Personal

Joining RAYA Software in October

Mohamed Ahmed Meligy — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 03:33:25 GMT

I'm joining RAYA Software starting next month (October), part of RAYA IT, a business line of 3 main business lines that form RAYA Crop., a well known name in the IT industry over the Middleeast.

My role is very interesting. The entire company is interesting to me, not just for the size and brand, but for the nature of how things are going in there nowadays, which makes RAYA the perfect place to join at this specific time.

About the role

I'm joining RAYA with the same title I hold current, a senior software engineer, yet, I'm going to be a member of a team of only 3 guys, M. Yosry, whom I haven't met but is said to be a real guru by all guys I met in RAYA, M. Zahaby, an ex-RAYA returning in it recently and a personal friend of mine whom I had technical chats with and even worked with in a single freelance and knew what kind of a geek he really is, and myself!

The team is very special inside RAYA Software. We as team are responsible for helping other teams standardize coding practices all over the company (well, this is all within Microsoft technology development teams, I know nothing about Java technology department), and help other team leaders and members implement agile processes (specifically Scrum) in the way that fits work nature in RAYA. We stand with other teams in design sessions and researches/investigations required for specific projects, and we help create and enhance a rich toolset, reusable components and modules over applications. We work with all other teams and report directly to the "Microsoft Partnership Manager", El-Mohanned, who is like the CTO for Microsoft technology development, and a very interesting guy as a boss. Both very respectable, and still having his geek nature deep inside not affected by his current high management rank!

About the company

RAYA is a well known name in the software industry. Like many big companies, it had its special advantages, and eve problems. These days, the guys at the company starting from junior developers, the the GM, Aly Zweal (not sure of the spelling), whom I really enjoyed meeting him as a part of my recruitment process. The guy has a great smart mentality that measures the technical aspects to the business aspects for just the right balance, and whose meeting was as well as El-Mohanned's description of the interesting job duties some of the main reasons I accepted the job offer.

Right now RAYA is going through some really revolutionary changes. The smallest of those are switching to Scrum and migrating many projects to using latest technologies and having a big yet very precise recruitment campaign. The company's line of business is rebuilding itself for more progressing forward, which makes it the perfect time to join and share in this building, especially when the role allows more impact on this process.

Regarding Agile, it's cool how El-Mohanned's first communication with me included a link to one of the two videos he uploaded to YouTube, "Raya Software Goes Agile":

This is the technical part, which is for someone like me a must-have base for having talks about anything else. But still, there's more about RAYA Corp. in general. Belonging to a big corporate is another paradigm that I lived some of its blessings in my previous company GNS (Gulf Network Solutions). Now, I'm into the full experience of living within a corporate environments. It just helps you think differently about your entire life, and opens new areas to think about. A worth-it experience indeed that many people once taste find it very hard to change.

Vacancies

Oh, yeah, by the way again, RAYA is hiring! I mean it. THERE ARE OPENINGS. There're openings for junior and senior developers, team leaders, and testers. You can check the careers page, and send your CV to the email mentioned under each vacancy, or to El-Mohanned, or simply to me! Hey, make sure to specify the position you are applying to in the email subject please. This is the rule, isn't it? :D

What about SilverKey?

That's what SilverKey is to me:

Geeky days and even nights, company kitchen talks, volunteering entire public BIG free DemoDay events, pre release tools and platforms, varying nationalities, cultures and mindsets, wedding and birthday and even farewell parties, virtually wearing multiple hats at work(roles), analysis and design negotiations. launch celebrations treats, Scrum process customizations, teamwork, Dody and Alia's guitar, having breakfast in Ramadan tent, ...

There's much about SilverKey that I cannot explain by just saying. It used to be almost my house for more than two years now. I think I know about some of the people there more than I know about my own family and maybe same for them. There're people who sure have made a difference during this period, Dody and Kent come on top of those. There're guys who make for best friends like M. Nour. There're some special personalities that are hard to meet occasionally like Amir Magdy, H. Zein and M. Tayseer. There're people who are not just interesting as techies but have their own other interests like Ahmed El Malt and Tamer Zaki and Karim Ennarah. There're fun foreigners like Sharron, Tosin, and, very quiet yet still really fun foreigners like Brian, Chris, Luke, David, and Olivia. There are very passionate and promising guys like Kariem Soudy and Amr Ali, There're true fun guys like Mostafa Murad (AKA, TATA beik), M. El Sayyed (AKA, SAYYYED), Emad (AKA, iMAD), and M. Alaa (AKA, Developers friend). There're kind guys like Ibrahim Marzuk and Taher. There's an old buddy and community partner, Mohamed Hossam (AKA, BASHMOHANDES), business guys like Adam and Farid. And there's for sure M. Kassem and Ahmed Ali and so many names that it's easy to miss a lot of those over different generations (by the way, no categorization intended!). Although not so many of those names are still there today that most guys will not recognize the rest of all other names, this is much to carry for the company itself.

If it was only that I met Mona, my lifetime love, current fiancee and soon my wife (God Willing), and, the girl I believe is the best to exist in our world today, I met in occasions all related to SilverKey, that would be enough.

So, technically I'm not leaving SilverKey completely for the upcoming while. Afterwards, who knows,, most likely the new generation will take over on its own afterwards (God willing).

DISCLAIMER

The thoughts and states expressed in this post and entire blog are solely mine. Neither of my past/current/future employers nor any of their employees/owners hold any kind of responsibility for or commitment to any of them, even if mentioned in behalf of this employer.

Technorati Tags: SilverKey. SilverKey Tech,RAYA,RAYA Software,Career,Carreer path,RAYA Corp,RAYACorp

Cross posted from weblogs.asp.net/meligy

Murad Family Barbecue: True Hospitality for IT Community in Egypt

Mohamed Ahmed Meligy — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 15:05:59 GMT

Mostafa Murad, a great UI designer whom I've worked with in two companies, was having a BIG dish party yesterday. Maybe in the occasion of himself recently becoming a team leader in ITWorx or just out of hospitality. He put few simple rules (I'm quoting him here):

It is not solely barbecue anymore, you are free to bring whatever food you like.
You are free to invite your friends or family members. Many people will bring their spouses and children. There is a big clean garden which is very suitable for children.
We'll have football competitions etc

He made a Google Spreadsheet Guest book, where you put your name, your favorite food, whether you have a car or not, how many friends/family members you are getting with you, and, how many kids are coming with you as well.

It was GREAT. The garden was SO BIG. There were over 50+ guys out there: .NET/Flash developers, graphic/web/UI designers, QA, Project Managers, and many other roles, from a number of well known software companies in Egypt, like ITWorx, LinkDev, ITS, SilverKey (myself), and other companies I guess.

All the guys were very cool. The day started with all cars meeting in 2 queues at start place from 10 to 11 AM to pick the guys with no cars (like me) and move together. The queue I joined consisted of around 4+ cars.The guys I joined had good taste in music that I enjoyed selective choices for Mohamed Mounir and Fayrouz along the way to the farm where the party did go. The way itself was pretty interesting and unfamiliar to number of us!

Mostafa Murad, Osama Murad (my ex-team leader in GNS, currently working in LinkDev), and some kind family lady did a superior job in hospitalizing the crud. We had around 5 kinds of breakfast food, then, went to Friday Prayer (Gomaa) in the near mosque, coming back to play word games, some moved better than the rest to play football and Tennis, afterwards, grilling around 4 kinds of meat and 2 or more kinds of flies, while the family ladies were working on some other 4+ other kinds of dishes. It was AMAZING. You can see a bunch of the the hungry near the END of distorting all the food!

After the food, we managed to take care of around 6 kinds of drinks (apart from tea and coffee, those were available all day long), and around 6 kinds of fruit and later some huge amount of oriental sweets and some tasty cake. It's funny to see that we are the same guys who were praying Aasr just before the attack!

Of course this is not all of us. There was number of Christians, number of girls, women and children, and other Muslims who didn't catch this line by the time of the picture.

As I mentioned, we had much fun. We just went mad all over figuring out something to play, playing with each other either word games or sports, and playing with the VERY CUTE little kids that were there (especially Yasine, this little hero rocks!). We had different talks about general stuff in Egypt, and -of course- our software industry and career talk and stuff. It was hard to resist the idea of going in starting our own company having people of all needed roles there already. Some guys suggested that we can call it "El Mazra'a" (the farm) company!

The farm itself was sooo great place to rest in. Very comfortable. I do not know how this can be described, but, they say a picture is worth thousand words:

I think I fell asleep sometime near by "El Maghreb" prayer! It was very great to find this great place to just forget about everything and have some true rest.

Actually, the whole thing was pretty new to me. This is a little near the number of guys we had in the first SilverKey Public DemoDay event. It really felt like an event to me, not only including certain category of people (developers, designers, ..), but, all over the various industry roles. I tend to believe that hardly any other person than Mostafa Murad and his fame (with the great aid of Osama Murad and other Murad family members) would be able to gather all this amount of people in one place. This is such a TRUE community activity going around, and a HUGE step that any community activity in Egypt should consider.

Thanks a lot Mostafa and Osama for this great day and the great hospitality. It was a great day and a very nice move from you all.

Technorati Tags: Local Events,Egypt,Mostafa Murad,designrific,Osama Murad,ITWorx,LinkDev,ITS,IT Soft,SilverKey,SilverKey Tech,Community,dish party,Barbecue

Cross posted from weblogs.asp.net/meligy

I now wear a ring. It has Mona’s name on it. THIS IS BIG!

Mohamed Ahmed Meligy — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 00:24:36 GMT

Introduction

In Egyptian Developers Conference (EDC) 2008 this April, my geek network noticed a very nice, cute, and sweet little girl with me that I was very proud to introduce not just as one of the cleverest developers in SilverKey, but also as my life mate, my fiancée. Not sure if any of you noticed that by then, although being engaged, we were not wearing rings, yet!

Well, WE DID FEW HOURS AGO! Yes, I now wear a ring with Mona's name on it. What a pleasure that is? To understand, you just need to meet her once. I'll try to give a VERY limited summary of it.

Getting deep into the picture

Mona is a solid geek who just "gets it" when it comes to C# 3.0, jQuery or ASP.NET MVC and all this patterns stuff. That's easy to guess about my fiancée and is very true about Mona. However, this is a VERY MINOR great thing about her, and didn't get much of my attention because it is one of near infinity (at least I'm discovering new great thing every other situation/talk). Besides being so smart and having this great look that makes you feel so calm and comfortable when seeing her, she also has a TRUE pure soul that accepts no harm to anybody on earth and perfectly matches her soft but not easily to be broken nature. Somehow, she merges all this with such a cool nature with a great sense of humor, all this with a very admirable respect to herself being a moderate Muslim.

She has an impossible combination of great talents, skills and natures that I only mentioned the very basic ones of. You can add to that impressing wisdom, talk about a hundred type of kindness, or go talk about the sweetness that shows in every movement or word that comes out of her. I'd dedicate a series of blog posts to talk about each of her greatness as I "mentally" measure them vs. tons of other people I met in my life, counting males and females of all ages, starting at age 8 and above (say in cuteness/sweetness, …) going through 20s to 40s (say in beauty and humor, …) to 50s and counting (say in kindness and wisdom, …). This got me to a conclusion that such person is very rare to happen to exist in the entire world not just in my life.

The Big Pre-Event

So, now that such a rare existing person accepted to spend the rest of her life with such a normal guy whose only good thing is being just another geek of thousands around the world and in Egypt, that is something that makes me so proud.

Having the symbol of it in her hand having my name on it is a true charm that will help me wait the months it takes till we are married and living in the same house. Another wonderful thing is that I now "wear her name" in my hand represented by the ring that has just few hours ago got into my right hand and will hopefully soon move to the left one.

Thank you very much, Mona, for showing yourself in my life. Thank you way more for accepting sharing your valuable life with me. This is the favor of my entire lifetime. I know I cannot reward you for it whatever I do, so, all promise is to still try my best.

I love you, my little sweet cute smart girl.

Thanks again.

Cross posted from weblogs.asp.net/meligy

Mobinil Paid WiFi for Cafes in Egypt – I want my FREE WiFi back, without bugging

Mohamed Ahmed Meligy — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 14:42:45 GMT

Mobinil, one of the 3 mobile phone networks in Egypt, owned by the same owner of Link dot NET, one of the leading ISPs in Egypt as well have come with a WiFi service for cafes, just like other ISPs provide.

When I’m in a cafe, I just use the Internet connection that the cafe provides via their ISP WiFi, and that’s it. I do NOT have to pay extra money for the Internet service. I do NOT have to register my Email and mobile phone number anywhere. I do NOT have to buy scratchy charge/balance cards like those for mobile phone credit. This is how it has been for years.

Mobinil screwed that all.

To get to the Internet in cafe, you have to do this the first time you connect:

Register your Email and mobile phone number
- Refresh the page (clearly hosted by Link dot NET) if you get this exception
  
  I’ll not get into the details of how horrible is getting much detail of an exception. It’s not the first time.
Wait for the activation code to come (As SMS to your mobile phone, because you have no email, as you have no Internet yet)
- MY friend did not get his activation code, in this case you call the customer service land line number to get the code.
Activate the service using the code, and then sign in to the service page (although you have just activated your account, they don’t know who you are).
Use a promotional free 2-hours card to access the Internet (clearly for only 2 hours).

Every time you want to connect to the Internet from a cafe, you have to:

Buy a card similar to the ugly scratchy cards you buy for you mobile phone credit
- The packages available are:
  - 2 hours for 10 EGP
  - 10 hours for 50 EGP
  - 130 hours for 150 EGP
Sign in to the service
Enter not only the PIN code hidden under the scratch here part, but also a card serial number that’s even very hard to see.
- I could not see the serial number for how small it is. My friend read it for me.
- Here’s how the card looks like. The blue rectangle is the PIN code and the green rectangle is the serial number.
Use the Internet finally with the amount of hours you paid for. In my experience, the speed looked like 256Kb or 384Kb max, but maybe this is different from cafe to another or whatever.

For everybody who reads this, is this normal ? Is it a very popular style in so many countries ? I used to go to a respectable cafe paying certain amount of money for my coffee to get extra customer services. Not only that they get me AC and will not kick me out as soon as I finish the coffee, but also that I can get my FREE Internet.

Clearly Mobinil is able to replace other ISPs for cafe Internet, and has already acquired the big name cafes that I know. This is too bad.

I want my FREE cafe Internet back!! It has been there for years, and there’s no reason I have to let it go now.

Hopefully the other Internet providers will recover this somehow, otherwise, there should be sort of strong petition or stopping going to cafes with this service or such.

Technorati Tags: Mobinil,WiFi,Free Internet,Egypt,Petition,Link,LinkdotNET

Cross posted from weblogs.asp.net/meligy

[Non-Tech] Quotes

Mohamed Ahmed Meligy — Wed, 28 May 2008 18:21:54 GMT

This is collected from some quotes sent in dotNETreporter.com's "Weekly Top Posts" newsletter messages in the past months, in no particular order:

"Solitude is painful when one is young, but delightful when one is more mature." (Albert Einstein)
"I can teach anybody how to get what they want out of life. The problem is that I can't find anybody who can tell me what they want." (Mark Twain)
"The person who goes farthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare. The sure-thing boat never gets far from shore. (Dale Carnegie)
"The essence of knowledge is, having it, to apply it; not having it, to confess your ignorance." (Confucious)
"The father who does not teach his son his duties is equally guilty with the son who neglects them." (Confucious)
"The royal road to a man's heart is to talk to him about the things he treasures most." (Dale Carnegie)
"Problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them." (Albert Einstein)
"History is strewn thick with evidence that a truth is not hard to kill, but a lie, well told, is immortal." (Mark Twain)
"Tell the audience what you're going to say, say it; then tell them what you've said." (Dale Carnegie)
"Study the past if you would divine the future." (Confucious)
"All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then Success is sure." (Mark Twain)
"Politics is far more complicated than physics." (Albert Einstein)
"Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it." (Mark Twain)
"Remember, today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday." (Dale Carnegie)
"Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall." (Confucious)
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." (Albert Einstein)
"Remember, happiness doesn't depend upon who you are or what you have, it depends solely upon what you think." (Dale Carnegie)
"Only the wisest and the stupidest of men never change." (Confucious)
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." (Albert Einstein)
"If we knew what we were doing it wouldn't be research." (Albert Einstein)
"Education is the progressive realization of our ignorance." (Albert Einstein)
Accident is the name of the greatest of all inventors. (Mark Twain)
"Many of the things you can count, don't count. Many of the things you can't count, really count." (Albert Einstein)
"Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear -- not absence of fear." (Mark Twain)
"People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing." (Dale Carnegie)
"Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest." (Mark Twain
"You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you." (Dale Carnegie)
"Most of us have far more courage than we ever dreamed we possessed." (Dale Carnegie)
"I have found out that there ain't no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them." (Mark Twain)
"Life is really simple, but men insist on making it complicated." (Confucious)
"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." (Albert Einstein)
"Our fatigue is often caused not by work, but by worry, frustration and resentment." (Dale Carnegie)
"In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity." (Albert Einstein)
"Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no help at all." (Dale Carnegie)
"To know what is right and not do it is the worst cowardice." (Confucious)
"He who conquers himself is the mightiest warrior." (Confucious)
"A man who has committed a mistake and doesn't correct it is committing another mistake." (Confucious)
"It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog." (Mark Twain)
"If you want to be enthusiastic, act enthusiastic." (Dale Carnegie)
"A habit cannot be tossed out the window; it must be coaxed down the stairs a step at a time." (Mark Twain)
"The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination." (Albert Einstein)
"There is only one way... to get anybody to do anything. And that is by making the other person want to do it." (Dale Carnegie)
"To see and listen to the wicked is already the beginning of wickedness." (Confucious)
"It is easier to stay out than get out." (Mark Twain)
"You can conquer almost any fear if you will only make up your mind to do so. For remember, fear doesn't exist anywhere except in the mind." (Dale Carnegie)
~~"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."~~ (Albert Einstein)
"The only source of knowledge is experience." (Albert Einstein)
"It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them." (Mark Twain)
"If you have nothing to say, say nothing." (Mark Twain)

Note to not waste your time: The website no longer has new content.

Technorati Tags: Quotes,Confucious,Dale Carnegie,Albert Einstein,Mark Twain

Cross posted from weblogs.asp.net/meligy

On Vacation Till June 3rd, 2008

Mohamed Ahmed Meligy — Fri, 09 May 2008 13:58:18 GMT

In case any of you has been wondering why I'm not blogging so lately although I have many topics interested in (See my Google Reader Shared Items), and have already mentioned topics I should be blogging about, I was getting many "last minutes" exams and quizes lately at university.

This is going to remain for a while. I'm having exams May 21st to June 3rd, and already had vacation from work that has just started. The same applies to blogging I guess, but with small difference, that sometimes while getting too bored of all the circuits and communications stuff I have to study (I'm in last year of computer engineering major), I may just come up writing something very quick into this blog.

This is hopefully my last term at university. Hopefully I will not have to write similar posts afterwards. Instead, I believe I'll have some way better news in different areas ;-). (If God Will).

Wish me luck.

Cross posted from weblogs.asp.net/meligy

Another Fancy Birthday -Or- Thank you again, SilverKey, & Facebook Friends :)

Mohamed Ahmed Meligy — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 19:12:00 GMT

Today is my 22nd birthday. Since yesterday, I have been feeling like a celebrity :) :). I could no longer count the wall posts about it. All the great people to thank :).

Also, I knew the habit in SilverKey is having a great birthday party for each and every one of us. Today was even more special than my previous one! More than 20 guys and gals around me with very large amount of sweat cakes. We had nice photos (that will take my dear colleagues months to put on facebook of course, LOL). We had really fun. It was the first day for our new colleague, Amr, who seems to be an interesting guy really.

So, to all the guys in SilverKey (Egypt and Azerbaijan), and all my friends on facebook whether technical guys and ex-work mates, concert/reading friends, or , great performer. I'm not sure what word can be enough to thank you all. Thanks a million, a billion, for giving me that funny celebrity feeling :D

Cross posted from weblogs.asp.net/meligy

I am on vacation until January 23rd, 2008

Mohamed Ahmed Meligy — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 20:56:06 GMT

My first term finals exam vacation started yesterday. It'll last until Wednesday, January 23rd 2008.

I'm spending it on study campus-like mode until the end of exams. I'll be having an exam Tuesday, Jan. 1st, afterwards, a series of six exams starting Tuesday, Jan. 8th to Tuesday Jan. 22nd. And then I'll be back on track again .

During the vacation and exams, I'll always be listening to music most of the time plus checking ebooks of some subjects when applicable, and available and maybe responsive on Live Messenger, watching my email and facebook notifications in almost real time. However, I'll not be as frequent in starting conversations, email/facebook messaging and such.
Those who are explicit exceptions to this rule just know they are!

When resting of study, or just feeling missing tech., I'll be checking my Google Reader, reading other resources and/or ebooks and maybe trying things out myself, so, I cannot tell whether I will or will not be frequent n blogging.

New Blogger in Town - Business, Management, Technology mixed together

Mohamed Ahmed Meligy — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 08:12:22 GMT

Tamer Zaki used to be one of the closest coworkers to me although we have worked together only once in Hot Potato. He's the kind of a guy who believes in having one direction and following it, while reading in many other areas as well, just enlarge your horizon. We used to talk for so long every other day and I've learned a lot from his ability of "connecting the dots" that I sometimes didn't see their connection that well, and, if now believe I have a fair analysis capabilities, he shoudl be thanked for a good deal amount of it.

Through his experiences in working on MSN Arabia in LinkDotNet and the experiences of agile development with special mentalities and sometimes pre-released tools in SilverKey, and his new Team Lead position in his new company, the guy has pretty much to share with the community. He was just (as many others) too lazy to share it!!

Now, the guy has started a blog for the second time with intention to stop being lazy this time.

Quote from his first post:

Lately I found that Most of the time I spent with my friends we do share our ideas, believes and thoughts and this help us to improve our thoughts and learn new things but I feel that this is not enough I want to share my thoughts with the whole world to get more feedback thereby enhance myself so the blogging is the right way to do so. Now my mind is not forcing me to blog because I want to blog. Hopefully this time I won’t quit and if everything goes well I might make a technical blog we will see, Finally welcome to my territory.

Think and grow rich

I have decided not to announce his blog until he DOES WRITE SOMETHING. He recently summarized his reading on the book "Think and grow rich" in his second post.

Go on for more, Tamer :)

Technorati Tags: Friends,Timo,Tamer Zaki,Think and grow rich

When geeks go together for heavy iftar

Mohamed Ahmed Meligy — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 17:08:38 GMT

Right now I'm at Cilantro Maadi (in Cairo) with Mohammed Raafat Samy, my friend whom I used to be proud of being one of the very few architects in Egypt.
Here are things to learn from such experience and other geek outing experiences I had before.

If you are having iftar at a kababgy (Meat specialized restaurant), make sure to arrive early, or be no more than two, so that you can get a small table for you in the middle of the way and can enjoy catching all the staff while they're serving others to get your food quick
Don't let your friend order for you. Especially if he starts talking about "HARD CORE meat". This usually means lamp meat, be careful if you're not into that
Keep talking about Facebook and "finding the right answer to an old problem" in general when you feel willing to stop the geeky chat about architecture heroes.
Watch for the fork and so to come quick. They'll always come late, however you use the power of your central location!!
Of course both of you has his laptop under his side of the table. When washing hands, just keep one person for watch for all the laptops and iterate.
It doesn't matter who pays. Geeks don't think about such shit !!
Be free for the rest of the night. If your friend is a work mate, you're spending the rest of the night at office, if he's an architect from another company, you're going to the very other side of the town to have some double concentrated caffeine.
On the way to the cafe, it's always so much fun to listen to an episode or two of ArchCast architectural webcasts. Expecially when the topics are around DinnerNow and "validating architecture"
It's always interesting to spend a sufficient part of the night talking about how to localize the "scenarios" DinnerNow ideas, and other architectural demos.
When you get to the cafe, switch your laptop on. At least one of your friends has an adapter to plug all the laptop ACs into.
Enjoy continuing your work even when got all the caffeine. Also have an ice-cream (or a "multizer", if you are in Cilantro!).
Don't forget to blog about you experience!!
Of course this is a good chance to share resources between your laptops. You know you waste much time on that anyway. Geeks are too mature to do such a mistake.