At barcamp kerala 7
I took a session on recycling old PCs with LTSP at barcamp kerala 7 last Sunday. Even though I am associated with the organizers of barcamp ever since its inception in Kerala, I could not attend any of the previous ones due to various reasons. So I was a bit skeptical about the kind of people I may meet. Also, this was the first public lecture I gave after assuming charges of Principal College of Engineering Attingal. I conveniently hid this fact from the audience suspecting that my job profile might overshadow the geek in me.
I was picked up from home by Kenney Jacob at 5.30 am and we stated our journey to Changannasery on a TATA VISTA . The car was fantastic with GPS can other gizmos . A few of Kenney’s colleagues were also present in the car. We reached the venue around 8.45 to find that the gates of the Krishtu Jayanti college were closed. Kenny made some frantic telephone calls and finally we were asked to enter the college via the gates of a Catholic church.
There were around 70 guys in the hall. There was some initial hiccups and the sessions took some time to start . I missed introductory remark by Kevin as I went to the nearest tea shop for a quick dose of coffee. The next session from Prassed Pai on 3d graphics programming was good and reminded me of my PG classes at CUSAT where we did all the shading and drawing algorithms. I think most of the audience was clue less about the topic.
The next session Building Complex Website the Drupal Way from Fredrik Jonsson? was enlightening.
The third session on Media by Kenney Jacob initiated some interesting discussions among the audience. Some of the participants expressed the fears about corporate media manipulating facts .
Next was a cake cutting session . Some one suggested Fredrik Jonsson’s name for the event and every one clapped when he cut the big cake sponsored by ayruz web holdings . Later I had lunch at a local teashop .
I took the first session in the after noon. My Idea was to set up my laptop as ltsp server and net book as the client . Then project the client to the big screen and start the presentation on the client.
The Sharp projector at the venue was behaving erratically. It showed only half of the screen. I had to change instantly to the white board and start writing. I briefly explained the LTSP with a figure that I drew and later on moved the projector to my laptop. The presentation was shown after explaining things with a white board. I think half of the audience got confused by then.
The next session from UST global was quite boring. I think such PR crap should be avoided in barcamps. I missed the session by Binny VA as I went out for a tea again.
The last session on linux devices was good, but Praseed Pai seemed to be the only person understanding it.
Finally, Fr. Abraham Mulamootil made a surprise appearance. I think it is the first time a catholic priest is seen publicly in a bar(camp). Any way he seems to be the only geek in the church.
The entire event was wound up around 6pm.
The facilities at the venue were pathetic. No one from the college turned up. There was no net connectivity. The wifi link of the college was running but their firewall was preventing outgoing net request. Hope the next barcamp at Thiruvalla will be better and more interesting.
