FOSDEM friends

Well, I forgot to mention something in my previous entry, but better later than never.

My new friend Rob (aka hyakuhei - he's a gentoo developer), found his laptop broken while we were at Fosdem.

Saturday, the first day of conference began really nicely. We met new people, had crepes, and all was nice and good. Rob left his laptop in his backpack in Gentoo dev room, but when he came back - his backpack was moved and laptop's screen was broken.

So, as a result, Rob had all conference covered by a dark cloud of bummer and unhappiness, as not only he uses his laptop for coding, but since he currently lives in Switzerland and his family/fiancee are still in UK, its his main contact line with them.

Rob, I hope you feel a little better now anyways (even that I know you haven't your computer fixed yet), and that everything will work out for you.

Now, to you all: Please Help Rob To Fix The Laptop Broken At Fosdem !! So, click here to get to his blog and then click on a PayPal link to help out with few bucks. It will be sincerely appreciated.

If you don't have the means or a will to do so, please ask your friends who might.

Rob will also establish a website for easier process.

Thanks on behalf of Rob to all of you who help out either way.

FOSDEM event

Oh my.

I officially declare: FOSDEM 07 was awesome!!

I was not really sure I want to come anyways. Too much stress, expensive, all the logistics - all seemed too much for me.

But, for my own surprise, it came out much better that I'd thought it would. Everyone was some amazingly helpful, that I had one of the greatest experiences in my life.

First, when I came, Patrick (bonsaikitten) was kind enough to meet me and help me out around Brussels. Greatest thanks for that Patrick!!

When I came, he already met another Gentoo developer - Rob (or handsome Rob, as other dev calls him) aka hyakuhei. We went wandering around tourist area of Brussels. After we had some junkfood, we went straight to the Friday Beer event - a bar, which was exploded by a geeks storm. There were like couple of hundred geeks in fairly small area, so me and Rob left after awhile cause we were sorta dead tired.

We went to a hostel, where it took time until I got a bed to sleep in (thanks to diox for help with a hostel btw), and I crushed.

Next day was the first day of the conference itself. It was amazing. First, I finally met christel who remembered who I am and was sincerely happy to meet me. After we had listened a lecture from an OLPC guy, we (as in christel, Rob, Stephen - spb and myself) went to find something to eat. We finished up in crepes place and had a crepes and coffee.

After that I met many other devs I've been talking to in IRC before, and it was actually really cool to finally meet people in person.

Then, I went to overblown lecture on OpenMoko by Sean Moss-Pultz. It was great, and everyone in the lecture room was ready to get this Neo phone immediately.

Then, it was a Gentoo's panel with council, and then it was restaurant dinner with all the developers who came to FOSDEM and some other users/guests (including myself and Q-collective, another userrep).

I had a little argument with Danny (kugelfang, one of the council members) about the best ways of teaching physics, as I have my BA in this and he's on his way to diploma (equivalent to Masters).

Then, we went with few devs to have a beer, as Rob said he owns one to phreak (a dev who was his mentor and recruter). It was cool. Rob went to make some pictures, but it was too cold, so we went back to the hostel.

Then I came back to a hostel and crushed again, as I was tired. But before I actually could go to sleep, I found that latest update for dbus completely broke gtk-based everything (and that includes Gnome), so I was like with laptop but without X. Guess what do geeks at 2am in one room with non-operational laptop? Trying to fix it.

Thanks to genstef and full room of other people I don't remember (drop me a note if you've fixed someone's laptop at 2am Saturday night and I'll fill your name here :-) ) for at least finding a problem :-)

So Sunday was a sort of fun, as I only went to a Mike's (vapier) lecture on a council thing, and embedded, and christel's one on gentoo community, after which we with Rob had to go, because we had our flights home.

So we parted everyone, and off home we went.

It was awesomely best social event I've been at in ages, and I'm so happy I met all these cool people.

So, thanks to bonsaikitten for meeting me (oh, and Patrick - congrats on getting that PhD thing, I wanted to have a toast for that but forgot completely), Rob (hyakuhei), Christel, nattfodd, genstef, diox and many others for having me there and making me feel like I'm one of you.

I'm very appreciative for that.

I'll have photos posted as soon as I can.

Gentoo, FOSDEM07 and stuff

Well, after not being successfully able to orginize the trip with work, I'm almost decided to go by my own.

So its now 85% chance that I'll be at Fosdem!! I've talked with diox (who's organizing things on Gentoo's part), and I might get help with accommodation, which would be totally awesome!! And then I'll be at the event itself and I hope that I'll catch that beer Friday as well.

As to a more Gentoo-related things, I've been asked by Steve to help him out running this very planet, which I agreed (for a time being at least for foreseeable future). So, until we update the site with our details, you can talk to me if you're experiencing problem with our world.

So, all seem good, some userreps answered my wake up call, and I hope to get us back in short time.

Have a great time all!

Coming back

Phew!

For a looong time I haven't written anything in my blog. There are multiple reasons for that, mainly being sick a little, and holidays.

But now I'm starting to feel the urge. Writing is calling me, and I have to restate myself for that.

So, first of all - Userreps Project, which seems to be in deep deep deep hibernation is not dead. We (me and few others) had a talk about it, and decided that project lives on, and we will just get back on track with the resources we have. And then, we hope it will go smoothly.

There is also one more pleasant note for myself: I might go to FOSDEM conference!! I can meet Gentoo devs at last. So if you're a dev and reading this and don't want to see me - let me know as soon as possible. Then we can arrange something to not to bump into each other :-)

So, the new year started 1.5 months ago, and I haven't been active on Gentoo front. I sure hope it is temporal. I'm getting a laptop from work (with Windaews. yikes) in a few days, which should make me much more mobile than I'm now, so I could be more productive.

So, have a nice year everyone and we will push it forward!!