[mdlug] President's mail bag: O'reilly news

[Raymond McLaughlin]

O'Reilly News for User Group Members
March 5, 2009

New Releases: Books, Short Cuts, and Rough Cuts

Get 35% off from O'Reilly, No Starch, Paraglyph, PC Publishing,
Pragmatic Bookshelf, Rocky Nook, SitePoint, or YoungJin books you
purchase directly from O'Reilly. Just use code "DSUG" when ordering
online or by phone 800-998-9938.

Free ground shipping on orders of $29.95 or more. See details.

Did you know you can request a free book or PDF to review for your
group? Ask your group leader for more information.

For book review writing tips and suggestions, go to:
http://ug.oreilly.com/bookreviews.html

New Releases: Books, Short Cuts, and Rough Cuts:

    * 97 Things Every Software Architect Should Know
    * Adobe Illustrator CS4 One-on-One
    * Agile Web Development with Rails, Third Edition (Pragmatic Bookshelf)
    * Apprenticeship Patterns
    * Architectural Photography (Rocky Nook)
    * Beautiful Teams
    * Build a Better Photograph (Rocky Nook)
    * Cisco Routers for the Desperate, Second Edition (No Starch)
    * Cocoa Programming (Pragmatic Bookshelf)
    * Computer Orchestration Tips and Tricks (PC Publishing)
    * Data Warehousing with SAP BW7 BI in SAP Netweaver 2004s (Rocky Nook)
    * Growing Software (No Starch)
    * iMovie '09 and iDVD: The Missing Manual
    * iWork '09: The Missing Manual: Rough Cuts Version
    * Java Web Services: Up and Running
    * Make: Technology on Your Time Volume 17
    * Manage Your Project Portfolio (Pragmatic Bookshelf)
    * Masterminds of Programming
    * Network Know-How (No Starch)
    * Palm webOS: Rough Cuts Version
    * Photoshop CS4 Photographer's Handbook (Rocky Nook)
    * Practical Digital Photomicrography (Hard Cover) (Rocky Nook)
    * Programming Entity Framework
    * Programming F#: Rough Cuts Version
    * Programming Ruby 1.9 (Pragmatic Bookshelf)
    * Programming Scala (Pragmatic Bookshelf)
    * Programming Scala: Rough Cuts Version
    * Programming the Semantic Web: Rough Cuts Version
    * Scanning Negatives and Slides, Second Edition (Rocky Nook)
    * Security Monitoring
    * Sexy Web Design (SitePoint)
    * Take Control of Running Windows on a Mac, Third Edition (TidBITS)
    * The Book of Inkscape (No Starch)
    * The Manga Guide to Electricity (No Starch)
    * The Nikon Creative Lighting System (Rocky Nook)
    * The Nikon D90 Companion



MAKE Magazine Subscriptions
makezine.comThe annual subscription price for four issues is $34.95.
When you subscribe with this link, you'll get a free issue--one plus
four more for $34.95. So subscribe for yourself or friends with this
great offer for UG Members: five volumes for the cost of four.

Subscribe at: http://www.makezine.com/go/ugsub

Upcoming Events
For more events, please see: events.oreilly.com


Lesa Snider King at Geek Girl Camp
Mar 7, 2009
Cape Cod Community College
Hyannis, MA
Author Lesa Snider King (Photoshop CS4: The Missing Manual) presents her
digital photography and Photoshop Elements workshop "How to Shoot & Edit
Like a Pro". She's also teaching "Graphic Secrets for Presenters" which
focuses on how to give better presentations by telling your story
through pictures, and how to use Photoshop or Elements to turn the
imagery you have into the imagery you need.

Joshua-Michele Ross Featured on "Press:Here"
Mar 8, 2009
Joshua-Michele Ross will be featured on "Press:Here," joined by John
Schwarz from USA Today and Sarah Lacey from Business Week and Yahoo. The
topic will be on Twitter--exploring questions such as what is the value
of Twitter to you personally, professionally, and to your brand.

Emerging Technology Conference (ETech)
Mar 9-11, 2009
Fairmont San Jose
San Jose, CA
Joshua-Michele RossThe O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference (ETech)
centers on future technologies that truly matter. From robotics, health
care, and space travel to gaming, finance, and art, ETech explores
promising technologies new to the innovation horizon, and investigates
those that have been on the horizon too long.

Dean Wampler at SD West
Mar 10-12, 2009
Santa Clara Convention Center
Santa Clara, CA
Author Dean Wampler (co-author of Programming Scala) is teaching a
tutorial on "The Seductions of Scala" and a class on "Better Ruby
through Functional Programming" at SD West 2009. The tutorial is March
10th and the class is March 12th.

Nancy Duarte Presenting at the Forum for Women Entrepreneurs & Executives
Mar 11, 2009
Menlo Park, CA
Nancy Duarte Nancy Duarte (slide:ology) will be presenting at the Forum
for Women Entrepreneurs & Executives (FWE&E). You'll gain insights into
story structures and the power that a well developed and delivered
presentation can have.

QCon London 2009
Mar 11-13, 2009
The Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre
London, UK
The third annual London enterprise software development conference
designed for team leads, architects and project management is back!
There is no other event in the UK with similar opportunities for
learning, networking, and tracking innovation occurring in the Java,
.NET, Ruby, SOA, Agile, and architecture communities. Madness and fun!

Lesa Snider King at Geek Girl Camp
Mar 12, 2009
Lombardo's
Randolph, MA
Author Lesa Snider King (Photoshop CS4: The Missing Manual) presents her
digital photography and Photoshop Elements workshop "How to Shoot & Edit
Like a Pro". She's also teaching "Graphic Secrets for Presenters" which
focuses on how to give better presentations by telling your story
through pictures, and how to use Photoshop or Elements to turn the
imagery you have into the imagery you need.

Ken Lunde at Worldware Conference
Mar 17-19, 2009
Hilton Santa Clara
Santa Clara, CA
Author Ken Lunde (CJKV Information Processing) presents "GB 18030 –
Regional Challenges in Internationalizing Software."

Wendy Chisholm and Matt May at SXSW
Mar 17, 2009
Room Day Stage, Austin Convention Center
Austin, TX
Authors Wendy Chisholm and Matt May read from and discuss Universal
Design for Web Applications.

Nancy Duarte Speaks at presentation//reboot
Mar 17-19, 2009
Duarte Design, 161 E. Evelyn Ave.
Mountain View, CA
Nancy Duarte (slide:ology) and Garr Reynolds host a six-hour seminar on
presentations. This seminar will transform you into a creative thinker
and change the way you prepare, design, and deliver your next
presentation. Choose from three different days, and register now--space
is limited.

Bill Scott at Mix09
Mar 18-20, 2009
The Venetian
Las Vegas, NV, USA
Author Bill Scott (Designing Web Interfaces: Principles and Patterns for
Rich Interaction) will be presenting "Interactive Prototyping with DHTML."

Nancy Duarte Honored at Silicon Valley's 2009 Women of Influence Awards
Mar 18, 2009
The Fairmont Hotel
San Jose, CA
Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal and El Camino Hospital will
recognize 100 outstanding women who exercise power and influence within
business, government, or nonprofits in Silicon Valley, and serve as role
models for future generations of leaders. Among the honorees is Nancy
Duarte, author of slide:ology. Registration is mandatory.

Stephen Johnson Gives a Class on Hands-on Digital Black and White Printing
Mar 19-22, 2009
Stephen Johnson Studios & Gallery
Pacifica, CA
Join Stephen Johnson (Stephen Johnson on Digital Photography) in his
studio for four days of hands-on printing instruction.

Dux Raymond Sy presents "7 Ways to Leverage SharePoint for Project
Management Success"
Mar 23, 2009
Sheraton Inner Harbor
Baltimore, MD, USA
SharePoint for PM Dux Raymond Sy (SharePoint for Project Management)
will present "7 Ways to Leverage SharePoint for Project Management
Success" at the SharePoint Conference.ORG. Acquire the practical
knowledge of how SharePoint can address common project management
challenges such as Inefficient communication among stakeholders, poor
document management practices, and undefined project collaboration
standards that can compromise project success.

Lesa Snider King at Photoshop World Boston
Mar 25, 2009
Hynes Convention Center
Boston, MA
Lesa Snider King (Photoshop CS4: The Missing Manual) presents "Graphic
Secrets: Combining Photos & Vectors." Learn how to easily combine
illustrations with photography in this super creative session. Glean the
secret to importing vectors into your document so you can experiment
with them as backgrounds, artful embellishments, ornamental photo
frames, and more -- all without losing an ounce of quality!

Dux Raymond Sy presents: "Empowering Your Organization with SharePoint:
An Executive Seminar"
Mar 30, 2009
Learning Tree Alexandria Education Center
Alexandria, VA
Over the course of one day, SharePoint expert Dux Raymond Sy (SharePoint
for Project Management) will detail the benefits SharePoint can deliver
to your organization through a combination of lecture, presentations and
demonstrations. This comprehensive, non-technical overview is designed
to help you assess how SharePoint Technologies can have a positive
effect on your company’s productivity and competitiveness.

"Using Drupal" Authors Present Lullabot Drupal Workshops
Mar 30-Apr 3, 2009
Biltmore Hotel
Providence, RI
Authors James Walker, Jeff Robbins, Angie Byron, and Nate Haug (Using
Drupal) will be leading a week of Drupal workshops in Providence, RI.

Conference News


Emerging Technology Conference Last Chance--Emerging Technology
Conference 2009
March 9-12, 2009 in San Jose, CA

Use code "et09usrg" when you register, and receive an additional 30% off
the registration price.

O'Reilly Found, The Search Acquisition and Architecture Conference
O'Reilly Found, The Search Acquisition and Architecture Conference
June 9-11, 2009 in Burlingame, CA

Use code "fo09usrg" when you register, and receive 15% off the
registration price. Early registration ends on April 21.

Velocity 2009 Velocity 2009
June 22-24, 2009 in San Jose, CA

Use code "vel09usrg" when you register, and receive 15% off the
registration price. Early registration ends on May 3.

RailsConf 2009 RailsConf 2009
May 4-7, 2009 in Las Vegas, NV
Co-presented by O'Reilly Media and Ruby Central


Use code "rc09usrg" when you register, and receive 10% off the
registration price. Early registration ends on March 16.

Where 2.0 Conference Where 2.0 2009
May 19-21, 2009 in San Jose, CA

Use code "whr09usrg" when you register, and receive 15% off the
registration price. Early registration ends on March 31.

MySQL Conference & Expo MySQL Conference & Expo
April 20-23, 2009 in Santa Clara, CA
Co-presented by O'Reilly Media and MySQL

Use code "mys09usrg" when you register, and receive 15% off the
registration price. Early Registration Ends February 16.

Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco
March 31-April 3, 2009 in San Francisco, CA
Co-presented by O'Reilly Media and TechWeb

Use code "websf09ugp" when you register, and receive 15% off the
registration price. Or use code "websf09ug" and recieve $100 off or a
free expo hall pass.

OSCON 2009 OSCON 2009
July 20-24, 2009 in San Jose, CA

If you have ideas for speakers and topics please send them to:
oscon-idea at oreilly.com

Ignite Logo Ignite
If you had five minutes on stage what would you say? What if you only
got 20 slides and they rotated automatically after 15 seconds? Around
the world geeks have been putting together Ignite nights to show their
answers.
Create your own Ignite in your area.

Upcoming Ignite events:

    * Ignite Reno 1, March 7, 148 West St. Reno, NV
    * Ignite Denver 2, March 11, Forest Room 5 , Denver, CO
    * Announcing Ignite Spatial 2, March 11, 52 King St Sydney New South
Wales, Australia
    * Ignite Boise, March 19, Egyptian Theater, 700 W. Main Street,
Boise, ID
    * Ignite Salt Lake 2, March 26, 677 South 200 West, Orlando, FL

For more events, go to http://ignite.oreilly.com/

O'Reilly School of Technology

OST O'Reilly School of Technology Courses: UG Members Receive a 30% Discount
O'Reilly School of Technology has opened its virtual doors with
educational offerings and certification for IT students looking to
further their careers or to launch one. As an O'Reilly User Group
member, you save on all the courses in the following University of
Illinois Certificate Series:

    * Java Programming
    * PHP/SQL Programming
    * Linux/Unix System Administration
    * Web Programming
    * Open Source Programming
    * .NET Programming
    * Client-Side Web Programming featuring AJAX

In today's economy, it's crucial to stay competitive in Information
Technology. With the O'Reilly School of Technology, you can do just
that--at your own pace, with 1-to-1 instructor support, real tools, and
free books.

New Java Programming Course Java Programming 1: Introduction to Java and
the Eclipse Development Environment! We are especially excited about
this course, because it is the first course to utilize Ellipse, our
brand-new Learning Sandbox built on the Eclipse open-source IDE. This is
the first course in our upcoming Java Programming Certificate Series.
The Java Programming 2 and 3 courses will be released very soon as they
are in their final editing phases.

To redeem, use Promotion Code "ORALL1" good for a 30% discount, in Step
#2 of the enrollment process. Each course comes with a free O'Reilly
book and a 7-day money-back guarantee. Register online. (This discount
may not be combinable with other offers.)

News from O'Reilly & Beyond

UG News

Listen to the O'Reilly Week in Review
Get some O'Reilly on your iPod! Every week, we take the wisdom of
O'Reilly, and squeeze it down into a bite-sized podcast you can listen
to on the go. The O'Reilly Week in Review features excerpts from
interviews, tips from authors, roundtable discussions from the editors,
and a quiz that can score you a free O'Reilly book. Subscribe via iTunes
or search for "week in review" on the O'Reilly web site to listen from
your browser.

Subversion Can Subversion help teams work better? Tell us and you could
win one of 10 great prize packages!
Are you on a team that works with shared documents? If so, you know what
a headache version control can be. The good news is that there is a
remedy: Subversion, a simple yet powerful open-source document
management tool that streamlines the versioning process. O'Reilly,
Beanstalk, Versions, and CollabNet--four companies who make working with
Subversion even easier--want to hear your best stories about how
Subversion has or could help your team. Tell us your story by March 6,
2009 and enter to win one of 10 Prize Packages.

State of the Computer Book Market 2008
As described in Computer Book Sales as a Technology Trend Indicator, and
our other posts on the State of the Computer Book Market we have an
updated series of posts that show the whole market's final 2008 numbers.

    * Part 2: The Technologies
    * Part 3: The Publishers
    * Part 4:The Languages
    * Part 5: eBooks and Summary

Why Kindle Should Be An Open Book
In O'Reilly Insights on Forbes.com, Tim O'Reilly boldly predicts that
"unless Amazon embraces open ebook standards like epub, which allow
readers to read books on a variety of devices, the Kindle will be gone
within two or three years." In the new column, O'Reilly explains why
he's thrown his support behind "epub and other open ebook standards,
providing our books as "ebook bundles" that give the reader the choice
of pdf (still the only viable choice for many highly formatted books
like our Head First series of "brain friendly" tutorials that even HTML
can't handle), epub, and mobi, an HTML-based predecessor to the Kindle
format that lacks digital rights management but that can be imported
into the Kindle."

Deke McClelland's Martini Hour Visualization Contest Details
The basic idea is simple; create a graphic that can be used to promote
Martini Hour that features some Deke, some Colleen, and some Martini or
other refreshing beverage. You can use the raw materials we have posted
in the dekeOnline Flickr group. Or you can use anything you like.
(Remember, Deke likes costumes and weapons.)
Twitter

Twitter Drives Traffic, Sales: A Case Study
Back in December, Dell reported that offers from its Dell Outlet Twitter
account had led to more than $1 million in revenue. A small percentage
for a company that books $16B in revenue annually--but a nice number
nonetheless, particularly in a dreary economy. Question is: are they the
only ones?

Call For Makers: Maker Faire Bay Area 2009
We are now accepting entries for the Maker Faire Bay Area, May 30 and 31
at the San Mateo County Expo Center. This year's focus is Re-Make
America, inspired by President Obama's call for all of us to participate
in remaking America. We're looking to showcase "the risk-takers, the
doers, the makers of things."

Sneak Peek at iWork '09 & Share Your Tips Contest
Currently available as a Rough Cut, the new book will teach you
everything you need to know about Apple's incredible productivity
programs, including the Pages word-processor, the Numbers spreadsheet,
and the Keynote presentation program that Al Gore and Steve Jobs made
famous. Read an excerpt from Josh Clark's work in progress, (adapted for
the web). Then, take a minute to share an iWork '09 tip and you could
win free access to iWork '09: The Missing Manual: Rough Cuts Version.

What You'll Find in "Ruby Best Practices"
When Ruby Best Practices first entered roughcuts, Gregory Brown passed
on a couple copies to some reviewers to see what they thought, and Peter
Cooper summed things up pretty accurately.
And here's a sample chapter "Mastering the Dynamic Toolkit" in PDF.

Ignite Launches Weekly Video Series Highlighting the Best of GeekCulture
Ignite captures the best of geek culture in a series of five-minute
speed presentations on topics ranging from "The Best Way to Buy a Car"
to "Hacking Chocolate" to "Transhuman Technology Trends." Imagine that
you're on stage in front of an audience of hundreds of people, doing a
five-minute presentation using a slide deck that auto-forwards every 15
seconds, whether you're ready or not. What would you do? What would you
say? Could you stand the pressure? Every week, find out how some of the
smartest minds on the planet dealt with this situation as your host,
Brady Forrest, highlights a different talk from Ignites around the world.
Safari

Safari Books Online Optimizes for Top Mobile Devices
Safari Books Online Ubiquitous for Users On-the-Go Safari Books Online
is now fully optimized to support the top mobile devices in the United
States. The new website, m.safaribooksonline.com, optimizes Safari Books
Online's content and reading experience for the majority of mobile
phones (such as Nokia, BlackBerry, iPhone, and Windows Mobile), making
it possible for users to read while on-the-go.

ETech Preview: Creating Biological Legos
If you've gotten tired of hacking firewalls or cloud computing, maybe
it's time to try your hand with DNA. That's what Reshma Shetty is doing
with her Doctorate in Biological Engineering from MIT. Apart from her
crowning achievement of getting bacteria to smell like mint and bananas,
she's also active in the developing field of synthetic biology and has
recently helped found a company called Gingko BioWorks which is
developing enabling technologies to allow for rapid prototyping of
biological systems.

ETech Preview: Inside Factory China, An Interview with Andrew Huang
China has become the production workhorse of the consumer electronics
industry. Almost anything you pick up at a Best Buy first breathed life
across the Pacific Ocean. But what is it like to shepherd a product
through the design and production process? Andrew "bunnie" Huang has
done just that with the Chumby, a new internet appliance.
Until next time—
Marsee Henon
Spreading the knowledge of innovators.O'Reilly.com
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