RobsHouse.net

I’m a musician living the life of a computer programmer. Or maybe I’m a techie with exceptionally good musical training. Either way, it is a point of view, and one that I share with more and more people. So I’ve decided to write about music, from the technologist’s vantage point, and to do so with some friends of mine who are in a similar boat. High-C.com is my new music blog where Jam, Andrew and I share our thoughts on all things musical. Some of my favorite posts so far are The White Seal, Grooveshark, Shutter Island, and Don’t be a silly brass player. Enjoy!

Among the notable celebrities to appear at DrupalCon Paris was the one and only Nice Lobster. The epic tale of DrupalLobsterCon has been recorded and told graphically by Jam (aka HornCologne), and is included below for your amusement.

DrupalCamp Cologne will take place on January 17th and 18th, 2009, in Cologne, Germany. Here are pictures of the organization team (known internally as OrgaNicer - say it with a German accent and you’ll get the joke) planning the sessions. We’ve got around 50 sessions and 4 rooms. There are also 12 rooms for groups of 10 people that can be used for spontaneous sessions, lightning talks, BoFs etc.

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.

I invited Jam to share my screen with Adobe Connect. He then shared his screen with me using iChat. All the while we were video conferencing on Skype. Don't try this with dial-up.

Notice the cool "hall of mirrors" effect - a window in a window in a window...

And when I do the wave you can see it making its round trip through all the nested screens.

It's not even my birthday yet, but I was given an early present anyway. My friend Jam made this totally awesome hand-sewn laptop sleeve for my MacBook Pro. It's got the Kölner Dom on it, red-on-white on the front and white-on-red on the back. The material is very thick felt which is sure to provide nice protection. The laptop slides in and out quite nicely, and the cover flap has velcro on it to close. This is easily the best laptop sleeve ever. Thanks, Jam!

(see all the pics)