For the geek child in me: New toys!
September 2nd, 2008Last week, I received two new toys for my birthday: a Philips MP3/MP4 player from my sister and a ZTC (or CECT) C2000 phone from myself and partly from my mom.
The Philips SA3225/97 player is really just a simple device. A bit too simple even. One of those devices that does one thing (or a few things) does them well (hopefully): music (MP3, FM Radio) and video (in a proprietary SMV format) player, text reader, recorder, picture viewer. That’s it. You will have to manage those files, specially your music, elsewhere. No problems connecting to GNU/Linux and KDE it’s simply seen as a removable USB device. Oh, and of course, it can’t play Ogg Vorbis. 
Now my other toy is a whole different story. It’s a ZTC (or CECT) C2000, more known locally as “one of those China phones”. Quite sad that quite a number of these phones (some of which are actually good), are being re-branded and marketed as cheap Nokia and iPhone clones (although some do seem to be iPhone-inspired). But that’s another story. This is one good phone that has a lot of features that I want: of course, calls, SMS/MMS, GPRS (sadly.. no 3G), music player (MP3, FM Radio, Voice recorder), Videos (3GP, MP4, TV receiver), games (NES emulator), and a big touchscreen. And the best part of it was that I only spent US$ 120 (roughly converted from Philippine Peso) for such a great phone! Ok, I really only spent $75, the rest was from my mom. 
I bought this phone, and made sure it was an inexpensive one, for two reasons. The most “urgent” would be that I needed and wanted a new phone, and with the nice set of features and nice price tag, it was a great deal (although I was actually planning on buying another phone which looked a lot like an iPhone :P). But my ultimate goal is really to be able to hack and play with it, perhaps even install Qt and/or KDE on it, which is why the “cheap” price tag was an important factor (so that if I brick it, I won’t cry… much…). Of course, the biggest problem would be the fact that this is not your regular Linux-friendly phone, and it’s not that well documented for Linux hacking. However, since I have found instructions on how to upgrade/flash the device’s firmware (OS?), I’m hoping that it will be possible to do something with it. If not, I hope to at least be able to install Qtopia on it. That would be one major step forward. Now all I have to figure out is where to get started, since this (mobile/embedded development) is a totally new and alien frontier for me.
Of course, I’m still hoping to buy a Nokia N810 (actually I prefer the N800) and am taking steps to earning around $450 for one.
Ubuntu Love Day 2008
September 1st, 2008Last August 23, the Ubuntu Philippines local community (Ubuntu-PH), through the initiation and efforts of Jerome Gotangco and Myra Jill Siason, held Ubuntu Love Day Manila 2008. It is a gathering of people and experiences, where enthusiasts and fans of Ubuntu and Free Software get together and share their knowledge, time, and experiences.
It was a great experience. Seeing old friends, meeting new people, getting to know the people involved in different free software endeavors throughout the city. It was also an exciting event for me personally because it was the first time I would be speaking in public about KDE and Kubuntu. I don’t know if it’s the start of a new career for me (wishful thinking?), but it was a still a great first attempt.
Here’s a bit of a rundown of what happened. The day started with a very entertaining 45-minute walk to the venue (I’ll spare you the details of our ignorance). We arrived, sweaty and panting, just in time for Jerome’s opening remarks. The talks immediately followed, which were informative as well as entertaining, specially the video presented by the UnPLUG group on Ubuntu and Ubuntu derivatives. In between some of the talks, Myra hosted icebreaker trivia games, with Ubuntu merchandise as prizes. Later, Aileen Apollo from Google also held a game with a woman’s Google shirt for the grand prize and pressed Ubuntu CD’s for consolation prizes. I really can’t say who got the better deal.
Then came my talk, which was about experiences and challenges in contributing to big international free software projects like KDE and Kubuntu. Unfortunately, it happened around noon (lunchtime!), so I had to go over it quickly. I guess that affected my delivery a bit, not that my “rehearsed” presentation was actually that “entertaining” now that I think about it. I hope I do better next time, if there is a next time.
Here’s the PDF of my presentation, as well as the LaTeX source (Yes! I made the presentation using LaTeX Beamer! I feel so geeky!). Unfortunately, I don’t have videos with me, so I’m still waiting for them.
The good news is that, after my talk, there was a surprise for everyone. It wasn’t part of the original plan, but the people from Youth for I.T. and the University of the Philippines were generous enough to provide free lunch. So it was bon appetit! The Y4IT people also gave a short talk on their upcoming Philippine Youth Congress on Information Technology.
It was an “action-packed” morning and truly an event to remember. There are a lot of people to thank and acknowledge for making the event not only a possibility but also a success. So to everyone who prepared and organized this love(ly) day, kudos and gracias!!
Here are articles, slides, and pictures:
- Official event announcement
- Writeup from Jerome Gotangco
- Some of the slides
- Video clips taken from the streaming video
- Pictures:
P.S. Sorry for the low-quality pictures from me. I was still adjusting to the new digital camera.
P.P.S. Sorry for the super late posting. 
KDE presence in Ubuntu Love Day Manila
August 23rd, 2008Namely, me!
Finally I was able to connect to the net. Probably the first geek gathering I’ve been to that I was able to have a connection. My talk about Kubuntu & KDE will be up soon. I think it’s being streamed live.
I’ll upload the slides after my talk.
*feeling really, really nervous*
Some short updates
August 15th, 2008…In bullet form
- School: The past 2 weeks have been stressful. First preparing for an exam and then cramming for an assignment in discrete math. My fault entirely though. Procrastination rears its ugly head again.
- Discrete structures/math: Except for the cramming I did last week, I think I’m doing ok with this subject. But I’m just not happy with our textbook’s presentation and content. I could buy another recommend book, but is this subject worth investing that much in? So far no one I asked has been able to give me a straight answer to the question “What are the practical applications of discrete math in actual software development?”. Any ideas, LazyWeb?
- KDE Talk: I’m giving a talk on the 23rd about “Kubuntu & KDE: Contributing to an International Software Project” at a gathering of the local Ubuntu community. It’s my first public speaking engagement as a FOSS and KDE advocate, and probably the first (and most probably not the last) time I’ll be using TeX (courtesy of KDE presentations templates). Hope everything goes well.
- CWG: So it’s official. The KDE e.V. has approved the Community Working Group of which I am a part of. To put it simply, its mission is to take care of the community and communication aspects of KDE. As almost everyone is still at Brussels, we haven’t put up anything official yet. Hopefully we can do that in the coming days. But one of the current projects of the group is the End User FAQ and KDE Glossary. This FAQ is by no means comprehensive nor finished. It’s mostly taken from FAQ’s I’ve encountered in #kde. I have plans to improve it, so stay tuned.
- Updating guides: After doing the FAQ and mirroring it on my site, I realized that I have quite a number of KDE/Kubuntu guides. I have to update them for KDE 4, specially the theming and autostart guides, since there are major changes for KDE 4. And there are some that I probably no longer need (or want) to update. Hopefully I can whip myself into action ASAP.
- My Non-KDE/Kubuntu/FOSS on Planets? I’m still quite undecided on this. I have a few posts in mind that I’d probably want to share with others and ask people’s opinions. However, they’re not exactly KDE/Kubuntu/FOSS related (at least some of them). So I’m kinda hesistant whether I should let them be aggregated here. Decisions, decisions, decisions.
For something that’s supposed to be short, I have again successfully made it long.
Terrifik Katurday
August 3rd, 2008Yeah, it’s no longer a Saturday, but I was so dead tired yesterday (Saturday) that I didn’t have the strength left to blog. It was an action packed day, exhausting, but definitely fun.
OK, it didn’t really start out fun. I had to wake up around 04:30 to leave the house at around 06:00 to take a 1-2 hour trip to the city to take my midterm exams at 09:00. Fortunately for me, it was on a topic in programming (in C) that I already semi-mastered when I was studying it by myself in high school. But besides taking the exam, it was also one out of only two opportunities to meet my classmates, since we only meet for exams. It was a mixed feeling though. I’m surrounded by people taking up the same degree (Diploma in Computer Science), but with almost very little interest in the subject. Most of them are just taking it because their work or boss requires it. Kind of a big shift after being around so many people (online) whose passion for (free) software is quite contagious.
After the exams, I went to a nearby mall, first to eat lunch of course, but also to finally do a special project I had in mind for months now. More on that later. Meanwhile, while waiting for that project to be finished, I came across a book. I picked it up and couldn’t stop smiling or giggling.
It’s probably a predecessor of Caturday and Lolcats. I wish I could post a scanned image or two, but dunno if that would be violating copyright or something.
But the crowning glory of the day is this:
and the back view:
By the way, “Atin ito” means “This is ours” in Filipino/Tagalog. I’ve been wanting to have a custom made KDE shirt for quite some time now, but I couldn’t get around to finding a shop that does this kind of thing for a single shirt (there are those that do custom designs but for mass production). Find the right kind and color of shirt was an altogether different story. Anyway, it’s finally here, though I’m not exactly 100% happy with the quality of the work (it’s airbrushed). But given the situation, it’s as good as it gets. I’m definitely going to wear it on my talk about Kubuntu and KDE on the 23rd.