I spent some more time this weekend hacking on the Ubuntu Accomplishments spec I blogged about recently. I just wanted to provide a little more eye-candy of some of the progress.

When you load the app it shows you a list of the available opportunities you can achieve:

(obviously a bunch of these are dummy ones).

You can use the combo boxes at the top to choose which types of opportunities (e.g. Ubuntu Community, Ubuntu UK LoCo Team) you want to view, as well as their category (e.g. Ubuntu Community could have categories such as QA, Development, Advocacy).

Some of the opportunities have padlocks on them. This means that you need to complete another opportunity before that one is unlocked. This helps provide more of a logical journey of things that you can do.

Part of the goal of the accomplishments project is to provide better, more contextual information for how to get started doing something. As an example, if you are curious about the Filed First Bug opportunity, you can double-click it to read information about how to complete it and where to find help:

Obviously this information can be improved (and particularly the links, they are just dummy links). We would also want to add nice things like clicking on an IRC channel and it loading in an IRC client.

The Filed First Bug is a real working accomplishment. When you run the scriptrunner (part of the prototype, but not tied into the GUI yet) it will run the accomplishment’s script and check Launchpad to see if you have filed a bug. If you have, a small notify-osd bubble appears and you can see your trophy in the My Trophies view:

In the real implementation the scriptrunner would run as a service without you having to run the app to start it.

I am pleased with the progress I am making. Next I want to get some more example accomplishments tied in and then I am going to start looking at building the verification service. Should be fun!

I am a pretty terrible programmer. Anyone who has read my code can see that. Unfortunately, I tend to have lots of ideas about how we can use technology in different ways, hence why I write some code. Examples of this have included Lernid, Acire, RaccoonShow, and Jokosher.

Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your view), I have had Python and GTK to serve my needs here. Python, with it’s awesome batteries-included range of facilities and GTK as a simple yet flexible toolkit has allowed me to create implementations of the ideas that I have dreamed of. I started using these tools many years ago, and they have always provided a simple and effective toolset for me.

My preferred toolset of choice. One day…

Having not written any code for a while, I got the itch this weekend to start writing the trophy helper app that I wrote about as part of the accomplishments system spec that I created with Stuart Langridge and Daniel Holbach. I thought this would be a good opportunity to brush up on my skills, given that PyGTK is dead and the new world is instead the GIR approach to GTK. In a nutshell, this is where the language bindings basically match the C API for GTK thus reducing the need for people to maintain different language bindings.

Of course, this is a good thing: less work for volunteers in maintaining multiple-language support for GTK and a consistent API is good. Unfortunately, I found getting started with this new world a little more complex than I imagined.

From reading the documentation it suggested that all I needed to do was to import Gtk from gi.repository and instead of creating widgets with gtk.<foo> that they would be Gtk.<foo>. The docs suggested a few other lexical adjustments, but not much more than that. There is even a pygi-convert.sh script that can convert older PyGTK code over to the new PyGI way. Unfortunately the script didn’t work for me, so I instead used it as a cheat-sheet for things that needed changing. Sadly, it seemed like some things were not covered in the script.

An example of this included when I was creating a ListStore. In PyGTK code I could add a gtk.gdk.Pixbuf to the ListStore for an icon, but I had a difficult time trying to figure out the new way to describe this. I tried Gtk.gdk.Pixbuf and Gtk.Gdk.Pixbuf but had no luck. Fortunately the awesome Ryan Lortie informed me that it needed to be GdkPixbuf.Pixbuf. Another example of this was gtk.SORT_ASCENDING in my original code and the new Gtk.SortType.ASCENDING in the new code. It seems like various functionality in GTK has been moved around and re-factored.

Unfortunately I could not find any documentation to help me with this. Sure, the C docs are available online, but I am not a C programmer; I am (in the most generous and understanding way) a Python programmer and where I previously had a pretty decent tutorial and reference guide to PyGTK, as a desktop app developer I no longer have these resources to help me. Even though I am not a fantastic programmer, I have written enough Python and GTK code to fumble my way through writing various apps, and if it stumped me as a relatively old hand, I wonder how a brand new developer would get on.

Pictured: old hand.

Now, this may sound a little critical, but it is not mean’t to be. I have tremendous respect for the GTK team, and I am hugely thankful to them for all their hard work. I am also thankful for the team that has worked on the GIR support so that multiple language support can be more efficiently provided. Thanks to all you folks for providing great tools that let a programming numpty such as myself be able to write Free Software.

I just wanted to share this because I feel like these tools are missing the final component: if we had a good solid set of reference documentation generated for each language (naturally, Python is the language I mainly care about), this would help novice and established developers use GTK more effectively. From my personal experience, my patience started wearing pretty thin when I felt like I didn’t have anywhere to find help as I navigated C documentation to try and figure out how the API fitted into my Python application. A good solid Python reference manual would have resolved this issue, and from what I understand, this could potentially be generated from the GIR files. Unfortunately, I don’t think I have the skills to help solve this problem, so I figured the best I could do was to share my story and see if anyone would be interested in helping to solve this problem.

If so, thanks in advance, and thanks again to the GTK team for all your hard work!

Update

I found this excellent documentation after publishing this entry. This provides exactly the kind of documentation I was looking for. Thanks to anyone who helped contribute to this!

A little while back I blogged about an accomplishments system that Stuart Langridge and I designed when he came to visit a while back. The idea was simple: a de-centralized system in which we can easily define different types of accomplishments (e.g. filing a bug, submitting a patch, getting a patch sponsored, translating a string) and a means in which users can be rewarded trophies for these accomplishments as well as discovering new accomplishments and how they can be achieved.

The nice thing about the system we designed is that it is de-centralized, it uses Ubuntu One as a transport mechanism (which means we don’t have to build our own transport system and your trophies are visible across all your Ubuntu machines), and the system has a verification process to ensure that people can’t fake their community accomplishments.

I wrote this all up into a spec which you can find here.

We had an interesting session about this topic at UDS and Stuart put together a draft implementation which is at lp:~sil/+junk/libaccom-draft/. The implementation defines a set of sample accomplishments and provides a daemon that runs to maintain state on which accomplishments have been achieved and which are still yet to be completed. The system is neatly integrated into Ubuntu and accomplishments are displayed in a notify-osd bubble:

Stuart also wrote a small API (libaccomplishment) that client apps can use to query the system and present trophies achieved or those yet to be achieved. You can read more about this draft implementation here.

In the original spec there are two clients that would be in the system. A lens:

…and a helper app that is loaded when you click on a trophy in the lens which can provide more information about an accomplishment as well as showing the list of achieved accomplishments and those yet to achieve:

This weekend I decided to start writing this helper app (Michael Hall has expressed an interest in writing the lens). To get things rolling I wanted to display the list of trophies that have been accomplished. It looks like this so far:

This app is using the libaccomplishment API that Stuart provided in his draft implementation and this code could obviously used to develop the lens. There is obviously still lots to build into the app, but it provides a useful proof-of-concept for how it could work. This is a Quickly project and you can grab the code from lp:~jonobacon/junk/trophyinfo.

If you want to play with this, grab Stuart’s draft implementation (lp:~sil/+junk/libaccom-draft/) and run examples/demo.sh – this will start the daemon. You can then grab my branch (lp:~jonobacon/junk/trophyinfo) and run quickly run and see the trophies in the view.

Everything so far has been something of a proof of concept, but I wanted to see if anyone else was interested in participating. There are a number of things that we need to do:

• Stuart’s draft implementation needs extending, and he would like to find a new owner for it. Currently the API is simple but might need fleshing out further.
• The helper app here that I created a first cut of needs expanding and functionality added. We need to provide different ways of filtering the trophies, providing information about a specific trophy and how to achieve it, and the other features outlined in the spec.
• Each accomplishment has a script that is run to see if you achieved something (e.g. if you filed a bug in Launchpad). In the spec, when one of these scripts returns that you accomplished the task, it creates a trophy, and syncs it via Ubuntu One to a validation server which runs the same script to verify you really did achieve the accomplishment. This then signs the trophy which then syncs back to your machine. We need someone to build this verification service.
• We need to evaluate and extend the .accomplishment format to include documentation for how to achieve a trophy. I know Jim Campbell expressed an interest in working on this and I would love to encourage others to participate too.
• We need to create a library of Ubuntu Community accomplishments. Stuart’s draft implementation includes an example script for filing a bug. See the list of ideas that Daniel has been working on.

Anyone interested in taking part?

UPDATE

Since I posted this I have made a bunch of improvements to the helper app. This includes:

• The app now displays trophies achieved on the My Trophies page and those not yet achieved on the Opportunities page.
• Locked trophies (i.e. those that need another trophy to be accomplished before it can be) now use a different icon (we will need new icons for all of these, so I am using stock icons right now).
• Trophy/opportunities status is now updated with each page load which means that trophies are updated more dynamically.
• Double-clicking an opportunities will take you to the WebKit page to display info about it. I just need to update the .accomplishment scheme to provide more useful info.

I pushed all these updated to lp:~jonobacon/junk/trophyinfo if you want to play with it.

Like many of you I get a lot of email, and like many of you I often struggle to keep up with it in the context of everything else that is going on. Recently I have been trying a few little experiments in adjusting my email workflow to see if I can be more productive. I am seeing some good results and just wanted to share a few small changes I have made that have impacted my workflow in the interests of them possibly being useful for you too:

• Using the GMail web interface – I back-end all my mail in GMail and traditionally use IMAP to access it via the default email client in Ubuntu (e.g. Thunderbird). While I love Thunderbird and Evolution, unfortunately GMail IMAP access is a touch slower than I would like (I have talked to Chris Coulson about this issue in Thunderbird who has looked into it) and the small delay in loading messages makes the email experience feel a little less sleek. Using GMail directly removes this slight lag, and it has made the email experience feel more satisfying (obviously for those of you who don’t have this lag, such as POP users, should be fine). Importantly, if you use GMail too, check out the GMail labs split pane view which makes GMail act like a traditional email client; I find that it makes GMail useful for me as opposed to the traditional view.
• Top posting – I realized recently how anal I am about laying out my messages and replies. I hit reply, say hi to the person, respond inline, make sure there is space between my response and the quoted text, add my name etc. For most 1-on-1 conversations this level of layout is not really needed (although on mailing lists I still bottom post), and just hitting reply and typing without all this laying out makes email feel so much more efficient.
• Don’t star mails to reply to – my traditional email workflow is that I wake up in the morning, grab my tablet, and while I wake up I read my email and star all the mails I need to respond to. I then grab breakfast, do all my calls, and then get to the starred emails to respond to. Instead of starring I experimented by marking emails unread that I need to reply to. For some reason this makes the urgency of replying more amplified in my head. I think that I just don’t like seeing unread emails, and it flips a psychological bit that makes me want to reply to them quicker as opposed to starring and my email just being another list of things to tend to. I know sounds a little strange, but this small change also affects how I handle my email.

Of course, while these things work for me, many of these won’t be of interest or work for you folks, but some may, and I just wanted to share them. I am sure there are lots of little tweaks to your own email workflow that you have found useful, and I would love to hear them in the comments. Happy emailing!

Canonical and Ubuntu have made their CES debut this week, and already it’s been a
resounding success. Ubuntu TV and Ubuntu One have both been of particular interest to a constant flow of visitors from media to manufacturers, exhibitors and developers.

It is almost the end of day two and there have been over 5,000 visitors to the Ubuntu booth in South Hall 4 (stand 35379). In fact, people have been so impressed, that all the Ubuntu 11.10 CDs and printed Ubuntu TV collateral have run out. We have also given many interviews to the world’s media and have already seen some great coverage, which as many regulars to Ubuntu will appreciate, will help serve to introduce Ubuntu to many new potential users.

Ubuntu rocks!

Canonical will have a presence at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, from the 10th – 13th January. The booth, in the Upper Level of South Hall 4, is at location 35379 within the Las Vegas Convention Center.

On display will be the latest in Desktop, Cloud and demonstrations on Ubuntu One, plus an exclusive Ubuntu concept design which will be announced during the show.

Find out more by coming to visit us at CES and see why Ubuntu is the primary computing environment on millions of desktops around the world and used by thousands of businesses. You can also discover how Canonical supports a rapidly increasing number of manufacturers pre-installing Ubuntu on their hardware.

To set up a meeting at the show and discuss Ubuntu, now the world’s third largest Desktop Operating System, email sales@canonical.com.

The ‘VMware View Client Tech’ Preview for Linux is now available through the Ubuntu Software Centre. This reinforces the great work done by ecosystem partners in making their latest and greatest technology available on Ubuntu.

New devices are proliferating across all industries, with the Education sector being particularly strong. Ubuntu is the natural choice within Education for virtualization products like VMware View. PC Repurposing, getting prolonged use from existing PCs, is an obvious use case for virtual desktop technology and Ubuntu is the perfect platform.

VMware View Client Tech is available now for all Ubuntu versions from Ubuntu 10.04 LTS through Ubuntu 11.10 and works with VMware View 4.6 and 5. It incorporates VMware’s latest View Client technology with PCoIP which provides end users with top performance regardless of network conditions. Download the VMware View Client Tech Preview now at the Ubuntu Software Centre.

Canonical launched Ubuntu at retail with Vodacom in October, and the Vodacom Webbook – embedded with Ubuntu – is currently available to buy in over 1,200 stores in South Africa. The product has been selling well and over the coming weeks is expected to be one of the ‘must have’ Christmas gifts for this year.

What makes it so appealing ? Ubuntu runs seamlessly on the Webbook and it works brilliantly with a range of printers, cameras, MP3 players and other peripherals. Ubuntu brings a fresh emphasis on usability that millions of existing users around the world already enjoy.

Ubuntu boots up in seconds, delivering a bundle of applications right out of the box. It’s ready to go, reliable, and security is rock-solid. It’s as effective for business as for pleasure. With LibreOffice, you can create professional documents that are fully compatible with Microsoft Office (TM). Social networking through Twitter and Facebook is easily accessible too, with the ability to effortlessly share pictures, play music and edit video.

You can buy the Vodacom Webbook here.

Last week saw the third annual Ubuntu Hardware Summit (UHS) taking place in Taipei. With over two hundred attendees present, the show is fast becoming one of the must-attend events within the software, ODM and OEM environments across Taiwan.

With standing room only at the back of the room during the Keynote speech, Canonical set the scene for the next two years including the growth of Ubuntu, the multitude of device enablement and an insight into Ubuntu Cloud and Ubuntu Server. After the Keynote, UHS then went into break-out Tracks which included topics on Ubuntu Cloud, Thin Client solutions, hardware enablement and Ubuntu System Architecture.

You can find all presentations from the day at odm.ubuntu.com and clicking the link ‘Download material’.

So, you like the idea of deploying an Ubuntu desktop to all or some of your users. You like the way Ubuntu’s light-client model can give  your older desktop machines a new lease of life. You like the fact that Ubuntu is secure, portable, and easy to manage. Best of all, you like that it costs nothing to license, and comes with a host of enterprise-grade apps that cost nothing to license either.

Now it’s time to see how it works for you in the real world. To help you plan your migration, we’ve compiled our five golden rules for success. These are things we’ve learned from the hundreds of Ubuntu desktop migrations we’ve conducted for clients around the world – from the French National Police Force to the Supreme Court of India.

Download today and discover how to:

• Plan effectively for maximum effect
• Target the users ripe for migration
• Identify the apps that save you money and hassle
• Create the right management flows
• Pilot your project to get it just right

The Ubuntu Developer Summit – UDS – is a major event in the Canonical calendar. Taking place every six months, it is the Ubuntu event which defines the focus and plans for our up-coming version of Ubuntu. In the first week of November, over 800 people, from Canonical engineers and employees, Ubuntu community members, partners, ISVs, upstreams and many more gathered to discuss and plan for the upcoming Ubuntu 12.04, code-named Precise Pangolin.

UDS covered 420 sessions, under nine tacks, from desktop to design, community to server and cloud. Attendees worked in the usual collaborative and open environment and spent the week pooling their experience and expertise and sharing best practise resulting, as always, in the very best ideas. Right now, those ideas are are represented in hundreds of blueprint documents and are being put into action by developers, community and Canonical, who are already driving forward for April’s launch. As a practical demonstration of that openness you can track our progress here (note, it’s early days!): http://status.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-precise/.

Focus on desktop and the cloud

Over the coming months, we’ll see much more of the fruits of UDS’ labour as new features are developed and collaborations and partnerships formed. Right now, the focus is on refinement, quality and stabilisation. As Ubuntu 12.04 will be a LTS release, which, for the first time, will be supported for five years, getting performance and stability right will be extremely important. For businesses, cloud is becoming ever more important, so we’ll be looking at building out a robust test infrastructure; there will be continued support for the latest releases of OpenStack and much effort will be put into improving Juju and developing the Charms collection.

For our desktop users, refinement of the interface is a continued focus and we’ll regularly run usability testing to make sure Ubuntu looks and feels great. For ubuntu 12.04, there will be a lot of developments for power users, including multi-monitor support, and improvements to boot speed, text-free boot and power consumption. And of course, the community centres around the developer programme, design, governance and loco teams. Engaging and embracing developers continues to be important (for free software) as we seek to bring new and exciting applications to the Ubuntu platform.

Our wonderful sponsors

We also wanted to take this opportunity to extend a special thank you to all of our sponsors who helped us accomplish this monumental task. Cloud Foundry, Rackspace, Google, System 76, Freescale, Nebula, as well as our media partners, Ubuntu User, Linux Pro Magazine, all attended and contributed to the success of UDS in different ways. Some gave plenary sessions;
Brian Thomason and Juan Negron – Cloudfoundry Server deployments using Juju
James Blair and Monty Taylor – Rackspace – Distributed QA in the OpenStack Project

It’s Linaro’s summit too

Also, for the second time, UDS was co-hosted with the Linaro Connect event, where the best software developers met to plan out and code the future of Linux on ARM. Canonical has been actively participating in the Linaro project since it began in 2010, and having both events run in parallel is a good opportunity to share new ideas and collaborate. ARM continues to gain more traction in traditional PC areas, such as the data center and Ubuntu continues to contribute to the enablement of ARM. You can hear more from David Brash’s Linaro plenary, An ARM Technology Update.

And a vision for what’s next

While the focus for Canonical and the Ubuntu community is firmly on the next launch , we’ve already started to think beyond this release. In Mark’s opening keynote, he talked of extending the Ubuntu mission; “‘Linux for Human Beings’ cannot end at the desktop, but needs to take into account the devices that will be used by human beings in the years to come….”. In the coming two years, we’ll start to see Ubuntu powering tablets, phones, TVs and smart screens from the car to the office kitchen, and it will connect those devices cleanly and seamlessly to the desktop, the server and the cloud. You can read more on Mark’s vision for the future of Ubuntu on his blog: or see the full keynote.

For lots more video and insight you can check out the excellent Ubuntu Developers Channel on YouTube

So, roll on Ubuntu 12.04!

As of this week, Ubuntu is now on sale in over 100 retail outlets in Portugal.

Preloaded on the new ASUS Eee PC 1215P, Ubuntu is available to buy in over 100 Vobis and Worten stores (part of the Sonae group) across the country http://www.worten.pt/ProductDetail.aspx?pid=04826099&oid=30|31|36905&c=2655842.

The Eee PC has a slim, lightweight, design and up to 9 hours’ battery life making it suitable for work, play or study.

This is another great piece of marketing activity for Canonical, through launching the Ubuntu computing experience into a brand new retail market.

This year’s Ubuntu Hardware Summit (UHS) will take place on December 8th at the Grand Victoria Hotel in Taipei. You can register your place at www.ubuntu.com.uhs

Building on the success of 2010 (with over 200 attendees), the 2011 Ubuntu Hardware Summit promises to deliver more. With keynote speeches from various members of the Canonical team and a more focused technical delivery, UHS is created especially for product managers and engineers at ODMs and OEMs, with interest or responsibility in deploying Ubuntu on new computers and devices.

Highlights will include presentations on Ubuntu Server, deploying Ubuntu Cloud, QA, power management, hardware enablement….and much more! Details of the event can also be found on the new Ubuntu Hardware Debugging website at http://odm.ubuntu.com/portal/

UHS is sponsored by Canonical and free of charge.

To reserve your space, visit www.ubuntu.com/uhs today as registrations will close on 29th November 2011.

MumboJumbo, a leading developer and publisher of casual games,  has added four titlesto the Ubuntu Software Center. Chainz Galaxy, 7 Wonders: Magical Mystery Tour, Unlikely Suspects, and Midnight Mysteries3 Devil on the Mississippi are now available for Ubuntu 10.10 and Ubuntu 11.04. The same titles will be available for Ubuntu 11.10 very soon.

Chainz Galaxy

Chainz Galaxy is a puzzle game where the user twists links to create link-matches of three or more to clear the board. You earn bonuses by getting power-ups and gathering charms.

7 Wonders: Magical Mystery Tour

7 Wonders: Magical Mystery Tour is an all new release in the 7 Wonders series. In this game you’ll take a fantastic journey to some of the most enchanting sites in mythology and folklore.  With a team of master builders, you’ll match colorful runes to collect the building blocks needed for Camelot, El Dorado, Atlantis, Shangri-La, and many others.  Build all 7 Wonders and then unlock a magical 8th location, Nazca Valley!

Unlikely Suspects

Unlikely Suspects is a hidden object whodunit where you track 16 criminals across the globe! The Superintendent of Interpol needs your help to sort through evidence and decipher clues. With over 4,000 different outcomes, there’s always a new case to crack!

Midnight Mysteries 3 Devil on the Mississippi

In Midnight Mysteries 3 Devil on the Mississippi Mark Twain’s fleeing ghost begs you to free his soul from demons, both literal and emotional. Find objects and solve puzzles to unravel the mystery behind Shakspeare’s identity, squash the awakened evil spirit, and set history straight!

Check out these new titles in the Ubuntu Software Center today! If you have an application you wish to include in the Software Center submit it today in the MyApps portal on the Ubuntu App Developers site.

On Wednesday in Beijing, Canonical and Dell announced the start of an exciting retail program to sell machines pre-loaded with Ubuntu, initially rolling out to 220 retail stores in China.

The stores will feature Ubuntu on a range of Dell computers, and will carry branded marketing collateral in-store, trained staff positioning the benefits and advantages of Ubuntu to consumers and will be supported by a retail team of Ubuntu merchandisers, set up to support the stores. The work was carried out by the Canonical teams based in Beijing and Shanghai, working with Dell China.

For the consumer, Ubuntu is now an easy choice, with a clean, crisp elegant interface, an exceptional browsing experience and a fully-integrated software center for great applications and games (both free and paid for). It also includes leading services such as the Ubuntu music store and the Ubuntu One cloud storage service built-in.

With an actively growing base of over 20 million users this represents another significant endorsement from one of the world’s major PC vendors.

Things are really ramping up with submissions into the Ubuntu Software Center. With a app per day being submitted, the packaging team is getting busy keeping up with the cool applications arriving!

TRAUMA is likely the most interesting new submission. Very unique. You are in the mind of a traumatized young woman as she has just been in a car accident. You experience her dreams in a interactive way.

Check out the trailer:

Buy TRAUMA from the Ubuntu Software Center.

Books and Magazines

We also added some magazines to the mix. Several recent issues of Ubuntu User magazine by Linux New Media are available on the Software Center. You can find the most recent issues up through Ubuntu User issue #9 which has a section dedicated to Ubuntu 11.04 and Unity. Keep your eyes peeled for book titles about Linux and Ubuntu arriving soon.

Photobomb

Another really interesting title recently released is called Photobomb. It’s described as a “Easy and Social Image Editor”. It’s like a mashup tool for your images. Pretty slick and at $2.99 it’s a cinch to check out. Go buy it and provide some feedback today.

We have some very cool submissions pending the packaging process in the queue. Thanks to all of our interested developers out there we have officially backed up the packaging team! Don’t worry though…we’ll soon work through that backlog and have a lot of new and interesting titles showing up regularly in the software center.

Check them out, provide some feeback, and even submit more!
To submit a new application go to https://myapps.developer.ubuntu.com

And one last thing – keep your eye out for the updated developer.ubuntu.com website coming in early October!

Things are really ramping up with submissions into the Ubuntu Software Center. With a app per day being submitted, the packaging team is getting busy keeping up with the cool applications arriving!

TRAUMA is likely the most interesting new submission. Very unique. You are in the mind of a traumatized young woman as she has just been in a car accident. You experience her dreams in a interactive way.

Check out the trailer:

Buy TRAUMA from the Ubuntu Software Center.

Books and Magazines

We also added some magazines to the mix. Several recent issues of Ubuntu User magazine by Linux New Media are available on the Software Center. You can find the most recent issues up through Ubuntu User issue #9 which has a section dedicated to Ubuntu 11.04 and Unity. Keep your eyes peeled for book titles about Linux and Ubuntu arriving soon.

Photobomb

Another really interesting title recently released is called Photobomb. It’s described as a “Easy and Social Image Editor”. It’s like a mashup tool for your images. Pretty slick and at $2.99 it’s a cinch to check out. Go buy it and provide some feedback today.

We have some very cool submissions pending the packaging process in the queue. Thanks to all of our interested developers out there we have officially backed up the packaging team! Don’t worry though…we’ll soon work through that backlog and have a lot of new and interesting titles showing up regularly in the software center.

Check them out, provide some feeback, and even submit more!
To submit a new application go to https://myapps.developer.ubuntu.com

And one last thing – keep your eye out for the updated developer.ubuntu.com website coming in early October!

Unigine Corp has made their Oil Rush game available in the Ubuntu Software Center for pre-order. Oil Rush is a Naval Strategy game and is currently in beta.

According to the press release from Unigine, Oil Rush is a real-time naval strategy game based on group control. In Oil Rush players build up defenses and upgrade oil platforms. Players progress through the game by capturing enemy platforms and oil rigs.

Oil Rush is powered by Unigine Engine, a multi-platform real-time 3D engine which unleashes the ultimate power for creating interactive virtual worlds.

Unigine Corp is a international company focused on top-notch real-time 3D technologies with its development studio located in Tomsk, Russia. For more than 6 years, the company delivers Unigine engine, a real-time 3D solution, that allows software developers to create not only games, but also interactive visualization, simulation and virtual reality systems.

Pick up your copy of Oil Rush from the Ubuntu Software Center today!

If you want your game or application included in the Ubuntu Software Center, visit the Ubuntu Developer Portal and submit your application today!

Remember when Windows was the best desktop OS for business users?

Seems like a while ago. The rise of browser-based apps, an increasingly mobile workforce and the ever-present threat of malware mean few CIOs would choose Windows if it was launched today.

Yet many believe there’s no viable alternative.

We, of course, think there is. Ubuntu is an elegant, feature-rich OS already running on millions of workplace desktops around the world, with more organisations switching every day.

So we’ve looked into the subject and written a new e-book: Crunch time on the Enterprise Desktop. It’s a great, short introduction to why there’s never been a better time to include Ubuntu in your desktop strategy.

Download it now to discover:

* Seven trends changing your desktop strategy
* Eight reasons why Ubuntu is a great business choice
* The Canonical customers and what they’ve achieved
* How to get started with Ubuntu in your organisation

Migrating to Ubuntu already helps enterprises save millions – read the ebook to learn how.

And don’t be shy to share your views on the subject and the ebook: leave a comment below and let us know if it was useful for you or if you have more questions.

So here we are in the thick of the Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot development cycle, and I am really excited about the progress that is being made. I thought it could be interesting to show off some of the work that is going on with a quick screenshot tour.

This cycle has been very much focused on integrating GNOME3 into Ubuntu and focusing on fit and finish both at a software and design level on Unity and it’s components. The goal with Ubuntu 11.10 is to build on the accomplishments in Ubuntu 11.04 and to continue refining the experience.

Before, I start, remember, there are a few caveats here:

• Ubuntu 11.10 is not finished. There are still plenty of bugs, quirks and other oddities that need fixing.
• What you see here may well change.
• I have smudged out some personal bits, but it should be pretty clear which bits are smudged out.

Oh, and click on the images below to see them full-size.

So let’s get started with what the typical desktop looks like right now in 11.10:

Here you can see a few changes:

• The Ubuntu button is now on the launcher (user testing told us most people look there to launch applications).
• There has been some small changes to the indicators in the top right part of the screen.
• Here you can see I have a number of apps open, and see the concertina effect on the Launcher.
• Note how there are no longer Apps / Files places on the Launcher.

So, if you click that Ubuntu button on the Launcher you see the new Dash:

Here the dash opens up in this really nice translucent way, and the launcher and panel look nice and translucent too. The translucency is actually tweaked based upon your wallpaper, so it shades it smartly.

You can see at the bottom of the dash are a series of little icons. This is now where you find your different lenses (Apps, Files, a new Music one, Gwibber etc) and this makes it much nicer to see the different types of lens, instead of having to find them on the launcher.

Let’s take a look at the Apps lens:

(I know some icons are missing in this screenshot, that is a bug)

Here you can see the lens works in a similar way as the apps lens in 11.04, but we have this new Filter Results feature (which is open in this screenshot). Here you can select different categories and those categories will only be shown in the icon view on the left. You can also search by rating which is useful for apps that are shown available to download.

Different lenses have different types of filters. As an example, here is the Gwibber lens:

As you can see this provides different methods of displaying different types of content.

One other cool element of the dash is that it uses an active blur. This means it really blurs what is behind it, so for example, it will blur a video as it plays behind it in the movie player:

Let’s now look at loading apps. Here is GEdit in it’s maximized state:

As you can see, Unity provides a lot of workable space and the shell just wraps around the app in the most minimal way possible to give you as much space as possible for the app. You can also see that when maximized the window buttons and menus are not shown; they only appear if you hover the window title with the mouse. This actually makes the desktop feel much nicer and less cluttered.

Here you can also see that the toolbar buttons have been styled with the dark theme to carry this theme throughout the desktop. This is a subtle but really nice change. As an example, here is Thunderbird with the same style applied:

In the GEdit example the icons are not monochrome but the Thunderbird ones are. We are not expecting an icon refresh in Ubuntu 11.10, but I suspect in the future we will see more icons tuned for the darker toolbars. Here is the compose window:

An app that has had quite a refresh has been Gwibber:

Gwibber is now much faster, much sleeker to use, and just a far more pleasant social networking experience. It also looks wonderfully consistent with the dark theme.

Another app that has been re-jigged is the Ubuntu Software Center:

The new Ubuntu Software Center feels faster, is more interesting to look at and explore, and feels far more integrated into the system.

I am also delighted to see the wonderful work that has gone into the GNOME Control Center in GNOME3 also brings the same consistent look, feel, and ease of use:

The whole configuration experience feels slicker and easier, and here is one of the panels:

Let’s now talk indicators:

Lots of great work and stability improvements has been performed here such as adding settings links that are relevant to each indicator, improved power and me indicators and other improvements.

Finally, a wonderful new feature added is the refreshed Alt-Tab switcher:

I absolutely love how this works, and I love how it shares the look and feel of the wider desktop. Here you can hit Alt-Tab and then use the arrow keys to move around to select the app you want to see. If there are more apps open than space in the switcher, they concertina just like in the launcher — it looks really cool.

If you have multiple windows open for an app (e.g. Firefox), you can find the icon and press the down arrow to show the multiple windows:

…and that pretty much wraps up the screenshot tour. I hope you enjoyed having a leaf through some of the features you can expect to see in Ubuntu 11.10.

I am really excited for the release, and I particularly enjoy how integrated, unified, consistent and slick the entire system feels. I also love the fact that the design, colouring, and structure is noticeably Ubuntu. So, all in all, I am really looking forward to Ubuntu 11.10 and the opportunity it has to put Free Software in the hands of more and more people. Thanks to everyone in the community who has contributed to it so far!

Beta 1 will be here on the 1st September, so get ready to test it my friends!