Stunning
I was delighted to wake up today and see [Jimmac’s Jokosher Waveform Mockups](https://jimmac.musichall.cz/weblog.php/Design/JokosherPreview).
This is one of the things I love most about Open Source and collaborative development – we all have our different skills and abilities, and when you take someone such Jimmac, with his excellent artistic abilities, it sparks new ideas and thoughts within a project not typically dominated with such abilities. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if some of these ideas get implemented in March when we lift our feature freeze.
This is what free software is all about – working together with our different skills and abilities, united by common goals to make really incredible applications.
LUGRadio Live 2007 – Get those papers in!
Wow, we have been getting some pretty cool papers submitted for the glorious and spectacular [LUGRadio Live 2007](https://www.lugradio.org/live/2007/), but we are greedy for more. This blog gets aggregated on more sites than I care to imagine, so people, get [submitting your papers](https://www.lugradio.org/live/2007/index.php/Call_For_Papers) NOW! and be a part of the legend that will be LUGRadio Live 2007.
Jokosher YouTube’d
Adam Gautier has been kind enough to split into parts the Jokosher talk I did at LCA and put it on YouTube. So, Jokosher fans, [check it out](https://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=D985A2229718FA8D).
Off to Skycon
Well, back in the UK, for a day and then out to Ireland this weekend for [Skycon](https://skycon.skynet.ie/). We fly out on Thursday and return on Monday. While there I will be speaking about herding cats and influencing people. In addition to this, my fellow large gents in the LUGRadio team will also be speaking, that is, apart from Ade who it turns out is too bald to go to Ireland this time (some kind of terrorism security check that prevents those with an acute level of baldness flying to Ireland). To bad our non-hirsute hero cannot make it.
If you are heading to Skycon, drop me a line and we can meet up.
SCALEtastic
Well, day one of SCALE is over and I am just sat in the hotel restaurant having had breakfast. Yesterday was great. Good mix of exhibitors (much bigger than last year, about twice the size) and a good range of talks.
My talk (Herding Cats) went pretty well. It was standing room only in the room and the audience were fun and responsive, and it was great fun delivering the talk. Doing talks when the audience are on the same page as you is always a pleasure to do. There were also a number of interesting questions at the end of the talk.
I then headed out to do a couple of interviews and a few meetings. After dinner I had an Ubuntu BOF scheduled, and I was not aware of this until a few hours previous. I was expecting to cancel it, but a number of people showed up and it quickly turned into a Q+A session with me about Ubuntu, Canonical, Launchpad and various other things. It was a really interesting and fun session, and the people who attended are hugely passionate about Ubuntu and free software. It is meeting people like that that give me a real kick out of my work – the community never ceases to impress me.
After this was a raffle. Any rumours about me throwing a small Python book at Dave Neary while he had nodded off have been grossly exaggerated. Then followed a game of pictionary which quickly descended into mockery of the teams involved. Like last year, Meryl decided to that I was ripe for humiliation and went so far as having her own special pile of pictionary terms for me, such as *Intellectual Property*. Gee, thanks. Mind, she got her revenge when I gave her *Functional Programming Linguistics*. Hah, enjoy that.
Then followed mucho drinks and discussion, and it was great to hang out with a bunch of people in the bar, including the always fun Jeremy from LinuxQuestions. 🙂
Right, onto day 2…
LA, LA, LA, LA…LA LA…LA
Over in LA right now for [SCALE](https://www.socallinuxexpo.org/scale5x/) and having a good time. I got into LA at about 6pm last night, got to the hotel, dumped my bags, had a swift pint in the bar and met some of the organisers and familiar faces from last year. Then, the Rt Hon Ted Haeger and Erin ‘Ted’s Bitch’ Quill showed up and we went for dinner. A bit later Dave ‘Pig Lover’ Neary appeared and we went to a party in the conf organisers suite at the hotel. Drunk lots of beer, got virtually no sleep, but felt uncanny satisfaction at sleeping in the worlds singular largest bed that I have ever seen. In fact, I deliberately slept from left to right just because I could. Simple things…
Its a good show, bigger than last year, and my talk is in an hour or so. Its been great to meet some of the same faces from last year, and particularly good to see Brother Ted, a kindred spirit. Its been way too long since we last met up, and so much has happened since then. Good to meet up, compare notes, reminisce over past experiences, joke about burning down certain restaurants…
As I mentioned before, one of the great things about heading out to these shows is that I often get little gifts and keepsakes from people. I always find this quite touching. This has included:
* A carrier bag given to me in Holland from a shop with the word *Bollocks* in the name.
* A DVD of a self-made rock-chick flick given to me in LA at SCALE last year – apparently the guy is giving me the sequel this year. 🙂
* A little boat and statue given to me in Sydney by Miguel Ruiz from Chile.
* A small wooden instrument given to me by a community member in Holland.
Well, added to the list is a chap who gave me a bottle of *Arrogant Bastard*, a local brew here in LA. On one hand an excellent gift, on the other hand, a swift kick in the nuts. Cheeky bugger… 😛
Jokosher: Call For Testers
On Friday last week, [Jokosher](https://www.jokosher.org/) hit its feature freeze. This means that no new features will enter Jokosher and the next month will be spent purely on bug-fixing. As some of you will know, there has actually been little major new functionality in Jokosher since 0.2 – this release is about bug-fixing and getting Jokosher streamlined, sanding off the edges and getting it stable.
Now, we need your help. We really, *really* do. We want Jokosher 0.9 (the next release, scheduled for a March release) to be rock-solid. We have a month scheduled for bug fixing, but we need to know your bugs. We need you folks to test it and report problems to us so we can fix them. Without lots of testing, Jokosher will simply not be stable enough. If we all work together, we will have a rock-solid Jokosher on our hands. 🙂
So how do you do this? Well, I have written a [simple little guide](https://userdocs.jokosher.org/TestingDevelopmentJokosher). Testing is a pretty simple process and requires no programming knowledge – it just means you test Jokosher and tell us when it screws up. So, go read [the guide](https://userdocs.jokosher.org/TestingDevelopmentJokosher) and help us test it and make it kick some arse.
We also have our [Jokosher Forums](https://www.jokosher.org/forums/) as a place to discuss the application and your experiences testing it. Specifically, the [Help Forum](https://www.jokosher.org/forums/viewforum.php?f=2) is useful for testing related discussion.
I am serious here – we *really*, **really** need your help testing Jokosher. It is critical that we get as many bug reports as possible about things that don’t work quite right so we can nail them for the next version, which will be making an appearance in most distros when it is released. Now is the time, *test it, report it, discuss it!*
Nice one Steve
Credit where credit is due to Steve Jobs for his recent [Open Letter](https://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughtsonmusic/). This is *exactly* the kind of discussion people in his position should be having to promote an open marketplace and freedom. His letter quite clearly states that “if the Big 4 music companies provide DRM-free songs, this will be a good thing” – I am impressed that he is taking this stance, particularly with their dominant market position and pre-existing relationships with the Big 4.
It also makes me chuckle. There seems to be a bit of this going on:
> Five Years Ago…
> Steve: Hi Big 4, we are creating this online music store and trendy little device to play the music on. We are a cool company, and admired by a generation of people with disposable income, would you like to be a part of it?
> Big 4: Hmmm, sounds a bit dangerous…
> 6 months later…
> Big 4: OK, we will be part of it, but we need you to make something called a DRM that will protect our precious music.
> Steve: Of course, protecting music is essential…utterly essential. You wish is my iCommand.
> 5 years and 2 billion songs later…
> Steve: Haha suckers! You should be using DRM free systems and we own the music player market!
Interesting about-turn. Kudos Steve. Want to come and speak at LUGRadio Live 2007? We will you a pint. 🙂
In LA this weekend
This weekend I am over in Los Angeles for the [SoCal Linux Expo](https://www.socallinuxexpo.org/scale5x/). I went last year and it really is an excellent conference. Hopefully this time I will also get to see a little bit of LA – last year I got stuck in the hotel for the entire trip.
As ever, always keen to meet up with people, so drop me a line if you are going to be there and fancy a pint or something. I get into LA on the Friday at around 6pm, so should be there for the Friday evening social, and I fly back to England on the Monday.
A title with no talk…nothing new
I wish I was a full-time web developer for one reason and one reason only – I would love to do a presentation extolling the greatness of Atom and give it the title *Kicking RSS and Taking Names*. You heard it here first people…
Anyone else have any comedy talk suggestions?