I had this great idea… Create a great software solution for the new android mobile phone operating system and get $25,000 from Google. Sounds good, right? Well it would be great, if only they SDK was fully implemented and there was good documentation!

For example, Google has multiple references to the following to set the background color of your application layout:
layout:background="@drawable/blue"
Looks simple enough… the code follows all of the standards that the rest of my WORKING code has and uses a nice standard for a constant value referring to blue. The problem is, the android test environment says it’s bad code for some reason or another…

After a week of being mad and not looking back at the code I start trying different things and finally throw it a standard HTML color code value (i.e. #FF00FF). It works. The whole time I was going crazy thinking that the tag itself was wrong and that it had to be android:layout_background or something of that sort (the error would have led me to think that). But instead it simply comes to be that Google’s documentation provides faulty constants that you in fact cannot use, at all.

I’m not gonna lie, android is SWEET! It’s going to revolutionize the cell phone market and make the iPhone a silly piece of crap in the world of developers (and we’re what matter, right?). I am just going to sit back and let the SDK develop a bit more before I dive into this project again rather than sit around guessing commands, implementing parameters, and libraries to import.

From penny-arcade.com - One of their Omeganauts for this PA-Expo this year:

Greatest Accomplishment in Gaming: “My computer speakers: Ca-Ca-Ca-Ca-Ca-Ca-Ca-Carrier has arr - Carri- Carrier - Carrier has arrived.

5 other people in the room: Shit.”

Hahhaa. Been there, done that. Good memories. : )

When you simply just post about anything cool that you find that day. Joey Stanford recently showed me this new site: http://www.ubuntustats.com/ . It’s pretty amazing. Web2.0 meets Ubuntu so that you can keep track of everything being updated in the Ubuntu world. It’s also pretty handy if you’re into providing community support because you can watch the forums and launchpad answers at the same time, as well as see what wiki pages are being updated within the community.

Cool stuff indeed.

I haven’t written here in FOREVER. Hopefully I’ll start to blog more here when I get my Ubuntu membership and start posting to the planet.

Until then… go read up on the planet…

I’ve heard some exciting news as of late related to conferences and Ubuntu Linux pertaining to this summer.

First off, I received an email from the organizers of the Ubuntu Live conference last Friday informing me that my presentation had been selected to be included in the conference.  This is awesome!  The only problem is travel expenses.  I’m really hoping that they step it up and offer to either cover my hotel costs or airfare for the trip or else I may not be able to attend.  Not a big deal, I’m sure more conferences and opportunities such as this will come around all the more frequently as I keep working to spread Ubuntu Linux.  By the way, I probably never mentioned this but my presentation title is “Libraries and Linux: Converting our Communities to Ubuntu.”  I had hoped that the Colorado Local Community Team would have pursued our library outreach plans more thoroughly to help give me a better insight into this, but so far I’ve had little activation from those who volunteered.  I’m planning on spending at least one day from my up-and-coming spring break speaking with the IT personnel at a few local libraries.  Cross your fingers for me!

The second good news I have concerning conferences is that I received an email today from the booth manager for the Technology in Education Conference being held at Copper Mountain, Colorado.  He informed me that he spoke to the board on Saturday, and although they decided that they couldn’t give us a booth spot for free, they would be more than willing to allow us to setup a table outside the booth event area with all of our stuff!  I’m going to get one of those Canonical Conference Packs and see if a few other members from the CoLoCo team would be willing to help me man it.  Hopefully we can tie it in very closely with Jim Hutchinson who will be speaking on Open Source Software in Education at the Conference.  Having a few demo stations and tons of handouts will make this an amazing event!

That’s all that I have for now.  Other than all the Ubuntu related things going on in my life I’ve been swamped with Soccer for CCU (Colorado Christian University, my school) and preparing for being an RA next year on campus.  So much to do and so little time!

I can remember way back in the days of Junior High that dubbed over videos were quite possibly the funniest thing on earth, probably even in the entire universe. Then High School came and all of a sudden my Junior High humor was no longer funny nor appropriate (go figure). I have good news though! A church by the name of Vintage 21 has dubbed over a few clips from an old Jesus film! To them it’s not just entertainment, it’s an art.

Churches like Vintage 21 are a blessing.

Ok, so ignore the title for the most part. It just came to me and it rhymed so nicely that I couldn’t think of anything better afterwards.

Last night Malcom Yates came to Denver to check out what was going on with Ubuntu in several local groups and businesses. I have a feeling that when he went to meet with System76 (http://www.system76.com) they discussed possible plans of becoming one of the first “official” ubuntu retail computer sellers. It would be my hope that Canonical starts certifying and/or partnering with more businesses like this as it starts to build good market relationships, and those can only lead to stronger pushes towards hardware vendors (i.e. graphics vendors, who have yet to open-source their drivers).

The night was fairly eventful as more people from the Utah LoCo showed up than from Colorado. Aaron and Christer from Utah (Zelut & atoponce) brought their wives along and we ended up having some really great discussion on a myriad of topics. Everything from jokes about the new linspire deal (err… did I say jokes?) to serious discussions about what KDE4 will do to Gnome’s influence on the Linux Desktop. Malcom would very often chime in with his 2 cents (which turned out to be quite interesting to hear, since he deals with the business side of things at Canonical and no technical development).

Joey (whom I enjoy delegating tasks to) took some good pictures of the get-together, including one which makes it appear as though Malcom is telling us to kill someone as if he is in the Mob. The night ended with four of us taking a picture in front of “Blubuntu,” a civic with a “Ubuntu” license plate. Quite an evening indeed!

For starters, clever post titles are a waste. Just throw some buzz-words into a digg post and you’re golden. For example, “MacBook Pro 500 Ghz Ubuntu Gaming Box with PICS!!!!!11″ You make a post title like that and you’re sure to get both dugg and flamed like crazy when people realize all you did was photoshop a picture of a monkey flinging poop on top of an old teal iBook.

Anyways, this is my first post (again); the first of a new blog (and hopefully the last one I setup because I’m getting tired of having to scan through wordpress themes to find the sexiest one every time I recreate the whole deal). The reasoning for the creation of this one is well-enough however, as I’ve recently found myself in the leadership position of the Colorado Local Community Team for Ubuntu Linux. Having a place to discuss things related to both my life and Ubuntu is both very helpful and interesting for those who might one day see my feed on the Ubuntu Planet if I can get my Ubuntu membership together.

I’ve been extremely busy in the past few weeks, too busy in fact. This is the first time in the history of the entire world that I haven’t been able to finish my homework in an easy and timely fashion working at my own pace, but rather I’ve been pushed to do everything at the last minute. Notice the key word: forced. Sure, I usually do most of my work at the last minute, but it helps me to keep tasks organized and I feel that I work well enough under pressure that it actually benefits me. In any case, I’m hoping this will all sort of settle soon.

Two weeks ago I got an email from the CCU Men’s Soccer coach who invited me to play with the team (score!) and I of course jumped at the opportunity. Seeing a potential conflict, I resolved to quit my job at Bennigan’s and bank on the fact that money and a car would work itself out (with the help of my parents hopefully); so far all is going to plan.

As if I loved having the busiest life in the world, this past week I interviewed for a position as a Resident Assistant on campus next year. The first interview session was actually quite unique as I spend 3/4 of the time doing group activities while we were “observed.” Thankfully, I was able to also have a 30 minute interview with two current staff members. I say that I’m thankful because I feel that the staff wouldn’t really be able to know who they are potentially hiring unless they can separate them out from the group for at least a portion of the time. It was actually quite amusing to see how some people reacted to being observed in group activities, in any case it made for an entertaining afternoon. Long story short, with a long story and an emphasis on a short ending, I arrived home from work two nights ago and received my letter from Residence Life that did in fact say I was selected to move on to final interviews (anti-climactic, isn’t it?). Believe me, I was nervous about that letter; in fact I’ve never been nervous about the results of an acceptance or job interview situation before in my life till now. I guess this month is just going to have a lot of first-times for me (busy life, nervous about results, did I mention hating math?). My final interview for that position is next friday, so I’ll be nervously anticipating that.

All in all, I think my current outlook on life is “excited.” I have a ton of opportunties coming up for Soccer, Residence Life, and Ubuntu; all of which have been things I’ve wanted to do for a very long time. Hopefully this will all end in positive fashions and I’ll basically have the best year of my life starting next school year. : )