Linux Expo Part II

You would expect that a Linux User's Group would be free, as in beer, so I was surprised to learn at the Linux World Expo in Toronto that TLUG, the Toronto Linux Users' Group, had a membership fee of $20. I didn't stand around to find out why the LUG charged fees, but it's possible that it was for computer insurance purposes, or something similar. The user group had a large crowd around its booth most of April 19th so I didn't feel like sticking around, especially since my LUG was free.

Sun Microsystems offering at the expo was very small, in fact smaller than Net Direct, a local (Kitchener) Linux consulting firm, but Sun's thin client offerings looked very cool. I was disappointed that Sun didn't have their latest hardware lineup all on display. Sun has some very cool hardware, it's a shame more local computer companies don't sell low end Sun boxes to the general public - I think there's a fair market, especially for second hand (less expensive) Sun hardware. The thin client I tried ran like a rocket, which left me wondering what kind of blazing server was behind the machines. The Sun representative I spoke with was about as forthcoming as the junior Microsoft reps I ran into back at Comdex '95.

Where was SGI, Silicon Graphics? I know SGI has an office just outside of Toronto. If they were at the show, their booth was so small I didn't come across it - though in my sinus-ladden state I admittedly missed a lot. I didn't plan for this expo because I was so sick leading up to the expo that I spent most of the days prior to the expo in bed. SGI has always put out top notch hardware, it was disappointing not so see them there.

The Kensington booth was a lot of fun. I saw some pretty cool hardware there, including a number of WiFi detectors. I did a search for reviews of Kensington's WiFi detectors and turned up almost all very negative reviews, especially for Kensington's entry level WiFi detector; I still went out and bought one yesterday. As I walked the neighbourhood the other night I found a strong signal coming from the neighbour right behind my house, from a couple of houses a few streets down, and from a few places on the way downtown. Whether they actually have WiFi connections, or whether the readings are false positives, I don't know yet, but I'll probably do a little war walking with my notebook on a better looking day. One big problem I found with Kensington is that no one locally seems to carry the superior model of their WiFi detector, and they weren't selling any at the show. To complicate things, the advanced model at the show seemed to be having issues detecting the various WiFi networks at the show. I've yet to see real positive reviews of WiFi detectors. My biggest issue with Kensington's detector is that the light meter is practically useless in broad daylight. I had to do all my walking later in the evening when the sun started to go down; there must be a better way of displaying WiFi information.

I visited a few other companies at the expo, but I'm going to reserve posting about the other companies until I've played a bit more with their software, or contacted them for more information.