Update: Thanks to everyone who showed up for the live stream. The recorded version should be available in a couple of days.

Also, Chris Crisafulli, of the Florida Team, became a member. He will be taking their LoCo to a whole new level!

Development:

• Daily images for both MID and netbook-remix are available, and ready for testing
• MOTU: New application process was announced.
• Server: Encrypted private/home with filename encryption available

LoCos

• Japanese Team held the “Ubuntu Offline Meeting Tokyo” which included an install fest and various sessions.
• Ubuntu 8.04 Desktop Course is available în Romanian, more at: http://www.ubuntu.ro/documentatie/comunitate
• Chris Crisafulli (itnet7) has taken over leadership of the Florida Team.
• http://planet.ubuntu-nordic.org/ opened, with feeds in  Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish and Danish Ubuntu-planets and more.
• New Mexico LoCo prepared to install mesh network or the EPC project (actually, read David Thomas’s blog entry about the work they ended up doing)
• Tunisian Team migrated 180 PCs to Ubuntu as part of ENIS Event.
• Greek Team released second issue of Ubuntistas.

This email is being sent to you in the hope that you will forward and
spread the word to all Ubuntu loco members in your team.

Canonical has recently signed up two new training partners in the U.S. -
Fast Lane and Bridge Education. Both companies are already providing
Ubuntu training courses across the U.S., details of which you can find
here: http://webapps.ubuntu.com/course_locator/country_US/

As a special introduction offer and simply because they think we, well
you, are wonderful individuals, they are offering a 10% discount to any
Ubuntu loco member who takes a course over the next 6 months.

I notice that Bridge Education is already promoting Ubuntu on its front page.

Twittersheep is a web app that creates a tag cloud of what followers of a Twitter user talk about. The above is mine.

Think I need some more variety in my followers The Linux and Ubuntu references are understandable, but love and lover?!? Wonder which of my followers have been talking about that.

And yes, I do use identi.ca. Actually, thats how I post over to Twitter.

We recorded this episode a little while ago, but real life got in the way and just got around posting it.

In this episode:

• Ubuntu usability testing
• 8.04.2 released
• French pushing Ubuntu
• Ubuntu Developer Week
• etc, etc, etc

We dent and tweet out when we are about to stream live. If you want to know when that happens, follow http://twitter.com/ubuntupodcast or http://identi.ca/ubuntupodcast.

Oooh, Ubuntu 9.04 Alpha 4 is out as well! http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/jaunty/alpha4

Congrats to Christophe Sauthier, the newest member of the Ubuntu Hall of Fame!

4K helps run the French Team and is involved in the MOTU community.

If you are wondering why some people refer to Christophe as 4K, then you probably missed out news on the last French Team release party.

Well done, 4K!

Depending on where we are in the release cycle at work, I can work from home now and then. I had a 20″ and 17″ Samsung hooked up. The 17″ had the typical 1280×1024 resolution. Most of the time it got used for gwibber and irc. The 20″ wasn’t bad at all. But looking at code all day, trying to split screen and look at two files side by side at the same time was difficult. The 1680×1050 was irritating.

Strolling through Office Depot last week, I saw the Acer X243Wbd. 24″. 1920×1200. DVI. Colors looked sharp at the store. Nothing amazing about it, but nothing bad either. Got some decent reviews online. Decided to sleep on it. Went back the next day and picked one up.

I’m in heaven.

Oh yeah, walking to the cashier, I saw the famous Slimline stapler that was in Office Space. Had to get one to pay homage to the great movie.

Smita pipes in her opinion of recent Ubuntu news.

Also, just as a reminder, the Ubuntu Free Culture Showcase ends in one week, on 06 February 2009.

I thought I’d provide a quick update on the book.

Since the website went live about 48 hours ago, the PDF Edition has been downloaded over 100,000 times. This makes it the world’s most widely-read Ubuntu book (at least according to Nielsen book-sale
figures), and possibly the most widely read Linux book of all time

The best thing, however, is that I might have helped convert some people to Ubuntu. I think the book might have pushed some people over the edge — they’ve been thinking about adopting Linux, and my book gives them the reason to do so. I’ve read quite a few comments here and there to this effect. Although I wrote the book primarily to make a living, I think this is just great. I couldn’t be happier. The print edition of the book’s doing really well at Amazon.com, by the way, and is probably the best-selling Ubuntu book right now.

Thank you all for your kind comments, and support.

Cheers

Keir

Awesome job, Keir!