Eddie Monge Jr.

Someone once asked me why would people work on an open source project or a free project (as in they aren’t getting paid by anyone to do it). They wanted to create a community around these people but did not know them (weird idea to me, create something for someone you know nothing about). I have worked on a few of these projects and have a site going for one right now at http://www.myhtcphone.com

What’s my reasoning for doing this? For the site I am working on, a developer ported Android to my phone, HTC Vogue (Sprint Touch) and I was interested in it. I want to see what Android can do and based on early impressions, it is looking really good. Fast, responsive and seems like it could be almost infinitely expandable. That is something I am very interested in. I created the site and started making contributions to the community because I want to help further this project. I want to be able to do more on my phone and since Sprint won’t help me get there, I had to look to other fans who were taking a proactive stance. I wanted to be one of them.

Another reason I am working on this site is a monetary one. I have ads running on the site, and eventually I will put other money making systems in place to bring in some revenue. I am not looking into turning this into a cash cow though. I just want to bring in enough to cover server costs and future expansions and then, if there is anything left, give that back to the community. I want to be able to give something back to the people working on this as a thank you for their time. Maybe invest in a couple of test phones so they don’t have to use their own phones. I also want to do other things like that for this community that is working so hard on something no one else will pay them for …. yet at least.

So the reason I work on these projects is mostly to help something that is useful to me. If it isn’t available yet and I can use it/need it, then I want to help out. I want to make things that others will find useful. I want to be part of something that is greater than myself and where I feel I can actually make a contribution.

If you contribute to this type of project, what are your motivations?

Update for this article is now up at /*** http://www.eddiemonge.com/2009/07/02/scrolling-area…ng-ubuntu-8-10 ***/ It has been updated for version of Ubuntu including and greater than 8.10 and derivatives.

I reinstalled Ubuntu on my laptop recently because certain issues with my Vista install made me not want to trust it. I have had Ubuntu installed before on my laptop, but not for a few months. I really like Linux but need Windows sometimes for those few apps that don’t work too well in Wine. Overall, I have been happy with Linux on my laptop, with a few notable exceptions including:

• Can’t adjust the brightness on my laptop (will look into a fix later)
• Touchpad vertical scroll area was way too big. My laptop has a spot on the Touchpad dedicated to scrolling and Ubuntu recognized this, but doubled its size so it was on the other side of the line also
• Not as easy to connect a phone as a modem as it is in Windows. Windows it is literally plug and play. Linux has not been so easy

The first and third issues I will work out, if I can, but I felt the second one was a priority since at times my screen would scroll instead of moving the mouse around like I wanted it to. These are the steps I followed to fix this:

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