• KdeExpoList2003

1. KDE at Linux Expo 2003

See ["DebianExpoList2003"] for dates, links, Debian-people, .org section layout, LPI registration, reminder to bring GPG keys and a passport, suggestions of places to stay.

2. People

3. Things on the stall

• A (preferably non-laptop) demonstration machine with CVS KDE (I should be able to get one but open to suggestions - jr)
• Jonathan has 6 polo shirts (a snip at 20UKP each) and badges ('pins', £1.50 ) to sell and stickers to give away
• Jono will bring his stuff from previous expos
• Setting up on the Tuesday should not take long, maybe we can arrange a time to do it
• We need leaflets to give out, with general KDE info and KDE 3.2 features on it. See kde-promo in (non-anonymous) CVS for inspiration. (I'll try and make something up - jr)

• I have one KDE t-shirt to wear, Jono can you bring yours? Sure.

• Lee, did you get anything useful made with the SVG logos?

Also:

• Please bring 4 way power adaptors and extension leads (if possible with surge protection)
• There will be wireless internet on the stand (but not fast)

4. Other things

• LONIX will be organising a social event (drinking in a pub) on the Wednesday night:Leaving the expo at 5pm and heading for the Lowlander pub in Covent Garden. Following Lowlander if you are still standing a table has been booked at Spice of London indian restaurant (http://www.spiceoflondon.com/) at 22 Drury Lane for some high quality cuisine. Or alternatively you can stay at Lowlander where they also serve food. Directions to Lowlander Exit Covent Garden Tube station and on your left you'll see a road (for cars!) alled Long Acre. Take a right down this road, go straight over the roundabout and carry on straight until you see Drury Lane on your left (it's also on the right). Take a left and you will see Lowlander on your left.

• Car parking limited, pre book spaces by credit card in the multi storey (P3) car park or other venue parking areas by logging onto www.eco.co.uk or by calling the new dedicated telephone booking line on 0871 871 9809

5. Timetable

• Tuesday 7th October 12:00 - 21:00 Exhibitors only Setup
• Wednesday 8th October 08:00 - 10:30 Exhibitors only, 10:30 - 17:00 Show Open, LONIX pub meeting
• Thursday 9th October 08:00 - 10:30 Exhibitors only, 10:30 - 16:00 Show Open, 17:00 - 20:00 Exhibitors only Break down

6. KDE dot news article draft

The users have decreed,KDE 3.2 looks "beautiful." The demo machine was using the Plastik theme with the Crystal icons.

Visitors were very impressed with Kontact. For people who knew about KDE 3.2 it was the first thing they asked to see. Lots of confusion about it only working with Kroupware/Kolab.

A couple of people asked about synchronisation; one person with WindowsCE which I didn't know anything about but have now discovered SyncCE (http:// synce.sourceforge.net/synce/kde/).

Everyone had their own wishes, some needed LDAP connectivity, another had his day made when he realised KGpg had all the functionality he needed.

To my surprise the new system tray applet for changing the screen resolution was universally appaulded. I'm not denying it's a great applet but how often do people change screen resolution?!

Many people did not know what version of KDE they are running, just the distribution. One or two people I met were still running KDE2!

Almost everyone wanted to know if/when their distribution would be shipping KDE 3.2, how they could upgrade and whether we had the code on CD. I pointed out the difficulties of handling the last request.

KOffice 1.3 was also demonstrated although most of the people I spoke to were already using OpenOffice. Several people were unaware of KOffice. Kexi is generating a lot of interest. Sadly we weren't able to demo it.

Miscellaneous comments included "the application names are confusing" and requests for better documentation/facilities for configuring kiosk mode.

We had one woman complain about the logo being crap. I think both me and Jonathon put her down as being a crackpot. We were asked about indic language support. I showed him some of the screenshots of bbc.co.uk in hindi and he was impressed. I think the only other person I spoke to in any length was just having a random rant about linux in general.

We had an almost continuous stream of people visiting the stand on both days. Mostly existing KDE users and by my guess at least a quarter had been following the progress of KDE 3.2 and would have upgraded anyway. After seeing a demo nearly everyone was convinced that it would be a worthwhile upgrade.

There were a couple of visitors who were interested in deploying KDE in their organisations and one guy who looked like a spitting image of Miguel de Icaza.

I think we did reasonably well. We could have done with a few more things to sell and more stickers/flyers. Did we hand out 500 flyers in the end? maybe double that would have been a good number. It may be cheaper to get them printed.