One of the items from the KDE swag I got at aKademy 2007 in Glasgow was a large KDE logo sticker. Since I don’t have my own car and I couldn’t convince my father to put it on his car the sticker was just laying somewhere around the house. Until this day… Today I gave the sticker to my cousin Matej and a few moments ago he proudly put it onto his snowboard (Elan Prodigy 152). I hope the sticker is snow-resistant enough to stay on the snowboard for as long as possible. Can’t compare with Mark Kretschmann getting an Amarok tattto, but it is still a great way of promoting KDE on sunny Vogel and at other Slovenian ski centres. Anyway, you can see the pictures on KDE-Look.org.

Tags: kde, community, promotion, snowboarding, snowboard, elan

For the last couple of weeks I’ve been very busy. Like many other people all around the world I’ve also been working hard to make the first release of KDE 4 series as good as possible. About three hours ago KDE 4.0.0 has finally been tagged and is now getting ready to be officially released on January 11th.

In addition to occasional bug fix here and there I’ve mostly been testing and reporting bugs. But by far the largest part of my contribution to this release is translation into Slovenian language. Our team managed to get 63% of KDE 4.0.0 translated into Slovenian. Not bad at all for our small country and small team. We currently hold 23rd place on the list of top translation teams.

I’ve been using pre-4.0.0 KDE as my main desktop ever since our KDE Education metting in Pariz in the beginning of December. During this past month it was improving very fast and was usable just fine. Sure there were a few features and settings missing (and still are in the final version), but nothing that big. There are also some rough edges and a few bugs left, either known or still hidding, but that can be expected for a release with so many changes all around. There is already a lot to like about this new series of KDE 4 and what I like the most in KDE 4.0 is the new gorgeous artwork (icons, widget style, sounds), the idea behind Plasma desktop shell and the cool new applications (like Okular, Gwenview, new games, new educational applications). And with such a solid foundation in place we can expect a lot more cool stuff in the future.

While you are waiting for your favourite distribution to provide packages of KDE 4.0.0 and before you go writing a review about it, be sure to read these two blog posts: talking bluntly, KDE 4.0 Review Reminders and this podcast: The Linux Linux Tech Show - Episode 226. And remember, KDE 4.0.0 is not for everyone. It is for those who like cool new technology and who like living on the bleeding edge. It is also for you if you are an active user of software and not just a passive user. Now is a great time to help change the history and help make the dream become true. In any case KDE 3.5 is still here and it is still an excellent desktop environment and no one will force you to start using KDE 4.0. It’s all your choice.

Tags: kde, kde4, desktop, translation, slovenia, free software, open source, linux