September 19th was the Atlanta Linux Fest, which had about 700+ people show up – don’t quote me though, there were a lot of different head-counts being tweeted that day. That number sounds great, but it’s nothing in comparison to the once great Atlanta Linux Showcase that was started by my LUG, Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts. With that selfless promotion out of the way, it looks like ALF has a great start to making the city of Atlanta a hot spot for FOSS conventions in the future.  It was a tiring day, but I think Nick and Josh from the Ubuntu Podcast will continue to run this event for years to come.  I’m not certain if there were other folks or organizations that started this, but Nick and Josh were certainly considered the poster children for it.

This was my first convention and because of my impulsiveness – I experienced the event in a slightly different way. As I registered for the event, I saw the option to “volunteer”.  I thought to myself, “What better way of jumping into this event.  See the front and back end of it all.”  With that said, I only attended one workshop (Running an Open Source Business, presented by Tarus Balog of OpenNMS) and their was an in-prompt-to entrepreneur meetup. Overall; I had fun. Next time, though, I will register as a regular-folk and attend as much workshops as possible. It was amazing seeing fellow geeks huddled in one area with a common goal of being themselves and talking about what we love – free and open source software.

My wife, @fossthreads [identica] [twitter], was a vendor at the event and just as luck would have it – the Fedora booth was right next to us! Sweet! I didn’t talk to them much though… I was too busy. Now don’t get me wrong, the STAFF of the event didn’t hold me at gun point telling me to “do this” and “do that.” I really did volunteer, sacrificing the experience of the workshops for the experience of helping to operate, hopefully, one of many-to-come Linux-related conventions. I was actually falling asleep in the workshop I did attend, but that’s only because I was very tired at that point in the day.

The Unsortable List

I was very excited when I reached the venue. I got my ALF t-shirt, badge, and asked them what they wanted me to do. They asked me to greet the folks and let them know there were four places at the front desk where they could sign in. Later on it was apparent that the IBM facility had a WiFi connection, but a lot of people didn’t know how to connect.  I asked someone about it and they said they have a list and folks that preregistered get their own username/password. I said, “Awesome! Can I have a list?” They gave me one and I walked around (for about 5 minutes) like a big shot!  Thank the maker – that no one asked me for any WiFi information.  As I looked through the list to get myself familiar with it, I realized that this particular spreadsheet was sorted by registration date! What!? I don’t even remember when I registered.  It was about 6 – 8 pages and after 2 minutes of searching, I couldn’t even find myself on the list.  Who printed that sheet!? It must have been a joke.

Micro-blogging

One of the most exciting aspects of the day was tweeting about it while I was dead in the middle of it.  When I noticed that folks were looking for coffee and they didn’t find any, I thought it would be helpful to use the #atllinux hash and spread the word. I ended up using that mechanism to confirm and inform folks various things going on during the event. It was very cool and I felt very connected with all these avatars!

My First Meetup

Nick Owen from WiKID tweeted about an open spot in the schedule and asked if folks wanted to do a quick meetup. Me, Christopher Johnson from if PEOPLE, Josh Sweeney from <ALT> Invest, Sanjay Parekh, Matt Smith, and Urvaksh Karkaria graciously strolled into the conversation and thus the meetup took place. Coincidently; this “first” convention procuded a lot of “firsts” for me: live tweeting, the convention itself, an entreprenur meetup, volunteering outside of a church event, and rubbing shoulders with vendors of an event.  So; again, event though I didn’t see all the workshops – I still had a great time.

Last night I went to my third LUG meeting at Emory University School of Law facility.  For those that don’t follow my social foot prints, I’m a part of a very well established Linux User Group called Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts. These guys have been in the game for a long time and vividly remember the days when x server wasn’t even a twinkle in their distro’s eye.  Well last night one of the members, James Taylor, presented the Microsoft Exchange contender, Novell GroupWise.

At first, I thought we would talk about the online collaboration tool, eGroupWare, but I soon realized that this was yet another network or system admin tool. So; I knew the content would be out of my scope of understanding. I was indeed correct on my assumption and found myself dozing off a little more than I’d like. I ended up leaving before the presentation was finished, but I was getting really tired and I wanted to get home bad.

Don’t get me wrong, the presentation was done well, but the content was not directly relevant to me – and it had already been a long day. I didn’t get a chance to ask, but being exposed to this product – it reminded me A LOT of Google Apps. So; I wonder if the folks at Google got their inspiration from this tool. It looks like a great piece of software if I wanted to run a solid nonMicrosoft house, but for the time being – I’ve switched to The Cloud.

Correction: When I originally posted this, I stated that GroupWise was open source. Whoops, my mistake. It most certainly IS NOT open source.

Costello Calls to Buy a Computer from Abbott

• ABBOTT: Super Duper computer store. Can I help you?
• COSTELLO: Thanks. I’m! setting up an office in my den and I’m thinking about buying a computer.
• ABBOTT: Mac?
• COSTELLO: No, the name’s Lou .
• ABBOTT: Your computer?
• COSTELLO : I don’t own a computer. I want to buy one.
• ABBOTT : Mac?
• COSTELLO: I told you, my name’s Lou .
• ABBOTT : What about Windows?
• COSTELLO : Why? Will it get stuffy in here?
• ABBOTT : Do you want a computer with Windows?
• COSTELLO : I don’t know. What will I see when I look at the windows?
• ABBOTT : Wallpaper.
• COSTELLO : Never mind the windows. I need a computer and software.
• ABBOTT : Software for Windows?
• COSTELLO : No. On the computer! I need something I can use to write proposals, track expenses and run my business. What do you have?
• ABBOTT : Office.
• COSTELLO: Yeah, for my office. Can you recommend anything?
• ABBOTT : I just did.
• COSTELLO : You just did what?
• ABBOTT : Recommend something.
• COSTELLO : You recommended something ?
• ABBOTT : Yes.
• COSTELLO : For my office?
• ABBOTT : Yes.
• COSTELLO : OK, what did you recommend for my office?
• ABBOTT : Office.
• COSTELLO : Yes, for my office!
• ABBOTT : I recommend Office with Windows.
• COSTELLO : I already have an office with windows! OK, let’s just say I’m sitting at my computer and I want to type a proposal.  What do I need?
• ABBOTT : Word.
• COSTELLO : What word?
• ABBOTT : Word in Office.
• COSTELLO : The only word in office is office.
• ABBOTT : The Word in Office for Windows.
• COSTELLO : Which word in office for windows?
• ABBOTT : The Word you get when you click the blue ‘W’.
• COSTELLO : I’m going to click your blue ‘w’ if you don’t start with some straight answers. What about financial bookkeeping? You have anything I can track my money with?
• ABBOTT: Money.
• COSTELLO : That’s right. What do you have?
• ABBOTT : Money.
• COSTELLO : I need money to track my money?
• ABBOTT : It comes bundled with your computer.
• COSTELLO : What’s bundled with my computer?
• ABBOTT : Money.
• COSTELLO : Money comes with my computer?
• ABBOTT : Yes. No extra charge.
• COSTELLO : I get a bundle of money with my computer? How much?
• ABBOTT : One copy.
• COSTELLO : Isn’t it illegal to copy money?
• ABBOTT : Microsoft gave us a license to copy Money.
• COSTELLO : They can give you a license to copy money?
• ABBOTT : Why not? THEY OWN IT!

A few days later

• ABBOTT : Super Duper computer store. Can I help you?
• COSTELLO : How do I turn my computer off?
• ABBOTT : Click on ‘START’…

Now that I’ve been exposed to the harsh reality that I’m getting older, let me know if this was your first time being exposed to the famous Abbott and Costello comedy duo from the black & white days of television.

This Skit’s Ownership

Edited 05 October 2009. I recently got a comment from Tom King saying that he is the originator of this Abbott and Costello computer skit. He stated that it’s copy written and has no issues letting us use it as long as we link back to his site. I have to issues linking back to the source. I would like to make it known that I don’t know who Tom King is and in our SEO-driven world, this could be a ploy to get more traffic to his site. Oh well. Visit the link of the original skit here > http://twayneking.blogspot.com/2009/05/costello-calls-to-buy-computer-from.html