Welcome the tenth official bulletin for the 2006 YAPC::Europe Perl Conference in Birmingham, UK.

Call For Proceedings

If you are not a speaker, feel free to jump to the next section...

Speakers, please note that we are moving the deadline of technical papers for the proceedings to end of day Friday 11th August 2006. This will be an absolute deadline and no submissions past this will be accepted. All materials will be prepared and submitted for production over that weekend, and we cannot delay this any further.

We have had several papers submitted, and we have had communications with others who are in the processing of compile theirs, but hopefully the additional 2 weeks, will give others enough time to submit more. We are accepting plain text and PDF documentation for technical papers regarding your talks, however for those submitting slides, code or demo materials, we would request you submit them as tarballs or zip files. Please note any requirements need to view the contents, such that any platform dependent specific presentation software, or any libraries to run demos are all clearly indicated. Please remember that other attendees will not necessarily be running the same platform you used to created your presentation.

We plan to have two formats for the proceedings, a printed booklet and a CD. The booklet will include abstracts to talks and speaker bios, alongside sponsor information. The CD will include the same in PDF format, together with local links to all the material submitted as above by authors.

Papers and presentations should be submitted to The Organisers by end of day Friday 11th August 2006. Please prefix your submission mail with [PAPER] if possible, as it will help us to spot the real mail from the spam.

Registration

Due to a rather unfortunate incident, we have had to call on the gracious help of Belfast Perl Mongers, to help us with the registration process. For anyone paying through the PayPal service, please note that you are not paying for the 2004 conference ;) Belfast Perl Mongers will transfer your payment to us on completion of your transaction.

For anyone who has already paid through the previous PayPal account, we already have your details and you should have received your registration email to confirm your attendance. If you have not received this email, please get in touch with the organisers as soon as possible.

For those who have yet to register for the conference, please click on the 'Registration' link in the 'Conference' box on the right hand side of each page of the website (www.birmingham2006.com). From here you will be presented with either Standard or Individual registration button. Click the appropriate button and complete the following screens. If you wish to pay by credit card, please ensure the default option of PayPal is selected in the final confirmation screen, or the Bank Transfer option if you wish to use that method. Once you confirm your details are correct, you will either be presented with our bank details in order for you to transfer funds to us through your bank, or be provided with a PayPal button, which you can click to complete the payment process. Provide you complete the PayPal payment process in a timely fashion, the conference website should be able to confirm your payment immediately. If there is any delay in processing your payment (longer than 10 minutes) then you may have to wait until we receive automated confirmation.

As previously mentioned we have two rates, standard - £100 (approximately 150 Euros) and individual - £75 (approximately 110 Euros). The standard rate is for businesses who would like to send attendees, make a single payment and receive a receipt of payment. The individual rate is for those attendees who will be handling all the registration and payment process themselves.

Hotel Bookings

Please note that the offer of £79 (single B&B) and £87 (double B&B) for Jury's Inn will soon expire. They still have their "limited" special offer of £63 (single, bed only) available, so you may want to take that option and take your chances with breakfast. There are a few sandwiches shops within a short walk, so you may wish to talk an early morning stroll and smile at all the commuters desperately trying to get to work on time ;)

Getting Here

We are in the process of providing detailed (and visual) directions to all the hotels we know people are staying at (update the wiki if you're staying at another), from both Birmingham International Airport and New Street train station. The hotels are all within walking distance, but for those staying nearer the venue and have heavy luggage you may want to take the option of a taxi.

As a number of people may be arriving at the airport or train station at roughly the same time, we are looking at the possibility of having an arrival guide, who will be able to direct you towards the appropriate hotel. For those people arriving on Monday, we hope to have a meet up in the evening, for food, drinks or both. Details to be arranged nearer the day. For those arriving on Tuesday, our aim is to start the registration some time in the afternoon and throughout the evening, so that no-one has to rush to get registered, and can enjoy a drink by the canal while they are waiting. Again we'll let you know more details nearer the day.

More Sponsors

Following on from our previous major newsletter, we are delighted to announce further sponsors.

1. Systems Mechanics

   A Platinum sponsor, who are set to sponsor the conference meal. More details on this coming soon.

   Systems Mechanics are specialists in the field of Telecommunications Network and Service Management. Our professional services and development skills, coupled with our CrossTalkT product range, enable us to deliver "Best in Class" OSS and Network Management solutions to operators, service providers, and equipment suppliers. We provide a complete service to satisfy all our customer operational, business and technical needs-from initial concept through all stages of delivery to operational deployment.

2. Outcome Technologies

   Our latest Gold Sponsor will be helping us to fund the wireless infrastructure we will be installing into the venue.

3. Belfast Perl Mongers

   In recognition of all the help and advice that Belfast Perl Mongers have provided to the organisers, together with the speed at which they were able to help out with out payment process, they will be credited as sponsors of the conference CD (part one). Perhaps unbeknown to many of you, Karen has been travelling over to Birmingham to attended several of our planning meetings, imparting many words of wisdom and helping us to think of the things we knew we should have thought of!

4. Jon Allen

   When it was realised how much data we wanted to burn onto a CD, we quickly noted that this would either have to be a DVD or 2 CDs. Seeing as CD is still often the preferred format, we opted for the 2 CD approach. Jon Allen, creator of new look perldoc.perl.org site, elected to pay for all the production costs of the second CD. A big thanks to Jon, and buy him a beer when you see him. London Pride is often an acceptable choice :)

5. Target Support Solutions (TSS) Ltd

   TSS have very kindly donated funds, to help us out with a number of the incidentals.

   Target Support Solutions (TSS) Ltd, providing quality system administration resources for blue chip clients in the banking, insurance, utilities, and public sector since 1998. Specialists in Unix System Administration, we also provide troubleshooting on a no fix no fee basis, and per-incident technical support.

We are extremely grateful for these sponsors providing us with the ability to put on the kind of conference we would like, however there are still plenty of other niceties we would like to include. As such if you or your company would like to sponsor us, please get in touch as soon as possible.

Contact

Should you wish to contact us, please email The Organisers, where you can mail us with your questions and suggestions. There is also the regular YAPC::Europe conference mailing list, which is open to all.

That's all for this release. Look out for more news and announcements in the future.

Thanks,
The Birmingham 2006 Organisers
www.birmingham2006.com

YAPC::Europe::2006 is sponsored by

• Morgan Stanley
• Systems Mechanics
• Shadowcat Systems
• Outcome Technologies
• Belfast Perl Mongers
• Jon Allen
• logicLAB
• Positive Internet
• UKUUG
• Apress

YAPC::Europe::2006 | 30th August - 1st September 2006 | Birmingham, UK