Accessibility (a11y for short) seems like a niche area of concern for many people. I was thinking about this recently on a hot morning in Spain, walking to the bus station with my wheeled luggage. The sidewalks are thoughtfully cut out for wheelchairs -- and those with luggage! and the kids riding skateboards, and...... the rest of us.
When websites and program output can be parsed by a screen-reader, it is great for blind folks. It is also great for the busy person working and listening, and even for the reader who doesn't have to ignore popup menus and other distractions. In other words, all of us.
There are many more examples, but my point is -- a11y helps everyone. So please - everyone - help KDE focus on accessible software at Randa! Fundraiser is ongoing! Don't pass it by because you think this is niche. Accessible software is better for all.
Stop by https://www.kde.org/fundraisers/randameetings2017/ and give generously, or read more about it first: Randa Meetings 2017: It's All About Accessibility.
Showing posts with label Randa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Randa. Show all posts
Saturday, August 19, 2017
Tuesday, July 5, 2016
Last push! Let's get KDE fundraising over the line
Hello folks,
As you know, fundraising is sometimes difficult. Enthusiasm is high in the beginning, then interest lags, and it is possible to limp over the finish line without meeting the goal.
But we don't have to end this way! As in a marathon, after a period of slower running, we can get a second wind, take a drink of some energy-fueling stuff, and put on a burst of speed to finish in style! Please share on twitter, G+, Facebook and on your own blogs, and let's finish our KDE summer fundraiser in a generous way. The Randa Meetings were a huge success, and Qt.con is coming up.
We need your help! https://www.kde.org/fundraisers/randameetings2016/
Thanks!
Valorie
As you know, fundraising is sometimes difficult. Enthusiasm is high in the beginning, then interest lags, and it is possible to limp over the finish line without meeting the goal.
But we don't have to end this way! As in a marathon, after a period of slower running, we can get a second wind, take a drink of some energy-fueling stuff, and put on a burst of speed to finish in style! Please share on twitter, G+, Facebook and on your own blogs, and let's finish our KDE summer fundraiser in a generous way. The Randa Meetings were a huge success, and Qt.con is coming up.
We need your help! https://www.kde.org/fundraisers/randameetings2016/
Thanks!
Valorie
Thursday, August 20, 2015
Upon returning home from Akademy: thoughts
Akademy is long over, you say? Yes, but I've been traveling almost constantly since flying home, since my husband is on the home leg of his long hike of the Pacific Crest Trail, which he is chronicling at http://bobofwashington.blogspot.com. While driving about the state to meet him, I've not been online much, therefore unable to create blogposts from my thoughts and impressions written during and right after Akademy. Fortunately, I did scrawl some thoughts which I'll post over the next week or so.
Please visit https://akademy.kde.org/2015 for more information about Akademy. Click the photo for a larger version and add names if someone is left unlabeled.
First: A Coruña where Akademy 2015 met, is beautiful! Galicia, the region of Spain is not only beautiful, but serves delicious food, especially if you love fresh seafood.
The local team, working in conjunction with the e.V. Board and the amazing Kenny Duffus and Kenny Coyle created a wonderful atmosphere in which to absorb, think, and work. One of the best bits this year was the Rialta, where most of us lived during Akademy. Scarlett and I flew in early, to get over our jetlag, and have a day to see the city.
The journey from Seattle began very early Monday morning, and Scarlett set out even earlier the previous day via Amtrack train to Seattle. Our connections and flights were very long, but uneventful. We caught the airport bus and then the city bus 24 and walked to the Rialta, arriving about dinner-time Tuesday. Although we tried to avoid sleeping early, it was impossible.
Waking the next morning at 4am with no-one about, and no coffee available was a bit painful! Breakfast was not served until 8am, and we were *not* late! Rialta breakfasts are adequate; the coffee less so. I found that adding a bit of cocoa made it more drinkable, but some days bought cafe con leche from the bar instead. That small bar was also the source of cervesa (beer) and a few whiskys as well.
One of the beautiful things about the Rialta was their free buses for residents. Some were called Touristic, and followed a long loop throughout the city. You could get off at any of the stops and get back on later after sight-seeing, eating or shopping. So we rode it a loop to figure out what we wanted to see, which was part of the sea-side and the old town. Scarlett and I both took lots of photos of the beautiful bay and some of the port. After visiting Picasso's art college, we headed into the old city. On the way in, we saw a archaelogical dig of a Roman site, I guess one of many. This one was behind the Military Museum. As we walked further into the city, we heard music from Game of Thrones, and a giant round tent covered in medieval scenes. As we walked around the square trying to figure out what was happening, we saw lancers on large horses, dancing about waiting to enter the ring!
Some of the Akademy attendees were inside the tent watching the jousts, we later found out. I stopped in to the tourist info office to find out why the tent was there, and found out there was a week-long celebration all through the old city. It was delightful to turn the corner and see a herd of geese, or medieval handicrafts, or.... beer! A small cold beer from a beer barrel with a medieval monk serving us was most welcome as we wandered close to Domus. The Rialta bus was a great way "home."
A day of play left us ready to work as the rest of the attendees began to arrive.
Oh by the way: give big! Randa Meetings will soon be happening, and we need your help!
Please visit https://akademy.kde.org/2015 for more information about Akademy. Click the photo for a larger version and add names if someone is left unlabeled.
First: A Coruña where Akademy 2015 met, is beautiful! Galicia, the region of Spain is not only beautiful, but serves delicious food, especially if you love fresh seafood.
The local team, working in conjunction with the e.V. Board and the amazing Kenny Duffus and Kenny Coyle created a wonderful atmosphere in which to absorb, think, and work. One of the best bits this year was the Rialta, where most of us lived during Akademy. Scarlett and I flew in early, to get over our jetlag, and have a day to see the city.
The journey from Seattle began very early Monday morning, and Scarlett set out even earlier the previous day via Amtrack train to Seattle. Our connections and flights were very long, but uneventful. We caught the airport bus and then the city bus 24 and walked to the Rialta, arriving about dinner-time Tuesday. Although we tried to avoid sleeping early, it was impossible.
Waking the next morning at 4am with no-one about, and no coffee available was a bit painful! Breakfast was not served until 8am, and we were *not* late! Rialta breakfasts are adequate; the coffee less so. I found that adding a bit of cocoa made it more drinkable, but some days bought cafe con leche from the bar instead. That small bar was also the source of cervesa (beer) and a few whiskys as well.
One of the beautiful things about the Rialta was their free buses for residents. Some were called Touristic, and followed a long loop throughout the city. You could get off at any of the stops and get back on later after sight-seeing, eating or shopping. So we rode it a loop to figure out what we wanted to see, which was part of the sea-side and the old town. Scarlett and I both took lots of photos of the beautiful bay and some of the port. After visiting Picasso's art college, we headed into the old city. On the way in, we saw a archaelogical dig of a Roman site, I guess one of many. This one was behind the Military Museum. As we walked further into the city, we heard music from Game of Thrones, and a giant round tent covered in medieval scenes. As we walked around the square trying to figure out what was happening, we saw lancers on large horses, dancing about waiting to enter the ring!
Some of the Akademy attendees were inside the tent watching the jousts, we later found out. I stopped in to the tourist info office to find out why the tent was there, and found out there was a week-long celebration all through the old city. It was delightful to turn the corner and see a herd of geese, or medieval handicrafts, or.... beer! A small cold beer from a beer barrel with a medieval monk serving us was most welcome as we wandered close to Domus. The Rialta bus was a great way "home."
A day of play left us ready to work as the rest of the attendees began to arrive.
Oh by the way: give big! Randa Meetings will soon be happening, and we need your help!
Monday, December 8, 2014
Institutions in KDE?
The Randa Meetings are becoming an institution in KDE. Really? And is that a good thing, or not. When I complimented Mario Fux on the excellent on-going work he is doing on the Randa Meetings, he was surprised and maybe offended that I called it an institution.
I've been thinking about this since reading The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution by Francis Fukuyama. The basis of my comment is that in some ways, our KDE community is like a state.
What supports and keeps a state alive are institutions. According to the Stanford Encyclopedia, social institutions are ... sets of rules and norms that organise human activities within a society. These rules and norms aren't just written law, such as our Code of Conduct and Manifesto, but also the unwritten "way we do things here." We have our habit of collaboration, our e.V., Akademy, our infrastructure, our coding style, APIs, documentation, and so forth.
And what is cool is to see that we continue to adapt to a changing world. I see the Frameworks effort as leap forward in our ability to adapt. The Plasma 5 work has flexibility written into it from the beginning, especially important as new form factors come onto the market. And we seem to be doing this within our community as well as in our code.
Fukuyama spoke not only about the development of the major institutions: the state, the rule of law, and accountability, but also of political decay, which happens when institutions grow rigid, and don't change with the times. I see the opposite with KDE.
Randa Meetings are a beautiful example of how one great idea has grown into something people look forward to, plan for, and support in many ways. We've had sprints for a long time, but now the year's calendar feels empty if there is no Randa meeting planned. The teams there not only do a sprint as usual, but also feed on the energy of the other teams around them, and collaborate on the fly. The Randa Meetings, like Akademy, have become indispensable; a norm. And that's a good thing.
I've been thinking about this since reading The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution by Francis Fukuyama. The basis of my comment is that in some ways, our KDE community is like a state.
Modern political order ...consists of ...[first] a modern state, with competent and honest officials, not prone to nepotism, corruption, and clientelism. Second is the rule of law, or binding constraints upon the rulers as well as the ruled. Third is accountability, usually via elections but also via a sense of responsibility towards the people, a sense of ruling for the common good.- from http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/1261, a review of the book.
What supports and keeps a state alive are institutions. According to the Stanford Encyclopedia, social institutions are ... sets of rules and norms that organise human activities within a society. These rules and norms aren't just written law, such as our Code of Conduct and Manifesto, but also the unwritten "way we do things here." We have our habit of collaboration, our e.V., Akademy, our infrastructure, our coding style, APIs, documentation, and so forth.
And what is cool is to see that we continue to adapt to a changing world. I see the Frameworks effort as leap forward in our ability to adapt. The Plasma 5 work has flexibility written into it from the beginning, especially important as new form factors come onto the market. And we seem to be doing this within our community as well as in our code.
Fukuyama spoke not only about the development of the major institutions: the state, the rule of law, and accountability, but also of political decay, which happens when institutions grow rigid, and don't change with the times. I see the opposite with KDE.
Randa Meetings are a beautiful example of how one great idea has grown into something people look forward to, plan for, and support in many ways. We've had sprints for a long time, but now the year's calendar feels empty if there is no Randa meeting planned. The teams there not only do a sprint as usual, but also feed on the energy of the other teams around them, and collaborate on the fly. The Randa Meetings, like Akademy, have become indispensable; a norm. And that's a good thing.
Monday, August 11, 2014
Randa Meetings sprint: KDE Frameworks Cookbook progress
We groaned and suffered with the up-and-down network, and had to abandon our plan to write and edit the book on Booki at Flossmanuals. So we began to create text files on Kate or Kwrite, but how to share our work?
The best answer seemed to be a git repository, and our success began there. Once created, we consulted again and again with the Frameworks developers in the room across the hall, and brainstormed and wrote, and even created new tools (Mirko). Our repo is here: kde:scratch/garg/book. If you want to see the live code examples, you will need this tool: https://github.com/endocode/snippetextractor .
I'm so happy with what we have so far! The texts are just great, and the code examples will be updated as they are updated in their repositories. So if people planning a booth at a Qt Contributor Conference, for instance, wanted to print up some copies of the book, it will be completely up-to-date. Our goal is committing every part of the book so that it can be auto-fetched for reading as an epub, pdf, text file or printed as a book.
It is a tremendous help to be in the same place. Thank you KDE community for sending me here, all the way from Seattle. Thank you for bringing all the other developers here as well. We are eating well, meeting, coding, writing, walking, drinking coffee and even some Free Beer, and sometimes sleeping too. Mario brings around a huge box of chocolate every night. We're all going to arrive home somewhat tired from working so hard, and somewhat fat from eating so well!
The best answer seemed to be a git repository, and our success began there. Once created, we consulted again and again with the Frameworks developers in the room across the hall, and brainstormed and wrote, and even created new tools (Mirko). Our repo is here: kde:scratch/garg/book. If you want to see the live code examples, you will need this tool: https://github.com/endocode/snippetextractor .
I'm so happy with what we have so far! The texts are just great, and the code examples will be updated as they are updated in their repositories. So if people planning a booth at a Qt Contributor Conference, for instance, wanted to print up some copies of the book, it will be completely up-to-date. Our goal is committing every part of the book so that it can be auto-fetched for reading as an epub, pdf, text file or printed as a book.
It is a tremendous help to be in the same place. Thank you KDE community for sending me here, all the way from Seattle. Thank you for bringing all the other developers here as well. We are eating well, meeting, coding, writing, walking, drinking coffee and even some Free Beer, and sometimes sleeping too. Mario brings around a huge box of chocolate every night. We're all going to arrive home somewhat tired from working so hard, and somewhat fat from eating so well!
Sunday, June 29, 2014
Final 10 days of the Randa fundraiser - Please help!
Hi folks, we're heading to the deadline. Please help put us over the top!
If you've already given money, please help by spreading the word. Small contributions not only count up quickly, they demonstrate that the free community stands behind our work. Mario gives a nice wrap-up here: blogs.fsfe.org/mario/?p=234. Show us you care.
Personally, I'm scared and excited by the prospect of writing another book, again with people who over-the-top smart, creative and knowledgeable. I will personally appreciate widespread support of the work we'll be doing.
If you already know about the Randa Meetings, and what our confederated sprints can produce, just proceed directly to http://www.kde.org/fundraisers/randameetings2014/index.php and kick in some shekels!
And then please pass along the word.
Thanks!
If you've already given money, please help by spreading the word. Small contributions not only count up quickly, they demonstrate that the free community stands behind our work. Mario gives a nice wrap-up here: blogs.fsfe.org/mario/?p=234. Show us you care.
Personally, I'm scared and excited by the prospect of writing another book, again with people who over-the-top smart, creative and knowledgeable. I will personally appreciate widespread support of the work we'll be doing.
If you already know about the Randa Meetings, and what our confederated sprints can produce, just proceed directly to http://www.kde.org/fundraisers/randameetings2014/index.php and kick in some shekels!
And then please pass along the word.
Thanks!
Saturday, May 31, 2014
Exciting! Writing another KDE book: Frameworks in Randa
Returning to Randa is always tremendous, no matter what the work is. The house in Randa, Switzerland is so welcoming, so solid, yet modern and comfortable too.
KDE is in the building mode this year. If you think of the software like a house, Frameworks is the foundation and framing. Of course it isn't like a house, since the dwelling we are constructing is made from familiar materials, but remade in a interactive, modular fashion. I'd better stop with the house metaphor before I take it too far, because the rooms (applications) will be familiar, yet updated. And we can't call the Plasma Next "paint", yet the face KDE will be showing the world in our software will be familiar yet completely updated as well.
However, this year will see the foundation for KDE's newest surge ahead in software, from the foundation to the roof, to use the house metaphor one more time. I really cannot wait to get there and start work on our next book, the Framework Recipe book (working title). Of course, travel is expensive, and most of us will come from all over the world. So once again, we're raising funds for the Randa Meetings, which will be the largest so far. The e.V. is a major sponsor, but this is one big gathering. We need community support. Please give generously here:
www.kde.org/fundraisers/randameetings2014/index.php
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