Jaqback, Issue 3
Jono Bacon and Stuart ‘Aq’ Langridge read your letters, answer your questions and talk about the goings on and news in the always awesome Shot Of Jaq community.
We are always keen to hear your thoughts, opinions and ideas for the show. Be sure to join the conversation in the shot comments below…
39 Comments to “Jaqback, Issue 3”
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Twutter to add a comment to the scratchpad just seems like a PITA … Ok, neat feature, but be nice to also be able to just use the thing that you’re looking at to add a comment.
Wait, surely “jokosher” would be something good to record it with ?? Remember that thing ?
At OggCamp Jono said that compression wasn’t (yet) good enough on Linux to do a decent recording. I don’t know whether he meant compression in a file size sense, or in an audio production sense, but I assumed the latter.
Out of general curiosity I would like to hear a shot done on Linux, so we can see the difference and see if we can forgive them for hating freedom on this count
whaddya mean, “them”? I use Gnome Sound Recorder
I’m with Jono here, though. I want Shot of Jaq to sound as good as it can do. He knows lots about audio and I know nothing, so I agree with his decisions and support them.
I will have to give it a shot and see how it sounds. Mind you, with everything else going on in my life right now, it is not near the top of the TODO. I will give it a try though.
Apologies, Aq. Forgive JONO for hating freedom :p
Chuckles aside, the show’s great both in audio quality and in content. Enjoying every shot!
“Aq has got a hack” … chuckles
Didn’t the gents say that if the community organised some sort of conference-type event this year that they’d do a LugRadio Live and Unleashed show there? Does OggCamp 10 qualify?
So….. now that the scratchpad is out, can we expect the mailing list and planet page to follow soon?
Oh but what about jaiku hehe ?? That is another hunchback twitter clone. I aways retweet but I dont know anyone at google or any other thing. I know Gnome people and ubuntu people that about. @me needs to diversify….
I have an N900 and I am in no way a developer. The general point is probably correct though.
Same goes for me. I don’t even know one line of code… Still i love my N900 and i’m writing from it right now while listening to this episode. I see the advantage quite the same as with Ubuntu.
Interesting. Are you able to find apps that do what you want for a given situation?
The platform in the existing version is pretty young, it’s not even half a year on the market, so clearly there is not a tool for everything. The main difference to the other “smartphones”, which the N900 is clearly not, is that it behaves like a Linux. You don’t need “apps” for every little function. And development is really picking up pace right now, every day new packages come to the maemo extras repo, additionally to the corporation centered Ovi store, managed by Nokia. Especially the Debian Armel repos is a huge ressource which is just scratched until now. Personally i didn’t even think about getting an IPhone or an Android based one, for me OpenSource is the way of the future, so clearly i invest my money there. If i have to wait a little longer to be able to do everything i want is i price i pay gladly. So to sum it up, i think Maemo is the best mobile OS out there right now, but i also think Ubuntu is the best Desktop OS out there right now. Just that you get my perspective.
For the OS or for the Freedom? I got a Nexus One for the latter, which came rooted by default.
Not entirely relevant to what’s been said today. But in Firefox on Windows (don’t hate me, I use Ubuntu on my laptop) the fonts render really badly.
Screenshot: http://kimag.es/share/377941.jpg
Not sure what fonts you’re using, but why not just set the CSS to sans-serif and let the browsers figure out the rest?
Interestingly enough IE8 seems to just use Arial for everything so that actually looks quite good.
Forgot to mention. The shot title font looks fine (i.e. “Jaqback, Issue 3″). But everything else is ugly as hell.
That’s because Firefox on Windows doesn’t do antialiasing of fonts, sometimes. I don’t think there’s a lot I can do about that.
Fair enough. I had no idea that was the case. Might try tweaking some settings to get it fixed.
Hey guys, I love the podcast! Something that you may want to look into, as I am a podcaster running linux as well is a program called Skype Call Recorder, http://atdot.ch/scr/ I love this program, as you can record in ogg, wav pcm, or mp3 directly. This does record the skype stream; however, you may find it useful when you are on the road and what have you. Good on you guys, and look for the podcast SocIT in the very near future, but for now please visit http://johnrdavisjr.com. Keep up the great work!
John
Thanks John for the kind comments and suggestion!
Jono mentioned today that Shot of Jaq is blocked in China. This is not true… same goes for Linux Outlaws. Both websites and podcasts I can open in Beijing.
ah, cool. We were going on an email we’d received. So the Chinese government is OK with our criticism, then
I am sure they are thrilled.
Thanks for reading my email gents. Interesting too hear someone say they can get both podcasts in China. Linux Outlaws was definitely banned there last year, I had a few friends who couldn’t download it while traveling there at different occasions. We’ve also had a lot of emails about the problem. Maybe they’ve softened up after we mentioned Red Flag Linux a few times.
I agree with the point about the N900 having a small user base. Android is undoubtedly the place to be right now with the market. So many companies are pushing it. I don’t see the N900 hitting the general public like that, even though the hardware and software kick ass. I just wanted to mention it to show that mobile development doesn’t have to be awkward. I don’t have to write my own apps to get things done either, thats why I have apt-get. It’s not the same as the Android Market for a non technical user though it’s true. That’s very strong.
Keep up the good work,
Dan
last year was a weird situation about China and the Internet: they blocked certain news sites, but wikipedia was completely open, I could search for the tiananmen photos, etc. While it was known that Internet was more controlled and monitored due to the National anniversary of 60 years communism.
I also tried to open Linux Outlaws during that time… and didn’t work yeah. But most people (students, foreigners) I know use a VPN in China :-S. I can’t say for sure it was blocked by that time. Most of the times you have to refresh a page to get all the images loaded correctly due to timeouts with Western websites.
Just keep mentioning RedFlag Linux and you will be on!
Sidenote: those guys at RFL are really good guys… met them at the BeijingLUG!
N900 does not have the userbase, but it has native apps which can show the full potential of the device. Recently it was shown it can dualboot Mer, Fedora, Android and probably Ubuntu won’t be far off… it can already run a chrooted debian. But yes, Android has more applications available.
But as I remember Canonical was busy with an effort to run Andreoid apps on the Ubuntu desktop… like a compatibility layer. How is this progressing? I could see this also run on other desktops… but even on the N900/Maemo! As I said, the phone is powerful enough and already has most of the same components running. Canonical, open it up I would say
.
Is it the case that scratchpad pages can only be added to by twitter? I wanted to add a thingy to the suggestions page, but couldn’t see how to make an edit, even in spite of the tempting slice of cheesecake that was the idea of not needing to make an account.
There’s a small “Edit” link in the footer.
Also, check out http://shotofjaq.org/scratchpad/ScratchpadGuide
I just edited the guide page to include that information. Go me!
I think that there should be more mobile devices like the N900 which are completely open to development. The vast majority of phones are imposable to develop for and the ones that are, i.e. the Android and IPhone have major problems associated with them such as the inability to just run code on the iphone, it must go through the app store, and as you have mentioned the lack of diversity of languages available for use.
This is not actually true – the Nexus One can be rooted and run arbitrary code even on the OS level. Even a non-rooted device can have your own code run on it, and install apps from outside the app store. All that is needed is to check a box saying ‘allow apps from outside the market’ and saying yes to the this-may-kill-your-cat warning. In fact, you can even run your code on the phone directly from Eclipse.
the last lugradio live is still not available, no audio nor video.
I would like to graciously accept the honorable title of “Linux Podcasting’s biggest omnipresent Mention Slut”. In my defence, I offer the following explanations.
My day job is really fucking boring. Due to a weird confluence of circumstance, I find myself trapped in a job that I am pretty much uniquely qualified to do, but am virtually unemployable in any other role. Being grimly aware of the situation, they underpay me shockingly, but let let me get away with blue murder in all other respects, lest I pull a hissy and quit. I provide highly niche proprietry SAAS, because despite its largetime suckiness, it pays the mortguage. Seriously, unless I occupy my mind, I regularly fall asleep at my desk. So my bosses don’t mind me hacking about on my own little peccadillos, it’s better than the customer asking why i’m snoring.
I have a huge, insaitiable ego. If only Mozart could have written tunes that sound as sweet as the melody of my own glorious voice.
Sorry if I annoy anybody by repeatedly popping up in podcasts. Consider it an unofficial “Care in the community” outreach scheme for Under-entertained Geeks with Vanity issues
Don’t even joke about blocking. Here in Poland the government accepted a law project to allow banning of web pages and other online services and well, the community isn’t really pleased with that… Well, that would be a nice (flaming
topic…
I’m famous and immortal now!
Just kidding, thanks for reading and answering my email, Jono and Aq!
I gather that Linux Outlaws uses similar methodology for their podcast as well.
I had assumed you used JACK and you see where assumptions get you.
I would raz you guys about not using free-er tech for recording, but really, there isn’t a drop in replacement. Sure you could try to use ephiany for the call, which might eliminate the need for skype, but there is still a lack of good truly free technology to replace ubuntu-one.
As for neither you gents nor the Linux Outlaws being banned in China, it must mean your not trying hard enough
But honestly, the situation there is bad, and I am glad there are people like you guys who are ballsy enough to raise awareness. I have oft thought that someone needs to organize a world wide group to spread the word about all of the different laws in all the different countries trying to suppress free speech on the internet. With some kind of global awareness, people could work to pressure their governments to speak out against it, and maybe get something done.
Wow, that was rather longer than I intended it to be. Keep up to good work.
Opinion: Online pleasures like checking email all the time are Pavlovian, and possible to get addicted to. Texting is similar.
Effort/reward mechanisms are powerful, and addiction is possible.