Posted by Suw Charman-Anderson

I had really hoped to get over to Etech this year, but circumstances conspired against me and instead I am stuck here in Dorset, bemoaning my fate. Well, not completely… Thanks to iChat, a webcam, Kevin Marks and the very flakey network at the Etech venue, I’ve been Etech Camgirl, as Cory put it, smiling out at everyone from Kevin’s laptop.

The view from here

I’ve caught snatches of various presentations, although never enough to say for certain what they were about, and have mingled with attendees in the hallways and lobby. I have smiled and waved at a number of very pixelated faces, and attempted to say hello to some people who probably couldn’t hear what I was saying - I certainly had a hard time making out what they were saying - but it was fun anyway.

If you were amongst that number and asked me what the weather was like in England, I was trying to say that it’s been dull and grey here.

Virtual attendance it is not - no need for O’Reilly to get worried about people ‘getting in’ for free. But it gives me a feel for the conference, for what I’m missing out on, and it’s the best we can do under the circumstances. I just wish that the networks were a little more robust, and that webcams were better, and then maybe, just maybe, it would I would have spent the majority of the last few hours actually watching and listening, instead of restarting iChat, attempting to get a video link going, and cursing the connection when it craps out.

Fingers crossed that next year I get to be there in person.

(Crossposted from Chocolate and Vodka.)

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