Matthew Revell

I love a good logo. The best find the simplest way to communicate a brand’s values.

Take a look at our very own Ubuntu logo, for a great example.

It’s recognisable whether it’s tiny or huge, black and white or in colour. With just three curves and three circles, it conveys Ubuntu’s commitment to community, humanity and cooperation.

Now, we - the Launchpad team - have been wondering if there might be a better logo for Launchpad. Whether it’s another interpretation of the rocket ship or something entirely different, we’re holding a competition to see what ideas other people have.

So, here are the details:

Closing date: 31 March 2008
Rules and all that: https://help.launchpad.net/logo
Prize: one of the snazzy new Ubuntu messenger bags.

You can submit as many entries as you like, although the competition isn’t open to Canonical staff or vendors. The Launchpad team will choose the winner by majority vote. If you want to see our current rocket logo in situ, take a look at the Launchpad project page.

Any questions? Find me (mrevell) in #launchpad on Freenode, leave a comment or send us a mail to feedback AT launchpad.net.

One of the goals we have for Launchpad is to offer different ways to get data in and out.

For example, in addition to the web interface we have an email interface for the Bug Tracker. For many people, the quickest way to file a bug is to fire off an email. Of course, it also provides a full range of options for editing and commenting on existing bugs.

In Launchpad 1.1.12 we introduced bug feeds. Now, each bug, person, team, project and distribution in Launchpad has an associated Atom feed. I’ve used my bug feed on the home page of my website to give a flavour of what I’m working on. As I use Wordpress, which has built-in support for MagpieRSS, this was supremely easy.

Upgrade to the latest Wordpress

Before you begin, you should upgrade to the latest Wordpress. Previously, I was running 2.2.2 and it had some trouble with the Atom feed.

Pulling in the feed

First off, you need to pull in MagpieRSS, which is distributed with Wordpress.

I’ve created a sidebar specifically for the my site’s home page and I’ve got the following at the top of my home-sidebar.php template file:

<?
include_once(ABSPATH . WPINC . '/rss.php');
$myBugs = fetch_rss("http://feeds.launchpad.net/~matthew.revell/latest-bugs.atom");
$myBugsItems = array_slice($myBugs->items, 0, 4);
?>

The first line includes MagpieRSS and the next creates an array of the feed’s posts in $myBugs. I don’t have too much room in my side bar, so I use the last line to cut it down to the top four entries.

Displaying the feed

Actually displaying the feed is simple:

<ul>
<? foreach ($myBugsItems as $item ) {
	$title = $item[title];
	$url   = $item[link];
	echo "<li><a href=$url>$title</a></li>";
}

?>
</ul>

I’m looking to seeing how other people, in particular projects, use these new feeds.

Please post a comment or
contact me if you’re using Launchpad’s feeds or you have a suggestion for how we can improve them.

Update: two suggestions of easier ways to achieve the same effect. Dave Murphy suggested Wigitize.com (hat-tip Joey) and Jeremy Visser commented that Wordpress has a widget to embed a feed into your page.

Something I forget to put in the original post was that I’ve also used straight MagpieRSS (i.e. without Wordpress) to create an ugly but functional page at http://launchpad.understated.co.uk/. The code is pretty much exactly as shown in the Wordpress example above.

The past few days I’ve tried using my ThinkPad R50e with a wired connection to my Linksys WRT54GS (version 6). I’m running Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy).

Each time I plugged the Ethernet cable into the Thinkpad, Network Manager took far longer than usual to connect to the network. Once connected, I had no access outside my own network - i.e. no internet access - and even connecting to some machines on my network was hit and miss.

The fix: a firmware upgrade. My router was running 1.50.6 of the firmware. Under 1.50.9, everything’s fine and dandy. Visit the WRT54GS downloads page.

I have a Nokia 6233. It’s a 3G phone and is on Virgin Mobile UK. With the help of a USB<->Nokia cable (£3 from eBay), I’ve just used it to connect my Ubuntu laptop to the internet.

Following two threads on the Ubuntu Forums I managed to get connected with minimal fuss.

Here’s my /etc/wvdial.conf:

[Dialer nokia]
Init2 = ATZ
Init3 = ATE0V1&D2&C1S0=0+IFC=2,2
Init5 = AT+CGDCONT=1,"IP","goto.virginmobile.uk";
Modem Type = USB Modem
ISDN = 0
Phone = *99***1#
Modem = /dev/ttyACM0
Username = user
Dial Command = ATDT
Password = wap
Baud = 460800

After disabling networking via the Gnome network-manager applet, I opened a terminal and typed wvdial nokia. After some blurb, it reported my primary and secondary DNS servers and I was online.

I don’t recommend you use Virgin Mobile for data, though. At £5.12 per MB you’ll pretty soon be remortgaging. However, it has proven that I can get online with a phone as a modem using Ubuntu, so I’m now off to find a provider with a decent data tariff. 3 and T-Mobile look favourite so far, although everyone I speak to at 3 seems to have very little knowledge of using a phone as a modem.

Last night, I tried bluetooth file transfers between a mobile phone and PC for the first time. Never needed to do it before, but today my Motorola PEBL goes back to Virgin Mobile - because it’s broken - and I get a new Nokia 6233 in return.

I was a guest on the most recent LugRadio and the subject of Bluetooth support under Linux came up. The general feeling was that Linux operating systems have poor Bluetooth support. So, I decided to give it a go.

Windows Vista: recognised dongle as soon as I plugged it in, giving me a Bluetooth icon in the status bar. Took longer than it should to find the option to make the computer discoverable. No matter what I did, though, the phone couldn’t find the computer. So, no transfers.

Ubuntu: nothing appeared to happen when I plugged the dongle in. However, when I opened Applications->Accessories->Bluetooth File Sharing I was able to send files to the computer with no problems.

You could argue that Windows Vista was more secure, because it wasn’t immediately discoverable. However, Ubuntu worked for me. Windows Vista didn’t.

I know, this is one case and I didn’t do anything fancy, such as use the phone as a modem. But it is nice to know, from my occasional dabbling with Vista, that it’s most often easier to get my stuff done using Ubuntu.

Just a quick note: you can find blogs from many of the Bazaar guys now at Planet Bazaar.

Bloggers featured so far include: Aaron Bentley, Andrew Bennetts, John Arbash Meinel, Mark Shuttleworth, Martin Pool, Robert Collins and Szilveszter Farkas.

It’s not long now until Ubuntu Live! July 22 - 24 in Portland, Oregon.

Ubuntu Live will be a great opportunity to learn more about the technical and business background to both Canonical and Ubuntu and how Launchpad and Bazaar fit into that.

So, if you’re particularly interested in Launchpad and Bazaar, the sessions to look out for are:

• How Ubuntu uses Launchpad - Matt Zimmerman, Paul Alexander
• An introduction to Launchpad for collaboration and hosting - John Meinel
• Tutorial: Collaboration and code hosting with Launchpad and Bazaar - John Meinel

It probably goes without saying that the Ubuntu project is the largest user of Launchpad. Hearing Matt and Paul’s tale of how Ubuntu uses Launchpad will give you a practical understanding of what makes Launchpad unique.

John Meinel’s talk will be a great way to see how Launchpad and Bazaar - together - can work for your project. In John’s tutorial session, he’ll then show exactly how Launchpad and Bazaar work together, with plenty of opportunity for attendees to learn the ins and outs.

Now’s a good time to book, if you’re thinking of going, as you can get a fat discount with the super-special-Canonical-discount-code Enter the code ubu07ucm to get a 35% discount.

Taking your first steps into a free software project can be intimidating.

Whether you want to code, write documentation, help with marketing or whatever, there’s a learning curve to overcome.

Launchpad lets people help each other

Launchpad is all about making it easier for free software people to work together. Recently, we introduced a new feature to do just that: mentoring.

Mentoring is simple: it provides an easy way for new participants to learn the ropes of a Launchpad team that they want to join.

An example scenario

It works like this:

• Daniel is a member of the Telepathy team. He wants to encourage more people to join the team but knows that new participants need to learn some basics. He offers mentorship for some bugs that he feels would be easy for new people to tackle and would help them learn the ropes.
• Sarah is interested in Telepathy. She visits the team’s mentoring page and sees a list of bugs that she can get help with.
• Sarah has some questions, so contacts Daniel using the details on his Launchpad profile page. Daniel answers her and Sarah gets to work.
• Sarah produces a number of patches, with iterative improvements thanks to Daniel’s feedback. The conversation takes place in the bug’s comments, meaning other people can easily take part.

During that process, Sarah learnt how to contribute effectively to the Telepathy team. The Telepathy team not only got one of its bugs fixed but gained a new member. Daniel found satisfaction in helping Sarah and the team, whilst having time to work on other bugs.

Mentoring is easy to manage

Importantly, the only people who had to give time to the process were Daniel and Sarah. Although offers of mentorship are linked to teams, team administrators don’t have to become involved. Mentoring is about relationships between individuals who choose to work together, so there’s no need for time-consuming bureaucracy to manage it.

Mentoring for Ubuntu

You can find all the offers of mentorship, that are related to Ubuntu, at:

https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+mentoring

There, you’ll see how recent each offer is, which team it’s linked to, who made the offer and which bug or blueprint it relates to.

You can find out more about mentoring in our guide at:

https://help.launchpad.net/MentoringManagement

What do you think?

I’m really keen to hear what you think of mentoring. To me, its simplicity is its strength. It’s so easy for both sides to use that I can see it quickly becoming a core way for communities to encourage and develop new members.

Comment here, drop me a mail, or join us on the launchpad-users mailing list.

It’s no secret that Dell will soon ship Ubuntu pre-installed.

This is fantastic news and reflects the quality of both the community Ubuntu team and the business development guys here at Canonical.

Congratulations to all involved!

Got a question about Launchpad? Want to make a suggestion or complaint? Or perhaps you just wanna say how much you love Launchpad We’ve got another Launchpad Users Meeting coming up this Wednesday 2nd May. It’s the ideal time to tell the Launchpad team what you think, to ask for help and to make feature requests.

Add your question, comment or suggestion to the agenda and I’ll rally up the relevant members of the Launchpad team to talk to you.

Look forward to seeing you.

• Where: #launchpad, irc.freenode.net
• When: 16.00 UTC 2nd May 2007
• Why? To talk directly to the Launchpad team.

Agenda: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LaunchpadUserMeeting/2007-05-02