UK LoCo Christmas Dinner @ Dans Le Noir
Thanks to Alan Bell for organising a wonderful Christmas dinner at Dans Le Noir last night. It was a wonderful venue and the food was amazing. I never realised how dark, dark could really be.
I would recommend this restaurant to anybody. Also remember, this is the only restaurant where you can get away with eating with your fingers and licking your plate when you are finished. As it is so dark, who would ever know.
I was however, slightly disappointed that some of the other members of the podcast team couldn’t come. Maybe to make up for this, they should all be blindfolded while recording the next podcast. Just a suggestion 
The Register Hacked (DNS Hijacked)
I can’t believe it.
I would never have thought that one of my favourite tech news sites could ever be hacked. Yet a few minutes ago I captured the following screenshot when browsing.
Come on guys, what is going on?
The Register Hacked
*Updated – 10:00pm 4th September 2011
After further investigation, it seems that The Register’s website was not hacked as such, but rather the DNS for that domain has been hijacked.
The bad A record IP appears to be 68.68.20.116 instead of 212.100.234.54 which is a rackspace server where the register is hosted.
If you go to all-nettools.com and do a nameserver lookup you’ll see the register has the following nameservers now:
theregister.co.uk. 86129 IN NS ns4.yumurtakabugu.com.
theregister.co.uk. 86129 IN NS ns2.yumurtakabugu.com.
theregister.co.uk. 86129 IN NS ns1.yumurtakabugu.com.
theregister.co.uk. 86129 IN NS ns3.yumurtakabugu.com.
Which isn’t right.
It should probably look something like:
theregister.co.uk nameserver = ns1.theregister.co.uk
theregister.co.uk nameserver = ns2.theregister.co.uk
theregister.co.uk nameserver = ns3.theregister.co.uk
theregister.co.uk nameserver = ns4.theregister.co.uk
theregister.co.uk nameserver = ns5.theregister.co.uk
theregister.co.uk nameserver = ns6.theregister.co.uk
*Updated – 11:00pm 4th September 2011
It appears that ups.com has also been hacked.
ups.com Hacked
*update again… Sites that have also been defaced include
betfair.com
acer.com
vodafone.com
telegraph.co.uk
http://www.zone-h.org/archive/notifier=TurkguvenLigi.info
betfair.com defaced
vodafone.com defaced
telegraph.co.uk defaced
*Updated – 7:15am 5th September 2011
The Guardian have interviewed the Turkish hackers that instigated the attack on the various high-profile websites. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/sep/05/dns-hackers-telegraph-interview
*Updated – 8:10am 5th September 2011
The Register have now posted an article explaining a little about what happened.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/09/05/dns_hijack_service_updated/
HTC Desire will not get the Gingerbread update
HTC have announced that the HTC Desire will not get the Gingerbread update. It turns out that the design of the HTC Desire was fatally flawed. The article at the URL below effectively states that the Desire does not have the required RAM to run Android 2.3 + Sense UI at the same time.
https://www.facebook.com/notes/htc-uk/desire-and-gingerbread-update/225607660802056
I am not happy about this. I now find myself unable to upgrade my phone without shelling out a huge amount of money. The reason for this is that in the UK now, it is standard practice for phone companies to lock customers into 2 year contracts. I still have 1 whole year to wait before I can get a phone that I can update. I originally opted for the HTC Desire because it was the top rated Android phone on the market. That and the fact that Samsung phones, at the time, where not known for upgrading their phones to the latest release of Android. I now wish I had made a different decision. I didn’t think I would ever say this, but at least Apple don’t do this kind of thing. They keep their customers phones updated for a significant time. HTC sort yourselves out. You have lost me as a customer.
** Addendum **
HTC have now hastily retreated on this announcement, which is not surprising.
http://www.facebook.com/htcuk/posts/225857300777092
Interestingly Dan Lynch of Linux Outlaws fame made the following observation. Which is also a very good point.
“More worryingly for me, when did HTC decide that doing all their corporate communication via Facebook was a good idea? What next, a Geocities site or perhaps a MySpace page? They could do away with their website all together and just use 3rd party platforms.” – Dan Lynch (http://danlynch.org)
I agree completely. HTC, Please get your house in order.
Chris
Ubuntu Manual Project – Position Openings
What is the Ubuntu Manual Project?
The Ubuntu Manual Project Team is responsible for the Getting Started with Ubuntu book. This a comprehensive beginner’s guide for the Ubuntu operating system. It is written under an open source license and is free for you to download, read, modify, and share.
The manual is aimed at new users of Ubuntu to help them become familiar with everyday tasks such as surfing the web, listening to music, and scanning documents. With an emphasis on easy-to-follow instructions, it is suitable for all levels of experience.
Available positions
We are currently trying to fill the following roles:
These missing roles have meant that the project has not moved forward as we would have liked.
How to apply for these roles
Please provide responses to all the questions below and email them to jobs@ubuntu-manual.org.
- Full name
- Contact email address
- Role you are applying for
- Describe any relevant experience you have in as much detail as possible
- Describe why you think you should be considered for this position
- What you would do in this role (e.g., how you would improve the release process or how you would engage the community
The closing date for applications is Friday, 11 March 2011 at 20:00 UTC.
Project leader
The Ubuntu Manual project leader is responsible for guiding and directing the project. The project leader’s responsibilities include:
- Promoting the project in the community.
- Recruiting new project members.
- Scheduling regular meetings.
- Release Planning.
- Motivating project members.
- Providing vision (and blueprints) for the project.
The project leader should have the following qualifications:
- Be Self-motivated.
- Good at managing people.
- Have a firm grasp of American English.
- Be able to guide and direct the project.
Editor in chief
The editor in chief is responsible for the overall quality and content of the manual and ensures that it is published in a timely fashion. The editor in chief manages the chapter editors and authors. The editor in chief must commit to the following duties for the duration of the release cycle (approximately six months):
- Check spelling, grammar, writing style, and factual accuracy.
- Track changes between previous and current Ubuntu releases and ensure that the current edition of the manual reflects those changes.
- Motivate and coordinate with the chapter authors/editors to contribute in a timely fashion.
- Provide regular status updates to the mailing list.
- Ensure proper attribution for text that has been copied from other (CC-licensed) sources.
- Maintain the list of credits (authors, editors, translators, designers, etc.).
- Verify that all screenshots and graphics are correct.
- Gives the final go-ahead to publish the online and print versions of the manual.
The editor in chief should have the following qualifications:
- Be Self-motivated.
- Good at managing people (namely chapter authors and editors).
- Have a firm grasp of American English.
- Fully understand the Ubuntu Manual Style Guide.
- Be able to run alpha and beta releases of Ubuntu.
Additional Information
Please note that we are a community project, and these roles are unpaid.
The perfect job… Where are you?
I have lived in the rat race that is London for 11 years now. It feels a long time. My wife and myself feel that it is now long enough. So we have pondered the idea of moving to Cambridge. Both of us love the city. It is so much smaller, with plenty of green open space. My wife love’s it because of its cycle friendly nature (she is Dutch after all). We have two small children. So somewhere like Cambridge would be a great place for them to grow up. Hopefully if we are lucky we can get a house with a garden for them to play in and enjoy.
My problem is that I don’t want to just go and get any job in Cambridge. I want to work for a company that I really like. Either based in or around Cambridge or home based.
The place that would really like to work for is a little known company that is responsible for a certain open source operating system. The company in question is Canonical.
So far I have applied for two different jobs, but I have not heard anything back at all. I know that they probably only want the highest calibre of people to work for them. Personally I feel that I do fit in this category. I guess it is just a matter of getting their attention and proving it. This just feels a bit tricky in the time scales that we have set ourselves. If only they would give me some feedback.
What can I do? Just keep applying to Canonical or look for something else instead? It is very difficult. I feel torn. I want to work for Canonical, but I don’t know how long I will have to wait. 
Review: Learning Perl by Randal L. Schwartz, Tom Phoenix, brian d foy
In summary buy this book if you want to learn Perl. Simply put, this is the best book I have ever found to teach you Perl. I first read a version of this book in 1999. It was a good book then, that has matured and gotten even better over time.
This book covers everything that you need to know to get you started with Perl. Perl isn’t the easiest language to learn, but this book explains everything as simply as possible. Even the chapter on regular expressions.
This particular edition covers Perl 5.10, which has now been replaced by Perl 5.12 (This book was written 2 years ago). That doesn’t really matter as this won’t impact on you. Perl 5.12 is mostly a bug fix release, which adds few new features.
One of Perl’s strengths is CPAN (Perl’s on-line module library). The book does have a chapter dedicated to it, but it only covers a handful of modules. I would have expected the book to cover a few more of the more common ones. This may just be me being a little picky.
The last chapter of this book is really useful. It is called “Beyond the Llama”, and gives you all sorts of information about where to go to learn more. This book is just the beginning…
Please note: I did receive a free copy of this book via the O’Reilly Blogger review programme.
Perl: My Favorite Quotes
I recently found a few Perl quotes that I particularly like. I thought I would share them with you too. I hope you like them.
– Keith Bostic
– Jon Ribbens
- Randall Munroe
Review: Programming Python by Mark Lutz
It has been a long time coming, but finally this book has been updated. With the 4th edition comes a big change. This edition has been updated to ONLY cover Python 3.x. This is a great book and will make a great addition if you want to learn more about developing applications with Python.
You should note however, that this book is not a Python reference guide. It is written primarily as an advanced tutorial that is a follow-up to the Learning Python book. Therefore it does not cover any aspects of core Python. For that you would be better of looking at Learning Python.
This book is over 1600 pages long. This makes it particularly heavy. I do not recommend that this book be kept anywhere that it can fall from. It will hurt if you happen to get in its way.
There are a couple of omissions that surprised me. In the chapter on GUI programming. I expected there would be more on using either PyGTK or PyQt. They are mentioned, but that is it. tkInter is covered instead. Personally I have not seen TK used for quite some time. Most of the applications that I have seen use PyGTK (mostly because I use Ubuntu). Another omission is that there is no mention of Quickly. Which is a framework that allows you to develop applications quickly.
Please note: I did receive a free copy of this book via the O’Reilly Blogger review programme.
Ubuntu Manual Project Progressing… Slowly.
It is now almost the middle of December and the Ubuntu Manual Project has yet to release the Maverick edition of the manual. The project leader has stepped down. I guess there are a lot of people who are questioning whether this project is dead? Personally I can understand why anyone would think that. I have even wondered that myself. Yet, the project is still here, it is still moving forward, albeit slowly.
It seems the biggest problem that the project is facing is the lack of time. As this is a community driven project, it effectively takes a back seat to everything else that is going on in people’s lives. Personally, I do not know what can be done to change the situation. I too have limited time as well, but I do my best, as do many others involved in the project. Thank you to all those people. Your help is greatly appreciated.
So, what is the current status of the project…
All the writing is complete and now the proof reading is being finalised. After that, we need to begin collecting new screen-shots. Hopefully it won’t be that much longer until we can get the Maverick manual out.
There are still a few outstanding questions with the project. Who is going to take charge of the project? How often are we going to release new versions of the manual? How can we make things better with the next version?
Only time will tell…
…if you have suggestions, please let us know. If you would like to help, please let us know.
Contact us via http://www.ubuntu-manual.org
Ubuntu 10.10 Released
Another 6 months have passed and now another iteration of Ubuntu has been released. There have been a great number of changes. Apart from the usual array of package upgrades there are a number of key features in this latest release.
What’s New
- The Ubuntu Font – In Ubuntu 10.04 all the artwork received a makeover. Most of the logos were created with a new typeface. In 10.10 this typeface has been made available to everybody. For more information on the Ubuntu Font take a look here.
- Music Streaming to your phone – The Ubuntu One Music Store has been improved and now includes some new features. You can now stream music from your Ubuntu One file store direct to you iPhone or Android phone.
- Ubuntu One on Windows – Another new feature that is coming soon is the ability to sync files with your Windows pc’s as well as your Ubuntu pc’s. This is a feature that brings Ubuntu One closer to the functionality of Dropbox.
- Sound Indicator – The sound indicator has been improved and now includes music player controls. This means that you no-longer have t switch back to Rhythmbox to Play, Pause, skip tracks or adjust the volume. The menu even includes an image of the album cover.
- Software Centre – The Ubuntu Software Centre has also been improved. Now there includes an additional menu that enables you to purchase non-free software. There is not much there at the moment, but I fully expect to see this market place grow.
For more information take a look at the new features pages on the Ubuntu Website.
