pepoluan: The IT Guy

As I promised, here's a new blog article. Not a WinPowerTip (next article, promise!) but an 'Eyewitness Report' of the Indonesian Firefox 3 Launch Party.

More news after the jump

Follow up:

This evening I went to the Firefox 3 Launch Party. It was a nice geek-gathering (no offense intended; hey, I'm a geek myself!), in which I got to know my fellow Firefox 3 users.

The party took place at The 2nd Floor Starbucks @ Senayan City (BTW, Senayan City has 2 -- count 'em, two! -- Starbucks outlets). Hosted by Mr. Viking Karwur, it was a cozy gathering. Although I can't say that many luminaries came, some 'net.personalities' from the blogosphere and the Indonesian Open Source Initiative also came. Oh, some reporters from kompas.com and Kompas daily also came.

It was relatively brief. We had some chit chat, then the customary introductions (in which I declared myself as the current maintainer of the KasKusMenu Extension, Kaskus Fixups userstyle, and The Handsome Set ABP filterset), then a door-prize drawing, and as closing, a photoshoot of us wearing Firefox 3 Party Hats (the dunce cone-shaped hats you often see in parties) with the Firefox 3 "Victory" Movie Poster proudly displayed...

And that's it.

Huh? No female strippers? No gratuitous act of wanton violence and/or uninhibited sex?

Uh... no, not this time

Anyways, what's more enjoyable (to me, at least) is the follow-up chitchat at the 1st Floor Starbucks. Not the least, because I can smoke freely there, heh But, seriously, we talked a lot about Open Source in Indonesia, and the guy from the Communication & Information Department also shared some stories about the Indonesian Open Source Initiative which, despite appearances to the contrary, is alive and well (so, that's where those BLANKON (Indonesian version of Ubuntu) came from...).

Too bad I didn't bring my digital camera with me... nice pictures galore, you know

After the clock went well past 21:00 hours, we finally decided to disband the gathering and merrily went to our respective homes or offices. All of us have collected our email addresses, and we look forward to continuing our gathering in the Virtual World (i.e., mailing list).

So, congratulations on your birth, Firefox 3! From all of us, the Firefox Community in Indonesia.