Some Assembly Required

OK folks, we are packing up. We have given out prizes (congratulations to Gasman for winning the standards prize in the browser demo, Jobe for winning the widget compo with badboll, and to everyone who won prizes or created entries in the compos), slept on the floor, lived on pizza and coffee and stayed out of the sun, helped people make widgets, explained dozens and dozens among the many things that makes Opera a truly great browser.

Now it's almost time to say goodbye. Many many thanks to Velmu for all his help here. Thanks to everyone who turned up at the stand to say hello or to ask about something or tell us something they thought was cool. Thanks to the organisers of the event, and all the staff who helped keep the event running.

And thanks to my colleagues on the Opera Team. It's been a lot of fun to hang out with you, even during the time when you were working in the day and I was sleeping behind you, or when I have been on the stand at the end of my night shift, eyes barely open but just a little more to get done before I sleep...

Bye all, and thanks. It's been a great party

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....

We're here with a company who also make a browser - quite a famous American company apparently. Seems like they spent their money on comfort.

Meanwhile we keep working, because we want to bring you a browser that keeps working...



(Hey, I'm kidding. I am sure these guys work really hard when they are not in bed).

So here we are at Assembly 2006, and people are squeezing their way through long queues and starting to find their places. Computers, speakers and tons of junk food is carried into the party hall, and we're starting to see the beginning of a yet another great computer party. The oldskool area is still mostly empty though; these guys have been to a few parties in their time, and know that arriving later this evening will save them a lot of stress and waiting.

The schedule at Assembly this year is packed with cool competitions and interesting seminars, and keeping track of everything that happens can be quite a challenge. Luckily, if you own one of the smartphones running Opera Mobile, or one of the more than 400 mobiles capable of running Opera Mini, you can stay up-to-date even when you're away from the computer. We've even built a custom version of Opera Mini for you, with an exclusive Assembly-skin and some useful bookmarks. Get it via WAP at http://mini.opera.com/asm06/. Granted, it doesn't feature raster bars when loading pages. My own personal copy does though, but I guess that's one of the benefits of working at Opera.