Attending Events and Blogging from the back row

It’s been pointed out to me that while I’m willing to endlessly type about such thrilling subjects as “Incomplete Ideas – Knoppix, UML and CDs in books” and Apache Logging directives I’m very lax about covering events, talks and workshops; or as it’s known, things people actually care about :)

Two good examples over the last few months have been EuroFoo and the UKUUG Linux Techcon in Leeds. I started out intending to blog at least some of the sessions at each conference but two things stopped me, the talks were too interesting and I felt rude.

Both UKUUG and EuroFoo (which I am immensely thankful to have been invited to) were full of interesting people and sessions, I don’t think I spent more than five minutes on my own at either event, there was always someone interesting to chat to about what they are working on or the contents of the last session. This constant activity stopped me taking any real notes or actually typing up the little I did write down while there and once I got back I decided to catch up on that pesky sleep.

The second reason is something I’ve mentioned on mailing lists before, if you are going to a session to listen to someone talk then shut up until the question session and TURN THE BLOODY LAPTOP OFF. I don’t want to hear you picking away at the keyboard and I really don’t want to hear you getting beeps from bash tab completion. If you NEED to use the laptop, and lets be honest you don’t, then either sit at the back not the front row, and turn off the speaker or sit in the main areas of the room. Politeness costs nothing.