Firebird Conference 2006 - Not being there? You definitely missed something ...

These are my (Thomas Steinmaurer) photos from the Firebird Conference 2006, November 12th to 14th, Prague, Czech Republic.

If there is anything wrong like names, descriptions, ... then please let me (t . steinmaurer AT upscene.com) know and I get it corrected ASAP.

The Firebird Foundation being the organizer along quite some sponsors The flying Dutch - Arno Brinkman and Martijn Tonies Technical discussions, even at breakfast - Nickolay Samofatov and Paul Ruizendaal (Fyracle)
Milan Babuskov (FlameRobin developer), Stefan Heymann, Björn Reimer and Dirk Baumeister People busy checking in before the first pre-conference session starts Michael Vilhelmsen, Bill Oliver and Gary Franklin (both from SAS)
Nice banners ... Quite a queue. Notice the Borland (Gold Sponsor of the conference) logo on the banner Artur Anjos (a Firebird Foundation committee member) from Portugal
Blurry Dmitri Kouzmenko Martijn wearing his new company shirt Mauricio Longo (a Firebird Foundation committee member)
Fikret Hasovic (a Firebird Foundation committee member) presenting Lazarus Dmitry Yemanov (Firebird project admin member, core team leader and developer and a very polite guy) and Milan Babuskov Mauricio Longo, Roman Rokytskyy (Jaybird admin and developer) and Fikret Hasovic
People being busy getting a seat. Svein Erling Tysvær (SET) on the left Paul Reeves (IBPhoenix) trying to introduce us in building Firebird on Windows and Linux Dmitry Yemanov talking about Cost-based Optimization
Arno Brinkman and Dmitry Yemanov discussing how to optimize the optimizer further Bill Over from SAS getting ready for his session Pavel Cisar (IBPhoenix), Artur Anjos and Arno
Roman and Dmitry. People wearing blue polo-shirts are part of the project admin team Dmitri Kouzmenko pretty relaxed before his server optimization session (I think he did this session not the first time *g*) People getting ready for Vladislav Horsun's "New SQL Features in coming versions of Firebird" session
Mauricio, a Firebird Foundation committee member, talking about what the Firebird Foundation is, what it does and attracting new memberships Vlad presenting really exciting forthcoming features in Firebird 2.1 (a snapshot build should be available soon) Martijn doing the stored procedures, triggers, views session
Heya, an early alpha version of Database Workbench 3 Stefan Heymann introducing us in the secrets of character sets Björn Reimer
Arno und Carlos Cantu from Brazil. Notice that Carlos isn't wearing any gloves even with the huge temperature difference compared to Brazil (diff.: ~ 30 degrees!) Stefan Heymann, Michael Vilhelmsen, Artur Anjos and Milan Babuskov Michael (a very funny guy from Denmark) checking his emails?
Serg Vostrikov (FIBPlus developer) Frank Schlottmann-Goedde Thomas Steinmaurer and Carlos Cantu
Now, this is really a special one (we are really proud of that). The Upscene boys and a fan / bar propper (guess who) in the middle wearing a customized Upscene shirt. From the left: A beer propper, a bar propper and a wine propper. Quite a few proppers around. ;-) Stefan Heymann and Lucas Franzen Sergio Hernandez Cerezo and Jürgen
A German speaking group. We had quite some fun in the bar with them the night before Holger Klemt (H-K Software, Co-Organizer of the conference) Carlos Cantu and Ivan Prenosil
Björn Latte, Gary Franklin from SAS and Lucas Andrew Morgan with an interesting talk about implementing transition constraints Notebook proppers. Martijn and Thomas
Dmitry Yemanov at the beginning of an exciting session about what has been done in Firebird 2, the project priorities and what's next ... I really like the priorities shown on this slide Packing so many features into Firebird 2.0 is simply GREAT! Thanks to all involved in version 2.0.
Shorter release cycles are great, thus the reason why there will be a version 2.1. For all PSQL programmers: Do you see it, do you see it? Domains in PSQL!!! Database triggers: Something I can't await to get my hands on a snapshot build. Win64 support: GREAT! System monitoring tables: Something I really missed, but even that will be included in 2.1. My friends from Norway. SET (my Norwegian cookie dealer) and his wife.
Paul Beach (IBPhoenix, Firebird Foundation president and bar propper) with a bottle of wine from Germany. He is not sure if he should bid on that. Ann Harrison (IBPhoenix) with a weared old InterBase 6 Open Source t-shirt. This t-shirt is a relict and there are only 500 around, world-wide. Thus the reason ... ... why Martijn spent quite some money to auction an unweared t-shirt.
Milan auctioned a pretty huge conference banner Mauricio and Frank Ingermann. Mauricio is wearing a beer helmet. Hmmmmm beeeeeeeer (a popular slogan at the conference *g*). Mad auctioneer Lucas auctioning Helen's handmade Sparky V. Lucas, thanks for being the auctioneer again (even if you don't like it). We had, again, a great laugh.
Sparky V and Sparky I. Helen, you are getting better and better with each Sparky release. For those of you, who have been at the first conference in Fulda, guess who auctioned Sparky V? RIGHT. Frank did it again. Having a neat Sparky family at home now. Hoping on small baby Sparkys without spending a lot of money at the next conference. ;-)

Gallery created with Stefan Heymann's HomeGallery 1.4.8