Decriptor's Blog

We just released our first 2.x series update this week.  This release brings a 127 bug fixes.

Over the last several months a fair amount of attention has been paid to improving at-spi2 as well.  For those that don’t know what at-spi2 is its the next generation of Assistive Technology Service Provider Interface.  The new at-spi2 using dbus in an effort to remove corba and bonobo from the gnome stack.

A huge benefit of this work is that kde will be able to use it without pulling in a bunch of gnome dependencies allowing for a clean desktop independent accessibility infrastructure.

Some release details:

• Improved compatibility with AT-SPI2, including fixes and performance.
• More compatibility with Silverlight Accessibility for UIA Clients.
• Caching improvements in UIA Client API.
• Support for custom providers and client-side providers.

As well as where you can find the packages:

• openSUSE 11.2 - 1-Click Install
• Ubuntu Karmic Koala - Package Archive on Launchpad
• Fedora 12 - Repository on openSUSE Build Service
• Source tarballs

For more details – The UIA Team Blog

Yes, its been forever and then some since I’ve messed with this stuff.  I’m finally trying to make sure that I get some work done on this.  The first item of business is the new iFolder appliance project page being hosted on google code.  This is where I’d like to post updates, release notes, progress, errata, the how to, fixes, workarounds, etc.

The next thing I want to mention is that I’ve started to work on an openSUSE 11.2 based iFolder appliance that will include, as of right now, iFolder 3.8.  I’ll be posting links to the test images for anyone that would like to help test, comment, contribute, etc.  Please feel free to post bugs to the project page and I’ll do my best to fix them.

What is YaSTroid you ask? Its our hackweek project.  Several of the SLED team developers and fellow friends got together including Jared Allen, Scott Reeves, Sandy Armstrong, Mario Carrion, Alan Clark, FunkyPenguin, and myself.  Recently several of us have had an interest in the android platform. So, we decided to take this hackweek and write an android based application that we thought would benefit many of you.

The application we wrote is an android frontend to WebYaST.   The way the application works is that it takes advantage of the RESTful API that is provided by the WebYaST service.

As of right now our application is still fairly simple with some really cool ideas.  Also, as the WebYaST REST interface adds new features we’ll be able to add them to our app as well.

Screenshots you say?  I’m sorry to disappoint, however we do have this awesome video that demos our app instead.  Brought to you by Scott Reeves and Stephen Shaw with a special thanks to our camera man Chris Coray and Novell for hosting the video.

So, here is a flash video and mp4 video.

EDIT: Sorry, here are the links to the source code and an apk if you’d like to test it and give us feedback.

This is a really cool tip I stumbled onto while working with some of the packages on my team.  A couple months back I was editing a spec file and accidentally mistyped the name of the spec file.  Much to my surprise most of the file was completely missing.  After several :q! I finally realized that vi has a skeleton spec file that gets generated when edit a *.spec file that doesn’t exist yet.

So, for example if you typed:

 vi mypackage.spec

you would get:

#
# This file and all modifications and additions to the pristine
# package are under the same license as the package itself.
#

# norootforbuild

Name:           mypackage
Version:
Release:
Summary:
Group:
License:
Url:
PreReq:
Provides:
BuildRequires:
Source:
Patch:
BuildRoot:      %{_tmppath}/%{name}-%{version}-build
AutoReqProv:    on

%description

Authors:
--------
    Name Surname

%prep
%setup

%build
%configure
make %{?jobs:-j%jobs}

%install
%makeinstall

%clean
rm -rf $RPM_BUILD_ROOT

%post
%postun

%files
%defattr(-,root,root)
%doc ChangeLog README COPYING

%changelog
* Wed Jan 13 2010 sshaw at stshaw.site

Just a quick post letting everyone know that there is a release party here in Provo, Utah.

The Open Source Technology Center, building A on the Novell campus, has been good enough to host us again.  It will be this Thursday, November 12 from 6 to 9.

I do not have the replicated DVDs, but I will have some burned copies of the isos.

We don’t have a sponsor for pizza yet, but please RSVP anyways just in case.  Maybe we can have people throw some money in for pizza.

Pass the word on and See you all there!

UPDATE:

We will have pizza and drinks.  Please RSVP!!!