FOSS Training successful ends

The Training successful ends with a lot of comments from the participants...have a look on the pictures

6th Annual Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit

April 3 - 5, 2012 · Hotel Nikko · San Francisco, CA

The Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit is an exclusive, invitation-only summit gathering core kernel developers, distribution maintainers, ISVs, end users, system vendors and other community organizations for plenary sessions and workgroup meetings to meet face-to-face to tackle and solve the most pressing issues facing Linux today. If your company is not a member of The Linux Foundation and you are interested in joining please visit our website to learn more about how you can become a Corporate Member.

Ubuntu to feature command line shortcuts

IDG News Service - Canonical will equip the next release of its Ubuntu Linux OS with a new type of interface that allows desktop users to execute functions for any program through a command line interface or by voice command.

The new interface, called the Head-Up Display (HUD), "will ultimately replace menus in Unity applications," said Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth,in a blog post announcing the technology. The first version of HUD will be part of the Ubuntu 12.04 Long Term release (LTS), due in April.

Unity is the Ubuntu's standard shell, or desktop interface. HUD provides an overlay that sits on top of the desktop. When the translucent HUD console is evoked, the user can type in any number of keywords to find a specific function, bookmark or file. The command line, in effect, acts as a search engine for individual application resources. Using autocomplete, it will speed access time in subsequent uses. Any program that is written to work with the Unity global menu will work with HUD.

HUD came about as a way to address shortcomings of traditional application menus. They can slow down power users in a number of ways, Shuttleworth said. They also require a lot of reading to find one function and they force users to remember arbitrary hotkeys for specific functions. And they can categorize functions into ambiguously defined and confusing top-level menus.

HUD offers a number of advantages over standard menus, Shuttleworth said. It can do fuzzy matching to help users find commands when they don't know the exact words to evoke. A few words that describe the command may be enough to locate that function. HUD will also keep track of the most frequently used commands and offer those more readily.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, it will be outfitted to work with voice input. "We want to make it easy to talk to any application, and for any application to respond to your voice. The full integration of voice into applications will take some time. We can start by mapping voice onto the existing menu structures of your apps. And it will only get better from there," Shuttleworth wrote.

HUD even works with the Unix native command line, allowing HUD actions to be scripted and included in pipes, the technique of connecting the output from one Unix utility to the input of another.

HUD is not an entirely new idea. Giving the user a command line interface to quickly call up specific functions has already been implemented in a number of applications. Unix text editors such as Vim and Emacs have long featured the technology. Mozilla offers a command-line console, called Ubiquity, for the Firefox browser. Apple's OS X has a similar feature where users can autocomplete a command from within a program itself. HUD, however, is advantageous in that it can offer the same basic interface for all the applications on a desktop, minimizing the learning curve for individual applications.

Shuttleworth contrasted HUD with Microsoft's Ribbon interface, first introduced in Microsoft Office, which also tackles the problem of making unwieldy menus easier to navigate for users. While the ribbon made commands easier to spot, it also takes up a lot of space on the screen, which can be a distraction. In contrast, HUD shows "users just what they want, when they want it," Shuttleworth said.

Joab Jackson covers enterprise software and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Follow Joab on Twitter at @Joab_Jackson. Joab's e-mail address is Joab_Jackson@idg.com

FOSS Business Model Training

Ruaha University College (RUCO) Iringa in Collaboration with Kijana Amka Sasa Organization (KASO)  is proudly to announce training in Free Open Source Software (FOSS) business model. Advanced African FOSS Business course is modular, hands on, and based on real-life FOSS business problems, issues and scenarios in African IT-SME. You as participants will be able to engage in practical exercises such as designing a business plan for a sample project and designing, revising and localizing training materials. Integral part of the course are also practice based economic know-how, communication skills, social competence, team ability, networked thinking and creativity. Come to learn /Discover opportunities offered by FOSS Technologies. The training is supported by ict@innovation.

Learning Objectives:

o   How to build a business using FOSS

o   How to market your FOSS business model

o   How to develop business plan or business proposal

o    How to organise and hold trainings on FOSS Business Models for local SME

Topics to be Covered:

o   Introduction to Emerging FOSS Business Models

o   African FOSS Business Models: Case Studies

o   Communicating FOSS

o   Introduction to general Business Skills

o   FOSS Business knowledge and Skills

o   FOSS Training

Training methods

Training methods will include participatory discussions, team work, hands-on sessions, case studies and few lectures. Participants with possession of laptops are encouraged to bring them. Language of instruction will be a combination of English and Swahili.

Target participants

This training is intended for: Small and Medium ICT enterprises within public and private sectors, Systems Administrators, Systems Analyst, ICT Officers, CEO, Managers, Graduates in ICT and Business who are inspired to start IT

Location:  Ruaha University College- Iringa&Kijana Amka Sasa Center.

Start Date:  06/02/2012

End Date:  16/02/2012

For More information please contact info@kijanaamkasasa.org

Mobile : +255 717 437172