Wacdesigns | Technology, Web 2.0 and Life

This Saturday i attended the first BarCamp in Mauritius, which was a great initiative from the organizers(Pierre Bernard). Even though some of the persons that should be attending did not come, it was really great and everyone that attended the session was really satisfied by the level of discussion and presentations that took place.

The first presentation was on Ubuntu Linux release performed by Malcolm(hobbyist bater bis). He detailed several aspect of the OS as it is becoming more and more popular for it’s ease of use and growing community support. And the possibilities for anyone to have access to a free operating system that enables any user to perform basic PC operating. With slides showing Firefox 3.0 installed by default on the latest version and Open Office with is a pretty good free alternative to Microsoft Office.

Then came the intervention of Vincent(bloggeur solidaire humorist), on how to install, manage and optimize a new WordPress installation. His presentation started with the installation of the WordPress zip file in a virtual directory that is used by his Apache server on a local machine. He created a new database using phpMyAdmin and then finalized the installation explaining the purpose of a good prefix for your WP Tables, which is by default “WP_”. After the installing we shown how to use plugins and widgets to enhance your WP Experience and you pages presentation. There was also a small debate on SEO Optimization on WP and how to enable permalinks or clean links to be better reference by search engine. It was a good introduction to WP and how i can be use to perform day to day blogging on the web.

OpenID Mauritius, this conference was performed by our Organizer Pierre Bernard, who will be the representative of OpenID in Mauritius.  He discussed on the advantages of using OpenID compared to have multiple authentication information for each website you are using. OpenID will be keeping all your authentication in one and only one location so that you need to remember only one password the one of your OpenID account and you should be able to have access to any of your favorite websites. You can find a list of comprehensive sites that are using OpenID here.

There was several other small brainstorming and discussing mainly on the use of the different video streaming technology used for making web conference on the web. SEO: the good, the bad and how it the mystification about how it actually works. There were also some discussion about a possible creating of some Linux Ubuntu user group to show people that there are other OS out their that can suit their needs too without the hassle of having to pay a license.

Hoping that you enjoyed this little resume about the first BarCamp that was held in Mauritius. We are hoping of doing another one in August to celebrate the anniversary of BarCamp. As soon as i can hold of the photos i’ll update this post.

Update: 23.06.2008

You can also have access to the minutes of the BarCamp available in french on Bernard’s Blog with video’s and photos

Today i went to do some water skiing again. The weather was a bit rainy in the morning and i was making up my mind on whether do go or not… finally after half an hour i saw that the sun was coming out again so i decided to go.
First on the list the mentoring lesson before going in water, making sure everything is fixed up properly

Then get in the water waiting for the boat to come.

Then the fun begins, starting with the stick first and then going to the rope…

Finally… back onshore to get some rest

I am planning to go tommorow if there is not much wind, i’ll be able to do some windsurfing or hobbie cat. Till then hold I’ll try to hold on to my ski

So today, i planned to go windsurfing, but unfortunately… there was no one doing windsurf and i couldn’t go all alone since it was really windy
Fortunately for me i met one of my cousin that works at the boat house and he told me if i wanted to do some water skiing and i jumped in here is the only picture that i could get… pfff my friend did know how to use the camera and only took this picture that’s pretty sad… but i am going again next week… so i’ll try go get some better picture.

It’s really hard… i had hard time on this one and fell so many times….
After having falling for about 4 times and unable/too exhausted to hold the rope again… i went back on the beach and wanted to do some other stuff… then my eye when on the hobbie cat laying on the beach, so i went on my first lesson and it went well really well, i mean i did not fall in the water and the boat did not sink
More updates coming next weekend… since i’ll be going both on Saturday and on Sunday…

Photos of Mauritius, Some nice pictures that everyone would like to see everyday when they are at work…. random photos of the sea/beach from where i live

random photos all over the island

That’s some of the pictures in my photo gallery… of course there are a lot of pictures of me and my friends