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We have create a Facebook event for YAPC::NA 2008. If you happen to be a Facebook user, please sign up for the event and spread the word.

There are only three days remaining to take advantage of the reduced rate for attending YAPC::NA 2008. We'll be turning off the early bird pricing on May 1st, so sign up now.

The YAPC::NA 2008 schedule is officially posted and we have an exciting set of talks this year. Presentations range from Rakudo, the Perl 6 compiler targeting Parrot, to techniques for cleaning up your Perl 5 code and from using Perl for programming social networking sites to stopping malicious software from effecting your systems.

Between the temporary reduced rate of $85 for the three-day conference and the exciting list of talks, how can you not register for YAPC::NA 2008 today.

Dave Rolsky set up a conference map that is open for attendees to view and edit. Please feel free to add any points of interest, or, if there is some type of location that you'd like the conference organizers to add, just let us know.

With exactly two months remaining until YAPC::NA 2008, we are officially opening the payment system for registration to the conference. From now through the end of April, an early-bird price of $85 USD is available for attendees. After that, the registration cost goes up to $100 USD, so if you are looking to save some money on registration, book now! Of course, we are also making the full-price registration available for those who are feeling generous.

Some things to note:

If you are a speaker, DO NOT pay for the conference unless you really really want to. We will be passing out a coupon code sometime in the next few weeks so that you can properly register.

Also, if you are wanting to book on-campus accommodations you'll have to wait a week or so to reserve those; however, you can register and pay for the conference now to take advantage of early bird pricing. The housing registration system will be available very soon. The maintainers of ACT (the system we use to manage the conference) are working hard to create a more robust purchasing component of ACT that will make booking housing easier this year. A lot of this work will be done at next week's ACT hack-a-thon. Please join all of the ACT Hackers in making ACT an even better system for managing YAPC's around the world.

And finally, be sure to get the word out. We want to make this one of the best YAPC::NA's to date and to do that we need attendees! Tell your friends. Tell your boss. Tell your local PM group or LUG. YAPC::NA 2008 is almost here!

Interesting video of someone coding Perl via voice with Windows Vista voice recognition. I have my doubts about it being much different with any other software.

I'm teaching a class for Stonehenge mid April and just realized that I haven't mentioned it here... guess I just did :)

If anyone is interested, or if you have a co-worker that might need a little Perl training, brian, Jon, and I are conducting some open training courses in Chicago in April. There will be "Learning Perl", "Catalyst", and "Test Driven Development" courses available, all at reduced rates.

I've created a group on LinkedIn for people interested in YAPC::NA 2008. Everyone is invited to join, especially if you are planning on being at the conference.

The location of the YAPC RSS/Atom feed has been changed to the default location built into our conference management system. If you want to follow the latest YAPC::NA 2008 news through your feed reader, add http://conferences.mongueurs.net/yn2008/atom/en.xml to your blog list.