Ohio PodGeekFest 2008
Pat just alerted me to the fact that the first ever PodCamp Ohio is on the same day as the 36th annual ComFest weekend! As usual, FreeGeek Columbus expects to have a table at ComFest, at which I'd like to volunteer some time: it's always fun to interact with the public, explain the FreeGeek principles, and advocate responsible computer recycling. As most folks know, I volunteered for ComFest in 2006 and again in 2007. I served beer both times, and had so much fun that I signed up for two shifts this year!
That means that I'll have a very busy weekend: slinging beer Friday, June 27 from 8 to midnight at the Jazz bar, up early for PodCamp Ohio on Saturday, June 28. Hopefully I can sneak in a quick nap and then an hour or so at the FreeGeek booth. Finally, more beer slinging at the Jazz bar Saturday night from 8 to midnight.
Things are complicated even more this year because I expect a delegation of Habari folks to show up for PodCamp Ohio, and staff a table there (Habari is a gold sponsor of the event!). Hopefully we can all meet up Friday afternoon for some socializing before I dash off to quench the thirst of thousands of ComFest attendees. And hopefully my Habari friends won't vote me off the island when I disappear again on Saturday night to dispense more beer! Actually, I hope that my Habari friends will join me at ComFest, an original Columbus event, and enjoy all the free music and good times.
So, whatever your pleasures might be, there's a strong chance Columbus can satisfy you on the last weekend of June, 2008. ComFest runs Friday, Saturday and Sunday and is always a good time. Look for me at the Jazz bar on Friday and Saturday night! PodCamp Ohio runs morning and afternoon on Saturday, June 28, and should be a great opportunity to learn about blogging, podcasting, and social media -- as well as provide an excellent chance to meet folks passionate about these things. If you're going, look for me at the Habari table! Finally, if you're going to ComFest, look for the FreeGeek Columbus booth and tell them I said hi!
April Fool's Day 2008
Yesterday was April Fool's Day. On the whole, I didn't see too many really funny gags. My favorite was the Dog to Unicorn Transformation Kit, though a close second was an email from the Electronic Frontier Foundation announcing that the administrator account credentials for the Wikileaks website had been published to Wikileaks. The irony of that made me laugh out loud.
As usual, I procrastinated until the absolute last minute on my own April Fool's joke. With help from the gang in #habari on irc.freenode.net, we quickly put together a website for the first annual HabariCon conference. It was fun to post blog entries to that site in an attempt to make it at least plausible that this really had been in the works for some months, though I don't think any of us had any expectation that we'd actually fool anyone. (Though we were sufficiently convincing to at least make people think twice!) Special kudos to miklb for the site themes, and so many of the graphics! Thanks also to Caius and Arthus for sponsor logos.
We set up a Twitter account for HabariCon, and the group in #habari made a point to post to Twitter throughout the day to keep up the ruse. I think it was probably more fun for us to do than for anyone to watch. :) The presentations were particularly fun to brainstorm, as we made a specific point to prepare sessions that were absolutely antithetical to the Habari community model we espouse.
In the process, I registered the iPony.org domain name for our fictitious Platinum Sponsor, and am now left wondering what I'll do with it. I'm sure something will come to me.
I expect I'll leave the HabariCon and iPony sites online for a few more days before making archive snapshots of them. We do hope to have an official HabariCon at some point in the future, but the official domain for that endeavour will be at .org, and not .com.
HabariCon 2008
I'm heading off to the iPony headquarters in just a few minutes to get the registration table ready for today's big conference. I can't believe I haven't blogged about this before!
Today is the first annual HabariCon, "the Habari convention uniting the user and developer communities in friendship and collaboration"!
This should be a fantastic event, and although I'm a little disappointed that registrations closed so quickly, I'm excited that so many people were able to confirm their attendance so early! If you weren't able to register, don't worry: we'll have plenty of updates throughout the day, and we'll be sure to post final details about tonight's party as soon as we know them.
Today's presentations are supposed to be recorded, so we'll make sure we do all we can to get the session audio online as quickly as possible so that everyone can follow along at home!
Habari 0.4
We put the final touches on Habari 0.4 tonight, and officially released it. Download Habari 0.4 and let us know what you think!
There are some pretty substantial improvements in this version of Habari. We've improved the installer, so that more people should have less trouble installing the software; and if they do have trouble they should hopefully get useful information as to why. We have some great new media management solutions, including an integrated Flickr browser, as well as the ability to record Viddler videos directly from within your Habari installation. There are obviously a lot of under-the-hood improvements to the code, as well as a strong foundation for a robust permission system (I've been working on this aspect quite a lot lately, and I'm eager to see it come to fruition in the 0.5 release!). You can review the 0.4 release notes for the overview of important changes, or peruse the changelog for a complete list of modifications.
This release represents the hard work and contributions of a lot of people! The Habari community has grown considerably in the last few months, as more and more people take it for a test drive and then help us smooth out the rough edges. I am delighted that so many people are taking the time to contribute to Habari, and it is this, I think, that is Habari's greatest improvement thus far.
OLF 2007
The 2007 Ohio LinuxFest was great, as expected. Registration numbers were a little lower than last year, and the number of folks who actually checked in was demonstrably smaller than those actually present: just under 1 thousand people checked in, but we had at least half as many more actually walking around the conference.
I worked the check-in desk most of the day. A handful of volunteers -- including my dad -- provided check-in assistance with me. Check-ins were smooth and uneventful for everyone. The vendor booths were well trafficked, and there were a lot of freebies being given away this year. All of the people I spoke with said that the presentations were at least as good as they expected, so I think overall we did a fine job organizing the event.
The only session I attended was Chris J. Davis' Great Code Come From Great Community. Chris provided a quick overview of the various project management models used by most Open Source projects, and concluded that the meritocracy model represented the best choice in terms of community involvement, positive leadership, and overall project health. His presentation was, by design, considerably shorter than the time allotted to him. Chris used the remaining time to engage the audience in a discussion about the concepts he presented, and he asked both Owen and I to join him at the front of the room to help answer questions. The questions asked were very good, and I think the audience was very receptive to the benefits of the meritocracy model.
I spent most of the day at the check-in table, while the others spent most of the day at the Habari table, in the Dot Org section of the vendor tables. From my seat at the check-in table, I saw a steady stream of people asking questions at the Habari table, and from what I learned from Sean, Chris and Owen, most people were pretty interested in it. A few people were looking for new tools in reaction to dissatisfaction with whatever they were currently using; and a few people were passionately against blogging in general. We gave out all of the shirts Owen brought with him, as well as many of the cards Owen produced. I admit that on Saturday morning I wasn't entirely sure that many people would stop by to learn about our project. All in all, the table was a great way to generate interest in Habari!
Of course, OLF was just one part of the weekend! Friday afternoon Sean and his wife joined me for lunch, and a quick tour of the OSU campus. Late Friday night I took Owen and Chris to Club Diversity for a round of chocolate martinis. We had the traditional OLF lunch on Saturday at Bucca di Beppo (although we did not get the Pope Room), and we had dinner after the fest at Barley's. We spent about an hour at the Google-sponsored party after the close of OLF, but we were driven away by the nerdcore rap of Dual Core. The rap itself wasn't bad, it just wasn't at all the kind of thing we were expecting. I invited Sean, his wife, Chris and Owen to retire to my house, were we stayed up late chatting and playing a little Wii.
It was wonderful to meet Sean and his wife, and it was a treat to see Chris and Owen again. I'm energized to continue to work on Habari, and I'm hopeful that some of the folks we met this weekend will pop up on our mailing lists!
You can see Sean's photos of the weekend at his Ohio LinuxFest 2007 Flickr set.
