Ubuntu
Stellenbosch Ubuntu Hour Report Back
A few days ago I mentioned Ubuntu Hour.Well we put some details and a pic on our wiki. All in all I think it was good start, I got to start my morning off with a decent cup of coffee that I didn’t have to make my self. Even though it was small I think we showed off Ubuntu well with T-Shirts, Stickers and 2 tables with 3 laptops powered by Ubuntu.
I know the timing isn’t great for work people (9am – 10am) so maybe we can think about switching it around or have another one at a pub after work for some beers? One of the main reasons for this time is the idea of starting something like this is to try make it fit into your routine not change your routine to fit it since this makes it easier to keep up with it in the long run.
My Weechat Setup
I have been using the devel version of Weechat since about march 2009 because of a exploit in 0.2.6 (Which has been fixed in the repo’s from 0.2.6.1).
Why would I carry on using the devel version even if the security issue has been patched?
Simple 0.3.0 isn’t in any released stable Ubuntu repository yet also I like to help out testing/debugging/bug reporting where I can.
Why Weechat over some other CLI client like Irssi?
It started off as a simple I preferred Weechat’s config layout and ease of use and sane default configurations. Also the support from the Weechat community is astounding. People like xt and Flashcode have ported the majority of irssi scripts just to help out people transitioning from Irssi to Weechat. On that note the new changes in weechat’s API make almost every thing customisable and scriptable. I do in fact still still make use of Irssi as a bouncer still until weechat’s relay plugin is stable enough. Hopefully this will be finished soon.
How scriptable is Weechat?
Weechat provides bindings for Python, Ruby(devel version even supports ruby 1.9 now), tcl, Perl, and of course C. Weechat has a very extensive API to plugin to almost every aspect of the Weechat functionality.
Is Weechat available in my language
Weechat supports Internationalization so even if it currently isn’t available feel free to translate it into your own language.
My Favourite scripts/features
First and foremost is weeget this is weechats script manager/updater. Once installed you are able to install/update any other script including its self by simply doing /weeget install $scritpname.
- iset – Allows a simple interface to edit/search for configurations
- weeget – see above.
- buffer_autoclose – basically closes inactive private buffers after a specific period, helps to keep things clean and neat.
- go – Allows for hot jumping to buffers
- screen_away – Script that sets your away status based on whether weechat’s screen is attached or not.
- shell – Allows simple commands to be executed from within weechat.
- urlgrab – Script that helps manage the annoyances of long urls that would normally be unclickable
- aspell – This is a plugin not a script! This highlights spelling mistakes on your input buffers so you can see quickly for those minor typo’s
Tips and Tricks
- Add the alias smart filter. Helps to hide useless info like joins and parts from inactive members of large channels ie #ubuntu-meeting
- Use weechat’s remote access.
- Read the FAQ it contains lots of useful information.
Hope this has been of some help to others.
Loco Team Contact Change
As Efrain already pointed out I have officially taken over as South African Ubuntu loco team contact from Jonathan Carter(highvoltage) with the other being Morgan Collett.
Hopefully I will have some more great news about Ubuntu-za to blog about in the future.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank Jonathan for all his hard work and effort he has put into this team and wish him all the best. The growth over the last year has been inspiring. I would also like to thank him for continuing to host our wiki.
So Shiretoko isn’t Firefox So Why Call It That?
I have been using the standard Ubuntu Jaunty repo version of Firefox-3.5 since before it was in the standard security repo when it was in fta’s ppa With this version I expected it to be buggy or have oddities such as being called Shiretoko. With the standard repository version I expect it to be Firefox
I know the reasoning was mentioned here some of the reasoning makes sense but if a user chooses to manually install firefox-3.5 they expect to get Firefox since this wont ever auto auto-update from 3.0 to 3.5 with out the users expressed permission I see this as an annoyance.
Calling it Shiretoko is annoying. Having the user-agent string below tends to break sites.
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.1) Gecko/20090701 Ubuntu/9.04 (jaunty) Shiretoko/3.5
Now I am not saying call this thing Firefox if it is really an ubuntu build of Shiretoko but since Shiretoko isn’t a standard or mainstream browser it wont be in any Device Database. such as WURFL or DeviceAtlas I say these because I mostly work with mobile related technology but the reasoning applies for any device db or user-agent checker.
Face Book makes horrid pop-up windows.
Use the Chat list on the right to start a conversation.You’re using an old web browser to browse Facebook. To use the full version of Chat from within a normal Facebook window, please upgrade your browser. Switch to Firefox.
Changing the user-agent of a browser in this day and age severely impacts on a users browsing experience. Since most websites now try to do browser detection (Some better then others) they generate different output for different browsers or even worse sorry this website only works in Netscape Navigator and IE 5 and above.
Ubuntu Pc Badges For ZA
A while ago I read Free Ubuntu Stickers but sadly they weren’t on offer in South Africa and I am sure the import duties would be more expensive then getting them printed locally so I kinda gave up for a while.
Then a few weeks ago I got my Laptop. It came standard with Windows Vista Business (Is that bad link love?) any how I never relisised how annoying it was to have to look at that Vista badge thing right next to where my left hand is support to rest. I got fed up and phoned around about getting my own Powered by Ubuntu stickers printed. You can’t get 1 or 10 printed they wont even listen to you so I decided it would be a worth while adventure to get 1500 printed and share them amoung the Ubuntu-za community.
I don’t actually intend to charge for the stickers that I currently have had printed. If any one from South Africa would like to see what we can do about getting you one please put your name on the Pc Badges page
Please excuse the bad quality photos I am not a photographer and the light was bad (and my gimp skills are shocking)
Before:
After:
Some of the stickers
And for those of you that want svg source this is based on some one elses Ubuntu Case Badges source but I can’t seem to find their blog post right now (I will update to include thanks when I find it).
Link found: http://doctormo.wordpress.com/2009/03/10/zareason-makers-of-swag/ They are based on these Thanks doctormo well actually https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MassachusettsTeam/Projects/AluminiumCaseBadges since here is where the source is located.