Knowing that Macs use the same printing system as Ubuntu, I assumed that this would be complicated as well, so I had postponed it for some time. This week I finally got to setting it up, and it was really simple.

I didn’t have to enter any information at all, it was just a matter of clicking four buttons.

Start the printers control panel from the System menu. This reveals the following window:

1. Click the “new” button (“Ny” in Norwegian).  This revealed the following window:
   
2. You don’t have to enter anything, just click “Forward” (“Framover” in Norwegian). The configuration wizard then asks you to verify some settings, like the name of the printer:
   
3. Still, no need to change anything. Just click “Use” (“Bruk” in norwegian)
   
4. Now click “Yes” if you want to see the glorius and colorful ubuntu test page coming from your printer.

That’s it. Who said Linux where complicated?

I later used the information revealed by the Ubuntu (and Fedora) printer configuration tool to help out my collegues figure out how to set up the printer on a Mac, and in Windows Vista.

So I bought it.

The magazine was priced to around £7, which would translate to about 74 norwegian kroner, or €8.20. But at when I got to the counter, I had to pay 210 NOK for it, which is about £19 or €23. In comparison, one years subscription to the magazine is €29.90 if you live in Europe outside the UK, which would include Norway. €29.90 is 269NOK or £25.5

This is a total rip-off. I understand that Narvesen needs a margin for magazines with a narrow group of readers, but this pricing is insane.

Jeg prøver å dra i gang en foredragsserie for BLUG (Bergen Linux User Group), “Linux som kreativ platform“, innenfor rammene av BLUGs foredragsserie Last Thursday, som avholdes siste torsdag hver måned i skole-året (jan-mai, aug-nov) i Auditorium Pi på matematisk institutt.
Jeg er på jakt etter folk som har erfaring med grafikk/lyd/video på linux, og som kunne tenke seg å holde foredrag om det.
Målet med foredragsserien er å vise at Linux kan brukes til videoproduksjon, billedbehandling, 3D-modellering etc.

Følgende temaer har blitt foreslått:

• Linux som platform for musikkproduksjon (Jokosher, Rosegarden, …)
• Linux som platform for billedbehandling (Gimp/F-spot/RAW-bildehåndtering…/…)
• Linux som platform for tegning (Inkscape/Sodipodi/OOo-draw/…)
• Linux som platform for 3d-grafikk (Blender/…)
• Linux som platform for videoredigering (Cinelerra/Kino/…)
• Linux som platform for desktop publishing (Scribus/…)
• Linux som platform for sanntids media (Pure Data/FreeJ/…)

Nylig har det også blitt foreslått et foredrag om lydteknikk, men som jeg føler ikke går inn under hverken “Linux”-paraplyen eller “kreativ platform”-paraplyen. Selv om det unektelig hadde vært interressant.

Det eneste feltet her der vi har et navn på blokken er musikkproduksjon, men forslag der også mottas med takk.

I morgen er det forresten foredrag om Kerberos

One of the things that have happened is that I attended the “Skolelinux developer summit” or Debian Edu developer summit here in Bergen, with the goal to do some real contribution to free software. I didn’t end up contributing any code at that event.

Cecilie had asked Knut Yrvin to do a talk about community based projects, which inspired some of the other attendees, Walter Bender, to talk about his organization, Sugarlabs. Sugarlabs organizes the development and promotion of Sugar, the user interface for the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project.

from sugarlabs.org, click the image to show the whole series in context.

Sugar is an user interface aimed at kids and learning, rather than changing the learning process to use the computer and the web, it changes the user interface, so it is suited for a classroom environment. That being said, using sugar will probably revolutionize the way learning is done in the classroom, to a much more collaborative approach. Everything in sugar is made for sharing between the pupils and/or the teacher.

I had seen some screenshots of Sugar before, but I was totally blown away about the collaboration part of the system, and also how it changes the approach to computers, where we make the computer suitable for the classroom, rather than making the classroom suitable for the computer.

My contribution during the developer summit ended up beeing translating the Turtle Art activity into Norwegian, and helping Mr. Bender finding some bugs.

Since then I’ve translated the download pages on the Sugarlabs wiki into Norwegian. Sadly the current state of Sugar is that it’s quite buggy as “Sugar on a Stick”, completely broken in Ubuntu, and probably somewhat buggy in Fedora.

Also, listen to the Episode 66 of the FLOSS weekly podcast about the implementation of the OLPC in Nepal, which goes more into detail about Sugar.

Is it Windows 7 or KDE 4? In this video, we take to Sydney’s streets to find out what people think of what they think is a Windows 7 demonstration.

I discovered the netbook remix, that is the user interface in Ubuntu eee right after Ubuntu 8.10 was launched. I had already updated to 8.10, and the Netbook remix wasn’t available for 8.10 at the time.

Yesterday I checked the launchpad page again, and now it was available for 8.10. I then, of course had to test it.

Here’s what you need to do to setup your Ubuntu as a netbook remix:

1. Add deb repository

• open your /etc/apt/sources.list with your favorite editor.
  ^?View Code BASH

  sudo vim /etc/apt/sources.list

• Add the following two lines to the end of the file:
  ^?View Code BASH

  deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/netbook-remix-team/ubuntu intrepid main deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/netbook-remix-team/ubuntu intrepid main

2. Install themes and utilitues

The netbook remix is really just a different GTK theme, a few toolbar widgets, and two utilities that provides a launcher as the desktop, and that forces all applications to run in “full screen”.

• Update the apt data…
  ^?View Code BASH

  sudo apt-get update

  (press yes on any questions)

• Upgrade the already installed applications…
  ^?View Code BASH

  sudo apt-get upgrade

  (press yes on any questions)

• Choose which of the things you need…

  maximus

  Utility that forces all applications that can run in full screen does so

  go-home-applet

  toolbar applet that minimizes all applications, revealing the desktop launcher menu (netbook-launcher) (I don’t use the netbook-launcher, so I don’t need this)

  netbook-launcher

  Application launcher that lies on your desktop background. Very slick looking, but requires 3D acceleration from your graphics card. Will also be funky if you combine this with compiz. (I didn’t install this)

  human-netbook-theme

  The theme that makes it all look so nice

  window-picker-applet

  The new taskbar. This is the thing that makes this thing rock. It turns your top-bar into a tab-line, so you can switch between all your applications, just like they where firefox tabs. It also removes the need for a titlebar on your windows.

• Install the stuff you want. In my case this was:
  ^?View Code BASH

  sudo apt-get install maximus human-netbook-theme window-picker-applet

  Apt will complain that the resources couldn’t be verified… But live dangerous, and press y to proceed.

3. Configuration

Before we do configuration, log out and in again, this is to reload the metacity graphics engine.

• Add maximus to your session. Go to your System menu, then choose Preferences, then choose Sessions from the menu. In the new window that appears, click Add. Now enter Maximus in the Name field, and maximus in the Command field. Click save.
• If you chose to use the netbook-launcher, add netbook-launcher the same way (netbook-launcher is the command) to your session.
  Close the Session Preferences window
• Remove the bottom toolbar. You do this by right-clicking on an empty space on your bottom toolbar, and selecting “Delete this panel”
• Remove the menus from the top toolbar. You do this by right-clicking one of the three menus, and select “Remove from panel”. Also do the same to any icons you don’t use. (Like the blue questionmark-icon).
• If you use the netbook-launcher, and have installed the go-home-applet. Add this on the leftmost space on your toolbar. (right click an empty space on the toolbar, and select “add to panel”. Search for “Go Home”, and drag the item up in the left corner of your panel)
  If you didn’t choose to use this, add the “Main Menu” instead
• At last, add the “Window Picker” to the large open space to the right of the menu. You might have to rearrange any existing icons, to leave the largest possible continous space for this applet.

Log out and in again. Now you should have a nice graphical space-efficient system

When I started using phoenix (the name of firefox at that time), one of its selling points was that it left so much of the screen for webpages, and didn’t waste much space at all. With every new (standard) theme it seems like it eats more and more of the screen.

And, since this is a beta none of my beloved “screen realestate cheap”-themes are out for it yet.

F11 and out.

Her er plakat, løp ut og heng opp!

Tilgjengelighet til og i nettbaserte ressurser, ved Sverre A. Holbye, Include AS

Tilgjengelighet til og i nettbaserte ressurser. Hva er tilgjengelighet på nett? De siste årene har interessen for tilgjengelighet økt, og flere land har innført reguleringer med hensyn til tilgjengeligheten til nettbaserte ressurser. Norge holder i disse dager på å få en egen lov (“Anti-diskrimineringsloven”) som etter all sansynlighet vil inneholde bl.a. føringer på hvordan nettbaserte ressurser må legges til rette for alle.

Foredraget vil ta opp bakgrunnen for at dette er blitt så aktuellt som det er. Fokus vil ikke først og fremst dreie seg om konkrete teknikker for å implementere tilgjengelighet, men mer om: Hva er tilgjengelighet? Hva vil det si at noe er tilgjengelig? Hva sier nasjonalt og internasjonalt lovverk samt retningslinjer og standardiseringsorganer? Hvem er målgruppa og hva er behovene? Vi skal se på vanlige hjelpemidler og hvilke begrensninger og muligheter disse gir. Med dette som bakteppe og med synshemmedes behov som utgangspunkt skal vi se på noen konkrete nettsteder og diskutere tilgjengeligeheten på/i/til disse. Avslutningsvis skal vi se nærmere på de “nye web 2.0″ teknologiene og hvilke utfordringer disse fører med seg.

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Da legger vi som tidligere opp til at den formelle, disiplinerte
faglige delen av møtet vil være fullført ca kl 21.00, med overgang til
mer uformelle aktiviteter og langsom forflytting til egnet
serveringssted (Henrik) for fagøl og annet sosialt.

MERK: Inngangsdøren til Autogården låses kl 19. Vi prøver å holde
et øye med døren en liten stund etter det, men kan ikke love at du
oppnår kontakt og slipper inn hvis du kommer mye senere.

• BLUG