This month was amazing: first Ubuntu Phones reached users, and so now we have feedbacks from actual customers, and we’re seeing platform growing.
If you have published any app on the Ubuntu Store you know what I’m talking about: in last two weeks there were a lot of new downloads by new users. In this moment [100 balls][100balls], a little game I published, has more than 1200 download by something like 1000 users (actually, 936).
If I think where we were [2 years ago][years], it all seems a miracle: community and Canonical are doing a great work together, and we finally reached the market with a real device, and others are coming. Wow!
Stats & VPS
Since this month, no more stats about how many visitors this blog has. I dropped CloudFare when I configured my own VPS, and I choose to don’t install any stats service/tracker/whatever
Donations
In April I received 5 euros in donations, and a lot of mails to support my contributions to opensource world. Thanks to all! It’s very important for me to see that my work is appreciated, and mails and donations are always a pleasure!
I also found a job as frontend developer - I’m happy because after a month I can say I find an equilibrium between job, Ubuntu and life, so I can continue contributing to the opensource world!
If you find valuable what I’m doing in Ubuntu, please consider to make me a donation :-)
What I did
April was a good month - first month of my first job, so it has been a bit strange, but I found also time for Ubuntu - let’s see what I did!
Calculator app
Finally we published the calculator app reboot to the store as default Ubuntu Phone calculator. It has been a long journey, and it’s far from the end! I hope you’re enjoying it: please, if you find any bug, report it. And if you have feedbacks, or you want to contribute to the development of the app, join us next week during the Ubuntu Developer Summit, we’re waiting you!
Browser app
Yay, good progress on this side! Settings page has been merged (if you are on vivid, you should have it), and then I worked on other four bugs (about suggestions list, supported webaddress and default size of the window) and mainly on the new tab - we changed a lot of things, and I improved the code.
Since the browser is one of the app I use more on the phone, I find important to develop it. Also, I’m learning a lot of things, thanks to oSoMoN who help me in development. Having mentors is one of the best things of the opensource world :-)
Oxide
Also, oSoMoN suggested me to start to contribute to Oxide.
Oxide makes it possible for developers to embed a Chromium-powered webview in their application
It’s a beast, (more than 6GB of code to download and compile on first run), but Olivier and Chris are helping me to make my first bugfix. I think I’ll learn a lot contributing to Oxide - it’s a C++ project without UI, and I like to develop without having to think to UI!
Have you ever thought about helping the Ubuntu development? There are a lot of things to do, and you don’t have to be a developer: we need translators, testers, promoters and so. Try to take a look [here][community], and, if you have any doubt, write me. I’ll be more than happy to address you to the right place to start to contribute.
Just think: two years ago, when I started to do things for Ubuntu Phone, I knew very little about developing world, and know I’m doing cool things that reach thousands of users. Wow!
Someone asked me how to start, well, I have no good suggestion: find something you like, and try to improve it. As soon as I’ve time I write a blog post with my story, maybe for someone could be useful: but remember, you have to create your own story, don’t copy others, it’s useless. Be yourself and try to change the world in your way :-)
If you like my work and want to support me, just send me a Thank you! by email or offer me a beer:-)
Ciao,
R.
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