EclipseCon T minus 5... Announcements!

EclipseCon is usually the time of year where lots of Eclipse Related announcements hit the wire. Actually, the week leading up to EclipseCon is also a pretty good Eclipse news week, and Genuitec has kicked things off by announcing a partnership with Hitachi.

If you can't make it to EclipseCon next week, be sure to set your blog and news feeds towards Eclipse related news!

- Don

EclipseCon T minus 8... Receptions, receptions, receptions

Well, it's late day Friday, so you'll have to excuse me if my brain is wandering to the less mentally challenging parts of EclipseCon -- the receptions.

Sunday night Ian is hosting a blogger party at the Hyatt. Monday night is the members and committers reception. If you haven't already RSVP'd for either of those, please send a note to members.meeting at our eclipse.org domain.

Then the real fun starts. Tuesday night is the Exhibitor reception in the Exhibit hall. When the Exhibitor reception is over, be sure to head upstairs and check out Genuitec's reception. Last year none other than Sun net beans evangelist Tim Boudreau showed up at their reception, who will Genuitec have this year? Wednesday night is the Poster reception. Afterwards, head upstairs to the JAZZ BOF reception where you can meet Erich Gamma and John Weigand and the gang.

Last year Bjorn was big on process diagrams, so I've dug up one that I made that I still find particularly useful:

But seriously -- the receptions are one of the key parts of EclipseCon for one simple reason - networking. I can't think of a better way to explore new ideas, share pain points and find opportunities and walking and talking your way around an EclipseCon reception!

- Don

EclipseCon T minus 9... Live Reporting via IRC

Good news!

Ben Muskalla, a well known eclipse IRC'er, is going to EclipseCon and has agreed to report on IRC throughout the conference. This was all made possible thanks to an honorarium sponsored by CodeGear, and a conference pass donated by Paremus. If you'd like details on the Eclipse IRC community, check out the eclipse IRC Wiki. Check out the IRC channel during March 5th to 8th for live updates on the goings on.

Ben posted the sessions he plans to attend here. Looks like he needs to update his bio though!

Thanks again to CodeGear and Paremus!

- Don

EclipseCon T minus 10... The Open Source Pavilion

As I noted earlier, there is going to be an Open Source Pavilion again this year at EclipseCon thanks to a sponsorship from both ActiveGrid and Business Objects. The Open Source Pavilion will be run on Tuesday March 6th in the afternoon from 2pm to 8pm. I think giving the OSP participants more time to devote to attending sessions and networking through the conference is a plus for everyone. Also, to keep up with the "less cluttered" theme, the OSP will be in the exhibit hall but won't use the turn-key peds as we did last year. This freed up some valuable space and should encourage a more of the informal conversations througout the hall that are the norm for EclipseCon.

You'll have to check out the program an drop by for the final and full list of participants, but they include a Google Summer of code project, some cool Ajax stuff, some cool PHP stuff, some RCP stuff and much more!

- Don

An Ironic Bug

Just came accross an ironic bug that made me chuckle.

Klocwork submitted their Gold Sponsor talk into EclipseZilla and the title is "Good Developers, Bad Bugs; What Gives?" Looks like a great talk, I can't wait to hear how Good Developers could possibly have Bad Bugs! Here is how it looked in EclipseZilla:

And here is how it looks at EclipseCon.org's Session Outline page:

Seems that semi-colons are not appreciated by EclipseZilla :) Looks like the speakers of this session have proven their point to an extreme. After this, I wouldn't miss this talk for the world.

- Don

PS - How is this "ironic"? Don't forget, I'm Canadian.

EclipseCon T minus 11... A Redesigned Exhibit Hall

Based on feeedback from exhibitors and participants, there have been many changes to the Exhibit hall this year.

First, There is now a clearly defined aisle bisecting the hall horizontally and vertically through the hall to give it a less cluttered feeling and to give better sight lines. Many exhibitors opted to take fewer pedestals this year (in exchange for credits to use for other sponsor activities), so that has helped us achieve an overall less cluttered feeling too.

We are planning to open up the back of the registration area and blend it into the exhibit hall. There will be a meeting area (where posters were last year) with power supply for laptops and it's going to be known as the "Cloudsmith Power-up Lounge".

The Open Source Pavilion is only going to be a half day this year (Tuesday from 2pm-8pm) instead of running the entire exhibitor hours - this not only afforded us more space (the OSP will have temporary 6-foot tables instead of full peds), but it gives the OSP participants more time to attend the sessions, BOFs and otherwise network at the show. The Exhibitor reception will be similar to last year running from 6pm-8pm on Tuesday night.

Lunch will be in the same room as last year, but one difference will be desert - there will be an entrance from the lunch hall into the back of the exhibit hall where you'll be able to find desert and have a chance to eat sweets whilst browsing.

- Don

EclipseCon T minus 12... USB keys

Organizing over a thousand custom made, pre data loaded USB keys is no easy (or cheap) task! But the feedback last year was pretty conclusive that USB keys were beloved, logo-laden one-size-fits-all t-shirts were, uh, not. So there was some serious attention put to the USB keys this year.

First off, thanks to Business Objects and Klocwork for sponsoring the keys. You'll find some great free software from each sponsor pre-loaded on the key (and that in turn supported us getting larger keys this year). Of course, you'll also find all of the presentation slides available as of press date there as well.

What else is new this year? You will be able to update your key with presentations during the conference at kiosks that will be setup in the Exhibit hall. So now you can easily get updates of the presentations that were uploaded since we went to press on the USB keys.

- Don

EclipseCon T minus 14... Peripheral Activities

For most people the start of EclipseCon is still over two weeks away, but for me it starts in just fourteen days because of some early meetings! There are lots of Eclipse activities around the periphery of EclipseCon such as the Committer Bootcamp on Sunday March 4th, Ajax working group meeting on the 5th, Members Meeting and new member introduction also on the 5th. Not to mention the countless sidebars (all puns intended) that happen as I try to catch up with some of the new members of the recent quarter who will be there like Tibco, Brocade, compeople, OpenMethods, Prosyst, Cloudsmith, etc.

A special public thanks in advance to my wife (who I know reads my blog regularly despite not being in tech) -- who will be looking after our three month old for the 12 days that I'm away!

- Don

Eclipse AJAX Working Group Forming

Help shape the direction of the Eclipse Ajax Ecosystem. There will be an in person kick-off meeting for the “Eclipse AJAX Working Group” on Monday, March 5^th from 10am to Noon at the Santa Clara Convention Center.

The initial agenda includes:

· Approve/Elect a working group chair

· How can we better improve marketing of the Eclipse AJAX Ecosystem on Eclipse.org and other places

· Initial planning/brainstorming for an Eclipse AJAX interoperability and plug-fest event

· Eclipse strategy regarding Open Ajax Alliance

If you have suggestions for the meeting, please reply post to the WIKI:

http://wiki.eclipse.org/index.php/AJAX_Working_Group

Please RSVP to members.meeting [at] eclipse.org if you would like to attend.

- Don

Red Hat Goes GOLD at EclipseCon, sponsors tutorial

I'm pleased to note that Red Hat has confirmed their participation at EclipseCon 2007 as a Gold Sponsor. Moreover, Red Hat is sponsoring a free tutorial on Monday March 5th titled "Building Rich Internet Applications with Open Source JBOSS Frameworks and Tools."

Red Hat joins Actuate, BEA, Business Objects, IBM, Ingres, Klocwork and Wind River as this year's Gold sponsors.

Only two days left for Early Registration rates to EclipseCon!

- Don



- Don

Yes ZX, There is an Open Source Pavilion!

Thanks to generous sponsorships from ActiveGrid and Business Objects, I'm pleased to announce there will be an Open Source pavilion at EclipseCon 2007! The Open Source Pavilion will be part of the Exhibit Hall from 2pm to 8pm on Tuesday March 5th. Participants in the pavilion will receive a complementary conference pass to EclipseCon.

Call for nominations can be found here. Time is very tight, so please send in your nominations right away!!!





Thanks again ActiveGrid and Business Objects!

- Don

Google, BEA headline EclipseCon Sponsored Tutorials

Both Google and BEA are sponsoring Tutorials at EclipseCon 2007 this year. Tutorials are in-depth hands on sessions that kick off the conference on Monday, March 5th. They are a great way to get a few hours of personalized hands-on help on just about any Eclipse technology. Sponsored tutorials are a half day in length and can be attended at no extra cost to your conference fees.

Google's tutorial is titled "Google Web Toolkit: Quick relief of AJAX pain" and will be lead by staff from Google's GWT team. The hands on tutorial will lead participants through building a complete GWT based application.

BEA has sponsored two tutorials, offering a full day of free hands on training from the creators of BEA Workshop Studio. The morning session is titled "Building JPI Based Applications" and will walk attendess through building a complete application from browser to database. The afternoon session is titled "Developing JSF on Eclipse" and walks through building complete Java Server Faces based applications.




There are more sponsored tutorials coming online soon -- stay tuned!

- Don