use Perl

Greetings, and welcome to the eighth YAPC::EU::2009 newsletter.

In this issue:

• current stats
• send-a-newbie results
• conference dinner
• quizz show

Let's get down to it:

Current Stats

We currently have 288 confirmed attendees, and the number is still growing.

The partner program is still open and a few more people register to it every other week. We're already sorting out several of the minor details.

Send-a-newbie results

The send-a-newbie program will be sending three people who've never attended a YAPC before and who wouldn't be able to do so on their own.

Alistair MacLeod, Alan Haggai Alavi and Rosellyne Thompson will be attending YAPC::EU::2009.

The donations for this program will be providing for the costs of their flights to and from Lisbon, their accommodation during the conference, and a few other minor expenses related to the trip. They won't have to pay for the conference registration either.

Thanks to all who donated and supported this project.

Conference dinner

Booking.com will be sponsoring the conference dinner.

On the evening of August the 4th we'll enjoy a great meal in a fantastic restaurant by the Tagus river.

The menu consists of Rodízio. If you've never heard of it, just know that they'll be bringing more and more kinds of meat to your seat during the whole thing.

There will also be other surprises and events during this dinner, including the Quizz Show.

For those of you who don't eat meat, this is the time to send us an email off-list and let us know that, so we can make arrangements for you too.

We want you all to have an amazing time.

Conference tshirts

The conference tshirts have been ordered.

We did our very best to comply with the tshirt design that was auctioned last year, where possible.

Quizz Show

The Quizz Show is going to take place during the conference dinner.

The rules are available on the wiki and the Quizz Master is none other than Damian Conway himself.

Damian and João Pedro are hard at work preparing an amazing set of questions for the show; João is also taking care of the final hardware arrangements for this event (buzzers, lights, projection, etc.)

That's all for this newsletter; there's less than one month to go until the conference takes place. We couldn't be more excited about it.

For anything conference related, feel free to contact us at organizers@yapceurope2009.org.

See you at the next newsletter,

the organizers

Greetings, and welcome to the seventh YAPC::EU::2009 newsletter.

In this issue:

• current stats
• further sponsors
• send-a-newbie updates
• other things we're working on

Current Stats

We're now at 230 confirmed attendees.

Several people have registered to the different training courses (there are still some seats left) and the partner program currently has a group of 9 people (not counting the guides), and several inquiries from other interested people (yes, you can still register for the partner program).

It's going to be an amazing conference.

Further sponsors

To the ranks of Booking.com, logicLAB, SAPO, Eurotux, log, Caixa Mágica, Best Practical, FCUL, Active State, TAP, O'Reilly, Apress, Onyx Neon Press, $foo magazine, The Perl Review and o3 magazine, the following now also get on board:

• Shadowcat Systems - Not only is Shadowcat sponsoring YAPC::EU, they're also providing a free 1 day workshop in collaboration with EPO the day right after YAPC.

Send-a-newbie updates

All the candidates were asked to answer a set of questions in order to help the jury select the lucky ones who will be attending this YAPC::EU.

The answers were given and the jury is now working their way through them. We can tell you that some of the replies were really impressive.

The selected candidates should be announced pretty soon.

Send-a-Newbie is currently at 1,745 euros. You can still help.

What we're working on

We're working on several things. Here are some headlines:

• conference dinner - this year's conference dinner will be sponsored by Booking.com; we're taking care of the arrangements.
• coffee breaks - we're also working on these ones.
• conference proceedings - a number of speakers have written articles for the conference proceedings and we're now working on them.
• conference tshirts - we're working closely with a clothing company to make the conference tshirts.
• auction - this year we'll have two separate auctions: the silent one, with all the books, t-shirts and other cool things, and the live auction, with all the crazy stuff.
• several other things.

That's all for this newsletter, but you can count on further updates pretty soon.

Feel free to contact us at organizers@yapceurope2009.org for anything

conference related.

See you at the next newsletter,

the organizers

Greetings, and welcome to the sixth YAPC::EU::2009 newsletter.

In this issue:

• partner program
• numbers
• receipts
• making your personal schedule
• send-a-newbie current status

Let's get down to it:

partner program

We have finally settled the details for the partner program.

It's really wonderful and we're very excited about it.

Details on the Partner Program - http://yapceurope2009.org/ye2009/wiki?node=PartnerProgram

Cost - 80 euros for adults and children 13 years old or older, 60 euros for children between 4 and 12 years old, free of charge for kids up to 3 years old.

We're more than happy to receive any comments and suggestions regarding the program, but please understand that we received lots of feedback from many attendees and we did our best to please everybody.

We're happy that we managed to cut down the cost from the original estimated value. We're also happy that the amount of activities in the program seems to be well balanced.

For any personal questions regarding this program (for instance, dietary needs), please do get in touch with us using the organizers address on the bottom of this email.

Speaking of dietary needs, the partner program currently doesn't include the cost of lunch.

numbers

We're currently at 184 confirmed attendees. These attendees are coming from 25 different countries.

There have also been several registrations for all the training courses (do remember there are limits of attendance for these ones, so please do register for those as soon as possible, to ensure you have a seat).

receipts

If you already payed and require a receipt, don't forget to fill in name, address and *VAT number* so we can start printing things beforehand.

Unless requested, receipts will be delivered at the conference.

making your personal schedule

ACT (Another Conference Toolkit), the framework we're using to manage several aspects and the website of the conference, has a nice number of cool features.

One of these features is the possibility of you marking the talks you want to attend.

If you look at the schedule you'll notice a couple of things:

• if you're logged in, there's a star on the left of the talk name
• after the name of the talk, you'll see a number

The star is what you should press to mark the talk as one you want to attend.

The number is the number of people who have marked that talk.

So why is this useful?

1 - You can get your personal schedule at http://yapceurope2009.org/ye2009/myschedule;

2 - We, the organizers, can tell which talks have the most demand; this is particularly useful so that we can, for instance, take two talks with lots of interest happening at the same time and move one of them one slot before or after in order to please more attendees.

About 60 people have already used this feature and started creating their own schedules. Join the fun!

send-a-newbie current status

The send-a-newbie project has received 1510 euros of donations so far and 32 applications have been submitted.

As it is, this means that ~3 people will be able to attend YAPC thanks to these grants (it can be more, if you donate).

The applicants should now be receiving a list of questions to answer.

Based on their answers and perhaps a few other aspects, a small group of people will be sorting these applications and select the lucky grantees who'll be spending three amazing days at YAPC::EU::2009.

While some of the details are being worked on behind closed curtains, we'd like to assure you the process couldn't be more honest and that at some point all the details will be unveiled.

That's all for this newsletter

Feel free to contact us at organizers@yapceurope2009.org for anything conference related.

See you at the next newsletter,

the organizers

In our next newsletter: lots of stuff!

Greetings, and welcome to the fifth YAPC::EU::2009 newsletter.

In this issue:

• early bird registration fee
• speakers
• training courses
• banners (for your blogs and websites)
• receipts

Early bird registration fee

If you want to take advantage of the early bird registration fee, now is the time. If you register until May 31st, the fee is 75€. Past that date, registration will be 100€.

If you haven't done it already, go on, point your browsers to http://yapceurope2009.org/ye2009/purchase and purchase your conference ticket.

Speakers

We have an incredible list of 75 speakers preparing wonderful talks for you.

Larry Wall and Damian Conway will both be present (and will give keynotes), but that's not all.

If you take a look at the schedule you'll probably recognize names as brian d foy, Matt Trout, Dave Cross, Gabor Szabo, Léon Brocard, Rafael Garcia-Suarez, Abigail, Barbie, Paul Fenwick, Marty Pauley and many others.

It's an incredible ensemble of people we're getting together just so you can hear them speak.

Training courses

We're proud to present you with a nice selection of training classes happening before and after YAPC:

• Introductory Perl, by Dave Cross, August 1st and 2nd
• Perl 6 for Programmers, by Gabor Szabo, August 1st and 2nd
• Mastering Perl, by brian d foy, August 6th and 7th
• New features of Perl 5.10 and Perl Best Practices, by Damian Conway, August 6th and 7th

You can purchase your tickets for these courses on the conference website, at http://yapceurope2009.org/ye2009/purchase.

Each of these two day courses are charged at 220€ (if you're aware of the usual price they go by, you'll know this is a bargain).

We're very thankful to the trainers for doing this, bringing such incredible courses from such highly regarded Perl people at such a low cost.

IMPORTANCE NOTICE: all of these courses have a limit of attendees; if you want to attend, you should book ASAP.

Banners

Now that we have most of the important bits sorted out (namely the schedule and the training classes), it is time to tell the world what's going on.

To that end, we created a set of banners you can use on your webpages, blogs and PM homepages.

The logos and instructions on how to use them are available at Logos.

Help us spread the word and make this one of the best YAPCs ever!

Receipts

If you already payed and require a receipt, don't forget to fill in name, address and VAT number so we can start printing things beforehand.

Unless requested, receipts will be delivered at the conference.

That's all for this newsletter

Feel free to contact us at organizers@yapceurope2009.org for anything

conference related.

See you at the next newsletter,

the organizers

I'll be in London for the weekend, arriving today and departing Sunday.

I'll be at Yahoo! Hack Day.

Anyone else going?

Greetings, and welcome to the fourth YAPC::EU::2009 newsletter.

In this issue:

• the conference schedule
• hotels and hostels for the conference
• updates on the send-a-newbie project
• further sponsors
• other news

Let's get down to it:

- The schedule is ready

We can assure you it wasn't easy!

We have accepted almost 100 talks, and we must say the overall quality is simply amazing.

You can see the schedule here: http://yapceurope2009.org/ye2009/schedule.

Don't forget to click the other days to see the rest of the schedule ;-)

We focused mostly on three tracks: one for talks related to the conference theme - Corporate Perl - one for beginners and one for all the other talks.

You'll also notice we have a fourth room where we'll be holding a few workshops. We hope you enjoy them.

- hotels and hostels

The list of designated/suggested hotels and hostels for the conference is now online at http://yapceurope2009.org/ye2009/wiki?node=Accommodation.

The official hotel for the conference is Hotel Alif, a mere two subway stops from the venue, and located in central Lisbon.

We already have two other hotels on the list too, one for the eventuality of the first one running out of rooms (it always happens), and one for those wanting a luxury hotel.

There are also two hostels on the list, for those looking for more affordable options. Do note, however, that these are not your average hostels; these are hostels that have been getting prizes and amazing reviews worldwide for the last few years.

Check out the Wiki for more information, book as early as possible and feel free to add your name to the WhoIsStayingWhere page (http://yapceurope2009.org/ye2009/wiki?node=WhoIsStayingWhere).

- more sponsors

To the ranks of logicLAB, SAPO, Caixa Mágica, Best Practical, FCUL, Active State, TAP, O'Reilly, Apress, $foo magazine, The Perl Review and o3 magazine, the following now also get on board:

Booking.com

Booking.com is "Europe’s leading online hotel reservations agency by room nights sold". It is also one of the leading companies when it comes to hiring Perl developers.

Onyx Neon Press

Onyx Neon Press is a book publishing company ran by Perl programmers. They have some wonderful Perl books and will be donating a few to the conference auction.

log - Open Source Consulting

log is a Portuguese Consultancy company specialized in Open Source technologies such as Perl and PHP. They had a very important role back in the 2005 YAPC::EU, which also took place in Portugal, and this year they're sponsoring again.

Marty Pauley

Marty is a long standing member of the Perl community and has always been a great supporter of YAPCs in general and the Portuguese Perl scene in particular. This year, apart from submitting a few wonderful talks, he's also put his money where his mouth is, and is sponsoring YAPC personally.

Eurotux

Eurotux is a Portuguese company specializing in planning, integration and development of computer systems. They provide global solutions in interenterprise service network management, internet access and web hosting. It is also said that they have Perl as a religion.

- updates on the send-a-newbie project

We thought we'd summarize the latest developments on the send-a-newbie project.

So far there's been 1,230 euros donated and a total of 27 applications for grants have been submitted.

This value means that at least two grants will be awarded. Hopefully, with a few more donations, more grants will be possible.

Considering the Beginners' Track, we look forward to have as many grantees as possible present at the conference.

It's going to be wonderful, and you can help too, even with small amounts; check out http://www.send-a-newbie.com/ for more information.

- behind the scenes

We're still working hard on a lot of things, namely the Partner's Program and the Training Classes that'll take place the two days after the conference.

We hope to announce the full details on both these initiatives pretty soon.

Also in the workings are the conference dinner, the quizz show, the auction, the conference t-shirts, the coffee breaks, the Job Fair, further sponsorships...

It's a great thing that we had no personal lives to begin with O:-)

That's all for this newsletter.

Feel free to contact us at organizers@yapceurope2009.org for anything
conference related.

See you at the next newsletter,

the organizers

In our next newsletter:

  - we have absolutely no idea what subjects we'll talk about in the next issue of this newsletter :-)

YAPC::EU::2009, the 10th edition of the largest European Perl conference, will be held in Lisbon, Portugal, from the 3rd to the 5th of August, 2009.

This is the official Call for Presentations and here are the important deadlines:

  - Deadline for talk proposals: April 30th 2009
  - Speaker notification: May 7th 2009

This year's theme for the conference is Corporate Perl.

Here's what we're looking for:

  - We're looking for talks on how corporate companies use Perl and why;

  - We're looking for talks that fit our beginner's track (if you want to submit one and don't know what about, reach us at organizers@yapceurope2009.org and we'll share with you our preliminary draft of an expected beginner's track);

  - And, as usual, there is also enough room for talks that don't fit any of those groups, so we'll be looking for and expecting dozens of proposal on everything that is Perl related.

We'll be offering two kinds of time-slots for talks:

  - 20 minutes

  - 40 minutes

If you really need a different time-slot, get in touch with us and we'll see what we can do.

Speakers may submit multiple talks. All speakers will have their registration fee waived.

  - To submit a talk, go to http://yapceurope2009.org/ye2009/newtalk.

  - If you don't have a user yet, please register at http://yapceurope2009.org/ye2009/register

For any inquiry, contact us at organizers@yapceurope2009.org, and don't forget to submit your proposals no later than midnight GMT on April 30th, 2009.

:-)

• pricing and registration dates
• call for presentations
• the send-a-newbie program
• more sponsors
• the event on Social Networks
• more details for the workshops
• preparing the partner's program (we need some feedback)

Let's get down to it:

Pricing and registration dates

Registration opens on February 1st.
Here are the three different rates for YAPC::EU::2009

• full-time students - 40€;
• regular rate - 75€ before May 31st; 100€ after May 31st;
• corporate rate - 2000€ (if your mouth is open, you're one of those who are going to pay the 75-100€ rate).

The regular rate is of 75€/100€, depending on when you register. For everything we're putting together, we feel this it's a great value. YAPC has always been about making an inexpensive great technical event targeted at developers who otherwise wouldn't be able to afford it, and thus, 75€/100€ seems a very reasonable price, and it's in conformity with the previous editions.

The full-time student rate is a way of making the conference more affordable for those who don't have any income. The difference between 40€ and 75€ might make the difference into getting those to attend. Lower than that, and we feel that we'd be opening the conference to people who are not even interested in Perl. This is a rate for people who have no source of income; it's not meant for people who already have income but still haven't finished their studies. It's not meant as a way for people to save money, but rather as a way of making it possible for students to attend. (Documentation proving the full-time student status may be required at the conference.)

The corporate rate has now been created mostly to help people in large corporate companies attend. Believe it or not, in a lot of places it's easier to get approval to attend a 2000€ conference than a 100€ one, as the first one is looked at as something valuable, while the second one is frowned upon with disbelief and suspicion. Also, many people in such companies have complained that they'd like to sponsor YAPC, and so would their bosses, but the bureaucracies to accomplish that were just too complex. This solves two problems at once.

Now, it wouldn't be fair to have someone's employer pay 2000€ for something somebody else gets for 90€ and not get anything else in return.
OTOH, it wouldn't be fair either to give those corporate attendees something that should be available to everyone.
Thus, we came up with a corporate package that includes a free entrance to one of the training sessions we'll be having in the two days after YAPC (which regular attendees will still be able to get at a reasonable price), entrance to the speakers' dinner (which we couldn't make available to anyone, or otherwise it wouldn't be a speakers' dinner anymore; do note that we'll still be having the regular dinner for all the attendees), and a couple of more things.

So to sum it up:

• the rate is 75€ if you register before May 31st, and 100€ if you register after that date;
• if you're a student with no source of income, you can attend for 40€;
• if you have the need or the chance to, you can attend for 2000€ and get some extra perks while you're here.

As in previous years, speakers (lightning-talk speakers not included) will not have to pay, so registration will open after the talks have been approved, which takes to the next point.
Again, registration opens on February 1st.

Call for presentations

The Call for Presentations opens on February 1st.
This year, instead of copy-pasting a previous Call for Presentations, we're setting up a few new rules and guidelines, which we'd appreciate if you took the time to read:

• We're accepting 20min and 40min talk submissions. If you have a need for a different time slot, however, you can always state your case on the comments field and we'll be happy to see what we can do;
• When submitting a talk, you're asked to select the target audience that fits your talk; this is to both help us setting up the schedule and to ease up the task the attendees always have of selecting which talks to attend;
• When submitting a talk, please type in the appropriate keywords, so that in the future the attendees can find your talk easily (eg: perl, perl6, oop, tdd, xml, smtp, mail, tt, mason, etc.)
• Please take some time to properly write your abstract; the abstract is not only the way you're trying to convince us to accept your talk, but it's also the way you're calling attendees to see your talk; it's the text that will be available on the website and at the conference;
• If you have any special requirement for your talk (eg: sound system plugged into your laptop), please write it down in the "comments" field;

That being said:

• Submit your talk at http://yapceurope2009.org/ye2009/newtalk
• Deadline for talk submission is April 31st, 2009

Don't leave it to the last minute, do it now. You can always go back to it later on and change or polish the text a bit more.

Two important notes:

• If you want to submit a talk but don't know yet whether you'll be able to attend the conference, please, by all means, submit the talk and write on the comments field that information on your inability to commit right now; we'll have another deadline for talk confirmation;
• If you're an experienced Perl programmer and would like to give a talk but don't know on what, or if you're feeling like helping beginner programmers, we have a list of Beginner talks we're looking to have this year (for the Beginners' Track); drop us an email if you're interested on giving one of these and we'll let you know what the options are; if you already have a beginner's talk in mind, by all means, submit it.

The Call for Presentations opens on February 1st.

The send-a-newbie program

Edmund von der Burg realized two things:

1. prior to attending a YAPC, you have no clue to how important that can be to you, and to how much knowledge you can get there and how much it is going to improve your life;
2. there are very few young people at YAPCs, probably because, even though YAPC is an inexpensive conference, you still have to pay for your travel and lodging.

After realizing that, Edmund decided to do something about it. He checked with several people (including us) and thus this project began: http://www.send-a-newbie.com/
It's very simple, really. Anyone can donate (any sum of money) and anyone (who's under 25, never been to a YAPC and with no means of doing so on his/her own) can apply for a YAPC grant, which will cover the expenses of going and attending.
Think about it. You've been there, haven't you? Wanting to go to a conference for the very first time and not having enough money to do it?

• More information - http://www.send-a-newbie.com/info/about
• Donate - http://www.send-a-newbie.com/donate
• Apply - http://www.send-a-newbie.com/apply

Any amount is appreciated, and so is spreading the word, both to potential donors and to potential grantees.

More sponsors

To the ranks of logicLAB, SAPO, FCUL, Active State, TAP, O'Reilly, Apress, $foo magazine and o3 magazine, the following now also get on board:

Best Practical

They are the ones behind RT and SVK. Need we say more? It's wonderful to have them on board.

Caixa Mágica

Caixa Mágica (literally "Magic Box") is a Portuguese Open Source-oriented company who is responsible for the Linux distribution "Caixa Mágica", a Portuguese distribution with considerable success on public offices and public schools (just the fact that kids are now getting desktops with dual-boot systems on schools is wonderful).

The Perl Review

The oldest Perl magazine in print is also supporting us, and its subscribers will have probably seen our ad on its latest issue.

We're still talking to several other companies and it really looks like we're going to have a fantastic conference.

The event on Social Networks

We created the YAPC::EU::2009 event on a couple of websites. Feel free to join the event...

• ...on LinkedIn - http://events.linkedin.com/pub/27994
• ...on Upcoming - http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/1483838
• ...on SlideShare - http://www.slideshare.net/event/yapceu2009

More details for the workshops

We noticed we hadn't defined a deadline for workshop submission nor a notification date for workshop speakers, so we're going to do that now.

• Deadline for workshop proposals - February 28th
• Notification to workshop speakers - March 15th

Preparing the partner's program (we need some feedback)

We're hard at work preparing the partner's program.
We're aiming at two days in and around Lisbon, at a cost somewhere between 100€ and 200€ (there will be rides and guides and all that) for adults and a reduced price for children.
At this point, we'd like some feedback from you (feel free to send email off-list, if you want to):

• Are you thinking of attending the partner program? (something like "Yes, my partner and two kids", for instance; this is just so we can get an estimate on numbers)
• Would you find a cost of 200€ to be an excessive (or perhaps even prohibitive) price to pay for this? (and, if so, what would be a more appropriate price, in your opinion?)
• Is there anything in particular you feel we should address, while preparing this program?

That's all for this newsletter
Feel free to contact us at organizers@yapceurope2009.org for anything conference related.
See you at the next newsletter,
the organizers

In our next newsletter:

• other payment means (especially for companies wanting to pay for a group of attendees)
• lots of other stuff

I thought I'd share something.

A while back, a friend of mine created a website where one can:

• Keep track of the TV shows he/she's following;
• Be notified when new episodes air;
• "Etc."

There are a lot of functionalities that are awesome.

For instance, I now know that I've spent "2 Weeks, 5 Days, 15 Minutes" watching all the episodes I submitted to the website.

It's really handy, whether you follow just one show or, like myself, are watching 16 of them at the same time.

He's constantly developing new features (but not cluttering the interface), which is also good. For instance, apart from having an RSS feed of the new airings of shows you're following, it seems that pretty soon you'll be able to subscribe a calendar with that very same information.

Anyway, enjoy: MyTVShows.