I should have blogged more about it, but I already suck at blogging (I have to improve this), and also the Internet connection was not really working well with my computer at the conference (now I’m using the hotel connection!). One world: AWESOME. My first GUADEC, and I’m really enjoying it. A lot of interesting [...]

Mozilla Labs has announced the winners of the Contacts Design Challenge, which posed the question to designers of "What are the interesting uses of having a complete list of all your contacts and relationships in your browser, for both local browser applications and services on the web?" The design concepts honored by the judging panel are great, and put forward many useful ideas. Go take a look and then come back here.

None of the design concepts quite addresses the use case that I've recently felt a need for, which is defining groups of contacts from multiple sources, to use within web applications.

Since I've started working remotely from home, I sometimes choose to go sit and work in one of several local coffee shops, for a change of scenery and some live interaction. I know a number of other remote and self-employed workers, who I know also work from coffee shops sometimes. It would be great if we could coordinate so that some of us are at the same coffee shop at the same time. There are web-based services like Foursquare and Yelp that support sending notifications about one's location. But I don't want to require all my coffee buddies to join yet another web service. Some of them are on Facebook, but I don't want to annoy my out-of-town Facebook friends with an update every time I visit a coffee shop. Some of them are on Twitter, but I don't want to end up on Please Rob Me by broadcasting to the universe that I'm not at home. For some of my contacts, I just have an email address, or a mobile phone number that I could send a text message to.

What I want is to not only have all my contacts from various sources aggregated, as in Toby Shorin's design concept, but to define groups of contacts, regardless of the source of the contact. Then, when I want to send an update to members of that group, the software automatically takes care of sending that update to each member of the group, in a way appropriate to the source of the contact. Better yet, sending to those groups should be available to web applications, so that I could tell Foursquare to notify my Coffee Buddies group, just as it currently can update my Facebook or Twitter accounts.

That's what I want. Now I just need to get Mozilla Labs to make it happen.

The FreeBSD Foundation's semi-annual Newsletter is now available. There's a lot of information in this edition, including:

AboutBSD launched recently as a new planet for aggregating *BSD blogs. The founder of the site describes the goals of the website as follows:

I'm starting to put together my presentation for SummerCamp 2010. The presentation will discuss how to get started in an open source community. Do you have any questions you would like to see covered in such a presentation?

The autumn conference season is starting to gel and the BSDA exam will be available at a number of events across the globe. The conferences we have confirmed so far include:

Jim Brown from the BSD Certification Group provides an update on the BSDP exam objectives. We hope to publish these by end of month or very early August, and need as many people as possible to review and comment on the draft before it is published. Jim writes:

The latest FreeBSD quarterly status report has updates on some of the GSoC projects. Lots of interesting functionality coming down the pipe. From the report:

Late this month, O'Reilly will publish Cooking for Geeks: Real Science, Great Hacks, and Good Food by Jeff Potter.

PC-BSD 8.1 has just been released. From the announcement:

The FreeBSD Foundation funds various projects each year and there are several interesting projects in progress:

I spent most of last week at the Mozilla Summit in Whistler, British Columbia. I'd like to have something pithy and insightful to say about it (because I hear that my reflections on conferences make my blog "come alive"), but mostly I am overwhelmed and speechless at the combination of people and technology that I experienced. The Mozilla Summit is an invitation-only event that brings together Mozilla employees, community leaders, and selected friends of Mozilla for three days of sharing, connecting, and planning. There were inspiring keynote speeches, mind-blowing demos, informative and productive breakout sessions, five-minute lightning sessions on a huge variety of topics, a "science fair" of even more demos, a "world expo" with over 30 locales represented, and fabulous food throughout.

Rather than try to express it myself, here are a few links related to the Summit:

• A video of one of the keynote demos. This video is a capture of the animation that was rendered in real time at the Summit, with live Flickr and Twitter feeds. The video unfortunately does not include the perfect tweet from @sheppy: Fairly sure some of this technology was stolen from crashed alien ships. It also demonstrates that in the world of new open web standards (HTML5/CSS3/WebGL/etc.) motion sickness is the new blink tag.


• Intern Brian Louie recaps day 3, including the breakout session that I helped lead on the future of the Mozilla Developer Network.


• Summary of the Summit by Channy Yun, a community member from South Korea.

Whistler is a year-round resort town, but it's best known for snow sports (despite disappointing snowfall for the Winter Olympics). It was refreshing to go to the top of Whistler mountain for the final night's dinner and party, and see snow in July:

Just as every industry and domain has specialized jargon, so too do organizations have unique terms for things, activities, and people. Here are some of the terms I'm encountering at Mozilla. This doesn't mean that they're unique to Mozilla, just that I haven't heard them before (or in the case of "awesome", nearly as much).

Chemspill

An emergency release of software, in response to a potentially negative event. This was originally coined with reference to security vulnerabilities, particularly when the hole is actively being exploited by bad guys. However, just recently, Firefox 3.6.6 was released as a chemspill to fix a poor choice for a default setting. This release came quick on the heels of Firefox 3.6.4, which introduced a feature to detect when a plug-in (such as the Flash player) is hanging. In 3.6.4, the default time to trigger this feature was set at 10 seconds, which was too short for many older computers, causing problems for a great many users who upgraded. Hence, a chemspill release of 3.6.6 was done in record time, to change the default to 45 seconds. (The value is configurable, but most users don't know (and shouldn't need to know) how to change it.)

Landing

When a code change is checked into the main trunk of the source control system, it is said to have "landed". I like the imagery of code as birds circling and descending to alight on the (code) tree.

Awesome

This word has the same basic meaning as in common, informal American English, but it's used much more frequently and enthusiastically within Mozilla culture than in the general population. It can range from indicating mild approval to expressing the highest praise, but tends to cluster on the upper end of that scale. Its use is almost always sincere and non-ironic, though it may carry a tinge of self-consciousness. In addition to its usual role as an adjective, "awesome" can also function as a mass noun as in "too much awesome" or "army of awesome". When the Firefox location bar (where you type URLs) was enhanced to support keyword searching and autocompletion based on history and bookmarking, the enhanced functionality was dubbed "the Awesome Bar" by developers, much to the consternation of localizers.

Sweating and sweating, I’m trying to get this post out… it’s 12 days that I can only use one hand: I dislocated my right shoulder, and will be like that for the next few days, wearing this tutor thing that keeps my arm blocked, and keeps me very well warm (not that in this period [...]

Now that we have a sense of the layout of Copenhagen and how to get here to start with, I want to get into moving about the city. I already talked a bit about the metro and regional train from the airport, but I'll dive a bit deeper now, as well as cover a few other ways to move about, namely buses, boats and bikes.

For assistance with figuring out what transport to use to get somewhere, you can use the handy travel planner service Rejseplanen. At the bottom of that site, you can click on either English or German. I use this site extensively to help me sort out how to get form point A to point B, especially if there are buses involved.

Metro and trains are operated by DSB. The bus system, including the harbor buses, is run by Movia. Unfortunately the English versions of these sites are fairly well useless, so if I need to make sure I can understand it better (I read a small amount of Danish), then I use Google Translate to read the Danish pages. Generally I have no use for those sites though, Rejseplanen will have what most travelers need.

OK, so we're going to look at:

• Tickets and Zones
• Metro
• Trains
• Buses
• Boats
• Taxis
• Bikes

Tickets and Zones

Aside from walking, the main way to get around the city for visitors is to use public transportation. There are three main beasts of burden: bus, train (tog in Danish), and metro. There is also a harbor bus which ferries people around the harbor. They all use the same ticket and zone system for rates.

To go to and from the airport you need a 3-zone ticket. Once you are in the city, you will only need a 2-zone ticket for regular travel, unless you are heading to the suburbs or farther out. I (and many Danes as well) find the zone numbering here confusing, though they have color-coded the zones to match the ticket you need which means you don't really need to count the zones yourself, just have the right color. If you are at all unsure, I'd recommend that you simply ask someone when you need to buy a ticket for some place further out than the blue zone on the map.

You can purchase tickets at machines or kiosks at all metro and train stations, at many kiosks around the city, or from a bus driver when you board. It should also be noted that the checking for valid tickets on trains is random, so you may ride and never be checked. Be warned that the fine for riding without a valid ticket is very hefty (750 DKK, $127, 100€), so don't chance it. The tickets are pretty cheap and it isn't worth dealing with a nasty fine.

Tickets
Billetter is the word for the single tickets and Klippekort are "clip cards" which have 10 trips on it and you punch off a trip each time you travel. If you aren't using transportation very much, you can buy single tickets at 23 DKK ($3.90, 3,10€) each for 2-zone tickets. Children aged 12-15 are 11,50 DKK ($1.95, 1,55€) and children under 12 travel free with an adult.

If you are going to be moving around a bit, then you owe it to yourself to get a klippekort instead. Not only does it save you money once you travel six times, but it is also very convenient to not have to stop and buy a ticket every time. An adult 2-zone klippekort is 135 DKK ($22.90, 18,10€) for 10 hour-long trips, children 12-15 cost 70 DKK ($11.90, 9,40€).

You can also buy a City Pass, which is unlimited travel in zones 1-4 for either 24 hours for 70 DKK ($11.90, 9,40€), or 72 hours for 180 DKK ($30.50, 24,15€). You'd have to do a lot of traveling in a day to make that worth it.

Here is a chart with all ticket prices and zones (in Danish: voksne = adults, børn = children).

Another option for tourists is the cOPENhagen Card. It gives you unlimited travel (for 24 or 72 hours) and also gains entrance to museums and tourist attractions. You have to purchase them online before you arrive in Copenhagen and they aren't that cheap, so unless you are really planning to see a lot of sites that cost money for entry, it isn't really worth it in my opinion.

Keep in mind that you can use the ticket for one hour from the time stamp, so if you are transferring between train, metro, or bus (regular or harbor), you don't need to stamp again unless you run out of time. On a bus, just show the driver your time stamp when boarding.

Klippekort
The trick with using klippekort is that you will need to punch your card at the start of each journey so that you get a time stamp. There are yellow card punches at every station, and at the entrance to all the buses. You slide the card in, face up, holding the top (the part with the zone number on it) in your hand so that the biggest number in the list is going into the machine. Hear a ka-chunk sound and pull the card out. It will have chopped off one of your trip numbers and added a time stamp.

One handy trick with klippekort is that you can stamp them multiple times. This can be used to pay for more than one person on a trip, or to cover more zones than the card's designation. Some examples:

• Two people traveling together within the city and one has a 2-zone klippekort. You can punch the card twice, once for yourself and once for your companion. If you are checked for a time stamp, just explain that you stamped for two people.
• You have a 2-zone klippekort and want to go to Klampenborg, which requires a 4-zone ticket. You can just punch your card twice and that will count for 4 zones now. This is not uncommon so you won't need to explain this to the conductor. They will just calculate it.

Metro

The metro in Copenhagen is great. It is relatively new, clean, and runs 24 hours a day. The main drawback is that since it is pretty new, there only two lines (see a map), and they are essentially the same line for half of the route. There just aren't that many stations. If you are used to a system like Paris or New York, then it will be shockingly small. That said, if you are headed anywhere near where the stops are, it is a fast, efficient way to get there. You can identify a metro station by seeing a big silver pylon with a maroon M on it, along with a system map.

The trains are completely automated (no people making them go), so they run 24 hours day. During the day they run every four minutes and in the wee hours they run every 15-20 minutes. (The four minute intervals alternate between the two lines, so if you are at a stop serviced by both lines, trains come every two minutes.) So, during the day, if you see the train pull in to the station and are tempted to break your neck running to make it, just chill out. Another train will be along momentarily.

The lines run together from the center (starting at Christianshavn) out to the west (Vanløse). The lines split after Christianshavn; the M1 goes to Vestamager (which is the line the Bella Center is on), and the M2 goes to the airport (Lufhavnen).

As mentioned previously, make sure you have a stamped ticket. If you have a klippekort, go to the yellow ticket punch thingy and get stamped. Conductors will randomly check passengers by coming through the trains, but they will also sometimes stop you when exiting the train at a station as well.

Trains (Tog)

I'm treating trains separately from metro because they are entirely different systems, although people will use them within the city too, and they all use the same ticket. There are two types of trains you will encounter: commuter trains and regional trains.

Commuter trains (S-Tog)
The S-Tog are the commuter trains in the Copenhagen area. They are clean and provide free wifi (once you take the time to set up your account, which can take a few minutes). They run very regularly from around 5am to midnight. During normal commuting hours, roughly 6am - 6pm, they run every 10 minutes. In the off hours they run every 20 minutes. Most of the time visitors will only use S-Tog if they are heading off for a destination out of the city, but there are a number of stops inside the city, the most important/used being Nørreport (where you can transfer to the Metro), København H (the central station by Tivoli), and Nordhavn (close to the cruise ship docks). (See a route map.)

In the summer of 2010 they are doing major track work on the E line between Svanemøllen and Hillerød, so if you are headed that way, check at the station, because most likely you'll need to get off and take a bus to finish your journey.

S-Tog stations are identified by a big red hexagon with a white S in it and tickets are the same as for the metro. You need a valid time-stamped ticket and you may get a spot check by a conductor walking through to make sure you do.

Regional trains
For most tourists, the only encounter with the regional trains in Denmark is coming or going to the airport by way of København H (central train station). Either that, or striking out to other areas of Denmark. If you are looking at a train schedule you will often see regional train numbers beginning with IC, or ØR for the regional between København H and Malmö, Sweden. Those aren't the only designations, but the ones you will most commonly see in the city.

Buses

Copenhagen has an extensive bus system. I normally shy away from buses in unknown places because it is harder to know where you are and when to get off. If you do take the time to sort out the buses though, particularly if you will have a regular route for a few days, you will be able to hop around the city quite freely. A number of buses in Copenhagen have a visual display of the name for the upcoming stop, which is super handy, though they aren't in all the buses.

On the street you can find bus stops by looking for a yellow pylon with the bus numbers for that route at the top. Regular buses run on roughly the same schedule as the trains, about 6am to midnight. The night (N) bus lines run in the off time.

The bus system has several different types of buses, which are designated by letters and associated colors.

• The regular lines, which are plain yellow buses and only have a number (e.g. 30).
• There are six A line routes (1A - 6A), which have a red stripe. These run every few minutes on the backbone routes through the city.
• The S (blue stripe) and E (green stripe) buses are express buses, with the S generally going further out in the suburbs. Unless you know where you are going and that the bus will stop where you need to, you may want to avoid the express buses.
• The last kind of bus is the N, or Night, bus. These routes are limited and only run in the middle of the night (about 1am - 5am), when regular bus service has stopped.

My general trick for using buses in unknown territory is to take the bus, look for the place I want to get off, watch it go by, get off at the next stop and walk back. If it is a route I'll use again, I'll pretty much know where to get off next time. If you are going to a major stop, like a big tourist attraction, or a metro/train/bus station, then you'll see lots of people get off and it will be more obvious just by looking around. Alternatively you can ask the bus driver when you board and often they can help you out.

Boats: Harbor bus (Havnebussen)

The Copenhagen harbor runs right through the city separating most of the city from Christianshavn and Amager. It is a clean harbor which provides beaches, kayaking, and a great view of the city. You can move up and down the harbor using the harbor buses, lines 901 and 902. There are six stops, from Nordre Toldbod to Det Kgl. Bibliotek (the Royal Library), and the total round trip takes about an hour.

Taxis

When all else fails, you can always take a taxi. This is probably the most common way to get home after a night of partying when you aren't close enough to stumble. It is also useful if you have walked your feet off all day, and you're tired and cranky. Taxis are fairly expensive, though not crazy. You'll normally pay about 60-100 DKK ($10-17, 8-13€) for a trip within the city, perhaps more if the traffic is bad and you are sitting around for a while. (Generally I find that traffic is not that bad here, even at rush hour, compared to other major cities I'm used to. Probably because so many people ride bikes.) Taxis will also take up to 2 bikes as well, for an extra charge of 20 DKK ($3.40, 2,70€) per bike.

Taxis readily take credit cards, so you don't need to worry about having spent your last kroner on beer. It is nice to tell them when you get in that you are going to use a card so they can run it through and not take so long when they drop you off. Tipping is minimal, so if you just round up the amount, that's fine, and giving 10% is damned nice.

Bikes (Cykler)

Most people who live in Copenhagen get around by bike. The city is designed for it, and drivers are used to looking for bikes. That doesn't mean you can abandon caution. You still always have to pay attention and look out for yourself, but at least it isn't the crazy fight for your life that it is in many cities. Using a bike is a great, inexpensive way to see a lot of the city and I'd definitely recommend it.

Many hotels provide bike rentals, and of course there are bike rental companies around the city. You can rent a bike for as little as 50 DKK ($8.50, 6,70€). There is also a city wide free program called Bycyklen. Bycyklen aren't the sexiest bikes out there, but for only a 20 DKK ($3.40, 2,70€) deposit you can ride the bike around as much as you need, then return it to a bycyklen rack and get your deposit back.

If you are going to hop on a bike in the city, make sure you watch other folks and follow basic traffic rules. Bike in the bike lanes, not on the sidewalk, and you should stick to the right of the bike lane (or the street if there is no designated lane), AKA out of the way. There can be heavy bike traffic in the city and people can get quite cranky if you are blocking them up from getting where they need go while you leisurely take in the city. You should not ride your bike in pedestrian areas (like Strøget) and you need to obey traffic lights as if you were a car. For safety as well following the rules, use hand signals to indicate when you are turning and use lights at night. You can (and will) be fined for not obeying traffic rules.

If you're new to Linux, good support can make all the difference between getting stuck, frustrated, and returning to Windows/Mac OS, and settling in to the happy day-to-day user experience that us habitual Linux users now take for granted. And that's an experience that you don't want to miss out on: life's too short to stress out about your computer's failings, it turns out.

When I switched to Ubuntu, I realised almost immediately that I could never go back to Windows. It made using my computer fun again. Gone were the boring maintenance chores and slow software that I had gotten used to; now, it was just me and the PC, and whatever I wanted to do with it. It took me a little time to get completely settled in but, after much exploration and experimentation, I found my comfort zone and haven't looked back since.

I wasn't alone on my journey from Windows to Ubuntu, though. I had good support: there were magazine articles, forum posts, online how-to guides and books. It's one book in particular that I'm writing about today, for the simple reason that I'm one of the co-authors!



The difficult 4th book

I've been a fan of Ubuntu for Non-Geeks for a while (in fact, I reviewed the 2nd edition and was the technical reviewer for the third edition). The writing style is friendly and easygoing, and the material is all about "regular" users, the people who aren't professional programmers or hard-core techies. That's in stark contrast to some of the "introductory" Linux books out there, which often can't resist the urge to include a chapter on configuring a webserver or six chapters on the command line*.

This time around, the guys at the publisher, No Starch Press, asked if I'd like to work with Rickford Grant in writing a new edition, updated for the release of Lucid Lynx. I jumped at the chance - I've been a member of the Ubuntu Documentation Team for a long time now, and any opportunity to help a wider audience get to grips with Ubuntu is just fine by me (Ubuntu for Non-Geeks has been a best-seller in its previous incarnations). It's a pretty extensive update, with a bunch of new chapters and appendices, and lots of reworkings of the existing material to make it easier to follow and relevant to the current release of Ubuntu.

How have we approached writing the book? Well, I think exploration is the key to getting along with Ubuntu. If you expect it to be exactly the same as Windows, then you're going to miss out on all of the best bits, and you're going to be disappointed. You need to really dig around in it, see what's on offer, and make the experience your own. Rickford and I want readers of Ubuntu for Non-Geeks to come away with a sense that they've connected with the Ubuntu world, that they "get" what it's all about. You can't do this by bombarding people with list upon list of dry instructions. Our approach was instead to concentrate on doing interesting things, tinkering with settings, working through cool little projects, and generally having some fun, whilst still covering everything that you need to actually use the computer.

Shiny new things

For me, the most important change is the addition of a chapter on working with the Ubuntu community. Interacting with other users adds another dimension to the Linux experience; if you ignore all of the community stuff and try to treat Ubuntu simply as a Windows replacement, you're not going to realise its full potential. Like very many people, I get so much out of being involved in the Ubuntu community, and I wanted to share that with our readers. Lots of other texts go into great detail about the history of Ubuntu and the structure of the community, but that's not so important in my eyes. The good stuff happens when you actually get involved, so it's that side of things that we covered. I defy you to find a book with a better introduction to Ubuntu's IRC channels and forums than ours!

Of course, there were plenty of other changes. There's a chapter devoted entirely to Linux gaming, for example. A chapter on getting Ubuntu to play nicely with Windows. A rather extensive troubleshooting chapter. Take a look at the table of contents (or even the index) to get a feel for what else is in there; I really hope you'll agree that there's a good selection of topics relevant to those just staring out, and plenty for more experienced users to chew over too.

Open Source It!

As I mentioned above, the main reason for my working on this book was the potential to help more people get into Ubuntu. I strongly believe that sharing widens participation, so I've released two of the appendices for your redistributing and remixing pleasure. Both are released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 license, but I'll be happy to discuss relicensing them if that's too restrictive for you. Here they are, in fancy printable PDF and source (plain text, with colour images) form:

Appendix A: Installing Ubuntu from a USB flash drive [PDF] [Source]
Appendix C: Manually partitioning your hard disk [PDF] [Source]

I'd love for someone to find something cool to do with these. I chose to release them because they stand alone well and because they cover valuable topics. Releasing a 30-page chapter on customising the desktop would have been nice, but it wouldn't have been as useful.

Where can I get the book?

An eBook is already available and the hard copy has been ready for pre-order for a few weeks, but It'll be available in stores in the US from Monday the 12th of July. The UK release should be a few days after. Amazon, Blackwell's, Waterstones and lots of other places will be carrying it. The RRP is US$34.95 / £27.97, but the usual suspects have it for less.

A few review copies are available too. If you're interested in reviewing the book, let me know (philbull AT gmail DOT com) and I'll try to get one for you. Oh, and if you or someone you know gets a copy, by whatever means, please let me know what you think! I'm keen to incorporate suggestions and feedback into the Ubuntu docs, and I'll be interested to hear your opinion anyway.

* There's a place for this stuff. It's not in a book that you're billing as an introduction for end users.

A lot of people come to Denmark through the Copenhagen airport (Københavns Lufthavne, airport code CPH). Whenever I arrive someplace new I always sort out how to get where I'm ultimately going, but it can be bewildering to figure out, especially if you're jet-lagged and really don't feel like thinking very much. So this post will try to help the weary traveler sort out what is going on when you arrive in Copenhagen and how to get to the city center in the smoothest manner possible. (Note that many of the links in this post go to pictures I took while in the airport to help give some visual clarity.)

Terminals

There are three terminals at CPH, with terminal 1 for domestic flights, and 2 and 3 for international. All three are connected so, while stretched out a bit, you can walk from one end to the other. There is also a shuttle that runs, but I've only ever walked since I always fly either terminal 2 or 3 and it isn't that horribly far. Terminal 3 has all the good stuff for getting into the city, and is also conveniently where international arrivals are funneled. This is the area I'll be talking about in this post.

Immigration (Border Control)

Unless you are arriving from a Schengen country, you will have to pass through immigration. I find that the border control here is very quick and even with long lines, you won't be standing around for long. Every time I've gone through all lanes are for all nationalities so you don't have to split based on who issues your passport, but just read the signs over the counter to be sure. Once you smile at the agent and they stamp your passport, you are free to roam the Kingdom of Denmark.

Customs

Well, before you roam the Kingdom, you'll probably want to pick up your bags. If you are traveling with only carry-on (which is the only way to travel IMHO) then you can leave the sorry suckers behind who are waiting for bags and go straight to customs. Customs here is not as big a deal as it is in the US, where each person is stopped and reviewed individually. Once you have your bags, just proceed to the exit. There are colored lanes for customs, with Blue for arrivals from EU countries, Green for nothing to declare, and Red for declaration. A typical traveler does not need to worry about declaring anything unless you are bringing in more than the maximum amount of liquor (1 liter spirits/4 liters wine/16 liters beer) or cigarettes (200), or items for sale. In the many, many times that I have walked through customs I have only seen a customs official standing there twice, and only once have I seen someone pulled aside to be checked. Pretty much just walk through and go on your merry way unless an official flags you down.

Get to the city

Ok, you are footloose and fancy free, but still in the airport. When you walk out of customs you will be greeted by a wall of people waiting for arrivals. Walk straight out beyond them and you will be in the heart of terminal 3. Here is a super short video which gives some orientation from the perspective from the arrivals area.

Trains
The airport is well connected to the city with public transportation. The end of one of the city metro lines terminates here and there is a regional train stop under terminal 3. All public transport in Copenhagen (metro, regional and commuter trains, and buses) use the same ticket and the same zone system for calculating fare. You can buy one ticket and then use whatever means you want to get where you are going.

The important thing to know when coming from the airport is that you will need to have a 3 zone ticket to get into the city. You can buy them at the DSB ticket office, which is located on your right and ahead as you walk straight out from the arrivals area, past the check-in counters. You can either walk up to the window and ask a person for what you need or use the ticket machines on the side. The window personnel all speak excellent English and know what ticket you need so it is the simplest way to go. If you walk up to the metro platform and you forgot to get your ticket in the terminal, there is a ticket machine right there as well, often with a DSB person hanging around to assist confused tourists.

All you need is a single 3 zone ticket (34,50 DKK / $5.80 / 4,60€) to get to the city. Children (børn) under the age of 12, accompanied by an adult, travel free. Children from 12 to 15 years old get a reduced rate ticket (23 DKK / $3.90 / 3,10€).

Your ticket will be time-stamped when issued and you can freely ride public transportation on that ticket for one hour, which is plenty of time to get where you need to in the city. If a conductor comes through the train asking for tickets, just show them the ticket and keep it. They aren't collecting them, just looking at the time stamped on them.

When deciding which to take, metro or train, you need to make sure that you know what station you are trying to get to. The metro and train lines only overlap at one station, Nørreport. If you need to go to the central train station, Københavns Hovedbanegård or København H, then you should take a train. Otherwise you are generally better off taking the metro instead. If you get on the wrong one, either way, you can go to Nørreport and then transfer to where you should be, but be aware that it isn't the easiest station to figure out where you are going, so best just stop and ask someone to help you out if you get yourself turned around.

Metro
The M2 metro line terminates at the airport. This is very handy since you don't have to worry about which train to get on. Just get on any train at the station and you will go the right direction. The M2 and the M1 lines merge together and essentially become just one line once you get to the center. The three stations in the center (København K) are Christianshavn, Kongens Nytorv, and Nørreport. If you need to get to a station on the M1 in Amager (south of the center), like Bella Center, you can transfer at Christianshavn station. Cross the platform and get a train that is going to Vestamager (not back to the airport, Lufthavnen).

Once you have your ticket, you need to get to the metro station. You will see an escalator which goes up one floor near the DSB office, conveniently labeled with a sign for the Metro. Go up the escalator (or elevator) and keep walking down the corridor. You will eventually end up on the metro platform. Get on a train and you are good to go. They depart every few minutes so if there isn't one waiting, one will arrive shortly. It takes about 15 minutes into the center, depending on which station you are headed to, of course.

Regional Train
To take the train, you will go down one level to the train tracks under terminal 3. The only important thing to watch for here is that you get on the Copenhagen train, not the Malmö train. When standing in front of the DSB office, looking at it, the Copenhagen train track is to your left. The Danish word for "track" is "spor." You want Spor 2 towards København H. It is clearly marked, so just read the signs.

Once on the track, just wait for the next train and board. You may have to wait for up to 20 minutes for the next train, but typically it is less than that. There are a number of stops on the way and the ride takes about 15 minutes. Obviously København H is a big stop and a lot of people get off there. They will also make an announcement in English as they get close to the station.

Taxis
I am normally a big taxi person, especially when I first arrive somewhere new. Taxis will obviously be more expensive and with the great train and metro service at the airport, they aren't necessarily any faster. I haven't used a taxi from the airport since my first visit. Sometimes if I have a lot of crap with me or I'm headed away from public transport, I'll take the train into the center and then catch a cab from there to reduce the overall cost. If you are headed somewhere off the beaten path of the train/metro, or you are too tired to think at all, then taxi is the way to go.

Once you walk past the wall of greeting people, go to the right and you will see a revolving door which leads to the taxi stand. Taxis here take credit cards, so you don't have to worry about getting cash before hopping in. Of course the price will vary but, on average, the cost for a ride into the city center will be around 240-280 DKK ($40-$47, 32€-37€). You don't have to tip, but it is nice to at least round up the amount.

Other Tidbits

A few other things that can be handy to know around terminal 3:

• There is an ATM outside the arrival area. It is a Nordea bank machine, located all the way to the left as you come out of customs, at the beginning of the corridor to terminal 2.
• There is an information booth to the left when you walk out of customs. If you are dazed and confused, go there and they will get you set in the right direction.
• If you need a coffee fix, there is a Starbucks all the way to the right from the arrival area. I point this out, in particular, because there are only two Starbucks in all of Denmark and they are both located right here in the airport. One is behind security and the other one is publicly available outside of arrivals. That's it. So if you need to get your Starbucks fix, you best get it now. If you don't have to have Starbucks, there is also a Baresso up on the left, which is the largest coffee shop chain in Denmark.

I recently wanted to do some quick vector image work, which I haven't really needed to do in quite a while. I am by no means a graphics person and certainly not a power-user. I just need to do some of the basics occasionally, preferably without getting totally overwhelmed. I limped along for a while when I first got a Mac using my beloved linux apps, Gimp and Inkscape, which I used for years previously, but I really can't stand using X11 on a Mac; really, it makes me a bit batty. A while ago I ended up buying Pixelmator to replace Gimp and I've been pretty happy with it. It satisfies most of my minimal graphics needs, but I never got around to finding a decent vector editor, and sometimes you just need vector. Today I ended up doing a quick search on The Google and asked for recommendations through Twitter. My criteria are pretty simple: under $100, native Mac app, and simple enough for me to get a basic project done without reading a whole damned manual. I ended up downloading four apps to try out:

• DrawIt ($38)
• EazyDraw ($95)
• VectorDesigner ($70)
• ZeusDraw ($90)

My project was to create a simple floor plan of the Copenhagen airport that I want to use as a graphic in a post about getting into Copenhagen – not complicated stuff. It requires drawing lines, some boxes, arrows, and text. One of my requirements is to make a rectangle and then rotate it to an angle to fit along one of my diagonal lines. That doesn't sound complicated but it ended up be an hurdle in almost all of the apps. I popped open each app, didn't read any instructions and just tried to get the basics of my floorplan set up to see how it went. I spent about 5-10 minutes per app. No extensive review here, but here are my first impressions, along with the one I ended up buying.

DrawIt is the cheapest of the ones I looked at, so was of course of high interest to me. The toolbar is pretty sparse and just getting started I couldn't view a grid background on the canvas, which I wanted to help me draw my lines right. Then when I went to draw my outline I couldn't sort out how to close the path. Finally I saw a check box for that, but I wasted a good amount of time generally drawing spurious paths. Another thing that just sort of confused me was when selecting fill color, there was no option for "none" or "transparent." If you close the panel for that attribute, then it just turns black. I never did sort out what was going on there. Overall, I just felt like things were set up oddly and therefor very limiting for me. I could probably make it work for me, especially since it is the cheapest, but I really didn't want to take time trying to figure it all out.

EazyDraw has a pretty ugly website, especially considering this is a graphics app. This is also the most expensive app in the pack. The default interface has lots of things with big icons, but for my level of experience (practically none) it is nice to just see the things I can do and click them. I figured out how to use this one quickly. Definitely felt like I could get up and running and take care of the main kinds of tasks I would need it for.

VectorDesigner was the most recommended app and is priced between the cheapest and more expensive ones. Things went fairly smoothly but for the life of me I couldn't figure out how to rotate my rectangle. After glaring at it for a while, I realized that there is a little status bar at the bottom of the workspace which gives you helpful hints on how to do things, in context of what tool you are using. Ah. Not intuitive, but once I saw that, I could see how to rotate (hold the command key down). Would be nice if there were menu items for that stuff since that is where I end up clicking around to figure out what I can do. That said, most things made sense once I spent a few minutes with it and I generally liked the default interface best.

ZeusDraw is up at the top with EazyDraw price-wise. The interface is all greyscale, which I guess some graphicy people may like so that it doesn't distract from the canvas, but I wasn't a big fan. I didn't get far with this one at all. I created the outline for the floorplan and wanted to edit the path points to adjust it a bit. I couldn't even figure out how to do that, so I never got to the rotating rectangle. Definitely my least favorite of the four.

So, at the end of the day, I chose VectorDesigner. It wasn't quite as stupid simple for me to get up and running as EazyDraw, but it wasn't much harder to figure out (especially once I saw that status bar thingy). It is cheaper and I like the interface more than EazyDraw as well. After playing around with it for another 30 minutes or so, I was sold that it was good enough for my needs.

O'Reilly recently published the 25th anniversary edition of Steven Levy's Hackers, Heroes of the Computer Revolution. This edition contains the original 1984 work, an update added in 1993, and an update added in May, 2010.

Mozilla Hacks is Mozilla-run blog for developers that highlights innovative uses of Firefox and the open web. I've posted my first entry, Help us set priorities for docs. As I mention in the post, Mozilla is planning to start doing doc sprints to improve the developer-oriented content on the Mozilla Developer Network site. So we're soliciting input from the developer community on what their greatest documentation needs are.

It's exciting for me as a techwriter to be able to get direct feedback from members of the documentation audience, and not have to go through intermediaries such as support, consulting, or sales. I no longer have to guess about what they want, because, believe me, they are more than willing to express themselves! Votes are already pouring in to the Dev Doc Priorities forum. Users have 10 votes, which they can spread around multiple topics, or pile them all on one. As I write this, "Multithreading in JavaScript" is in the lead, but "HTML Reference" is only a few votes behind.