Internet access is seriously sketchy here in the hotel and it's not much better in the conference. Finally have connection after it conked out about lunch time. It's like Bob Spencer from Intel said in his presentation earlier, around 3am there's plenty of bandwidth! Lo and behold it's 3.10am and Im back on.. the guy's right!

Today has been a good day. First of all, it's the reason we all go to conferences in the first place - plenty of free conference swag



The MeeGo cardboard handbag style case contained a notepad, maps, pass, conference tshirt (winner of the design a tshirt comp), and the all important infamous MeeGo umbrella There were also tidbits around the floor from a few companies, I got a Qt pen, some Panda Board stickers, and a usb coffee warmer. I don't even like coffee or tea.. just gotta get all that free conference junk whatever it is Hopefully tomorrow we'll all be picking up a new IdeaPad too (thanks Intel )

One of the interesting facets of being here is that you get to have a glimpse of what is happening behind the marketing message, and definitely alcohol mixed with employers and developers from different backgrounds can raise some interesting thoughts about how they view each other. Ofcourse developers like to have a 'feisty' discussion or two amongst themselves. The most popular topic in all this, no surprise, is our good friend Qt (parts of which has still to win everyone over). The current situation with web runtime is something a lot of people feel strongly about too. There's definitely a strong relationship between Intel and Nokia to see MeeGo a success but ofcourse it's business only. If one person is not convinced about Qt, another person may not be so convinced about Intel delivering in the mobile handset space. Some will not be convinced with either. The future will tell The news today that AMD have found the MeeGo project too interesting to ignore adds a bit of spice to that mix but can be only be good news for the MeeGo project and it's future

Coming into the conference with my Nokia fanboy hat on I was hoping for a surprise or two. That has yet to materialize. The Intel presenters on the other hand have impressed me - they have been engaging and they kinda "get it" as to what I want from a conference. We'll see what tomorrow brings, I still hope to leave with some Nokia memorable moment. In any case, I can't become a chip maker fanboy though, that's much too low level!

I should say that Nokia were excellent in regards to the early bird events, and Im very grateful for the learning opportunity and all the tips I picked up

As of tomorrow, I see some familiar topics and Maemo friends will be on stage, it's a lot more developer centric programme of sessions. Unfortunately that also means some clashes as i cant be in two places at once.

Oh and I met lcuk tonight, he's a very jovial fellow indeed!