The first was the MS Community meeting held on the 26th of January in the Konoba “Idila” in Rakovi near Baderna. For those of you who aren’t from these parts a “konoba” is a local tavern type. If you ever played Dungeons and Dragons or watched a fantasy movie it is the place where the shady old man gives you the quest of your life time (or week in case of my gaming group back at college). It was a real nice place. Cold, dark and mysterious where the mysteries of the Windows XP mode of Windows 7 and the arts of Unit-testing were explained in a dark , dunk room, lit only by the ancient fire place in the center of the dining, drinking, area. The walls were of made of hand chipped stones, rugged and hard, cold from the outside winter.
A place was cleared for us. Twenty chairs, a table and a presentation pod. The ceiling was short, wooden planks running back and forth. I was afraid I was going to hurt my head. I’m tall you see. But no such issues were encountered.
Viktor Ezgeta, presented first on the Windows XP mode in Windows 7. He started first with several slides showing the basics of the Windows XP mode and then continued on a live presentation. Viktor is a fun presenter to have, and it showed in this presentation also. I think everyone got the point there. No missing content for Viktor.
I continued next with my habitual “Unit-Testing: A grease monkey introduction” presentation. It took me longer than agreed but no one objected (well my wife number one had several well meaning objections on my presentational style, which isn’t unusual given her background in journalism and her current work as a researcher in communicology). It went well. I first presented on unit-testing theory and then I showed how unit-testing is done in practice with NUnit.
Afterwards it was the social hour of the evening. We all gathered around an old wooden table, really nice, really cool and rustic and the food was served. Fuži with wild animal meat, and njoki with lambs meat. Of course I got my vegetarian meal which was really nice and animal friendly.
The food was good and so was the talk. As a result me and my colleague Hrvoje Hudoletnjak will present on the next Microsoft user community meeting which will be held in Pula on the 23rd of February 2010.
The second event I present on was the recruitment run held by Novatec New Technologies ( the company I work for) and Systec Automation (the parent company I work for ) in Osijek at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering as part of our new campaign of opening Novatec and Systec offices in Osijek. I presented with a colleague. He covered the Systec side of the presentation and I covered Novatec and the recruitment process.
The presentation was held in the new faculty campus which previously was one of the Osijek’s military bases. The base itself is very ominous, during the opening days of the last war the enemy held the base and opened fire on the city from there and the city hospital which is just on the other side of the street.
It is nice to see such a building disbanded from military use and converted to something which will benefit so many people.
The presentation hall was full with students. Some had to event stand, such was the interest. We really got their attention, so I’m sure many will apply for the position.
Osijek is wonderful city. It was my first time there. I have some friends living there, but haven’t had the time to meet with them. I took a short walk through the city the first night I was there and was impressed with its architecture, the Drava river and parks. The people are really nice and friendly, and didn’t hesitate with instructions where to go when I asked them to. I would really like to go back there and see more of the city, its museums, its bars and theaters (well I am the guy who listens to baroque music when programming, really no surprises there).
In short, I think , both events were a real success and I really hope to present some more in the near future.
