Finalista en el IV Concurso Universitario de Software Libre

Mi proyecto CasualServices, ha sido seleccionado para la fase final del IV Concurso Universitario de Software Libre. Ha sido una muy grata sorpresa, ya que la calidad de muchos de los proyectos del concurso ha sido excelente. Cuando leía algún artículo sobre los otros proyectos, y la de cosas tan chulas que estaban haciendo los demás concursantes, realmente no tenía ninguna esperanza de llegar a la final, ¿cómo podía mi proyecto competir con esos proyectos?

Por eso, la felicidad es mayor en estos momentos, y espero pasar unos días muy buenos en la fase final, seguro que será divertido.

Llevaré conmigo algunos dispositivos de Nokia que utilizan software libre (Maemo), como por ejemplo dos de las Internet Tablets, la 770 y la N810. Y el teléfono que lleva también Maemo, el Nokia N900. Si queréis cacharrear con alguno de ellos, no dudéis en preguntarme en Cádiz.

Por último, felicitar a los demás finalistas, y por supuesto que a los demás participantes. Espero que llevéis a cabo vuestros proyectos hasta el final. El software libre necesita de gente joven y con ganas de cambiar el mundo, y este tipo de iniciativas son de mucha ayuda.

¡Nos vemos en Cádiz! (Espero que allí exista el sol).

PS. Estoy avergonzado de no haber escrito este artículo mucho antes, pero ya sabéis lo que dicen, más vale tarde que nunca.

Maemo WordPy is becoming an adult

Maemo Wordpy has come to the 1.0 version.
After several months of hard work from the last version and also several months of delays from the planned date (I needed to have some fun too), the version 1.0 beta4 has been promoted to the Extras repository.
It will be very similar to the final 1.0 version, only bugfixes will be added.

What’s new:

• New revamped UI.
• Edit posts already published.
• Livejournal support.
• Manage status of the posts.
• Picasa support (upload, and insert into a post).
• Schedule posts (Blogger and WordPress).
• Create new categories (WordPress).
• Support for post password and slug (WordPress).
• Autosave posts.
• Support for launch with command line arguments (–title and –post).
• Upload multiple images at once to Flickr and Picasa.
• Remember paths to open posts, open images, etc.
• And other many minor improvements.

It has many changes in the code from the last version, practically a complete rewritten, maintaining very little of the previous code.

The most important part is the UI change with the linear screens about Antoine RJ Wright (Maemo WordPy’s designer) was spoking some time ago. Thanks Antoine!
I can add very little to his words, only say that everyone try it and let us know your opinions about the interface.

The only bad mark I would put to Maemo WordPy is the time it’s late in starting, actually 15 seconds. It’s really a problem. This problem comes because the use of python + gtk + glade, specially if you use a glade file of 7000 lines (400 kB).
I am thinking about several ways for improving this and work will be done in order that Maemo WordPy can start in nanoseconds (ok, at least in few seconds).

I would like to gather some feedback about two existing features that could be deleted in Maemo WordPy next version:

1. Preview posts: This feature while could be nice, but really doesn’t work as in your blog because the lack of CSS style. While it could support CSS, I think it isn’t worth the try, until a better thing than gtkhtml2 could be used.
2. Upload images to Flickr and Picasa: I am thinking in get rid of this part because SharePy is doing a good work in this field (and it’ll be better).
   While have this feature handy in Maemo WordPy is nice sometimes, it could remove some weight from Maemo WordPy. And the recommendation is use SharePy.

What do you think? Are you missing this features if they were deleted?

Of course, there many features to implement in future versions. You could read some of the them from the TODO list in the svn.
Also, Maemo WordPy is open to other suggestions specially if they come with some code

Try Maemo WordPy 1.0 beta4.

Of course, THANKS go to everyone who has written to me with feature requests, giving me support, etc., everyone of them is part of this release

Presenting SharePy

SharePy just have come to its second important release, so it’s a good moment to present it in society, since I couldn’t be in the Maemo summit presenting it.

I have created an application to upload files to the Nokia service Share On Ovi from the Internet Tablet. In the actual version it’s a simple application, you can add files (images, videos and audios), tag it and upload to some of your channels in Share On Ovi.
The important change in the 0.2 version is you can add multiple files at once, and tag it as a batch.

This application have received good feedback for the users of the 0.1 version (thanks to all), so I hope you enjoy it. I have good ideas to add to SharePy in next versions, and will be putting soon a list of them in its web page (almost empty at the moment).

It’s not yet in the Extras repository, it’s in Extras-devel for test purposes, when it has passed the quality test it will go to Extras. If you want to be a beta tester, install it from extras-devel (only if you are an experimented user) and tell me your comments. I will appreciate it. Now, it’s in the extras repository, install from here: http://maemo.org/downloads/product/OS2008/sharepy

The most difficult part writing SharePy was create the python library to handle the Share On Ovi functionalities. In this version it has support to upload files and get your channel list. Hopefully Nokia is releasing some kind of documentation of the API soon, and I can to add more features easily without have that research everything.

To finalize, a note to Maemo WordPy users, the new and very waited 1.0 release is coming sooner than you think, I will write a post with comments about the new features, changes, and specially the new very comfortable to use UI