Appointment as Ubuntu member: Congratulations to Harisfazillah Jamel aka linuxmalaysia

Although it’s kinda late, I still want to congratulate linuxmalaysia (Harisfazillah Jamel) for his appointment as an official Ubuntu Member on the last Asia Oceania Regional Board meeting on 28 April 2009.

The current official members in our local community (Ubuntu-my) as follows :

1. BuffaloSoldier
2. fenris
3. GunbladeIV
4. linuxmalaysia
5. nbliang
6. zarul

Hopefully with this appointment, our community will continue to flourish with activities that would benefit free and open source users as a whole.

What’s the advantage of being an official Ubuntu members?

  • An @ubuntu.com email alias that forwards to your real email address
  • An ubuntu/member/your_nick hostname IRC cloak on Freenode.
  • The right to print business cards with the Ubuntu logo – The business cards can be found at the BusinessCards page, you will need to take care of the printing yourself.
  • Syndication on Planet Ubuntu of your Ubuntu blog or the Ubuntu category posts in your blog, if you have one. Follow the registration instructions on PlanetUbuntu to add your blog!
  • An Ubuntu Member title at the Ubuntu Forums. See this post for more information.
  • A subscription to Linux Weekly News – see this page for instructions on how to apply.
  • Ability to join the Official Ubuntu Members group on LinkedIn.

For more information please refer to Ubuntu Membership wiki page

Does Twitter kills my blog?

This is probably the first thing that I thought of when I first started of this blog two five years ago… that is the probability that I might find other hobby or work that much more appealing than paying attention to this blog.

The first culprit would be twitter, because ever since I started to hook up with it, I’ve beginning to post updates less frequently than I usually do, until it reaches a point that I stopped posting updates altogether, even though there are loads event that are worthy for me to blog with.

Maybe I’ve lost my passion of updating blogs with my daily hacking activities, or may I simply haven’t got the hang around of updating my blog while juggling with my new work, updating tweets and working on my research projects. Whatever the reason is, it is my intention to keep my post coming out fresh despite having to adjust to my new environment, and for that to happen I need to discipline myself to post regular updates on my blog.

Twitter is nice to use, as it requires less effort to post updates about my activities and make it easy for me to keep updated with my friends, but it greatest advantage seems to have taken a toll on my blog and I’ve nothing to blame but myself :p

BluePad: Controls Presentation from Your Phone

Recently I had todo a lot of presentations which made me thinking into getting presentation pen, but since my E71 includes a pre-installed Wireless Presenter (WiPresenter), I’ve buried that thought, who needs an expensive presentation pen when a phone can perform equally when?

Bluepad remote control

But as WiPresenter is only compatible with Microsoft Windows operating system, I’m forced to use keyboard or mouse-clicks to control my presentations when I’m using Ubuntu Linux operating system. This is a drawback as I could perform the task easily thru my phone when I’m on Windows XP.

EnterBluepad, an application which enables your mobile phone to act as a Bluetooth controller. Bluepad consists of two applications, a server and a client. The server application sits on your operating system, monitoring for incoming Bluetooth connection. The client application requires a JavaME compatible mobile phone with JSR-82 (Bluetooth) feature.

The installation is straightforward for both client and server side application, the only thing to remember is to activate bluetooth on mobile phone before starting the client application. After that, you can start OpenOffice Impress and use the the phone to remotely control the presentation.

How to Generate Barcode in OpenOffice.org

I found this extension as I was searching for a great application to generate EAN-13 compatible barcode. This OpenOffice.org extension allows you to generate 5 different types of barcode generally found in the market, such as :

  • UPC-A (the most common barcode in the US)
  • EAN-13 (the most common barcode in Europe)
  • JAN (the barcode used in Japan, basically EAN-13 with the country code for Japan)
  • ISBN-13 (the barcode used in books after 2007, basically EAN-13 with a superscript)
  • ISBN-10 (the barcode used in books before 2007, basically EAN-13 with a different superscript)

Here’s how to install the extension :

  • First go to OpenOffice.org extensions website, then search for the barcode extension
  • Download the extension – barcode.oxt
  • Then start OpenOffice.org, go to Tools and select Extension Manager
  • When a dialog appears, click on Add, then find and select barcode.oxt, the extension will be installed on your OpenOffice.o
  • rg

  • To test the extension, start OpenOffice.org Draw, go to Insert, and selects Barcode, you can choose any of the barcode type to generate inside OpenOffice.org, type in the barcode value and it will be displayed on the page, with no extra effort!

Openoffice

Openoffice

Openoffice

New GNOME Weather Applet does not have Alor Setar option!

I’m frustrated with the new GNOME Weather applet included with Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex. For some reason, my hometown is not included in the list.

Weather Applet

I wonder why, as my hometown is present in all previous releases of the Weather Applet. Seems now I can’t monitor the weather condition of my hometown (Alor Setar) anymore from my desktop :(

This bugs me as I use it occasionally to monitor weather conditions and to make decision on my ham radio activities.

Is your hometown / place listed on the Weather Applet?

Ubuntu.com.my new face !

For those who haven’t noticed yet, our local Ubuntu-my website has been revamped! Now written in Malay to reflect the local national language as well as the l10n effort that are being carried on the Ubuntu project!

Ubuntu-my page

How can I contribute to Ubuntu-my ?