Winter New England FrankenFest Saturday March 10, 2018 Sutton MA

The Merrimack Valley has been hit particularly hard by this "nor'easter", and we've been in the dark since last night. Hoping that power will be back up by Saturday, but it's hard to say. Hoping I'll be able to make it for the show, but things are looking rather murky at the moment. In any case at all, I'll do my best. :)
-Adam
 
The next event is tentatively scheduled for October 2018.

Thanks for the heads-up. I like to put things on my schedule and get ready over a period of weeks.

I do have some stuff that is much too heavy to ship, and something like this might provide a useful outlet.
 
The Summer events were usually sparsely attended - I think 2 events a year moving forward will be ideal.
That being said I heartily encourage someone to put together a summer event, perhaps at their beach house!
 
Awww man...it's tomorrow?...I know a dummy who don't come here often enough lately..... I know 1Jim...but I was in a coma after the election...I think.
 
Ok, map of planned trip up with pony express stops along the way. Am I missing anyone I've promised to haul stuff for?

2018 Franken Fest drive.png

I'll need a beer once I arrive.
 
Please confirm that power is on at the venue.

(I got burnt, today, going to a client's office and no one was there because of no power.)
 
Hi everyone. I want to apologize for the promised Raspberry Pi/Volumio seminar not happening today and explain why.

The short story is: No appropriate network was available. (Yes, I know there was wireless there but that wouldn't do what we needed. See below.)

The longer story: My plan was to first show how one of these things works and plays music including how you can play local music files, stream Spotify and web radio stations, etc. Then we were going to assemble the pieces of a system, install the Volumio software, connect a DAC, boot it up on a wired ethernet network, configure it, and show how to connect it to your home wireless network so you don't need an ethernet connection.

To do that, I brought a pile of stuff including a Netgear router that I got this week and had all configured up so we could do all of the above. I tested it at home and it worked just fine. I fired the router up at the hall today and the "FranknDon-G2" wireless network was up and flying. Sort of. I could not connect that router to the outside world no matter how I tried. Doug and I tried to get it rolling but no luck.

I retired last spring from teaching Engineering. I learned that if you can't teach something so your participants can clearly understand what's going on, can learn things that they will be able to use later, and come away with some enthusiasm for the subject, it's a waste of time. And that is where we were headed without me having the right setup to make things work right.

It's possible that a few of you might have been able to extrapolate what you'd need to do at home if I had plunged into it anyway. But most people would have been left shaking their heads and wondering why I wasted their time. So I didn't.

That's the main reason. However, I wonder if people really want to have seminars at these events. When we had multiple rooms in Clinton, it was easier to head off to a quiet place for seminars. The single big room we had today is great for socializing and looking at gear but it's marginal for real listening and not good at all for seminars. So maybe that's a discussion for future events.

I'm sorry that this thing didn't happen after I promised it. If any of you want to make one of these, let me know if you need any support before or during the project. I think you'll find that most of it is pretty straightforward and covered in the website and forums for Volumio.

It's funny but I used to really like computers. I designed them for a living. Now I think they are killing us. Tonight I'm going to play records and listen to cassettes. No freakin' computers! (Yes, I'm typing this on one. Sigh...)

Thanks. --Dan
 
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I just wanted to say thanks to all of the people who worked to put this thing together. I was there for a few hours towards the start of the event and had a really good time checking out gear and records. There was definitely some cool stuff there. Now that I know a bit more about what this event is like, I will bring some stuff to demo and sell next time around. Assuming the event proved a success (seemed like it was), I'll be there in October! The location is perfect for me as it's like a ten minute drive. :)

Some pics:

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...and my record haul, most of which I picked up for like $3-4 bucks each:
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Well now, a great event at a new venue. Everyone seemed to like the location and facility. We had a little over 90 attendees and much treasure was bought and sold.
I promised myself I wouldn’t buy anything - alas, I was mistaken.

The next event will be st the same location on SATURDAY OCTOBER 20th.

Thanks everyone!!


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