BarCamp Apache Sydney is this Saturday!

Great news – we seem to be getting quite a few last minute registrations for the BarCamp. There’s still time to sign up, or invite a colleague, if you’re coming along!

Here’s the details in a nutshell…

BarCamp

Date: Saturday, 11th December
Time: Registration is at 9:30am, for a 10am start.
Venue: The Darlington Centre, University of Sydney, at 174 City Road, Darlington
Cost: free
Food: coffee, snacks and lunch provided by the sponsors
Other: free wifi available
Sign up and details: http://barcamp.org/BarCampApacheSydney

Pre-BarCamp Dinner and Drinks

Date: Friday, 10th December
Time: Meeting at 7:30pm, reservation is for 8:30pm
Venue: Sumalee Thai, in The Bank Hotel, Newtown
Cost: $30pp for a variety of dishes, includes a vegetarian option
Sign up: indicate it on the wiki or the barcamp-sydney Google group

See you there!

Will you be at BarCamp Apache Sydney, December 11?

In case you’ve missed it, we’ve announced a BarCamp that will be running at the University of Sydney on Saturday 11th December, with a meal the night beforehand. It is a free event, so you just need to signup on the BarCamp wiki at http://barcamp.org/BarCampApacheSydney. You should also join the barcamp-sydney google group for updates.

The venue is The Darlington Centre, University of Sydney, at 174 City Road, Darlington. Registration is at 9:30am, for a 10am start.

The BarCamp is being run in conjunction with the Apache Software Foundation, and several Apache committers will be there proposing talks. However it is still run like a normal BarCamp, and given we haven’t had one in Sydney in the last year we’re expecting a diverse turn out. If you’re interested in BarCamps, want to know more about how the ASF develops software, or want to learn more about a particular Apache project, we hope you’ll join us! Even better, bring a topic to talk about of your own.

We’ve ensured that wifi, snacks and some other goodies will be provided on the day and are looking into options for lunch, depending on sponsorship levels.

If you’re not familiar with the format, you can find out more on the BarCamp site:

• About BarCamp
• What to Expect

MaestroDev is pleased to be joining University of Sydney, Apache Software Foundation, Alfresco and IBM as sponsors of the event. If your company is interested in sponsoring the event, please let one of the organisers know via the details at the bottom of the BarCamp page.

Please help us to get the word out about the event. Hope to see you there!

Sydneysiders: Java User Group tomorrow!

I’m not usually available on Thursday nights, but am making an exception to attend this month’s Sydney JUG. John Smart, of Java Power Tools fame, will be talking about behaviour driven development and easyB.

Behavior Driven Development (BDD) in Java with easyb John Ferguson Smart

John Ferguson Smart is a freelance consultant specializing in enterprise Java, Web development, and open source technologies, currently based in Wellington, New Zealand. Well known in the Java community for his many published articles, John helps organizations optimize their Java development processes and infrastructures and provides training and mentoring in open source technologies, SDLC tools, and agile development processes, including the popular Java Power Tools Bootcamp. John is principal consultant at Wakaleo Consulting, a company that provides consulting, training, and mentoring services in enterprise Java and agile development. He is also the author of the recently-published Java Power Tools book.

As it says on the website:

Hosted at Atlassian at 173-185 Sussex Street. Refreshments 6:00-6:30, followed by presentations / discussion / pizza. The meetings are free, with no requirement for membership.

See you there!

Atlassian acquires Cenqua

A quick note of congratulations to the folks at Cenqua and Atlassian, after today’s announcement. This is certainly a natural fit for the products they have. It’s great to see Australian start-ups going from strength to strength, and the guys from Cenqua are a great bunch who I see all too infrequently on this side of the planet.

Shame to lose the colour in those product logos though… and of course now there are an order of magnitude more people to complain about the Maven Clover plugin. Hmm.

The challenge left out to the Atlassian crew is of course to keep up the tradition of T-shirts and parties at JavaOne. Perhaps next year calls for a T-shirt/Stubbies combo.

All the best guys!