Meeting other people

Quick answers to some of the questions:

1. Chris has a firewall.cx sticker on the back of his car (or he used to)..

2. Chris & I haven't met, however we have communicated in some strange ways:
a) Over Skype -- with me talking into a pair of headphones (long story).
b) Through a guitar (longer story).
c) On Netmeeting so that I could learn some iptables tricks
d) Over free SMS services that we were 'testing'.

I think all the Greek members of the team & Jil have met up at some point or the other.

3. T-shirts are an awesome idea, I wouldn't mind one myself hehehe

I went down to Mauritius some months ago on some work for 'The Company', and I met up with some of the guys who hang around on the site.. really cool chaps.

I've also met lots of people here in Mumbai who visit the site -- at conferences, and even in the train !

It would be really nice for everyone to get together at some point.
I'm pretty sure I'm gonna scam for some work in Greece at some point so I can harrow Chris with Cisco questions at which point the rest of the team will also have to plan a fly-down..

Getting people from so many different continents into the same place will really be an achievement.


Good thread,

Cheers,

I must agree with Sahir - this is actually a great thread!

Because Sahir always likes to be upto date with whats happening in the Firewall.cx world (that includes my car :>), let me inform him that the sticker is still on it !

As I'm sure a lot of you would like to see what I've actually done, here it is in all its glory:



While the picture was taken 2 years ago, the only thing that's changed since then is the 'Kms' reading on my dashboard

The_Berzerker, if you still want a sticker, I've got a few left (only the www.firewall.cx part). The actual sticker is transparent, because of the silver colour my car has. I wanted the colours to stick out nicely, so my choices were limited.

This also means that if you wanted to put it on a dark coloured car, it wouldn't really look that good, but if you've got a white, silver or bright coloured car, then your lucky! Let me know and I'll arrange one to be sent to you.

At the same time, I feel that we should give out a bit more information on the discussion me and Sahir had via his guitar - I think it would be a good laugh aswell

We decided to give Skype a try and see if it actually did work over the Internet. For those who are unaware of the product, its a VoIP application for Internet and Long distance calls to anywhere in the world - for more information, just hit www.skype.com .

Anyways, we successfully rang each other and initiated the call, but the problem was that Sahir couldn't find a microphone. While I was able to speak and listen without any problem (My laptop has a built-in microphone), Sahir had problems

Instead spending time trying to find the missing mic.. Sahir decided to plug his guitar in and speak to me with 'musical notes' The result was me speaking to a guitar!

I would say something and then Sahir would answer me by playing Lambada while also typing in the text box the Skype program provides. At some point, he even asked me to sing the song!! The end result was very amusing for both of us!

After Sahir clearly saw my inability to communicate with him via his guitar, he decided to put it away and look for a headset he had lying around. Plugging the headset into the mic. input of his workstation allowed him to start speaking to me in a language I was able to understand, while the result was hilarious since he was speaking into a headset!

So there you have it - Sahir's and Chris's first attempt to talk over the Internet was quite an experience for both, and I can tell you from first hand, I discovered Sahir is a very good guitar player! That I can guarantee!!!

Coming to Firewall.cx T-Shirt idea. It's something we've considered in the past ( around a year ago) but due to the associated costs, it was decided not to proceed with it.

However, we would like to get something small out to our members, perhaps a key-ring or something nice and useful.

I have personally spent some money in the past and got a few nice business shirts with the Firewall.cx logo knitted on them, but the costs are prohibitive for a large volume.

We will stick the idea on the 'to do' list and revisit the issue once the Cisco lab is complete, simply because the lab is taking up all the resources (and budget) assigned to the site for this year!

Cheers,

It would be cool if firewall.cx got popular enough and big enough to the point where a yearly meet of all the members could be arranged.

Other than donations, if you guys need to raise money, remember that the members may be willing to buy merchandise

Thanx Chris but don't worry i make my own stickers and t-shirts
I will make a sticker myself and put it on my car, concerning the t-shirt we have talked about it and i know that the whole "merchandise" thing is not a good idea since it demands a lot of time. What i thought was that maybe we could decide on some designs for shirts, t-shirts etc. and then provide the files so that anyone in the world can go to the nearest t-shirt shop and print his own . What do you think? I really hope the best for this site...

Just think of the variety of Firewall.cx goods we could end up with: T-Shirts, key rings, pens, drink mats, little squishy rubber latex Chris dolls...
It would be nice to meet some folk but I'm not sure I could afford to jet off to Greece or Mumbai (tempting though) let alone getting the time! But if anyone is over in the UK give us all a shout and I'm sure one or two of us will be near enough to your destination to drop by. I know Chris was in the UK not so long ago (good) but unfortunately just in and around London (not so good) so he had to pass on the opportunity to track down us northerners. Never mind, next time!

Well,

Well guys right now i'm in Morocco, so if someone wants to come here
i'll be his/her host

so think about :lol: