Friday, July 20, 2007

Flying Away ...

Before you book your tickets, find out who else has recieved the scholarship, it's great to meet up with these guys before-hand coz then you can fly together and share a hotel room, company makes the experience.

If you don't need to go through the visa mess that's great, otherwise too try and book flights early, getting a return ticket for the date was impossible for me, so i had to extend my stay for a weekend.

Always check-out various agents and flight combinations before booking, flight prices can be weird, usually it costs less to book a round-trip ticket than 2 individual tickets for each flight and in some cases it's cheaper than a single one-way ticket as well.

Oh and try to avoid carrying pastes and lotions in your hand baggage, rither it'll be "too much" they'll make you throw it way, or they'll make you wrap it up in plastic. Anyways, I had no problem while flying in or out of US, but they made me throw away my toothpaste while taking a domestic flight.

Once you've landed in San Francisco, presuming your Hotel is near Union Square [more on hotels in the next post] you could take the BART [train] from within the airport which would be about 7 to 8 stations and cost you about $5.15 USD. If you're feeling rich you could take a cab which could range from $30 - $40 or so ... You might want to look up your hotel and the way to it using Google Street-view before just landing up there like me ...

Sunday, July 15, 2007

Visa Application

Ah the beloved immigration and checkpoint authorities, what could I possibly say in their praise. Anyways, if you're one of those lucky blokes who doesn't need a US visa, rejoice you're not missing out on any worthwhile experience. Though you too will need to take off your shoes at the airport ... that's just the way it is.

So now if you do need a visa, what you really need to prove to them is that you've got all the intention of coming back from US. So you need to show them you've got enough money to make the trip. You'll also need a letter from your school/university stating that you're a student there and a letter from Apple, inviting you to attend the conference.

The time for the whole process depends on where you're from and where you're applying from. Since this is different for each nationality and the process for each jurisdiction of application is different I can't go into great details for this here.

This I believe is the most tedious part of getting yourself to the other side. You can't really be certain of the outcome here either way. so, GOOD LUCK!

Student Scholarship

So if you're a student you can [and should] apply for the Apple Student Scholarship for WWDC. At the moment there are no other scholarships being awarded by Apple to attend WWDC that I know of, so if you're not a student you're not eligible.

As of now, the Scholarship includes a WWDC e-ticket [transferable], an ADC [Apple Developers Connections] Student Membership and partial travel assistance fund. Though I believe these could change over time so just to be safe you check this at the official source: RULES :: FAQ

Now coming to the fun part, what does an application for student scholarship entail?
You need to fill in a simple form [will upload a sample soon] and send it in with soft copies of your passport, student pass and your resume and you're done ... yes, that's all it takes, it's that easy.

You needn't be a Pro Mac user, or a Mac user at all for being awarded the scholarship! Even Linux and Win-doze users can apply and successfully get the scholarship.

Anyways, after you've submitted the forms, if you're selected, you'll be sent an email detailing the terms and conditions of the scholarship and asking for your confirmation as to proceed with it or not. Once you've said yes to that, if your form says you need a visa to go to the US, a letter will be mailed to you from Apple as a proof of invitation. The Apple orientation kit will also be mailed to the address in your ADC account.

You're one step closer to those 24-inch I-mac and the fun and frolic

Next post on the visa application process ... warning: could be harmful.

Introduction to WWDC

The Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, commonly abbreviated WWDC, is a conference held annually in California by Apple Inc. The conference is primarily used by Apple to showcase its new software and technologies for developers, as well as offering hands-on labs and feedback sessions. The number of attendees usually varies between 2000 to 5000+. It is a great event for interacting with the Apple engineers, learning how to market your Apple related product and network with other Apple fans.

A good resource that I recently found for basic information [similar to what I plan to put here - in more detail] is the mac guys. Here I am going to focus more on students, simply because I am one, and that's whatI know most about!

More on Students Scholarship in the next post.