I’m a 23 year old computer science student from Norway. I founded Ubuntu Eee, which is now EasyPeasy, back in ’07. It was the first 3rd party netbook distro. Now there’s more competition with Google Chrome OS, Meego and Ubuntu Unity :)

2) How did you get into GNOME?

I’ve been an avid user of Gnome since ’05. It’s also the most important project in EasyPeasy.

3) Why are you coming to GUADEC?

I’ve been to a couple of conferences regarding linux and other tech. The one I’ve gotten the most out of was GUADEC / Desktop Summit on Gran Canaria last year. I hope to get as much out of it this year.

4) In 1 sentence, describe what your most favorite recent GNOME project has been. (Doesn’t have to be yours!)

SparkleShare is a great project in itself and is also an awesome foundation for lots of new cloud features.

5) Will this be your first time visiting the Netherlands?

No, been there several times. I was just there on a eurorail following the World Cup maches around Europe. Never been to Haag though.

Congratulations on your iPad release! In your keynote you spoke about if there’s room for a device between the laptop and the smart phone, a third mobile device, and you concluded with that there was room, “if the device was better”. Your hypothesis was that if there was room for one more mobile device in people’s lives, it was because it was better than both the laptop and the smart phone on some key features. You listed these features: Browsing, email, photos, video, music, games and ebooks.

After listing this list in a nice Appleish powerpoint slide, seen above, you continued your hypothesis saying that some people believe the netbook to be the third mobile device. And I quote you: “This is wrong. Netbooks are slow, low quality and runs bad quality software.”

But there’s a problem. Your hypothesis is not correct, Steve. First of all, people don’t own a smart phone and a laptop. People own a desktop machine or a laptop and a phone or a smart phone. This means many use a non-fancy phone and a desktop PC. I bet they would love a netbook! Since your hypothesis is incorrect, there’s no real use in continuing, but I’m feeling hurt for the netbook – so here we go

1. Browsing: browsing with touch is fancy and easy. But you don’t have flash support, which means the only media you will get while browsing is Youtube videos.
2. Email: email often equals work. When “doing email”, you write lots of stuff, you copy and paste, you multitask. The iPad isn’t good at any of these points.
3. Photos and video: good at photos and video – whatever that means..  Netbooks are good for photos and videos because it can connect to the TV.
4. Music: good at music – you’re being very vague here on how some devices are better on music. But you have the iTunes store which I guess gives you this point.
5. Games: being good at games must mean playing real games, not mini-games, shooting with an iGun or riding an iCar. Games you would invest more than $1 on.
6. eBook: one more point for you.

Netbook: 4. iPad: 2

Solution

You’re right in that “the third device” should be better at some key features. But your feature list, Steve, is incorrect. The third device should combine the best from the two other devices. It should be mobile as a phone and good to write on like a laptop.

My guess is that your iPad won’t flop, as it’s shiny and made by you, but it won’t even make a dent in the netbook marked.

An hour ago I found Grooveshark. It’s Spotify with these changes:

• It’s in your web browser, meaning no download. Perfect for people on the go who want their digital life in the cloud
• You and (even better) others can upload to the service. If there’s a song you want on the go which isn’t available, upload it – but someone else have probably already done it..
• Don’t seem to see a point to go premium (no higher bit rate, no ads (using adblock))
• If I want to go Premium, it’s over 3 times cheaper than on Spotify. It’s only $3
• It has Requiem for a dream, which I have been forced to go to youtube to enjoy
• Oh yeah, and there’s a WordPress plugin..
• UPDATE 1: Playlists can be ordered in “playlist order” meaning you can create a “mixed tape”

The negative

• I get an error saying song can’t be played sometimes (trying again fixes it)
• No keyboard shortcuts
• iPhone app isn’t out yet
• The sound quality can be (or is always?)  better in Spotify. Example: Alice Cooper with Poison

Technical

The computer can use very little power when the CPU isn’t being awakened. This is because of what’s called a tickless kernel. The jolicloud-daemon however wakes the CPU all the time (more than anything else), which mean your computer won’t be able to save power.

I need my power – what do I do?

If you’ve tested Jolicloud, and want to remove it for the time being, do this:

1. Open up a Terminal (Accessories > Terminal)

2. Write “sudo apt-get remove jolicloud*” and press Enter

3. After you’ve typed you password, Jolicloud will be removed. Log out and back in and Jolicloud stops draining your battery

Jolicloud is a social installation client which seamlessly installs different types of applications (Adobe Air, Debian packages, web applications). You’re able to see what friends install and recommend applications to others. It’s a nice client which tries to add a sense of web 2.0 to application maintenance.

What is easypeasy

easypeasy is an operating system for netbooks. It’s optimized for speed while including everything you need out of the box. easypeasy 1.5 was just released and included features like very fast filesystem (ext4), which brings faster boot, and 3D in 3D rendering (UXA).

Install Jolicloud in easypeasy

While it’s possible to get Jolicloud as a standalone linux distribution, it’s not recommended as their release is old and don’t bring features like ext4 and UXA (see above). If you want the social installation client, the solution is to install Jolicloud into easypeasy.

1. Download and install this file
2. Log out and back in
3. You’ll find Jolicloud under Internet

Please be aware that Jolicloud is alpha software and drains your battery.

Troubleshooting

Yeah, I’m not able to install it the file above

Ugg, you’re netbook isn’t updated on what hip and trendy. Go to Administration > Update Manager and click Check. Now try installing the file again

You can download easypeasy 1.5 over at www.geteasypeasy.com

New in easypeasy 1.5

So, what are your first impressions?

Let’s get this metrics party started with
Facebook

• 2 905 fans
• 7% women / 93% men. That’s one percent more women fans since January
• Become a fan

Twitter

• 406 tweets
• 1 301 followers
• Follow us

Youtube

• 25 fan videos

Distrowatch

• There’s about 300 linux distributions on distrowatch.com
• Easy Peasy is the 36th most popular distro

Forums

• 1949 users. 1000 more then back in January
• 4 new forum users every day
• 7012 posts divided into 1690 topics

Downloads

• Sourceforge is down, so I have to get back to you with this
• Easy Peasy has been downloaded over 627.000 times

Norway won Eurovision in 1995 with the song Nocturne by Secret Garden

But one of our best and most fun contribution was in 2005 with In My Dreams by Wig Wam. We ended up in sixth place

10 years ago we sent Stig Van Eijk with the song Living My Life Without You. We were sure we were going to win that year, but it went terrible. But today, ten years later, we’re back to believing we have the winner song with Fairytale by Alexander Rybak

What song in this years Eurovision is your favorite?

A brand new look

• New icon theme, a modified version of Victor Castillejos Gnome Colors, by lassegs
• New wallpaper which is part of the new visual profile (i.e. on Twitter), also by lassegs
• New splash screen and login screen, still by lassegs

Fixed bugs

• Lots of bugs fixed
• And upgrades. Many upgrades, like Songbird and Flash

New webpage

• I think it looks good

Now we can really start working on Easy Peasy 2.0

Drawed by Lasse Sætre

We want to move web down to the desktop, as you’re using Easy Peasy on a netbook you shouldn’t have to start Firefox to start sufring. We add an Easy Peasy profile on the top right. The dekstop will be open and module based so anyone will be able to write the next great module. Default modules should include Facebook, Twitter, Email, Chat and RSS feeds.

We also want people to start using Gnome Do. We believe that average Joe doesn’t use is today because he’s afraid of keyboard shortcuts, so we’ve decided to move the great Gnome Do application to the desktop (and map it to the Home/Windows/Super key for you keyboard shortcut lovers). That means that while your doing anything, you can click the Easy Peasy logo in the top left or click the Home button on the keyboard and start typing: Search your computer, Google, Translate, Set your Twitter status, etc. all from your desktop.

Please comment with your ideas and feedback!

and we’re proud to announce that we’ve reached over half a million downloads!

• I’ve merged my personal and the Easy Peasy twitter accounts
• The repositories, forums, wiki and this blog has been down for a week because we were shut down by our host Dreamhost. They suddenly came to the conclusion that our wiki was using too much CPU (?) so they closed it all down without warning. We’re sorry for the problems this must have had for you as an user, and can comfort you with that we will move away from Dreamhost and create mirrors.
• We’ve gotten several servers for free around the world. Thanks to all server contributors!
• Funny Opera Face Gestures with @aleksaas
  
• We’re looking into how to trick Japanese people into using Easy Peasy. If you’re Japanese and want to help out (with culture and language), please leave a comment!
  
• Easy Peasy 1.1 Release Candidate 2 has been out for a week without complains, which means Easy Peasy 1.1 Gold will be released shortly.

Here’s a screenshot of the new webpage, to keep you from bouncing off the walls :p

• New webpage (really much needed (!) ): Lasse has made a great design and a unified look for, forums, wiki, backgrounds, presentations etc.

• Easy Peasy 1.1: Only a screenshot :) We’re trying to get a release candidate ready for the weekend!

• Easy Peasy 2.0: We’re also working towards Easy Peasy 2.0, where we’re implementing some really exciting features

How does the screenshot look? Like the background, like that the logo has been moved to the top left corner, like the icon theme?

Enter http://filesharer.org and post a mug shot of yourself!

• Built on Ubuntu 9.04
• Better looking
• More net / netbook features
• New file system which brings faster booting, loading and work flow
• A whole new notification system, as shown in the movie below
  
• A simple new menu which can be used to set preferences for notification icons, such as where they pop up on the taskbar
• File synchronization through Dropbox

• Ferry, for making netbook specific scripts and doing the packaging
• Christopher, for ironing out the bugs I create
• Massismo, for the good looking logo
• Andy, for accepting the position as head of marketing
• Rikard, for doing an amazing job as head of the forums
• Chris, Merethe and Tor, for helping with the rebranding
• Marie, mom, Daniel, Mimir, Svein, for help with selecting the logo
• Lars and Thomas, for publicity
• Anyone else who has contributed their time submitting logos, commenting, editing the wiki, helping others in the forums etc.
• And everyone who has contributed funds

Wiki

• The main page has well over a million views
• It’s translated into 21 languages
• There’s 1010 pages where 202 are real articles
• 5 edits per page (5 221 edits)
• 428 file uploads
• 4,2 million page views
• 678 registered wiki editors
• Most viewed pages are: Main page, Get Easy Peasy, User Guides
• Google Pagerank 5 (even though it’s not the front page of Ubuntu Eee any longer)
• A visitor is on the wiki for a average of 1,5 minutes
• There has been over 2 million pages views in total
• Where 1,3 million are unique page views

Facebook

• 2 329 fans,  6% female / 94% male
• 42% between the age of 25 and 34 (29%: 18-24)
• 12 new fans every day
• 15 fan photos

Forums

• Maximum number of users online at the same time is 141
• 914 registrated users
• 3048 posts divied into 641 topics
• 15 posts divived into 3 topics every day

Twitter

• 101 updates
• 1,2 every day
• 904 followers
• About 400 replies

Youtube

• Not too many hits, there’s a few films
  

Google Trends

Not too many changes here..

• Easy Peasy is already more popular than PCLinuxOS
• It’s hard to rebrand. Ubuntu Eee is 3 times more popular than Easy Peasy
• The use of Easy Peasy on the web already means the operating system
• Google search with ‘easy peasy’ does not give good results yet (thanks Serola)

Bittorrent

Since the release of Ubuntu 8.04.1 has Ubuntu Eee not only been shared though Mininova, but has been hosted by Mininova as a featured download

• The torrent is only 8 days old, and is shared by 5 times more than there’s downloaders Thanks!

Sourceforge

• Ranked as the 431 most popular software on Sourceforge
• 317 000 is the total amount of downloads
• Which equals 117 Tera Bytes

Donations

• We’ve got a total of $7 032 in 2008. Thank you!
• The accounts can be viewed by anyone

Google blog search

• 7 288 has blogged about Easy Peasy
• 16 184 has blogged about Ubuntu Eee

Google news

• 38 news articles about Easy Peasy, some faulty because of use of the term
• 15 for Ubuntu Eee
• Which sums up to about 50 news articles about the operating system

Users

• 317 000 direct downloads +

Again, thank everyone for helping out – together we’re creating the best operating system for netbooks.

If you have an idea for the web-page, please launch your favorite image editor and create a mockup. Design it a way that you can actually create :) Don’t waste your time on it – it’s just a mock up. Thanks for contributing your time!

The image can be uploaded on the wiki. The design is going to be used on the webpage, the forums, the wiki and so on. So we need a generic design, we’ll make a less generic front page afterwards.

Thanks again!

There’s going to be some small changes to it, but this is more or less how Easy Peasy will be re-branded.

I’ve been in several discussions with lots of people and all the nomineeses logoes are really well liked: Thanks to all the nominees for using your time on the project!

• macs
  

• elfor

Chris / cs

Andy (a girl in snowy Portland, Oregon) and Marc (a dude in Los Angeles, California)

No logo submission yet, only good samples and ideas

Some samples:

• http://andiverse.carbonmade.com/projects/2108928 (entry for 2008 Drupalcon logo contest)
• http://www.poketo.com/shop/
• http://meyouand.us/

You can see some of that is illustration, some layout, and some graphic assets.
Our idea is this: An Easy Peasy mascot, “Professor Easy,” who is a robot with a beard. He can look good with just one color (for print) or thousands of colors (web, where color is free ;D).
We want him to gracefully deconstruct for small pieces (like those little “corner” stickers on laptops). We want him to help people find their way on website navigation, and understand the Easy Peasy mission and culture (making computing simple and easy, just like a professor helps you get hard concepts).
Professor Easy is lovable and cute, our inspiration is the Songbird (open source music player) mascot:
http://blog.songbirdnest.com/category/culture/

Congratulations to the nominees! You now have a regular work week (Friday night UTC) to work on your great logos and go off as the champion :) I’ll keep in touch with you over email

And I’m sorry if your logo wansn’t selected. I know an EeePC isn’t much of a price and would like to thank all of you who have contributed your time and creative mind! There’s 60 contributors with a total of  abou 500 logo submission! The Ubuntu Eee community is truly amazing

Dear Jon

Thank you for your e-mail regarding your proposed use of Easy Peasy.

It is unlikely that we would take action against you if you comply with the following;

- always use Easy Peasy as two words (I see that it is sometimes written on your website as 1 conjoined word  ‘easypeasy’ – this would need to change)
- no use of easyPeasy (lower case ‘easy’ and capitalised ‘P’ for ‘peasy’
- no use of orange/white – i see your website contains an orange/white logo – this would have to stop
- no use of our font (known as Cooper Black)

Please note that in the event that, for example, confusion arose between  your brand and our brands or you moved into a business sector in which we trade, or you did not comply with the above, then we reserve the right to take action against you.

Please feel free to submit your proposed logo to me for comments prior to use.

Kind regards

Kirsten Doherty
Trade Mark Attorney

Thanks for contributing your creative mind and time!
Please submit your logos over at the wiki (there’s a Upload file option in the sidebar)

Here’s some ideas I’ve got. This is totally ignorable, but I just wanted to give you something to get going

• Easy Peasy can sound childish, so the logo must look professinal
• The complete saying is Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy. What about a glass of lemonade?
• Or A PC with Easy on the back?
• Or…

The script back in 2007 was downloaded about 3 000 times, the first release of Ubuntu Eee was downloaded about 60 000 times and Ubuntu Eee 8.04.1 has been downloaded over 225 000 times!

With this is Ubuntu Eee ready for it’s next leap. We want to bring the ease of Ubuntu Eee to all netbooks.
Because that’s what it’s been about: it’s easy. It’s the operating system you install and start using, real plug and play. The new release will be rebranded and released on January 1st. We wanted Easy in the new name. We’ve gone over it for several months, though the answer was right in front of us: It’s an Easy (operating system for a) PC – Ubuntu Eee will be rebranded as Easy Peasy.

Some loves the new name while some think it sounds childish. That’s why we have to make a really good looking and professional logo and webpage.

That means there’s been a donation every 15 minutes around the clock for half a week.

Thank you!

Please remember that you can follow every cent

Have you donated?

Read more

We’re trying something new. Instead of making an operating system where the once with money get their software included, we try to get a small sum from all users and stay un-biased.

The idea is that everyone donates $ 5. It’s a fundraiser from today till Tuesday.
Tell your friends and read more about it over at Ubuntu Eee’s home page

It’s been whished for more than once, and several people didn’t understand why we didn’t have one. But now I’m happy to announce our Forums over at http://forums.ubuntu-eee.com. There’s already well over 300 posts – so get yourself over there and involve yourself in forming Ubuntu Eee 8.10 and get help solving your netbook problems.

There was an interview with me over at Intel.com at the end of October, be sure to check it out :)

I made made an Ubuntu Eee Tab over at Netvibes. Here you can follow what’s being said about Ubuntu Eee and what’s happening in the Ubuntu Eee community – in real time

It was a happy day when Christopher accepted to be the Bug Supervisor of Ubuntu Eee. It was a sad day for the annoying bugs in Ubuntu Eee though. He’s doing a fantastic job. Before he started it was over 70% unread bugs and now it’s about 60%. Bugs aren’t only being read but also fixed at an amazing pace.

I’m in contact with Dropbox about having their great piece of software built into Ubuntu Eee. This means you’ll get an operating system with free cloud syncronization out of the box

I added a Google Ad to the wiki a couple of days ago to increase our funds. The ad was in the left sidebar and 50% of the time was it an ad for ourself. We didn’t get any revenue from it though. Now I’m testing with an ad on the front page of the wiki, nowhere else. I’ve kept the selfpromoting ads in the left sidebar.

Ubuntu Eee 8.10 will be released 01.01.09 01:01 PM (CET)

Gartner’s estimate is that there will be sold 15.6 million netbooks in 2009, meaning 2009 really will be the year of the netbooks – and we’ll work together to delivering the best OS for these people on the go.

As many know, won’t the name be Ubuntu Eee because of trademark issues. People are involving themselfs in forming Ubuntu Eee 8.10 over at the forums, why not head over and include yourself? :)

Ubuntu Eee 8.10 will not only be for Asus Eee’s, but for all netbooks out there on the 1st of January.

As I’m not blogging every day and I think some people want to keep an even closer look at what’s happening with Ubuntu Eee, I’ve set up a Twitter account. I will strive to keep it up to date 24/7 :) It’s available here: http://twitter.com/ubuntueee

So sadly the naming discussion continues…

The minuscule laptop — dubbed the NB100 — will feature an 8.9-inch, 1024 x 600 display, a 1.6GHz Atom CPU, 1GB of RAM, a 120GB hard drive and WiFi. The NB100 will be offered in three colors, Cosmic Black, Champagne Gold, and Bright Silver, thus making its casing the only difference between this and every other middling, mediocre netbook on the market. Prices are set to start at £260 (or about $472), and the laptops will be on shelves this October.

Source: jun4rui

• Base it on Ubuntu Intrepid – you can read more about these features over at ubuntu.com
  
  • Nautilus file manager has tab support and Eject icons for removable drives in Places sidebar
  • File Roller archive manager now supports ALZ, RZIP, CAB, TAR.7Z file types also
  • This release brings much better support for hot-pluggable input devices such as tablets, keyboards, and mice.
  • Linux kernel 2.6.27. This is a significant release with better hardware and numerous bug-fixes which is believed will provide overall improvement for Ubuntu 8.10.
  • Encrypted private directory
  • Guest session
  • Network Manager 0.7, which comes with long-expected features
  • “Last successful boot” recovery entry
  • DKMS. Allows kernel drivers to be automatically rebuilt when new kernels are released.
  • Samba 3.2
  • PAM authentication framework
• OpenOffice 3 ?
  
• More closed source codecs, sun java and windows fonts ?
• Customized kernel by Adam
• Fixes fixes and customizations run at boot time by Ferry Hendrikx
• Netbook remix mode / Regular desktop mode – changer

Do you have ideas for what we should include?

Screenshots from phoronix and tombuntu

We got a lot for help making an Ubuntu Eee feature page. Thank you! Dani’s work is now not only a feature work but also our front page. Looks great – thanks Dani :)

Iuri has taken the time to make us a donation page where the Ubuntu Eee logo is filled up with donations in real time. This will go live soon as well

With the release of the new donation page, Planet Ubuntu Eee, a download page and a forum we’re up at ubuntu-eee.com v2.0 :)

Some few people might experience trouble booting from the SD card, that’s because Ubuntu Eee on the card thinks it’s the the second storage media. So if a memory stick or external hard drive is plugged in, it doesn’t understand where it is :p Here’s the fix

Here’s the names I like – which do you like? Why?

LinAir by Kaien – Linux + Air
Fjord by Mimir – Norwegian (wikipedia)
Rune by Mimir – Norwegian tradition (wikipedia)
Flock by Daniel – We’re all working in a flock / community
Frost by Daniel – Just a nice word
Maroon by Marie – Color. Just a nice word
Ion by Clint – For small machines / netbooks
Aurora by Clint – Just a nice word. Kind of taken (wikipedia)
Swift by capawi – It’s swift
kiwi by capawi – Fruit or Bird. Just a nice word
Ramvi OS by Mattias – Me :)
Owl by dresler – Bird. Just a nice word
Iris by dresler – Eye or flower. Just a nice word
Colibri by McGivrer – Bird. Just a nice word
Troll by Thomas – Norwegian myth (wikipedia)
Urban by mikó – Because netbooks are urban? ;)

Ubuntu Eee 8.04.1 went gold on the 5th of September.
This news was only published on ubuntu-eee.com, not on this blog. This made several people confused about if the second release candidate was the same as the final release or …

Ubuntu Eee 8.04.1 RC2 = Ubuntu Eee 8.04.1 final release

However, there was a problem with the first thousand downloaded versions, where you couldn’t upgrade nor install software. Here’s the fix.

I’ve been contacted by Canonical, owner of Ubuntu, because of Ubuntu Eee’s obious resemblance to the Ubuntu name and logo. Read the e-mail here.

I have kind of been waiting for this. What they’re saying is that we need to re-brand Ubuntu Eee: new logo, new name and new domain. They’re really kind in the email and allow us to use their marketing team for our new logo. They’re not that stricked with the new name and domain neither. We can even call it Ubuntu for Eee if we want.

But as we’re increasing our scope and are working on being the obvious choice for any netbook owner, we will ned a new name and logo anyway. This is where you, dear reader, come into the picture. We need a great name for our great distro. Please comment with your ideas! I’m not going to say that no ideas are stupid, ’cause some are, but that’s not a problem! :) Please share any idea!

Personally I don’t like names which mean something. Like Ubuntu Eee, which only says: It’s Ubuntu for the Asus Eee. And not like Netbook OS. Or Ububook. I like Mint linux’s name. Doesn’t say a thing about the the OS.

1. Create a linux distribution which doesn’t scare new users, which fully supports the Asus Eee and gives the user the best software available – even if it isn’t open source and to
2. build a big community who both cares and contributes back to the project.

Mission accomplished

1. With the release of Ubuntu Eee 8.04.1, this task is completed. Ubuntu Eee is easy to install, easy to learn and easy to use.
2. The newest statistics show that the community really cares about Ubuntu Eee and contributes greatly back to the project.

Increasing our scope

People have been asking if Ubuntu Eee can be run on other netbooks, like the Acer Aspire One. While it might run, the Aspire One isn’t supported.  Our new mission is to

• fully support all netbooks and be the obious choice of OS for new netbook owners

The branding wasn’t suppost to be changed untill Ubuntu Eee 9.04, but it has now been proponed because of the email from Canonical.

Hi Jon,

Just to introduce myself, I am a member of the trademark team at Canonical. As you are no doubt aware, Canonical owns a number of trademarks and these include UBUNTU, KUBUNTU, EDUBUNTU, and XUBUNTU. The trademarks are registered in both word and logo form. This policy encompasses all marks, in word and logo form, collectively referred to as “Trademarks”.

Your Ubuntu-eee project has been brought to our attention:

http://www.ubuntu-eee.com/

As much we do appreciate your enthusiastic support of Ubuntu and appreciate the time and effort you have devoted to the project, we’re afraid that there are trademark issues with your project. We’ve tried to define a reasonable trademark policy that allows people to customise Ubuntu, and use the marks to promote the project, while at the same preserving the integrity of the marks.

In terms of our trademark policy you cannot use the Ubuntu circle of friends logo in combination with other marks or logos. It concerns us because, among other things, it implies a connection and endorsement that doesn’t exist and we believe that this is potentially confusing to users. The circle of friends logo you have used replacing the circles with the letter e is in breach of this. We’d be happy to offer the assistance of our marketing team if you would like help in redesigning your logo.

In terms of our project name, Ubuntu-eee, is in breach of our trademark policy. Ubuntu-eee implies an official endorsement, which is not the case. We do encourage people to make custom versions of Ubuntu, and we have established the “remix” concept and terminology to allow use of the trademark if the changes are minimal or include only software from the Ubuntu repositories. It is of course fine to host repositories and distribute the software – the issue is that you are attaching the brand, quality and assurance messages of the Ubuntu marks to something which is not Ubuntu. We wouldn’t have a problem with you naming your project Ubuntu for eee or Ubuntu-eee remix, for example.

Regarding the url, again, there is a trademark issue with this as in terms of our policy we do not allow the word Ubuntu to be used in a domain name or url and Ubuntu-eee is in breach of this.

Again,we’d like to stress that we do appreciate your enthusiasm for Ubuntu, however, the Ubuntu name and logo to refer to your own project (i.e, not Ubuntu) needs to be changed.

We trust that you will understand our position in this regard. If you have any questions or would like to discuss it further, please let us know.

Kind regards,

Michelle
The Trademark Team

Get it while it’s hot:

The Ubuntu Eee 8.04.1 Release Candidate 2: Torrent download

Everything from the “The road from Ubuntu Eee 8.04.1 RC to GOLD” should be fixed.

Please report bugs over at Launchpad, thanks

Firefox is endangered – please consider checking out my post about Google Chrome

As Google Chrome is really fast and less of a memory hogg. Maybe it’s the browser Ubuntu Eee? I’m thinking about the Ubuntu Eee 8.10 release.

What do you think?

Firefox won’t disappear tomorrow, but with time the fox will disappear.

Why will the fox die out?

Mozilla, the developer of Firefox, have developed their own rendering system: Gecko. Google Chrome however uses WebKit for its rendering.

Wait, wait, wait – rendering system?

A browser can be divided into two parts. What you see around and on top and the main area – where the web page is. Around the web page you find stuff such as: Addons, Tabs, etc. In the main area the rendering occurs. Because of this, web pages do not look the same in different browsers. The goal is that of course that the web page is rendered in the same way in all browsers, which is a web developers wet dream. A web page is written in codes, such as a headline: <h1> Wait, wait, wait – rendering system?</ H1>. The different browsers to disagree on what this <h1> code and how it should appear / rendered on your screen.

Ok, keep on

So Google Chrome uses another open source renderings system: WebKit. Gecko (Firefox’s rendering system) can compete with WebKit today. But WebKit will evolve to become a standard of the Web that Gecko won’t be able to measure up against. To find out why, we’ll have to look at who’s behind WebKit.

The fact that Google is supporting the WebKit development can be enough to kill Firefox, but little Mozilla (the developer of the Gecko) must not only compete against big Google. The biggest contributor to WebKit is Apple, which uses WebKit for the Saferi browser on their Macs, PCs and iPhones, and if if that wasn’t enough, Nokia also supports WebKit.

What do you think? Does Mozilla stand a chance against Google, Apple and Nokia?

Firefox forsvinner nok ikke imorgen, men med tiden kan reven dimme ut.

Hvorfor kan reven dø?

Mozilla, utvikleren av Firefox, har utviklet sitt eget rendringssystem: Gecko, mens Google Chrome bruker WebKit til sin rendring.

Vent, vent vent – rendringssystem?

En nettleser kan deles inn i to deler. Det du ser rundt / på toppen og det som foregår i hovedområdet – altså nettsiden. Det som er rundt siden er ting som: om nettleser støtter Addons, om den har Tabs osv. Det som forgår i hovedområdet, altså nettsiden, er ikke det samme uansett hvilken nettleser du bruker. Det sider ser like ut i alle nettlesere er selvfølgelig målet (og en web-utviklers våte drøm), men slik er det altså ikke. En nettside er skrevet med koder, f.eks overskrift: <h1>Vent, vent vent – rendringssystem?</h1>. De forskjellige nettleserene er uenige om hva denne <h1>-koden og hvordan den skal vises / rendres på skjermen din.

Ok, fortsett

Google Chrome bruker altså et annet åpen kildekode rendringssystem: WebKit. Gecko (Firefox sitt rendringsystem) kan idag konkurrere med WebKit. Men WebKit vil utvikle seg til å bli en standard for nettet som ikke Gecko vil klare å måle seg opp mot. For å finne ut hvorfor, må man se på hvem som står bak WebKit.

At Google er med WebKit-utviklingen kan være nok alene til å danke ut Firefox, men lille Mozilla (utvikleren av Gecko) må ikke bare konkurrere mot store Google. Den største bidragsyteren til WebKit er Apple, som bruker WebKit til Saferi-nettleseren sin på Mac, PC og iPhone, og som om det ikke var nok støtter også Nokia WebKit.

[bloggrevyen]

Hva tror du? Har Mozilla en sjanse mot Google, Apple og Nokia?

Asus Eee 900A?

A new model called Eee PC 900A will feature almost the same specs as the Eee PC 901 (except the Bluetooth and the 6-cell battery, that has been replace by a 4-cell battery) but in the same case used in the Eee PC 900 model. (wikipedia)

And it’s using the Atom CPU.

The commands to run

sudo lspci -v -nn

sudo lsusb

Thanks for contributing your time :)

The problem however, is that there’s no standard javascript library. So every (fancy) plugin loads it’s own library, which slows the blog heavily down. The load time of this blog was almost 10 seconds on a 1.44 mbit connection. After doing some optimizations and disabling some plugins (removing the fancy image effect, lightbox, alone took away 3 seconds) the blog now loads in 5 seconds on a 1.44 connection.

There were some bugs with the release candidate. Some will be fixed before the gold release, some will have to wait. Here’s a list bugs:

• Netbook remix doesn’t respond after suspend
  Maybe Ubuntu Eee 8.04.1 shouldn’t come with Netbook Remix?
• Bluetooth utilities have been removed
  Will be fixed with gold
• «Incorrect password» after lock screen / suspend
  This will be fixed or worked around
• The RC comes with two bug reports
  This is no problem. It has been fixed. It’s just reports. They will be removed in 8.04.1 though
• Problems with /etc/sources.list meaning the upgrade manager doesn’t work
  This has to be fixed before being released
• Mic problems with 901 & 1000
  8.04.1 will go gold before this is fixed
• It should be easy to choose between netbook remix mode and regular desktop mode
  Yes it should. This will not hold the release of 8.04.1 back

New features:

• Finally an archive of my posts!
• Pages 1-5 in the footer instead of just next and previous post
• iPhone plugin – try accessing my blog from your iPhone :)
• It’s now possible to answer comments. This is great since some of my posts got over a hundred comments
• My posts no longer ping each other. Not a huge problem, but still pretty annoying.

Thanks for contributing your time!
It’s cool that we’re contributing something back to the Ubuntu community

Waiting for Ubuntu Eee 8.04.1 to be released? Got some spare time and want to contribute?

Here’s a guide on how to translate the Netbook Remix interface which Ubuntu Eee uses into your language.

1. Go to Launchpad. If you’re a member, log in. If you’re not, register.
2. In the sidebar at the right, it says: Your languages. Click “Select Languages“
3. Select your language and you should arrive back at the URL in step one. But this time your language is listed. If there’s any red in the progress bar (untranslated), go ahead and click your language and start translating.

Thanks for contributing your time!

UPDATE II: Ubuntu Eee 8.04.1 RC2

UPDATE: The road from Ubuntu Eee 8.04.1 RC to GOLD

This is day 2 of the finishing of Ubuntu Eee 8.04.1. If you haven’t read what happened day 1, please take a look here.

All times are UTC+1.

MD5sum of the release candidate: f5ce1516e2b05425eb3fd96e8630b7fe

Marie with coffee

Ubuntu Eee 8.04.1 RC starting up

Ubuntu Eee 8.04.1 RC

22:53

Ok, my connection sucks way to much to complete the upload to Sourceforge. Download the release candidate with Bittorrent now!

Going to bed – good night :)

22:44

Progress: [=========>                    ]  34.5% of 651517952 bytes
failed:
Could not send request body: SSL socket write failed
dav:/r/ra/ramvi/uploads/>
dav:/r/ra/ramvi/uploads/> put ubuntu-eee-8.04.1.iso
Uploading ubuntu-eee-8.04.1.iso to `/r/ra/ramvi/uploads/ubuntu-eee-8.04.1.iso’:
Progress: [                              ]   0.1% of 651517952 bytes

21:21

Uploading ubuntu-eee-8.04.1.iso to `/r/ra/ramvi/uploads/ubuntu-eee-8.04.1.iso’:
Progress: [==>                           ]  10.1% of 651517952 bytes

21:07

Uploading a RC of Ubuntu Eee 8.04.1 to sourceforge:

Uploading ubuntu-eee-8.04.1.iso to `/r/ra/ramvi/uploads/ubuntu-eee-8.04.1.iso’:
Progress: [                              ]   0.3% of 651517952 bytes

20:56

My internet connection is working at 1kb/s or something. But I think Ubuntu Eee 8.04.1 is ready! Reinstalling policykit fixed the permission problem.

19:32

Marie (gf) has a friend over and I had to set up the projector and stuff. Still working on the policy / permission problem…

17:47

I think this can fix the login problem:

chmod a+w /tmp

The problem with nm-applet is still there when installed though, so it has be fixed. When trying to start network-admin I get:

The configuration could not be loaded
You are not allowed to access the system configuration.

17:24

Been to the store and bought a pizza. Anyway, the problem:

When trying to run nm-applet on the livecd, it returns:

** (nm-applet:9592): WARNING **: <WARNING> nma_dbus_init ():
nma_dbus_init() could not acquire its service.
dbus_bus_acquire_service() says: ‘Connection “:1.86″ is not allowed to
own the service “org.freedesktop.NetworkManagerInfo” due to security
policies in the configuration file’

When trying to log in after installation, I get this message:

View details (~/.xsession-errors file):

/etc/gdm/Xsession: Beginning session setup…
…
…
mkdtemp: private socket dir: Permission denied

Anyone out there got any tips?

16:53

Nope, the permission problem is still there after installing. Crap

16:21

Seems we have a permission problem with the livecd user. While that sucks, it’s not going to hold us back from releasing. It may mean there’s no internet connectivity on the livecd. The permission problem is probably gone when it’s installed. I’m going to test that now. If it looks ok, I’m going to release a release candidate. If the permission problem or any other important bug can be fixed within 24 hours, the RC won’t go gold. If there’s no quick fixes, the exact same version as the release candidate goes gold.

15:58

The installation now automatically starts when booting the livecd. But I seem to have forgotten to add the notification area (where the battery applet etc are) or something’s wrong..

15:33

New problem: The livecd user have lost it’s permission to install. Google…

15:20

I’m now going to test it on my Asus Eee 701. I’m using the great unetbooin application by Geza Kovacs to move it to a memory card.

15:13

I know several people are following this post. So I made another post where you can contribute some of your time, if you’d like :) How to translate Ubuntu Eee into my language

15:05

Looks great in the virtual machine. The panel is all set up but the installation didn’t autostart. I tried starting it with

ubiquity

instead of

ubiquity –desktop %k gtk_ui

Let’s try again :) I’m also afraid that when the OS is installed, and it’s trying to start ubiquity it’s going to wait for the to time out, since it can’t find it, and there’s half a minute waiting. Which of cause isn’t ok..

14:14

Just woke up. Unfortunately,  Deco’s wake up call didn’t wake me up. Marie (girlfriend) have made me coffee and here I am, in my bathrobe, ready to finish 8.04.1. I’m going to start by customizing the panels. Remove the bottom one and edit the top one.

We had a survey running for about a week on the front page of ubuntu-eee.com. I received 141 answers – thanks for you time!

Most 46% thought a medium number of changes was done to Ubuntu to turn it into Ubuntu Eee. Not many changes were applied in this first release (but the 8.04.1 release is awesome) and it’s sad if we go around fooling people. 27% thougth we had made many changes. It’s sad that we haven’t been good enough at telling you what’s actually new.

61% are very satisfied with Ubuntu Eee 8.04.1 – which is amazing. And only 9% thinks it sucks.

We also got a lot of comments. I’ve read all of these and taken notes. Some people said some nice things. Thanks :)

Users

The Sourceforge statistics just got back online. Ubuntu Eee has been downloaded 39 056 times from Sourceforge!

It has been download 10 061 times with BitTorrent.

One download is in average installed on 1.36 machines which means
Ubuntu Eee is used by 52 739 people around the globe!

Page 1 – Page 2 – Page 3

The wiki has been cleaned up a bit. Removed information on how to tweak regular Ubuntu installations to work on the Eee and improved the information about Ubuntu Eee.

There are now 476 total pages. This includes “talk” pages, pages about Ubuntu Eee, minimal “stub” pages, redirects, and others that probably don’t qualify as content pages. Excluding those, there are 128 pages that are probably legitimate content pages. It’s now available in twice as many languages (14)! English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese, Serbian, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish and Nederlands.

There have been a total of twice as many page views (1,558,074), and 3,107 page edits and there are 269 registered users.

Google Analytics tells me there have been 26% more visits and 81% comes from referring sites or search engines. People mainly google for “ubuntu eee” or “eee ubuntu”. Download the pdf

Donations

In my last statistics post, we had received 10 donations. We have now received 52 donations! Thank you! We now have $609 and have used $1278. Meaning we have gotten $1887 in donations and the average donation $36. Thanks again!

Go here to follow our accounts – live! and Go here to donate

Page 1 – Page 2 – Page 3

Facebook

The Facebook fan page has gone from 75 fans to 332, which means we are getting about 6 new fans every day. 7% of the fans are female. 71% are between the age of 18 and 34.

Google Trends

No huge change here. We’re now more popular than Damn Small Linux as well and Dreamlinux is out of the competition.

Page 1 – Page 2 – Page 3

Go here to read about day 2

Some people have shown an interest in following the last steps of the development of Ubuntu Eee 8.04.1. (I hope) this is just hours before the release.

Why isn’t it done yet? My development machine is a Apple Macbook Pro running windows. I thought running Ubuntu (for Ubuntu Eee development) in VMware would work flawlessly, but I was wrong. Now I’m ready for the last build (I have done quite a lot of Ubuntu Eee builds for myself to get it just right) with a fresh Ubuntu installation.

All times are UTC+1

23:45

Been working for 9 hours straight. I’m done for today. I’ve completed a lot of what I had in mind so I should be able to complete Ubuntu Eee 8.04.1 on Sunday. Thanks everyone for following, thanks for your supportive comments and thanks for you feedback!

23:30

2 hours since last update – sorry about that! For the last half hour I’ve been disconnected because of my crappy internet provicer. Here’s a screenshot just to get you all fired up:

That’s soon to be Ubuntu Eee 8.04.1 with Flash 10 with webcam support on pages like Facebook, Netbook remix, awesome kernel by Adam and so on

Now I have to fix the panels. There should only be one, and it should be on the top. Next I will try to add stuff to the favorites menu. Or just have the installer autostart..

21:37

We’re on! Apparently adding all_generic_ide to the boot line fixes the problem because of some bug. The customization continues!

20:47

The only place where I don’t follow the tutorial for changing kernel correctly is where I’m support to do:

mv edit/initrd.gz extract-cd/casper/

But I don’t have the rights to do that

mv: try to overwrite `extract-cd/casper/initrd.gz’, overriding mode 0644 (rw-r–r–)? y
mv: cannot move `edit/initrd.gz’ to `extract-cd/casper/initrd.gz’: Permission denied

So I sudo it. Maybe that’s the problem?

20:26

I’m back home and have taken out the garbage. My girlfriend has made me some coffee. I hope I get in contact with Adam soon. He’s the one with the brains in this project. I’m just the one stuffing it together and taking the credit.

19:21

Please take a look on this screenshot. This is what happens when starting the regular Ubuntu 8.04 ISO.

19 seconds in an error occurs: end_request: I/O…
When using Adam’s kernel, this error is printed about 20 times, the boot stops and BusyBox appears.
I’ve googled around and found that the two essential kernel modules for booting a livecd is squashfs and unionfs.
I can’t help noticing that what should come after the end_request error is Registering unionfs 1.4

I think (hope) maybe this is the problem.. So – what to do…

18:38

Now at the library (so you won’t find me now, Pete!). I will now customize the regular Ubuntu iso, but don’t do any changes and see if it runs in QEMU and VirtualBox. This is to see if the problem is with the applications or with me.

18:24

I’m now trying to use QEMU instead of VirtualBox to test the ISOs. I still end up with BusyBox, but I get different error messages. Weird… They’re closing here, so I have to move. I’ll be right back ;)

18:01

Never any help to get on #ubuntu. Got myself a coffee. Now looking into using the old kernel which worked and see if it’s possible to just upgrade to the new one.

17:27

Trying to get help on IRC. Probably without luck..

16:56

Squashfs and unionfs are the relevant modules. Just checked if they’re there in the new kernel, and they are. The troubleshooting continues… When I’ve got this working the rest of the of the customization should be applied pretty swiftly. I’ve got them ready to go :)

16:30

Hungry. Eating a salad

16:09

Changed to newest update on the top – guess that’s more logical. Apparently castper.log is suppost to tell me what’s wrong. Let’s take a look

/init: /init: 1: cannot open /dev/fd0: No such file

That didn’t really help me. Let’s see if google can help me

15:50

Not working – frustrated out of my mind!

15:41

Now trying again with the kernels changed (from regular to Adam’s).

15:21

Extracting a fresh version of the iso to start over. I was afraid a needed a new installation as well for a second there. Typed a command that deletes everything and wasn’t sure I did it in the correct directory. I typed this to remove the broken build:

sudo rm -R *

sudo means: do stuff your normal user normally can’t do

rm means: remove

-R means: continue reacuravly through the directories. Don’t stop

* means: everything

15:08

Ran into the regular problem: getting the livecd to use Adam’s kernel. When I boot it, I just get BusyBox initramfs. One more try. I think the problem is that I removed the regular kernel before installing Adam’s.

14:57

I’m at one of the computer rooms at Blindern, the University of Oslo. First job is removing the regular kernel and getting Adam’s kernel in.

Bindingen er ikke brudt, men det skal jeg gjøre nå. Men jeg holder meg nok til Netcom…

[bloggrevyen]

This means we will aggreegate all blogs from contributers of Ubuntu Eee onto one ad free page. Please leave a comment if you want your blog included. You should make a category and link us to that so that you can keep bloging about your cat in a foreign language in an other category :)

/etc/xdg/autostart

Did this help you? How?

What do you think – like them?

It’s also worth noticing how many languages the wiki have been translated into the last couple of days – good work everyone!

from Jon Ramvi
to kristian.enger@netcom-gsm.no
date Fri, Aug 8, 2008 at 5:18 PM
subject Netcom har opptrådt svært urimelig

Hei Kristian Enger,

det er ikke meningen å trekke inn Netcoms ledelse i en liten refunderingssak,
men etter å ha blitt anklaget for “alvorlig tillitsbrudd og forsøk på svindel” og brudd på Norsk Lov, må noen med autoritet trekkes inn i saken.

Saken

• Jeg bestilte iPhone søndag 27. juli, 12 dager siden, og bandt meg til iConnect i 12 måneder, men jeg har vært kunde i mange år
• Jeg angret på at jeg hadde bundet meg til iConnect og ikke iTalk Small som passet bedre til mitt bruk
• Jeg ringte kundesenteret og spurte om det faktisk var slik at for å binde meg til et annet abonnement måtte jeg:
  • betale ut telefonen hos posten. Den sendes med oppkrav
  • fylle ut angreskjema
  • sende telefonen tilbake
  • få tilbakebetalt pengene
  • bestille ny telefon
  • hente nye telfon igjen
• Kundekonsulenten undersøkte med Moobi og kom fram til løsningen:
  • Jeg hentet ut telefonen, betalte 3290 kr. Det var vanskelig å gjøre noe med prisen nå som den var sendt.
  • Deretter skulle jeg bare ringe tilbake, når jeg hadde telefonen, og bli bundet til iTalk og få tilbake de 1900 kronene – mellomlegget mellom iConnect og iTalk Small.
  • Jeg var noe usikker på om dette kom til å virke, og at når jeg tok telefonen i bruk, så hadde jeg ikke noen angrerett. Men kundekonsulenten beroliget meg med at jeg bare skulle si til han/hun jeg snakket med at det som skulle gjøre sto i Memo.

• Jeg utebetalte telfonen på Posten, ringte inn, sa det lå i Memo, konsulenten ordnet opp. For sikkerhetsskyld spurte jeg om han nå også tok kontakt med Moobi om tilbakebetalingen av pengene. Det var allerede sendt en faks med kontonummeret mitt, sa han, men han skulle sende den igjen.
• Noen dager senere sendte jeg en epost til Mooby og spurte om når jeg kunne vente pengene (se nederste epost). Så, i dag, kom mailen hvor jeg ble angklaget for å bryte Norsk Lov og forsøke å svindle dere. Dette er ikke holdbar oppførsel og åpenbart helt ubetinget!

Det har helt klart skjedd et tillitsbrudd her, men da ikke av meg! Jeg finner meg ikke i å bli behandlet som en kriminell av en bedrift jeg bruker over 10 000 kr på i året!
Jeg krever med dette at dette kommer i orden og jeg har får tilbake beløpet jeg er blitt lovet: Altså at jeg betaler det jeg skal for å bli bundet til iTalk Small. Jeg krever videre at jeg slipper å ha et kundeforhold med dere som nærmest truer med søksmål mot meg og krever at bindingen brytes umidelbart uten gebyr.

Hilsen
Jon Ramvi

Tror du jeg får svar? Tror du jeg får tilbake mellomlegget? Tror du de finner seg i å bryte bindingen uten kontrakt?

[bloggrevyen]

We’re so green! Carbon neutral, to be exact!

Which means we’re green! Our wiki was moved to Dreamhost about a month ago. Our repository is now hosted by Tuxfamilies, but will also be moved to this great host.

Dreamhost also got referral service, which means if you sign up with Dreamhost through us – Ubuntu Eee gets $97! Thanks!

We need your help, not only if you’re a coding geek. Please give me a comment about what’s great about Ubuntu Eee? Please take a look at this post and take that into consideration.

My ideas

• that we’re using the easy and good looking Netbook Remix interface
• Firefox 3 and it’s great features
• that it works seamlessly with Windows and Apple machines

• OpenOffice – the full office suite
• Possible to connect to the internet though you phone
• All the available software. Free and high quality. Upgrades all drivers and software in one click

But as I said, we need your feedback on what we should advertise

Here's my favorite

Stamat has also made a fancy screensaver

Oh, and don’t forget to check out of wallpaper page with more Ubuntu Eee wallpapers.
Which one do you like the most?

UPDATE II: Ubuntu Eee 8.04.1 RC2

Update: Get the Release Candidate (BitTorrent)

And when will it be released? First things first. Ubuntu Eee probably have over 50 000 active users now, which is way more than expected. Now we hope we can give you back more than expected. What can you expect of Ubuntu Eee 8.04.1:

Half the boot time because of the great custom made kernel by Adam

Better support for Asus Eee 701: Newer (and better) wireless driver, webcam working (doesn't bring the Eee to a full stop) and bugs fixed (shuts completely off and so on)

Support for Asus Eee 900, 901, 1000 and 1000H

Only uses 1.8 GB.Meaning we now support Asus Eee 2G as well

Changes from the regular Ubuntu 8.04.1 release. Firefox 3, bug fixes and so on

Netbook Remix interface!

What not to expect of Ubuntu Eee 8.04.1

Upgrading from 8.04 to 8.04.1

“What?! That sucks!” Yeah, I know, but no one have taken the time to make debs of the changes implemented into 8.04.1, which means the edits are hard coded into the iso and you won’t be able to upgrade. You will have to do a fresh install.

When will it be released

As soon as Adams new kernel is ready, Ubuntu Eee 8.04.1 goes gold. It is ready within a couple of days.

Kontera In-Text website advertising solutions allow publishers to monetize their content without taking away additional webpage real-estate.

From the Kontera webpage

I’ve been trying Kontera for a couple of weeks and I’m now removing the in-text ads. Why? I’ll tell you why!

1. The “Publisher center” isn’t good at all. It’s only good for getting the code to embed and viewing your revenue. I would however like to be able to help Kontera with the targeting – Select how many ads are shown per page or per word in the post – View the revenue by post. I want to feel I’m in control over what’s happening on my blog.
2. Kontera is from Israel
3. This is the main reason: I think product placement is bordering to unethical advertising, and selling your voice and getting payed to write a biased post is over the border. Turning the text into mouse-over ads isn’t unethical, but is certainly annoying to the reader. There should be a certain payoff for the publisher  for being an asshole, and the the payoff from Kontera is not big enough. In two weeks, I’ve made $0.35. And for what – annoying my readers?

Kontera’s sucky text-ads might work better for you, as a publisher, if you’re writing about mainstream stuff and not geeky stuff like Linux.

First of all – I like the name: Firefox Tablet. I hope Mozilla approves the use of it. It they don’t – please don’t call it Icecat Tablet.

My first idea was to add 3G connectivity to it. A little SIM card reader under the battery can’t be too expensive.

My second idea is to not only select a small screen and a slow CPU because of the price, but also because of it’s power consumption. About 10″ should be enough or what do you think? The resolution is more important than the screen size. Minimum 1024 pixels wide – please don’t give me that Asus Eee 800 pixels crap. It would be amazing if we could squeeze 6 hours use out of it.

My third and last idea is to have a “little arm” on the back. It’s important that it’s not in the way when holding it. But when you’re have a video conversation, it can be nice to put it down on the sofa table. And the great idea here is that when you recharge it, you put it in an upstanding position, plug the cord in and it turns into a digital picture frame – streaming pictures from you computer!

Do you have any ideas?

In their mockups they’ve used Windows and Safari, but it’s going to be powered by Linux and Firefox. I’ll be blown away if it ends up as thin as they’re hoping for – And I sure hope they don’t go for that bluish border.

The idea is that it should boot Firefox right up, no window manager, and should also come with Skype. I like that they’re going for Skype instead of Ekiga, like Ubuntu Eee. Can I have a 3G connection as well please?

Update: More ideas :)

As for the advertising; I’ve looked into a lot of different advertisers the last weeks. With most of them, like Comission Junction, you have to select exactly who or what you want to advertice for. I’ll might try that out, but Google Adsense really got an upper hand with their automatic way of finding compelling ads.

In other news; mastercard just bought me a Xbox 360 and GTA4 – thanks!

3 clarifications

Will Ubuntu Eee 8.04.1 be freely available or do I have to donate?

Donating is totally voluntary. Ubuntu Eee 8.04.1 will be made available for download when it’s ready. If you do want to donate however, please visit http://donate.ubuntu-eee.com

It would be cool if the SD cards were available in stores

Yes, I agree :) Tough I can’t see how the money would be split.

Are there any SD cards left?

Yes, only five people have donated $50 or more (thanks!). Go here to view our accounts live. My girlfriend and me are going to donate $50 each as well, which means there are three cards left in this first batch.

I get “BusyBox” when I try to customize the liveCD.

Go here to view the log

Update: If I use generic instead, ie:

sudo cp /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-19-generic extract-cd/casper/vmlinuz
sudo cp /boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-19-generic extract-cd/casper/initrd.gz
mkinitramfs -o /initrd.gz 2.6.24-19-generic

I still get to BusyBox, but with an other error message:

You will get

• Ubuntu Eee 8.04.1 (harder, better, faster, stronger than Ubuntu Eee 8.04)
• Ubuntu Eee Plug-and-Play Class 6 SD card
• to support an open source project which does everything it can to give back to it’s users

How do I get it

You get one of these smashing cards for free when you donate 50$ or more to the Ubuntu Eee project.

It is not in our nature to screw people over, so if you’ve already donated, you can get away with just supplying to your first donation.

URL: donate.ubuntu-eee.com

Facebook

We started a fan page on Facebook a couple of days ago, and there’s already 71 fans! We could work towards getting a better sex ratio though. If you’ve got a female friend with an Asus Eee, help her install Ubuntu Eee and get her onto the fan page ;)

Bittorrent

The torrent was only hosted by Ubuntu Eee for a couple of days. Since then only the community has kept it alive. And talk about life! As we speak it’s being seeded by 77 people and downloaded by 5. That means there are 15 hosts / seeders for every downloader! Thanks guys and girls!

Google Trends

Is Ubuntu Eee comparable to Ubuntu? No, not at all. But Ubuntu Eee is comparable with some of the other Linux distributions over at DistroWatch’s Top 10 list! Ubuntu Eee is more popular than number 5: PClinuxOS, number 8: Dreamlinux, number 9: Sabayon and Mark Shuttleworth (creator of Ubuntu).

Wiki

There are 367 total pages. This includes “talk” pages, pages about Ubuntu Eee, minimal “stub” pages, redirects, and others that probably don’t qualify as content pages. Excluding those, there are 109 pages that are probably legitimate content pages. It’s available in 7 languages: English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese and Russian.

There have been a total of 880.361 page views, and 2.279 page edits. That comes to 6.21 average edits per page, and 386 views per edit.

There are 163 registered users.

The wiki is a Google PageRank 4, which is pretty decent.

Some more statistics (pdf)

Donations

We have gotten 10 donations with the average donation sum being $25. We actually get a donation every second day! We have recieved $254 in total.

Go here to follow our accounts – live! and Go here to donate

Users

So what does all this sum up to? How many people around the globe use Ubuntu Eee 8.04 every day? The statistics system over at Sourceforge have been down for half a month. But if Ubuntu Eee has been downloaded as the same pace as I’ve got statistics for, Ubuntu Eee has now been downloaded from Sourceforge almost 15 000 times!

Ubuntu Eee has been downloaded almost 5 000 times from Bittorrent. So by now Ubuntu Eee 8.04 has been downloaded 17 714 times.

We have a survey running (been running for two days). Already we have about 50 responses. The (early) responds tells us that for every download, it’s installed on 1.32 machines.

This means that Ubuntu Eee 8.04 got 23 381 users

which is a whole lot more than we could ever have hoped for!

Join today!

Question
How should we distribute this card?

Solution 1:
You get a card if you donate X (50$ ?) or more

Solution 2:
We sell the card for production price * 2. So that you donate the same amount that it costs. The price will then be about 100$ 50$.

Please comment with your ideas and thoughts. Remember to not think about how you can get the SD card as cheap as possible, but how Ubuntu Eee can get as much donations as possible ;)

Do you like this idea? Would you buy it? Do you have a better idea?

Update: Thanks for the comments, but I need even more feedback! I’m thinking about getting these.
Positive? Negative? Why? 18-20 MB/s read speed for 14$ – seems a little too good to be true?

I have to get them to Norway to install Ubuntu Eee on them before shipping. That means we have to pay Norwegian tax (anything with a value above 40$ being shipped into Norway). Is it possible to have Ubuntu Eee be installed somewhere else? Any other workaround?

Move your eyes towards the top of the screen. Higher. There – at the address field with the little e logo – see that it says ubuntu-eee.com instead of ubuntu-eee.tuxfam…..? We’re now hosted by DreamHost because of all the donations we’ve received. Thank you! We now have better uptime and load time :)

2008-06-09 – Ubuntu Eee goes gold!

Third time’s the charm! In December Ubuntu Eee started as a one man project, but the last months several people have joined in on the development. We’re trying to achieve something which haven’t been successful for any other Linux distribution yet: a OS targeting a single computer which includes the best applications available. This means people can buy this really cheap computer and easily get a great OS on it for free. Since Ubuntu is working towards being runnable on every computer in the world it’s big and sometimes slow and the creators are afraid of taking risks with new technology. We do these three points better as Ubuntu Eee is just for the Asus Eee. Ubuntu Eee is smaller, faster and we’re bringing people the cutting edge of technology (while being stable and free of course).

I would like to thank (and you should too) the teams brought you Ubuntu Eee 8.04 and I would like to thank the leaders of the teams: Waffel, leader of the Editors, Jeff Shaw / vader, leader of the Coders, and Martin Lettner / Lukeen, leader of the Artists.

Ubuntu Eee 8.10 will be even more customized for the small screen and maybe take in use the great Netbook Remix interface.

Changelog and known bugs

2008-06-02 – Release Candidate

As soon as this has been tried out for a few days Ubuntu Eee 8.04 is released.

Try it today – Didn’t work at all

2008-05-14 – Sorry! Ubuntu Eee 8.04 isn’t ready yet

Sorry about the miscalculation of the Ubuntu Eee 8.04 release date. Work has really accelerated behind the scenes – just take a look on the great new design of the front page. If you want to peek in behind the curtains, take a surf around ubuntu-eee on launchpad.

The reason Ubuntu Eee 8.04 isn’t released is because we’re having trouble with getting wifi working.
Geeky

The problem is making the madwifi driver
into a kernel module package.
If we don't do this, and just install the driver,
it will stop working when Ubuntu pushes a kernel update
(which is what happened to the beta).
If anyone is able to compile it,
please contact me!

The blueprint

Again, sorry…

2008-05-01 – Ubuntu Eee 8.04 ready within a week

It’s the international Workers’ Day and Ubuntu Eee 8.04 is beginning to take form. It will probably be released within the next week. We have some new contributors that have really accelerated the work.

• x2on have done a great job making some debs:
  • http://www.x2on.de/eeepc/eeepc-acpi-module-2.6.24-16-generic.deb
  • http://www.x2on.de/eeepc/eeepc-wlan_1.0-1_i386.deb
  • http://www.x2on.de/eeepc/eee-osd-ubuntu-2.1.1.deb

• Vader’s work on the applet for the Eee is going steady.

• We finally have some artists and some logo submissions. FlameForge has begun development for a nice logo and is offering his time to make a theme for our web page.

I would like to thank x2on, Vader, FlameForge and everyone else who is making Ubuntu Eee 8.04 possible. If you’d like to contribute, please do! ;)

2008-04-04 – Ubuntu Eee 8.04 beta ready for download

I’m happy to inform you that the Ubuntu Eee 8.04 beta is finally ready for download! I don’t know how to share it, so I’ve uploaded it to Filefront. If you’ve got a better hosting idea, please share it with us on the discussion page (I can not host it with my connection). Highlights: Avant-window-navigator, Picasa, Skype and Wine and every piece of hardware working out of the box

Download now

• From Filefront
• Bittorrent

Please read the changelog and known bugs

Update: After installing, if you upgrade, a new kernel will be used and you wifi will stop working. Solution 1: Don’t upgrade. Solution 2: Recompile madwifi drivers

In other news

After the organizational structure of Ubuntu Eee was changed into four groups last week, things have started to take form. About 10 people have applied to join the Ubuntu Eee team in one of the groups (Artists, Coders, Editors, Maintainers). We’re happy to welcome Neil Broadley as leader of the Editors group. Vader is going to make a gnome applet for Eee specific stuff (eg tells you what clock speed you’re running at, and lets you change it etc).

We still need members in our groups, so please don’t hesitates to apply for the group you think you can help out in. Especially Artists are important now as we don’t even have a logo.

Working on

• Selling a webshop / eStore solution. I built it for Norwegian non-profit organizations and thought that instead of selling it at a normal eStore price, I could sell it cheaper but to more organizations. It’s not selling as good as I would hope though.
  You can try it out here: http://jonramvi.no/auf (Norwegian)

• Ubuntu Eee. A customized version of Ubuntu for the Asus Eee. It comes with not only free (as in speech) software but also free (as in beer) software. Eg: It comes with Skype instead of Ekiga. And there are some driver fixes and other customizations. Ubuntu Eee 8.04 isn’t really that different from the regular Ubuntu release, but maybe we will have more customizations ready for the 8.10 release.
  Follow the development here: http://ubuntu-eee.tuxfamily.org/index.php5?title=Community_news
  
  
• A Facebook application. The idea is a kind of hybrid version of Underskog (Norwegian), StumbleUpon and MMORPG.
  
  

Would like to work on

• Write great blog post regularly (once a week?)
• A blog system that allows me to have two front pages. One in Norwegian and one in English. The Norwegian one should show all posts but the English one should only show English posts.
• A dazzling blog design

Og nå har jeg kjøpt toalettblokk / dosåpe – refill. Uten å ville det. Designeren har valgt 5 tekststørrelser. Jif, Vårfrisk, NYHET, TOALETTBLOKK, “Ny og friskere duft” og sist og minst REFILL. Jeg gikk selvfølgelig rett i refill-fellen. Klarer ikke jeg å handle har jeg ingen tro på at besteforeldrene mine klarer det.

Nå som jeg har blogget om dette føler jeg at jeg har tatt et oppgjør med designere og butikksjefer i Norge og forventer forbedring!

[bloggrevyen]

I dag ringte 05050 (Netcom). Damen i andre enden lurte på hvilket abonnement hos Telenor jeg skulle ha. Jeg var selvfølgelig kjempeskeptisk til samtalen, men tenkte at det kanskje lå et tilbud i slutten av samtalen ettersom jeg hadde fått det av Telenor da jeg gikk over til Netcom for noen år siden. Hun opplyste om at hun hadde fakturaen min foran seg og kunne se at jeg ringte mye til Netcom-kunder (hun hadde ikke peiling på hvor mye jeg ringte til Netcom-kunder så det var løgn), så hvis jeg la til tilleggstjenesten Venner, kunne jeg spare mye. Venner er en tilleggstjeneste som lar deg ringe gratis til alle Netcom-kunder for 29 kr måneden. Ikke nok med at jeg ville spare på å legge til Venner, men hun ville plutselig gi meg 500 kr. Uten å binde meg. De kunne se at jeg var en god kunde og ville gi meg 500 kr for å ikke miste meg. Dette er åpenbart bare tull siden jeg har vært i Australia det siste halvåret og hatt et forbruk på 0 kr måneden. Men jeg endte altså opp med å takke ja. Da satte hun meg rett over til Telenor som jeg fortalte at jeg ville avslutte overførselen.

Jeg vet ikke helt om hvem som helst som har Netcom kan (late som?) de vil endre operatør og få 500 kr, men det kan altså se slik ut. Gøy om noen forsøker det og gir tilbakemelding her!

[bloggrevyen]

I’ve been working on Ubuntu Eee 8.04 beta as promised. It doesn’t build correctly yet though.

In Gutsy news: It’s been reported that wifi isn’t working on the Eee even after installing the Ubuntu Eee script. My guess it that Ubuntu Gutsy have gotten a kernel update and that it has broken the script. It would be great if anyone took it upon them selfs to fix this. I’m working on setting up a git server so that others can help out with the code more easily.

The contributions to Ubuntu Eee hasn’t been overwhelming, but almost 50 000 people have gotten help from us. To try to get more momentum into Ubuntu Eee, I will open four groups:

• Artists – responsible for how Ubuntu Eee looks
• Coders – responsible for the code for both Ubuntu Eee and the Ubuntu Eee script (which will merge)
• Editors – responsible for keeping the homepage / wiki up to date and looking good
• Maintainers – will keep everything running smoothly. That is upgrading the wiki system, fixing the git server, setting up new modoules etc.

Please feel free to join one of the groups!

2008-03-12

Work is being put into running Ubuntu 8.04 (hardy) on the Eee. The new Ubuntu version’s beta is released in 8 days. I will probably get an Ubuntu Eee 8.04 beta out based on that release. One problem is that the wifi adapter still isn’t supported by the drivers that comes with Ubuntu. It would be great if it was, but it seems we will have to compile our own driver. The ideas for Ubuntu Eee 8.04 are now:

• It’s based on Ubuntu 8.04
• It has the Ubuntu Eee scripts installed
• Every piece of hardware will be working
• Installed by default: Picasa (instead of F-spot), Skype (instead of Ekiga), Avant-window-navigator, Wine, Flash, Java and codecs
• Changes in default appearance: glossy theme (blue), glossy top panel, background, nuoveXT icons

In other news, I’ve written some Ubuntu tips and tricks on my blog http://blog.jonramvi.no

2008-02-10

I might wait for the Ubuntu 8.04 release to release a stable Ubuntu Eee. Meaning it’s two months left :)

2008-01-09

Change in plans. Ubuntu Eee will be the standard Ubuntu Gutsy livecd with two main changes:

• New custom made kernel and all that comes with it to make Ubuntu work on the Eee
• Changes in look, feel and applications. Some new, some lost.

I’ve made a “mockup” (it’s how I have it now):

2008-01-07

I’ve been working on making a Ubuntu distribution, instead of just a script. The goal is that it’s extremely easy and just works, so that people who got their first computer can get Ubuntu on it. This version will not focus on being open. It will focus on just working – in the best possible way. This means:

• The iso is minibuntu with additions, not a reduced ubuntu
• Google Picasa instead of F-spot for images
• Amarok instead of Rhytmbox for music
• Optimized Firefox 3 for the Celeron M processor (Swiftfox – made from Firefox 3 beta 2)
• Skype 2 instead of Ekiga
• Codecs, flash and java out of the box

Wine is one of the fastest developed open source applications. A new Wine version is released every two weeks. Not only can you run World of Warcraft, but new and heavy games like Call of Duty 4 are also supported. One application that users have been wanting to run on Linux for several years is Adobe Photoshop. We’ve been doomed to use version 8 until recently. Google is helping out with the development to have Photoshop CS3 supported. As for now, Photoshop CS2 runs without any problems.

Here I’m running Dreamweaver 8 and Photoshop CS2 on Ubuntu. No tweaking or hacking needed. Just double clicked the exe files

However, a couple of hours ago Louis Lenders managed to install and run Adobe Photoshop CS3. He used the latest available source of wine (from git) which will be released in under two weeks as wine version 0.9.57 0.9.58.

As you can see the GUI is not correctly rendered yet

Give it a couple of weeks, and you can run your precious Adobe applications on Ubuntu / Linux
UPDATE: I’m getting a lot of traffic from digg.com (G’day diggers!), so I’m glad WordPress is hosting my blog.
To all you OS X fan boys: this isn’t a “Linux is better than Leopard and Vista combined and pwns the world!!1″-post. I know OS X can run Adobe applications. They were made for OS X in the first place. This is just a post with the latest status on running Photoshop CS3 using Wine.

1. Open up a Terminal and copy&paste these 3 commands:
   wget -q http://download.tuxfamily.org/blueman/blueman.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add -

   sudo wget http://download.tuxfamily.org/blueman/hardy.list -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/blueman.list

   sudo apt-get update

2. Go to System – Administration – Synaptic …

3. Find “blueman” and “obexfs”, mark them for installation and click Apply

4. When done, all open applications can be closed .

a
Use Blueman

1. Start Blueman from Applications – Accessories

2. Click Inquiry, select your phone and click Bond

3. Type the same pin on both your computer and your phone and the bonding should be successful

4. With the phone selected, click Other and select “Set trusted”

5. With your phone selected, go to Properties – Get Service List

6. Take note of the OBEX File Transfer channel (ex: 11)

7. Click “Device Information” and copy the Device Address (ex: 00:1D:FD:6C:9B:66)

8. When done, Blueman can be closed

a

System changes

1. Click Alt + F2 and the Run Application dialog pops up. Write:

   gksudo adduser YOURUSERNAME fuse && gksudo chgrp fuse /dev/fuse

2. Log out and in again (System – Quit – Log out)

a

Create a folder

1. Go to Places – Home Folder

2. Select File – Create Folder and name it Phone

a

Make shortcuts for mounting and dismounting the Phone

1. Right click Applications and select “Edit Menus”

2. Click “New Menu”
   Name: Phone
   Click the image and select any icon

3. Select Phone in the sidebar and click “New Item”

4. Name: Mount Phone
   Command: “obexfs -b THEDEVICEADDRESS -B THECHANNEL /home/YOURUSERNAME/Phone”
   (ex: “obexfs -b 00:1D:FD:6C:9B:66 -B 11 /home/ramvi/Phone”)
   Click the image and select any icon

5. Click OK and “New Item” again

6. Name: Dismount Phone
   Command: gksudo umount /home/YOURUSERNAME/Phone
   (ex: gksudo umount /home/ramvi/Phone)
   Click the image and select any icon

a

Here’s some icon ideas:

1. http://www.iconfinder.net/?q=phone
2. /usr/share/icons/ on your machine

aUPDATE
There seems to be a bug in Ubuntu Hardy’s obexfs. I’m only able to read files. I’m not able to write files to the phone. This should be working in Ubuntu Gutsy though..? The bug in hardy will probably be fixed soon as well.

Everything in the guide is really (that is, when you’re following it) without the quotes.

a

1. Install needed applications
a

1. Go to System – Administration – Software Sources
2. Select Third-Party Software and add “deb http://download.tuxfamily.org/blueman ubuntu bluetooth”
3. Close Software Sources. It will ask for permission to update. Yes, you’d like that…
4. Go to System – Administration – Synaptic …
5. Find “blueman” and “gnome-ppp”, mark them for installation and click Apply
6. When done, all open applications can be closed

a

2. Configure Blueman
a

1. Start Blueman from Applications – Accessories
2. Click Inquiry, select your phone and click Bond
3. Type the same pin on both your computer and your phone and the bonding should be successful
4. With the phone selected, click Other and select “Set trusted”
5. Now go to Edit and select Services
6. Enable Serial, check autostart and click the configuration button
7. From the Host dropdown, select your phone
8. From the Service dropdown, select “dun: Dial-Up Networking” and click Add Port
9. When done, Blueman can be closed

a

3. Configure the dial-up
a

1. Start GNOME PPP from Applications – Internet
2. Click Setup and write “/dev/rfcomm0″ in the Device field
3. Under Options, I recommend you check “On connect Dock in notification area”
4. Click Close
5. If you have gotten your own unique username, password and phone number, write those in
6. Otherwise, write your phone number as username and password and *99***# as phone number”"
7. “Remember password” must be checked (this is a bug)
8. Now, click Connect

How to connect in the future

1. Start GNOME PPP and click Connect

a

UPDATE 8th of May 08

How to use the data cable / usb cable instead of bluetooth

1. Connect the phone with the cable
2. In 3.2, where you type /dev/rfcomm0, click Detect instead.
3. Close and Connect

1. fring (http://www.fring.com)
   fring is an IM client that supports MSN, ICQ, Google Talk, SIP, Twitter, AIM and Yahoo. Nothing to get too excited about, other than the fact that it’s free. The really cool thing is that it supports Skype – with calls. Most new Nokias got WiFi now, so this application is gold. Call for free to others on Skype and almost for free to anyone (with SkypeOut) anywhere you’ve got WiFi access. I would however like to see it take use of the camera in the phone.
2. Nokia Search (http://europe.nokia.com/A4568514)
   If this didn’t come with your Nokia, you should start downloading straight away. This is a dektop search (like Google Dekstop) for the phone. It searches though you messages, notes, landmarks, calendar events – the list goes on. While not as fast as I would have hoped, this application is really a time saver!
   While I was searching the Norwegian phone list with Nokia Search, I thought it would be great if, when I found the person I was looking for, it allowed me to call or navigate to the person using the data it found. To my surprise, I was actually able to do these things. Great work Nokia!
3. Gmail (www.gmail.com/app)
   Google has taken taken the time to make an excellent email reader. Thanks for that!
4. Nokia Maps 2 (http://www.nokia.com/betalabs/maps)
   Nokia Maps (1.5) which comes with Nokias with GPS is good. It’s better than Google Maps but it does have it’s flaws and missing features. It’s all fixed in Nokia Maps 2! Photo / hybrid maps, not just start using your Internet connection, actually differs between when selecting Walk and Car, quick search (for businesses etc.)
5. Conversation (http://www.nokia.com/betalabs/conversation)
   This application shows you your text messages like a chat. It’s not that amazing, but very handy if you’re going through some texts. It integrates with the Contacts-application.
6. Location Tagger (http://www.nokia.com/betalabs/locationtagger)
   Got GPS in your phone? This application runs in the background and get the longitude and latitude of position you take your phones in. Flickr and other picture sites / systems has a function for letting you view photos from where they were taken. Some people tag all their photos with the position. Have an application do it for you
7. Opera Mini (http://www.operamini.com)
   The browser that comes with Nokias is great. And it’s open source, which tends to mean I like it even more. It does however have some memory difficulties. If if runs out of memory, which it does when loading a heavy page, it just quits. While this is also a problem in Opera Mini, it happens less often.
8. WidSets (http://www.widsets.com)
   An framework application for Internet widgets. It’s got potential, but it’s not that exciting yet. It’s good for getting the weather report.
9. Nokia Podcasting (http://europe.nokia.com/podcasting)
   Lets you automatically download podcasts. When you’ve got a WiFi phone, why first download podcasts to you computer before synchronizing it over to your phone?
10. Share Online 3.0 (http://www.nokia.com/betalabs/shareonline)
    This application integrates into the photo application and lets you upload pictures and movies on the fly. Newer phones got it installed by default. It only works with Flickr and Vox. That’s supposed to change. I would really like to see Facebook support.

*OPPDATERING* Nå har mamma lagt ut oldeforeldrene mine. Tjenesten er forresten ikke gratis. Det koster ganske mye å være medlem, men du får 14 dager gratis. Jeg har ingen planer om å begynne å betale.

*OPPDATERING II*

I tried Songbird when the 0.1 release candidate or something was released. I really wanted to like it, but I couldn’t see what all the fuzz was about. “Hurray, it’s Firefox with a black skin which plays mp3s”. A friend of mine has now open my eyes though. The current Songbird version is “developers release 0.4″, but don’t let the name fool you. It’s fully operational, in the same as Gmail still is in beta.

Just like Firefox, Songbird is all about add-ons. The application itself is an iTunes-looking player that plays lots of different formats. It also has bookmarks to several music websites (which can be customized). One of these bookmarks is Skreemr which searches through blogs for the song title you enter. The results are great, meaning you can through out Limewire, DC++, KaZaA (if you still had any of those lying around) and have a great download client right in your default music player. And the great thing is that Songbird lets you stream or download directly into your music library.

But as I said, it’s the add-ons that turns Songbird into a premium music application. I’ve got these add-ons installed: Album Art Manager, Audioscrobbler, iBird, Now Playing List, Wikipedia and Norwegian translation. I would also like to install AlbumApplet when it supports the 0.4 release, as it gives you the nice CoverFlow function from iTunes.

• Album Art Manager takes care of fetching album art, displaying them and showing a nice notification when the song changes
• Audioscrobbler gives you basic last.fm support
• iBird is a feather (read skin) that makes it look like a native OS X application
• Now Playing List divides the music library into two parts, as in Amarok, so you’ve got a playlist-view and a library-view at the same time
• Wikipedia fetches and displays information about the artist
• And there’s a translation for pretty much any language imaginable

What I would like to see is:

• Better last.fm support. I would like to have pretty much have the same possibilities as in the last.fm application (which is open source, so it shouldn’t be a problem if someone just copy&pasted the code into Songbird)
• Nokia music transfer. Probably not going to happen though, as Nokia loves keeping things closed
• Replay gain which normalizes the sound of all the tracks in the library
• Lyrics fetcher and viewer
• Adblock which removes ads from the different bookmark (maybe it’s possible to just add the Adblock add-on for Firefox?)
• *UPDATE* When the last.fm support is in, I would like to send the song now playing straight to Skreemr, hey, and why not automatically download the first hit? So what I really want is a download button in the last.fm radio.

If you actually read all of this, why not take Songbird for a spin?

Jeg har hatt mange søvnløse netter hvor jeg har tenkt på om jeg vil putte filmene inn her på bloggen (embedded) eller linke til dem på youtube. Siden avspilleren bare har fullskjerm-funksjon på youtube.com og bloggen blir ganske så treg av å hive inn flere filmer her, har jeg kommet fram til at jeg vil linke til dem. Så da er det bare å sette igang!

• Søndag av Daniel Bjur (2007)
  Se filmen her
  “Eksamens filmen min fra første året på fjernsyns og multimediaproduksjon ved UiS. Våren 2007.”
  
• Leveransen av Rune Bratthammer (2007)
  Se filmen her
  “Min eksamensfilm fra første året på utdanningen for Fjernsyns- og Multimedieproduksjon. I Stavangers kriminelle underverden går det et rykte om en bag med verdisaker som skal fraktes gjennom byen. Se rulletekst for medvirkende og musikk brukt.”
  • Tabbeklipp
    Se her
    “Mye kan gå galt under en filminnspilling, så jeg har like så godt laget en fin samling tabbeklipp som følger trofast med på dvden av Leveransen.“
• Super Plasma 300X-101 av PieceProduction (2007)
  Se filmen her
  “En oppgave vi gjorde på vårparten 2007 på studiet vårt på UiS. Alle gruppene fikk utdelt det samme manuset om en mann som slet med å komme over en dame. Det var lov med litt omskriving av manuset, så lenge essensen ble beholdt. Vi pushet grensen, og byttet ut dame med TV. Det er mange deler av denne filmen som har en forholdsvis lav kvalitet, men vi lar oss underholde litt, og legger den dermed ut likevel.“
• Hong Kong Action Thriller av Masters of Sarcasm (2005)
  Se filmen her
• Run Jonny, Run! av Masters of Sarcasm (2004)
  Se filmen her
  

• Jeg trodde jeg ville få betraktelig bedre batteritid. Den er, etter det jeg kan se, litt bedre, men jeg har ikke vondt i hodet (fra å hoppe i taket – for det gjorde jeg ikke over batteritiden.)
• Jeg trodde OS X ville starte raskere, men der var jeg jo helt på jordet.

Men det er ikke for å syte over dette at jeg fikk lyst til å skrive dette. Grunnen er at skal jeg gjøre den lette oppgaven å flytte noen filer fra en mappe til en annen. Fra mappe 1 til mappe 2 om du vil.

Mappe 2 har noen mapper og noen filer også vil jeg inkludere filene og mappene fra mappe 1 i mappe 2. Jeg dro over og ble spurt om jeg ville overskrive eller ikke. Valgte jeg ikke, ble ingenting gjort. Valgte jeg overskriv, slettet den innholdet i mappe 2 og la innholdet i mappe 1 over. Og det jeg reagerer på er at OS X-utviklerene har brukt de siste årene på å lage coverflow-mappevisning (hva er det? En kjempeteit idè..) istedenfor å kunne flytter filer.
Jeg blir arg!

Snakkes hjemme!

PS: Daniel, les mellom linjene

Snakkes hjemme!

PS: Daniel, les mellom linjene

Hvordan er det å handle dagligvarer i Australia

Vår lokale dagligvarebutikk er Woolworths (vanskelig å si). Som i Norge er det vanlig å forkorte med i-ending. Vi gjør det ikke så mye i Norge, men jeg husker at alle på barneskolen het Eppi, Oli osv. Her gjør de det på alt. Woolies er dagligvarebutikken. Frokost er breaky. Brisbane er brissie og australier er aussie. Men uansett, woolies:

Dagiligvarebutikker minner litt om dagligvarebutikker i USA. De selger masse store ting her. Chipsposer på størrelse med Marie og årsrasjoner med Cola. Brød og kaker som ikke er ferskt lengre blir solgt ved inngangen for under en dollar. Vi kjøpte brødene våre der i begynnelsen, men de begynte å muggle etter et par dager, og det var ikke gøy så nå spanderer vi på oss fullprisbrød.

Vi har begynt å handle mer eller mindre det samme hver gang nå. Mmm, rutiner… Osten her er som i usa, ferdigoppskjært i tykke skiver og smaker litt rart. Kjøper vi light ost minner den litt mer om den norske. Av og til klarer ikke Marie mer utenlandsk ost og kjøper seg en Jarlsberg.

Vi har sluttet å lage middag i det siste. De første ukene var vi flinke til å ha middag hver dag. Alltid pasta… Nå bare spiser vi når vi er sulten. Men i dag, på selveste nyttårsaften skal vi på Wagamama (nuddelresturant).

Handlebilder
Julebilder

Her om dagen tok sjefen med IT-avdelingen på pub etter det ukentlige møtet, som en juleavslutning. Vi ble alle takket og fikk lunsj og kinobilletter. Ikke så lett å jobbe beruset etterpå, så istedenfor hadde jeg det litt gøy på kontoret med et nettklipp:

Hvis du ikke så klippet, kan jeg informere om at det du ville ha sett var en scene som ikke ble tatt med i Michael Moors nye film Sicko. I filmen (som jeg ikke har sett) kritiserer han helsetilbudet i USA og sier at det er betraktelig bedre i Canada Frankrike og Storbritannia. Men sannheten er at Norge er landet med det klart beste helsetilbudet, men han tok ikke med scenen fordi det ville gjøre dokumentaren urealistisk. Så nå sender vi mail fram og tilbake og konkurrerer: Norge vs Australia. De er veldig dårlige på å finne fordeler med sitt eget land og vet selvfølgelig ingenting om Norge, så jeg må hjelpe dem litt.

Det som er spennende er at det virker som at få vet hva som kommer fra Samveldet (the English commonwealth: Land som en gang har vært styrt av England, som Australia, Sri Lanka og Sør-Afrika.) Scones, Cricket, Bowls, Sausage roll, Fish n chips osv. kommer selvfølgelig alle fra England, men her tror de jeg har bodd under en stein når jeg sier at jeg ikke har smakt sausage roll før.

På lørdag hadde jobben min juledag. Det vanlige i Australia er visst ikke julebord, men ting og tang fra tidlig på morgningen.

Stemningsrapport lørdag 8. desember 15:57

Det er varmt. Sommeren har plutselig kommet. Det er 28 grader i skyggen og veldig fuktig. Vi sitter på, noe vi vil kalle en kafe, men som kaller seg selv for en dining bar bistro. Rett ved siden av er en butikk som heter Juice. De selger juice fra fersk frukt, så det er er en frisk fruktlukt i området. Denne kafeen ligger i south bank, som er den laguneaktigeparken. Her er det marked i helgene. Så det er masse liv og live-musikk. Mange går rundt å spiser på maiskolber. Jeg tror jeg skal ha meg en etterpå (nei, det ble det ikke noe av.) Vi har kjøpt oss en Asahi hver: «Japans No.1 Beer» «Super dry». Den kostet 7$, altså 33 kr. Det er en dyr øl.

Nye bilder

1. Her velger de i mye større grad person enn parti, som i USA. Det er to reelle kandidater, også som i USA. Det står mellom konservative John Howard, som er president nå, og har vært det de siste 11 årene, og arbeiderpartiets Kevin Rudd. Howard er selvfølgelig konservativ og ekkel, men Rudd virker litt slesk han og. Kandidatene har veldig klare skiller. I Norge prøver alle sider å late som de skal gjøre alt, mens her har Howard helt klart redusert vanlige arbeidere sine rettigheter og er mot alt som heter streik og fagorganisasjoner. Han har heller ingen planer om å ratifisere Kyoto-avtalen.
2. Sittende statsminister velger og annonserer valgdato. Jeg tror valgdatoen må annonseres minst en måned før fordi Howard annonserte valgdatoen 24. november den 24. oktober. Fram til 24. oktober visste australsk befolkning bare at det ble valg en eller annen gang i år…
3. Det er ufattelig mye reklame på radio og tv. Alle reklamene angriper motstanderen og sier lite eller ingenting om egen politikk. “Howard vil bare fortsette å gjør hverdagen drit” “Med Rudd blir det streiker hver dag og landet stopper opp”. Hvis du ser eller hører på en hvilken som helst tv- eller radio-kanal i en time blir du utsatt for rundt 12 reklamer i timen.
4. Det er lite snakk om politikk. Det er også lite snakk om ideologi. Det virker som det de egentlig stemmer på er om de liker Howards Workchoices program eller ikke.
5. Det er ulovlig å ikke stemme i Australia. Slik har det vært siden begynnelsen av 1900-tallet. Stemmer du ikke får du mellom 20 og 70 dollar i bot (100 og 350 kroner). Dette gjelder både nasjonalt- og statsvalg og noen kommunevalg. Dette gjør at valgoppslutningen er ca. 95% hvor 5% er blanke stemmer.

Ellers i livet har jeg mistet lommeboken min. Jeg satt oppslukt i tortureringen av Winston i 1984 og lommeboken må ha glidd ut av den glatte dressbukselommen. Akkurat når jeg reagerte på at vekten på venstre lår var alt for liten og at lommeboken ikke var tilstedeværende, så jeg bussen kjøre videre. Og der var den borte vekk…

1. Marie fikk hele 112 av 120 poeng på engelsktesten (trengte 90), det er svimlende bra!
2. Jon fikk 103 poeng
3. Marie er kommet inn på International Studies ved University of Sydney
   (Jon venter fortsatt på svar)

Marie har kulturell utveksling med en kollega og leser for tiden en australsk bok. Han leser bl.a. Sult og Markens Grøde. Og jeg har fått 1984 av Marie – takk! Den leser jeg på bussen til og fra jobb. Den er veldig spennende og underholdende, men opplevelsen ble litt ødelagt av et forord av en pompøs drittsekk som heter Ben Pimlott.
Min analyse av situasjonen og personen er at han var en kjempefan av George Orwell. Det fikk ham til å studere litteratur. Han fikk seg rett og slett en doktorgrad i litteratur. Så ble han tilbudt å skrive forordet til Modern Classics sin utgivelse av boka. Han grep selvfølgelig sjansen, men kom fram til at han kunne bli større enn Orwell om han skrev nedsettende om boka. Ikke nok med at han remser opp hva som er dårlig med boka, men han skriver et sammendrag av hele historien – i forordet! Med sin doktorgrad i litteratur kunne han selvfølgelig ikke synke ned på menneskelige nivå i språk og for hver absurde setningssyntaks og hvert sjeldne ord, ble jeg mer og mer forbannet på denne pompøse drittsekken,
men nå har jeg fått sagt min mening om Pimlott på den store veven, så nå føles alt mye bedre.

Sist tirsdag var det The Melbourne Cup – The Race That Stops the Nation her. I Melbourne er det en offisiell fridag. Men alle i landet tar visst pause fra det de holder på med mens det ca. fem minutter lange racet finner sted. På jobben min var det fest. Vi kunne vedde på hestene (ja, det er altså et heste race og nei, jeg vant ikke noe) og spise og drikke gratis mat og drikke.
Bilder på Flickr

Vet ikke hvordan det er i Stavanger, men her er det kortere mellom dagene hvor temperaturmåleren passerer 30. Julepynten begynner også å komme på plass rundt omkring i byen.

På jobb har jeg nå fått meg kontorstol, 512 mb ram og bedre skjerm. Hurra! Marie hadde fri på fredag og jeg fikk fri, så vi tok en dagstur (til) til Gold Coast. Jeg er litt solbrent på tross av 30 i solfaktor. Marie er bare gylden brun.

Søknadene til Universitetet i Sydney er sendt inn (en dag over fristen). Så nå venter vi i spenning på resultatene på TOEFL-testene og svarene på søknadene.

Vi har vært på museum. Det var visst helt gratis. Det er vi positive til.

Også anbefaler jeg selvfølgelig alle å ta en titt på Ida De Rosa sin blogg ;)

I morgen er første gang vi skal ut og oppleve Australia! Vi skal ned til Surfers Paradise, Gold Coast og blir til søndag. Det blir sikkert kjempetopp! Det er planen hvertfall.. Vi skal ikke på Water -, Sea -, Movie eller noen annen World denne gangen. Bare sol og strand – mmm…

Været ser bra ut!

Det kommer verken ut nye bilder eller filmer mens internett fortsatt er treigt. Buhu!

På anbefaling fra min tante Maria, tok vi kontakt med ANSA, som arrangerte en quiz. Det var hyggelig med litt norsk kultur og noen glass øl.
Universitetene her nede følger kalenderåret, så vi ser på mulighetene for å studere til våren. For å søke må vi ta en engelsktest. Den tok vi på lørdag. Vi trenger 90 av 120 poeng. Resultatene kommer om to til tre uker – det blir spennende! Marie vil ta Internasjonale Studier og jeg vil ta Computer Science and Technology. Søknadsfristen er om under 10 dager, så vi får se om det går.
Det var tante Maria sin idé å sjekke mulighetene for å studere også og ikke minst var det hennes anbefaling som gjorde at vi valgte Brisbane.
Takk tante!

Første helgen i oktober skulle jeg donere blod til røde kors. Snille Marie ble med og holdt meg i hånden. Da vi kom bort, ble jeg spurt av resepsjonisten om jeg hadde med legitimasjon. Jeg viste førerkortet og hun sprang avgårde for å sjekke om det var gyldig. Det var gyldig, så da var det bare å fylle ut et hav med papirer. Etter dette var gjort måtte vi vente en god stud (selv om jeg hadde avtalt tid). Så ble navnet mitt ropt opp – skummelt! Jeg måtte inn på et lite rom for å ha en konfidensiell samtale. Veldig viktig at den var konfidensiell. Marie fikk ikke være med. Litt rart siden det forsovet er opp til meg hvem jeg vil holde hva konfidensielt for, men men. Intervjueren, som helt klart var en regel- og kontrollfrik, ville ikke godkjenne førerkortet mitt som legitimasjon. Jeg fikk åpne bankkonto med det, men bidra med blod, fikk jeg altså ikke.

Nerdedel!
Ubuntu Linux er kommet ut i ny versjon. Det nye er at enda mer (alt?) fungerer bare du plugger det i, stilige effekter som lett overgår Windows Vista og Mac er aktivert som standard, batteritiden er utvidet og codec-er er installert automatisk når de trengs (det betyr at alt av musikk og film bare virker.)

Er du en av de heldige jeg har installert dette for (mamma, Svein, Marianne, Daniel) anbefaler jeg dere å oppgradere.

Andre anbefaler jeg å prøve det ut. Last ned cden, brenn den og start opp maskinen med cden i. Da er du inne i Ubuntu uten å ha forandret systemet ditt på noen måte. Start på nytt og ta ut CDen så er du tilbake i Windows.

Vi sov til rundt 3 pm i dag. Eller jeg hvertfall… Marie ble oppringt i ti-tiden av en mann som ville gi henne en jobb. Det var visst fint om hun kunne komme ned om en time. Hun kom seg ned og fikk seg sin n-te jobb; en restaurant på Queen St Mall. På nåværende tidspunkt har hun fire jobber. Tre forresten. Hun ringte akkurat en og sluttet. Hun skal jobbe på den nye(ste) jobben i morgen. Det blir det spennende å høre om :)

Her om dagen spurte jeg i resepsjonen hvor trappene var. De må vel ha trapper – hva om det brenner? Det var jo tilogmed trapper i World Trade Center med alle sine 110 etasjer. De syntes visst de var et rart spørsmål. Men ja, det var visst en branntrapp, som bare skulle brukes når det brant. Så jeg trodde min plan om å ta trappene opp til leiligheten falt i grus.
Men så vi traff den ene resepsjonisten i heisen da vi kom tilbake. Han viste gladelig hvor trappene var. Det var ikke lovlig å bruke dem, men hvem skulle vel merke det?, sa han. Så de trappene har jeg tatt et par ganger. Det er betraktelig vanskeligere å gå opp enn ned…

Det kommer selvfølgelig en nerdedel også i dag. Klarer ikke holde meg.
Australia har problemer med bredden på bredbåndet deres på grunn av det er dyrt / vanskelig eller noe å legge kabler til “øya”. Derfor har alle internettleverandører en nedlastningsgrense. Da vi kom til leiligheten var denne på 400 mb (det samme som å se vg.no 400 ganger eller laste ned en halv film) i måneden. Nå er linja oppgradert til 12 000 mb i måneden med 20 mbit hastighet. Den grensen nådde vi visst lett etter to uker… Så nå surfer vi rundt i en hastighet tilsvarende ISDN.
På grunn av denne bredbåndsgrensen har vi begynt å leie filmer. Det er egentlig granske greit! Med DVD er jo bl.a. kvaliteten bedre og du har mulighet for diverse teksting. Forskjellen på å leie film her og i Norge er at det aldri er så langt til nærmeste utleiested og at prisen er halvvert. Da er det nesten slik at det er greit å følge loven :) Så har de et slikt et “leveling”-system som du finner i RPG-spill som World of Warcraft. Vi får bare låne to nye filmer og 1 gammel om gangen, men når vi har lånt ti filmer, får vi låne flere. Hurra!

Nye bilder

Det første og viktigste jeg vil fortelle er at nå kan du se hvilken musikk vi har hørt på den siste uka i sidebaren her på bloggen. Wow! Nå hører jeg på det nye Radiohead-albumet In Rainbows. Når albumet ble lagt ut for salg på nettet, kunne du velge selv hvor mye du ville betale. Det var en artig pris! Albumet er å finne på www.inrainbows.com.
Der var teknologi / nerdedelen ferdig.

Marie sin forrige jobb på The Coffee Club var ikke så bra. Den var rett og slett ikke bra i det hele tatt. Hvor er Gerd Liv når du trenger henne? Så der sluttet hun. Hurra!
Derfor har hun letet etter ny jobb den siste uka. Det tar aldri lange tiden før tilbudene står i kø for Marie. Så i går, i dag og i morgen gjør hun ikke annet enn å dra fra jobbintervju til jobbintervju og prøvejobbing til prøvejobbing. Butikken føler de prøver henne ut, men det blir mer eller mindre til at Marie er den som prøver ut jobben og kan velge den hun synes er kjekkest. Heldiggrisen.

Selv har jeg fått meg jobb hos et eiendoms-inviteringsfirma. Der har jeg jobbet i litt over en halv måned. Jeg driver selvfølgelig å datanerder. Egentlig ble jeg ansatt som datagodkjenner, men nå driver jeg mest med utvikling. Det er dessverre ikke så sosialt. Så jeg sitter som regel og holder kjeft i 8 timer. Men pengene renner inn.

Åja, også har vi fått oss plass å bo! Der vi var på visning, i 22. etasje i en skyskraper i hovedgata, der bor vi sammen med et brasaliansk par. Da jeg kom hjem fra jobb i dag, hoppet Marie og jeg i boblebadet med en øl. Det var deilig. Det er også basseng, sauna og treningsrom.

Marie har lagt ut bilder på Facebook ;)

Her skal det bli flere oppdateringer, bilder og filmer. Nå har vi skjerpet oss :)

Se filmen

og med det — har vi plass å bo!
Et gift par, på noe og tyve år, leier ut et rom i leiligheten sin, i enden av Queen Street. Paret er fra Brasil. Han er en tannlege, men studerer for å få være tannlege her også, mens kona studerer og jobber med akupunktur.
Leiligheten ligger altså i 22. etasje med utsikt mot øst. Utsikten er fin å se på fra balkongen. Stjernehimmelen var fantastisk fra 5. etasje (hvor boblebadet, bassenget og saunaen lå). Vi har eget rom og bad, men deler stue og kjøkken med det hyggelige paret.
Herligheten skal de bare ha 2700 kr for (per person per måned)!

Flytter inn i morgen.
Vi er rett og slett svært fornøyde.

Det interaktive kartet er oppdatert

Jeg ble oppringt for en halvtime siden av den dame som ville ha meg på jobbintervju, til en midlertidig stilling, i morgen tidlig. Det blir spennende!

I dag skal vi på to visninger og flytter kanskje inn til Chris. Den ene visningen er et stykke unna i et “studenthus”. Det blir oss og fem andre (tror jeg). Vi får se hvordan det ser ut.. Etterpå skal vi på en visning hos et annet par. Akkurat nå søker vi på alt. Så får vi heller flytte ut om det er forferdelig eller om vi finner noe bedre etterhvert, men vi må få oss en fast plass å bo snart hvertfall.

Her om dagen sto det en politibetjent på hvert gatehjørne i et av Brisbanes travleste kryss. En mann stod og fikk en bot når vi passerte. Vi forstod ikke helt hva dette var, men da vi så at en mann ble vinket over av politimannen etter han hadde krysset veien på rød mann, forstod vi kjapt hvorfor. Dette syntes jeg var så spennende å se på, at vi bare måtte sette oss ned på Starbucks rett ved og følge med. Person etter person passerte veien på rød mann og fikk 30$ (150 kr) i bot. Kjempespennende! Men jeg vet ikke helt hva jeg synes om det.
I norsk lov er det hvertfall slik at om du bryter en lov du ikke visste eksisterte, så er du ikke skyldig. Det skal selvfølgelig mye til at du ikke vet at en lov eksisterer, men samtidig så er det nå slik at vi kanskje ser på rød mann som en sovende lov. Så lenge du ikke hindrer trafikken og det er klart, er det vel bare trafikk-flyt at den ledige tiden brukes? Når en person ser at det står en politimann på andre siden i oransje refleksvest, men likevel passerer veien, så vil jeg si du har et godt argument for at du ikke visste at det var ulovlig.

Vi har vært på visninger bortimot daglig den siste uka. Håper på hvertfall ett positivt svar til uka. På tirsdag eller noe sånt flytter vi midlertidig inn til skiftslederen til Marie, Chris. Der bor vi til vi har fått leilighet eller til han selv flytter, om to uker.

Nye bilder

Film

Men uansett; vi var – skulle på visning i går.
Marie ringte til en David-fyr på lørdag og spurte om de hadde noen leiligheter for to. Det hadde han! “Det er bare å komme på visning i morgen klokka 5pm.”
Vi var på vei. Vi kom oss helt fram til Fortitude Vally – en 2,5 km lang gåtur. Vi finner fram til blokken, går inn og snakker med mannen i resepsjonen. Han tror ikke det er noe ledig. Vi blir bedt om å ringe sjefen Harry. Harry har såvidt dekning, men får gjennom det samme som resepsjonisten. Vi ringer så tilbake til David-fyren:
“Ja, hei, nå står vi her for visning -” “Ja?” “Vi spurte i går om vi kunne komme på visning og nå er vi her” “Men hva er spørsmålet?” “Hva skjer nå?” “Hva skjer nå??” “Ja, altså, skal vi treffe deg, skal vi se en leilighet, eller – hva skjer?” “Er resepsjonen åpen?” “Ja, de sier det ikke er noe ledig” “Da er det tydeligvis ikke noe ledig. Vi har vanligvis ledige leiligheter” “Jaha ja?” “Ja, dere kan legge igjen navn og depositum i resepsjonen hvis dere vil ha leilighet kjappest mulig”

Ja, værsågod – ta pengene våre! Helt på jordet! Treffer dere en David fra Australia noen gang, — se ondt på han! Veldig ondt…

NYE BILDER

NY FILM

Fint? Ja!

Det grønne beltet jeg har brukt på alt av bukser og shorts siden grunnkurs, falt plutselig av. Kjempetrist. Så da var det ut på beltetur! Hvor kjøper du billige, greie belter? Jo, H&M, men det finnes visst ikke her. Det kan også være vi må skaffe oss vår egen seng i leiligheten vi finner. Men det er ikke noe problem! Det er bare å ta en tur på IKE – nei, det har de visst heller ikke og i går ble vi lei pasta, så vi bestemte oss for å ta en meksikansk gryte, men pokker – de har ikke Toro heller!

Nå er Marie på jobb. Hun har jobbet fredag, søndag, i går og i dag. Det er jobbejenta si det! Lange er skiftene også. I dag jobber hun med sjefssjefen. Han skal visst evaluere arbeidet hennes og vurdere om hun får flere skift. Det vedder jeg på at hun gjør – skiftslederne liker henne kjempegodt. Kanskje litt for godt. Alt dette fikk jeg vite da jeg passerte jobben hennes på vei på visning i dag morges. Rommet var et hotelliknende rom 25m fra jobben til Marie – altså midt i sentrum. Det er ingen revolusjon, men det er billig (3000 pr/pers i mnd), koselig og i 13. etasje med store, fine vinduer.

Hvordan de overlever uten IKEA, H&M og Toro her, har jeg ikke peiling på, men vi skal finne utav det!

Det interaktive kartet er blitt plassert på siden og er oppdatert og
jeg har lagt ut nye bilder

Film

Lunsjen vår hadde vi i den botaniske hagen i sentrum

Vi har dessuten gjort en litt merkelig observasjon de siste dagene: Her er det ingen som vasker hendene etter at de har vært på do. Kjempe ekkelt. Men det må sies å være det eneste foreløpige minuset ved å ha flyttet til Australia. Utenom dette er alt tipp-topp! :)

Bilder

Bilder: (det er de samme bildene)

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Det var en lang reise. Veldig lang. Vi startet fredag 04:25 og sluttet lørdag 23:00. Skulle egentlig vært framme før åtte, men flyet fra København til Amsterdam ble innstilt, så vi måtte få en helt ny reiserute. Denne ruta tok turen innom Bangkok og Sydney istedenfor Singapore. Reisen har gjort at vi har fått en litt rar døgnrytme. I går la vi oss klokka 7-8 og vi sto opp 12 timer senere. Får prøve å holde oss litt lengre oppe i dag.

Vi (jeg) håpte veldig på at det var internett på hostellet. Det er det også, men det er noen Windows-maskiner som koster 6$ i timen. Det blir for dumt. Så nå sitter vi på the State Library. Marie sitter og ser tomt ut i luften (stakkar) mens jeg oppdaterer omverdenen om hva som skjer.

Queen Street Mall er hovedgaten og et stort utendørs kjøpesenter. Her har vi funnet en butikk som har falt helt i vår (les: Maries) smak. Det er en juice & smoothie-butikk som presser sammen de mest fantastiske drikker.

Her i Queen St fant vi også en Vodafone-butikk. Jeg gikk til anskaffelse av et snedig abonnement (har ikke peiling på hva nummeret mitt er), men for Marie var det dessverre vanskeligere. Hennes telefon virker ikke, så hun må få seg ny mobil eller — vi vet egentlig ikke helt enda. Vodafone var hvertfall veldig uinteressert i å ha henne som kunde.

Og – neida, vi har ikke hatt noen krangel :)