Did you know that YAPC::NA has a mailing list? Neither did I until a couple days ago. Starting now, I'll be cross posting our news items to the mailing list, in case that is your preferred way to receive news about YAPC::NA 2012.

If you like doing unusual things when you visit a new place, one of the things you should definitely check out while you’re in Madison for YAPC::NA 2012 is the National Mustard Museum. 

This is a shot of the Gale VendeBerg Auditorium in the Pyle Center. It will be used for many of the talks at YAPC::NA 2012.

It’s starting to get cold here in Wisconsin, and that got me to thinking that I’m glad YAPC is held in the summer. I love Wisconsin, but for many the winters are just too harsh. I found this old article that claims that during the worst Wisconsin winter lakes would add 9 to 11 inches of ice…

If you're looking to break in to web development, and have a chance to work on some of the coolest web apps in the Perl world, Plain Black is hiring 2 developers. Here's the job description:

Plain Black is hiring and we’re looking for a geek like you. Not your average geek, but someone who wears GEEK as a badge. Someone who breathes Perl, and drinks Linux. A geek who knows that there’s more you can do with SSH than just open a terminal to a remote bo…

The Perl Testing Workshop at YAPC::NA 2012, taught by Gabor, will be in Room 226 of the Pyle Center. We thought you might like a look at the room before the workshop. The workshop will be held for the 2 days before the conference (June 11 & 12).

I’d like to wish all of our sponsors a very Merry Christmas. Without you YAPC::NA 2012 wouldn’t be possible. And because of you, YAPC::NA 2012 is shaping up to be an absolutely amazing event. 

This is a shot of the Epsilon Sigma Phi Conference Room, which will be available June 11th & 12th before (the 2 days before YAPC::NA 2012) for the Hackathon. 

We have a special treat for you today, a title unification match. In the corner to my right, haling from mysql.com, the undisputed world leader in users - MySQL! In the corner to my left, hailing from postgresql.org, the undisputed world leader in geek credibility - Postgres!

Infinity Interactive is a New York based, multi-discipline consultancy that serves global organizations with local attention.  We build simple websites, infrastructure for multi-national corporations and everything in between.  Our strengths are our relationships with our partner companies and our focus on quality.

We are committed to open source software and are very active in the Perl…

One thing that many people like to do when they travel is find restaurants and bars with rooftop seating. These kinds of places often have great views of the city, plus the crisp and refreshing air of the night sky. It’s hard to resist, especially since it’s only 3 blocks from YAPC.

We’ve covered a number of other bus services to get you to YAPC, but Lamers Bus Line offers something a bit different. All the other bus services will get you here if you’re traveling from a major hub like Chicago, Milwaukee, or Minneapolis. Lamers has daily service from smaller cities all over Wisconsin. So if you’re from Wisconsin, but you’re from one of those less serviced regions, then check this out. They have daily service from the North:

GitHub is an amazing service that much of the Perl community has adopted, but there are still a few holdouts using their own git repos, Subversion, and even CVS. I’m here to tell you that other than writing tests, there’s very little you could do to improve your software development process more than moving your applications and modules to GitHub. It’s not just a hosted git repository. They back up your repos, provide collaboration and documentation tools.…

The bad news is that the Pyle Center did not have a room large enough for our main lecture hall at YAPC::NA 2012. The good news is that 100 meters down the street is the Lowell Center. We’ll be taking over the Lowell Center’s large dining room and setting it up to handle all of you. 

We will be posting registration information for YAPC::NA 2012 early next year. However, for now I thought you might like to see the room where we will hold registration next year. This is the Upper Lounge in the Lowell Center. Though the image doesn’t show it, this room is quite large and will more than handle the long lines that form during registration.

We now have pricing for YAPC:NA 2012 for those wishing to stay in the dorms. For a single room the price is $62.65. For a double room the price is $41.80 per person. Both include breakfast each morning, plus this impressive list of amenities. Note that this does not include parking, if that’s something you need.

I’m very pleased to announce that Michael Schwern has agreed to be our keynote speaker at YAPC::NA 2012. He’s got an interesting and diverse portfolio of work in the Perl community, but most of you probably know him as the guy that created Test::More, although my favorite module of his is URI::Find. He’s one of…

This is a shot of the rooftop terrace on the Pyle Center roof where the YAPC::NA 2012 banquet will be held on Wednesday, June 13th. 

I’m very pleased to announce that Best Practical Solutions is sponsoring YAPC::NA 2012. Best Practical Solutions are the creators of RT: Request Tracker, the leading open-source issue tracking system.

An interesting question came up today regarding our team’s Act development for YAPC::NA: Are we going to take the effort to maintain internationalization for the new features we add? My answer was an emphatic yes!

We’re a US conference, with a team largely composed of US programmers (we have a few foreigners lending us a hand; thanks, guys!). Even so, Perl is not exclusively a US programming language; people all over the world use Perl for just about everything! The Act team has been doing a great job making their application available to people speaking a variety of languag…

We’re pleased to announce that Shutterstock has become Gold Sponsor of YAPC::NA 2012. Shutterstock loves Perl.  They’re a stock photo and video company, and are at the forefront of technology and research.  They do fascinating things with search, discovery, recommendation engines, and scalability.…

Now would be a great time to remind your family that what you really want for Christmas is an all expenses paid trip to YAPC::NA 2012!

The dates are June 13-15 in Madison, Wisconsin. And while they’re at it, they should also send your spouse with you to enjoy the Spouses Program.

I’m not sure if you’ve ever stayed in a hostel before, but the hostel in Madison is pretty amazing. If you’re looking for the cheapest possible accommodations for YAPC::NA, then look no further. They can take up to 33 guests at a time, and charge only $22 per night. The hostel is about 10 blocks from the YAPC conference facilities. 

Best Practical has a Perl Hacker job opening that I thought many of you might be interested in. Here are the details:

Perl Hacker

We’re Best Practical Solutions, a small software company located in Somerville, MA. We build software and sell support, training, consulting, and custom development. Our main product, RT (Request Tracker), is…

Ohio-Pennsylvania Software is a web application development firm dedicated to providing secure, reliable Internet applications and an exceptional level of customer service. We employ friendly, talented staff whose number one priority is the satisfaction of the customer. Our primary serv…

Lot’s of people have been contributing to the growing list of ideas in the YAPC::NA 2012 idea collector. However, many said that the labels on the buttons weren’t specific enough. To that end I’ve changed the labels to read “Interested”, “Don’t Care”, and “Not Interested”.  Using these labels it should give us a clearer idea of personal interest level rather than just whether the idea has merit.

We’ve set up a site specifically for you to submit and vote on ideas for YAPC::NA 2012. Whether it be ideas for about speakers you’d like to come see present, or the subject of talks you’d like to see, or maybe a social activity you’d like to participate in. Any idea is welcome. And then everyone can vote on those ideas so that the most popular ideas will float to the top. 

If you make any posts about YAPC::NA 2012 and wish to tag it, please use #yapcna2012 as the official hash tag.

It’s the first Tuesday of the month, so that means it’s YAPC::NA Planning Meeting time. If you’re in the Madison area, or don’t mind a drive there is a YAPC planning meeting tonight at the Essen Haus at 7pm. As always the food and beer are sponsored by Plain Black, and the room is sponsored by Essen Haus.

cPanel is one of those critical pieces of infrastructure that you often don’t think about, but that makes the world a better place for so many people. It’s available from web hosts around the world to make hosting a painless point and click experience rather than a frustrating conundrum of editing config files. 

This contest is a no-holds-barred match, and is scheduled for one fall. In the corner to my left, hailing from vim.org and weighing in at an awkwardly anemic 9.1MB - Vim! In the corner to my right, hailing from gnu.org and weighing in at a morbidly obese 46MB - Emacs! 

At YAPC::NA 2012, we will once and for all declare a definitive winner in the decades old battle between Vim and Emacs! Two editors go in, but only one comes out. Be there to witness this history making event!

This is a shot of the Distance Education Room 235 in the Pyle Center where some of the talks for YAPC::NA 2012 will take place.

If you think you might bring your kids with you to Madison and make a vacation out of your trip to YAPC, then one thing you have got to see is the Madison Children’s Museum. They have amazing hands on demonstrations, art projects, and fun activities. At only $8 per person for a whole day, it’s an inexpensive way to have some fun with the family.

If you’re in the Manchester, New Hampshire area, or are willing to move, then Dyn has two great new Perl positions available:

They’ve also still got a position open for a Backend E-Commerce Developer.

An…

We’d like to thank our sponsors for stepping up to support us. We really couldn’t do this without their support.

You too could sponsor YAPC.