My BlackBerry odyssey began in 2006 when I started attending university practically next door to RIM’s headquarters in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. Back then, they were still an enterprise-oriented company, and a rising star. I didn’t get my first device until 2008, when I chose it for technological reasons: I wanted encrypted email, calendaring, and messaging. Also, at this point the iPhone had yet to make it big and Android didn’t exist.

When my mobile phone contract expired mid-way through 2011, I knew I wanted another BlackBerry device, but by then we were well into the period where virtually everybody has turned their back on RIM in favour of (usually) Apple devices and the occasional Android one. Worse still, I already knew of the still-upcoming devices running a QNX-based operating system programmed in C, rather than the current Java-powered one. Long story short, I was able to get my hands on a Java-based device for free.

So here’s the part you’ve all been waiting for: RIM is not dying, they’re being killed.

Everybody who pays attention has heard all the anti-RIM sentiments out there in North American mass media nowadays. In fact, they aren’t even cited as facts any more because everybody “just knows.” Here are some other facts that I’ve read in various places but won’t bother to cite (for my own lazinesss):

1. RIM will still report a profit for this financial year.
2. BlackBerry devices are still very popular in consumer markets that aren’t North America.
3. There was a riot when the new “Bold” model was released in Indonesia. Think the style of the riot recently in the United States where people were killed while trying to buy Nike-brand shoes.
4. The RIM “BlackBerry Internet Service” servers are statistically more reliable than virtually all Internet services (Google, Facebook, etc.). Even in the outage that occurred in the fall of 2011, most customers (myself included) didn’t even notice the service outage, and reportedly no emails or messages were lost–just delayed. Sure, the BIS happened to have all of its outage at one time, but in the past 10 years or so, this two-day outage was the only one ever (to my knowledge… and that of some article I read somewhere).
5. Virtually no mass-media article about any RIM product has even approached neutrality since about July 2011. At least in “The Globe and Mail,” every article since October has recounted *all* of the company’s troubles in the past several months, whether or not they are relevant to the event being discussed.
6. RIM was called to England on account of how BBM (BlackBerry Messenger), the company’s secure messaging service, helped in organizing the protests in London over the summer. Twitter and Facebook were also represented. What about Apple, Google, and Amazon? Surely there are quite a number of active BBM users in England.

What do I think is going on here? I don’t know why, but North American media outlets have decided to kill RIM. Predictably, most people where I live or have lived (Montreal, Toronto, Waterloo) are fine with it, and often endorse it. Yet when they move from dumb-phones to smartphones, people I know are choosing BlackBerry about as often as an Android or iOS device.

I’d also like to point out how dumb it is that millions of Canadians seem to want to kill the only internationally-visible Canadian technology company in favour of the American technology oligarchy. But hey, we don’t live in Canada any more–at least, our government isn’t called the “Canadian Government” but the “Harper Government,” so I guess if it’s Harper’s choice of how the Canadian media is allowed to refer to my government, then it should be Harper’s choice of how to ruin my country. He’s doing it by selling my country’s assets to international business-people, and killing RIM will help that goal.

————–

As an enthusiast, I was immediately intrigued by RIM’s “PlayBook” tablet computer. When it was released in April 2011, it was basically the only competitor to the Apple iPad. The situation is very different at the end of 2011, of course. Now, I’m not trying to irrationally defend RIM, so I have to agree with the general portrayal of the PlayBook: RIM screwed it up in a big way, several times, and continues to do so. If you want to learn how, read that elsewhere… it’s easy to find.

So why did I want a PlayBook tablet? I wasn’t about to pay $500 for something from a company that was about to collapse, had major bugs in the operating system, and virtually no apps available. Then several things changed: the PlayBook went on sale for $300 off, I realized RIM isn’t going to collapse, they fixed the major bugs, and the NDK (Native Development Kit… in C language, not HTML5 or re-packaged Android) was released with quite a number of open-source development libraries, including ones used by software I use often. There are, unfortunately, still virtually no apps available, in comparison to other platforms. Plus, when PlayBook OS 2 is released, it will have support for easily-ported Android apps and (I think) be able to connect directly to the BlackBerry Internet Service.

Here’s my review:

I’ve used the device for about two weeks, and it doesn’t do everything I hoped, but it does some things that I hadn’t envisioned. I still don’t know what it’s going to be like to take notes with it during my seminars, but it’s certainly going to be useful for bringing and reading PDF versions of books and articles that I’ve scanned from the library. Much more handy than taking all the books!

I feel like I’ve been using it for things that I previously wouldn’t have done. Nothing big, just typical tablet things: reading the news, watching online videos, listening to online music, checking Facebook and Twitter, and so on. I was initially allured by the ability to use Bluetooth to pair my BlackBerry phone with the PlayBook, then access the phone apps on the tablet. Unfortunately, the BlackBerry Messenger app is basically unusable because it doesn’t sync properly. Some received messages never register as “read,” so the notifications area keeps telling me I have unread messages, even when I’ve read them many times. Also, there is sometimes considerable lag after I send a message. The email, calendar, and contacts apps don’t seem to be affected. The Bluetooth connection is fairly powerful: I can leave my phone in a central place and walk around with the tablet without a noticable decrease in performance.

In two weeks, it’s never crashed, I’ve never had to restart it because of a software bug, the OS-level commands are always responsive (even when a particular app has frozen), the graphics are impressive, the screen is bright, the device is robust (I’ve dropped it in ways I shouldn’t have), it stays charged for days, the on-screen keyboard is surprisingly easy to use, the cameras work well and the speakers sound surprisingly good and are loud enough, there are a handful of cool music apps (I hope to add some more), the user interface reacts in predictable ways, and the browser has yet to fail me on a web page (unlike the phone version).

At first, I had problems getting the touch screen to react how I wanted, but now I never have problems. Having never owned a touch-screen device before this one, I chalk it up to lack of experience. Also, the 7-inch size is perfect for me… it’s big enough to see things, but small enough that I can carry it securely with one hand.

With this whole rant/post in mind, the one thing I cannot answer for is games. I generally don’t have time to play games, and when I do I want a real computer (for FreeCiv!) So… read another review for that.

The question of browser add-ons is also affected by that user’s initiative. Everybody suggests NoScript as the perfect solution to security problems, but it really isn’t. I use NoScript, but try convincing an average computer user to put up with the tinkering that NoScript requires, and it falls flat.

The following add-ons increase security/privacy without user interference:
Beef Taco
BetterPrivacy
Ghostery
Secure Sanitizer

I’ve found it’s easy enough to convince people to use and experiment with the following add-ons, once I’ve explained what they do and how it increases their online safety:
RequestPolicy
PasswordMaker

I would not consider getting rid of any of these, and there are others too. As Sparks suggests, HTTPS-Everywhere is an easy-to-use addon. Other things suggested in comments on Sparks’ article are also a good.

———-

But that’s only one part of security available in Fedora. Sparks says we should “Use SE Linux[sic].” This is an under-statement. Especially for somebody who only uses their web browser, the default SELinux settings can be significantly strengthened without affecting the user experience. That said, I’m not an expert in SELinux by any stretch… just paranoid.

The two things I always do are change certain boolean settings and change the default user context. User beware: some of these settings can’t *just* be flipped. the ‘execmem’ boolean in particular requires a few customized exceptions.

Booleans (some set this way by default):
allow_execheap –> off
allow_execmem –> off
allow_execmod –> off
allow_execstack –> off
allow_guest_exec_content –> off
allow_java_execstack –> off
allow_mplayer_execstack –> off
allow_staff_exec_content –> off
allow_sysadm_exec_content –> off
allow_user_exec_content –> off
allow_xguest_exec_content –> off
allow_xserver_execmem –> off

For instructions on changing the default SELinux user context, refer to the Fedora 13 “Security-Enhanced Linux” user guide here. Unfortunately, this document hasn’t been published since Fedora 13, but this section still applies to Fedora 16.

———-

And there are other things, not related to SELinux.

Disable access to the root user account in favour of using “sudo.” Set all partitions to mount with the “noexec” flag if possible. Turn off the SSH, sendmail, and potentially other services. Use LUKS disk encryption. Cryptographically (GnuPG) sign and encrypt as many emails as possible. Use secure passwords for websites (with PasswordMaker to generate them). Use the /etc/sysctl.conf file from Fedora CSI (see link below). Use the /etc/sysconfig/iptables file from Fedora CSI (see link below) BUT without the “enabled” port 22. Use ‘tune2fs’ to configure interval partition-checking and safer errors behaviour (errors in the root partition are a “panic” situation, in my mind… or at least “remount-ro”). Have a good back-up plan (I use SpiderOak because it seems more secure; see spideroak.com).

Fedora CSI (Community Services Architecture) /etc/sysctl.conf configuration here.

Fedora CSI IPtables configuration here.

———-

All of these are things that I do for my own computers, with slight modifications depending on exactly what I do on the particular machine, and what I use it for. Things like disk encryption and BIOS passwords are more important for portable computers (but certainly recommended for all).

I’m not suggesting these exact settings for everybody. But if they don’t, why not? What do you do instead? Why? Let’s learn!

Replication is easy, windows XP or higher, any firefox that is currently actively developed on and a recent flash plugin. Open about 100 tabs of various sites, taking care to make these a representation of the (type of) sites the average user visits and start browsing in them. I can guarantee you that you’ll have a bigger than 1.5GB browser that will crash in less than a few hours.

This is apparently proof that the previous poster, who claimed not to experience the memory leaks, is a liar. But wait a second… who in their right mind has “about 100 tabs” open at the same time? Who in their right mind would expect that “about 100 tabs” would take less than 1.5 GB of memory? Who in their right mind would expect that such a condition should be sustainable for more than “a few hours?”

All of the people on Slashdot, that’s who. These people are ridiculous. I rarely keep a browser window open for 30 minutes, never mind “a few hours.” And when I do keep one window open for “a few hours” or more, it certainly isn’t with “about 100 tabs of various sites,” but more like five tabs. And by the way, that’s about as many tabs as I ever used–five.

And don’t think I’m picking on this one post as though it’s unique. My personal favourite complaint, now long-lost of course, is that somebody can’t keep Firefox open for a week straight without it crashing. You don’t say. Go figure.

And apparently the Firefox developers are ignoring bug reports, specifically about memory leaks. But how is that possible? Over the past few releases, one of the big selling points has consistently been that the browser will use less memory.

This isn’t even to really get started on the rant about why people think it’s good for their software to use as little memory as possible. The phrases “uses a lot of memory” and “is memory inefficient” are often used on Slashdot, especially against Firefox, as though they mean the same thing. I would be glad to have my browser use 3 GB if it did so in a responsible way that made my browsing faster. The key is that it wouldn’t need that much memory to function, but that with that much memory it would be better. Sure, there are situations where “a lighter memory footprint” is desirable, but there are plenty of situations where I have five tabs open, Firefox is using 200 MB of memory, I have 3 GB free, and I think “what a waste.”

The original comment appears here.

Since Fedora released GNOME 3, there has been lots of bickering, like when everybody released KDE 4. (Ubuntu gave up on GNOME and went for “Unity,” which is, in short, built on GNOME 3 but with a different user interface).

This has to be one of my favourites, though:
http://www.christoph-wickert.de/blog/2011/06/25/gnome-developer-quote-of-the-day/

And from that page, my favourite link is the one from “(We are not designing a desktop for people … ) who want to shutdown their computers from within a GNOME session.”

https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=647441#c2

Yes, seriously. At first, I thought it was a bug, or a one-off thing because I was running Fedora 15 in VirtualBox. But no–you actually can’t power down your computer while you’re logged in.

The best/worst part, or at least the one that worries me the most, is that GNOME and Fedora are intimately linked. Most of the programmers in the Fedora Desktop group are also programmers for GNOME. So like somebody responded on that blog post, if GNOME is going down, Fedora will have a hard time trying to abandon ship.

As for me personally, it doesn’t really matter. Since I started using Linux in 2002, I haven’t used any version of GNOME for longer than a week–it’s always been KDE for me, even through the admittedly tough times of versions 4.0 to 4.2. I don’t think KDE is perfect, but it’s perfect *for me*, and that’s what matters most. To be honest, the fact that it sometimes breaks is something that I need out of my computer, to keep me from something truly stupid, like trying to graft SELinux onto Ubuntu, or boot Fedora 14 from an LVM2 boot partition using GRUB2. Note that my “day job” is “graduate student of music theory,” so SELinux anywhere, as much as I like it, is pretty mysterious. I did succeed with GRUB2, but that’s another story.

But I’m not honestly too worried that GNOME 3 is the beginning of the end. Everybody says stupid things sometimes, including Firefox developers, one of whom recently claimed the Firefox isn’t designed for enterprise deployment (read: “use by corporations”). Besides, saying stupid things, doing stupid things, and getting stupid results are all different aspects of stupidity.

What I’m saying is that I have this sense that everything is going to be a-okay. Why? Look at the most popular operating systems today–and I don’t mean popular by number of users, but popular by “prestige” or “cool factor.” You have Mac OS X, iOS (for iPhone, iPod, and iPad devices), Android (for cell phones), and… yep, that’s about it. Windows is not, and will never be cool, but Apple products are, and it’s because they’re permanently set to “flashy” mode. You can’t customize it unless you really know what you’re doing, so you can’t break it (and make it look silly). You’re permanently stuck with a relatively attractive, but unintrusive, user interface with large icons. Hmm… sounds like GNOME 3.

With the recent release of Ubuntu 11.04 and the Unity desktop environment, I quickly realized it was time to get my CD-Rs ready! As a Fedora user, I’m definitely a fan of new things. Aside from that, it’s always good to keep an eye on what’s happening in the rest of the Linux world.

The first thing I noticed is that Ubuntu has now taken to product placement, with name-brand computers on their homepage. Okay, fine–you have to make money somehow. But the first thing that really stuck out was how difficult it is to find the CHECKSUM for the download. And nowhere do they even suggest that it’s a good idea to verify your download. Granted, Fedora stopped suggesting it as strongly as they once did, but at least there’s a (small) “Verify Download” button on the main download page. I’d like to see all the distributions recommend verification as part of the download process; it’s usually unnecessary, but it’s usually also easy. A damaged ISO file has the potential to cause great headaches, and it might just turn off a potential user if the installer doesn’t work for some reason they can’t figure out.

Then I decided to give 11.04 a try in a virtual machine, just running the “live CD.” I have to admit that I like the interface. It’s a little confusing at first, but it’s nice after you realize what they’re trying to accomplish (as I read it: a clean, easy-to-use interface for portable and desktop computers alike). As a side-note… the KDE user in me has to take note of the feature-removal that went on here, even from GNOME 2 to Unity, but that was more or less expected.

The next two strikes for 11.04 came as I tried to install it: I couldn’t find the buttons to setup LVM or LUKS (advanced hard drive management and hard drive encryption software). After some searching, I discovered that–lo and behold–I downloaded the wrong ISO image. If you want support for LVM or LUKS in Ubuntu 11.04, you have to download and use the text-based “alternate installer!” While Fedora switches everybody to LVM by default, with LUKS and software-based RAID just some button-clicks away, Ubuntu removes them from the primary installation ISO, and from any graphical installer. Maybe those options were never available through a graphical installation, but this is the kind of feature removal with which I cannot sympathize. When installing Fedora, you have to click buttons and choose to put yourself into a situation where you might run into the troublesome confusion of dealing directly with LVM. Why wouldn’t Ubuntu do the same? After all, they also let you go to the trouble of setting up your own partitions! Maybe it’s a space-on-the-CD issue…

But 11.04 does add a new and interesting feature to the installation application: it’s multi-tasking! I thought the pre-installation configuration was going too quickly; all I did was set up the partitions, and it began to install. But I was misled–the rest of the configuration was simply saved until after the installation began, so that, while I was inputting information about time zones, keyboards, and users, my computer was already busy installing my new OS. A nice step forward!

To round out my whining, and to return to computer security, there’s SELinux. Fedora ships it by default, but Ubuntu doesn’t. Sure, Fedora’s SELinux setup may not be as strong as it could be by default, but it’s more secure than nothing (I mean… AppArmour), and it can be easily ramped up.

I once read a quote that goes something like, “What can the average desktop computer user do to help secure their information in the age of the Internet? Nothing, they’re screwed.” That might be true for most cases, but SELinux is a step in the right direction, and only Fedora (and Fedora-based distributions) use it by default. Plus… have you ever tried to enable SELinux in Ubuntu (or openSUSE, or Debian?) I have, and it’s a pain unless you know what you’re doing–and I don’t.

Many of these things aren’t new to Ubuntu 11.04, but this version has pushed me to wonder why it’s the case. Surely Ubuntu isn’t “selling out” just so they can solve their fake Bug #1 at any cost? So what is going on here? Hmm…

One particular sore point has been bugging me throughout the entire process, and I want to get that out of the way first.  The original intention was to offer USD$5,000 to each successful student participant, but this was later reduced to USD$1,000.  The reduction was announced after the application deadline, but before releasing the results of which applications were approved.  I still don’t know whether I made the right financial decision this summer, and the late announcement of the reduction makes the Summer Coding SIG seem sneaky and unfair.  While the reduction was almost certainly done with the intention of allowing a greater number of student participants, it also undermines the legitimacy and viability of a Summer Coding program.  Had the original intention been to offer USD$1,000, I would not have applied – I would have gone on to seek a different job.  That said, it was my own decision to continue with Summer Coding after the smaller award was announced, and the $5,000 estimate was clearly marked as only an estimate.  The problem is that there is a large difference between the original estimate and the final result.

This was the only negative aspect of my Summer Coding experience.

The application process was a little bit confusing, but nothing that some careful attention couldn’t overcome.  Looking at the other applications, and the origin of those which were approved, it seems that non-native English speakers were at a significant disadvantage.  There were certainly other factors involved.  Many of the Chinese applicants, for example, wanted to work on the Ailurus package manager, which is not available in the standard Fedora repository, and replicates functionality in the existing PackageKit package manager.  Furthermore, I’m not sure that it’s a bad thing for the application process to be a little bit confusing.  If you’re going to be doing open-source development work, you must be able to work through LOTS of confusing documentation and instructions.  That’s the nature of the beast!  Even as I whine about this, the “Four Seasons of Code” Summer Coding project developed a repeatable, quasi-standardized application application for summer coding-like events.

Another thing about the application process is that it was quite demanding, and not all applicants finished all of the required components.  The only reason I was able to complete my project is because I took the application’s requests very seriously, and filled it out in detail that I thought was excruciating.  Success comes with planning.  Enough said.

After the application process, the Summer Coding requirements simply vanished, and I was basically left on my own (with my mentors) to construct a meaningful result.  It wouldn’t work for some people, buy my preferred way to learn and do things is independently for as long as possible.  It seems that “independently” is how many open-source projects get started.  Once an initial version exists, collaboration can truly begin.

Twice-weekly blogging is a pain, but invaluable.  Not only does it help to spread the word about your project, but you record some of your thought-process for you and other people to review later.  The next time somebody wants to write a user guide, they might check out my blog posts, for example.  In retrospect, I could/should have designed the blog posts much better, to illustrate the decisions I had to make, and why I chose what I did.  There’s always next time.

My mentors have been very helpful in sorting out problems with me.  I appreciate that they have not (generally) solved anything for me, but instead point me to the right source for information on how to do it myself.  One notable exception to this is when I set up the git repository, following my mentor’s instructions exactly.  This isn’t really useful for most people in most situations, however, and I probably won’t set up another git repository in my life.

The Documentation Project holds weekly meetings on IRC, and it has been helpful for me to attend these.  If there is a relevant project or SIG in Fedora, I encourage future Summer Coding participants to attend their meetings.  You will get to know people who can help you, and also learn about the workflow and efforts that go into producing a viable Linux distribution.  Be careful at meetings and on IRC though, because you never know who might be there… Paul Frields, for example, frequents the #fedora-docs channel and Docs Project meetings, but nobody warned me.  I only found out I’d been talking to the Fedora Project Leader well after the fact!

The Fedora Musicians’ Guide (or “FMG”) was designed specifically as a Fedora Summer Coding project.  The idea came to me when I saw the request for student applications to Fedora Summer Coding.  Because I have taken two Computer Science courses, I thought I would try to apply for something.  When I looked at the existing proposals, I realized that two terms of CS just wouldn’t cut it.  After thinking about what I can do, I realized that, as a university music student, I have a rather unique view of Linux.  In particular, I knew that the existing documentation for music software was woefully insufficient.  It still is, by the way.  Thankfully, the Fedora community came together and allowed me to write a brand-new user guide for some of the most popular music and audio software available in Fedora (and some less-popular things, too).

The proposal was quite specific about the Guide’s goals.  The target audience is people like my friends and me, who study (or have studied) music to a relatively high level.  The document has relatively few technical musical explanations; users are expected to already know music notation before they use the LilyPond chapter, for example.  Users are expected to know what they want to do, but not how to do it.  In a way, I wrote the FMG specifically for my friends, because I was tired of saying “you can use this program on Linux,” knowing full well that a lack of documentation would prevent them from figuring it out.

The approach to each chapter shows the minimum skills required to use the application or program.  It’s best to learn through independent experience, so I wanted to explain as little as possible, encouraging readers to learn and experiment by themselves.  At the same time, I want to provide enough information that readers can guess intelligently how to do things.  This was very difficult, and I was always debating with myself about how much detail to include, and how much to assume the user would already know.

It was also important for me to write something distinctly different from pre-existing documentation.  Ardour and Audacity already have excellent user guides available on the internet, and SuperCollider has a very extensive collection of help files.  The point of the FMG, as much as it can be, is to get users started with the software as quickly as possible, showing them how to use it with follow-along tutorials.  The tutorials have instructions to create a particular, real-world project, with instructions for the tools being used, and explanations of why those tools are being used in that particular way.

The FMG currently covers the following software: Audacity, Ardour, Qtractor, Rosegarden, FluidSynth/Qsynth, SuperCollider, LilyPond, Frescobaldi, GNU Solfege.  There are also chapters about audio recording, computer audio, and real-time Linux systems, for users who need them.

It’s difficult to know how well the Musicians’ Guide has met the goals I set for it.  As development progressed, I found that it was much easier to write about the best software, and much more difficult to write about the merely high-quality software.  I fear that this shows in the resulting document – that software like Audacity (because it’s not new to me, and it crashed often) and Rosegarden (because it’s quirky and difficult to guess) are in the greatest need of good documentation, but that I was unable to provide it.

GNU Solfege, in particular, is a project that needs help.  I included it in the FMG because aural skills software is one area that computers are most useful to musicians, but it is always neglected.  The real problem is not that GNU Solfege is bad software, but that it simply needs more exercises.  These exercises are easy to write, too!  I sincerely hope that the Musicians’ Guide helps people to discover Solfege, and encourages them to write more exercises, especially for melodic and harmonic dictation.

Looking back over the whole project, there are a few things that stand out in my mind:
* Writing documentation is a tedious task, but a very useful one.
* Some of this software is *very* difficult to use by guessing.
* Some of this software seems difficult to use, but is actually easy.
* Most of this software is very useful, comprehensive, and high quality.

The point of Fedora Summer Coding (I think… ) is to encourage new contributors to the Fedora Project.  I am very grateful for the general friendliness and helpfulness of members of the Fedora community, and I feel like, even after just two months, the community has welcomed me as a valued part of the team.  I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to receive encouragement from other community members.  And it worked!  As it stands now, I plan to remain with the Documentation Project, helping where I can.

Over the next week, work will focus on these areas:

• applying the style consistently across all chapters,
• revising the text to make it as concise as possible (currently a problem),
• incorporating comments from other testers.

The development deadline for Fedora Summer Coding is next Monday 9 August, and this last stretch is going to be a busy one.  Careful revision is a very slow, arduous process.  I usually end up writing a paragraph three or four times before leaving it.  This is the nature of writing, however, and I guess it parallels sofware testing, which usually takes five times longer than writing the code in the first place.

I’m really starting to understand why documentation is often left out of open-source projects, or left to become obsolete once it is written.

There are just under two weeks until the final completion deadline for Fedora Summer Coding 2010, and I’m very pleased that the conversion of the Musicians’ Guide to DocBook XML is going more quickly than I anticipated.  Mind you, I’m starting with the easy chapters, and not really revising them along the way – but it’s still faster than the seven-days-per-chapter rate of last week!

The biggest challenge ahead will be to re-read every part of every chapter, trying to establish a consistent style.

Finally for today, I would like to thank the members of the Fedora community (and elsewhere!) that have stepped up recently to lend a hand with revision.  That you have helped me to take care of little issues, and a few larger ones, is definitely saving me time!

As I look back on my original plans and how development has been progressing until now, one thing sticks out more than anything else: this is a HUGE project.

Another thought: if I had been subjected to a regular job interview during the application process, I don’t think I would have been allowed to do this.  It’s a tribute to the Fedora Project not only that this project was approved, but that I have been able to take it to this stage.  The support that I receive daily from my colleagues within Fedora, from the Docs team, on the #fedora-selinux IRC channel, within the Audio Creation SIG, and from viewers like you on Planet Fedora has already played a significant role in my ability to “just keep writing.”  Thank you.

Yet another thought: had my head been screwed on correctly during the application process, I would not in a million years have included SuperCollider.  It’s going to be a highlight of the Guide for sure (at least for me… the “stars” are Ardour, LilyPond, and SuperCollider), but SC has already put me seven days behind schedule, and just fifteen minutes ago I realized that I hadn’t, in fact, finished everything.  Yeah that’s right – SEVEN DAYS BEHIND SCHEDULE.  Why?  There’s actually a small textbook in that chapter.  Go look for yourself.

So what’s on the schedule for this week?  First is to finish writing all of the sections that I realized needed to be added while doing the original writing.  Second is to make drafts of the diagrams, illustrations, and infographics that the Guide will need.  Third is to revise.

You can help!  You don’t have to know anything about audio or music – just English.  This is a colossal project, and as such, it’s going to take a long time to weed out simple spelling and grammatical errors.  I would greatly appreciate any time that somebody can dedicate to any part of any chapter.  Please feel free to edit the wiki pages directly – no need to mark what you’ve done, since the wiki will automatically show me.  If you have longer suggestions or comments, please feel free to use the Talk: page, to send me an email, or to contact me on IRC (my nick is “crantila,” and I frequent Freenode’s #fedora-audio, #fedora-summer-coding, #fedora-docs, and other channels).

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Crantila/FSC/Drafts