But I hate my cellphone provider, Rogers Canada. I hope that’s clear. Rogers CANADA.

Being a community, people-oriented person, free software activist and open source enthusiast, and on top of that a full time technical trainer and support analyst, last summer when I heard that Rogers Canada would be the first company to sell & support the mighty HTC Dream (known as G1 to T-Mobile customers), I decided I would trust them. In fact I got my HTC Dream the day it came out, on June 2nd. If Google trusted Rogers with their first Android deployment in Canada, I would be OK. Big mistake!

I’ve posted before that Rogers Canada sucks. I’ve thought about documenting my own problems, but it’s getting easier to just gather other similar experiences Android customers have at Rogers:

• Rogers Mandatory Update Debacle
• How Rogers Ruined My HTC Dream
• Rogers and the Squashing of Personal Freedom
• I want my one point six – a blog dedicated to the HTC problems
• …

That’s right, there is a whole blog dedicated to document and share all the mistakes Rogers Canada has made and all the problems they have caused.

When I saw that I started my own Identi.ca group: RogersSucks (or !rs)

As I write this I am waiting for a replacement HTC Magic which was promised once, order “lost”, promotion postponed, then secretly available again, then finally ordered on Sunday. I know, it’s Wednesday and we’re only a province away, but the phone hasn’t even shipped. Nevermind it’s only a slightly less outdated phone, I am waiting again to get the Rogers Canada Android Revolution.

Rogers Canada thinks it’s good business practice to suspend data service in order to force customers into upgrading to a firmware that basically locks down my phone. Why is it important it’s unlocked and rootable ? Because otherwise it’s very much useless, or should I say even less useful than a regular cell phone. At least regular cell phones behave well with BT headsets, don’t crash or reboot spontaneously, and don’t lag for >30 seconds when going from one application to the other. Among other things. It used to be possible to use Cyanogen Mod and other custom firmwares to make these phones somewhat usable. Not anymore.

How did Google let this happen ? I have no clue.

A lot of similar mistakes can be made by any company selling devices based on free, open-source software (and yes I know Android devices don’t come with 100% free software). I secretly hope some anonymous person inside such companies learns something from Rogers Canada mistakes. This is truly an example on how NOT to launch and service such a product.

Meanwhile I am gathering details on my own problems and getting all my services with Rogers cancelled without penalty for breach of contract. If that doesn’t happen, small claims court in Quebec should help, and I’ll document this in true free, open fashion so I can help as many people as I can do the same: vote with their money. I am angry such a great platform got such a bad start in Canada.

I guess the Revolution is not going to be available in Canada for some time.

Télévision de Radio-Canada is a Canadian French language television network. It is owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, known in French as Société Radio-Canada, or just “Radio-Canada”, for the rest of us. – from Wikipedia

A couple of weeks ago they launched a new web site, tou.tv, making “available” all their TV shows (or most of them)… in Flash

Never mind it’s 2010 and HTML5, Ogg Theora and in general open standards and formats are the talk of the day on most web development sites… Flash 10 is a bad enough choice as it is, but apparently tou.tv’s team just forgot that Linux existed.

Within hours of the launch Ubuntu Québec team members started complaining on the mailing list and on tou.tv’s Facebook group. We wrote to their admins, provided details, wrote to the ombudsman, got canned replies for all communications. We then put together a Facebook group, and started inviting people to join and we shared our findings (now all on a public wiki). 451 people joined the group which is an amazing number for Quebec province, given the context. I never ever thought I’d use Facebook for open formats and Linux support advocacy in such a way!

Only one programmer from the tou.tv’s team first acknowledged the problem, then asked for testers. That’s it, total silence from the tax-payers-funded TV network and website.

Within hours of the initial launch people on the mailing list had analyzed the streaming protocol, the Javascript code, etc. and ruled out problems there. To our amazement, a single commented line was preventing any shows to be displayed. Someone put together a GreaseMonkey script, someone else tested it… we went online on IRC to coordinate testing + blogging. Bottom line is we came up with a workaround. A week later tou.tv finally applied minimal fixes to unblock the Flash display on Linux systems.

The site is not perfect and now other minor issues subsist, and yes, I wish open formats were an option. For now I just wanted to thank Ubuntu for providing not only an incredible operating system but also an amazing community that made all this possible I also wanted to thank the Free Software Foundation as we used several resources from them such as the Defective by Design web site to explain the problems associated to using DRM-like implementations of web TV sites, and the problems of not using open formats, such as Flash.

I also wanted to send a big FAIL to Radio-Canada and tou.tv’s team. To this day they don’t even mention Linux on their FAQ.

You can also find more details about this little victory of ours in my original blog post in French.

Your taxes at work!

I knew there was a Gobby server in Ubuntu but didn’t know it was this easy to setup. I quickly found out about Gobby-Infinote (Gobby using the new Infinote protocol) and Infinoted (server). It was really nice to be able to go to the #infinote channel on Freenode and ask questions one-on-one to the actual developpers and validate my tests! Thank you!

From Gobby’s website:

Gobby is a free collaborative editor supporting multiple documents in one session and a multi-user chat. It runs on Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and other Unix-like platforms.

I performed my tests on an Ubuntu 9.10 64-bit desktop.

1. On all client systems, install the gobby-infinote package
2. Then on the server system, install the infinoted package
3. Once the server is installed, either:

• If you trust your local network and don’t want any security, launch the server using:

  infinoted --security-policy=no-tls

  or

• If you’d rather have encryption, TLS is available. Use:

  infinoted --create-key --create-certificate -k key.pem  -c cert.pem

The keys creation is automatic, and you can launch the server just using:

infinoted -k key.pem  -c cert.pem

You can also specify such options in ~/.config/infinoted.conf as noted on Infinoted’s wiki (which I plan to update with some of my notes). I am not sure yet what’s best to start the server automatically at system’s startup, I am told upstart should handle this. I’ll probably file a bug or investigate that further later.

Of course your server system can be a desktop, and you can run Gobby from that same system. Once installed clients should go to Accessories > Internet > Gobby Collaborative Editor (0.5).

You will also need to install avahi-daemon so the Infinote Gobby server availability is advertised through your local network and it’s shown among possible choices in your Gobby clients.

If you have setup TLS and you double click one of the available servers that use it, you will be presented a warning as you have a self-signed certificate:

The “other” Gobby in Ubuntu is a previous, stable version (package: gobby). Its server companion, sobby, is not the focus of current development efforts.

The main differences I found are:

• Optional TLS encryption
• Undo ability (which required rewriting the sync protocol)
• Interface improvements
• Ability to delete files
• Folder hierarchy creation now possible
• Graceful recovery & offer to save when the server “disappears” or when someone deletes a file
• Zeroconf support – so the server “advertises” itself on a LAN, no more IP/port info needed

The current client version in Karmic is 0.4.92 but 0.4.93 is already in Lucid and 0.4.94 is looing up.

Find out more here:

• Infinoted
• Gobby 0.4.93 announcement last December
• The Infinote protocol

Enfin presque tous. Ça prends Windows ou Mac. Pardon ?

Les utilisateurs d’Ubuntu se sont rapidement rendu compte que le site n’affichait qu’un carré noir à la place des vidéos. Sur la FAQ de tou.tv, aucune mention de Linux. Rien! Sur la liste de discussion d’Ubuntu Québec, groupe d’utilisateurs de cette distribution Linux, les esprits se sont vite enflammés. C’est que ce n’est pas la première fois que Radio-Canada commet cette bévue. Et non, on n’est plus “seulement 1% d’utilisateurs d’ordinateurs”.

Le format Flash choisit n’est pas l’idéal pour les utilisateurs Linux. L’idéal serait une solution basée sur des formats libres. Le format Flash est une forme de contrôle des drois numériques (les DRM pour ses sigles en anglais), mais bon, on se compte presque chanceux que la technologie Silverlight de Microsoft ait été abandonnée. Une multitudes de web-télé privées et publiques fonctionnent en Flash sous Linux, il suffisait donc de tester et s’assurer que ça fonctionnerait.

Non, l’équipe technique vit apparemment sous une roche depuis plusieurs années. Même leurs réponses “cannées” aux incidents techniques signalés par des membres d’Ubuntu Québec et par FACIL n’ont pas changé. Et l’Ombudsman de Radio-Canada, lui, réponds que ce n’est pas ses affaires les choix techniques de celle-ci. C’est quand même nos taxes non ?

UPDATE: ATTENTION – CE CORRECTIF N’EST PLUS NÉCESSAIRE, LE SITE TOU.TV AYANT ÉTÉ CORRIGÉ SUITE À LA PRESSION EXERCÉE PAR NOTRE GROUPE. MERCI!

Bref, j’ai suggéré la création d’un groupe Facebook, ce qui a été fait assez rapidement (merci à Martin Bureau). 24h et presque 300 membres plus tard, Patrick St-Onge a trouvé le petit bout de code qui a provoquée cette tempête. Une ligne qui était en commentaire.

Je vous épargne les détails. Je suis encore un peu étourdi par cette trouvaille!

Comment on peut expliquer ça en 2010 ? C’est si insignifiant qu’ils pourront dire que c’est un simple oubli.

Je savais qu’avec GreaseMonkey on pourrait enlever ledit commentaire, j’ai donc immédiatement invité quiconque lirait le commentaire de Patrick dans le groupe à venir me rejoindre sur le canal de chat IRC de FACIL. Deux personnes ont répondu, ggrz et VanBrooken (de par leur surnom sur IRC). Pour faire une histoire courte, heureusement, ggrz a fourni le script (le mien étant trop pourri ) et VanBrooken et moi l’avons testé. Il y a certainement mieux comme solution mais pour l’instant celle-ci semble “faire la job”. On a constaté par exemple qu’il manque les barres pour choisir la qualité… Étant donné que l’auteur original l’a publié en “public domain”, nous pouvons en faire ce que nous en voulons.

La solution

Vous devez avoir:

• Firefox
• GreaseMonkey

J’ai testé avec FF 3.5.7 et Greasemonkey 0.8.20091209.4. Comme j’ai indiqué plus haut deux autres personnes (l’auteur et une autre) ont confirmé que ça fonctionnait.

UPDATE: ATTENTION – CE CORRECTIF N’EST PLUS NÉCESSAIRE, LE SITE TOU.TV AYANT ÉTÉ CORRIGÉ SUITE À LA PRESSION EXERCÉE PAR NOTRE GROUPE. MERCI!

Une fois GreaseMonkey installé, après redémarrer Firefox:

1) Ouvrez le site tou.tv
2) Allez sur Tools > Grease Monkey > New user Script
3) Remplissez les champs comme suit:

Name: toutv-linux
Namespace: http://www.toutv.com/greasemonkey
Description: Script pour visionner toutv sous LInux
Includes: http://tou.tv/* (ceci devrait déjà être là si vous avez ouvert tou.tv)
Excludes: (laisser ce champ vide)

4) Cliquez OK
5) Allez sur Tools > Grease Monkey > Manage User Scripts. Le script (vide pour l’instant) devrait y être. Choisissez-le (un click)
6) Cliquez Edit (en bas, à gauche)
7) Si on vous demande pour un éditeur de texte, entrez /usr/bin/gedit
Ajoutez à la fin du document présenté ceci:


(function() {

window.addEventListener(“load”, function(e) {
var player = document.getElementById(“playerDiv”);
if(player) {
var content = player.innerHTML;
content = content.replace(“flashvars=\”", “flashvars=\”releaseURL=” + unsafeWindow.toutv.getRelease() + “&”);
player.innerHTML = content;
}
}, false);
})();

C’est aussi disponible ici et ici. Attention aux sauts de ligne! Chaque ligne termine par un “;”.

9) Sauvegardez le document
10) Re-chargez la page tou.tv, naviguez les émissions
11) Enjoy

Attention étant donné que le site est tout récent il est possible que les délais habituels vous empêchent de visionner le contenu. Soyez patients!

Merci encore à Patrick St-Onge et aux deux anonymes qui ont répondu à mon invitation sur IRC: ggrz qui a fournit le script final en GreaseMonkey et VanBrooken qui a testé et confirmé la solution. Merci aussi aux presque 300 personnes qui se sont jointes au groupe Facebook et qui ont contribué à sa visibilité.

UPDATE: ATTENTION – CE CORRECTIF N’EST PLUS NÉCESSAIRE, LE SITE TOU.TV AYANT ÉTÉ CORRIGÉ SUITE À LA PRESSION EXERCÉE PAR NOTRE GROUPE. MERCI!

Maintenant qu’on sait que ça fonctionne avec du Flash, il faut bien continuer et exiger que ça soit disponible en format libre, ça sera un autre combat. FACIL en discutera à son prochain conseil d’administration, il est important de devenir membre ou de faire un don si cette cause vous tient à coeur. FACIL est une association à but non lucratif qui fait la promotion de l’informatique libre au Québec. FACIL organise ou participe à plusieurs autres activités au sujet des logiciels libres et des standards ouverts.

Pour ceux qui pensent que je suis extrémiste ou dans une minorité de Fanboy (deux noms auxquels j’ai eu droit dans cette histoire), je vous laisse quelques mots clés pour vous informer: DRM, Ogg Theora, HTML5, YouTube.

Those of you wondering how to help Haiti relief efforts with your knowledge and time (or money) can take a look at the following projects:

• Haiti OpenStreeMap response – this blog post illustrates nicely how open & free data is helping
• Sahana Free and Open Source Disaster Management System – name says it all, this is hardly a new project. Check out the wiki and join the IRC channel. Yes, they use Launchpad.
• Telecom sans Frontières – perhaps offer to volunteer there or make a donation
• SMS donations are very easy to do – and surprisingly effective it seems
• Last but not least check your local civil emergency authorities. In Quebec province anyone can join a local database of volunteers ready to offer their time & expertise to help, on site, or from Quebec, when such requirement is deemed appropriate.

Remember there are many ways you can help in the above projects & efforts, without necessarily limiting that to money or physical presence.

Wiki cleanup, documentation, translation, or even just advertising any of the above projects in your social networks may go a long way.

Have a nice weekend!

The Ubuntu Users Day will also be held in Spanish! Diego and his team invited me to host a session and I gladly accepted to host the same I will be doing in English. My deepest appreciation to Pablo Rubianes who started this initiative for the Spanish Ubuntu users.

I’ll be teaching / chatting / taking questions about how to best choose your hardware so it works with Ubuntu. It’s on January 23rd, save the date!

“Support” includes of course going through help requests we get over the phone or via Landscape, escalating bugs and working with developers to deliver fixes for our customers (and to Ubuntu public updates), but also helping other colleagues within Canonical (a benefit for all staff), review and write technical documentation, help with training, playing with some awesome hardware I can’t quite blog about and more… including coming to UDS and raise our issues while catching up with what’s going on in the Ubuntu galaxy.

We’re extremely lucky we are at freedom to chose how and where we participate in UDS. I personally consider it to be 50% social, 50% technical. There are some obvious places where it’s easy to jump in (such as Tools for better X.org bug triaging and diagnosis), because they are closely related to our troubleshooting process and how we approach problems. Others are not as easy to spot. Going together to a shooting range sure beats many bonding exercises I’ve attended before. You learn a thing or two about the great community folks and about your colleagues in-between shots As a side note, I have to say although I don’t particularly understand the reason fire arms exist, this is one of those things I wanted to try.

Another interesting, unique experience is meeting our actual customers at support! You know who you are! It’s a bit crazy and it feels like it’s the Academy Awards – an expression Jono used this morning much to our enjoyment – and we’ve won a prize consisting of meeting face-to-face. I also see quite a bit of Québécois here which I am very proud of, as I am a Colombian living in Québec for 20 years now. And of course sabdfl is still very much part of UDS, not only for the obvious reasons but because you’ll actually see him busy at his keyboard and getting into many sessions giving his opinion and participating in lively discussions.

My first day at UDS started with the plenary, where Jono presented the seven tracks UDS follows, giving the opportunity to all ~300 participants to know the differents team leads and what their people do. Mark Shuttleworth also spoke about Ubuntu 10.04 LTS and how those three letters make it special in its very own way. We all have a lot of work ahead. I liked it a lot when Jono said this event consisted of one-hour chunks and we needed to make the most of every single one of those chunks. And stealing everyones’ hearts or something to that effect!

Then started the actual meat of this event. Here are the sessions and activities I was part of today:

• Ubuntu Foundations team roundtable, where I learned a bit more about services and their management
• Meeting with a few customers and gathering their goals and objectives for the week
• Catching up on all the free, open source community fun & positive gossip
• Sharing mneptok’s hilarious and irreverent jokes
• How to Run a Good Session, Software Center Roadmap and Opportunistic Programmer plenaries
• Server usability papercuts
• Requirements for Update and Upgrade Experiences
• Landscape for Lucid

Back to back, it’s lots of talking, listening, agreeing and disagreeing, documenting, chatting, introductions, translating and catching up to do. It’s also useful to keep up with regular email. All incredibly useful & productive, if a bit intense. I tried to leave a trail of it on my micro-blogging backyard like others at http://identi.ca/tag/uds.

The day ended at the firing range as I mentioned before, followed by some relaxing time at the lobby and watching some TV while preparing this post. I hear we’ll have interesting visitors tomorrow, can’t wait! Until then, I can’t repeat enough – Thank You Canonical !

And I won’t be the only one

All details can be found on the Quebec Team Ubuntu Global Jam page.

Where:

École de technologie supérieure (http://www.etsmtl.ca/)
1100 rue Notre-Dame Ouest
Salles/Rooms A-1300 & A-1238

When:

Friday Oct 2- Sunday Oct. 4 (check the Quebec Team Ubuntu Global Jam page for full schedule info)

See you there!

Putting a full working Ubuntu install on a USB key and linking to an existing home directory may be the closest to an actual full-upgrade: it doesn’t touch your hard disk (so no need to reverse any changes). Well, mostly. For example if you use Firefox, a new version will upgrade extensions, etc.

One of my colleagues, Shang Wu, has put together a little script to automate this setup, and a basic document on how to install Ubuntu on a stick to test Karmic as I described, see: Testing Ubuntu Beta Releases off a USB stick. Please do read the code before executing it in one of your systems

If anyone has comments or suggestions for this script or if you have better recipes to let existing Ubuntu users test/try future releases, I’d like to hear about it.

Android users in Canada

Visit this group

I’ve found it surprisingly hard to find any information specific to the Canadian launch of Android phones by Rogers, other than Android in Canada, and most discussion elsewhere deals with the U.S. models or marketplace.

I just started the group so it’s mostly empty, but I’ll be sharing some of the trouble i am having, as well as some of the blog posts about new features, etc.