Snow

Yes, I know, for many of you a bit of snow is like 'so what?'. And for others, living in a perpetual summer, it's something to point-and-laugh about. Still, I've got an internet connection, a bunch of unwilling readers (ya'all) and enough irritation to fill a thousant webpages.

But pictures say more, or so I've been told.


In the morning...


It was pretty.


In the evening...


Less so.

Combined with the sheer incapability of the dutch public transport to handle anything but a sunny summer day (actually they screw that up once in a while too) and the resulting delay my trip home wasn't as good as it could have been. Especially considering I left a christmas drink at work early 'cuz I had to visit the town hall for some paperwork. !FAIL

Luckily I had nice company on the way home (2 girls on the last image). And some decent C2H5OH containing beverages in the fridge to sooth the pain.

Krita fundraiser going strong!

I'm really glad to see the Krita fundraiser went so well. At the time of writing, they're more than 500 euros over target, and more might follow. That's in just a couple of days. Wonderful! This means Lukáš will be working a little over 2 months fulltime on Krita, and if more donations come in he can extend that period.

Let's make sure Krita the best Free Software painting application for artists there is - donate too!



Read more on the Krita site.

Who is KDE? (continued)

In my previous blog I talked about who KDE is and how the web is full of cool blogs and podcasts and more about our community. In this blog a few more links ;-)

Check out the Blue Mint blog. Darn. This one is way cool for sure. The blogger (James Cain) aims to help and inform Linux Mint KDE users about their favorite desktop software. He started only 6 weeks ago but is very productive. Imho this blog would fit nicely on planet KDE, he might not be a developer but writes excellent and informative blogs. Or should we create a KDE user planet?

Here's jmiahman, blogging since april 2009. Clearly a Mandriva user, he recently wrote a nice review of the development version of KDE SC 4.4. Regularly blogs about other KDE stuff too, his latest one (as of this writing) is about amarok.

Robert Penz (family of our Peter?) regularly blogs about KDE, as he is a Kubuntu user. His blog mostly sports all kinds of tips and tricks (worth reading, I tell you) and every now and then an nice KDE article comes trough ;-)

A guy (or girl, I suppose...) who calls himself "Technophile Monkey" considers KDE SC 4.3 a winner. So much I think he switched, I only see Gnome screenshots in older blogposts and Plasma workspace/KDE apps in newer ;-)
He also did a nice Windows 7 review, comparing it to SC 4. Worth a read!

For now I'm gonna stop this as there is plenty more but I guess ya'll get the drift - plenty of cool KDE related blogs and people who care about what we do. I consider them part of our community. Not hardcore developers for sure, but part of KDE.

One final thing I (as Arch user) didn't want to let go: a great "create a supercool KDE SC on Arch" 2-part series on IT news today.

Oh, and for the potential writers among us - there is a request for an article about Kontact for http://linuxrants.net - anyone interested, let us know on kde-promo or mail me personally.

Who is KDE?

So who is this KDE we've just 'rebranded'? Who belong to this community? I would say anybody who cares about KDE and does his or her thing to help spread KDE and make this world a little better - is certainly part of our community. This includes people who might not see themselves as part of our community. I've met plenty of people who hang out on KDE forums, helping others out, blog about KDE, put up tutorials here and there, even gave a talk about KDE at a tradeshow - and when they meet me they say "wow you're from KDE, that's so cool!". And in what world would I be 'more KDE' than they are? Just because you don't code doesn't mean you're not part of this!

While browsing you might find them. In lots of cases they blog in Italian, Spanish, Korean and other languages I don't speak - making it a bit harder for me to contact them, get them closer to our community. But they are what we often call 'the wider community'. They are important to KDE - they're the backbone of our success.

Imho it is important to realize that. And it's important that THEY realize it, too. Being part of KDE is special. Yes, it is. We're changing the world, remember? But it is not exclusive. It's easy to be part of this community, to change things. Just telling a developer he's done a great job makes a difference. Helping another user install KDE makes a difference. Writing a tutorial. Translating an application on KDE-apps. Packaging KDE applications for a distribution.

So let me give a few random examples I recently stubmled upon. And yes, these people ARE KDE. And my limitations (me only speak dutch & english) prevent me from finding Korean or Indian KDE.

First would be 'Klaatu'. Stubled upon his blog and podcast a while ago. Nice blogpost here. He has a few more interesting KDE blogs, including some comparisons with Mac OS X he used to use. It's nice to see ex-mac users, usually very sensitive when it comes to style, liking KDE. We exchanged a few emails, and he promised to help out spreading the word on Camp KDE. He might even go there and so should you ;-)

More next blog :D

Edit: Oh, how could I forget, KDE SC 4.4 Beta 1 is out!