The first Sun Java Developers conference in Malta last week was a huge success. In fact, so much so, that I would say that it was the world's largest Java conference, ever. Obviously the fact that we had 305 people attend means that in absolute terms JavaOne, JavaChina and the recent Indian TechDays still hold the record for number. However, think of it a different way. According to the last census (about 18 month ago) the population of Malta is 404,079. That means that one in every 1,325 people in the population turned up for this event. Extrapolate this to the UK (based on the number from the Office for National Statistics) and you'd have an audience of just under 45 and a half thousand people. I think that we'll definitely be doing more events in Malta.
I had the 'pleasure' of flying out of Terminal 4 at Heathrow on Wednesday last week and I was really, really glad I was flying Air Malta. Terminal 4 was complete and utter chaos with, at a rough guess, over a thousand people queuing up outside the terminal, since a number of incoming BA flights had had to be canceled the previous day due to the security alert and evacuation. Frankly, had I been flying BA I'd have just gone back home again. As it was I was able to get into the terminal with only minimal hassle. Getting through security was actually quicker than normal since there were less passengers flying that morning.
Thankfully I don't have any travel planned until September which means I can relax a bit.
