Fitting the battle of life

Next Thursday is the release of Ubuntu 8.10, codenamed Intrepid Ibex, and there’ll be another London release party organised by the lovely folks at Canonical, details of which you can find here.

The cake was not a lie last year!

I’ll be going – second party in a row – and I hope to see you there too!

In the meantime, I’ve only ‘broken’ my Intrepid install once, and that was a problem with graphics that just required a quick switch of drivers. It’s all looking grand – roll on the release!

I recently submitted a couple of photographs to be used in the rotating header images on the Ubuntu UK website, and they’ve made it onto the page!

This is one of St. Pauls from South Bank in London, and the other is an arty shot taken from a punt in Cambridge last summer. Check out the site and see if it pops up!

This week I recommend:

• In film, This is England. (Watched it tonight, and it’s brilliant, just brilliant. The dialogue’s great, the soundtrack is perfect, and most of the acting is great too.)
• In music, Portland Rise. (Yes, I have a bit of a vested interest in these guys, but would recommend them even if I didn’t know them.)
• In books, Under the Net. (Iris Murdoch’s first novel, and unfortunately the only one of hers I’ve read, but will try and rectify that this summer after my exams.)

That’s my watch, listen and read for this week. I might even make it a semi-regular feature, depending how revision goes.

• (And as a bonus, in podcasts, the Ubuntu-uk podcast episode 2, or uupc as it is become known. It even got a mention on lugradio this week!)

I’m now listening to the first episode of the Ubuntu UK podcast, and I must say I am impressed, so congratulations to all involved. I particularly liked the random dog barking in the middle of one of the fosdem interviews!

There aren’t many here, but these will do for now. I don’t think the new year is the only time to make resolutions, so there may well be more as the year progresses.

1. Post here regularly. It’s a wonderful break from actual work but still creative, so it’s not mind-numbing to the point I can’t get back to work. In fact, writing blog posts kinda helps me get in the mood to work, at least more than facebooking does.
2. Install and post a review of Hardy when it comes out officially in April. If there’s a -uk release party in London or nearish that I can get to, I’ll blog about that as well. Call it a Hard-on. No, on second thoughts don’t. A Hardy-fest will do fine.
3. Write a few simple how-tos. I’m not the most experienced user in the world, and nor can I solve bugs or anything like that. But if people need to know how to do simple things I’ve worked out how to do, I really ought to share that information.
4. Push for the two of my friends who’ve expressed an interest in installing Ubuntu to do so, and help them do it and support them through the transition. This may well be the hardest part, but it’s one I’m most committed to. If they get past the installation and into everyday use, then perhaps they’ll understand why I’ve been raving so much about it. (On a slightly related note, we had a couple of friends round the other day, one of whom cheekily saw me spin the desktop cube around…suffice to say, she was impressed.)

That’ll do for now, but there will be more to come I’m sure. As ever I’ll update on these towards the end of the year.