New Look to Fedora Docs!

Have you seen the new Fedora Docs (docs.fedoraproject.org) site?

A lot of awesome work went into the transformation.

Some it is a look an feel for the users. You can choose your language then the release and guide that interests you. The translation teams have been very busy getting many of the guides for F13 translated over the past few weeks.

What is the most exiting for those responsible for pushing content to the site though is the streamlined procedures. It all uses Publican now! This is just the latest in a series of steps making life for the docs team easier. Rudi even wrote up basic instructions for the publishing portion.

Many people from the docs team have written about the great work of the publican and translation teams. John specifically has a whole series centered about the great talent. The new procedures are SO much easier than they were in the past. I know I will someone or some team if I try to list anyone so I will just add my thanks to ALL and encourage others to look for all of John's posts as well as those from Eric, Paul, and others.

Behind the scenes there has also been a streamlining of the docs membership accounts. In the past we had to apply for a group and receive sponsorship for each guide we wanted to work on and there was frequently only one or two people with sponsor privileges. Anytime we had a bug stomping party or a group effort to bring a guide up to date for a new release we would have to hunt down access for a number of people.

Over the past week, nb has been handling the tedious job of moving all the guides under a few central groups. The "docs" group gets you started, "docs-writers" gives permission to write directly to the git/svn/cvs repositories where guides are eventually made available to translation teams and can built into different formats, and "docs-publishers" gives permission to make the built guides available on the docs.fedoraproject.org website. Such simplicity! Each guide owner and contributor can now back each other up without having to wait for additional group sponsorship. We also upgraded a number of the currently active contributors to be sponsors and admins of these groups in hopes that it will be easier to get new contributors the access they need without delay.

Come join the fun!

-SML

A Good Burger

A couple of weeks ago when visiting with friends in the Boston area on one end or the other of a work assignment, I got taken to a new-to-me restaurant in Lexington.

Nourish uses local ingredients and organic when possible. I figured I could find something to eat even if it required pulling the bread off a sandwich. It turned out that they have a special diets menu. It is a one pager that has a column of gluten free menu items and a column of vegan menu items. It had some very basic descriptions on it but I turned back to the regular menu for more details.

I had a burger, no bun, and a salad. Being a good meat, it was tasty. Way too often a burger out is over cooked and a bland. I usually order medium rare. At home, where I trust the meat and the handling completely, that is what I like. Since MR is the least that any restaurant is supposed to cook burgers, I find most of the time even when I ask for that I get closer to medium. At Nourish, I got closer to rare. It was still good but I may ask a few more questions next time.

The pot of tea was also very good.

-SML

Heartbreaking

It was a very sad day among my friends today.

The lower barn at Foxwood Farm where I used to board my horse burned to the ground last night killing 13 horses. They were able to save the 9 horses in the other barn.

Orange County barn fire kills 13 horses
http://www.wral.com/news/news_briefs/story/7380558/

I will particularly miss Tess, a horse I got to ride in a few lessons. I also knew Cricket, Abby, Beau, Farrah, and Maggie. The others all arrived after I had left that farm, including the mare of my friend Cheryl. Max was safe in the other barn and Kyrie was safe in the pasture.

I am very thankful that my horse is on pasture board (no barn, only a 3 sided run-in) and very sad for his former pasture mates and my friends who have lost their beloved pets.

• Maggie
• Farrah
• Magic
• Lilly
• Ace
• Levi
• Abby
• Beau
• Cricket
• Mystery
• Tess
• Bella
• Summer

-SML

Solar Powered

I am definitely solar powered. It was a dark, grey, cold, and wet winter. Some days I do not even realize how much so until the sun comes out. The past two weeks have given me an opportunity to catch up on some sleep, catch up on chores around home, and generally have a little fun and time for me. I had a great time in Boston last weekend despite the rain. Then I came home to a very unproductive grey day at home on Tuesday. Finally on Wed the sun came out and since then I have actually been very productive.

Around the house, I got some old bulbs in the ground that should have gone in around Christmas. Many were soft and unlikely to ever come up but at least half of them have a chance. I finally mounted the hangers in the basement for some of my tools and my skates and tennis rackets. I also turned over a piece of ground for some mums and emptied out the planters in the front yard. In the home office and leading to stress reduction, I finished my taxes, sent out some invoices, and got some checks deposited. Finally, I have mostly caught up on laundry, dishes, and other house cleaning including a trip to the convenience center to take out the recycling.

For me, I saw the UNC Tar Heel Women's Basketball team off to the NCAA tournament and took photos, went for a trail ride, and got a layer of hair off my shedding animals - all in addition to some extra sleep. I am having an urge for a road trip at the moment though. Probably because a friend of the family has been blogging about a road trip from Minneapolis to Arizona and back. They started last week with a stop in Iowa, headed for Spring Training, and were at the Grand Canyon today.

On the technical front, I renewed my efforts with the Fedora Release Notes and User Guide for the next release, paid some attention to the Desktop Help Summit and the Fedora Marketing FAD, and downloaded the alpha media for both Fedora and Ubuntu.

I am particularly proud of a couple of other accomplishments on my Fedora 12 laptop. I should not be surprised at all at how easy it all worked out, but I finally took a few minutes to get my internal wireless adapter working and I also finally got the all-access.cbssports.com sites to play the audio of the women's basketball games using moonlight. I'll be able to listen at home to the very late game tonight instead of going out and I am listening to the "early" game for that location right now - it is making me really appreciate how good we have it in the announcing category with the Tar Heel Sports Network! Brad and Jan are GREAT!

-SML

Oh me, oh my.

Lordy, Lordy;
my best friend just turned 40!!!

Otherwise known as 22 with 18 years experience.

Growing old is mandatory, well, it beats the alternative anyway.
Growing up is optional.

To A: Have a happy one!

-SML

Up next: the Runner Up

I have been aware of Ignite events for a bit but I didn't realize that they had started in my area. Apparently last week was the second one for IngiteRaleigh and was a huge success. There was also a local TEDx event yesterday. Someday I may make it to one of these events.

But what surprised me, as I discovered after the fact about these events, was the "Try these other events" section that pointed to FizzledDurham. Apparently if you submitted a talk to IgniteRaleigh and were not chosen, you can sign up to present that talk at FizzledDurham. I know that there are many more worthy talks submitted to Ignite events than time allows - even at only 5 minutes per talk - but still, I think I would feel like presenting at a Fizzled event would be at best an "also ran" honor. Maybe because of the name.

-SML

Check off another one.

I have updated my travel map adding the Falls Church, VA Zpizza and the Annapolis, MD Whole Foods. Both visited for the first time in the past month.

View the map on the right hand side of my blog or directly.

-SML