Foo’s Paradise
Our holiday up north was perfect. In addition to all the other fun things we did, we also managed to squeeze in some fishing, sailing and snorkeling in the Bay of Islands. It truly is paradise up that way (except this week).
On the drive back, Hadley and the kids dropped me off at Kiwi Foo Camp in the delightful town of Warkworth. It was a bit of a shock going straight from holiday to the non-stop uber geek fest shop talk marathon.
Highlights for me were:
- Lobbying Telecommunications Minister David Cunliffe to make peering a priority. The point came across loud and clear.
- Getting the low down on Firefox 3 (scroll down to items 3.5 and 3.6). Lots of goodness in the works, but most importantly is the offline caching for web apps. I think it strongly supports my prediction that in 2007 the browser is more important than the OS.
- Good design discussions on faceted navigation and ambient signifiers.
- Seeing the OLPC in the flesh. It’s the type of device that makes you wish you were a kid again. Nevertheless, I’m still highly dubious about the UI. As Che noted, “That’s what you get when you have Flash designers create an OS”.
- Most of all, meeting and spending time chatting with some super smart, super nice people. Old friends and new friends alike.
Oh yeah…being able to show Xero was thrilling and scary. Fortunately, the response was awesome! Foo represents a very tough crowd. Seeing their excitement over Xero makes me really proud. I wish more people showed their projects. I happen to know quite a few people who have some very interesting developments in the works that didn’t get shared. Foo Camp seems like a great place to get extremely valuable feedback.
When Foo ended I caught a ride in Rod’s Maserati down to Auckland to join up with the family. They were staying at the Quest Ponsonby, which I highly recommend - great accomodations in an ideal location. We even ate real Northern California quality burritos at Taqueria (I’m wiping saliva off the keyboard as I write). It was actually quite strange being in Auckland, almost like being in another country. It caused me to question the much bandied slogan “nothing beats Wellington on a nice day”.
Having said that, it was nice to come home to such an easy going city on such a beautiful day.
Leave a Reply