The upgrade went very well and I love the new KDE release. It’s packed with new features, is more stable and performs better than the previous version, and the option of using Webkit as a rendering engine for Konqueror (this post) is awesome.

Unfortunately there’s a nasty bug in Konqueror that seems to crash it when a flash plugin is loaded. Eg visiting skype.com would crash the browser when the flash video loads. I haven’t tested it with KHTML as I’m too addicted to browsing with Webkit.

Anyway, I then turned my attention to using firefox and naively assumed flash was working in Lucid as it had in previous versions of Ubuntu. The result? Of course it wasn’t.

The adobe flash package is there, the plugin file was there, but no flash functionality. I found the fix on the Ubuntu forums:

# ln -s /usr/lib/adobe-flashplugin/libflashplayer.so .mozilla/plugins/libflashplayer.so

That link was the difference between the user experience of flash working or not. For the average user that is a big deal.

Is anyone able to explain why such simple regressions still slip through Ubuntu’s cracks?

The tax office will base its AUSkey Linux port on Ubuntu.

AUSkey is written in Java and in theory is cross-platform, but with tax testing it on Linux it should finally work without a whole lot of frustration. It also shows how far Ubuntu has come in garnering mainstream public opinion on what is the most popular Linux distribution for testing efforts.

Ubuntu does not equal Linux per se, but if the same decision was made only a few years ago it would have been based on one of the well-known commercial distros.

Good to see the ATO committing to more openness – with software and media relations. A little victory for those who care about it.

If you’re a KDE user you already have compositing effects in KWin without the need for a third-party window manager – how about that.

By default, KWin doesn’t follow the Compiz way of switching desktops with the spinning cube, but it’s very easy to set as an option. In System Settings go to “Desktop” -> “Multiple Desktops” and click on the Switching tab.

Setting key bindings for KWin's spinning cube effect

Then in the “shortcuts” section click on “Switch to Next Desktop”. Select the custom option and click on the button (it will have “none” if no key binding is set). With the button pressed and displaying “input…” hold down the ctrl, alt and left keys simultaneously. Then click apply and you’re done. You’re desktop will spin the cube just like Compiz. Do the same but with the right arrow for “Switch to Previous Desktop” if you want to switch the other way as well.

You can go crazy and customise key bindings for any specific desktop if you like.

If Linux distributors were thinking of changing their default desktop environment from GNOME-Compiz to KDE this is one option they might want to set as the default.

I’ve manually added my panel back and upgrading to the 2.6.33 Lucid kernel fixed suspend to RAM. The default kernel with Lucid is 2.6.32, but there are official unofficial 2.6.33 (and later) kernels available from Ubuntu packaged for Lucid.

On the positives, the system boots faster and KDEs network manager actually works. And I have Firefox 3.6 which so far hasn’t made it through one session without freezing.

Ubuntu – test, test and then test again. Is six months too aggressive for a Linux release cycle?

No big deal. From memory I started blogging just as the hype factor became unbearable. Wikipedia has a page on the history of blogging (timeline). I had a few Web sites prior to this blog, but they were tied to ISP hosting accounts.

Incidentally, this month also marks my tenth anniversary as a journalist.

How long have you been blogging for?

A few years ago I tried eMusic when it first came onto the scene, but didn’t get into it much as I never really caught on to the subscription model. It wasn’t the cost, it was my infrequent – and often sporadic – music buying habits.

This is what I was looking for in a digital music store:

• DRM free. Note to record companies – if people want to pirate music they will do it whether the content is DRM’d or not. If I pay for a song at the very least I expect to be able to play it on any device of my choosing. I’ve never shared music and never will. If a person buys a physical CD they can then play it anywhere so digital music should be no exception. People will happily pay for music if it is a “fair deal”.
• A la carte. As mentioned, I’m not a regular music buyer so paying a monthly subscription to access a quota of songs is not ideal for me. For music buffs it’s great. Subscriptions can dramatically reduce the cost per song, but I’d rather pay a premium to get the music I want on a song-by-song basis.
• MP3 format. Sure it would be great to have OGG format, but MP3 remains the de facto standard and will more or less work on any software player or device.
• Open interface. To hell with being locked into a proprietary application to access a music store. I want it 100% Web-based and standard. Don’t care about API access.
• Easy payment. The ability to pay via credit card or PayPal would be good.
• Recent selection. While I like the classics, having the latest music in the store is really a must, particularly when buying music as a gift for someone else.
• Local presence. With the globalisation of the music industry firmly established this may well be a moot point, but if there is a digital music store with a local presence it may be easier to get “support” if you ever need it.

I didn’t think such a service existed up until a few weeks ago when I was asked to purchase a few songs for a loved one. I did some searching and found the Optus Music store at: http://www.optusmusicstore.com/.

Unless I’m missing something it meets all my humble requirements. The store is “open” as anyone can register and buy from it (I’m not an Optus mobile customer) and it sells ringtones as well (with mp3 ringtone support in today’s smarter phones this may become obsolete soon).

At a flat rate of $AU1.69 a track and $AU16.50 per album I can purchase what I want at a predictable cost. As I said, It’s not about the cost, it’s about the freedom. BTW, what’s the going rate for digital music these days? Is $1.69 expensive?

So there you have it, I’m happy to wave the flag for the Optus Music Store as it seems unique within the Australian market.

And don’t forget the music player to rule them all just hit version 2.3. Rock on!

I won’t spoil it for you, but if you can imagine a cross between the original Alice in Wonderland plot, The Nightmare Before Christmas’ tone, Edward Scissorhands-grade humanism, and a mighty Lord of the Rings-style battle scene at the end, then that’s what you get in Tim Burton’s rendition of this classic tale.

We all enjoyed the film and walked away happy. While not strictly the protagonist, Johnny Depp stole the show as the Mad Hatter.

The 3D doesn’t have the same impact as with fully-animated films, but nevertheless it does add some sharp effects.

The short-term memory replacement (Twitter) tracked the occasion:

http://twitter.com/rodneygedda/status/8616389858

No warning, nothing. Badda bing, badda bang… blank screen, some hard disk seeking then KDM restarts. Good thing I save my work regularly and both Konqueror and Firefox have session restoration!

I haven’t had a chance to do any debugging yet, but I invariably will as this type of failure is unacceptable if Linux is going to have a snowflake’s chance in hell of providing a credible alternative on the desktop.

Mind you, my notebook does get hammered every day in the form of multiple suspend to rams, compositing (Kwin, not Compiz) and scores of applications running at the same time.

So when I say my desktop crashed I’m really saying “my desktop has been going for two weeks straight (no restarts, just suspensions) and decided to have a hiccup”. No idea what my record it but could well be over a month before a kernel update demanded a reboot.

Any debugging tips will be greatly appreciated (Kubuntu Karmic).

Without pointing the finger at X.Org, does it add complexity the modern Linux desktop could do without? Not that it’s unstable at all (in fact, X has always been a model of stability and robustness when configured correctly), but does it let Linux distributions down in an area where Windows and Mac OS X shine?

So far the logs haven’t told me much. Let me wait until it really become s problem before I start digging furiously.

Today something extraordinary struck me. As I paid the taxi driver and jumped out of the cab I looked up and the first thing I saw was a plaque commemorating the first Christian church service on Australian soil.

The date was February 3. Today.

A plaque in Sydney for Australia's first church service on Sunday, February 3 1788

It was this day in 1788 (Feb 3 was a Sunday) Rev Richard Johnson addressed the fledgling colony. The monument to mark the occasion stands on Hunter St, Sydney.

If I remember correctly, on the first Sunday (Jan 27) after the landing at Port Jackson most of the expedition party (most certainly the women) was still on board the ships of the First Fleet.

I’m not religious, but found this little snippet of our history too interesting to ignore.

It’s the HTC Magic that was launched in May last year. I had used the phone previously in testing, but now I can really play around with it.

Only after a few minutes with the Magic you learn how far ahead (in terms of usability, at least) the modern touch-centric mobile operating systems are compared with the older key-centric ones.

The only disappointment so far is many of the service-based apps (mail, calendar, etc) are tied to Google and you need to sign up to use them (at least in the first instance).

Our next step is to get the Android Market (app store) happening for access to all those applications. Now I really can’t wait until my contract ends in six months.