So NSConference has been and gone. This was my first Mac conference so I've not really got anything to compare it to, but it was the most interesting and enjoyable few days I've had all year. Mac developers are often quite isolated and don't get to meet up very often, at least not in large groups. This was the first time I've met so many Mac users in one place and it was a great experience.

The Conference

The talks were great and I picked up some great tips and learned about some cool technologies that I'll be looking into more in the future. It is often the little things you pick up from in talks that really stick with you and can help you the most. This was helped by the last session where the speakers had to give a few quick tips over 3 minutes after being pulled away from an application design competition they were working on.

I was lucky enough to be given a short lunchtime slot to talk about accessibility. I made the talk, not to discuss technical issues, but to emphasise why accessibility is important and should be top of our agenda as developers. It seemed to really resonate with those in the room, with many saying they were going to make the pledge to make their apps fully accessible by the end of the year. Those who didn't were also very committed to accessibility but many didn't want to make the pledge as they were unsure they would be able to fulfil it before the end of the year. At the very least, it brought a very important topic front an centre to a large chunk of the Mac developer community.

The conference was held at the University of Hertfordshire in Hatfield on the relatively new de Havilland campus. The facilities there were great, with the restaurant (which served excellent food for breakfast and lunch), bar and lecture theatre where the talks were held all within a short walk of the accommodation.

Of course, being a university campus the accommodation was decidedly student oriented, though still being a student it wasn't a problem, plus besides the few moments spent sleeping there wasn't much time spare to be spent in your room.

Now all this wouldn't have been possible without the time and effort put into organising and running the conference by the staff. Scotty and Tim did a great job and managed to put on an amazing event which everyone who went is thankful for. And we can't forget Dave, who dealt with many of the technical aspects of the conference and Ben, who sat patiently outside at the registration desk for hours on end. These guys worked incredibly hard with very little, if any, money in payment for their time and effort and a lot of people now owe them a great debt of gratitude. Here's hoping for an NSConference 2010. If there is one you can bet I'll be there.

One important thing that was mentioned at the conference but not linked to, was my unofficial attendees list. If you went to NSConference make sure you add yourself so others can know you were there!

The Badge

Now, as all the praise is out of the way, lets get onto what went wrong. (Actually, one more bit of praise. The badges we received were incredibly well designed and clear and it was obvious a lot of thought had gone into them. Anyway, back to the failing).

It turned out I was the very first person to register for the conference (I feel like I should have had a golden badge with "#1" written on it, but oh well) and so my badge ended up being the test badge. Scotty and Tim printed out loads of badges with my details on until they got it right. Once they'd perfected mine they printed out everyone else's.

Then it comes to the conference and they pull out all the badges to put into their holders. Out of over 100 badges the only one they couldn't find was mine, the one which they had done the most copies of over the past few weeks. So of course starts a frantic search for the badge, which is eventually found at the bottom of a waste paper bin all crumpled up.

So here is my badge, all crumpled up, next to all the pristine flat badges of the other attendees. So what is the solution to this? Well they pull out an iron (who knows why they had an iron) and start to ponder whether they should iron the badge flat. Thankfully this whole thing was caught on camera by Alasdair Allan (see his flickr set for the conference here) for all the world to see, so I shall leave you with 3 orange men, an iron, a hair dryer and my badge:

Scotty, Tim and Ben wondering how to flatten my badge. Photo Credit Alasdair Allan

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