Preview Comdex--or Virtually Attend It

More than 200,000 people and 2,200 companies are gathering in Las Vegas this week for Comdex, the biggest computer-related conference and trade show of the year. Since its founding 20 years ago, Comdex has morphed into an extravaganza that fills three giant hotels plus the Las Vegas Convention Center and spans five days.

Anyone planning to attend an event of this size would do well to navigate beforehand the Comdex-related sites on the World Wide Web, which abound with tips for the intrepid Comdex pilgrim. There are also plenty of sites to keep those who won’t be visiting in person abreast of the action.

The place to begin is at the official Comdex Web site, hosted by Comdex organizer Ziff-Davis at https://www.zdevents.com/comdex. To get a sense of the conference’s vast scope, just peruse the schedule. There will be sessions on all the hot topics, including Linux, Windows NT, Java, Jini, VPNs (virtual private networks), XML (extensible markup language) and more. A couple of the more intriguing titles are “PC 2020--Beyond Faster and Cheaper” and “Internext--How Will the Internet Evolve?”

Then there’s the trade show, at which an estimated 10,000 new products will be introduced this week. The Comdex Web site has an interactive directory of all 2,200 exhibitors, which can be searched alphabetically or by product category. Each listing includes the company’s booth number on the trade show floor, and the sites offer company descriptions and contact information that can be sorted by keyword and topic.

Plenty of news will be made at Comdex, and it will be chronicled on the Web in the “Daily & Preview” section of the site (https://daily.zdevents.com). New products, keynote speeches, expert commentary, trends and other items of interest will be noted there. This site is also the place to see live audio and video Web-casts of the keynote speakers, who include Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and Linux creator Linus Torvalds.

For those who intend to go, Comdex veterans suggest planning ahead to get the most out of the event. Conference organizers have posted a checklist at https://www.zdevents.com/comdex/fall99/checklist.html, but their suggestions (“Register early,” “Reserve a hotel room,” “Bring your laptop”) aren’t particularly insightful.

A site maintained by the Steinberg Business Tr@veler Info Network site (https://www.business-trip.com/COMDEX) isn’t afraid to get specific: “Wear comfortable shoes,” it exhorts, carry bottled water (sports bottles are best) and bring labels printed with your name and address. With those labels, trade show vendors can mail their materials directly to your office, sparing you the hassle of schlepping all that stuff around.

For a lot of folks, the tech fest is as much costume ball as trade show. The Web offers some hints on that too--last year’s fashion highlights are still online at https://ads.zdnet.com/micro/push3/fashion/index.html. How about a toga? Or dressing in an oversized Microsoft Office 2000 software box?

If that’s not enough fun for you, check Gato’s Underground Comdex Guide (https://ga.to/comdex99), a Web site devoted to the many parties associated with the conference.

Gato (who identifies himself only as a computer industry professional who has been attending Comdex for a decade) has an exhaustive list of parties, including invitation-only events such as Microsoft’s GeekFest 99. Gato even has tips on scoring party tickets at the last minute.

One of the biggest parties is sure to be the “Battle of the IT Bands,” featuring rock groups fronted by such information technology luminaries as Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, Borland International and Starfish Software founder Philippe Kahn, and Silicon Valley venture capitalist Roger McNamee (https://www.zdevents.com/comdex/fall99/anniv.html#Battle). The two-hour event will end with a “technomillennium fireworks display.”

For some visitors, though, parties and concerts are no substitute for that uniquely Vegas pastime--gambling. Before hitting the casinos, hit About.com’s primer on poker, slot machines, blackjack, roulette, keno and other games, at https://govegas.about.com/travel/ussouthwest/govegas/msubmenugam.htm.

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Times staff writer Karen Kaplan can be reached at karen.kaplan@latimes.com.