If you can make it to the Wireless World 2008 exhibition in Darling Harbour next Wednesday or Thursday (2-3 April) please contact me for a free printable PDF ticket to the exhibition:

Email: nboehm [AT] purecaffeine [DOT] com
Mobile/SMS: 0409 288 464

It’s all happening; countdown to the Wireless World 2008 conference in 3 weeks plus upcoming BarCampSydney v3 as well as (I’m pleased to announce) the inaugural BarCampCanberra! Yes that’s right - last Thursday we got confirmation from the ANU that we will have the use of three rooms for BarCamp on 19 April.

It’s not about a bunch of geeks getting in a room and talking code snippets and beta platforms and frameworks. There might be a bit of that - but that’s not what BarCamp is about. It’s about anyone involved in technology, social networks, information, web, podcasting, business and start-ups … anything!

There’s going to be a few peeps coming down from Sydney to support our first BarCamp so if you live in Canberra there’s no excuse for not coming! 19 April. Head over to the BarCampCanberra v1 wiki page and add your name … or if you don’t have time, just post a comment here with your name, the topic of your presentation of if you’re just attending … and your t-shirt size, as we’ll be ordering a bunch of t-shirts (sponsored, so they’re free) and I’ll stick it on the wiki for you - because I’m a nice guy :-)

Now, I also should announce that we will be consolidating our various Free Wireless projects across the country under a single banner: Free Australia Wireless … JJ has done some great work with the logos and now we’ve just got to build the site. Between the various blogs we’ve already got some great content to populate the site with so it will do a better job of answering the usual questions like: What is Meraki? How do I use it? Is it secure? How can I get involved?

Oh and I’ve already started taking orders for Free Canberra Wireless Meraki Bulk Order #3.

Following on from yesterday’s coverage of Free Sydney Wireless with mention of other free wifi projects around Australia including our own Free Canberra Wireless in The Sydney Morning Herald (which I blogged about yesterday) we have been contacted by Association and Communications Events (ACE) who run Wireless World with an absolutely awesome offer: a free promotion stand/stall at Wireless World 2008 which is happening in Sydney on 2-3 April and also possibly a slot in the conference schedule to present - we’re currently in a mad rush to put together some ideas for our presence at the conference and line up a speaker; we have about 40 hours from now to get back to them with our response … but we’re definitely going ahead with at least the stall, which I’ve been told may be placed next to Google or Nokia.

I spoke to Chris from ACE this afternoon and talked about Free Canberra Wireless, Free Sydney Wireless and other similar initiatives around the country. I believe Matt also setup a Facebook group for Free Melbourne Wireless today. Also I explained BarCamp to him as he had heard that there was a BarCampSydney planned for the weekend before or after the Wireless World 2008 conference and was considering cross-promotion opportunities or perhaps some sort of integration.

He’s really keen on the idea of rolling out city-wide mesh networks at a community grassroots level (as am I, obviously) and it’s very cool that he’s managed to swing this for us simply because he believes in the concept and wants to support it.

I plan on going up for the conference to help man the stand/stall and be involved in anything else we get happening - although I won’t be presenting. Public speaking at that level is a little out of my league.

Very exciting times!

Also, in light of recent burst of interest and acceleration of the project I will be placing an order with Meraki next Thursday 21 February. I’ll be getting a few surplus units but if you’re interested please let me know just so I can make sure you’re covered. I’ll also be getting some booster antennas around the same time. Onselling price for the Meraki Mini units - which is cost price, no profit to me - will be $60 with this shipment as I should be able to get a discount on bulk shipping and by keeping it under the $1,000 import tax threshold (which we unfortunately invoked on the last shipment, cancelling out the discount we got on bulk shipping).

Free Sydney Wireless is probably organising a shipment soon too - drop by the FSW Facebook group if you’re interested.