a cure.

Please know that we’re all wishing you well and are eagerly awaiting your return to good health. Your unique humour and warm personality is truly missed.

Cheers,
Cody A.W. Somerville

      
Excitingly, Xubuntu 9.04 is almost here - only a short few weeks until the release and it seems like we’re already getting some great press for Xubuntu. Today I saw one article from iTWire titled “The best looking Linux is nearly here - and it’s not Ubuntu” which praises Xubuntu for its look and feel. Kudos to Pasi Lallinaho who is responsible for bringing us this cycle’s artwork.

So Woot Woot! Be sure to download Xubuntu 9.04 when it comes out!

Am I missing something with this whole exciting cloud metaphor? It sounds like something we invented awhile ago that I personally like to call the Internet.

What *is* interesting, IMHO, is the advancements being made in the area of autonomic and elastic computing. Furthermore, the idea of utility computing is a fascinating one to me.

What got me looking into “cloud computing”? I saw Robert Collins discussing it in #bzr the other day and using Amazon’s EC2 services to run bazaar’s test suite (which I understand to be a very comprehensive).

I used to play and develop on muds back in the day and I’m wondering if EC2 is a viable solution to host such a text based game. I’ll have to look into it and maybe use it as an excuse to try EC2 out myself

“After more than two years of development, Xfce 4.6.0 has just been released! Xfce 4.6 features a new configuration backend, a new settings manager, a brand new session manager and sound mixer as well as several huge improvements of its core components.”

Xfce 4.6 is definitely rocking and I’m very happy with it! There are a number of significant improvements and enhancements that make the Xfce desktop a real pleasure to use.

A lot of folks have been asking if Xfce 4.6 will be in Jaunty. I’m happy to say that it already is (or release candidate 1 anyhow, the actual 4.6.0 should hit the archive soon) and I’m really looking forward to spending the next few short months until the relase of Jaunty to try and polish Xubuntu 9.04 as much as possible. Alas, work is keeping me extremly busy but excitingly Xubuntu has been incredibly lucky to welcome a number of new contributors this release cycle that are reallly making a difference.

A few groups of people I’d like to shout out kudos to include the Xfce Development Team, the Debian Xfce Team, members of the Xubuntu team and my fellow Xubuntu contributors.

I’m ready to rocky and roll for Jaunty with Xfce 4.6. Are you?

Xfce 4.6 Release Candidate 1 is now in the Jaunty archive! I just upgraded to Jaunty (Hardy -> Intrepid -> Jaunty) the other day and am really digging the new version of Xfce4!

One of my favourite new features is the ability to hide certain notification icons in the notification tray.

If you click the little arrow button, it’ll expand to show everything.

The properties dialogue looks very sharp IMHO:

Another big change is the settings stuff. Gone is MCS and here is xfconfd! They’ve also revamped the GUI for the settings:

W00T! More screenshots soon!

Big thanks to Lionel Le Folgoc, Jerome Guelfucc, Michael Casadevall, and the Debian Xfce team!

JoeP wrote…My problem with the whole story was the news reporters. I can understand the lady not knowing what Ubuntu is, and that it even has Open Office already installed. I just got the feeling that the reporters were trying to cast Ubuntu in a bad light, or as a sub par offering from Dell. Maybe I am too thin skinned, but I felt the reporting was very bad. But that being said now most people (who are not FOSS users) that see the story will see Ubuntu/Linux as something trying to rip off Windows, and the people who do use it as a bunch of hateful/mean spirited immature people.

JoeP: The original story and follow-up blog post was very positive for Ubuntu in my opinion. The premise was that “Someone got an operating system they didn’t expect from Dell but in the end everything turned out well: the school said that their courses will work with any operating system and Verizon said they would send out a technician to help her.”. The bottom line: Ubuntu worked just fine, she just needed some help and hey… this looks pretty cool and its free!!

However now they followed up with how mean people were in response to a story that wasn’t even really about Ubuntu. Do you think those folk at the News Station or who heard about Ubuntu via this news story are going to want to try Ubuntu now? They’re going to think that they won’t be able to get help because they’ll be called “stupid”, “lazy”, and other mean names!!! People who made rude, mean comments have done a horrible disservice to Ubuntu and Linux at large! Those people are the true “Windows Robots”.