Another year has passed. Now that I’ve just finished a major exam and taken care of some school requirements, I can finally take a breather and look back at the past year, and hopefully learn and grow from it, too.

Disclaimer: What follows is a mix of personal reflections and FOSS/KDE-related topics and how those have affected me. If you’re looking for some analysis or review of KDE events and trends only, please feel free to ignore this. Otherwise, hold on to your seat (or bed) as this might take a while.

KDE. Of course it’s only proper that I start with the KDE stuff. What can I say? KDE continues to grow and rock! Sure, there are still KDE SC 4 naysayers. Those will always exist, and some of those we lost may never return. What’s important I think is that KDE unwaveringly pushed forward with their vision for KDE SC 4, of course with some adjustment along the way from listening to feedback. I believe that the hard investments in the “pillars” will pay off really soon now (if it hasn’t yet already). Plasma, one of the most hard hit, will truly shine as more and more people gravitate towards computers that are no longer your usual desktop or laptop forms. In the meantime, the rest of the KDE Software Compilation 4 continues to rock, as they have always been, even since 4.0.

In contrast, my contribution/presence in KDE, mostly focused on user support and, recently, through the Community Working Group and Userbase, went the way of the Dodo. Everyone who knows me personally can attest that I’m a slacker. But more than that, I kind of took a big hit from some burnout due to many factors. And I’m not even a full-pledged developer yet! I don’t want to point fingers or name names, so let’s just leave it at “I need to grow a thicker skin” (actually applies everywhere when dealing with people), which I’m constantly working on, now that I’m semi-back. Nevertheless, for the CWG, the only responsible thing to do was to open up the position for someone who deserves it more. I’m still hoping (and working towards) to pick up the pace this year, especially in programming.

Distro Odyssey. I have yet again switched to another distro. Source Mage GNU/Linux is a nice distro that gave me what I was looking for back then. It still is a nice distro, but my needs have changed. SMGL is really an advanced distro. Unfortunately, a bit too advanced for my current level of Linux knowledge. It was also taking up too much time to compile updates again and again on my turtle desktop. So I went looking again for a distro, this time a binary-based one that wouldn’t lose too much of what I learned to love in SMGL: control, vanilla-ness, relatively small community (compared at least to the “big ones”). I now have a new computer (which I forgot to/didn’t blog or dent/tweet about), which solves the compilation issues. But still, I’m not that confident at my Linux fu to dare dance at that level again.

My first stop was Arch Linux, a distro I’ve long been curious about but never really tried. It did have some of the qualities that I liked in SMGL (I might even dare say that their package management systems are somewhat similar, even in limitations ). Unfortunately, I was left between the devil and the deep blue sea. Perhaps I’ll blog (and be corrected) about my experiences some other time, but suffice it to say that Arch kind of left me dissatisfied as a KDE developer who wants a vanilla KDE experience that just works and almost always up-to-date. I don’t even want to start talking about Chakra (no offence meant).

After some … “convincing” from a dear friend who also just recently switched from his distro of 7(?) years, I tried the Fedora KDE spin (which, by the way, is the most downloaded Fedora spin). I was pleasantly surprised. My first ever Fedora experience was Fedora Core 5, and it was a bleeding edge mess (no RPM hell for me back then). This time, things just worked (except for a few NVIDIA driver-related hiccups). I can even run on their latest “testing” repo and not have any breakage (haven’t tested the kde-redhat repos yet). Even better than some distro’s “stable updates” repo. Their KDE community is not that large, very friendly (upstream-friendly as well), and helpful. And yes, no RPM hell so far. Again, maybe more on my distro choices some other blog post. I can’t really say if I’m going to stay in Fedora, but so far, inertia has taken over. I have very little reason to go looking for yet another distro for now, so I’m not gonna drag my butt yet.

Maemo, N810, and Mobile. Maemo and Nokia in 2009 was one media frenzy/controversy after another. Ever since Nokia acquired Trolltech, it was already presumed that Qt will eventually play a major role in Maemo’s future. That role was cemented when Nokia revealed that Maemo 6 (codename Harmattan) will be using Qt instead of GTK+. However, they announced this even before Maemo 5 (Fremantle) or even the device that it will be running on, the N900, were released, creating a spectre of uncertainty among the community and outsiders as well. Of course, for a KDE guy, that’s good news. But things haven’t been so rosy, at least from where I’m standing, with a N810 in my hand. I’ve always dreamed of getting KDE SC 4 on the N810. Not just a regular KDE workspace forcibly slapped on the small form factor, but a real and decent “port”, probably beginning with something like a plasma-netbook for tablets. While that might be technically possible, unfortunately for me it seems that any and all such future efforts will be poured on Maemo 5 or 6 and the N900 and later. While the N810 is a pretty decent mobile device, it has some limitations that might not be attractive to those doing a KDE SC port, such as no OpenGL ES drivers (although it seems that the Mer team has already received them, so that might change in the near future). Mer might be the future/last hope for my N810, but I’m not exactly sure it will be “port”-friendly. Everyone is all about Maemo 5/6 and N900, and I really can’t blame them. A fact of life I’ll just have to accept and watch from the sides. I definitely don’t have the skills to start things myself and by the time I do get to that level, I might already have my own Maemo 5/6 device to enjoy.

Personal. The last quarter of 2009 was a very trying time for me and my family. I almost lost a close friend to a vehicular accident. Typhoons that ravaged the country and severely affected people that we know. Deaths in the families of our friends. And probably the worst experience of all was having our house broken into while people were still in there, sleeping. I was staying with my aunts at a hotel when it happened, which they say is a good thing as we might have lost more than just material things. Though I still get nightmares even today, and the general feeling of helplessness and insecurity hasn’t completely vanished.

Still, things weren’t all that bad. We did remain unscathed by the typhoons that passed. And we also got to see our aunts from the U.S. again. I got a new decent computer, one that’s not almost obsolete even before the date of purchase (as my previous desktop was). And we’re still whole and alive as we entered the new year, with new hopes and dreams. So yeah, life isn’t all that bad.

So long 2009 and thanks for all the fish!

Another month has passed without a blog post. My new year’s resolution is an epic fail. Luckily, the rest of my life didn’t follow suit. Since I’m trying not to beat around the bush, I’ll get straight to the point. This post will be all about Yakuake, specifically the cool new features you’ll be seeing in the next release.

First up is moving/rearranging tabs using drag and drop. Click and hold on a tab with the left mouse button (or right mouse button, if you’ve reversed them) and drag and drop to the desired location. Drop indicators will appear on the tab bar, indicating where you’re allowed to drop a tab. People using tabs in Konsole might be familiar with this behavior.

You can now prevent tabs (formally called “Sessions” in Yakuake) from being closed. You can do this through the tab’s context menu (right-click on the tab name) and setting the “Prevent Closing” option. If you try to close that tab, you will be asked to confirm the action. This lock applies to all terminals (in the case of split views) in that tab. There’s a catch, however. Due to certain limitations in how the embedded Konsole works, there are 2 instances where the protection is bypassed: Using the shell’s own exit methods (“exit” command or Ctrl+D) and the embedded Konsole’s Close Session method (right-click inside the terminal, select Close Session or press Ctrl+Shift+W).

Another new type of lock is “Disable Keyboard Input”. This virtually makes the terminal read-only, perfect for important processes that must not be interrupted by keypresses or for monitoring something in the terminal. Again, this option is available in the tab’s context menu, but this time, you have the option to lock individual terminals or all terminals in the tab. And since this disregards any keyboard input inside the terminal, it means that even Ctrl+D and Ctrl+Shift+W are blocked. So with the feature to prevent closing tabs, you now have one indestructible tab.

And last, but definitely not the least (in fact probably the most visual change) is the new “Visual Effect Overlay”. Basically, this makes it possible to display a translucent “cover” over a terminal. This is effect is used in the disable keyboard input feature mentioned previously. For example, if you try to type into a locked terminal, that terminal will flash red for a while (or repeatedly, if you keep on typing). And when you’re trying to choose which terminal to lock from the tab’s context menu, the corresponding terminal is highlighted with a blue color when your mouse hovers over the terminal name.

I’m personally very happy with this coming release, since I’ve been responsible for the first two features mentioned. My biggest hacking contribution to KDE so far, and my first SVN commit spree. Lead Yakuake ninja, Eike Hein, (should I start calling him Hokage?) did the rest of the work, including a lot of other features and bug fixes. And he has more planned for the future. A website is in the works, too.

Winter has arrived in Yakuake, so hopefully you will have a shiny new version very soon.

/me is a happy KDE hacker

Preface: I’ve started putting a list of Topics (read “tags”) at the top of my blog posts so that planetkde readers can choose whether to continue reading or not at first glance. I’m kind of nice that way. I haven’t figured out how to do it automatically in Wordpress though, without some PHP hacking (I presume). Mere tinkering with the theme doesn’t affect the content that is sent out through feeds.

2009 Q1 is almost over and already life has been showing it’s ugly side. I barely survived this last semester. Entirely my fault, of course. I’m resolved to go over my subjects again this summer break, this time more thoroughly, as I feel I merely skimmed through the whole course this year. Blaming stupendously horrible textbooks is not really an excuse.

That’s not to say the whole quarter was a mess. The N810 was probably the biggest saving grace. Finally getting a real usable desk (and cleaning my room to take advantage of that) was also a bonus. I have been able to work on some of my mini-projects for KDE and Source Mage, like hunting down the cause of an ugly bug in Konsole that affected Yakuake, creating a theme for the Source Mage wiki, etc. My list of pending todo’s is far from empty, though, particularly setting up a Maemo SDK on Suzaku (my desktop). Maybe I should keep a list of accomplished feats for some source of inspiration…

But what made the last two months hell on earth was less technical and more emotional. I’ve come to the conclusion that of all kinds of problems I encounter, I handle emotional stress worst. Emotional baggage brought about by family and personal problems and whiny and insatiable users/people (but probably well-intentioned… I’d like to give them the benefit of the doubt, I really do) really forced me to wave the flag and walk away for a while. And even begin to ask whether it’s all worth it. Unfortunately, I still don’t have an answer to that.

In the meantime, I’m probably going to try to keep myself busy with activities to avoid thinking “bad stuff”. But I need to be careful, as someone noticed that I easily crash and burn whenever I go into an intense “marathon”. Although at this point, I don’t know how I can keep up with my todo list if I don’t. Up next: Maemo SDK and figuring out how to get Qt and KDE apps on the tablet, Yakuake website (almost ready), reviewing Textpattern for my own site, and starting my own dream Qt/KDE apps.

(Wish me luck… I’ll need it. Lots of it)

I’ve been considering micro-blogging for quite some time now, considering how many times I’ve wanted to blog about something very short but didn’t have the time (or energy) to do a full blog post. So I thought that micro-blogging would be better for me. And so far, I think I’m right.

I think it’s also almost perfect for Filipinos here, who are used to sending out 160-character SMS to friends about a lot of things, both the important and mundane. Unfortunately, it comes at the price of writing/spelling properly (u kno? dis kind of txt). Gotta try advertising it though. Maybe they’ll like it and finally get rid of the prehistoric bloat that is Friendster.

Currently using choqok for my Twitti.ca needs. Simple. Direct. Easy to use. No fancy shmancy stuff. And it’s still in the early stages of development, yet already very usable. I’m going to keep an eye on this one. And of course, it’s KDE.

P.S. Dunno if I’m infringing on some legal thingy, but I got so tired of writing Twitter/Identi.ca that I’ve decided to just refer to it as Twitti.ca…

2009 didn’t kick off quite well. I got the flu immediately after New Year’s day and that lasted for almost a week. Luckily for me, my midterm exam that was scheduled on the 10th was postponed for the 17th. Even that was a disaster (here’s to hoping I didn’t mess that one up).

But regardless of that, there were a few highlights this month that tells me that 2009 will be an exciting year. KDE 4.2, which is going to be released really soon now, marks another milestone release from the KDE 4 series, boasting a lot of improvement and interesting changes. Furthermore, last week, Nokia, now the owners of Qt Software (formerly Trolltech) announced that the next release of Qt will also be available under the LGPL, hopefully pacifying/satisfying a lot of “I-don’t-want-to-use-Qt-because-of-the-license” people. And last but definitely not the least, hopefully this month, I will be getting my Nokia N810!! So yes, 2009 is probably going to rock!

And what new year would be complete without a set of new year’s resolutions? Here’s my 10 Commandments for 2009.

1. Discipline and Focus. Combat procrastination, perhaps my numero uno character flaw.
2. Be Health Conscious. The final months of 2008 really shook me up physically. It’s time to pay more attention to my health and weight (and shape ).
3. Blog Early, Blog Often. But also Blog Shorter. I should try writing more in shorter spurts than writing a novel in one go. And maybe not limit myself to only KDE/FOSS subjects (though those won’t appear on Planet KDE unless relevant).
4. Finish pending projects ASAP before turning to new ones. Prevent “project” creep from overwhelming me.
5. Schedule. Try as I might, I couldn’t live without some form of structure or guidance. While I do like the occasional spontaneity, I cannot thrive on random chaos. Of course, the effectiveness of a schedule relies on resolution #1…
6. Code more! My primary motivation for free software and KDE was programming. 3 years later, I haven’t done much progress. Time to move forward! Need to spit out actual KDE and Qt code.
7. Get a hobby. There’s life away from computers… I just need to discover it.
8. Sharpen the mind. I’ve been worried (read: paranoid) that my memory and sharpness seems to be declining lately.
9. Save money. Need to pay back Mama for (half of) the N810 and probably open up my own bank and PayPal account.
10. Document! Take note of important procedures I’ve done or scripts I’ve used. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve had to redo something I’ve done before, only to realize I’ve forgotten how I did it in the first place. It’s a habit I hope to develop and carry over to coding.

And now for the hardest part: actually doing all these.

2008 was an exciting, if not turbulent, year, personally and FOSS-wise. It was a year of many changes. It started with a bang with the first release of the KDE 4 series on January 11. I’m not going to talk about whether 4.0 was a success or not. History will be the judge of that and, as far as I am concerned, it is already in the past, with KDE 4.2 just around the corner. Needless to say, those were trying times for the KDE community. Big, revolutionary changes, even if they are for the better, ruffles feathers. And some birds squawk louder than others, sometimes unnecessarily.

One good thing that came out of storm was the realization of a need to nurture the community and its members, whether they are developers, contributors, administrators, or end users. Thus, the KDE Community Working Group (of which I am a part of) as well as the KDE Code of Conduct were born. Later on, facilities such as UserBase and the new KDE Forums appeared to answer the growing needs of the community.

Last year also saw the rise of a new generation of mobile computing devices (netbooks, Internet tablets) and a renewed interest in smartphones. Nokia Internet Tablets, Asus Eee PC, HP Mini-note, MSI Wind, the iPhone, and Neo FreeRunner, just to name the most popular ones. And there are a lot of less known but equally powerful and interesting devices out there (a lot coming from Asia). While some are debating whether this is just a passing trend, or whether so-called Linux netbooks actually do more harm than good to Linux and free software, it cannot be argued that these devices have shifted a lot of attention towards mobile software platforms (Maemo, Android, OpenMoko, LiMo, netbook distributions) and the usefulness of Linux on those platforms. It may have also influenced a new lifestyle. The road warrior’s life has just gotten more exciting.

On the personal side of things, 2008 was also a sea of changes. I was able to go back to school for my second degree (Diploma in Computer Science) through a home study/distance education program. It has its ups and (major) downs, but at least I get to study at home for a degree that I’m really interested in. I’ve also gained some more responsibilities in our parish community. This means more things to do, meetings to attend, and people to work with. That’s the easy part. The hardest part for me personally is that I will be dealing a lot with Microsoft Office software and documents. I’m not a purist, but I would rather be using native GNU/Linux free software apps than having to deal with these. Unfortunately, some of the layouting/numbering in MS Word documents makes using OpenOffice.org unreliable.

New roles, new responsibilities, poor time/goal management, and personal procrastination. This meant that a lot of my personal TODO stuff went the way of the tide. High tide or low tide? Depends on the moon. Some got done, other got half-cooked, and at least one got dropped. I was finally able to finish my own C++ studies and reading my Qt book (sadly for me, that same book is now available for free from Qt Software). But of course, reading and doing tutorials is one thing, actually coding is another. Then there are documentation projects that I’ve done for Source Mage GNU/Linux (enough to warrant initiation into their circle of mages) and UserBase, as well as a Yakuake website. Sadly, while those exist, I’ve left them in an unfinished state. Hopefully not for long.

But the greatest casualty for me this year was Kubuntu. Partly because of my schedule, partly because of personal reasons, but mostly because I haven’t really been using Kubuntu as my main distro for almost a year, my contribution and presence in Kubuntu declined severely, to the point that I felt that it was no longer reasonable for me to remain as a Kubuntu member. So I said my goodbyes as I wait for my membership to expire at the end of the month (which also means goodbye to Planet Ubuntu). That said, I promised my friend(s) that I’d still help with the local Ubuntu community whenever possible, to help promote FOSS in general and ensure a KDE presence in the Philippines.

Yes, a lot of changes in 2008. Some good, some bad. Some revolutionary, some evolutionary. Whatever they were, these changes paved the way and laid the foundations for even greater things. Onward to 2009!

And now off I go to take my midterm exam… binary system and assembly language :/

“Paalam” means “goodbye” in Filipino (or at least one of its meanings). This is basically my farewell speech as I leave Kubuntu, at least the organization/community. My Ubuntu membership expires next month, and I’ve decided not to ask for renewal. I don’t really have a position of great importance in the community/development, so this might seem excessive. But I think it’s polite to “step down considerately” instead of just disappearing without a word. (Although I have actually been MIA from Kubuntu for the past months already. I’m just making it formal and final).

Kubuntu was my first ever GNU/Linux distribution, and I have no regrets whatsoever that I chose it over dozens of other “KDE-friendly” distributions. Over time, I have grown to love some parts of Kubuntu and dislike other parts (I won’t dwell on those in this post). But what has drawn me the most was the awesome community. I don’t think I would have ever survived my first days in GNU/Linux without their support. The spirit of community was just so great that I couldn’t help but be drawn in and “pay it forward.” And that is how I got started with helping out in the community and eventually earning my membership badge (oooh shiny!!!). I started out with community support and usually relaying messages/information between users and developers. I did set my sights higher though, but, alas, those never came to pass (aside from a few brief stints at packaging and coding). I apologize to my fellow (soon to be “former”) Kolleagues for not being able to deliver what I sought to do. I haven’t been using Kubuntu on my main (desktop) computer for more than a year now. And although Hardy is still installed on my laptop, that rarely sees the light of day (I mostly boot into *cough* Windows). So I could no longer do decent user support, since I’m no longer that familiar with the system. Major Major Edit: For some reason (that still escapes me), at least 3 people have (mis)interpreted this as saying that I’m leaving GNU/Linux for Windows. I would just like to note that the laptop has the Windows (as well as Kubuntu, Gentoo, and Source Mage) just for gaming and the occasional stubborn MS Office work. The desktop, my main baby and workhorse, is still fully GNU/Linux.

And so I take my leave. The thing I’m going to miss the most is really the community, both international and local. There isn’t really a strong KDE presence here in the country, and very few (I think only one other) KDE developers. So I’m really going to miss community activities that I’ve been used to seeing and experiencing in Kubuntu.

Anyway, let me end with an exhortation to the Kubuntu community (mostly the non-developers). Kubuntu is a fully community- and volunteer-driven distribution. It is the product of the selfless hard work of (a relatively few number of) Kubuntu ninjas who are dedicated to delivering the best of Debian, Ubuntu, and, of course, KDE in a shiny package, all in their spare time (they have families and day jobs like any normal person). And they need all the helping hands they can get (there are a lot of ways to contribute). Good intentions and constructive criticisms are just not enough. You want to make Kubuntu shine and be the best? Help make it happen!

To the Kubuntu developers: farewell and thank you for the cookies, the long pointy stick, and the pink ponies! See you on the wider KDE land!