With GUADEC just two days away (and the pre-program already on its way), the video streaming infrastructure is being put
in place. To record and stream all lectures, we are looking for volunteers to operate the camera’s.

You do not need any special skills, the equipment will do most of the work. All that is needed is someone to make sure
the speaker is always in the picture (ie. moving the camera on the tripod), zoom in/out with the remote control and change tapes between the lectures.

Ideally, we would have you operate the camera for talks you want to see anyway. The shifts are from 09.30 – 12.45 hours,
and from 14.00 – 17.15 hours.
If you are interested in helping out with this, please email the list (guadec-list@gnome.org) or find Philip Withnall or
Koen Martens on the event venue. If there are talks you absolutely want to see, let us know the time and room as well
so we can schedule you in the proper slot if possible.

Thanks in advance for your help!

After running debian stable for a while on my laptop, I made the stupid move to unstable. Apart from a number of other annoyances, scanning using my HP all-in-one device at home would not work anymore. Tonight, I decided to finally sit down and try to find a fix for it. The problem, scanimage -L found the device just fine:

gmc@monk:~$ scanimage -L
device `hpaio:/net/HP_Color_LaserJet_CM1312nfi_MFP?ip=10.1.2.4' is a Hewlett-Packard HP_Color_LaserJet_CM1312nfi_MFP all-in-one

But scanning failed:

gmc@monk:~$ scanimage
scanimage: open of device hpaio:/net/HP_Color_LaserJet_CM1312nfi_MFP?ip=10.1.2.4 failed: Error during device I/O

So, after googling around, trying a thousand-and-one proposed solutions that worked for other people, I tried a few debug options. What led me to the answer was this invocation:

SANE_DEBUG_HPAIO=8 xsane

This reported it could not load a restricted library named /usr/share/hplip/scan/plugins/bb_soapht.so, which indeed did not exist. The answer: run hp-plugin as root, let it install a bunch of super-evil proprietary files from HP (yes, you need to sign in blood, sell your soul, all that), and behold: scanning works!

Of course, this is documented nowhere. Well, it is now. Hope this helps some other poor victim of the gpl-jihadists that are the debian developers :)

T-Shirts and swag

Designers wanted! For both shirts and swag, we need people with a keen eye for visual design who can help out. Let us know ASAP = before June 16th. We need to order the goods after that date.

Reinout van Schouwen has stepped up to coordinate the t-shirts (free for €75-level registrees and up!) and merchandise that will be sold at the event. The deadline for getting the main design polished is July 1st, giving us 4 weeks to come up with an event design, a staff/volunteer version, and a version to print onto merchandise.

Gaël Hernandez has taken on the “other swag” project. He is looking for input on the cool kinds of conference stuff that people like, so please drop him a note if you want something besides the typical “conference squeeze ball”. (Personal suggestion: GUADEC superhero toys!!)

All profits from sales will go directly the GNOME foundation, who will continue sponsoring travel grants for participants.

Program Schedule

The program committee has published the first version of the schedule! You can find it on the GUADEC 2010 Program site [http://www.guadec.org/index.php/guadec/2010/schedConf/program]. We have three rooms: one big plenary room and two smaller break-out rooms.

We will need lots of heralds to help out at the event: People who can focus audience attention to the stage, introduce the speakers, keep an eye on the clock and generally make sure things run smooth. Contact me if you want to help out!

Soccer match

Mario Gonzalez reminds us that a little physical activity is a good thing! He has proposed to continue the yearly GUADEC soccer match, a competition with its roots in the famous Torvalds vs. Gates match: Bill owned the soccer ball but Linus still won. (Joking).

The local team is currently searching for a suitable field. If you are a player and want to join the game, let Mario know!

Registration

Registration! It’s open! For everyone!

After quite a long build-up (do you have any idea how long I’ve been planning?), I am really happy to announce that, finally: Registration. Is. Open! Check it out on the official register page: https://register.guadec.org/

We want everyone to come, so don’t feel shy! The more the merrier, but don’t forget – free swag for EUR 75-level and up!

Registering does a lot of things, besides just helping to fund more travel grants.
- First, we need you to do it; keeping track of everyone allows us to plan the venue, food, swag and facilities;
- Secondly, the municipality of The Hague has promised a financial contribution towards GUADEC depending on the number of attendees;
- Lastly all registrees get to breeze into the conference, because we give them a PDF-ticket. Registering at the door? Be prepared to wait in line.

Registration closes on July 5th. So come visit, Holland is beautiful in July!

Contact

Everyone mentioned here and everyone helping out is on the GUADEC mailing list. The easiest way to reach us all is with an email calling us by name!

Really, we’d love to hear from you -  guadec-list@gnome.org

– KOEN

With all the recent holidays in The Netherlands I almost overlooked this one. So here it is, verbatim, the announcement of the GNOME developer training colocated with GUADEC:

Get Linux wings!

The GNOME Developer Training sessions at GUADEC are designed to give
experienced software developers the tools that they need to get the most out
of developing free software in an open community.

This two-day course includes a hands-on practical session and a detailed
social overview of community development. You'll learn how to get your work
upstream and how to influence the direction of upstream projects.

Covering common Linux development tools, the GNOME and FreeDesktop.org
development platform and the social dynamics of contributing to community
projects, this course will put extra tools into your developer's toolbox.

Attendance packages for the developer training sessions also include a full
€250 professional-level pass to GUADEC. The flagship annual GNOME-project
conference, GUADEC is three days of presentations, BOFs and tutorials. To
ensure the highest quality of participant experience, space is strictly
limited. The GUADEC coordination team encourages everyone interested to
register early to guarantee availability.

Pricing:
Includes delivery of printed training material related to the course, and
meals and refreshments during training days.
* 2 days training course + professional registration for GUADEC 2010 (a €250
value): €1500
* Early bird price (for registrations before June 1st 2010): €1200

You can register for the course at www.guadec.org.
The course is composed of four half-day modules, covering the following
syllabus:

Developer tools and development environments:
* Source control - git, svn, bzr
* Using autotools
* Standard GNOME build dependencies & their purposes (pkgconfig, intltool,
gtk-doc)
* Cross-compilation environments (Scratchbox, OpenEmbedded)
* Debugger (gdb, Nemiver)
* Valgrind (including memcheck, Massif, kcachegrind, Callgrind)
* Other developer tools: sar, sysprof, bootchart

The GNOME platform:
* glib and GObject
* GTK+ and Clutter
* Using Glade and GtkBuilder
* DBus, DFeet, registering and calling DBus APIs
* GConf
* GStreamer
* Telepathy
* Language bindings - C++, Java, C#, Python, Vala

A Hands-on Practical Workshop:
* Set up a GNOME development environment
* Write a complete GNOME application in Python
* Integrate with the GNOME desktop

Community development
* Community communication forums (mailing lists, forums, IRC, Bugzilla,
source control)
* Effective community participation, community social norms
* Project governance - how things get done
* Getting changes upstream
* Getting to maintainer - how to make friends and influence people
* Building a vibrant community

Training will be coordinated by Neary Consulting on behalf of the GNOME
Foundation.

Register today! www.guadec.org 
---

It happened unconsciously somewhere in the recent past, but for a while now I have been ignoring traditional media. Ignoring is not the right word: it implies an active deed on my part, but it is nothing like that. Somehow, traditional media just lost me, or I lost traditional media. Newspapers, television broadcasts, they are just no part of my life anymore. Somehow, they have vanished. Gone over the horizon. And it has been an improvement, to say the least.

Sometimes, I hear people talking about ‘the news’. Stuff that happens miles and miles away. I remember the days I used to care about all the injustice in the world. The troubled days, I must add. It was such a burden. Today, I hear something about a revolution here, an oil-spill there, but it has no meaning anymore. I can let it pass without getting worked up over it. As long as there is no oil on my doorstep, how does it influence me?

Even though I live next door to the Dutch parliament, the political arena is reduced to a virtual reality. An amusement show that has no bearing on my self. No matter what they do, what they decide, I will always be me. Wilders, a demon to some, a saviour to others, is merely a clown on the stage of this comedy. He does not bother me. Is not real.

It may come across as a little ego-centric, to say the least. But stop and think, the reverse is actually true! Who am I to think that all those far-away injustices concern me. Who am I to think I have anything to do with it, that I somehow have a role in bringing about, changing or correcting those circumstances. How ego-centric is that??

The important news will come to me anyway, through the people I know. The real world that surrounds me. And then I will be able to act, to change reality. That which I cannot change is not a part of my reality. And that which I change, is my reality. Always and constantly.

I perceive, I act, I change.

I have no past, no future, just the here and now.