umbraco CodeGarden '06

The self-organizing for CodeGarden is in full effect. While Per and I are working hard on finishing the last details for the keynote, CodeGarden attendee Len Dierickx is suggesting a pre-conference meetup wednesday evening.

He has found a nice pub very close to the CodeGarden venue and suggest meeting at 9pm. This is an excellent idea, so please reply to the forum thread or here if you fancy joining him!

Len Dierickx is btw one of the few who've actually been to all CodeGarden, so you might be able to get some gossip/experiences from him. Thanks for arranging this, Len!

Day two of CodeGarden is in a very free format based on Open Space Technology. In fact, I'm not kidding when I tell you that we'll start the day by sitting in a circle :-)

Traditional conferences are usually most exciting in the breaks where you get to have conversations. I want the whole day to be one big "hotch-potch" of conversations, tutorials and demos and luckly some wise (wo)men have created just a perfect format for this.

As mentioned we'll start the day by sitting in a circle. Then anyone can stand-up, enter the middle and suggest a topic to discuss later. Let's start the conversation by adding topics in these comments. Do you have something exciting you wanna demo or talk about then enter them in the comments below. Topics could be anything umbraco related, like which packages are people using, how do you deploy a solution, starting a uk usergroup, etc.

What's on your mind - why are you coming. Start a topic - it's your chance to get something with you home :-)

I don't want to publish a list of attendees for CodeGarden as I like the idea of respecting privacy. However I hope most of you will give a short introduction of yourselves in the comments.

Simply write your name, your country, your umbraco knowledge and one or two sentences on your expectations for CodeGarden (I'll start by adding one right now!). As we're close to fifty, we have no chance of doing a round of names like we did at CodeGarden '05 (those were the cozy days of just 15-20 attendees).

If you're considering attending the Level 1 masterclass/course with Per - objects.dk - Ploug Hansen, I wouldn't wait long to register. There's just three (3!) seats left and the Level 2 masterclass with yours truely sold out last week.

I'm really happy with the support on the courses and it's a really great mix of known and new faces in both level 1 and 2. At the same time we're just four registrations from making CodeGarden a no loss event, which I'm sure we'll manage (so yes, the T-shirts are saved!).

Thank you all for your support, can't wait to meet all of you in less than two weeks! 

The planning of CodeGarden is moving ahead. Currently we have confirmed topics that include:

• Using jQuery and umbraco.base for easy Ajax
• SEO (Search Engine Optimization) using umbraco
• How to build accessible and standard compliant websites in umbraco
• Fast prototyping and eEnd-user programming with AutoForms
• How to master XSLT in umbraco in one hour

And then I'll do a grand-tour of version 3.0 that will be out, just the days before CodeGarden. Learn all about the new features, how to upgrade and how to be even more productive. See you in May - CodeGarden is not to be missed and I will not cancel it. Those who comes will have a blast.

Cheers,
Niels...

The planning of CodeGarden '07 goes surprisingly well, and it looks like we'll have a really great

I'm considering using the "Open Space Technology" as the format for day two of CodeGarden.

I was a little too fast yesterday, there was two bugs and one thing to clearify:

• Clearification: VAT only applies to residents in Denmark
• Major bug: The certification only costs EUR100 and not 800!
• Major bug: All attendees not adding VAT-number was created under an existing company resident in Denmark and therefore applied VAT!

The bugs are fixed now - thanks for reporting!

Finally. You can register and pay for the CodeGarden event and pre-conferences. I know it's quite late, but I've been deep into v3 work, which I could imagine would be quite a topic for CodeGarden ;-)

The registration form is without validation (will come tomorrow), so make sure you fill it correctly. I'm quite glad that we got able to squeeze a €250 discount for course attendees who'll take the certifications I'm please to announce that course attendees will be able to take a certification for only €100 (that's a €250 discount!) and cross my fingers that we'll have 25 certified pre-conference attendees on May 9th!

Much more info and features will come during the next days including info on what codegarden really is and some of the tutorials that will come. Now it's late...