Two weeks to go…
This time in two weeks, I will have successfully run my third and final debating competition of the year. Unfortunately, I decided early on in my tenure that I would be using a Windows-only piece of software (running it under WINE didn’t work properly, and unfortunately I don’t have the time or skills to get that sorted). There is an open-source solution, tabbie, but the Windows software I have automatically generates a powerpoint presentation showing which teams are in which rooms being judge by whom, which is something tabbie does not (it does something similar, but not as sophisticated).
Anyway, Sat 16th Feb is the date of my last tournament as IV Convenor this year. Next year will be someone else’s turn, and I’ll let them use their laptop for running the tournament with whatever system they wish (within reason and after discussion with all involved parties, of course). After that, I shall back-up all the files on both my Windows and Ubuntu partitions onto an external hard drive and take the decision to start over or not.
I’m not running out of room on either, but very rarely use Windows. I have only used it once or twice since November (the last competition I ran), and don’t use it to play MOHAA any more, simply because I have moved on from gaming for the time being (and I can always play enemy-territory on Ubuntu!). The only reason I might need it is for iPod management (I have a couple of DRM’d tracks – literally two or three), but I mostly do that in Exaile (although it’s been strangely broken of late; perhaps I’ll go back to Amarok).
I may just defer the decision until Ubuntu 8.04 is out, because it would give me more of a reason to wipe clean and start over. I still have the xp discs somewhere, so could always set it up in a virtual machine if I needed it (and I see no foreseeable need anyway). Hmm, we shall see.
