Where can we all meet up?

There is a truly Rocking party on the A38 boat near the venue, it promises to be a party to remember !

There is also a bathing climate action change party, a special event in Széchenyi fürdő, and they hopefully have swimming costumes for sale. :) Open air thermal baths and saunas are open. The event opens at 10 pm, the party runs late and gets only starting after 1 am. Especially suggested for people with jetlag.

Of course the city has new and interesting places, look here for more information

So post your comments and suggestions and hook up !

The Plone conference wireless network is being provided "in house" by Greenfinity with a lot of support from some of the 2009 conference members attending.

Taking into account previous conferences gave us a good understanding of the level of support needed by conference attendees and so we have designed a network that will allow all attendees to connect to the wireless network in all the rooms that talks or training are being held in.

We are supporting all hardware, new and old, including 802.11 a/b/g/n at the conference and after the first day we will adjust the network to take into account the hardware around.

The network will be using the University backbone and has its own set of firewall rules we would appreciate if you read these rules are to protect both ourselves and the University from malicious software and viruses on users equipment.

1: Do not use port scanners (Nmap etc.) as you will be cut off from the network.
2: Do not try to probe other users systems or the firewall, you will be cut off.
3: If a users equipment has a virus that tries to spread itself throughout the network (A broadcast virus for example) or sends spam you will be cut off from the network.

The Wireless network name is PloneConf2009 - password: conference2009

The encryption used is WPA-PSK and WPA2-PSK, we have chosen a simple password as the aim is just to stop random people connecting to our network.

In all cases you can contact the network support team by finding one of the conference organizers or calling Spanky™ on +36.70.292.8383 and we will sort out the issue with you and get you back up on the network as soon as possible.

We hope all of you will have a smooth wireless experience at the conference and a great trip to Hungary.

Let's Stop For a Bite

When you're hungry for a bite but don't have time to interpret a three language menu, there are plenty of possibilities beyond the ubiquitous fast-food chains and Gyros places.

OVER THE COUNTER

Behind the Opera, at the front of Hajos utca, you'll notice one of the best Hentesáru (butcher shops) in town on your right. In the daytime, these kind of shops provide true old-school local in-and-out lunches - cheap, fast and tasty. Order a kolbász (sausage), or májas hurka (liver sausage) or véres hurka (blood sausage) and bread and point at one of the pickled salads. Like so:

YOU: Jó napot! [ Good day! ]

BUTCHER (large guy in a white shirt): Jó napot. Parancsoljon! [ Good day, what would you like? ]

Y: Egy kolbászt kérek, káposzta salátával. [ A sausage, please, with cabbage salad. ]

B: Kenyér? [ Bread? ]

Y: Kettőt kérek. És egy kis mustárt, meg tormát is. Mennyi lesz? [ Two (slices), please. And some mustard, and horseradish, too. How much does it come to? ]

B: Hatszázötven lesz. [ That'll be six fifty. ]

Y: Tessék. Köszönöm. [ Here you are. Thank you. ]

B: Egészségedre. [ To your health. ]

Don't forget to order mustard or horseradish. Condiments are luxuries here, and you'll be charged for them, even in fast food chains. Side salads are a must: Alma paprika (a yellow pickled apple pepper) is much milder than a jalapeño and you'll need it to digest the sausage. I love the fresh, white káposzta saláta (cabbage salad), in season now. Csalamádé is similiar, only with carrots and pickles shredded into the mix and sometime a bit spicy (It's also a fun word to say!). Cseresznye paprika ( a little green and red pickled demon of a cherry pepper) is the hot one!

GASTRONOMICAL THEORY

In the butcher's or at food vendor stalls around markets, you might notice some house painters standing around swigging off little bottles of vodka or pálinka with their lunch. They are not social delinquents, nor rogue renovators, they're simply following magyar dietary traditions for good digestion that their parents taught them. A shot of hard alcohol to break up fatty foods keeps them from falling asleep or falling off their ladders. Alcoholism may be a problem the EU would like Hungary to address, but I imagine it will have to include a major overhaul of traditional foods to take in this country.

Let's carry the cardboard squares your food is served on to a stainless chest-high bar on the wall and lean or sit on the high stools to examine your lunch: The bread is white, spongy and full of cals and carbs; the meat is juicy and full of paprika-colored grease; the crisp salad vegetable is soaked in sugar-water and vinegar! These elements on their own could seem dangerous in modern western conceptions of gastronomic health. However, taken together they are not only delicious, they breakdown into instant energy that will keep you warm for a full day of wandering the streets. The meat will be salty, the salad sugary and the bread a palatte clearing companion that is so delicious you'll be tempted to eat it on it's own. Be warned: If you're not willing to go for all three (and hard alcohol is a fourth option), you risk serious indigestion, acid reflux or dozing into your cappuccino the next cafe. You're looking for a happy balanced marriage of extremes.

BTW: Same goes for pastries and cakes. The heavy buttercreams, butter pastries, chocolate and sugars are best taken at leisurely pace, sipping a strong black espresso with a complimentary side of szóda or even while drinking a dry pilseni beer.

FAST BREAK

There are no breakfast places of note here, yet. Breakfast culture just hasn't caught on, though it's made some valiant attempts. In the countryside and for early rising heavy industry workers, there's what's known as a "Pálinkás jó reggelt" (a Pálinka Good Morning) - bread, meat and pálinka.

Pastries are customary morning street fare for city lifestyles. You'll see people on tram, buses and the streets holding a mobile phone by their ear and a paper bag to their mouths.

Try the sweet varieties: túros táska (literally "cheese bag") or mákos rétes (hungarian poppyseed danish). You'll also find kífli (crescent rolls) or horseshoe shaped pastries called bukta filled with díós (walnut) or gesztenyés (chestnut) cream. These make for a great morning snack. The pastry of choice for schoolkids' and English teachers alike is a kakaós csiga (cocoa snail), which is a pastry whorl of cocoa glaze that gets softer and more sugary as you peel away to the heart of it. All of these go great with a kefír or yoghurt cup.

CAMPFIRE FARE

One of my favorite street eats in cold weather is a dinner-plate sized monster of a thing called a lángos (loosely translated as "of the flame"). It basically amounts to fried dough, made like a donut, but its texture is halfway between bread and pizza. When fried and hot, it's crispy on the outside and spongy on the inside. You brush it with garlic 'sauce' and cover it in sour cream and shredded cheese. It's really cheap and really heavy, but when made fresh and crispy, it's scrumptious. I don't know if it was ever made on an open flame, but it surely keeps your furnace burning against a chill. It's usually found near open-air markets when you're lugging a week's groceries around.

PICK ME UP SWEETIE

One of the most famous of hungarian products to remain viable through the transition to hard market capitalism is the Túró Rudi. Túró is a curd cheese used here, perhaps even more than paprika is. Confectioners add sugar and lemon peel then stuff it in pastries. The Túró Rudi is a finger-sized rod of the stuff dipped in chocolate and wrapped in polka dot plastic. You'll find it in one of the fridges in a Non-Stop (convenience store), or in the cheese section of the grocery stores. Allegedly, it was almost banned when Hungary became an EU junior partner because it is all natural - fresh cheese and no real preservatives means it was a health risk (!?). I guess they just didn't realize how fast these things can disappear from the shelves. Now, I've also heard some hard-hearted rumors that it was invented in Russia, but no respectable Hungarian will let you get away with that. Don't leave Hungary without trying one!

TUNE UP

One trick to getting your Hungarian off to a good start is good pronunciation of vowels. It's easy to do, once you get your mind around it... and your mouth. Like with the western choice of pentatonic scale in music, (where middle A  on a piano is 440hz) it's really an arbitrary starting point. So in indian and arab music scales, the system is based on other places to tune your tone to. This is your new “language scale” for hungarian vowel sounds:

a á e é i í o ó u ú ö ő ü ű

(notice: y is not a vowel and doesn't ever work as one).

Yes, there are a couple that don't appear in English but I have ways to learn them easily. Yes, there are fourteen of them written but they each have only one sound attached. In spelling, there are no silent 'e's at the end of words, no combinations of ea or ei or eu or eigh. E is e and so are all the other vowels. Hungarian is phonetic.

THE EASY ONES ARE THE EXCEPTIONS

Be warned, the markings on the letters do not suggest sentence stress or syllable intonation. They are simply and mercilessly different sounds. Actually, only the first two Hungarian vowels are in truly different places in your mouth. The others simply lengthen the original sound.

The short a is close to "aw" as in "law" (but don't slide down to the 'w' at the end). No moving your mouth until the sound is over! Keep all sounds unmixed with the previous and following ones. Try the US pronunciation of “sought”, or "caught", similar to the British pronunciation of "hot", and now look at this Hungarian word: hat ...it means 6.

Try matt (check-mate) and say both 't's!

or ba (into) which usually comes at the end of words like a kocsmába (into the bar)

or the exclamation Na!  which is roughly “What are we waiting for? Let's move into the bar!”

DIGRESSION: the english indefinite article "a" is the exact opposite in hungarian, taking the definite article's job. So a kocsmába means "into the bar". This is one of the pesky opposites that were most difficult for me to get used to hearing and using when I started. It can be done, but only by physically practicing it. If you've been making a list of new words from this blog like SERIOUS students, go back and put a in front of the nouns and practice them aloud.

BACK TO VOWELS: The long á is open, like what you say at the ear nose throat doctor. Open and say “ah”. This sound will come to your mouth unintentionally when you try your first Hungarian "pálinka". If you remember the stuff from previous Plone conferences which Balázs attended, you can remember the sound. If not, put that "ah" sound into the previous short a example and you get:

hát ...which means the back of something. Fáj a hátam - my back hurts.

I also use hát to fill time while I'm deciding what to say, like the English word “Well...”. You'll hear this on the streets a lot, and when you ask service personnel if something can be done. Usually followed by nem tudom - meaning "I don't know."

The short 'e' sound is like the 'e' in “get”. It's always like that. Just e . It's very common in Hungarian words. “Le!” means down, and works to get a dog off the couch. My condolences to French speakers, just practice it.

The word eke like the German ecke means plow in Hungarian. TWO syllables, both e's pronounced the same.

The long é is pronounced about halfway up from “hey” to “he.” Smile when you say it. It's farther back up in your throat.

lé - slang for money now, originally means juice or broth; éber - awake; egészséges - healthy; béna - lame; kész - I'm done.

THE REGULAR ONES

The letter i denotes a quick “ee” sound, so "fit" would sound like a fast “feet”. Like the Spanish i sound. The long í sound is more like “feet” at regular speed in English. No worries! This difference is difficult for some Hungarians, and nobody can really tell the difference when speaking. So hít (pronounced "heat") means belief; sit (pronounced "sheet") means construction rubble; itt - here; megabit is said "megabeat"; segítség - help; indítas - start up of an engine.

The short o sound is like our long o as in hope. Try három (three) or telefon or szoba (a room).

The long ó is just a bit deeper in your throat with your mouth tightened to make a 'w' sound. Try szóda (soda water), or jó which means “good”, or kóla (a coke).

The short u most often comes in the middle of words like in kutatás (research) or futni (to run). The long ú is used for út (a big road) but the short u is found in the diminutive version utca. kutya - dog; szuper- super; One of my favorite new magyar slang acquisitions from english is lúzer - meaning loser! If they were all so easy...

NOT FOUND IN ENGLISH

German speakers will have no problem with the ö sound. It's an English short i sound like in kit BUT with your mouth closed like you're saying an “oo” sound as in “boot”. Make the “oo” sound. Hold your mouth there. Say a bunch of words that rhyme with "kit".

köt means “to tie”; löncshús means “canned meat”; szörp – a syrup used to make a kool-aid like refreshment out of elderberries or raspberries; röplabda – volleyball; flört – people to find in bars; döf means “jab or stab something into something”.

[By the way, in parts of south-central hungary, they pronounce the short e sounds with a short ö, so the town of Szeged is actually pronounced (but not spelled) “Szögöd”.]

The long version ő shows up at the end of words or word roots or begins a word. This will help you break up compound words and separate the suffixes and prefixes. Consider this compound word for example: rendőr (policeman)

Logically, I want to ask my friend what a ren is and what a dőr is. But when I learned that rend means order and őr means guardian or guard, I understood why my friends laughed at my question, and also about where to expect these long vowel sounds.

Look at: kettő (the number 2); mező (meadow or field); előtt (in front or before); bőr (skin), bő (plenty); nagybőgő (stand-up double bass), főzelék (traditional stewed food that nobody can explain)

Now for the ü sound. Say “cute” but don't say the 'y' sound in it. If you're like I was before I started teaching English, you probably never noticed there's an unwritten 'y' in "cyute". Now that you know this, you're not far from pronouncing the hungarian ü sound. Try pouting up an “oo” sound again with your lips, hold the pout, and say a long 'e' sound in English. So “eel” + (pout) becomes ül (to sit) and “measly” + (pout) becomes müzli (breakfast cereal). The same works for the long version it's just... uh, longer.

So feet + (pout) becomes the hungarian fűt (to heat a house). Easy, huh! Now try: műterem (studio workshop), művész (artist), betű (alphabet letter), tűz (fire).

Those are all the sounds! It's been slow going but these basics are important. If you want further study, check the wikipedia article on hungarian phonology. For practice, open any site with a .hu in the URL. I'll be giving you numbers and basic expressions in the next article.

STEP ONE STEP

I started learning Hungarian 19 years ago in a small bordertown called Gyula from my friend Laci, or rather from his mother. The day before I arrived to visit Laci, he was called to start his civil service, a full-time job in a hospital. I was stuck for a week in their kitchen with a Berlitz Hungarian for Travellers pocketbook and Laci's mother, who couldn't speak a word of English but insisted on plying me with keksz (a dry round disk that tastes like animal crackers) and black kávé (coffee) of the espresso variety. When Laci came home, we rode these collapsible kemping bicycles out to the local pubs for a round of red-wine-and-cokes. But all the day long, I was on my own.

I decided to kill time by writing and saying the numbers in Hungarian. By the second afternoon, I made it to a million counting by twos and fives and fours and tens. Soon, I could do it without the book. By the third day, on the way to the pubs, I miraculously began to catch bits of conversation around me. Words, mostly numbers, began to pop out of everybody's mouth. I recommend this strategy if you're serious about picking up some language here, as numbers give you a head start in situations requiring both time and money.

GET IN CHARACTER

Before beginning studies, I recommend you get into character to do the pronunciation. In my trials with the language, I learned quickly that Hungarians use all the muscles in their mouths, many more than my loose and lazy american mouth had even known existed. My theory is that Hungarian developed from a thousand years of chatting on horseback in a wide-open windy steppe somewhere in the Crimea. Enunciation, which was functional then has become aesthetically pleasing today. So start by imagining yourself as Bela Lugosi's Dracula or the Count on Sesame Street.

“I vawnt to sawk your blawd” or “Ev-er-i ting iz go-ing tu bee all right.” Roll your 'R's!

Can you feel the precision? The edges of your mouth stretching? Your throat opening in back? That's what it feels like to speak Hungarian.

CONSONANTS

Since numbers are an important part of life and generally helpful for getting around, I'll start you with this example:

Egy = 1 = one.

Egy is tricky - it's only one syllable but there's a lot to learn here. The gy consonant cluster is pronounced like the combination of a 'd' and a soft 'y' at the same time. As in: “D'ya thinkya can handle it?” Egy. It's close to “edge” but with a little more edge to the 'dy'. Egy.

A Hungarian refers to him or herself as a Magyar. (MAW-dyawr) That's also got our sound in it. The language is called Magyarul (MAW-dyaw-rool). The country is called Magyarország (MAW-dyaw-roar-sag).

Other tricky consonant clusters:

sz is the english 's' sound as in busz (say “boose” and it means: bus or coach).

s is the english 'sh' sound so bús (say “boosh” and it means: sad or cheerless.)

ny is also one sound, even at the end of the word,( i.e. fény means light and is one syllable pronounced roughly “fain” closing off with a small 'y' sound at the end.)

Ly as in lyuk (meaning: hole) is also one syllable and can be pronounced like the first syllable of 'ukulele'. Király is a common word with this cluster in it. It means king and refers to one of the coolest streets in town - Király utca.  Say "KEY-rye". Roll your R!

Cs is the same as Ch in english, so csók (kiss) is pronounced “choke”.

Zs is said like the french Gi as in Gillette and used for words of a slippery nature: zsír means lard, zseton is a casino chip, zsé is gangster slang for money. Rezsi is your utility bills.

There's also the triple consonant cluster dzs, one of my favorites, as in dzsem which is pronounced “gem” but means jam. This leaves the J to take up the job of the english 'Y' sound, as in the color jello... I mean, yellow.

There are a couple clusters that occur in family names of the old aristocracy but have been replaced by modern versions during a 'language renewal'. You will only notice them on memorial plaques and street signs.

Most of the consonant sounds are the same as English, although there's "no spit" in the Hungarian pronunciation of t and not as much air in the s sound (they're not aspirated).

Keep in mind that:

Hungarian is phonetic.

There is one letter for every sound and only one sound per letter. The c sound is only spoken hard, like the 'c' in “except”. Same goes for g, only pronounced hard no matter what vowels might follow.

There are a couple things that Hungarian hasn't got, namely, the 'th' sound and the 'w' sound. The 'th' degrades to a 't' in speech. The 'w', however, gets a little flakey. It is called the 'dupla v' when it appears in foreign root words, but most people say it like a single 'v'. The oddest anomaly of Hungarian to me is that the W.C. sign you will see on toilets here is pronounced “vey-tsey”. I sometimes ask the wait staff for the “dupla V.C.” just for yuks.

Situated at the crossroads of north and south Europe, between the Alps and the Carpathians, between the east and the west, Hungarians have seen a lot of peoples come through here (not to mention that most of the last 500 years they spent under foreign rulers of sorts). I can't stress enough how far good pronunciation will get you into the hearts of this nation of ten or so millions, who've been fighting to keep their language alive for millenia.

As you should have noticed by now, there are a lot of Hungarian words that are close to English ones. The language is an evolutionary survivor. It has picked up and fully assimilated many words from German, some Turkish, French and Italian words, many with Slavic roots and some Romani (gypsy) words, too.

I hope these examples can work as rules or mnemonic devices to help you explore the strange signs you'll see and sounds you'll hear while at the conference. Next I'll introduce you to the wonderful world of wowel sounds!

Velkom tu HUngari!

Hello, Plone People, my name is Mark Richards. My friend Balazs asked me to be your city guide and resident resource for PloneConference2009 on the topic of Budapest.

For those coming to the conference, I hope to make these posts into external libraries of insight, so you can get in the mood for this great town, to help you get to the heart of things in what time you have outside of the conference, and to make your stay in Hungary more memorable, enjoyable and worthwhile.

My relationship with this town started in the summer of 1989 in a cafe in Washington, DC. I was boasting about my first trip to Europe to a young Hungarian guy who'd been sent to the US from a refugee camp in Austria, instead of Australia like he wanted. Since then the the iron curtain was opened and the Berlin Wall had come down. He now had credit card bills, but he said I could easily travel to Budapest... only he said “Budapesht”. I had no idea it was in Europe at that time, but just the sound of it conjured a vision of minarets and elephants in the streets. When I hitchhiked into town at the end of that summer, I was pleasantly surprised at how fantastically wrong my expectations had been.

I found an english teaching job, some life-long friends and for the next nineteen years, that same feeling hit me regularly as I watched this city change, passing out of the stoic grand greyness of the ex-Soviet bloc and into the shiny new European Union. It's still struggling with its identity. The only stable point of life here is the constant flux. Let transition be your watchword, and the artifacts of history with reveal itself and the beauty of this city will extend its welcoming arms to you. That said, let me give you some geographical context and historical background specifics.

A Tough Broad

Budapest is Vienna's sister city, both raised in the boom years of the Austro-Hungarian empire before the world wars. But unlike her beautiful and sometimes haughty sister, Budapest was bombed during WWII and got some quick, cheap plastic surgery from Stalin's Red Army in the reconstruction. The downtown area on the Pest side is surrounded by towering 'blocks of flats', concrete mesas set in rows around large intersections some of which soon became new city districts and were built to last for nearly a half a century. Well, a half century is nearly up. The short ride from the airport should tell you all you'll want to know and be able to grasp about this side of town in the time you're here.

For all that, Budapest wears her scars proudly, determined to make the best of what she's got. Assimilating 40 odd years of Communist Rule into a present day image isn't easy business. Budapest also got Turkish baths and Hapsburg spas,  the northernmost islamic holysite, the second largest synagogue, and the largest number of shopping malls per capita than anywhere in Europe. For me, Budapest is the down-to-earth and honest sister, no-nonsense and real. People come here to live, not just to look. The city is still a tool of progress not just a showcase or memorial of it.

Boulevard of Broken Pavement

The ringroads are the main life arteries of Budapest, the kiskörút (Little Ringroad) which was once a moat around the medieval town, and the nagykörút (Big Ringroad), track of the the essential 4 and 6 tram lines, which are now under reconstruction. [BTW: I'll give you some shortcuts to pronunciation of this language soon.] For general orientation, just remember these ringroads connect the three cities that officially joined up to become Budapest in 1873: Buda, Pest and Óbuda (or Old Buda).

Pest is on the eastern flat side of the Danube River and the other two are in the hills on the west side. For scale, you should know there is a third ringroad called the Hungaria körút, a kind of beltway around them all and through the suburbs, that you would need a car to enjoy. It suffices to say, that through nineteen years of life here, I've hardly been out to the Hungaria körút, and at the rate this town changes, what I know is most likely outdated. There's enough to see in the heart of town.

This may seem odd coming from "your guide and resident expert" but it is indicative of a couple facts that even Hungarians don't consider enough: One, centripetal force sucks - the city's radial design fosters the misconception that if you're central, you've made it! Everything worth seeing is downtown, so I don't need to go anywhere else. However, the most tourist-oriented area is in the center (on both sides of the river). The conference will be held just at the edge of the big ring road, so you'll have the opportunity to resist its pull, but in moments of indecision catapult yourself outward. I'll be giving you a few anchor points to keep you in a good orbit.

The other underestimated fact: Budapest is not Hungary. That usually puts my friends from the nation's smaller towns on the defensive, but as the only city larger than a million people strong, and as it comprises about 20% of the country's population of 11 million, Budapest is the natural place to search for opportunity. The same brain-drain-to-the-west phenomenon the nation as a whole suffers from, brings many of the brightest lights out of the smaller cities and countryside. If they don't make it their springboard to the nagyvilág (big world), they soon get acclimated to its lively pace and spend a lot of time spreading myths about Budapest to foreign visitors. Especially myths about how hard their language is... ha! I'll give you some insider tips on that in my next post.

This year we had a fantastic response to the call for proposals for talks for the Plone Conference, with over 70 submissions received. The quality of the proposed talks was very high, but that gave us the (nice) problem of trying to fit as many of them as we could into a limited amount of time. Alas, we could not fit them all in, and we had to make difficult decisions as to which to choose.

There really is something for everyone on the programme, whether you are new to Plone, a seasoned developer, or just interested in finding out what others are doing with it.

If you are new to Plone you can find out about how Plone is developed; creating complex CSS layouts in Plone; or extending Plone with python to access Twitter or Google Docs; or you might want to find out about introducing Plone into large scale business operations.

Maybe you are a seasoned developer and want to find out about building content types with Dexterity; producing complex forms with z3c.form; or how to troubleshoot Plone.

Or perhaps you are a Plone integrator and interested in integrating Plone with e-Commerce and CRM systems; find out about hosting Plone on Amazon EC2; or how to approach scalability issues. Or Plone's new theming technology, Deliverance?

Interested in Plone in action? Want to see who's using it and why they chose Plone? Find out how Oxfam use Plone for equipment procurement; how Brazillian bank Caixa Econômica Federal use Plone for a 100,000 user intranet; or how the Viennese Tourist Board use Plone for their site.

Want to find out what's coming up in Plone 4? Or why Open Source works? Or look even further ahead to some of the new concepts for Plone 5, such as Deco?

These are just a handful of the great talks happening, the full schedule is available here or there is a complete list of talks here. The full descriptions of each the talks will be published shortly.

There will also be an Open Space on the 3rd day of the conference, in which attendees will self organise talks based upon whatever topics have sparked their interest over the previous days.

And if that isn't enough, there is pre-conference training, where you can get great value training from some of the best trainers in the Plone community, and if you want to get really stuck in and work alongside other Plone developers, there is a development sprint after the conference.

So... have you booked your place yet?

-Matt

When Budapest was chosen to be the next Plone Conference venue, we started to think what could be our logo. First we thought of the Statue of Liberty which is a prominent feature of the city. The 14 meter tall bronze statue is situated on the top of the Gellért Hill. It stands on a 26 meter tall pedestal and holds a palm leaf. The statue most closely resembles a beer bottle opener. It can be seen from anywhere and helps visitors find their way when lost in the city. Of course we also wanted to combine it with our beloved Plone logo: I hope I need not say more. :)

We asked Gabriella Kelényi, our friend and a local graphic designer, to start to create a logo with the statue, but she came up with something completely different. An embroidery pattern of Sárköz. The pattern is called “the puppy” ("kiskutyás motívum") but it looks like a bird, or a lizard. It is a characteristic motive of women's headbands made in this region, its exact form differing from village to village and age.

We were hesitant to use it at first because of its strange look, but later on we started to love it.

Actually, it is a bit like Plone when you meet it the very first time. :) Plone has some funny aspects, but after a while you easily start to love it. Besides it is very versatile, just like a lovely bird with two ears, or a trusty dog with two legs. ;)

We also needed to make the little creature fit into the visuals of the conference website. But something was still missing. Luckily, during the design work, we had arrived to draft versions like this:

... which gave us the perfect idea for crowning the mascot with what represents the essence of both our conference and our community: Plone.

Hope you like it as we do!

Ah... we were missing an important point! She (or he?) is looking for a name. 
What would you suggest? :)

The Plone Foundation has awarded over USD$40,000 in Plone Conference Participation Grants to 57 recipients.  Supported by a generous grant from Open Society Institute,  Plone Conference Participation grants will help Plone community members travel to Budapest, Hungary in October the biggest and most diverse Plone Conference ever.  

Plone Conference Participation Grant recipients include students, self-employed consultants, NGO and educational institution staff members from around the world, with an emphasis on increasing participation from Hungary, Central, Eastern and Southern Europe, Russia and the former Soviet republics.

The Plone Conference Participation Grants team included:

• Balazs Ree, Plone Conference 2009 lead organizer
• Jon Stahl, Plone Foundation board president
• Denys Mishunov, Plone Foundation member
• Thomas Moroz, Open Society Institute, New York
  
• Eva Foldvari, Open Society Institute, Budapest

Everybody has seen books with titles like "Learn PHP in 24 Hours" or "Learn Java in 21 Days." Of course, devotees of such books in short order become a danger to themselves and a minor annoyance to those around them. You wouldn't learn to play guitar in that amount of time. It takes practice. Lots of practice. And so it is with programming languages.

However, Plone is a content management system which can benefit from even very small snippets of Python called "expressions." And Python itself may be the simplest of useful programming languages to learn. The Python 101 pre-Plone Conference training emphasizes the parts of the Python programming language you need to be productive with Plone as a themer or integrator. Plus, the training gets you jump-started on your journey to mastering all that is Python.

The Python 101 pre-Plone Conference training is a highly condensed version of the week-long "PyCamp" introductory Python Boot Camp training. It's called a "boot camp" for a reason. Just like military boot camps, Python Boot Camps quickly turn Python civilians into soldiers through non-stop rigorous workouts. The basic unit of exercise in Python 101 is the "Python push-up," along with the "Python sit-up" and the "Python chin curl." By engaging in relentless Python muscle-building, you will become a lean, mean Python machine in the shortest possible time.

On the first day of Python 101, you will cover Python expressions. Python expressions are the basic building blocks used throughout Plone's templating system, as well as in tools to create new Plone content types. By the end of the day, you will be marching in full Python expression dress formation.

On the second day of Python 101, you will cover Python statements in depth. Python statements allow you to write more sophisticated scripts and programs than what you can do with expressions alone, perfect for integrating Plone. By the end of the day, you will gladly volunteer for 20 kilometer hikes while wearing a backpack fully loaded with Python statements.

On both days, you will learn Python from a unique object oriented perspective which leaves no mystery even for the absolute beginner. If you have no previous programming experience, you should not fear signing up for Python 101 duty. You will not need to read books before the training. Python 101 takes care of everything including:

• How to interact with Python
• All about objects
• Python's built-in types
• How to control your Python program
• Functions, modules, packages, and the standard library
  
• Exception handling
• Classes
• Decorators, generators, descriptors, and properties
• Input and output handling

Your drill sergeant for Python 101 is Chris Calloway, the creator and instructor of PyCamp. Chris has coached hundreds of recruits to complete their Python obstacle course in record time. If you have any questions about whether Python 101 is right for you, contact Chris at pycamp@trizpug.org.

Python 101 is one of four exciting training courses offered in conjunction with Plone Conference 2009 including Getting Started with Plone taught by Steve McMahon, Plone 3 Theming Best Practices taught by Joel Burton, and Best Practices for Deploying and Optimizing Plone Sites taught by Nate Aune.

The post-conference sprint has become an important Plone tradition.  The 2009 Plone Conference in Budapest will be proudly carrying on this tradition with a sprint on October 31 and November 1.

Sprints provide a fantastic opportunity to become more involved in the vibrant Plone community.  Sprints are also where much of the important work to improve Plone happens.  This will be your best chance to give something back to your favorite Open Source CMS.

We've set up a Wiki for organizing the sprint.  Anyone logged into the conference website may add and edit the Wiki content.  Feel free to add a sprint topic or sign up to participate in any of the listed topics.

(Image courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrtopf/ / CC BY-NC 2.0)

One of the greatest strengths of Plone is its community, and this is at its most evident at the annual Plone Conference, and the talks given by members of the community.

Each year the talks range from highly technical talks from the Plone developers talking about what is coming up in future versions of Plone, to very non-technical case studies on how Plone is being used in various organisations.  As well as that, there are often talks on various processes and best practises in the realms of managing teams, agile development and consulting.

So what are you waiting for? Not only will you give back to the Plone community, you will gain the love, respect and beer of your peers... oh and 50% off your conference registration fee ;)

The deadline for talk submission is fast approaching, with talk submission closing on the 6th September.

To register your proposed talk, go to the Talk Proposals page here to read about the process, and then submit your talk using the Talks Submission form.

Photo credit: MrTopf

The two-day “Getting Started with Plone” training session, one of four great courses offered in the two days before the conference, is meant to give you a good foundation on installing Plone and making use of its best features and add ons.

If you’re new to Plone, or if you’re wondering if you know the right ways to get it running and configured for different situations, this is the right course for you. If you’re sure you know the basics, then consider Joel Burton’s theming course, Nate Aune’s deployment course, or Chris Calloway’s primer on Python.

I (Steve McMahon) will be the “Getting Started” instructor. Over the past few years, I’ve spent a lot of time working on making Plone easy to install. We’ll cover that first, making sure you get a good working install of Plone and understand the fundamental installation choices like standalone/ZEO and development/production.

Next, we’ll move into configuration management, looking at how the buildout configuration system can be used to control your Python, Zope, and Plone installation. You’ll learn to control the most important settings in a Plone installation, and how to install add-on products.

From there, we’ll jump to Plone itself, and go through the configuration of mail servers, security, navigation and workflow. We’ll cover some simple and effective ways to use content rules for common requirements.

We’ll talk about Plone’s great library of add ons, and the best ways to pick and test them. You’ll hear an introduction to the most solid, reliable, and useful Plone add-ons, including the use of PloneFormGen.

Finally, we’ll run through the jargon and names that you’ll be hearing during the conference. So, when you hear someone mention how optilude’s getting dexterity to work with deco under deliverance, you'll know it’s Plone — not Magyar — they’re speaking.

We have received over 60 applications for the Participation Grants. However, we received less applications than we expected from Hungary, Eastern Europe and Russia. Since one of the main purposes of the Grants is to support applicants from these regions, we feel that we need to give them more chance to get financial help in attending the Plone Conference 2009 in Budapest.

Therefore, the Grant Committee has decided to extend the application deadline until 2009 September 5. By this new deadline, the grants are open for applications with the original conditions, for applicants from all regions. 

New results will be announced by 2009 September 11.

Information for those who have submitted their application before August 20:

• Applicants from regions 1-4 (Europe and Russia) will have their applications accepted or rejected immediately and the results will be announced shortly. NOTE: New applications (those who applied after August 20th) from these regions still participate in the Grant until September 5th and will get results by September 11th.

• Applicants from region 5 (the World) stay in competition without immediate results, and will have their acceptance results published by 2009 September 11.

If you are a Grant Applicant, and you also need a visa to Hungary, we advise to start with your application process immediately, and notify us by email if you want us to send the Letter of Invitation for visa. More information is available here.

The pre-conference trainings for 2009 have been expanded to four courses to better serve the needs of the Plone community. In the coming days, each of the four experienced instructors will blog more in-depth about their respective courses here on the conference blog. Joel Burton once again serves as our distinguished pre-conference training coordintator.

The four courses and their instructors are:

• Getting Started With Plone taught by Steve McMahon
• Plone 3 Theming: Best Practices taught by Joel Burton
• Best Practices for Deploying and Optimizing Plone Sites taught by Nate Aune
• Python 101 taught by Chris Calloway

Getting Started With Plone is perfect for those new to Plone. Steve takes you from the installation of Plone through the creation of a functional, useful Plone site. Steve is one of Plone's most respected experts and serves on the Plone Foundation Board of Directors in the capacity as secretary.

Plone 3 Theming: Best Practices is taught by the most experienced instructor in the Plone community, Joel Burton. Joel covers the knowledge you need to effectively theme your Plone 3-based Plone site, whether you are new to Plone or an experienced Plone developer or designer looking for the best practices for an excellent Plone theme or theme product.

Best Practices for Deploying and Optimizing Plone Sites is intended for system administrators, integrators, developers, and others who are responsible for deploying Plone 3 sites. In the course, Nate teaches Buildout configuration, backup procedures, caching and load balancing, deployment automation, and load testing. Nate is in his third term on the Plone Foundation Board of Directors.

Python 101 introduces you to the fundamentals of the programming language underpinning Plone. This is the second time this course has been offered in conjunction with Plone Conference and Chris has completely revised the training for 2009. Python 101 is an abbreviated version of the week-long PyCamp courses taught by Chris.

Book your travel plans for Plone Conference to arrive a couple of days early and register now for pre-conference trainings offered Monday October 26 through Tuesday October 27 at the ELTE Congress Centre on the banks of the Danube. Classes are conducted in state of the art facilities with catered snacks and beverages throughout the day.

Have you ever fallen in love with a Community?

Sometimes it happens, and has happened for people all around the World throughout many years, since the first appearance of Plone.

You can fall in love with technology, sure, we are techies... But something you would definitely not want to miss is to meet this lovely Community in person, and to share its friendliness.

For the newcomers, a good place to catch up with the atmosphere you'll find at the Plone Conference can be found here: http://ploneconf2009.tumblr.com

Come and see for yourself! Register Now!

[thanks to Martin for the nice picture: http://www.flickr.com/photos/optilude/3041192287]

Get ready to submit session proposals for Plone Conference 2009 in Budapest! Submissions open July 31, and close September 6. Past conferences have always had more great session proposals than speaking slots, so start preparing your session proposal today!

Evaluation Criteria for Session Proposals

We will use the following criteria to select the winning sessions:

• Broad relevance to Plone community (end-users, integrators & developers).
• Demonstrations of production-ready products that solve common problems of Plone customers.
• Case studies that showcase strategies for success with Plone that can be reproduced by Plone project managers and Plone integrators.
• Sessions that will teach Plone administrators & integrators at beginner or intermediate level the core skills necessary to succeed with Plone.
• Sessions that will help people make the leap to being effective contributors to Plone (both core & add-on Products).
• Sessions that will enlighten people towards why they should start using Plone today, in preference to any comparable systems.
• Sessions that will spark people's passion for Plone by making them feel empowered and successful.
• Sessions that describe Plone community processes.
• The speaker's track record of delivering well-received sessions at past Plone events.
• Geographic, sector and gender diversity of presenters.

Sessions We'd Like to See

This community is capable of a lot, and we're looking forward to your proposal. If you've got an idea, please submit it! If you're looking for inspiration (or a little edge), check out the list of suggestions here!

We are waiting forward to your contribution! We hope to welcome you in Budapest.

After more delay than we expected, the website of the Plone Conference 2009 is alive! It is created entirely by contribution of community members. Special thanks to M. Harito Reisman from Haritomedia for the design; to Jean-Paul Ladage and the Team of Zest Software, to Laurens Stolk, Fred van Dijk and Mirella van Teulingen, for theming and hosting. Thanks to all the contributors for their excellent work! We will continue development of the site and add more functionality and content until the conference.

Please visit the site for information on various conference subjects.

You can find information on hotels which were chosen because of their location, quality and price. All of them are in the city center and not far from the conference venue. The room rates on the hotel websites are very reasonable right now, lower than the guaranteed corporate rates. Please check them out to have the best price.

For those conference participants who would like to spend even less for accommodation, we suggest hostels and apartments. We also encourage everyone to share their experience regarding accomodation in the website forum.

The Open Society Institute offers Participation Grants for conference attendees. It will cover the conference registration fee and part of the travel expenses for the grantees. This is a unique possibility for all eligible applicants to support their participation on the Plone Conference 2009 in Budapest! We will announce the final details of the call soon.

You can look at the upcoming important dates here.

Share your voice with us on the conference website! See you in Budapest!

Plone is a long running project, and vibrant is its Community.

A whole slew of Plone events all over the World spread during the year to foster the Community, but the most important of all is the annual Conference.

If you are involved in Plone, you can't miss it!

If you're not involved in Plone yet, nothing better than participating to a Conference to discover Plone's strength!

Since 2003, the Plone Community has organized six conferences in a row, getting momentum every time: New Orleans, Vienna, Seattle, Naples, Washington DC have been wonderful locations for this energizing event.

This year Budapest will be itself a nice location for the newcomers, but any Conference is worth your presence, in any case!

During the Conference days you'll get plenty of occasions to:

• meet the heroes who make things happen
• better undestand how a true open source community works
• touch the bleeding edge of technology
• make friends with people who share your own interests
• put your hands on at the development sprint
• enjoy a wonderful social event with friendly and joyful people

This year we have a Conference blog to share, so stay tuned to obtain a deeper understanding of what you'll get in Budapest!