Programming a computer is actually quite an intellectually stimulating way to spend time, you also usually end up with something to show for your labour. Getting into programming now though can be very confusing, there are so many computer languages out there, where would you start? An additional problem is that this is not the 1980s anymore, printing out “Hello World” ad infinitum is not going to impress anyone. This is where “Quickly" comes in, a new template based programming system making its first appearance in Ubuntu 9.10. It is designed to be easy and fun and is there to help you from getting an initial program together right through to distributing it.

Something I've been promising myself for a long time was to learn how to do packaging (the process of putting software into an Ubuntu supported installer format) properly and make use of the wonderful facilities provided by Launchpad that also include hosting and building package files for multiple architectures. The repository, called a Personal Package Archive (PPA) can be added to Ubuntu as a software source just like any other repository, and the files are even digitally signed so end users know they are getting the genuine article. I've put together packages before, but wanted to learn how to do it in a way that work with Launchpad as this seemed a much better way to facilitate the whole process. The PPA will be a home for various ideas I have for packages and also to some other package files for software I use but haven't found readily available on Ubuntu. Be warned some packages will be better than others! I will be announcing details of packages that I'm reasonably happy with here though.