What is UserBase?

Formally speaking, KDE UserBase is a community-driven site aiming to become a knowledge base targeting end-users. In short, it is a community wiki for users and KDE usage (For KDE development and system administration, we have KDE Techbase). It’s goal is to collect, collate, and connect resources, information, and links that are relevant and of interest to KDE users. It also aims to be a kind of home for KDE users everywhere, a place where they can share knowledge with one another, and possibly even discuss certain issues (to a limited extent since KDE has more proper venues for certain topics). The UserBase page explains in more detail.

UserBase Features

UserBase is still a toddler compared to other KDE websites. And yet I am completely amazed at how much it has grown since our “soft launch” last September. The wiki has quite a number of content already, and in different languages as well. And we’re expecting more to come (hopefully after more “publicity”). At the moment, we’ve grouped all content roughly into four categories, as shown in our front page:

So, what can UserBase do for you?

If it hasn’t been obvious yet, UserBase aims to be something like a central directory for KDE information. It may or may not contain the information itself, but if there’s information out there, UserBase will provide a link. So users won’t have to dig through thousands of Google search results. Of course, it will be impossible to link to each and every KDE-related content out there, but at least UserBase could be a starting point.

Now… what can you do for UserBase?

These may probably sound nice and all, but there’s one important piece missing; YOU. A community endeavor such as UserBase will only truly succeed with the support of, well, the community. And that includes you. At the moment, there is still a lot of content that needs to be written, a lot of KDE resources unaccounted for, and a lot of tips that are unshared. UserBase is a way for users to get more involved with KDE and to help build up the KDE community and a great way to contribute to this awesome project.

We’re looking forward to seeing more content, more links, and more interesting tricks in UserBase. And we’re looking forward to hearing from you, KDE users. So head on over to userbase.kde.org, log in with your Open ID account, and start typing away.

P.S. Be sure to read the Contribution Guidelines on your way there.

Coming soon…

UserBase is still growing. We (the CWG as well as some KDE system administrators) are constantly thinking of ways and extensions to improve the wiki. So a bit of patience is requested if some stuff still don’t work or don’t work properly. And probably leave a note in the page for UserBase technical issues.

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.

I have mixed feelings about how this particular course has gone. For starters, we were “required” to use Turbo C. Well actually we were allowed to use something else as long as they display and compile properly on TC, which means setting text editors to use CR\LF as end of lines (DOS style) and testing them in TC (of course I used GCC (g++) and beloved Kate). I don’t know why it was the recommended IDE and compiler, though, since I think it sucks on both aspects. Other than that, I’m quite satisfied with the course. I’ve come across some algorithm issues in my assignments that I haven’t really thought much about before, so I had a chance to flex my brain muscles and understand some aspects of the language much better. One of those “Eureka!” moments.

Pointers to Pointers

In one of the assignments, our teacher made some notes about this topic which the book failed to cover. A pointer to a pointer, which in turn points to something else, might sound useless, but there’s definitely one use case we encountered that needed it: passing pointers and modifying them in functions.

Simple case: You have a generic function for opening files and checking for errors. Normally you’d declare a pointer to a file in main() and pass it to the function, like so:

int openfile(FILE *fileptr, char *name, char *mode)
{
    fileptr = fopen(name, mode);

    ...
}

int main()
{
    FILE *fp;

    openfile(fp, "foo", "r");

    ...
}

You’d think that would work, but it doesn’t. In fact, it would error when you try to use that file pointer. Because the address of the opened file isn’t getting assigned to fp in main(), although it was getting assigned to fileptr of course. It wasn’t clear to me at that time. After all, I did pass a pointer, right? Yes, I did, but not for the effect that I thought it would have. I scanned over my old C books and didn’t really see anything that discusses this topic. I have the K & R book, but I haven’t read it much, so I can’t really say. So instead, I’m just going to write this down, maybe to be able to help somebody else in the future (or some of my classmates who might be reading this).

The real issue here is that while pointers are used to pass by reference, the pointers themselves are passed by value. While you can modify the variable that the pointer is pointing to, you cannot modify the pointer itself. It’s probably easier to understand once you see that a pointer is just a variable. It’s a variable who only accepts memory addresses as its value, just like an int would accept integer values, etc. So like any variable, when passed to a function, a copy of that pointer is made and the original pointer’s value is untouched. So when you, for example, assign a memory address like a pointer to a file you opened in openfile(), that address gets assigned to the copy of fp, which if fileptr. Once the function ends, that copy is destroyed and the handle to the file is lost. Same goes for assigning a block of memory for a linked list or making a pointer to the head of a linked list point to something else.

So what do you do to be able to modify the pointer in a function? Simple, just like any other variable, you need to pass the address of that variable to the function and the function should receive that address in a pointer. In this case, you pass the address of a pointer and received with a pointer to a pointer. And to access what it is pointing to, as usual, you will need to use the dereference (*) operator. So the above code will now be like so:

int openfile(FILE **fileptr, char *name, char *mode)
{
    *fileptr = fopen(name, mode);

    ...

}

int main()
{
    FILE *fp;

    openfile(&fp, "foo", "r");

    ...
}

I hope that this could help some poor soul whose brain has been plagued by the same problem. It would probably be easier to have done this in C++, using references (&), though I think even that has its own problems. And anyway, the class was on C, not C++.

So that basically ends my formal C education. Not much was added to what I’ve already learned by myself years ago, except for some of the exercises. Now I feel I need to review my C++.

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.

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:
  • Courtesy of Ruben Canlas
  • Courtesy of Troy Lim
  • Jucato
  • From nhatz69

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.

Ubuntu Love Day Manila

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*

• 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.