Out of the way

Xtech is one of the great technical conferences for web geeks. Really seriously good papers and presentations at a conference that is not really excessively expensive (in a context where admission prices are generally appallingly high), great people, hallway and dinner chats that are worth everything it costs to be there. Great kudos is due to Ed Dumbill, who has built this conference, and stamped it with his extraordinarily friendly, helpful, personality, and combined that seemingly effortlessly with high intellectual standards to make something very rare and special.

This year's conference was in Paris, at the Novotel Hotel Tour Eiffel. Not a bad location if you want to be close to the famous tower, plenty of bars, restaurants, and cheaper hotels reasonably close by. But why was there no internet connection? None at all, for participants, and what was available to sponsors was pretty poor quality. Paris is a capital city in a major developed country, Novotel is a large chain of expensive hotels, and they have a lot of space dedicated to conferences. How hard can it be to get a decent network infrastructure in these days of ubitquitous Wifi? This was a shame. So was the catering for the first day, where they simply put enough food for 50% of the people out, and didn't bring any more when that went in the first 5 minutes leaving the 75% who shared it out all dissatisfied, and anyone who wasn't fighting for the food to go somewhere else and buy it. Xtech rocks as ever, but the Novotel came out looking pretty unimpressive. More so given the prices they charge for their "service".

Apart from the conference, Paris is a nice place to visit. Despite murderous humidity and incredible rainstorms being mixed in with lovely weather, catching up with friends, hanging around in french bars and restaurants, and going to see some of the city is always something I enjoy. So although I now pay for having a week's backlog of mail and work, it was worth it.

Now, back to work