I think I have a solution to the rolling and releasing

Post LTS.  You start a rolling release. This gets all the goodness in that you want.  6 months in you take a fortnight out. Week one stabilize, week two ISO testing.  The resulting ISO is then supported with security back ports for the next 6 months till the next ISO is stabilized and so on till you get to the 6 months for the next lts.  Here you go back to the more tried and tested release method so this release is solid, stable and ready for the next 5 years.

This I think gives users a regular cadence they are used to. Gives people like system 76 a regular OEM install it has security back ports from the continuing rolling release.  It gives app devs a set of libs for 6 months that won't change.  And means there is only a fortnight slow down for the devs.

Plus the community driven derivatives can continue to use their current 6 monthly cadence. Everyone is happy :-)

Lighthouse Workday

So today for a change we had the first of a hopefully a monthly get together for home workers of the Midlands.

The Lighthouse some of you might know from LRL. It has a simple usage policy you buy drinks and food from their cafe and you get to use the work area for free.

So first impressions are good, plenty of light, WIFI was now locked so worked well for a change, power was provided as were tables and chairs. It was altogether a pleasant experience.

Bigcalm came across from Telford and together we sat and worked, had a chat about what we did, had a laugh and a joke about the fact that we both ranted at our machines for not doing what we wanted, enjoyed the food and finally had a nice day. My thanks to him for taking the time out to come :) , and my commiserations to the people who wanted to come but then couldn't due to work :(

If your a home worker in the Midlands why not come along to the next one scheduled for Thursday the 17th of November once again at the lighthouse Wolverhampton. If you're interested ping me on freenode username davmor2.

QA COP

So Canonical sent it's QA team members from across the company to meet up compare notes and make improvements.

This is really good on several levels most important being these are people you work with every day but may never meet. It was good to finally meet up with the Chris's, Diago, Rick, Ursula and my team as always.

It was good to collaborate and hopefull make everyones lives better, oh except for Cr3 who magically needs to make everything work.....Have you done it yet Marc?

Heres to next year when hopefully extra team members from other teams will be able to attend and we can continue to grow the tools and friendships.

Kill the zombies

No not applications that refuse to close.

The new game in Ubuntu Software Center is Atom Zombie Smasher it's a tower style game where you need to position your pieces to save the humans. The concepts simple the game is addictive and sometimes frustrating when things don't work the way you planned it.

You can buy it now in the Software Center and enjoy for many, many days, enjoy all you gamers out there.

Did you know.....

...Ubuntu Software Center (USC) has for purchase games and apps?

Did you know how easy it was to get them? No!
Well here's how, in Natty Narwhal 11.04 Open USC from it's icon in the app launcher and click on the "for purchase" tab in the left hand side of the app then click on an app.
Click on "More info" and then on buy.
Now sign in or up for an Ubuntu Single Sign On Account.
Now type in your name, address and your card details in the secure app.
Now type in your password to install the app and done.

OMG!Ubuntu have been pretty good at reporting on the apps they like and why not, how ever you can have the same impact by simply adding a review to the app you purchased to let other users know what's hot and what's not.

By the way some you might like to look out for:
Uplink: a classic game where strategy and speed will keep you out of prison while you race around hacking the world.

Family Farm: The sims go to farmville you know it can't be bad right :)

Steel Storm2: Top down classic shootem up, it's fast pretty and explosive. Oh did I mention addictive?

Darwinia: One of the prettiest god games I've seen.

Fluendo DVD Player: for everyone that needs to have a good dvd player on their box

Codec Packs: They do what they say on the tin

World of Goo: If you haven't heard of this where have you been in a cave? A great physics based game

and more....

Keep checking in though as USC gets more apps on a fairly regular basis and I'd hate for you to miss out on the one that is perfect for you :)

Now go enjoy you computer in new and funky ways.

Merry christmas and a happy new year

Unity thoughts.....

I like elements of unity and if going forward it can improve on the elements that I don't like so much then it will be awesome, well for me at any rate. I'm not going to make any kinda real judgement though until the ball starts rolling. So many elements will be changed for desktop unity that I think it is unfair for anyone to make rash judgements based on the unity that was designed purely for the netbooks. I think that people are forgetting that whether Ubuntu went with Gnome-shell or Unity-shell there would be a new learning curve for the latest desktop. Unity I think though will be less steep as users have it on their netbooks already but not only that it feels kind of familiar. It would be nice if the search feature did files, applications and web all in one rather than having to have icons for each type of search. With nautilus becoming the file manager again that gets rid of the issues I had, having to breakout of the unity file manager in order to share stuff through Ubuntu one ( an awesome feature by the way guys). The side bar I think is fantastic, as a quick launch mechanism I find it less fussy than some with some nice features. I think the quick menus will just just add to the usefulness. I for one can't wait. After hearing some of the features planned for Natty I can hand on heart say it's gonna rock....... hard! I hope that all of the developers and community are as fired up about this release as I am. It is sounding like it's going to be one of the most dramatic releases to date.....Bring on alpha1