Czech Warpstock 2003 Review
by Jaroslav Kacer
Summer 2003 in Europe. Do you remember it? Heat, heat, and heat one more time. It looks like a miracle that something as boring as a computer conference could take place. But it really happened.
Big countries have big conferences. Small countries have small ones.
The second Czech Warpstock was such a small conference. Or, let's be more precise: Czech Warpstocks are weekend events where OS/2 users meet and discuss, where new software is presented, where you can get step-by-step instructions on how to configure Apache on OS/2, where you can ask the others to help you to solve your OS/2 specific problems, where you can have much fun and beer in the evening, where...
This year's Czech Warpstock took place in Louny, an old medieval town with a big Gothic church, city walls, many nice old houses in the town center, and many ugly modern ones in the suburbs. We were helped by the Icomp company which provided a computer lab and connection to the Internet for free. (Indeed, some of us work(ed) for this company and OS/2 has been used here for many years...)
The two July days (19th and 20th) were filled with presentations of new software and lessons on OS/2 programming and software setup, including the following:
- Martin Mintal presented the complete history of OS/2, beginning with 1.0 and ending up with Merlin. Martin also brought his collection of OS/2 systems on a harddisk so we could admire the OS/2 v. 1.0 Program Selector, Win 3.1-like Program Manager of OS/2 1.1 and so on. Everybody knows the codenames "Warp" and "Merlin" but do you know what "Trimaran", "Sloop", "Cutter", "Cruiser", etc. stand for? Martin also included a list of promised features that should have appeared in Merlin but never did. By the way, have you ever crashed Windows 1.01? We did!
Zdenek Wagner had two presentations: one about the Apache web server and its configuration on OS/2, one about XML processing.
The Apache presentation was aimed at some more advanced
configuration tasks like virtual hosting, secure communication using SSL certificates, and content negotiation. Since everybody was quite unfamiliar with XML, Zdenek began with the very basics and continued with XML tools running on OS/2. Zdenek is very DTP-oriented, so the presentation also included a short talk about DocBook and document management.
Michal Moucka presented Open32, a standard for writing portable applications for OS/2 and Windows.
This speech was intended mainly for programmers -- Michal commented in detail his C source code of a simple PM/Windows application drawing geometric structures. Although Open32 is not used much anymore, it may come in handy occasionally.
Lubos Cerny
taught us how to protect a private network against the evil world using InJoy Firewall and a machine running OS/2. He explained what a firewall is, how to set it up, how to use security levels, how to create your own rules, etc. Lubos has been a network designer and (mainly NetWare) administrator for many years (since he left high school), so he really knew what he spoke about...
Filip Molcan presented the new OS/2 distribution -- eComStation 1.1 -- for those who had not purchased it yet and explained what aspects it is better in than your current Merlin system. If you don't know who Filip is: Filip is the director of blue.point, Mensys reseller for the Czech Republic. He also takes care of the servers www.os2.cz and www.ecomstation.info. Actually, it was right him who organized the first
Czech Warpstock in 2002. During his second speech on Sunday, he showed his plans about free services provided by www.os2.cz for all Czech OS/2 users.
Jarda Kacer presented WarpIN
and explained in detail how to create distribution archives for this superb installer.
All produced papers and presentation slides were sent to the participants on a CD and are also available online in the
Download section of the www.os2.cz server (in Czech). Also, look at the photos taken during the conference and evening beer tasting.
Czech Warpstocks are not just about the OS/2 system. They are about the people using it who want to meet, to know each other personally, to exchange ideas, and to keep their OS/2 religion in today's Wild Windows World.
Everybody is welcome to the next Czech Warpstock. The place and date are still unknown but we assume the event will take place during summer holidays in the Krkonose mountains (next to Poland).
We hope to see you there!
Organizers and supportes (Czech OS/2 User Group, www.os2.cz,
Icomp AC, blue.point Solutions)