| Hello community!Welcome to the UBports Foundation email newsletter, December 24th, 2021 |
From your editorFor many of us it is currently the seasonal festivities of Christmas. A time to enjoy the company of friends and familiy just a little but more. And at the same time a time to reflect on the past year. How did you do? I know, nobody is perfect, so neither am I. We are all trying while we struggle through this thing called life. We make mistakes, or wonder, did I do the right thing? At the same time all who read this are part of this community called "UBports" and/or "Ubuntu Touch". A community with a bi-weekly newsletter, and a bi-weekly Q & A video. The last one of which showed sudden poetic talents emanating from Dalton. I really, thoroughly enjoyed that opening. And the rest of the video was equally interesting. The upcoming OTA-21 with a working Google calender and contacts integration? I love it. Don't get me wrong, I'm no Google fanboy by a long shot, but the number of contacts I have acquired over the years (836) is just a little too much to hand-copy into my UT phone. And while I was in my car this week, driving to a meeting, I listened to the Q &A and I suddenly realized what a truly lovely community we are. Sure, there are challenges, but that's life. But isn't it great to be part of a large group of people, joined by a common goal of trying to change the world for the better? I think it is. Anyway, sit back, grab hold of your favourite beverage (eggnog anyone?) and enjoy another episode of the UBports Newsletter while I write this edition to the tunes of "Sweet Home Alabama" by Lynyrd Skynyrd!
Greets, Jeroen Baten
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News, hot from the press
Sponsored and in Dutch: "Ubuntu touch en UBports: vrijheid en privacy op je telefoon".
https://www.ct.nl/partnerblogs/ubuntu-touch-ubports-community-werk-mee-aan-vrijheid-privacy-telefoon/
Apps in the spotlightHere are some new Ubuntu Touch apps to try out, selected by Mateo Salta and presented in the latest Q&A session: You can find these apps on the OpenStore (https://open-store.io/). Please remember that OpenStore has a built-in option to donate to app creators. We urge you to use that button, so that we'll get more great apps on Ubuntu Touch. Dev challenge # 1
A new section in your newsletter, an actual coding challenge. If you consider this section fun drop me an email to tell me. Here is the first challenge: last week I saw a very nice solution for phone login screens. First you set a personal login number with a minimum of 8 digits. Or don't and simply use the SIMcard's pin number. When you try to login you get a screen looking like this:
The great thing about it being that the numbers are placed randomly every time. So there is no way of looking at the screen for smear patterns. So, if you are bored this holiday season, I challenge you to code something like this for our project. Of course you can adjust the numbers to the orientation of the phone. Whatever you like, it's your project! Have fun!
| Help needed!If you have some spare time or money, we could use some help in the following domains: There's a call for testing for the OTA-21 release. This has a lot of fixes for MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service). If you want to help us make sure that this all works (especially on US networks), please change your device to the Release Candidate channel for testing. More on this at this blog post: https://ubports.com/nl/blog/ubports-blogs-nieuws-1/post/we-need-you-to-help-test-our-releases-3794 Mateo Salta (@mateosalta on Telegram) wants to make it possible to have a custom image as a puzzle in the game Puzzle Master. If you want to help, please reach out to him. Alan Griffiths (@alan_griffiths on Telegram) from the Mir team has announced that he is planning to add Miroil development to 20.04 over the holidays. Alan would welcome anyone who would like to do some work on Miroil with him.
A message for all new subscribers: with other mobile phone operating systems you may get stuff for free in money terms but then you are the product in that transaction. With Ubuntu Touch you are not the product, but we can’t live just on fresh air. Please consider the value you get from Ubuntu Touch, including the money you save by not spending money on paid apps, and donate on https://ubports.com/donate.
And if you have been an active community member and want to pitch in on a more managerial level, consider becoming part of the Board of Trustees. You can read more about this in the following blog post: https://ubports.com/nl/blog/ubports-blogs-nieuws-1/post/become-a-member-of-the-ubports-foundation-3766
Interview with...We reached out to Santa Claus for an interview but he politely declined stating not wanting to become part of some tech discussion. In a last attempt we turned to Rudolph but he just shrugged his shoulders and continued on his diet of mosses, herbs, ferns, grasses, and the shoots and leaves of shrubs and trees. Well, there's always next year...
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Ubuntu Touch Q&A 114Marius, Alfred and Dalton were the hosts of the Ubuntu Touch Q&A 114 session. They talked about OTA-21 and upstream work in Debian. OTA-21, which you are now able to test in the Release Candidate channel, has received a download/re-download button when you receive an MMS. The Mediahub client has been improved under the hood. This provides the foundation for simultaneous playback of multiple videos in the future. And Google accounts have been restored, allowing synchronization of your contacts and calendar. Marius told that he has immersed himself in all things Debian. He has been working towards Debian maintainer status, and he has now finally reached that level. This is important because Debian is upstream to Ubuntu for many packages, and Ubuntu is upstream for Ubuntu Touch. The more changes we can push to Debian, the more work this will save us in the future. For instance, For instance, recently Dalton asked Debian's Qt maintainer team about an issue and they fixed it within a week. You can watch the whole session and read our notes here: https://ubports.com/blog/ubports-news-1/post/ubuntu-touch-q-a-114-3795
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