Geek-lite
So, I’ve always considered myself a complete and total geek. A nerd girl. I mean, it’s in the name, right?
Until today.
I’d been going through serious, serious withdrawal thanks to Sympatico Unplugged (my Internet provider) who don’t believe in a) providing the service I pay for, and b) actually answering their technical support phone lines. I spent the better part of a week and a half on hold (minimum four hours a night), only to find out that when I finally got through to a live person, having survived the violence-inducing hold music, the department I needed to get through to had already closed for the night. (funny that they always seemed to close *just* before I got through.) Of course, since they deprived me of almost half a month’s worth of service, I’m going to be depriving them of almost half their fee this month. See how they like it.
So, internet-withdrawal plus a last-minute offer to geek out for two days (and wireless access!), had me attending the Free Software and Open Source Symposium. I totally didn’t know what to expect from this… and I confess I spent most of yesterday feeling a little like Charlie Brown listening to any adult (wah-wah-wah-wah… 
)… but I realized that I am so not a geek. I’m geek lite. Semi-geek. I’m quasi-geek. I’m the margarine of geek. I’m the Diet Coke of geek. Just one calorie, not geek enough. (tho, I think the fact that I just quoted Austin Powers may make me a little more geek than I think. )
These guys? (and I say guys, cuz I was definitely in the minority gender-wise *grin*) They were hard-core. They threw around sayings like “dogfooding your access” (yeah, it was explained to me and I *still* don’t get it.) and.. you know, I was trying to remember other sayings, but so much of it went over my head, I can’t even tell you other things to prove my point. But Derek, who’s one of the instructors in the class where I TA has a great sum up of the two days, complete with some non-geek-friendly words.
Today went a lot better. The lectures I went to were things I could relate to (like a new javascript toolkit called dojo, which has some supercool features and how to build and participate in a strong community successfully.) And in all, I’m glad I went.
But I’m still nowhere near as nerdy as I thought I was.
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“dogfooding your application”
I’m sorry to say, but I think you’re more geek then you realize. You’re a sub-set of geek, you’re “web geek”. So while the Linux and Mac nerdery feel free to glaze over, but it is your duty as web geek to engage in any and all discussions about standards, accessibility, design and any use of “2.0″ in any conversation!
Hey, I’m one of the organizers of FSOSS, and I really enjoyed reading this. I’d be interested for even more feedback from you on how we could improve the experience next year for you. Email me your thoughts when you have a minute.
Heh, that’s true, Derek. I do do that. If only potential authors knew that when I check out their websites to find out about their writer-ly qualifications, I also check out and totally judge their design and coding skills. *grin*
Tho, I do confess to never using the term Web 2.0. I’m gonna side with Cliff that it’s a big crock.
Dave, wow! Thanks for visiting.
Yeah, from a completely newbie point of view, I do have some thoughts on how to make things a wee tad more appealing to those of us who aren’t hard-core geeks. I’ll definitely drop you a line.