use Perl

It's that time of year again--we need your bids in to host YAPC::NA in your town next summer. Most of the details for a bid are in my post from last year. Same rules apply this year.

To re-iterate a few points:

• If you plan on bidding, folks from your group should really attend YAPC::NA this year to see how things work and maybe even help out.
• Get your bid ready early and we'll give you feedback before the due date at the YAPC BOF.
• Venue requirements are available and bids from previous years are available in the TPF Blog. Last year all of the bids were very good, so they are a good resource.
• Details on running a YAPC are available in the TPF project on Google code.
• As with previous years, the bids will be made public in the TPF Blog after the due date.

Send any questions and completed bids to the TPF conferences group: tpf-conferences (at) perl (dot) org

Cross-posted from the TPF blog as a reminder, we're looking for next year's intrepid organizers for YAPC::NA.

One key point: if you bring your semi-complete bid to YAPC this year, we'll review it at the YAPC BOF for free!

If you have a Mac and you need to merge some files, you might want to check out this utility that comes with the free developer tools:

/Developer/Applications/Utilities/FileMerge.app

Basic merge functionality, but it's simple and gets the job done.

As if patching every computer in our infrastructure wasn't enough, we had to run special scripts to 'fix' our Outlook calendars because the DST change has really confused them. It boggles my mind that we run something supported by a company the size of M$ and they can't make this a simple patch update.

On top of all that, the script we had to run messed up my handy-dandy perl script that pulls calendar events out of Exchange and puts them in iCal for me. I originally found it here: vcalxical

So I got to spend the last hour hacking away at that script to weed out all the malformed data the M$ script put in my calendar events. Sheesh. As if I don't have better things to do. I really wish there was a way to charge back to M$ all the time we lose because of their substandard software. Can't someone put out something to replace Exchange? When will Chandler be done?

Some of the unique IT postings you only see when you work at a University:

Power restored. Power went out because of a student plugging in a portable hot tub into the same power line the comm closet uses. Switch is back up and alarm cleared.

Those crazy students. Don't they know to get the hot tubs with the propane-fired heating element? :)

Probably not too smart to follow-up my power outage post with a pitch to have you come live here, but it really is a great place. That power thing only happens once every 100 years or so and we already took care of it for this century.

So if you're looking for a job where you can write perl code for big systems, check out the posting for a job here at UB.

I've been offline for over a week, and it's not because of anything scheduled on my part. Mother Nature decided to smack Buffalo with one of the biggest storms ever and it knocked out power all over our region. At my house, we ended up being without power for 8 days. We're talking Frontier House territory here, with no planning. Plus I was off on vacation, so I was at the mercy of my home power and internet connection, both of which were not available.

Anyway, things are starting to return to normal over a week later.

To your email backups, such as they are, to recover the emails deleted by a bug in MS Entourage. So if I haven't responded to your email, you might want to send it again. Their corrective measures and workarounds on this one are actually pretty funny. It includes "Stop using Entourage 2004 immediately." After this event, I think I will. :-)

The winner of the NPR weekend edition puzzle this weekend said his friend wrote a perl program to solve the puzzle.