YAPC::EU 2010 - The Renaissance of Perl - Wiki

Wiki - Newsletter06

Name

YAPC::EU::2010 Newsletter #06 2010/07/13 - Don't panic!

Welcome to the sixth YAPC::EU::2010 newsletter!

Less than one month to YAPC::EU!

Summary

In this issue:

Sad announcement
Talks Schedule Available
Attendees Dinner
Internet Connection
Send-A-Newbie program
Trip to Florence
New Sponsors
Stats
Training courses status update
Friends & Family Program: status update

Sad announcement

We regret to announce that Damian Conway will not be able to attend YAPC::Europe 2010 due to a death in his family. The Organizers would like to express our deepest condolences to him.

This also means that his keynote, talks and training courses are canceled. We're contacting everyone who was already subscribed to his courses to settle their refunds, and the set of accepted talks will certainly be changed.

Our thoughts are with Damian in these sorrowful moments.

Talks Schedule Available

The title says it all. :-)

You can see the complete schedule here http://conferences.yapceurope.org/ye2010/schedule.

Attendees Dinner

Do you want to bring friends and relatives to the YAPC Attendees Dinner? We're glad to announce that now you can! Just go to the purchase page (http://conferences.yapceurope.org/ye2010/purchase) and buy additional tickets for the dinner.

Please notice that a dinner ticket is already included in your conference ticket; therefore you don't need to buy one for yourself, only for other people you want to bring. Moreover, (non-lightning talk) speakers already have their conference ticket fee waived.

The dinner is scheduled on August, 4th 2010. Yes, it's at the end of the very first day of YAPC::Europe. We believe that placing social events as early as possible will help people "break the ice" with other attendees, thus allowing them to enjoy the subsequent days even more.

We'll publish more news about the dinner soon. In the meanwhile, we have to ask you a little favour: since Act doesn't manage your dietary habits, could you please fill in this simple survey http://tinyurl.com/yapceu2010-dinner-survey ? This will greatly help us in organizing the dinner.

Thank you very much!

Internet Connection

A good, fast and reliable Internet connection is a must at every IT conference. We've just signed the contract with our technical partner, which will provide a solid 30Mbit/s downlink/uplink (15Mbps/s MCR) Wi-Fi connection during YAPC::Europe! We think it's enough to allow everyone to surf the web, check email, tweet, ssh and so on.

As every good tale, this one has some drawbacks as well. The main issue we have as of now is that we require you to have a working mobile phone, at least capable of receiving SMS from Italy.

This is the plan:

in your attendee bag you'll find a scratchcard with a secret code;
you submit both the code and your mobile number through our Captive Portal;
you receive an SMS with a username/password pair;
you submit these data through our Captive Portal. Done!

=back

If you won't have a working mobile phone, mail us mailto:yapc-info@perl.it and we'll arrange a plan B. Of course we're going to put all these information in every Attendee's Guide ;-)

Send-A-Newbie program

Every year the Send-a-Newbie program http://www.send-a-newbie.enlightenedperl.org/ helps people to attend YAPCs. The program is aimed to those who have never been to a YAPC before, are unable to do so by their own means and are somehow involved in the Perl community.

We're glad to announce that even this year some people are going to benefit from the Send-a-Newbie program. :-)

We'll announce their names soon; in the meanwhile, please consider donating to the Send-a-Newbie program http://www.send-a-newbie.enlightenedperl.org/donations.html, thus encouraging new participation at conferences!

Trip to Florence

As we promised you, we're arranging an one-day trip to Florence on Saturday, August 7th (just after the conference).

We've written down some information in the conference wiki http://www.yapceurope.org/2010/wiki?node=FlorenceOnSaturday. The main attraction for many people will be the Uffizi gallery http://www.uffizi.firenze.it/english/musei/uffizi/, scheduled for the early afternoon (starting around 15:00-15:30).

For those of you who are brave enough to wake up early in the morning, we've also put some info about other tourist attractions. We'll then go to lunch in a typical restaurant, and after that visit the Uffizi.

An important advice: we recommend to buy your tickets for the Uffizi gallery well in advance (the sooner the better). We're actually thinking about buying some (15?) in advance, allocating for people who want to come, but we're unsure about how many of you will join us to Florence. If you're really interested, can you please send us an email mailto:yapc-info@perl.it or tweet @yapceu2010 http://twitter.com/yapceu2010 within 24h? Of course, you can always buy tickets on your own :-)

New Sponsors

After Booking.com, YAPC::Europe::2009, cPanel, Shadowcat Systems Ltd., 123people, YAPC::Europe Foundation, Smart Open Software, pair Networks, Github, Italpro, Geoesse, $foo Perl Magazin, Lokku, Apress, No Starch Press, O'Reilly Media and NET-A-PORTER.COM, please welcome our new Silver Sponsors:

MySQL http://www.mysql.com/ is the world's most popular open source database software, with over 100 million copies of its software downloaded or distributed throughout it's history. Many of the world's largest and fastest-growing organizations use MySQL to save time and money powering their high-volume Web sites, critical business systems, and packaged software — including industry leaders such as Yahoo!, Alcatel-Lucent, Google, Nokia, YouTube, Wikipedia, and Booking.com. The flagship MySQL offering is MySQL Enterprise, a comprehensive set of production-tested software, proactive monitoring tools, and premium support services available in an affordable annual subscription. MySQL is a key part of LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP / Perl / Python), the fast-growing open source enterprise software stack. More and more companies are using LAMP as an alternative to expensive proprietary software stacks because of its lower cost and freedom from platform lock-in.

Dada http://dada.dada.net, listed on the MTA market in the STAR (DA.MI) segment of the Italian Stock Exchange, is an international leader in Digital Music, Entertainment and on-line Gaming services via web and mobile, as well as in Domain, Hosting and advanced online Advertising solutions. More than 600 highly skilled professional currently work in Dada among its offices in Florence, Milan, Bergamo, New York, Barcelona, Paris, London, Worcester, Rio Janeiro.

Stats

22 days till YAPC::Europe 2010
255 registered people
151 committed users
71 accepted talks
16 lightning talks
59 (non lightning) speakers
53 as in FIFTY-THREE hours of talks

Training courses status update

Some updates on our training courses attendance:

Introducing Modern Perl, by Dave Cross: 6 attendees
Introduction to Moose, by Dave Rolsky: 7 attendees
Catalyst 5.80 Master Class, by Matt S. Trout (Shadowcat Systems Ltd.): 1 attendee (2 more are coming...)
WxPerl in Details, by Herbert Breunung: 2 attendees
Effective Perl Programming, by brian d foy: 3 attendees
Perl 6 for Programmers, by Gabor Szabo: 1 attendee

As you can see, we still have lots of room for any course. :-)

You can purchase your ticket here: http://conferences.yapceurope.org/ye2010/purchase.

Friends & Family Program: status update

Some updates on our Friends & Family Program:

Pisa - August 4th: 2 participants
Siena and San Gimignano - August 5th: 6 participants
Pasta factory - August 6th: 1 participant

Places are still available for all the activities. You can book your tickets on the ticket purchase page http://conferences.yapceurope.org/ye2010/purchase.