Chris Kenyon

Operation Lucid - Ubuntu in London

My brother casts light and shadows for a living and we have been talking about a little project for a while. The release of Ubuntu 10.04 (aka Lucid Lynx) this week was the perfect opportunity to put the plan into action.

Mission

• Spread a bit of Ubuntu love to celebrate the launch of Ubuntu 10.04 a.k.a Lucid Lynx

 

 

 

  

 

 

Pictures released under Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0

  
 Equipment

• 1 x suspicious white van
• 2 x spotlight
• 1 x temperamental generator
• 2 x hi-visibility electricity board jackets (urban camouflage)
• 1 x Canon Digital SLR
• 1 x clipboard

Location

• Barbican tower
• St Paul's (taken from Shakespeare tower)
• Tate modern
• National Theatre
• London Eye
• Millbank tower

Crew

• Jono Kenyon (Lighting Guru and photos), 
• Chris Kenyon (Generator technician)
• Jane Silber (Gaffer) 

The camouflage worked pretty well. We had a curious security guard at the Gherkin, which incidentally turns out to be difficult to project onto (shape and internal lighting)

We finished the last shot at 02:45 outside Millbank at which point we had a little excitement...

The initial Metropolitan Police response car screamed to a halt next to us followed by an armed response vehicle with sirens blazing.  On reflection, a white van parked at an odd angle with me holding a long black spotlight over my shoulder and pointing it towards the building was just a little suspicious. 

'So what sort of software is this?' elicited an elevator pitch on Ubuntu and the perplexed policeman cancelled the assigned air support unit.  Thank goodness I had my Millbank tower ID on me (Canonical's London offices are in the building). 

All in all, an amazing release and a fun Wednesday night.

Download Ubuntu - www.Ubuntu.com

Ubuntu and email on on the road

I use an Lenovo Thinkpad X60S with Ubuntu 6.10 extensively while travelling.  The following are some tips that have worked for me when using Ubuntu / Thunderbird on the road:

• Sync on Arrival plug-in - I regularly just grab the laptop and leave home or the office.  Sync-on-Arrival synchonises every email as it arrives, no need to close down properly OR click 'sychronise-now'. Link

• Nostalgy - I used to use Quickfile but wanted an extension that could either learn or have filters set.  The solution to this problem is Nostalgy by Alain Frisch.  This outstanding extension makes filing email x10 faster. 

• Start off-line / on-line - I find that Thunderbird can stutter on starting when I am offline.  I force the work online / offline dialog to come up on every login.  (This is set under Account Preference / Off-line & Disc settings)

• Network Manager - Network manager works excellently on my machine showing all available networks, strength and security setting.  My only gripe is that on car journeys the application seems to accumulate new networks endlessly and not realise it has lost some. 

Nine months of Ubuntu

I plan to post on my experience of using Ubuntu as a primary OS and in the interests of disclosure should explain that I now work for Canonical, the lead sponsor of Ubuntu

For the last nine months I have been working with Jane, Mark, Matt and the team building Canonical's business development infrastructure to promote the Ubuntu project.  It is period that has been extraordinarily exciting and enlightening.   The smarts, humour and energy of everyone in the Ubuntu project are only outweighed by the incredible sense of community, common purpose and an unwavering desire to improve Ubuntu and FLOSS in general.  It is truly an honour to work with this community and this project.

As for the results of the work - www.ubuntu.com and www.canonical.com will continue to be the best source of information.