SAPO Codebits

Surveying Codebits

jac — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 15:25:03 GMT

We launched the Codebits survey around 48 hours ago and already 350 people took the time to give us their feedback (thank you so much).

We're going through the answers now, and we'll keep looking at the new ones, but there are already a few topics we'd can/want to address (and not "abord"; duh).

Global appreciation:

We had a very small number of people who felt rather indifferent to Codebits or who didn't enjoy the event and an overwhelming percentage of attendees (92%) who claim to have had an amazing experience.

We're very pleased with this outcome; it's always expectable that not everybody loves a conference, but that number is so low that we can't help but feel that the job was well done.

But let's move on the next topics.

Language:

As we mentioned in some emails, we had several internal reasons for choosing English as the main language for Codebits. Even so, we still had lots of content in Portuguese.

Even before the event took place, we got some angry emails about this choice; just a couple, but strong enough to make us wonder about it.

But now we're seeing what the attendees (and speakers) think about this move, and it's almost unanimous: almost everyone seems to feel that either the choice of language is irrelevant or that English should be assumed as Codebits' main language.

Pornophonique:

We also had some reservations when it comes to a concert but it's now clear that this was one of the best choices for this year.

Over 70% of the attendees who took the survey claim that a concert inside Codebits does make sense (there's event a couple of people suggesting two concerts). When it comes to bringing Pornophonique back again opinions get divided, but not because of their quality, just regarding the possibility of bringing someone new to Codebits.

Attending 2010:

Can you guess how many of the surveyed attendees said were coming back again next year?

Almost all of them, and most of the ones who didn't give a simple yes as an answer took the time to write things like "if you accept me…"

Voting:

Apart from the straight answers there is also very good feedback on the text fields. We haven't read all of it yet (we're working on it), but there are some very interesting points there. One of them is related to voting, and thus we think it's appropriate to describe exactly how it went.

A group of five people was discreetly taking notes about the projects. The audience was told their votes would decide the winners, and that was correct, and we also said there would be some minimal tweaks to the results.

The system in place was smart enough to remove the votes of some users following specific patterns (sorry, no disclosure here).

As soon as we gathered to decide the winners we did two things:

list the 15 projects with better (valid) voting;

list all the other projects not on that list but that had made an impression strong enough to be on our notes.

The next step was finding which of the first 15 projects were also on our notes, and these (6 or 7) were clear winners - the audience had enjoyed them and so did we.

Next we went through the list of projects we had listed to find out how many votes each of them had received and we discussed among our small group which projects should also be distinguished.

There were a couple of projects not on the 15 most voted that got a prize, and there were a couple of projects on the 15 most voted that were not in any of our lists but that we gave a prize anyway based on the audience feedback.

It's worth noting that there were problems with the voting of one project and we did take that into consideration.

A few comments on the survey were related to the contest but not to the voting system. There were some suggestions that people working at SAPO shouldn't be allowed to participate...

Well, there were over 150 of those, and it doesn't make much sense for us to organize such a cool event if our 150 people won't be able to participate. Also, no member of the jury was part of a group and the selection of winners was made with the projects in mind, and not people; names weren't even mentioned during the short meeting we took, only projects.

As a side note, it seems (at a glance) that less than half of the prizes went to people working at SAPO, so there can't be any complaints there.

That being said, the general rules/guidelines for the contest may be just slightly tweaked for next year, but we're not expecting any major redefinition of the contest. As for the process to pick the winners, that has changed drastically every year and we're still not happy about it, so we'll probably use some of the suggestions provided on the survey.

And finally, a (more or less) random selection of comments:

"I think the people who signed up and then din't come to the event should be kindly rejected in next year. I know a couple of people, which signed up and were pure lazy to come (no day at all)."

This attendee does have a point… Kudos to all of those who dropped us an email or a twitter dm before the event letting us know they wouldn't be coming.

"some coaching done to contest presenters would be nice."

We agree and we already have a plan in this regard for next year.

There were also several comments regarding the temperature in the building, recycling bins and the possibility of having showers somewhere in the vicinity. We'll take all this into consideration for next year.

And finally, one last comment we enjoyed:

"We're almost there, only 12 months left !! ;)"

That's the spirit :-)

Soon, more information on the winning projects.

And yes, we'll take all the feedback we're getting into consideration for next year.

Codebits survey

jac — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 01:47:29 GMT

Codebits attendees just got an email with the link to a survey about the event.

117 people have already replied. Thank you so much.

Next up, the missing videos and slides and more information on the projects (we're working as hard and fast as we can).

Photos and videos from Codebits

jac — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 16:16:10 GMT

An incredible number of Codebits related videos and photos have been showing online.

The videos for the talks are showing up on each talk page (just follow the link for the talk from the calendar). We're have people working on putting the ones that are still missing online.

As for photos, just look for codebits on services such as Flickr or SAPO Fotos.

We'll also be putting more content online during the next few days.

Winning projects

jac — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 02:25:51 GMT

The 11 winning projects of the 2009 Codebits edition were (in alphabetical order):

All your faces are belong to us
cyclops
Cython protobuf generator
Math4Kids
Playsketch
Supond - Apple Time Machine-like Interface for Your Lifestream
TV Movies
Time-based OTPs
Truz-Truz
Verbatim Quiz!
widgetize

These were based on the votes by the attendees with a small amount of human control to account for unusual situations and other issues.

The winning teams were rewarded with several prizes, including Xboxes, MacBook Pros, Netbooks, iPod Nanos, Magic Mouses, Wireless Keyboards, Arduinos, HTCs, Chumbies, dozens of O'Reilly books, bean bags and more.

We're really proud of all the hard work the teams have put in their projects and we're very grateful to the attendees for all their votes which made our tasks of selecting the winners much easier than usual.

More details on these projects soon.

List of projects

jac — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 16:24:47 GMT

This is the project presentation order:

Things you need to do to present your project

jac — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 14:53:31 GMT

Between 15h and 16h, head to the main stage to try your laptop connection to the projector.

If you need sound, test it too.

And the most important thing of all: talk to @jose_castro to let him know you are ready to present. If you don't do this, you won't be on the list.

One hour to go. Be patient with us (testing ~70 laptops in ~60 minutes) and try to speed up the process.

Codebits at a glance

jac — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 03:00:56 GMT

5 in the morning.

Over 200 people are still awake.

There are groups happily hacking lines of code, building cool stuff with Lego, hard at work with the Makerbot, the Enigma-E and Arduinos, people playing on the Xboxes and the Arcade machine, etc. There's also some sound of Pornophonique in the air.

Near the main stage, the lights have been dimmed and people are now sleeping on top of the bean bags, many of them in their sleeping bags.

Many of the groups are working by shifts, sleeping in turns.

In 4 to 5 hours the building will start getting more movement again.

At 10, Filipe will talk on Physical Computing for the Masses.

By 11, Paula will speak on Enigma - The Mother of Modern Cryptography.

More spontaneous talks may (and should) be announced on the flip chart by the registration desk.

Enjoy. Have fun. Good hacking.

Taking bean bags home

jac — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 00:17:03 GMT

Several people have already received a voucher that will allow them to take a bean bag out of the building.

The people at the exits are instructed to only let you carry a bean bag outside if you hand them one of those vouchers. Also, they are instructed to only let you do so after the Codebits wrap-up, on Saturday afternoon.

There are 200 bean bags in the building and only less than 100 vouchers are being given, which means you don't have to guard the bags; they will be available in the end, so let people use them until the very last moment.

Hope you're enjoying Codebits as much as we're enjoying your company.

Enigma-E (straight from WWII)

jac — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 19:45:22 GMT

Two electronic replicas of the Enigma machine have arrived.

They are currently with @phantas at the soldering board (aka Mitch), about to be assembled.

Talk to her if you want to join the fun and see how these machines work.

@phantas will also be giving a workshop on the Enigma machine tomorrow morning, at 11h (stage will be announced soon).

Have fun.

Bean bags

jac — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 16:23:04 GMT

There's several activities going on that might grant you a bean bag at Codebits.

One of them is to write the n-th direct comment to this blog post, where n is any prime number lower than 20.

Don't forget to write down your table number and how to identify you.

Also, considering the first and second Fibonacci numbers to be 1 and 1, your comment must include the 10th Fibonacci number.

Is your project in accordance to the competition rules?

jac — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 15:09:54 GMT

Again, a brief review of the competition rules:

Each person can only be part of one team;
Each team can only present one project;
Each team must comprise at least two elements;
If you're presenting a web project, you must provide a URL for the jury to give it a try;
Projects must be initiated and developed during Codebits;
Projects shouldn't be offensive.

How to get your project on stage:

Register your project on the website (team included);
Fill in the coordinates of your location so that the jury/organizers can reach you;
Go to the rehearsal by the main stage, Saturday, at 15h.

HTML5 JavaScript APIs and Optional is required

jac — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 09:18:16 GMT

Videos from Codebits keep getting available.

Notice the details on the edition, such as the noise from the audience being cut off soon after the talk starts. We're very happy with the result and hope you enjoy it too.

HTML 5 JavaScript APIs, by Remy Sharp:

Optional is required, by Brian Suda:

More are becoming available as we sleep^Wspeak.

Videos from Codebits are becoming available

jac — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 15:51:56 GMT

Think before you develop, by Kai Seidler:

Other videos are becoming available at http://videos.sapo.pt/codebits.

Live transmission

jac — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 10:20:12 GMT

Codebits live transmission on the web is now up.

Pond invitations

jac — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 08:00:41 GMT

Head to your personal area on the Codebits intranet.

Scroll down.

Between your sessions and your friends you'll find a link to your own personal invite for Pond.

You're welcome.

Behind the scenes #13 - How to avoid carrying heavy stuff

jac — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 07:30:26 GMT

It's rather simple, actually: just grab a camera and start taking pictures to "document the experience" ;-)

Long story short, the arcade that was at SAPO is currently at Cordoaria. Treat it nicely.

Into the building we go

jac — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 07:00:29 GMT

At 9h00 we'll be opening the building for participants.

There's over 600 attendees, so we'd like to ask for everyone's understanding regarding the waiting in line, and also for everyone's cooperation in trying to make the process as smooth as possible.

Now, when you get to the registration desk you'll be asked a few questions. Please have your answers ready:

15" or 17"?

This is the size of the laptop sleeve you're getting; sorry, no 13" available this year.

t-shirt size?

Aside from several t-shirt sizes, it's worth mentioning that there are 6 different t-shirt designs and you're getting one of them randomly assigned to you; the people at the registration counter are instructed not to change the t-shirt you got; if you'd prefer another design, find somebody to swap t-shirts with later on; if we allowed people to pick their design the registration process would become a lot more slower, so you're getting the design that comes out of the bag; please understand that.

Are you planning on attending the lockpicking session?

If you say you're not going to attend that session your badge will have a red X on the lower right corner; if you say you're going to attend your badge will have a green V on that corner and you'll receive a short speech on how the contents of that session are intended to illustrate security issues and make a parallel between the physical and the virtual worlds, and are not in any way intended for usage on illicit actions; you may be asked to sign a statement as you certify you understand this (if not at the registration, you'll be asked to sign it later on).

One other note regarding the registration process: you're going to receive several cool items during registration; we should have enough for everyone, be please don't ask for extras; the people there are instructed to say no and you'll only be making everyone behind you lose an extra 5 seconds.

Among the items you'll receive is a printed copy of "Welcome to Codebits", which starts with a tour of the building. Exit the registration table by moving to your right and follow the instructions on this document.

Codebits on SAPO at Meo

jac — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 06:00:52 GMT

For Meo clients in Portugal, you probably already know there's SAPO content on Meo.

During Codebits you'll also be able to see the event on your box.

Menu -> TV -> Comprar Canais -> Canais Premium -> SAPO Codebits -> Subscrever por 0,00€

There, now your family and friends can see you on TV.

Behind the scenes #12 - Beware of organizers

jac — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 05:00:37 GMT

They haven't been sleeping much, lately.

Also, they have megaphones and are not afraid to use them.

Seriously, though, we're here to help, so do get in touch with us if you require our assistance :-)

Mapping the building and giving coordinates

jac — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 04:00:06 GMT

We mentioned we were still working on some more features for the back-office.

Here's one of them: http://codebits.eu/s/gps.

Drag the screen to get to the area you're in. After that, drag the green cube to the exact location you want to point out.

There, you can now use the permalink on the lower part of this page to tell others where you are. Use it to tell others where your team is located or to schedule gaming sessions.

Enjoy!

Behind the scenes #11 - Recording the sessions

jac — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 03:00:00 GMT

We've told about live streaming, but have we told you that the sessions will be recorded?

Provided the speaker allows it, each session will be recorded and made available soon after the talk takes place (encoding will be done almost instantly and there's someone in charge of uploading the videos right after they're done, which means they should be online a few hours after the talk takes place).

This is only possible thanks to Comsom, another regular presence at Codebits.

This is the third time in a row they'll be present, taking care of all the audio, video, and more, from the tasks everyone can see to the ones no one ever thinks about (it's really a lot of hard work and it's only possible thanks to a hard working and very knowledgeable team).

They have lots of material ready and will be working hard during the three days of the event to make sure everything works properly.

Behind the scenes #10 - Making of, final day before the event

jac — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 02:00:45 GMT

Network is ready

jac — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 01:30:31 GMT

The network is ready and we're using the same credentials as last year:

SSID:: CODEBITS
Password Wifi: hack! (WEP)

It's off right now; we're putting it back up again tomorrow around 8am.

Parking near Codebits

jac — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 00:50:05 GMT

One of the attendees took the time to point out some of the parking lots around Codebits.

It seems most of them (if not all) are free. The ones across the train line usually have way more empty spaces (and there's a pedestrian bridge right next to the Cordoaria building).

Tomorrow at 10h30pm, SAPO Codebits quiz show!

joaovelhote — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 19:51:20 GMT

The qualification round is now over, with some great javascript hacking.

joao_sil won this final round with an amazing 76 stroke solution:

{
\]
\[
\+
-
\.
>
<
^
z

g
g
g
g
g
g
g
g
g
g



//
}
while(z){
z++;
z--;
e+='&#'+z;
i++;z=z?z:0;
i--;
a=[i=0];e=''
a[i]

Our thanks to Microsoft, for sponsoring the first prize which will be a brand new Xbox 360!

Here is the final rank. The first sixteen players are automatically qualified, in case of someone giving up, we will choose from the classification. Note that any player that is qualified will be able to choose any codebits contestant to be his team member, disregarding if he participated or not on the qualifications rounds.

Rank	Score	Nick
1	829.4	pcardoso
2	611.8	gh0std0g
3	610.8	fernandods
4	592.4	joao_sil
5	523.1	ppinheiro76
6	523.0	lneves
7	513.5	EDevil
8	500.9	defer
9	479.4	anjosc
10	459.4	nosuchuser
11	448.9	chbm
12	442.5	etaborda
13	413.6	pheres
14	384.2	nunonunes
15	354.2	trodrigues
16	345.2	pfandrade
17	340.6	phantas
18	325.7	ncorreia
19	323.9	jvarandas
20	323.3	acmpires
21	320.2	cdeath
22	314.2	jpescada
23	310.0	japc
24	305.6	semmais
25	302.1	dextro
26	295.7	rogeriopvl
27	291.7	Dawninha
28	291.7	cvalente
29	289.1	rfer
30	279.2	CrLf
31	273.8	Madril
32	247.4	pedro_mg

See you all tomorrow, don't forget to register in your calendar for the event!