Re: KFest 2009 Report

[Kirk Mitchell <kirkmitchell@gmail.com>]

Whew!  Busy day!  Crashed at around 2 AM, but got to sleep in until
about 8:30 AM since the power had gone out, and the kitchen needed the
extra time to cook breakfast at 9 AM.

Ryan did a session on geocaching.  Very interesting.  He offered a
prize to whoever could find a cache close to the campus, and Tony Diaz
found it almost before the session was over.  What a hoot!

Ivan Drucker is a very dynamic guy, and presented a session on the
rare Apple //e card for Mac LC's.  I'd had a chance to play with one
that my school district got more than a decade ago, but Ivan did a
great job going over the strengths it had, over and above a standard //
e.  Great session!

After lunch, Ferdinand Meyer-Hermann presented a session on Apple II
double scanning...  This guy knows his stuff!  VGA via Apple IIc and a
lot of other stuff that pressed the time available for his
presentation.

Ken Gagne showed some videos of the highlights of Woz's adventures in
dancing.  St. Woz has big cajones.  I'm glad he did it, but I hate
reality TV so never watch the stuff.  I think he lost a lot of weight
since the last time we met, so maybe I should take up dancing.  B-{)=

Sheppy announced the arrival of Sweet 16 v.2.0, full of great new
features.  Found a bug while demonstrating it too.  Sheppy joins the
ranks with Bill Gates today.  He continued with a demonstration of
what programming the toolbox involves, complete with sample code.  I
actually followed it attentively.  Only nodded off during Ryan's
sessions.  B-{)=

Hmmm....  I should mention this to future virgin KFest session
presenters...  I've done 4 sessions myself, and there are always going
to be a few folks relaxing their eyes during your exciting
presentation.  Don't be insulted or concerned.  It's the nature of
KFest.  Be happy they crawled out of a state of unconsciousness and
made it to your session.  B-{)=

After dinner, Ryan presented a fantastic session on how GS users can
take advantage of the Web API's and mobile devices web sites that are
now offered.  We all know that the GS can't handle wildly graphic
oriented websites, but we CAN piggy back on the much leaner mobile
devices websites now becoming much more common.  He demonstrated his
IItter NDA, which is a Twitter client for the GS, and a Stock Quote
CDA that use the API's of various services.  He's even offering source
code for the CDA as public domain.  He's my hero!  He's also my room
mate here at KFest, and is holding a broken beer bottle to my throat.
(just kidding!)

Paul Zaleski bravely demonstrated how to upgrade a Mac Mini's memory
and hard drive capacity during his session.  He made it look easy, but
I know I'd break something attempting the same.  I'm tempted though.
It'd make a great Home Theater computer...  Thanks, Paul!

Ryan (of A2unplugged podcast fame) provided our crew with Krispy Kreme
donuts and milk, for some strange reason.  Of course, I got to spend
the hour driving the 15 mile round trip listening to his GPS shouting
"Turn right... turn right" when I had to go left.  And go totally
silent when I went straight, when I should have gone right...  Friggin
technology.  Good donuts though.

The halls were busy.  Really busy.  Stuff is brewing in the air.  I
saw things you wouldn't believe.  And I'm not even going to attempt
it.  You just have to be here.  And you're not.  Why not?  I dunno...
I probably should have skipped that last glass of wine though...

The night is young... and I'm not.  Time to wander about again.

Wish you were here.

Take care!