When you first launch ChandlerQE for Android, it will ask for the Chandler Hub username and password. It will also try to automatically connect to the Hub to fetch your collections every time you change your username or password. The main UI consists of the title field, the content field, the collections list, and the send button. You can refresh your list of collections, and send notes to any of your collections.

This is also an experiment at doing something different in OSAF’s history. Even while OSAF had paid staff, there was ongoing discussion about how to make the foundation self-sustaining. The Apple AppStore and copycats have shown that people are willing to pay small amounts of money for mobile software. I proposed to OSAF that we try this out with ChandlerQE, and OSAF said yes. While ChandlerQE for Android is Open Source like everything else OSAF does, to download the installable package from Android Market or SlideME I am asking for a small fee. I will donate a percentage of the sales to OSAF.

You might also want to check out the initial release announcement.

Linux:

• Ubuntu Dapper Drake (tarball installs)
• Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon (deb install, using system python)

Windows:

• Windows XP

Macintosh:

• PPC Mac OS X “Tiger”
• Intel Mac OS X “Tiger”
• Intel Mac OS X “Leopard” (using system python)

Additionally Chandler may be built and may run in the following
configurations but is not officially supported/tested, although
we may fix issues if reported, especially if given patches:

Linux:

• Ubuntu Feisty Fawn (using system python)
• Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon 64-bit (using system python)
• Other Linux variants

Windows:

• Windows 2000
• Windows Vista

Macintosh:

• PPC Mac OS X “Panther”
• PPC Mac OS X “Leopard” (using system python)

We have identified 9 use cases that we are most interested in, and a handful of others we are paying some attention to. We are also automatically tracking how we are doing: the Tinderbox system runs these performance tests continuously and reports how we are doing against our targets and how the times change over time as we make changes.

What this means is that any CPIA script or parcel can do anything a regular user, and by extension Chandler, can do.

Please note that this is no different from the way Mozilla Firefox extensions work, for example. Once you start installing a Mozilla Firefox extension, it can do whatever it wants. In case it is malicious, bad things will happen.

There are several ways in which the Mozilla project mitigates these risks. First, most users will be installing extensions from the SSL-protected site addons.mozilla.org. Although there are no guarantees the extensions installed from there are not malicious, it is somewhat unlikely. It is possible to install extensions from other sites as well, but this requires more user action, which hopefully makes some people think about the implications of their actions, and will also discourage a fair number of people altogether. Finally there is a two second delay in the install dialog so that people won’t accidentally click the install button without having a chance to see it. The Mozilla project also supports signed extensions, but these are extremely rare due to the difficulty of the signing process.

The success of the Mozilla Firefox project, and at least as of yet the rarity of malicious extensions, seems like a good model to adopt for Chandler as well. Once 3rd party Chandler parcels start appearing we should provide a trusted site from which to search and download these parcels.

Finally, there is a way to limit the damage of potentially malicious Firefox extensions or Chandler parcels. Do not run the computer with root or administrator privileges.

Andi Vajda and I participated in Europython 2005 this summer. I gave a Chandler presentation, and Andi gave a presentation on PyLucene. Both were reasonably well attended.

I also did an M2Crypto sprint, and while I got a lot done there are still some loose ends before we can do the next M2Crypto release.

We met lots of interesting people and saw interesting presentations. There were some calendar projects presented that we obviously need to take a closer look at.

You can read more in my post to the dev mailing list in here.

I have also spared the last two days for an M2Crypto sprint. We are using M2Crypto in Chandler for the crypto/SSL stuff.

Andi Vajda is the other OSAF developer going to Europython. Andi is giving a talk on PyLucene. PyLucene will provide full text search for Chandler.

We’d be happy to talk with you about all Chandler-related stuff.

PS. My first ever blog post.