I would just like to take this time to notify the readers of this blog about the usefulness of using the Bittorent download option for downloading releases. Not only is it more reliable, it also takes a tremendous load off the main archive servers. When release day hits, the torrent files for Karmic can be found in the directory listing at http://releases.ubuntu.com/9.10/
Remember to seed back!
With great sadness, one of the original hosting services of the web is shutting down tomorrow due to internal Yahoo! budget cuts.
Until the cutoff, you are free to download your site onto your computer. All data will be deleted after the cutoff, though.
The Archive Team is attempting to save as many pages as they can from Geocities before the lights go out on the service.
Mashable has a great article on this event: http://mashable.com/2009/10/25/geocities-closes-2/
XKCD has also altered their site to emulate a… badly well designed Geocities website (It nearly froze Firefox): http://xkcd.com/
XKCD murdering Firefox
For the last few weeks, I have been testing Ubuntu Karmic Koala Beta.
I have never seen a better beta release.
I have encountered no moderate or above level bugs, I have not had a single application crash, and it has overall been the best and most complete beta release that I have seen. The only complaint that I have is the fact that – and this might be a local problem – but apt-get is much slower with installing packages, specifically the template extraction part; Not really sure what is causing this, it might be the overall system load is affecting it.
Ubuntu Karmic has introduced the “Ubuntu Software Center” in place of “Add/Remove Programs” or something similarly titled. It is a improvement upon the older interface for newbies – although I do prefer apt-get myself 
.
Ubuntu Software Center Home (Click for full size)
Karmic has also began including Empathy in place of Pidgin as “default”. I can’t speak well for this change, as I prefer Pidgin’s interface and maturity over Empathy. I don’t feel it is developed enough to be included as “default”, although it is easily changeable (the beauty of Linux). Empathy vs Pidgin: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/EmpathyVsPidginUsability
Another change is that Ubuntu One is included as default. For those of you that don’t know, Ubuntu One is a project by Canonical to create a program like Dropbox for Linux only, at this point. Ubuntu One provides 2GB of storage right off, and you can get 50GB of storage for $10 a month. It is a great solution for syncing files between computers and sharing files between other Ubuntu One users. You can log in with your Launchpad OpenID, if you have one. Project homepage: https://one.ubuntu.com/.
Ubuntu One Web Interface (Click for full size)
Another detail about Karmic that dosen’t really fit in anywhere else is that it will be shipping with the 2.6.31 Linux kernel, a big improvement upon the older kernel shipped in Jaunty.
Now, before I close this, I would like to send out a little piece of advice for those thinking of upgrading when Karmic is released: Upgrade before the “official” release. There is little risk of a severe bug being discovered less than 10 days before the official release, so you should be safe with upgrading a few days before. The Ubuntu servers are slammed on release day, so this might sound a little like common sense, but meh.
Alright, time to stop rambling.
~ Collin Pruitt (Hellow)
Now, what are your experiences with Karmic Koala? Post them in a comment below:
Ubuntu Open Week is a planned event where several “sessions” are held in a IRC channel by various prominent Ubuntu Community members to assist people in getting involved in the Ubuntu Community.
The next Ubuntu Open Week will occur from November 2nd-6th in the channels #ubuntu-classroom and #ubuntu-classroom-chat on the IRC network irc.freenode.net
This time around will also be the first time we have a separate Spanish version of the Open Week, more information here.
Of course, there are rules for the Open Week:
The rules page can be found here.
Jono Bacon, the Ubuntu Community Manager, has made a excellent blog post about the event found here: http://www.jonobacon.org/2009/10/13/next-ubuntu-open-week-announced/
Click here to join me!
More information on the #BeatCancer social fundraiser started by Paypal, eBay, and MillerCooers can be found on Mashable’s blog post: http://mashable.com/2009/10/17/tweeting-to-beatcancer/
1c may not sound like much, but when you have a couple thousand to hundred thousand people doing it, it adds up fast.
