The occasion was the annual Media Connect event for technology publishers. Even the real reptiles turned up including the real sort that wriggled across the feet of CDN publisher/managing editor David Frith at the approach to the conference room amid the lush jungles of the Hyatt Coolum complex.

Well, it was a conference for reptiles of the IT press, and Engin chief Ilka Tales, who has spent a fair bit of his life in Vietnam, Laos and other equally exotic locales, reassured everyone that green tree snakes are harmless, unlike some more venomous reptiles we know.

Some 150 folk, 70 of them reptiles, 40 IT vendors and 40 PRs, are attending this bash, organised with typical flair and good humour by MediaConnect's Phil Sim. The basic idea is to help develop networks, improve the journos'
knowledge of the industry and vice versa, and provide some informed observations on trends in the industry.

Journos get there free, unless they work for Fairfax, which frowns on such practices; the others pay. NetComm, Lenovo, Adobe, Microsoft and the Queensland Government are among the latest event's sponsors.

Monday night's well-oiled entertainment - a casino night - was staged by Adobe, with successful punters able to bid for iPods, network routers and other desirable gear. The sole casualty was journo/analyst Graeme Philipson who, perhaps bemused by his losses, fell on the dark path home to his Hyatt suite and cracked his head open. One drink too many? No, no - "It was all due to a new moon situation and uneven ground," explained the Bandaided GP as he toyed grumpily with breakfast yesterday morning. It was his birthday.