Ubuntoogle Introduction

We are uniting the simplest and best free and open source technologies ever made - Ubuntu and Google. There will be development, monetary and legal struggles but we believe in the ubuntu philosophy so deeply that it would be irresponsible not to fully incorporate it with THE name in internet and cloud technology, Google.

For the meantime we are relying on Firefox to a huge degree to bridge the gap; but, there has been talk of perhaps moving toward the Chrome browser. Firefox's Prism, however, is the perfect web-app viewer and we've loved the ability to create the various necessary Google prisms where we decide a particular web service would work best in that way. The sheer number of Add-ons and given Mozilla Firefox has been an icon for open source makes me WANT it included in Ubuntoogle on that standard alone - there's that Ubuntu philosophy again. Besides, Mozilla is sponsored in part by Google aren't they? There is no hope of ever moving to Google Chrome OS, hence our name, although I see why that could be the perfect choice for the Nexus.

The kicker for this project also includes a pretty technical counterpart which I've been using for quite some time to show folks Ubuntoogle, which I hope you'll adopt and love as much as I do! It involves running a portable open source Windows virtualization platform on USB (VirtualBox) with the Ubuntoogle .vdi on the USB as well. When placed in the USB port it auto-runs and opens the last saved state of Ubuntoogle in less than 15 seconds. The saved state being seamless mode with Firefox already open to my gmail, which used the Integrated Gmail Ad-on so it has my Voice and Calendar right there. If I have their information in my contacts already a quick switch to Google voice, name find and a click calls me and then calls him for me and it just amazes people!

A broadband catapult for America

3/15/2010 11:57:00 AM

(Cross-posted from the Google Public Policy Blog)

 

Power. Clean water. The Interstate highway system. It’s easy to forget that the advantages of modern American life result from basic infrastructure investments made by earlier generations.

Tomorrow the FCC will release a national broadband strategy. The plan will set goals for expanding broadband to unserved and under-served areas, promote greater speeds, and drive consumer demand. It will harness this communications technology to urgent national priorities, such as jobs, education, health, energy, and security. In short, the plan will lay the groundwork for investing in America’s future.

Yes, the Internet was invented in the United States. Yes, we once led the world in broadband development. But now, networks in many countries, from Western Europe to East Asia, are faster and more advanced than our own. Long after we recover from this recession, this broadband gap will be a dead weight on American businesses and workers, unless we act now.

As with the space race in the 1960s, America needs a national effort by our scientists, engineers, companies, educational institutions and government agencies. Just like that great national adventure, we need near-term and long-term goals.

Broadband is an essential input to expanding business, education, and healthcare opportunities everywhere. As soon as possible, we need to bring Internet access to every community, from rural America to the inner cities.

But we also need even more ambitious objectives — or “stretch goals” — that test the limits of our ingenuity. When President John F. Kennedy summoned the nation to space exploration, the immediate goal was to send an astronaut in orbit around the earth. But JFK called for “putting a man on the moon” because he knew that dream would inspire Americans to literally reach for the stars.

The private sector has a big job to do, and needs to carry much of the investment. For our part, we plan to build and test an ultra-high-speed broadband network in at least one U.S. community. We are excited by the amount of support our proposed testbed has received from local communities and individuals.

But smart, tailored public policies are critical too. Let’s install broadband fiber as part of every federally-funded infrastructure project, from highways to mass transit. And let’s deploy broadband fiber to every library, school, community health center, and public housing facility in the U.S.

I support a national broadband strategy because ubiquitous broadband connectivity can catapult America into the next level of economic competitiveness, worker productivity, and educational opportunity. But as in the past, we will make this breakthrough by choice, not chance.

Posted by Eric Schmidt, CEO

Google Wave Launches Extensions to Crank Up Software Development

@ http://www.eweek.com
By: Clint Boulton

Google March 12 formally launched its extensions for Google Wave, a move to fortify the real-time collaboration platform's functionality and cultivate a large developer ecosystem.

Google Wave rolls e-mail, instant messaging and real-time document editing into one platform, which has grabbed more than 1 million users since its broader launch last September. Google launched Wave to open source because it wants developers to write programs that augment that platform in ways that go beyond Google's own application expertise.

Extensions, added as a link to the Google Wave navigation panel, are the fruit of this effort. The Wave Extensions gallery comprises a set of waves containing extension installers. This "Read me first" wave offers a tutorial on how to use extensions.

Users can click the Extensions link to see some extension installers, then click the Install button to add it to their Google Wave interface, where it will typically appear as an icon in the toolbar, add a dropdown to the New Wave menu or both.

Users who lost interest in the program can uninstall it from the Settings link in the navigation panel. See the example here in this blog post from Google Wave Product Manager Dan Peterson.

Google first introduced extensions for Wave back in September, offering some ambitious programs from leading vendors. Salesforce.com engineers created an extension that shows how a mobile phone customer starts a wave with a support robot.

SAP Research invented Gravity, a prototype of a business process modeling application for Wave. British Telecom's Ribbit arm has created conferencing and voice message gadgets for Google Wave. See these prototypes here.

But other third-party developers have added nearly another 30 apps since that time. These include trip planning app Trippy; Mind Map, to let users build visual workflows; Waffle, a time management tool; and Poll, a gadget for taking polls.

These apps should come in handy for regular Wave users, who are using Wave for very different purposes, but all in the name of real-time collaboration.

For example, Collaborative debate Website Debatewise.org used Wave recently to let 1,000 people from more than 130 countries debate issues arising from the Copenhagen climate change conference, while a radio station in North Carolina is using Wave to plan programming.

Google also wants to instantiate a network effect on Wave, so it recently launched e-mail notifications. Of course, Google must find that correct balance between mass adoption and user satisfaction.

The Wave team has been adding management features to Wave in an effort to cut down on some of the noise because waves were originally launched as completely public with anyone able to follow anyone. This was problematic for many users.

Google Voice Set-up

Logo Trademarks

The Ubuntu and Google Logo at the top of this Blog are trademarked by their respective legal means, they do not belong to Pyramidion or the Ubuntoogle blog in any way and are not intended to represent that we are in any way associated with those entities.

Any usage of the obviously Ubuntu and Google trademarked images within artwork, blog postings or advertising fall under the same category.

Objective Summary and Early Use Cases

We at Ubuntoogle intend to bring the future of computing to the community as a community driven service. We will construct a collaborative environment to allow community cloudsourcing in a technology oriented way. Using open source / free software with seamlessly integrated Google Chrome gateway to Web and Google services.

When I was a teen I went to Dexter Regional Vocational Center for Homebuilding in place of one year of high school. We 'students' were considered a team, not a class. We would go out and actually build houses, hands on, over the course of the year. People were getting a house built on free labor, the team learned from and taught each other and developing life skills supervised by one trained professional team manager.

I have a project I am managing called OSCAR. I have a public relations writer, web administrator/social networking professional and would love to fund a few paid positions for temporary 'team' positions for college students 21-25 internships. I estimate we need less than $500,000 for three years, not counting laptops. We do not need laptops for every student, some will be drawing, writing, editing, managing and directing.

I intend to construct a moving vocational center in a truck. I have had offers to use great spaces in the East Bayside area for significantly low prices. I am learning how to secure grant money as we speak through the East Bayside Community Organization. A lot of great people there, I wish we could change the web url to ebay.portland.me or something ;) ...

We intend to construct an open source friendly environment using

• Ubuntu Linux desktop operating systems
  
• JeOS linux
  
• virtualization using KVM, Qemu on ubuntu and VirtualBox for Windows and Mac
  
• Python programming with Google APIs and Django web development
  
• php and mysql database development and administration
  
• drupal content management system
  
• Google Chrome web browser development
  
• Project management
  
• local free to inexpensive hardware repair and network services for the community
  

This blog is my journey toward that goal.

Splash Screen and Default Wallpaper Beta

Wallpaper



8-bit USplash

Ubuntoogle-portable

Back to the drawing board! I just took a trip up north to my extended family the Barnett/Campbells. It was a lot of fun and I wouldn't miss it for the world. Joe's birthday was Saturday and Robert left for Georgia Thursday for the Appalachian trail. I don't know if I had to walk 1000+ miles if I would come back this direction at all except for the wonderful family he's got back home! It seems like everyone is doing great and I'm proud of that. Good luck Robert and good luck to all of the readers here at Ubuntoogle in all your endeavors.

For the past 4 weeks I've been testing an Ubuntoogle-on-a-Key-chain prototype aptly named Ubuntoogle-portable v0.1. I'm not-so happy to say that I think it has potential but the shutdown and especially the boot time must be significantly shortened for the USB version to useful for anything but emergency or cost-saving alternative to Ubuntoogle-online.