Blogging Tips
Today I had a call with another team at [Canonical](https://www.canonical.com) who were wanting to ask for guidance on (a) how to write good blog entries that people want to read and (b) how to regularly get into the habit of blogging and get more eyeballs on your posts.
I thought this could be of general interest to the community, so I figured I would write these things down into a blog entry. So meta. 🙂
Some tips:
* **Keep it concise** – your blog should get the point and talk through the topic you are presenting. Now…seasoned readers of my own work will know I tend to ramble from time to time, so I myself always need to try and keep this in check. Few people will want to commit to a huge block of text, so keep it concise.
* **Format it** – the web has many wonderful things, and this includes formatting such as *italic*, **bold**, `code`, different heading sizes and more. Use them to help add emphasis to your posts.
* **Make it visual** – pictures say a thousand words, and so do videos. Break up your content with images illustrating what you are discussing, or just amusing images to make a joke ([example](https://archivedblog.jonobacon.com/2011/04/01/i-am-jef-spaleta/)). If you want to display images, I recommend you upload them to [Flickr](https://www.flickr.com) and then link directly to the images. For videos you can usually embed them directly from YouTube or other video sharing sites, but aggregators such as [Planet Ubuntu]() often strip out the embedded videos, so be sure to provide a direct link underneathe the embedded video ([example](https://archivedblog.jonobacon.com/2012/02/07/ubuntu-global-jam-call-for-events-2/)).
* **Link to interesting things** – if you are discussing something online, always provide a link to it. This helps the user get access to the information quickly and easy.
* **Be professional** – always keep your posts professional and thorough. Ensure your writing is clear and that you have spell and grammar checked it.
* **Be fun** – being professional doesn’t mean you can’t be fun. Writing in a fun and amusing way is a great way to keep your readers interested.
* **Invite discussion** – if your blog has a comments feature, always end your posts and ask for input and opinions from your readers. This provides a wonderful way to trigger some discussion around your post.
In terms of blogging more and getting more eyeballs on your posts, here are some tips:
* **Get into the habit** – to become a regular blogger you need to get into the habit of thinking “*this is cool, I should blog about this*”. This can take a while to get used to. If you are in a team, it is helpful to suggest to others when they should blog about something; this keeps us all regularly posting. If you are struggling with getting into the habit, put a reminder in your calendar to remind you.
* **Ensure you are aggregated** – if you are an Ubuntu Member, be sure to add your post to [Planet Ubuntu](https://planet.ubuntu.com). Add your post to other appropriate aggregators (e.g. Canonical staff should add their blogs to [voices.canonical.com](https://voices.canonical.com)).
* **Use social media** – post a link to your post on Twitter, Google+, Facebook and other social media accounts.
I am sure there are plenty of other suggestions from you folks; please add them to the comments!
Canonical Community Team Meeting – 7th Feb 2012
Minutes are [available here](https://ubottu.com/meetingology/logs/ubuntu-community-team/2012/ubuntu-community-team.2012-02-07-16.00.moin.txt).
Ubuntu Global Jam: Call For Events!
Ubuntu Global Jam: Call For Events!
From **2nd – 4th March 2012** we will be running the [Ubuntu Global Jam](https://loco.ubuntu.com/events/global/1443/detail/). This is a global event in which we ask Ubuntu users and contributors to organize events in their local areas to meet other Ubuntu people and help contribute to Ubuntu.
The Ubuntu Global Jam is a fun event, and a great way to meet other Ubuntu and Free Software folks. It is also really easy to organize an event if there is not one near you.
To explain more, tonight I created a video explaining what the Ubuntu Global Jam is, and how to organize an event:
**Can’t see it? [Click here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITk8PGBkMXQ)!**
We are going to be encouraging you good folks to start organizing your events. You can find out more about the events [here at loco.ubuntu.com](https://loco.ubuntu.com/events/global/1443/detail/) and more information [on the wiki](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuGlobalJam).
Please feel free to ask whatever questions you like about how to organize an event in the comments here. Do let me know if you organize an event!
Mike is also working on some website updates on loco.ubuntu.com that will make the event a little more interested both before and when the event is running.
Canonical Community Team Google+ Hangout
On Friday we had the first Google+ Hangout with the full Canonical Community team. To observe this important moment we all showed how happy we were:
Sponsored by Colgate.
L-R: Daniel Holbach, David Planella, Yours Truly, Jorge Castro, Michael Hall, and Nicholas Skaggs.
Google Hangouts are awesome for team meetings.
Ubuntu Q+A Videocast Today
Today (1st Feb 2012) I will be doing my live Ubuntu Q+A session at **12pm Pacific / 3pm Eastern / 8pm UK / 9pm Europe**. You can join the videocast [here](https://www.ustream.tv/channel/at-home-with-jono-bacon) (*anyone can view, but if you want to ask a question you should register an account with ustream.tv first*).
All questions are welcome!
Unity 5.2: Testers Needed!
A new Unity has been pushed into the Unity team’s PPA and we need testers to help give it a run for it’s money before it is accepted into Precise. Nick has all the details of how to participate in the testing [right here](https://www.theorangenotebook.com/2012/01/unity-52-whats-new-and-call-for-testing.html). You will need to be running Precise to participate in the testing.
You can also find help if you get stuck in `#ubuntu-unity` on Freenode. Happy testing!
I am running it now and the multi-monitor improvements in Precise are so much better than they used to be.
Severed Fifth Release Party this Friday in San Francisco
*Can’t see the video? Watch it [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8u2WzyHlV2c).*
Just a quick note to let you know that this Friday, **3rd February** in San Francisco we will be having the [Severed Fifth](https://www.severedfifth.com) CD Release Party. The new album ‘Liberate’ was funded by donations from the Severed Fifth community and will be released soon under a [Creative Commons](https://www.creativecommons.org) license.
As such, on Friday we will be releasing the album at **Cafe Cocomo, 650 Indiana St, San Francisco, CA** where we will perform a full, live set of the new record. We will also be supported by *Ulysses Siren* and *My Victim*. Not only this but everyone who comes to the show will get a free copy of the new album on CD and there will plenty of give-aways and prizes.
Tickets are $10 advance ($12 on the door). You can buy tickets for the show [here](https://www.inticketing.com/events/183364) as well as buying tickets on the door. Doors open at 8pm.
I would love to encourage you to come out to support Creative Commons and local music and have a great time. 🙂
More Ubuntu Accomplishments Hacking
I spent some more time this weekend hacking on the Ubuntu Accomplishments spec [I blogged about recently](https://archivedblog.jonobacon.com/2012/01/23/hacking-on-accomplishments/). 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!
Python GTK Documentation
After my [recent blog post](https://archivedblog.jonobacon.com/2012/01/24/from-old-to-new-python-gtk/) about the lack of Python GTK documentation since the new era of GIR bindings, I was delighted to find [this awesome online documentation](https://python-gtk-3-tutorial.readthedocs.org/en/latest/index.html).
I am certainly not presuming that this documentation was as a result of someone reading my blog post; I assume I didn’t see it online before, but thankyou to everyone who has contributed to it.
Quick Team Update
I just wanted to provide a quick update on how the team is doing on our [set of commitments in the 12.04 cycle](https://archivedblog.jonobacon.com/2011/11/22/canonical-community-team-12-04-plans/). Feel free to ask questions in the comments.
In terms of general team progress, this is how our [burndown chart](https://status.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-precise/canonical-community.html) looks today:
I asked each of the guys on the team to follow up with their respective community members to start moving the needle on those work items. As such, if you committed to something in 12.04 for our team’s burndown, expect Jorge, Daniel, or David to come knocking on your door soon.
With Nick and Michael joining the team recently, their work is not reflected in this burndown – their work will appear in the 12.10 burndown.
## Developer Growth
Daniel’s core focus in this cycle is developer growth. The first step here is ensuring that our developer processes are working effectively. Over the holiday period the [sponsorship queue](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SponsorshipProcess) got a little out of shape, so I asked Daniel to work with the patch pilots to get this back on track. Good progress is being made:
You can see how the queue is falling back down at the end of the graph since Daniel started hammering on this over the last few weeks. Thanks to all the patch pilots for their hard work.
Daniel has also been fixing up some metrics so we can track this work more effectively, and putting together a developer outreach team to provide a more personal level of support to get developers through the process. He will be speaking more about this in the coming weeks.
## Cloud and Juju
Jorge is focused on growing the Juju charming community and is making great progress. A [tour of events is planned](https://cloud.ubuntu.com/2012/01/hitting-the-road-with-juju-talks-and-charm-schools/) and Jorge has a hit-list of upstream projects which he is focusing on to get charms put together for. We are seeing good progress on this list and I am confident Jorge will hit his goals in this cycle.
Juju really is awesome. You should [check it out](https://juju.ubuntu.com/).
## App Developers
David has been focusing on app developers in this cycle. A first chunk of work here is helping the *App Review Board* to get in shape. The ARB has a large queue of content to get through, so in Budapest we sat down and dissected the ARB process and made a bunch of optimizations. David has been coordinating with the team to help coordinate this work, and we are seeing progress happening.
We have recently seen three lenses get through the ARB, and David is going to be starting a regular cadence of queue reviews to keep the ball rolling. Thanks to the ARB for all your contributions.
David originally planned a Phase II set of additions to [developer.ubuntu.com](https://developer.ubuntu.com), but with some re-structuring from the Canonical web team, those plans have been put on hold a little. Instead d.u.c is now being put into maintenance mode and we identified a set of things that need fixing (particularly on the publishing side), and David is coordinating those changes.
The next chunk of work will be outreach to grow our app developer community. Stay tuned for more…and an up-coming competition…
## Upstream Relations
Michael is the new upstream community coordinator, and will be focusing on Unity in particular as he gets started. I have asked him to first work with the Desktop Experience team to help get their community merge proposals in shape. There are a number of branches that have been sitting around for a while, and Michael is coordinating a patch pilot scheme to ensure these get reviewed regularly. We expect to see this in place over the next week.
Michael has also been performing an assessment of Mozilla’s SUMO for a potential solution for help in Ubuntu. He has put together an extensive report and a test instance to play with and he will be working with the docs team to continue assessing this as a solution. I am excited to see what work happens here.
Finally, next week we will be putting together an upstream target list for Michael to reach out to to start engaging app authors more effectively around our technology. I am excited to see this work progressing.
…oh, and one other thing: Michael is working with Didier to merge [Singlet](https://mhall119.com/2012/01/simplified-unity-lens-development-with-singlet/) into Quickly. This should make creating Unity lenses a piece of cake. Bring it!
## QA
Finally, the latest addition to the team has been Nick Skaggs. Nick has been working with the QA around a few core pieces of work:
* Getting our manual test infrastructure in place. We are going to be piloting Case Conductor as a solution that will fit alongside Jenkins.
* Consolidating our QA community teams. Nick is evaluating our current QA on-ramp and then we will put together a proposal for bringing more efficiencies and consistency to the QA community.
* Building a take-and-bake testing process so Ubuntu Engineering can reach out to Nick to facilitate community testing more effectively.
The former two items will take time to put in place, but the latter item should be in place in the next week. As such, you should see a regular stream of testing campaigns driven by Nick in 12.04. Be sure to keep an eye on his [blog](https://www.theorangenotebook.com/).
## . . .
Of course, there are lots of other things going on, but these summarize some of the key themes.