Blogs

Depending on what kind of projects you write, you may have to create a new file type from time to time, such as a document type for the next Word-killing word processor. While not difficult, making one needs a bit of knowledge from different places in the OS and the API. In our final lesson which focuses on the Storage Kit, we will learn about MIME types, how to show the OS how to automatically identify files of your new type, and more.

Programming with Haiku, Lesson 15

Haiku has been selected as one of twenty organizations to participate in the 2010 Google Code-In!

From the Google announcement[1]:

Google's contest to introduce pre-university students to the many kinds of contributions that make open source software development possible, is starting on November 22, 2010. We are inviting students worldwide to produce a variety of open source code, documentation, training materials and user experience research for the organizations participating this year. These tasks include:

1. Code: Tasks related to writing or refactoring code
2. Documentation: Tasks related to creating/editing documents
3. Outreach: Tasks related to community management and outreach/marketing
4. Quality Assurance: Tasks related to testing and ensuring code is of high quality
5. Research: Tasks related to studying a problem and recommending solutions
6. Training: Tasks related to helping others learn more
7. Translation: Tasks related to localization
8. User Interface: Tasks related to user experience research or user interface design and interaction

Since we were picked on November 5th, we have been busy getting our task list in order and putting together a good group of Haiku mentors for this. Many of the tasks are for translations, so we may still need a few more mentors to cover some of those tasks. If you are interested in mentoring please let us know on the mailing list. For a preview of some of the possible Haiku tasks, you can check the wiki page we used for gathering ideas[2].

Hello Haiku fans!

I am about to kick off a project that will benefit the Haiku community at large by addressing an area that I feel needs attention. Enter the Haiku video tutorial series. An easy to understand guide that will draw viewers into the beautiful Haiku while presenting all the features and work instructions in a plain and concise manner. Not only will these tutorials be designed to teach, they will also drive home a message which will prove that Haiku is the only OS designed from the ground up for use on the desktop PC. Whether you're a grandma just getting into computers or a tech genius who loves to hack around and write code, Haiku is designed for everyone from all walks of life. Hopefully the videos will inspire and help others to pick the OS up and become an adopter.

For those of you wondering about licensing, all of the content I create will be placed under Creative Commons for the sake of clinging to the spirit of open source. I am currently in the outlining and preparation phases for this task and will commence filming and capturing soon thereafter. If anyone has any suggestions, comments or questions they would like to press forward, please don't hesitate to drop a line here or on the Haiku mailing list. Thank you all for this great opportunity to work for the Haiku project.

Cheers,

Matt Nawrocki
Haiku Enthusiast

Düsseldorf

Preceding the BeGeistert 023 weekend was the usual weeklong Code Sprint (18.-22. of October 2010). Present to this year's coding sprint were (from left to right on the photo below):

Colin Günther (bosii)
Oliver Tappe (zooey)
Clemens Zeidler (czeidler)
Rene Gollent (anevilyak)
Alexandre Deckner (aldeck)