MKLAB

Just wanted to post a pic of my area at Digital Overload. I had to have my ibook in the picture. BTW the network operations people said they “jammed” the wireless but as you can see i seem to have no problems. Not sure what they were doing but it was not working. They did have a large antenna setup, though i have only seen those used for wireless broadband access not for jamming.

First off I would like to say as a first event everything went rather smooth. When I got into line it took about 10 minutes to get into the hall. If you take into account that I got to the event at 15 minutes after the doors were supposed to open that is a major accomplishment by the staff. The second thing I noticed is that security and the people were pleasant and knew what they were supposed to do.

After getting in there was the normal finding of seats as there was no set seating. Luckily there were not enough people to fill the area set aside. I find it interesting that an event so planned could not have had a seating chart setup. There are many reasons for the seating chart, least of which is that most people going to the event are going with others. Having a set aside spot for each group is nice for gamers, allowing for easier team interaction etc…

Once setting up the computer there was a great surprise as it we had to register our computer with the network. This helps on so many levels as it allows the event coordinators the ability to find out which machine is to which user for security issues. What I believe would have added to the service is to have a scan happen when registering your computer. This scan can be done relatively simple with current network registration software such as the original netreg service. A few basic scans couple be a shares scan for any shares other then the normal shared documents share, also a port based worm and malware scan would be suggested.

After in the event and on the network I opened my web browser and received a replaced homepages for my normal homepage. Using DNS tricks to use one ip for all domains I was brought to an internal site on the list of comics and a small pointer to a DC server. A DC server is a direct connect server much like a simple IRC client. This page could have been used for so much more then it was. I will explain this later on. Once I connected to the direct connect server I was able to download patches etc.

Over all the network had a base line of security with a break out of subnets, a central location for information (unused throughout the event), and a real time tech support/social network in DC. A few improvements in the very good base that was started would be to make a wiki or some type of CMS that could be updated by staff for tournament schedules and signups. Also to make for easier finding people it would be nice for a seating chart to know who is around you when you playing.

A good way to keep everyone in the event up to date would be a projector up at the front of the hall that would broadcast upcoming tournaments and different info and events such as the lazer tag event that went on. This type of event has many things going on and the idea to let the most people know about it easily. One last issue I saw with the event was the over all music. It would have been nice to listen to music I liked but I can understand different people’s tastes. The problem comes in when the event is blasting music that you can hear over your head phones. Really a little respect would be nice.

Over all it was a great event that I look forward to try and attending next year, especially if it is as close as it was this year.

Below is two pics of the network operations: