Conferences with Macs
Three reasons Macs make excellent companions to geek-centric conferences:
- iChat and Rendezvous. iChat uses Rendezvous (aka zero configuration networking) to automatically display a list of all other iChat users on the same network as you. In a conference setting this can be a great way of seeing who’s around—I met a couple of people at SxSW who I’d been hoping to run in to by co-ordinating a metting via iChat. A few panelists even used iChat to take questions during their panels. Here’s a screenshot of iChat Rendezvous taken during SxSW.
- SubEthaEdit, which really has to be seen to be believed. I made a half hearted attempt to get a SubEthaEdit session going at SxSW but failed to achieve critical mass. Ted Leung at PyCon seems to have got it sussed.
- EtherPEG. This isn’t as essential as the other two but can be a lot of fun—it’s an ethical (as in it doesn’t steal anything important) network sniffer which displays a selection of images currently being transferred across the network. It provides an often surreal insight in to the browsing habits of other conference goers.
I remember hearing Mac owners complain of being treated like second-class citizens. I haven’t felt like that once in nearly three months of owning a Mac.
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