Jokosher 0.2, nearly frozen
Well, after some months of hacking, Jokosher 0.2 enters its freeze at 12.00am on Nov 1st.
0.2 has a bunch of new features:
* **Volume Curve Mixing** – with an intuitive selection system, you can easily draw volume curves that occur in realtime.
* **Effects Support** – Jokosher 0.2 includes support for LADSPA effects. This opens up your projects to all kinds of potential.
* **Effects Presets** – in addition to LADSPA support, you can now load and save effects presets, making it easier to find and reuse those all important effects combinations.
* **Better Mixing Tools** – panning and master volume fading are now included.
* **International Support** – Jokosher 0.2 will be available in a number of different languages, so you can have your studio in your own language.
* **Extensions** – in 0.2 we now include support for third party extensions. This allows third party developers to make their own extensions with our extensions API. We will also ship some sample applications with Jokosher 0.2.
* **Click Track** – play perfectly in time with a configurable metronome.
* **Low Latency Recording** – reduced latency when recording and playing back audio at the same time.
Tonight I hacked in the click track, lukas added his extension manager, Aq hacked on his freesound extension, and a bunch of other patches have gone in. We are on target to hit our freeze, and then a good solid few weeks bug fixing.
This is where you ‘orrible lot come in. We need you to test Jokosher, and do *lots* testing for us. You will need a recent GStreamer CVS (see [this page](https://jokosher.python-hosting.com/wiki/InstallingCvsGstreamer) to set it up) and Jokosher out of subversion. We want as much feedback as possible about how well Jokosher is working. For more details of how to submit a bug report, head over to [this page](https://jokosher.python-hosting.com/wiki/ReportingBugs).
Its really great to see a nice development team forming – we have some great hackers here, and I think we should be able to spit out a nice solid release, with *your* help. 🙂
Introducing…Pepper!
Internet people, meet Pepper, Pepper, meet the Internet people:
This is our new mini long-haired dachshund, Pepper.
My other half, Sooz, has set up a new community that tracks the fun and games of our two pups, Frankie and Pepper. Go and see [mydoxiearmy](https://community.livejournal.com/mydoxiearmy). See [this post](https://community.livejournal.com/mydoxiearmy/278.html) for details of how we got him and how he has been getting on. 🙂
Edgy upgrade
I just upgraded my main computer to Edgy. I have been running it for some time on my development laptop, but now my main box is up and running. It feels like a good solid release, and well done to the army of contributors who made it happen.
Like anyone, I have my favourite applications, and one such app that is critical to my working day is Rhythmbox. I listen to music *all day, every day*, and I absolutely love Rhythmbox. The new version in Edgy is glorious. This specific upgrade has made me particularly happy. Other notable faves for me include:
* OpenOffice.org – Good release, faster, better multimedia support.
* Firefox 2.0 – Ubuntu is first distro to include Firefox 2.0, and it rocks. Inline spell checking is particularly cool.
* Evolution – My life lives in Evolution and the upgrade is awesome. Better threading, Cairo calendar events and more are keeping me happy.
* Better Qt/KDE integration – Qt and KDE apps look better integrated in Edgy, and Scribus no longer has stupid huge fonts. 🙂
There are of course more important things to consider such as better hardware support, translations, performance tweaks, upstart and more, but the above are my particular faves. Now its onto Feisty, and man…is that going to kick some arse 🙂
LinuxWorld Report
**UPDATE: Sorry folks, I had to remove the inline photos as jonobacon.com was getting hammered by the traffic. I have instead put links in. Offers of hosting to the usual address** 🙂
Well, that was [LinuxWorld](https://www.linuxworldexpo.co.uk/). The last two days have been extremely busy, but productive and great fun. I figured it would be worthwhile to provide my own account of the event, and this will be of interest for the ever incredible Ubuntu, Jokosher and LUGRadio communities.
### Tuesday
I got down to LinuxWorld late on Tuesday, headed over to Canonical HQ for a meeting with Matt Zimmerman and then over to LinuxWorld to help with setup. The stand was already done, so I hooked up with the MythTV and Bytemark guys and headed out for dinner and drinks. Got to bed at about 3am having met up with Sladen and Matt L for some late beers in the hotel.
### Wednesday
Up early, down to LinuxWorld, and met up with some Canonical people I have not met before. Also met the excellent Ubuntu UK and Jokosher teams who are bravely manning and womening the stands at LinuxWorld. Good to meet a bunch of new people who are taking part in the stands, and good to put names to faces. I was heartened by the energy and excitement of everyone who took part.
The Ubuntu UK stand was filled with laptops, free CDs, stickers and posters, and they were also selling rather nice polo shirts with the Ubuntu logo. The stand was inside the .org Village and was packed for the *entire event* – there was literally a bubble of people around the stand at all times. To help promote the Ubuntu love I grabbed a roll of stickers and went around the entire .org Village stamping stickers on laptops that were running Ubuntu. A *huge* amount of computers at LinuxWorld were running it.
Click for image!
*The Ubuntu UK stand with a fraction of the volunteers*
Rather conveniently, next to the Ubuntu UK stand was the Jokosher stand. Again, filled with laptops and infosheets, the Jokosher boys were demoing the latest bleeding edge Jokosher and got lots of really great feedback. It seems people are getting pretty damn exciting about Jokosher, and are looking forward to our 0.2 release in November which will allow you to do real recording and editing with it.
Click for image!
*The Jokosher team, spreading the simple yet powerful audio love at LinuxWorld*
The Canonical stand, on the edge of the .org Village was heaving from start to finish with excited and interested vistors keen to know about Ubuntu and Canonical. With the rumours about Oracle and Ubuntu, we were inundated with questions about this too. The Oracle support announcement was eventually posted later that evening.
Click for image!
*The Canonical stand was always hectic*
After meeting the troops, I was scheduled to perform my *Ubuntu Update* talk on the IBM stand. The IBM stand had 18 seats on their platform, and I was pleased to see a big crowd waiting for me there. I was informed by a pal of mine from IBM that over 180 people attended the talk, the biggest of the day, and the crowd literally blocked the gangways and walkways around the stand. The talk went down pretty well, and it was a fun crowd. Lots of great questions afterwards too. Thanks to everyone who came.
Click for image!
*Me speaking at the Ubuntu Update talk*
After that it was off to the *Great Linux Debate* where I participated in the debate with a bunch of other guys. The topic was Virtualization and it generated some fun and interesting questions.
I then grabbed lunch, met up with the stand folks and then headed off with the Ubuntu UK team for an Ubuntu UK meeting. The meeting was incredibly productive and we discussed a huge range of areas and ideas for getting Ubuntu UK up and running. It was well attended and everyone is psyched about Ubuntu UK and just how much cool stuff we can do. Nik is going to post the notes when he gets some time.
Interspersed in this busy day, I spent time at the Canonical booth talking to people and gauging the interest. People are hugely interested in Ubuntu. There was one guy who came over though and accused us of copying Windows, including all the problems. His venom was impressive and despite my attempt at calming his concerns, he left rather worked up that the Linux world is not going the way he wants it to. Well, we have choice, use another distro. His issues were really not with Ubuntu but with KDE and GNOME and their supposed “copying of Windows”.
As the show closed, we headed to the pub for a quick pint and then I got back to the hotel, threw on my tux and headed off to the [UK Linux & Open Source Awards](https://www.linuxawards.co.uk/). I was really pleased to meet up with Ton Roosendaal there and we caught up on Blender and their presence at SigGraph. The awards were predictably swanky and I had a great time. I was really pleased to see Michael Meeks get a recognition award for his involvement in free software. He is a real example to us all, and Ton accepted the award for Elephants Dream, another well deserved accolade.
Relevant to me, Ubuntu bagged the award for best distro (voted by the readers), and LUGRadio Live won an award for Best Marketing Campaign. Let me explain what happened here, as I was a judge. When we did the judging conference call, the subject of the marketing award came up. Many of the judges were entirely unimpressed with the entries, and one judge suggested that LUGRadio Live be considered. At this point I made clear I was not going to vote (to ensure objectivity), and pretty much every other judge agreed that LUGRado Live should win it. Now spin on to the awards evening. I was very concerned that people are aware that I did not vote on the award and that it was entirely legit. When it came to the award, the first nominee was read out and the room was silent. Then LUGRadio Live was read out and the entire room erupted with cheers and applause in support for LUGRadio Live. I was fucking gobsmacked. I know we have a hardcore of fans, but I never expected so much support from inside a crowd so representative of the industry. We were then announced as winners and I went to the stage to pick up the award. Thanks everyone, my gob is still well and truly smacked. The objectivity of the award was also explained as I picked up the award and Graham Taylor commented on my embarrassment at winning. You know, I don’t get embarrassed much, but it was quite strange, and I am pleased that the award’s objectivity was communicated well. Of course, some jokers figured some wind up was in order, and the gags flowed in the bar after the awards. Like the rest of the team, I want to thank our awesome community and the many people who have supported our little show over the years. This award is not just for us, its for the legions of incredible people who have helped us. We will *never* forget your involvement and *always* ensure the show is what it is – a grassroots show by the community, for the community. 🙂
The awards finished, I met up some other old friends and then as the night drew to a close, I hung out with my old workmates from OpenAdvantage as well as the legendary Paul Sladen. At about 2am I headed back to the hotel, checked my mail, fixed up some Jokosher stuff for the next day, and hit the sack at around 4am.
### Thursday
Got up, grabbed breakfast. Matt Zimmerman was in the same hotel so had breakfast with him, then headed off to the venue, met up with the stand dudes and dudettes and got talking to people. I then headed off to give my *Cracking Open The Open Source Desktop* talk – it was well received and they were a fun crowd. As soon as that finished I dashed out to *The Great Linux Debate* which was on the GPL. Some great discussion, a bit more lively than the day before. Was good to hook up with Brian Behlendorf again. I was not expecting him there, so was good to hang out with him again.
Grabbed some lunch, back to the stands. An amusing chat with an Oracle dude about the news. Demoed the volume fades code to the Jokosher guys, and spent a lot of time talking to the legions of people who fed into the stands I was part of. It really was genuinely hectic, and I never expected the Thursday to be as hectic as the Wednesday, but it was. It was nice to see people come over and say hi.
As the show closed, we took an awesome picture of the Ubuntu UK team at the main Canonical/Ubuntu stand:
Click for image!
*The Ubuntu UK crew in all their glory*
We then headed to the Hand and Flower for a quick pint, and then Chris Procter and I got the train back to wolves and chewed the fat on the way back about jobs, Jokosher, Linux and everything else in-between.
All in all a great few days, and a real testament to the community. This year was much more community orientated, and the .org Village was certainly the most dominantly populated part of the show. It was busy, I helped run three stands, did two talks, two panel debates, one community meeting, judged awards, hooked together relationships and took part in endless discussions, but every drop of energy was worth it. I am intensely proud of Ubuntu UK team and the Jokosher team, and their excitement and enthusiasm shone through to the visitors who visited the stands. Good work folks, *now* lets see what we can do. 🙂 read more…
Quickie
LinuxWorld London is kicking arse. The Ubuntu army have taken hold and there is a buzz. The Jokosher boys are spreading the love. LUGRadio won an award for Best Marketing Campaign. More later when (a) I am not drunk and (b) I have time. Out.
Heading to LinuxWorld
Right, down at LinuxWorld in London from later today until late Thursday. Plan of events:
* **Tue Evening** – Set up and a curry somewhere.
* **Wed 25th Oct 2006 11.30am – 11.50am** – Talk about Ubuntu on the IBM stand (free to view).
* **Wed 25th Oct 2006 12.30pm – 1.30pm** – Panelist on The Great Linux Debate about Virtualisation (free to view).
* **Wed 25th Oct 2006 2.30pm – 4pm** – Ubuntu UK Meet Up – taking place at the Ubuntu UK stand at *ov14* in the .org Village (free to attend).
* **Wed Evening** – UK Linux & Open Source Awards Dinner (paid event).
* **Thur 26th Oct 2006** – 11.50am – 12.20pm – Talk on Cracking Open The Linux Desktop in the conference (pay to view)
* **Thur 26th Oct 2006** – 12.30pm – 1.30pm – Panelist on The Great Linux Debate about the GPL (free to view).
Other than these events, I will be kicking around the show and spending time at the Canonical booth at stand *B57*. Come over and say hi. Also check out the Jokosher stand at stand OV13 in the .org Village – come and see the 0.2 goodness. 🙂
On transferring settings…
Why is it not easy and obvious to transfer settings from one computer to another? One example is transferring Evolution’s mail filters. There seems to be no easy approach. I want to click `Backup Evolution’s Settings` and it generate a file which I can transfer to my second machine, click `Restore Evolution’s Settings`, and everything be working. Its the same version of Evolution, and the same distro – stuff like this should be *easy*. But no, I instead enter the misery of setting up stacks and stacks of mail filters manually. 🙁
Imagine then expanding that to the desktop. Take a dump of GConf and provide some glue to restore everything. Surely that was the idea?
An Open Source music process
As many of you will know, I have my own music at [Recreant View](https://www.recreantview.org/). On that site I write and record all my own music and make it available under the Creative Commons. Well, for quite some time I have been thinking it would be cool to treat Recreant View as a project and get people involved in making art, transcribing the music and otherwise being a part of a music driven collaboration.
Well, the first contribution came through today from Dominik Heck in Germany, who created a CD cover for my recent [Voices Of Freedom](https://www.recreantview.org/blog/?page_id=67) song:
This is a different, and interesting way of collaborating with music. If anyone wants to create any art for the other songs, transcribe the music or otherwise be a part of this, let me know. 🙂
Making applications look schaweeeeet
When we started the Jokosher project, we wanted it to kick arse and take names when it came to usability, but also attractiveness. This is why my-friend-and-yours J5 is displayed in the New Project dialog, and why we have spent a lot of time on making Jokosher look attractive, yet neat.
Dialog design is essential here. God gave you eyes and Carl Worth gave you Cairo for a reason, so lets set them on fire and make our applications look the bomb. As Laszlo [blogged about](https://laszlok2.blogspot.com/2006/10/beautiful-i18n-graphics-part-2.html), I added some header images to the effects dialog boxes when I was hacking on the code; this was to make the dialogs look consistent (by using the orange Jokosher theme) and attractive. One of the problems was with kind of approach was translating the text I put in the images – the text was part of a bitmap. This is a big problem now Jokosher is feeling the i18n love. To fix this, Laszlo recently replaced the images with a Cairo equivalent. As such, now we have good looking dialog boxes that translate well.
Traditionally, form and function have divided people into two approximate camps, one accused of being orange-sunglasses-wearing-hippy-web-two-point-zero-idolising-feckless-morons and the other described as over-technical-geeky-binary-lovers-with-no-mates. Why do we even need to make a choice? Why can’t we feel the love of powerful software…with rounded edges and shiny dialog boxes?
As our desktop moves into a new era, one driven by windows that wobble, software that gets ever more advanced and users that demand attractiveness and ability, we have so much opportunity. Hey, its not as if we don’t have an incredible platform to do this. Using Cairo as one such example, we have such an awesome ability to use this important component in our desktop to re-shape how we look at software. When I was hacking on the effects dialogs, sure, I could have made my life easier if I just used a plain old push-button for each effect, but I really wanted the dialog to have some life and have some character. There are of course usability concerns here too – in a future version of Jokosher I would like to replace the effects listed in the dialog box with images that look like a physical effects unit such as a stomp box. Cairo gives us the ability to break away from the Gtk mold and explore better ways of representing concepts on the desktop, and better ways to deliver attractive interfaces. Feel the power!
Of course, with power also comes responsibility, and like many of you folks, I never want to see our desktop turn into the invent-your-own-interface-and-toolkit bonanza that is going on in the Windows world. Here we want consistency of toolkit and HIG, but scope to develop new constructs and ideas where it makes sense. When I look at the GNOME desktop, I always feel like there is an opportunity for someone to wave a paintbrush over it to spruce it up. Lets see some of that action going on.
RaccoonShow Maintainer: Apply Within
Quite a while back I wrote a little program called RaccoonShow. It takes a PDF file with a bunch of slides from a presentation, an audio file and a text files with some times, and generates a Flash animation of the presentation with the slides and audio synced. I wrote it largely for my own use, and released some of my talks using it.
Well, its languishing right now as I am working on other things (with Jokosher as my primary hacking project), so I want to hand the code over to a new maintainer. It is written in Python and uses swftools, and is currently a command line app. I always planned on writing a simple GUI for it too as a seperate application. It is licensed under the GPL.
So, if you fancy hacking on it, post a comment on this entry. You can [get the latest release here](https://archivedblog.jonobacon.com/files/raccoonshow-0.6.tgz). I am specifically looking to transfer the project to a new maintainer.
I think it would be a really great project for someone to work on, and can potentially help thousands of presenters around the world. So, if you want to work on a useful, inspiring project, grab the code, hack it and let me know what you are doing. I would preferably like to choose a new maintainer, but you can obviously grab the code and do what you like with it within the remit of the GPL. 🙂