Just to let you all know that we've got the following event this Friday. We ask that you send an email to meeting-christchurch AT nzpug dot org so that your name goes into the draw for our giveaway book (got one on: Programming on Google App Engine).

This time we'll really order some pizzas so please bring along a few dollars to contribute to this.

Details are as follows:

Date: 29 January 2010

Time: 5:30-7:30pm

URL: http://nzpug.org/MeetingsChristchurch/Jan2010

Talks:

• Michael O'Connor & Tim Evans (ARANZ Geo): "Geological Modeling software built in Python"

Look forward to seeing you all there!

Well I just touched back down in Christchurch after returning from LCA2010 in Wellington. Overall the event was worth every penny and featured a number of high profile speakers from a number of FOSS projects. In fact, one thing that really struck me about the event was the number of 'offshore' speakers (in fact delegates too) - people that I would never have an opportunity to meet or hear present otherwise.

This was my first LCA and obviously coming from a Plone background, the web-related talks interested me most. So my conference itinerary consisted of (in no particular order): Puppet, Ruby, Drupal (yes I checked out 'the competition'), Pyglet (hey it's Python), PostgreSQL, Git, Xapian etc etc.

Some of the Plone highlights included: the PloneBoF - we ended up having 7 come along, which was more than the number that indicated they would come along on the wiki. The really good thing was that 3 of these hadn't put their names up on the wiki so if all the BoF'ers had come we would've had about 9 there. There was a lot of positive comments that came out of the BoF but the most interesting comment I took away was from a Systems Architect (ex-Unisys employee) who mentioned that Plone has 3 categories of user: Enterprise who only ever install the stable releases and don't upgrade at all, Developers who are always on the bleeding edge, and Everyone else whose initial attempt at installing Plone is via their distros package management system (there's probably another category of user in here who downloads the installers from plone.org but this was what he said). And as the Plone packages in most of the distro repositories are pretty out-of-date, their initial experiences aren't all to good. I was thinking that as the Plone installation process is buildout-based, this would be quite difficult to merge with the package installation process of most distros. It would be good, though, to make contact with some of the volunteers producing the various Plone distro packages and getting them to participate and interact a bit more with the core Plone community.

Attending the Drupal tutorial also opened my eyes to the excellent 3rd-party package installation experience Drupal provides for their users. Users can install 3rd-party packages directly from the administrative interface and also search for and install updates for their currently installed ones. That is something we need in Plone! Drupal does appear to be going through some of the growing pains Plone went through with content types developed thru-the-web and difficulty in porting this content type code to other Drupal instances - an essentially solved problem in the Plone space.

All-in-all an excellent event and one I'd definitely recommend to anyone. LCA2011 will be in Brisbane in February 2011 (dates to be confirmed). As an aside, I also took away some tips for Kiwi PyCon 2010, which is looking to be held in November 2010 - hopefully we'll see some of you there!

I'm organising a Plone Birds of a Feather session at LCA2010. It'll be on Wednesday, January 20th from 14:30-15:15 in Civic Suite 3 (which is apparently in the Old Town Hall building). Topics up for discussion will include:

• Plone 4 and Beyond
• E-Commerce in Plone
• Interconnectivity with RDBMSes
• Plone Theming
• Plone Support in NZ
• Etc
  

So if you'd like to find out what Plone is all about or talk some nitty-gritty regarding some specific aspect of the Plone CMS, come along this Wednesday and have a chat (I have asked that those coming along also list their names on the Plone BoF wiki page or drop me an email, just so we've got a bit of an idea of numbers).

More information is available here: https://conf.linux.org.au/wiki/PloneBoF.

NEW ZEALAND PYTHON USER GROUP

Media Statement

November 13, 2009

IMMEDIATE RELEASE

What do 150 software developers, a 2 day conference, and a programming language called Python add up to? Kiwi PyCon 2009, which was held in Christchurch this past weekend. PyCons are held annually throughout the world but this was the first time the event had been held in New Zealand.

The main keynote speaker, Joel Burton, who was flown from the US courtesy of both the Python Software Foundation and the Plone Foundation gave his presentation on the Saturday morning entitled “Why Python Web Frameworks are Changing The Web”. His presentation looked at some history of the development of Python Web Frameworks and also why Python is becoming the language of choice for many web developers.

The conference had two main tracks, with delegates enjoying presentations on project management, science and maths, games and animation, and web development. There were also more interactive sessions with conference attendees participating in short presentations or open discussions on a specific theme.

Tim Penhey, the conference's second keynote speaker, presented his talk on the Sunday morning entitled “Launchpad: The Good, the Bad, and the OMG How Does That Work”. His presentation took a look at the lessons learned from building and running the launchpad.net project.

“The feedback we've received from the attendees has been really positive”, commented Tim Knapp, the conference's Director. “Everything went really smoothly thanks to all involved and I'm so happy that we could set a high standard for future Kiwi PyCons”. Preparations to hold Kiwi PyCon 2010 in Paihia are already underway. For more information go to http://nz.pycon.org.

-------------------------------Ends-------------------------------

For media or conference enquiries please contact:

Tim Knapp, NZ Python User Group Vice President and Event Director

Phone: 021 156 6405

Email: kiwipycon@nzpug.org

Website: nz.pycon.org

Just thought I'd do a bit of a recap from an insiders perspective on how things unfolded during the course of Kiwi PyCon 2009. Needless to say, the organisation of the event happened over a few months and most of the preparations had been done quite a bit in advance of the big day. So this is more of a how did all these preparations culminate and did it blow up in my face or did we bask in 'our' success :)

Friday

On the Friday of last week around midday, I went to the printer and picked up the conference programmes (they also combo-ed as a name badge). They looked great. I then swung back round home and picked up Dylan Jay as well as all the conference gear (i.e. signage, some food items, T shirts, lanyards + pouches, etc).

We got to the venue about 12:30pm and started unloading the car. Fortunately Party Warehouse had already delivered the 120 chairs, 2 PA systems + wireless mics, and the disposable eating utensils. Andrew Groom had already arrived and a few more helpers arrived in short order so I got them started setting up the chairs in both the Track 1 and Track 2 rooms. Meanwhile I shot off to the Effusion Group offices to pickup the power boards + extension power leads (thanks guys!), as well as a few coffee plungers.

After getting back to Cii, a few more volunteers had arrived so I asked if they could start laying out the power boards and power leads. The idea was to lay them out underneath the seats to allow the delegates to plugin during the sessions. I also asked if the projectors and projector screens could be setup and got Darryl Cousins to setup the registration area (Darryl also did an excellent job of looking after the registration area during the conference). In the meantime, Dylan and I got into putting up the conference banners.

Brian Chatterton arrived soon after with Andrew Turner and started getting stuck into setting up the wireless network. They had about 6 wireless APs, 3x 802.11a and 3x 802.11g. I better add that Brian did an excellent job of setting up and running the network during the conference (which is further borne out by the conference survey results). He also sacrificed going to the Pre-Conference Party and even the dinner we had on Saturday night to iron out some network issues.

Jonathan Harker of Catalyst IT arrived about this time and got stuck into setting up their sponsor table. Michael Hope had gotten into setting up his video camera in Track 2 and after finishing up with this I asked if he could also get the 2 PA systems setup. I was still dilly-dallying with getting the main front banner up and getting distracted with other issues so I eventually got Dylan to finish this up for me while I had to shoot away and take my dog to the vet about 5pm.

After getting back to Cii around 6pm-ish, I finished the setup of the entrance area (particularly getting the partitions for the Cii reception area in place) and also asked if Michael Hudson could confirm where he would be taking the post-registration photos. We ended up draping one of our white table cloths over one small section of wall and using this as a backdrop for the photos. I also asked if Natalia Tyan and Jane Hill (both from powerHouse) could setup the boardroom as this is where we would be putting out the conference food.

The projectors and projector screens were now setup but we were using a whiteboard in Track 1 as a projector screen and it was really not suitable as a projector screen. This was partly due to our wanting to keep the whiteboard in Track 1 as that is where the Lightning Talks and Open Spaces Sessions would be but also because we only had 1 proper projector screen (we actually had 2 but 1 was permanently fixed and therefore couldn't be repositioned for our needs). Things were getting a little stressful as it was already about 8pm but Jane phoned up Steve, the powerHouse CEO, and he said he could bring his projector screen in for our use - what a lifesaver! Jane then made another call to another contact and arranged for him to bring in his newer and brighter projector for our use. Even better!
It was around 8:45pm now and we'd pretty much finished up the setup of the venue so Dylan and I headed over to The Twisted Hop for the Pre-Conference Party, which incidentally was a great venue and thanks to Marek had lots of yummy food!

Saturday

I woke up about 5am and couldn't get back to sleep so got showered and dressed, woke up Dylan and headed over to the venue about 8am. Natalia had already opened up and there were already delegates lining up at the registration desk, which was a bit of a surprise given we'd said 8:30am was registration opening time. So Natalia and a few others mucked in to get them signed in and I headed upstairs to get the projector going with the event/sponsor slides and to switch on the background music.

Something that was raised the day before regarding displaying the venue's sponsor logos was raised again and we decided to cover them up with the event's sponsor logos. Some last minute signage was also made up for the Track 2 door, some signage on the entrance as well as the boardroom and then the event was underway with my welcome speech.

There was a good sized audience for the opening speeches. Danny Adair (NZPUG President) followed my speech with a few opening words and then Joel Burton began his speech: Why Python Web Frameworks are Changing The Web. Joel gave a captivating speech and drew a few laughs from the audience with some of his witty comments.

I'd organised for a couple of local cafe restaurants to heat up our savouries for the morning teas and this all went very smoothly both with delivery and pickup by our great team of snack runners: Dylan, Michael, Natalia, and Darryl. So following Joel's talk we were into our first morning tea, which all went very well, including Natalia and Michael's hardwork in the kitchen pumping out the plunger coffees.

Then Track 1 and 2 split off into 2 sessions and I chaired Track 1 while Guy Kloss chaired Track 2. I kept a fairly tight rein on the timing of the talks and Guy and myself also tweeted each of the talk titles as they unfolded throughout the day.

Papas pizzas delivered our 75 pizzas labelled and on time and I also kicked off the lunch break with our first draw of 4 books courtesy of our schwag sponsors.

Guy had spent some of the morning tea break scheduling the Lightning Talks and finished this off over the lunch break. So following lunch we all gathered again in the Track 1 room for the 12.5 Lightning Talks (the first one by Morris Johns was a very brief intro to his arduino robot).

Then again we split into 2 tracks until afternoon tea, which again went very smoothly thanks to Natalia and Michael's efforts in the kitchen. Things did get fairly hot in the Saturday afternoon in Track 1, though, due to the lack of air conditioning at Cii but Morris did manage to prise open a window, which helped alleviate things. I also did another draw of 4 books during the afternoon tea break. All in all I did 4 draws over the 2 days, with the draw for the Webstock schwag being made on the Sunday lunchtime.

Day 1 finished without a hitch and we ended up heading off to Tulsi for dinner, which was something we organised as a spur of the moment thing on the Saturday afternoon.

Sunday

I got an early night on the Saturday night and ensured I slept at least 8 hours so I'd have enough energy for the last day. We arrived at Cii at about 8am and it was all shut up. So I used my Cii access card and security code to open up and gave the coffee barista a quick call to see how far away he was. We'd organised for him to setup outside the front entrance, where he'd serve fresh espresso coffee out of the back of his converted kombi van from 8-10am. It went down really well and the delegates lined up and handed over their free espresso voucher. Take my word for it, this coffee is the best in New Zealand!

Then at 9am the sessions kicked off again with me giving my Getting All Your Web Apps To Wear The Company Brand presentation in Track 1 and Stuart Mitchell presenting in Track 2. Again morning tea passed without a hitch and Guy used this time and lunch to organise the Open Spaces Sessions. I also made an announcement preparing the delegates mentally for aiding in the big tidyup that would be needed at the end of the event.

A couple of talks later and we were together again for the second keynote by Tim Penhey: Launchpad: The Good, the Bad, and the OMG How Does That Work. Tim also gave a great keynote and looked very poised in front of the 150 strong crowd (he even finished within time!).

Then it was time for lunch with John at Subway delivering on time and even throwing in a bunch of free cookies to boot, which were a real crowd pleaser.

Following lunch we were into our Open Spaces Sessions, which went quite well but did feel a little rushed at 30 minutes a pop (originally they were set at 45 minutes but the delegates pushed for 30).

Following the Open Spaces Sessions we had our last afternoon tea, which again went swimmingly well and then it was the homeward stretch to my closing speech, which too came off really well. As part of my speech I again called for volunteers to help out with the final cleanup and also let everyone know the 4 overseers who had been assigned to each area of the venue. The response was absolutely amazing with most of the attendees pitching in directly after my talk and the whole venue being cleaned up in about 30 minutes (some reckon it only took 15!).

All-in-all a very successful event, which I felt was organised well enough and also wouldn't have been possible without the great team of volunteers who helped out in all of the key positions.

Looking forward to Kiwi PyCon 2010 in Paihia!