And this is no exception. As I have previously said, FOSS.my would have not been possible without the hard work of everyone.

The Organizing Team

Here are the people who played a role in FOSS.my! Perhaps you have heard of some of them before, perhaps you haven't. But its time you do.

Why?

Because not many people have the time and dedication needed to run a conference. At least, not for free. We all have our own commitments. Not many people would take the risk in investing their own time and money to bootstrap FOSS.my.

The truth is, FOSS.my ran on credit. With all the economic forecasts looking grim, how many of you would risk your financial security to do that?

There are a lot of little things that everyone did, and I don't think this list is comprehensive enough to cover it. But I'll try my best to give credit where its due.

Ang Chin Han

To open the bank account to accept payments from both delegates and sponsors, we required money, and alot of it. Banks required an initial deposits to open a bank account, and Ang Chin Han stepped up with his own money, and contributed to the FOSS.my funds. In the past, Han has repeatedly convinced ByteCraft to help sponsor the FOSS community, and FOSS.my was no exception. I am aware of Han's busy schedule, so his repeated attendance at the meetings, and even staying in at APIIT till late (3am) the night before was very much appreciated. During FOSS.my, Han took the role of Hall monitor, and ensured that the tracks ran smoothly and on time, a much more complicated task than it looks.

Awesome work Han!

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• Twitter

Colin Charles

Malaysia's very own FOSS superstar stepped up to the plate to emulate other worldwide FOSS conferences, and to do it in Malaysia. To bring the joy, the happiness, the tears to Malaysia. Having run linux.conf.au, his involvement was invaluable. Colin took care of the press release, and chasing both speakers and sponsors. Much like Han, Colin played a really large role in financing FOSS.my. Not by chasing sponsors, but my initially paying for all the food, the t shirts, the speaker gifts, the speaker party, the domain name, and pretty much everything with a price tag was financed by Colin. Yes, those FOSS.my T shirts you are wearing, Colin. Even the last few days running up to the event, Colin only had a good 20 minutes of sleep in his own bed. As speaker dude, he had to coordinate with foreign speakers and even assisted in picking up Toru Maesaka and Jerome Gotangco from the airport, and treating them to some Nasi Kandar Penang to join Pia Waugh's Curry session. Where later he would drive them to the hotel, and assist them in signing in. Like Han, he also stayed back till 3am to help out at APIIT, and oversee the work being carried out by the volunteers. During the conference, Colin took it up to herd cats throughout the day. Colin and I had planned for a morning comedy act, to help break the ice every, but I got busy running other stuff. I personally like that he took individually shots of the important players during FOSS.my, it makes things like writing these posts, much easier. On the last day, Colin drove Pia Waugh to KL Central, so she could take her flight back.

Awesome work Colin!

• Personal Site
• Personal Blog
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• Identi.ca
• Linkedin
• Twitter

Ditesh Kumar

Playing an early role in FOSS.my, Ditesh Kumar helped bootstrap the FOSS.my website. Hacking in the cool climate of Genting, Ditesh put together the initial pieces of the FOSS.my website. Also playing an important role in overseeing the organization of the conference, he ran the initial cost analysis to determine an appropriate fee to charge the delegates, without running into the red. Ditesh also explored various options in handling incoming funds, to help expediate the process of receiving payment. Together with Han, Ditesh handled track 1 of the conference, and ensured a smooth transition from one presentation to another. After the first day of FOSS.my, Ditesh arranged to pick up Pamela Fox from KLIA, and take her to the speaker party. After the fun and laugher, and learning of the great game of Mao, he would drive various speakers back to their hotels. Thanks for the keynote presentation, and showing everyone the awesome Malaysians at work in FOSS. Soon after the FOSS.my had concluded, Ditesh was quickly off again to drop off Pia Waugh's belongings at KL Central, so that everyone could enjoy the awesome company of Pia even longer. After the dinner, Ditesh once again took back some of the speakers to their hotel.

Awesome work Ditesh!

• Personal Site
• Personal Blog
• Facebook
• Identi.ca
• Linkedin
• Twitter

Firdaus Bin Aziz

After settling on a plan on how to accept payment, Firdaus took the initiative to register a company, and all the minor details involved in it. As Firdaus took the role of setting up the bank account, he ended up handling the financials of FOSS.my. Firdaus ensured that throughout the event, if people required money to purchase any additional things, he was there.

Awesome work Firdaus!

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Gurdip Singh

If I had to sum up Gurdip, it would simple by "from zero to hero." Gurdip, is the man. He took it up to himself to be our proxy with APIIT. Everything the venue provided, from shuttles, to wireless, to even the hotels for the speakers, he was the go to guy. When you think "logistics", you think Gurdip. He even arranged for the great volunteers that helped out throughout the event. Actually to comiple a comprehensive list of things Gurdip took it to himself to achieve during the event would be extremely long, even a post by itself would not suffice. Together with his assistants, Gurdip slept over the night at APIIT before the event to ensure that we were ready in the morning, which we definitely were. Wireless was working. Registration was good to go. The venue was prepared for the participants. This event would definitely not have happened without Grudip.

Awesome work Gurdip!

Izhar Firdaus

The design for everything, ranging from the posters, the badges, and the signages, were done by Izhar, otherwise known as KageSenshi. Being the ninja he is, he even got the APIIT TV system working as required. Izhar came early on Friday to assist in preparing for the venue, and stayed all through the night at APIIT to ensure that things were prepared by morning. Throughout the event, Izhar assisted in food preparations, and the Fedora booth. Together with Shariman Samsudin, he even took Pia Waugh out to watch Quantum of Solace. He did all this, knowing he had exams on the following Monday of the conference. That's dedication.

Awesome work Izhar!

• Personal Blog
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• Identi.ca
• Linkedin
• Twitter

Khairil Yusof

Khairil Yusof, is the man with the plan. FOSS.my was Khairil's idea. Through Inigo Tech, Khairil helped to sponsor FOSS.my. Besides from sponsoring money, the infrastructure to run FOSS.my, the website, and mailing lists, resided on Khairil's servers. After Silatul Rahim Dahman called in sick, Khairil took it to himself to deliver a last minute presentation to ensure that people got what they asked for. All the while being slightly under the weather himself.

Awesome work Khairil!

• Personal Site
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• Identi.ca
• Twitter

Shariman Samsudin

Those lunches you ate, those tea breaks you enjoyed, look no further than Shariman Samsudin. Better known as Yondie, he had to wake up early in the morning to pick up your lunches. Likewise Yondie was another resident at APIIT the night before. Yondie played a large role during the event itself. Everytime I saw him, he was always ensuring that things ran smoothly, always ensuring that volunteers properly understood the work needed to be done, and even as required, he ran to McDonalds to ensure that everyone had enough food, because more people showed up than expected. Yondie was truly concerned that everyone had a good time!

Awesome work Yondie!

• Personal Blog
• Facebook
• Identi.ca
• Linkedin
• Twitter

Suanie

In the FOSS scene, not many know Suanie. But in the Malaysian blogging scene, Suanie is a super star.
Though an unknown, Suanie has always responded to the call of the duty, and has contributed several times to FOSS in Malaysia. Arrangements for the speaker/organizer/volunteer party were all done by her. She event went as far as to look for catering services for us. Suanie also helped to get our press releases out to the papers. Sadly after all her hard work, Suanie couldn't join us for FOSS.my.

Awesome work Suanie!

• Personal Blog
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Syamsul Anuar

Syamsul Anuar arranged for those FOSS.my T Shirts you are comfortably, and proudly wearing. Also known as Wariola, he even helped to translate our press release into Malay. Much like a few of the others, Wariola burned the midnight oil the night before.

Awesome work Wariola!

• Facebook
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Yoon Kit Yong

Yoon Kit helped us to acquire the speakers gifts. Even then, he helped out in pushing out the press release to the papers. Yoon Kit, also stepped in to FOSS.my to give his keynote presentation. Little do many know, Yoon Kit showed concern for safety after the speaker party, and ensured that I safely got to my car.

Awesome work Yoon Kit!

• Personal Blog
• Facebook
• Identi.ca
• Linkedin
• Twitter

Special Thanks

In every community led event, there are many people that contribute, and don't get heard. Without them, the success of the event is at stake.

These are the people who helped throughout the conference in any way. From helping with design, to preparing the food, ensuring the tracks ran smoothly, to staying over the previous night to prepare the venue. These are those unsung heroes. There are many more of whom, I have forgotten the names. So please do ping me if you'd like your name included.

The Unsung Heroes

• Hassanudin Saidin
• Yusseri Yussof
• Chew Kwai Fei
• Noor Jahan farazi
• Ivana Tanadi
• Dewi Marhamah
• Tini
• Elaine Ong
• Darshini Nadarajan
• Desiree Chow
• Jamilya
• Gaukhar
• Eavay Javay Barnad
• Sarogini
• Nuhaa All Bakry
• Norliyana Kamarludin
• Sean Sean Tan
• Swee Meng Ng

Awesome Work Everyone

The success of FOSS.my, wouldn't have been possible without you.

Photo Credits:

• Profile photos taken by Colin Charles
• Photo taken by Ow Mun Heng

Related posts

• MyOSS Basketball – December 2005 (0)
• Ow’s Bachelor Dinner and Beer (0)
• Digg Malaysia: What is the real harm? (1)
• PCFair 2006 August Kuala Lumpur: Overview (2)
• Pre FOSS.my 2008 (0)

Mysql Topic: "Mysql performance tuning and benchmarking"

Colin Charles
Community Relations Manager
MySQL AB

Colin Charles is the Community Relations Manager at MySQL AB. He lives in Melbourne, Australia and has been with MySQL since 2005. Before joining MySQL, he worked actively on the Fedora and OpenOffice.org projects. He currently spends a lot of his time making community-based projects happy using the MySQL database.

----

CouchDB Topic: "Introduction to CouchDB"

Ditesh Kumar

Ditesh is a free software developer and has been officially blessed by St. Ignucious. He has sworn to the oath of writing free software for the goodness of all mankind, and is known to be mostly holy (though not celibate). He can be found at free software events in Malaysia.

----

When
====
Thursday, January 10th 7:30 PM

What - Meetup Agenda
=====================

7:30pm - 7:45pm Opening by the Organizer
7:45pm - 8:30pm MySQL Performance Tuning and Benchmarking - Colin Charles, MySQLAB
8:30pm - 8:45pm MySQL Q&A
8:45pm - 9:30pm Couch DB - Ditesh Kumar

Cost:
Free. No registration required, just come right in, have a seat, and
join the crowd.

Contact
kaeru@inigo-tech.com
+60-16-3111330

Where:
OUM Angkasa Raya
Open University Malaysia
Floor\Tingkat 3, Bangunan Angkasa Raya,
Jalan Ampang,
50450 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
TEL: 60-3-2148 8400

Located near Kuala Lumpur City Centre (KLCC)
15 minute walk from the KLCC LRT station.
Praying facilities are available on the campus.

About MyOSS Meetups
====================

Interested in helping out the Free and Open Source Community in Malaysia?
Check out http://foss.org.my/projects/meetups/howto

If you would like to do a presentation, please contact me at the above email address.

Learn more about the MyOSS Meetups at
http://foss.org.my/projects/meetups/about .

This meetup is possible due to the support and facilities provided by Open University Malaysia.

Related posts

• PCFair 2006 August Kuala Lumpur: Overview (2)
• Ow’s Bachelor Dinner and Beer (0)
• MyOSS Basketball – December 2005 (0)
• Meet The FOSS.my 2008 Team (0)
• Digg Malaysia: What is the real harm? (1)

Just to make it clear, my position on this issue is that though I am against the direct copying (stylesheet, logo, etc...), I personally think there is a lot to be gained from a localized version of Digg. It is an untapped market. Hints and suggestions? Make it in at least both Malay, and English. If you want include the other languages spoken in Malaysia.

Ditesh brings the point I would like to discus:

I suspect that this is because there is no real harm. Zero. Zilch. Nada.

No harm to Digg? What harm could possible be done? Tarnishing the brand of the Digg image perhaps? Besides the branding can be easily fixed by changing the logo, name, and a few more things. Hell call it 'Korek', and you might have a sure winner.

About the same harm done to a bootleg Nike shoe. Sure it may tarnish the image, but generally people know they are buying cheap knock offs anyway. Petaling Street anyone?

But how does it play on the web? Would the brand of the original be tarnished by a knock off? Some more when usage of the site is free, no subscription, nothing.

In this case, if the user was unsatisfied with the knock off, he can easily (at no charge and drawbacks ) use the original site. Similarly if the knock off did do well, wouldn't it also bring publicity to the original?

Some things to ponder about for a while about the real harm of Digg Malaysia. In the mean time go read Ditesh's post on Of Mice and the Malaysian Digg.

Related posts

• Ow’s Bachelor Dinner and Beer (0)
• Meet The FOSS.my 2008 Team (0)
• PCFair 2006 August Kuala Lumpur: Overview (2)
• MyOSS Meetup January 2008 (0)
• Why I Support Free Culture (0)

I believe that just on the first day the we were able to achieve the goals and objectives of the group.

What were the goals?

• Advocating and promoting the benefits of FOSS
• Helping interested parties to use FOSS
• Finding pockets of FOSS users and bringing them together to strengthen the community

I would like to thank the following volunteers who helped (wo)man the booth:

• Ang Chin Han
• Sharuzzaman
• Ang Kian Meng
• Ahmad Arafat
• Rezuan
• Amin + 1
• Firdaus bin Aziz
• Hanafiah
• Sumardi
• Ditesh Kumar
• Amir
• Diana Asnani + 2
• Haszaliza Yacob
• Afrezal
• Rizal
• Farhan Faizal + 1

It is interesting to note that most of these volunteers have never ever met each other before, and are here for a common goal. Nonetheless it was still a success.

Thanks also goes to these people for either helping donate CDs, or coming to the booth for support:

• Colin Charles
• Kevin Foo
• Seymour
• Meling Mudin
• Lau Kai Jern

Nonetheless our thanks to these companies for helping donate to us some items:

• Mimos
• Bytecraft

Thanks should also go to

• Wai Sing Low
• Molly Cheah

A round of applause should go to the Trinidad and Tobago Computer Society in creating their TTCSS OSS WIN CD, a collection of FOSS applications for the Windows platform. This CD was really popular

But most importantly Pikom. If people could please write a letter of appreciation, I'll be happy to forward it on.

Almost forgot to include our beloved Tux.

If I forgot your name please do contact me, my brain is still a bit blur...

Now on to discussing the importance of this event.

PCFair Overview

This has been a most interesting and tiring experience for me. The event is from 11am to 9pm (alright we started packing up at around 8:30pm, but hey I was there around 10ish), and there are thousands and thousands of visitors. I believe statistics are around 20,000 visitors for the first day (btw there are three days, and the first day has the smallest number of visitors). Though the first day may have had the smallest number of people, I would have said that by the end of the first day, we were already a successful in achieving our goals and objectives.

Generally the classes of people I encountered are divided into:

1. Been using it for X years. Familiar and accustomed
2. Was using it previously, but stopped
3. Just installed GNU/Linux within the past year
4. Using FOSS applications on Windows (ie: Firefox, OpenOffice)
5. New and clueless, "What is with this empty booth? What are these guys trying to sell?"

It is safe to say that all of these people did not know about the existence of a community around FOSS. Including the first, and second classes, which sadens me abit. But our hard work has payed off, and these people were surprised that we do exist.

Besides the usual, where did I see FOSS being deployed?

• Chuches
• Volunteer Efforts

We were able to reach out to alot of pocket FOSS users out there, and hopefully they will come to the MyOSS Meetup this coming Thursday.

For the 2nd and 3rd group, alot of them came to us for technical support. (ie: problems with drivers, applications, etc.) It is interesting to note that the people in this group recognize the benefits of FOSS: Cost savings, safety from BSA Raiding parties, licensing issues, etc. But they are having problems with it. Interestingly enough one person even came to the booth after looking at the newspaper article in The New Straits Times asking for some FOSS applications on Windows (primarily OpenOffice).

It is great that alot of students (both from Secondary and Higher Education) come up to us asking for help or wanting to learn more, because these are the people that we should help foster. Similarly lecturers were also interested with our group in helping out their University/college.

The secondary students that approached us were interested in computers, so explaining to them the benefits of FOSS wasnt to difficult.

For the higher education students, we got people coming from: Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Law.

How to help?

Computer Science, pretty straightforward. Electrical + Mechanical Engineering, passed it on to Sharuzzaman + others. Law folks? Copyright issues, lowering Malaysia's piracy rate. If you have any hints please do forward them to me.

The final two groups was just alot of hardwork.

Oddly enough people even came to us asking if we know any freelancers, that they wanted to hire.

The most important thing is that the visitors to our booth were receptive and encouraging of our efforts to promote FOSS.

What did I learn?

• More marketing skills
• There isn't much time to showcase everything. Divide them up into the 5 groups, and deal appropriate. ie: Familar and comfortable, just discuss Community. New and not sure, discuss FOSS.
• We need more volunteers
• The FOSS users in Malaysia are really, really, really, really fragmented
• We need to sell FOSS merchandise, penguins, shirts, daemons, stickers, etc

On to the future my friends! Happy Hacking. Hope to see you all at the MyOSS Meetup!

Note: Microsofties never disturbed us throughout the event

Related posts

• Meet The FOSS.my 2008 Team (0)
• Ow’s Bachelor Dinner and Beer (0)
• MyOSS Meetup January 2008 (0)
• Digg Malaysia: What is the real harm? (1)
• Why I Support Free Culture (0)

Congratulations Ow, and good luck to Ditesh on reaching enlightenment , your half way there.

Related posts

• Meet The FOSS.my 2008 Team (0)
• Digg Malaysia: What is the real harm? (1)
• PCFair 2006 August Kuala Lumpur: Overview (2)
• MyOSS Meetup January 2008 (0)
• Why I Support Free Culture (0)