At today's 10th NYC DrupalCamp, Ben Melancon gave me a copy of his new book, The Definitive Guide to Drupal 7. That would have been honor enough, but when I got home and saw how he signed it, I felt so honored I'm without words

Number 9, yes, folks... the 9th NYC DrupalCamp is happening at the end of the month. Once again, we're using the unconference format. Everyone that shows up will have a voice in how the day is organized. While there are folks that don't get it, using the term "camp" in most free software communities is synonymous with unconference -- that's what is so special about these events.

The unconference format reflects the ideals and community-centric nature of the software being discussed.

Registration will open on thursday, keep your eyes on http://groups.drupal.org/node/141719 the nyc drupal group for more details (and for what might turn into an interesting debate about the gentrification of the drupal community and those that feel the right to appropriate terms and change their meaning to make themselves feel better).

I'll expand on this theme soon, but for now I'm just too tired.

The "rock star" meme in the drupal community drives me insane, but I seem to be in the minority on that. To me, rock stars (in the music world) tend to be the least talented, they tend to be splashy and lack substance, but if anyone in the drupal community deserves start staus, webchick is certainly among them.

Tonight was the NYC stop on webchick's world tour. Webchick, aka Angie Byron, is the lead on the 7.x release of Drupal. The leadership she's shown in the drupal community is really impressive. She's traveling around doing training sessions and some folks in the community used her NYC visit as an excuse to have a party.

It's really nice to be able to debate, even strongly disagree, with people in the NYC Drupal community one day and then the next night be able to be able to sit around with many of those folks, have a beer and have the discussions be full of respect and finding common ground.

I'm still concerned about some of the changes in drupal and the community, but I'm happy to say it's not dead yet.

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today's photo is of an entrance to one of NYC's oldest subway stations which also now is home to a subway sandwich shop.

I'll be leading a two day Drupal training on July 7th and 14th thanks to the folks at the Metropolitian New York Library Council. Here's the description from their Summer 2010 catalog: Drupal has fast become one of the most popular, stable, and internationally-supported open source Content Management Systems for websites small and large.

Through four discrete modules delivered over two days, participants will receive training on the fundamental concepts, terminology, and skills needed to install, configure, and maintain a simple website using Drupal.

NOTE: Participants are not expected to have a foundation in PHP or database work. All work will be done via the Drupal administrative interface; no writing of PHP code will be necessary, although some code snippets will be discussed, explained and used as part of the exercises. This workshop is intended for those with some familiarity with Drupal, but no previous site creation or management is presumed.

By the end of this program, participants will:

• Install an instance of Drupal for experimentation and further learning
• Develop a basic understanding of Drupal concepts and terminology, permissions, users, and role settings
• Learn how to set up and configure a Drupal website with contributed modules
• Use Drupal’s administrative interface to create and manipulate “content types,”
• Display content in customized ways using the “views” module
• Automate simple tasks using the “Rules” module
• Learn how to evaluate existing Drupal modules when deciding what to use for specific tasks in the future

Location

Radical Reference is an online reference service provided by volunteer library workers in a collaborative virtual setting using free/open source technology. Come learn more about how you can use this model to deliver services in your own communities (social, political, familial, spiritual, etc.). Presenters will share the five year history of the group and discuss how it collaborates, as well as give an accessible history of free/open source software.

Location