All entries filed under “SXSW”
EllisLab has announced the topics for the UserVoice sessions at SXSW. The sessions are informal gatherings and not part of the SXSW schedule.
There are three different times available on Saturday March 13th and Sunday 14th.
- Saturday, March 13, 10 - 11am Distributed development: how do you guys do it?!
- Saturday, March 13, 4 - 5pm Module building from experts, the EllisLab team
- Sunday, March 14, 2 - 3pm CodeIgniter Web Apps with ExpressionEngine 2.0
Do any of these sound interesting to you? Sign up in the special forum threads they’ve set. There will be a limit on how many people can attend in order to keep the conversation manageable and to fit in informal gathering spaces.
Read their announcement: SXSW UserVoice Events Chosen
It’s Wednesday and that means it is time for the weekly EE Help Chat, which takes place at 9PM EST and runs about an hour.
People of all experience levels are welcome and both beginner and advanced questions are encouraged. If you’d like to get an idea of how the chat works and what the guidelines are, check out the EE Help Chat page for more information. On that page you’ll also find the link to enter chat at 9PM.
Hope to see you in the chat!
In the next few months there are a couple of opportunities to gather with your fellow EE users, talk shop, learn some cool stuff and drink copious amounts of {your_favorite_beverage}.
SXSW Interactive - March 12-16
The annual gathering of internet nerds from around the world, SXSW is a broad technology conference. It takes place in hopefully warm and pleasant Austin, TX. This year they have agreed to host panel discussion on ExpressionEngine. Led by Kenny Meyers, with myself, Mark Huot, Brian Warren and Jenn Lukas, the ExpressionEngine 2.0: Total Domination! panel will cover, well, EE domination! Actually, we’ll be discussing cool things you can do with EE and share some of our experiences.
The panel takes place on Monday March 15th at 12:30 PM in Ballroom B.
ExpressionEngine Summit - March 30
An online-only conference that will feature a full day of speakers talk about ExpressionEngine. I’ll be speaking at this virtual event about advanced templating techniques.
EECI 2010 - May 31-June 2
The follow-up to last year’s inaugural event in Leiden, Netherlands takes place in San Francisco at the end of May. In short, EECI is the event for our community. If you have budget to attend any event, this is your baby.
The speaker list is features Rick Ellis, Leslie Camacho, Derek Allard and Derek Jones of EllisLab, Structure module creator Travis Schmeisser, Brandon Kelly, Leevi Graham and a lot more.
I hope to see you at one of these events!
SXSW got a little more funky-fresh this year, with the announcement of the EE/CI pre-party.
The premier ExpressionEngine and CodeIgniter Conference - and your cool friends from Ellislab invite you for a night out @ SXSW. Join us Monday night at The Library together with your friends from the EE & CI community. We’ll serve you beer and pizza and even give away some free tickets to the EECI2010 conference.
You can sign up for the party here but be quick, spots are limited!
EllisLab have updated the blog with their SXSW plans:
Over the course of the last few years we have gradually changed our approach to SXSW, preferring to move toward a small-group discussion format.
This is a great move for EllisLab and for the community; there is an immeasurable value to this discourse. This year we are excited to continue with this format and to add to it; this year, you, through the services at UserVoice, will have the opportunity to choose where we meet and what we discuss.
First we will be offering Lunch with EllisLab to exceptional contributors to the community, including those who run ExpressionEngine or CodeIgniter community sites, third party add-on developers, and Pro Net members. This is your opportunity to tell us what we can do to support your endeavor while enjoying a meal on our tab
The ‘Labs have so much in store that if you’re going to Austin this year, it’s a must read.
EllisLab recently updated their blog with travel plans. Yes, 3 of the finest people from EllisLab will be in Austin for the big geekfest. They’re also allowing some flexibility in their activities:
We have some exciting plans for this year’s SXSW, including the ability for those attending SXSW to influence our schedule. This is the first time that we will offer the community the chance to have a say in where we are, and what we discuss; we’re excited to make this an EllisLab event for you, the community.
No word yet if Derek Jones will run customer service for your add-on while in Austin.
EllisLab will also be attending Ryan and I’s glorious panel: ExpressionEngine 2.0: Total Domination. Yes, the title is as corny as your partially hydrogenated food, but the content will be delightful. The speakers include Ryan, Myself, Mark Huot, Brian Warren and Jenn Lukas. 4 illustrious EE speakers who know there way around the engine, and one man who will surely embarrass himself in some way. It’s the EE event of the season before the EE event of the season.
One of my biggest uncertainties about the EE 1.6.x to EE 2.0 transition was what would happen to EE 1.6.x. I was concerned about the transition as both someone who does client work with ExpressionEngine and has products based on ExpressionEngine.
I learned at SXSW that EE 1.6.7 would not go away but I wasn’t sure if this was public knowledge, so I didn’t say anything here on EE Insider. Well, on Friday on the EE Blog, EllisLab President Leslie Camacho made it official and public:
ExpressionEngine 1.6.7 will continue to be available for download and purchase after 2.0’s release. We view 2.0’s upcoming release as more of update to an operating system. EE 1.x has a significant install base and we estimate it will take a minimum of 2-3 years for the majority of the community to update. We will support 1.6.7 for a long time to come and we think it will remain a viable market for add-on developers for some time.
In other words, 1.6.7 is not going away. There is no reason to wait for 2.0 to get started. You can be safe knowing it will be supported for a long time and that the upgrade process will be straightforward. There will be no pressure from EllisLab to jump to 2.0 right away. Like 1.x before it, 2.0 will need to prove itself in the marketplace. We’re very confident it will.
This is great news for everyone. If you depend on certain add-ons that may not be immediately available (if at all) for EE 2.0, you can still continue to purchase and download EE 1.6.7 and develop your client sites using that version. This is also great news for third parties who are selling EE add-ons (Solspace, Leevi Graham) or learning resources (my own EE Screencasts, Mike Boyink’s Train-ee materials).
I always assumed that they would continue to offer security updates for EE 1.6.7 but it’s great to hear the software will still be available for purchase and download.
SXSW Interactive has wound down and I’ve left Austin behind for another year. As usual, it was great to see many old SXSW friends and meet a lot of new ones. Most importantly, I was able to hang out with, talk to and share a few drinks with a lot of ExpressionEngine designers, developers and users. For me, the highlight of the conference was the EllisLab party at Moonshine Grill and the Solspace nightcap that followed (By the way, thanks to both EllisLab and Mitchell at Solspace for putting together several hours of excellent EE community interaction).
Another highlight, of course, was sitting down with some of the EllisLab team and walking through Kaylee, the development version of ExpressionEngine 2.0. In short, I’m very pleased. And I think you will be, too.
As a developer, the most exciting part to me is that EE 2.0 is built on CodeIgniter. Yes, the redesigned control panel is nice (it really is quite nice), but developing on EE and CodeIgniter at the same time means so much for level of comfort with the CMS and the ease of customizing it to fit the needs of clients.
I’m also very excited about Accessories. These are tabs that you can add to the bottom of the control panel page to include anything you want: documentation, dynamic data, video or contact information to name a few examples. I think Accessories are the new hotness of EE 2.0 and the one thing I think will become very, very popular in EE 2.0 and will quite possibly be a way to bring a new interface to existing data or even an alternate interface for other add-ons.
For non-developers using ExpressionEngine, you should be able to continue coding your EE templates as you always have (with the one syntax change from “weblog” to “channel”) and the information you’ve learned should mostly apply to your work in EE 2.0.
For the majority of the EE community, who couldn’t be at SXSW, I’m hopeful that EllisLab will put together some similar information online, so everyone can share in the experience of learning more about Kaylee.
So, what’s next? Currently, EllisLab is in the process of starting the Developer Preview of Kaylee, which will allow ExpressionEngine add-on developers the chance to learn more about the new version, how to code their add-ons to work on it and, most importantly, give them a head start so their add-ons are ready when EE 2.0 is ready. “Kaylee is strictly for developers to familiarize themselves with the new code base and begin add-on conversion.” Until more information is released, you can read through the existing FAQs on the EE 2.0 Sneak Preview page.
SXSW Interactive gets underway this weekend in Austin, TX and I know that many EE designers and developers will be in town for the annual tech conference. EllisLab will also be there, hosting their 3rd annual gathering for the EE community.
The EE Insider Guide to SXSWi is here to help you find your way and plan your time in Austin. First, I want to share with you some tips on getting the most out of SXSW and then highlight some panels and events that may be of interest to ExpressionEngine developers and designers.
SXSW EE Insider Tips
Some advice for SXSWi attendees:
- Bring business cards. Old school, yes, but also very practical.
- Leave your laptop in your hotel room and bring a notebook and pen instead. This will allow you to listen to the sessions and not be distracted. Plus, who wants to lug around a big bag all day long?
- Go to at least one session that is about something you know absolutely nothing about. You might be surprised.
- Pass on the large, official evening parties and instead find a small group of people to have drinks or dinner with. You will get much more out of a small dinner with than you will during a screaming conversation at the Frog Design party.
EE Insider Picks of the Panels
I went through the SXSW schedule and picked out some sessions that I thought would be of interest to the EE community.
EE Insider Party and Goodies Guide
There are some event planned just for the EE community. You should make every effort to attend these and meet your fellow EE enthusiasts!
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