Mario Fux

It was manifold day. Started in the morning trying to get the internet connection to work. Several phone calls and people but my hero of the day is Hans-Peter Seiler”. 70 years old guy, telephone specialist, helped us with joy and whistling and tried this and explained us that. He worked have a day, called support hotlines, ask questions and did another attempt and finally he succeeded. Hans-Peter, you’re mine and hopefully our here. You rescued our meeting.

Nonetheless, we had something like 4 or 5 fire alarms because the alarm devices interfered with our internet connection somehow and I had to call fire departement to not to come and then, in the afternoon, there was a big fire alarm. With a lot of smoke in the question. Damn not really working fume hood and who had to idea to build a smoke detector into the kitchen.

But we have now something like 25 people here and more will come tomorrow. I’m tired again, my feet hurt but I’m happy and like adrenalin. CU.

Konqueror ate my posting. So tomorrow I install blogilo and here is the short version of my text.

Busy day. Buying food for the meeting, transporting hardware, installing, coordinating and organizing. 18 hours day ends soon.

Four people from south america spend the night here in my families chalet where last year Tokamak 3 happened and which is definitely too small for “my” future KDE events ;-).

Tomorrow we try to fix the internet connection, install the remaining stuff and welcome most of the participants. And here, before I fall in my bed, the mandatory banner (hopefully this time without a crash of the browser (this time with iceweasel ;-))…

In less than a month several KDE people will meet in the middle of the european Alpes in a small village called Randa, Switzerland. And the most important question atm is: Did you already order your plane or train tickets?

..oO(Meeting dates: Thursday, the 20th of May till Tuesday, the 25th of May 2010)

You’ve done it? Great and now prepare your laptop, install the current KDE trunk version, write down some todo items and pack your luggage.

If and when you’ve questions, now or during the meeting: mario AT unormal PUNTO org or +41787684260 (my mobile number, save it! 😉

And now a call for a logo (thx annma for the idea). As this is already the second KDE meeting in the Alpes it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have a logo. What about something with a K, multimedia stuff and some mountains or something completely different? Please sent your proposals to the email address above.

Here is the link to the meeting wiki page: http://community.kde.org/Multimedia/Sprint2010

More information in the next entry… CU and good weekend…

We finally fixed the dates and place for the KDE Multimedia Sprint 2010 (and co-hosted KDE Education Sprint 2010 as well).

Dates: Thursday, 20th to Tuesday, 25th of May 2010

Place: Randa, Switzerland (in the middle of the Alpes)

Who: If your work or interests are multimedia (audio, video, graphics, etc.) related, please join and add yourself to the Community Wiki page. Till the end of January we have to know your estimated travel costs to send them to the KDE e.V. board.

And all you over there at the KDE Camp: Please spread the words and see some of you in some months here or near here ;-). Greets from Switzerland.

As I already shortly talked about in my last blog (btw: Jara is not with me anymore but that’s another story) there will be another KDE sprint in Randa, Switzerland. The date will be during May 2010 (the exact dates will follow next week) and the place at the House Randa.

If you have any relation to multimedia in KDE (audio, video, players, metadata, ideas or proposals) please add yourself to the doodle survey (your name together with your project). Especially if you are a Nokia/Qt person and have any relation with Phonon or Qt Multimedia please add yourself asap.

Until now the following projects are informed about the doodle survey:

• Amarok
• KDE multimedia
• KDE education
• KDE games
• Kaffeine
• Bangarang
• K3b
• Plasma Media Center
• Nepomuk

Which projects are missing?

If (yes, another “if” 😉 you are a Swiss person and would like to help please leave a comment or send me an email. This was the last “if” for this time.

I know that this is mostly a personal post. But since 8 days now Jara is part of my life. She is not yet completely house-trained but we will succeed ;-).

And nonetheless here is some KDE related information. In May 2010 markey, mamarok and me will organize another KDE meeting in Randa. Topic? Multimedia! Interested? BTW: Randa is where the last Plasma meeting Tokamak3 happened…

And now back to Jara to see if she has to go outside. Below the picture you’ll find some more words in German…

Hallo zusammen. Nun will ich noch ein paar mehr Worte in oder auf Deutsch verlieren.

Jara, meine kleine Golden-Retriever-Welpin, ist nun 8 Tage bei mir in der WG und sie hat sich schon recht gut eingelebt. Die Kabel lässt sie grösstenteils in Ruhe und gestern Abend musste sie zum ersten Mal im Wohnzimmer schlafen und nicht mehr bei mir im Zimmer. Sie hat ein wenig gebellt, geheult und an der Türe gekratzt und am Morgen hat man auch gesehen, dass sie noch nicht ganz stuben rein ist ;-). Allerdings waren scheinbar keine Kabel angeknabbert und meine Schuhe wurden von ihr auch nicht in ihr Bettchen verschleppt ;-).

Die erste Woche ist rum, die erste Welpenprägespielstunde auch und seit Samstag ist ihr Hunde-GA gültig. Nächste Woche läuft also was ;-). D.h. aber auch, dass sie sich ein wenig eingelebt hat und ab nun Besuch willkommen ist. Also, meldet euch bei mir, macht einen Termin aus und kommt zu Kaffee und Kuchen (den ihr natürlich mitbringen könnt 😉 vorbei.

Und nun zurück zu Jara, sie soll noch ein wenig ihre Zähne an meinen Fingern wetzen ;-)…

In this short blog I want to tell you something about my experience as the organizer of Tokamak3 and what I could observe.

First and foremost it was work as well but it was a great experience. The most remarking thing is that I welcomed strangers and one week later I had to say good bye to new friends.

As I was not yet a Plasma hacker it was of course a bit special and several people asked me why I organized Tokamak3. One of my answers was that I wanted to give something back as I’m a KDE user since years (but I do not yet use Plasma as I’m a Debian stable user ;-). Another reason for me to welcome the Plasma people at my family’s Chalet was my interest in the social structures of free software projects. I study educational psychology and it was really interested to observe the guys and gals while hacking.

But from other visiting people, the neighbors and some other people I heard that they were really impressed about the Plasma people and their enthusiasm at work. People paid for programming couldn’t have done more. Really amazing to see growing and blossoming out of the Plasma flower.

As their were not a lot of restaurants near and the Chalet was a bit remote we did our own food. That means every day one or two hackers kneaded the dough for a new tasty bread. And almost everyday I chose one or two of them helping me doing another meal. Afterwards two others did the dishes. Thanks a lot for your help! And thanks for the people from the local LUG (Linux User Group Oberwallis) who helped me on one or another day. And last but not least a big thank you to my family and relatives who offers their appartements and the Chalet and some helping hands: you’re great and I love you all!

Before I’ll show you some photos I want to say that their are some videos I hope to upload to blip.tv or some other page in the next days. Some of them my appear somewhere else on other blogs. And before I’ll forget it (oh yes, another reason for the invitation to Randa was that the surrounding is really beautiful and inspiring I thought 🙂 next year there will be probably some other KDE sprints and this area. But then in a bigger house. So if you as a KDE team are interested…

And now some impressions of Tokamak3 from the organizers perspective…

Photo 1: Konqi waiting at the corner of the Chalet for the Plasma hackers

Photo 2: Ana and Artur preparing their first “Bircher Müesli” and Ivan “cutting” the bread…

Photo 3: The Plasma hackers at work in the main “conference room”

Photo 4: Aaron, the Plasma father, kneading the dough for another tasty bread and having another brilliant ideas (see the bulb?;-)

Photo 5: Hungry after a long day of work…

Photo 6: Group photo after the social event in Zermatt

Photo 7: Ruphy’s Plasma bread. Window decorations and icons are not enough 😉

Photo 8: Chani’s new friend. Pleo, the little dinosaur, found its way to Tokamak3

Photo 9: An inspiring hike in the Swiss Alps

That’s it for today. In my next KDE blog I’ll write something about why I use KDE, what else I’m working on inside KDE and what’s next…

And the real last words: I miss you Plasma family!!!

Good morning dear reader

People who know me know that I always say good morning no matter what time of the day we have ;-). This is my first blog entry and if you don’t know it yet I’m the FSFE fellow with the member number 1.

This blog serves several purposes. First I want to practice my written english. That means if you find errors and mistakes you could call my attention to them or you stay silent ;-). Some parts of this blog will probably be in German as well because this is my mother tongue and some of the readers prefer this.

Mainly the blog entries about my dog will be in both languages. The dog will be a Golden Retriever and she’s no yet here but was born yesterday. One of the next entries will be about my first visit (with photos).

Then I’ll tell you about my involvement in the free software world which will be mostly related to KDE and free software and education as this is the topic (education) I study. One of the next entries will be about Tokamak3, the third KDE Plasma meeting, which I organized in a beautiful little village called Randa in the Swiss alps.

And if there are other topics I’d like to write about you’ll read it here…