[Web4lib] VALA2010: VALAtech Boot Camp Applications Are Open - and Earlybird Registrations Close Friday!

[VALA Executive Officer]

   ----Apologies for cross-postings----

Dear Colleague,

   (Please feel free to pass on this message.)


As announced in the VALA2010 Registration brochure in August, we are
launching the inaugural VALAtech Boot Camp at the 2010 Conference in
February. The VALAtech Boot Camp is VALA's new series of high-end
technical and practical sessions. Book into these interactive sessions
(no passive participation here) and expand your knowledge of some of the
key and emerging technologies used today. As a high-end and practical
stream, a core level of technical knowledge is required. Participants
are also asked to bring their notebooks / netbooks.

The VALAtech Boot camp is FREE to conference delegates, but spaces are
limited and conditions apply. To attend the Boot Camp you must first
complete the online application form. Applicants will be advised whether
they have been successful before 22 January. To apply for any of the
following sessions please go to:
http://www.vala.org.au/vala2010/boot2010.htm.

Remember, you need to be a registered delegate to apply - and earlybird
registrations close on Friday 11 December!


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Monday 8 February 2010

Boot Camp Session A: OCLC API Mashathon
09:00 to 17:30: session for up to 50 delegates at the new Melbourne
Convention and Exhibition Centre.
Facilitator: Roy Tennant OCLC, Dublin, Ohio, USA

As announced in August, this all-day workshop will give participants a
firm grounding in a variety of OCLC-provided APIs, including the
WorldCat Search API. All of these services are free to OCLC cataloguing
institutions. Besides learning about these services, you will have time
to use them while having experts in the room to answer questions and
assist. You will emerge well prepared to use a rich array of library
APIs to enhance your local services. See
http://www.oclc.org/au/en/worldcatapi/default.htm for details.

Requirements: Attendees should bring laptops and be ready to code.
Software used in this Boot Camp will be supplied via a flash drive on
the day of the session.

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Tuesday 9 February 2010

Boot Camp Session B: Video: Negotiating the Online and Mobile Space
10:50 to 12:30: session for up to 40 delegates in the VALA Showcase
space.
Facilitators: Simon Goodrich and Al Cossar, from the Portable Film
Festival, Melbourne, Victoria

The Portable team will take you through a variety of web tools and
technical processes to ensure you are getting the best from your video
content, and ensure you are connecting content to your audience online
and on mobile. The studio session will include: Encoding for web and
mobile and enabling for streaming, transcoding and problem solving, and
optimising video standards for web and mobile presentation across a
variety of popular transcoding tools. We will also look at changing
distribution models, and a variety of case studies around
forward-thinking video content solutions for web that you can make use
of, from Tubemogul to Kaltura, Boxee to Vivaty. We will talk online
content strategy, and how you can meaningfully connect your video to
communities of interest around the internet.

Requirements: Attendees should bring their laptops / notebooks. Software
used in this Boot Camp will be supplied via a flash drive on the day of
the session. This is a Macintosh and PC-friendly session.
 

Boot Camp Session C: Semantic Web APIs
14:05 to 15:45 session for up to 40 delegates in the VALA Showcase
space.
Facilitator: Thomas (Tom) Tague, OpenCalais, USA

Tom Tague will cover will how streamlining content operations can help
contain costs, and the top 10 ways to add value with the free OpenCalais
service. OpenCalais offers free metadata generation services, developer
tools and an automatic connection to the Linked Data cloud. The free
OpenCalais service and open API makes it easy to automate content
operations, enhance content, increase audience engagement and extend
distribution across the content ecosystem. Tom Tague leads the Thomson
Reuters OpenCalais initiative, and the OpenCalais developer community.
He is an internationally recognised expert and keynote speaker on top
trends in the semantic web, and is a regular on Paul Miller’s Semantic
Web Gang (http://cloudofdata.com/category/podcast/).

Requirements: Attendees should bring their laptops / notebooks, and
prior to attending this Boot Camp session must have registered and
loaded their free OpenCalais API Key. See
http://www.opencalais.com/APIkey for details.

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Thursday 10 February 2010

Boot Camp Session D: Open Source Content Management Systems - Joomla!
10:30 to 12:10 session for up to 40 delegates in the VALA Showcase
space.
Facilitator: Representative from the Melbourne Joomla Day, Melbourne,
Victoria

Attendees will receive an introduction to the open source content
management package Joomla! The session will include a hands-on
introduction to the basic package, as well as some of the more popular
modules, styles, and extensions. In addition, there will be some
insights into the Joomla 1.6 upgrade that is being released in 2010.

Requirements: Attendees should bring their laptops. The LAMP software
bundle and the latest version of Joomla will be supplied via a flash
drive on the day of the session. See also http://www.joomla.org for
details.
 

Boot Camp Session E: Open Source Content Management Systems - Drupal
13:45 to 15:25 session for up to 40 delegates in the VALA showcase
space.
Facilitator: Tom Denison, Melbourne, Victoria

Tom Denison will provide an introduction to the open source content
management package Drupal. The session will include an overview of the
package, its conceptual framework and its capabilities, a hands-on
introduction to the basic package, and a guide to additional modules and
styles.

Requirements: Attendees should bring their laptops. The LAMP software
bundle and the latest version of Drupal will be supplied via a flash
drive on the day of the session. See also http://drupal.org for details. 

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Alyson Kosina
Executive Officer
VALA - Libraries, Technology and the Future Inc.
Reg No A0011933K  ABN 75 344 574 577
P.O. Box 509
Mooroolbark VIC  3138
Phone: (03) 9725 2725  Fax: (03) 8625 0079
Email: vala at vala.org.au