[dot] Linux User and Developer Expo 2004, Floor Report and Award

[Dot Stories]

URL: http://dot.kde.org/1082665263/

From: George Wright <george.wright at kdemail.net>
Dept: irn-bru-rocks
Date: Thursday22/Apr/2004, @22:21

Linux User and Developer Expo 2004, Floor Report and Award
==========================================================

   On the 20th and 21st April, those of us in the UK were proud to
represent KDE at the Linux User and Developer Expo
[http://www.linuxuserexpo.com/] 2004 at London's Olympia exhibition
centre. Representatives
[http://www.geeksoc.org/~jr/2004-04-linux-user-expo/100_0856.JPG] were
Jonathan Riddell, Charles Samuels, Jeff Snyder, David Pashley, Malcolm
Hunter, Richard Moore and George Wright, although Malcolm and Richard
only came for the second day.

     The show started at 10:00am on the 20th, and the first hour or so
was spent getting to know each other, and demonstrating our shiny
hardware. Afterwards, we got stuck in to some admin. There was wireless
on the stall provided by Adelix network services, demonstrating their
content filtering system. We were not too impressed - upon trying to
access kde.org we received an "Access Denied!" message! IRC had also
been blocked, as well as many other services, so we had to use ssh
tunnels to be able to contact the outside world, and to be able to show
off our nifty site!

     SUSE had been kind enough to provide a demonstration machine for
us, running the press copy release of SUSE 9.1 Personal, and also
donated a lot of SUSE software for us to hand out - including a highly
sought after 2 CD set of SUSE 9.1 Personal! (which we kept for
ourselves...)

     There was lots of KDE merchandise on the stall, with KDE badges,
T-Shirts, polo shirts and countless other wearables
[http://www.kde.org/stuff/]. We also had 300 flyers to give to passers
by and Jonathan had his Irn Bru; we drank a lot of Irn Bru those two
days...

     After making the wireless network more usable we started to talk to
passers by, making sure that if they didn't use KDE now they would be in
the future! Lots of flyers were given out and we hopefully converted a
lot of people to KDE!

     At about 1:00pm we went to the pub
[http://www.geeksoc.org/~jr/2004-04-linux-user-expo/100_0857.JPG] to
have lunch - leaving David looking after the stand as a punishment for
being treacherous and devoting all his time to the Debian stand, and
were greeted with hostile words when we finally returned after an hour
or so. Jonathan took an LPI certification exam and we are still awaiting
the results.

     The main highlight of the day, however, was the prize giving
ceremony
[http://www.linuxuser.co.uk/expo/index.php?option=content&task=blogsection&id=8&Itemid=87]
that evening. Only Richard Moore was able to attend, but he picked up
the prize for category "Best Desktop Environment"
[http://www.kde.org/awards/] - beating Sun Java Desktop and Ximian
Gnome!

     The next day, therefore, we were heralded by a shiny glass plaque
[http://ktown.kde.org/~howells/award.JPG] stating our victory over the
Gnomes [http://www.geeksoc.org/~jr/2004-04-linux-user-expo/100_0853.JPG]
and we got back down to business. On the whole, the second day was
probably a lot more productive than the first with us being a lot more
interactive with passers by!

     At 5:00pm it was the end of the expo, with most of us heading off
to the pub except myself who had to rush back to school!

     Hopefully a few of us will be at aKademy
[http://conference2004.kde.org/] in August - I know I will be!
 -- George Wright