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http://www.drupal-dev-days.de/

Check out my crazy buddies at NodeOne in Stockholm, and their hilarious first episode in the Druplicon Paris road trip. Dries makes a surprise appearance and shows a rare unfiltered glimpse at his managerial style. Follow the road trip in progress at the DrupaliconRoadTrip site.

What are you doing on January 17th and 18th? Hopefully you'll be coming to DrupalCamp Cologne and hanging out with Drupallers from all over the world! This is the first ever Drupal-specific camp or conference that Germany has ever seen, so it will be quite an event.

Dries Buytaert (Drupal founder and project lead, Acquia co-founder and CTO, Mollom co-founder) will be there to talk about Drupal and his latest projects. I'll be holding an Acquia Q&A session, as well as demonstrating the latest ApacheSolr improvements. Jeffrey McGuire (Acquia's documentation lead) will be there as well, ready to help you with your Drupal 5 to Drupal 6 upgrade problems, including those pesky Views 1 to Views 2 conversions. Also not to miss is the Drupal.org Upgrade and Redesign Hackathon - your chance to get your hands dirty with the big Drupal.org redesign project.

Why should you come?

DrupalCamp Cologne will feature a wide range of sessions, brainstorms, and code sprints in German and English. It will be a rich mix of conference style presentations, ad-hoc groups, Bird-of-a-Feather (BoF) style discussions, and social networking.

If you are looking to hire Drupal developers, this is the right venue to be at. If you are looking for advice on how to build a Drupal site, this is the right venue to be at. If you've just heard about Drupal and want to learn more about what it is and what it can do, this is the right place for you.

Furthermore, Cologne is a great city to hang out and have fun. You'll be able to sample some of the local Kölsch while discussing the finer points of server infrastructure and Drupal deployment with superstars such as Gerhard Killesreiter (Drupal 4.7 core maintainer, Drupal Association Board Member, Drupal.org infrastructure lead).

Will it be fun?

Heck yeah! Morten, King of Denmark, is coming all the way from Copenhagen - you know it's going to be fun. Plus there will be a number of cool door prizes and other goodies for you to take home as mementos (T-Shirts, books, stickers and other schwag).

Where do I sign up?

On the DrupalCamp.de website. It's in German. If that's an obstacle just send a message using the DrupalCamp.de contact form. The DrupalCamp.de team will get you hooked up. There will be a €20 fee (to cover both days) that will be collected on the day of the camp. Students get a discount.

Where will the Camp take place?

We are receiving generous sponsorship from the GFU Cyrus AG who is providing excellent space for us. Since they are a technical training center they know what a group like ours needs. More details about the location can be found on the DrupalCamp.de site. Here's a direct link to the Google map. The red dot is the venue and the blue dots are hotels.

Presenters still needed

Do you have something cool that you'd like to show to your fellow Drupalheads? Sign up to do a presentation (you'll need to log in). You can also propose BoF sessions, code sprints or round-table discussions. There will also be room for spontaneous working groups and meetings on the days of the events.

Our sponsors

This DrupalCamp is only possible because of generous sponsorship from companies and groups dedicated to promoting open source software. We are still looking for sponsors. If you would be interested in contributing to the success of this DrupalCamp, please contact the organizers via the contact form.

I don't speak German. Should I still come?

Heck yeah! I'll talk to you ;-) There will be presentations in both English and German, and there will be plenty of people there who will be happy to help you out if you run into trouble deciding which door, "Frauen" or "Herren", is the right one for you to use.

Drupalcon Szeged was a huge success. This shot gives a feel for the room during Dries' keynote.

I've been having fun making panorama shots lately. I use a program called Calico to stitch several photos together. Check out the full size version for more detail.

Here is the second part of the interview with Jay and Dries of Acquia. The first episode can be seen here.

For those of you who might be wondering about my new job at Acquia, and what the company is up to.

In an article titled The Business of Startups Is Business, Businessweek interviews Dries Buytaert and names him one of the top innovators for 2008 who are 30 or under. This is a really exciting milestone for Dries. Drupal and Acquia get all the attention in the article, and Mollom isn't mentioned. Just shows that nobody can keep track of everything Dries is up to =)

Add this Digg widget to your posts about Dries' Businessweek article:

Dries Buytaert has been busy. Close on the heels of launching Acquia comes yet another company, Mollom. Mollom is what allows me to leave comments open to the public here on Robshouse.net. When you leave a comment on a Mollom protected site, the text is subject to statistical analysis to determine the probability of you being a jerk (spammer). If you're a jerk, your content will get flagged by Mollom as spam and not published. False positives/negatives are rare, and the administrator has recourse in all cases. This makes running sites with user generated content much easier and comfortable. Check out some of the great innovations that Mollom offers. Congratulations, Dries, you're a busy man!

Make sure to Digg this story. Here's the Digg code for use on your own blog: <div style="float:left; margin-right:1.5em;"><script> digg_url = 'http://digg.com/software/Mollom_new_FREE_anti_spam_filter_for_websites'; </script> <script src="http://digg.com/api/diggthis.js"></script> </div>

Dries Buytaert and his wife, Karlijn are expecting their first baby. The good folks at Drupal.org are raising money to send them a gift. I think it's a great idea!

Dries Buytaert is a great photographer. Not only that, he keeps getting better. Some of his latest works are just stunning. I encourage everyone to take a couple of minutes and click through his portfolio and admire the aesthetic and expression of his shots. Here are thumbnail links to some of my favorites.

Link to Digg story