BarCamp wireless network review and post-mortem
Posted by Dan
It’s been almost 2 weeks since BarCamp and the final figures and bits and bobs of data are finally trickling in.
There were roughly 170 BarCamp attendees.
There were over 275 unique mac addresses at the event.
That means each person on average had approximately 1.6 devices on the wireless network. The busiest time was between lunch and dinner on Saturday.
Heres the bandwidth chart for the weekend:
It’s interesting to note that you can directly correlate the peaks and valleys in the bandwidth chart with the happenings at barcamp.
How to sponsor BarCamp – a budget breakdown
Posted by Dan
Barcamp has grown – again. This coming barcamp will be SD 6, which means we’re on our THIRD year of barcamp. Technically, since we had to push BCSD6 to January, we’ll be beginning our FOURTH year.
In the beginning we had to ask for wireless hardware, chairs, extention cords, you name it. As time went on the planning crew better understood what it took to satisfy the barcampers and adapted. I know I’ve personally paid out of pocket more than 3 times to get things covered – and I’m not the only one. This far along though we have a tightly regimented process, and we’ve been using it for nearly 2 years now – it works perfectly.
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BarCamp SD 6
Posted by Dan
So you may be asking yourself – I think I remember hearing something about BarCamp in November….
You’d be right – except when we dusted off our hardhats we found out that year end budgets were tighter than ever, and many companies in town were doing layoffs. It’s remarkably hard to get companies to pay for a BarCamp when they can’t pay their own employees – so we did the sensible thing and scootched BarCamp out to January.
here’s the current lowdown:
- January 16th and 17th
- Intuit, Santa Fe Campus in Carmel Valley
We’ve updated the wiki and created a new Eventbrite Registration Page for BarCamp San Diego 6.
We’re starting collection for sponsorships as well, so if your organization would like to sponsor BarCamp San Diego 6, drop a line to sponsors@barcampsd.org.
That’s it for now! Feel free to log into the wiki and add a proposed talk or host a contest for Saturday Night!
BarcampSD5 Last-Minute Updates
Posted by Dan
There are some last minute provisions that came up we need to get the word out for:
- We’ve manually backed out every order on eventbrite that contained more than 1 ticket. For Intuits security policies we need every attendees name, so people who got tickets like “Joe smith – 5 tickets” will need to have those extra four people go sign up themselves. This has also opened up a significant amount of spaces too – so more people can come! :)
- Intuit has some policies that they’d like to iterate to all the attendees:
- Attendees must stay within a 20 foot perimeter of the building. Going back to cars in the parking lot is okay, but the rest of the campus is off limits to us (that means the hiking trails, basket ball courts etc)
- Fire codes must be observed: no smoking in the building, and nothing that generates smoke inside the buildings
- Be responsible with alcohol consumption
- Do not attempt to enumerate the network. Be nice. This isnt a hacker con (viss is watching. he controls your packets)
Thats it! Short n sweet. We need everyones eyeballs on this, so please repost, retweet etc.
BarCamp Needs your help!
Posted by Dan
Howdy Barcampers!
So we’re about 30 days out and the numbers are in – we’re still short on funds so we’ve started taking up a collection to try and make our figures.
We’ve setup a Fundable.com account to collect donations to make our figures. Fundable is awesome because if the figure we’re looking for isn’t reached – nobody pays a dime. If the figure IS reached, then everyone pays.
Alternatively, if you’d like to make a direct donation, or if you work for a company that would benefit from sponsoring barcamp (read: any company), have any questions about what sort of awesome incentives there are for sponsoring a barcamp or are wondering how much value there is in sponsorship – drop us a line at sponsors@barcampsd.org!
Barcamp SD 4 post mortem
Posted by Dan
Barcamp went off without a hitch, as per the norm and everyone that I talked to had a most excellent time. There was the typical nuissance of there being too many people on one wireless access point (internet slower than preferred, range issues), so conversations were had with some folks about getting our hands on some true enterprise grade wireless (cisco aironet or aruba hardware), that has the capacity to properly load balance and distribute traffic across multiple radios. I did however save a whole bunch of data from the firewall, which was a different configuration than last time. I’ll have a post written up about that on shortly.
Defcamp (the hacking challenge) went off fairly well – the contest is a race to the finish and it was started on Saturday morning – so a handful of people basically holed up in an office and missed barcamp to do the hacking challenges. I’m going to have to work on that. I don’t want people missing out on barcamp because of a prize.
The food was greek this time, and was executed superbly – I think we(barcampsd) made a new friend. Daphnes greek cafe in 4s ranch area – we got a hell of a deal and were promised more of a deal next time around.
Intuit was pleased with our presence and smiled because we left the place cleaner than we found it. There are already talks to have barcamp held there again.
All in all, chalk it up to another awesome barcamp. San Diego’s community is getting a reputation for being awesome and this can do nothing but help us. Keep being awesome, everyone!
BarCamp Is THIS WEEKEND!
Posted by Dan
And thats coming up soon!
Here are some things to consider
- Camping IS ALLOWED! Bring a sleeping bag! :D
- Be courteous to fellow campers – dont torrent, or use p2p software on the barcamp wifi
- The wiki is the registration roster for Intuit Security – If you’re not on it you cannot get in. If you haven’t signed up already, do it here
- There is ample power all over the place!
- Come early (9am), nosh on some breakfast, and help us set up!
There are some additional rules that our venue sponsor has asked us to instantiate:
- Alcohol consumption must be moderated – we will be passing out drink tickets, and there will be a droid manning the keg (need a volunteer for this!)
- Safety conditions: There will be both security personnel and intuit employees on site to help maintain a high level of safety
- BarCamp is limited to the first floor – please do not attempt to obtain access to any other floors
Given the previous track record of BarCamp, nobody is expecting anything out of the ordinary. Lets keep on our streak of successful and pleasant barcamps and show Intuit how awesome of a community we are!
This time around we should have floorplan maps printed up on the walls to show everyone where the food, snack, presentation and restroom areas are.
Barcamp is upon us!
Posted by Dan
Greetings campers!
BarCamp San Diego 4 is upon us, this time at Intuit’s campus (link/map) in Carmel Valley.
There are a ton of activities planned for Saturday evening, somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 campers signed up so far on our wiki. It’s happening in the middle of November (the 15th and 16th), so make sure you have no plans!
This season we can only have 250 people total at the event, so if you’d like to come, please make your way to the wiki and add yourself. The venue is using the wiki as the official roster for who is going.
Things are lining up nicely – The planners are getting excited, the sponsors are getting REALLY excited and you should be too :)
here are some pictures of the venue!
BarCamp San Diego 2 – Nov 10/11 at TTR
Posted by Dan
The time is upon it once again for another round of BarCamp in San Diego!
Here are the deets:
-
When
November 10 – 11, 2007
10am Saturday through 5pm Sunday
-
Where
Technical Training Resources
6920 Miramar Rd., Suite 105, San Diego, CA 92121
What to bring
- Laptop + power cord
- Sleeping bag + pillow + tent?
- Bean Bag Chairs, Beach chairs, and other fun stuff
- Cool stuff to share with new friends
- New ideas, new product demos
- Games for the evening
- A sharp wit for the contest!
Barcamp Contest: DefCamp!
-by Dan Tentler
Barcamps little slice of Defcon!
Think you have what it takes to hack/google/ninja your way past my challenges to the prizes?
No skimpy prizes this time around. This is for real!
Recruiting 5 teams of 3. Prizes will be awarded to 1st, 2nd and 3rd place.
Contest details will be announced during one of my talks. Be prepared to to be challenged!
Get involved
- Sign up for the mailing list.
- Join us in IRC at freenode.net #barcampsd.
- Join the Facebook group and meet interested people.
Tags for flickr, delicious, ma.gnolia, technorati, etc:
- barcampsd
- barcampsd2
- defcamp
Barcamp SD 2 Planning begins
Posted by Dan
I’m pleased to announce that the planning crew has begun meeting and going over the initial data points of getting BarCamp San Diego 2 off the ground!
-
Current News:
- Tentative Date: Nov 10/11 (dependent on venue)
- Sponsor roundup has begun!: Want to sponsor barcamp? let us know! we have a wide variety of sponsorship options available!
- Current Venue Ideas: We’ve begun the search for a venue, so if you have any leads for us, please let us know! All avenues will be explored.
- Current Information: Our wiki page has been updated to reflect the newest information after our first meeting! Visit http://barcamp.org/BarCampSanDiego
- Stay tuned for more updates!
Feel free to join us on irc! We’ve created a space for the Barcamp SD community to hang out on irc and chit chat!
- irc.freenode.net
- #barcampsd
