Some Assembly Required

I am returning to Oslo tonight, the last of the Opera ASM'06 crew to get back to the office. We had a lot of fun, we worked pretty hard, a few of us went to Tallinn afterwards for a couple of days (Thanks for having us, Estonia!) and then, as always, we have to get on with bringing you the best browser there is.

The final work item was handing over the last of the prizes, an N770 internet tablet, to Eripaha for the widget "My simple friend fred" that he co-wrote with Asobu. Many thanks to Velmu for (yet again) doing the hard yards.



Good luck in the Widget World Cup to all the people who entered as part of the assembly competition, we hope you have enjoyed the t-shirts, Opera mobile licenses, squeeze balls, caps, lanyards, and the rest of the swag that we gave out. We're happy we didn't have to carry it home, and we believe it all went to good deserving homes.

Tonight I am not sleeping on the floor, but on a proper couch in Vihti, having spent a few more days getting to know a bit more of Helsinki. I would love to be back for next year, to meet people again or those I missed this time (I am pretty sure there were a couple of people I never even saw). Thanks to the organisers, the crew, and most of all the people, who make the assembly what it is.

And to all you folks across the road, and to Mikko in Vihti, Kippis!

--chaals

Chaals just went to sleep, so I'll have the opportunity to do a post

I had the privilege of spending some time at the Opera stand in Assembly 2006. I did not have the stamina to dig out the whole event: I was a cheater and only spent friday night and came back on sunday morning. It has been an interesting to meet some employees and play around with the DS version of Opera. I also attended the seminars held by Chaals, Gorme and Balder.

There was a steady stream of people on the stand checking out products, asking about the browser and the job opportunities. Most of them walked away with a squishy ball, mousepad, t-shirt or something else, so Opera should be more visible in the finnish scene from now on

I'm sure the presence of Opera at the event was a good move: make people aware that Opera is one option for your daily browsing. In a perfect world (wide web) every browser and developer would support standards and people could use the one they want to, not the one they have to for compability reasons. Diversity, baby.

Cameraphones come with a great responsibility. Some people are decent enough to use them only against people that are awake (like me). Some people (like Velmu or Chaals) are not that decent and use it on people that are sleeping. Guess what, you are not the only ones with a camera.

Luckily, for the viewers, the lightning was bad and I was shaking so much in anger as I took this picture.

It's 6.30 am on Saturday morning. I've been here for most of the time since 10 am Thursday. I slept here for 5 hours today, and I have been out for a walk or a drink a couple of times, for an hour or so.

Someone came to our stand about half an hour ago, sat on one of the seats, and slapped his head on the table to sleep. Apparently it wasn't that comfortable, as he left about 20 minutes later.

Finns, like most Scandinavians, seem to have a habit of spitting on the ground when they are smoking. Like lots of Australian kids I gre up with the habit of going around barefoot in warm weather (or even almost warm weather...). These two things are not nicely compatible unfortunately. Unless you like really really disgusting feet.

There has been a steady stream of people until about 4am or so, but then it seems most people are either sitting working (like Velmu and I are - thanks Velmu for hanging out with us!) or sleeping - now most of the people walking around are in that dazed stage of waiting until sleep knocks them out.

I have done some useful stuff. As well as giving a talk with Gorm, I uploaded a new widget (a ten minute countdown that I use for talks, part of which was written by Doug Schepers), I have talked to people about making widgets, shown off the Nintendo browser and some other toys we have here, got some of my regular work done, and even spoken to my Mum and to my Dad (about this time last night...)

Wow! There is a machine that cleans the floor. Not before time really - it is the first time I have seen it passing. I was wondering about that.

Well, time to find coffee. At least the shops here sell some vaguely healthy food, and stay open all night to do it. Just a couple more of the very quietest hours until we get relieved....

After a very long day yesterday, I left the area around 11 when there were still a lot of people there. I expected to find the place almost empty coming in at 8 in the morning but to my big surprise there were plenty of people still trickling around the halls and playing games in the big area. Was it just one misconception that computer people generally like to get up late? Or I guess they just never left:D .

Yesterday was great! I got to meet many nice Opera fans and I think I managed to convince few other people that they should give Opera a try. I always knew Opera was great but the fact that so many people like it so much caught me a bit by surprise. I have never really liked any piece of software that much except Opera but I always thought that I was just being a little bit biased... I guess it is more than that!

In any case, it was great meeting all of you, and I am hoping more of you stop by today!


A mediumgeek sipping her morning coffee!