M-L1NuX

2012-06-24

Ubuntu Launch App Creation Competition With Big Prizes Up For Grabs

Could you create an entirely new application for Ubuntu in just three weeks?

That’s the challenge being put forward by the Ubuntu Development team as they gear up to launch an application creation competition with some awesome prizes up for grabs.

From June 18th seasoned and budding developers alike will be given three weeks to create an entirely new app from scratch using ~~the user-friendly Quickly development tool~~ whatever tools and toolkits they like.

Prizes

At the end of the three-week period a panel of judges (disclaimer: of which I am one) will assess the submitted applications on a series of critera.

Factors such as design, stability and Ubuntu integration will all be taken into account in order to determine three winners, two of whom will win shiny new System76 laptops, and all of whom will bag a Nokia N9 phone.

Ubuntu users will then decide which three application authors will also win a MeeGo powered Nokia N9 by simply installing and voting for their favourites through the Ubuntu Software Center.

As an added incentive every application author submitting a successful app will nab themselves an Ubuntu t-shirt.

Getting Started Workshops

A series of workshops will be held on Google+. Aimed at all experience levels, these session seek to guide developers in using the Quickly development tool, adding Unity integration, multimedia support, etc.

For the full schedule of what’s happening and when head over to developer.ubuntu.com/showdown/workshops.

App Ideas

Chances are that developers won’t create the next Creative Suite in three weeks, but that doesn’t mean they have to think small.

A Reddit thread has been created for users to suggest app ideas for developers. Similarly, anyone taking a glance at the Mac App Store will spot a treasure trove of small, sole-focused applications that lack Linux equivalents.

Deadlines/Rules

The competition is set to run from June 18th until July 9th, which gives a nice 3-week window in which to create, make, iterate and submit an app to the Ubuntu Software Center.

The general rules are that applications submitted

must not depend on packages outside of the Ubuntu 12.04 archive
must run from the /opt directory
must be packaged into a PPA
must be submitted to the Ubuntu Software Center using the MyApps portal in order to be accepted

A full list of rules can be read online @ developer.ubuntu.com/showdown/rules/, whilst more general information on the contest can be found @ developer.ubuntu.com/showdown/

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Seif Speaks: Faster Zeitgeist for Everybody

It has been a while since I posted here, but the Zeitgeist team has been very busy lately and rest assured that lots of news will be hitting this site within the next 4 weeks.

Collabora has been pushing us to optimize Zeitgeist performance and scalability, and we delivered. The next release of Zeitgeist will provide you with better performance. In some cases there is over 100% speed improvement.

We benchmarked the some typical Zeitgeist queries and plotted them on a graph. Yellow is current release, blue was some state before we updated the latest code to what we have now, which is denoted in purple. Shorter bars means less time needed for querying.

These are pretty standard queries used by journal and simple applications.

These are more complex queries as used by Synapse and Unity.

So what does that mean for you the user? Quicker searches in the Unity files and application Lenses, faster exploring, and improved response time of all applications using Zeitgeist.

We are already looking into more improvements and we think we can still improve in terms of memory consumption and query times.

For now wait for our next big announcements (integration into applications) and some reviving of a dear project of ours.

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Download Mountain Lion’s Wallpapers

Apple have a knack for picking and shipping some stunning wallpapers with their OS.

And it looks like OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion will be no exception judging by the 15 or so backgrounds present in the most recent developer build: -

6/screen-shot-2012-06-15-at-15.03.41_1.jpg"> OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion wallpapers

If you like what you can (barely) see in the image above, and want to use them on Ubuntu, then the folks at OS X Daily have got you covered.

Despite there likely being legal issues associated with third-party distribution of the photographic marvels, OS X Daily have, nevertheless, put all 15 wallpapers up on their site for anyone to download.

Better yet they are in humongous 3200×2000 resolution.

Don’t let the fact that these are included by Apple out you off; they are licensed from a variety of photographers and companies and look wonderful with Ubuntu’s chameleonic Unity interface.

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Skype For Linux Loses Beta Tag, Hits 4.0

After more than 3 years in development Skype for Linux has shaken off its beta tag and made a substantial new release.

Bumping the app version from 2.2 all the way to 4.0, Skype have nicknamed the release ’Four Rooms for Improvement,’ because, they say, that this release ‘finally [fills] the gap with our other desktop clients and we are now making many of the latest Skype features, as well as a lot of UI improvements, available to our penguin lovers.’

This release marks only the second update to the Linux client in a year. The previous update, made last month, sought to resolve a minor bug issue in the static package.

With this release Skype will likely hope that rumours of the applications demise on Linux are finally put to rest.

New in Skype 4.0

If you’ve used a relatively recent version of Skype on Mac or Windows at some point in the last two years then the majority of what’s new won’t seem that, well, new.

But what has specifically has changed in the Linux client?

New Conversation and call views (see gallery)
Improved audio and video Quality
Additional Web Cam Support
improved chat synchronisation
New status icons and emoticons
“Tabbed” conversations

Download

Skype for Linux 4.0 can be download from the official Skype website. The version available in the Ubuntu Software Center partner repositories is, for the time being, out of date.

Also note that to install Skype 4.0 you will have to first uninstall Skype 2.2 to avoid package conflicts.

Download Skype for Linux 4.0

Today also sees updates released for Skype’s Mac and Windows clients, bumping them up to version 5.8 and 5.10 respectively.

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Ubuntu Launch App Creation Competition With Big Prizes Up For Grabs

Prizes

Getting Started Workshops

App Ideas

Deadlines/Rules

must not depend on packages outside of the Ubuntu 12.04 archive
must run from the /opt directory
must be packaged into a PPA
must be submitted to the Ubuntu Software Center using the MyApps portal in order to be accepted

A full list of rules can be read online @ developer.ubuntu.com/showdown/rules/, whilst more general information on the contest can be found @ developer.ubuntu.com/showdown/

Source

Seif Speaks: Faster Zeitgeist for Everybody

These are more complex queries as used by Synapse and Unity.

Source

Download Mountain Lion’s Wallpapers

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It’s Not to Late To Enter Ubuntu App Creation Contest And Win A Laptop

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Ubuntu App Contest Rescinds Quickly Requirement

The use of the Quickly development tool is no longer a requirement for participants entering the launch-app-creation-competition-with-big-prizes-up-for-grabs" target="_blank">Ubuntu App Showdown Contest.

By allowing developers to craft applications in languages other than Python, the contest will open itself up to a wider range of participants.

Applications submitted will still need to include some form of Ubuntu integration, and should not depend on libraries or packages outside of the Ubuntu 12.04 repository.

So, if you were put off of entering because of the Quickly requirement you can proceed to join in the fun when the contest kicks off on June 18th.

For more information on the contest, its prizes and its rules, refer to developer.ubuntu.com/showdown/

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‘Ubuntu Accomplishments’ Makes Getting Involved in Ubuntu Fun

There are a myriad of ways for Ubuntu users to become involved in the wider community – but just where does one start?

Enter the Ubuntu Accomplishments system, which aims to make finding, working towards and tracking opportunities within the Ubuntu community and beyond from one place.

No wiki’s, no mailing lists and no IRC channels: everything you need to know about ‘accomplishing’ a specific goal has been built into the application itself.

And you don’t need to be a serial coder to start earning trophies either; there are a number of accessible tasks for users to begin with, ranging from linking you Launchpad account with the Accomplishments app to reporting bugs and attending LoCo events.

For the more seasoned community members the trophies become harder to get, but more rewarding in their achievement, such as becoming an official Ubuntu member.

You can learn more about the system, its aims and how it works by watching the following video.

Beyond Developers

If you’re say there reading this thinking “but I’m not a developer”, that doesn’t mean there aren’t opportunities to be found. The latest release comes with support for Desktop accomplishments, too.

So far the tasks on offer in this part aren’t the most taxing, and mostly relate to using Rhythmbox and playing Mahjong. But they do offer potential in helping users orientate themselves with their desktops.

Using Accomplishments

The purpose of the application is to make the discovery of opportunities in the community/on your desktop easy. Having not tested a previous release I can’t say whether this release is better than before, but I can say that it makes the entire process of finding, earning and viewing rewards incredibly easy.

First off, finding new trophies is a snap; the “Opportunities” section of the Accomplishments app lists all available items, with a filter for more specific searching.

Finding out how to “earn” a reward requires nothing more than a click on the its trophy icon.

Then, when you’ve ‘accomplished’ a reward the trophy is added to your shelf the Trophies Lens: -

An Accomplishments Lens for Unity is also available. Again, like the app above, it makes the viewing and searching of rewards simple – in this case you just search:

Install Ubuntu Accomplishments in Ubuntu 12.04

Ubuntu Accomplishment’s isn’t yet at a fully-stable release so you won’t find it available to install from the Ubuntu Software Center.

But getting it is as a simple as adding the official Accomplishments PPA to your Software Sources and installing the required components -

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-accomplishments/releases
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install accomplishments-daemon accomplishments-viewer ubuntu-community-accomplishments ubuntu-desktop-accomplishments accomplishments-lens

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[How To] Search OMG! Ubuntu! From GNOME Shell

If you’ve ever wanted to search OMG! Ubuntu! directly from the GNOME-Shell Acvitities Overlay then you’re in luck!

Reader Ivan Blagojević has created a ‘search provider’ for OMG! Ubuntu! that lets you search the site without needing to first open a browser.

Although search providers don’t populate the overlay with results directly they nevertheless make searching Google, Wikipedia – and now this very site – faster.

Installing OMG! Ubuntu! Search in GNOME Shell

If you want to add us to your GNOME Shell set up you’ll first want to grab the search provider file by hitting the button below.

Download OMG! Ubuntu! Shell Search

Once downloaded, extract and, as root, move the ‘OMGUbuntu.xml’ file to:

/usr/share/gnome-shell/open-search-providers

Lastly restart Shell (or log out and back in) and you’re good to go!

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Ubuntu Dell Laptops Go on Sale in India

Dell computers pre-loaded with Ubuntu are being rolled out across 850 retail stores in India.

The move is the latest in a string of retail manoeuvres by Canonical and Dell, having arrived in 220 store across China late last year. That figure has now risen to 350.

And, much like the Chinese roll-out, in-store Ubuntu branding, training and support will be set up in stores to help relay the benefits of Ubuntu to the public.

To kick off the arrival Dell will be selling their Inspiron 14R and 15R laptops with Ubuntu from June 21st. Further models will go on sale later in the year.

This incursion into India matches up with Canonical’s expectation that Ubuntu will ship on 5% of all PCs worldwide next year.

‘Accessible’

Canonical's CEO, Jane Silber, who’s in New Delhi for the Dell Women's Entrepreneur Network event, said of the announcement:

"A founding principle of Ubuntu is to make computing more accessible. By working with Dell to bring these machines to market, we're providing millions of people with the opportunity of an affordable, high-quality computing experience – in some cases, for the first time."

It’s expected that Ubuntu retail availability will be extended to additional territories before the year is out.

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