control-center 2.17.5

The Control Center patch party went great, with over 50 unreviewed patches reviewed and, some of them applied. The result of that crazy party (it lasted all the weekend) comes to you in the form of the 2.17.5 release of the GNOME control center, the best release ever.

Most notorious thing is the new categories in the control center shell:

With searching integrated:

And lots of new small features, like new MIME type for theme packages, sound capplet improvements, etc. See the NEWS file for more information.

Control Center patch party

After all the hard work we’ve spent on the new control-center shell, there are though still lots of unreviewed patches in Bugzilla. And since feature freeze is approaching, we have decided to do a Control Center patch party tomorrow (Saturday 6th January) at 5PM UTC on the #control-center channel at irc.gnome.org.

Most important patches to discuss are the ones related with the shell categories (we need a gnome-menus maintainer to settle this down) and THE BUG, but there are lots more. So if you are interested in cleaning up all the rough edges, please join us.

RSI and hackers

I guess lots of people have the same problem I had, which is that, due to the extensive use of computers, I had always pain in my hands. Not enough to think that I had RSI, but I had been feeling that for so long, that I guess I would get RSI sooner or later. So, since Davyd just mentioned it on IRC, here’s a tip on how us (hackers) can prevent any injury. I was advised to use the Chinese health balls while watching TV or just sitting on the couch, to massage the muscles in the hands, and after almost 2 months using them, I have to say I don’t feel pain anymore, and when I’ve felt some (just in the first few days), using the balls for a little bit calmed it down.

So, if you use computers too many hours and feel some pain in your hands, I advise you to try, it has worked for me.

GPS on Linux

I’ve recently acquired a TomTom Rider GPS device for my motorbike. While being based on Linux (that’s one of the reasons I chose the TomTom instead of others), all procedures to update it are described in the documentation as being done from Windows. And, while talking with other friends about it, they all update it via Windows (poor guys 🙂 ), so I feel a bit alone in the GPS on Linux field. I have been getting lots of docs about some tweaking by hand on the SD card, as well as some app development things, but I still feel there are lots of things my fellow Windows users do that I’m not able to do (like using GPS software on their desktops to create tracks to be uploaded to the TomTom). So, dear lazyweb, any pointers on GPS software on Linux?