Where’s my Fedora one-sheet?

The Artwork folks are gearing up for a next-gen theme based on the neat work Maírín (et al.?) did using a “DNA” look. They’re calling it “c6re” and I really dig that; it reminds me of Se7en.

Okay, a little worried now.

Ignacio V-A, are you out there?

I’m leaving this in case the reasons for his sudden and somewhat troubling disappearance are known by someone reading this planet feed, if not the ML archives.

Release Notes blues.

Last night (this morning?) the Documentation Project pushed the raw material for the Fedora Core 6 test3 Release Notes over to the Translation folks for them to work their magic. We are a little saddened that despite moving to a “beats” model, which allows easier community participation since there’s much less for a single person to do, many holes are left in the next release’s notes. This doesn’t jibe well with the enormous success Fedora is having on the development front, especially when I hear from folks inside Red Hat — who will not be named here — that our Release Notes for FC5 were apparently well-liked and greatly envied for their comprehensiveness. Yes, they were a pinnacle of quantity and quality!

If you have anything to add to the Release Notes, please get in touch with the beat writer for the area you’d like to see improved. If that person doesn’t respond to you, let us know. If you want to pick up the beat, you can bet we won’t turn the offer down, but at worst you can always just add the material to the wiki. (We just want to give the beat writers the chance to TCB if at all possible.)

For those who have walked the beat nobly and vigilantly, we salute you!

Cool as a cucumber.

This is how I spent part of Saturday afternoon. Heavy to hang, but wow! Does it look good. It’s always good to hack the homestead when you can.

Baltimoron for a Day.

I had a speaking engagement yesterday in Baltimore, after which I caught a great dinner with friends at a fabulous Afghan restaurant in the Mt. Vernon district called The Helmand. I had the koufta challow, which was fantastic.

On my way out of town after dark, penalized for my indecisiveness at taking a poorly marked offramp to I-95 South, I ended up on the wrong freeway. I only drove about a half-mile or so off course, knowing all the while that I needed to get myself turned around. It was easy to take the next exit ramp, but I ended up in a neighborhood that — well, let’s just say I wouldn’t be surprised to see it featured prominently in an episode of The Wire, whose third season Eleya and I just enjoyed on DVD over the last few weeks. I’m sure it sounds awfully provincial but frankly, even though I don’t mind visiting once in a while, I’m just not an urban dweller at heart. And a fish that knows when it’s out of water, I would say, is a wiser fish, or at least less likely to backflip out of the bowl into a hot griddle.

I was grateful for the dearth of stop signs, and made my way with not a little haste back to the freeway. I had to get back into downtown to make a safe turnaround back to the original I-95 ramp, but made good time getting home. I think I prefer experiencing the Baltimore mean streets on DVD for now.

Fedora Weekly News Issue 60 Out Loud (en)

Issue 60 of the Fedora Weekly News Out Loud podcast is now available. You can read the news here, or listen to it here (recommended, free format). Even better, just subscribe to the RSS feed to receive it automatically in your favorite audio player or aggregator.

This podcast is available under a Creative Commons license.

Grindstone.

Today we’re taking it easy after a day of birthday partying (child of friends’) and shopping for Evie’s school clothes. I’m working on the Installation Guide for Fedora Core 6, trying to document some of the changes and filling in a few holes here and there. It’s reminding me how much I enjoy this part of the work, and how much less of it I get to do these days.

Fedora Weekly News Issue 59 Out Loud (en)

Issue 59 of the Fedora Weekly News Out Loud podcast is now available. You can read the news here, or listen to it here (recommended, free format) or here (not recommended, patent encumbered format). Even better, just subscribe to the RSS feed to receive it automatically in your favorite audio player or aggregator.

This podcast is available under a Creative Commons license.

New arrival.

For anyone who didn’t know, my friends Christopher and Darya brought home their new bundle o’ joy yesterday. We’re hoping to swing by this weekend with some goodies (and an easy-bake dinner that Christopher can handle) and baby gear. Isn’t Ava a cutie?

How not to treat volunteers.

A while back, I had taken a two-hour speaking/teaching engagement this week for a regional conference (which will remain nameless since I don’t want to embarrass them more than they already have been). Unfortunately, because of conflicting workload and other demands, I had to back out of the engagement. I emailed the conference coordinator about seven weeks or so ago, letting them know about my inability to provide the training, and apologizing for having to back out. I received a nice note back saying essentially, “No problem, we understand, we’ll take care of it.” I was disappointed, but as it turned out there were several other classes covering essentially the same or very similar material already scheduled, so I didn’t feel I would be short-changing any students.

I got a call on Tuesday — while I was home waiting for a team to finish installing our new air conditioner, as fate would have it — from someone I knew who had showed up at the lecture. They were wondering where I was! I explained the situation as gently as possible, and found out that this was far from the first or only time this has happened at the conference. Apparently the coordinator(s) had failed to update their schedule, but not just my space on the grid. My friend told me that no less than three of the lectures he was attending had the exact same thing happen.

All (or almost all) the speakers, like myself, were volunteering time for this conference. Certainly some of the attendees would know that this was a simple mistake and that I had made a good faith effort to make sure things were taken care of — but what about the ones who left the room before my friend called me? How would my professional reputation suffer as a result?

If you’re reading this and you were scheduled to attend, please accept my humble apologies, and I hope you were not horribly inconvenienced by the scheduling problem. I may see you next year — but only if I decide to work at this particular conference again.