Its a week since the Desktop Summit 2011. But my euphoria wont subside. And my heart won’t return from Berlin.

I have always felt that the best part of my GSoC is getting to know the amazing Gnome Community, and the prospect of actually meeting everyone, was exciting. Plus, of course, Berlin.

When we first entered Humboldt University on August 6th, the grandeur of it - had us all blown away. Never before have I seen a university that has such a rich history to boast about. After all, Albert Einstein was from this place!

Through the first 4 days of the conference, apart from the plethora of new software and technology I was introduced to, more striking was the way people presented talks. Each slide had a story a tell, and the choice of background images was incredibly creative.

Some of my favorite talks were:

• Heart of Blingness: Clutter and GNOME 
• PulseAudio: Control and Command - State of Desktop Integration in GNOME & KDE
• Features follow function - design-driven development of GNOME Shell

Giving a lightning talk on my GSoC project during the intern showcase made me feel proud indeed! My slides can be found at http://goo.gl/NfgCm. The very concept of lightning talk - precise, and crisp, was so impressive. It is one thing I definitely would carry home, and implement.

Meeting the Gnome and KDE folks was fun, and I was able to connect names to faces at last! The interns lunch on the first day, the women’s dinner, and BOF’s provided plenty of opportunity to network. Though my mentor, invernizzi wasn’t there, it was awesome to meet Lionel Dricot (aka ploum), GTG developer, and co-intern Izidor :)

Roaming the city with friends, Karthik and Srishti was epic fun :) I was stunned by the exhaustive way Berlin was connected by rail and road. Just travelling in the metros, trams and double-decker buses was sheer pleasure. Karthik’s already blogged about our amusing tours aroung Berlin and what we learnt, so I wont do a repeat :)

And yes, Summit or city, learning aplenty. From small mannerisms like greeting people around you, to the art of making presentations and giving talks, each lesson was invaluable. Thanks Gnome, for sponsoring me :D

It is as if GSoC Coding Period just began, and so soon… Midterm evaluations are done!!! And my project on making GTG more backend friendly has come a long way too! Over the first 7 weeks I added two backends to Getting Things Gnome, Google Calendar and Google Tasks.

Being the first backend I wrote, I had few teething troubles with Google Calendar. A superb 101 on how the backends work from my mentor, invernizzi, sorted all that out :) The pre-existing Sync Engine and Generic Backend framework took care of everything amazingly well, and all I had to do was to use the Calendar API and implement the methods.

There were three major use-cases to implement in every backend - Adding, Updating and Deleting Tasks both ways. Over two weeks I had them all implemented and working smooth. So yeah, now you can schedule all your meetings, parties, conferences on GTG and get notified on Google Calendar, or the other way round :)

Next came Tasks. The Google Tasks API had just been released, and with so many eager requests for Tasks integration, I was all excited!

The Tasks API can be used in two ways - using REST directly or using the client library. I adopted the client library approach as it is similar to Calendar. The process of registering the app with Google API console, and obtaining keys for authentication was very interesting :)

Each task is a resource, and belongs to a TaskList. Right now, I have added support for sync with the default tasklist. A little more polishing on the authentication UI and support for multiple tasklists, should do it :)

The best thing that happened in the course of my GSoC was getting a mail from a GTG user, saying he loved the Tasks integration! Woah! Flattered, and inspired to better myself :D

I walked into the SSN College Central Library for the 32 Hour StartUp, a hack where both students and professionals came to create products in 32 hours, as an Organizer. Little did I know, it would all begin that day.

I met Yuvi Panda, a well known super-hacker in the Chennai geeks community who was Gnome GSoC student in 2010. In the 32 hours that ensued, affected by Yuvi’s contagious enthusiasm, and the hack’s environment, I had discovered the world of open source software, GSoC, and even created my very first app, with fellow Gnome student Karthik. Then there was no turning back.

Me, Madhumitha, an undergraduate student of Information Technology at Chennai, India. Me, someone fascinated by code, and now, a compelling desire to contribute to the open source world.

I picked Gnome Foundation as my organization, attracted by the simple, sleek and yet powerful desktop, and the added opportunity to apply for the Outreach Program for Women. The community I met in the days of preparing the proposal took me by awe. The #gtg channel on irc, with students and mentors, every ready to help became my abode! The support from my mentor, Luca Invernizzi, and Marina from the Outreach Program - ah! that reminds me!

I had a thrilling GSoC proposal submission. It was already April 8th 19:00 UTC. After series of updates, I was done submitting my proposal for Adding more backends to GTG, my favorite task manager app, and feeling proud of myself. Then, XChat buzzes. Marina says on #gnome-women that my proposal was not to be found at all. Further blow, madhuvishy: Status - withdrawn. Oh yeah! Heart attack!! But, in a matter of a few minutes marinaz and _ke had sorted it out with melange, and there, I resubmitted my proposal!! The channel celebrating our success, and Marina saying she had a heart attack too - was overwhelming. I fell in love with the Gnome Community.

Looking forward to the learnings that you can never get in a classroom, the networking with this wonderful community, and the joy of contributing to the world of Open Source.