KDE … I’ve been mostly quiet on the KDE development side. The only patch I made the whole period was to add a label at the top of Konsole tabs in Konversation, similar to the topic label at the top of chat windows. The label’s text syncs with your Konsole profile’s settings for window titles. Of course there’s a handy button beside it that lets you conveniently call the profile management dialog right then and there.

School … Most of my time has been spent (besides procrastinating and playing caregiver/nurse) with school work. Or rather, cramming/rushing school work. This semester I’ve been blessed/cursed with two subjects that are completely new to me: “Data Communications and Networking” and “Database Management Systems”. Let me just say, in all honesty and humility, that I suck at networking. At least as it was presented in our textbook. It was very low-level, theory-laded, and computation-centric, almost engineering-like. I guess that’s “computer science” (or computer math?). On the other hand, I was really into DBMS. Probably because it’s more practical to me, being used almost anywhere, but specially for the Web. Fundamentals of Database Systems by Elmasri and Navathe has so far been a good read.

Events … In contrast to my inactivity, the past months have been buzzing with activity. July saw the first ever joint GNOME and KDE annual conferences in sunny(?) Gran Canaria. Of course, I wasn’t there The videos this year were so superbly done, so make sure to grab your favorite talks if you still haven’t. Then, KDE released 4.3.0, showing off the maturity of the KDE Desktop and the Development Platform. The good news is that it doesn’t stop there. 4.4 is just a few months away!

Gadget lust … Nokia/Qt has also been quite busy, with one announcement/release/blog post after another. Most controversial probably are Pyside, the LGPL Python bindings for Qt, and a slightly vague post about a new multimedia framework in the works for Qt. But probably most talked about and most hyped is the much anticipated (but probably belated) announcement of the N900 and Maemo 5. No, it’s not yet the much dreamed of (by Qt/KDE fans at least) Qt-based Maemo and is not yet the “finished” device in Nokia’s long-term strategy, but it still has me drooling over it. Sure it has some hardware and software bad points (still not Qt , but it will at least let me enjoy the best of both (of my) worlds, allowing me to finally have one device in my pocket instead of two. But damn it’s really expensive! Let’s see how it pans out in the coming weeks when it’s actually released.

The future … The next quarter will be fun-filled, starting off with two “meets”. Maemo Summit is the more “grassroots” gathering for Nokia Internet Tablet and Maemo communities (compared to Nokia World where the N900 was demoed, which was more “suit”-ish). I’m excited about it because of potential news and discussion about the N900 and the future of Maemo (which will be Qt-based . But I’m equally hyped about the Developer Sprint happening on that same weekend(!), this time about the Future of KDE Game Development. Being a wannabe/frustrated game developer/designer, of course I find this something to look forward too.

Exciting times ahead. Unfortunately, I don’t know I’ll be around to enjoy and participate, even virtually. I’ve decided to take a self-prescribed/imposed sabbatical, for personal reasons (mostly to preserve my sanity and, consequently, my life). But with all this buzz going on, how can anyone stay away and still stay sane?

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)

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 :/

1. KDE UserBase: Together with other members of the CWG, I almost spent a whole week working on the wiki. It was a sort of rush work since we wanted to have a “launching” Friday last week. So far, everything’s looking good. It’s far from complete, of course, specially since it is something that the KDE community would need to build up. I’ll blog about it in more detail next time.

2. UPOU: School’s over!! We finally had our final examinations for the first semester last Saturday. So I spent the whole week before that reviewing. Actually I was practically reviewing only one subject. But I’m tired of whining about the deficiencies of that one subject, so I’ll just be glad that it’s over. Now I can read the supplementary book that I read without pressure of deadlines. I’m looking forward to more interesting subjects next semester (“Computer Organization” and “Data Structures & Algorithms”) and hopefully better teachers.

3. KDE, Source Mage: I got too new e-mail redirects! One from kdemail and one from Source Mage, the latter basically meaning I’m a developer now, much like an ubuntu.com or kubuntu.org email redirect. I guess I have another set of stuff to keep me busy the coming days.

4. Software Freedom Day 2008: Last September 20, , some of my friends from Ubuntu-PH attended one of the SFD celebrations held in Metro Manila (there were other simultaneous gatherings), though not really representing Ubuntu Philippines (I wore my KDE shirt, again ). Two of the SFD celebrations on that day catered to IT students as their primary audiences. IMHO, it was wise to target this sector because these students would be the ones populating the IT industry soon. So it’s best to start them early with Free Software. Here are some pics from the event. Again my apologies for the quality. I am definitely not a photographer. On an unfortunate note, I think there is still some need for more education about free software, even (and probably especially) among those tasked to spread it. One speaker practically labeled “Yahoo! Messenger” as “Free Software”, equating “free software” with “freeware”. I’m just hoping the speaker meant otherwise (they were going back and forth between two groups of people).

5. N810 and Maemo 5: I finally found (thanks to jsgotangco) a local store that sells the device that I’ve been dying to have since last year (wow! it’s almost been a year now). Lo and behold, it costs Php 24,000!! That’s US$ 533, more or less. That is practically the price of a high-end Eee PC or an HP Mininote, basically a Netbook price. And then another blow came to my plans: Maemo 5. All the talk of Maemo 5 goodness and future Qt integration with it makes me want to think twice about getting a N810 now. Not that I have the money to buy one anyway. I still have to figure out a way to raise Php 24,000, hopefully within this lifetime… My sister recommended oDesk.com, but that brings in whole lot of different personal issues.

Long story short: Great past 2 weeks. Busy as hell, but was well worth it. Going to have another busy week or even month ahead. I’m Looking forward to it.

2. KDE 4.1 is so going to rock! At least it already does for me. And I include a disclaimer that I’m not your average KDE joe, so YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary). Seeing the project evolve as a whole (and not just focusing on some more visible part) is truly amazing. Of course, some will not like it, and some will. What’s important at this point IMHO is that things aren’t stagnating. Of course, it’s not yet complete (depending on your “completeness” requirements). But I firmly believe that it’s too early to really bang the gavel on KDE 4. Only time would tell (and there’s always KDE 3.5 while waiting). As for me, I’m planning to migrate my main user (jucato) to KDE 4.1 this week.

3. We had our class’s first online session last Saturday. We were told that we’d be using Yahoo! Messenger. Not knowing how it will be done, I opted to use the real client on Windows XP. It turns out we’ll be using the conference feature, which is perfectly supported by Kopete, so no need to switch for the next sessions. Right now I’m considering suggesting and helping setup a more permanent online session place (like IRC) for group studying (because people might prefer synchronous communication than forums). A friend suggested using a web app like Campfire. I’ll have to take a long look at it since it’s not something I’m familiar with and, thus, can’t confidently recommend. I’ll try to see if the university can setup something for us and make it more “official”.

4. I’m considering migrating my blog from WordPress to Textpattern. When I do that, I’d probably make all the static pages I have in my site also under Textpattern. I don’t have any problems with WordPress actually, and it has served me quite well. Textpattern just happens to come highly recommended by a good friend compared to WP. Other supposed advantages of Txp include: better and cleaner template system (no messy PHP, which I’m not really keen on learning right now), more CMS than blog (whereas WP is more blog than CMS), and created by writers for writers (like me?). Anyway, it’s probably not going to happen immediately as I still need to actually use Txp. And when that time comes, I hope I don’t flood the Planet and get kicked.

5. One of my subjects this semester teaches Principles of Programming using the C programming language. Having some previous experience gives me a bit of an edge in class. One of the things I’ve noticed is how our book really doesn’t say much about good programming practices. It’s a very short, direct to the point textbook. I presume that we are being encouraged to research on our own. For example, the book mentions that something like sum1 = sum2 – (x – (y = 10)) * 4; “makes the code unreadable, but certainly shorter”, either implying that “shorter” is to be preferred over “unreadable”, or not explicitly discouraging such kind of code. Anyway, I don’t really expect much from the book and the professor, since the study program is more or less based on independent studying, but I’m somewhat uncomfortable that beginning programmers aren’t being taught good habits as early as possible. Fortunately, the subject makes use of Moodle, which has a forums feature which I can probably share my thoughts, as well as solicit other people’s experiences.

Hm… I really need to learn to write shorter…