POSSCON

I attended POSSCON on Friday.  There were 2 workshops sessions, each 2 hours long, as opposed to the many 45-minute sessions on the previous days.  In the car ride up to the conference, someone who attended the conference the day before talked about the 3D printer presentation.  I hadn't been interested in this topic when I saw it on the website, but I was more interested after hearing about it so I attended the workshop.  They showed us some free open source software that one can use to create 3D models to print on the printer.  They also set up tables with different components of the printer so that attendees could attempt to put one together.  The workshop was very interesting, but I would have liked to hear more about what they see as major future uses of 3D printers if they become a standard tool for households and businesses.

The second workshop I attended was on Drupal, which is an open source tool for creating large, complex websites.  I was fairly interested in this software, but was very disappointed in the presentation.  For the first hour and a half of the workshop, 2 guys talked through a PowerPoint presentation of Drupal.  The slides were all formatted the same:  bullet points in white text on a black background.  I would have appreciated a demonstration of Drupal and some of the websites that illustrate Drupal's unique abilities.  I tried to download Drupal while in the workshop so I could get a better idea of how it worked, but it seemed more involved than what I was willing to deal with just to test it out. 

I think that Thursday would have been a much better day to attend the conference.  There were more sessions available because they were shorter.  I thought the 2-hour sessions were too long.  I also think that many presenters didn't stick around for Friday.  Many of the booths were empty.  My classmates who attended on Thursday saw Walter Bender give a presentation on an XO laptop, and were able to chat with him after.

Overall, it was a good experience, but I wish I had been able to go on Thursday instead of Friday.