On Sunday 02 November 2008, Durk Talsma wrote: > HI Folks, > > I just came back from the annual FSWeekend fair in Lelystad, and > thought I'd share some impressions. Last week has been quite > busy, so I feel very strongly about having a relaxed evening and > enjoy a glass of wine (try to spot an increase in typing errors > toward the end of this message).Nevertheless, I do wish to share > some impressions and experiences. > > Preparations for this year's booth were a little rough, at least > on my side. As I might have noted before, I recently moved and > started a new job. Exams for the class I'd been teaching were > earlier on in the week, I still had to grade 30 student papers, > and on top of it all, I had a deadline to finish a research paper > last friday. In the mean time, my internet connection wasn't > working until wednesday, and I also had to install a new linux > distribution on my main machine. > > Dispite all that, we managed to get a nice booth, at a very good > location in the main exhibit hall (right across from the main > entrance). I had taken a day off on Friday, to pick up Mathias > Froelich at Lelystad train station, and the two of us set up the > basic infrastructure of the booth. > > On saturday morning, Martin Spott picked me and Mathias up in > Enschede, and the tree of us drove to Lelystad, where we met with > Torsten Dreyer, and his wife. Since Torsten was bringing a huge > banner with the FlightGear logo, we brought some leftover planks, > a handsaw, a hammer, nails, screws, and an electric drill from my > place to lelystad, in order to build a makeshift notice board. > > This year we had one main demo machine that was equipped with > two dual head nvidia cards, driving 3 monitors, and some smaller > stations. The demo machine was directly facing the entrance, and > was a big eye catcher. During the morning, I had some technical > problems to solve. Since my new machine still wasn't in by > friday, I had brought my old computer, which isn't quite powerful > enough anymore. In addition, it had serious network problems. > Halfway during the afternoon, I decided to shut that machine > down, and just hook up my laptop to use that instead That worked > well, and from that moment onward, everything was running > smoothly. > > On sunday (still "today" as I'm writing this email), the four of > us (Martin, Torsten, Mathias, and Me) were joined by Gijs de > Rooy, and this way we really had an excellent crew. With Gijs's > help we were able to operate all our systems, and still have > enough time to talk to visitors. In general, everything ran a lot > smoother than it did on saturday. Overall, I'm looking back at > this year's FSWeekend with a positive appraisal, especially when > looking back at the chaos during the organization (at least on my > side of the equation). > > My impression from this year's meeting is that there is a > substantial amount of people, who are seriously interested in > alternatives for Microsoft Flight simulator. Two years ago, > during our first booth at Lelystad, not many people knew us; this > year I've been talking to several people who have been giving > presentations about FlightGear to promote it at their computer > clubs. With only a few exceptions, the great majority of people I > talked with, were either enthousiastic about the concept behind > FlightGear, or at least very sympathetic to our cause. > > Compared to last year, we had a very prominent location, and we > made sure that we placed our main demo machine very prominently > across from the entrance. Compared to last year's setup, this was > certainly an improvement, which in turn was already an > improvement over our 2006 presentation. On the downside, we > didn't have a projector this year, which was a bit of a drawback. > I would like to get one again next year, if only to drive a > fourth camera, to make sure that people understand immediately > that we don't use a matrox triple head, but have a real (and > flexible) multiscreen setup. We also didn't do that many > multiplayer demos this year. This year's booth setup was actually > not really ideal for that; one get's the best impression when one > can watch the two participating parties at the same time. With > some minor rearrangements this should be possible, and I would > like to try and get some more multiplayer demos done again next > year. > > To summarize, FSWeekend 2008 has been a lot of fun for me, and I > hope also for the rest of the crew. I certainly hop to organize > another booth next year. I hope to post some photo's later. I > will have to reconnect my server again, so I won't do that until > tomorrow. > > Cheers, > Durk (your FGFS representative signing off... :-) )
Well done and glad to hear it went well. LeeE ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email is sponsored by the Moblin Your Move Developer's challenge Build the coolest Linux based applications with Moblin SDK & win great prizes Grand prize is a trip for two to an Open Source event anywhere in the world http://moblin-contest.org/redirect.php?banner_id=100&url=/ _______________________________________________ Flightgear-users mailing list Flightgear-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-users
