This Wednesday we opened the registration for Drupalcon Szeged 2008 and some of the early birds are already in! If you sign up before the end of June you will be able to buy your ticket at the extra discounted price of 80 EUR. From July the price will increase to 120 EUR, from August on to 160 EUR and just before and during the conference it will be 200 EUR to attend. We also help you get a hotel room and buy shuttle bus tickets until July 24, so if you'd like to go the easy way, make sure to register by then.

A week ago we published the sponsor packages. We received positive feedback from several companies and we already sold our first platinum package! As you might have noticed we only have 3 gold and 4 platinum packages available this Drupalcon. So if you want to get the exclusive benefits of these packages and get your company's name on one of our BoF or session rooms, contact us as soon as possible. To make the conference a huge success again, we will need your help: if you know a company that could be interested in sponsoring Drupalcon please get in touch!

We also opened session submission last week. If you have a topic that you would like to present this Drupalcon please fill in the form. Our track chairs will then evaluate your proposal and choose the sessions that will become part of the conference tracks. Session submission will be open until the last week of July. You can also submit BoF session proposals for our unconference program. This Drupalcon we are going to have 3 bigger rooms for larger BoFs (and an open space for smaller ones), so make sure to get the word out about your plans and spark interest in them sooner then later.

Drupalcon North America 2009, Drupalcon Europe 2009 as well as Drupalcon [place your idea here] are being planned right now. If you would like to have a Drupalcon in your town please let us know by submitting a formal proposal. If you have questions regarding the submission process feel free to contact the Drupal Association and someone will help you.

Last week, I released thevintageaviator.co.nz. It was probably one of the most challenging Drupal sites I've ever done, but also the best so far. It's a presentation of a local WW1 Warplane workshop, containing build stories, reference material, and thousands of great images of plane reproductions and archive materials.

The build story is a long one, mostly because the requirements shifted along the way quite a bit. This story is targeted at current Drupal site developers who are interested in the tools and techniques used. Mostly to head off the "so how did you do that?" questions we get whenever we do a write-up :-)

However among the interesting thing for developers and designers will be the complex layered look, the way this layout was optimized to scale to all screen sizes, and the surgery I did to Drupal to make this all happen.

Initial feedback we've received so far has been overwhelmingly positive (save some justified grumbles about the page weight) and I'd like to share this case study.

SourceForge.Net is a site which strongly believes in Open Source and what it stands for, in much the same way as the Drupal Community. Every year they host a competition where their community votes for their favourite packages and this year is no different. After reading through the Program Information I cannot see any reason why we shouldn't try to get Drupal up there ("Any open source project of any kind can be nominated by anyone (yes, that means you!) to be a finalist in any category" - from their website).

On their site they say "This is for the prize" in regard to voting, however I'm not completely sure if the prize is simply winning or if there is some financial gain for the Drupal Association.

So, lets try to get Drupal nominated for an award on Sourceforge.Net...
http://sourceforge.net/community/cca08-nominate

In preparation for a web seminar with Drupal local group organizers in the North and South American time zones on Monday June 9th 5PM PDT, I've updated a map with Drupal local groups. Full Map

Real map after the break.

We have just launched the Beta release of Sparkle*Shelf (http://sparkleshelf.com), a site that provides beauty enthusiasts with the latest information and tutorials on fashion, hair and makeup. We currently host fifteen regular feature writers, who contribute a total of 3-5 articles a day.

Sparkle*Shelf is also a place for members to connect with other like-minded members. There are basic social networking features as well as a number of beauty related applications/games, such as polls, quizzes and "smack-downs".

Developing new modules for Drupal 6? Porting older modules? Packt Publishing has just released a new book, Learning Drupal 6 Module Development, by Matt Butcher. This book is targeted toward PHP programmers interested in Drupal 6 module development.

The book takes a hands-on approach. Each chapter walks through the development of a module, theme, or installation profile. As the reader progresses through the book, she or he will be able to create increasingly sophisticated Drupal modules.

If you're new to Drupal development (but have PHP development experience), this book will get you developing modules right away. Are you a more seasoned Drupal developer just looking to get some modules updated? This book focuses on many of the new features, changes, and improvements made in Drupal 6. Check out the sample chapter Creating Our First Module (1.3M PDF) to get a feel for how the book is written.