2008
04.08
For anyone who hasn’t yet seen Ubuntu’s brainstorm website, it is an excellent community driven website where ideas can be suggested on any aspect of Ubuntu development, these are then voted and commented on by visitors to the site with the view that they be implemented in future releases. It’s an excellent website as anyone can participate and hopefully make a difference to the future development of Ubuntu.
My own brainstorm idea is a simple one, but I feel is could be very effective. Whilst watching a documentary on BBC3 it occurred to me how much free advertising Microsoft gets based on their default Windows logo screen saver. During a 1 hour documentary I’d say Microsoft got around 3 to 4 minutes of free advertising during interviews with people sat at their desk’s by their computer screens and I suggested that perhaps a default Ubuntu screen saver might provide some additional advertising.
I suggested the idea on the 31′st of March and it is currently at 135 positive votes. Making it the 3′rd most popular idea in the Marketing category.
If you feel obliged, click above and give it a vote!
Update: I have been notified that a Ubuntu screen saver has been present in the past, but had been missing from the last few releases. I am assured that it will be back in the operating system soon. Job Done!
2008
04.04
Just upgraded to the new WordPress version 2.5. The release is excellent, with loads of new features,and I decided it was time for some changes on here, the previous theme (although excellent) was getting a bit old now, so I have set-up a brand new theme, Stardust by Tommaso Baldovino. This theme did need a bit of code tweaking for some of my plugins, and in turn some of my plugins needed a bit of tweaking to fit in with the theme, but it all seems to be ticking over nicely now. I have installed a few more assorted plugins, Lightbox Plus is a great addition which gives me fancy lightbox effects on all my photos.
On the PHP coding front, MyJDCMS seems to be getting a bit of usage now. While writing this it has been downloaded 69 times from SourceForge, several people are using (or attempting to use) it at the moment, and it also will form the basis of a CMS system for a charity website I am currently developing. Unlike my other projects this one certainly merits some more development time to improve it’s features and code, as it may actually prove useful to people. It’s certainly rewarding to see my GPL’d work in action on real websites!
I’m also now looking forward to the release of Ubuntu 8.04, a countdown timer for which is below! It’s release is scheduled for while I’m on leave from work, so I should have plenty of time to play around with it.
Jonathan